Something Evil Comes Page 8

  ‘Yes. About Matthew Flynn.’

  ‘You’re from the police?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Hanson pushed her card across the table. The woman looked at it. ‘It was on the news this morning. It’s a terrible thing to have happened to Matthew but it’s over a year since I last saw him. I don’t see how I can help you.’

  Hanson kept it brief. ‘I’d appreciate your talking to me about him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Tell me whatever you recall about Matthew as a person.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s a long time since I saw him.’ She fell silent, appeared to be thinking. ‘OK. What I most remember about him was the nice way he had.’ She gave Hanson a direct look. ‘I know that charm can mean a lot of different things, not all of them good, but with Matthew there was a quiet charm that was really nice. Really natural.’

  ‘How did that show itself?’

  Brennan gave the question some thought. ‘It wasn’t just that he was pleasant to work with. He was kind as well. He genuinely liked people. Cared about them.’ She looked down at the table. ‘I had some problems last year. Relationship problems and stuff, you know. Not that I told Matthew about those, but that’s what I’m saying about him. He seemed to sense when something was wrong and he would kind of cheer me up. It was like he took an interest. Wanted to help if he could. He knew I was down and he wanted to make me feel better. He usually did, just by talking to me, making me laugh.’ She fell silent for a few seconds. ‘I remember that last day I saw him here. He was really upbeat.’

  Hanson waited. ‘Why was he upbeat? Did he tell you?’ She pressed.

  Brennan looked up. ‘He showed me. He hadn’t said he was getting a tattoo. I was surprised, I can tell you. Mr “Middle-of-the-Road”, was Matthew.’

  ‘After he disappeared, did the police come here?’

  ‘A few days after, yes.’

  Hanson made a quick note, thinking of Matthew’s parents who seemed to know little about their son’s life. ‘Did you tell them about Matthew’s tattoo?’

  ‘They asked if I’d noticed any change in him prior to his going. I said he was the same as he always was. I’m not sure I mentioned the tattoo.’

  ‘Do you remember what day it was when Matthew came in and showed you his tattoo?’ asked Hanson.

  Brennan nodded. ‘That’s easy. It was the Monday. He must have got it done over that weekend. He didn’t arrive for his shift on the Thursday and that was it. I never saw him again. I wouldn’t say it annoyed me exactly, but you get used to working with certain people, particularly if you get on well with them.’ She looked down at the table. ‘If I’m honest I suppose I was put out that he didn’t confide in me that he was leaving. But then the months went by and I suppose I didn’t think about him that much. Hearing what’s actually happened to him is awful.’ She looked away from Hanson. ‘I feel guilty now that I didn’t think about him more often.’

  ‘What did you know about his background?’

  Brennan looked uncertain. ‘You mean his family? Nothing much. I got the idea they were well off but Matthew never actually said so. Just the odd comment here and there. He mentioned he had an older brother who worked with their father. He also mentioned the school he went to and I recognised the name. One of those private schools. I think he’d had the chance to go to university but he never talked about that either.’

  Hanson knew she had to extend Brennan’s thinking if at all possible. ‘OK, Terri. If you had just four words to describe Matthew, what would they be?’

  There was a short pause as Brennan gave it some thought. ‘I’d say … kind, honest … brave and cheerful.’

  Hanson looked up. ‘Brave?’

  She nodded. ‘When Matthew and I were working together in the summer last year, a man came in. He obviously had some problems and he was starting to get a bit loud. Talking to himself, you know. This centre is massive but the security is really good. Each retail unit has its own silent alarm. Anyway, I was all for activating it but Matthew said no. He went and spoke to the man, calmed him down and he left without causing any more trouble.’

  Hanson thought about it. Brave, possibly. Also ill-advised, if you don’t know what you’re dealing with. ‘Any idea why Matthew chose to do that?’

  ‘He said the man obviously had problems and he didn’t want to give him more by calling security and maybe involving the police. Like I said, kind. Although, I did say to him afterwards that it probably wasn’t a good idea to be kind all the time.’ She looked at Hanson. ‘That wasn’t meant to sound critical of Matthew.’

