Somebody Told Me (18 page)

He paused. ‘So I slipped him a few quid. I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last to have done that.’

‘So did Yelland get greedy?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I’ve spoken to Martin Kendall. And I’ve seen your wife. But I’m sure you know that too.’

I sat back in the chair as one of the prison officers walked to the window, raising an eyebrow and tapping on his watch. I nodded briefly; Walsh had to be back in his cell for the afternoon roll call.

‘We are reopening the Oakley murder case …’

He frowned, then rolled his eyes. ‘Somebody told me you’ve been rummaging around my cell. Did you find anything?’

I should have expected that. Nothing was secret in prison.

‘Somebody told me you might even be a good detective.’

I leant over the table. I was staring at the man who had conspired to kill Felix Bevard. He might not have pulled the trigger but it was only a matter of time before I proved who did. And his involvement with Uncle Gino and Jez and Papa had to stop.

‘Tell Kendall to steer clear of my family. You may be released soon but this place is your real home. So don’t get too comfortable. You’ll be back inside, dead quick.’

He smirked, a long, fixed snide-like grin. I stood up, kicked back the chair, and made for the door.

Outside I smoked a cigarette walking to my car and then another as I sat contemplating my conversation with Jimmy Walsh. Paying off Yelland’s gambling debts was more than ‘slipping him a few quid’. It was the only time that Walsh had engaged with me and I wondered if he was distracting me.

I had hoped for more clarity but how exactly I would achieve that eluded me as I sat with the window open, flicking ash onto the tarmac of the car park. My frustration was draining me. I reached for my mobile, thinking I should call Papa. Professional necessity cut in and I threw the mobile onto the passenger seat. I had to find the person who pulled the trigger. I had to hope Walsh’s release would be short lived. I drove away leaving my despondency behind.

The following morning I was back in Queen Street, refreshed after a decent night’s sleep. I stood in front of the Incident Room board staring at the collection of images. Lydia’s admonishment that we had already spent two days on the Oakley case came to mind but I knew that the case had been handled badly. Detective Chief Inspector Webster, the SIO on the case, had recently died and his sergeant at the time was now sitting in Cornock’s office throwing his weight around as my superior. I had to be careful. If I could finish that inquiry, close the file knowing that I had been as thorough as possible, I’d have been more thorough than the original team.

The silence was broken when Lydia arrived with Jane and Wyn. Once jackets and coats were removed and pleasantries exchanged Lydia joined me by the board.

‘How did you get on with Jimmy Walsh, boss?’

I stared at his face on the board. ‘He’s a scumbag.’ I paused. ‘How much did Martin Kendall pay to that bookmaker?’

I sensed Wyn and Jane moving uncomfortably in their chairs.

Wyn answered. ‘It was three thousand pounds.’

‘Walsh said it was a few quid.’

‘Probably was for Walsh,’ Lydia added.

‘I want every aspect of Yelland’s finances examined. We need to know exactly how much he owed and to who and when. When I told Jimmy Walsh about the supergrass deal he didn’t even bother to try and hide the fact that he knew all about it.’

‘I did a check on Howard Oakley and he has a string of convictions for violence. And there’s mention he has a link to an organised crime group in Swansea. At the time of the investigation into his father’s death he made threats against Bevard that were taken seriously enough for him to be given a formal warning.’

Wyn piped up. ‘I’ve still got contacts in one of the serious crime teams in Swansea.’

‘Good, make contact.’

Now we had Howard Oakley added to the name of Owen Norcross as more than just a person of interest in our inquiry.

‘So Howard has a motive to kill Bevard,’ Lydia said. ‘But Yelland …?’

Oakley’s possible involvement didn’t fit with my conviction that Walsh was responsible for both deaths.

Lydia continued. ‘Maybe there were two killers?’

‘Let’s assume they are connected. Someone wanted them dead.’ I didn’t say
and that someone is Jimmy Walsh
no matter how much I wanted to. I turned to face the team. I nodded at Wyn and Jane in a joint instruction. ‘Do some more digging into Oakley.’

I scanned the team. ‘And is there any sign of Bevard on the CCTV from Pontypool?’

Three heads shook in unison. ‘Damn. Send it all to my computer. I’ll check it out myself.’

