Blood At The Root

I

“I’m sorry we had to take you away from your wife and child, Mark,” said Gristhorpe. “Let’s hope it won’t be for long.”

Wood said nothing; he just looked sullen and defiant.

“Anyway,” Gristhorpe went on, “I’d like to thank you for sparing us the time.” He balanced a pair of reading glasses on his hooked nose and flipped through some sheets of paper in front of him, glancing up over the top of his glasses from time to time. “There’s just a few points we’d like to get cleared up, and we think you can help us.”

“I’ve already told you,” Wood said. “I don’t know anything.”

Susan sat next to Gristhorpe in the interview room: faded institutional green walls, high barred window, metal table and chairs bolted to the floor, pervading odor of smoke, sweat and urine. Susan was convinced they sprayed it in fresh every day. Two tape recorders were running, making a soft hissing sound in the background. It was dark outside by the time they actually got around to the interview. Gristhorpe had already given the caution. Wood had also phoned a solicitor in Leeds, Giles Varney, and got his answering machine. You’d be lucky to find a lawyer at home on a Friday evening, in Susan’s experience. Still, he had left a message and steadfastly refused the duty solicitor. Hardly surprising, Susan thought, given that Giles Varney was one of the best-known solicitors in the county. She would have thought he was way out of Mark’s league.

“Yes,” said Gristhorpe, taking off his glasses and fingering the papers in front of him. “I know that. Thing is, though, that sometimes when people come into contact with the police, they lie.” He shrugged and held his hands out, palms up. “Now, I can understand that, Mark. Maybe they do it to protect themselves, or maybe just because they’re afraid. But they lie. And it makes our job just that little bit more difficult.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” said Wood.

Good sign, Susan noted. Gristhorpe had the lad apologizing already.

“Now,” Gristhorpe went on, “the last time you got into trouble, you told the police that you had no idea the van you were driving was used for carrying drugs, or that some of the people you were involved with were dealing drugs. Is that true?”

“Do you mean is that what I said?”

“Yes.”

Mark nodded. “Yes.”

“And is the statement true?”

Mark grinned. “Well, of course it is. It’s what I told the court, isn’t it? A matter of public record. It’s hardly my fault if the magistrate didn’t believe me.”

“Course not, Mark. Innocent people get convicted all the time. It’s one of the problems with the system. Nothing’s perfect. But with so many lies going around, you can understand why we might be just a bit wary, a little bit overcautious, and perhaps not quite as trusting as you’d like, can’t you?”

“I suppose so. Yes.”

Gristhorpe nodded. “Good.”

The superintendent’s interview technique, Susan noticed, was in direct contrast to Banks’s, with whom she had more experience of questioning subjects. Banks would sometimes needle his interviewees, and when he’d got them confused and vulnerable, he would subtly suggest possible scenarios of how they had committed the crime, and why. He sometimes even went so far as to explain to them their feelings and state of mind while they were doing it. Then, if they were new to the world of crime, he would sometimes describe in graphic detail what kind of life they could expect in jail and after. Banks worked on his subjects’ imaginations; he used words to paint images unbearable to the hearer.

Gristhorpe seemed to concentrate more on logic and reasoned argument; he was polite, soft-spoken and unrelenting. He seemed slower than Banks, too. As if he had all the time in the world. But Susan was keen to get it over with. She had already pulled a couple favors to get the lab working overtime on Mark Wood’s shoes and clothing, and if they came up with some solid forensic evidence, or if Gristhorpe got a confession, there was a good chance they could wrap things up before tonight. Jimmy Riddle would be pleased about that.

As a bonus, she would have the weekend free, for once, and she might get her Saturday night out with Gavin. She had considered phoning him earlier – even picked up the phone – but no, she told herself, it wouldn’t do to seem too keen, too easily available. Let him cajole her. Seduce her. Win her.

“You see,” Gristhorpe went on, “that’s one of our main problems, sorting out the lies from the truth. That’s why we have science to help us. Do you know what ‘forensic’ means?”

