‘And Joyce,’ says Dom. ‘Staking out my warehouse on a January morning. You see that a reasonable man might have questions?’
‘Quite right,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And we have questions of our own. So why not invite us in? We can have a good old chinwag, and clear everything up.’
‘You ever used that gun?’ asks Dom, pointing at Elizabeth’s handbag.
‘This particular one, no, it’s clean,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I’m not an amateur.’
‘You work for Connie Johnson, is that it?’ asks Dom. ‘You her gran or something? What does she want?’
‘Connie is simply our friend,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Not mine,’ says Ron. ‘To be fair.’
‘She wants to kill Ron,’ says Joyce.
Dom looks at Ron and nods. ‘Yeah, I can see that. So what is it? What are you after? Do I need to worry about you, or can I go about my day?’
‘You’ll be relieved to hear it’s very simple,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We’re looking for the man who murdered our friend.’
‘OK,’ says Dom. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘Kuldesh Sharma.’
Dom shakes his head now. ‘Never heard of him.’
‘But you were in his shop just after Christmas,’ says Joyce. ‘Perhaps it slipped your mind? Antiques shop. In Brighton?’
‘Nope,’ says Dom.
‘He was murdered late on the 27th,’ says Elizabeth. ‘So you see why we thought you might be involved?’
Dom shakes his head again. ‘Never heard of him, never been in his shop, didn’t kill him. Sorry for your loss though.’
‘Did you find the heroin?’ asks Ibrahim. ‘When you ransacked his shop? Perhaps you have it in your warehouse this very moment?’
‘You’ve an active imagination,’ says Dom. ‘I’ll give you that.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly heard of Kuldesh,’ says Elizabeth. ‘A fool could see that as soon as we mentioned his name. And we have fairly solid proof you’ve been in his shop.’
‘Proof?’
‘Nothing that would hold up in court,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Don’t panic.’
‘So the only question we have left,’ says Ron, ‘is did you kill him?’
‘And that’s why we’re here,’ says Joyce.
‘Just to see what we can see,’ adds Ibrahim. ‘And a day out also.’
‘Wait here,’ says Dom, and returns to his car.
Joyce watches Dom Holt root around in the boot of the Range Rover. ‘He seems very nice. For a heroin dealer.’
‘Uh-oh,’ says Ron, looking past Joyce. Dom Holt has returned with a golf club, and is now pulling a large knife from his perfectly tailored overcoat. He nods to the friends.
‘Just checking youse lot have got AA membership?’
‘Never bothered,’ says Ron. ‘They rip you off.’
‘Ron, I don’t know how you can live on such a tightrope,’ says Ibrahim, and Ron shrugs. ‘How on earth do you sleep?’
‘Well, look,’ says Dom. ‘I’m going to slash your tyres and smash your windscreen. So you’re going to need some help.’
‘Perhaps you could consider –’ begins Ibrahim, before Dom crouches and slashes the right front tyre.
‘I can’t have you following me all day. There’s a garage a mile or so up the road though,’ says Dom, popping back up. ‘I’ll give you his number and he’ll come and bail you out.’
‘Thank you,’ says Joyce. ‘Whatever would we have done without you?’
‘If I ever see you again, you’ll get worse,’ says Dom.
‘You know all this is making me think you killed Kuldesh Sharma,’ says Elizabeth.
Dom shrugs. ‘Couldn’t care less. This is my place of work, and I don’t like being disturbed. Especially by a cockney West Ham fan who’s too cheap to pay for AA membership, a coke dealer who hangs out with Connie Johnson, an old woman too scared to use her gun, and Joyce. I didn’t kill your mate, but if you keep poking round where you’re not welcome, I’ll kill you.’ He ducks down again.
‘An old woman too scared to use her gun?’ says Elizabeth, as the car clunks towards the ground again. ‘We’ll see about that.’
‘I don’t suppose you lot know where the heroin is?’ Dom asks, hands on hips, catching his breath from the exertion. ‘If you’ve got it, best to tell me?’
Silence from the gang.
‘You’re wrong about AA membership,’ says Ron. ‘You save more money by –’
But the rest of Ron’s defence is drowned out by the sound of the windscreen being repeatedly smashed by a Liverpudlian with a golf club and a grudge.
Further up the lay-by, a motorcycle courier looks over at the scene, as he buys a burger from a roadside van.
Here’s the thing. It is a great deal easier being interviewed by the police than by another criminal. Mitch Maxwell has been interviewed by the police many times, and their resources and opportunities are limited. Everything is on tape, your overpaid solicitor gets to sit next to you shaking her head at the questions, and, by law, they have to make you a cup of tea.
Doesn’t matter what you’ve done – set fire to a factory, kidnapped a business associate, flown a drone full of cannabis into a prison – and it doesn’t matter what evidence they have – ‘You would agree that this CCTV shows you, Mr Maxwell, running from the scene with a petrol can’ – you can just sit there in peace, say, ‘No comment,’ every time you notice a silence and wait twenty-four hours until they have to let you go.