I headed for my office and from a bottom drawer I found a large piece of paper and started drawing a mind map. In the middle I wrote the name
Jimmy Walsh
in large capital letters. Then I drew a circle around his name. On the right I printed the name of Owen Norcross. His connection to Walsh was enough to make him a prime suspect and because he tangled with Yelland in Newport jail he had motive enough. We still needed the results of the forensic analysis of his possessions and an email to the lab only resulted in a swift, terse reply telling me they were still working on them.

On the left-hand side I printed the name ‘Ledley’ and pondered where he was and how he fitted into Bevard’s world. All we knew about him was his name and that he played five-a-side football with Bevard. And that he had a ponytail and tattoos. It wasn’t taking us very far.

I added the name ‘Phil Bryant’ to the right-hand side, deciding that his dishonest alibi earned him a place underneath Norcross. And underneath Bryant I added the name ‘Howard Oakley’. I drew a wavy red line around his name as a reminder that we had no obvious motive for him killing Yelland. Finally I scribbled the name ‘Felix Bevard’ and ‘Yelland’ in smaller circles at the bottom and left of the page underneath Walsh. It was only a matter of time before I could find a thread to pull them all together.

I pondered my mind map, blanking out the sounds from the Incident Room.

Then I started at the CCTV coverage from around Cardiff on the night Bevard was killed. I clicked through hours of coverage from the various pubs and clubs that Kendall had visited, strutting around like some fancy peacock. Kendall had even chosen pubs with CCTV systems to make certain his face was recorded. By the end of the evening he even glanced up, searching for the cameras. I froze the images several times, peering at him. It reinforced for me that he must have known what was happening that evening in Roath Park café. And that meant that Walsh was implicated.

Sickened by all the obvious bravado I turned my attention to the CCTV coverage from the route that Bevard drove on the afternoon he was killed. He had left the golf course that afternoon and then travelled to Cwmbran where he bought food in a shop, took money out from a cash machine and then was stopped in Cwmbran. Where was he going? The CCTV coverage was patchy; I picked up his car as he left Cwmbran but it was impossible to tell if he had a passenger. The car later appeared again on some coverage from Pontypool but he soon disappeared from the recording only to be seen again on his way back to the golf course later. Alone.

All the inquiries into Jack Ledley had proved dead ends. He owned the house in Birchgrove, had modest amounts in his bank accounts and had no criminal record. By lunchtime the images from my computer monitor were swimming around my mind so I left Queen Street, strode down to St Mary Street, and stood looking at one of the pubs that Kendall had visited the night he was building his alibi. I walked to the next pub on his itinerary but, uninspired, I headed to the St David’s shopping arcade and one of the big coffee chains for a watery coffee and a greasy sandwich. I started thinking about Gloria Bevard, whose movements we couldn’t trace on CCTV. I decided I needed to unpick all the details of her alibi.

Wyn was on his feet when I got back to Queen Street. ‘We’ve identified three women who have been on dates with Brian Yelland.’

Jane was nodding energetically at her desk. I sat down and Wyn explained the intricacies of the dating website that Yelland had used. It promised the latest psychological profiling to find ‘your perfect partner’. The website offered a money-back guarantee although Wyn gave me a puzzled look when I asked what that meant.

‘He emailed the women. It was all fairly innocuous stuff – arranging to meet in a pub for a drink, that sort of thing. We’re going to see the first later today.’

‘Good,’ I said, turning to Lydia. ‘Let’s go and talk to some of Gloria’s friends.’

It took me half an hour to find someone who was available to speak to us that afternoon. Lydia shrugged on her coat as we left Queen Street and we walked around to the offices of one of the large insurance companies that had made its home in Cardiff. The receptionist sounded disinterested as we asked for Ann O’Brien. We sat down in the reception and classical music swirled around us. There was little activity and I wondered what it was like to work in such calm.

I heard the tip-tap of high heels on the marble floor before I noticed Ann emerging from around a corner near the lifts. She was smartly dressed and heavily made up. She reached out a hand and a waft of perfume collided with my nostrils. We shook hands. She gave Lydia a more careful scan than I had warranted.

‘How can I help?’

‘Is there anywhere we can talk?’

