Dying Eyes (13 page)

“Unfaithful git.” Cassy shook her head.

“So while your wife’s however-many-months pregnant, you’re going out there getting your kicks from someone else? Is that what you’re trying to tell us? Is that your defence?”

Adrian smiled, revealing his coffee-stained yellow teeth. He toyed with his ring some more. “Like I said, it’s not what it looks like.”

“Where were you on the night of Nicola Watson’s murder?” Brian asked. “Were you ‘out with Dave and Andy’ then?”

Adrian’s left eyelid twitched. He inhaled sharply. “I’d like to see that solicitor now, please.”

Shit.
He knew his rights. He knew he had every right to sit around and wait for his solicitor. They had him. They had to press him. “He’s on his way. If you’d just‌–‌”

“Adrian,” Cassy cut in. “You could save yourself a lot of trouble if there’s something you want to tell us. If there’s something you’re hiding and you’re not telling us, we need to know.”

“And why should I tell you when I’m entitled to legal advice?”

Cassy rubbed the side of her neck. “You don’t have to. But if you want to save your ass, you might as well start saving it now.”

Adrian opened his mouth then closed it again. He straightened his back and laid his hands out on the table. “I’m a pimp,” he said. “I’m a pimp, okay? My wife doesn’t know. I don’t sleep with the girls. I wouldn’t look at another woman. I just…‌I just couldn’t let my wife and family find out. That’s what I thought this was about. That’s why I ran.”

Brian’s eyes widened. He leaned over to Cassy and whispered, “How didn’t we know about him?”

Adrian stared back at them and rubbed his tongue against his teeth. No previous charges against him and he wasn’t on the “Red List”‌–‌a comprehensive list of known pimps both in and around the North West area. On his papers, no indication of what he was doing.

“Bit convenient, isn’t it? This whole family sob story?”

“Like I said, I know how it looked, but I guess I just got scared. I dunno. I’ve not lived here for long. It’s just the money…‌since the cuts. We had to earn somehow. My children and my wife…‌I had no choice. I needed to keep it on the low, y’know?”

“Where did you live beforehand?”

“Edinburgh. Only been here a few months.”

Edinburgh.
That’s why there was no trace of any potential previous wrongdoings‌–‌he’d be in the Scottish system. Brian took a note to remember to contact the Scottish Police. He reached into his pocket for the pictures of Nicola Watson and spread them out in front of Adrian. One of her as a child, on a swing. Another from a school party, smiling with her beautiful big eyes. And another, purple veins protruding inside her dying eyes. Her neck, painted with bruises like a piece of Expressionist art.

Adrian groaned and looked away as Brian pushed the images in front of him. “You’re like one of these charities. Showing us all the sob stories in Africa to try and get some sort of emotion…”

“Did you ever see Nicola Watson around Foster Road?”

Adrian shook his head. “She’s not one of my girls. I’d know her if she was. And I haven’t seen her before.”

“Which makes things all incredibly convenient once again, doesn’t it, Mr. Priles?”

Adrian plucked at his trousers. “Can I see that solicitor now?”

“Tell me about your clients,” Brian interrupted. “Any strike you as the murdering type?”

“No,” Adrian said, loudly. “I work with better, respectable men. Men that treat women well; men that just want a break, you know?” He looked at Cassy as he spoke.

“No, I don’t,” she said in a monotone. “But carry on, anyway.”

“Well, yeah…‌My clients, they aren’t the sort of men that would want their families to know. So I try to keep things discreet. Keep things respectable. They’re…‌I guess they’re a bit like me, really.” He shuffled in his seat, his gaze twitching around the room.

The heat of the room was beginning to get to him. Price still hovered around the door, red-faced, a ticking time bomb.

Brian placed the picture of the black car in front of Adrian. Adrian shifted his gaze away from it and stroked his hairy forearms.

“Right now, this is all we have. A black car that left the scene of the crime around the same time as Nicola Watson’s death. If you’ve seen this car before, you can help us. Otherwise, I don’t know what to make of you. You’ve still not told us where
you
were when the crime occurred.”

A bead of sweat dripped from Adrian’s moustache. “Can I see that solicitor now?”

Brian tossed the photograph of the car in his face. “They’re on their way. Adrian, have you seen this fucking car or not?”

