Chapter 12
The interview room was small, well-worn and two degrees short of claustrophobic. The cheap uPVC windows, barred on the outside, were grubby and the long narrow transom window locked, the key missing. There was no two-way mirror, no cups of tea and no uniformed officer guarding the door. There never was.
The comforting, almost imperceptible, whirr of the old tape machines now gone, the digital recording machine silently did its job.
“Look, Mister Baddeley, I was as gobsmacked as anyone. He was a nice old guy. I liked him a lot, that’s why I kept poppin’ in to see him, see if he was ok an’ that, buh I never done him any harm. That’s the sort of thing smackheads do. I don’t do drugs. Taffy will tell yer, well a little bit of cannabis now an’ then buh that doesn’t count, does it? An’ I gave up the burgs years ago. Check me record, yer’ll see. I’ve got fuck all for burgs since ... I don’t know. The last time? When was it, Taffy? Must be ten years ago now.”
Taffy nodded his agreement. “I think you’re right there, Danny.”
“So, how did you meet him then, Daniel?” Thurstan leaned back casually in the chair.
“I jus’ met him in the street. He ‘ad a load of bags an’ he dropped some, so I give him a hand.” He looked at Taffy and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what’s been ‘appenin’ lately. I helped an old dear across the road the other day. Anyway, we took the stuff to his flat, he offered me a cuppa tea like, an’ we got talkin’. He seemed lonely. It turned out he ‘ad some great stories about the war an’ all that. I know you don’t think to look at me buh I’m dead interested in the war, the second one like.
“Any’ows I popped in now an’ then, made him a cuppa,’ ad a chat, got some shoppin’ in for him. He’d a hard life, early on like. It was sad. But he was a really nice fella.” He looked at them both, shoulders hunched and waved his open palms at them. “So that’s why me prints are everywhere.”
“When did you last see him, Daniel?”
“I usually went down there on a Tuesday or Thursday. So it would’ve been the Thursday. I remember it because he didn’t seem to be ‘is usual self, know what I mean? Like, he was worried about somethin’. He seemed uneasy.”
“Did he say anything to you about it?”
“No, an’ I never asked. I was goin’ for a bevvy with a mate an’ I was pushed for time. I wasn’t there long. Just had a cuppa.”
“Do you know of any other friends he had?”
Danny leaned forward on the desk. “Yeah! Actually. Some old fella he met in the Aldi or the Asda I think it was. It’s the one on Smithdown, anyway.”
Thurstan said nothing, waiting for him to fill the gap. Danny just stared at him expectantly.
“And, did he tell you anything about this old man, at all?”
“Oh, not much. Only he hadn’t seen him since the war, like.”
Taffy shook his head in wonderment. “All those years and they still recognised each other. Amazing.”
“Oh, he never recognised him. He told me. He jus’ heard him spellin’ his name out for the girl on the till. Somethin’ they had to fill in, one of them cards, somethin’ like that. He said the other fella never recognised him either. It was only when they got talkin’. Know what I mean, like.”
Thurstan nodded. “Did you ever meet his friend or did he tell you what his name was?”
“No, I never, an’ he did mention his name. I think it might have been Kowalski. I remember thinking it was like one of them American detective’s names. I’m not certain, buh it was something like that anyway.”
“Anything else, Daniel?”
“No, jus’ he said, on the Thursday, he wanted an early night an’ said he’d taken his tablets, they were next to his bed. They were like sleepin’ tablets. Sometimes he couldn’t get to sleep, stuff kept coming back to him, know what I mean. I put ‘em in the kitchen cupboard, next to the sugar so he’d find ‘em the next day.”
He noticed the questioning looks on their faces. “It was to make sure he didn’t accidentally take any more. Me ma did that once. Anyways, when I come back, he was already on the bed with the cover over him and was noddin’ off. I stuck the lamp on, in the corner. I didn’t want him wakin’ up in the dark and gettin’ confused. Then I went to tell him I was gettin’ off and shook his hand. He patted me arm an’ mumbled somethin’ then I dun one.”
“Any idea what it was he said?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his head. “I think it was somethin’ about a river.”
He rested his head on his hands. There was silence for several moments then he looked up. “I think it was ‘ask the river’ or he asked at the river. Somethin’ like that. There was somethin’ else buh I wasn’t payin’ much attention. I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”
“That’s ok, Daniel.” Thurstan paused. “You said, earlier in the corridor, you knew he was dead. How was that?”
“Oh that. I went back on the Tuesday, you know like, to see ‘im as normal and his neighbour, the old girl, said he’d died in his sleep. Friday, I think she said. I was gutted. He was a nice fella.”
Thurstan could see Danny’s eyes misting.
As they walked along the corridor from the interview room Taffy and Danny discussed his current predicament.
“I know what yuh think, Taffy, buh it’s not like that. An’ I never done it for meself. I can’t tell yuh why I done it buh it’s nothin’ to do with drugs or anythin’ like that. Nothin’ criminal. Well, it is criminal ‘cos it was a cloned card buh it was over a year ago. I just ordered stuff off the internet, you know, by phone, and suddenly it’s come back to bite me arse. I mean, don’t these things ‘ave a statue of liberties on ‘em or somethin’.”
Taffy held the door open, unable to suppress a smile. “I think you mean a statute of limitations, Danny.”
“Yeah, ok, whatever. I mean, I’ve just applied to go on the hackneys. All them burgs were over ten years ago when I was young and fuckin’ stupid. Is there nothin’ you can do Taffy, for old times sake?”
“I’ll have a word with someone and see if they’ll tell me the score. What did you do with all the gear you got? Is it still in yours?”
“Fuck, no. I converted it all for cash.” He stopped and looked around him, conspiratorially. “Look, to be honest, someone needed the cash quick. They had people on their back. Bad people, fuckin’ bad an’ I can’t say who. Yer probably know anyway buh I’m sayin’ nothin’. I had to do it, Taffy, or they were fucked! Seriously, seriously fucked!”
They’d reached the charge desk. The Custody Officer, a tired-looking grey-haired sergeant, stared down at them.
“All present and correct, Sarge. You can book him back in now,” Danny said, pointing at Taffy with a grin. The sergeant shook his head with a hint of a smile. “God loves a trier,” he replied then tapped Danny lightly on the head with his pen.
“Don’t lean on the counter!”