  Hanson’s thinking was now in overdrive. ‘What did this man look like?’

  ‘All I remember is that he was tall, around five-ten, thin.’

  ‘Neatly dressed? Scruffy?’

  ‘Neither. Just ordinary. That’s all I can say about him. He looked OK, else security would probably have picked up on him before he got this far into the centre.’

  ‘Did you get any sense at all that Matthew knew this man?’

  Brennan eyed her, clearly surprised. ‘It never occurred to me. I don’t think so. No. I’m sure he didn’t.’

  Hanson sighed inwardly. Just another sad, lonely individual drawn to the city centre. ‘What about Matthew’s social life?’

  ‘I can’t tell you much about that, except I don’t think he was one for going out every night.’

  ‘Did he mention the people he shared a house with?’

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘Did he mention any particular friends?’

  Brennan gave it some thought. ‘The only name I remember him mentioning was Zach but I don’t think he was a friend.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ she prompted.

  Brennan shrugged. ‘It was just an impression I got. It seemed to me like he didn’t like this Zach.’

  Hanson made swift notes. For someone as personable as Brennan had indicated Matthew Flynn to be, he didn’t appear to have a lot of social connections. She recalled the information from the tattoo parlour proprietor: Matthew had a friend with him when he got his tattoo.

  ‘Did he ever mention someone named Callum?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Would you describe Matthew as lonely at all?’

  Brennan looked up, as though searching for words. ‘I wouldn’t say lonely. He had his family. He told me his father had wanted him to work with him in the family business like his brother, but he wouldn’t. I got the idea that Matthew didn’t have a lot in common with them but he never said so.’

  ‘What about his mother?’

  Brennan thought about it. ‘He didn’t say much about her either, except that she annoyed him sometimes.’

  ‘Did he say how, why?’

  ‘Nothing much, except once or twice he mentioned that she’d visited the house where he was living and brought flowers. He didn’t like that.’

  Hanson made another quick note. ‘Did he say why?’

  Brennan shook her head. ‘No. Now I come to think about it, about Matthew being a bit lonely, it seemed to me he didn’t have anybody close to him, know what I mean? That’s why I was really pleased when he told me he’d met somebody.’

  Brennan’s last three words stopped Hanson’s pen. She looked up, keeping her tone casual. ‘Tell me.’

  Brennan shrugged. ‘Nothing much to tell. Matthew was private about himself, but I know he liked her a lot.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He told me she was a special girl.’ Brennan’s bright smile disappeared. ‘How sad is that, given what happened to him?’

  ‘Did he mention her name?’

  Hanson wrote down Brennan’s one-word response.

  Watts had phoned to say he and Corrigan were calling into the university on their way from the city centre to headquarters. Hanson had been back ten minutes when they arrived, Watts looking vexed. ‘We spoke to the manager of the agency which employed Matthew Flynn. They had next to no face-to-face dealings with him. All do
ne by phone or online, but described him as honest and conscientious. Then we went to four places he worked semi-regularly. All we got was that he was quiet, did his job and he was reliable. End of story. Bloody waste of time. The Flynn family owns an employment agency. Why didn’t they find him work?’

  ‘He seems to have valued his independence,’ said Corrigan.

  Watts huffed. ‘Catch me doing that if my old man had that much money. Don’t forget he was happy to live in a house his father owned.’ He looked at Hanson. ‘How’d you get on at the Bull Ring coffee shop?’

  Hanson flicked through her notes and gave a quick summation. ‘Matthew appears to have been a little socially isolated, somewhat naïve in his dealings with people, he wasn’t too happy with someone called Zach and, wait for it, he had a girlfriend.’

  Watts raised thick eyebrows. ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘All Matthew’s co-worker recalled is that he was very keen on this girl, woman. He described her as “special”.’

  Watts gazed at her. ‘Learn anything else about him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t manage to drag any more details out of her, like you usually do? The old KGB training never kicked in?’

