Cold Wrath, page 12
Webster nodded. The neatness of Law’s living room suddenly made sense. Once a soldier anxious to pass inspection, then, like a thief always being a thief, one is always a soldier anxious to pass inspection.
‘I had no convictions for twelve months,’ Law continued, ‘and so I was accepted to serve in HM Forces. I thought that once I was a soldier with a job to do, I’d stop thieving … and I did. That’s exactly what happened. When I was in the army I stole nothing, not once, partly because there isn’t much to steal in the army, everything is kept locked up, but mainly because the army is not a clever place to be a tealeaf. It’s not a clever place at all. It’s not the military discipline that keeps you in line, and that’s strict enough, it’s the unofficial barrack-room discipline. I once saw what happened to a thief. I’ll never forget it. The boys broke both his arms and both his legs and smashed his fingers to pulp with rifle butts, kicked his teeth in and then dragged him across the depot and left him outside the guard house for the military police to find. He was in hospital for six months and then dishonourably discharged. He was also classed as being medically unfit for military service. I mean, you can’t run at an enemy trench on two tin crutches, can you? So once I saw that then I kept myself on the straight and narrow for the three years I was in the forces. I never got near to straying. Not once.
‘So, anyway, once I was time expired,’ Law explained, ‘I couldn’t get work, so I took to thieving again, turning windows, and stealing luggage from passenger trains. That was easy pickings, especially stealing suitcases from crowded trains. But I never got caught and so I was able to keep applying for jobs. Then finally, after years of trying, I got a start with a small haulage contractor, driving a heavy goods vehicle. I learned to drive HGVs in the army and got my HGV licence from them, so I settled down and then, after a few steady years on the road, I lost my driving confidence.’
‘You mean you lost your licence?’ Carmen Pharoah continued to glance discreetly around the room, looking for detail with her trained police officer’s eye.
‘No. I mean I lost my confidence,’ Law repeated.
‘An accident,’ Webster asked, ‘a fatal accident, you mean? Something you were involved in?’
‘You could say that.’ Law forced a smile. ‘It was classed as a disaster, not an accident, and yes, I was involved in it.’
‘You mean seven or more persons died in a single incident?’ Carmen Pharoah clarified. ‘Up to six fatalities then the incident is classed as an accident, so seven or more people lost their lives in a single incident?’
‘Yes … eight persons, in fact … enough to make it a disaster.’
‘What happened?’ Webster asked, sensing that Miles Law needed to talk.
‘Well … it was like this.’ Law took a deep breath. ‘I was driving my rig so I was, just me in the cab of a fully laden articulated vehicle. I was running pre-cast concrete beams to a building site up there in the north-east up around Newcastle way, so I was driving up the A1 near Northallerton … not far from here, in fact. Just two lanes in either direction, not three lanes like on a motorway.’
‘Yes … yes.’ Webster nodded. ‘I know the A1 quite well. It’s not my favourite road.’
‘Mine neither.’ Law looked to his left. ‘It wasn’t before the incident and it’s definitely not now. Anyway, it was a Sunday afternoon, and so traffic was light, mainly cars and bikes and one or two other HGVs. I was driving along, feeling well content and happy. It was an easy drive, a bit dull, but easy, and I was getting double time for working on a Sunday. I mean there was no traffic to speak of, like I said, and then … it all happened so suddenly, but sometimes that’s how it happens. It all happens right out of the blue … suddenly with no warning … no build-up.’
‘It can be like that,’ Webster replied calmly, ‘as you say, suddenly, out of nowhere, from calm to confusion in an instant. So what did happen?’
‘It all began with that damned woman, that wretched, stupid female. It all began with her.’ Law once again leaned back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling. ‘She just ran out of the bushes at the side of the road …’
‘Suicide,’ Carmen Pharoah offered, ‘she was committing suicide?’
‘Well …’ Law paused, ‘murder–suicide really because she was holding up this infant in her arms … he was just a few weeks old. His life hadn’t really started.’