Wood frowned and tugged on his earring. “It means science, doesn’t it? Like blood types, footprints, DNA and fingerprints?”

“That’s a common error,” Gristhorpe said, toying with his glasses on the table. “Actually, it means ‘for use in a court of law.’ It’s from the Latin, related to the word forum. So one of the best systems we have to help us tell the lies from the truth is a complex and broad-ranging branch of science dedicated solely to presenting scientific evidence in court. Now, of course, before we get to court, we use this forensic evidence to help us identify the people who should be on trial. And in your case, I’m afraid the evidence tells us that you should be in court for the murder of Jason Fox. What do you have to say about that, Mark?”

“Nothing. What can I say? I’ve done nothing.”

Wood was taken aback by Gristhorpe’s gentle and erudite logic, Susan could tell. But he was cool. She noticed that Gristhorpe let the silence stretch until Wood started squirming in his chair.

“Well, you must have something to say, lad,” Gristhorpe went on, putting on his glasses again and slipping a photograph from the file in front of him. “This is an image of a fingerprint found on the label of a beer bottle,” he said, turning it around so Wood could see it clearly. “It was developed by a very painstaking process. Forensic science doesn’t produce miracles, Mark, but sometimes it seems to come close. Now, I’m sure you’re an intelligent-enough lad to know that fingerprints are unique. So far, no two fingers have been found to possess the same ridge characteristics. Isn’t that amazing?”

Wood said nothing; his eyes were glued to the photo.

“Anyway,” Gristhorpe went on, “what’s particularly interesting about that fingerprint is that it came from a fragment of a broken bottle found at the scene of Jason Fox’s murder. But perhaps I’m being precipitous in referring to it as a murder so soon, because that hasn’t been proven yet. You do know that there’s a big difference between homicide and manslaughter, don’t you, Mark?”

Wood nodded. “Yes.”

“Good. And there’s also a big difference in jail sentences. But we won’t let that detain us for the moment. Anyway, the point is that it is a close match for your fingerprint – one we already have on file – and that it was found in the ginnel by the rec, on a fragment of a broken beer bottle under Jason Fox’s body. I’d like you to tell me how it got there.”

Wood licked his lips and glanced at Susan. She said nothing. He looked back into Gristhorpe’s guileless blue eyes.

“Well, er… I suppose I must have touched it, mustn’t I, if it’s got my prints on it?” He smiled.

Gristhorpe nodded. “Aye. I suppose so. When might that have happened, Mark?”

“I gave it to Jason,” Wood said finally.

“When?”

“When we came out of the pub. You see, I thought I wanted another beer, so I bought a bottle from out-sales as we were leaving, but then I remembered I had to drive back down the A1, so I just gave it to Jason. He said he was walking home.”

“Ah,” said Gristhorpe. “So you gave the bottle of beer to Jason when you parted outside the Jubilee?”

“That’s right. I was parked just down the street the pub was on. Market Street. Is that right?”

“That’s the one.” Gristhorpe looked at Susan, who raised her eyebrows.

“What’s wrong?” Wood asked.

Susan scratched the cleft of her chin. “Nothing, really, Mark,” she said. “It’s just that you’ve confused me a bit. When I talked to you earlier you denied being in Eastvale at all last Saturday night. Don’t you remember?” She pretended to read from the paper in front of her. “You bought a couple of bottles of beer at the off-license and rented a Steven Seagal video, which you and your wife watched that evening. You didn’t even nip out to the Hare and Hounds for a quick one. That’s what you said, Mark.”

“Yeah, well… It’s like he said earlier, isn’t it?” He looked at Gristhorpe.

“What would that be, Mark?” Gristhorpe asked.

“About people ly – - About people not telling the exact truth sometimes when the police come after them.”

“So you didn’t tell the truth?”

“Not exactly.”

“Why not?”

“I was scared, wasn’t I?”

“What of?”

“That you’d fit me up for it because I’ve been in trouble before.”

