The Inspector Walter Darriteau

Murder Mysteries

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David Carter

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Box Set I

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Books 1-4

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The Murder Diaries – Seven Times Over

The Sound of Sirens

The Twelfth Apostle

Kissing a Killer

The Inspector Walter Darriteau Box Set - One

Copyright © David Carter 2019

Follow David on Twitter @TheBookBloke

www.davidcarterbooks.co.uk

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Revised and updated December 2021

The right of David Carter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages in reviews

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved

By the same author:

The Inspector Walter Darriteau Books:

The Murder Diaries - Seven Times Over

The Sound of Sirens

The Twelfth Apostle

Kissing a Killer

The Legal & the Illicit

The Death Broker

Five Dead Rooks

Old Cold Bones

The Walter Darriteau Box Set – One

The Missing Man

Falling

The Walter Darriteau Box Set - Two

Other Books:

State Sponsored Terror

The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene

The Inconvenient Unborn

Grist Vergette’s Curious Clock

Drift and Badger and the Search for Uncle Mo

Down into the Darkness

The Fish Catcher

The Bunny and the Bear

The Bookshop by the Moscow River

The

Murder Diaries

Seven Times Over

This book

is dedicated to the memory

of the late

Cecil Norman Carter

1918-1998

Highly medalled sailor, signaller, swimmer,

D-Day Veteran,

rower, grower and father

Much missed

Never Forgotten

Chapter One

The orange streetlight bounced from the wet tarmac. 2.30 in the morning. No one about. No traffic, no pedestrians, no wildlife, nothing. The dark car approached the green lights. The driver saw a man coming from the right.

He crossed the far lanes to the centre island. The lights turned amber. The driver slowed, coming down from fifth to third. The man glanced at the car and half nodded and set out to cross the road.

In the vehicle, the right designer clad training shoe switched from B to A. Brake to acceleration. The car surged forward. The man heard the engine roar and stopped dead like a fox caught in headlights, frozen in formaldehyde, as if in some sick art exhibition. The man couldn’t believe what he saw. The lights were red; he was sure of it. He tried to move, to jump away. Too late. The bumper smashed into his knees, shattering both. The bonnet crashed into his falling body, breaking ribs, sweeping the guy high into the night. He bounced on the roof, cracking his left arm, somersaulted through the air, and crashed to the pavement.

The driver glanced in the mirrors. An impression of moving black shadows, a black bundle hunched on the pavement, growing ever smaller as the car sped away. The bundle didn’t move.

It would never move again.

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DARRITEAU YAWNED LIKE a hippopotamus. Karen glimpsed his tonsils and glanced away.

‘Excuse me,’ mumbled her boss.

‘Don’t mind me,’ she said under her breath.

‘Well, Greenwood?’ he said. ‘Anything new?’

‘Not much. We arrested Gary Jones at Ffrith Caravan Park, but you know that.’

‘Ah yes, Gary Jones,’ the crazy man who had been in and out of borstal and prison for twenty years. Hooligan, drug dealer, burglar, wife beater, scourge of society. At least this time he would be put away for good, but too late for some, and as if Karen was following his train of thought she said: ‘It’s Millie I feel sorry for.’

‘Course,’ said Darriteau, pulling a face, and pondering on how the courts could have handed down one lenient sentence after another.

‘Anyway,’ said Karen, ‘this time it’s open and shut. He’s confessed. His fingerprints are all over the knife.’

‘Mmm,’ said Darriteau, thinking of Millie and her mischievous face, that curly, mousy hair that framed her milk white phizog, those big blue eyes that entranced men so, they certainly entranced Gary Jones. Probably cost Millie her life. Entrancing partners wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Millie should still be here, and Darriteau felt responsible for that.

‘Anything else?’ he mumbled, trying hard to sweep the image of her smiling face from his tired brain.

‘Not much. A hit and run on the by-pass.’

‘Oh?’

‘Just waiting for the post mortem.’

Right on cue, Mrs Carney swept into the office. Lobbed a file on the desks.

‘Hit and run?’ she mumbled.

‘Yep,’ said Karen.

Mrs Carney looked down and saw Walter Darriteau nod.

‘Two smashed knees, three broken ribs, broken left arm, and right ankle, but none of that killed him.’

‘So what did?’ asked Karen.

‘Cracked his head on the pavement. No one could survive that. This is the prelim; you’ll have the full report before I go home.’

‘Thank you, Sara,’ mumbled Walter.

Sara Carney pursed her lips, and glanced at the pair of them, bobbed her head and left them to it.

‘So who is he?’ asked Walter.

‘Who was he?’ corrected Karen.

Walter gave his sergeant a look, and she began again.

‘Colin Rivers, aged forty-six, lives, or lived in a newish detached house in Saltney. Married, two daughters.’

‘What did he do for a living?’

‘Insurance salesman, office based, so I believe.’

‘Family been told?’

‘Yep.’

‘What’s his wife’s name?’

‘Marian.’

‘Is she in the house now?’

‘Probably.’

‘Find out, will you? If she is, we’ll pop down and see her.’

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KAREN DROVE THE UNMARKED BMW. She adored driving, while Walter was happy to be driven, in the city anyway, where she couldn’t speed.

A modern redbrick detached house, dull but comfortable, like a million others. The curtains were closed. A small flowerbed in front of the main window, crocuses out, daffodils considering their options. There were two five-year-old cars on the driveway. Walter took a quick peek at the bumpers and bonnets. No scratches or dents, no blood, and no sign of any recent hurried cleaning.

Karen rang the bell.

Marian Rivers came to the door, cigarette in hand. She glanced at the ID and invited them through to the sun-streaked conservatory at the back of the house.

‘Do you want a coffee?’

Walter shook his head.

Karen said, ‘No thanks.’

‘Sit down, please.’

They sat in the cane chairs and wondered who should start.

‘Your daughters are out?’ asked Walter.

‘Sent them to school, thought it best.’

‘So sorry to hear your news,’ said Walter.

Marian pursed her lips. Didn’t say anything.

‘Tell me about your late husband.’

A short silence and then she said, ‘Not much to tell.’

‘Did he have any enemies?’

Marian’s mouth opened. She flicked ash into an empty coffee mug.

‘I thought you people said it was an accident?’

‘Yes, it probably was, but we are keeping an open mind.’

‘So did he?’ asked Karen.

‘He was a man. What do you think?’

‘Serious enemies?’ asked Walter.

‘No-ooo, just piddling things.’

‘How did he get on at work?’

‘OK, I suppose. An occasional promotion, occasional pay rise, that kind of thing; he was not a high achiever. Steady as he goes kind of bloke, and anyway, he was more interested in God.’

‘God?’ said Karen.

‘Yeah. Didn’t you know? He was a Lay Preacher. Didn’t your people tell you anything? That’s where he’d been, to a late night God squad meet up; they were planning a big service, something like that, that’s why I said he had enemies. They appointed him over the heads of four others, two blokes and two women. You wouldn’t believe how jealous and zealous some of them get in the church.’

She was smiling as she said that, and Walter guessed it had been a bone of contention in the Rivers’ household.

‘Did they make a habit of meeting late?’

‘Recently they had, crazy isn’t it?’

‘What church?’ asked Walter.

‘United Reformed, Curzon Park.’

‘And did you attend?’ asked Karen.

‘Nope. I can do without that kind of thing.’

‘So, to your knowledge, did he have any enemies who’d want to kill him?’

‘I can’t think of anyone.’

‘How are you fixed, financially?’ asked Walter.

‘Not bad, it looks like the mortgage will be paid off, and he was well insured too, with him being in insurance. There should be a big paycheque coming,’ and then as if reading the detectives’ minds she added, ‘And before you say anything, I didn’t do it, if that’s what you think.’

‘Course not,’ said Walter, ‘but just to be clear, where were you between two and four o’clock in the morning?’

‘In bed, on my own, asleep.’

‘And your daughters, they were in the house?’

‘Yes, course, they were asleep too. They have big exams coming up, they are working really hard.’

‘I want to ask you a personal question,’ said Karen.

‘It’s your job.’

‘Was he ever unfaithful?’

Marian threw back her head and said, ‘Hah!’ and glanced at the bird poop on the conservatory roof. ‘I wish I knew the answer to that. No, I don’t think so, but he was a man, wasn’t he. Who knows? I’ll probably never know now.’

‘Did he get paid for his church activities?’

‘Good God no, sorry God if you are listening, not a penny, no offence meant.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Rivers,’ said Walter, standing and fastening his raincoat. ‘We’ll be in touch if there’s any news.’

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DURING THE RIDE BACK to the police station that overlooked the Roodee, Karen said, ‘Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is a Lay Preacher?’

Walter thought back to his childhood in Jamaica, and his Uncle Collis, who was a Lay Preacher. He was always coming round to bless this house, or so he said, when in reality he was on the lookout for a free chicken meal.

‘They stand in when the pastor is away or sick, a kind of first reserve if you like. Sometimes it can be an initial step towards higher things, but more often than not, they are just happy to help the main man.’

‘Or woman,’ corrected Karen.

‘Yeah, that too.’

‘You don’t think one of his spurned rivals could have run him down, do you?’

‘You heard the lady. They are jealous and zealous in the church, a catchy phrase, don’t you think?’

Karen pulled a face.

‘Anyway, check them out, these two men and two women who got the hump because Colin landed the job, a position that pays nothing and carries no qualifications.’

‘They can’t have killed him for that,’ said Karen, guiding the car into the underground car park.

‘It’s been done for less,’ said Walter, getting out and limping toward the lift, and as he did so, he shouted back over his shoulder, ‘And another thing, we only have Marian’s word that she was in bed asleep.’

Chapter Two

The driver hadn’t slept. Jumped out of bed and booted up the Internet. Typed in: How to kill people. Twenty-seven million articles and features on How to kill people.

Who writes all this crazy stuff, and more to the point, why doesn’t someone do something about it? Scrolled down, began reading, started making notes, flipped on the local radio.

Appeals every hour on the hour for witnesses to come forward who may have seen the tragic accident on the ring road where a man was killed in the early hours.

There’ll be no witnesses, pal. There was no one about.

The driver was surprised at how pleasurable it had been. To kill someone, and so easy, too. One designer trainer lifted from B, set down on A. Acceleration! That was all there was to it. Man hit. Man dead. Job done. Such a tiny movement, such a tiny line between life and death.

An article that looked interesting caught the eye.

100 Ways to Kill People.

Click, and we’re in.

Stabbing, no.

Strangulation, no.

Plastic bag over the head, no.

Shotgun, pistol, rifle, I don’t think so.

Hit over head with a hammer. That would be messy.

Douse with petrol and set alight. Too risky. Too dangerous.

Poison, perhaps, maybe a possibility.

Sabotage brakes on victim’s car. Too technical.

Grind up glass and hide in food. Goes to work on the stomach, causing an excruciating death. The trouble is you wouldn’t be there to see it, to witness it, and that was half the fun.

Take out a light bulb, fill with petrol, refit and wait for victim to turn on the light. Would that work? Not for me.

Cut off head. The less said about that, the better.

Wait for victim to have a bath and lob live electrical appliance into the water. Ouch!

Drowning. Sounds too much like hard work.

Cut off hands. Very messy, and too hands on, or not, as the case might be, and presumably any old limbs would do. Perhaps not.

Run up behind someone with a heart condition and yell Boo! That was getting freaky.

Inject with pig’s blood. Repeat dose if necessary. Yeah right, I just happen to have a pint of porky’s blood in the fridge.

Or inject with thirty different substances, getting weirder the further down the list. Come on!

No, there was nothing there, nothing that leapt out, nothing that shrieked: Use me! Use me! Just have to think of something better, and then, out of the blue, inspiration struck. The driver knew precisely how to do number two.

Threw on a coat, went outside and ambled to the paper shop. Bought the local paper, and there it was in the smudged LATE EXTRA. The nationals must have missed the deadline.

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A MAN, COLIN RIVERS, aged 46, was knocked down and killed in Chester in the early hours of the morning. Police are appealing for witnesses. He was happily married with two daughters and was believed to be a Lay Preacher.

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WELL, OF COURSE HE was.

Happily married? How the hell would they know that?

Took the paper home, cut out the article and pinned it to the cork tiles glued to the spare bedroom wall. Stood back and admired, yet it seemed awfully bare, that wall, one small article, ‘One small step for mankind,’ spoken aloud, a grin, a clicking of the fingers, left the room, closed the door, locked up, for it was time to get ready for work. 

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KAREN’S ENQUIRIES BORE little fruit. The four spurned Lay Preachers admitted to having been mighty miffed at Colin’s promotion, especially as they were all senior to him, but they were surprised and shocked he had died, killed on the highway, and more than that, each possessed a cast-iron alibi, for they had been sleeping with their partners at home, two men and two women, though not in the combinations Karen had expected.

‘Take a more detailed look at Marian,’ ordered Walter. ‘Dig up everything you can. Something isn’t right. Something stinks.’

Chapter Three

Harry Wilkinson had worked for the Chester Parks and Gardens department for forty-five years, almost exactly the same time he had been married to Bethan Jones.

Through the years Harry gained steady promotions until he landed the position he coveted, that of headman looking after all the publicly owned bowling and putting greens within the city boundaries.

After he retired, many a creaking sportsman would comment, ‘Ah, the greens are not the same,’ and in due course those lounge carpet surfaces would become known as Harry’s Greens.

Harry met Bethan Jones when they were both twenty in the Dringo Tearooms at Penmaenmawr while he enjoyed a hiking, rambling, easy climbing holiday, which was apt, as Dringo was Welsh for climbing. Bethan was kitted out in a cute black-and-white uniform as she served Welsh cream teas, something that Harry feasted on during the week. He couldn’t keep away from the place and was soon bewitched by her porcelain white Welsh skin, her sparkling blue eyes and easy smile, while Bethan was entranced by his huge bear-like paws. She had never seen hands the like of them before, and his neat English haircut.

She had taken the summer holiday job at Dringo to earn a little money and to get out from under her domineering mother, Phyllis’s, feet, and if a nice young man came along, well, that would be a summer bonus to remember.

The Jones family lived in the hills above Mostyn where they could glare down on the English across the water on their flat Wirral peninsula, conspiring to subjugate Wales, or so they imagined. The Jones’s had been long-time supporters of the Welsh National Party, Plaid Cymru, long before it was trendy and hip to be so, and even more fervent supporters of the Welsh Language Society, insisting that only Welsh was ever spoken in the Jones’ household. Bethan was six before she mastered the masters’ tongue. Fact was, that over the years the extended Jones family did a fair bit of glaring over the estuary whenever there was any anti English sentiment in the media, or round the hilltop villages where they lived, and they would laugh at anyone mentioning the Investiture of the English Prince of Wales.

‘You can’t marry ’im, ee’s English,’ said Phyllis in her sing song voice, forgetting herself and slipping into English, meaning Harry of course, the phrase spilling out almost as if it were one long word, youcan’tmarryimeesenglish, as if it were a Welsh place name belonging on some narrow gauge mountain railway.

Bethan would marry who the heck she darn well pleased, and she did.

Harry was high Church of England, Bethan, Welsh Chapel, where all the hymns and sermons were conducted in Europe’s most ancient language. Seventy-eight people attended the service in the grey stone chapel, and not all of them could find a seat. On that one solemn occasion, the chapel hierarchy made an exception and allowed a modicum of English to be uttered, but just the once, though not too much, and not too loudly.

Three weeks before the wedding, to his intense relief, Harry landed the job with the Chester Parks and Gardens department, and Bethan bit her tongue, swallowed her pride, and agreed to move across the border to England.

They bought a rambling and crumbling redbrick terraced house at a discount price in Alfred Street beside the Chester City Walls, a house the estate agent described as needing work, a property Harry and Bethan could only afford because Harry’s father, a bank clerk, put up most of the deposit, and arranged the mortgage on preferential terms.

Before they moved in, Harry and Bethan enjoyed a spectacular honeymoon in the Llaethlyd Lleuad Guesthouse, roughly translated as the Milky Moon, on the coast at Aberystwyth. Harry would always enquire as to the meaning of Welsh words. He was determined to learn the lingo, as he described it, but after three months of trying, gave up. It was too difficult for an Englishman to master, he said, and he wasn’t the first to utter the phrase.

Bethan wasn’t disappointed, because she could still curse him in her native tongue whenever they fell out, knowing that he wouldn’t have a clue what she was chuntering about, something that happened, but never for long, and anyway, the making up after an anghytuno’n chwyrn, a disagreement bordering on the violent, was always the best bit.

During the honeymoon beside the seaside, the sun shone every day, as the balmy onshore summer breeze blanched their locks. Bethan turned red and burned; Harry an attractive dark brown, for this was long before Factor Eight or Factor anything else had been invented. 

Afterwards, they would spend all of Harry’s working life in that rambling house where he, in his spare time, would turn it into a desirable residence, adding bathrooms, a spectacular kitchen, and a large nursery that would soon be full to overflowing.

Four big boys grew up in 17 Alfred Street, and in time fledged the nest and scattered across the globe to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Tegucigalpa, wherever the heck that was. Glyn had always been the odd one out, the rebellious child who opted for the most difficult decision, or the weirdest choice available.

Bethan and Harry enjoyed ten grandchildren they seldom saw.

The day after he collected his gold watch, Harry drove Bethan along the North Wales coast. They were bungalow hunting. He thought that as she had allowed herself to be taken to England for so long, the least he could do was to repatriate her to Wales and spend their retirement in her beloved Cymru. Bethan was coming home and her heart sang at the prospect.

They found a beautiful but ancient, grey stone bungalow, with its original Welsh slate roof still intact, set high in the hills, not five minutes drive from where she grew up, and yes, she would still glare across the Dee estuary far below at the Saeson, the English, on the far side.

Despite her forty-five years living amongst them, she retained some hostility toward them for what they had done, though perhaps they weren’t as bad as she had imagined. Three of her sons were confirmed Saeson, and that remained a deep regret for Bethan, though dearest Glyn remained stubbornly Welsh, and the only one who had mastered his mother’s tongue.

Harry and Bethan shed a tear when Jones & Sons, Removals and Storage, a distant cousin of Bethan’s, loaded up the blue and white pantechnicon, slammed the rear doors on their possessions, fired up the smelly diesel engine, and rolled away from Alfred Street for the last time.

The bungalow was heavenly. The fresh air bracing, the sound of the lambs comforting, the large sloping lawn soon trimmed and lined and weeded to Harry’s exacting standards.

Eighteen days after they moved to Wales, Bethan announced she would that night go to bed early, not only that, but she would sleep alone in the spare room, something she hadn’t done since nursing the boys all those years before.

Harry put it down to the slight cold she had. He’d noticed she had taken two glasses of Spanish red wine with her dinner, or tea, as she still preferred to call it, when one at most was all she would take. She had been irritable too, he’d noted that, and that was unlike her, but he imagined she would be better in the morning.

She wasn’t.

Harry found her lying on her back, like Sleeping Beauty, the covers pulled down and straight across her waist, her porcelain white Welsh skin still almost unlined, and as beautiful as the day he first set eyes on her in the Dringo tearooms. Her eyes were closed and her hands were clasped together before her, with no hint of pain on her death mask. She reminded him of some of the life-size marble memorials in the cathedral.

Eighteen days at home, eighteen precious days.

Bethan had always been a private lady. She often kept her feelings and innermost thoughts to herself; something that Harry had occasionally cause to chastise her over. There were some things she insisted she did in private and dying was one of them. She had never wanted any fuss. Bethan would do it in her own way, alone, and bravely, and that was what she did.

She had returned home to die.

Harry understood that now, as he kissed her dry lips and knelt down beside the bed in the spare room, wearing only his blue and white striped pyjamas, as he spoke aloud a prayer for his beloved Bethan, ending with one of the few Welsh phrases he could ever recall, rwy’n dy garu di, Bethan Jones. I love you Bethan Jones, and after that, he cried, and after that still, he went to the telephone and rang the Right Reverend James Kingston.

Chapter Four

The Right Reverend James Kingston had been seconded to Chester Cathedral from Lichfield. He regarded it as promotion and both he and his accountant wife, Sybil, were delighted to discover the fine red sandstone house close by the cathedral that came with the appointment.

Tradition demanded the new Right Reverend should hold his house-warming meeting and greeting party within one month of taking office, a busy affair where most of the people who helped and ran the cathedral would be invited. That included Harry and Bethan Wilkinson, who soon became close friends of the Kingstons. Harry was a regular worshipper in the cathedral and would donate his spare time to overseeing and cutting the fine lawns and grounds surrounding Saint Werburgh’s, as the cathedral was sometimes known.

The party began at noon and ran until four o’clock in the afternoon, during which time legions of helpers would pop in, some briefly, and shake the hand of the upright fellow who had joined them. Some, but not all, took advantage of the chilled white wine Sybil had chosen from Waitrose’s extensive catalogue. James enjoyed a glass or two, though paced himself, knowing it would be a long day. Even their only son, Michael, had put in an appearance, a tall and handsome twenty-something, studying tropical medicine at Liverpool University, a young man who charmed the ladies, young and old alike.

At close of play, two elderly sisters, Amy and Harriet Bull, who provided many of the cathedral flowers, had become stranded. The arrangement had been their even older brother, Robert, would collect them in his Jaguar. Robert had fallen in the garden that afternoon while pruning roses, and had broken two fingers, and could not oblige.

The Right Reverend James, eager to please on his public debut, jumped into the conversation and volunteered to run them back the seven miles to Parkgate on the west Wirral coast.

‘You’ve had a few drinks,’ warned Sybil.

‘No! Don’t worry, darling. Only a couple spread over the whole of the afternoon, and I’ve had plenty to eat. I’ll be fine.’

‘Well, if you’re sure.’

‘Course I am. I wouldn’t take a risk on something like that.’

The Bull sisters eased into the back seat of the Right Reverend’s four-year-old blue BMW and zipped along the Chester High Road, northward to Parkgate, and home for the now tiring and yawning ladies.

‘Thank you so much,’ they said at the house. ‘Are you sure you won’t come in for a coffee?’

‘Thank you but no, perhaps another time, it’s been so nice to meet you, give my love and best wishes to Robert, and tell him I shall meet him another day,’ and with that, minutes later James was heading south again...  too quickly.

The police shot out of a quiet turnoff and were on him like an angry hornet on a wasp.

The first police officer stepped from the blue light-flashing car and headed toward the Beemer.

‘Do you know what speed you were travelling at, sir?’

‘Just on seventy,’ mumbled James.

The officer shook his head and revealed the handheld device that displayed 82mph.

‘Really?’ said James. ‘That much? It must be this car. I am so sorry.’ And he added, ‘I am the new vicar attached to the cathedral; I am on my way back there now.’

The police officer had clocked the white collar, and that was, to the best of his knowledge, a first, a speeding priest... with humming breath.

‘Have you been drinking, sir?’

‘No-ooo, well yes, just the one. It was my inauguration party today, and I had to take a couple of elderly ladies home.’

‘Would you mind blowing into this device?’

James appeared crestfallen. He’d already guessed the result, and he was right.

The new Right Reverend at Chester Cathedral was prosecuted for driving whilst under the influence of drink, found guilty, one and a half times over the legal limit, and fined four hundred and fifty pounds, no exceptions for anyone, and especially for someone like you, said the magistrate. You should have known better, and worse still, James lost his driving licence for eighteen months.

The press had a field day.

The London redtops screamed CANNED VICAR BANNED, and RIGHT REVEREND WRONG, while the more conservative Chester Chronicle contented itself with: New Right Reverend Will Not Be Giving Lifts.

There was something of a public outcry, especially amongst the teetotalling temperance mob who had been campaigning for drink to be banned from all areas of the city centre for years, and to think that our new vicar has behaved like that!

Harry and Bethan, who weren’t above a glass or two themselves, supported James through and through, and that strengthened their burgeoning friendship. Despite that, feelings ran high. There was a weighty faction demanding the new man and his simpering wife be packed off to Lichfield on the first available train. It was rumoured the final decision went to the Bishop himself, who, in the spirit of forgiveness, came down on the side of James and Sybil Kingston. James would take his punishment like a man, carry on with his duties, and be required to apologise as part of his next public address.

Come the day in question, the paparazzi camped on the green outside the cathedral, watching, listening and hoping for more juicy church gossip.

The Bishop intimated that James Kingston would be expected to never again be seen with an alcoholic drink in his hand, a stipulation that, though bothersome, mattered little when put into context of the wonderful house they enjoyed. He could do what he liked behind closed doors and did.

The telephone rang at half-past nine in the morning.

Sybil answered. She was working at home that day.

‘It’s Harry Wilkinson,’ she hissed to James, ‘and he sounds awfully upset.’ 

An hour later, James found himself on the stopping train loping along the North Wales coast, heading for Mostyn station where Harry would collect him in the car. James would much have preferred to have driven there, but didn’t dare.

He spent a good chunk of the day in the ancient bungalow praying with, and comforting his friend, before Harry drove him back down the hill to the station before the trains grew busy.

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THE DRIVER HAD PLANNED the day with great care. A quiet railway station where expresses rushed through. A small or non-existent staff. A lack of CCTV, and a trial run that had uncovered no unforeseen problems. Today would be the day. Mostyn would be the place.

Chapter Five

James Kingston was still thinking of Harry and poor Bethan, as he crossed the railway bridge and strolled on to the platform that would take him eastward back toward Chester, the line that followed the soft muddy, sandy coast.

Harry volunteered to stay with him until the unreliable stopping train arrived, but James sent Harry on his way with, ‘You have so much to think about and arrange, you get on home,’ and anyway there was an express due through, and James came from an age when little boys were hypnotised by railway trains. He was looking forward to it and reprimanded himself for not bringing his digital camera.

The driver sat in the car watching. There was one person on the platform, but you only need one. One cold soul, peering up the track, seeking trains, hoping one would arrive soon.

The driver stepped from the car. Headed for the platform entrance, specially chosen padded trainers enabling silent movement. The man on the platform still stared along the track. A vague rumbling, then the lines sang, an audible hum, the sound of bogies on steel rail, crossing the junction, over the points, louder now, approaching, exciting, exhilarating.

Most people step back from the platform edge when a train rushes through, especially when it’s an express that will not slow or stop. James was keener for a better look. He stepped forward. The diesel loco pulling ten carriages was entering the station, hurtling toward him, acceleration, the Llandudno Junction to London Euston Express, stopping at Chester and Crewe and nowhere else. Yellow and red, raw power. How impressive a beast she was. 

The car driver stepped forward, too. No one about. Why would there be? This was a quiet unmanned station. The rush hour had yet to begin, and this train wasn’t stopping.

Hand up. Palm open. Small of the back. The gentlest of prods. Falling forward, over the edge, into the abyss. Disappeared. Dispatched. A split second look of panic and terror on the engine driver’s face as the train flashed by. The cold soul had disappeared. Mangled beneath hundreds of tonnes of thrashing iron and steel. No one could survive that. What had been his final thoughts? Pondered the pusher. Maybe he uttered a prayer. Who knows? Who cares?

100 Ways to Kill People.

Push them under a train.

The driver grinned and turned about and headed back toward the car. It had been more enjoyable than before, and that was a surprise. Perhaps it was because last time it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. This time, it was meticulously planned. 

Desi had perished that way.

It was only right.

It was only a surprise it had taken so long for the idea to germ.

Desi was avenged, or at least partly.

Desi would never be forgotten.

Back in the car. Engine on. Left trainer pressing C. Right trainer pressing A. Acceleration. Away from the station. Away from Mostyn, and away from Wales.

But what about next time? What then?

There would always be a next time. 

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WALTER ARRIVED LATE at the police station. He had been to the dentist. His left cheek was puffier than usual. Karen was already there, gabbling on the telephone. He gawped at her and she set the phone down and smiled across at him.

‘I’ve been to the dentist,’ he snuffled.

‘I can see that.’

‘Anything happening?’

‘There is. Another suspicious death,’ she said, ‘over the border in Wales.’

‘How suspicious?’

‘A middle-aged man fell beneath the London express at Mostyn.’

‘Suicide?’

‘Maybe, but get this, he was a preacher.’

‘That is interesting. Any witnesses?’

‘None that we know of, though the driver glimpsed something. He’s very cut up about it.’

‘Perhaps cut up is not the best phrase in the circumstances.’

‘Sorry, but get this, Guv, the dead guy was well known.’ 

‘In what way?’

‘Remember that vicar from the cathedral, the one traffic did for drink driving and the papers got hold of it. It’s him.’

‘I remember. RIGHT REVEREND WRONG.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘What was he doing in Mostyn?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Do you know where the engine driver lives?’

‘Yep. Nantwich.’

‘That’s handy, on our patch. He’ll be taking leave for sure.’

‘He is. I’ve just spoken to him; he’s in all day.’

‘I think we should see him.’

‘OK Guv, I’ll arrange a car.’

‘One other thing, Karen, did you dig up anything weird on Marian Rivers?’

‘Nope. Nothing at all. I don’t think she’s involved.’

Walter sighed and waddled toward the coffee machine.

‘We’ll go in half an hour. Do you want a coffee?’

‘Nope, bad for you, ruin my diet,’ and she grabbed and sucked hard on her bottle of flavoured water.

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IT TOOK LESS THAN HALF an hour to drive to Nantwich, Karen keeping within the speed limit most of the time. The driver’s name was Bill Brambles, and he lived in a typical railwayman’s terraced cottage that hadn’t changed in a hundred years. It was two minutes walk from the station, handy for work. They heard a passing two-carriage passenger train as they walked up the short path.

There was no bell, just a big brass knocker. Karen thumped it twice, and the door opened a moment later. She smiled at the red-faced guy, short, stubby, maybe forty-five, thinning black hair, unshaven, bags under his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping well.

‘Mr Brambles?’ she said.

The guy nodded.

‘I’m Sergeant Karen Greenwood, we spoke earlier.’

‘Yeah.’

‘This is Inspector Darriteau.’

The guy nodded at Walter, and Walter nodded back.

‘Come on in.’

They went through to a small back kitchen and sat at a table and chairs, yellow topped; the kind of thing you can buy in a charity shop for next to nothing.

‘Wanna cuppa tea?’

‘No ta,’ said Walter. Karen shook her head.

‘I’d just like you to tell us in your own words what happened,’ said Walter.

‘I’ve already told the Railway Police.’

‘Yes, we know that, but we’d like to hear it from your own lips.’

Bill Brambles glanced up at the unshaded bulb and back at the cops.

‘We were just coming into the station...’

‘We?’ asked Karen.

‘Me and the loco,’ grinned Brambles, ‘a hundred and thirty tonnes of raw power, ten carriages, perhaps thirty people a carriage, and the crew too, maybe three hundred people, I was hardly alone.’

‘I see,’ said Walter, ‘so what happened?’

‘We entered the station. It was very quiet. I noticed that because I thought there was only one guy on the platform. A tall bloke.’

‘The unfortunate one?’ said Karen.

Brambles nodded.

Walter gave her a look as if to tell her to stop interrupting.

‘He stepped toward the edge, but not in a threatening way. It all happened so fast, more like a spotter, an enthusiast, as if he were about to take our picture, but he didn’t seem to have a camera.’

‘He was alone?’ asked Walter.

‘No! No, he wasn’t. That’s the funny thing. As he stepped forward, I glimpsed another figure behind, he or she stepped forward too, always standing behind the main man. I couldn’t see the other person; I never did, not properly.’

‘What happened then?’

‘We were travelling 65mph, maybe 70mph, that’s pretty quick through a station. There are so many things to monitor. The last thing you want to see is an unattended pram, or buggy rolling toward the edge.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Karen.

‘As we approached, the main guy was close to the edge, too close, and in the next moment he fell, almost dived, in front of Dodo.’

‘Dodo?’ said Walter.

Brambles childishly smiled. ‘We call the engine Dodo.’

‘I see,’ said Walter, pondering for a second the absurdity of it.

‘I slammed on the brakes, an automatic reaction, but a total waste of time.’

‘Did you see the other person on the platform?’ asked Karen.

‘No. We were well past by then. Not even a glimpse. It was just a blur. You can’t imagine how quick it happened.’

‘Did the main man jump, or was he pushed?’ asked Walter.

‘Hard to say, it could have been either, but the second figure was very close, right behind, out of vision.’

‘As if they were hiding from you?’ suggested Karen.

Brambles pondered on that and pulled a face. ‘Maybe.’

‘What’s your gut feeling?’ asked Walter.

‘My gut feeling is... he was pushed.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘If you are going to jump in front of a train you would have planned it, wouldn’t you? You would have gone to that station knowing what you were about to do.’

‘You’d still be terrified at the prospect,’ said Karen.

Again Walter shot her a look.

‘Yeah maybe, but the look on this guy’s face was not so much one of terror, more one of surprise, not that I got that much of a look, it all happened in a split second. One instant he’s there, the next he isn’t, the next I’m past him and out of there. All done, in the blink of an eye. Not pleasant, I can tell you. I wouldn’t mind, but this is my second one this year.’

‘Oh?’ said Walter.

‘Yeah, just before the Woodhead tunnel in January. No doubt about that one. He jumped on the track and walked straight toward me, grinning.’

‘Oh, geez,’ said Karen.

‘Yeah, exactly. Why can’t these cranks take a pot of pills or summat? What have we ever done to deserve this kind of trauma?’

‘Maybe the guy at Mostyn wasn’t a crank,’ suggested Walter.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Brambles, ‘but we’ll never know, will we?’

‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’

‘Not really. As I say, it all happened in an instant.’

Walter sighed and Karen stood up.

‘Thanks, Mr Brambles, you’ve been most helpful,’ said Walter, standing and offering his hand.

Brambles took it and shook it; and Karen’s too, and a moment later the officers were outside in the car.

‘Well?’ said Karen. ‘Back to the station?’

‘No. Not yet. Take me to Audlem, it’s near here, there’s a pub I know. We’ll have a drink and a think, and a chat.’

Chapter Six

The Shroppie Fly was located on the canal bank. Walter had discovered it when one of his former girlfriends, Audrey from the mission, had persuaded him to take a boating holiday with her.

The one evening they spent in the Fly was the highlight of the week, so far as he was concerned.

There were three or four painted metal tables and chairs outside overlooking the brown water. A group of mallard ducks were squabbling on the far side.

‘Grab a table,’ said Walter. ‘I’ll get the drinks,’ and he disappeared inside.

‘White wine for me,’ she said, smirking.

Walter harrumphed.

Karen sat down on one of the cold chairs and looked out across the canal. There were four narrowboats berthed there. They didn’t look as if they had moved since the previous summer, long multi coloured craft with large names painted on their sides. Genevieve, London. RickySue, Skipton. The Blue Goose, Ilkeston, and Sir Winkalot, Chester. Two more barges were coming down the canal in line astern, heading for the locks that would take them down toward Chester. The first one had four guys onboard. They saw the slim blonde sitting there on her own-some and waved and smiled and shouted, ‘Need some company, love?’

But before she could answer, a big black bloke came out of the pub carrying drinks, and sat beside her.

Karen waved them away, and the guys waved back and shouted ‘Another time maybe!’ and then they were gone.

