“Right. Wonder how forthcoming he’ll be in admitting to that. Doesn’t strike me as the sort who would want that being public knowledge.”
“If I recall, he said he was a widower,” Joseph said, scanning back through his notes. “It would make sense, I suppose, that he would want to engage in those sorts of services.”
“Certainly would,” Ray said, almost grudgingly. Joseph got the impression that paying for sex would never really make sense to Ray. “I tell you what. Let’s get ourselves over there now and speak to Derek. Get the focus of the search to be that warehouse down in the corner by Bowater. Chances are, that’s where we’re going to find our evidence. If there is any.”
16.
Night had fallen by the time they had made it back to the docks. Their first stop had been to the uniformed sergeant in charge of the search. They ordered him to redeploy his men and the dock workers. The area nearest to Bowater Road made up nearly a quarter of the dock. One larger warehouse and four smaller sheds around it. That in hand, they made their way to Derek Nadderley’s office, finding him in the process of damping down the fire in his burner.
“Closing up for the night?” Ray asked.
“Chance would be a fine thing. One last spin around the warehouse, check in on everything, make sure the lazy sods are doing what they’re paid for, then I might get home.” Derek sounded annoyed, either at the interruption to his end-of-day routine, or something that had happened earlier.
“Might be about to put a spanner in your works I’m afraid,” Ray said. “We believe we might have an approximate location of where Gerald Trainer was murdered.”
“Oh yeah, where’s that then?” Derek asked.
“The corner of the docks by Bowater Road.”
Derek shuffled over to where his coat hung above a small stool. He sat down and started to unlace his boots. “Useful things but bloody uncomfortable after a while,” he grumbled, pulling out a pair of black lace-up shoes. “Let me get these on and we can walk on over and move some of my men across.”
“Already in hand.”
“Well, I suppose we should head over and see what’s happening. Mind me asking what brought you to that conclusion?”
“A tip-off from a member of the public. Someone in the area at that time,” Joseph said, studying Derek for a reaction. If he recognised the location, he didn’t let it show.
“Well, let’s hope we get something then. I can stop this lot of shirkers using your investigation as a ruse to do nothing, can’t I?”
“Before we do,” Ray held up a hand as Derek walked to the door, “I just need to go over a few things, to help us confirm the veracity of what we’ve been told?”
Derek shook his head a little, as if not quite following. “Sorry?”
“Well, it’s our understanding you might be able to confirm the story for us?”
“I might…” Derek paused as he realised what was being said. “Oh.”
“A lady by the name of Sara Queen…” Joseph began.
“Now, listen,” Derek hissed. “What I do or don’t do is none of your business, is it?”
“It is our business if you’ve not told us something that could have helped our investigation.”
“Not told you something?”
“Ms Queen said that she heard shouting, an argument to be precise, at about a quarter past one in the morning, over in the vicinity of the section of the dock that adjoins Bowater Road. She also said she was with you at the time, Mr Nadderley, which begs the question of why you didn’t hear anything,” Joseph pressed.
“Begs the question, does it?” Derek sneered. “Tell me, you ever been under heavy artillery fire?”
“No,” Joseph said, not understanding where Derek was going.
“No, I bet you ain’t. You, on the other hand,” he looked at Ray. “I reckon you could tell your protégé here what that’s like. Noisy, isn’t it?”
Ray straightened up but said nothing, so Derek continued.
“When I come back from the war, they told me I had what they called otological trauma. Fancy way for saying hearing damage. Said it wasn’t a big deal, that they were seeing lots and lots of it from the lads who made it home. The high explosives and all that, they damaged your eardrums. Most people were all right after a while. But some people got it worse. Apparently, it could do damage further down, the inner bits of the ears. Well, that’s what I got, wasn’t it? Tinnitus. Bloody ringing all the time. Makes it hard for me to hear over a distance. Certainly, I don’t pick up on anything that ain’t said straight to my face. So, I might have been busy doing something I shouldn’t have been doing, but I tell you now, if I had some tart panting and moaning down my lugs, there’s no way on earth you’d get me to tell you what were going on in the background.”
“Is that something we could verify?”
“Something you could verify?” Derek huffed and shook his head. “I’ll give you me doctor’s name, shall I? You go and check with him. I ain’t got nothing to hide. Not bloody now, anyway,” he said angrily.
“You were with Ms Queen?” Ray confirmed.
“Yes,” Derek looked at him through narrow eyes.
“And you heard nothing?”
“Panting. Maybe even some moaning.”
“You don’t need to be defensive with us,” Joseph pointed out.
“I don’t? Funny, you lot just accused me of paying for sex and withholding information from you. I feel I should be very much on the defensive on both of those matters.”
“You did at least one of those things. Some might argue two” Ray pointed out bluntly, to which he received another angry glance from Derek.
Before he could offer any more objections, they were interrupted by the sound of shouting from outside. Joseph and Ray both turned to the door, which brought a “What the bloody hell is going on?” from the exasperated Derek.
They quickly made their way out of the door, Derek leading the way, Ray and Joseph hurrying behind. Joseph knew which direction he needed to be looking in. The corner of the docks nearest to Bowater Road. Orange flames licked against a base of thick black smoke that rolled and disappeared into the night sky. Derek thundered down the steps, but Ray stopped, looking out from the viewpoint at the door to the office.
