Woodham and the uniforms stopped in front of the two of us.
‘What’s happened, sir?’ I asked, an irrational fear that it might be something to do with Tina — a relapse of some sort — playing havoc with my imagination.
‘There’s just been an attempt on Jack Merriweather’s life.’
Now I just felt a good, hard jolt of shock. ‘What happened?’
‘Three gunmen turned up. Two police officers have been shot — not Malik — but thankfully the attempt failed.’
‘Fucking hell,’ said Stegs evenly.
‘How the hell did they find out where he was?’
‘We don’t know. Only a handful of people knew the location. There’s going to have to be a full and thorough investigation.’
‘Have they caught the gunmen?’ asked Stegs.
Woodham turned to him with a look of suspicion. ‘I think one, or possibly more of them, might have been shot, but, yes, they’ve all been apprehended.’
‘Good.’
I let go of Stegs’s arm, and watched him carefully. He stared back at me, his expression asking me to believe him, but something in it wasn’t right. Something said that he knew much more than he was letting on.
‘I’m telling you the truth, John. I promise.’
I wondered how he’d react when I told him we knew about Trevor Murk. Act surprised, and continue to keep to his story, I thought. Stegs Jenner was a born liar. He’d been doing it for a career for the past ten years, and I reckoned he’d been honing his trade for a lot longer before that. I decided then that it wasn’t worth mentioning Murk just yet. Best to spring it on him in an interview, where any silence or spluttering denials would be recorded.
But something was bothering me. You see, the thing was, parts of his story made sense. Vokes hadn’t been there at the first meeting with O’Brien. He’d also been on the raid from which the murder weapon had almost certainly been lifted. He hadn’t wanted to be left in the room back at the hotel, had tried to insist that it wasn’t him. Vokes Vokerman could answer a lot of questions.
Except he was dead.
I sighed, continuing to fix my gaze on Stegs Jenner. ‘Wherever we go, Stegs, and whatever we uncover, things always seem to keep coming back to you.’
‘You’re getting paranoid, John,’ he said, the beginnings of a smile on his face.
Just that little bit too cocky for my liking.
Which was when all the frustrations and fears of the day got the better of me and I punched him hard in the face. For just one second, it was the most satisfying blow I’d ever landed, and it knocked him spark out.
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t see that,’ said Woodham, a faint smile appearing beneath the big moustache.