Читать книгу The Angel - Katerina Diamond, Katerina Diamond - Страница 10

Imogen showed the girl on the door of the nightclub her police ID and was waved forward into the club. She felt a rush of adrenaline as they entered; this was her thing, this was who she used to be. It was hard to rebel against her flighty mother when Imogen was a teen. Irene Grey would waft around wearing bright, multi-layered skirts and cardigans, smoking pot and occasionally flashing the neighbours as an act of protest. When Imogen was small her mother had insisted on dressing her in much the same way. As soon as Imogen could, she’d started wearing a pair of baggy black skater pants and a hoodie, partly to fade into the background, but also to make sure everyone knew that she was nothing like her mother. She would go to the local goth clubs, and her mother became increasingly concerned that she was exhibiting the same mental health issues that she had. The opposite was the truth; Imogen was just trying to pull away from Irene, to become an individual in her own right.

She tugged now at the clip in her hair and let it fall onto her shoulders. For the first time in a long time she felt like a traitor, slightly uncomfortable being here on duty. Here to disrupt the enjoyment rather than take part in it. The goths she had known were all quite anti-authority. She tousled her hair a little and clocked Adrian staring at her curiously. She doubted he had ever set foot in a place like this in his life. Girls in short skirts, corsets, excessive theatrical make-up. Men in motorcycle masks, tight-fitting clothing and eyeliner. There were a few people who didn’t fit into either category at a cursory glance.

‘How did you know about this?’ Adrian shouted to her above the music.

‘I know lots of things. Besides, I was going to come anyway, the band they have on tonight are pretty decent.’

‘You like this?’

‘Oh yeah, I like this.’

Adrian nodded to the bar; Imogen looked over and saw a tall man waiting to order drinks. He had shoulder-length hair, and was dressed in the same way as the man they had seen on the CCTV footage. He had the same red tartan punk trousers on, also known as bondage trousers, with straps that crossed and clipped to the opposing legs, expensive and distinctive. His hair was tucked behind his ears. Imogen looked him up and down. He looked the right height and build for the man in the video. He turned toward them and met Imogen’s gaze, she flushed a little. She composed herself before walking over to him and flashing her ID.

‘Can we have a word?’ she asked.

The man looked at the ID, he seemed a little confused but not alarmed. He necked his drink and followed them both into the lobby.

‘I’m DS Imogen Grey and this is my partner, DS Adrian Miles.’

‘Gabriel Webb.’ He held his hand out, Imogen took it and shook it. He was very direct and seemed both polite and unfazed by this interaction.

‘Can I ask where you were this evening?’

‘With some mates. Around.’

‘We have CCTV of you leaving a signal box.’

‘Right, yeah, I was there.’ He brushed his hair out of his eyes.

‘Who were you with?’ Adrian asked.

‘Why?’ Gabriel Webb narrowed his eyes. He didn’t seem like someone with something to hide.

‘Did you perhaps start a fire inside the signal box?’ Imogen asked, hoping to God he said no. Perhaps he had no idea at all about the man in the room below in the signal box. The repercussions of this were bigger than anyone his age should have to deal with. Despite his height, he had a young face; he couldn’t have been much older than eighteen. She wanted to send him home, before his world got turned upside down. It was always hardest with the young ones.

‘In the bin, yeah, but it burnt out before we left. Who told you that?’

‘Where are your friends now? Are they here?’

‘There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?’ Gabriel’s pale face looked even more ghostly than before as the gravity of the situation started to dawn on him. ‘I’m not implicating anyone else until I know what’s going on.’

‘We’re going to need you to come to the station with us,’ Adrian said gravely. He made eye contact with Imogen, and she knew what he was thinking. They were potentially about to ruin this kid’s life.

‘I’m going to have to call some officers to come and interview the people here if you won’t tell me who was with you,’ Imogen said, knowing that the girls in the video’s heads were obscured and their clothes generic; if they were here the chance of identifying them was quite small.

‘I can’t tell you who I was with, I’ll come with you but I’m not saying anything about anyone else.’

Imogen felt a weight in her stomach as Gabriel went to tell the girl on the front door where he was going; she was clearly a friend of his. Imogen watched him as he spoke. She didn’t want to tell this kid the truth. Yeah, he was a tall guy, but underneath the black eyeliner and sinister-looking clothing he was probably quite insecure. She had known guys like this when she was a teenager herself; it was war paint, a mask, a way to be a part of a world you don’t feel like you fit into.

