Rough Justice by Colin Falconer

Author:Colin Falconer [Falconer, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: UK
Publisher: Cool Gus Publishing
Published: 2014-09-22T14:00:00+00:00

***

He had long hair, thinning at the crown to reveal an oval of pink scalp, wore a leather jacket over a white T-shirt. Early forties, Fox guessed. Terry’s daughter, Dianna, was thirteen, big for her age, with lank hair and acne. She sat on the sofa next to her father in a shapeless jumper, her head down.

They were in the Richardsons’ living room. The walls were covered with Tottenham Hotspur memorabilia, scarves and posters and photographs. The smell of frying sausages drifted from the kitchen.

“I slept right frew it last night,” Richardson said. “Had a few jars at the pub and that’s it for me. First I knew ‘bout this rumble was when I looked out the winda yesterdie mornin’ and saw all the TV vans and everyfink.”

“Right,” Fox said, wondering where this was going.

“I heard on the radio this copper wasn’t lookin’ too clever.”

“You have information you think might be able to help us?”

Richardson leaned forward. “Look, let’s get this straight, from the off. I’m no grass, right, and I ain’t no angel, either, I admit it, got done a few years back for receiving, all right? But I don’t hold with no violence.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “They reckon this copper was married.”

“His wife’s three months pregnant,” Fox said.

“You hear that?” Terry said, and nudged the girl. “His missus is gonna have a baby.”

Dianna started crying.

“It’s me girl here. She saw it. She saw everyfink.”

“You saw what happened, Dianna?” Fox said.

She nodded and continued to drain her sinuses into a Kleenex.

Fox turned back to Terry Richardson. “I believe DC Rankin spoke to your wife yesterday morning.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I always tell her not to talk to the Old Bill. Old habits, and all that.”

“She said no one saw anything.”

“Well, at the time, we didn’t know, see?” He nudged the girl again. “Tell him, girl.”

Dianna blew her nose. Her eyes were pink and swollen. Fox was irritated. Get hold of yourself, girl.

“I only found out about it when I got home from work yesterdie afternoon. She’d been in bed all day blubbering. Ker-ist, she had me dead worried. I fought she’d got herself knocked up.”

Fox turned back to the girl. She needed this in her words, not in Terry’s. “Dianna,” she said softly. “Can you tell me what you saw, please?”

The story came out painfully slowly, and by the time Dianna had finished, there were screwed-up paper tissues all over the carpet. Dianna said she had woken up in the middle of the night, she was having some problems at school and hadn’t been sleeping well. She turned on her night light and read a TV magazine while she listened to her radio, which she turned down low so her mum and dad couldn’t hear. Then she heard shouts coming from the street.

The Richardsons’ house was on the corner of Crossland Walk and Anderson Way, and her bedroom window looked directly down the laneway at the back. She saw two men run from the direction of Kentish Town Road and stop briefly under the street lamp.

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