Chapter 48

‘You're going to have to do something about your appearance if you want to have any chance with Bella,' Kyra said upon seeing Terry enter the police station in a stained and creased shirt with his jacket half hanging off his shoulders.

‘Who the hell's Bella?'

‘Sergeant Morton.'

‘I didn't know she was called Bella. I may have to reconsider. Tell me what you've got,' he said, as he headed down the corridor to his office.

‘Andrew Dickens, thirty-nine years old, lives in Prudhoe. He was arrested for?—'

Terry interrupted. ‘Andrew Dickens. Why do I know that name?'

‘He works at the same supermarket Dominic Griffiths worked at. His name came up when we chatted to some of his colleagues.'

He nodded. ‘I remember now. He had some very draconian views on prison sentences. So, why's he been arrested?'

‘He was arrested for driving without due care and attention, endangering lives, criminal damage?—'

‘Bloody hell, what did he do?'

‘Drove into a bus shelter.'

‘Is that all?'

‘There were three people in it at the time. They had to jump out of the way.'

‘Okay. So how do we get from that to murdering Dominic Griffiths?'

‘His fingerprints are a match for the set lifted from the chair in Dominic's house. We've also taken a DNA sample to see if it's a match for the hairs on the jacket, but it'll be a few days before we get the results.'

‘So, his fingerprints are found in Dominic's house, big deal. They worked together. Maybe he went over for a Christmas drink or something.'

‘Ever since he was arrested, uniform have said he's just been apologising over and over again saying he didn't mean for it to go so far.'

‘Maybe he's talking about crashing into the bus stop.'

‘You really are a glass-half-empty person, aren't you? The jacket found in Dominic's house is also Andrew's size.'

‘Am I allowed to be sarcastic about that one, too?'

‘No. You're not. I'm missing date night for this. This is a huge leap for us. You should be bouncing off the walls.'

He turned to look at Kyra. She had a smile on her face.

‘Hmm,' Terry mused. He entered his office, turned on the light and slumped down into his chair. He looked at the black mirror of his computer screen, saw his hair sticking up in all directions and tried to flatten it.

‘You don't look happy,' Kyra said.

‘It's not what I was expecting.'

‘You wanted it to be Dawn Shepherd, didn't you?'

‘I didn't want it to be, but that's where everything was pointing.'

‘Surely you should be happy that it's not. A young woman, career just getting off the ground… She's not gone and ruined her life.'

‘No.'

‘You still don't look happy.'

‘I never look happy, Kyra. You should see photos of me as a child. I was born a miserable bastard.'

‘I can believe that. Do you want to interview Andrew now or wait until morning?'

‘Was he drunk?'

‘No. Breathalyser came back negative. The on-call doctor has cleared him to be interviewed.'

Andrew Dickens looked like an extra from The Walking Dead. He was slumped at the table in the interview room, head in his arms. He looked up when he heard the door open. His dark, receding hair was all over the place. He had a sheen of sweat on his red face and a couple of days' worth of salt-and-pepper stubble. He had an athletic frame, and from the veins protruding on his muscular arms he was no stranger to the gym.

The room stank of desperation and sweat, and it wasn't only coming from Andrew. It leached out of the walls – a legacy of the number of nervous interviews that had taken place in the room over the years.

Andrew had a large plaster stuck at an angle on his forehead, and judging by the mark on the bridge of his nose he was going to have two black eyes in the morning.

Terry pulled out a chair and sat down. Kyra sat next to him.

‘How are you feeling?' Terry asked.

‘Like I've just spent a night sleeping in a cement mixer,' Andrew replied in a gravelly voice.

Terry gave the nod to Kyra. She started the recording equipment and stated the people present.

‘Mr Dickens. I'm going to ignore the reason you were arrested earlier, as I want to talk to you on a different matter. Do you know a man by the name of Dominic Griffiths?'

The spine seemed to have been yanked out of Andrew's back. He slumped to the table once again. His head was in his arms which muffled his sobbing.

‘Mr Dickens,' Terry prompted.

Andrew looked up and wiped his nose with the bottom of his polo shirt. ‘Yes. I know him. We worked together.'

‘Did you know him well?'

‘No.'

‘Did you socialise with him?'

‘No.'

‘Did you ever see him out of work?'

‘No.'

Terry and Kyra exchanged a glance. Kyra struggled to stop from grinning.

‘You know what happened to him on New Year's Day?' Terry asked.

He nodded. A tear rolled down his cheek. He didn't wipe it away.

‘Is there something you want to tell me about Dominic's death?'

He shook his head. His face was screwed up with complex emotions. His bottom lip was wobbling uncontrollably, and more tears began to fall.

‘For the benefit of the recording, I'm showing Mr Dickens a photograph of a jacket found in Mr Griffiths' living room.' Terry pulled a photo out of the cardboard folder in front of him and placed it slowly in front of Andrew. ‘Mr Dickens, do you recognise this jacket?'

He nodded.

‘For the benefit of the recording, Mr Dickens nodded his head. Does this jacket belong to you?'

He nodded again and Terry confirmed this for the recording.

‘On the collar of this jacket were several hairs which we had analysed. We were able to get a DNA profile from them. Unfortunately, that person wasn't on our DNA database, but we've taken a DNA sample from you so I'm guessing they'll match. We also found a set of fingerprints in Dominic's house on one of his dining chairs, which are a match for your prints. As you say you never met Dominic Griffiths outside work, can you explain how your jacket came to be left in Dominic's living room?'