“Ah, yes,” said Gristhorpe, shaking his head. “The classic fit-up. That’s another one of the problems we constantly have to fight against: the public’s perception of the police, mostly formed by the media. Especially television. Well, I won’t deny it, Mark, there are police officers who wouldn’t stop at forging a notebook entry or altering a statement in order to convict someone. We’re all embarrassed about the Birmingham Six, you know. That’s why there are so many laws now to help people in your position. We can’t beat you up. We can’t force a confession out of you. We have to treat you well while you’re in custody – feed you, allow you exercise, give you access to a solicitor. That sort of thing. It’s all covered in the PACE guidelines.” Gristhorpe spread his hands. “You see, Mark, we’re just humble public servants, really, gentle custodians here to see that your rights aren’t abused in any way. By the way, you must be a bit hungry by now, aren’t you? I know I am. How about I send out for some coffee and sandwiches?”

“Fine with me. Long as they’re not salmon. I’m allergic to salmon.”

“No problem. Susan, would you ask one of the uniformed officers to nip over to the Queen’s Arms and ask Cyril to do us two or three ham-and-cheese sandwiches? And have one of the lads up front bring us a pot of fresh coffee, please.”

“Of course, sir.”

Susan popped her head out of the door and made the request, then she went back to her chair.

“While we’re waiting, though,” said Gristhorpe, “and if you don’t mind, Mark, let’s get back to what happened last Saturday night, shall we? As I understand it, you’ve changed your original story – which, quite understandably, you now admit was a lie.”

“Because I was scared you’d fit me up.”

“Right. Because you were scared we’d fit you up. Well, I hope I’ve put your mind at rest about that.”

Wood leaned back in his chair and smiled. “You’re a lot nicer than those bastards from West Yorkshire who nabbed me on that drugs charge.”

Bloody hell, thought Susan, the old man’s even getting compliments out of his suspects now, let alone mere apologies.

“Well,” said Gristhorpe, inclining his head modestly. “West Yorkshire have a lot more problems than we do, being a lot more urban and all. They sometimes have to cut corners a bit roughly.”

“You’re telling me.”

“But that’s all behind you now, Mark, isn’t it? I see you’ve been a good lad since then. You took a course and then you went into business. Admirable. But now there’s just this little spot of bother, and the sooner we get it cleared up, the sooner you can get back to leading a normal and productive life with your family. Did Jason ever try to interest you in the Albion League?”

“Sometimes. He’d spout a load of garbage about how the Holocaust didn’t really happen – how most of the Jews died of typhoid and the showers were just ways of disinfecting them, like, not really death camps at all. I must admit, it made me a bit sick. Then I lost interest and didn’t pay much attention after that. Half the time I thought he couldn’t even be serious.”

“I understand your wife is Afro-Caribbean?”

“Her family’s from Jamaica, yes.”

“How did you manage to reconcile this with doing business with a racist like Jason?”

“I never thought much about it, really, not at first. Like I said, I thought Jason spouted a load of silly rubbish. I figured he’d probably grow out of it.”

“You said ‘at first.’ What about after that?”

“Yeah, well, it started getting to me, Sheri being Jamaican and all. We had a couple of arguments. I was on the verge of ditching him when-”

“When what, Mark?”

“Well, you know, he died.”

“Ah, yes. Did you tell him you were married to a Jamaican woman?”

“Are you joking? And listen to him prattle on about that? He really had a bee in his bonnet about mixed marriages. No, I kept my private life and my business activities completely separate.”

Gristhorpe adjusted his glasses again and took a moment or two to look over some sheets of paper. Then he looked back at Wood, held his glasses in his hand and frowned. “But you knew that Jason was doing this computer work for the league?”

The food came, and they took a moment’s break to pass around sandwiches and pour coffee.

“Yes, I knew,” Wood answered. “But what he did in his own time was up to him.”

“Even if you didn’t agree? It bore the trademark of the business you ran together, didn’t it?”

“We could use all the business we could get.”

