DEATHLOOP Read online

  Brian and Josiah gazed at Zack levelly and he knew they didn’t believe him.

  “She had no clothes on you say…”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Ask her.”

  “Did you take her clothes off?”

  “I was asleep,” said Zack, stifling irritation, “I didn’t even know she was there.”

  “So how did she get in?”

  “With keys I imagine.”

  “Your keys?” asked Brian, incredulous.

  “Well obviously, I must have given her a set at some point, I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember handing out a set of keys?” asked Brian, as though this was a hanging offence, “not very security conscious, are we?”

  Why were policemen always so damned predictable thought Zack. You can spot them and their narrow minded obsessions on a neighbouring galaxy.

  “So what happened then?”

  “When?”

  “You woke up and found Susan Wilmot in bed with you, so what did you do then?” said Brian, annoyed at having to repeat himself.

  “We talked and I fell asleep, that’s it, I told you.”

  “You’ve got scratches on your arms, can you explain them?”

  “What scratches?”

  Zack glanced down to his arms, two angry red streaks ran up them. “I don’t know,” said Zack, bewildered.

  “Did you have sex with Susan Wilmot early this morning, Mr Fortune?”

  “No.”

  “How about last night?” said Brian, reasonably, as though this was another valid possibility.

  “I was out last night.”

  “Oh yes, where?”

  Hell, thought Zack. He couldn’t involve Sid in this, no way would he play ball with the law or even give a statement.

  “Just here and there,” said Zack, evasively.

  “And where is that exactly?” said Brian, “where is here and there?”

  “A pub in Westbourne Park, I just dropped in for a game of pool.”

  “And would your pool partner be able to confirm that?”

  “I don’t know the guy,” said Zack, aware that he had dug himself into a hole and was still digging.

  “Ah, I see. A man in a pub, is that it?” said Brian as though he might just have heard this somewhere before.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  In unison Brian and Josiah seemed to sag, a sense of disappointment shared between them that the suspect could not come up with anything more original than this.

  “So you got home at what time?”

  “Twelve… one, maybe, I was tired by then, I needed to sleep.”

  “And so you went to bed?”

  “Yes,” said Zack, pleased to have got away from Sid for a moment at least.

  “Did you ask Susan to come to your flat?”

  “No, I just told you. I finished with Susan on Wednesday. I told her I didn’t want to see her again. She found it difficult to accept my decision and she came round to change my mind.” Brian looked at him and he knew he still did not believe him. “She’s been trying to get into contact with me since, my phone is jammed full of messages, texts. You can check it if you like.”

  “Thank you we will,” said Brian, “and you sent Susan no similar messages?”

  “No, of course not,” said Zack.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Well that’s very strange,” said Brian, “because at 11.30 last night Susan Wilmot received a text message from your mobile phone which reads, “Susan, I have to see you, Zack.”

  Tracy’s eyes flickered, but very briefly. She continued writing, curious now as to how Zack would answer this.

  “That can’t have happened,” said Zack.

  Brian waited, allowing a few moments to tick by before making his reply. “We don’t get that kind of thing wrong, Mr Fortune, I’m sure you are aware of that.”

  Zack was sweating now, the after effects of the pills were kicking in. Sid was right when he said they were poison, he felt sick, clammy, and his throat was dry, like he’d just swallowed concrete. He regretted now not listening to Tracy, it was conceit. Tracy had given him the correct advice and he had ignored it because he thought he knew better. Well on this occasion he did not know better, and it was clear that everyone else in the room had just come to the same conclusion.

  Brian was delighted to see how uncomfortable the suspect had become. It was obvious that this Fortune guy had led a charmed life, he was very handsome, wealthy, educated, a spoilt child no doubt, the apple of his mother’s eye. Clearly he thought he was above all this, speaking to them with contempt, arrogant enough to think that he could beat the rap no matter how much evidence was stacked against him. But like many before him he would see that the justice system is a great leveller, watch how the mighty fall! A lawyer too and all lawyers were iffy in Brian’s book. During his long and what he liked to think of as an illustrious career in the police service, Brian had come across more bent lawyers than you could shake a stick at. They were an abomination as far as he was concerned.

