Authors: Ian Rankin
‘Hello, sir.’ There were two of them standing there, the constable he’d spoken to before and now this plain-clothes man, reeking of ciggies and CID. ‘My colleague tells me you may have some information for us?’
‘Yeah, that’s right, but I’m a bit pushed just now, see. Deliveries to make. Maybe I could come into the station later on, like. Tomorrow morning, eh?’
The CID man was gesturing with his arm, as if he hadn’t heard a word Bill had been saying. ‘You can park just over there, sir. In the lay-by, other side of the police car. We’ll have a little chat then, eh? Don’t want to hold up the vehicles behind.’
So that was that. He’d shoved first gear home and started off. Even as he moved slowly forwards, he thought: I could still run for it. He shook the thought aside. He had absolutely nothing to hide. It wouldn’t take him five minutes to tell them his story, and after that he could bugger off again. Maybe they’d take his name and address, maybe they’d get back to him later, but for today he’d be back on the road. With luck, he could push the speedo to 70 or 80 on some stretches, make up the time easy. Wouldn’t it be funny if he got stopped for speeding? Sorry, officer, I was helping your colleagues with their inquiries and I sort of got behind on my deliveries.
He pulled into the lay-by at quarter to eleven. Now, as he sat in the police station and lit his seventeenth cigarette - seventeenth of the day - it was quarter past one. They’d brought him a filled roll, egg mayonnaise, disgusting, and a packet of spring onion crisps. By dint of putting the crisps in the roll, he managed to force it all down. He thought, not for the first time: On a normal run I’d be in the Feathers by now, supping a pint and tucking into one of that big bird Julie’s home-made stews. Full of succulent carrots and little bits of onion. No gristle on the meat either. Beautiful. Egg mayonnaise and bloody crisps. Bill Moncur and his big bloody mouth.
They’d let him call the office. That hadn’t been much fun, even though the CID man had explained that everything was all right, that he wasn’t in any trouble or anything, but that he’d have to stay at the station for a little while longer. The firm were sending someone else out, some relief driver (it might even be Pat). The van keys were at the desk. The relief would pick them up and do the run for him. The relief driver would stop at the Feathers to chat up Julie and watch the way she pulled a pint with her manicured, painted fingernails on the pump.
How much fucking longer? he said to himself. There were four empty polystyrene cups in front of him as well as the empty crisp packet, cellophane from the roll, brimming ashtray, ciggies and lighter. He used the tip of his finger to pick up a few crumbs of crisp from the desktop, transferring them to his mouth. They’d be along in a minute to ask him if he wanted more coffee. He’d tell them then: ‘I’m not waiting any fucking longer. You can’t keep me here. If you want me, you know where to look. I’m in the phone book.’
That’s what he’d say. This time. This time he’d really say it, and not just think it. Bonny girl they’d sent in last time to ask about the coffee, mind. Took his mind off it for a moment, so that he forgot to ask in the end. No, not ask,
demand.
It was his
right
to walk out of there whenever he felt like it. He’d only been in a police station twice in his life. Once when he was thirteen, and they found him staggering pissed out of his head along the main road. They took him back to the station, put him into a cell, stood him up, and kneed him in the nuts until he threw up. Then they left him for an hour before kicking him out. Could hardly walk straight for days after that ... which was ironic, as Pat said, since they’d picked him up in the first place for not walking straight.
That was once. The second time, they raided a pub during a brawl, and though he’d taken hardly any part in it he was dragged down to the station with the rest of them. But the barman, Milo, had put in a word for him, so they’d let him go with a caution.
That was twice. Hardly premier league, was it, hardly major crime? Were they holding him so they could look him up in their records? Maybe they were seeing if he had any priors for rape or murder or abduction or anything. Well, in that case he’d walk when they’d finished checking. How long could it take?
