‘Bez komentaˉriem.’
Why they’ve bothered to shell out on an interpreter is beyond him.
Davy wonders what this guy Juris is thinking. Is he thinking about British prison, and how much better it would be than Latvian prison? Better food, better beds, better guards. Because Latvian prison doesn’t really bear thinking about, and that’s where he’ll end up, if this goes anywhere.
Except Davy’s not sure they can collar him for anything. There’s no weapon linking him to Ross’s death. He wasn’t near Ross at the time of death, and Derry’s pathology report runs contrary to this hired hunk of muscle having anything to do with the stabbing. Yes he followed him onto the train to Huntingdon, but he got off the train at St Neots. The CCTV showing what he did at St Neots – his stepping off the train, and catching another one home – has already been wiped in the statutory twenty-eight-day turnaround.
However, there appears to be a connection with Carruthers, revealed on the camera hard drive which they successfully retrieved from Speedy Cars before anyone could tamper with it.
Davy and Harriet watched the footage together, watched Giles Carruthers talking to the friendly chap with the wide smile who gave his name as Moukhtar – ‘Moukie’ – when he was interviewed at the cab rank. Carruthers climbed the stairs with Moukie and this Latvian chump.
What was Carruthers doing going upstairs at Speedy Cars? What were they discussing?
Day 30
13 January
Davy
‘I really don’t see how me taking a taxi to a Chinese takeaway is of any interest to you,’ Giles Carruthers says with utmost warmth and tolerance for Davy’s puerile procedures.
So superior and relaxed is he that Carruthers has not as yet drafted in some exorbitant brief to tell him to say nothing.
Davy presses play on the CCTV from Speedy Cars.
‘The chap you’re talking to here …’ Davy points to the Latvian, whose name he struggles with. Juris something. ‘He boarded the same train as Mr Ross and appeared to be following him. D’you know anything about that?’
‘No.’
‘What were you talking to him about?’
‘My fare to Islington.’
‘What are you giving him in this frame?’
Davy freezes the CCTV. The image shows Carruthers handing a paper to the Latvian.
‘Um, maybe it’s the address.’ Carruthers runs a hand through his hair. ‘Look, it was a month ago. Yes, it was probably the address of the Lotus Blossom, with the postcode for the driver’s satnav.’
‘It isn’t this?’ Davy asks, sliding the four-by-six photo of the blonde that was found on Ross’s body, across the table. ‘We will of course sharpen this image to see what’s on the paper.’
Carruthers shifts. His pallor has become a bit sweaty, Davy notices. Some moisture at his temples. He swallows. Dry mouth, perhaps.
‘No. I’ve never seen that before.’
Davy presses play on the CCTV again.
‘Can you explain why you are going up the stairs at the cab office? Wouldn’t most customers wait in the lobby or out on the pavement?’
‘I asked to use their toilet. I needed the toilet, you see …’
‘And these two chaps decided to go with you? This Moukie chap and the Latvian fella?’
‘They were showing me where it was, that’s all.’
‘Do you know these men?’
‘No.’
‘We’ll need your phone, Mr Carruthers.’
‘My phone? Why? I’m afraid I can’t let you take my phone, it’s vital for my work.’
‘If you could drop it into this bag.’
Carruthers is making a big show of patting himself down. ‘I … I can’t seem to … I don’t know where it is.’
Davy watched Carruthers arrive at HQ for questioning: on his phone as he entered the building. Davy took in the sharp cut of his suit, the shiny shoes; how Carruthers was giving off the Big I Am, doing his deals, arranging his meetings, a bit too busy for the police. He came into this building on his phone.
Davy walks fast from the interview room and pelts down the stairs to reception. Two hands on the reception desk, he eyeballs the duty sergeant. ‘I need a search of all the toilets in this building. Get everyone out of them. Suspect has tried to flush his phone.’
Gary Stanton
He is tapping the edge of a cardboard coaster on the table, waiting.
His other hand is around the coolness of his pint glass. He drops the coaster, in order to rearrange his tie neatly over the protuberance of his belly. When will she come? Will she look as attractive as she did the last time, when he couldn’t keep his hands off her and all his decades of tiredness had fallen away? The black lace bra beneath her nurse’s uniform. Will she overlook his paunch, as she appears to have done up till now?
This is the meat in his pie. The chase, the frisson. The triangle that gives life its vigour. Without these three points, the exclusion slash disapproval of one, the sense of how hurt she might be if only she knew, the naughty pleasure in her not knowing but perhaps finding out … Without his wife, the affair would drain of its energy.
He takes a sip. He’s not sure he has sufficient energy. Should he go the way of his colleagues, put his feet up in front of Location, Location, Location? Order in the Prosecco for drinks with the neighbours? Have sex twice a year? It would be like water closing over his face as he goes down. It would be like the stupid nonchalance he’d felt as a child, thinking everything was solid – well, a bit tense, which was the grim-faced status quo in their house. His mother – a mood hoover at the best of times – harrumphing over some element of the domestic workload, as if she was lugging a laundry basket up the mount at Calvary in place of a cross. His father in from work, reading the paper. Each member of the family in their personal cube of unhappiness. Why did it have to change? No one was dying or getting beaten up. No one was in a dire state of suffering as far as he could tell. Why couldn’t they all just put up with the misery of family life?
He remembers waking in the night for a pee and hearing arguing downstairs. The word ‘sex’ reverberated up the stairwell, and its radioactivity sent him back to bed.
When he was 11, he came home from school to find them sitting side by side in the lounge, which never happened. His throat contracted because just their positions meant bad news. Maybe Gramps was dead, or 9-year-old Trevor had been run over. He paused to enjoy this last thought, wondering if he might get to be an only child. He acknowledged there would be an irritating period of mourning for his younger brother, but after that …
‘Gary, love, come and sit down. We want to talk to you.’