  Secretly, Brian had always been extremely embarrassed by his own background, brought up in abject poverty by a woman so stressed by life and her four children, that at the age of 23 she stopped smiling and to his knowledge, never smiled again. Brian had always resented their threadbare existence and this resentment intensified when he began working as an errand boy for the local grocer, standing on steps, peeking round doors, glimpsing other people’s lives that seemed well-nigh idyllic compared with his own. Keen to escape the drudgery of his life in south London, Brian had applied to join the army but an injury to his hip had precluded that, so he ended up a simple copper, second best again, (another compromise), despite enjoying a measure of respect the job afforded him.

  Brian knew he should pat himself on the back, after all, he owned his own home and his own car, had brought up two boys, albeit in a loveless marriage that he was glad to be rid of, but he still felt life had dealt him a lousy hand. It had made him sour this life that he had endured, and in many ways all these years later he still felt like that kid on the step, always looking in from the outside at exciting worlds he knew he would never be part of.

  He didn’t see much of the boys these days, they had sided with their mother since the divorce and gone to ground. They had children of their own now apparently although he had never seen them. He would have liked to have seen them, but he was never very good with all that so maybe that’s why his sons kept them away. The loneliness that still dogged him was nothing new, Brian had been lonely all his life. He had his interests, his allotment, the darts team, the British Legion, but he dreaded retirement, what on earth would he do to fill his days?

  Brian was well aware of his reputation amongst his peers: a throwback to the days of the ‘us and them’ mentality, a member of the non-pc brigade who refused point blank to embrace the new directives that rained down on their heads daily, urging a more compassionate and socially inclusive police force. Brian resolutely refused to pay lip service to it all. He had never once come out and said it was a load of old cobblers but he had no need to, one look at the man told you that he was old school and that nothing would persuade him otherwise. But no one else put in the hours that Brian did, or worked with such attention to detail, so for all his archaic nitpicking, he was the copper that got results, he was the one others reluctantly turned to when their sloppy investigations hit the skids.

  But his modus operandi won him no accolades and it certainly won him no friends. In the nineties when so many of his contemporaries succumbed to bribes and the promise of untold riches to turn a blind eye, to ‘lose’ evidence and to incriminate the innocent, it was Brian’s dogged pursuit of these corrupt characters that put a string of them behind bars. Brian knew that in certain quarters he was secretly resented because of this even now, he’d turned against his own after all, but to Brian, right and wrong was
set in stone, to Brian right and wrong was sacrosanct.

  Zack needed some fresh air and a packet of Marlboro. He’d given up a year ago but he could feel that longing return with a vengeance. He didn’t want to ask for cigarettes here though amongst the enemy, it would make him look weak - wanting something always did. He said he didn’t feel too good and so the interview was terminated. Zack noted that Detective Brian Smith had suddenly started to look smug, as though he would have all this in the bag by lunch time.

  Zack was angry with himself at getting so flustered and not beating this finicky little bastard at his own game, but clearly Susan had done a good job. After all, there was no telling what she had come up with. Zack had wanted to say, ‘look at me, mate, do I look like a guy who has trouble with that kind of thing?’ but he couldn’t of course he couldn’t. It would not have gone down too well with Ms Tracy Bright, either. Also, Zack had been told by Clarissa not that long ago that rape had nothing to do with sex really, and everything to do with control.

  Zack was led out into a small yard at the back of the police station, there was a bench there that he sat on. There was no escape from this yard with its high walls, so why a young policeman stood across from him he could not fathom. Tracy and Zack had managed to share a few words before she said that she had to shoot off somewhere, but she would be back, and not to let them start without her. He decided that he would revert to the coward’s way next and say “no comment” until he could look at all the evidence in his own time. He would get bail, he knew that - that was a given. Allegations of rape are notoriously difficult to prove, and he took some comfort in that. Tracy told Zack that the pills would take some time to be analysed so at least a drugs charge was on hold for the time being.

