Bunburry--A Murderous Ride Read online

  But time passed with no intervention. He thought Emma might bring him a cup of tea – wasn’t that standard in police stations? – but he was left alone. Without a watch or phone, he couldn’t tell how exactly long he had been in the cell, but he knew it was a number of hours. Was this designed to intimidate him, to break him down?

  With sudden clarity, he remembered a passage he had come across during his psychology studies, that the police could hold you for up to twenty-four hours before they had to charge you or let you go, and that for serious crimes, this could be increased to ninety-six hours. Four days. He could be in this stinking cell for four days. He tried to cling to the certainty that he was innocent, and had done nothing wrong, but he kept remembering notorious miscarriages of justice where other innocent men had served years in jail.

  Eventually the door opened, and there was Sergeant Wilson, abruptly informing him that he would now be fingerprinted and have a DNA sample taken, and that both procedures could be carried out without his permission.

  The interview room was scarcely more prepossessing than the cell. Sergeant Wilson’s bulk seemed suddenly intimidating. The sergeant gave a brief preamble for the benefit of the digital recording and almost as soon as he had finished, Alfie came in with what had been preoccupying him most.

  “My fingerprints,” he said. “I tried to help – the hydraulic lift – my fingerprints will be all over the mechanism.”

  “So, you’re admitting operating the hydraulic lift which killed Mr Melnikov?” said Sergeant Wilson.

  “I’m not admitting anything, I’m just trying to explain,” said Alfie.

  But Sergeant Wilson’s line of questioning became increasingly alarming. “The hydraulic lift’s collapse was no accident,” he announced. “Its safety locks were tampered with, and the Jaguar – your car, I believe – is being impounded as the murder weapon.”

  “He told me to come in today to check how the work on the car was coming on,” said Alfie. “David Savile can confirm that.”

  “Got your witnesses lined up already? Very organised.”

  “I’m just trying to prove I didn’t go there to murder him, I went there to find out about my car.”

  “Which you knew he would be working on.”

  “I didn’t know that – I thought he might have finished.”

  “So, let’s go over it again, shall we? You went in and found he had sustained fatal injuries.”

  “Yes – no – I didn’t realise to begin with – I told you, I spoke to him, but I thought he just couldn’t hear me over the radio.”

  “He’d been crushed under a car and you didn’t notice?”

  “Not to begin with – there was a mug on the floor – that was what caught my attention, not him – it was an Oxford United mug …” Alfie tailed off in the face of the sergeant’s obvious disbelief.

  “And then you say you went into the office area. Did you touch anything?”

  “No, I – yes, yes, I did.”

  “You don’t seem at all sure of your answers. Which is it? Yes or no?”

  “I knocked over some papers accidentally, and picked them up.”

  “So, you knocked over the papers accidentally, and Mr Melnikov got crushed accidentally?”

  Alfie’s mouth was dry. “I had nothing to do with Mr Melnikov’s death. But I think it was an accident.”

  “Still sticking with that, even when I’ve told you it wasn’t? I wonder what these papers were that have your fingerprints on them. You’re a businessman – I’m guessing you and Mr Melnikov had a deal that went wrong.”

  Alfie struggled to keep his voice calm. “I only met Mr Melnikov once previously. I had no business dealings with him beyond asking him to look at my aunt’s car.”

  He hadn’t even looked at the papers he had scattered. What if they contained something damning? Those hours he had been abandoned in the cell, had the sergeant been checking them over, finding evidence against him?

  “Why did you decide to ring Constable Hollis on her personal phone rather than dialling 999?” Sergeant Wilson asked.

  “I didn’t think there was any point in dialling 999 – Mike was beyond help. Emma – Constable Hollis – seemed to be the nearest police officer.”

  “And ringing a private number rather than 999 means that the call wasn’t recorded. We don’t know exactly what you said or how you said it. That’s very convenient for you.”

