Cath Staincliffe - Dead Wrong

There was no sign of the white van when Maddie and I set out. Nana Tello made a fuss of Maddie in a mixture of Italian and baby talk. Maddie was too wiped out to react to it. We settled her on the sofa. The telly was tuned to a sports channel. Nana Tello would be studying the form for the day’s races. I promised to be back by ten.

‘It’s a shame,’ Nana Tello said as she saw me out, ‘when you gotta go rushing off to big meetings and your little girl so poorly.’ It was. But what could I do? I didn’t draw support from the comment either. I’d heard enough of her views on motherhood and work to know that she wasn’t sympathising with my predicament. Thank God she didn’t follow through on her beliefs and refuse to help out when the crunch came. I thanked her again and joined the rush-hour traffic into Manchester.

Queuing to get into the multi-storey car park made me five minutes late. Enough to have me running to the solicitor’s offices and leave me out of breath on my arrival.

You’d never have guessed that Dermott Pitt had worked late last night and risen early in the morning. He looked fresh and neatly turned out when his secretary led me through.

‘Coffee?’ she asked him.

‘Excellent. Ms Kilkenny?’

‘Please.’ Oh yes, please. The smell of it had made me dizzy when I’d walked in.

She must have had it waiting. She returned immediately with an exquisite pair of hand-painted coffee cups on a tray along with a cafetière, a jug of milk, a bowl of multi-coloured granulated sugar and plate of thin, dark chocolate biscuits. I was ravenous. I wanted a fluffy cheese and tomato omelette with wholemeal bread and butter, pancakes dripping with golden syrup and sprinkled with fresh lemon juice. Or a full English breakfast without the sausage and bacon. I don’t eat meat but the rest would do very nicely. Eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, fried bread, toast and marmalade. There were five biscuits. Who’d get the last one?

‘I have until eight forty-five,’ Dermott announced pompously, ‘I am all ears.’

‘I brought the tape. I think you ought to listen to that first.’

I handed him the cassette and he moved to open one of the antique wooden cabinets to his side. It concealed a state-of-the art midi system. He put the tape in. I knew I’d successfully recorded Joey – I’d checked the end of the recording on my return from Prestatyn. In the past I’d once proudly played someone a cassette which proved their foreman was filching goods, only to find the tape was completely blank. Never again.

Dermott sat back and steepled his fingers. The tape began, birdsong and traffic sounds louder than I remembered. For a moment or two I was embarrassed at the sound of my own voice but it didn’t take long to be drawn back into Joey’s story of the killing.

Pitt indicated that I should help myself to coffee and I did. I inhaled the steam until it was cool enough to sip. Pitt poured his own and took a biscuit. I took a biscuit. Then another. Joey talked about Ahktar smiling, about calling out to him. The story unwound.

‘That’s it,’ I said when the sound stopped. ‘And the man he describes, the big bloke, I think that’s Rashid Siddiq.’

‘But he won’t formally identify him,’ he sighed.

‘There’s more,’ I said, ‘if I can…’

‘Yes.’ He made notes as I talked.

‘There are doubts about whether Sonia Siddiq was even there that night. I had an anonymous phone call telling me she was making it all up. She became very uncooperative when I asked her to recall any details about the event or the venue. I’m sure she’s lying. Someone, probably Rashid, has rehearsed her. It would also fit with the delay in them coming forward as witnesses; they couldn’t do it immediately. I think they’ve discussed it all with Rangzeb Khan as well. He came to threaten me.’

Mr Pitt stopped writing and raised his eyebrows at me.

‘It was the day after I’d challenged Sonia Siddiq. And Zeb has got this story about seeing the two lads arguing, which no one else saw, and everybody else I’ve spoken to thinks is laughable.’

‘He threatened you?’

‘Told me I was making a big mistake, that I was trying to whitewash it all. Mouthed off, got quite abusive. And since then I think I’ve been followed. This white van, they trailed me to Prestatyn – they might be after Joey D. And they followed me again last night.’

‘Did they follow you here?’

‘No – at least I didn’t see anything.’ Maybe they’d made their point and that would be the end of it. ‘Will this get Luke out?’

‘I can’t promise anything but I’ll be making an application for bail on the basis of what I’ve just heard. If the CPS have any sense they will look again at the case and discontinue; they may even refer it back to the police as it implicates someone else. Of course, they can hold on and fight it out at trial but I’d be surprised if Luke

Wallace isn’t bailed until then. I must admit I am concerned that Joey Deason is not prepared to make a formal identification. It would make our case significantly stronger, but…’

‘There’s no way,’ I said, ‘you heard him, he was adamant. But even if you can’t prove that Siddiq was the one who stabbed Ahktar, you can show that it’s very unlikely that Luke did. He had hypnotherapy, you know, and the therapist says there was nothing to suggest he was present at the scene; everything indicates that he was still in the club and out of his box when Ahktar was attacked.’

‘Tricky area, hypnosis.’ He leant forward and took his second biscuit. There was one left on the plate.

‘Yes, but it fits with everything else.’

‘And you think Luke was deliberately placed at the scene of the crime? Why? Why not just quit the scene?’ He spoke irritably, as if it was my fault that all the pieces didn’t fit. ‘If he was incapacitated, what propelled him to that side alley – round the back of the building, out of sight? He wouldn’t have known Ahktar Khan was there.’

He echoed my own queries.

‘I don’t know. Chance? If he stumbled upon them, it may have just seemed like a good idea at the time, to confuse the issue.’ I couldn’t bear it any longer. I grabbed the biscuit. ‘Unless he was told. Or they found Luke practically comatose and put him there, hoping the police would jump to conclusions. Which they did. It worked. They find Luke covered in blood, his prints on the knife, unable to remember anything. Once Zeb comes forward with his report of the quarrel and the Siddiqs give a complete eye-witness account, then it’s a cinch. Look no further.’

‘It’s possible. But Siddiq and the other assailant, they didn’t know Luke Wallace, did they?’

‘No, I don’t think so. But Zeb did; he knew him as his cousin’s best friend.’

‘There’s nothing on the tape to suggest Zeb Khan was present.’

‘I don’t think he was, not during the murder. But maybe after…’ I was speculating. ‘You’re right,’ I conceded. ‘I don’t know how Luke came to be there, or why. I bet they were panicking at the time. The murder was a mistake. For some reason they left Luke at the scene, or put him there, or he found his way there, but it was later they worked out that providing eye witnesses would stitch it up. Rashid Siddiq had been present so his account would fit all the forensic evidence perfectly. He just put Luke in his own shoes. They were safe.’

‘And the warning?’

‘I think Jay, Janghir, must have been behind it; after all, he employs Siddiq. The other possibility is Zeb. He was in a foul mood that night, he was desperate to get hold of some money, he knew Luke. When it all went wrong and Ahktar was stabbed he decided to set Luke up. And report the supposed argument to the police.’