Of course, he did have
something
to hide. For a start, if it got back to his boss that he was out in the van on a Sunday night ... well, bosses tended to have inquiring minds in that direction. But his boss wouldn’t find out, not unless the police said anything. He could always tell them he was in his car rather than the van anyway ... but no, it didn’t do to lie when the truth wouldn’t hurt. If they caught him lying, they might wonder what else he was hiding. No, he’d tell them. He was using the van to help out a friend. And indeed this was the truth. His neighbour Chas played keyboards in a sort of country and western band. They’d been playing a Sunday night gig at a pub in Folkestone, and he’d been acting as Road Manager, which meant picking up the PA from Margate and taking it back to Folkestone. It was all a fuck-up in the first place, that’s why he’d had the drive to do. The band’s own PA had blown half a dozen fuses or something, and a friend of Chas’s who had a residency in Margate had said the band could borrow his band’s gear on the proviso that they brought it back the same night.
Stupid, but the gear was good stuff, a few thousand quid’s worth, and the guy didn’t want it out of his sight overnight. So, for fifty quid and a few drinks, Bill had driven to Margate, picked up the gear, brought it to Folkestone, sat through the gig, then hauled it back to Margate again before returning to Folkestone, absolutely knackered. It was a lot of work for fifty quid, but then Chas was a mate, and besides, Bill liked being a Road Manager. He’d have liked to play in a band himself had he been what you would call musical. Musical he was not. He’d tried auditioning as a vocalist once - not in Chas’s band, in another local outfit - but the ciggies had shot his voice to hell. Like the band’s leader said, his timing and pace were superb, and he’d plenty of emotion, but he just couldn’t ‘hold a tune’. Whatever that meant.
The door opened and in walked the same CID man who’d spoken to him in the lay-by.
‘Well about bloody time,’ said Bill. ‘Listen, I can’t hang around here any longer, and I’m—’
They kept filing into the room, three of them as well as the CID man. The room, which had been so empty before, now seemed overfull.
‘These gentlemen have driven down from London to see you, Mr Moncur,’ said the CID.
‘Bit pokey in here, innit?’ said one of the men. He looked to Bill Moncur like an old boxer, semi-pro. The speaker turned to the CID man. ‘Haven’t you got an office we could use?’
‘Well ...’ The CID man thought about it. ‘There’s the Chiefs office. He’s not around this afternoon.’
‘That’ll do us then.’
The other two Londoners were silent. They seemed happy enough to let their colleague do the talking. They all trooped out of the interview room and along to a more spacious, airier office. Extra chairs were carried in, and the CID man left, closing the door behind him. The oldest of the three Londoners, craggy-faced and grim-looking, had taken the chair already behind the desk, a big comfortable leather affair. Moncur was sitting in the other chair already in place on the other side of the desk. He kept looking to Craggy Face, who seemed like the boss, but he still wasn’t speaking. The one who’d done all the speaking, and who now remained standing, started things off.
‘We’re Special Branch officers, Mr Moncur. I’m Inspector Doyle, and this’ - with a nod to the third man, who had taken a seat against the wall - ‘is Inspector Greenleaf. We’re particularly interested in what you told Detective Sergeant Hines. Could you go through your story again for us?’
‘You mean I’ve been kept in here waiting for you lot to arrive from London? You could have asked me over the phone.’
‘We could have, but we didn’t.’ This Doyle was a short-fuse merchant, Moncur could see that. ‘The sooner we have your story, the sooner you’ll be out of here. It’s not as if you’re in any trouble...’
‘Tell that to my gaffer.’
‘If you want me to, I will.’
The third Londoner, Greenleaf, had picked up a briefcase from the floor and rested it on his knees. He now brought out a twin cassette-deck, an old-fashioned and unwieldy-looking thing. The other one was speaking again.
‘Do you mind if we record this interview? We’ll have it transcribed, and you can check it for mistakes. It’s just a record so we don’t have to bother you again if we forget something. Okay?’
‘Whatever.’ He didn’t like it though. The man with the briefcase was plugging in the deck. Positioning it on the desk. Checking that it worked. Testing, testing: just like Chas at a sound-check. Only this was very different from a sound-check.
