Weekend Wind Down – Interrogation

The Dai and Julia Mysteries are set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules…

The Vigiles House occupied the back corner of the Basilica Viriconia so it was not too long a waddle for Julia to get there. She and Edbert were shown into Bryn’s office as he was just setting up a monitor screen on one wall. He looked over as the door opened and addressed the Vigiles officer escorting them in. “Fetch the Domina a comfortable chair, Dougal and a decent spiced tea.”
“No milk,” Julia said quickly as the Vigiles vanished briefly from sight, then returned with a cushioned chair which he placed with a good view of the screen before disappearing through the door again.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” Bryn said and pointed to the screen which now showed an interview room with a single occupant. A nervous, scrawny man, dressed in a shabby coat under which could be seen a filthy-looking tunic. “I’ll be in there.”
Julia frowned and was about to ask what this was about, but Bryn had already swept up a folder from his desk and left the office. A short time later they saw him enter the interview room and run through the preliminaries of any interrogation. The man gave his name as Hepple Shalko and kept repeating that he hadn’t done anything wrong and didn’t know anything about nothing at all.
Bryn ignored that and cut to the chase as soon as the preliminaries were done.
“The reason you are here is that you told one of my Vigiles you’d seen a boat being loaded with cargo beside the forest. Do you remember saying that?” “Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. I don’t rightly recall now.”
“We both know that you did, Hepple and unless you want to wind up getting accused of being complicit in the abduction of a Roman official, you might want to think very carefully about what it is you remember.”
“But I didn’t have nothing to do with no abduction.”
The scrawny man sounded more confused than upset by the accusation. “You can’t say I did.”
“Oh I can,” Bryn assured him. “I can and I will. And that would earn you a starring role in the main feature in the Arena.”
This time the protests were more voluble and frightened. Bryn sat back and linked his hands behind his head.
“So convince me, Hepple. Tell me what you did see and then maybe I might believe you weren’t involved.”
The redoubtable Dougal returned at that moment with a quite palatable spiced tea. Julia sipped at it as Hepple, prompted along by a persistent, thorough and patient Bryn, unburdened himself of what he had seen. It became clear that Hepple Shalko was a poacher. He had been out checking snares he had set in the forest beside the canal.
“I weren’t so close as I could see for sure but there were four of them, all wearing those face hoods, black ones. They had a boy with them. He was shouting and trying to pull away. That was what had made me go look in the first place. I heard that shout.”
“What was the boy shouting?” Bryn asked.
“Well, I’m not rightly sure.” Hepple looked unhappy.
“I think you are,” Bryn told him, “and it could be important. I need you tell me everything I think is important if we’re going to get you off the hook.”
The scrawny man licked at his lips as if they were too dry.
“It were ‘help’ he were shouting. Just that.”
For a moment Julia felt her heart break at the thought of Felix calling for help and no one being there. No one except this man who had, by his own account, done nothing, gone back to his snares and headed home with an unburdened conscience. The sole reason he had reported it was because when he went to the local taberna one of Bryn’s Vigiles had been in there offering to buy drinks for anyone who had something worthwhile to tell her. Even then he had only said that the boat had been loading cargo. Nothing about the child calling for help. It was only because Bryn had followed up on that and sent people to find Shalko that he was telling them now. Pathetic as he might be, Julia could not forgive him that.
The details came out slowly, along with a vague description of the boat and an eventual admission that there had been two bodies loaded aboard as well. By the end, Julia was gripping into the arms of her chair with fingers like claws. Edbert put a hand on her shoulder as the interview finished.
“You need to keep relaxed. It’s not good for the baby.”
This time she snapped. “If you or anyone else dares to tell me to calm down for the sake of the baby, I will lose my temper completely – which I assure would be much worse for whoever I lose it at than it would for my baby.”
Edbert removed his hand and just looked at her.
She glared back. “You expect me to sit here and hear about Felix calling for help and my husband’s body being…”
Then she was crying and hating herself for doing so. Edbert swept her up in a bear hug and held her close. It didn’t last long and by the time Bryn had come back to the office, she was restored even if probably still a bit puffy-eyed. If he noticed that, Bryn had the good grace and common sense not to comment.

An extract from Dying to be Fathers a Dai and Julia Mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook