“He’s gone home to convalesce. Are you thinking we should pop in?”
“I reckon we should.”
27.
The Jones family lived in one of the new tower blocks that had been popping up all over London. The block they lived in was situated just off Prospect Vale to the west of Woolwich, on the Morris Walk Estate. It comprised of several H-shaped tower blocks, many of which were still under construction. It certainly hadn’t been the historical family home. The concrete edifices reached higher into the skyline than anything had ever dared to reach before. A sign of the new hope and purpose for mankind as they entered the final third of the 20th century, perhaps. Or simply cheap, effective and efficient. Looking at the newness, the cleanliness of the area, Joseph figured that the blocks could only have been open for a year at most. The elements, or their inhabitants, yet to leave their mark. He wondered how long that would last. Joseph couldn’t imagine living inside of one. Being surrounded on each side, above and below. People criss-crossing on the stairs, the elevators, in tight corridors. How could anyone call somewhere like this their home when they shared it with so many others?
They rode the elevator up to the fifth floor. The lift hadn’t avoided some small acts of vandalism. Names of lovers, one or two of them since scratched out, presumably as the romance had ended. Testaments to man’s desire to find permanence in the temporary.
The lift jerked to a halt and the doors wobbled open into a dark and narrow corridor, lit at the furthest ends by windows far too small to ever be fit for purpose. The lights on the ceiling were dim and altogether hopeless. What state must the Joneses have found themselves in to end up here? Surely this wasn’t better than whatever they had left behind.
Ray rapped his knuckles firmly on the door as they arrived, then they waited. It didn’t take long for it to be opened. To their surprise, Harry stood behind the door. His face had begun to heal. His eyes opened wider; his lips looked less sore; not that he looked ready to crack a smile. His head hung low, shoulders slumped and he said nothing as he stepped aside and let the detectives in. Joseph had seen men look like that before. Usually when they knew the game was up.
Harry’s mum introduced herself and offered to make them all a cup of tea, which Ray and Joseph gladly took her up on. Harry didn’t reply. She told them her name was Clara and that she was profoundly sorry for all the trouble her son had caused. She couldn’t understand where she had gone wrong with him. Joseph knew a guilt trip when he saw one. It reminded him of being young.
The view from the kitchen was impressive, looking north, out over the tops of the trees to the docks on each side of the river and then beyond into Newham. It made Joseph’s head spin a little bit and he wondered how much further those on the top floor could see and how they ever managed to sleep at night.
When the drinks came, there were only three. Two for the detectives, one for Mrs Jones. Whether she had decided Harry didn’t want one, or he knew that he wasn’t being offered one, wasn’t acknowledged. Clara said she would leave the men to their talking and headed off to the living room leaving the three of them seated at the dining table.
“So, are you ready to tell us what happened?” Ray asked as Joseph prepared his notepad and pen.
“About what?” Harry sounded tired and sad. A man who had had enough.
“Let’s start with the night of the murder. Where were you?” Ray asked, wanting to rule out any chance that Derek had told them anything less than the truth.
“I went up to Camden on a delivery.”
“How come you drive the trucks?” Joseph asked. “Feels quite the responsibility for someone so young.”
Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. Mr Nadderley asks me to do it, so I do it. I guess he thinks he can trust me.”
“What time did you get there?”
“Got there a little after midnight. Took them about an hour to unload it. They had a few trucks coming in.”
“Were you there the whole time?”
“Yes. Mr Nadderley would go mad if he thought I’d left the wagon unattended. He doesn’t trust anyone. Especially up at Camden. Too many different sorts, he reckons.”
“Different sorts?”
“You know. Coloureds and all that. I don’t mind them, they’re fine with me, but Mr Nadderley is more old-fashioned. He’s not used to them, so I don’t think he trusts them. Just how a lot of people think, isn’t it?”
Joseph wanted to tell him that it shouldn’t be, but Harry’s acceptance of outright racism wasn’t at the forefront of what they were trying to do here.
“Mr Nadderley told us the same. That kind of puts you out of the frame for the murder. Which should be good news, shouldn’t it?” Ray said. “But your face doesn’t look like it just got good news, Harry. You look troubled. Like you want to tell me something.”
Harry blew the air out of his mouth and looked away. If he did want to say something, it wasn’t coming just yet.
“All right then,” Ray changed his approach. “Let’s talk about the night of the fire. Now, I don’t know if you know much about what we can do these days when we’re looking at a fire, but one thing we can do is work out whether someone used something to make that fire take hold a bit quicker. Do you know what we found when we looked at the results that came back from the warehouse that went up in smoke? We found that someone had used petrol. Where were you that day, Harry?”
Harry turned and looked at Ray. “In the garage,” he replied mournfully.
“In the garage,” Ray echoed. “And what is there lots of in the garage?”
“Petrol,” Harry sighed.
“Now, you can see why we’re interested in that, Harry. We’re pretty certain that Gerald Trainer died there, and we’re also certain that whoever lit the fire that night, did so in a rush. They saw we’d worked out the location and were preparing to search it. They had to move quick to get that petrol and light that fire. Someone with access to there and also to petrol.”
Harry shook his head. “I didn’t start the fire.”
“I didn’t say you did. You may well have been in the garage the whole time. But if you were, would you not have seen someone coming in and taking the petrol?”
“I was under a van and it’s a decent-sized garage with people coming and going all the time,” Harry protested, a little more fight in his voice.
“You didn’t see anything?”
“No,” he exclaimed.
“Okay,” Ray said, moving on, not wanting to linger on any one point. “Let’s move on to the part of your story I find confusing: you taking a beating after going to visit Tommy Jay. What happened there?”
Harry looked away and down.
“Remember, Harry, we saw you,” Joseph spoke up now, eager to have this as his moment. “I stepped in and saved you. It could have been a lot, lot worse.”
Harry shook his head. “You can’t tell me mum, all right? You can’t.”
“Can’t tell her what, Harry?”