Gabriel Webb sat in the interrogation room facing Adrian. He looked a little less confident than he had before, but he clearly still had no idea what had happened.

‘We’re not sure if you know this,’ Adrian began, ‘but earlier tonight, Friday the twenty-sixth of June, after you left the signal box, a fire broke out. It took the firefighters a long time to put it out.’

‘Oh, my God!’ he said, shifting nervously in his seat.

Adrian tried to read Gabriel; he didn’t seem to be hiding anything, but then sometimes the people they had in these rooms were just very good at lying. Adrian wondered if he could trust his own instincts about this young man; was he reading him right or was he being manipulated?

Imogen walked into the room with a glass of water and put it in front of Gabriel before sitting down next to Adrian.

‘For the record, DS Grey has re-entered the room,’ Adrian said into the tape recorder that was positioned on the table in front of him.

‘Tell us what happened, Gabriel,’ Imogen said.

Adrian sat back and let his partner take the helm for a moment; she seemed to have a better rapport with the man and that might help them get more honest answers out of him.

‘I was out with some friends and we ended up at the signal box.’

‘Have you been there before?’

‘No, never.’

‘Which friends were you with?’

‘Does it matter? I already told you I started the fire. No point in anyone else getting in trouble.’

‘Why did you start the fire?’ Imogen asked.

‘It was cold. The rain was pelting down; I didn’t know it was going to rain so I wasn’t wearing a coat.’ He paused, obviously trying to think of how to word his answers. ‘One of the girls was cold. It was a metal bin and the fire didn’t even last very long.’

‘Go on.’

‘That was it. We left and went to the club to see the band.’

Adrian looked briefly at Imogen, who looked every bit as sombre as he felt.

‘Unfortunately, arson is a pretty big deal, Gabriel,’ Adrian said.

‘Arson? No, it wasn’t that. I wouldn’t do that.’

‘That’s for the judge to decide.’

‘Judge? What do you mean? Are you charging me with arson? It was an accident.’

Imogen sighed audibly, exhaling and then holding her breath again.

‘There’s something else, I’m afraid,’ she said.

‘If you call my parents they can pay for the damage.’

‘I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that.’ Adrian paused and looked at Imogen. ‘There was a body found in the signal box,’ he said.

The force of Adrian’s words knocked the colour out of Gabriel’s face. ‘What?’

‘There was someone in the room below when the building caught fire. There’s every likelihood it was a homeless man, but we don’t know for sure at this point until there’s been a thorough examination of both the site and the body.’

‘No … it was just us,’ he said faintly, his chest heaving.

‘Are you all right?’ Imogen asked. Gabriel was shaking; he looked as though he was going to throw up.

‘It might help your case if you tell us who you were with; they can corroborate your story about the fire.’

‘Can you call my parents? I think I need a lawyer or something, I don’t think I should say anything else.’ His breathing was shallow and laboured. He started to wheeze, fighting to inhale.

‘Gabriel, do you have asthma?’ Imogen asked him urgently.

He nodded as he struggled with the leather buckled corset around his waist. He looked like he couldn’t get enough air.

‘Interview suspended at 00:15,’ Adrian said as he stopped the recording.

‘Help me get him on the floor,’ Imogen said.

Adrian helped his partner lower Gabriel onto the ground; he was cumbersome, but they needed him to calm down. He arched his back and stretched his neck, rasping for air.

‘Can I help you take that off, Gabriel?’ Imogen asked, gesturing to the corset as the teenager nodded, tears falling from his eyes and trickling down the side of his face.

‘Do you have any medication on you? An inhaler or something?’ Imogen said.

He shook his head.

‘What do I do?’ Adrian asked.

Imogen pulled at the buckles on Gabriel’s cincher until it was undone and yanked it off; he breathed in air greedily and Adrian watched as Imogen stroked his forehead. His breathing seemed to normalise a little.

‘You’d better get some help.’ Imogen turned to Adrian who tried to hide his surprise at her tenderness; there was something maternal about the way she was handling Gabriel Webb. He went to the door and called to one of the constables, instructing him to get a doctor.

‘I’m OK,’ Gabriel wheezed. ‘I’m fine, it just happens sometimes.’

‘We’ll get someone to sit with you until you can be checked out by the duty doctor. OK?’