She gave an irritated grimace. ‘I suppose we could use one of the conference rooms. It means signing you in.’

I smiled an encouragement.

We had forms to complete with our personal details and were then given a lanyard with the word ‘visitor’ printed in large letters. We followed Ann into an air-conditioned conference room. She waved us towards steel mesh chairs with faux leather seats and we sat down.

‘We are investigating the death of Felix Bevard,’ I said. ‘How well did you know him?’

‘I am friends with Gloria.’ Ann sat across the table from me.

‘Have you ever met Felix?’

‘Of course, lots of times. Look, is this going to take long? I’m very busy.’

‘You were out with Gloria on the night he was killed?’

‘I already confirmed that when another officer telephoned me.’

‘I know but there are some details we need to clarify.’

And being uncooperative isn’t going to help.

I took Ann O’Brien through the entire evening very slowly. Occasionally Lydia butted in to clarify an answer or ask a supplementary question. As the time ran on I could see that Ann was getting anxious.

‘What was Gloria like that night?’

‘She did seem on edge. She kept picking up her telephone as though she was waiting for a call. And she did text a lot.’

‘Did she say who she was texting?’

She shook her head.

‘Did she mention whether she was expecting a call?’

‘No, sorry.’

I looked over at Ann and decided that I’d venture a different sort of question.

‘Had things between Felix and Gloria improved?’ I made it sound casual.

‘Not really. She had been complaining about him all night but she’d been doing that a lot. They’d probably had an argument before she came out. And she was hammering the gin. I told her to cool it but she must have had a dozen by the end of the night.’

I thanked Ann and we headed back for Queen Street.

‘How did you know things were bad between Felix and Gloria, boss?’

‘I didn’t. But Ann confirmed it. So I wonder what Gloria’s hiding?’

‘Lots of couples argue, boss. It’s not suspicious.’

Ann’s uncooperative attitude had riled me. What had been really going on between Felix and Gloria Bevard?

The following morning Lydia and I headed for Bristol hoping to beat the early morning traffic jams on the M4 heading east. But we found ourselves crawling along as the motorway slowed to two lanes at the Bryn Glas tunnels.

‘I’ll be retired before the politicians make a final decision about the relief road to ease all this congestion,’ I said.

Lydia had found the address for Maggie Evans, and the fact she was leaving for a fortnight’s holiday had given me the perfect excuse to postpone my meeting with Acting Detective Chief Inspector Hobbs that morning, despite his email, with the word ‘urgent’ written in capital letters. I hoped Mrs Evans might contribute another missing piece of the Oakley jigsaw I could use to reopen the initial inquiry. Anything that might make Dave Hobbs’s life uncomfortable was worth pursuing.

Lydia tapped the postcode into the satnav and I followed the instructions off the motorway towards Bristol and then down to Clifton. We threaded our way through the suburbs until the satnav announced at the end of a long terrace that we had reached our destination. I looked up at the tall, imposing properties.

‘She lives in the ground floor flat,’ Lydia said, nodding towards a large green door.

I pressed the intercom for the right apartment and a crackly voice emerged from the loudspeaker. ‘Who is that?’

‘Detective Inspector Marco for Maggie Evans.’

The lock on the door beside me buzzed and I pushed it open. Maggie Evans was standing in the hallway. I had my warrant card ready. ‘John Marco,’ I said. ‘And this is Detective Sergeant Flint.’

Maggie pulled open the door and led us into a dowdy, old-fashioned sitting room at the front of the building. Net curtains hung from a rail clipped around the window casements. The place felt stuffy, as though none of the windows had been opened for months nor a vacuum dragged over the carpets.

‘You were interviewed at the time Mr Oakley was murdered. And one of our suspects had been a man called Jimmy Walsh. I’m investigating the death of a man called Felix Bevard who was linked to Walsh.’

Margaret Evans was a short woman with an apparent doughnut habit. She had nervous eyes.

‘Of course. I went to see Mrs Oakley after the whole sad business. I don’t know what I could have done. I suppose I wanted to offer my help.’

Last night I had read her statement and the notes from the officers who interviewed her. She sounded like a typical busybody. At the time she’d lived near Roath Park and it surprised me that her son had not been interviewed. Was it no more than a simple oversight?