Impression, p.20
IMPRESSION, page 20
Both men nodded and indicated they were on to it, once they’d finished a sandwich and a drink.
He glanced around the room, locating Colin Sharp. “Colin, I want everything you can muster on the Morrisons, please.”
“Both of them?”
“Yes, but concentrate more on Barry. I suspect he’ll have been the more adventurous one. Delve into his past. I don’t believe it’s possible for a man like him to operate without having upset someone big style. It may be small, it may be hidden, but it’ll be there, and you’re the best man for the job.”
As Gardener headed for the door, he bumped into Paul Benson. “Paul. I have a job for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you looking into a court case involving an accountant called Frank Fisher.”
“That the bloke we found dead this morning?” Benson asked.
“Fisher, yes. I’m sorry I can’t give you more information than that, but we know Fisher was working for a builder when he had an accident, which left him paralysed. Fisher sued the builder. Not sure when it happened, maybe a couple of years ago. Maybe you can find out where it all happened and have a trip over, see if anybody remembers anything.”
He turned to face his partner. “Are you ready?”
Reilly nodded. “Let’s hope he’s calmed down.”
Gardener picked up a file and passed his partner a coffee before the pair of them set off down the corridor. As soon as they entered the interview room, Billy Morrison let rip.
“What the bloody hell’s going on here?” He stood up. “You drag me down to this place, arrest me for something I didn’t do, take my fingerprints, swab inside my mouth, give me this stinking crap to wear, and you leave me here to sweat for an hour. You told me yesterday you didn’t believe that I’d done anything. Is this how you treat people who are innocent?”
“We haven’t arrested you, we’re talking to you under caution.”
“Sit down,” said Reilly, placing the warm drink on Morrison’s side of the table. “Have a coffee.”
“You’re taking bloody liberties. I might change my mind about that solicitor.”
“That’s your right, Mr Morrison,” said Gardener. “If you’d like to call him, we’ll postpone this meeting until he gets here. We don’t mind waiting until tonight.”
Morrison returned to his seat, still very agitated. “I don’t need no solicitor. I’m innocent. I told you that yesterday, and nothing has changed. Only guilty men need solicitors.”
Gardener had his hand on the recording equipment. “Are you sure before I switch this on?”
Morrison spun round to face Gardener. “Dead right I’m sure. You ask me any question you like, mate. You won’t find a damn thing on me, because there is nothing to find.”
Gardener set the tapes rolling and took everyone through the preliminaries.
“Alan Sargent.”
“What about him?”
“He worked for you.”
“You know very well he does. You’ve seen him more than once. Anyway, he works for our Barry, not me.”
“Know much about him?”
“A bit.”
“How did he get the job? Did you advertise for a driver?”
“I don’t think so. Our Barry organized everything. I think it was a friend of a friend. You might want to speak to Sid Prosser, he knows him. Could have been him that recommended Sargent.”
“You know anything about his home life?” asked Reilly.
“Such as?”
“You tell us,” replied Reilly. “Did he and his missus get on well? Any financial problems? Did he have health problems?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” replied Billy, screwing his eyes a little tighter. “I expect they have money problems, he’d been out of work some time. They have a seven-year-old son, so it can’t be that easy for them.”
Gardener realized Morrison was talking present tense about Sargent. If he knew about the death, he wasn’t letting on.
“Did you know that he was being treated for depression?”
“No,” said Morrison. “Not exactly a crime, is it? Like I said, the poor bloke’s been out of work for some time. Maybe that brought it on.”
“It didn’t bother you that someone who had a medical condition was driving one of your cabs?”
“One of our Barry’s cabs,” corrected Billy. “But no, it doesn’t bother me. The times that I’ve seen him, he’s been okay. Maybe he has a lid on it. Maybe he’s getting better. Maybe our job gives him something to get up for, and if that’s the case, then you could say we were helping him.”
“Are you aware of any private clinics on Bond Street in Leeds?”
Morrison shook his head. “Can you be more specific? There’s nothing wrong with me, or my family. Are you gonna tell me Barry had a problem and he was a patient there?”
“Not that we know of,” replied Gardener. “Let’s get back to Alan Sargent. Any idea where he worked when he last had a job?”
“I’m not sure,” replied Billy. “I think he was a landscape gardener, worked for a place over in Pudsey. Couldn’t tell you the name.”
“So, if you didn’t see much of him, I suspect he worked nights, am I right?” Gardener asked.
“Mostly. He alternates a little bit. I’ve seen him do day runs once or twice.”
“But it was mainly nights?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever see the work sheets, the runs he’d been on?”
“No. Never paid any attention. That was our Barry’s job. He looked after the drivers.”
“So Barry could have had him doing anything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, he could have had him doing local runs, trips out of town, or maybe even airport runs.”
“I’ve told you. I don’t know.”
“For someone in charge of the business, you don’t seem to keep too close an eye on the staff.”
“I didn’t need to. Me and Barry had different roles, and we looked after different aspects of the business. And if you don’t suspect people of doing anything wrong, you don’t bother watching them too closely.”