  Zack was desperate to see Sam. On the phone, he had asked him to bring a packet of fags, and despite Sam managing to register his disapproval in the few seconds of silence that followed the request, with a bit of luck, considering the circumstances, Zack was hoping that Sam might just turn up trumps.

  Two hours later Brian Smith and Josiah Cornfield presided over another brief interview and everyone knew what would happen. Zack said “no comment” in response to every question, and after ten minutes or so Brian Smith became so irritated that he called a halt to the proceedings. Zack was granted bail, but his passport was confiscated as was his mobile phone, but he would at least now have time to consider Susan’s allegation at his leisure. He could barely remember their encounter and that was a serious problem. He was only guessing when he’d said he got back at twelve, it could have been earlier, in fact it had to be earlier, because the only way a message had gone from his phone to Susan’s was if she had sent the message herself.

  As Zack started down a cheerless corridor he could see Sam looking anxious in the reception area, perched on the edge of an old plastic chair. This was nothing new for Sam, he always looked anxious these days, but Zack knew Sam’s varying degrees of anxiety and this was business class. Sam saw Zack heading towards him and stood at his approach. He patted him awkwardly on the back, then set off through double glass doors and down steps to the street outside, both of them desperate to be free of the place and to be together again.

  “They wouldn’t let me see you, I tried, mate, I’ve been here for hours,” said Sam, passing Zack a pack of Marlboro and a cheap, see through lighter. Zack snatched at the neat little bundle and attacked it, frantic to get a bolt of nicotine into his lungs.

  “I thought you were through with those things,” said Sam, trying hard not to sound too judgemental.

  “Yeah, so did I,” said Zack, inhaling deeply and giddy now from the rush.

  Sam led Zack to Clarissa’s Karmann Ghia, parked up over the street. Zack hated the thing. It was noisy and so low to the ground it felt like a dragster, but he’d have been happy on a tandem this morning, anything to get him back home. They got inside and closed the doors behind them. Sam started the engine and the car pulled off.

  An emergency repair service had been called to provide Zack with a new front door, (at Zack’s expense), but they were still working on it, and Zack decided it was probably best to leave them to it, so Zack and Sam remained sitting in the Volkswagen outside. Zack had told Sam the basics on the short journey from the police station and Sam had listened intently to every word.

  “If you didn’t have sex with her you’re in the clear,” said Sam, “without samples, she’s sunk.”

  Zack didn’t look so sure. “You reckon?”

  “Rapists don’t wear condoms, mate, but how the hell did she get in?”

  “A gave her a set of keys I suppose.”

  “You suppose?”

  Zack shrugged.

  “And did they find this other set of keys, the cops.”

  “No, and they made a thing about that. Plus there was a text message sent from my phone to Susan’s at 11.30 last night, asking her to come over,” said Zack, who was clearly still bugged by this.

  “But you didn’t make it?”

  “Of course I didn’t, she must have made it from the flat once she got in, but to be honest… I thought I’d got home later than that.”

  Sam looked straight at him, his suspicions aroused now by Zack’s vagueness.

  “I was out of it. I’d been drinking, I’d smoked some lethal weed, a few downers… I can’t even remember getting back at all, but I told the cops that it was after twelve. Big mistake.”

  Yes and not the only mistake by the sounds of it, thought Sam. “And where did you get these pills exactly?” he said, knowing full well where Zack got them, knowing that the question was redundant.

  Zack was going to lie, but he decided against it, there was no point, not when Sam was on red alert like this.

  “Don’t tell me you were in Westbourne Grove?”

  Zack did his little boy shrug which Sam loathed. It had got him out of endless trouble in his life, but Sam knew Zack too well for it to work its magic with him, and he was furious. He had pulled out all the stops to get Zack back in Geoff’s good books after he had made a complete arse of himself with the Wahlbergs, he’d even wangled him two week’s leave. So what does Peter Pan do next? He goes gadding around west London with Bob Marley’s grandad.