‘Oh …’ Carmen Pharoah put her hand up to her mouth. ‘Do you know, I think I recall this incident? I was not living in York at the time but it made the national news.’
‘I remember it also. I remember it very clearly. Folk talked about it for a long time afterwards,’ Webster nodded. ‘So you were the lorry driver?’
‘Yes. Little me. The one and the same.’ Law looked at Webster and turned his eyes upwards once more, looking at the ceiling. ‘“The A1 Disaster” and “Disaster on the A1” were the sort of headlines the newspapers ran with. But that woman … the way she looked at me with this stupid, brainless grin on her face and all the while holding up her child like she was holding up a trophy she’d won at a sports competition. She was like that. Just like that. I had no time to stop. No time at all. I stood on the brakes but I am sure I hit her before the brakes began to apply and then … then I did the most stupid thing imaginable. I still swerved to try to miss her, even when it was a hundred per cent certain that I was going to hit her, I still swerved … and I swerved to the right, not to the left. It was the infant I was thinking of and as soon as I turned the wheel I knew, I just knew, I shouldn’t have done that, especially to the right. It was an instinctive thing but I still knew I should have kept the rig going in a straight line, or even swerved to the left and into the side of the road. I lost control at that point. I crashed through the central reservation like it wasn’t there; I went through it like a hot knife through butter … a forty-ton lorry, laden, going at sixty miles an hour. I mean, it would take more than a thin strip of metal to stop that monster, and I went through the barrier just as a car was coming the other way. A young family was in the car, parents and two children. The children were pre-school age in child safety seats in the back … all killed by my tractor unit and just as a motorcyclist and his girlfriend, both in their early twenties, were overtaking the car. Their bike went under my trailer, they didn’t. Nothing was happening, a nice smooth run up the A1, light traffic, dry road surface, good visibility, and then suddenly, eight people were dead, all died within a few seconds of each other. The combined ages of all the fatalities was over one hundred years … just over. These days individuals can live longer than that.’ Law took a deep breath. ‘No blame was attached to me. The coroner “regretted” that I had not kept my vehicle going in a straight line while bringing it to a controlled halt but he said that my action was “understandable” and the police didn’t prosecute me.’
‘They wouldn’t,’ Webster commented. ‘Not for that. As you say, in the heat of the moment your action was understandable, even if a little ill-advised.’
‘But it still finished me with driving,’ Miles continued. ‘After that it was just the old dole for me and odd jobs until I started working for Garrett.’
‘I … and my colleague are both sorry to hear about that accident, it was a bad experience for you.’ Carmen Pharoah re-focused the interview. ‘But it still doesn’t answer our question. So I will ask you again. Why did you delay calling the police for so long after you found Anthony Garrett’s body?’
‘I am answering it,’ Miles spoke firmly. ‘I am telling you the reason. But if you insist, the delay was because I was having a good rummage round his house, that’s what I was doing. I was enjoying having a good poke around, knowing that I had all the time in the world.’ Law spoke calmly and matter-of-factly. ‘No quick in-and-out before the householder returns. Not that morning. No one was going to disturb me … and Garrett was dead. Like I said, he’d been dead for a few days … so I was looking for stuff I could steal, like only a thief would look around a house searching for stuff which I could stash somewhere outside and come back later with a hired van. I can still drive enough to do that, especially if there’s some good money to be had, and Garrett’s house was full of good money.’
‘Again …’ Webster cautioned Law, ‘be careful of what you are saying, Mr Law.’
‘Oh, I am being careful,’ Law smiled. ‘I am being very careful. You see, I didn’t steal anything in the event, even though there was a lot of stuff worth stealing, a lot of high-value, low-bulk items. Just the sort of swag a thief dreams about. And I bet Garrett didn’t come by that lawful like … that old boy was a real tealeaf, so he’d be reluctant to notify the police of all that might have been stolen, even if he was still alive.’
