Chapter Seventeen

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With DC Grey at his side, DS Mason walked up the path to Forty-Seven Foxholes Road. He would rather have been at the station, questioning Jerry Logan, but the second half of the Ice-Cream Boys was still to be found.

Mason knocked loudly on the door and rang the bell, making sure that if he was home, David Ashford would hear him. He was on the doorstep for the best part of a minute before he heard footsteps approaching, and then the door swung open. The unhappy, and slightly contemptuous, look on the face of the huge man framed in the door told Mason that both he and Grey had been recognised as detectives, and their profession was not well thought of.

"What d'you want?" the giant of a man asked in a deep voice that was intended to discourage them.

"David Ashford?" Mason asked.

Large – an understatement – and slightly menacing, the figure looked down on Mason and Grey for a second before nodding. "That's me, what d'you want?" he asked again.

"Detective Sergeant Mason and Detective Constable Grey," Mason said. "We need to ask you a few questions, can we come in?" He stepped forward, as though he was going to force his way into the house.

Despite being big enough at six-five, and seventeen stone of muscle, to keep the detective out with ease, Ashford stepped back. He let Mason in without a vocal protest, though his expression made it all too plain that he would rather have told him where to go.

"Well, Mr Logan," Mason said when he reached the living room and saw the figure on the sofa. "This is a surprise; we've been looking all over for you."

Annoyance written on his face, Jerry Logan paused the game he was playing. "You can't have been lookin' hard," he remarked. "I've been 'ere, all day." The slur in his voice revealed that the can of lager on the coffee table in front of him was not his first.

"Well, we've found you now, and we have some questions we'd like to ask you down at the station. Chris," Mason turned to his partner, "would you take Mr Logan out to the car and keep an eye on him, while I speak to Mr Ashford."

Briefly, Mason thought Jerry was going to protest, or make a break for it – his eyes darted around the room as if he was searching for a means of escape. After a second or so, though, he got to his feet and allowed himself to be led from the room without complaint, and without resistance. Mason was glad about that, the paperwork resulting from someone resisting arrest and breaching their license conditions was a pain he preferred not to have to deal with.

Once he heard the front door close on his partner and Jerry Logan, Mason turned his attention to David Ashford, who fixed him with a very unfriendly look. "Why don't you have a seat, Mr Ashford," he suggested; looking up at the bigger man throughout an interview was likely to hurt his neck.

Slowly, as if to make it clear that he was doing so because it was what he wanted to do, and not what he had been told to do, Ash sat. "So, what d'you want?" he asked impatiently when the detective before him didn't speak straight away. "You said you have some questions for me, what are they? I got better things to do with my time than talk to a pig."

Mason ignored the insult, knowing it had been made deliberately, with the intention of getting a reaction. "Where were you on Sunday night?" he asked once he judged he had kept the man waiting for long enough. He didn't think Ashford was involved in the robbery, he was far too big to be either of the armed robbers, but he was sure the man had agreed to provide his friends with an alibi – he just had to prove that.

"What the hell d'ya want to know that for?" Ash demanded suspiciously. "I ain't done nothin' wrong."

"I didn't say you have; is there any reason why I might think you have done something wrong?" Mason asked.

"No, but you pigs are all the same; once a guy's got a record you think he can't go straight, and you're always trying to find him guilty of something." His dislike of the police was evident.

"If you've done nothing wrong then you've nothing to worry about. Now, where were you on Sunday night?"

"I was in the pub, having a good old pissup."

"Which pub, and until when?"

"The Horse and Jockey; I was there till it closed, 'bout midnight, something like that."

"Is there anyone who can confirm that?" Having listened to the recording of the interview with Ben Logan, Mason knew the details of the alibi the suspected armed robber had given.

"Ben and Jerry, the landlord, Nick Lansing, Charlie and Magda, the barmaids, and probably a bunch of the regulars." Ash smiled. "It wasn't a busy night but there were a reasonable bunch of guys there."

That tallied with what Ben Logan had said, but Mason didn't consider it confirmation of his alibi. "That takes you up to midnight, or thereabouts," he said. "What about after that? What did you do after you left the pub?"

"I came home."

"Alone?"

"No, Ben and Jerry were with me."

"Did you come straight home from the pub?" Mason moved over to the window and, keeping one eye on Ashford, flicked the net curtain aside so he could look out and check on his partner and Jerry Logan – everything was okay as far as he could tell.

Ash shook his head. "Not straight away; we stopped off at the takeaway, Nando's, for some grub. Once we had that we came back here and finished off some beers I had in the fridge while playing Call of Duty. We were here for the rest of the night. That good enough for you? D'you need anything else?"

Mason shook his head, as if accepting Ashford's story, but then he spoke again, "Ben Logan gave us the same story when we questioned him down at the station; the funny thing is, he couldn't explain how, if he and his brother were here with you, two people matching their descriptions were seen leaving the scene of an armed robbery that took place just after one o'clock on Sunday morning at the Rock Radio Music Festival. Nor could he explain how his brother's fingerprint came to be in the pavilion where the robbery occurred." He paused to let that sink in, noting the nervous look that appeared in David Ashford's eyes. "Perhaps you can explain that."

Ash was silent as his mind raced; he wasn't dumb, but neither was he very good at thinking on his feet. He couldn't think of an answer, and he didn't want to say anything that might get his friends, or himself, into more trouble than they might already be in.

"Perhaps you'd like some more time to think about what you and the Logans were doing on Sunday night," Mason suggested. "How about down at the station."

Ash surged to his feet, his face darkening, and Mason had to resist the urge to back up and put some more space between them. "Don't do anything stupid," he said warningly. "It won't do you any good; just sit back down."

"I'm not having you pigs set me up." The muscles in Ash's huge arms flexed and rippled and his meaty fists clenched and unclenched, hinting unpleasantly at the damage they could do. "I already did two years because of you bastards, for what, a few lousy radios."

"It was a little more than that, Mr Ashford," Mason said, having looked at David Ashford's short criminal record before coming to talk to him, "as you know. I can assure you, though, that I have no intention of setting you up, for anything. If you've done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about; I simply want to confirm the alibi that you and Ben Logan have provided for both Ben and his brother."    

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