I spent another half-hour talking to Luke, going over details, checking names and addresses. I asked him about motives, too – who might have wanted to kill his friend? He hadn’t a clue. Ahktar was bright, popular but not cocky. He used drugs for fun like they all did, but he wasn’t involved in anything criminal. He was an ordinary eighteen-year-old studying for A levels, playing in a band. Just like Luke who was now accused of murder.
Before I left I took him back to the night at the club and asked him to think again of anything he could remember- familiar faces, funny moments, anything. He began to shake his head then hesitated.
‘Emma, Zeb’s girlfriend, she left early. They’d fallen out, I think.’
‘Was that unusual?’
‘No, Zeb is a bit of a…’ I watched Luke struggle to find a word but there was only one would do.
‘Wanker?’ I supplied.
He blushed slightly. ‘Yeah, he goes to the casino, spends a fortune, then he’s borrowing. He’d borrow off Emma and she’d get really pissed off. She’s a nursery nurse, he makes more in a week than she earns in a month. Anyway, she went. And then I saw Zeb, looks like he’s giving Joey D a hard time.’
‘Borrowing money?’
‘I don’t know. I couldn’t hear, you couldn’t hear a thing unless someone yelled in your ear. But Zeb had Joey D by the collar and then Joey goes upstairs.’
‘At the time what did you think?’
‘Nothing. Well, Joey can be a pain and I thought Zeb was fed up because Emma had gone and maybe he was taking it out on Joey D. He never knows when to keep a low profile.’
‘Could it have been about drugs? You said Joey had supplied the stuff that night.’
‘Dunno. Maybe. Zeb was well into toot – cocaine,’ he added for my benefit.
‘Did he get it from Joey?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t think so. Just something Ahktar said one time about how much he spent on it and how miserable he still was.’
‘But Joey could have got it for him?’
‘Oh, yeah. Joey’d do anything if he thought it got him in with you. He’s like a little kid really.’
I asked Luke what he’d been told of the sequence of events that night – or what had been implied by the police and the prosecution.
He blew a breath out, shifted in his seat. ‘They reckon I stabbed him. Outside the club, there’s a small alley behind the side entrance, there’s bins there. That’s where they found us. Together,’ he whispered. ‘It’s quiet round there. The taxis and that, the buses, town – it’s all in the other direction.’
