Written In Blood

23-1

23

Zack parked his Land Rover as close to the entrance of the police station as he could and got out. He winced the moment his right foot touched the ground, the painkillers he had taken when he got up – twice the recommended dose – were not doing a good enough job of blocking out the pain from his various injuries; the ankle he had twisted, while not the most serious injury, was making the most ‘noise’, which didn’t surprise him because he couldn’t rest it, so it was constantly being aggravated.

Slowly and painfully, he limped around to the front of the building, and then up the steps to the entrance. Once inside he crossed to the counter, where he had to wait almost a minute for anyone to appear to deal with him.

“Is Sergeant Mitchell in?” he asked when a constable finally arrived.

“I’ll see if he’ll see you,” Constable Pritchard said, without offering any of the pleasantries he might have normally when someone entered the station.

“Thanks.” Zack noted the coldness from the constable, but paid it no mind, he had other things to worry about. While he waited for the constable to return, he leaned on the counter to take some of the weight off his ankle, and reduce the throbbing that made him want to scream.

“What can I do for you, Mr Wild?” Mitchell asked when he reached the counter. He could not bring himself to be any more civil than that given his suspicions.

“I’m here to make a statement about the attempt on my life,” Zack said, ignoring the barely concealed hostility, just as he had ignored that from the constable.

Mitchell looked confused for a second, but then his expression cleared. “You mean the assault on you by Georgina Ryder’s cousin. Constable Black told me about it this morning.”

“No, sergeant, I mean the attempt on my life,” Zack said. “He didn’t introduce himself, so I’ll take your word for it that he’s Georgina Ryder’s cousin, but the guy who did this – he held up his bandaged arm – made it very clear why he was at my house.”

Mitchell looked as though he wanted to debate or dispute that, but then he gave a little shake of his head and said, “You’d best come through so you can tell me what happened.” He opened the security door and led Zack along the passage to the interview room, where he had spent so much of the previous evening. “If you’d like to wait in here, I’ll be with you shortly.”

“Do you think I could get a coffee?” Zack asked. He was not surprised when the sergeant looked less than willing.

Mitchell wanted to tell Wild where to go; the last thing he wanted to do was give him what he wanted, even when it was something as simple as a drink, he certainly did not want to listen to him give a statement about the assault that had taken place. After meeting Wild’s solicitor, though, he realised that refusing, either to take the statement or to provide a drink, would only give her ammunition to use against him. Reluctantly, he nodded before closing the interview room door on the man he did not want to deal with.

“Mel,” he caught the attention of the young constable, who was working in the small office she shared with the other constables. “Mr Wild is waiting in the interview room to give a statement about Oliver’s attack, he’d like a drink before we get started, would you see to it?”

“Sure.” Melissa jumped to her feet, happy to take a break from what she had been doing – like yesterday, she was researching Zack Wild to discover everything there was to know about him. Ordinarily, she would have been happy to have an excuse to satisfy her curiosity, but not then; she knew she had been given the job because Mitchell was hoping she would learn something that would help to prove Wild was guilty of the murders that had taken place, and she was uncomfortable with that. She had been hoping a good night’s sleep would make Mitchell more reasonable, and more willing to consider the other possible suspects, but that was not the case.

“Morning,” Melissa said as brightly as she could when she reached the interview room. “Sergeant Mitchell said you’d like a coffee, how d’you take it?”

“Right now I just want it strong and sweet,” Zack told her. “I need all the energy I can get.” He barely managed to finish speaking before he was overcome by a yawn so massive it made his mouth resemble the entrance to an underground cavern.

“I can see why; you look about as tired as I feel. I’ll be right back.”

Zack could hardly deny that he was tired – he had gotten less than two hours sleep before being woken by the intrusion that led to his injuries, and after the fight he’d had to be rushed to the hospital so his arm could be stitched up. He was only able to get a couple of hours’ rest, after returning from hospital, before Isobel was forced to get up and head home so she could take care of her dog.

“Right, Mr Wild, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do with your time, and I know I do, so let’s get this statement dealt with. Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me what happened.” Mitchell turned on the recorder in the corner of the room and took out a pad and pen.

Zack was about to start speaking when the door to the interview room opened; both he and Sergeant Mitchell turned towards the door, startled by the interruption, and saw Melissa creep into the room.