It was a while before Andrew replied. Judging by the plethora of emotions that swept across his face, he was struggling to decide what to say.

‘I… I liked him,' he said quietly.

‘You liked Dominic Griffiths?' Terry asked.

‘He wasn't known as Dominic Griffiths when he started work. He was calling himself Rupert. He was quiet. Shy. But he was a hard worker, and he knew a lot about football. I liked him.'

‘Then you found out who he really was.'

He nodded. ‘I've got kids of my own. Three girls. The oldest is the same age as Stephanie was when she was killed. I was born in Winlaton. I know all about what happened to her. It shaped my childhood. He should never have been released from prison. And he was compensated for it, too. He was given taxpayers' money, for fuck's sake,' he spat. ‘He killed and cut up a thirteen-year-old girl, and he was being rewarded for it. I'm doing shitty shift work in a supermarket. My wife lost her job. We're having to use fucking foodbanks. And Dominic Griffiths is given a million pounds.'

‘It made you angry,' Kyra said.

‘Of course it made me fucking angry. Wouldn't you be?' His hands were clenched so tight, his knuckles were white.

‘What did you do?' Terry asked.

‘We went round. Had a word with him.'

‘We?'

‘Me and two mates.'

‘Their names?' Kyra asked, pen poised.

‘I'm not a grass. We just wanted to have a word with him. We wanted him to know we knew who he was and that he wasn't welcome around here.'

‘So, what happened?'

He took a deep breath. ‘I think, if it hadn't been for the compensation, I'd have been able to get over it. I walked into that house, and I saw a real Christmas tree and a big fuck-off television on the wall and a leather sofa. We couldn't even have a real tree this year. I couldn't afford one. My mum gave us her old plastic one. From that point, I wasn't interested in talking. I saw red.'

‘You hit him?' Terry asked.

‘I've never hit anyone before in my life. Ask my wife. I'm not violent. I don't even like violent films. I just?—'

‘You saw red,' Kyra answered for him, repeating his earlier remark.

‘I did. I punched him. Hard. In the face. He fell back and landed on the floor. My mate, he laughed. That egged me on, I think. I took my jacket off. I rolled up my sleeves, and I went at him again. I couldn't stop.'

‘What were your mates doing while you were beating seven shades of shit out of a defenceless man?' Kyra asked.

He thought before answering. Clearly not wanting to mention the names of his friends. ‘One of my mates pulled the telly off the wall. My other mate started kicking him.'

‘So, you're punching him, your mate is kicking him… who stabbed him?'

‘None of us.' He looked up with wide eyes.

‘Bullshit,' Terry said. ‘We've placed you at the scene, Andrew. Which one of you stabbed him four times?'

‘None of us. I swear.'

‘According to the post-mortem report, Dominic would have probably died from his injuries, whether he'd been stabbed or not. Every single one of his ribs was broken. His liver was two kicks away from exploding. He had bleeding on the brain, a ruptured spleen and a punctured lung. He was a dead man before the first knife was plunged into him. You'll be getting charged with murder, regardless,' Terry stated.

‘No. No. We didn't stab him. We didn't murder him.'

‘Then who did?' Terry shouted.

‘I don't know. But it wasn't us. We were interrupted. We did a runner. That's why I left my jacket behind.'

‘Who interrupted you?'

‘His parents.'

‘What?' Terry frowned.

‘J… One of my mates, he looked up and looked out of the window, and he saw someone coming up the path in the back garden. He said something like "Fucking hell, it's his parents," so we did a runner.'

Terry and Kyra exchanged glances.

‘His parents? He definitely saw two people?' Terry asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Andrew, Dominic's mother died in 2001. His father had bone cancer. He wasn't well enough to kill his son.'

‘Well, I don't know for sure who they were – they might not have been his parents. But my mate definitely said his parents were there, and we all panicked and ran off. I swear, hand on heart, on the lives of my three daughters, none of us stabbed him.'

‘What do you think?' Kyra asked.

She and Terry were back in his office with a mug of coffee each. It was pitch-dark outside, and the room was lit up by the unhealthy yellow glow of the strip-lighting above.

‘Why lie about not stabbing him?' Terry asked. ‘I've basically told him Dominic would have died anyway without the stab wounds, yet he still swears he didn't stab him. Why?'

‘Because stabbing would mean a murder charge, or manslaughter, at least. If he stands by his claim of just wanting to give him a bit of a slap, but it got out of hand, it'll carry a lighter sentence.'

‘It'll still be manslaughter. With or without being stabbed, Dominic would have died. It's as simple as that.'

‘Then Andrew has no incentive to lie.'

‘What? So you think that Dominic Griffiths' mother came back from the dead after nineteen years, and she and his father decided to pay him a night-time visit?'

‘His mate only assumed it was Dominic's parents. It obviously wasn't. Don't forget, that hair found at the scene was synthetic. Whoever came to the house could have been wearing a wig. Maybe they stabbed him.'

‘Two separate parties came on the same night to kill him? It's a bit of a stretch of the imagination, isn't it?'

‘I suppose. What do you want to do?'

‘Charge him with what he was arrested for tonight and with the murder of Dominic Griffiths. That'll buy us more time to question him. We need him to give us the names of his mates. I want to know exactly what his mate saw through the window.'

Kyra stood up and made to leave the office. Terry called her back.

‘Kyra, get me a photograph of Dominic's parents.'

‘Will do. We're close, aren't we?'

‘Very close,' he said, with a whisper of a smile on his lips.

Kyra left the office and closed the door behind her.

‘Too close,' Terry said out loud.