  Hanson gave him a look as Corrigan put his head back in a silent laugh. ‘There was nothing to “drag”. She didn’t know any more about him. What she did tell me was this girl’s first name.’ They waited. ‘It was Honey.’

  ‘You what? That’s not a name,’ scoffed Watts.

  ‘There’s some crazy names around,’ said Corrigan.

  Watts looked dismissive. ‘That’s just one of them pet names. We’ll never trace her on that.’

  ‘I’m telling you what Brennan told me,’ said Hanson. ‘It sounds like Matthew and this Honey were pretty close.’

  ‘One thing it does tell us,’ said Watts. ‘Matthew Flynn wasn’t gay.’

  Hanson regarded him with a slow shake of her head. She knew he was good at his job, that he was quick-witted when needed. She also knew that he navigated his way through life guided by certainties, black-white, yes-no, which probably helped him do what was needed to uphold the law. He was still annoying. ‘What a simple world you live in. I don’t know how you got the idea he might be gay but his having a girlfriend confirms nothing about his sexuality. He could still be gay. Or bi, or straight. We know from the tattoo shop proprietor that he had a male friend, Callum, and before you do more conclusion-jumping, the value of this information is that it’s extending the picture we have of Matthew beyond his family.’

  Watts flicked through his notebook, his facial expression suggesting that whatever he was looking for, he wasn’t finding it. ‘I think this case is about drugs. The street attacks on Matthew Flynn could have been drug-related. He upset somebody.’ He paused. ‘I’m picking up that the two Flynn sons couldn’t be more different: Matthew is out working minimum money jobs while Dominic is sitting nice and comfy inside his old man’s business empire.’

  ‘It seems that was a decision Matthew made,’ said Hanson firmly.

  Watts’s phone rang. He rummaged for it and spoke. ‘Yeah? Whose?’ He listened, nodded. ‘Thanks for that.’ He cut the call, wide face creased into a smile. ‘That was Chong. Results of the fingerprint testing of the candles left in the crypt has produced a name: Colin Chivers. Small-time B and E offences. He’s a yam-yam but he’s been living in Birmingham a couple of years and I know where to find him.’

  Hanson gave him a cold look. ‘I hope what you just said isn’t a reference to this person being of foreign origin.’

  He grinned at her. ‘You’ve still got a lot to learn about the Midlands, doc. Chivers is from the Black Country. Salt of the earth, the people there, excluding him. It’s how they speak: you-am, we-am. Yam-yam, see? When we’ve got hold of him and he’s at headquarters I’ll ring you. I want you observing the interview. Chivers is a world-class liar.’

  Her colleagues had left and Hanson was gazing at the photograph of Matthew Flynn in life secured to the flip chart. Earlier that morning she had written just four words beneath it: ‘scarf. Why no blood?’ She stood, her eyes fixed on his face, absorbing its individual features, searching it for what it had conveyed to her in death inside the crypt. She took a step back, shook her head. That wasn’t the kind of evidence they needed. Returning to her desk for her notes on what Brennan had said, she brought them to the flip chart and added more words: ‘genuine charm, personable, honest, kind, caring. Brave. Girlfriend: a special girl.’ On a new line, she wrote the single name: ‘Honey’.

  Pausing to survey all she had written she now saw a theme. These were all positive words about Matthew and his life. She moved down the flip chart, added: ‘well-off family’. Was that a positive or a negative? Watts would say it was indisputably positive. She wasn’t so categorical. She began a list of what might be construed as negative characteristics: ‘not close to family. Limited social life. Too kind. Naïve – sufficient to place self in harm’s way’. She added a final question: ‘who is Zach who was not a friend? And if he wasn’t, why not?’

  NINE

  Perched on the table inside the observation room the following morning, feet on a nearby chair, Hanson’s full attention was on the scene playing itself out beyond the one-way glass. Watts had wasted no time in bringing in Chivers. Being no stranger to legal problems, Chivers had brought his solicitor who was now sitting next to him, pen poised, his sharp eyes on Watts, the light of the PACE machine glowing at one end of the table.

