Graham Hurley - Cut to Black

Saying yes to J-J meant agreeing to a videotaped interview, an hour at the most. The questions would be straightforward. The interviewee would do most of the talking. No one was interested in point-scoring, or preaching, or any form of sensationalism. Was that too high a price for the good a video like this might do?

Daniel sank onto the sofa beside the audio stack and studied the single sheet of paper. When he finally looked up, his eyes were swimming behind the thick-rimmed glasses.

"You know Sarah well?"

J-J shook his head.

"But you liked her?"

J-J nodded. When his hands shaped an hourglass, Daniel at last managed a smile.

"She used to be my girlfriend." He picked up J-J's sheet again. "How do I know this is for real?"

J-J's hand returned to his jacket. Eadie had given him a sheaf of business cards. He passed one across, miming a telephone call.

Daniel examined the card.

"I can keep this?"

J-J nodded.

"When do you need an answer?"

J-J touched his watch, then raised his hands, palms up, thumbs turned out. Can't say.

"Soon?"

J-J gestured round, encompassing the entire room with a sweep of his arm. Then he mimed the camera, the lights, the microphone, the whole circus that would commit this man to videotape. Daniel looked up at him, watching the performance, saying nothing. Finally, J-J touched his watch again and pressed his hands together, a supplicatory gesture that the student seemed to understand.

"Very soon?" His eyes went back to the sheet. He read it for a second time, then put it to one side. Eadie's card still lay on the arm of the sofa.

"I'll have to think about it." He picked up the card. "OK?"

It took Cathy Lamb to voice what Suttle was trying to get across. The DI had convened the meeting immediately after lunch in her office at Kingston Crescent. Other members of the Crime Squad were still out, scouring the city for the Scousers.

"We agree the girl won't say anything about last night." She was looking at Suttle. "What else isn't she telling us?"

"I don't know, boss. But you're right, there's lots going on there.

She's well pissed off."

"So would you be," Winter said. "The way those animals treated her."

"I'm not sure sure it was them, though."

"They phoned us," Winter reminded him. "They gave us an address. How did they know where to find her? Coincidence? Just happened to be passing by?"

"Of course not. But what if they'd gone looking for Pullen? What if they thought he was the guy who'd grassed them up?"

"He lives in Ashburton Road."

"Yeah, but he also owns the place in Bystock Road. Maybe they confused the two. Easily done."

Lamb hadn't taken her eyes off Suttle.

"Go on," she said.

"OK." Suttle leaned forward, clearing a space on the low table Lamb reserved for her dieting magazines. "We do the door in Pennington Road. They bail out of number 34. Pretty soon after that, they turn up in Bystock Road. They want a word with Pullen. They knock on the door. Somebody answers. They get inside, find the girl upstairs tied to the bed."

"Who's this somebody?"

"God knows. Pullen's got half the world in there. Asylum seekers, blokes on the dole, all sorts. You know the way it works, benefit cheques made out to the landlord, hundreds of quid a week for doing sod all."

"So why was the place empty when you arrived?"

"Because the Scouse kids put the fear of God up them. Middle of the night. Threats and menaces. Half a brain, you bail out, don't you?"

"And the music?"

"Didn't happen till later. Remember the statement we took off the bloke next door? Said it woke him up round two in the morning? The music was the Scouse kids' contribution. They found the girl on the bed, turned on the music, then fucked off and belled us. The rest'

Suttle shrugged 'we know about."

Lamb was still putting together the chain of events, testing it link by link.

"So who tied the girl up?"

"Pullen." It was Winter at last. "The boy's right. It was probably Pullen that gave her the whacking as well. I must be getting old."

"But why would he want to whack her?"

"Because she'd let the Scouse lads chat her up. They'd all met earlier, some bar or other. The Scouse kids got alongside her. She liked them. You could tell that when we talked to her just now. She thought they were OK. They made her laugh. Am I right, Jimmy?"

Winter's question drew a nod from Suttle. Winter turned back to Cathy Lamb. "So from there on, it kicks off. A couple of pints does it for Pullen. He's seen what's going on and he takes it personally so, bosh, he has her out of there. Big row. Toys out the pram. He takes her round to Bystock Road, gives her a hiding, then ties her to the bed in case she has any other plans, and buggers off. He loves her really, of course he does, but there's just so much a bloke can take. Who knows?

Maybe he was planning to come back later. Maybe he was thinking flowers and a nice pot of tea, but we'll never know because the Scouse kids beat him to it. Prat that he is."

"We can prove this?"

"No way, unless any of them talk. Pullen won't, for sure. The Scousers we can't find. That leaves Trudy."

"No chance?"

"None. Kids in this city, kids with her background, they'd walk on broken glass before they talked to us. Any case, what are we trying to stand up? Kidnap? Assault? Happens all the time, blokes making a point or two."

"You're saying he tied her up, Paul. You're telling me he beat her."

"Sure, but it's easier than conversation, isn't it?"

There was a long silence. Winter was right and they all knew it.

Nailing down the truth about Trudy Gallagher could swallow hundreds of hours of CID time without the faintest chance of a conviction.

"OK." Lamb got to her feet. "Here's the way it goes from now on.

Secretan's a realist. He wants the Scouse kids out of here. He's not fussed about court, he just wants them gone. Doesn't matter where but it has to be soon."

"Sane man." Winter was looking positively cheerful. "So what's the plan?"

"In plain English, we get up their arses. That's Secretan's phrase, not mine. From now on, he wants a car outside. He wants them watched, high-visibility. He wants them hassled. He wants us in their face. He wants them so pissed off they call it a day."

"Outside where, boss?" It was Suttle.

"Pennington Road. They'll come back, bound to. They know we've got nothing on them. You were there, both of you. Plastic wraps, pair of scales, bicarb, icing sugar, but bugger all else. They must have kept the gear with them."

"Scenes of Crime?" Winter this time.

"Jacked it in an hour ago. DNA by the yard from the blood but it takes us nowhere. This is a war, Paul, and neither side has any interest in talking to us."

"OK." Winter nodded. "So what do we do?"

"You're the guys in the car." She smiled down at him. "Outside."

J-J was back in Hampshire Terrace by the time the girl from the university put her head round Ambrym Productions' office door. He recognised her at once. Small, pretty, Prada T-shirt, big silver earrings. Sarah.

Eadie Sykes was looking at video rushes on the PC, a pair of headphones giving her the privacy she needed. J-J touched her lightly on the shoulder. He'd found a chair for Sarah.

"Coffee?" he signed.

By the time he returned from the tiny kitchen along the corridor, Eadie and the student were locked in conversation. She'd just been called by her friend Dan. She'd felt slightly guilty giving J-J his name in the first place and now she wanted to be absolutely sure that this video of theirs, this project, was for real.

"Absolutely for real."

Eadie went through the funding, showed her letters of support from local luminaries, outlined the plans they'd made for distribution once the video was ready. She and J-J were facilitators, she kept saying.