Blind Fury (41 page)

“Then I wait. I have someone staying to look out for my children, so I wait.”

“Does your husband speak Polish?”

“A little. My mother had poor English, so we used to try and teach him, but he not pick it up. My children don’t speak it either, and . . .” She bowed her head and started crying. “I am sick with worry. Please let me see him.”

Anna left Barbara with Sonja and returned to interview room one. She tapped on the door and looked in. “Paul, can I have a word, please?”

Barolli stood up. Anna made sure that Smiley could hear even though she lowered her voice. “Mrs. Smiley is very distressed. Can you arrange for a cup of tea?”

Barolli nodded as Mike reported into the tape recorder that DI Travis had returned to the interview room.

“You got my wife here?” Smiley asked.

“Yes, she’s helping our inquiries.”

“She’s here? You brought her into the police station?”

“Yes, but she’s obviously distressed.”

Smiley stood up. “I have to see her.”

“Sit down, Mr. Smiley.” Mike gestured firmly to him.

“No, you can’t do this. I have to talk to her.”

“
Sit down!
”

Smiley slumped back in his seat and then asked his lawyer if it was right that they could bring in his wife and not allow him to see her.

“You can talk to her when we have finished the interview, Mr. Smiley.” Anna said as she took her seat as Mike passed over some notes from while she had been out of the room.

“She is being well looked after but is obviously frightened, and as she now knows that you were with Margaret Potts, she is helping our inquiry with regard to the other victims we also wish to question you about.”

“You had no fucking right to tell her anything, you bitch.” He jabbed a finger at Anna, his face twisted with anger. Gregson put a restraining arm on Smiley, trying to calm him down, but the other man jerked away from him in a fury. “I want to see my wife.”

“She also wants to see you. She’s been called by Mr. Rodgers, who has told her you can no longer work for Swell Blinds.”

“Jesus Christ.” Smiley was so pent up with anger that his whole body shook.

“She also told me that, contrary to what you have said, Margaret Potts made frequent calls to first your rental flat in Manchester and then—” Anna was lying, but it got a result.

“That is not true. She
didn’t
know!”

Anna glanced up as Smiley tried to explain.

“What I meant was, neither of us knew who the caller was. She, whoever it was, was obviously expecting to speak to the previous tenant, right? Then she’d put the phone down.”

“It was Margaret Potts, wasn’t it?”

He closed his eyes. Anna felt as if she were playing a game of poker, bluffing, but obviously doing it well.

“All right, yes, it was her.”

There was a long pause. Anna and Mike were exchanging looks, hesitant to begin drawing more from Smiley, hoping he would elaborate. He didn’t.

Gregson shifted his weight, alarmed as Smiley put his head into his hands. Eventually, Anna quietly suggested they start from the moment Smiley said he met Margaret at Emerald Turk’s flat. She had an intuitive feeling that something was wrong and was trying to quickly work out the time frame of when he had met Margaret, then relate it to the phone calls, but she couldn’t grasp what was confusing her.

“As I said before, she wanted me to give her a lift to the London Gateway service station. I waited until she was dressed, and then we went out to my van.” He paused and then smirked. “We were driving along, and she said the van still stank of dogs, so I said to her, ‘It takes one to know one.’” He gave a mirthless laugh. “Anyway, I dropped her off and went on to Manchester.”

“Just a second, Mr. Smiley. Earlier you stated that you were not using Mr. Dillane’s vehicle but the company Transit van, so kindly explain what you meant when you said Margaret said it stank of dogs.”

“Oh, right, sorry. I must have been confused. Yeah, now I remember it was Dillane’s van, and it did smell of his dog. I never got rid of the stink.”

Anna still had that niggly feeling but said nothing as Mike asked when Margaret had started to call him.

“She got my bloody number from my wallet, and she called a couple of times wanting to see me, but I always put the phone down on her. I didn’t want to ever see her again, and I obviously didn’t want Sonja to know what I’d been up to. When we moved to the new house, she couldn’t call me ’cause we’d got a new phone number.”