“Or he could have had him doing something else entirely,” said Reilly. “Something illegal, like running drugs.”
Morrison left his seat. “I’ve told you, I know nothing about the drugs, and I don’t believe for one minute that our Barry was running his so-called drugs operation – as you lot like to call it – from the car lot.”
“He must have run it from somewhere,” said Gardener, “considering the amount we found in his flat.” He glanced at his partner. “Street value of over forty thousand pounds, wasn’t it?”
“Something like that.”
“Forty thousand pounds worth of drugs?” Morrison was horrified, judging by his expression.
“Not to mention over a hundred and twenty thousand pounds in money. All cash,” said Reilly.
“You two are a double act, aren’t you? If you’re not, you should be. Our Barry never had that kind of money.”
“How do you know?”
“I know him, that’s why!”
“I beg to differ, Mr Morrison,” said Gardener. “You’ve told us twice already that you knew nothing about Nicola Stapleton, or the house she lived in that was owned by your brother. And you’ve also told us more than once that we seem to be talking about someone else, not your brother.”
“How do you know all this stuff was his, and not just planted on him?”
“Evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Maybe we should mention the other flats he owned,” said Gardener. “They would obviously generate an income. And if, of course, you were right about him not liking banks, all of this money would be tax free, no doubt.”
“Other flats? What the hell are you talking about now?”
“Seems your Barry has been a very busy little bee. We have records indicating that not only did he own the house in Hume Crescent, but he had one or two flats in the area as well, which he rented out to undesirables. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were all part of his little empire. Maybe he had Alan Sargent roped in on it all.”
“Maybe he was blackmailing Sargent,” said Reilly.
“Well, why don’t you go and ask him, instead of hauling me in here?”
“We can’t,” said Gardener.
“Why? Somebody killed him as well, have they?”
Gardener and Reilly remained silent.
Morrison stood up sharp. “What? Are you two winding me up?”
The two detectives remained tight-lipped. Gardener wanted Billy Morrison to commit himself.
“Are you serious? Alan Sargent is dead? When?”
“We were called out at five o’clock this morning.”
“Where?”
“We found him in Kirkstall Abbey, sitting between two trees, opposite the ruin.”
Morrison shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. “Oh, Jesus. I can’t get me head round all this. How many more?”
Gardener and his partner let the news filter in. Finally, Billy asked, “How did it happen?”
“Someone had stoved his head in with a fence post,” said Reilly. “Poor man took a right pasting. He was black and blue.”
Morrison leaned back in his chair. Gardener noticed he was trembling.
“Someone must have it in for me.”
“We thought that,” said Gardener. “But you said you didn’t know anything. I do find myself coming back to the comments you made yesterday. For example, we never mentioned drugs, but you brought it up. When you called Barry’s phone, Alan Sargent answered. Makes me wonder how innocent you really are.”
“Look,” shouted Morrison. “I told you yesterday I knew nothing about our Barry and his drugs scam. You lot loaded ten layers of shit on to me, about him having a house and loads of money and a prostitute in tow. There was a lot going on in my head. It was just a wild guess about the drugs, that’s all it was. Nothing else. I swear to you I don’t know anything about drugs, money, prostitutes, or murders, and I certainly didn’t know Alan Sargent was dead.”
“Are you seriously expecting us to believe all this was going on behind your back? That your brother was leading a double life, and you knew nothing about it?”
“I don’t care what you believe,” shouted Morrison. “The one thing I do know is I haven’t killed anybody. I didn’t kill the prostitute, I didn’t kill my brother, and I didn’t kill Alan Sargent.”
“Or Frank Fisher?”
“No! No! No! I didn’t kill…” Morrison stopped mid-sentence. “What did you say?”
“Frank Fisher,” repeated Reilly. “You see, when we found Alan Sargent in the grounds of Kirkstall Abbey this morning at five o’clock, you might not have heard us when we said he was sitting between two trees.”
Morrison shook his head. “I heard you. I was too busy taking it all in. What do you mean, sitting? On what?”
“In,” said Gardener, “not on.”
“In what?” Morrison repeated.
“Frank Fisher’s wheelchair.”
You couldn’t have cut the atmosphere with a chainsaw, thought Gardener.
“Are you two having a laugh? His wheelchair?”
“Oh, life’s just one big comedy routine for us, son,” said Reilly. “We love nothing better than a good old murder mystery which keeps us on our toes and drags us out of bed at all hours. That’s if we even manage to get to bed!”
“Frank Fisher’s wheelchair? What was he doing in Fisher’s wheelchair? Where the fuck was Frank?”
“He was at home, leaning over his basin in the bathroom,” said Gardener.
“Leaning over his basin? Has somebody beaten him up as well?”
“No,” added Reilly. “They cut his throat.”
“No,” said Morrison, standing up again. “This isn’t happening.”
