Games with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller

Fintan pipes up. ‘Do you regret not seizing the glasses and ashtrays now, Adrian?’

‘Every bloody day. But we didn’t know much about DNA then. What we did know was how to spot a suspect. It’s a known fact that ninety per cent of victims know their killer. This was clearly personal. At first, we speculated that it may have been someone he’d upset in the course of his work. But someone else kept cropping up, right from the outset.

‘Nathan had been in the pub that evening with his business partner, John Delaney. In fact, Delaney had left the pub just moments before Nathan.

‘I went personally to tell Delaney the news of Nathan’s murder. He opened the door looking sweaty and agitated, as if he’d been expecting us. His first words to me were, “I’m not the mad axeman of Croydon”. I asked him how he knew and he started dropping names of all his cop pals in Croydon CID. All this time, his wife’s watching the TV, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, believe it or not. She doesn’t look up even once.

‘I take him in to make a statement. He tells us he and Nathan had agreed to meet an associate here in the White Horse that night called Tommy Buchan for a drink to discuss a loan to their company, BD Investigations.

‘We track down Buchan who denies it flat out. Turns out Delaney called him after he left the White Horse that night and arranged to meet him at a wine bar a few miles away.’

Fintan editorialises. ‘Trying to create an alibi after the event, perhaps?’

‘Delaney’s car phone records confirm this call to Buchan at 21.36. They also show a call from a public phone box to his car phone at 21.33. Now the system can’t identify public phone numbers, but we believe that call was made from the public phone outside the White Horse.’

‘The killer confirming job done,’ says Fintan.

Lambert nods.

‘Over the next few days, we discovered Delaney is a crook. Behind Nathan’s back, he’d been up to all sorts, including hiring cops to guard Riley’s car auctions in Bermondsey.

‘Now, BD Investigations wasn’t insured to do this kind of work, but Delaney signed the contract and employed serving cop friends, who he paid cash. One night last June Delaney decided to take the day’s takings to the bank’s night safe alone. According to him, the safe was glued shut so he’d no option but to take the cash home. Guess what? Outside his house, he’s sprayed with ammonia and robbed of the fifteen grand.

‘Riley, owner of the car auctions, doesn’t believe a word, goes to see Delaney in hospital, where he’s dabbing his eyes with tissue and joking with the nurses. Riley sues BD Investigations for the fifteen grand and that’s how Nathan finds out about the entire racket. He goes mental, firstly because it’d been going on behind his back, secondly because Delaney had employed serving officers, which is against the rules, and thirdly because of the missing money. He refuses point-blank to stump up half.

‘Anyway, we need to prove this, so we go looking for any paperwork concerning the Riley contract, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Employees at BD Investigations tell us that the head of Croydon’s murder squad, Detective Sergeant Phil Ware, attended the office the morning after the murder and seized it all, including the Riley’s car auctions file.

‘That same morning, Detective Sergeant Phil Ware took the first formal statement from Delaney, in which he makes no mention of his row with Nathan over the Riley auction.

‘On Sunday, five days after Nathan’s murder, DS Ware reveals to me that he and Delaney are old friends going back years. To make matters worse, Ware admitted that he’d been one of the officers moonlighting for Delaney at Riley’s car auctions. Of course, we kick him off the case but by then he’d already buggered our investigation.

‘Phil Ware retired on the sick and is now a partner with Delaney in BD Investigations.’

Fintan again: ‘So you’re convinced that Delaney and Phil Ware were co-conspirators in Nathan’s murder?’

‘Nathan had never drunk in here before that night. This pub is in Phil Ware’s jurisdiction. None of Nathan’s regular pubs were. Delaney lured him here for that reason, so that his murder would be investigated by his pal who heads the local murder squad. Of course, Delaney didn’t swing the axe. Why get your hands dirty? But he had someone waiting outside that night who did.

‘Now, how many people could’ve known Nathan was in here that night? Delaney’s phone records show he made a call to Ware’s direct line at Croydon police station on that evening at 5pm. I’m certain they were in cahoots.’

My brain is clinging on, just, and screaming one question: ‘So Delaney is behind Nathan’s murder, Ware helped derail the investigation. Who wielded the axe?’

‘Delaney’s brothers-in-law at that time were Chris and Gary Warner, major-league drugs importers with a history of extreme violence. Their alibis for the night are flimsy, to say the least. My information is that they even boasted about the murder in their local pub. We’ve arrested and questioned them but we haven’t got any forensic evidence or witnesses willing to tell us what they know.’

Fintan starts pacing the car park. ‘My old crime editor used to say there are only three motives for any murder. Dough, blow or a ho!’

Lambert frowns, confused.

‘Money, drugs or a woman.’

He stops and turns to Lambert. ‘Why don’t you tell Donal here how there was more to Delaney having Nathan Barry wiped out than a fifteen-grand civil court action?’

Lambert hardly lets him finish. ‘Nathan and Delaney were part of the West Croydon Lunch Club, a group of self-styled local high achievers who used to meet every other Friday and had gained legendary status for drunken shenanigans. Turns out Delaney and Nathan were romancing the same married woman, a local beautician called Karen Moore.

‘In fact, before he went to the White Horse on the night of his murder, Nathan met Karen Moore at a local wine bar where they were seen in intimate conversation for well over an hour.’

‘She must know something,’ I say. ‘Especially if things had come to a head between Nathan and Delaney.’

‘I’m afraid Delaney has closed that line of enquiry on us,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘He left his wife and married Karen Moore a few months later.’

Chapter 11 (#ulink_dda6c46a-bb69-55bb-9de9-1a5a9dc5360e)

Coombe Road, Croydon

Saturday, June 18, 1994; 15.00

Fintan and I remain astride the White Horse for a long liquid lunch.

‘They’ll never solve the Nathan Barry murder,’ he declares. ‘Not unless they get a walk-in confessor, a witness to the actual murder or some incontrovertible DNA.’

I sigh. ‘I just can’t see how there can be any connection to Julie Draper, except the fact they both worked in Croydon.’

‘At least the Draper case is live. The Nathan Barry case looks dead and buried.’

‘A bit like my career,’ I grumble.

‘There is another option, you know?’ he says, surveying me archly like a disappointing art project. ‘And this option would get you into CID tomorrow.’

‘Like I’ve said before, I’m not joining the Freemasons.’

‘Virtually every cop I know is in it. It’s just a boys’ club, Donal, you can use it purely for your own ends.’

‘Virtually every criminal I’ve put away is in it too. It’s rotten to the core. I’m having no part in any dodgy secret societies. Anyway, I thought you had some philandering Tory to front up for tomorrow’s paper?’

‘I do,’ says Fintan, checking the time. ‘We always leave it as late as possible, so he can’t get hold of a lawyer or a judge or the Prime Minister or anyone else who might shoot the story down or leak it to a rival.’

‘What about his right of reply?’

‘That’s what I’ll be giving him at precisely 5pm. He wanted me to come to his home or constituency office, but I’ve insisted on a hotel lobby.’

‘Why? In case he was planning on producing his Boer War Elephant gun?’

‘Amongst other reasons.’

‘And what is this man’s grave crime?’

‘He’s a fifty-three-year-old married dad-of-two who had an affair with a rent boy about four years ago.’

‘And how does this sexual peccadillo detract from his performance as an MP?’