He said that was it and repeated that he didn’t see her again after that one time. Anna doodled on her notepad, unable to bring up what was lingering in the back of her mind, because it didn’t quite make sense. Margaret Potts was murdered two years or more ago, Dorota even longer. Margaret was making more money than usual and had been, they presumed, hitting John Smiley up for cash before he had purchased the van from Michael Dillane. Then it clicked. It was like a piece of jigsaw falling into place, and she was angry with herself for not grasping it sooner.

“You knew Margaret Potts before you met her at Emerald Turk’s flat, didn’t you? You lied when you said it was the first time you met her.”

She could almost see the wheels turning in Smiley’s head as he weighed the question and made a decision on how to answer. Mike Lewis was looking confused, as it was something he hadn’t even considered; this was completely out of left field. Like Anna, he waited for Smiley to answer.

“You got me there,” Smiley said, and he had that weird smirk on his face again.

“Where exactly have I got you, Mr. Smiley? Caught in yet another lie?”

“Yes.”

“Please don’t waste any more of our time. Just tell us how long you had known Margaret Potts before that meeting at Emerald Turk’s flat.”

He looked at the ceiling, thinking. “Maybe four years. I wouldn’t say I knew her—let’s say it was more of an occasional thing. It was often months in between meetings, and then it was only for one thing. I suppose you can guess what that was.”

“Sex?”

“Yeah. I also need to tell you that I liked her. Okay, she was cheap and she was fucked up—and she was always on the take—but at the same time, she had a kind of genuine niceness. She was always gonna clean her act up, but she liked the drink, she liked getting stoned out of her head, and she also liked sex in a big way.”

“Four years?”

He nodded, adding that it was about that, but he couldn’t be sure, as he saw her only infrequently.

“Where did you really first meet Margaret?”

He closed his eyes, remembering. “It was in a café opposite King’s Cross station. They do a good cheap breakfast there. Don’t know what it’s called, but that’s where she used to hang out.”

Smiley continued to recall the different places that he had subsequently met Margaret Potts; he reckoned that it was before she began working the service stations. He added that he met her there by accident, as he hadn’t seen her in months.

Anna wrote a note to pass to Mike. The body of Dorota Pelagia had been discovered four years ago. The time frame bothered her because Margaret Potts wasn’t murdered until two years after Dorota. Did she have a connection to Dorota? Mike glanced at her note. She had written,
Firm up dates.

Anna remained silent as Mike took over.

“Go back to the time you met Margaret at Emerald Turk’s flat. Did you know that she’d be there?”

“Yeah, because I’d seen her recently. She told me about the blinds, though her mate didn’t know we were acquainted. It worked out okay for me because I’d been part of doing the housing association contract. I even gave her a cut of the cash Emerald Turk paid me ’cause of selling her the Swell Blinds for the box room. Maggie was hitting me for more and more cash; she even threatened to call my wife, and I’d had enough.”

“Can I clarify something, Mr. Smiley? Are you saying that Margaret was hitting you up for money during the entire time you knew her? From the meeting in the café?”

“Yeah. Not much—a few quid here and there. I paid her ’cause I didn’t want her callin’ Sonja, and like I said, it wasn’t that much.”

“You said Emerald did not know that you knew Margaret Potts?”

“No. It was gonna be convenient, ’cause we could have time to play some sex games in a bed; before that, I’d only ever done it with her in the back of the van. Listen, I’m tired, and I’ve got a headache.”

Anna knew how he felt. Her head had begun to throb just from trying to assimilate all the new dates and locations, and she began to also want to take a break. It was already after six. Smiley had started to droop, constantly rubbing at his face.

“So after that time in Emerald Turk’s flat, when did you see her again?” Mike asked.

“I never did. Next thing I knew, couple years later, I was reading that she’d been murdered, poor cow.”

This didn’t add up for Anna. She believed that it was
after
that meeting that Margaret had increased her blackmail demands of Smiley. It was getting to the point that they should move to question him about Dorota Pelagia, but Gregson asked that as it was late, they should break and continue the interview the following morning.

“I want to see my wife,” Smiley said.

“I am afraid that won’t be possible,” Mike told him.

However, Anna wanted to keep Smiley sweet, so she suggested they speak to their superintendent to see if a short supervised meeting could take place.