  She looked at Chivers, reprising what she now knew about him: twenty-two years old, extensive criminal record for breaking-and-entering, beginning when he was fourteen, interspersed with youth custody followed by a brief stay in adult prison. He was now facing Watts across the table, shoulders hunched. Hanson was here to evaluate Chivers’ reliability during interview. She’d suggested that Watts start with questions unrelated to any offence. He’d asked Chivers about his football team. Chivers had responded freely, his face animated, supporting his responses with appropriate eye, mouth and brow movements. She propped her chin on her hand, waiting for the next question as the door opened and Corrigan came into the observation room and sat on the table beside her.

  ‘OK, Mr Chivers,’ said Watts. ‘You’ve agreed to be interviewed and you’ve got your solicitor present. Let’s make a start. What do you know about St Bartholomew’s?’

  Hanson saw shutters drop down on Chivers’ face. He went straight to denial. ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘We’ve got evidence that you know it very well,’ said Watts.

  Chivers’ solicitor intervened. ‘What evidence?’

  ‘All in good time,’ said Watts, his eyes not leaving Chivers’ face. ‘Given we’ve got it, tell us about St Bartholomew’s.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ He sat back smirking. ‘I avoid churches.’

  Watts slow nodded, brows raised, tone conversational. ‘Do you, now? That’s interesting. St Bartholomews … could be a school, a health centre, a community centre. What makes you think it’s a church?’ Chivers opened his mouth. Closed it. ‘How about we get down to brass tacks?’ said Watts companionably. ‘Or should I say, candles?’

  The solicitor shot a look at Chivers whose face was now flagging up a mix of emotions, primarily fear. Corrigan leant towards Hanson. ‘Looks like gotcha time.’

  ‘I need a word in private with my client, please,’ said the solicitor.

  Watts inclined his head, gracious in victory. ‘Of course you do. Follow me.’ A minute later he came into the observation room. ‘Chivers is smart enough to work out that “candles” means we’ve got prints.’ He dropped papers onto the table and searched them. ‘What do you make of him, doc?’

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you he’s defensive.’

  ‘No, but it helps to know that you agree with me and that it’s not my interviewing technique that’s making him nervous.’

  She recognised Watts in forward-thinking mode, anticipating legal obje
ctions before they happened because he’d heard them a thousand times. She asked, ‘Are you going to tell him that he and a companion were seen running from the church?’

  ‘Depends. Resistant types like Chivers are very reluctant to admit anything. Faced with a choice they go with denial every time and I’d rather not think of the hours I’ve wasted which I’ll never get back on people like him.’

  ‘What do you want from him?’ asked Hanson.

  ‘The name of his crypt-visiting mate because he’ll be another source.’ He looked at his watch and headed for the door.

  Hanson turned to Corrigan. ‘Good at this, isn’t he?’

  ‘Sure is.’ They watched through the glass as Watts entered the interview room, followed by Chivers and his solicitor.

  ‘What would you like him to get from the interview, Corrigan?’ she asked.

  He smiled down at her. ‘Top of my list would be an admission that when they went inside the crypt they found whatever was used to kill Matthew Flynn, took it with them and they still have it.’ They watched as Watts restarted the PACE machine.

  ‘Right, Mr Chivers. What have you got for me?’

  Chivers looked Watts in the eye. ‘OK, I am being straight with you now, right?’ Hanson picked up on two of his words: I-am. Yam-yam. ‘Yes, I went into that place and yes, I was looking for stuff to nick but there was nothing there so I left.’

  ‘Is that a fact? Short visit was it?’

  ‘Yeah, in and out, ten seconds, tops.’

  Watts sat back, thick arms folded. ‘Let’s think about that, shall we?’

  ‘My client has given you an admission that he broke in—’

  ‘Ten seconds to get inside, walk about a bit, light some candles, have a proper look around.’ He shook his head. ‘Sounds like a good few minutes to me.’