The Molten City by Chris Nickson

Author:Chris Nickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448304226
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2020-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

‘We have John Davis, sir.’ Galt put his head around the door of Harper’s office. ‘Walsh is speaking to him now.’

‘Thank you.’

He paused by the door of the interview room. The sergeant was in full flow; he could hear the voice, but his hearing was too poor to make out the words. There was a short stammering reply, then he turned the handle and entered.

Davis was a big man with ragged grey hair and a weathered face. His cheeks had sunk where teeth had been pulled. Harper glanced at the man’s hands. Large, scarred by work. Definitely strong enough to strangle the life from someone.

‘My boss,’ Walsh said as Harper took the chair in the corner, behind Davis. The man looked over his shoulder, a nervous expression in his eyes. ‘How long did you stay in the house, sir?’

‘No more’n a week.’ He looked down as he spoke, as if the answers lay in his lap. ‘Me and the missus, we had an argument. We do that a lot. Sometimes she gets very low and tells me to clear out.’ He brightened a little. ‘Allus takes me back after a few days, mind, once it’s out of her system.’

‘Why did you end up there?’ Walsh asked. ‘It’s not close to where you live.’

‘The job I had back then were close by.’ He shrugged. ‘Saw a sign in the newsagent near work. Rooms for rent.’

‘Did you hear what happened there? Someone was murdered.’

Davis bobbed his head. ‘I saw it in the newspaper. Terrible, that is. Awful.’

‘How did you come to know John Larner?’

‘Who?’ Davis said. But he waited just a fraction of a second too long to reply.

Walsh smiled. ‘The man who died.’

‘I don’t know his name.’

‘You should, Mr Davis. You killed him.’

‘I never—’

‘Strangled him and left the body in the house,’ Walsh continued. ‘Locked the room and hoped no one would find him for a while.’

‘I—’ he said, but Walsh kept speaking. This was the time to swoop and he knew it.

‘How did you hear about him? Did you think he’d know something about Marie, is that it? And when he didn’t, you tried to force it out of him?’

Harper watched. Any moment now, the man would crumble. It was the mention of Marie that tipped things. There was nothing hard about him, no real shell to cover him. The truth would pour out.

Two more minutes and the flood began. A friend of his lived over in Hunslet and placed his bets with Harry Matthews. The gossip had filtered through, first the details behind Adam Taylor’s death, then Larner vanishing.

‘I thought he had to know summat,’ Davis said.

‘How did you find him?’ Walsh asked. His voice had turned to honey, easing out the rest of the admission.

‘I didn’t go looking or owt. I was at a pub in town with my mate after work. He saw him, nudged me and said that was who he’d been talking about.’

As simple as that. John Larner’s deadly luck. Davis had taken him round a few pubs and bought him drinks until closing time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.