. She killed it. ‘OK, let’s deal with the Richard Kavanagh charges first. Kevin with Rachel and Mitch in with Lee, hold their hands, walk them through the case, point out the crater-sized holes in their accounts and see if they have anything to add. Then charge them. Happy?’
They were.
Except it wasn’t that simple. Noel Perry, on being brought into the interview room with his lawyer, saw Lee and performed in true knuckle-dragging style. ‘I’m not talking to him.’
The solicitor tried to intervene but Noel wasn’t having it. ‘I’m not talking to some fucking ape in a suit.’
‘Mr Perry,’ Mitch said, ‘abusive language is not acceptable.’
‘So fucking sue me, I ain’t talking to any niggers.’
Gill was watching the unsavoury display, on playback. Lee and Mitch beside her.
‘You OK?’ Gill said.
Lee smiled. ‘Nothing I haven’t heard before. You want to put Pete in?’
‘No way! No lowlife tosser sits in my station and uses that sort of language against one of my officers then gets to call the shots. On the other hand you do not have to take that sort of abuse. Your shout. You go back in, if you’re happy to, and if he won’t play ball then move straight to charge.’ She had paused the video. It showed Noel Perry, eyes blazing, lips pulled back showing his teeth, the tendons in his neck taut like ropes. Every mother’s dream.
‘A pleasure,’ said Lee.
Neil Perry had a sneaky, sly look to him from the start. Cat got the cream. Even the way he sat was cocky, legs wide apart like his balls were the size of grapefruits whereas Rachel knew that steroids made them shrivel. His were probably pea-sized. Like his brain.
‘Mr Perry,’ Rachel said, ‘I want to talk to you some more about the death of Richard Kavanagh. Yesterday you told me you were in Langley on Wednesday evening but we have several eyewitnesses who saw you in Manorclough. Can you explain that to me?’
There was a light in his eyes, not intelligence, not even low cunning but some kind of twisted humour.
‘Must be seeing things. Tapped, probably mental.’ He gave a sickly grin. He’d not brushed his teeth and they were yellow, gummy around the edges.
‘You were also questioned about the presence of gunshot residue on your clothing. Residue which indicated you had fired a gun. How did that residue get on your clothes?’
‘No idea,’ he yawned.
Rachel stifled the reflex to yawn herself. She spoke more quickly. ‘You were unable to account for petrol traces found on your clothing and footwear. Perhaps you could tell me how that got there?’
‘It’s a mystery,’ he said and smiled again. Almost like he was high. But he’d not be able to get drugs in the police station, it was more secure that way than prison, where the drug trade thrived. Half the saddos in jail were addicts and if they couldn’t get stuff smuggled in they’d try making mind-altering substances from cleaning fluids or anything else. She remembered the twins’ father had died from a lethal batch of prison hooch.