“Sorry,” Melissa apologised when she saw that both men were looking at her. “I just thought Mr Wild would like a few biscuits with his coffee.” She laid a pack of digestives on the table, set a mug of coffee in front of Mitchell, and then joined her superior on his side of the table, putting her own mug of coffee down as she took a seat next to him. She had no sooner sat than she reached out to open the biscuits and grab a couple to dunk in her coffee.

Mitchell scowled at Melissa but said nothing. “Now that we all appear to be settled, perhaps we can get started; as I said, we all have other things we need to do.” Mitchell didn’t look at Melissa as he said that, but out the corner of his eye he saw her redden, and knew she was aware the comment had been directed at her.

Zack nodded. “Okay, well, after I got home from being interviewed by you yesterday evening, I had a drink and went to bed, with my solicitor in the spare room – it was too late for her to head home,” he said, getting straight into his story since he didn’t want to take any longer about it than necessary. “I’d been asleep for a couple of hours maybe, I’m not sure how long exactly, when something woke me up. I wasn’t sure what it was to begin with, but then I heard noises from downstairs, so I got up to check it out; I grabbed the torch I keep on my bedside cabinet on my way out of the room.”

“I take it that’s the torch Constable Black logged as evidence,” Mitchell said. When he received a nod, he went on. “That’s not the usual kind of torch a person has around the house, where did you get it?”

“I got it when I was on the force, but I believe you can buy one like it in most hardware or camping shops. Does it matter?” Zack asked.

“I guess not,” Mitchell said unhappily. “But in the future you might want to be more careful about carrying something that could be considered an offensive weapon, which your torch clearly can be, given the amount of damage you did to Oliver Ryder.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Zack said blandly. “Under the circumstances, though, I’m glad I had the torch to protect myself with. If I hadn’t, it’s entirely possible I wouldn’t be around to talk to you now.”

‘More’s the pity,’ thought Mitchell, though he fervently hoped neither the constable at his side nor the man across from him could tell what he was thinking.

Zack got on with relating the previous night’s events then. “When I realised that someone had broken in, I crept downstairs to try and find out what was going on, that’s when I heard Oliver Ryder, at least that’s who I assume it was. He was telling his friends, who were stumbling around drunkenly, breaking whatever they didn’t plan on stealing, that he was there to kill me, and that they should follow him upstairs to help him do that. I headed back upstairs after that and told Isobel to lock herself in my bedroom, and to call the police while I waited to see what was going to happen.”

“Why didn’t you lock yourself in the bedroom with your friend?”

“Because I figured it would take whoever answered the call to the police station a while to get to my place, and I didn’t fancy getting trapped in my bedroom by three guys who were planning on killing me,” Zack answered. “I figured my chances were better if I didn’t trap myself, and instead surprised them when they got to the top of the stairs. I figured Isobel would be safer if I did that as well. If Oliver and his friends had come after me in my bedroom, there was every chance Isobel would have gotten hurt as well as me, and I didn’t want that.” He finished the story quickly after that, ending with a brief description of the injuries he had received at the hands of Oliver Ryder – though serious, they were far from the fatal wounds intended by the teen, for which he was duly thankful. “Given the situation, with Mr Ryder being given the impression that I am responsible for the murders of both his cousin and his girlfriend, I wouldn’t normally insist on him being charged – just about anyone would react the way he did to the murder of someone they love. That said, I wasn’t alone last night, and as drunk as they were, I don’t think either Oliver or his friends would have noticed that they had the wrong person if they had come across Isobel before me.

“Charging him is unlikely to change his mind about what he wants to do to me, only you finding the person who really killed those girls will do that, but at least it’ll keep him from putting anyone who happens to be with me in danger.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Mitchell said, “Oliver’s friends will be out of hospital later today, they only suffered minor injuries during their tumble down the stairs, but Oliver’s going to be in hospital for a while - you fractured his skull. He’s in a coma, and the doctor is unable to say when he might wake up. I hate to say this, Mr Wild – that was about as far from the truth as it was possible for him to get – but I am going to have to speak to my superior, and to the Crown Prosecution Service, so a decision can be made about whether you should be charged with ABH.”

“I guess I’ll have to hope that the CPS sees sense then, won’t I,” Zack said. “I’m sure they will, once Isobel speaks to them, after all, it was self-defence.” He was reasonably confident the CPS would make the right decision, but he had known them to make some very strange ones. “Is there anything else you need from me?” he asked. “Only I’m supposed to be meeting a friend in town for lunch, and I’d hate to be late.”

**