‘Friends of yours?’

‘Not yet,’ she grinned.

He passed her an orange juice. His was a large pint of foaming real ale, two inches already missing, in a straight glass, most important, ‘and here’s your lunch,’ he said, ‘on me,’ tossing a packet of salt and vinegar crisps across the table.

‘Diet,’ she said, pushing them back.

He didn’t mind. He could manage two.

‘So,’ he said. ‘What have we got, exactly?’

‘We have two deaths that could be accident or suicide, in which case there is no case to investigate.’

‘True, but we also have two cases that could be murders, in which case there is one, and possibly two murderers out there, and that needs investigating.’

‘We can rule Marian out of the railway death, she was at her solicitors,’ said Karen. ‘Let’s assume for a moment we have two murders, and they’re linked, are we looking for a man or a woman?’

‘Could be either,’ said Walter.

‘I think it’s a man.’

‘Why?’

‘Just a feeling.’

‘Keep feelings out of it,’ said Walter, gulping his drink, ‘stick to the evidence.’

‘Ooh, that’s rich coming from you. You thought Marian did it.’

‘No I didn’t. I just didn’t want to rule her out too soon.’

There was a short silence as if they were thinking on different lines and Walter said, ‘What is the motive?’

‘Good question. They were both preachers. Someone with a grudge against vicars, perhaps? Maybe they buggered up a wedding.’

Walter snorted. ‘Hardly a good enough reason to kill.’

‘It’s been done for less,’ she said, echoing his earlier words, and then she said, ‘Could this be more sinister than we think?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘An Islamist thing. You know, someone messing with a fundamentalist’s brain? Putting ideas into their heads.’

‘Going round murdering Christian preachers? Well, it’s possible I suppose, though unlikely, but everything about this case looks unlikely. One thing’s for sure; we rule nothing out until we know different. More to the point, did the victims know one another?’

‘That’s a good place to start.’

‘It is,’ said Walter. ‘When we get back to Chester you make that your number one line of enquiry. If you can show they knew each other, there might be a common friend or acquaintance, and then we could be getting somewhere. My worry is these are random killings.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘How did the killer know that Colin Rivers would cross that road at that time? How did the killer know that James Kingston would be at Mostyn station standing on the platform at that time? I don’t see a connection. I don’t think he knew either. I think it’s random.’

‘You said he.’

‘He or she.’ 

‘If they are random killings, we’ll have our work cut out,’ said Karen.

‘Random killings are the hardest to solve. No motive at all, other than personal satisfaction.’

‘In that case let’s hope it’s the preacher thing. Do you think we should go public and warn all preachers to be on their guard?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. It won’t be long before the press gets hold of this. I wondered if we should call a press conference before they go off at a tangent.’

‘That’ll create mayhem.’

‘Yeah it will, but it might flush our little bunny out.’

‘It’s your call.’

‘Yeah, I’ll have another drink and mull it over,’ said Walter, and he went back into the pub. When he came out he said, ‘And another thing I need you to do. Check out recent releases, prisoners with previous, and the mentally unstable, care in the community, all that crap. Find out if the authorities have recently foisted on us some head-the-balls who should never have been released.’

‘Good point; I’ll check that out first. Erm, where’s my drink?’

‘Oh sorry, did you want one?’

‘Nah, only teasing.’

––––––––

THE DRIVER LAY ON THE bed, hands behind head, staring at the ceiling. In ten minutes it would be time to get up and prepare for work.

100 Ways to Kill People.

It wasn’t as easy as you might think, not if you wanted to be creative about it, and that was the whole point. Anyone could wander down the high street and pull out a carving knife and ease it into someone’s back, but what was the point in that? Where was the challenge? No, that wouldn’t do.

Time for thinking caps on.

They’d be surprised at the next one.

And why hadn’t there been much publicity?

God, the coppers were slow. They hadn’t put two and two together. They didn’t appear to realise they had two murders on their hands. If they didn’t buck up their ideas, a letter to the press might bring them to their senses.

The driver stood and went through to the spare room. Four articles displayed. Much more interesting. Two on the highway, two on the railway. A little speculation by bored journalists, but not much. Had the whole world gone one-eyed? Even the dopey press hadn’t picked up on it. That would have to change. They would all have to change, or maybe, just maybe, they should be next.

Ha, hah!

Would the casino be busy tonight? Probably not. There wasn’t the spare cash about, other than with people who shouldn’t have the money in the first place, and there would always be plenty of those.

Time to get ready. Must look nice.

No more bets, ladies and gentlemen. No more bets!

Twenty black! Vingt noir.

Chapter Seven

William Camber had always been a loner; leastways he had for the past twenty years, ever since he and Lorraine split. He had been a late developer so far as women were concerned.

An only child, a domineering mother, a father in the merchant navy who went away for ten months at a stretch, and was drunk for most of the time when he came home. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising William found it hard to relate to other people, and especially women.

He always struggled with the five-hurdle handicap.

To meet a nice girl.

To ask her out.

To have his invitation accepted.

To go on a date.

To take it further.

He’d get past one, or two, or maybe three, but by the time the fourth hurdle reared up in front of him, he’d normally have stumbled.

Then he met Lorraine Bickerstaffe.

She worked on the till in the convenience store on the corner. Lorraine was no kid, but that was fine because William was thirty-nine. She had smiled at him in that special way. She felt a little sorry for him. He always came in alone, and seemed lonely. He wasn’t bad looking, and polite too, and she had been out with a lot worse, though she didn’t care for the whippet he always tied up outside the shop, before setting foot in the store.

The next time he came in she could tell he was nervous. It was quiet that day and that was possibly part of the plan. Perhaps he’d been waiting outside. He’d had a shave and applied aftershave too, and she could tell what was on his mind, though she guessed he wouldn’t have the balls, the guts, to ask her out.

He bought a couple of items and ambled to the till. No one else about. Just the two of them. It would be now or never. He made small talk. Nice spring day. Quiet in here. Been busy? See the Queen’s under the weather.

He wasn’t going to ask her, she just knew it.

He liked the dark blue skirt and the light blue blouse she wore. Fit her like a glove, they did, and she had a great figure. Was it company uniform, or her own clothes? He had no idea.

He heard Topsy outside yelping his displeasure at being abandoned.

‘So glad I’m finishing in ten minutes,’ she said, blowing out air.

She’d recently retouched her perfume. The aroma crossed the counter and attached itself to William’s jacket.

‘It’s been a long day and I’m parched,’ she wheezed, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

He still wasn’t going to ask her. The bloody wimp!

She didn’t want to go home to an empty house, and sometimes with daft horses you had to lead them to the trough.

‘Can’t wait to get into the Crown & Anchor, get a few drinks down my neck,’ she said.

‘You going to the Crown?’

Hallelujah! At last, the penny’s dropped.

‘Yep, thinking about it,’ she said, smiling at him again.

‘I might see you in there,’ he stammered.

‘Yeah, maybe. What’s your name?’

‘William. William Camber.’

‘William, that’s a nice name.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yeah. Like that young Prince William.’

‘Yeah. What’s yours?’

‘Lorraine Bickerstaffe.’

Bickerstaffe? The name was familiar. He used to be taught by a Bickerstaffe. Maurice Bickerstaffe, that was it, and he was a right bastard. Maybe she was related. Maybe she was his daughter. Heaven forbid.

‘I might see you later,’ he said.

‘Not if I see you first,’ she said, grinning, to show it was a joke.

William wasn’t sure about that, but went outside and hurried Topsy home for his tea. After that, went to the bathroom, combed his hair, cleaned his teeth, splashed some cologne on his face and inside his shirt, checked he had sufficient funds, and headed back toward the Crown.

He congratulated himself on how easy it had been. Asking her out, bet that surprised her, being accepted, and he put it down to his charm and attractiveness, and wondered why he had fretted about it beforehand. He should have had more belief in himself, just as his dead mother always reminded him. They couldn’t resist him, could they; the women, and an attractive woman too. She fancied him, didn’t she, course she did. It had been so easy, but deep down he always knew it would be.

––––––––

SHE WASN’T THERE.

The bitch!

She wasn’t there.

He couldn’t believe it.

Leading him on like that.

Standing him up.

Next time he went into that Expresso store he would give her a piece of his mind. He bought a drink, whisky, though he didn’t much like whisky, and went and bunged some change in the fruit machine. Lost it in five minutes flat. Bugger!

Strolled back toward the padded bench seat. Sat down, sipped the drink. Glanced round. Four old blokes, two sitting together, two alone, minding their own business, looking miserable, a little like him. If he wasn’t careful he’d morph into one of those old geezers before he knew it.

God, how shit life was when you’re alone, when you’re lonely.

Five minutes later she came in and the whole place came alight. It was as if someone had opened the double doors and allowed in the sunshine. The landlady smiled at the newcomer and asked, ‘What can I get you, darling?’

The four old guys gave the newcomer the once over.

She had a lovely backside; you could make out her knickers beneath her tight blue skirt. The two guys sitting together elbowed one another and stared. The other two sipped their drink and glanced at her, and thought about what might have been, or perhaps about something from long ago.

She bought a white wine, turned about; saw the four old guys and William, sitting there, admiring her. She liked that, being admired; and smiled at each one of them, and they all smiled back as she strolled across the bar like a catwalk model and said, ‘Ah, there you are,’ and sat down beside William, close beside.

He smelt her perfume.

He felt the warmth of her body next to his.

He felt like a million quid.

The old guys took a sniffy look at William to see what was so special about him, then sat back and glanced down at their well read red-topped newspapers, and waited for the next one to come in.

––––––––

WILLIAM AND LORRAINE dated for eight months. It might have been the best eight months of his entire life, and it would have been too, but for the way she finished it.

She wrote him a letter.

Said she’d met someone else, and she didn’t want to see William again. Sorry, but there it is.

That was partly true. She was seeing someone else, that was honest enough, but she omitted to mention that she had been dating Joe O’Burn all the while she was seeing William.

She’d been trialling the pair of them, couldn’t decide between the two. The truth was she liked them both. Joe for his manliness and wildness, quickness of temper, though he wasn’t so bright. He was a redhead and what do expect from a redheaded man?

William for his conversation and gentleness and unthreatening company, won hands down on the more cerebral things of life. She was always far more relaxed in Will’s company, for he was so easy to be with, but he was no wildcat that was for sure. Her lovers seemed to dovetail perfectly. Between them they provided her with everything she needed, but why couldn’t one of them possess the attributes of both?

She’d grown tired of lying, covering her tracks, always having to remember what she’d said to the other, and what she hadn’t. In an off guarded moment she’d actually called Joe “Bill”, and she’d only got away with it because he chose that exact moment to turn up some heavy metal rock band on the television. He’d have gone mad if he’d heard what she’d said.

It hadn’t been an easy choice when she chose Joe. Truth was, the sex was better, not that it wasn’t nice with Bill, it was, but with Joe, well, that was something else, and good sex meant a lot to Lorraine Bickerstaffe. Sorry Bill, but there you are, out you go; thanks for the good time; you’ll soon find someone new. But he didn’t.

He had been a late developer so far as women were concerned, and an early finisher.

It took him ages to get over Lorraine, and that mean-spirited letter she’d sent. Truth was he would never get over it. He didn’t want to get over it. If he was suspicious of women before, now he was positively hostile. He would never ask a woman for a date again, and neither would a woman ask him, unless you counted Marjorie Bates. She was an eccentric lady at the otherwise all male angling club, who made it her business to bed as many of her fish hunting colleagues as she could manage, before time ran out.

Bill wasn’t interested in Marjorie Bates and told her so in no uncertain terms. The second sharp word he uttered was off.

He went prematurely grey before he was fifty, looking like everyone’s favourite granddad. He stopped drinking, no bad thing, but the pubs had offered him something else, companionship, and he missed that dreadfully. He denied himself that pleasure, retreated to his flat and relied on his fishing; accompanied by whatever whippet he was homing at the time. He stopped eating properly, and what little weight he possessed deserted him. He wasn’t looking after himself. His grubby shirt collars would flap around his neck like a scarf. He didn’t clean the flat. What was the point? After a while the dust never got any deeper. He didn’t care about his appearance and lost his job because of it, and worse still, he stepped up the smoking, emptying two packs a day, sometimes more, and it wasn’t long before he had a permanent cough.

William Camber was stuck in a tailspin he wasn’t even aware of, and there was little chance he would pull out of it. He had no friends or relations to tell him otherwise. He had become a bum.

Despite the passing of the years Lorraine Bickerstaffe was never far from his mind, though he had no idea what happened to her. He never saw her again. How is it the ones who hurt you the most are the ones who never leave the head?

It’s crazy.

Lorraine came to regret her decision. She married Joe and presented him with a bawling ginger boy, though even before the birth she had become all too acquainted with Joe’s freckled fists. William had never hit her; he’d never even dreamed of doing such a thing.

There would soon be another screaming baby on the way, while Joe admired other women in the boozer. Perhaps he was doing more than admiring, though she wasn’t sure about that.

Lorraine felt trapped, by the kids, by him, by her choice, by everything in her life, but she was stuck with it. She’d made her own bed and look where it had brought her. She regretted it, of course she did. She didn’t even like the boys that much. They were too much like their father, aggressive and hot tempered.

In her quiet moments she often thought of William.

She’d like another chance, to go back and retrace her steps, but she knew that was impossible. Life wasn’t like that. It wasn’t cricket. You don’t get a second innings. You don’t realise the consequences of decisions made in earlier life.

Sorry William, I made a mistake.

William was now sixty. His only pleasure was fishing, and the whippet.

His favourite beat was quite remote and hard to get to. He liked it for that very reason, because few people went there.

He hated human beings, and more than that, he thought he always had.

Nowadays he only fishes on the New Cut.

Tomorrow, at first light, he would be there.

Chapter Eight

Bird watching is a fine hobby to have, and the New Cut was the perfect place to pursue it. It was a birding crossroads where the town met the country, and the country met the estuary.

Seabirds on the exposed mudflats at low tide, wildfowl lower down on the marshes, swans, Barnacle and Canada geese on the canal, starlings roosting on the nearby pylons, songbirds nesting in the scrubby vegetation, and all would attract the birds of prey, the marsh harriers, kestrels and buzzards.

The driver had a longstanding interest in birding, nothing too serious, no special equipment, other than a pocket book of birds, and a tiny pair of binoculars. It was relaxing, it was diverting, enjoyable.

The canal was at its best in the late spring sunshine, wide and deep after the heavy rain that had fallen in the night, boosted by the incoming spring tide. Before the afternoon was through, the banks would be tested to destruction.

It was a wonderful place to walk; quiet and peaceful, even if the paths were muddy, the perfect place to think, and plan. The new season grass glistened in the sunshine as the driver ambled along. There was a lot to think about, plans to formulate, ideas to test, but before that, there was some serious thinking to be done about the casino.

Last night had been hell.

It was expected to be quiet, but the place was packed out. A stag night gang of loudmouthed twenty, thirty somethings, who had been on the drink all night. A bunch of Chinese who couldn’t speak English, but gambling is an international language, no words ever necessary. A ladies’ night out, maybe nine or ten women doing their best sex in the city impression, and a team of professional gamblers intent on mischief... and winning.

Word flew round the staff that high rollers were attacking the pontoon tables. Big bets were placed, earnest whispered conversations amongst the punters, even a calculator appeared, though that wouldn’t be welcomed. Long before midnight everyone in the place knew the house was losing. Something was going down, and it was more than the staff’s Christmas bonus.

Extra sentries were placed; watchers sent out, croupiers in civvies, pretending to gamble, pretending to be on the other side. To the driver, they stood out a mile, and if the driver could see it, the serious gamblers could see it too? Whispers grew that innovatory cheating methods were involved, but where, and how, and by whom, and worst of all, how much was it going to cost?

The driver was glad that French roulette was the preferred station. Pontoon was a game to be avoided, and the bosses wouldn’t be impressed by any croupier who lost a packet. Losers disappeared. Those playing roulette couldn’t help but glance enviously at the card schools packed round the tables, couldn’t fail to hear the raucous shouts of Yes! And Get in there! And feel the lucky winning mentality in the air, as heavy chips flowed across the table, toward the punters. The tide was running out, for the house.

The driver would not like to admit it, but maybe, just maybe, the eyes had been diverted for one split second, long enough to miss who placed the big bet on 16.

The winning big bet on 16.

Twenty-five ten-pound chips paying thirty-five to one.

£8,750!

God almighty!

A decent win in anyone’s language, a great pay day for a mere ten second’s work.

The problem came when two competing punters claimed the bet. The croupier hadn’t noticed, couldn’t rule, no one had noticed, such was the excitement flowing over from the card tables.

One claimant was Chinese and spoke no English, the other, a quiet, gay man, who had been a member of the Argosy Club for over twenty years. He wasn’t quiet any longer, and neither was he weak. What began as a heated argument degenerated into a pushing and shoving match, and threatened to boil over into an all-out brawl.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!’ called the croupier, trying to bring them to order. It would never happen, because neither of them was prepared to back down, as the Chinese spat out filthy rhetoric that no one but his friends could understand. The management came running to mediate, and that annoyed them too, for they had their hands full watching the cards.

The croupier wasn’t alone in wondering if this roulette charade was a diversionary tactic, but if it was, it was hard to see how. If it was, it was sure as hell clever, and had paid a big dividend.

The floor manager stared at the driver and asked: ‘Whose bet was it?’

A shake of the head and the downcast look spoke volumes.

The driver didn’t know; failed a basic instruction: always be aware of whose bets are whose; and especially big bets like this. The house took the men to one side, invited them into the private rooms for champagne and crepes, while pretty girls with reddened, pouting lips hung about in the background. Were they on offer too? A touch of compensation? Might they help settle the dispute?

Not much of an incentive for poor Derek.

After a further hour of furious argument the two claimants agreed to split the winnings, though both claimed total dissatisfaction at the outcome. It would leave one of them smiling and elated, and the other feeling robbed, and swearing never to attend the Argosy again.

It had been a dreadful night for everyone, the croupier, the owners and management, and for once the house was delighted to cut their losses and close the doors at 2am. The croupier couldn’t get out of there quick enough, but on the way to the door, that same floor manager, Teddy Helms, called out, ‘Sam, can you spare a minute, I need a word.’

Sam pulled a face and stepped into the private office.

‘Take a seat.’

Sam sat down.

‘You weren’t on your game tonight.’

Was that a question? Sam pulled a face, but didn’t reply.

‘It’s not like you. Is there something on your mind? You seemed distant from the start.’

‘Everything’s fine, Mister Helms.’

‘You couldn’t have picked a worse night to have a mare.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Helms, it won’t happen again.’

‘It bloody well better not! You get my meaning?’

Sam nodded.

Helms nodded toward the door, and as Sam stepped out, Helms shouted, ‘Last warning, Sam. Last chance!’

No reply, just a nod, and a quickening of the feet to get out of there.

––––––––

MR HELMS SHOULD WATCH his step or he might find himself in the crosshairs. A shaking of the head, a quickening of the step, a squelching of the trainers in the mud, a deep breath, forget about him, forget all about the Argosy and the black arts of gambling, forget about everything, other than the important things in life.

––––––––

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL day, cold but bright with a brisk wind that reminded God’s creatures everything was well with the world.

It was a solitary place, the New Cut, far away from the main road. It needed a good walk to get there, and you’d only come if you knew of its existence, and that was why few people found their way to the waterside.

But there was someone there, away to the right, beyond some low struggling willows. A man, an old grey-haired man, slight and skinny, fishing, concentrating, standing on the edge of the cold, deep water.

It wasn’t as the driver had planned.

It wasn’t perfect.

But it was interesting.

A picture of Desi filled the mind for a second, interrupting the train of thought.

Unexpected opportunities must be taken.

Stood perfectly still. Glanced around. No one in sight. Not a sound, other than the freshening wind, bird song and territorial wild fowl, and the gentle hum of traffic on some distant busy road. An aeroplane came over the brow of the green hills, an executive jet, losing height, coming in to land at Hawarden airport. The skinny fisherman glanced up at the plane and back at the water, flexed the rod, peered at the surface, hoping for evidence of prey. He set the rod on the rest and stood with hands on hips, breathing hard, dying for a cigarette. He would have another in a second, peered up at the watery sun. It hurt his eyes.

Sam went on tiptoe. Closed on the prey. Crept forward. One last look around. The old man hadn’t heard a thing. Perhaps he was going deaf. No one on the far bank. No boats on the Cut. Not another soul in sight. They had the world to themselves.

Hand up. Palm forward. Small of the back. Hefty shove.

The old man went in head first.

SPLOSH!

He didn’t utter a word.

The water was freezing.

William Camber panicked and began thrashing around. His heart rate exploded. He was desperate to cough. His arms and shoulders and chest were freezing. He was desperate to breathe. He had never been a swimmer, swimming was for the fishes, he used to say. The tidal current swept him further out. He slipped beneath the surface and smacked the water with open hands, searching for air, but which way was up?

A sudden updraught brought him back to the surface. His head popped up like a cork. He gasped for breath, coughed and spat. He was facing the bank where his fishing rod stood. No whippet. Why hadn’t he brought the damned dog with him? He couldn’t remember. Safety was a long way off, and standing beside his fishing gear was a slight, grinning figure. Baseball cap pulled down over its round face, skinny jeans, and nondescript woollen jacket.

‘What did you do that for?’ William yelled.

The figure waved him goodbye.

The effort of shouting spent energy William could ill afford.

The current swept him into the centre of the canal, the deepest, coldest area. His legs lost all feeling. He could no longer kick. His arms were weak and feeble. They were going the same way. He grimaced in agony.

His head slipped beneath the surface. There was no sign of him. He’d gone. The driver felt elated. It had been so easy.

100 Ways to Kill People.

Push them in the Cut.

A hand broke the surface. He wasn’t dead.

It wouldn’t be long in coming.

William’s white arm rose into the sky. The fist clenched like some communist black and white propaganda movie from the fifties. It shook at the figure on the bank, at the world in general, at all the people who had ignored him, hurt and belittled him. It retreated into the water, and was gone and would soon be forgotten.

Sam grinned and turned about. Pulled out the book of birds and strolled away along the bank. What species could be recorded today? Barnacle goose, yes, tick, Canada goose, yes, another tick, kestrel, yes, mute swan, yes, lots of ticks; it had been a good day. It had been a wonderful day.

Chapter Nine

The gaunt figure was washed up the following morning, downstream beyond the new road bridge, below the power station at Connah’s Quay, dumped by the retreating tide. One hand was missing, essential foodstuff for three hungry fox cubs.

Two power workers had noticed the figure. They thought it was a mannequin, probably chucked into the water by a local band of mischievous kids. It didn’t once move; it must be a mannequin. One of the engineers wasn’t convinced and clambered down to take a closer look.

He was right. It wasn’t a mannequin.

The body was in Wales, nothing to do with the English, well beyond Walter’s jurisdiction. There, the Heddlu Gogledd Cymru ruled, the North Wales Police Service, but Walter had a pal in Prestatyn by the name of Dai Williams, and they would regularly speak and exchange intelligence and gossip. Dai was aware of Walter’s interest in the unexplained death at Mostyn station, hence one of his first calls was to him.

‘No ID yet, Walter,’ he said, in his happy singsong Welsh voice. ‘No one has been reported missing who fits the description, white man, difficult to age, we are saying between fifty and eighty, cause of death, drowning, no obvious injuries other than one nibbled paw.’

––––––––

THREE HOURS LATER THE police patrols found the rod and bag and eventual identification. The dead man was one William Camber from Chester, aged sixty, no known relatives, and William Camber left behind one last mystery.

Was it suicide, accident, or murder?

Walter and Karen knew the answer to that. They couldn’t prove it, they had precious little evidence, they simply knew.

They were no longer seeking a double murderer, but a triple, and that was a rarity, and there was something else of interest. William Camber was an atheist. He had never shown any interest in churches or religion. The vicar murdering Islamist theory could be put to bed. They were looking for a serial killer; and a random striker at that.

Random killers were always the hardest to catch.

One of the telephones rang.

Karen snatched it up.

Walter heard her say, ‘Yes, he’s here, sure, I’ll send him in.’

‘What is it?’ Walter snapped, though he had a good idea who it was.

‘Mrs West wants to see you, right away.’

Walter cursed aloud.

Mrs West, known behind her back as John, was Walter’s superior officer. Her name was Joan West, and she was ten years younger than Walter. She would often use the telephone to speak to her staff, even if they were sitting in the office right next door, preferring to keep her door closed whenever she could. It wasn’t how the book suggested a station was run, but she didn’t care about that. It had served her well in the past and she wasn’t about to change.

Walter stood up and waddled across the office mumbling, ‘That’s all I bloody need.’ 

He knocked and went inside.

‘Sit down, Walter.’

‘You wanted to see me, ma’am?’

‘Yes. I think you need help.’

‘Help with what?’

‘On this serial killer we have on the loose.’

‘We don’t know we have such a thing.’

‘You said you did, and I believe you.’

‘What kind of help?’

‘A profiler.’

Walter grimaced. He’d feared the worst. ‘Is that necessary?’

‘I think it is. We need to catch this bugger before it gets out of hand.’

‘Who?’

‘The killer of course.’

‘No, I mean which profiler?’

‘Cresta Raddish.’

Walter grimaced. ‘Not her, she’s a menace.’

‘She’s very good. I’ve arranged for her to arrive tomorrow.’

‘That must cost you a fortune.’

‘Money is not an issue; the only thing that matters here is...’

Walter interrupted. ‘Yes, I know, the safety of the public.’

‘Quite. Make her welcome, Walter, and that’s an order.’

‘If you say so, ma’am.’

‘I do say, and please remember this is happening on my watch. It’s my neck on the block, not yours.’

‘It won’t come to that.’

‘It better not!’

––––––––

CRESTA RADDISH HAD made her name three years before by pointing the police at the Yorkshire killer operating in Sheffield, Hull, and Doncaster. She’d had further success helping to uncover the schoolteacher murderer flitting between Swansea and Cardiff. The team at Chester was intrigued and on parade to greet her the following morning.

Mrs West led the welcome, mwa-mwahing Cresta in full view of the team. Walter was next up, though he wasn’t really a mwa-mwahing kind of guy. Cresta made a beeline for him, grasping his shoulders, depositing mauve lipstick on his cheeks, whispering in his ear, ‘I am so glad to meet you at last, Mister Darriteau, I’ve heard so much about you and your fabulous work. It’ll be a pleasure to work with you.’

‘Call me Walter,’ he said, though he wasn’t sure about the working with her, but at least she’d made a decent start.

She had a strange aroma about her, Walter noticed that. Not perfume exactly, and certainly not BO, more of the new age palaver, or dare one think it, hints of satanic worship, that same aroma that always hangs around those crazy colour filled shops that flog that kind of rubbish.

Karen stood on the sidelines awaiting her turn. It seemed Cresta was crazy about purple, or was it mauve? Skirt, blouse, scarf, shoes, eye shadow, and lipstick, all a pronounced shade of mauve. She was a buxom woman, not fat, more rounded, and Karen couldn’t help notice as Walter and Cresta embraced, they made a handsome couple, though he was a good twenty years older than she.

Karen wouldn’t forget that. There had to be a good ribbing in there somewhere. She was looking forward to working with Cresta Raddish. Karen kept an open mind, and if Cresta had helped to bring serial killers to justice in the past, it had to be worth having her onboard.

Walter introduced Karen; and the rest of the team, and in the next moment Cresta clasped her hands together and said, ‘Right, let’s make a start shall we, there is no time to lose,’ and Walter appreciated the sentiment, if not her determination to lead.

‘Walter,’ she said, ‘could you bring us up to speed?’

He nodded and glanced round the room. Twenty people assembled there, Mrs John West at the rear, grinning, imagined Walter, at her minor triumph in inflicting this weirdo on the rest of them, on him.

‘We have three unsolved deaths. A road kill, a fall or push in front of an express train, and most recently, a man seemingly tumbling to his death, drowning in the New Cut. It seems they are unrelated, but the fact we’ve had three in a short period is suspicious. We are treating all three as murder, and the suggestion is the same person is responsible. At this stage we don’t know if we are looking for a man or a woman. The only description we have is of a short, slight person observed at the scene of the railway death. It could be either.’

‘I think that is an important point,’ interrupted Cresta. ‘On the face of it you could be forgiven for assuming this is the work of a man. After all most serial killers are men, and most female serial killers conduct their work in the medical sector, hospitals, care homes, and the like. But we must not be swayed by that. This could be a pioneering female serial killer revelling in that very fact, that she is a pioneer, so to speak. I read up on the notes last night. There is nothing here to suggest this is a man.’

‘Or a woman,’ butted in Karen.

‘Quite so, so we keep an open mind. I see that the press haven’t cottoned on to this yet. I suggest that should be the first move.’

She glanced at Walter.

He nodded his approval and Cresta continued. ‘Arrange a press conference for tomorrow. This person is dying to be recognised in the public domain for his or her actions. They are craving fame. Let us grant them that wish.’

‘With what aim in mind?’ asked Karen.

‘Three aims. First, we are looking for leads of any kind from the public. Second, we are seeking to put pressure on the perpetrator, to stampede them into further action...’

‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ asked Karen.

‘Of course it is, but it is far more likely that he or she will make a mistake if we hassle them into early action. Far better than to sit back and wait for the next well-planned and neatly executed, forgive the pun, tragedy.’

‘And third?’ asked Walter.

‘Thirdly, Walter, is the best reason of all. I believe this he-she creature will contact us, and more accurately, you Walter, once they see your handsome face filling the plasma screens over teatime, pleading for help.’

Everyone laughed.

Walter pulled a face.

‘I take it nothing came of your research into recent prison releases?’

Everyone glanced at Karen. ‘There was one candidate,’ she said, ‘but he was away on a dungeons and dragons event in Birmingham at the time of the New Cut death.’

‘I am not surprised,’ said Cresta. ‘This isn’t someone who has been in the system before. This is a newbie, a pioneer.’

‘I agree with that,’ said Walter.

‘Anything else I should know?’ asked Cresta.

There was nothing of consequence, so Cresta leant over and whispered in Walter’s ear, ‘Perhaps we could have a quiet word in private.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Now?’

‘No time like the present.’

––––––––

WALTER LED HER AWAY down the corridor to a quiet comfortable room set aside for such heart-to-hearts.

Cresta sat down and crossed her legs. Walter sniffed the air.

‘I don’t want you to feel I am taking over. I am not.’

‘I know that.’

‘Good. I’d like to make a few suggestions for the press conference.’

‘Fine by me. They have never been my favourite aspect of police work.’

‘Excellent. Here’s what I’d like you to do.’

Chapter Ten

Sam lay back on the bed, propped up against four pillows, nibbling a pre-prepared tuna salad, watching the old-fashioned spare television parked on the chest of drawers.

The national news came on. Nothing. Not a thing. What was wrong with these people? What did Sam have to do to gain their attention?

The local news came on, that oh so irritating music. The dumpy, dusky girl with the nasal voice. She was gabbling on about a party of local scouts who were flying to Tanzania to walk, or was it climb; up Mount Kilimanjaro. They still needed additional sponsorship, if anyone was interested. But three quarters of the way through, she interrupted what she was saying and said: ‘We’re going over now live to Chester Police Headquarters for a news conference,’ there was an excited frisson in her voice, as if something different was about to happen. 

Sam sat up straight and paid attention, slipped the salad on the bedside table.

Could they have woken up at last?

They had!

Sam’s mouth fell open. Blue eyes widened.

The small room filling the tiny screen was packed. The moving camera switched from showing the chatting journalists seated in rows, to the bank of desks at the front. There were three officers behind the desks, a fat black guy who looked due for retirement, a slim blonde who looked as if she had stepped straight in from the gymnasium, and a middle-aged white guy, introduced as Bernie Porter, the Police Press Officer.

He opened the meeting, introduced the players.

‘Inspector Walter Darriteau.’

Sam grabbed a pad and a pen and began making notes. Darriteau? What kind of name was that? Hardly a Cheshire man, was he? Sergeant Karen Greenwood. She was a pretty kid, maybe mid twenties, but there was a hardness about her. The kind of veneer a prostitute develops, thought Sam, though only in a good way. It was difficult to describe, kind of the reverse side of the coin. She looked fit, her unblemished skin pulled tight over her unmarked face, like a kid playing games with a balloon.

The black guy was doing all the talking. Was there a slight West Indian accent there? Or maybe Sam was imagining it. Bet he’s a cricket fan.

Darriteau had spoken about the man on the highway and had progressed to the death at Mostyn Station. He was appealing for witnesses, someone must have seen the incident, the police were putting up a substantial reward, gee whiz, mumbled Sam, from zilch to this in a few minutes. This was more like it, and Darriteau moved on to another unexplained death on the New Cut, where a sixty-year-old man had died in mysterious circumstances.

Were you there?

Did you see anything?

I might have been, grinned Sam. I might have done.

Anyone walking in the vicinity was advised, instructed, pleaded, it was difficult to tell which, to come forward. ‘We need your help,’ said the guy, staring into the camera. ‘I need your help.’

He glanced at Karen as if for approval and she half smiled and nodded. All the while a strapline was streaming across the foot of the screen, black letters on a yellow background, telephone numbers direct to the twenty-four-hour manned hotline in the Chester Incident Room.

Then the guy turned to the side and faced a new camera.

A much closer close-up, as close as could be, if they went any nearer they’d cut off his considerable thatch of grey hair. Walter’s lugubrious face dominated the screen, huge dark, satanic eyes, Sam thought, like a nightmare big brother figure, staring into a million living rooms, putting people off their dinner.

‘I want you to know I am coming to get you, and I shall find you wherever you are. I want you to think about that, and I want you to show courage. I want you to give yourself up, to hand yourself in at any police station, because you know that is the right thing to do, because you know I will catch you in the end, nothing is more certain, and that day is coming, and remember this, you and I will meet soon, so think about that. Hand yourself in and save yourself further anguish. The victims do not deserve their fate. You know it’s right. I know it’s right. I believe you are a clever person, and deep down you want to bring this to an early end. Think about it, and do the right thing.’

Walter nodded and turned back to the front.

He had made it personal.

In cases like this, he always did.

The camera cut back to Bernie Porter. He thanked Inspector Darriteau; he thanked the sergeant, said they would not be taking questions. It didn’t stop journalists trying their luck and firing a barrage of questions at the panel. Bernie Porter threw up his hands and repeated, ‘No questions!’ and wound up the meeting.

The TV Company switched back to the studio. Nasal nose pulled an impressed face, and in the next moment they were showing library pictures of the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Sam sat still, staring ahead. Biting lips. Whispered, ‘Walter Darriteau, Inspector Walter Darriteau, you and I will meet soon, yeah, right.’

––––––––

WALTER RETURNED TO the Incident Room and was greeted by a sporadic round of applause. He smiled and half waved and bobbed his head and sat down.

Cresta came bubbling across the room.

‘Perfect!’ she cooed. ‘Just perfect,’ as she closed on him, and patted him on the back. ‘You’re wasted here. You should be on the stage.’

Sam pointed the remote and flicked off the telly. No doubt it would be on the news again later, be at work by then, must set the recorder.

A fat black detective. Who would have believed it? Sam wished Desi was here to share the moment.

He’d laid down a challenge, this Darriteau person. Sam hurried into the other room and booted up the Internet. Typed in “Walter Darriteau”, not expecting much. One hundred and eight pages of entries about the guy. Geez, he even had his own entry on Interpedia, the online encyclopaedia, and that was interesting because anyone could update that. The mind pondered on opportunities, as Sam surfed the sites and devoured the data.

Details of his cases, his press conferences, his history, his disciplinary matters. God, don’t you just love the Internet, a nosey parker’s whole new way of life!

I want you to know I am coming to get you. 

Bloody nerve, there should be a law against public threats like that.

It was an infringement of Sam’s human rights.

I shall find you wherever you are.

Not if I find you first.

You know I will catch you in the end, nothing is more certain.

Well come on big boy, let’s see you try!

That day is coming soon.

Says who? A bad actor like you, Walter, Wally, what a Wally you are, and Sam sniggered. Wally Darri, what a prick!

Remember this, you and I will meet soon.

Yeah, just for once, you might be right.

Chapter Eleven

Maggie O’Brien came from a big family. They were all dead. Ten assorted brothers and sisters, twelve uncles and aunts, two sons, all dead. Michael, her first son, had struggled through childhood.

He never suggested he would make it, and he didn’t. Leukaemia. What a bugger.

At least Liam had reached forty. Dead now though, killed in a car crash while drink driving in the outback, knocked over and killed a king kangaroo, and himself. Not such a surprise, for all the O’Briens could worry the liquor bottles when roused.

All dead, every one of them.

True, there were fifty nieces and nephews and heaven knows how many grand nieces and grand nephews, but none of them were in the slightest bit interested in Maggie O’Brien, not since she’d grown old, become forgetful; began repeating things every five minutes. At the beginning, that had been funny, but it soon became a fatal irritant.

The modern kids weren’t interested. They didn’t see the point of the lonely old lady that none of them knew. It wasn’t as if she was any of their mothers or fathers. They didn’t owe her a damned thing.

Maggie had one close friend, Floria Beech, who had been in and out of hospital for the previous two years. Heart trouble, poor girl. Maggie always called her girl because she was quite young at seventy-nine. She was in dry dock again, the Countess of Chester Hospital, on the north side of the city.

Maggie visited her whenever she could, but she had fallen into a bad habit. She kept missing the bus. If anyone was watching, they would have noticed that. Maggie came puffing and panting round the corner to see the maroon and cream bus pulling away. She put it down to her sciatica playing up, and the Meniere’s disease that kept her awake at nights, when it was down to plain forgetfulness. The bus left the end of her bungalowed road at ten past seven, not quarter past, and that five minutes made all the difference.

She did it again.

Stupid woman! She cursed aloud. What am I like?

The single decker pulled away. There were two young children on the back seat with their mother. The kids put their fingers in their mouths, widened their gobs, stared at Maggie through the dirty glass, pulled a face and nodded their heads.

Cheeky beggars! What was the world coming to? Even their mother glanced over her shoulder, back through the window, stared at the old woman standing forlornly at the bus stop, a tiny bunch of daffodils wrapped in a damp copy of last week’s Chester Chronicle, in her rheumatoid hands. The woman on the bus stuck her nose in the air and turned back to the front.

I blame the parents, said Maggie aloud, but there was no one there to hear.

A shiny dark car pulled up at the bus stop. The nearside window buzzed down. A kind voice said, ‘Have you missed your bus? Do you want the hospital? I am going that way.’

It was hard to hear. The stereogram, or whatever they call it these days, was on loud, thumping pop music; bang, bang, bang, rat music, was it? Was that what it’s called?

Maggie bent down and peered inside.

‘Were you talking to me?’

The doctor nodded.

‘Sure. I am going to the Countess if you wanna lift.’

Lovely car, nice clean person, and you can always trust a doctor in a white coat.

‘Well, if you’re sure, I’ll pay for the petrol.’

The doctor laughed and reached across and opened the door and said, ‘Jump in.’

Maggie O’Brien’s jumping days were long behind her.

She grasped the headrest and made to enter, but had forgotten which foot to begin with. She thrust in her left, but that didn’t seem quite right, but she was already half in, and in the next second she fell into the red sports seat. It had been nine years since she had last sat in a car. It took a moment to get her breath.

‘Can you close the door?’ said the doctor.

‘What!’

‘The door, we can’t go far with the door wide open.’

Maggie stared at the open door. It seemed so far off. She wasn’t sure with her dickey shoulder if she could reach it, but the nice doctor must have gathered that, because in the next second the doc jumped out, ran round, and closed the door, ensuring that Maggie’s coat was tucked inside, and in the next moment the doctor was back in the car, starting the engine.

‘What’s you name?’

‘Maggie O’Brien. What’s yours?’

‘Doctor Finlay.’

‘Really?’

The doc smiled ever so nicely. ‘Honest.’

‘I used to love that programme.’

The car moved off quicker than Maggie would have liked, as the dreadful music seemed to get louder. The doc was pumping up the sound with fingertip controls on the steering wheel.

Maggie had a dreadful headache. It had been there since she first staggered out of bed at half-past nine. The music was unbearable, like something from a nightmare.

‘I’ve got a terrible headache,’ she uttered. ‘Could you turn the music down?’

The doctor glanced across at her. Maggie had turned inwards, displaying that soft, old, pleading face. She didn’t look well.

‘Sorry, yeah, sure, course,’ and the doc reached forward and turned the music off. ‘Tell you what I’ll do; I’ll pull into the petrol station. I need petrol and I’ll give you something for that head.’

‘Oh, there’s no need.’

‘I have to stop, anyway. Need the juice,’ and in the next second the doc drove onto the forecourt and turned off the engine. Reached across and opened the glove compartment, took out a brown bottle labelled, Headaches and Flu, in big black letters. Opened it, which was as well because it had that awkward anti child top that Maggie always struggled with. Took out two tablets and slipped them into Maggie’s trembling hand.

‘What are they?’

‘Ordinary headache pills. I use them all the time. Get them from the hospital, they’re great, here take them with this,’ and the doc reached under the seat and pulled out a small half full bottle of water.

That was another thing Maggie didn’t understand about the modern world. Why do young people walk round carrying bottles of water? Are they expecting a drought? We never did.

‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, eh?’ said Maggie grinning, throwing the pills into her mouth.

The doctor smiled, ever so charming like, and said, ‘That’s it Maggie, it’s who you know that counts,’ and jumped out of the car and began loading up the petrol.

Then they were back on the road, Maggie delighted the doc hadn’t put the music back on, and maybe the pills were working. She yawned.

‘Oh sorry,’ she mumbled, bringing a hand to her mouth.

The doc yawned too.

‘Look what you’ve made me do,’ the doc said, grinning across at her, still yawning.

Maggie’s face was on her shoulder, facing inwards, facing the nice doctor. She could get used to this, being driven to see Floria by her own personal physician. Sometimes it was good to miss the bus.

The doc drove into the car park at the Countess, took ages to find a space, and by then Maggie was fast asleep, deep breathing, a contented look set on her face, as if she had enjoyed a fabulous luncheon.

The doc ripped off the stethoscope and threw it in the back.

Started the car and pointed it toward Delamere Forest.

Floria would remain alone and miserable that night, wondering where her friend had gone.

Temazepam, two 10mg tablets, that’s all it took. The doc correctly guessed that Maggie would have been on a cocktail of drugs. The Temazepam was the final straw. She wouldn’t wake for hours. The doc turned the music back on, loud, it wouldn’t make any difference.

––––––––

SAM HAD BEEN TO DELAMERE many times before, often used to go there with Desi, walking. They both liked the isolated places best, for in desolate places, people can get up to all kinds of mischief. Desi certainly did. Sam made a habit of returning often, if only to revisit memories.

Took that same track down toward the little lake known as Victoria’s Pool. Some crazy story ran that the old queen had stopped there once, a place where Sam and Desi used to picnic. There was an old wooden and concrete seat there, overlooking the brackish water, and Sam parked the car, facing the bench, maybe ten yards away. With any luck there would be no one about at night, maybe the odd courting couple, but it was already raining and dark, and there was no one there at all.

Sam jumped out and opened the hatchback. Took out the length of corrugated piping. It was part of an old vacuum cleaner that had become surplus to requirements when they had gone bagless two years before. It had been Desi’s idea to keep it, though God knows why. It fit over the exhaust perfectly; Sam had checked that a week earlier, fed it through the back window. Jumped in the car, blocked up the space where the tube entered with an old Chester City Football Club scarf, took one last look at Maggie. She was sleeping deeply, a contented look on her face, as if this was the best sleep she had ever had. Turned on the engine, closed the door quietly, though it still sounded like thunder, and walked away.

The rain had stopped, though large drips were still sploshing from the pine trees. An owl hooted for its mate. The car motor ticked over. Sam squelched around the small lake as they used to do, hand-in-hand, three circuits should do it. No, maybe one more for luck, plenty of petrol. The engine would not stop.

Back to the car. Opened the back. Filthy smoke flew out into the night. Took out the yellow rubber gloves. Slipped them on. Opened the door. More fumes rushed out, flushing up Sam’s nose. Bloody terrible! Coughed loudly. Wafted the hands. Turned off the engine. Grabbed Maggie’s body, she’d long since departed this world. Her black handbag fell to the muddy ground, carried her to the park seat. She weighed next to nothing, sat her down, set her up straight, hurried back for the handbag, wiped it clean, leaving her money intact. No need to pay for the lift, Maggie dear, no robbery here. Hooked the bag over her wrist, crossed and folded her arms, straightened her hat, closed her eyes, upturned her lips. Geez she looked happy, probably happier than she had been in years.

Quick look around. Nothing dropped. Nothing left behind. No one about. Sam would never come this way again. The car stank. Removed the gloves. Took off the white coat, chucked it on the back seat, switched on the headlights, full beam. Maggie O’Brien was bathed in light. She looked as if she was on the stage; hogging the spotlight, the woman in black, as if she were about to open her eyes and deliver a monologue. I have a story to tell. You won’t believe, but it really happened. The beginning of a play, a murder mystery, perhaps, and Maggie O’Brien was the star, and the only person who knew how it would end, except she didn’t.

Sam winked at Maggie.

Started the engine, buzzed down the windows.

Left designer trainer to C, select gear, right trainer to A. Acceleration! Not too quick, pulled the car round, made it without any reversing. The rain had returned, heavier than before, and that was no bad thing. It would wash away the evil spirits.

Maggie O’Brien was going to get wet.

Sorry Maggie, dear.

100 Ways to Kill People.

Carbon monoxide poisoning.

You hear of it all the time.

Most popular way to commit suicide, so they say.

Surprised it wasn’t used more often.

––––––––

DURING THE QUICK TRIP back to Chester, Sam reflected on the innovative use of props. The stethoscope bought in the Oxfam shop in Frodsham high street for a fiver, the use of one of Desi’s white coats that Sam had recently considered binning.

They had worked like a dream, and no one would ever know.

There were lessons there to be learned, the value of good props. Sam closed the windows; the flushing chilly night air had cleaned the interior.

That should give them something to think about, those dopey coppers, those loopy press people.

Over to you, Walter.

Wall.

Wally.

Prick!

Sam laughed aloud.

This was fun, and it was getting better.

Chapter Twelve

Stevie discovered the body. The old lady was still sitting on the bench as if she had been waiting for the hospital bus and had fallen asleep. There was dew on her hat and shoulders and the end of her nose, and her dark coat was soaked through.

The handbag was untouched, still containing the pension she had collected the day before.

An enormous spider’s web stretched from her earring to the corner of the bench. The spider had scarpered when Steve arrived on the scene, sniffing around Maggie’s feet.

Stevie was a red setter.

It was ten minutes to eight on a moist morning and Maggie would always be asleep at that time. She was asleep still, enjoying the start of the big one.

Two minutes later Stevie’s owner showed up, panting like the dog, Mr Milkins, sixty-nine, retired solicitor. He fired up the mobile phone his granddaughter Sara had bought him for his birthday, and tried to remember how the damned thing worked. Figured it out, and zapped 999.

––––––––

THE INCIDENT ROOM WAS packed; everyone was in early to sift through the results of the televised broadcast. The phones had been red hot for four hours following the initial showing; and again later when the feature was repeated on the bedtime roundup. Every loony and attention seeker in the county had called, or so it seemed to Karen.

It was me. I did it, stabbed the guy; kicked him in the river.

No, you didn’t. Go away! Stop wasting police time.

The phones were still busy the following morning, though the initial rush of idiots had abated.

One or two interesting things had come in. But nothing concrete; and nothing seemingly from the perpetrator.

Walter half expected that. He sniffed and sat back in his chair, and clasped his hands behind his head. One or two thoughts had come to him during the six fitful hours of sleep he had grabbed. It was hard to think in the Incident Room with all the kerfuffle going on. He might take some time out and sit in one of the private offices. One of the young WPCs came in and set a mug of coffee on his desk. He hadn’t asked for it, but was happy to accept.

‘Thanks, err...’ realising that he did not know the kid’s name.

‘Thompson, sir,’ said the girl, smiling. ‘Jenny Thompson.’

‘Thanks Jenny Thompson,’ and he smiled, and she pulled a pleasant face and hurried away to begin data entry on the latest computer program that supposedly aided finding the killer. Maybe it did, but it was not something that interested Walter much.

He glanced across at Cresta. Still in purple, though different shades today. She’d combed her straight, dyed hair differently, and there was a purple clip in it to keep it just so. She was writing fast, longhand, and she was an immaculate writer, standard forward sloping style, each individual letter almost identical, like you see in American universities, which may not have been so daft, for she had studied at Stanford for three years. The Americans were the best at profiling, miles ahead of anyone else, leastways Cresta believed that, and she might have been right.

Some of the younger guys had suggested she was spending her time writing a crime novel at Chester Police expense, building in the realistic atmosphere she witnessed, which might not have been such a ludicrous idea, judging by the pile of completed papers she had turned over.

‘How are you doing?’ asked Walter.

‘Fine, Walter,’ and she stopped writing and looked up, ‘I have nearly finished my initial report. I have a few ideas.’

‘Me too,’ he said, ‘though I can’t think straight in here.’

He called to Karen. She looked away from the latest data on the screen.

‘I want a small meeting, just you, me, and Cresta. Organise a room, drinks and toast would be nice.’

‘Maybe we should include Mrs West,’ suggested Karen, looking back over her shoulder toward the private office that bore the boss’s name, a door that remained closed.

‘You think?’

Karen nodded.

Walter sighed and said none too enthusiastically, ‘OK, you tell her, will you?’

Karen made to walk that way but came to a halt as soon as WPC Jenny Thompson stood up, still holding the phone, and shouted, ‘We have another one, another suspicious death!’

The room fell silent, Jenny conscious of all eyes upon her.

‘Where?’ said Walter and Karen and Cresta, almost in unison.

‘Delamere Forest.’

‘Who?’

‘A woman, an elderly lady, a Chester woman by the name of Margaret O’Brien. Some retired solicitor found her. He’s still there now; the local police are on the scene.’

‘Tell them not to move a thing. Nothing! We are on our way. Come on, Karen.’

‘I’m coming too,’ announced Cresta, getting up in a hurry and dragging her purple coat from the back of her chair.

Walter and Karen shared a look. They weren’t used to having passengers riding when they were on a case, but what could they do?

Karen drove, Walter sat in the front with Cresta behind him. Karen had grabbed a marked car, a powerful BMW, one of her favourites. It didn’t take long to get there, not the way she drove. She adored seeing the traffic scuttling from their path like panicking beetles, and when they delayed her, she didn’t hesitate to use the blue lights and wailing siren to sweep them out of the way.

Cresta held on tight. Walter closed his eyes.

They found the place, radioed in by their man on the spot. It was a remote location, way off the main road, down a re-laid gravel track. Two local police officers were there, and a doctor, and the old solicitor, and Stevie, and they all glanced up as the shark-like car pulled into the small car park.

Walter stepped out to be confronted by the older man.

‘Are you in charge?’

‘I am.’

‘I’ve given your man a statement; I am getting very cold and not a little irritated, and I need to go home.’

‘I’m getting cold and not a little irritated, too,’ said Walter, striding toward the bench.

The man huffed and puffed and followed.

‘Give me five minutes,’ Walter said. ‘After that we’ll have a quick chat and then you can go.’

Milkins pursed his lips and nodded his head and led the dog to the water for a drink.

‘Well?’ said Walter. ‘What’s the score?’

The doctor looked away from the dead woman and said, ‘Estimated time of death between half eight and half-past ten last night. There are no obvious injuries.’

‘Cause of death?’

‘Too early to say. You’ll have my full report before close of play today.’

‘And if you had to guess?’

‘I am not a guessing man.’

‘Try! Please.’

‘If I had to guess, I’d say carbon monoxide poisoning.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Colour. Look at the skin. Hypopigmentation, a common sign.’

‘Mmm,’ said Walter, peering at the corpse. ‘Not natural causes?’

‘Oh no, I’d be surprised at that.’

Walter nodded. ‘Ring me, will you, when you’re done?’

The doctor nodded, and they all turned and watched the ambulance bouncing down the track toward them.

‘Karen.’

‘Guv?’

‘Have a word with the solicitor guy. Ask him if he saw anyone else. Tell him we’ll need his fingerprints to eliminate him. Tell him to go with the local boys and get that done and then he can go home.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

Walter peered across the lake and pictured the scene when the killer was there. Was the murder carried out on site, or elsewhere, and the victim brought here? It was a quiet place. It could have been done on site, in which case, what was the killer doing while it was going on? Standing by, watching? Maybe. A killer would not be squeamish. But if not, pound to a penny Walter would wager the killer would have wandered off. A quick stroll round the lake, perhaps. Maybe a good place to find footprints in the mud, especially if the path was rarely used.

He called the local officer over and instructed him to make certain that SOCO took casts and photographs of all footprints in the vicinity, and especially those on the far side of the lake.

‘Don’t let me down,’ said Walter, staring into the young kid’s eyes.

‘I won’t,’ he replied, and he wouldn’t because this was the most important thing he had ever done.

‘Cresta?’ called Walter.

‘That’s me.’

‘What do you make of it?’

‘Much as I would have expected. A remote place the killer has previously visited. That’s how the he-she thing knows it’s here. Probably been here before with a partner, maybe more than once, maybe with more than one partner, a scene of happy memories, I’d say.’

‘Memories?’

‘Yes, the partner’s gone now, departed, maybe voluntarily, maybe died...’

‘Maybe murdered,’ added Walter.

‘Could be.’

‘What sparked everything off?’

‘Loss of the partner, I would say.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. But how long ago?’

‘Within the last twelve months. Not recent, I suspect. It’s been festering in the back of the brain, gradually building. At first they imagined they could cope with it.’

‘When all the while they couldn’t?’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘How many people have been through a broken relationship in the last twelve months?’

Cresta pulled a face that said it all.

‘Another random killing?’ said Walter.

‘Looks that way.’

‘The he-she thing is either incredibly lucky or incredibly clever.’

‘Why lucky?’ asked Cresta.

‘The track has been freshly gravelled so no traceable tyre marks, and the heavy rain has washed away any footprints.’

‘That looks like luck.’

‘That’s what I think, and if the he-she’s had all the luck up to now, it’s about time their luck ran out.’

Cresta nodded.

‘Man or woman?’ asked Walter, as Karen came back.

‘I can’t tell,’ said Cresta.

‘Man for me,’ said Karen.

‘Me too,’ said Walter, ‘course it’s a man.’

‘Let’s wrap it up here and get back to Chester.’

Returning in the car, Karen said, ‘Was the press conference such a success?’

‘I think so,’ said Cresta.

Walter said nothing.

‘We now have a dead old lady on our hands,’ said Karen.

‘That would have happened anyway,’ said Cresta.

‘You think? Is this not his response to our baiting?’

‘He or she, are in this for the long-term. It, for want of a better word, will keep on killing until you catch them.’

‘I think Maggie O’Brien would still be alive if we hadn’t done the broadcast,’ said Karen.

‘Rubbish!’ said Cresta.

‘We’ll never know,’ said Walter, ‘but we now have more to go on, more evidence, more leads, so from that point of view, the broadcast was an undoubted success. In the end, the evidence will trap him.’

‘Or her,’ added Cresta.

‘Yeah, that too.’

Chapter Thirteen

They hadn’t been back in the office more than twenty minutes when Karen took a call from Prestatyn. ‘Dai Williams for you,’ she said. Walter grabbed the phone. ‘Hi, Dai.’

‘Saw you on the telly.’

Walter laughed. ‘That was the idea.’

‘I never knew you were so good looking.’

Walter guffawed. ‘I’ll take your word for that.’

‘You are going to owe me one huge drink.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I’ve found a witness for you.’

‘For the Mostyn death?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on.’

‘A schoolgirl, though she doesn’t look like a schoolgirl, as you will see when you meet her. Her name is Chloe Evans; she’s fourteen but looks twenty. She says she saw the whole thing.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘At school I should think.’

‘Could you have her there at half four?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘Prestatyn station?’

‘Yep.’

‘We’ll be there, oh and Dai, I owe you one.’

‘Yep, and I know you won’t forget.’

Walter rang off and told Karen to organise a car for quarter to four. Told her to keep it to herself, they’d go alone.

Mrs West made a rare appearance and stood in the centre of the room and said, ‘About this meeting?’

‘I’m ready,’ said Cresta.

Karen nodded and Walter couldn’t avoid being rounded up by the three women, and a couple of minutes later, the meeting began.

‘Who wants to start?’ said Mrs West, sitting at the head of the polished mahogany table.

Cresta glanced at Walter, as if seeking his permission. Walter nodded her on, and she began.

‘We are looking for a loner...’

‘Aren’t we always?’ mumbled Karen.

Cresta forced a smile and continued. ‘Aged between thirty and forty, is my best guess...’

There’s that word again, thought Walter. Guess, which was all it was, and couldn’t anyone guess? You didn’t have to go to some fancy Yankee university to do that.

‘We could be looking for a man or woman, and I want to stress that. There is still no evidence this is the work of a man. Margaret O’Brien was a slight lady; anyone could have picked her up and carried her. We are looking for someone who was in a meaningful relationship, probably the most meaningful relationship of their entire life, maybe their only relationship, a relationship that went horribly wrong. I suspect they had a ferocious row and split. Maybe they fought, physically; perhaps the other party simply upped and left, walked out, abandoned their lover, or maybe they were murdered by the person we are seeking. Whatever it is, the perpetrator felt dirty and damaged when it all came tumbling down.’

‘So we could have five unexplained deaths, not four?’ said Mrs West.

‘That’s quite possible,’ said Walter.

Cresta resumed. ‘They are a car owner, a driver, with a nice car, in full-time employment, a well-paid job, maybe living alone...’

Another worthless word, thought Walter. Maybe. Maybe this, maybe that. Maybe I’m a Chinaman. Was it all guesses and maybes? Is that what we are paying for?

‘The killer will go on killing until he or she is caught. I expect them to become more brazen, take more risks, seek more publicity, and most interesting of all, I suspect they may try to attack you.’

With the “you”, she glanced at Walter. They all did.

And just in case anyone hadn’t understood her meaning, Cresta said, ‘To kill you.’

‘That’s comforting,’ he joked.

‘I am serious.’

‘I agree,’ said Karen.

‘So do I,’ said Mrs West. ‘You must be on your guard, Walter. Try not to go out alone, especially at night; try not to be alone.’

What wonderful words they were, he pondered.

Try not to be alone.

He had been trying not to be alone for over thirty years and had failed miserably.

‘If any of you three ladies wish to come and sleep with me, you are all most welcome... in the spare room, I assure you.’

Karen laughed aloud.

Cresta grinned.

Mrs West looked shocked, before realising he was joking, when she said, ‘You are a fool, Walter.’

Cresta began again. She sure as heck liked the sound of her own voice.

‘I suspect he or she will contact us direct.’

‘With what aim in mind?’ asked Karen.

‘To bait us, of course.’

‘I agree with that,’ said Walter. ‘It will give him pleasure.’

‘Women like pleasure, too,’ grinned Cresta.

No one was going to argue with that.

‘When is the PM due on Mrs O’Brien?’ asked Mrs West.

‘This afternoon, ma’am,’ said Karen.

‘You said earlier you might have some thoughts,’ Cresta said to Walter.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Well, let’s hear them,’ said Mrs West.

‘We think this person is in full-time employment, but two of the deaths occurred in the middle of the afternoon; and another in the early hours of the morning. That suggests if they are employed, it isn’t in any ordinary day job. But not nights either, as if they start in the evening and go through to the early hours.’

‘Yeah, like a barman or a nightclub bouncer, that would fit the bill,’ said Karen.

‘It would,’ said Walter, ‘though there are any number of jobs that fit the bill. Taxi drivers, for example, transport ready to hand, the public trust taxi drivers and never think twice about jumping into a cab when they would never get into a stranger’s car. Or hospital porters on the four till midnight shift or whatever it is they work, bus drivers, train drivers, supermarket stockists. There are many jobs that fit these odd hours.’

‘I like nightclub bouncers,’ said Mrs West.

‘I’ll bet you do,’ whispered Gibbons.

‘I don’t,’ said Cresta.

Mrs West shot her a look over her glasses. ‘Oh? And why is that?’

‘There is positive ID, the person responsible is slight. Have you ever seen a slight bouncer?’

‘Fair point.’

‘I know who’s slight and works in nightclubs,’ said Karen.

‘Who?’ said Mrs West.

‘Pole dancers and strippers.’

Not all pole dancers and strippers are slight, thought Walter, though he didn’t say.

Cresta’s face lit up.

‘That would work perfectly. Maybe someone who had a grudge against the punters. Did any of the dead men have any history of attending strip clubs?’

‘Not that we know of,’ said Walter, ‘but anything’s possible. Karen, can you look into that?’

‘Don’t forget, two of them were preachers,’ said Karen.

‘Makes no difference. Preachers ogle too,’ said Walter. He was going to say perv, but stopped himself in time.

‘The thing I don’t understand is this latest death,’ said Karen. ‘It doesn’t fit with anything else. It buggers up the work times for a start.’

‘Everyone has a day off,’ said Walter.

‘And it’s an old lady too, all the others were men.’

‘As I said before,’ said Cresta, ‘the he-she thing is getting bolder.’

‘So what do we expect next time, if God forbid there is going to be a next time?’ said Mrs West.

‘Impossible to predict,’ said Cresta. ‘Random killers do exactly that, kill randomly.’

‘Just so long as it isn’t a child,’ said Walter.

‘Oh, God help us, not that,’ said Mrs West. ‘That’s not what you think, is it?’

‘It’s not what I think, it’s what I fear.’

There was a brief silence as they pondered on that dreadful possibility, and then Mrs West asked, ‘Anything else?’

No one had.

Meeting over.

––––––––

AT HALF-PAST THREE Walter whispered to Karen, ‘Where’s purple haze?’

‘Gone to freshen up,’ said Karen, grinning.

‘Good. Come on, let’s go, I know a cracking tea bar on the way.’

They crept from the office and five minutes later they were negotiating the inner city ring road in a brand new unmarked white Jag, heading for Queensferry. 

Chapter Fourteen

They took the A55 expressway, a four-lane highway known as the top road that ran over the hills, always going up, or always going down. On one of the down stretches, away to the left, set on the hill, was a spectacular bungalow.

In the sunshine, a man was mowing the grass. Harry Wilkinson couldn’t stop himself; in time he would cut that grass on the day he died.

Walter said, ‘When I retire I am going to buy a bungalow like that, and raise chickens.’

Memories from long ago of those spectacular bantams back in Jamaica filled his head, and the yellow yoked eggs they produced.

‘And when will that be?’ asked Karen, giggling.

‘Ages yet,’ said Walter. ‘Why? Are you after my job?’

‘Course I am, thought you knew that.’

They shared a look as the bungalow slid away over Walter’s left shoulder and out of sight.

Half way to Prestatyn, Walter ordered Karen to pull into a packed lay-by. There was a portable café there called Jock’s Trap. It was run by Jocky Smith; a man Walter had arrested ten years before for aggravated burglary. Since then they’d become loose friends and Jock had pretty much gone straight ever since. He was known for his strong, sweet tea and toasted bacon sandwiches.

‘We’ve plenty of time, pull in for a snack,’ Walter said. ‘Fancy a bacon butty?’

‘Nope,’ said Karen, ‘diet.’

‘Don’t you ever eat?’

‘Yes, at mealtimes.’

Walter pulled a face.

He stepped from the car and Karen shouted after him, ‘I’ll have an orange juice.’

Ten minutes later they were back on the road, Walter trying hard not to belch, sucking peppermints, as they took the Prestatyn turnoff and dropped down toward the coast.

The main police station was large for a smallish town, on the sea side of the main road. Karen pulled into the car park and cut the engine. The Jag was a pleasure to drive; she’d grab it again when the opportunity arose. Inside, Dai Williams came out to meet Walter, who introduced Karen.

Dai was typically Welsh built, short and stocky, with trimmed straight sandy hair, and he wore round-framed glasses that seemed out of place.

‘Is the girl here?’ asked Walter.

‘She is, interview room three, follow me. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.’

Walter said, ‘Ta,’ and Karen smiled at the guy and nodded.

Walter took off his raincoat and set it on a chair outside, opened the door and stepped inside.

The girl was standing with her back to Walter, staring at a notice board. When the door opened, she turned round and smiled at the guy, an automatic smile. She was the kind of girl who would smile at any man. Her mother was sitting at the table wearing creased jeans. She didn’t stand up, didn’t say anything, just half smiled at the newcomers.

‘Chloe Evans, I believe?’ said Walter.

‘That’s me,’ said the girl, still smiling at the guy who looked a little younger in the flesh.

She was tall and pretty, well developed, tumbling auburn hair; didn’t look fourteen at all. She was wearing a short blue skirt, tailored school uniform, far too short, no more than twelve inches from waist to hem, black tights, light blue blouse and a tiny neatly knotted blue and yellow striped tie, probably a clip-on.

‘You must be Walter,’ she said, too forward for Karen’s liking, ‘I saw you on the telly.’

‘Yes, Inspector Walter Darriteau, and this is Sergeant Karen Greenwood.’

Karen bobbed her head and took a seat.

The mother didn’t speak.

‘Take a seat, Chloe,’ said Walter, as he sat down.

Chloe pulled a seat back from the table and sat down and crossed her legs, displaying her knickers. Walter couldn’t help but notice. The mother saw the look on Walter’s face as he averted his eyes.

‘Pull your chair in and put your feet on the floor and sit up straight!’ said the mother, and the girl did as she was told.

‘So,’ said Walter, ‘you saw something at Mostyn station?’

‘Yep,’ she said, smiling and bobbing her head.

‘Tell us what you saw,’ said Karen.

Chloe glanced at Karen. She didn’t want to talk to the female officer; it was Walter she liked talking to.

‘Well, I saw him do it, didn’t I.’

‘Him?’ said Karen.

‘Yeah, course; it was a man... wasn’t it? Now you come to mention it, I’m not sure it was.’

‘Tell us what you saw,’ said Walter, ‘start at the beginning.’

The girl nodded again and took a deep breath.

‘We were coming out of the Mobri.’

‘The Mobri?’ said Karen.

‘Yeah, the old Mostyn Brick Company; it’s derelict now, disused, lots of the kids use it, it’s a safe place to go, quiet like.’

‘Who’s we?’ asked Walter.

‘Me and Lee, my boyfriend.’

‘What time was this?’

‘I dunno, don’t have a watch, probably about three, something like that. He gets off early, see, starts early, finishes early.’

She spoke in that strange North Wales coastal accent, short clipped flat words, hurriedly delivered, occasionally quite difficult to comprehend to the English ear, inner city Welsh, as Walter described it.

‘What were you doing there?’ asked Walter.

Chloe’s eyes widened, panic style. She pulled a face. ‘Do I have to say? What do ya think? I don’t want to get Lee into trouble or anything.’

‘Why were you sagging off school?’ asked Karen.

‘To see Lee, of course, ’cos I can’t see him at night, can I.’

‘Why not?’

‘Didn’t they tell you anything about me?’

‘Why not, Chloe?’ persisted Walter.

She extended her bottom lip, shook her head, and said nothing.

‘Because he’s tagged,’ said the mother. ‘He has to be in the house by seven.’

‘Why’s he tagged?’ asked Karen.

Chloe shook her head. ‘I dunno.’

‘Burglary,’ said the mother.

‘He’s not a burglar!’ insisted Chloe.

‘He was caught ransacking the bedroom drawers in the vicarage,’ said the mother, becoming exasperated, dying for a fag.

‘So tell us, after you and Lee came out of the brickworks, what happened then?’

‘We was walking along the road up toward the station. I could see the platform through the railings, and the two guys, well I think they were guys, standing on the station. One was a big guy, really tall, in a suit, businessman type thing. The other one was much shorter, and he was standing behind the big one. Some way off to begin with. But as the train came in, he kind of crept up behind the tall guy. I thought they might have been mates, you know, and then I saw the little one reach up and push the big one in the middle of the back, just a gentle shove, and over he went, off the platform, in front of the big train that was thundering through, not stopping like.’

‘And you are certain the little guy pushed the big guy off the platform?’ asked Karen.

‘Course I am, just said so, didn’t I.’

‘What happened next?’ asked Walter.

‘Nothing, I was just so gobsmacked, I said to Lee, did you see that? That little guy pushed the big guy under the train.’

‘He was too busy trying to neck me, you know, he still had his arm round me, he was trying to give me a big thank you kiss, you know how it is,’ she said, addressing Karen, knowing she would understand.

‘What happened after that?’ asked Walter.

‘Lee said to me, “What small bloke?” And when we looked back he’d vamoosed, the titchy fella, gone right down the platform and out the station.’

‘Did you see him again?’ asked Karen.

‘Nope.’

‘Did you see him drive away?’ asked Walter.

‘Nope, though now you mention it a nice car came by, dark and shiny, I didn’t see who was inside. I think the sun must have been shining on the windows, it could have been him.’

‘What sort of car was it?’

‘Oh, I dunno, I’m not very good with cars, maybe Japanese, hatchback perhaps, yeah, I think it was probably a Japaneser.’

There was a short silence and then Walter said, ‘I want you to think very hard. Please describe the man to us.’

‘The titch?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, he was small, wearing jeans, I noticed that, tight blue jeans, designer ones I’d say. They fit him like a dream, he had a nice bum I can tell you that, and a sweatshirt, grey I think it was, and a blue baseball cap, but it looked too big for him, kind of pulled down over his face.’

‘Anything else?’ said Walter.

‘Yeah, he had expensive trainers, designer ones, German I think, new, blue and white, those with the three white lines down the side.’

‘Adidas,’ suggested Karen.

‘Yeah,’ smiled the girl. ‘That’s the one.’

‘What else?’ asked Walter.

‘That’s about it.’

‘Was he a white man?’

‘Oh yeah, definitely.’

‘Hundred percent certain?’

‘Deffo.’