‘You know that, do you?’ Carmen Pharoah spoke with a disapproving tone.
‘Well … it takes one to know one.’ Law continued to smile as he tapped the side of his nose with his left forefinger. ‘It takes one to know one.’
‘Yes … your criminal record,’ Webster growled, ‘mainly for theft in one form or another.’
‘And that being not one-tenth of what I actually did do, like all folks with criminal records,’ Law replied coldly, and impressed both officers as being a man who could change from being a warm personality to a cold personality, and back to a warm personality again, and do so in an instant. ‘Being convicted is like a form of taxation; you keep most of what you half-inch, then you get a fine or a few months inside. And the majority of those with criminal records just have not been caught. Even from school days I was always on the nick, except when I was a soldier, like I said. I learned that in the army the military police don’t take you into custody so much as rescue you from your mates. But you see, I was curious as to what Garrett had stashed away in his house so I couldn’t resist the curiosity I felt, but I thought that there was no point in stealing anything because I have not got a future. I mean what point, what purpose, what reason is there? No point at all.’
‘You don’t have a future?’ Carmen Pharoah repeated. ‘What do you mean? Are you suffering from a terminal illness? I must say that you look very fit, very fit and healthy.’
‘Thank you. In fact, I do feel very fit, all that open air, all that physical work for Garrett.’ Law smiled a smug smile. ‘But no, I don’t have a future and you know, I don’t feel at all bad about the fact. To tell you the truth, I feel very good about it. It’s like all my little concerns and issues are being lifted from my shoulders, all of them, and all of them all at once. You see, it’s like this for me … it’s like this.’ Law paused. ‘It’s just that I have seen too much death. I have seen too many dead bodies, and when I saw Garrett’s body with all those flies crawling on it and buzzing over it, I knew then that it was going to be the last dead body I would ever see. The very last one. No more dead bodies for me.’
‘Too many dead bodies?’ Webster queried. ‘From the army, you mean?’
‘Yes …’ Miles Law nodded, ‘… and from before that … and afterwards. I’ve just seen too many … just too many … more than enough for me, anyway.’
A silence descended within the small room within the small cottage.
‘You see,’ Law explained, ‘I reckon it all started with my dad, my old man, and what an evil, bullying swine he was. Totally evil. Anyway, I went out early one morning when I was about eleven or twelve and I saved my old life, so I did. I saved my old life by doing that. I got back home about midday ’cos I was getting hungry and I saw that there was a crowd round our house on the estate we lived on. There was a couple of policemen among the crowd. Anyway, it turns out that the postman called about an hour or so after I had left the house, and as he pushed the letters through our letter box he got a strong blast of gas. He banged on the door and got no answer. So he alerted the next-door neighbours who called the police and when I got back home the police were trying to force the front door, but I knew where the spare set of keys were kept hidden in the back garden. They were under the garden shed. So I grabbed them and unlocked the back door which the spare keys opened. A great cloud of gas came out of the house when I did that. The back door opened into the kitchen you see and there was my old man with his head in the gas oven. I let out a cry, but I still went further into the house rather than running back out into the garden. I saw my mother and sister stabbed to death … blood … blood everywhere. So going out for a walk saved my life like I said, but they were the first dead bodies I saw, but not the last. So after that it was children’s homes for me, one after the other, each one stricter than the last because I was difficult to control, and then I got into thieving … then I went for a soldier … idiot that I was and so I saw more dead bodies. I served in Northern Ireland during “the troubles” so dead bodies were not uncommon.’
‘You shot people, you mean?’ Webster probed.
