Ken McClure - The Lazarus Strain

‘A young woman with no brains, no class, no sense and no manners,’ replied Giles. ‘How am I doing?’

‘Here, have you got a fucking warrant?’ demanded a spotty youth with what looked like dried vomit on his T-shirt. He tried to come towards Giles but found it difficult to make a path through the empty bottles on the floor.

Giles ignored all questions as he continued his search for someone with long red hair. He moved through to the first of the bedrooms where a good looking boy was in bed with two girls. ‘What are you looking at, tosser?’ the boy demanded.

‘An arsehole?’ suggested Giles calmly. ‘… and that was without phoning a friend.’

‘You’ve got no fucking right…’

‘So sue me. Get up.’

‘Fucking pig, you’ve no right to burst in here and…’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ snapped Giles as he returned to the living room and silence descended on the flat. ‘We’re looking for Kevin Shanks…

‘You’re still looking.’

‘In connection with a murder inquiry,’ completed Giles.

‘He aint here, pigs.’

‘I can see that,’ said Giles quietly. ‘Where is he?’

‘Think we’d tell you?’

‘No,’ said Giles matter of factly, ‘I don’t, but I am obliged to ask you officially so that I can come back and charge the lot of you later with being accessories to murder.’

‘You can’t do that!’ protested the spotty youth.

‘Are you really going to bet your pimply arse on that, sonny?’ said Giles in measured tones.

The boy looked uncertain.

‘Kevin’s staying the night with his girlfriend,’ said one of the others, ‘Her folks are away.’

This attracted the disapproval of the others.

‘Fuck this, I aint getting into any murder rap,’ the boy retorted.

‘Girlfriend’s name? Address?’

Morley wrote down the details and the two policemen left. ‘If anyone lifts that phone to warn Shanks, we’ll come back and charge all of you,’ was Giles’ parting shot.

Giles paused before getting into the car and Morley asked, ‘Everything all right, sir?’

‘I was just thinking about the parade at the Cenotaph a couple of weeks ago,’ he replied. He inclined his head in the direction of the flat they’d just left. ‘That lot make you wonder why these blokes bothered.’

Morley turned into a pleasant suburban crescent of 1930s bungalows and brought the car to a halt outside number 27.

Giles read, ‘Hellvellyn,’ on the house name plate by the side of the door. ‘Must have more imagination than me…’

Giles stopped half way up the garden path and said, ‘Something tells me Shanks is going to do a runner when the door bell goes. You go round the back.’ He waited for half a minute to give Morley time to get into position then rang the bell. After the second ring a light clicked on and a girl’s voice asked, ‘Who is it?’

‘Police, open the door please.’

‘My God, do you know what time it is? Give me a moment to get some clothes on.’

Giles sighed. ‘No thoughts of mummy and daddy and the terrible accident they might have been involved in?’ he murmured.

Time passed and the door did not open but Giles did not bother to ring or knock again. He felt he had read the situation correctly. ‘Any second now…’ he said under his breath. The sound of shouting and a short struggle came from the back garden. Seconds later Morley appeared with a red haired man held bent over in an arm-lock in front of him.

‘Mr Shanks was just on his way out for an early morning run, sir.’

‘Nice of you to postpone it, sir,’ said Giles pleasantly, then with a change of demeanour, ‘Kevin Shanks, I’m arresting you in connection with the murders of Robert Lyndon and Timothy Devon. You need not say…’

A girl appeared at the front door, protesting loudly. ‘Leave him! Leave him alone! He hasn’t done anything!’

‘Mr Shanks is being arrested in connection with a murder inquiry, Madam. Step back please.’

‘Murder?’ exclaimed the girl. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Kevin wouldn’t hurt a fly. He wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’

‘Then he’s got nothing to worry about,’ said Giles.

‘Tell him, Kevin,’ pleaded the girl. ‘Don’t let them walk all over you. Don’t let them fit you up.’

‘Fit you up? You watch too much television, Madam,’ said Giles.

‘Tell them about the skinheads, Kevin,’ pleaded the girl.

The red headed man looked like a deer caught in headlights. Giles noticed that he’d put his T-shirt on inside out in his haste. His allegiance to Nirvana had to be read backwards. ‘I’m sorry, Mandy,’ he stammered. ‘I never meant to… honest to God, I never meant to hurt Stig but he wouldn’t see reason. I did it for us. I told him no one would ever believe the truth.’

The girl looked at him in horror and took a step backwards, holding her hands to her face. ‘You killed Stig?… It was you? How could you? You said it was skinheads…’

Giles lowered himself into his chair in the interview room and Morley switched on the tape and initialled it. Giles looked at Shanks and said, ‘It’s been a long night, son. Let’s not make it any longer. You killed Robert Lyndon. You killed him because he was planning to come to us and confess to the murder of Timothy Devon at the Crick Institute.’

‘Christ no!’ said Shanks, almost leaping out his chair. ‘We had nothing to do with the old guy’s murder. Sure, Stig was threatening to tell you about us doing the institute. He thought you’d believe him when he told you we had nothing to do with the old guy’s death. I kept telling him you would stitch us up anyway but he wouldn’t listen. I tried reasoning with him, honest to God, I did but he was shitting himself. We had a bit of a fight after we left the pub and Stig ended up getting stabbed. I never meant for it to happen… it just did. Christ, I’m really sorry…’ Shanks broke down in tears and Giles looked at Morley.

Giles scratched his neck: it was itching because he needed a shave. Three hours had passed, the dawn had come up on a frosty, misty morning and Shanks still refused to admit to the torture and murder of Timothy Devon.

‘You do realise what your defence amounts to, don’t you?’ he said. ‘A big boy done it and ran away… How believable is that? The Prosecution will be in danger of dying laughing. Why don’t you just come clean and get it off your chest? You’re already going down for the murder of Robert Lyndon so what odds does it make?’

‘I didn’t do it!’ insisted Shanks. ‘I keep telling you that. Stig and I were there and we sprayed the walls and messed up the furniture but the old guy was alive when we left.’

Giles pushed the photographs of Devon across the desk.

‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Shanks and turned away with his hand to his mouth.

‘I don’t think Jesus is going to listen to you either,’ said Giles.

‘It must have been Ally,’ said Shanks, shaking his head. ‘He must have gone back.’

‘Ah,’ said Giles flatly. ‘The big boy.’

‘It was his idea in the first place.’

‘Of course,’ said Giles. ‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?’

‘It bloody was,’ protested Shanks.

‘Does the big boy have a last name?’

Shanks shook his head.

‘Let me guess,’ said Giles. ‘You have no idea where he lives either?’

Shanks shook his head.

‘I seem to have known that big boy all my life,’ said Giles. ‘The things he’s got up to in his time… Take him away.’

‘What do you think, sir?’ asked Morley when they had both returned to Giles’ office.

Giles shook his head. ‘I’m sorely tempted to charge the bastard with both murders and be done with it but there’s something not quite right…’