Gabriel started to get up slowly, still breathing in short bursts but much calmer than a few moments previously. Adrian held out a hand to him and helped him stand up. He remembered only too well the feeling of being nineteen; you’re a man but you’re not, he thought. You’re not a child, you’re kind of nowhere. It was a horrible age.

‘What happens now?’ Gabriel sat back down, his eyes glassy and full.

‘Depends on the outcome from the scene of the fire.’

‘Do you understand that if we don’t get to speak to your friends, the people with you at the signal station, then in all likelihood you’re going to go down for this?’ Imogen interjected.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Gabriel, if they determine its arson, then we’re going to have to charge you with manslaughter.’

Adrian stood by his car and lit a cigarette; he had given up on giving up and he felt much better for it. Imogen walked out of the station, pulling her hair back into an updo. She was shaking her head.

‘God, I hate this job sometimes.’ She took the cigarette out of Adrian’s hand and sucked on it before giving it back to him.

‘You believed him then?’

‘Absolutely. Shame it doesn’t matter what I think.’

‘It will matter to him. He liked you, I can tell.’

‘What about his parents? Did Denise get hold of them?’

‘Yeah. They said they’ll come tomorrow. They think a night in a holding cell will do him good.’

‘He seems like a nice kid, though. I feel so bad for him.’ Imogen couldn’t help but feel a pull towards Gabriel, maybe it was just her self-preservation in action because he reminded her so much of herself at that age, before she decided to become a police officer.

‘I’m sure those big sad blue eyes and that cute little cleft in his chin have nothing to do with that.’

‘OK, he is good-looking, but that kind of makes it even worse. I hope he’s strong enough to handle it on remand.’

‘First Dean Kinkaid and now this kid. I think I know what your type is, Grey. Convict.’

‘Piss off, it’s not like that. Don’t be gross. If I was ten years younger, then yeah – he would have been the kind of guy I looked at, but not now. I don’t know,’ she paused, ‘I think he reminds me of me.’

They both stood contemplating for a moment as they shared the remainder of Adrian’s cigarette. Two minutes of silence as they processed what had just happened, and what was most likely about to happen. It didn’t seem as though Gabriel had any intention of saying who the other people were, and there was no way to ID them from the video. Hoodies and miniskirts were standard clothing for anyone under twenty and that was a significant proportion of the population, it would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

‘Anyway, tonight sucked. Are you hungry?’ Adrian finally spoke as he put the cigarette out.

‘No, not really. I can’t help worrying about what’s going to happen to him. That kid’s going to be eaten alive in prison.’

‘What can we do?’

‘We can start with identifying that body.’

‘Let’s get going then. My weekend has been screwed over yet again by Dominic and Andrea, they’ve taken Tom to London to see a show or something.’

‘Again?’

‘He’ll be sixteen next year, then he can spend his weekends where he wants.’

‘And you’re sure they’re safe?’

‘Dominic wants me to know he’s got my family, it’s not about hurting them, it’s about winding me up. I think they’re safest where they are for now, until I get some concrete evidence on him. Gary’s working on it for me.’

‘I’m not sure I could be so calm about it.’

‘I’m not sure if calm is the right word. I like to keep busy to keep my mind off it.’

Adrian had been investigating his son’s stepfather for around four months now, since Tom had come to him with a suspicion that Dominic was cheating on his mother. While Adrian had managed to disprove the cheating, he’d found out some things he couldn’t ignore. Financial irregularities of large sums of money, money that couldn’t be explained legally. Until he had proof though he was powerless to act and he couldn’t open an official investigation. He had no evidence. Every time he got the chance he would look into Dominic, with the help of Gary Tunney, the forensic computer technician at the police station, who also loved to solve puzzles in his free time. But Dominic was good; so far they hadn’t found anything that would stick. A little over two months ago, Dominic had somehow found out that Adrian had been snooping around in his affairs. They would have to be more careful in the future but Adrian wasn’t going to give up, he was confident that Gary would get to the bottom of it. The fact that Dominic had threatened Adrian and made it clear to him that he should stop, or his life would get more difficult, was just more incentive to get his family out of there. If not now, then soon. Dominic was going to pay; Adrian just had to make sure he didn’t take his whole family down with him.

‘I’ll call Dean and tell him not to wait up then.’

They walked back into the station for what would undoubtedly be a night of scintillating closed-circuit TV viewing. With any luck, they might be able to get a better angle on Gabriel and his friends, see if they could work out who he was with.