Price shook hands with somebody outside.
Shit.
Time was almost up. He had to get it from him. He was so close. Price walked towards the door.

“Adrian, have you‌–‌”

“Yes,” Adrian exploded, his eyes bulging out of his skull. “Yes, I…‌It’s my client’s. It’s my client’s. Just, my wife. Please‌–‌my wife. Don’t tell her about this. I’m begging you.”

Price leaned in through the door. “McDone, an urgent word, please.” His face was purple, his voice more subdued than usual.

“One sec,” Brian said, waving a finger in Price’s direction and turning back to Adrian. “A name, Mr. Priles?”

Adrian was whimpering. He rubbed his hands up and down his arms and looked around the room at everything that wasn’t Brian’s eyes. “We don’t go by real names. It’s anonymous. It protects them.”

“McDone,” Price repeated.

Brian pretended he hadn’t heard Price’s voice and moved closer to Adrian. He could feel his defences falling. They were so close.

“A description? What was he like? How often did you‌–‌”

“McDone, get the hell out of that chair and get over here right now,” Price said. “This man is entitled to legal advice. That’s an order.”

Adrian’s jaw snapped shut again.

Brian lowered his head into his hands and sighed. Adrenaline raced through his skull. He turned to Cassy, subdued, and raised his eyebrows sarcastically. “You’d think they didn’t want us to fucking solve this thing, wouldn’t you?”

Brian threw his chair to the other side of the room. Adrian folded his arms and sat upright for the first time. Price’s face was the colour of a dark grape now, and his lips quivered.

“You stay in here with him for now,” Brian said to Cassy. “I’ll be back in a sec. Say hello to his solicitor for me.” He followed Price out of the door.

He’d been so close‌–‌so close to getting more out of Adrian. “Why did you have to do that, Price? I don’t get it. We were so close, and‌–‌”

Price squared up to Brian. “If you’ll shut your noisy trap up for two seconds, I’ll tell you. Now follow me, and zip it.”

Brian nodded reluctantly and walked with Price towards the computers in the main office. Colleagues stared at him. Whispered about him. Price stopped at the third computer and pointed his finger at the screen. DC Peters sat beside it. He fumbled around the keyboard and hit the space bar as Brian slumped forward against the desk.

“I just don’t get what could be more important than‌–‌”

“Just watch,” DC Peters said.

The date was marked in the bottom right corner of a video. 27/12/12. 1:34 a.m. A week before the murder. Brian sighed. Probably just another loose lead.

“Wait, I thought you said there was no CCTV coverage for this…”

He spotted a figure in the bottom of the screen with his hands in his pockets, scuffling around. A recognisable blue cap on his head.
Adrian
.

He picked himself up from the desk and shook his head at Price. “No, we know he’s just a pimp now. I got that from him. So if you’ll let me‌–‌”

When he turned his eyes back to the screen, he saw the black car, arriving in the distance. Adrian looked up at it.

“That’s…‌that’s the‌–‌”

“The car,” DC Peters finished. “But what’s more interesting is who gets out of it.”

Brian’s knees weakened when the man shut the door and walked towards Adrian. He looked over his shoulder and scratched the side of his head before shaking Adrian’s hand and giving him something. Then he looked over his shoulder again and walked towards the door on the left.

Brian was still. A fuzziness floated around his stomach. Price chewed at his chapped lip.

“Where did you…?”

“It just so happens that Foster Road isn’t the CCTV blind spot we thought it was after all. Have a look at this.” Price placed an A4 print in Brian’s hands. Brian’s eyes widened.

“BetterLives shares an office building with the CCTV control for West Preston. It’s a private firm called CityWatch‌–‌basically, the council outsourcing so they can sit on their arses and get paid for doing nothing. And this photographic evidence also shows our friend from the Foster Road footage entering the CityWatch offices the morning after Nicola Watson’s murder.”

Brian stared back at the screen as DC Peters rewound the footage. The handshake. The look over the shoulder. The walk towards the door.

“I think it’s about time you paid another little visit to BetterLives, don’t you?”

Chapter Sixteen

Brian pulled up outside BetterLives. The office building overlooked the murky water of the docklands. Clouds had formed over Preston; clouds always formed over bloody Preston. It was like
living
in a cloud sometimes, but it gave the community something new to moan about, to take their frustrations out on.