“It is, and it was,” said Reilly. “So, within the space of two days, we have four people dead, three of which are connected to you. We found your brother dumped in a shop doorway, one of your drivers beaten to death in a very public place, and your disabled accountant sliced and diced in his bathroom minus his wheelchair that your dead driver just happened to be occupying. Pretty sick, isn’t it? Is this all getting a bit too much for you?”
“You’re fucking right it’s getting too much,” shouted Morrison.
Reilly changed topics. “So where were you last night, Billy?”
“Well I wasn’t at home, was I? You lot shifted us out.”
“That’s not the best answer you could have given. We know you weren’t at home. What we want to know is where you were? Did you pay a visit to Richmond Hill to silence your disabled accountant who might well have been in on everything?”
“Maybe he was about to blow the lid and take everyone down,” said Reilly, “and you thought, I can’t have that.”
“No, no, no, for God’s sake,” shouted Morrison. “I’ve killed no one.”
“Then maybe you thought you’d silence Sargent while you were out. Tracked him when he was leaving The Vesper Gate in Kirkstall,” continued Reilly. “Noticed he was drunk, thought it was the perfect opportunity to see him off as well. All your troubles taken care of.”
“Silence him? Why would I want to shut him up?”
“Because he was in on whatever your brother and the prostitute were up to. We found her diaries and her phone. One of the conversations between her and Barry was recorded. Your brother mentioned a new point of contact, a man by the name of Alan Sargent. She kept a record in her diary.”
“Anything you want to add, Billy boy?” said Reilly.
“Such as?”
“Do you want to share any thoughts with us about your brother, the prostitute and Alan Sargent? Maybe even Frank Fisher?”
“Maybe he was in on it all as well,” said Reilly. “You know, him being an accountant, he could really cook the books, couldn’t he?”
“How many times do I have to tell you lot?” shouted Morrison. “If they were up to no good, I knew nothing about it. Seems they were taking me for a right mug. Quite frankly I wish our Barry was here now, I’d bloody well throttle him for what he’s done to me.”
“Temper, temper, Billy,” said Reilly. “You’re not convincing us of your innocence with talk like that.”
“So come on, Mr Morrison, where were you last night?” Gardener asked.
Morrison sighed heavily. “We were moving in with my wife’s sister most of yesterday, thanks to you.”
“And she lives in Esholt?”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed there last night?”
“Most of it.”
“Most? Where were you when you were not at home?”
“I had a walk down to the boozer at the end of the street. Left my wife and her sister to have a chat.”
“Does the sister have a husband?”
“No, he died a few years ago.”
“What time did you leave them?”
“About nine. I don’t know, I never looked too closely at the clock. I was too fucking worried about what was happening to my family and my business.”
“Think,” said Gardener. “We need to know.”
“Maybe it was eight,” said Billy. “That bloody soap had just finished, Coronation Street. That’s a laugh. They want to try living real lives. Like mine, for instance.”
“So, you left at eight,” said Gardener. “The pub is at the end of the street. You got there when?”
“It took me ten minutes to walk.”
“How long did you stay?”
“About two hours.”
“See anyone you know?”
“Hardly, I’m not from that neck of the woods, am I?”
“Did you do anything while you were there?” asked Gardener. “Strike up a conversation with anyone?”
“A game of darts, maybe,” said Reilly. “Or pool?”
“This is important. We need someone to vouch for you.”
“Go and see the bloody barman then. He served me my drinks.”
“So, you left around ten o’clock,” pressed Gardener.
“Yes. The news had just started on the TV. That good enough for you?”
“So you got home when, ten past ten? Can anyone vouch for that?”
“Yes, my wife and her sister.”
“And after that you stayed in all night?”
“Yes. They’d just opened a bottle of wine, so I got another beer out of the fridge.”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“Just after midnight. My wife and I went. I think her sister stayed up for a while longer.”
Gardener removed a photo from the file in front of him.
“How often do you visit Esholt?”
“Now and again. Maybe go over and have Sunday lunch. Or we take my wife’s sister out for the day, but it’s not somewhere we’d go and stay over, unless, of course, we’re kicked out of our house.”
“You’re not telling us porkies now, are you, Billy?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve never had any other reason for visiting Esholt?”
“Such as?”
“You tell us.”
Morrison laughed. “Oh, I see what you two are getting at. What? You think I’m having an affair with my wife’s sister behind her back? You think it runs in the family? Our Barry can’t be trusted, so neither can I. Well I’ll tell the pair of you now, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t know anyone in Esholt, and I have no reason to go there other than to visit my wife’s sister, with my wife, never on my own.”
Gardener slid over the photo of the girl that resembled Chloe Summerby. “Do you recognize the girl in the photo?”
“No.”
“You don’t know a couple who live in the village by the name of Summerby?”
“No.” Morrison stared at the photo more closely. “Wait a minute. Isn’t this the girl from the village who went missing? She’s called Summerby. The wife and her sister were on about it last night. She’s still missing, isn’t she? The parents must be going spare.”
“You’ve never seen her before?”
“Only on the news and in the papers.” Morrison put the photo down, and an expression crossed his features that could have curdled milk.
