“Of course,” Banks replied as Ray sat back down next to Joseph, looking at him quizzically.
“When you told us to stop investigating Tommy Jay, what inspired that decision?” Joseph asked.
Banks paused and looked at him. Joseph felt his pulse working its way through his body, his stomach flipping and his muscles tensing. Why on earth had he asked that question? His bowels felt as if they were about to exit his body through every available orifice. He wanted to apologise immediately, to take back the words and walk out of the office, maybe never return. But he didn’t. He had to stay the course now.
Banks’s face went still. Joseph had no idea whether he would bawl him out, or confess to being in the pocket of Tommy Jay. Maybe he would simply shrug it off and feign ignorance.
Banks didn’t get the chance to answer. Ray did it for him.
“You knew, didn’t you, sir? Not that it was Derek, but that it wasn’t Tommy Jay.”
“Let me tell you a thing about people,” Banks said eventually, his voice quiet and flat. “People are very, very simple things to understand.” His eyes floated across the two of them, before settling on Joseph. “Most of them, anyway. Some are, shall we say, different. But most people, they only want to do one thing. They want to get paid so they can provide for themselves, for their families, or the families that they’re going to have. That applies to me, you two, any of the officers in here. It also applies to almost every single criminal we come across. Sometimes the crimes they commit are born of something else. Passion. Jealousy. Rage. But what drives our day-to-day is money. It’s the world in which we live. A man must get paid. Some people can even have their heads turned for money. And before you say anything stupid and make me lose the very ample amount of respect I’ve built up for you today, I am not one of those. But I have a number of those in my employ. Which means I sometimes hear things. Things that I cannot of course use in any court of law, for after all, I’ve paid to know what I know. But things that I can use to steer the people around me. Especially if they’re veering dangerously off course and jeopardising a whole investigation. I didn’t know that the killer worked on the docks. But I did know, with an almost absolute degree of certainty, that Tommy Jay wasn’t the person behind it.”
“What if you were being lied to?” Joseph asked.
“Then I should have no doubt that you two would have had my guts for garters after the fact, which is why I’m trusting you both enough to let you know. But I’ll also tell you this. For every informant I might have working inside the different criminal organisations on our patch, there’s an officer whose head has been equally turned in that other direction.”
If it was a bluff, it worked on Joseph. Banks had told them straight. Not only were there police officers out there on the take for Tommy Jay, Christopher Peters and more, but that he believed wholeheartedly that Joseph and Ray weren’t those officers.
“Thank you, sir,” Joseph said as he stood, his earlier fear and confusion gone.
“No. Thank you, both,” Banks said.
Once they were out of the room, Ray clapped his hand on Joseph’s shoulder. “That was brave,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”
*
They kept the initial interrogation with Derek short and to the point. The man offered little in the way of defence. He admitted to the murder but asked that they find him a lawyer before he answered any more questions. With it being a weekend, a lawyer wouldn’t be quick to find and so they decided that they would adjourn for the day, with the promise of conducting their full interview with his lawyer present. He wasn’t going anywhere after all.
Ray suggested that the two of them take the rest of the day off. He had been holding his arm as he did so. He hadn’t mentioned it, but Joseph knew it had to be hurting him. “Might go get it looked at up the hospital, or at the very least, indulge in a little self-medication,” he said.
It was the least Joseph could do to oblige. Just after lunchtime he walked back into his house to be greeted by Dziko.
“That’s absolutely marvellous, I’m so proud of you,” she gushed when he’d finished recounting the story of the arrest. “You really were so very brave.”
“I know,” said Joseph, sounding less than convinced and regretting it instantly. He had wanted to present a figure of happiness to Dziko, to let work go, but he couldn’t. Not yet.
“What’s wrong?”
“I worry about Harry Jones. I fear we’ve put him in harm’s way.”
“It sounds like he did that himself.”
“Perhaps, but he’s just a kid. I get why he did what he did. He saw a way to make things better for himself and he took it.”
“I wonder how many others have done the same. How many criminals started off as good kids making a bad choice, but following that bad choice.”
Joseph couldn’t help but agree with her. “I know,” he said. “But that’s the thing. I think here we’ve got a chance to turn it around for Harry. To save him from becoming something worse. I think he’s learned his lesson, but if he gets prosecuted, if he loses his job, then he’s done for. He’ll have nowhere to go but to a life of crime. If that life doesn’t kill him first.”
“But how do you save him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he did yet. I don’t know his part in this. If I did, then maybe I could work it out.”
Dziko smiled. “Then find out. Go ask. Then see what you can do. If you think you can keep this boy out of trouble, go do it.”
“Is it the right thing to do?” he asked, wavering at the thought. He couldn’t condone letting a criminal off the hook.
“How many crimes will he commit in the future if you save him now? Isn’t that what police should do? Stop crime before it happens?”
Joseph looked up to meet her gaze. She was right of course. She always was.
37.
The day shift was coming to its end when he returned to the station. He greeted the few people who said hello to him but said very little else. He made his way to the cell, telling the desk sergeant that he only had a couple of quick procedural questions to ask the suspect and that he didn’t need him escorting to an interview room. He hoped that would be the case. He didn’t want to spend long in there at all.
Derek didn’t say anything as Joseph entered the cell, shutting the door behind him. He lay on a thin mattress that sat on a wooden bench. White tiles lined the wall and ceiling even where the roof arched and a bucket had been provided in the corner for Derek to use as a toilet. The far wall housed a small window with bars on it, barely big enough for a small child to squeeze through.
“My lawyer here?” Derek asked without looking up.
“Harry Jones. What did he do?” Joseph launched right into it, not giving time for his nerves to take root. If Derek saw any hint of fear coming from Joseph, he would certainly try and use it to his advantage.
“You what?”
“Harry Jones. He was involved in this, wasn’t he?” He braced himself for the answer. He had placed a lot of faith in Harry’s innocence. Could it be about to be undone?
“What’s he said?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Joseph replied. “He’s not said a word. Doesn’t even know you’re here. We’ve had him in ourselves, released him on bail. But he’s never once mentioned your name.”