‘Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so; it all happened so quick; I didn’t see that much, and not much of his face.’

‘Think carefully,’ said Walter, ‘was it a man, or was it a woman?’

‘Before you said, like, I was sure it was a man, never occurred to me it might not have been. But now that you say different, well I’ll tell you this, there’re loads of girls at school who’d kill for a bum like that. It could have been a bitch, it really could.’

Walter glanced across at Karen.

She frowned and shook her head, evidently nothing to ask.

‘What did you do then?’ asked Walter.

‘Lee took me home in his old banger.’

‘You didn’t think to tell the police?’

‘I wanted to. I said to Lee, I think we should tell the police, but he said he didn’t see anything, he thought I was making it up, he thinks I am a bit scatty as it is, and he said it was best not to get involved with the cops. So I didn’t, and then I saw you on the telly, like, and I said to me mum what I’d seen, and she said we should get in touch.’

They all looked at mum, and mum nodded and looked pleased with herself.

‘Will you excuse me a moment, I need the Gents,’ said Walter, and he left the room.

He went and found Dai.

‘This Lee character, what’s he like?’

‘A complete waste of space.’

‘Would you mind if I had a chat with him, put a bit of pressure on him?’

‘Be my guest. You’d be doing me a favour. Do you want me to pick him up?’

‘That would be perfect, oh, and can you make sure the girl doesn’t see him?’

‘Sure.’

Walter went back inside.

The girl was examining her painted nails. The mother was yawning. Karen was checking her text messages.

‘Thought of anything else?’ Walter asked the girl.

‘Yeah,’ she said, pulling herself across the desk, looking Walter straight in the eye. ‘Is there a reward? You said on the telly there was a reward.’

Karen grinned and said, ‘If your evidence results in someone being prosecuted, you may be entitled to a proportion of any reward. But it’s unlikely, don’t hold your breath. But if you could give us a name...’

‘How am I supposed to do that?’ said the girl, sitting back in her chair, folding her arms, disappointed.

‘That’s life,’ said Karen.

‘Can we go now?’ said the mother.

‘Sure,’ said Walter. ‘We’ll be in touch if there’s anything else.’

‘Are you gonna run us home,’ said the girl.

Karen shook her head. ‘Sorry no, we’re too busy; we don’t run a taxi service.’

‘Typical,’ muttered the mother as she ambled out. ‘We try to help and this is all we get.’

‘Bye, Walter,’ grinned the girl, as she followed her mother out.

When they’d gone Karen said, ‘PM’s in on Maggie O’Brien. Carbon monoxide poisoning confirmed cause of death.’

‘Not a surprise.’

‘Are we off then?’

‘Not just yet.’

‘Well, that was a complete waste of time.’

‘You think so?’

‘She was a right little madam. I wouldn’t trust anything she said; and asking for a reward, well...’

‘It wasn’t a complete waste of time. We now know for sure we are looking for a white he-she thing, we also know it was no accident, it was indeed murder, and we know what it was wearing, and best of all, we know it has a nice bum.’ Walter chuckled at his summation.

Karen grinned too and said, ‘And what proportion of the population possess a nice bum?’

‘Not as many as they used to.’

‘Too true.’

‘We have someone else to interview,’ said Walter.

‘We do?’

‘Lee Davies, he should be here in a mo.’

‘When did you fix that up?’

‘Visit to Gents. Just one thing, I might ask you to step outside for a minute.’

There was a short silence as Karen pondered on what Walter had in mind.

‘Don’t do anything rash,’ she said.

‘Me?’ he said, pointing to his chest. ‘As if.’

He went outside and a minute later returned with Lee Davies. Karen gave him the once over. About twenty, wiry build, short mousy hair, blotchy white skin, drawn face, as if he was not unacquainted with illegal substances. He glanced at the girl. Half smiled; she was all right, for a copper.

‘Sit down, Lee,’ said Walter.

The guy sullenly sat and Walter joined Karen opposite.

‘What’s this all about?’ he said.

‘You were in Mostyn at the time of a murder.’

‘Was I?’

‘You were with Chloe Evans.’

‘Was I?’

‘We don’t want to know anything about that,’ said Karen. ‘We are only interested in the murder.’

Lee shifted in his chair, wondered what to say.

The black fella began talking again.

‘Chloe witnessed the murder.’

‘Did she?’

‘Don’t mess with me!’ said Walter. ‘You are in enough trouble as it is!’

‘Didn’t see nottin’.’

‘You saw nothing at all?’ clarified Karen.

‘S’wot I said.’

Karen and Walter glanced at one another. Walter nodded her away, and she stood and left the room.

‘What’s all this caper, then? Fancy your chances, do ya?’ said the lad.

Walter stood up and went round the other side of the desk, bent down and whispered in the guy’s ear.

‘I’ve got something to say to you.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t you lay your hands on that girl again.’

‘Oh yeah? Fancy her yourself, do ya?’

Walter drew his big hand back and cuffed the guy over the ear. There was an audible slap. Karen heard it sitting outside.

‘Hey! What the hell! You can’t do that to me!’

‘I just did. Just making my point.’

‘She’s my girlfriend.’

‘She’s fourteen.’

‘Have you seen her?’

‘That has nothing to do with it. She’s a child, and it’s what’s in here that counts,’ and he tapped the guy’s head with his middle finger.

‘And if I don’t?’

‘I will make it my business to put you away for five years, and the place you will go offers special treatment for people like you. When you come out your bum hole will feel like it has had a red-hot poker permanently rammed up it! Understand me?’

Lee shrugged, never said a word.

‘Understand?’

Lee nodded.

‘I’ll be watching you, Lee Davies. Now get out of here before I change my mind.’

Karen watched the door burst open and Lee galloped out.

‘He’s mad, your friggin’ boss!’ he shouted, and he hurried away through the doors.

Walter came out, rubbing his hands together.

‘What was that all about?’

‘I was just giving him a little parental advice.’

Karen cocked her head and peered over her non-existent spectacles.

‘Now then,’ he said, grabbing his raincoat, ‘time to head home, I wonder if Jock’s place will still be open.’

‘God, I hope not.’

Chapter Fifteen

In the morning Walter was again late in the office. By the time he ambled in, it was obvious the refresh meeting was about to start. Mrs West peered at him and said, ‘Been sleeping slow again?’

‘Sorry I’m late, ma’am, I’ve been to a funeral.’

‘Sorry to hear that. No one close, I hope?’

‘Colin Rivers’ funeral.’

‘You thought the murderer might have attended?’ said Karen.

‘It’s possible, it’s not unknown.’

‘Were there many there?’ asked Mrs West.

‘About a hundred.’

‘Did you know anyone?’ asked Karen.

‘Only Marian, and the daughters. They were in bits.’

‘Anyone suspicious?’ asked Mrs West.

‘The murderer wasn’t there.’

‘How do you know?’

‘There were no pert bums on display, outside of the Rivers’ family.’

Karen grinned.

Cresta said, ‘Is this a private joke or can anyone join in?’

‘It will become clear when Karen gives her update.’

Everyone turned to Karen.

‘Away you go, K,’ said Walter.

Karen glanced at her notes and began.

‘We have a description of the railway killer. Height between five foot four and five foot seven, short for a man, tallish for a woman, slight build, pert bum,’ and she grinned, as one of the young guys shouted, ‘Wha-hey!’

‘Shut up,’ scowled Walter.

‘Rules you out, Thompson,’ another of the young blokes whispered to Jenny who turned and pulled a face.

Karen continued, ‘The killer is white and was wearing tight designer blue jeans, grey sweatshirt, overlarge baseball cap, and new blue and white Adidas trainers. I need to stress that our eye witness could not confirm whether the suspect was male or female.’

Cresta couldn’t wait to jump in, blurted, ‘I am becoming more convinced it’s female!’

‘There’s your pert bum,’ said the same guy from earlier.

Walter shot him a look and mouthed, ‘Sorry, Guv.’

‘A smart new black or dark hatchback was seen driving away.’

Walter added, ‘It may well have blackened windows, hence the witness could not ID the driver.’

Karen nodded and said, ‘It’s possibly a Japanese hatchback, but we can’t be certain. The PM report on Maggie O’Brien confirms she died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The usual location for such deaths is of course in cars, most notably suicide, but Maggie did not commit suicide. The car in which she died will continue to show traces of carbon monoxide, regardless of how well it has been cleaned. Find the car; find the murderer, simple as that. Look out too when searching vehicles for any suspicious piping that could have been used to introduce gas. At the crime scene in Delamere the heavy rain had washed most of the footprints away, but on the far side of the lake we found footprints in the heavier mud. The prints had been blurred and fuzzed by the rain, but were still of sufficient standard to show they were Adidas trainers, size six if they were men’s, size eight, if they were women’s. The size on the bottom of the sole is blurred beyond ID,’ Karen waved to Jenny and she flashed up the latest photos, enlarged and enhanced on the big screen fixed to the wall. Footprints in the mud, four of them, differing quality; ranging from vaguely useful to totally useless. Footprints left by a murderer? It was possible.

Everyone peered at the pics and back at Karen.

‘Of course we don’t know for certain these are the killer’s feet, but there must be a good chance. They are small feet for a man, and big feet for a woman, in either case, rarer than your average punter. The killer, if he is a man, probably has size six feet, is of slight build, possesses a pert bum, and we believe, is aged early thirties.’

Karen looked up and saw Walter nodding, and then he said, ‘We think the suspect is in full-time employment, working slightly odd hours. Perhaps seven in the evening till two in the morning, or maybe an hour either side. Anyone got anything they want to add?’

He observed a sea of puzzled faces, people pursing lips, glancing at their neighbours, hoping the spotlight wouldn’t fall on them.

‘Come on, no budding Sherlock Holmes’s amongst you? OK, but I want you to think hard about it. Are we missing something here? We probably are. It could save someone’s life. If you think of anything, no matter how tenuous, come and see me or speak to Karen.’

Cresta followed on. ‘The perpetrator is attractive, likeable, easy to talk to, the kind of person you would want to know, someone you would trust, the kind of person you could easily let your guard down against. One day that might be important.’

‘That is excellent advice,’ added Walter. ‘Right, OK, moving on, black or dark Japanese hatchbacks. Find out how many there are in the area, find out who owns them, and if need be, we’ll check them all, one by one.’

‘Great,’ muttered the young guy, and the team trudged back to work. 

Chapter Sixteen

Armitage Shelbourne was a precious child in more ways than one. His mother suffered four miscarriages before Armitage struggled into the light. Kay had been warned by the family doctor this must be her last stab at motherhood.

It was taking its toll. The doctor told the father, Donald, another such event could take the mother too. Don and Kay doted on Armitage.

They wrapped him in cotton wool. Even the slightest sniffle or spot would be treated as a medical emergency in the Shelbourne household. Whenever they could, they kept him away from other children, no kindergarten or Sunday school for Armitage, and they dreaded his fifth birthday when the law demanded he must attend the local primary school, and mix with other children, including that tough and dirty lot off the council estate. Kay dreaded the thought.

Don had worries of his own.

Before starting school, Armitage would play at home, spending the sunny summer days running and hiding in the big back garden, as his mother called, ‘I’m coming to get you!’ as the oldest game of all, hide and seek, got under way.

When Kay found him, she would grab his wrist and swing him in the air as Armitage screeched with delight.

‘Again, mummy, again!’

‘Come along, Army,’ she said, as she always preferred to call him. ‘It’s time for tea.’

Armitage wanted for nothing, except the company of creatures of his own age. He was treated like a prince, while his mother dressed him and bathed him as if he were a baby.

Kay need not have fretted about the oncoming business of school, because she would never live to see it. She had never fully recovered from the ordeal of bearing a child, of producing the son and heir that Donald craved.

She had always been on the frail side; it was one of the reasons Donald found her attractive, her slightness and femininity, and an overwhelming sense of vulnerability. It attracted many a man into her sphere. Donald wanted to protect her, to look after and provide for her, to marry her, and he did.

Kay lacked confidence, and when a handsome man like Donald courted her, it meant a lot. Though whether she really loved him, only Kay knew the answer to that. He asked her to marry him, and so politely too, and she did, for that very noble reason, because he had asked.

Donald had won the race because he had been the first to show an interest, the most persistent, he would not go away, wouldn’t disappear even when she had several flings with rivals. He would always be there, hanging about outside her house, waiting to pick up the pieces, and most of all, he won the race because Donald possessed an impressive car.

She couldn’t have told you what make it was, but it was so comforting, big and shiny, you couldn’t miss it. The kind of thing that people in the street would stop and stare at. Humber, Bentley, Jaguar, Rolls Royce, it was one of those big jobs for sure, old British iconic makes, that guzzled petrol and boasted fragrant calf leather seats, spacious and comfortable on the back seat too.

Donald overspent himself, and lavished the biggest local wedding of the year when he married Kay in the village church just beyond the city boundaries, a wedding that took place before hundreds of guests, some of whom the happy couple barely knew. By the time Kay returned from their Cretan honeymoon she was already expecting the first of those agonising miscarriages.

He made his living through his own business, The Shelbourne Motor Company. For some time he craved changing the name to Shelbourne and Son, Motor Dealers, or better still, Sons, but he would have to wait for that. He had another target too, to land a main dealership with one of the prestigious manufacturers; one of the self-selling brands that would make his fortune.

He was unlucky in that.

Perhaps it was because of his lack of finance, or maybe, as he suspected, his lack of connections. But for whatever reason, whenever he was interviewed and vetted by the big boys, they would always turn him down.

Thank you for your application but we regret on this occasion we cannot offer you a dealership. But please try again in another year or two. In the meantime, we wish you well and shall bear you in mind.

They never did, or at least if they did, they never advised Donald Shelbourne of their interest, or their reasons for his rejection.

He was forced into marketing marques that few people had heard of, and even fewer people wanted to buy. He stumbled from one useless foreign supplier to the next, damaging his reputation, because of his inability to make any of the franchises work. The major manufacturers hated that, to see a dealer flitting from one to another. They revelled in long-term loyalty, and Mr Shelbourne, with his sales site at the bottom of the high street in the small town just outside the city, had showed repeatedly that he could not be relied on.

The Shelbourne Motor Company stumbled on, making a living by selling other peoples’ second-hand cars, not so different from the one-man bands that proliferated everywhere, and stuck their wares up for sale on the greens in front of the council estate, gaudy handwritten price notices tossed in the front window.

When the economy was good, Shelbourne would do well enough to treat his family to exciting holidays in Barcelona, Tuscany or Sicily. In the poor years when few people were buying, they would pile into the big car, take to the road, and spend the week in rainy Newquay, not that Armitage cared about that. He could find pleasure and mischief wherever he went.

Four months after Kay’s death, Donald moved Donna into the house. She was a flighty woman, painted and over fragrant, who had been employed by the Shelbourne Motor Company to keep the books. That was another of Donald’s weaknesses. Accounting and bookkeeping skills were not high on his list of priorities, a fact that more than one German manufacturer had noted when inspecting the finances. How could they work hand in glove with a person, a company, that could not produce accurate records?

It was unthinkable!

There was more to Donna than met the eye.

She realised that Donald relied on her. True, the accounts were annually audited, but only by old Fotheringay from the village. His eyes were not what they once were, and things had moved on since he had done his training forty years before. Donna knew what he checked and what he didn’t. She knew his weak spots and where to set up the dummy company, Laddon Motor Supplies. She imagined she was being ridiculously clever because Laddon was an anagram of Donald. She created several fictitious identities, bought an accommodation address service in London, had some striking green and yellow letterheaded invoices produced well away from the district, and Laddon Motor Supplies was in business, and sending bills to the Shelbourne Motor Company, a regular monthly invoice of inventory, not too large to invite investigation, not too hefty to cause Shelbourne financial difficulty.

Donna paid the invoices on the nail.

Donald signed the cheques. He never looked at them twice.

Donna treated Shelbourne as a cash cow, her own personal savings bank. She had never possessed any real money of her own, and she would milk it, not wanting to weaken it so that it ailed and died. She was good at it too. No one suspected a thing, and each month she would draw the looted money from Laddon’s bank account in cash, jump on the train, head to London, travelling first class in her best frock, where she would pay it in over the counter of the Geneva & Zurich Bank. The funds would be zipped to Switzerland, well away from prying eyes. No one in Britain would ever know it was there.

Donna’s little nest egg grew and grew.

Armitage detested Donna the instant he set eyes on her. Who was this loud painted lady who sat in his mother’s seat at the dinner table, and worse still, slept in her bed? Who was this brazen cow who would hug and kiss his father in public, in the garden, in the car, in the house, every blinking where, in front of Armitage, passionate and longing kisses that had no business being displayed before an infant?

Donald encouraged her to play hide and seek with the boy, seeing as he knew his son enjoyed that pastime with his mother. Donna wasn’t keen, but once let herself be persuaded. Armitage led her to the far corner of the garden, beyond the viburnum bushes where he knew a wasp’s nest festered. It was a blazing hot day, Donna, stumbling in new high heels in the unkempt grass, lost her footing, threw her hand up for support, set it through the nest that was still in the early stages of construction.

The wasps went crazy.

Stinging Donna twenty times.

Her face wouldn’t look the same for weeks.

She shrieked and screamed and ran for the house, searching for a shoulder to cry on, and more gin. Armitage hid in the long grass, grinning, and thinking of his mother. He could still hear Donna wailing in the house. ‘Donald, Donald, do something for God’s sake!’

Armitage laughed to himself and tried to catch a big red butterfly. It had been one of the better days, so far as he was concerned.

When he was five, his father began taking him to the garage on Saturday mornings. He thought the boy would be interested in the cars and the engines. Armitage detested the idea. He hated the smell of petrol, diesel and oil. He disliked engines, the sharp edges underneath the vehicles, and the frightening noise as the mechanics went about their work. He had no interest in science or engineering in any form. He would take his teddy bear along for company and would ignore the cars and customers and find a quiet corner, and content himself by playing with his only pal.

The second Saturday that Donald took him was busier than usual. Donald lost track of his son. He was far too busy for parental supervision, Armitage wandered outside, up the high street, and in the first shop he came to.

Greenaway’s Florists.

A magical place full of multi coloured blooms and a scent that reminded him of his mother.

‘That’s a fine bear,’ said Mrs Greenaway, who owned and ran the shop. She’d noticed the little boy standing in the doorway. He’d been there for some time.

‘What’s his name?’

The boy said nothing.

‘Would you like to help me arrange the flowers?’

The boy nodded.

‘Come here, then.’

The boy ambled across the little shop.

‘Set your teddy down there, and we’ll begin.’

Armitage liked Mrs Greenaway from the first moment and soon came to adore her. She smelt of soap and cleanliness and warmth and scent. Perhaps it was working with blooms all day, he imagined, she smelt like his much missed mother. She was always smiling and producing chocolate fingers from her pinny, and once they grew to know each other, she would put her arms around his tiny shoulders, or pat his freckled forearms, encouraging him in, advising which flowers went best with which, which blooms to select, as Porridge the bear sat contentedly before them, observing, amongst the vases of multi coloured tulips, happy that his friend Armitage was in good company, and in high spirits. The bear hadn’t seen that in ages.

Armitage had been in the shop for well over an hour before his panicking father burst in.

‘There you are, you naughty boy! I’ve been looking all over for you!’

Mrs Greenaway knew her business neighbour well enough. She knew Kay as a friend. Kay had been a regular customer, always buying flowers for the house and the showroom, and in latter times she shared confidences. Mrs Greenaway knew Donna too, and of her reputation, though she was too polite to say anything about that.

‘Don’t shout at him,’ she said. ‘He’s been helping me with the flowers. He’s very good at it, and he’s most welcome,’ and as if to prove the point, she slipped a heavy silver coin into the boy’s hand. It was the first time anyone outside of the family had ever given him money, and he would remember it forever.

‘Would you like to come back next week?’ She asked the boy.

Armitage nodded. He still hadn’t spoken a word.

Mrs Greenaway stared at Donald, as if challenging him to refuse.

He thought about it for a second and nodded and said, ‘All right, if it’s what the boy wants.’

Armitage smiled sweetly.

Mrs Greenaway did too and said, ‘Good, that’s settled. I must get along, I have a wedding at three.’

Army picked up Porridge and waved the lovely lady goodbye, as his father took his hand and dragged him back to the smelly and noisy garage.

Armitage knew well enough where he preferred to be.

Chapter Seventeen

Samantha was getting dressed. She’d slipped into the pink skirt and jacket. She glanced in the mirror. Cocked her head from side to side. Her neat blonde bob-cut hair looked fab. Red lips, a hint of mascara, not too much makeup for it was a lunchtime meet.

She slipped on the designer white sling backs she’d bought with Desi in Manchester, and the ivory pigskin gloves. Desi had bought them. A special present for a special person.

They made a point of going to Manchester once a month for a big spend up. Always returned with far more merchandise than necessary, but that was half the fun, the naughtiness of it. Sam missed the trips to Cottonopolis, with Des. She’d tried it once by herself but it wasn’t the same, but there was nothing that could be done about that now.

Samantha had a date.

A blind date; and blind dates were always the most exciting. She’d found him on the Internet. You can buy anything you want on the Internet these days. It had usurped the Young Conservatives as the easiest place to locate a new squeeze. She had done it by the book.

They suggested, the website owners, that to begin with you met at lunchtime in a very busy place. Safety in numbers. You can never be too careful. There are millions of weird people out there. Sam wasn’t taking any chances.

They agreed to take lunch in the Hunting Rooms of the Royal Hotel in the Grosvenor precinct. They would meet outside the main entrance at one o’clock. She glanced at her watch. 12.15. Time to go.

––––––––

JAGO CRIPPS CLEANED his glasses. He had a date with something of a mystery girl. She said he would not be disappointed. He’d soon see. He had no idea what she looked like. She said she was too shy to upload her picture. She would recognise him, because he would carry a bunch of daffodils. Jago had never bought flowers for a woman before, and the weird thing was, he had no way of recognising her. She’d insisted it be that way, and that made him nervous, but he was always nervous.

Jago was an accounts’ manager at one of the American credit card companies that had opened for business on the expanding business parks south of the city. Chester was becoming a thriving financial centre, though that was the last thing on his mind as he backed out the car. He earned good money, though his masters took their full pennyworth in return. He also spent good money, up the ladder, down the snake. He hoped that Lena’s lack of a picture wasn’t because she was so dog god-awful.

––––––––

SAM HAD CHOSEN HIM because he looked wild. Long wavy dark hair, black-framed glasses, straight prominent nose, white skin, two red spots. He said he was twenty-nine, but he looked younger. He’d written a biog that came over as if it had been written by a fifteen-year-old school kid on one of the wackier social networking sites.

Hobbies and interests: Getting pissed, taking drugs, acting wild, screwing, and hanging out with cool dudes.

In Sam’s eyes the hobbies and the photos didn’t match, and that was another reason she had selected him.

––––––––

SHE SAW HIM STANDING there, looking nervous, smoking a cigarette, a bunch of damp daffs in his hand, and she walked away. She would make him wait. Come back in ten minutes, no, fifteen, see if he was still there.

He was still there, in his vile blue trousers, and even viler green jacket, shirt and tie, probably his effort at looking smart. Or had he come straight from work? She didn’t care. She ambled along the busy corridor, passed him; he barely offered her a second glance. Why not? Men usually did. Did he think she was too good to be true? Or did he think she wasn’t coming?

She turned round and wandered back. He was still there. He was facing away and feeling the inside of the back of his shirt collar, as if he had been sweating, and it chafed.

‘Jago?’ she said, in her best sexy voice.

The guy swivelled round. Almost fell over. His face lit up at the perfect blonde before him. He liked her hair; and the pink suit. He liked her face and figure; he liked the red lipstick and bright green eyes, and the classy ivory gloves. Geez, he adored everything about her. She was perfect.

‘Lena?’ he said.

Sam nodded.

‘You’re late,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ she said, as if she enjoyed being admonished. ‘The bus broke down.’

‘No worries. You are here now.’ He glanced down at the soppy daffies, ‘These are for you.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, and gave them to an ancient woman who was shuffling by. She took one disdainful look at them and dumped them in the nearest bin.

Jago actually looked disappointed, then said, ‘Shall we go in?’

‘If you want to.’

‘Oh yeah, so long as you do.’

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

‘Come on,’ he said, as he strode toward the door and held it open.

Once seated at the corner table in the Hunting Rooms restaurant, they sat and studied the vast menu.

‘It’s very expensive,’ muttered Jago.

‘Not too much for you?’

‘No, No! Not at all.’

He just wanted to make sure she had noticed, that she appreciated how much of his hard-earned cash he was about to lavish on her. Not to put too fine a point on it, was she worth it? She’d better be.

Sam chose her meal, not the most expensive items on offer, but not far off, and then she said, ‘I always like champagne at lunchtimes, don’t you?’

Jago hid the grimace and said, ‘Yeah, of course, anything you say.’

They talked about this and that, and something and nothing, and then surprisingly, the plates were empty; the glasses were empty; the bottles were empty; and the meal was over.

She had never once removed her gloves.

He teased her by referring to her as the glovely lady, giggled at his own witticism, a joke that Sam, or was it Lena, forced herself to share.

The foreign waiter presented the bill. Jago squinted at it and tried to banish the figure from his mind. He hoped Lena might volunteer a contribution, but none was forthcoming. He took out his credit card, manufactured by his employers, and realised that with this meal he’d be maxed out.

He forced a smile across the table. Lena smiled back. She had gorgeous teeth, far better than his. He’d like those teeth down his pants. He paid the bill with that thought in mind, and could contain himself no longer.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘Do you want to go out again?’

‘Maybe,’ she said, fiddling with her glove.

‘Tomorrow night?’

She pulled a face. ‘I might be able to do that.’

She was playing hard to get. He didn’t care. He wanted to date her again; he wanted her back at his place; he wanted...

‘What time did you have in mind?’ she said.

‘Eight o’clock OK with you?’

She bobbed her head.

‘We could go for a meal, in some country pub.’

Lena nodded, didn’t say anything.

‘Where do you want to meet?’

‘Outside the swimming baths.’

‘OK,’ he said, ‘I can do that, you’re on.’

Lena nodded and stood up and made to go but paused and said, ‘Thanks for the meal, Jago,’ and she walked off and left him sitting at the table.

He made no effort to follow, and that was cool.

Chapter Eighteen

Armitage looked forward to his visits to the garage, but only because he could slip away and run around the corner to the shop where the bell at the top of the door announced his arrival. Mrs Greenaway treated him like the son she never had.

She’d raised three daughters, all now married and away. Army soon developed a deep interest in flowers. His imagination would fire as he matched the red tulips, roses, and geraniums.

Within a month he was filling the shop window with his selections, within a year he was creating displays far beyond anything Mrs Greenaway could match, and within two years people were coming from far and wide to have their arrangement made up by the handsome boy with the artistic touch.

He had a following.

He had an artistry.

At school, his interests were clearly defined between the things he loved and the things he couldn’t abide. He adored art and drawing, anything creative, English composition, and stories. He detested science, physical education, and all sports. That went without saying. Sport was for the smellies.

His father was a keen rugby and football fan. He tried in vain to fire an interest in his young son in sport, as he rolled and kicked a wide selection of balls toward him in the back garden. Armitage would cry and run away. He wanted Mrs Greenaway; he wanted Porridge; he wanted the flowers, and his painting books, and most of all he wanted his mother.

Right there, in that garden, he didn’t want his father at all.

After two years of trying, his father gave up. He even reconsidered the idea of changing the name of the business to Shelbourne and Son, so disappointed was he in his only offspring.

The following year Army discovered another interest. Classical music and singing. Mrs Greenaway would often have the radio on in the shop, always tuned to the station that only broadcast classical music. It was never on loud, though sometimes if a piece that Army knew came on, or when the shop was quiet, Army would ask for the volume to be increased, ‘Louder Mrs Greeny,’ he would shout, ‘Louder!’

She would glance at his little face and couldn’t refuse.

At school too he was introduced to classical music, when the children would be encouraged to dance.

‘Dance to the music, children, dance!’ the elderly lady would trill, often to The Dance of The Sugar Plum Fairy.

Many of the girls held dreams of becoming ballerinas and would dance like courting swans. They were old hands at seven. They knew the ropes, and how to impress. Armitage had never heard of ballet, and had no idea what the girls were doing, but that didn’t stop him. He threw himself into it, holding the centre of the floor, dancing moves that bemused everyone. They seemed to seep out of his soul. The girls were fascinated and flocked to him, all desperate to dance with the crazy boy with the imagination of a rattlesnake.

The boys thought him a Nancy and shunned him still further. The girls weren’t sure, but they were curious. He was different.

The biggest love of his life was singing.

He had a voice that could induce tingles to the spine, though no one outside of school knew that, until one day in the flower shop, a piece of music came on the radio they had been learning.

The shop was busy; it was coming up Saint Valentine’s, and there was standing room only between the remaining blooms. Without a thought, Armitage burst into song. He was working in one corner, facing away from the others, building a bouquet of fragrant lilies. In the next second the shop was filled with his treble voice, pure as crystal snow.

Mrs Greenaway imagined the angelic voice was coming through her tinny speaker, but no, it was Armitage. The seven or eight customers present fell silent and stared. Mrs Greenaway’s mouth fell open. There wasn’t a sound in the shop but for the radio, and Armitage’s soaring voice, as the old single-decker bus came rumbling up the high street.

At the end of the song, the adults burst into applause. Army was aghast, caught out, as if he had been doing something naughty. He turned and smiled at them, flushed beetroot red, felt even more uncomfortable, and ran outside and skipped back to the garage.

The following week Mrs Greenaway said, ‘You’re a wonderful singer, Army.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Greenaway.’

‘Where did you learn to sing like that?’

‘At school.’

‘Would you like to sing in a choir?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Would you like me to take you to the choir?’

‘Dad wouldn’t like it.’

‘Would you come if I asked your dad?’

Army nodded and thought nothing more of it.

That night after Army had gone to bed, Mrs Greenaway called at the Shelbourne’s mock Tudor detached house. She wasn’t initially welcomed because Don and Donna had been canoodling on the settee. Donna was still adjusting her dress when Don brought Mrs G into the sitting room.

‘What can I do for you, Mrs G? What has my son been up to now?’

‘Your son is a very well-mannered boy.’

‘If you say so.’

Mrs G explained she was in the choir at Saint Andrew’s church, and that Armitage was a fabulous singer. She wanted him to go to the church for a trial to join the choir, and Army had expressed a wish to be given the opportunity.

‘Has he now?’ said Donald, a little miffed that this woman knew more about his son’s interests than he did.

Donna said, ‘Are you sure you’re not mixing him up with someone else?’

Mrs G gave her a look that said everything.

‘Let me sleep on it,’ said Donald, and he did, and give him his due, the next day he popped into the florists and told Mrs G that Army could take the trial, if he wanted to.

Mrs G said, ‘You won’t regret it,’ and rang the choirmaster and fixed an audition.

The choirmaster’s name was Mr Davis, and he had a spiky reputation for strict discipline. If the boys couldn’t turn up on time and behave themselves, they needn’t bother coming. If the boys couldn’t attend every single practice session, they needn’t bother coming either. Most of the boys were keen enough, because they would receive a small payment when they attended special services like weddings and christenings, while the lead singer would receive a handsome bonus. The competition to be top dog was hot.

The vicar was there that evening too, pottering about, mulling in his mind the coming Sunday’s sermon. Mr Davis was well used to pushy parents who believed their little Johnny was something special, if not the best thing since Aled Jones, better even. He would not suffer fools and regularly dismissed triallists by asking one of the better singers to sing after they had finished, thus showing how things could and should be done, and how woeful little Johnny was. He was in that frame of mind when he called Armitage forward. Army stepped up, his throat dry.

The entire choir were there, hundreds of them, it seemed to him. He could never remember being so nervous. He glanced around as if for comfort and saw Mrs Greeny on the back row of the ladies’ section. She smiled and nodded him on.

‘Well?’ Davies said, far too abruptly for a young child, thought many of the ladies gathered there. ‘Don’t waste my time, boy. Sing if you are going to.’

Armitage took one last look round, grabbed a big breath, and launched into Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.

His voice filled the church. Soaring into the void of the steeple. Filling people’s heads. Mr Davis closed his eyes. He had never heard a triallist sing like it, and one so young. It beggared belief.

As Army finished, the ladies’ choir burst into spontaneous applause. Even the vicar had crept closer for a better look to see who it was who had captivated everyone. The boys’ choir applauded too, though not as enthusiastically. Perhaps one or two of the soloists had already realised their one-off fees might be in danger.

Armitage Shelbourne had arrived.

Donald and Donna were invited too. They hadn’t intended to go; it wasn’t their thing, but something deep inside Donald brought him there, and he dragged along Donna for company. Perhaps it was because he knew Kay would have wanted him to attend. Donna bitched about it all the way there. She hadn’t been inside a church for fifteen years, and wasn’t looking forward to it. Eastenders was on the television, for gawd’s sake.

Like everyone else, Donald and Donna were captivated.

How could it be that from one so young, and so slight, a voice could emanate that filled that vast church, and moved people to tears?

‘Who taught the little bugga to do that?’ she whispered.

‘I have no idea,’ said Donald, feeling guilty that it had taken others to show him what a talented son he possessed.

He would never underestimate Armitage again.

Chapter Nineteen

Samantha was standing upstairs in the swimming baths, staring from the huge windows that afforded a great view of the car park and the forecourt below. Jago was down there, biting his nails, sitting in his ten-year-old family sized hatchback.

At least he’d washed it and polished the silver wheels. Sam had been in far worse cars. He’d been waiting there for ten minutes. She would make him wait a little longer.

Jago saw Lena come out of the main entrance to the pool. He hadn’t expected her to come that way, but that didn’t matter, the only thing that mattered was that she was here. He reached over and flipped open the door.

‘Hi,’ she said, as she jumped in.

‘Hi,’ he responded, as she settled in the seat beside him.

He started the car and pulled out on to the inner ring road.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘A country pub, I know,’ he said. ‘On the Frodsham road.’

He had chosen it with great care. They served a decent carvery for next to nothing, for he had next to no money. Tonight, if she asked for champagne, she would be disappointed. She was wearing a black two-piece suit, skirt and jacket and slinky leather gloves, and as he drove, he stole glances at her pert knees and breasts, and neat but understated makeup. She was as he remembered, sweet, sexy, and desirable, and later on, after he’d slipped her a tab or two, she would be his.

The pub was OK, and the meal acceptable. Jago bought them each a glass of wine, saying that he had two expensive bottles in his fridge at home, and because he was driving, he didn’t want to drink too much while they were out.

‘That’s cool,’ she said, and it was cool too, for she didn’t fancy riding with Jago if he was drunk.

During a break in conversation, she asked him if he ever experimented with drugs. She’d asked it as bold as that, not even bothering to lower her voice, as if she didn’t care who heard.

‘Didn’t you read my biog?’ he said, grinning like an ape.

‘I did, but I thought you might be exaggerating.’

‘Nope!’ he said. ‘No way! I’m up for anything, me. You only live once. Bring it on, sister.’

