The Pike by J.J. Richards

Author:J.J. Richards [Richards, JJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DC Briggs knocked on the door of Kathy Johnson’s house in Moss Side in Leyland for a second time. The door opened a tad, Kathy peering through the crack she’d made. ‘You again?’ she said. ‘How many times? You’ve been twice already, looking through all our stuff last time. The boy barely lives here. Can’t you just leave me alone?’

‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Johnson. Your son Alex has been involved in a very serious crime, and we have reason to believe he may just have committed another,’ said DC Briggs. ‘We’re going to have to bring you in to the station for further questioning.’

Kathy opened the door wider, huffed. ‘You’re arresting me?’ she said. ‘What the hell have I done? I don’t know anything about Alex’s—’

‘I’m not arresting you, Mrs Johnson. But we do need you to help with our enquiries. And refusing to do so might be considered to be a perversion of the course of justice. So, I could arrest you if you refuse, although I’d prefer not to do that. This is an urgent matter, Mrs Johnson. I’m not asking,’ said DC Briggs, putting her foot down on this occasion in the absence of DCI Walker, knowing that time was of the essence in this case if no more young girls were to be hurt.

‘Sodding ridiculous,’ said Kathy, not looking impressed one bit. ‘I’ll go get me bag.’

‘You do that, Mrs Johnson,’ said DC Briggs. ‘Get everything you need. This might take a while.’

* * *

‘Do you know how many times I’ve had to come down to the station for that bloody boy?’ Kathy Johnson was sitting across from Walker and DC Briggs in Interview Room 2 at Chorley Police Station, with Walker having just returned from Abraham Moss. He looked through a file he had in front of him, detailing Alex Wilkinson’s criminal record.

‘Three,’ he said. ‘Three times. Twice for anti-social behaviour and threatening an officer, and once for stealing some vodka when he was just fifteen years old.’

‘Well, it seems you know better than me then,’ said Kathy. ‘But too many. That boy is just like his father. Just like him.’

‘And his father was…?’ asked Walker, flipping through his papers, not finding anything detailing Alex’s biological, or any other, father.

‘Dominic Wilkinson,’ said Kathy. ‘Ditched us shortly after Alex was born. Bastard. Ran off with another woman. Never seen him since.’ Considering this must have been almost two decades ago, going off Alex’s age, Kathy still seemed significantly hurt by this, like it had only happened yesterday.

Walker scratched at his stubble. He wanted to dig deep into the psychology of Alex—get into his head, find out what made him tick, and what kind of trauma he might be carrying that fuelled his behaviour. ‘And did his father have any history of criminality?’

‘I don’t know. Why don’t you check? You seem to know everything else,’ she said. She clearly deeply resented being taken down to the station, and Walker was just glad she was saying anything at all.

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