“Right. So you let your name be used for neo-Nazi propaganda even though you found the idea loathsome. Your wife is black, for crying out loud, Mark. What do you think Jason Fox and his ilk would do with her if they got half a chance? What does that make you, Mark? Are you ashamed of her?”

“Now hold on a minute-”

Gristhorpe leaned forward. He didn’t raise his voice at all, but he fixed Mark with his eyes. “No, Mark, you hold on a minute. You were drinking with Jason Fox on the night he got killed. Now, you’ve already lied to us once or twice, but we’ll let that go by for the moment. Your latest story is that you were with Jason, but the two of you parted outside the Jubilee, at which time you gave him the bottle of beer you’d bought from out-sales because you remembered you had to drive home. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And the two of you weren’t close friends?”

“No. I’ve told you. We worked together. That’s all.”

“So what were you doing pubbing with him in the Jubilee? Eastvale’s a long way from your normal stamping ground, isn’t it? Can you explain that?”

“He said he was going up to Eastvale to play football. I felt like a night out, that’s all. Somewhere different. Just for a change. Sheri knew I’d been a bit down lately, like, about the business and all, and she said she didn’t mind staying home with Connor. The Jubilee gets really good bands on a Saturday night, and I like live music.”

“So you drove all the way up from Castleford to spend a social evening with a business associate you didn’t particularly like, someone who believed your wife and all her kind should be packed off in boats back to the Caribbean?”

Mark shrugged. “I went to see the band. Jason said he’d come along, as he’d be in town anyway, that’s all. I thought it might make a change from Razor’s Edge and Celtic Warrior and all that other crap he listens to. Hear some decent music for once. The Jubilee’s got a good reputation all over the north. Just ask anyone. And it’s not that far. Straight up the A1. Doesn’t take more than a hour and a half or so each way.”

“That’s three hours’ driving, Mark.”

“So? I like driving.”

“Where did you go after you left Jason?”

“I drove straight back home. I wasn’t over the limit, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“But you still came all this way knowing you’d be drinking and having to drive back?”

Wood shrugged. “I’m not a big boozer. I can handle three or four pints over the course of an evening.”

“Are you sure you didn’t have more than that, Mark?”

“I had three pints. Four at the most. If that put me over the limit, charge me.”

“Are you sure you didn’t have too much to drink and ask Jason if you could stay at his house? Are you sure you didn’t walk down-”

“No. I told you. I drove straight home.”

“All right, Mark. If you say so. I do, however, have one more question for you before I leave you to think over our little discussion.”

“What’s that?”

“If you gave Jason the beer bottle, and he drank from it on his way home, then why didn’t we find his fingerprints on it, too?”

II

The girl was incredibly beautiful, Banks thought. Part Oriental, she had long, sleek black hair, a golden complexion, a heart-shaped face with perfect, full lips and slightly hooded eyes. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty years old.

At the moment, she was sitting on a chair bathed in the red neon glow, wearing dangling silver earrings and a black lace bra and panties. Nothing else. Her slender legs were parted slightly at the inner thighs so the plump mound of her pudendum was clear to see. She had a tiny tattoo – a butterfly, it looked like – on the inside of her left thigh.

And she was smiling at Banks.

“No,” said Burgess. “Not that one. She’s got no tits.”

Banks smiled to himself and came back to earth. Lovely as the girl was, he could no more think of sleeping with her than he could with one of Tracy’s friends. Though he was quite happy to wander around the red-light district window-shopping with Burgess, he had never intended to buy anything on offer there. Nor, he suspected, did Burgess, when it came right down to it. And after three or four pils with jenever chasers, it was doubtful whether either of them was even capable of much in that direction anyway.

Amsterdam was especially beautiful at night, Banks thought, with the necklaces of lights strung over the bridges mirrored in the canals, and the glowing, candlelit interiors of glass-covered “lovers’” tour boats spilling Mantovani violins as their wake made the reflections shimmer in the dark, oily water. He wished Sandra were with him, and not Burgess. They would wander the canals all night and get hopelessly lost again, just as they had done all those years ago.