Lena smiled wickedly and said, ‘That’s great Jago, because I’m really into all that stuff. Tell you the truth, it’s the only thing I really like, the only thing that truly excites me.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah, sure. Have you got any gear back at the flat?’

He was about to say, sure thing, when a weird thought crossed his mind. He didn’t really know this babe from Adam. She could be a copper for all he knew, a drugs’ undercover officer. He’d read about such things in the National Inquirer, police stings on unsuspecting punters.

‘You’re not a cop, are you?’

As if she would tell him if she was.

‘Me? Course not. Don’t be stupid. I told you I work in the booking office at the racetrack,’ and as if to prove the point she brought out the new Chester racetrack diary, the expensive green leather-bound edition with the gold logo on the front cover, and the slogan: England’s Oldest Racecourse. ‘You can have it if you want,’ she said, ‘I can get hundreds of them.’

‘Yeah, ta, I will,’ and he took it from her be-gloved hand and slipped it in his inside pocket. It seemed to do the trick for there were no more questions as to whether she was a copper or not. What a ridiculous suggestion.

Then he said, and he lowered his voice, ‘If you must know, I’ve just taken delivery of some wicked skunk, and I keep a selection of tabs in, for the weekend, like, or any other day come to that,’ and he laughed. He saw Lena smiling her approval across the table and said, ‘The two go well together, talk about a trip...’

She smiled crazily and said, ‘I like you Jago, you’re cool, I can’t wait to get back to your place and give it a whirl. Have you finished here? Shall we go, come on... the tabs are calling,’ and she stood up and headed for the door.

What a crazy bitch, he thought, am I lucky or what? This could be a night to remember, maybe above all others, and he jumped up and followed her out. 

She was standing by the car, coquettish look on her face, waiting for him to open up. He pointed the key and fired, but nothing happened, key battery dead. Jago cursed and slipped the key in the lock and opened up.

She fixed her seatbelt, but he did not. Stared at her instead, waiting for her to turn and look at him, for he knew this was the point where he could land a kiss.

She knew what he was after, and saw him coming, swaying across the cabin toward her, eyes closed, lips puckered, glasses steaming. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! At the last moment, she turned her head and allowed him to kiss her on the cheek.

‘Later, Jago, later,’ she whispered in a come on a voice. ‘Let’s get back to your place.’

‘Sure, babe,’ he said, struggling to keep the disappointment from his voice as he started the car.

––––––––

JAGO CRIPPS LIVED IN a modern second-floor flat on the northern side of the city, next to a huge new health and fitness club that many of the block residents used. When he’d moved in, he checked out the fitness palace, saw the huge annual membership fee, and declined. Jago had never been much of a health and fitness fiend, so what was the point in starting now?

The flat boasted a fair sized living room, a sweet smell throughout, noted Sam, a modern kitchen and bathroom, and two bedrooms, one boasting a king-size bed where Jago did his thing. In the other bedroom he threw his junk and closed the door and hoped it would disappear. The apartment was exactly the same as ten million others that had sprouted up throughout the kingdom. In the sitting room was a huge flatscreen telly, bought on the credit card, and a soft white sofa, also paid for by Jago’s employers. It was only eighteen months old and already growing grubby.

‘Drinky first,’ he said, going to the kitchen.

Lena nodded her approval, and Jago smiled.

He ran into the kitchen; he seemed to run everywhere, and she heard the pop of a bottle of wine being opened. Perhaps it was a good bottle after all, no screw tops for him.

He grabbed two large glasses from the cupboard, and held them to the neon light. They were cleanish, but to hell with it, clean enough, and he emptied the bottle, half in each.

Then he was back in the sitting room. She was ensconced on the sofa. He handed her the wine, put his on the low table, and disappeared into his bedroom, saying, ‘I’ll get the business.’

She grabbed the glass and scurried to the kitchen, dumped half of it, and skipped back to the settee.

He came back, grinning, sat beside her, but not too close, clocked the half empty glass and said, ‘The wine all right?’

‘Fab, Jago,’ she said, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet beneath her like a young deer.

Jago nodded, two or three times, as if he had a tick. Took an almighty glug from his glass, and set a neat, square box on the table, and a pouch from which he produced a spliff. A moment later, a disposable lighter in hand, he flicked a huge flame to life and began puffing, as Sam made a big show of taking another mouthful of German white.

Jago took in several breaths of burning skunk, held the thing toward her. Lena grinned and reached across and took it, brought it to her mouth, feigned to take in a big swallow, in reality took in a little, not too much, for she wasn’t that keen on weed, and passed it back to him. Pink lipstick on the butt. He noticed that, and he liked it too. It was the closest he’d been to it yet, though the night was young, as he sucked the lipstick away, drawing heavily in. Lena reached down and emptied her glass and set it on the table.

God, she could drink, this bitch, he thought, following suit, and retreating to the kitchen for an early refill.

When he returned, she had a strange look on her face. She looked out of it already. That was cool. The more out of it she was, the better.

Then she said, ‘Tabs I like,’ and she giggled, as if there could be rewards on offer.

‘Yeah?’ he said, unable to suppress the grin from his spotty face. ‘You’re in luck, just you wait and see what I have in here,’ and he opened his dinky box of treasure.

It was packed with pills. At least four different types.

He glanced wide-eyed into the box, and peered across at her, over the top of his specs, a manic look creeping over his face.

‘Ecstasy?’ she said.

‘Among others,’ he said, in a superior way. ‘These,’ he said, holding a large white tablet up at the side his face, ‘Are supercharged babies. Unbelievable!’

‘Fantabiosa,’ she said, pretending to drink more wine. ‘And,’ she added, ‘Seeing as you have been such a good boy, or a bad boy, in this case, I have not come to the party without contributing.’

‘Yeah?’ he said, grinning.

She grabbed her bag and flipped it open. Took out her purse, opened it, removed a long silver strip of sweeties, and set them on the table next to his precious box.

He gazed down at them as if they were diamonds. Then picked them up and brought them closer to his glasses. ‘What are they?’

‘Te-maz-e-pam!!’ she said with a flourish, an exclamation that reminded him of the American superhero comics he adored.

‘Te-maz-e-pam!!’ he repeated, ‘Bang, bang, bang, baby!’

She almost burst into laughter. The guy was away with the mixer. A parody of any regular drug user. She wondered if he had only recently begun to experiment, and pondered if his tabs were real. Maybe the klutz had paid through the nose for a hangover cure. She was having doubts.

‘How many?’ he said in a rush.

‘I take four, with the E.’

‘Yeah?’ he said, unsure of the number.

He watched Lena bend forward and empty them all from their silver covered bays. They bounced on to the table.

‘I like to crunch one first,’ she said, and she slipped one in her mouth and made a point of crunching the tiny thing like a horse with a mint.

Jago’s mouth fell open. This bird was crazy. Up for anything. He grabbed a tab and threw it in. Crunched it and grimaced.

‘Awful!’ he said, swigging his mouth clean.

‘It’s not the taste, it’s the feeling,’ she said. ‘Give us an E.’

He couldn’t pass her one quick enough. All the success he’d ever had with women came through E.

She took it, picked up the glass, made a big show of presenting it to her mouth, took a gulp of wine, in reality a sip, threw the tab in her mouth and drank and swallowed.

‘Yeah, baby!’ he screamed, grabbing an E and flushing it down.

‘Chase her with Te-maz-e-pam!’ Lena screamed.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ and he swept a handful of the remaining pills from the table and in they went.

His glass was almost empty.

‘Have you got any more drink?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, but not as good as the others.’

‘Don’t care! If it’s alcoholic, I like it,’ she said.

He made to stand up.

‘No, you’re all right. I’ll get it.’

‘It’s in the fridge,’ he yelled as she hit the kitchen.

She reached up the back of her jacket and pulled up her blouse. The tab fell into her hand. She’d been practicing that sleight of hand, drink before the face, throw in the tab, seemingly into the mouth, in reality down the neck of her blouse. It had worked better than she’d ever dreamed. He never had a clue. Flushed it down the sink.

‘Find it?’ he shouted.

‘Yeah, just coming,’ and then she was back, setting the screw top bottle on the table.

He was yawning.

She sat beside him, more sure than ever that he was a drugs novice. All talk and no experience. He was game though, she’d give him that. But he didn’t even know that E and alcohol should not be mixed. He was looking nervous, more nervous than usual, and that was something. The E was kicking in. He flexed his jaws, there was tightening there, his heart was speeding, he began to sweat, nothing new in that either with Jago, but it was more pronounced. He felt sick and thought it was the wine. It wasn’t. It was the E taking over. He was coming up. The E was making him hyperactive, fighting the Temazepam that was trying to put him to sleep.

‘There’s something bugging me,’ he slurred.

‘Yeah, babe? What’s that?’

‘The glovely lady hasn’t once removed her gloves.’

He watched Lena smile at him. ‘I do sometimes,’ she said coyly, leaving the thought in the air.

‘Yeah? Like when?’

‘Like... in the bedroom.’

‘Yeah? Do you wanna go the bedroom?’

He watched her slowly nod.

‘More temaz first, though,’ she said.

He threw out his tongue and waggled it like a snake in anticipation of a kill. She grabbed more pills and fed him, gave him another big drink, pretended to take more tabs herself, threw them behind the sofa.

Jago yawned, but said, ‘Come on, baby!’

She sat there, playing for time. He stood up, unsteady on his feet. ‘Come on!’ he repeated.

Lena stood up as Jago put his arm around her and led her toward his room, steadying himself as he went. He fell on the bed, on to his back, and laughed.

‘Come and join me,’ he said, yawning again, and patting the mattress.

She lay down beside him. Let him slip his arm around her.

‘Take those bloody gloves off!’

‘Take your shirt off first!’ she said, propping herself up on her elbow, her green eyes wide and ablaze. He had never seen eyes like them, not on a human being. They were like the eyes of a black mountain lion he had once seen in a California Zoo, an amazing holiday he had taken with his cousin Jeff, the first extravagance that had started all the trouble with the damned credit card. He’d been unable to stop himself using it ever since.

‘Yeah?’ he said to her invitation to remove his shirt.

Lena was gazing down at him, like a nurse in some alco-druggy clinic, persuading him to take medication, nodding encouragingly. He began removing his shirt. It was a big effort, but he was free. He lay back. She stared down at him. His skin was white and spotty. In the centre of his chest were five straggly hairs. His nipples were pink and childlike, his arms thin and weak. He yawned again, deeper than before.

The Temazepam was winning the war.

‘Take those bloody gloves off,’ he slurred.

She sat up straight, high above him, as if she were on the top of a mountain, he thought, and he, so far below, on the shores of the Dead Sea. She took hold of her left glove with her right hand and pretended to tug.

Jago’s eyelids fluttered and closed.

Victory to the Temaz.

She eased herself from the bed. Jago didn’t stir.

She retreated to the living room. Took her glass to the kitchen, washed it thoroughly, taking great care to remove every hint of lipstick, dried it and put it away. Picked up the spliff butt from the ashtray, took it to the bathroom, closed the door to keep the noise inside, flushed it down the loo, standing and waiting and making sure it had gone.

Took a look round the kitchen and living room. No fingerprints, of course. Was there any other evidence she had ever been there, other than the microscopic fibres from her jacket and skirt, and she’d deal with that little connection later. No footmarks on the hall floor, it had been a dry night; she hadn’t left a trace.

She returned to the bedroom.

Jago was snoring, already in a deep sleep.

The E might have wanted him to dance the night away, but the Temazepam was boss, and thought different, and the Temazepam had allies, the drink, the spliff, and Jago’s weak and neglected body.

She glared down at him.

He might already have taken enough to kill himself, and she considered leaving him to his fate. But on second thoughts she wouldn’t. What was the point in that? She wouldn’t take any chances. She opened her bag and removed the steel craft knife.

Gently seized his left wrist and sliced into it, just above the hand. The iconic place for suicide. The blood gushed and flowed down to the white sheet, spreading like wet ink on blotting paper. She knew two leakages were always better than one, as in opening a can, or anything else come to that, two holes increased the flow threefold. She slipped the knife into his right wrist. It was easy.

Serves you right, Jago, for drugging and raping unsuspecting girls, if indeed that is what you have done. She didn’t care about that. She didn’t care about Jago; didn’t care about anything, not since her precious Desi had left this world. She wiped the blade clean on the sheet and slipped it into her bag.

100 ways to Kill People.

Drink and drugs, and invite their wrists to taste the fresh air.

Not clean, but pretty effective. There was no way of coming back from that, not for Jago Cripps. He was on his one-way trip to oblivion.

Samantha laughed.

It had been a good day.

She took a last look at him. He looked so peaceful.

His mother would be proud.

She picked up Jago’s car keys; left the room, opened the front door, and left the flat.

Chapter Twenty

Armitage woke in a sweat. Porridge slumbered on beside him. His father and Donna were downstairs, arguing. Their loud voices had woken him. In the darkness, Armitage sat up and glanced at his Toy Town clock.

It ticked on merrily, oblivious to the boy’s worries. The luminous hands signalled their message. The small man was pointing towards the twelve, the big man toward the three. Armitage yawned.

Still, they yelled at one another downstairs. He couldn’t make out what they were saying; hearing only the muffled rumbling discontent floating up through the plaster, floorboards, and the carpet. It sounded spiteful. It sounded frightening. In the darkness, Armitage grimaced. They had been arguing more often, sometimes every night, disturbing the boy’s sleep and dreams. He boasted black rings around his eyes, though he was unaware of that, he hadn’t noticed. But the teachers at school had, and so had Mrs Greenaway.

As the days and weeks and months slipped away, so his hatred for Donna Deary increased. It was mutual; that dislike, for she had taken to slapping him when his father was missing, or in another part of the house. She’d admonish Army and clip his ear for the slightest misdemeanour, real or imaginary. Afterwards she would say, ‘And don’t go running and whining to your father! He’s not interested, and if you do, I’ll take that wooden ruler of yours and thrash your legs to shreds!’

Armitage valued his legs, and whether the threat was real or bluster, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to test it. She frightened him, and he remained silent. His father never noticed a thing. He had troubles of his own.

A moment later Armitage made out what they were saying. They must have stepped up the volume; perhaps the dispute was reaching a climax.

She yelled: ‘If you don’t take me to see the pyramids this year, we’re finished, understand? Finished! You promised to take me, and you can bloody well take me!’

‘Why can’t you understand I don’t have the bloody cash!’ his father screamed back.

‘Then sell something! What about that money you’ve put aside for the kid? You could use some of that! He’s not interested in money. You only have to look at him to tell that. Use that if you have to!’

‘I will not touch Armitage’s inheritance. That’s Kay’s money. She set it aside for him.’

‘Wake up and open your bloody eyes! Kay’s dead, you barmpot! In case you haven’t noticed, it’s me you should be looking after. You’re not living in the real world, you useless article!’

‘We can’t use that money and that’s final!’

‘Use what you bloody well like, but you understand this, Donald Shelbourne, if you don’t take me to Egypt this year as you promised, we are finished. Understand me? Finished!’

‘We are not going to Egypt!’

‘We’ll see about that! And another thing, you can sleep in the spare room tonight. I don’t want you anywhere near me! You give me the creeps!’

After that, Armitage heard a heavy slap, echoing through the house, magnified by the after midnight stillness.

Then silence returned.

In his mind Army imagined she had slapped him, for his father would never slap anyone, and certainly not a lady. Though thinking about it later, perhaps it might do her some good. Armitage would admit that sometimes he imagined slapping her himself, if only he could find the courage. Perhaps his father felt the same way.

If only she would disappear.

Army turned over, pulled the pillow over his head, kissed the bear, hugged the creature to his shaking chest, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep. Tomorrow was dancing day. It was important there was a spring in his step. There wouldn’t be, if he didn’t sleep.

Throughout the following week, rows and fights disturbed his nights. During mealtimes they would glare at one another and say almost nothing. They’d glare at Army too and bite his head off over any tiny thing. Living in the house was hell. He couldn’t help comparing it to how it was when his angelic mother ruled the roost.

Unbeknown to Armitage, the economy had taken a hefty lurch away from prosperity. People were no longer buying cars, worse still; they were selling them, chasing the cash like everyone else. The Shelbourne Motor Company had been in financial trouble for some time. Everyone worked hard but there was never any money in the bank, and the situation had become critical.

For one moment Donna considered using a small proportion of her Swiss bank savings to help the business over the lean times. Perhaps £10,000, that would help, and it wouldn’t make too much of a dent in her £180,000 nest egg. Recently she had stepped up Laddon’s invoices, keen as she was to break the £200,000 barrier, and her greediness had worsened Shelbourne’s plight.

She decided against it, of helping anyone, and especially Donald Shelbourne, after he had actually hit her. Slapped her across the face, the cheeky git. She could still feel the stinging sensation on the cheek. No, she wouldn’t help a living soul, not Donald, not that hopeless queer son of his, nor the floundering company. They could all take a run and jump. She would not touch any of her savings.

The following day when Donald was at work, Armitage at school, she had a dental appointment. Afterwards, she hurried home, packed two cases, wrote a hurried note: Sorry Donald, it is obvious we have come to the end of the road, you clearly don’t love me, and please don’t follow me. I am out of here, Donna.

She called a cab and ordered it to the railway station and boarded a train for Bristol. Sitting waiting in the hairdressers, she had read grand things of the West Country. She would visit all the big towns, Bath, Cheltenham, Bristol, Gloucester, Wells, Taunton, Exeter, and settle in the one that suited her best. She was a lady of means, though she had no intention of squandering her hard earned wealth.

No, she would find another man. She was still young and desirable, so she told herself, so she witnessed, as she stared into the mirror, painting. She would take up golf, act the damsel in distress, book some lessons, seek new company, a rich widower would be perfect, a handsome golf pro on the side, anyone who could show her the ropes, take her into their circle, provide her with everything she desired, just so long as he was a decent-looking man, and solvent.

Donna knew how to foster interest, how to find a patron, and there must be thousands of businesses in the West Country looking for a good bookkeeper.

She might change her name too. Donna Trowbridge, she decided after staring at the map for an hour; she had never liked Deary, What’s up, Deary? She was young and carefree, with no ties to restrict her. More than that, she was a great catch for someone, and already she had visions of handsome beaus from Bath to Bristol begging for her hand.

Donald and the squirt could go to hell.

Armitage was thrilled at the news.

He slept better; began dancing better; and looked better; and Mrs Greenaway could guess the reason when she heard the welcome news that Donna Deary had fled the town. ‘Not before time,’ she muttered, ‘not before time.’

This newfound sense of wellbeing did not spread to his father. Things lurched from bad to worse. The Shelbourne Motor Company failed to pay for the latest batch of cars. The wholesalers were furious and descended on the forecourt and repossessed everything that hadn’t been paid for. The Shelbourne Motor Company had entered its death throes. Donald wasn’t thinking straight. He had even used Armitage’s inheritance, Kay’s money; that she had earmarked for her only son. He hated doing it, and Armitage would never see a penny.

One week later, the business went bust. It owed just shy of a million pounds. An Official Receiver was appointed to wind up the company’s affairs. Donald was out of a job. He was broke, and broken.

Armitage did not understand what all that meant. He had always hated the garage and the cars and the filthy mechanics and the stink. He was elated to see it go, and pleased to be free of going there every Saturday morning. He could go straight to the florists and for a short while life was heaven.

But it hit home when the house went up for sale. Donald had mortgaged everything. The equity had fled as quickly as Donna. His father told him they would be moving out.

‘Where are we going to live?’ moped Army.

He adored the house, his room, and the garden where his mother had chased and played and laughed with him. Such happy, sunny days and beautiful memories that seemed so long ago, days that would never return.

‘I have found a little flat for us,’ said his father. ‘On Kenneally Drive.’

‘On Kenneally Drive?’ said Army, imagining he was hearing things.

‘Yes. We are moving there on Saturday.’

‘But that’s...’

‘Yes, I know... it’s on the council estate.’

Armitage pulled a face and said: ‘Will I be able to take Porridge?’

‘Yes, son, of course, Porridge is coming too.’

So they moved into a small two-bedroom flat on the second floor at number 39 Kenneally Drive on the same council estate that Donald had been so sniffy about. As it turned out, the residents were friendly, even to the dancing freak with the plummy voice.

Donald soon made friends. It was as if a mighty weight had been chipped from his shoulders. He met a young widow by the name of Janet Everrit who lived in the house on the corner. She had taken a shine to the upright, well-dressed bloke who’d moved in up the road.

Donald and Army began taking tea there. Donald fixed up her old car and he would drive them all to the supermarket on Saturday morning to buy provisions. It sure as hell was better than taking the public bus. They began spending evenings at the Everrit house, and the following week they even had a sleepover. Armitage was forced to share a room with Smelly Everrit. He had never shared a room with anyone before, other than Porridge. He didn’t like it much, but his dad seemed happy.

Chapter Twenty-One

It had gone two in the morning by the time Samantha left Jago’s flat. It was dark and quiet and cloudy, looking like rain, as she opened his car and adjusted the seat, jumped inside, clicked open her bag, dragged out a folded baseball cap, and pulled it down over her face.

She started the car and rolled from the car park and headed across town for the swimming pool, just as fine rain began tumbling down.

Her own car was still there, alone and safe and unmolested. She pulled Jago’s car skew-whiff into a bay some way off, glanced round, no one about, and stepped into the miserable night. Checked she’d left nothing behind, closed the door, took Jago’s keys with her to her own car, opened up, jumped in and drove away.

Sam’s flat was on the south side of the city. It was one of four apartments in a redbrick Victorian detached house. Two flats to the left, ground floor and first, and two mirroring flats to the right. Sam’s was the ground floor right. She’d lived there on and off for five years, and she liked it. The other residents were single and quiet and past fifty. They kept themselves to themselves, immersed in their work and studies and books. They would say hello in passing, but that was about it. At least two of them were shortsighted, and another was going deaf. She had rarely been in any of the other flats, and they had never been in hers, and that suited Sam just fine.

As she crossed the river on the Grosvenor Bridge, she buzzed down the passenger window and hurled Jago’s keys over the handrail. They turned over in the air several times and splashed into the river. On the still night air she imagined she heard the plop, though she might have been mistaken.

There was no one about at the flats. Iona House was asleep.

The other three residents, two guys and a woman; were strict timekeepers. They all went to bed between half-past ten and eleven o’clock, and they didn’t hear the car cruise into the small car park, and they didn’t see or hear Sam get out of the car and hurry inside.

Each of the flats possessed a wood-burning stove that provided hot water and heating. Sam would keep it burning all year round, except for the hottest summer months. She stood before the stove and undressed. Took off her jacket and skirt, opened the stove, as the iron metallic clunk echoed through the old house. That couldn’t be helped, as she tossed the clothing inside. Blouse? Yeah, that too. Slipped it off and in it went. Three minutes later and the clothing didn’t exist. The last item she would remove that night would be the gloves. The glovely lady, she said aloud, mimicking Jago’s idiotic voice. I am the glovely lady. She giggled. Would she burn those too? Of course not, that was unthinkable. Desi had bought them special. She’d wash them in the morning.

Sam smiled and yawned. It had been a good day. It had been a good night too. She went to bed, slept well; didn’t think of Jago Cripps once. He was a rapist and woman molester, a drug addict and a wastrel. The world would not miss the likes of him, and there was no reason for Sam to waste precious time thinking about the guy.

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IN THE MORNING, SAM rose at ten. Turned on the radio. Nothing new. No murders in the city. Turned on the Internet. Nothing special. Big fuss over some oil leak off Africa, but that was nothing new either. Navigated to the word processor, settled on the kooky AR Delaney font, and wrote a letter. It had been coming for a few days. Today it would be written and posted, and after that, the next night’s clothes needed attention. Yesterday had been an off day; but tonight it was back to the casino. Work could not be avoided. The bills had to be paid; the mortgage on Flat 2 Iona House wouldn’t pay itself.

Walter knew there was something weird about the letter the moment Jenny Thompson handed it to him. One large A4 manila envelope, one solitary sheet inside judging by the skinny feel of it, one self adhesive first class stamp, one postmark reading Chester City, 2.30pm from yesterday. It was the address that grabbed Walter’s attention. A homemade label, black print on white paper, ink jetted letters, unusual font, taped to the envelope.

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PRIVATE AND PERSONNEL

Inspector Wally Darrito

Chester Police Station HQ

Chester 

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TWO SPELLING MISTAKES in eleven words. Walter opened his desk drawer and took out a pair of latex gloves and slipped them on, grabbed the letter opener from the centre of the desk, eased it inside the flap, and carefully opened. He had been right. A single sheet of unfolded A4 paper. Same inkjet printing, same strange font.

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WALLY,

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WE THOUGHT YOU WAS clever. Perhaps you should retire, sod off back to Jamaca. You ain’t up to the job, mate. Its past your retirment. You said we’d be meeting soon. It hasn’t happened. It ain’t going to happen. Your thick, but we like you. Keep smiling, that’s what fool’s do.

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THE CHESTER MOLLESTERS

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WALTER READ THE MESSAGE three times. Counted the spelling mistakes, five to add to the two on the address label, six if you included the missing apostrophe in “its”. Poor grammar too, was, aint, really clunky, and written by an ill-educated person, or maybe that was what the writer intended. The big question was, was it from the killer, or was it some sick hoax from someone desperate for attention?

He held the paper to the light. No watermark, standard supermarket issue copy paper if he had to guess. Untraceable. He slipped it into a clear plastic sleeve and ambled to the photocopy machine, made four copies, returned to his desk, placed the original and the envelope into his drawer, and closed and locked it. Ambled across the office, taking the copies with him, pondering as he went as to any hidden meaning in the signature: The Chester Mollesters. It wasn’t something he’d ever come across before.

He tapped on Mrs West’s door.

‘Come,’ she said, glancing up and removing her spectacles. 

‘I’ve had a letter, ma’am.’

‘From the killer?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Come in, shut the door, sit down.’

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THEY TALKED ABOUT THE letter. He showed her a copy; assured her the original was untouched and would be sent to forensics for fingerprinting and DNA tests. She asked him if the phrase Chester Mollesters meant anything to him, and he said it didn’t. She asked him what he thought the letter meant. He said he thought the killer had already struck again. Mrs West grimaced and rolled her eyes and said, ‘Not the child you mentioned? God forbid.’

‘Let’s hope not, ma’am.’

‘Bring Karen and Cresta in. Let’s see what they think,’ and in the next minute they were all around the table staring at Walter’s copies.

‘You said he’d be in touch,’ said Mrs West to Cresta, ‘And he has.’

Cresta glowed and then added, ‘Could be a woman, Mrs West.’

Karen said, ‘How does the killer know about Jamaica?’

‘I think we can blame the worldwide web for that,’ sighed Walter.

‘The he-she thing is baiting you,’ said Cresta.

‘I know that,’ said Walter, and then he said, ‘There are two things that interest me, the spelling mistakes for a start.’

‘And me,’ said Karen.

‘Is the person poorly educated, or is it a con?’

‘I think it’s a con,’ said Cresta. ‘It’s too obvious. Jamaca looks so wrong.’

‘I agree,’ said Walter. ‘So we might assume the person is well educated.’

‘For sure,’ said Cresta. ‘Uni wouldn’t surprise me.’

‘Chester Mollesters?’ said Karen.

‘Means nothing to me,’ said Walter. ‘Dreadful expression, not the kind of words you would associate with adult murders.’

‘You said there were two things?’ said Mrs West.

Walter bobbed his head. ‘Why does the note refer to we? Surely there isn’t a team of the buggers.’

‘More likely the royal we,’ said Cresta. ‘Didn’t Mrs Thatcher once say: We have a grandson? I don’t believe there is more than one person involved for a minute. Split personality, yes, two different people, unlikely.’

‘Yet it’s as if the killer is part of a couple,’ said Karen.

‘In his or her mind they still are, except, as we have discussed before, I believe the partner is no longer there. Gone but not forgotten. The killer can’t get the memory of being part of a couple out of their mind.’

‘Do you think they will contact us again?’ asked Mrs West.

‘Yes,’ said Cresta.

‘I agree with that,’ said Walter.

‘So what are we doing now?’ asked Mrs West, just about keeping the natural tetchiness from her voice.

‘We’ll see if there is anything on the letter, the paper itself, maybe even in the ink, or the envelope, or the stamp, but I doubt there is,’ said Walter.

‘And the checking of cars?’

They all glanced at Karen.

‘We have so far checked the owners of and searched three hundred and eight cars that match the vague description. We haven’t found anything unusual except some weed in one, quite unrelated.’

‘I hate to say it,’ Mrs West said, ‘but we seem to be stalling. Are we waiting for another murder to kick-start things?’

‘I am going to stay late, go through everything again, right from the beginning,’ said Walter. ‘I think we are missing something.’

‘I’ll help you,’ said Karen.

Walter nodded his appreciation.

They checked out purple Cresta, hoping for inspiration.

She sensed her moment and threw out the first thought that came into her head. ‘The he-she thing will kill again,’ she said, ‘for sure.’

‘Great,’ muttered Mrs West. ‘That’s all I need.’ 

‘I’ll be late in the morning,’ said Walter. ‘Funeral, I’ll be at the cathedral, Right Reverend James Kingston.’

They all nodded and went back to work.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Samuel was getting dressed. He slipped on a fresh blue shirt and red tie. He glanced in the mirror. Cocked his head from side to side. His neat, short blond hair looked at its best. Man moisturiser, he couldn’t get enough of it, kept the crow’s feet at bay.

It surprised him more men didn’t swallow their pride and use it. He had a lunchtime meet and was looking forward to it. He slipped on the black casual shoes he’d bought with Desi in Manchester, and the gold tiepin Desi adored.

They made a point of going to Manchester once a month for a big spend up. Always came back with far more merchandise than they needed, but that was half the fun, the naughtiness of it. Samuel missed his trips to Cottonopolis with Desi. Afterwards he tried it once by himself, but it wasn’t the same. Never mind, there was nothing that could be done about that now.

Samuel had a date.

A blind date; and blind dates were always the most exciting. He’d found her on the Internet. You can buy anything you want on the Internet these days. It had usurped the Young Conservatives as the easiest place to locate a new squeeze. He had done it by the book.

They suggested, the website owners, that to begin with you met at lunchtime in a busy place. Safety in numbers. You can never be too careful. There are millions of weird people out there. Samuel wasn’t taking any chances.

They’d agreed to take lunch in the Hunting Rooms of the Royal Hotel in the Grosvenor precinct. They would meet outside the main entrance at one o’clock. He glanced at his watch. 12.15. Time to go.

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SALLY BEAUCHAMP WAS looking forward to the date, even if he was a mystery man. He assured her she would not be disappointed. She’d soon see. She had no idea what he looked like. He said he was too shy to upload his picture on the Internet. He would recognise her, because she would carry a bunch of daffodils. Make sure you do! Sally felt stupid, standing there with a bunch of yellow flowers. Flowers weren’t her thing, and the weird thing was, she had no way of recognising him. He’d insisted it be that way, and that made her nervous, and she’d almost called the whole idea off, but then again, she was up for adventure, always had been.

Sally came from a good family and had trained as an accountant, but the pay had been lousy and her progress slow, and one day when a client had been in town, he’d asked her to go for a drink after work. He was pretty old, at least forty-five, but as her mother would have said, well preserved, and his greying hair suited him, and she had nothing better to do, so she agreed.

He took her for a wonderful meal and with the coffee afterwards. He said he was going to make her a proposition. Yeah? She’d said, expecting some kind of pass to be made, and in a way it was, though not as she had imagined. I’ll give you £500 cash now to spend the night with me here at the hotel. He’d said it just like that, bold as brass, not even bothering to lower his voice.

Sally had taken a fair bit to drink, and the guy was quite handsome, more so through booze, and £500 was £500. She’d smiled and said, ‘OK,’ and that was that.

It was a good night; and a very profitable one, too. Michael had been a man of his word, and in the morning they parted, smiling at one another, a few aching bones on either side, the roll of used tenners sleeping in her handbag.

It was her ticket into prostitution.

She’d never planned it, she told herself; she had never even considered the idea, the career move, as she later came to refer to it. It had just happened as if by accident, and she had never regretted it.

That had been ten years before, and now in her mid-thirties, she was a woman of means and was looking to settle down. She was hoping to retire. She was on the lookout for a husband, maybe even start a family. It was not too late, and something about this guy intrigued her.

Tristram, his name was, and she had never known a Tristram before. It sounded kind of cute, sexy even, Trist...ram, and his brief biog said: Writer and Broadcaster seeks an attractive lady with a view to marriage and hopefully, children. Interests include foreign travel, lino cuttings, and fashion.

How could any woman not be intrigued by a man who listed his interests as lino cutting and fashion? Not to mention the Writer and Broadcaster bit that carried hints of glamour.

She’d donned the good navy blue suit; she could still squeeze into it despite the few extra pounds that had crept up on her almost unnoticed over the previous two years. Sally left her city centre loft apartment, buzzed open the garage door, jumped into her Audi sports, and drove the short distance into town. She had fallen into the habit of driving everywhere. She knew it was lazy, but what the hell. There were other, more important things to spend her precious energy on. 

She hoped Tristram’s lack of a picture wasn’t because he was so dog god awful, and an image of a short fat bald man who had trimmed his age by ten years filtered into her mind. You could never tell with men. So many of the bastards were out-and-out liars, and through her career, she felt as if she’d met every one of them. Just so long as she had never met Tristram before. Sally shivered at the thought.

Samuel had chosen her because she was short. He could look down on her, and he liked that, and more so, imagined that women did too, being looked down on by their partner, and also because she looked tarty. It was difficult to say why. Her clothes appeared expensive, and the locket around her neck had cost a pretty penny. Her straight auburn hair curled under her chin and had been expensively coiffured, and though she may have been a few pounds overweight, no one was perfect.

She said she was thirty, but he thought you could add five years to that. Human beings were born liars. In Samuel’s world, everyone lied; everyone except Desi, of course. Sally had written a biog that came over as if she were a founder member of the Women’s Institute, listing cake and jam making as some of her hobbies. Samuel doubted that. She looked far more of a good-time girl to him. He could see it in her eyes, and he doubted if she had ever baked a cake in her life.

He saw her standing there, looking nervous, smoking a cigarette, a bunch of damp daffs in her hand, and he walked away. He would make her wait. Come back in ten minutes, no, fifteen, see if she was still there.

She was still there, in her businesswoman’s dark suit, a little like the women in the Building Society opposite. She didn’t have an ID badge pinned to her lapel, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had. Come to think of it, he didn’t know what she did for a living. Maybe she had come straight from work, maybe she did work in a building society or bank. He didn’t care. He ambled along the busy corridor, passed her by; she barely offered him a second glance. Why not? Women often did. Did she think he was too good to be true? Or did she think he wasn’t coming?

He turned round and wandered back. She was still standing there, facing away from him and staring down at the daffodils, as if they had failed her.

‘Sally?’ he said, in his smoothest sexy voice.

