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?’