  “But surely Constable Hollis can tell you all about the call?”

  “With her injury, she was scarcely in a position to take a contemporaneous note while answering the phone. We only have her recollection. I believe you’re also particularly friendly with Betty Thorndike.”

  Was Wilson suggesting that he was particularly friendly with Emma, and that she could therefore have made up what he had said? And what was the point of mentioning Betty?

  “I know both these people. I wouldn’t say I was particularly friendly with either of them.” Alfie tried to keep his tone even.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “You attend Green Party meetings organised by Ms Thorndike.”

  “I do. I find them very interesting.”

  “Very interesting,” repeated Wilson as though he was pronouncing on what Alfie had just said. “Ms Thorndike is no great fan of the motor car.”

  “No,” said Alfie.

  “And I would think she would be particularly opposed to the sort of vehicles that Mr Melnikov specialised in. Gas-guzzlers, she would probably call them. And her supporters, the sort of people who find her meetings very interesting, might well take a similar view. And by coincidence the murder weapon was a car you inherited from your aunt.”

  Alfie had had enough. “You’re not seriously suggesting that Betty or I murdered Mike because we objected to him working on luxury cars?” he burst out.

  “Got a bit of a temper, have we?” Sergeant Wilson sat back with a look of satisfaction. “That could be unfortunate. And of course Mr Melnikov had something of a reputation with the ladies. Perhaps you thought he was getting a little too friendly with Ms Thorndike. Or with Constable Hollis. And you didn’t like that. He’s just the type the ladies go for, isn’t he? Young, good-looking, bit of rough. They wouldn’t look twice at you when he was around, would they?”

  Alfie felt a trickle of sweat between his shoulder blades. His shoe prints, his fingerprints were all over the murder scene. And the sergeant seemed determined to build up a case against him.

  “I can assure you,” he said, fighting to stop his voice rising, “I’m not romantically involved with either Ms Thorndike or Constable Hollis. As I’ve said before, I had no reason to kill Mike Melnikov, and I didn’t.”

  The questioning continued, relevant questions, irrelevant questions, and with every answer he gave, Alfie worried that he was saying either too much or too little. He should have insisted on a lawyer – even the least-experienced duty solicitor would have stopped him falling into some of Sergeant Wilson’s elephant traps.

  Eventually the questioning ended.

  “Am I being charged?” asked Alfie wearily.

  “Not at this stage,” said Sergeant Wilson with a heavy emphasis on this. “You’re free to go but don’t think of leaving the area.”

  All the evidence against him was circumstantial – but it could still be presented in court. If he wanted to avoid being charged and prosecuted, there was only one way out – and that was to find the murderer himself.

  6. The Mysterious Stranger

  “But why would anybody want to murder him?” cried Marge. “He was a lovely boy. And how on earth could anybody suspect you?”

  “You’ll have to ask Sergeant Wilson the second question,” said Alfie grimly. “As to the first, the most likely explanation is something to do with his business. But what, I just don’t know.”

 
“The whole thing is completely ridiculous. Sending me to Windermere Cottage to find you a pair of shoes!”

  “I know – I’m really sorry to have put you to all that trouble.”

  “Heavens, Alfie, I’m not blaming you for a second. I was perfectly happy to do it. I just think it’s absurd that Sergeant Wilson took your other ones.”

  “I’ve discovered that the technical expression is ‘bagged and tagged’,” said Alfie. He had been assured that the shoes, his favourite Italian ones, would be returned to him in due course, but he knew he could never wear them again.

  There was the sound of the front door of Jasmine Cottage opening and closing, and Liz burst into the sitting room.

  “Alfie!” she said breathlessly. “I’ve just had an extraordinary conversation with old Tom Lindsay – I think we may have found the murderer.”

  “Who?” asked Alfie and Marge simultaneously.

  “Let me sit down first.” Liz sank into an armchair. “We don’t exactly know. But Alfie, you think Mike was murdered shortly before you arrived at the garage yesterday afternoon?”