The girl started and swivelled round. Almost fell over. Her face lit up at the sight of the neat blond gentleman before her. He was a little on the short side, but that didn’t matter, still taller than her. She liked his neatly trimmed hair; and the dark suit. She liked his kind face and trim figure; she liked his bright blue eyes, and the neat gold tiepin. Geez, she liked everything about him. To her, he appeared to be perfect husband material. She could imagine herself being married to this guy, having his children. It was quite perfect. This might be her lucky day.

‘Tristram?’ she said, smiling, all hint of discomfort gone.

Samuel nodded.

‘You’re late.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling at the slight admonishment. ‘I had to take my mother to the hospital.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

‘No, it was her monthly check-up, I forgot all about it.’

‘You are here now, that’s the main thing.’

He glanced down at the soppy daffies and slipped them from her hand. She seemed happy to be rid of them, and a moment later he gave them to an ancient woman who was shuffling by.

Samuel said, ‘Shall we go in?’

‘If you want to.’

‘Oh yeah, so long as you do.’

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

‘Me too. Come on,’ and he strode towards the door and held it open.

Good old-fashioned manners, and she liked that too.

Once seated at the corner table in the Hunting Rooms restaurant, they sat and studied the vast menu.

‘It’s very expensive,’ grinned Sally, all the while thinking, is this guy going to splash this much cash on me? Or did he expect her to go Dutch?

‘Not too expensive for us,’ said Samuel. ‘My invite, my treat.’

Sally smiled across the table. If she hadn’t been impressed before, she was now.

Samuel chose his meal, not the most expensive items on offer, but not far off, and then he said, ‘I always fancy champagne at lunchtimes, don’t you?’

Sally smiled at that, too. The date was getting better and better. If she drank too much, she could always leave the car and walk home, and then she said, ‘Yeah, course anything you say.’

They talked about this and that, and something and nothing, and then surprisingly, the plates were empty; the glasses were empty; the bottles were empty; and the meal was over.

She had never once asked him about his home or his work. There didn’t seem the time. The foreign waiter presented the bill. Sam took one look at it, brought a roll of cash from his top pocket, peeled off the necessary and a big tip, and the waiter grinned at the pair of them, grabbed the money and ran.

‘Are you sure I can’t contribute?’ she asked.

She’d come well equipped, plenty of cash in her bag for emergencies, he’d be surprised. One thing that Sally Beauchamp had in abundance was money. Her chosen career path had always paid well, and she had never once been forced to edge downmarket, or take a lower price. Discount was a word that didn’t exist in her language, premium prices, more like. Top of the range is top of the range, she told herself, and people would always pay through the nose for top product.

‘No,’ answered Tristram, ‘but thanks for offering. I appreciate it.’

He had a gentle smile, and a gentle way about him, almost slow, though that wasn’t the right word, relaxed, that was nearer the mark, and she felt relaxed in his company, and she’d felt that way long before she’d dispatched a quantity of vintage Champagne.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘Do you want to go out again?’

Too bloody right! She wanted to blurt, but remembered herself in time. ‘Maybe,’ she said, sucking her finger.

‘Tomorrow night?’

She pulled a face. ‘I could do that.’

She was playing hard to get. He didn’t care. He wanted to date her again; he wanted to see what she was made of; he wanted her back at his place; he wanted...

‘What time did you have in mind?’ she asked.

‘Eight o’clock OK?’

She bobbed her head and said yes.

‘We could go for a meal in some country pub.’

Sally nodded, feeling more secure after she’d secured a second date.

‘Where do you want to meet?’ he asked.

‘Outside the library, by the old picture house.’

‘OK,’ he said, ‘I can do that. I’ll see you there.’

Sam nodded and stood up, and she did too. She didn’t think she was incapable of driving, and the car wasn’t far away, and neither was her apartment, and she hated walking. 

‘Thanks for the meal, Tristram,’ she said, as they headed back toward the Audi.

He had insisted on escorting her, and she liked that too.

It was cool.

He was cool.

Sally’s mind lurched into overdrive.

She could see her entire future mapped out before her.

‘Don’t be late,’ she said, as they parted.

‘Don’t be cheeky,’ he muttered as he strode away, leaving her to watch him go.

He never once looked back.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Donald Shelbourne was putting his life back together. He had given up the tiny flat he shared with Armitage and they moved in with the widow, Mrs Everrit.

Six months later, they bought their council house under the government’s right to buy scheme, and from somewhere, raked together sufficient cash to add a small extension to the side of the house.

Armitage had his own bedroom again, and if all was not exactly right with the world, it was a heck of a lot better.

Donald was keen to make the arrangement more permanent and married the widow at the earliest opportunity. Smelly Everrit was now Armitage’s stepbrother. That didn’t bother Armitage much. He was too busy with his singing and dancing and flower arranging. Smelly played rugby and football and went fishing in the upper reaches of the River Dee. Came home stinking like a dead crab, even worse than usual, and their paths rarely crossed.

Armitage was ten and due to go to the big school in the city, probably Chester’s most famous school, King’s. They had accepted him under a longstanding scholarship arrangement. Kay, ever mindful of the importance of planning ahead, had put his name down two weeks after his birth, and though the parent’s situation had radically changed, Mrs Kay Shelbourne was long deceased; the school honoured the arrangement, and went further, by waiving the fees.

They might have thought it odd that the Curzon Park address had morphed into Kenneally Council Estate, but if they noticed, they said nothing, and didn’t change a thing.

They had been persuaded of the boy’s potential when glimpsing Armitage’s outstanding dance class reports; and on hearing him sing, as had been suggested they do, in the cathedral choir, where he was one of the four chosen soloists. The King’s School ran a choir of their own, and Armitage would be a useful addition. The boy was something special, everyone said so, and King’s was ready and willing to waive fees for exceptional boys whose parents could no longer foot the bill.

Army was impressed with the school and the tutors, who promised him individual after Hours attention, should he desire it. Armitage did desire, ever eager to learn, eager to improve the skills in his chosen paths.

He was looking forward to the day when he would first set foot in the establishment as a bona fide pupil. For Armitage, it couldn’t come soon enough.

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DURING THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS, before he was due to start at senior school, a top motor racing festival featured at Oulton Park. His father was going, taking the new wife; and Smelly too, and they tried hard to persuade Armitage to go along.

‘I’m not interested in cars, dad, you know that.’

‘I know, son, but I thought it would be nice to have a day out all together as a family.’

‘I’d be bored to tears, and anyway, I have promised to help Mrs Greenaway. She has four weddings to do; I can’t let her down now.’

‘Perhaps another time, eh?’

‘If you want to take me out, dad, you could take me to the Shrewsbury Flower Show.’

‘But we are not interested in flowers.’

‘And I am not interested in cars!’

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HIS FATHER, HIS NEW wife, and Smelly, piled into the ancient German hatchback that Donald had been servicing all week, together with a huge picnic, and they set off eastbound on the Nantwich road.

On a fast straight stretch, Donald put his foot down.

‘Doesn’t she go? Terrific engine,’ he exclaimed, happy that his work had paid such dividends.

‘Not so fast,’ said the widow, ‘you’re frightening me.’

‘Go on, Mister Shelbourne,’ yelled Smelly from the back seat. ‘Faster!’

It was all the encouragement Donald needed as he gently pressed the accelerator. The car surged forward. Began vibrating. Didn’t feel right at all.

The back axle cracked, nearside, close to the wheel.

The weight of the load and the velocity of the vehicle stressed it to breaking point. The rear nearside wheel fell alarmingly to the left and flattened.

‘What the?’ screamed Donald, glancing at the dash. 70mph.

‘Don!’ yelled the widow. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t like the look of this,’ snorted Smelly.

The car bucked and reared up and veered across the oncoming lane.

Up ahead, one of Midge Ridge’s maroon grain wagons, a brand new bulk tipper, was speeding westwards. It was late, hauling a delivery of heavy milling wheat, bound for Rank Hovis McDougall at Birkenhead. The driver was under pressure to deliver. The truck was speeding, and the two vehicles were closing at more than 150mph.

Donald wrestled with the non-responding steering wheel. The truck driver was distracted by his newly installed mobile phone trilling through the cabin. He knew it would be the same old demand: Where the hell are you?

The trucker cursed, caught between answering and paying attention to the road. When he glanced up and ahead, he saw the old red hatchback, out of control, crossing the centre line, coming toward him on the stretch where there was only one lane in each direction.

The trucker emergency braked.

In the hatchback Donald was braking too, not that it was having much effect. He grabbed the handbrake.

The car fishtailed and continued its course along the oncoming lane.

‘Donald!’ shrieked the widow, staring forward. ‘Donald! Donald! Look out!’

‘Bloody hell!’ yelled Smelly.

Donald didn’t say a word.

His eyes grew wide, his hands sweaty, as he gripped and twisted the wheel ever tighter.

Too late.

SMASH!

The car struck the centre of the maroon cab unit.

Glass shattered, hurling high-speed shards of death through the air.

The trucker swore and closed his eyes.

Pieces of hatchback flew in all directions.

Pieces of the passengers followed.

Pieces of the picnic rained down.

The truck tipped over.

Ran along the highway on its side, clipped two more oncoming cars. The noise was deafening. The trailer deposited twenty-five tonnes of best heavy English milling wheat along the highway, as it slithered along the tarmac, one long trail of high protein corn, spitting sparks as it went.

The hatchback fuel tank exploded.

The remains of the passengers began to fry.

A sweet aroma of roasting meat and wheat filled the sunny country air.

The truck rumbled to a standstill.

The trucker clambered out, his head bleeding, his hands shaking, his shirt torn, his voice silent, his phone obliterated. He staggered to the front of the cab. Remnants of the hatchback, and the passengers, and the picnic, were all ablaze, half jammed beneath and between the upturned front wheels. He turned round and vomited over the cheerful, dandelioned verge, then turned back toward the truck.

Fire was licking around the front tyres.

He remembered he’d taken on a full load of diesel.

It could go up any minute.

He ran for his life, forgetting his wounds, forgetting everything, away from the truck, along the highway, toward Chester.

The truck exploded.

Blew the trucker into the air.

He somersaulted three times before landing face down in some bordering gorse bushes, their long and spiteful needles happy to impale a stranger.

Somewhere close by, people were screaming.

People came running.

Cars arrived from nowhere.

Mobile phones burst into life.

Far too late for Donald and the widow, and Smelly Everrit.

The trucker groaned and rolled over and fell from the hedge and landed face down in a fresh cowpat.

Ten minutes later, sirens were heard, echoing through the green Cheshire countryside, and then the rumbling sounds of stressed diesel engines, huffing and puffing toward the carnage.

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IT WAS HALF-PAST THREE before the police arrived at the flower shop. They had been to the house and had found a neighbour who knew where the boy worked.

Mrs Greenaway and Army were jubilant. The shop had enjoyed its best ever day thanks to Mrs Greenaway’s reputation, and Armitage’s burgeoning skills. Some of the wedding bouquets that went out were better than Mrs Greenaway had ever seen. The till had been singing, and Army knew he would rack up a decent bonus. Mrs Greenaway was a sensible woman, and fair, too. She recognised the raw talent she had on her hands, and she wasn’t about to let him slip through her fingers by paying him buttons.

Armitage was the best paid boy in his school.

He was still keeping busy, crouched down amongst the remaining blooms.

They had finished all that day’s special orders; he was using the time to prepare an eye-catching new display that would sit in the centre of the small window. He saw the police officers enter the shop, but that wasn’t unusual. Officers were always dropping in on the traders in the town, ensuring that everything was just so.

Mrs Greenaway smiled a greeting, and they forced a smile back. Army thought nothing of it and carried on caressing the delphiniums. One officer whispered something in her ear. Army watched on. The cheerfulness on Mrs Greenaway’s face and the bonhomie in her body language vanished, replaced by one of shock.

She’d known Donald Shelbourne. True, she hadn’t got on with him as well as she had with Kay, but she’d known him for a dozen years at least.

How dreadful.

What could be the matter? thought Army. Perhaps one of the complicated wedding displays had collapsed.

She came over and said they had terrible news.

His father’s car had been involved in an accident on the way to Oulton Park. His father, his father’s second wife, and her son, had all been killed. She was most dreadfully sorry. There was nothing more she could say.

The police officers stood in the background, their hats in hand; their faces sorrowful. They were used to the drama of death, but this was the pits.

Perhaps it hadn’t sunk in.

Children do not think of death as adults do.

Perhaps it seemed to Armitage like playing dead in the playground. One minute you’re down and out, the next, you’re up and grinning and running again, smiling at the non-existent camera of life, as if nothing had happened.

Adults’ deaths are different.

One officer came over and said, ‘Now then young man, you are going to have to be brave. I’m afraid you won’t be able to go home tonight.’

Perhaps at that point Armitage experienced something of the difficulties he was about to face.

‘That’s all right,’ he said, trying to cope, ‘I shall live with Mrs Greenaway, won’t I?’ and he glanced across at her and smiled.

Mrs Greenaway didn’t smile.

‘Oh, but you can’t do that,’ she said. ‘I only have a small cottage, just the one bedroom, there isn’t the room, and anyway, I can’t possibly look after a small boy.’

It was Army’s turn to appear downcast.

What was happening to the world?

Why couldn’t Mrs Greenaway look after him?

What would become of him now?

Where would he sleep?

Where would he go?

Who would feed him and wash his clothes?

The second officer stepped forward, for he thought the boy was about to cry, and said, ‘Now, now, you’re not to worry about a thing, you hear me? Everything will be fine; we’ll look after you. You can be sure of that. You can come with us. We will take you into care.’ 

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was four days before Jago Cripps’s body was discovered. He had taken occasional unscheduled periods off work before; he had never been considered the reliable type, but after four days of absence, the credit card company grew angry and rang the emergency number they had on file, his mother’s.

She possessed a spare key for the flat, and with great trepidation she set out to visit. Horrific thoughts rushed through her head as she drove the twenty-minute journey across town. She slipped the key in the door, and let herself in, seeing the general untidiness and empty wine bottles, smelling the dreadful odour, crossing the flat to push open the main bedroom door, seeing the corpse of her only son, and all that dried blood, so much of it. A sight never to be forgotten.

Jago’s mother’s hands went to her mouth.

She bent over as if she were about to vomit.

Nothing came, other than a hideous wail from the far-flung reaches of her cold soul. It wasn’t like her Jago to commit suicide. Not at all. What had gone so horrifyingly wrong?

The wailing went on for some time.

Three people in the block of flats heard it.

No one came running.

It was ten minutes before she had gathered herself. She had retreated to the sitting room and had sat and cried, alone in the stink, and the silence.

Her eyes alighted on the landline phone. Who should she call first, her estranged husband, or the police?

The police. It had to be the police.

She grabbed the phone and poked in 999, dead slow because of shaking hands, and she didn’t want to miss a number.

Karen was the first in the Incident Room to connect things together. She called to Walter, ‘We may have another one, suspected suicide, maybe, maybe,’ and the look of doubt on her face alerted him.

‘Where?’

‘Harberry House, close to the new gym.’

‘Get a car, we’ll check it out.’

––––––––

TEN MINUTES IS ALL it took. Some paramedics were already there. One of them was standing in the bedroom doorway, peering down at the mess; the other was comforting the mother whose blood pressure had skyrocketed. Walter sent the medics on their way, explaining that as it was a crime scene, nothing was to be touched. The body was not going anywhere. They could take the mother away though, ostensibly for a check-up. Walter explained he would see her later, he would deal with everything, and she wasn’t to worry.

Some hope.

After they’d gone, Karen summoned reinforcements. SOCO, and the doctor, and sufficient manpower, person-power, to search the grounds and interview everyone who lived in, or had recently visited the block. Walter removed his raincoat and hung it in the hallway, slipped on rubber gloves. Karen was already gloved up.

‘This is the crime, the killing, that will nail this bastard,’ muttered Walter.

‘I bloody hope so.’

‘He’s crossed the Rubicon.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Pushing people under a train, into the canal, running them down, even gassing them in the car is one thing, but here, here we have actual physical assault. The bastard’s growing bolder. It’s the first time the killer has done the killing. One car, one train, one drowning, one gassed, but here the killer stared down at the breathing body of a live human being, looked directly into that crazy face, and attacked him with the single intention of ending his life. This is quite different. It’s a big step up.’

‘And it can’t be suicide?’

‘Not unless the victim went to the window and threw the knife outside afterwards, closed the window, and lay down to die.’

‘He could have hidden it,’ said Karen, still not ruling out suicide.

Rule nothing out until the evidence tells you to. She recalled her college CID training.

‘With what purpose in mind?’ asked Walter. ‘If you are going to kill yourself, why hide the bloody weapon? No, the killer brought the weapon with him, and took it away again; I’d stake my pension on that. How many flats are there in this block?’

‘Fifty, ten on each floor, five floors.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Rodney used to live here, top floor, number forty-one.’

Ah yes, thought Walter, the rakish Rodney, he’d almost forgotten about him.

‘He doesn’t live here now?’

‘Nope, been gone a year, when we split up.’

Walter pulled a face.

‘I want every occupier interviewed, and any recent visitors logged, I want detailed descriptions of any strangers that have been seen in or near these flats in the last week, and that includes delivery people and estate agents, I want to know who Jago Cripps has been fraternising with, been seen with, and I want to know every Goddamn thing about this unfortunate young man.’

‘Got you, Guv.’

‘Seal the block off, no one comes in or goes out.’

‘There’re loads of people living here.’

‘I know that! No one comes or goes until we have interviewed them.’

Karen nodded and said, ‘You still think it’s a man?’

‘Course it’s a man!’

‘Not a he-she thing?’

‘If I knew what a he-she thing was, I might be more amenable to the idea.’

There was a knock at the door, the doctor, with SOCO close behind and behind them, Walter’s eager foot soldiers, waiting for direction, awaiting their tasks.

‘Find out if the guy’s got a car. Find out where it is,’ rattled off Walter.

‘Got you, Guv,’ muttered Karen, gabbling into her mobile.

Moments later, she said, ‘It’s a blue Vauxhall, ten years old, I’ve sent someone down to check the garage.’

Walter was in the kitchen, looking in the cupboards, glancing at empty glasses, lined up, gleaming, silent witnesses. He could feel a presence there. Imagined wine bottles being opened, happy pouring into clean glasses, laughing and joking, and all the while one of the two had murder in mind.

‘Guv?’ Karen called.

Walter returned to the sitting room.

‘What?’

‘Found this, nice little box of sweeties.’

Walter peered inside.

‘Quite a collection, E’s, uppers, downers, and God knows what else.’

‘And this,’ she said, pointing to spent silver strips of Temazepam.

‘That’s a weird one. Quite a party.’

‘I wonder if the neighbours heard anything.’

‘Find out!’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘There must be fingerprints here, no one could be so careful as to wipe them all, unless...’

‘Unless what?’

‘They were wearing gloves.’

‘What? All the time, seems unlikely, and another thing, Guv, who’s more likely to wear gloves, a man or a woman, woman for sure, and a woman could get away with never taking them off, don’t think a man could.’

Maybe she had a point. 

A foot soldier came in and said, ‘The garage is empty, the car’s not in the car park either.’

‘Find the bloody car!’ said Walter.

‘Yes, Guv.’

They found it in six minutes flat, parked outside the swimming pool. Traced there by the four overstay parking tickets, flagged up and already logged into the system.

‘No one’s to touch the car, no one, you hear me? SOCO, that’s your next job.’

A couple of guys grunted and bobbed their heads; annoyed they would be working late again. The sooner they caught this bugger the better.

‘So how did the car get there?’ said Karen.

‘Let’s see,’ said Walter, attempting to imagine the sequence of events. ‘Jago here went out to meet someone, a friend maybe. They had a few drinks, a meal perhaps, then Jago drove them back here with promises of a nightcap, or drugs, or sex, or all three, only to be murdered by our killing fiend. The killer then jumped in the car and drove back to the swimming pool and dumped it. Maybe his car was already there. Doing a switch over. Find out if there is any CCTV by the pool and get someone on the CCTV coverage on the ring road. If the car went from here to there, there must be some coverage somewhere. With any luck, we might have a pretty pic of the perpetrator just waiting to be viewed. And another thing...’

‘Yes, Guv?’

‘As soon as we have a definite time of death, find out if Jago was seen about town that evening, dining, and if so, with whom?’

‘Yeah, Guv, I’m on to that,’ said Karen. ‘I’ve thought of something else too.’

‘Yeah, like what?’

‘Was the guy gay?’

Walter gave her a look.

‘How the hell would I know?’

‘Well, whether he was or not, he could use the Internet to line up dates. There might be records of who contacted him.’

‘You think he might use the Internet?’ said Walter, well out of his comfort zone.

‘Could be, looks the type. Everyone’s doing it these days.’

‘OK, good, find out, and get someone to check his computer over, it’s in the bedroom. Read his emails, check the sites he’s been visiting, there must be any number of leads and clues there, and while we are discussing technology, where the bloody hell is his mobile phone?’

‘There, Guv,’ shouted back one of the SOCO guys, pointing to the windowsill, and the modern expensive phone that looked as if it had been abandoned to fend for itself.

‘Good,’ said Walter. ‘If we can’t mine a bucket load of information from this scene, we don’t deserve to be paid. None of you, that is!’ he shouted, and everyone knew that Walter Darriteau was angry.

This time the killer had made mistakes; he must have made mistakes.

‘And another thing,’ shouted Walter.

‘Yes, Guv?’ she said, trying to listen, while doing three things at once.

‘Get his phone records. I want to know who he’s been ringing, and who’s been ringing him.’

‘Yes, Guv, I’m on it,’ and Karen grinned at him as the adrenalin pumped through her body, reminding her of why she enjoyed her job so much, and why she enjoyed working with him.

‘Has he got an answering machine?’

‘Can’t see one, Guv.’

‘Mmm, well we can’t have everything,’ mumbled Walter, thinking of other things. Was Jago gay? Homosexual? Were the preachers closet homosexuals? The lonely fisherman too? Could be. Maggie O’Brien certainly wasn’t. The preachers had kids, not that it meant anything. No, it didn’t stack up. There must be something more. Why and where had the killer found Jago Cripps, and more pertinently, why had he ended his life?

He wondered what Cresta Raddish would make of this mess. She had said he would kill again, except she was stuck in the he-she thing nonsense, but she’d been right about the killing.

There was one tiny consolation, too late for the unfortunate Jago. At least it hadn’t been a child. But what about next time? What then? They had to catch him before that. They had to. Walter didn’t want a child killing on his hands. He had to catch him before that, and at that moment he knew there would be another ill spelt letter winging its way through the mail.

The gloating season was about to re-open.

‘And another thing, Karen.’

‘Yes, Guv. What?’

‘Find out if he had money worries.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘And another thing...’

Karen shook her head and half smiled and shared a look with a dishy SOCO guy and said, ‘Yes, Guv?’

‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

Desiree Holloway came from an archetypal English middle class family, brought up in the green hills above Lancaster. Her father was a bank manager at the local branch of a Hong Kong-based bank.

It was a steady job that paid well, and Desiree and her elder sister Louise wanted for nothing.

Both of Desiree’s parents adored books, indeed dabbled with writing themselves, and both read stories to Desiree and Louise as soon as the infants were old enough to pay attention.

By the time they went to primary school, the sisters were competent readers and capable writers. It gave them a head start they would maintain all the way to university, and beyond. Louise became a maths teacher at the best school in Lancashire, while Desiree majored in the sciences in which she excelled.

When Desiree was fifteen, she discovered boys, and by the time she was sixteen, she’d discovered sex. When she was seventeen, she ran two passionate affairs, one with the nineteen-year-old head boy from the same high school, and the other with a twenty-three-year-old local builder who specialised in lowering the colours of the local fifth and sixth form young women.

Desiree wanted them for one thing.

Sex, and if they weren’t good at that, she’d cut them dead.

She was not a beautiful girl in the classical sense, but was comfortable with her striking looks. Her straight shiny black hair, parted in the centre, worn below her shoulders, and red tinged skin gave her an appearance of a native American. She rarely applied lipstick, she didn’t need to, indeed behind her back some of the more unkind pupils referred to her as Marcus’s squaw, Marcus being the blond tanned head boy who had a following all of his own.

Desiree didn’t waste a moment’s thought or sleep over spiteful gossip. There were far more important things to think about, and for so long as Marcus continued to cut the mustard, she would visit him after school at his house, where he would remove her school uniform before his parents came home.

In the previous two years she had discovered a great deal about herself, most of which had been enlightening, educational, and pleasurable, though one discovery troubled her, something that she could never discuss with anyone. 

When she was nineteen, she walked through the school gates for the last time, never to return, and headed for university where she could be free. Marcus offered to write. Desiree declined, and wished him well in the future, and boarded the train out of town, armed with her straight A’s in Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Mathematics, and headed south for Liverpool, and the famous university there that majored in the subjects that were Desiree’s true loves.

She excelled at university in all things.

Bedded several of her contemporaries, and two tutors for good measure, but never once let her affairs and outside interests, few though they were, interfere with her work. Desiree Holloway was a high flier. Everyone knew that, including an aging professor by the name of Jack Robertson. He had been recruited as a talent scout way back by some faceless London organisation.

Jack recommended her, gave her his full five star rating, something he’d only ever awarded twice before. Once, years ago to a future prime minister, and once, more recently, to a highly-strung young man who turned round and murdered his lover, Julian, in a dispute over a darts score in The Eagle & Child.

In the mundane London office that peered out through dusty windows over the grey Thames, Jack Robertson’s recommendations were always treated seriously. A missionary was dispatched to the far away territories of the Duke of Lancaster, one Mrs Bloemfontein, a woman who bred roses and black Labradors, whose family had returned a generation before from the South African town that was famous for roses, and happened to share the family name. Mrs Bloemfontein had devoured all the reports and couldn’t wait to interview Desiree Holloway.

Their meeting did not start well.

The young and headstrong Desiree couldn’t figure out what the freckled, greying woman wanted. The weird interloper seemed to talk in abstracts and vague possibilities. Desiree struggled to grasp the bigger picture. Yet by the time the second meeting came round, (Mrs Bloemfontein was staying three days in the Swindley Hotel, and longer if necessary), a clear promise had been made, or at least Desiree thought it clear, that all her tuition fees, and indeed more than that, additional extra curriculum courses at the best colleges, would all be covered. She would never have to pay a penny again, nor her father, not a bean.

Things were looking up.

When she told her father the news, he burst into tears.

‘Go for it, girl, grab it while you can!’

Desiree remained suspicious.

At the third meeting, the fog cleared.

Mrs Bloemfontein was offering Desiree a job once she had finished her studies on the banks of the murky Mersey. Perhaps Desiree had been a little slow on the uptake, for she had never conversed with anyone quite like Mrs Bloemfontein before, a woman who weighed up every syllable before it spilled from her thin lips.

The job would be well paid, guaranteed by contract for ten years, everything written and signed by both parties, one hundred percent legal and watertight. Desiree was encouraged to seek legal advice over the contract, should she have any doubts.

In addition, after her five year study programme was completed, she would be invited to attend exclusive and intensive courses at crammers yet to be agreed, and more than that, the hefty salary mentioned would be paid on the forthcoming January 1st, regardless.

How cool was that?

From paying fat tuition fees to landing a weighty salary in a matter of months. It seemed an amazing transformation. It seemed too good to be true. Things like this didn’t happen in the real world, in Desiree’s world. Nagging doubts continued to bounce into her head. Somehow she kept them at bay.

There were, however, several conditions.

First, she must not discuss the arrangement with her fellow students. It wouldn’t be fair or right if her colleagues discovered that while they were struggling to pay their way through uni, she was being paid well for the privilege. She was required to sign a secrecy agreement, but that seemed a small price to pay.

She would do it.

Second, it was vital she maintained her studies and followed clear research programmes, some suggested by Mrs Bloemfontein. That startled Desiree. She couldn’t agree to research into things that didn’t interest her. But when Mrs Bloemfontein produced a four-page document from her black briefcase that mirrored the fields that fascinated her, the objection was dropped.

Third, and last, Desiree would be required to travel overseas during the summer breaks to meet like-minded individuals researching into fields similar to her own.

‘Where would I be going?’ she asked.

‘Japan, Australia, Germany, the US, everything paid for, five-star hotels, first class air travel, and full expenses too. You’ll enjoy it.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘That seems fair enough.’

What was that phrase, beware of Greeks bearing gifts? She thought more than once. Mrs Bloemfontein was clearly not Greek.

Then Desiree asked, ‘But why me?’

Mrs Bloemfontein thought about that for a moment.

‘Because you come recommended. Your initial work is groundbreaking, your tutors are enraptured by your work, and frankly, my dear, we want to work with you, because we believe you are heading for higher things. You are quite brilliant. We need the very best young brains, the best talent available. You are a shooting star, my girl; we have such high hopes for you.’

Desiree’s face cracked into a wide smile. She shook her head as if bemused, a little like Mrs Bloemfontein’s favourite dog, as Desi’s long hair danced about her like a black halo, dark eyes shining, her large teeth highlighted by her glowing rouge skin.

No one had ever been as complimentary to her before. How could she not be impressed? And more to the point, how could she turn the woman down?

Mrs Bloemfontein set the contracts on the desk.

‘You have a month to read them and sign them and return them to me,’ she said, in the same businesslike tone, adding, ‘There’s my telephone number,’ slipping a plain white card bearing a name and two numbers into Desiree’s hand. ‘If you have any queries, contact me at any time of day or night. If you haven’t signed within the month, the offer’s lapsed.’

Desiree took the card and the contracts back to her room and read every word three times over. There was nothing there she couldn’t live with. Her mind was in a whirl. She had to keep reminding herself it had really happened.

Afterwards, she respected Mrs Bloemfontein’s wishes and didn’t tell a soul of the meetings, or of the employment contract offered, not even her sister.

Three days later, she signed it.

The following morning, she posted the papers to London.

As far as the Inland Revenue was concerned, Desiree Holloway was now officially employed.

On the following thirtieth of January the first instalment of her hefty salary dumped into her bank account. She had never possessed so much money before. She arranged a party, paying for everything herself, explaining that one of the premium bonds her grandmother had bought for her eighteenth birthday, had scrambled from the heap and paid a healthy dividend.

ERNIE was paying for the bash.

It was all a lie, but to Desiree, that made it more exciting. They all stood in her room together, drinks in hand, grinning at one another, toasting the Lytham St Annes’ premium bond computer.

Much later, the memorable night ended with Desiree shovelling the hangers-on out through the door, everyone except her latest pleasure provider, Toby Malone.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Walter glanced again at Jago Cripps’s post-mortem report. He stood up and said, ‘Right! Listen up, everyone. Pay attention!’

They were all there, just as Walter had ordered, crammed into the main Incident Room, Karen sitting opposite, Purple Pamela, as some of the younger ones referred to Cresta Raddish, sitting at the end, Mrs West, standing in the doorway to her office, embracing a fat manila file, as if she hadn’t seen it in months.

‘Jago Cripps was drugged to the eyeballs, a cocktail of drugs, but it was not the drugs that killed him. The killer slit his wrists with either a razor blade or a craft knife. My guess is it was a craft knife. Razor blades are too fiddly to handle, and you can easily cut yourself, so will all those on car searching duties be on the lookout for craft knives. How is that going, by the way?’

‘Up to last night we have searched four hundred and eighteen suspect vehicles,’ said Karen.

‘Without any result, I presume,’ said Walter.

Karen pursed her lips and shook her head.

Walter resumed, ‘Of the fifty flats in the block, two are empty and unlived in, the keys are with the agents, thirty-six are owner occupied, and twelve are rented. Of the forty-eight occupied flats, thirty house a single person, and the other eighteen, a couple. Of course, that is what we are told, it doesn’t mean there aren’t visitors and dossers and sharers, who may well be breaking lease clauses, living and kipping in the building unbeknown to the landlords, so bear that in mind. How many of these people have been interviewed?’

DC Gibbons, the young guy who was always larking around, answered. ‘All bar six, Guv.’

‘Why is that?’

Gibbons glanced at his papers. 

‘Three are out of the country on holiday, due back at the weekend, one is in hospital, appendicitis, one is working in Bristol, the local police haven’t found him yet, but they are still looking, and one is due to be seen this morning. He’s been in Glasgow, back at lunchtime.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘And how many of them saw the killer?’

There was a noticeable hush.

The he-she killer’s luck had remained with him, or her, or so it seemed.

‘None of them?’ said Walter.

‘None that we can find,’ said Gibbons.

Walter sighed and said, ‘CCTV? Over to you.’

Another guy started talking. ‘Yeah, we have CCTV of the Vauxhall on the ring road twice, once heading toward the flat,’ and he flashed up a blurred black and white blow up on the big screen. The only clear feature on the image was the superimposed time and date. 11.16pm. It showed the shadows of two figures sitting in the front seats of the car, but they were unrecognisable. ‘And here it is going back, 2.12am, one person in the car, large baseball cap, face unrecognisable, that’s the last sighting we have. That person sitting there, driving that car without a care in the world, is, or so it would seem, a mass murderer.’

‘Thank you,’ said Walter. ‘What about the CCTV at the swimming pool?’

‘Knocked out,’ said the same guy. ‘Some kids stoned it. Should be fixed some time next month, so the council bods say.’

Walter pulled a face and gave Mrs West a look, as if to say: This is what we have to cope with. Can’t you give them a nudge? She understood and smiled and nodded back.

Walter resumed. ‘We have not located the murder weapon which the killer may still possess, and nor have we found the car keys, which we must assume the killer has dumped, maybe in the river. How are enquiries progressing on the dating business? How did the killer get to know Jago?’

Karen answered. ‘So far, we have found his details on four dating sites, heterosexual, all of them. We have no evidence he was gay.’

‘Bet you enjoyed trawling through that lot,’ said Gibbons, grinning at his neighbours.

‘Shut up, Gibbons!’ yelled Karen. ‘We are trying to catch a serial killer here, you prat!’

‘Sorry, sarge,’ he said, and he caught the look of contempt on Walter’s face and that was not a good sign.

Walter sighed and said, ‘Carry on Karen.’

‘Two of the four sites are paid subscription, you have to log all your details, and two are free. The killer had open access to the free sites, anyone can. We’ve looked at Jago’s emails and found the initial contact messages. They were sent anonymously to Jago via a Polish run Internet café in the town. It’s a pay as you go place, no ID required; anyone can just go in and buy fifteen minutes. It’s a very busy place too, doing well, with transient people coming and going all the time, foreign workers, that kind of thing, many of whom can’t speak English. We have no way of checking which of their clients was our boy,’ and Karen made eye contact with Cresta and added, ‘or girl.’

Cresta nodded her appreciation.

‘So Jago’s straight, and was dating a woman on the night he died. You think?’ said Walter as he stared around the room.

‘It would seem that way,’ said Karen.

‘Maybe it’s a tranny,’ said Gibbons, unable to stop himself laughing.

A few of the others tittered too.

‘No!’ said Walter. ‘This time he may have a point. It could be a transvestite. Why not? Trannies get angry too. There’s nothing to say a killer couldn’t be a tranny. Where would you go in Chester to meet a tranny, I mean, is there such a thing as a tranny directory, Pink Pages maybe, help me here, I am out of my comfort zone.’

‘There are three clubs in town that are known tranny/fanny/manny places,’ said Gibbons, still grinning.

‘Trust you to know that,’ said Karen.

‘It would fit with our earlier idea of a late night worker,’ said Jenny Thompson, still a little backward at contributing to such packed meetings.

‘It would,’ agreed Walter. ‘Thanks, Jenny. Gibbons, tonight I want you to work the tranny joints, oh, and take someone with you. Have a few discreet words, if that’s possible. Spread the word that one of their pals could be a killer, see what comes back.’

‘I think he should dress the part,’ said Karen.

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Gibbons.

‘What do you think, Cresta? You’ve been quiet.’

‘Just waiting to be invited, Walter, that’s all. I don’t know why you are sidetracking on trannies. I have said all along that the killer could be a woman. What little we have to go on supports that fact. Jago met this girl, he seemed convinced she was a bona fide woman otherwise he’d have binned her from the off. This killer is comfortable in her own skin. She appears as a woman and probably is a woman. If any of you are thinking of finding an obvious man dressed as a woman, with ridiculous clothes, a deep voice, heavy make-up, and a bristly chin, think again. The killer is, to all intents and purposes, a woman. If you are looking for something different, you are looking in the wrong place.’

Walter nodded. He couldn’t argue with any of that, and said, ‘How did the checking of restaurants go on the night Jago died?’ He already knew the answer to this, asking for the benefit of everyone else.

Another guy joined in. ‘We have a probable sighting, Guv, a possible ID.’

‘We do?’ said Walter.

Everyone paid closer attention. This was the news they wanted to hear.

‘Where?’

The guy glanced down at his notes.

‘The Black Horse on the Frodsham road. A guy there, a Bulgarian waiter cum barman, he doesn’t speak much English; he said he thought he recognised Jago’s photo. He remembered him coming in for a meal; he didn’t leave a tip, but he remembers a little about the girl he was with. Said she was blonde, but that wasn’t what he remembered about her. It was her eyes; bright green they were, so he says. It was the only thing he remembered. He couldn’t make up an e-fit; it was only the eyes that made an impression.’

‘Bright green eyes, eh?’ said Walter. ‘How many people here have bright green eyes, not many, I’ll bet. I don’t.’ A couple of people giggled at that. ‘Go on, tell me. How many people are here right now? Maybe forty of us. How many of us can boast bright green eyes?’

‘Mine are greenish,’ said Gibbons.

Everyone peered at the bloke.

‘Yes, they are, but they are not what I would describe as bright green. It’s a rare thing. Don’t underestimate it. We can rule out maybe ninety percent of the population, perhaps more, on this alone. This could be important; the killer may have bright green eyes. Keep an eye out for that, if you pardon the pun. What’s next?’

‘Were there any fingerprints in the flat?’ asked Jenny.

‘Good question,’ said Karen. ‘The only prints we could find in the flat were Jago’s, and his mother’s, so what does that tell us?’

‘He was a sad and lonely bastard,’ quipped Gibbons.

‘It also tells us the killer wore gloves,’ said Cresta, ‘and women wear gloves much more than men, especially on a dinner date. I mean, have you ever seen a man wear gloves on a dinner date?’

No one had.

‘Anything on his phone and finance records?’ asked another WPC who had never spoken before.

‘The guy had minor money worries, but who doesn’t in twenty-first century Britain. He was keeping his head above water, just about,’ said Karen.

‘What about the drugs, where did they come from?’ asked the same girl, emboldened by her first question.

‘Now there we have a result,’ said Karen. ‘When we interviewed Jago’s work colleagues we found one guy who popped up as known to us. Small-time drug dealer. It didn’t take much pressure to get him to cough, threatened him with a murder trial if he didn’t. He supplied Jago with everything in his toy box, except the Temazepam.’

‘So where did he get that?’ asked Walter.

‘Not from his doctor,’ said Karen, ‘I checked.’

‘You can buy it on the internet,’ said Gibbons, ‘I checked.’

Gibbons and Karen shared a look, and a faint smile.

‘You can buy just about anything on the Internet,’ added Mrs West.

‘Too true.’ Walter nodded and sighed. The Internet had a lot to answer for. ‘Anything else?’

At that moment, no one had.

‘So to recap,’ he said. ‘The killer is around five feet five inches tall, of slim and sexy build, pert bum, sometimes blonde, definite green eyes, personable, attractive, pleasant, wears designer trainers, just the kind of person you would never believe to be a killer. They could be male or female or transvestite, I suspect we shall never know the answer to that until we take the he-she thing’s pants down and take a look.’

Mrs West and Cresta exchanged a look and a grimace. Walter was still talking. ‘They have a fondness for craft knives, wearing gloves, a lucky person in some respects, they have been lucky so far, probably drives a dark Japanese hatchback car, aged around thirty, maybe a bit more, so why the hell can’t we find him, she, or it?’

‘Because they are ordinary,’ said Mrs West.

‘Yes,’ agreed Cresta.

‘The typical girl next door,’ added Karen.

‘Or boy,’ said Walter. ‘Let us not forget that. And there is something else that we should not forget. This killer is killing people, five so far, killing at random, and we believe it is because they are alone, broken up, spurned, lost their partner, binned, single, finished with, call it what you will. This person lives alone, yes?’ and he glanced at Cresta.

‘Most likely,’ she said.

One day Purple Pamela will say something for definite, he thought, but didn’t say.

‘We keep looking, we keep checking cars, and bars, we check out the tranny clubs and all the nightclubs, too.’

‘What about casinos?’ suggested Jenny.

‘Yeah, them too, good point.’

‘Might I make a suggestion?’ said Cresta.

‘It’s what you are here for.’

‘I think you should do another televised press conference. Say you are closing in, say you have fresh evidence, say it is only a matter of time, ratchet up the pressure on the....’ and even she hesitated, fighting to find the right word.

‘Swine,’ suggested Jenny.

‘Twat!’ said Gibbons.

Karen said, ‘Oh please.’

‘Let’s stick with killer, eh,’ said Walter. ‘Or murderer.’

‘I agree with that,’ said Mrs West. ‘About doing another press conference. I’ll speak to the TV company.’

It wasn’t Walter’s favoured strategy, but he wasn’t going to disagree.

‘I want everyone on their toes, think green eyes, craft knife, attractive personality, blonde, Jap car, gloves, slim build, it’s all there for you. This person will be out and about tomorrow and one of you will walk right past him or her, so keep your eyes open and find the bugger!’

Walter sat down and grabbed the telephone, while Gibbons went about picking his partner for their night-time trawl through the lowlifes’ bars.

There was no shortage of volunteers.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Samuel was inside the library, glancing at the newspapers. He was surprised to find they had introduced evening openings, and that was good. It fitted with his plans.

From there he could see outside, the hustle bustle of people going on dates, couples arm in arm, singletons rushing to get there on time, people hurrying to meet their lovers outside the old cinema.

Sally Beauchamp had arrived five minutes before. She was standing outside with her back to him, glancing at her expensive watch. She was wearing a smart suit; skirt and jacket, maroon, and Sam correctly guessed it had cost a pretty penny. It might be a special purchase for the occasion. She was trying to impress. How sweet.

He turned back and read a long article on photography in one of the broadsheets, before making his way outside.

‘Hi, Sally,’ he said from behind her.

She swivelled round and half smiled. ‘Tristram! There you are, I thought you weren’t coming.’

‘Sorry, I had to pay a quick visit to the bathroom.’

‘Yeah?’ she said, as if she didn’t believe him. ‘You’re here now, that’s the important thing.’

She gave him the once over. He was as neat and tidy as she remembered. and she liked the dark, almost black suit he wore, and fresh red tie and white shirt.

‘Shall we go?’ he said, offering his arm.

She linked him without hesitation, and he led her along the high street to where he had parked his car. He produced the key, pointed and fired, and the doors unlocked with an audible click.

‘Like your car,’ she said. ‘The new Cayton Cerisa, isn’t it?’

‘Yep,’ he said, getting in.

She joined him, and in the next minute they were easing through the city streets, heading for the inner ring road.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘The Road to Jerusalem.’

‘Pardon.’

‘The Road to Jerusalem,’ he repeated. ‘It’s a pub on the Wrexham road.’

‘Don’t know it,’ she said.

‘They do lovely meals.’

Sally smiled, relaxed in his company.

They crossed the river and headed south, passing Iona House as they went. Sam glimpsed the lights on in three flats, only his remained in darkness. He didn’t say a thing.

The Road, as the regulars knew it, was busy, a testament to the new chef they’d attracted from one of Chester’s top hotels. Sam had booked a table in Tristram’s name, and they were soon settled and munching their way through the expanded menu.

‘Tell me about this writer and broadcaster thing?’ she said, barbecue chicken wing sauce smudging her bright red lipstick.

He told her all about the articles he wrote on photography for several newspapers that were syndicated across the south of England, all true, and the broadcasts he made for the BBC at Manchester on the Cheshire life of the socialites, all a complete fabrication.

She swallowed it whole, fascinated by his tittle-tattle stories of minor celebs he made up as he went along. A good bottle of wine enabled a relaxed girl to believe almost anything, and the dapper Tristram was so believable. Why should she doubt him?

The longer the meal progressed, the more convinced she became he was the right man for her. He was single and had no children, or so he said, while she had sufficient breeding time left. She could offer him something that no previous woman had managed, a family, as she alluded to, when painting a picture of a tribe of little Tristrams running about his feet. Hadn’t he ever yearned for such a thing? Of course he had, but not and never with Sally Beauchamp.

Afterwards he suggested she go back to his place for coffee. Sally was used to going back to men’s places afterwards; it was part of the arrangement, where the business would take place, cash transaction first, sweaty transaction second. She would return with Tristram, but no transactions would take place that night, for she didn’t want to appear easy. She knew that wasn’t the way to catch a good man, though she would drop a hint that so long as he continued to court her, for that is what she imagined he was doing, anything was possible, and soon, too.

Tristram paid the bill in cash, and a moment later, The Road to Jerusalem was retreating fast in the Cayton’s wing mirrors. 

By the time they arrived back at Iona House, the place was in darkness. He pulled on to the small drive that ran to the right of the house, around to the back where there was a small car park. The usual two cars were sleeping there; an old rusting Jaguar that when running you could hear a mile off, and the green Ford saloon that badly needed a wash. Mrs Hymas didn’t possess a car, hence the extra spare space. Tristram backed in, toward his rear door. Being a ground-floor apartment he boasted front and back entrances, and in the next minute they were out of the car, and he was opening the door and lighting up.

‘I like your flat,’ she said, taking a peek round.

Apartment, he preferred, though he didn’t say.

It was old-fashioned, his stuff, but clean and in good condition and she correctly guessed, expensive. A big modern TV, and on the coffee table was a fat green book entitled How to Cheat and Win at Roulette. It was the latest block-busting tome on the subject, quite revolutionary in its way, and essential reading for all croupiers. Sam had forgotten he’d left it there. Sally saw it and said, ‘You’re interested in gambling, are you?’ It was the first downer of the night. She’d met too many hopeless gamblers in her life and she didn’t rate them, and wouldn’t want one for a husband.

‘No, course not,’ he said, picking it up and taking it away. Out of sight, out of mind. ‘A friend of mine had this crazy idea of driving down to Monaco,’ said Tristram, thinking on his feet, ‘and trying to beat the casino. I told him it was a rubbish idea and he could go by himself. We never went. I’ll give him the book back tomorrow.’

‘Gambling’s for mugs.’

‘I know. I work hard enough for my money; I’m not about to throw it away. Coffee?’

‘Yeah, sure. Thanks, Tristram.’

It seemed to placate her and after glancing at a couple of his wall mounted pictures, black and white photographs, she sat on the leather chesterfield and crossed her legs and waited for him to join her. He wasn’t long, carefully setting the percolated coffee on the table. You can tell a lot about a man from his coffee, she thought, and it was only as she imagined. Tristram Fellows was clearly a man of high standards, and she liked that too.

He sat beside her and she linked his arm and pulled herself closer. The evening was going well, she thought, and she pondered whether to invite him to her flat for dinner at the weekend. She was an excellent cook, or so she told herself, and it would be a big step forward, to have him there, with her.

‘Tell me about your mum and dad,’ she said, eager to know everything about him. So Tristram rambled on about his parents and his childhood, some of which was true and some not. It made her laugh though, the stories he could tell, relaxed too, and in the next instant she was staring into his mesmeric blue eyes.

He knew it was the moment.

She expected him to kiss her, and he didn’t want to introduce any moment that might sour things, might set her on edge, might have her grab her bag and demand to be taken home. He didn’t want to kiss her, he didn’t want to kiss anyone, other than Desi, though that was impossible, so he steeled himself, tried not to show it on his face, closed his eyes, thought of absent friends, and closed on her. She shut her eyes too, and they kissed; her freshly applied lipstick now on his lips, she noticed that as they came apart, and she liked that too, as if it were a sign of ownership.

Once apart he said, ‘Look at me, forgetting myself, I didn’t think to ask, would you like a nightcap, malt whisky, brandy, coffee liqueur?’

The thing she most would have liked was another lingering kiss, better still, a thorough necking session stretched out on the chesterfield. But the night was young, and she was in no hurry to head home, despite her wish not to appear cheap. He could kiss her as often as he liked. She wished he would. He was a good kisser, but he was offering her alcohol, and as he brought the thought to mind, the idea had some merit.

‘I’d love a brandy,’ she said.

Tristram smiled and stood. ‘Anything in it?’

‘Nope,’ she grinned, ‘just as it comes.’

He smiled and bobbed his head and headed for the kitchen. He took out a brandy glass, ensured it was clean, opened the bottle, his earlier words coming back to him. Anything in it? 

Nope, she’d said.

Tough luck, darling.

In went a good slug of flunitrazepam.

Large measure of best brandy on the top.

A thorough swill around, no trace of smell, no trace of anything, just perfect. Back to the sitting room. She heard him coming and turned and glanced up toward the door, smiled at him. Geez, he was cute. He handed her the drink.

‘Aren’t you having one?’

‘No, better not, driving and all that.’

Ah, that was sweet too, she thought. She linked his arm and sipped the drink. She wouldn’t confess it to a soul, but it had been the best day in her life in ages. It was the first time she had been out with a man in yonks who hadn’t paid for her company, and stuff, and it made a big difference. She didn’t want the money; she wanted to be wanted for herself. Sally was relaxed in his company, relaxed in his flat, relaxed in his arms. He was such a gentleman, was Tristram Fellows. He didn’t push it, and she liked that. She couldn’t wait to tell her only friend Sonia all about him.

It had been a hectic couple of days. Perhaps dating without payment was more tiring than she remembered. It was certainly more enjoyable, and she yawned.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, ‘I don’t know where that came from.’

Tristram yawned too. He had such lovely teeth.

‘You wouldn’t mind,’ she said, ‘if I had a little doze.’

‘Course not,’ soothed Tristram, ‘be my guest, you sleep for as long as you want.’

Then she was gone, out of it, and yet her eyes hadn’t closed.

Sam smiled to himself. Part one accomplished. The stupid bitch had never once suspected a thing. How gullible some women were. Part two was coming soon, and he laughed and retreated to the kitchen, opened the cupboard where he kept the hardware items, light bulbs, matches, lavvy rolls, fly killer, and brown tape. He grabbed a fresh roll of tape, slipped on the yellow rubber gloves and returned to the sitting room.

She hadn’t moved a muscle. Her breathing was long and slow, but her eyes were wide open. He drew his palms across her face, no blinking, no recognition, nothing. His neat nails found the beginning of the tape and pulled the end free. It shrieked as it rolled out. He stuck it to her cheek, rolled it across her face, across her smudged mouth, around the back of her head, imprisoning her hair, covering her ears, across the face again, slightly higher, upper lips, around again, nose, around again, more firmly across the nose. Sally jerked, fighting for air, round again, covered the eyes that still stared at Tristram, and he wondered if those drugged eyes could see. He thought no, not that it mattered. Could Sally Beauchamp see Tristram Fellows, as she believed him to be, as he was murdering her in his front room?

He’d never know. He didn’t care.

It wasn’t Sally Beauchamp he was murdering, she had stumbled into his path, it could have been anyone, he didn’t have any beef with her. In another life he might have quite liked her, but he would not lose any sleep over that.

He had set out on a deliberate course, coldly chosen it, and he would not stop now, round and round and round the tape went, covering her hair covering the neck, the jerking had long since ceased, until her face resembled a brown mummy, the entire head covered like a model in some hat shop window. It was strangely attractive, like a piece of modern art, smooth and clean and shiny. Perhaps he could display it at the library, enter it into some wacky art exhibition, and he laughed again at his own ridiculous thinking, tugging the tape round one last time. The entire roll was spent. Job done.

100 Ways to Kill People.

Cover their heads in brown tape.

Easy peasy. Anyone could do it.

That person who wrote the original article should do a follow up.

100 Ways to Dispose of the Body.

That was the hardest part, but Sam had no worries about that. He’d already planned it. He already knew. Sam would wait until the small hours when the world was fast asleep, and then he would act. Before that, he took the brandy glass through to the kitchen and washed it. Dried it and put it away.

Returned to the sitting room.

Brownhead was sleeping, dead.

Its handbag was on the floor. Sam grabbed and opened it.

In the back compartment he found condoms, a huge roll of them; fifty, God, the girl had been expecting an exciting night.

A fat, well thumbed black diary. Sam flipped it open.

It was full of men’s names and telephone numbers.

Ronnie (Ginger bastard) Phelps and then a number.

Richard (Bad breath) Bettinson.

Harry (Big tipper) Wilson.

Donald (Shortarse) Smith.

Peter (Spotty) Wignall.

Jerry (Frightening) Herridge, and so it went on.

Alan (Donkey) Harris.

Grahame (Creepy) Willis.

Dozens and dozens of them.

It seemed she remembered them more through their nicknames than their actual names, or the names they had fed her.

Sam wondered what she might write about him.

Tristram (Top man) Fellows perhaps, or was he being vain?

Tristram (Tight tape) Fellows more like, and he laughed aloud.

In the date sections were assignations.

Saturday. Ginger bastard. Royal, Bristol.

Monday. Bad Breath. Argosy, Bournemouth.

Wednesday. Starey Eyes. Regency, Southampton.

He had been right all along. She was a tart, touring the country, servicing Ginger bastard, Bad Breath, Big tipper, Shortarse, Spotty, Frightening, Starey Eyes, and the rest, and to think, I kissed that.

Sam felt sick, went to the bathroom, washed his face, cleaned his teeth, applied fresh deodorant, felt a hell of a lot better. Returned to the sitting room. Brownhead unmoved. It was time to begin.

He went into the bedroom and grabbed the wheeled suitcase he had bought in a Chester department store, especially for the purpose. Pushed it through to the sitting room. It was huge, or at least he thought so, but when he parked it in front of Brownhead, he was having second thoughts.

He laid it flat and opened it. Grabbed Brownhead and presented it to the case. No way, not a chance.

There must be a way. Folded up the knees. Brought the head down, squeezed and pushed and squeezed and pushed and re-presented to the case. It might just work. A couple of cuffing blows to the shoulders like spanking steaks before they are grilled. It helped a little. More waggling, and pushing, hitting, standing on, and prodding and pulling, and then it was in. Still standing proud of the edges, but in.

Sam forced the top closed.

A hand fell out.

‘Shit!’ he yelled; then reprimanded himself.

Didn’t want to wake the co-sharers of Iona House. Must keep quiet.

Closed the lid, forced it down; sat on it, the fastener almost caught. More effort, more pressure. Down, you bugger! There! Done! Shut it at last. Flicked the right fastener. It closed with a satisfying click. Weight on the left side. Click!

Job done.

Brownhead had disappeared.

The only thing that remained was to dispose of the case, and Sam knew how to do that.

He grabbed the handle and wheeled it toward the back door. It ran like a dream. You would never have guessed there was a nine stone woman inside, or whatever it was.

Parked it there, ready. He would leave in an hour.

Returned to the sitting room. Picked up the handbag. Emptied the contents on the low table. Cosmetics, ladies tools, eyebrow plucker, nail file, nail clippers, two more that he didn’t recognise; women’s toiletry things, only to be expected, and a bulging purse.

He flipped it open and emptied the cash on the table.

A huge roll of notes.

Sam was used to seeing banknotes; working in the casino, someone would always have a fat wad, and the desire to show it off to the world, every night, though more often on the way in than the way out.

This roll could compete.

One thousand seven hundred pounds. Geez! He was in the wrong business. Maybe she should have paid for the meal after all; maybe she should have paid him for his company.

He held the open bag to the table and swept everything inside, purse, change, condoms, the whole bloody lot. Clicked it shut. Went to the wood-burning stove. Flipped it open, threw it inside. Real leather it was, expensive too, a pity really, and the cash as well, but he couldn’t take any chances. It had to be destroyed. It was all going, burning cheerfully, brightening up the apartment, not entirely useless; spreading its warmth into the room.

Sam went to the kitchen. Made a corned beef sandwich, dash of English mustard. Ate it in a hurry. Pretty good. He returned to the back door. Opened up, went outside. Glanced up at the Victorian façade. No lights on. The building fast asleep. Went inside, through to the front door, crept outside, on to the small spongy lawn. Glanced up again. No lights, no sleepless nights, everyone asleep. He heard a single car chugging along the road, diesel engine, old model, rattly exhaust. Ducked into the porch. It was a taxi, maybe the last fare of the night, the driver hurrying home to a cold bed. Then it was gone and silence returned.

Sam went back inside and locked the front door. Through the house to the back. Went outside again. Opened up the hatchback that he’d earlier reversed as close as he could to the door.

Manoeuvred the case over the threshold, it bounced down on to the gravel path. Shush! Damnation, it was heavy. Presented it to the car’s backside. He knew it would go in; he’d brought it home that way. It must go in. Tried to lift it. Couldn’t get the leverage. It wouldn’t budge. Changed his position. Tried again, all his strength, up it came and over the rim, and clunked into the back. Wouldn’t like to do that again. Never will, that’s the main thing.

Closed the hatch, almost silently. It was one reason he liked the Cayton Cerisa. All the doors closed with the softest of clunks.

Went back inside. The fire was still burning. He glimpsed curling twenty-pound notes, blackening, catching fire, turning to ash, worthless things, worthless trash.

Glanced round the sitting room.

She had never been there. No trace.

Maybe the odd fingerprint, but he would go to work on that in the morning. He’d have to make an early start because he was back at work tomorrow evening.

One last look round.

For now, it would do.

Turned off the lights. Went out the back. Locked the door and crept into the car. Started the engine. It was real quiet, yet sounded like thunder. Pulled the car round the side of the house and out on to the road, headed for Queensferry.

There was almost no traffic about, the occasional police car, he noticed that. He stayed inside the speed limits, not too slow to attract attention, not too fast to warrant a speeding ticket. He was the model citizen. Always had been. Always will be. It wasn’t his fault everything had gone so terrifyingly wrong. It could have happened to anyone.

He crossed the River Dee, slinking into Wales.

Away to the left he glimpsed the New Cut shining under the sodium light, the black water far below, drifts of mist forming, the same stretch where William Camber, the fisherman, had met his tragic accident.

Sam eased off the dual carriageway at the first exit and headed left up the hill toward Hawarden village. Then left and straight right, before turning on to the A5104, and the quiet rural road signposted for Llandegla and Corwen.

The road was rising, the cottages thinning out, and soon he was travelling through unfenced moorland. It was misty, and the wipers were working overtime.

He’d been this way many times before, mostly long ago, though once recently, to check out it was still as he remembered. He passed the old pub, the last watering hole before Corwen. It was blacked out, the owners and guests hunkering down after a busy night.

The mist worsened.

The headlights on full beam.

The Cayton Cerisa motored happily on.

No traffic at all, nothing coming, nothing behind.

He passed an abandoned white delivery van, dumped at the roadside, tyres missing, burned out at the front. It hadn’t been there last week.

Up ahead there was something else on the road.

Sam slowed, and the big case in the boot slithered toward him.

It was a ewe, standing in the centre of the road, quite unperturbed, a nervous lamb to either side. Sam edged forward. The ewe didn’t move a muscle. Sam cursed aloud. There was no way past. Edged forward again. The ewe dug in its heels, imagining it was protecting its young.

‘Ba-aaa,’ it cried, as if she could stare him down.

He jumped from the car and crept to one side of the stubborn animal and slapped its rump.

‘Ba-aaa, ba-aaa,’ it complained, and ambled away into the heather, the lambs giving him one final worried look, before disappearing after their mother into the darkness.

Back in the car, not far to go.

He was almost at the turning.

Then he saw it, the short gravel track to the right. He turned off the road and bounced along the track, the full beams dancing from jagged grey rocks and heather and scrub, making weird shapes and patterns on the mottled stone, and then he saw the signs.

Llandegla Quarry. Disused. Dangerous, Keep Out. Keep Away. Steep Drop.

He pulled the car to a stop and got out. Looked around. Silence, but for the wind. No birdcall, no traffic, no aeroplanes in the sky, nothing. He had the world to himself. He grabbed the torch and went to the back and opened up. Set the torch on the roof and heaved out the case.

It hadn’t got any lighter.

Collected the torch and pulled the trunk toward the quarry. The plastic wheels were amazing. Worked incredibly well, even on rough ground. Then he was standing by the last of the Danger signs. Peering over the edge. Shining the torch down. Maybe a hundred feet. The beam bounced back from the black water below. The winter and spring rains had gathered there. In high summer it was bone dry. You could walk on the bed. He had done that many times when he used to visit with the unofficial camera club, taking more meaningful black and white arty-farty shots. They thought they were so clever. He still had some on his bedroom wall, striking they were too, and that reminded him, he must get rid of those, into the fires. A pity, but there we are.

He glanced back at the case. Thought of Brownhead inside. Brownhead would not be missed, not by him.

Wheeled it to the edge.

Pushed it over.

It fell in silence, cartwheeling in the air, the torch beam following it all the way down.

SPLASH!

Reached its destination.

The water was shallow. The case was vertical, jammed in the thin layer of mud beneath, perhaps two-thirds standing proud of the water, like the first standing stone in some elaborate plan.

He chuckled and turned about and hurried back and jumped into the car. Reversed back to the main road, the car making that brutal reversing noise. Why do cars do that?

Headed back toward Chester.

Job done.

Number six.

100 Ways to Dispose of the Body.

Case them and hurl them into a disused quarry.

Anyone could do it. 

He buzzed down the windows to keep awake, and headed home to bed and brandy, and a sound night’s sleep.

It had been fun.

He had enjoyed it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Following his father’s death, they took Armitage to the police station to await collection. It had gone five o’clock before the on-call social worker arrived. He was a tall slim guy who said little, as he signed the papers, and led Army away to the car.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Army.

‘Saint Edmond’s, on the Wirral.’

That didn’t mean anything to the boy.

‘What’s Saint Edmond’s?’

‘You’ll see.’

––––––––

SAINT EDMOND’S WAS a vast Victorian orphanage that stood in its own grounds. It had altered little in the hundred and forty years since the day it opened. On the first day it intimidated the boys, and was still doing that when Army jumped from the car and stared up at the vast building. To anyone it was overwhelming; to a little boy, it was the stuff of nightmares.

The social worker met the bursar who introduced them to an under manager named Hancock. He led them away through a maze of corridors, to a small musty office where the handover documentation would be checked and signed. Everything in order, done by the book. Everything at Saint Edmond’s was done by the book, and Armitage Shelbourne’s welfare belonged to Saint Edmond’s Orphanage.

‘You’re in luck, you haven’t missed tea,’ said Hancock.

‘I won’t be staying here long, will I?’

‘Well, Master Shelbourne, we will have to see about that. It depends on whether anyone takes a shine to you, you know, likes the look of your face. Foster parents will always take the children they like the look of the most, the ones who laugh and smile. You take a tip from me, young man, if you want to find a suitable home, when the foster parents come calling looking at children, smile, be happy. No one wants a misery guts.’

Armitage didn’t feel like smiling at all.

He thought he might never smile again.

At that moment, a scruffy boy came running down the corridor.

‘Ah, Swallow, just the tyke I was looking for, and haven’t you learnt yet not to run in the corridor? How many times have I told you about that?’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Never mind about that now. This is Shelbourne. Take him with you to tea, make sure there is an extra place laid. Look after him, boy.’

Swallow glanced at the skinny new arrival. He was about a year younger than himself. He nodded at the kid and said, ‘Come on, mate,’ and when they were out of earshot he said, ‘What’s your name.’

‘Armitage.’

‘No, I mean your first name.’

‘That is my first name.’

The boy pulled a face and said, ‘Bit of a wanker’s name, ain’t it?’

‘Is it? They call me Army for short.’

‘Yeah, Army,’ he said. ‘That’s much better. We’ll call you Army. Mine’s Dennis. Come on, we’d better hurry or we’ll miss tea.’

Army followed Dennis through the dim corridors. Dennis was still talking, babbling away about rules and regulations, and he spoke real fast, imparting advice that was meaningless to Armitage.

‘The one you need to watch out for is Mister Gilligan, he’s a bastard.’

‘Will you point him out to me?’

‘I won’t need to; you’ll know him when you see him.’

They came to a pair of half glazed doors, and the faintest whiff of well-boiled cabbage. Through the glass they could see hundreds of boys, all ages, standing at their tables, waiting for permission to sit.

‘Follow me,’ said Dennis, and he pushed through the free-swinging doors. scooted around to the right, across to the far side of the hall, to a long table where two empty places remained at the bottom end.

‘Stand there,’ he said, ‘opposite me, and wait.’

Army stood at the table and waited. He was different to all the others, wearing his own clothes. Everyone else was decked out in navy trousers and thick grey shirts. They all craned their necks to inspect the skinny new kid. Nothing special about him. Looked a bit of a weed to most eyes, an easy touch, maybe, easy prey. Two of the older ones turned back to the front and grinned at one another. The kid would have to grow up fast or they would eat him alive.

Three adults entered the hall, pompous men, noses in the air, one wearing a black gown, the flankers in mismatched jackets with leather patches over the elbows, and cord trousers. They stepped on to the raised platform at the end of the hall, ambled to their table, chatting amongst themselves, not in any hurry, as if they hadn’t noticed six hundred ravenous boys waiting on their every word. The men stood behind their chairs and stared out over the gathered throng.

‘Quiet!’ yelled the fatter of the jacketed ones.

The gowned one raised his head and said grace, speaking in a rush. It almost came out as one long word.

‘Forwhatweareabouttoreceivemaythelordmakeustrulythankful, Amen!’

‘Amen!’ bellowed the boys as one, pulling out the long benches and sitting down to thunderous noise.

Tea was about to begin.

Brown Windsor soup.

Thick, gooey, and vaguely warm, though it didn’t taste of much. Some kids said it was the leftovers of yesterday’s gravy, and they were probably right.

‘Who’s your new mate,’ said one of the bigger boys to Dennis.

‘His name’s Army.’

‘Oooh Army! Get him. Hard are ya? You and whose army?’ said the other one opposite.

‘What happened to your parents, eh? Got tired of you? Chucked you out? Couldn’t wait to see the back of you?’

‘They’re dead,’ said Army.

‘So are mine, so what?’ said the big boy. ‘Expect us to feel sorry for you?’

Army pulled a face but said nothing.

‘I never had none,’ said Dennis. ‘You’re better off without them.’

‘You must have had parents, dickhead!’ said the big one.

‘Yeah, they took one look at him and threw up. Chucked him in the canal as a baby, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Dennis flushed; then pulled himself together.

‘Shut your fat face, Robinson. At least I’m not in here ’cos my parents can’t stand the bloody sight of me.’

That shut the big one up, for a while.

The soup had vanished, not a drop remained. A boy came running down the line like a sprinter grabbing the baton for the relay race, collected all the soup plates, and disappeared.

Another kid rolled up a double-decker steel trolley, began unloading dinner plates, and set a meal down before each boy. Dennis and Army were at the end of the table, the bottom of the heap. They received their food last, and it would be the smallest and least appetising portions.

Army peered down at it. One thin slice of curling cheese. One browned pickled onion. One slice of margarined bread. One red apple. One tiny scone containing two dried sultanas, and all scattered on a warm heatproof olive green plate.

Army glanced across at Dennis.

His head was down, and he was eating fast like a dog. Occasionally he glanced up, as if imagining one of the bigger beasts might steal his tea. He didn’t say a word; none of them did, not while they were eating. Army ate his meal in silence. Left the pickled onion. He noticed he wasn’t the only one to do that.

Dennis had already finished.

‘Don’t you want that?’ he said, staring across the table, glaring at the unwanted food.

‘No,’ said Army. ‘I don’t.’

Dennis’s hand shot across the table and scooped up the foul smelling article. Threw it in his mouth like a gobstopper. Chewed it hard through an open mouth. Grinned and breathed across the table. The stench was vile. Army turned to his right and glanced up the table. He counted twenty boys on either side. Forty identical empty olive green plates. Not a morsel remained. Even the ripe onions had gone. It had taken less than ten minutes.

‘Is that it?’ said Army.

‘Yep,’ said Dennis, ‘Nothing else till breakfast, ’cept the cocoa of course, but don’t drink that if you wet the bed. Gilligan goes crazy if you wet the bed.’

‘Are you a bed wetter?’ scowled Robinson, eager to get involved again. ‘You look like a bed wetter to me.’

‘No,’ said Army, ‘are you?’

Robinson flushed.

Dennis giggled behind his hand.

Mr Hancock appeared at the end of the table, his hands in the pockets of his brown corduroy trousers. He smelt of stale adult, swayed back and forth a couple of times and said, ‘Ah, there you are, Shelbourne.’

‘Ooh, Shelbourne, is it?’ said Robinson. ‘Born in a shell, were we? Come to think of it you look like a crab.’

Several of the others laughed. Even Mr Hancock smirked.

Dennis didn’t laugh.

Then Mr Hancock said, ‘All right, all right, Robinson, that’s enough of the jocularity. Have you finished your tea?’

The boys glanced at their clean plates.

‘Looks that way,’ said Robinson.

Two others tittered.

‘Yes, well, if you have, Shelbourne, follow me, I need to talk to you about one or two things.’

Army slipped from the end of the bench and stood up and made to follow Mr Hancock, then glanced back at the table. The boy opposite Robinson was staring at him, grinning stupidly, making gestures with his fingers, one hand, finger and thumb making a circle, the other hand, index finger, pushed in out of the circle, time and again. Army had no idea what that meant.

He didn’t want to know either.

––––––––

THEY SKIPPED UP THE stone stairs to the third floor to Mr Hancock’s office, a small room with a tiny window that looked out over the back gardens, with a fine view of the bins and the waste food receptacles. The window was open, introducing an aroma of stale bin. Hancock didn’t appear to notice.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

Army sat in the plain dining chair set before the desk.

‘You won’t be going to King’s, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Oh, but...’

‘No buts, Armitage. We can’t lay on transport for one boy to travel to Chester and back every day.’

Army linked his fingers in front of him and stared down at his hands.

‘I will arrange for you to go to the local comprehensive. You’ll be with all the others. It’s for the best.’

Army said nothing.