Brian looked over at the empty seat beside him. Cassy’s finished McDonald’s milkshake carton rested on its side, a speck of strawberry dribble staining the fabric below. He smiled and turned to face BetterLives offices. He had to play it cooler this time, Price had told him. “No more major fuck ups.” The last thing they wanted was the media getting on their backs again. The
Lancashire News
had just about got over the fact that they’d arrested Robert Luther last time. They couldn’t give them another excuse to start sniffing around.

Preston didn’t need it.

He zipped up his jacket and stepped out into the rain. He walked towards the fancy office blocks, back into the unknown.

A smiling woman sat behind the desk in reception area, a white shirt buttoned up to her neck and blonde hair dangling onto her shoulders. Brian tried to force a grin back at her, but remembered the sight of his coffee-stained teeth in the mirror every morning. Age‌–‌what a bastard.

“Are you here to speak to BetterLives again, Officer?”

Brian nodded.

“It’s not serious, is it?”

Brian saw the woman’s false smile beginning to droop. She was employed to smile nicely. Make people feel good about themselves. Legal prostitution, with stricter limits. She didn’t need the police causing any potential job jeopardy for herself or her colleagues. This affected everybody.

Brian smiled at her. “Just a few questions about our discussion the other day. It shouldn’t take long.” He walked over to the elevator; the car was at floor 28.
Damn
. “Is Mr. Luther free now?”

The woman moved around the desk and rustled a few papers. “Well, he could be, but…‌I’ll give him a call. That’d be better, wouldn’t it? If I just let him‌–‌”

“Thanks,” Brian said, before walking to the stairs. “I’ll find my way up.”

By the time he reached the fifth floor, his knees ached. It’d be good for him. Vanessa always told him to start exercising.
“It’ll keep the flab away,”
she’d said. And the therapist‌–‌
“Exercise will burn the depression away.”

If only he’d listened to them earlier.

Robert Luther’s door was already open. The fifth floor had a different feel to typical offices. There was a warmth in the traditional wood and cream of the walls. Classic paintings hung from them, and archaic oak doors stood tall.

Luther slouched against his desk, legs crossed, as Brian approached. His assistant, Michael Walters, was vulturing around him. Brian entered without knocking.

“Officer,” Robert Luther said. “How can I help?”

“New evidence has come up.” Brian rubbed his muddy shoes against the cream carpet. “I want to get straight to the point, so if you’ll allow me…”

Luther, edging towards Brian, held up a newspaper. It was a picture of Luther getting out of the black car, and the blurry picture of the car that the CCTV had shown. The headline read, “Preston Charity at Centre of Scandal”.

His lip quivered. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Officer, but we don’t deserve it. We’re trying to do the right thing. I’ve told you, time and time again, we’ll disclose everything. I’ll let you speak to every single one of my staff ten times over; I’ll let you search my home inside-out; I’ll let you check every last log. You just can’t keep creeping up on us like this. It’s not right.”

Brian weighed up what Luther was saying. The adrenaline was still building inside him from the video clip he’d seen on DC Peters’ computer screen. “I respect that, Mr. Luther, I really do. BetterLives‌–‌great cause and all that. Big hope of a dying city. I get that. And I get you’ve lost a member of staff; it hurts, all that, yeah, I know. But the part about ‘disclosing everything’? I’ve got to take you up on that, I’m afraid.”

Luther’s eyes twitched. Walters, fumbling through papers and continuing his day’s work, frowned in the background.

Brian waited for his moment. He wanted to milk this for all it was worth.

“What do you mean? Has…‌What’s going on?”

Brian stared beyond Luther and right at Walters, a triumphant smile on his face. Walters looked up and slowed down leafing through his papers.

“Officer, what’s happened?” Luther asked, glancing between Michael Walters and Brian.

Brian reached into his pocket and stepped over to Luther’s wooden desk. He dropped the photographic still from the video onto the table.

“New footage from one week before the death of Nicola Watson, at the place of death.”

He placed the other photograph from the second clip of footage on the table. “And
more
new footage from the same place, a couple of weeks prior, similar time of night.”

The room was silent. Luther picked up one of the photographs, his hand shaking.