At night the red-light district had much more of an edge than during the day, when it was basically just another stop on a sightseeing tour. Most tourists stayed away at night, but as far as Banks could tell, it wasn’t any more dangerous than Soho. His wallet was safely zipped in the inside pocket of his suede jacket, and he had nothing else worth stealing. And if it came to violence, he could handle himself. Though he felt a bit light-headed, he wasn’t drunk.

They wandered along, jostled by the crowds, stopping to look into the occasional window and surprised, more often than not, by the beauty and youth of the prostitutes on display. At one point someone bumped into Burgess and Banks had to step in and prevent a fight. Wouldn’t go down well, that, he thought: SENIOR SCOTLAND YARD DETECTIVE ARRESTED FOR ASSAULT IN AMSTERDAM’S RED-LIGHT DISTRICT. Maybe, he thought with a smile, he should have let it go on.

After a while the crowds had a claustrophobic effect on Banks, and he was thinking of going back to his hotel when Burgess said, “Fuck it. You know what, Banks?”

“What?”

“Hate to admit it, but I probably couldn’t even get it up if I tried. Let’s have another drink. A nightcap.”

That seemed like a good idea to Banks, who fancied a sit-down and a smoke. So they nipped into a bar on a street corner, and Burgess promptly ordered pils and jenever again for both of them.

They chatted about mutual friends on the force over the loud music – some sort of modern Europop, Banks thought – and watched the punters come and go: sailors, punks, prostitutes, the occasional dealer shifting some stuff. When they’d finished their drinks, Burgess suggested another round but Banks said they should find somewhere nearer the hotel while he could still remember his way.

“Fuck the hotel. We can take a taxi anywhere we want,” Burgess protested.

“I don’t know where the nearest taxi rank is. Besides, it’s not far. The walk’ll do you good.”

Burgess was truly over the top by now. He insisted on just one more jenever, which he downed in one, and then, after a bit more grumbling, he agreed to walk and stumbled out after Banks into the street. They soon got out of the red-light district and onto Damrak, which was still busy, with Burgess meandering from side to side, bumping into people. Banks remembered that Dirty Dick’s second nickname on the Met was “Bambi,” on account of the way his physical coordination went all to pieces when he was pissed.

“Got a joke,” Burgess said, nudging Banks in the ribs. “This bloke goes into a pub with an octopus, and he says to the lads in the band, ‘I’ll bet any of you a tenner my pet here can play any instrument you care to give him.’”

They took one of the narrow streets that crossed the canals toward Keizersgracht. Banks found his attention wandering, Burgess’s voice in the background. “So one of the lads brings him a clarinet, and the bloody octopus plays it like he was Benny Goodman. Another bloke brings him a guitar and it’s Django fucking Reinhardt.”

Banks fancied a coffee and wondered if he could get one at the hotel. If not, there was bound to be a café nearby. He looked at his watch. Only ten o’clock. Hard to believe they’d done so much in such a short time. A small café would actually be better than the hotel, he decided. He would dump Burgess, pick up his Graham Greene and find a place to sit, read and people-watch for a while.

“Anyway, this goes on for ages, instrument after instrument. Bongos, trombone, saxophone. You name it. Bring him a ukulele, and it’s George Formby. The octopus plays them all like a virsh… a virsh… a virt-you-oh-so. Finally, one of the musicians, he’s had enough and he goes out and finds a set of bagpipes. He gives them to the octopus and the octopus looks at them, frowns, turns them every which way, then back again. ‘Looks like you’re about to lose your tenner, mate,’ the musician says. Christ, I need a piss.”

Burgess tottered toward the quayside, hands working at his fly, head half-turned to look back at Banks, a crooked smile on his face. “So the guy says, ‘Hang on a minute, mate. When he finds out he can’t fuck it, he’ll play it. Get it? Argh! Shi-it!”

It happened so quickly that Banks didn’t even have a chance to take half a step. One moment Burgess was pissing a long, noisy arc into the canal, the next, he had toppled forward with an almighty splash, followed by a string of garbled oaths.