‘Shot at more than shot, I can say that. I did three tours of Northern Ireland with the Royal Logistical Corps … the “Loggies”, and I saw what terrorists can do to each other.’ Again Law paused. ‘Once we came across a car which had been set on fire, totally burned out, with four bodies inside, all chained together so they couldn’t escape. The sergeant, Wilkinson, he had it in for me, he just took an instant dislike to me from day one and he told me to pull the bodies out of the car. I cut the chain with a bolt cutter and pulled the bodies out of the car, one by one, whilst the rest of the platoon looked on. A burned corpse falls apart if you don’t handle it correctly. I found that out the hard way. Wilkinson, he wouldn’t let anybody help me … that was just Wilkinson … evil swine, like my old man … totally evil. It was the work of the UDA, so our officer told us. The bodies in the car were identified as known members of the IRA.’
‘I see,’ Carmen Pharoah replied softly. ‘That sort of experience can cause dreadful emotional scarring.’
‘It gets worse. It gets much worse. Do you want to hear the rest? Well, I’ll tell you anyway. It was tit-for-tat in Northern Ireland in those days, so about one week later don’t we come across pretty much the same thing … a burned-out car with four charred bodies inside it, chained up like the first four men, with the chain looped through the steering wheel, so they couldn’t escape the flames, so they were all burned alive. The second time it was the work of the IRA and the victims were identified as members of the UDA, but we were the platoon which found the second car and guess who Sergeant Wilkinson ordered to pull out the four corpses one by one and lay them on the grass? It’s not the sort of thing any twenty-year-old should have to do, no matter how much he’s been toughened up by the army.’
‘I’ll say,’ Webster replied sympathetically. ‘As you say, that sort of thing is not the sort of thing a young boy should be made to do.’
‘Anyway,’ Miles Law smiled, ‘rough and natural justice being what it is, that ever so nice Sergeant Wilkinson got his head blown off by a sniper a few weeks later, and a few weeks after that I became time expired. I left with an honourable discharge and my papers were stamped “conduct exemplary”. After that I saw no more dead bodies until that female ran out in front of my lorry one Sunday afternoon, holding up her infant with a didn’t-I-do-well look on her face. Anyway, that day I got out of my cab just as other cars were stopping and folk were arriving and calling the emergency services. I walked round the scene in a sort of daze. The family in the car were crushed by my tractor unit, and the motorcyclist … he’d lost his head … literally … his head was lying about twenty feet from the rest of him. She remained intact, his pillion rider. She was dead all right, just as dead as dead can be, but all in one piece … and the woman and her infant … they were both just part of the same bloody mess, the two of them just mangled up together. So when I found Garrett’s body, I knew it would be the last dead body I would ever see. I wanted it that way and I still want it that way. I’ve seen enough dead human beings. I can’t get the images out of my head. I don’t want to see any more. So I saw no reason why I shouldn’t take a quick gander round his house, see what bling he has worth nicking, but knowing I wouldn’t be nicking anything. But once a thief … like I said. And he was long dead, anyway. He was long past caring.’
‘The last … what do you mean?’ Webster probed. ‘The last body that you will ever see? How do you know, you’re still relatively young? I hope that you’re not going to do anything stupid.’
‘No … no, I am not going to do anything stupid,’ Miles Law replied calmly, ‘just the opposite in fact. I will be doing something so very, very sensible. So very sensible. I’ve got a gun,’ he added in a calm matter-of-fact manner.
‘Where?’ Carmen Pharoah suddenly sat forward. ‘Where is it?’
‘Yes … and like … so very, very like I’ll be telling you.’ Law continued to speak calmly. ‘Like I am really going to do that. But I can tell you that it is not in this house or in the garden either. You’re welcome to search, you don’t need a warrant, you have my permission, so feel free.’ Law waved his arms in a gesture of invitation. ‘You won’t find it and it’s in pieces. It is reduced to what is that expression … an irreducible minimum. The parts are all well separated from each other and they’re all wrapped up in oily rags, as are the bullets. I acquired it when I was in Northern Ireland, and I have kept it safe and well hidden. It’s a Colt .45. It makes quite a mess of someone’s head, but there is no danger at all, none at all, of it being found by anyone. It’s safe where it is … I mean the bits are safe where they are.’