She and Mike left Smiley with his lawyer just as Langton walked out of the viewing room. He had just arrived so had not been privy to the interrogation.

After a brief discussion, he agreed that they should keep Smiley as pliable as possible for the following day, and if they let him see Sonja for five minutes, it might assist their interrogation in the morning, but he wanted him handcuffed. Smiley would be held in the cells overnight again.

Sonja Smiley was sitting with Barbara. Food cartons and cups of cold coffee littered the table. She turned expectantly when Anna entered.

“We have agreed to allow you to see your husband, Mrs. Smiley, but I will have to be present, and it can only be for five minutes.”

Sonja reached out to take Anna’s hand and grasped it tightly. “Thank you. I just want to say a few things to him.”

Anna felt sorry for her. The big woman seemed vulnerable; her face was swollen from weeping, her eyes redrimmed.

Barbara was eager to leave, as the body odor from Sonja was by now overpowering. “Can I go?”

“Yes. Sorry to keep you here for so long.”

“That’s okay.” Barbara jerked her head to ask for a private chat. “She’s been crying since you left, almost waded through a whole box of tissues. She didn’t talk much, kept going on about betrayal . . . how much she’d done for him . . . but she still managed to scarf down four sandwiches and a hamburger.”

“Thank you, Barbara. Right, you get home. I have to say I really need a break as well. I’m exhausted.”

Anna watched Barbara walk down the corridor at the same time as John Smiley left interview room one, accompanied by Mike and Barolli. He was handcuffed but was trying to straighten his tie and run his hands through his sweat-sodden hair.

Anna stood aside, pushing the door open wider for Mike to usher Smiley into the room. Sonja was like a sumo wrestler. Considering her size, she moved quickly and kicked her husband hard in the groin, then as he moaned, bending forward, she gave him an upper-cut punch worthy of Mike Tyson. His head jolted back as she came at him again with fists flying, catching him twice with well-aimed heavy punches before Barolli and Mike managed to drag her off.

Her face was red as she spat at him, then held between the two officers, she screamed, “You bastard! After what I done for you—well, now I make you pay. You got no home, no job, and you never gonna see your kids again.
I hate you
.”

Smiley burst into tears as he was helped to his feet. Anna was helping Barolli as Mike pushed Sonja into a chair; her chest was heaving as she tried to get her breath.

Smiley was taken down to the cells, still crying. His lawyer stood watching helplessly, obviously shocked by what had happened. Langton tried to put the lid on it all, ushering Anna into the room with Sonja as he headed off with Gregson. Barolli handed Sonja a cup of water, and she gulped it down. She then turned to Anna.

“I want to make a statement. I want a lawyer to be with me because I don’t want no trouble for me. I only want trouble for him, and I can give you plenty. I know things—very bad things.”

Anna’s headache was at full blast, and she felt sick but remained calm as she said that Sonja should stay with Barolli. She then hurried off to find Langton.

Langton listened as Anna repeated what Sonja had just told her. “Statement?”

“That’s what she said—and that she wanted trouble for Smiley, that she knew bad things—”

Langton put up his hand. “Okay, okay . . . let’s get her represented.” He glanced at his watch. “I dunno who we can get tonight, but we should do it ASAP, while she’s still spitting venom.”

“I’ll get on it.” In her state of exhaustion, the thought of yet another session was daunting.

“You don’t think she’s involved in the murders, do you?” Langton asked. “Did you bring her here?”

“No, she came of her own free will.”

Langton rubbed his head. “That might be a lucky break, because from what little I heard, it’s been a long, slow process with not much to show for it.”

Anna would have liked to add that if she’d had stronger backup, she might have gotten a lot further. Mike had felt like deadwood beside her sometimes. However, she said nothing, heading up the stairs to the incident room with a packet of aspirin.

It was another hour before a lawyer was found for Sonja Smiley. By now it was after seven o’clock. Moira Flynn was a forty-five-year-old experienced lawyer. Straightaway, she asked if Sonja wished a private discussion before making her statement. The woman refused, saying she wanted to get it over with, but after a moment, she asked if, by making the statement, she would be accused of anything criminal. Miss Flynn suggested that they have a conversation without Anna present.