Knight & Culverhouse Box Set - Books 7-9

Chapter 37

37

‘Gay?’ Steve Wing asked, his voice showing signs of both shock and disgust in almost equal measure.

‘Apparently so,’ Culverhouse replied, perched on the edge of a desk. ‘He doesn’t know who sent the messages, but that’s what they’re referring to.’

‘I still don’t get what that’s got to do with the Trenton-Lowe thing, or with Freddie Galloway’s death, though,’ Ryan said, as she cleaned her glasses.

‘Well I don’t think we’re likely to get a confession from the lad in writing unless it involves immunity from prosecution, but between you and me and every other fucker who’s listening, Tyrone Golds was one of the people involved with the Trenton-Lowe job. And he’s a boxer.’

‘Bruno!’ Steve Wing yelled out.

‘Got it in one. So another suspect for Operation Mandible, right? Wrong. He’s got an alibi, and somehow I doubt very much that he’s lying about it. He was with a rent boy he uses regularly. Guy by the name of Lenny Harvey.’

‘I still don’t get it, though,’ Frank Vine said. ‘Why would he tell you all that? We didn’t know he was one of the Trenton-Lowe boys. No-one’s worked that out in the last eleven years, so why turn up out of the blue and tell us, just to point out he’s got an alibi? He would never have been a suspect.’

‘Because he thinks he was being blackmailed,’ Wendy said. ‘He thinks whoever did kill Freddie Galloway is someone he knows. Someone involved with the gang somewhere along the line. And this guy is making sure Tyrone keeps his mouth shut.’

‘But Tyrone doesn’t know who it is. So what good’s that going to do? All it’s done is get us involved, which is the last thing he’d want, surely?’

‘You’d think so,’ Culverhouse said. ‘But I’ve got a feeling it’s a lot more complicated than that. Let’s break it down. Let’s assume for argument’s sake it’s John Lucas who started the fire. Let’s pretend for a moment he actually is f*****g stupid enough to leave his boots and accelerant in his own bloody garage. Why would he then go to the effort of setting up some elaborate blackmail scheme against Tyrone Golds? So what if Tyrone suspected him? It’s not Tyrone’s suspicions he had to be worried about with that amount of evidence knocking around in his house. It doesn’t make sense to me that he’d focus his efforts there. If it was John Lucas, there was no planning or forethought whatsoever. It’d be a half-bottle of scotch and a spark of fury at best.’

‘What if it was Tyrone?’ Ryan asked. ‘What if he set John Lucas up to look like the killer, and set up this whole blackmail thing to strengthen his case?’

‘Like I said, he would never have been a suspect. He didn’t need to put his head above the parapet. It would’ve been pointless,’ Culverhouse said.

‘Not pointless at all, sir. Look at your response there. That’s exactly what I mean. What if it was the ultimate double bluff? After all, why the hell would we suspect him if he’d come to us with that? It’d just strengthen suspicion against John Lucas or the others.’

‘I dunno. He’s got too much to lose by coming out with that. I don’t imagine admitting to being gay on that estate is a particularly great idea.’

‘Homophobia comes in all shapes and sizes,’ Ryan said. ‘Trust me.’

‘Tyrone had no motive for wanting Galloway dead, either. He and Galloway both got off scot free. It was the other two who went down. He’s least likely to have a motive out of the lot of them. So let’s say for argument’s sake it’s our other suspect, Benjamin Newell. He’s got form for reacting violently when he hears something he doesn’t like. And we now know that Tyrone Golds got in contact with Newell on the night of his wedding, the day after Freddie Galloway’s house was burnt down. They arranged to meet at the foot of Mildenheath Common. And before you ask why he’d admit that if it was innocent,’ Culverhouse said, looking at Ryan, ‘he didn’t have much choice. We had his phone records.’

‘What was said at the meeting?’ Steve asked.

‘Well, we’ve only got Tyrone’s word for that at the moment. But he says he was sounding Newell out. Trying to see how he reacted when the subject was brought up. Tyrone’s instinct was that Newell was hiding something. It might just be that he was shocked by the news, or that his mind was on what’d just happened at his wedding reception. But either way, Tyrone suspects Newell.’

‘He’s got an alibi, though,’ Wendy said. ‘He was in a pub in town the night before, celebrating his last night of freedom. Then he went back to his best man’s house, where he stayed the night. His phone’s cell trace seems to back that up, but of course there’s no guarantee he took his phone with him. If he went, that is.’

‘Well someone bloody went,’ Culverhouse barked. ‘And that means someone’s lying to us, if not more than one person.’

‘What, you reckon they’re all in on it?’ Frank asked.

‘Wouldn’t surprise me. But they’re either dumb f***s bringing Tyrone into the mix or they’re playing an absolute f*****g blinder, running rings around us. Either way, we’ve got to probe a lot deeper and a lot harder, and not in the way that’d give Tyrone Golds a b***r. No offence,’ he added, looking at Ryan.

‘What about charging John Lucas?’ Wendy said. ‘That’d give us a lot more time to interview him under caution, and we’d be able to investigate a lot further.’

‘Dependant on the CPS. Might be worth putting in for a charge, see what they say.’

‘And in the meantime?’

Culverhouse sighed. ‘In the meantime, we need to rip up everything we know — or thought we knew — and chuck it in the bin. We need to go straight back to square one.’