Whispers Under Ground

chocolate.’
    ‘Surname?’
    ‘They don’t go in for surnames,’ said Zach.
    I wanted to ask who ‘they’ were, but sometimes it’s better to let the interviewee think they’ve got one past you. So I asked where Stephen was from.
    ‘Peckham,’ said Zach.
    We asked whereabouts in Peckham, exactly, but he said he didn’t know.
    ‘Do you know what he did with his gun?’ I asked.
    ‘What gun?’ asked Zach.
    ‘The gun he used to shoot at us,’ I said.
    For a moment Zach was staring at us as if we were mad. Then he frowned.
    ‘Oh, that gun,’ he said. ‘You must have done something, because that gun’s purely for self-protection. I mean, I wouldn’t want you thinking that he just goes around shooting at anyone.’
    ‘Has he shown it to you?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘The gun,’ I said. ‘You ever seen it?’
    Zach leant back in his seat and gave an airy wave. ‘Course,’ he said. ‘But not to hold or nothing.’
    ‘Do you know what kind of gun it was?’ asked Lesley.
    ‘It was a gun,’ said Zach making a pistol shape with his hand. ‘I don’t really know guns.’
    ‘Was it a revolver or a semiautomatic pistol?’ asked Lesley.
    ‘It was a Glock,’ said Zach. ‘Same as what the police use.’
    ‘I thought you didn’t know guns,’ I said.
    ‘That’s what Stephen said it was,’ said Zach. He turned to Lesley. ‘Any chance of that hot chocolate – I’m dying here.’
    As a largely unarmed police force, the Met have some fairly serious views about the illegal possession of firearms. It tends to get a lot of attention from senior officers who are willing to devote substantial resources to the problem and usually ends in a visit from CO19, the Met’s firearms unit, whose unofficial motto is guns don’t kill people, we kill people with guns . Given that Zach must know how seriously we take it, the question had to be – what was so important that he was willing to implicate his friend Stephen in a firearms charge just to cover it up?
    Especially given that having interviewed all the witnesses and searched Oxford Circus the Murder Team were pretty certain that Zach’s good friend ‘Stephen’ hadn’t been carrying one when he’d got off the train.
    ‘Hot chocolate was it?’ asked Lesley getting up.
    ‘Yes please,’ said Zach.
    Lesley asked if I wanted coffee, I said yes and I told the tape recorder that PC Lesley May had left the room. Zach grinned. Obviously he thought he’d kept his secret – which was exactly what we wanted him to think.
    ‘Your friend Steve?’
    ‘Stephen,’ said Zach. ‘He doesn’t like Steve.’
    ‘Your friend Stephen from Peckham,’ I said. ‘How long have you known him?’
    ‘Since I was a kid,’ he said.
    I checked my notes. ‘While you were at St Mark’s Children’s Home?’
    ‘As it happens, yes,’ said Zach.
    ‘Which is in Notting Hill,’ I said. ‘Not five minutes’ walk from James Gallagher’s house. That’s a bit of a way from Peckham.’
    ‘Neither of us likes to be confined,’ said Zach. ‘What with the free bus and everything.’
    ‘So you used to hang,’ I said.
    ‘Hang?’ asked Zach. ‘Yeah, we used to hang. We’d often chill as well. And on occasion we’d be jammin’.’
    ‘Around your ends,’ I said. ‘Portobello, Ladbroke Grove?’
    ‘There’s always something happening at the market,’ said Zach. ‘Stephen’s a bit of a culture freak isn’t he – and we used to earn a bit of cash running errands and stuff.’
    ‘Was he into art?’ I asked.
    ‘He’s good with his hands,’ said Zach, and something about the way he said it made me wonder why he’d be reluctant to talk about art.
    ‘Did he make pottery?’ I asked.
    Zach hesitated, and before he could answer Lesley came in with a tray of hot chocolate, coffee and a plate of biscuits. Unfortunately, this part of the interview had been scripted. So instead of pushing Zach I made a note on the pad in front of me. Stephen → Pottery? → Motive?
    Lesley identified herself for the tape and then leaned in to murmur; ‘I swear this nick has the worst coffee.’ I gave Zach a meaningful look.
    ‘Really,’ I said. ‘Interesting.’
    Zach looked carefully unconcerned.
    ‘You say your friend has a pistol,’ I said.
    ‘Had a pistol,’ said Zach. ‘He’s probably ditched it by now.’
    ‘He didn’t have one at Oxford Circus,’ I said.
    Zach took his hot chocolate. ‘Like I said – he must have ditched it.’
    ‘No he didn’t,’ said