Peter Lovesey: Cop to Corpse

Jack Gull didn’t have the grace to acknowledge that Diamond and his team had done their homework and got it right. There wasn’t even a glance Diamond’s way. ‘We’d better issue the caution, then.’

Polly was well organised. She had a card ready in her hand with the words in the Persian language. Then she introduced Gull and Diamond.

‘And is he going to tell us his name?’ Diamond asked in the spirit of the Chinese proverb that when heaven drops a date, open your mouth.

She turned back to the prisoner and, wonder of wonders, got another response.

‘Hossain Farhadi, student,’ she was able to tell them.

Was this the breakthrough, tight lips willing to loosen up at last?

‘Student of which college?’

Polly listened to Farhadi’s answer and translated. ‘West Wiltshire Higher Education Institute, Bradford on Avon.’

Diamond felt the kind of lift you get from champagne.

‘As we already worked out,’ Gull said. ‘Does he know the college was closed down?’

Presently Polly was able to say, ‘Yes, and he and many other students who had come to England in good faith were left with nowhere to study. He tried other colleges and they wouldn’t consider him without a better knowledge of English.’

‘Tough tittie,’ Gull said.

Polly paused, while Farhadi said more.

‘He couldn’t return to Iran. He’d fled his homeland for political reasons. People disappear, are imprisoned, tortured and executed. The secret police took away two of his brothers and one of his friends three years ago and he hasn’t seen them since. He expected he would be safe in England.’

‘Pity England wasn’t safe from him,’ Gull muttered to Diamond.

The prisoner said some more and the translation followed.

‘He was on an official student visa and even though the college closed he intended to return to education later. So he was determined to stay at any cost. With the help of some other Iranians he obtained work as a casual labourer on farms mainly in West Wiltshire and Somerset. It was the kind of work he’d been doing as part of his education.’

‘Education, my arse,’ Gull said.

‘I don’t believe he knew it was a con,’ Polly said.

‘You’re being paid to translate, not give an opinion.’

Diamond said, ‘Be fair, Jack. She’s telling us the sense of what he’s said to her.’

Hossain Farhadi had started up again.

Polly translated. ‘He worked hard for many months and earned enough money to live. He gave up trying to find another course because he needed to put in the hours of work to pay for his food and rent. Then one day he was picking potatoes in the field and the police arrived. He and some others ran off and managed to hide, but several others were put in vans and driven away. He was told by his friends that they would be taken to something called — ’ She hesitated and looked across at Gull for help. ‘- an extermination centre?’

‘What the fuck …?’

‘Removal,’ Diamond said, ‘a removal centre.’

Polly shrugged. ‘In his country this means something more sinister. He was scared of being taken to such a place. He is still terrified you’ll take him there.’

‘Is he simple-minded?’ Gull asked her. ‘We don’t do that. Someone must have told him about deportation.’

‘That alarms him, too.’

‘He can forget about that,’ Gull said.

‘Can I tell him?’

‘Tell him we’ll hear what he’s got to say and then decide where to send him.’

The prisoner started speaking again and the English version followed.

‘The remaining students decided their best chance was to split up and go their separate ways. Some went to London, some to the Midlands. He decided to stay in the only part of the country he knew, the West, but on his own, survival was even more difficult. He’d lost his job and couldn’t communicate.’

‘He took to stealing?’ Diamond said.

‘The motorbike,’ Gull said. ‘Is he admitting to nicking that?’

‘Do you want me to ask him?’ Polly said, more to Diamond than Gull.

Diamond nodded. It could open the gate to the bigger charges.

They could see Farhadi frown as the question was put to him.

Gull took a photo of the bike from the folder in front of him and passed it across the table.

Farhadi took one glance and nodded. Then he continued speaking, but in shorter, more impassioned statements that Polly rendered into English in her even tone, as straightforwardly as if she were reading out instructions on assembling flat-pack furniture.

‘He knew he was on the run from the police. His student visa was no longer valid, so he got rid of it with his passport. He didn’t want to be identified. He was angry because he had done nothing wrong.’

‘Worked in the black economy and stole a fucking motorbike. Nothing wrong there?’ Gull said.

He didn’t get an answer, presumably because Polly treated the remark as rhetorical.

‘He believed he had only a few days of liberty left, and he could expect to spend the rest of his life behind bars.’

‘Too fucking right,’ Gull said.

‘He is thinking of prison in Iran. The penal system there is very harsh.’

Gull turned to Diamond and said through his teeth, ‘I can see where this is heading and I don’t buy it, don’t buy it at all.’

Farhadi was already making his next point, stabbing the air with his hands.

Polly translated in the same steady tone, ‘He was living rough, a fugitive, a wanted man, surviving on what he could find or scavenge, sleeping in barns and outhouses, constantly expecting the police to arrest him. He has a deep-seated fear of men in uniform.’

‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ Gull said.

Diamond said, ‘Let him speak, Jack. He’s doing our work for us.’

Another rush of words followed.

‘For a time he was in other towns, south of here, but eventually he came back to the place he knows best, where the college was. He knew the police were closing in. He had a couple of narrow escapes before you finally arrested him.’

Farhadi had stopped speaking. Polly waited and only got a nod that seemed to say, ‘End of story.’

The prisoner folded his arms and sat back.

If he thought he had finished, he was being optimistic.

‘Let’s rewind a bit,’ Gull said. ‘We recovered the bike from the river. We also recovered this.’ He pushed a photo of the assault rifle across the table.

Farhadi tensed and his facial muscles rippled. He was silent for a few seconds, as if weighing his options. Then he spoke more words that Polly turned into English.

‘He had money in his old lodgings, saved from the farm labouring, and he decided to arm himself. He’d learned to shoot during military service. He was a qualified marksman. He bought the gun from an illegal trader in Bath.’

‘Your patch,’ Gull said to Diamond. He turned to Polly. ‘Ask him if he wants to tell us how he used the gun. No, let’s go for broke. Tell him we have ballistic evidence that this gun — his gun — was used to murder police officers, the first in Wells twelve weeks ago.’

Up to now, Farhadi had given little away, but as Polly translated, the first signs of alarm showed in his eyes. He glanced down, seeking the right words to explain his actions. When he finally spoke, the gravity of what he was accused of came through in the voice.

Polly’s rendering was, of course, free of all that, except in the sense of the words. ‘His original plan was to defend himself when the police came for him. He was sleeping rough, with the loaded gun beside him. But the more he considered his situation, the more he realised he was likely to be killed in a shoot-out.’

‘Twisted thinking,’ Gull said.