  The blood had been fresh and still flowing. “Yes,” said Alfie.

  “Well, yesterday morning a foreigner who Tom thinks was Russian was trying to find Mike.”

  Marge perched on the edge of her rocking chair. “What was this person like?”

  “Tom said he was a big bruiser of a man, wearing a track suit that had seen better days, but he was driving a top-of-the-range Ferrari – a red one. His English was practically non-existent, but he showed Tom a picture of Mike. And he kept repeating ‘cushion Mahalia’. Tom is adamant that that’s what he said. But I can’t make out what it might mean. Mahalia Jackson was an American gospel singer, wasn’t she? But why would you have to cushion her, and from what?”

  “It must be code,” said Marge.

  “Not necessarily, dear,” said Liz. “It’s not exactly ‘the flowers are blooming in Moscow’. And it’s not much of a code if the other person doesn’t know what it means. But what we know is that this man, who was wearing tatty old clothes but driving a luxury car, was looking for Mike just a few hours before he was killed.”

  “Did Tom tell him where Mike was?”

  “Since they couldn’t understand one another, he was reduced to doing a lot of pointing and gesturing, but he thought the man understood that Mike had a garage outside Bunburry.”

  “He must feel terrible, knowing he gave Mike’s whereabouts to a murderer,” said Marge.

  Alfie wasn’t so sure. This was all circumstantial evidence as well. But the Russian might be able to provide vital clues, if only Alfie could find him.

  “Perhaps we should tell the police,” he suggested.

  “Already done,” said Liz. “I took Tom straight to the police station, where he was going to make a statement.”

  The phone rang, and Liz answered. “Emma, dear … yes, of course … really, he does? … goodness, that sounds a bit – yes, of course, if it keeps Alfie out jail … but if he was a professional, wouldn’t he wear gloves? And then it would only be Alfie’s prints … My dear, when you reach my age, you’ve seen enough miscarriages of justice to know that telling the truth is no protection.”

  Alfie winced at this duplication of his own thoughts.

  “Of course, dear,” Liz concluded. “See you soon. Bye.”

  She hung up and turned to them with an air of triumph. “Sergeant Wilson has decided that our mysterious Russian is another suspect.”

  Alfie would have preferred it if she had said “is the suspect.” The one-sided conversation had made it sound as though his days as a free man were numbered. But he could hope the new suspect was a likelier candidate than he was.

  “He thinks Mike could have been mixed up with the Russian mafia,” Liz went on.

  “Of course, the Russian mafia,” said Alfie heavily. “Their Bunburry operation. Why didn’t I think of that?” This new suspect couldn’t be taken seriously for a moment, leaving Alfie in as dangerous a place as ever.

  “But it’s possible,” said Marge, leaning forward on her rocking chair. “Alfie, you said Mike’s garage was so much better than Richard’s, but he was only Richard’s apprentice. How would he get the money for it? You hear these stories about Russian gangs. There must be a lot of money in those old cars. They could have set Mike up, and then he siphoned off more of the takings than he was entitled to, and that was his death sentence.”

  Alfie was going to politely dismiss this as xenophobic fantasy when it struck him that Marge was absolutely right: how could a lowly apprentice afford such a well-equipped garage? Someone else must have been footing the bill.

  He thought of a way of trying to find out more and then immediately rejected it. He couldn’t disturb Mike’s mother. In any case, Mike had never given him her address or number and he didn’t know where she lived. Instead, he could ask a few questions at Bunburry Motors.

  The hire car was still where he had parked it at Mike’s garage. He decided to take a taxi to the garage, retrieve the car, drive it to Bunburry Motors and jettison it once and for all. He could surely manage one last drive if he knew he need never drive again. Marge and Liz must have plenty of other friends who could give them lifts if they needed them.

