Twist Of Fate

Seventeen

MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN POLICE STATION

Detective Inspector Alison Richards leans back in her chair, appraising the young man in front of her. His stance is open and pleading, his palms turned upwards and his arms wide. He maintains eye contact, searching her face for some idea that she believes his insistence of innocence: he is claiming not to know anything about Harry Styles, Christopher Henshall, or the iPhone that was found in his bag belonging to Styles. Identification checks have proved that he is who he says he is: Jonathan Appleby, a twenty four year old junior copywriter from Altrincham, just outside Manchester. Upon initial investigation it would appear he has no obvious links to the suspect or the victim, however he is yet to come up with a valid explanation for why he is in possession of the iPhone containing the SIM card belonging to the only suspect so far in this inquiry.

"I don't know," he is saying, exasperation and exhaustion clearly showing on his face. "I never realised it was there. It could have fallen into my bag. Maybe someone dropped it?"

"Was the phone in your possession when you boarded the train from London Paddington to Manchester Piccadilly?" Richards' colleague Detective Sergeant Peter Willis asks.

"Not that I was aware of," Jonathan Appleby answers wearily, leaning forward on the table and rubbing both hands over his face. "But maybe it was. I never noticed it."

"It was found in the side pocket of your rucksack.

"I don't recall looking in that pocket recently. But I probably would have noticed if it was in there when I packed the bag in the morning. I would have felt it, as I wouldn't have expected anything to be in there. So I'm guessing it wasn't there then."

Richards and Willis exchange looks. Richards opens a brown manila folder that is sitting on the desk in front of her and removes two pieces of A4 paper. She slides the first one across the desk to Jonathan Appleby, who pulls it towards him and studies it. It shows a photograph of a pale, spotty, scrawny young man, likely in his early twenties, with short red hair and a light peppering of ginger facial hair; the sort that isn't deliberately grown into a style, but rather appears from laziness and failure to shave for a few days. 

"Do you recognise this man?"

Jonathan Appleby stares into the eyes of the man in the photograph, searching every corner of his memory, desperate to find even a grain of familiarity in the picture so that he can make some sense of what is happening to him, and fit more than one piece of this strange and complicated puzzle together. After several long moments he lifts his gaze to meet Richards', and shakes his head. "No. I've never seen him before in my life."

Richards slides the second photograph to him, this time of a dark haired man of a similar age to the first, with long, dark, wavy hair, piercing green eyes and smooth skin. He looks healthier than the first man, but there is something haunting about his eyes, something that indicates this man is dark and dangerous. Jonathan Appleby shudders involuntarily. "No. I haven't seen him, either. And I'm not sure I want to. He looks menacing. They both do, to be honest. Who are they? What have they done?"

"Christopher Henshall was found beaten and unconscious in the grounds of a block of flats in South London the night before last," Richards answers, in a monotone, indicating to the first picture of the redhaired man. "He was a known drug dealer, with a lot of enemies. He was taken to hospital but later died from his injuries. We want to speak to Harry Styles in connection with the incident, but he appears to have packed a bag and left the area immediately after the attack took place. His car was found abandoned underneath a flyover a couple of miles from the scene, and his phone remained switched off until yesterday afternoon when a signal was traced to London Paddington station and subsequently travelled the route of the 13.04 service to Manchester Piccadilly. We had units on standby to take the suspect in for questioning, but imagine our surprise when he failed to disembark the train, and instead we find his phone in your bag."

Jonathan Appleby shakes his head, trying to process this information. "I swear to you - on my mother's life - I don't know who these people are. I've never heard of any of them, and I don't know how that phone ended up in my bag." He is close to tears now. "I just went down to London to spend a couple of days with my girlfriend. I was with her the whole time - you can ask her, she'll vouch for me! I haven't been anywhere near South London. We stayed north of the river the entire time. We went shopping on Oxford Street, we had lunch in Covent Garden, and we went up to see Buckingham Palace. I never attacked anyone, and I don't know who did."

Before anyone can respond to his words, there is a light tap on the door of the interview room, and a tall, broad man enters, looking directly at the two detectives. 

"For the benefit of the tape, Sergeant Chambers has entered the room."

Sergeant Chambers inclines his head, and Richards gets up out of her seat to follow him, while back in the room the interview is paused. Richards lets the door shut behind her as she waits for Chambers to speak.

"We've had the post mortem back on the victim, guv. He sustained significant injuries to his arms, face, chest and legs, but was killed by a single blunt force trauma to the side of his head, which resulted in a major brain haemorrhage. There was a lot of blood at the scene, but no eveidence on the body of any deep penetration wounds. He has abrasions on his knuckles, consistent with those sustained in a fist fight, and samples have been sent to the lab for identification."

Richards nods slowly. The suggestion of a fist fight is not new: according to witness statements the two men had left the local pub together, Styles visibly angry and aggressive. And thanks to Styles' previous encounters with the law, his DNA is already on file.

"We've also had the lab results back on the iPhone," Chambers continues. "No identifiable fingerprints on it. Certainly no match to your guy in there."

He is talking, of course, about Jonathan Appleby.

"You get anything off it?"

"Forensics will want to examine it for fibres and DNA, to try and link it to Styles. But for now there is nothing to suggest this Appleby fellow has even touched it."

"Then how the fuck did it end up in his rucksack, and where the fuck is Harry Styles?" Richards spits, furious that they have hit a dead end with this lead, and now only have more questions instead of clear answers. "Get me the CCTV from London Paddington for that day. I want Appleby's movements documented from the minute he crawled out of bed to the minute he came into police custody. And the same goes for Styles, because if he didn't get on that train to Piccadilly, we need to find out where he did go - if he was ever even there at all."

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Happy new year! I hope 2019 brings you health, wealth and happiness, and whatever else you may desire xxx