  “You’ll end up on the scrap heap, mate, hanging out with him. How many times do I need to say this?”

  Zack found it amusing this idea of Sam’s that the whole of London was on the lookout for Zack Fortune to come a cropper, then trumpets would sound, the sea would part and the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would whisk him off to Hades and eternal torment. It was bollocks and both of them knew it but Sam like to pretend otherwise because it kept Zack under his thumb.

  “Yeah, well you’ve got a thing about Sid.”

  “No I haven’t,” said Sam indignantly, annoyed that Zack had actually voiced this when it had been an unspoken truth between them for years. “I can see through him, that’s all. He’s a leach, and you’re the deluded sop who pays his bar bills and forks out exorbitant amounts for his crappy contraband, the same junk he picks up for coppers on the street.”

  Actually, thought Zack, that was a pretty fair appraisal. Zack had often wondered what Sid really thought of him. In the same way that it boosted Zack’s bad boy image to hang out with Mr Dangerous, he wondered if it was just that Sid got off on the idea of skidding round West London in a Mercedes convertible with a flashy Cambridge educated lawyer by his side. Probably, thought Zack, probably it did.

  Initially Zack was not going to mention the pills, but somehow he felt Sam should know, so after a few awkward moments, he owned up. “They found my stash, Sam.”

  “What stash?”

  “The pills I got from Sid.”

  Sam turned to him alarmed. “Shit, how many?”

  “Forty, fifty, I’m not sure. They were a present, so we didn’t count them out,” said Zack pointedly, trying to improve Sid’s lowly standing in some small way.

  “Christ that is seriously bad news.”

&nb
sp; “I’ll have to say they were Susan’s”

  “Are you mad? You can’t do that.”

  “Why can’t I? No worse than what she’s done to me”.

  There was a tension between them now that neither welcomed but it hung there disappointing them both. Zack hated incurring Sam’s disapproval, but he knew Sam would forgive him, he knew that in the end Sam would forgive him just about anything. Sam told Zack to go back up to his flat and this time to keep a low profile. He stopped short of recommending bed again as Zack seemed capable of getting into trouble even when asleep.

  On his drive back home Sam sifted through the events of the last couple of days assessing the damage. With a bit of luck, Susan’s attempt to frame Zack would fail. To set up a completely fabricated scenario of this nature required an attention to detail that he felt Susan just did not possess.

  Sam refused to believe Zack was a rapist. Zack had been a heel to all his women over the years, but he wasn’t violent, Sam would stake his life on that. In fact, he had seen Zack get knocked around on numerous occasions by disgruntled girlfriends, Amber included, and he had never once raised a hand in anger or to defend himself. But there was another possibility, and that was that Zack was lying and that he and Susan did have sex, consensual sex, and his DNA was all over her.

  Sam was pissed off with Zack big time. Twelve hours out of his sight and he ends up in clink. While Zack could not be entirely blamed for Susan’s allegation, Sam had counselled against him getting involved with the woman in the first place. She was loopy and everyone knew she was loopy, but then Zack had a real weakness for loopy women. He had told Sam once that he just could not abide the mundane, the ploddingly reliable, so perhaps the attraction of his monstrous regiment was an attempt to keep mundane at bay.

  And as for Sid, well… Sam had always thought Zack naïve to assume Sid thought of him as anything other than a neophyte, and Sid adored neophytes because he could charge them what the hell he liked for his ropey old drugs. But he also knew that Zack was in thrall to Sid’s outlaw reputation, a reputation that Zack himself had enjoyed at one time, and something Sam knew he very much missed. While the majority of people would be more than satisfied with the lifestyle from which Zack benefited, it was never enough for Zack. It wasn’t exciting enough, it wasn’t challenging enough and it certainly wasn’t dangerous enough. The truth was Zack had a self-destruct button and Sam was beginning to get mighty weary of preventing him from pushing it.