  The taxi driver had one topic of conversation: Mike’s murder. But fortunately Sergeant Wilson seemed to be playing his cards close to his chest, and Alfie hadn’t been publicly identified as suspect number one.

  “Terrible business, the lad hadn’t even been running the garage for that long,” said the taxi driver. “It’s not the sort of thing you expect to happen round here. Mind you, you know he was Russian?”

  “His parents were Russian, but he was born in England,” Alfie felt compelled to clarify.

  “And it was a Russian mafia hit,” the taxi driver went on. Some information had apparently drifted out from the police station. “He was selling smuggled cars, with the boots full of cocaine and heroin, and they shut him up because he knew too much.”

  “Sorry, how do you know this?”

  “Ask anybody,” said the driver confidently. “It’s what everybody’s saying. Dreadful. That’s what comes of all these immigrants being allowed in.”

  “He wasn’t an immigrant. He was born here,” Alfie repeated, more forcefully.

  “Yes, but if his parents hadn’t been allowed in, he wouldn’t have been born here, would he?” said the taxi driver as though that settled the matter. He pulled up outside the garage, which was now protected by police tape. “That’s twenty quid, please.”

  Alfie was normally a generous tipper, but this time he paid the fare and no more.

  He was glad the taxi driver left immediately and wasn’t there to see him falter as he passed the garage doors on the way to the car. He tried to blank out the memory of what he had seen, but that only made him focus on it more.

  It took him two attempts to put the key into the ignition. Only a short drive, he told himself, and then that’s it. But he still shied away from other vehicles as though they were incoming missiles. He crawled through Bunburry and barely accelerated when he reached the edge of the village and an end to speeding restrictions, praying that Sergeant Wilson wasn’t back on patrol.

  When he got to Bunburry Motors, he could see Marge’s car, apparently untouched, among several others on the forecourt. Beth was standing round the side of the garage, smoke from a cigarette curling up between her fingers.

  “Hello,” he called as he got out of the car, and she quickly rubbed her free hand across her eyes. When he got closer, he could see from her reddened eyes and the residual dampness on her cheeks that she had been crying.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked and then cursed himself for asking such a fatuous question. If everything was all right, she wouldn’t be crying.

  She flashed him a fake bright smile. “Fine,
” she said. “Bit of smoke in my eyes. Good thing too – it might encourage me to give up at last.” She nodded towards Marge’s car. “Sorry, we’ve had loads on and I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. Hopefully tomorrow.”

  “No problem,” said Alfie. “I’ve just come to return the hire car.”

  “Okay.” She took another drag on the cigarette and walked over to the car, checking it out with a critical eye. “Any problems with it, any damage?”

  Only to my mental wellbeing, thought Alfie. “No,” he said.

  “There isn’t any refund for returning it early.”

  Alfie was surprised. She seemed very different from the last time he had met her, on edge and almost surly.

  “I didn’t expect there would be,” he said politely. He didn’t want to do anything to antagonise her when she might be able to help in his quest for who had killed her former apprentice.

  “I was really shocked to hear about Mike,” he said. “It must have been particularly upsetting for both of you, knowing him so well.”

  She stared at him. “He had moved on. I wouldn’t say we knew him that well,” she said.

  “But do you know if he was in any sort of trouble?” Alfie persisted.

  This time the drag on the cigarette was longer. “What do you mean?”

  “Anything – business difficulties, cashflow problems.”

  “I don’t quite see what that’s got to do with you.” Her tone was distinctly hostile.

  Like the taxi driver, she remained blissfully unaware that Alfie might be charged at any moment with Mike’s murder, and he didn’t want to explain that he was looking for any information that could help clear his name.

  “There seems to have been a Russian in Bunburry who was looking for him and I wondered if it had anything to do with the garage.”

  He could see this was also news to her, and it seemed to be disturbing news. “The garage was doing very well, and there were no financial problems,” she said. “As far as I know.”

  “Have you any idea how he managed to finance the garage?”