‘You were out on a run in your van, Mr Moncur?’ asked Doyle, almost catching him off-guard. The interview had started already.
‘That’s right. Sunday night it was. Last day of May.’
‘And what exactly were you doing?’
‘I was helping a mate. He plays in a band. Well, their PA had broken down and I had to fetch another from Margate, see. Only, after the show, the guy who owned the PA wanted it delivered back to him. So off I went to Margate again.’
‘Were you alone in the van, Mr Moncur?’
‘At the beginning I was. Nobody else in the band could be bothered to—’
‘But you weren’t alone for long?’
‘No, I picked up a hitch-hiker.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Late. The dance the band were playing at didn’t finish till after one. Then we had a few drinks ...’ He caught himself. ‘I stuck to orange juice, mind. I don’t drink and drive, can’t afford to. It’s my livelihood, see, and I don’t—’
‘So it was after one?’
‘After two more like. After the gig, we’d to load the van, then we had a drink ... yes, after two.’
‘Late for someone to be hitching, eh?’
‘That’s just what I told her. I don’t normally pick up hitch-hikers, no matter what time of day it is. But a woman out on her own at that time of night ... well, that’s just plain bloody stupid. To be honest, at first I thought maybe it was a trap.’
‘A trap?’
‘Yeah, I stop the van for her, then her boyfriend and a few others appear from nowhere and hoist whatever I’m carrying. It’s happened to a mate of mine.’
‘But it didn’t happen to you?’
‘No.’
‘Tell me about the woman, Mr Moncur. What sort of—’
But now the man behind the desk, the one who hadn’t been introduced, now
he
spoke. ‘Before that, perhaps Mr Moncur could show us on a map?’ A map was produced and spread out on the top of the desk. Moncur studied it, trying to trace his route.
‘I was never much good at geography,’ he explained as his finger traced first this contour line, then that.
‘These are the roads here, Mr Moncur,’ said the man behind the desk, running his finger along them.
Moncur attempted a chuckle. ‘I’d never make it as a long-distance driver, eh?’ Nobody smiled. ‘Well, anyway, it was just there.’ A pen was produced, a dot marked on the map.
‘How far is that from the coast?’ asked Doyle.
‘Oh, a mile, couple of miles.’
‘All right.’ The map was folded away again. The questioning resumed as before. ‘So, you saw a woman at the side of the road?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Can you describe her?’
‘Long hair, dark brown or maybe black. I didn’t have the lights on in the cab, so it wasn’t easy to tell. Sort of ... well, I mean, she was quite pretty and all, but she wasn’t ... she wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.’
‘What about height?’ This from the one behind the desk.
‘I dunno, average. Five-seven, five-eight.’
‘A little taller than average, maybe,’ he suggested. ‘What was she wearing?’
‘Jeans, a jacket. She looked cold.’
‘Did she seem wet?’
‘Wet? No, it wasn’t raining. But she looked cold. I turned the heating up in the cab.’
‘And what was she carrying?’
‘Just a bag, a haversack sort of thing.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No.’
‘Was the haversack heavy?’
A short nervous laugh. ‘I don’t know. She heaved it into the van herself.’
The man behind the desk nodded thoughtfully.
‘Okay, Mr Moncur,’ Doyle continued. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us about her appearance? Her shoes for example.’
‘Never noticed them.’
‘Was she wearing make-up?’
‘No. She could have done with a bit. Pale face. I suppose it was the cold.’
‘And her accent, was it local?’
‘No.’
‘But English?’
‘Oh, yeah, she was English. Definitely.’
‘Right, so you picked her up. You’ve given us her description. What did you talk about?’
‘She wasn’t all that talkative. I got the idea she was doing a runner. Well, that time of night ...’
‘Running from whom exactly?’
‘Boyfriend probably. She wasn’t wearing any rings, not married or anything. I reckoned boyfriend. She looked like she’d been crying.’