“Cardiff?”
“Charlton were playing there the next day. We wanted to get over the day before, have a good old sup around the town. Get into them taffy bastards and all that if we had to. Not that we did, obviously. All scared of us, ain’t they?”
“Your friend. Got a name, has he?” Ray sounded sceptical.
“Colin Franks. You ask him. He’ll tell you. I’ve got the bloody programme at home and all. Not that I wish I’d bothered. Got beat 3–1.”
“Not a good game?” Ray’s tone changed to conversational.
“Referee was a homer, wasn’t he?” Alfie said with indignation, being reeled in by Ray’s apparent kinship.
“A what?” Joseph wasn’t sure what that meant.
“He backed the home team. Lot of them do that. Get scared and give them all the decisions. And he did that all right. Gave them two penalties. Did everything he could for them. We absolutely pummelled them up here as well. 5–2 it was. Can’t beat us without help from the man in black.”
For the first time, Joseph saw Alfie as a normal person, albeit his enthusiasm for the match was almost childlike. Alfie Scott couldn’t have manufactured it. If he had, then they’d seriously underestimated him.
“I tell you what, Mr Scott. Let’s get all this done and dusted now. If you were where you say you were, we can eliminate you from our enquiries. We’ll go to your house, have a look at the programme, tickets. I’ll have someone from the station call Mr Franks. Then, if everything is in order, we’ll never darken your door again. At least, not unless you give us cause to.”
This suited Alfie. He seemed keen to prove his innocence. Either that, or he really did just want to get out of work for an hour. They clambered into the car, Ray driving, whilst Joseph contacted the station via the radio, leaving orders for WPC Small to chase up Colin Franks and get back to them.
Janet wasn’t home when they arrived, much to Joseph’s relief. He felt guilty for following up with Alfie, despite her insistence he wasn’t the man who killed Gerald. Maybe because he knew he would want to ask her why she hadn’t mentioned the fact that Alfie had been out of town on the night of the crime. It seemed plausible that she had no idea where Alfie had been. He didn’t strike Joseph as the sort of chap who left a note detailing his plans for the day. Almost certainly there would be multiple occasions when Alfie had simply disappeared for days on end. Janet probably enjoyed them. Joseph would, were he in her shoes.
“How is your wife?” he couldn’t help but ask. He wondered if Janet had mentioned their talk in the car. He doubted it, but part of him needed to know.
“She’s all right. We’re expecting again, so I’m trying to get her to do a little less, but you know what women are like. Don’t always listen unless you tell them properly, know what I mean?”
“Enlighten me,” Ray said in a way that didn’t sound threatening but still managed to skewer Alfie’s smile. Joseph couldn’t help but revel in it. Janet had been right. Alfie would only pick fights with those he thought he could beat.
Alfie swallowed and went on. “Look, I ain’t never been no angel, I don’t reckon that’ll shock either of you, but I’m trying not to be that way.”
“Really?” Joseph didn’t try to keep the scepticism out of his voice.
“Really.”
“Anything brought on that change?” Ray asked. Even Joseph wondered if he’d managed to spark something in either Alfie or Janet that would have changed their dynamic.
“We all got to realise who we are. Maybe I thought I had the devil in me. Maybe that wasn’t true.” It was a far deeper answer than Joseph had been expecting and he wasn’t really sure what to make of it.
“Keep it that way,” Ray said firmly, silently promising to Alfie what would happen if he didn’t.
Alfie kept the programme in a shoebox under the bed, alongside a host of other programmes he had picked up watching Charlton. He kept them in order; it struck Joseph as odd that a wife beater would have such a mundane hobby as collecting football programmes. Alfie eventually found the train tickets screwed up on his bedside table, mixed in with a betting slip from a bookie’s for the game, which clearly hadn’t provided him with a winner.
Satisfied, they gave him a lift back to the factory. WPC Small called in as they did so. Colin Franks had confirmed the story. Alfie had a solid alibi. Joseph looked into the rear-view mirror as the message came through. Alfie stared out of the window of the car, smiling to himself. He might be many things, but he wasn’t a murderer.
They returned him to work and headed back towards the station, Ray driving.
“Well,” he said, in a pleasant tone that Joseph wasn’t used to hearing and didn’t know what it represented. “Sounds to me like you got through to him. You should take a little bit more pride in yourself, young man.”
Joseph smiled, knowing that he would.
26.
They made the dockyard their next port of call. Harry Jones remained the inescapable centre of their investigation at this point. His whereabouts on the night of the murder and the arson needed confirming. There was one person who would know.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Derek spat the words out as he looked up from his chair, a mug of something warm-looking in his hands as he did so. “What do you want now?”
“Wanted to talk to you about Harry Jones,” Ray said calmly, ignoring the apparent hostility.
“Again?”
“More specific questions this time, shouldn’t take long.”
“Well, let’s hope not, for your sake. I’ve got places to be once me cuppa is done and dusted. Was hoping to enjoy it and all.” Derek placed the cup down and pulled out a small bag of tobacco and started to roll himself a cigarette. “Go on,” he waved at them to begin as he did so.
“We’d really like to know if you can provide the whereabouts of Harry Jones on the night of the murder. We know that might not be completely possible, but if you can let us know who would know?” Joseph explained, trying his best to skirt around the fact that Derek had been off site with a local working girl at the time.
“You can just say it, you know. I was getting my cobwebs blown by some tart round the corner. It’s all right. Nothing to be bloody ashamed of. Everyone has to get their wick wet somehow, even miserable old sods like me.”
“Regardless,” Ray interrupted. “Harry Jones. I take it he wasn’t there?”
Derek raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t like to be watched if that’s what you’re intimating. Not some sort of bloody poofter.”
“I didn’t intimate anything.”
“Well, no he wasn’t there. Obviously. That night, let me see,” Derek lit the roll-up and took a long drag, before following it up with a large gulp of tea. “Yes, he would have been doing a delivery run for me.”
“At that time of night?”
