Aftershock

Forty-one

‘Interview resumed at ten forty-four a.m.,’ said Becky Stallings. ‘Same four people present. Ms Birtles,’ she asked, ‘does your client wish to make a statement?’

‘Yes,’ the lawyer replied, ‘his position is. .’

The DI held up a hand. ‘No, not you. He’s going to speak for himself or we’re going to charge him right now. PC Weekes.’

The prisoner was ashen-faced: his body odour filled the room, but the detectives were used to that experience. He mumbled a few barely audible words.

‘Loud and clear, please, for the tape,’ McGurk reminded him.

‘Ah never killed her,’ Weekes repeated. ‘I was there but it wasn’t me.’

‘A bad boy done it and ran away?’ said the sergeant, caustically. ‘That’s the oldest defence in the book.’

The other man glared at him. ‘That’s what happened.’

‘So who did kill Sugar?’

‘I don’t know. She was dead when I found her, but there was nobody else there.’

‘So you admit going after her.’

‘No. I waited for her. I knew the way she went to work.’

‘How come?’ asked Stallings.

‘I’d watched her before, leaving her house in the morning, heading for the woods. I went there on my own one day and found out where the path led to. So that day I went in from the other end and waited for her.’

‘To kill her.’

‘No! Tae talk to her. To ask her what the fuck she was doing wi’ the boy, making a fool of herself.’

‘Nobody else saw it that way. His parents were happy enough to let them go to France together.’ Stallings paused then frowned at him. ‘That wasn’t news to you, Weekes, was it? You knew about that, didn’t you?’

‘No.’›

‘I think you did. Let me put something to you. Your meeting with Sugar in the Gyle centre, the one you told Mr McGuire and Mr McIlhenney about. I don’t think you arranged that at all, as you said you did.’ She kept her eyes fixed on his, leaning closer. ‘I think you were following Sugar, but you made a mistake, as you did with Mae Grey once, and she saw you. So you had to front it up. You had to talk to her. And I think that when you did, she told you that she had a new boyfriend and that she was going to France with him at the end of the term. That’s what happened, wasn’t it?’

‘No,’ he muttered.

‘Yes,’ she countered firmly. ‘This is not the time to be lying to us. I’m right; that’s what happened. And after it, you kept on following her, until you saw Davis Colledge. Come on. It’s the truth, isn’t it?’

‘Okay, okay, okay, it’s the truth. But I still didn’t kill her.’

‘So, tell us, what happened?’

Weekes drew a deep breath, trying to compose himself. ‘I waited for her, like I said. But she never came. I waited until after she should have reached where I was, but she never came. So I started to walk the other way, towards where she should have been coming from, along the path. And then I found her.’

‘But she was hidden away in a copse,’ McGurk told him. ‘You couldn’t have found her there.’

‘I never. I found her lying just off the path.’

‘Describe her.’

‘She was on her back, looking up at the trees, with her hands by her side. Her dress was all spread out. . it was long, no’ one of her minis … like she’d lain doon. She was almost smiling, ken. I never knew she was dead. I thought she was. .’ He gulped. ‘For a minute I thought she’d seen me and was lying there waiting for me. I said, “What’s the game, Sugar?” but she never moved. Then I thought she must be ill, have fainted or something. I knelt beside her, and put my hand behind her head, to lift her up. And then I felt the blood, and looked in her eyes, and I could see that she wasn’t playing at anything.’

‘And at that point, PC Weekes,’ said Stallings, ‘you did what any serving officer would do, on or off duty, you got your mobile out and called for back-up. Only you didn’t. You left her there. Or, rather, having killed her, you hid her body and left her there.’

‘I never killed her!’ Weekes’s voice rose to a scream. Frankie Birtles grabbed his arm once more, and held it until he was calm. But she said nothing, simply waited until he was ready to take up his story once more.

‘I panicked,’ he said. ‘There was I and there was Sugar, dead. If I’d called it in, the whole thing would have come out, about me and her, and about me and Varley’s wife. Mae would have found out, Lisanne would have found out, and I’d have been booted off the force. So I hid her, okay? I dragged her into the bushes, I arranged her nice like, smoothed her hair, closed her eyes, and then I got the fuck out of there.’

‘And kept quiet as a mouse, even after her body was found?’

Weekes nodded.

‘An audible reply, please,’ Stallings snapped.

‘Yes.’

‘But the necklet, Theo,’ McGurk said. ‘Why the hell did you take the necklet?’

‘To remind me of her. I gave it to her, after all.’

‘So why did you give it to Lisanne?’

‘So it wouldnae just be stuck away in one of my drawers, so I’d see it all the time on her, and so that when I looked at Lisanne I’d think of Sugar as well.’

The sergeant whistled. ‘Weekes, you are one sick man.’

‘So that’s your client’s story, is it?’ Stallings asked Birtles.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed, ‘and he’s going to be sticking to it. So charge him with murder, if you think you’ve got the evidence, which I for one doubt, or release him.’

‘I don’t need to charge him with murder,’ the inspector replied. ‘Not yet. I’m going to charge him with everything he’s admitted in this room. We’ll begin with attempting to pervert the course of justice, and leaving the scene of a crime, add in concealing a body, and round it off with theft. That’s more than enough to hold him overnight, pending a court appearance. Who knows what else we’ll have on him by then?’