‘Well, let’s just hope he persuades O’Duncie to play ball. Otherwise we may still have unsolved murders on our hands.’
‘That was a stroke, sir, holding back about the girl being fifteen and Julie Ann’s fingerprints in the bedroom.’
‘I’ve never met her parents and haven’t a clue how old she is, but then neither’s Stonex. As for Julie Ann’s prints, well hopefully they might be there, but it wouldn’t prove he killed her,’ he said casually.
Kath knew he didn’t always play by the rules, but she’d never realized how canny he was and he’d certainly put the wind up Cato Stonex.
‘Do you think O’Duncie will confess now?’ she asked.
‘I fancy him more for killing Eddie Phillips, but to be frank there are some things that don’t add up with him and Julie Ann. If he killed her in that shithole squat for the money then it would more likely have been just after she ran off from her dad’s, but why bring her body all the way over to our patch? Why not dump or bury her somewhere out of town on the A40 or shove her in the canal like Eddie?’ He checked his watch again and stood up stretching and began pacing the room.
‘You want a cup of coffee?’ Kath asked, not wanting to question his valid points.
‘No thanks.’ He lit a cigarette and continued pacing up and down.
It was another ten minutes before two PCs escorted the handcuffed O’Duncie and Cato Stonex to Bradfield’s office. As they entered Stonex gave a discreet nod to Bradfield to indicate that his client was going to talk. The bruising from the broken nose had spread around O’Duncie’s eyes and he had fresh pieces of cotton wool plugged up each nostril. He was very subdued and sat next to Stonex opposite Bradfield and WPC Morgan.
Stonex handed over a short statement signed by O’Duncie in which he retracted all the allegations he had made against DS Gibbs and Bradfield, confessing they were a malicious attempt to get out of trouble. Bradfield asked Kath to take it through to WPC Tennison to give to A10 when they turned up to interview her. He waited for her to return before commencing the interview. He didn’t actually have to do so, but he liked watching the flash lawyer sweating and his client unable to keep his head up and look at him.
‘You are now aware of the serious charges against you, and we know you were intimate with Julie Ann Collins, so I suggest—’
Before he could finish O’Duncie leaned forwards. ‘She came to my place all on edge and looking a mess. She needed a place to doss down and told me her father had beaten the shit out of her with a golf club. I admit I’d slept with her a few times, but she was always up for it and there was nothing illegal, but this time she slept in one of the bedrooms downstairs.’
‘How long was she at the squat on this occasion?’ Bradfield asked.
‘Four, five days, maybe a week tops. She just lay around all day smoking dope. I asked her if she was OK and she said she was in pain and being sick. I thought it was just her kidneys actin’ up from the beating her dad give her. She became really strung out and started pestering me for heroin, so I gave her some for nothing an’ then she wanted more. I said she’d have to pay and she said she wanted to, and she was all kind of crazy sayin’ she’d been raped and was scared to say who it was as she reckoned he’d kill her. I wanted her to get out, but then she said she’d got a lot of cash. I swear before God I didn’t believe her, but then she got all serious and showed me a big wedge of money saying we could do some dealing together as she knew junkies at the Hackney drug centre where she was on a rehab programme.’
‘Was it the Homerton Hospital where your sister works?’ Bradfield asked and he nodded.
‘I said I needed to see a main dealer for supplies first and I was short on cash. She gave me one and a half thousand quid upfront to buy some good gear, and we’d agreed to cut the heroin down with powdered milk and then I would pay back what I owed her from the proft.’
‘Wait, wait a minute, Terry. You expect me to believe she just handed over the cash? What, you think we are fucking dumb? No way would she trust you with that amount of money.’
‘She did, listen to me, she knew the dealer so she was happy about it all. He’d been screwing her an’ she said if I tried to fuck her over she’d get him to sort me out.’
‘I need the name and address of your supplier.’
‘Shit, man, I can’t do that — it’ll be like puttin’ my head on the chopping block. I swear on my life I was gonna talk to Dwayne Clark to make the deal with a bloke in Manchester, but when I went round to his place he wasn’t there and his missus said he was in Coventry.’
‘You are walking right into it, sunshine. You said you were not at the squat when Julie Ann was murdered — that was a lie, you killed her and kept all the money, right, RIGHT?’
O’Duncie was sweating and twisting his body in his chair.
‘No, honest, it’s like I just told you. Dwayne wasn’t at his place so I just went back to the squat with the cash, but she wasn’t there and when I asked where she was one of the kids said she’d gone to Hackney for a few days. Then I heard she’d been murdered and I was scared to admit she had been dossing down at the squat because you’d think I killed her.’
Bradfield tapped the table with a pencil.
‘So let me get this straight: you admit Julie Ann was living at the squat, and she gave you a large sum of cash to buy a job lot of heroin, is that right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘Why Manchester for the drug deal? I mean that’s a good distance. Surely you know dealers closer to London?’ Bradfield said, strongly suspecting Joshua Richards, aka Big Daddy, was the dealer.
‘Listen, I’m telling you the fuckin’ truth. Besides, heroin’s much cheaper outside of London and we was asking for a big load of it.’
‘I see... Why didn’t Julie Ann go with you to see Dwayne?’
‘Because she felt sick, throwing up all the time.’
‘Did she tell you where she’d got the money from?’
‘No and I didn’t ask. Obviously I thought it was nicked, which I now know it was cos Mr Stonex told me it was her dad’s.’
‘You’ve got a fucking answer for everything, Terry.’
‘It’s the truth, man.’
Bradfield started jotting down some figures from the notes Jane had given him about the recovered money.
‘We know she stole just under £2,000 from her dad, you had £1,380 that matched the serial numbers, so IF she gave you one and a half grand what you do with the other £120?’
O’Duncie looked anxiously at his solicitor who said nothing.
‘I don’t do maths,’ he said nervously.
‘Oh right, unless it involves heroin, that is?’
‘I don’t do hard stuff either — check my body, there’s no needle marks. I just told you I never got to do the deal, that’s why I still got the cash.’
Everyone was shocked when Cato Stonex suddenly banged his pen down on the table in anger.
‘Enough, Terry, you’re digging a big hole and guaranteeing yourself a long prison sentence, so I suggest you stop messing about and tell DCI Bradfield the truth.’
‘OK, OK... like I said I never done the deal cos Dwayne was already in fuckin’ Coventry and I couldn’t get hold of him. I lied to Julie Ann and told her I’d given the money to Dwayne who had to go out of town to get the gear and we’d have to wait until he got back.’
‘So she was still at the squat waiting for the drugs?’
‘Yeah, but I give her some Quaaludes and she said she was gonna go and shack up with Eddie over at Hackney and arrange some deals with the clinic junkies. She said she’d be back and threatened me again if I tried to stitch her up.’
By now he was sweating so much his face was dripping and he kept on wiping himself with the sleeve of his shirt.