Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

They had been waiting in silence for less than ten minutes when the door opened and Daniel Weaver appeared. He was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. Behind him was a well groomed man in a suit, who Hunter guessed was his solicitor. A prison officer stood behind the pair.

Daniel entered the room first. He had his hands in his pockets and as he took a seat opposite, lifted them out, and folded them in defiant pose.

Hunter remembered the head and shoulders black-and-white shots he had seen of Daniel. He still had his curly hair, though it was showing distinct signs of thinning and much of it was greying. They were roughly the same size, with well-developed shoulders and arms, but unlike himself, Daniel was carrying a paunch.

Hunter asked him if he wanted a drink. Daniel Weaver shook his head.

“Daniel, do you know why we are here?”

“Yeah, my brief’s told me. You’re here to apologise for fitting me up and negotiate the amount of compensation I’m due.”

The reply threw Hunter for a second. He fixed his gaze and forced a smile. “That’s not my job Daniel. That’s something for your solicitor and the Home Secretary. I’m here to tell you that we’re re-opening your case and I want to ask you some questions.”

Daniel leant forward and rested his folded arms upon the table. “You’ve got a nerve. The last time I was asked questions by your lot, I got thirty years.”

“That wasn’t me, Daniel.”

“No, but you’re all the same.”

“Believe me, we’re not all the same,” said Grace.

Daniel Weaver pushed himself back in his chair, pursed his lips and shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Daniel I have read your prosecution file from nineteen-eighty-four and I went to go back over the events of what happened between you and Lucy.”

“No offence like, but if you think you’re gonna get any help from me you’ve got another think coming. You lot got it so wrong back then and I was fitted up. Now you’re trying to make amends. I’ve done twenty-five years for something I didn’t do and you come here with your false smiles and expect me to help you. You can take your questions and shove them up your arse.”

“I realise there’s a lot of things going through your mind right now Daniel. And you’ve every right to feel bitter towards the police, but I can assure you this time things will be different and I hope you will be willing to co-operate.”

“Co-operate! You have got to be joking. Look what happened the last time I co-operated.”

“Okay Daniel let me try a different approach. Are you aware the reason why we have re-opened the investigation into Lucy’s disappearance back in nineteen-eighty-three?” He watched his face a second. There was no reaction. “Okay I’ll tell you. A detective involved in that case has been murdered and has left behind some evidence which raises questions about one of the interviews with you when you were arrested.”

“Is it Darbyshire or Howson?”

“All that will become clearer to you in the next few days. At the moment that’s not an issue. What is, however, is the new piece of evidence we have discovered which casts doubt over one of your initial interviews.”

“But knowing which one of the bent bastards is dead is important to me,” he answered determinedly. “It’s so gratifying to know that one of them has finally got their just deserts. The other one will get his payback as well, once I’m out of here.”

The solicitor, who until Daniel’s outburst, had been making notes with a poker-face, quickly looked up. He reached across and grasped Weaver’s wrist, then turned to Hunter.

“As you can appreciate detective, my client is a little frustrated. This news has been a complete shock.”

Daniel shook off the solicitor’s grip. “Frustrated! Fucking frustrated! That is an understatement! I’m fucking furious. You have the audacity to come here after twenty-five years and ask me to help you out with your enquiries into a murder which I was stitched up with and you expect me to be nicey-nicey about it all? That’s a fucking joke.” He pushed himself up. “I’ll find out soon enough which one of those cops is dead and I’ll tell you now the only tears you’ll find me shedding, are those of joy. And I want you to pass on a message to the one who’s still around. You tell him he’d better keep looking over his shoulder.”

“Is that a threat?”

Daniel made for the door. As he grabbed the handle he turned to face Hunter. “You bet it is.” Then he stormed out of the room.

The solicitor quickly scooped up his papers and made to follow his client. “Mr Weaver doesn’t mean anything by that detective. I’ll have a word with him once he calms down.

He almost skipped out of the room. Hunter could hear him shouting after his client, his voice drifting away into the distance.

Hunter pulled together his own loose papers, tapped the edges level and slipped them into his folder. Snapping shut the cover he said, “Well Grace, that didn’t turn out the way I had planned.”

“Yes. I wouldn’t say it was one of your best interviews, would you?”

* * * * *

Barry Newstead still had a flush on from his evening bath and had just got to the bottom of the stairs, tucking his shirt into his trousers, when the doorbell went. He got a view of the top half of a silhouetted figure through the frosted glazing of the front door. He opened it. Standing in the porch was a man, the same size and shape as himself, with close-cut, salt-and-pepper, greying hair. His hands were thrust deep into a long, camel-hair coat.

“Sue Siddons?” the man enquired, his voice nasal and high-pitched.

“You are?” Barry replied, sucking in his belly as he pulled the leather belt through its buckle to secure his shirt into his waistband.

“Guy Armstrong,” said the man, holding out his hand to shake. “I used to work with Sue on the Barnwell Chronicle many years ago.”

Barry didn’t take the hand. He fastened up his shirt cuffs.

“She has mentioned you.” He looked a lot older than Sue had described, but then she had been drawing on memories from over twenty years ago and a lot had gone on in her life since then.

“You must be Barry. She’s told me about you as well.”

Barry’s face set tight.

“Can I speak to her?”

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

“She didn’t say that on the phone when I spoke with her yesterday afternoon.”

“Well she’s decided that now, since she’s spoken to me.”

A sly grin crept across his mouth. “Typical cop.”

“Ex-cop.”

“But you still have a fear of reporters?”

“Not a fear. Just don’t like them.”

“Sue’s mentioned that you’re working on the murder of a retired detective who was involved with the Lucy Blake-Hall case back in ninety-eighty-three. I worked on that case and I have a source who believes they know who killed her all those years ago; I only want a quick chat — a bit of background about this detective’s murder. I won’t reveal my source.”

“Mr Armstrong, you managed to catch Sue off guard yesterday afternoon. She’s already told you more than she should have done. Now you may have been colleagues all those years back, but she is no longer a reporter, and I would prefer it if you left her alone. She has nothing else to say to you about either the Lucy Blake-Hall case or about the death of one of my former colleagues.”

“Are those her words, or yours?”

Barry could feel the frustration welling up inside him. “Mr. Armstrong, this conversation has finished. I now want you to leave. Do I make myself clear?”

“Look Barry. If you’ve spoken with Sue you know I worked on the original story when Lucy went missing back in nineteen- eighty-three. I know there are links between the murder of the detective and Lucy, because my source has told me, and I’ve also made a phone call to Daniel Weaver’s barrister and he’s told me that detectives interviewed him earlier today in Wakefield Prison. The story is going to come out soon; you know how it is. I’m just wanting to be ahead of the game — put the police’s side of the story first.”