Revenger

56

The two Panu cousins were questioned simultaneously. Walcott took Ajay. The purpose of the interview was pretty straightforward. There had to have been two hardcore fighting men in the Lion Market. One of them was dead, killed in the fight in the storeroom. The other had been at the front, firing the shotgun and, it seemed certain, making the bomb go bang. The problem was proving it. And they weren’t going to get anywhere unless someone who’d been in the shop came out, stopped covering it all up and told the whole story. Ajay Panu would be a good start.

Walcott took him through the first incidents in the supermarket: the man and woman who’d let off the incendiary device and the African kids who’d thrown bricks and concrete and then been coming in and out through the shattered window. But, he pointed out, the most serious threat to the supermarket and the people in it only occurred after the arrival of the man known as Snoopy, the two women, and the second male who was alleged to be with them.

‘These people turn up,’ Walcott said, ‘and suddenly, after that’s happened, there’s a huge angry crowd outside your shop. Next thing you know there’s bottle-bombs and even a few shots being aimed at you.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you shot back.’

Walcott said it so casually that he could almost see Ajay thinking, Did he mean me?

The big man said, ‘I’m sorry…?’

‘I said, “You shot back.” See, there’s people lying dead on the street outside the shop. Someone blasted them with a shotgun. Where did the shotgun come from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And who fired it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Come off it, Mr Panu. It had to be you.’

‘No, it didn’t…’

‘Well, who else was it? The shooter can’t have been Snoopy, because he was wounded and Miss Prentice was bandaging him up.’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

‘So that leaves just you and your cousin, Maninder Panu. But, no offence, your cousin wasn’t exactly Action Man last night, was he? So it had to be you that fired the gun.’

Ajay shrugged like a sulky teen. ‘If you say so.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Did you fire the gun, or didn’t you?’

‘I suppose I must have done.’

‘So how many times did you fire it?’

‘I don’t know… a few.’

‘And how many people did you hit?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t remember exactly. It was very confusing. I was just, you know, blasting at them, trying to make them go away.’

Walcott leaned forward into Ajay Panu’s personal space. ‘Bollocks you were blasting,’ he said. ‘We’ve spoken to other witnesses. Three shots were fired from the supermarket. Every single one of them hit an individual target. Two of the victims died. The third is currently in intensive care at St Thomas’ Hospital.’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘No, you don’t. But let’s talk about something we can all agree on. You went to the back of the property, to the storeroom, to defend that with this Snoopy individual.’

‘Yes.’

‘So when the attack got going you weren’t in the main shop area. You were at the back.’

‘Yes.’

‘So, Mr Panu, how do you account for the fact that three more of the rioters were killed inside the shop by the same shotgun that killed the ones outside it?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m saying, if you were in the storeroom, who was doing the shooting in the shop?’

‘I don’t know anything about any shots at the front.’

‘Is that so? Well, then, for your information, there were another three victims. One had his arm blown off. The other two were shot in the guts. Whoever did it waited until they were just a few feet from him and then shot them in such a way that they did not die immediately. He wanted to make them suffer. Think about the kind of man who can do a thing like that.’

Ajay said nothing. Walcott’s description of those last three shootings had obviously got to him in a way nothing else in the interview had done.

‘Yeah, I know, cold-blooded bastard, wasn’t he?’ Walcott said.

‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ Ajay replied, but his heart wasn’t in it any more.

Walcott was so close to landing him. ‘For God’s sake, give it up,’ he said. ‘Whatever he told you, he’s not worth this.’

‘If there was this person in the shop, then he saved our lives,’ Ajay replied. ‘That’s worth a lot.’

So he wasn’t ready to crack just yet. Walcott took a deep breath and tried to get his prey by another route.

‘So let’s talk about the storeroom. We found a pistol. Two bodies at the rear of the premises were killed by bullets from that gun. Do you know anything about that?’

‘Yes. We were under attack from the yard.’ Ajay started talking more confidently now that he wasn’t having to hide anything. ‘The lad I was with — I think his name was Snoopy — he shot one of them coming over the top, but then another jumped on to me and he was about to kill me when, er, Snoopy shot him and he fell on top of me. He was dead and there was blood everywhere. But then there was another one. He came up behind Snoopy and stabbed him in the guts.’

‘And this man, who stabbed Snoopy, what happened to him?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see.’ Suddenly all the honesty, all the openness had gone again.

‘Oh, come on, Mr Panu,’ Walcott insisted, pressing again. ‘You’re lying there, trapped under a dead body and your mate is being cut to pieces. My guess is you remember that very well. And the obvious question is, how come you didn’t die, too?’

‘I don’t know. It was dark in there. I couldn’t see what was going on.’

‘Well, here’s a clue. We found two bodies of rioters in the immediate vicinity of your dead friend. One had been shot with a bullet from a Chinese-made pistol, so that must have been the one who’d been attacking you.’

‘Sounds like it, yeah.’

‘And the other one had a large hole in his chest caused by the impact of a twelve-bore shotgun cartridge fired at point-blank range. There was another shotgun victim the other side of the shelving, and one by the door into the storeroom, just for good measure. Who shot all those people?’

Panu said nothing. Walcott watched him trying to think through his options and work out what he should do. Finally Ajay asked, ‘Am I allowed a lawyer?’

‘Of course,’ Walcott answered. ‘If you think you need one.’

‘Good.’ Cos I’m not saying fuck all till he arrives.’