‘And erm, I have another disappointment for you, the dancing classes will have to be cancelled.’

Army said nothing. Pulled his fingers tighter and tighter, as if trying to pull them from their sockets.

‘Don’t do that, boy!’

Army stopped.

Said nothing.

Pouted and looked up and across the desk.

‘I have one bit of good news for you,’ said Hancock. ‘I understand you are a bit of a singer?’

Army said nothing and nodded.

‘Good, well, I’ve arranged for you to join the choir at the local parish church. You’ll find out all about that come Sunday.’

Army still said nothing, just nodded again.

‘Any questions?’

Army shook his head.

‘Good, that’s the spirit. Well, run along and find Swallow; he’ll show you where you sleep.’

Army said nothing.

Stood up and ran outside.

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THE DORMITORY HOUSED eighty boys; it was one section of the juniors, the normals, as they were known. The non-normals slept on the floor upstairs, which was a nuisance because when they were at their most agitated at full moon, they would leap around and scream and keep the normals awake.

The dorm was a long narrow room with forty beds on either side, the beds having large numbers affixed to the top of the metal headboard, in case anyone forgot who they were, and where they slept. The numbers were more necessary upstairs. Dennis was docked in eighteen, Army given the only vacant berth, twenty, halfway along the line.

At half-past eight they were herded into a line of open communal showers. It was a tough moment for Army. He had never been naked before in company, and the others guessed it, and teased him. What’s that pimple between yer legs, Barmy? All the new jerks were the same on their first strip. Walking through the dorm and across the corridor and into the showers, he had no idea where to put his hands.

‘Bed wetter,’ whispered Robinson in his ear as they left the dorm.

‘Ignore him,’ said Dennis. ‘He’s an idiot.’

Robinson glared at Dennis and Army.

Army said nothing.

Tried to ignore him. Tried to ignore everything.

It was like being in hell.

The dorm lights were switched off at half-past nine. The room was in darkness, except for a moon-like nightlight set high on the beams above Army’s bed. Every half an hour Hancock would come in and wander down the dorm, slow noisy footsteps on the polished wooden floor, ensuring that every boy was in their own bed; no talking or larking around. No one dared.

Army wiggled and wriggled down the bed, pulled the covers over his head, locking himself inside, away from the weird world in which he found himself, and cried.

Not blaring wails, nor gasping for breath jerky sobs, just a still, silent cry, as the tears slipped down his fair face, dampening the sheets. He was crying for his long dead mother whose memories were fading; and his father too, who had been ripped from him. Army was crying because he could not go to King’s. He was crying because of the loss of the dancing lessons he adored, but most of all, he was crying for himself.

He hated the place, and everyone in it, except perhaps Dennis Swallow, and he wondered what tomorrow might bring. He didn’t care. Perhaps the world would end that night. Maybe he would fall asleep and never wake.

He prayed he would. 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Toby Malone hurt Desiree Holloway.

He hurt her mentally.

He hurt her physically.

He hurt her when they made love

And when they didn’t.

It was all a novel experience for Desi. She had become used to calling the shots, to having men and boys chase her, doing her bidding, wooing her, desperate to impress. She had known nothing different.

With Toby Malone, everything was different.

She couldn’t comprehend why he should treat her that way. He made her cry, worse still; he appeared to glean enjoyment through making her cry. She should have cut him dead.

But she didn’t.

Because she couldn’t.

Like a moth drawn toward the brightest fire, Desi Holloway was entranced. It unnerved her. It made her ill.

For the first time since she was four, her education went backwards. That alarmed her, and it alarmed her tutors and sponsors even more.

Her senior tutor, Professor Jack Robertson, wrote a re-appraisal and dispatched it to London, so concerned was he at the retrenchment that had set in. That alarmed Mrs Bloemfontein, and her superiors too. Discussions took place outlining how the watertight contract could be terminated.

Desi was unaware of that, and even if she had known, it wouldn’t have made any difference. She couldn’t think of anything else. She went off her food, lost weight, and for a short time the incredible sparkle that was never far from her dark eyes, dimmed and died.

Her friends feared for her.

Their advice was rejected.

Her tutors cajoled her.

She seemed not to notice.

Professor Robertson feared for his reputation after Toby Malone took an interest in Desi Holloway.

Toby was studying aeronautical design. He wanted to be a jet fighter designer and already had a lucrative contract lined up with British Aerospace up at Preston. That interested Desi too, and she encouraged him to follow his dreams, just as she was determined to do.

He was due to escort her to the Autumn College Dinner Dance. It had been a longstanding date, carved in the diary for months. Everyone was going. Everyone was looking forward to it, a chance to dress up and flaunt one’s success, one’s outfit, and one’s partner.

Toby didn’t show, leaving Desi to sit shamefaced across the table from an empty chair, while all those around laughed and joked and felt sorry for Desi Holloway, the girl who could not hold on to a man. They pitied her, and some behind her back, laughed. How the mighty are fallen. The shooting star with unending supplies of cash had crashed to earth.

Desi had never experienced a setback before, in anything. She did not know how to deal with it, and imagined that things couldn’t get any worse.

They did.

Toby Malone arrived at the dance with an impossibly beautiful willowy girl on his arm named Fiona Gilkes-Wood. Fiona’s father was the chairman of the second largest Scottish bank. Loaded, they said, multi-millionaire. Whoever married her would be made for life. Fiona Gilkes-Wood had everything, and now she had Toby Malone too.

How could Desi compete with that?

She couldn’t and didn’t.

Diners and dancers pinched surreptitious glances at her when they imagined she wasn’t looking. She sat alone, picking at her food, unblinking, sipping wine in silence, as if an icy embryo enclosed her. She spoke to no one, and saw no one, not a soul after that appalling moment when she spied Toby striding into the hall with the elated Fiona Gilkes-Wood on his arm.

Desi could cope with the violence, the kinky sex, and his ever-stranger demands, but she could not cope with public humiliation. 

It would never happen again.

She would never let it happen again.

She finished her meal in silence, grabbed her things together, and slipped away into the night.

Some of the more aware people breathed a sigh of relief and whispered: How embarrassing was that? She did the right thing, getting out of there when she did, though she should have gone sooner. Poor Desiree. That Toby Malone was a bastard, but didn’t everyone know that already?

It seemed not. Or if she did, Desi could not accept it.

The mesmerised moth was damaged.

She returned to her room alone, took two co-codamol painkillers, and blotted out the world.

––––––––

IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, Toby beat a path to her door.

Apologised profusely.

Sent flowers.

A crate of Desiree’s favourite red wine.

Letters.

Love letters.

Sex letters.

Pleading letters.

Letters detailing how pathetic Fiona was in bed, nothing compared to the passionate Desiree Holloway, and how she must take him back, because he knew she wanted him more than he wanted her.

Whether that was true was immaterial.

It was too late.

The clock had ticked on.

Ticked forward.

Desiree Holloway had rediscovered her first love.

Science.

She was brilliant at it too, everyone said so.

A shooting star.

Destined for heavenly things.

Everyone knew that.

She shut herself away from the world; away from everything, except her work. It was as if Toby Malone had never existed. She would never date at university again. She would never allow any man to touch her, vowed solemnly against it, and she maintained that vow for years.

Professor Robertson wrote a hasty re-appraisal re-appraisal and sent it by special courier. Collective sighs of relief were heard from the Thames to the Mersey. 

Toby Malone had hurt Desiree Holloway. That was undeniable.

He didn’t any more.

He couldn’t. 

She wouldn’t allow it.

––––––––

AT THE END OF HER FIVE-year course she passed out with a double first in Mathematics and Chemistry, with honours, and everyone attended her graduation in Liverpool. Her father and mother, sister Louise, Professor Robertson, and even Mrs Bloemfontein jumped a train, ostensibly to support her protégé, when in reality she possessed Desiree’s instructions as to where she should go, and what she should do next. Desi explained Mrs Bloemfontein’s presence away with flippant remarks, saying she was an advanced careers advisor, which in a strange kind of way, she was.

Toby Malone didn’t attend. He couldn’t.

He’d long since disappeared, though he would never be forgotten. They found him dead one balmy summer’s morning, bound in fuse wire, secured to his bed, wearing black lace knickers, an orange in his mouth, a ligature around his neck, and three small neat cuts across his hairy chest. They were not deep, just bloody. The cuts hadn’t killed him. The ligature had. No one ever discovered who shared his final tryst, or who tightened that rope. Merseyside Police were still looking into it and the file remained open.

It had nothing to do with Desiree, or so she said.

The morning after her graduation, she was busy packing her things away prior to vacating her room. Mrs Bloemfontein appeared at the door. Desi was expecting her and nodded away a neighbour of hers, a distraught young woman who had flunked her exams, with a flick of the head and a whispered: ‘I’ll see you later.’

Mrs Bloemfontein sat at the desk without waiting to be invited.

Desi perched on the bed and said, ‘So? What now?’

Mrs Bloemfontein produced a single unmarked brown envelope from her bag. Handed it across to Desi.

‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ she said, ‘I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back in half an hour. Have your questions ready,’ and she let herself out.

––––––––

DESI SLIPPED HER FINGER beneath the flap of the envelope and eased it open. The front sheet was a congratulatory letter from the Scientific Research Organisation. It didn’t say what they did, just an address and telephone number in London.

The next page instructed her to attend Billington Hall near Ludlow in Shropshire when the summer holidays were over. Desi guessed it was one of the crammer colleges that Mrs Bloemfontein had mentioned a while ago. Before that, they instructed her to fly to Tokyo where she should meet a Professor Takanato at Tokyo University, and after that, on to Canberra where an appointment was arranged to see a Professor Jim McClaine.

The tickets, further instructions, and authorization documents would be with her within the week. There was a telephone number she should contact if she had any queries. She recognised it; it was the same number Mrs Bloemfontein had given her before, and a firm written reminder that everything regarding her employment was covered by the secrecy clause she had signed. The last letter informed her she had qualified for a pay increase, fifty percent, starting the day she flew to Tokyo.

She read it a second time in case she’d missed anything; in case she’d imagined it all, before replacing the papers back in the envelope.

Mrs Bloemfontein returned ten minutes later.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘How did you get on?’

‘Seems clear enough.’

‘Good. So glad.’

‘It didn’t say what I will be doing.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. But you can be sure it will extend the pioneering work you have been studying. I can’t say any more right now, other than it will be hard, and difficult. You will need to steel yourself. It won’t be easy.’

‘I’d rather guessed that.’

‘Yes, I hoped you had. Any further questions?’

‘No, none.’

‘That’s good.’

Mrs Bloemfontein glanced at her watch.

‘What’s the best way to get back to Lime Street station?’

‘Taxi.’

‘Do you know the number?’

‘In the hall downstairs.’

Mrs Bloemfontein smiled and bobbed her head and offered her hand.

Desi took it and shook it, and a moment later Mrs B was gone.

Chapter Thirty

On the morning of Walter’s second televised press conference, the script had to be hurriedly amended. As expected, he had received a second letter. Same inkjet production, same wacky font, same forced inadequate spelling and grammar.

Well Wally,

Even we didn’t think you was so stoopid. You are no nearer to finding us, are ya? You need help pal.

Here’s a little conundrum for you.

CRJKWCMOJCSB??

Get it? The magnificent six, and guess what Wal, the seventh will be a lot closer to home, know what I mean?

You should have retired long ago, while you still could. Maybe it ain’t too late. Maybe it is.

See you soon.

The Chester Mollesters

He slipped the letter into a clear plastic sleeve and showed it to Karen. She whistled through her teeth.

‘What are the letters?’

‘The initials of the dead.’

Her eyes widened as she recalled them, ‘Colin Rivers, James Kingston, William Camber, Maggie O’Brien, Jago Cripps,’ she recited, reeling them off, thinking of each corpse and the set of sorry remains she’d witnessed. ‘So who is SB?’

‘Good question. No idea, but by the look of it, the he-she killer has struck again. Go through the list of recent missing persons. See if you can find anyone who fits the bill. Top priority.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and then she said, ‘so who’s the seventh? The question marks?’

‘I think that’s meant for me.’

She thought about that for a moment and said, ‘So do I.’

––––––––

THE PRESS CONFERENCE followed the same path as before. In the can by lunchtime, so the TV Company could broadcast their latest hot news at one o’clock, six o’clock, and half-past ten.

––––––––

ACROSS THE CITY SAM lay on the bed, grinning at the screen.

The Darriteau guy looked more tired than before. Weather-beaten. Nervous. Perhaps he wasn’t sleeping. The blonde looked well enough, though. It would take more than a few murders to deprive her of sleep. She didn’t say a lot, just supported the Darriteau character, nudging his arm, passed him an occasional message, the slightest of encouraging smiles, and sly prompts, his rock, that’s how she came across. Perhaps he was plugging her, mused Sam, when no one else was about. Maybe in the cop shop, late at night, Sam could imagine that, in the stationery cupboard, across the desk, it must happen all the time, it happens everywhere else.

Darriteau was talking again, making a pathetic plea for more information about SB. Was there an SB missing? Who is SB? Had SB been murdered, and if so, where is SB’s body? Darriteau demanded proof.

‘Find it yourself, you moron!’ Sam yelled at the screen. ‘Do you expect me to do everything for you?’

The black copper continued with the same vacuous threats.

I’m coming for you. We’ll be meeting soon. Your time is almost up.

Yeah, sure thing, granddad.

You should be retired, put out to pasture, it should have happened years ago. It had taken Sam to bring that little fact to the public’s attention. Walter Darriteau was a waste of space, a spent force, a man promoted beyond his ability. Truth was, Walter Darriteau was an embarrassment.

The broadcast ended, and Sam flicked off the telly and went through to the other bedroom. Unlocked the door, went inside.

Wally’s Wall was covered in articles and features. Newspaper pictures of Walter in the field, looking dishevelled. Pictures of the pair of them answering impromptu questions outside the cop shop. Sam had been there that morning, hidden in the crowd, inwardly giggling and gloating, outwardly looking as concerned as all the rest.

Where would the Chester Mollesters strike next?

The same question was on everyone’s lips.

Some idiot from the Incident Room had leaked the name Chester Mollesters to the press for five hundred pounds in used notes. Mrs West and Walter were livid when that happened and were determined to locate the leak, though that could wait for another day. It must have been a genuine leak too, not some inspired or lucky guessing journalism, because the newspapers were even spelling it correctly, Chester Mollesters, or incorrectly, as it was.

People were becoming wary of going out at night in a pretty city like Chester. It was unthinkable; it was unheard of, and what were the police doing about it? Not a lot, judging by their complete inability to apprehend the perpetrator, or was it perpetrators?

Ridiculous rumours flashed around. A mad priest was responsible, it was a crazy doctor; it was all to do with drugs, Jago was a drug dealer, everyone knew that, it had to be, drug assassinations, and even, it was one of their own, a disaffected police officer, passed over for promotion.

Sam glanced over the displayed articles. There would be another fresh batch tomorrow and that was pleasing.

Within twenty minutes of the press conference ending a potential match popped out of the police computer, a local missing person with the initials SB. Sally Beauchamp, aged thirty-four, marital status, single, occupation unknown.

Walter sent Karen and Gibbons to interview the parents, leaving the officers with his final thoughts. ‘Find out where she lives. Find out where she works. Find out what she does, or is it did, for a living.’

––––––––

HUGH AND CERYS ROBERTS were keen amateur birdwatchers. They would venture out first thing in the morning, often when the ground hugging mist had yet to clear. That morning it had. Hugh was scanning the skies for red kites using the new American binoculars his wife had bought him for his recent sixty-fifth birthday. Cerys preferred waterfowl, as she swept her glasses low across the shallow water of the quarry.

‘What’s that, Hugh?’

‘What? Where?’

‘In the water, see, there, away to the left.’

Hugh scanned and focused.

‘See what you mean. Looks like a case. New looking, too. I’ve never noticed it before.’

‘Me neither.’

‘I’ll pop back to the car for the wellies.’

––––––––

WHEN HE RETURNED, THEY made their way down to the quarry floor. Hugh slipped on the Wellington boots and waded out. It was easy enough; the bottom was flat and stable, and the water shallow.

‘It’s a case.’

‘Can you bring it back?’

Hugh tried to lift it.

‘It’s very heavy.’

‘Will it open?’

‘Don’t know. The fasteners are visible. I’ll try.’

Hugh unclipped the fasteners.

The end of the case popped open.

Enough for Hugh to see, and smell.

‘Oh God!’

‘What is it?’

‘Ring the police. Now!’

‘Why, what is it?’

‘It’s the body of a woman.’

Cerys pulled out her iPhone and pumped in 999.

––––––––

BACK IN THE INCIDENT Room Karen took a call from Prestatyn.

‘Hi Karen, it’s Dai Williams. Is Walter about?’

‘Sure Dai, just a sec. Walter, Dai Williams for you.’

‘Hi Dai, what’s up, man?’

‘I believe you’ve lost another body.’

‘Saw me on the telly again?’

‘I did, but more than that, Walter, I’ve found a body, and I thought of you.’

‘No! Where?’

‘In a suitcase in a quarry, over at Llandegla.’

‘A woman?’

‘Yep. Thirties, I’d say, and get this Walter, the head was buried in brown parcel tape, from the base of the neck to the tips of her hair. None of us have ever seen anything like it. Bound tight like a mummy.’

‘Oh, geez.’

‘You’ve a nutter on your hands.’

‘We know that, doesn’t make him any easier to find.’

‘I’ll wire you over the PM report as soon as I have it.’

‘Thanks, Dai. I owe you one.

‘Two, I think.’

‘Yeah, let’s hope there’s no more, eh?’

‘Be in touch.’

Chapter Thirty-One

Armitage had been at the orphanage five years. Things had improved. The food was better and there was more of it. The staff improved through better training and adopting a more enlightened attitude, and every boy incarcerated there breathed easier when the predatory Mr Gilligan was disciplined and removed.

But as there was no concrete evidence against him, he escaped prosecution and kept his pension. The boys cared little about that; they were too busy celebrating his demise. 

To everyone’s relief the non-normals were moved too, taken to a brand new redbrick facility at Willaston, where only four boys would share a room, where hot individual showers were always on tap, and where any hint of bullying and intimidation from the so-called normals was eradicated. Some of the non-normals knew that some normals were in the wrong classification, and vice versa. But those non-normals who had been evacuated were now delighted to be wrongly classified and away.

Those remaining at Saint Edmond’s slept better. The crazy night-time shrieking upstairs soon became a thing of memory and folklore. The new jerks were told horrific stories of how it used to be, and how lucky they were, and the confused new arrivals didn’t know what to believe.

In all that time, no one had ever come for Dennis Swallow.

They had looked at him right enough, considered him, those potential foster parents, countless times, like people inspecting dogs on dog death row. But always he would be rejected because of his darting untrustworthy eyes, so reported back more than one middle class Wirral family, or maybe it was his rat-like looks. Dennis was sixteen and on the brink of leaving school, searching for employment, and finding somewhere to live outside the system.

Dennis had never lived anywhere else other than at Saint Edmond’s. He didn’t know what a family home was like. He didn’t know anything better. The idea of him going out into the big wide world alone was terrifying, yet exciting, too. Dennis cherished his dreams, holding them close to his chest, like all the rest.

Armitage was still stuck in Saint Edmond’s too.

Even more potential fosterers had considered him, yet there was something about him that put people off. His limbs appeared to develop at different rates, like a yearling colt where one end grows faster than the other, and the creature never looks quite right. He didn’t look natural, the finished article, and this weird appearance resulted in those same people staring at him, and smiling down, and grimacing, shaking their heads, and muttering, ‘Maybe not,’ and often in Armitage’s presence.

All the kids were relieved when they changed the viewing system. They didn’t do that anymore. Reject them on the spot, in full view of the rejected. Thank God for that. It was just a wonder it took them so long to figure out that constant and obvious rejection could lead to more problems, and more of the same.

––––––––

WHEN THE VICAR OF SAINT Jude’s, the local parish church, first heard Armitage sing at eleven, he was transfixed. It was a case of love at first sound. The vicar fell head over heels. There was nothing he would not do for Armitage, so long as Armitage felt the same way.

Armitage did not.

Not that the Reverend Christian de Wyk would be put off by that, and nor did he block or hinder Armitage’s singing. He didn’t, and he couldn’t, because he adored it so, the magical treble voice that soared through Saint Jude’s church, filling the place with joy. Despite the rebuffs, he would keep Armitage in the choir because he, Christian, was ambitious. The Saint Jude’s choir had been widely talked about and admired once in the past, but that was ten years back, long before Christian de Wyk took up his post.

Christian intended to return it to how it once was, and backed by the Bishop of Chester, who was a friend of his; he was determined to achieve it.

Armitage remained on the front row of the choir.

He didn’t know what the vicar wanted; but he knew he didn’t. It came from his deepest instincts that this God fearing man the parishioners so adored was dangerous. Army shared his thoughts with Dennis, who couldn’t sing for coal-scuttles. Army told him all about it. Of his doubts and fears, and the creeping feeling of cold discomfort that came over him whenever the vicar called him to his private rooms, and how he couldn’t wait to get away, and the numbness he felt when Christian would stand close behind him at choir practice, his hands alive on Armitage’s slight shoulders, as Christian’s raucous baritone echoed into Army’s ears, through the hearty never-ending renditions of All People That On Earth Do Dwell and Onward Christian Soldiers, a favourite of the vicar’s.

Dennis explained in graphic detail, and would never forget the look of horror and disbelief on his friend’s boyish face as the penny dropped.

‘You can’t be serious!’

Dennis nodded his head, unable to keep the likeable smirk from his rodential face.

Armitage had avoided being alone with the vicar. After that enlightenment, he refused to attend the vicar’s private rooms under any circumstances, risking any punishment or banishment.

A year later, Christian de Wyk disappeared.

Amongst the adults, wicked rumours circulated, not that any of those filtered through the thick walls of Saint Edmond’s. Armitage was delighted he was gone, as were all the choirboys, especially the prettier ones.

He was replaced by the Reverend Blair McGowan, who, as his name suggested, was very Scottish and mighty proud of it. He was happily married with four mini McGowans, three boys and all would sing in the choir, two would later become ordained, and one shy girl, Machara, who didn’t sing a note, but stood on the front row of the congregation with her mother. A position from where the older boys would inspect her, as they concentrated on pronouncing their vowels Dwell, Hallelujah, and Praise, as in Praise Him! Praise Him! gazing across at Machara with a mixture of curiosity and excitement, pondering on those naturally pink lips, as she silently mouthed her words, the boys wondering what she might wear beneath that thick tartan skirt, and wondering too where that might lead.

After the coming of the McGowans, the choirboys relaxed.

They came to adore Blair McGowan, who, with his three sons, would play football with them on the green, pretend matches between his beloved Raith Rovers, and Everton or Liverpool, or their own local Rovers, Tranmere. But more importantly, for the choirboys, on Sunday afternoons before evensong, he would invite some of them home for tea, ensuring that through the course of a term, each boy took his turn. It was an invitation no one refused.

Armitage’s opportunity arrived one hot sunny June day. Fresh strawberries and cream were served in fancy blue glass dishes, the boys eyeing them through wide eyes, the berries picked by Machara’s fair hand, from the extensive fruit patch at the rear of the vicarage. Red salmon sandwiches made from real tinned salmon, and best English butter, not scrimped with either, the sandwiches cut neatly into fours, the faint aroma of a woman’s perfume upon them, as if they had been cut and prepared by Mrs McGowan, or better still, Machara.

‘The crusts cut off!’ exclaimed Armitage. ‘Can you believe that?’ as he later told Dennis about it. ‘All the crusts cut off!’

Armitage wasn’t alone in wondering what happened to those crusts. He’d liked to have taken them back to Saint Edmond’s, but he still hadn’t finished his gleeful descriptions.

Homemade sugar topped fruit scones with raspberry jam, and more cream, and gallons of hot steaming tea, served in cups and saucers, the good stuff too, Typhoo. Not the dishwater muck we have to drink, with a large bowl of sugar lumps parked in the centre of the table where the boys were encouraged to take as many lumps as they liked.

‘Sugar isn’t rationed here, you know,’ grinned the Reverend Blair, ‘not in this house,’ through his jovial red face, remembering as he did his own childhood from long ago when sugar was worth more than gold.

The boys took him at his word, and every week the bowl was picked clean, many of them secreting extra lumps into their pockets to eat later as sweeties.

‘And afterwards he put on the record player and played records,’ recalled Army, perhaps getting a little carried away at the beauty and warmth of it all, of being in someone else’s happy home, something that Armitage remembered all too well, but something that Dennis could not relate to. It might as well have been in far off Hollywood, for all he knew.

Dennis was interested in the descriptions of the food and drink; and envious too. That went without saying. The mere mention of it made his mouth water and his stomach rumble, but there was something else that interested him far more.

‘Tell me about Machara!’

‘Well,’ said Armitage, thinking about her, and trying to remember what she wore and what she said and did. He hadn’t paid that much attention. ‘Well, she’s very clean, and quiet, and pink, and smells of scented soap, with black shiny hair in a helmet sort of style, and she was wearing a white top, and a green tartan skirt with a large silver pin in it, and long green tartan socks.’

‘Yeah, that’s all good, but would you fuck her?’

Armitage flushed.

He had never considered such an outrageous idea. It had never entered his head. He had been far too preoccupied with the strawberries and cream. He was about to stammer out a no idea reply, only to halt himself as he remembered how the other boys always acted when they talked dirty, and he copied them.

‘Yeah, yeah, course I would!’

‘I knew it,’ said Dennis, leering. ‘I bloody knew it! You dirty bugger!’

‘I saw her knickers,’ said Armitage.

‘What! Did ya? When? How?’

‘When she sat down on the settee, when she took her strawberries to eat, after she’d made sure we all had ours, as guests, as her dad had asked her to do. They were green.’

‘Were they? Yeah? Green?’

‘I only saw them for a second before I looked away.’

‘Looked away?’ asked Dennis, not believing what Army had said. ‘What did you do that for, ya limpet?’

‘It’s rude to look up women’s skirts.’

‘Is it? I don’t think it is. I look up women’s skirts all the time, it’s only natural, not that I get much opportunity.’

Armitage glanced across at him, thinking him a little weird, though he didn’t say, for Dennis was the only genuine friend he had in the whole world.

––––––––

SAINT JUDE’S CHURCH choir had built up a fine reputation. While church attendances across the country were plummeting, Saint Jude’s was packing them in. It wasn’t unusual for the place to be full. Word went round the Wirral and beyond. There was a singer there, a treble who was better than those celebrity singers you heard on the TV at Christmastime. Far better! I kid you not. Well better, as the local boys might have said. You should listen to him. See and hear for yourself while you have the chance.

People did. Hundreds of them.

Saint Jude’s was a chunky red stone church with a straight and skinny steeple. It continued to sell out, not that they ever charged anyone to attend. Though Blair McGowan, with his Scottish roots, had considered doing so when he saw the queues of excited people hurrying through the lichgate, talking excitedly as if they were going to a music concert at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

Blair resisted the temptation to charge, contenting himself with a Please Give Generously plea, at the end of his brief sermon. He realised many folks had not come to hear him, as the mauve velvet collection bags were sent out. Saint Jude’s had never collected so much cash, including, as the choirboys would witness afterwards, when the donations were emptied into a rusty red Crawford’s biscuit tin, banknotes amongst the haul.

‘I mean,’ said Army, meeting Dennis afterwards on the way back to Saint Edmond’s, ‘what kind of person puts notes in a collection bag? They must half be loaded.’

Dennis shook his head in disbelief and returned to thinking of Machara and her green kilt and long socks and matching green knickers.

After the service, the Reverend McGowan stood on the steps and pressed the flesh of people he had never met before. He heard worshippers muttering in amazement as they made their way home. Snatches of conversation permeated his hairy ears. ‘What did you think of the boy? Amazing, wasn’t he? Well better than that bloke off the telly. Unique, truly unique.’

‘Well better,’ nodded the others, in that slight Merseyside accent that intrigued Blair and Machara so.

––––––––

SOMEONE INFORMED THE local radio station. It featured on one of the radio phone-ins that dominated the schedules. Radio Merseyside sent a scout to the next service. She returned with excited tales of packed churches and electric atmospheres, and people coming from all over. The boy is amazing! We must cover it!

The broadcasting truck rolled up on Thursday, and for the next two days, technicians pulled and prodded their wires and mics into place.

House full notices went up outside the church!

A loudspeaker relay was set up outside to feed the overspill crowd. Armitage was fifteen and a seasoned performer. He was due to solo two of his favourite pieces and aimed to be note perfect. After he had finished final practice Machara came into the church, seeking her father, but she made a beeline for Armitage, thrusting a rabbit’s foot into his hand, whispering in her gentle Scottish lilt, ‘All the best for tomorra, Armitage, aye,’ and her father arrived and they turned and hustled away.

Armitage didn’t answer, not even a mumbled thanks.

Crazy talk of a record company executive being spotted in the car park circulated, though how anyone would recognise such a person was never explained.

‘You’re going to be a star,’ someone said, not that Armitage heard.

In the Saint Jude’s choir, Armitage Shelbourne was already a star.

He had been from the first day he’d arrived.

On the Saturday night before the concert he’d gargled his throat, went to bed in the same long dormitory; pulled himself down his narrow bed, and said a silent prayer for his mother. He caressed the rabbit’s foot, thought of Machara and the concert, and his singing, and fell asleep.

He enjoyed a good night’s sleep and woke early... with a sore throat.

He coughed hard to clear the phlegm.

There wasn’t any.

He sat up and stared across at Dennis. He was sitting on the side of his bed, scratching his mousy head.

‘Hey, Dennis, I’ve got a sore throat.’

Dennis beamed and jumped up and walked over to Army’s bed.

‘You haven’t got a sore throat, you prick! Your voice has broken, and about time! We were thinking you were a right one. We thought it might never happen!’

That couldn’t be right, not on his big day. Surely to God, not today. Dennis was talking rubbish. He often did. Army took a deep breath and launched into Mozart’s The Violet and Alleluia. The croaking that followed sounded like rusty barbed wire being dragged across dusty glass.

‘You’re knackered, mate!’ grinned Dennis. ‘You’d better get used to it. You’re a man now! It’s taken long enough for your sprouts to hit the deck!’

Army rushed to the church. The technicians were hustling about, completing final preparations.

He hurried to the reverend’s private rooms at the back. Blair was standing before a full-length mirror, practising his speech. It was his big day too, live on local radio, the chance to put his thoughts across to millions, well thousands, maybe. His words would be broadcast across the region, and he had plenty to say. Machara was there too, sitting at the back, reading her red leather bound New Testament.

‘Sorry, vicar, my voice has gone,’ croaked Army.

Machara glanced up.

Blair stifled three seconds of disappointment, smiled and said, ‘Your voice has broken, that’s all, it’s God’s work, it happens to everyone. It’s natural. Perhaps there is a reason behind it. Jimmy Wilson will take your place. He can manage, don’t you worry.’

‘But I was so looking forward to it.’

Machara grinned at the rough sounds escaping his mouth and returned to the book of Luke. He sounded ridiculous, as if someone was strangling him, yet oddly endearing.

Blair McGowan said, ‘Don’t ye worry about a thing. You’ll soon mature into a great tenor, bass, or baritone. It’s all there for you.’

Armitage doubted that.

‘But, but...’ he said.

‘But nothing,’ said the vicar, and resumed his rehearsal, as Armitage stared at the floor and sauntered away. 

The concert went ahead as planned, Armitage scowling at the back, not daring to inflict his ear wrenching contribution on a packed house.

The nervous Jimmy Wilson struggled throughout, missing top notes and forgetting words. He had never imagined he would have to perform live on the radio. Afterwards, the crowds melted away, a feeling of disappointment and anticlimax in the air.

They all heard the comments as the congregation melted away.

Nowhere near as good as usual.

The lads in our local church could have done better.

The occasion got the better of them.

If only I’d known I’d have stayed away.

What a waste of time.

What was all the fuss about?

How disappointing!

––––––––

ARMITAGE RETURNED TO Saint Edmond’s with a heavy heart. That night he lay awake into the early hours, thinking of what might have been.

Through the following months, he waited for his voice to set. He was desperate sing again. But his voice stubbornly refused to settle. He continued to blare out a ragged mess of uncoordinated clatter and never found an authentic voice again.

He was on the brink of adult life and had no idea what he would do next.

There was talk of him leaving, going into a halfway house betwixt the orphanage and the great beyond. Dennis’s leaving date was already in the diary. They found him a job making soup for a huge multinational American corporation. Monday, tomato. Tuesday, vegetable. Wednesday, oxtail. Thursday, chicken. Friday, mushroom. Saturday morning, service and clean the machinery, and away. Dennis couldn’t wait to leave the orphanage, start work, and earn some money.

Armitage was confused. Whatever the world held in store, one thing was certain, he would never become a soup maker. There had to be more to life than that.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Two days after Desiree Holloway returned from Japan and Australia, she made her way by rail to Ludlow, and then by taxi the five miles into the border country to Billington Hall.

It was a large and attractive redbrick house, formerly the residence of a minor aristocrat who had returned from the First World War, minus his four sons and his mind.

The gentleman never recovered, and in exchange for his ongoing lifetime medical care, the government requisitioned the property. There was no one else who wanted it, and it had fallen into a state of disrepair. The locals were happy to see it brought back to its former glory, though some wondered where the lavish amounts of money being spent came from.

It had remained in government hands ever since. Signalling station during World War Two, interrogation centre afterwards for suspected war criminals, intelligence briefing centre during the cold war, monitoring station during the Irish troubles, and then a crammer college specialising in politically sensitive fields.

It was a rambling place, three times extended since the government took possession, and comfortable. Desiree would live there for the week.

She adored Japan.

The countryside, the warmth and vibrancy of the people, the food, and the crazy technology that was everywhere. She was impressed with Professor Takanato at Tokyo University. He was open about his work, allowing her to sit in on his experiments and classes. Took her to dinner too and gave her his telephone numbers, should she ever need his advice.

Australia was different. Professor Jim McClaine was standoffish, as if concerned she might borrow his work and pass it off as her own. The country was going through one of its periodic droughts. The sun blazed down every day, and temperatures soared. Patience frayed, and though they parted on amicable terms, she hadn’t enjoyed her trip down under.

In Britain, she returned to the classroom, staring at the same old revolving, reusable blackboards bearing traces of scrubbed former lessons. There were only four people in the class, two men and two women, all under thirty, with three tutors, all under forty. They did most of the talking. The pupils listened and noted and wrote. The days were long; starting at eight and finishing at seven, and by the time they had dined and updated their notes, it was time for bed. 

Much of the one-sided discussions involved coping with the testing work that lay ahead. On the second last day, they were advised of some significant changes. The Scientific Research Organization was being wound up. The government was going through one of its budget crazy routines to cut national debt. The SRO was being sold off, but because of the sensitive nature of the work, there would be no public share offering. Five entities would take equal shares in the new PLC, disguised companies belonging to the governments of Japan, Australia, the United States, Germany, and Britain.

The Scientific Research Organisation changed its name overnight to Trencherman Research PLC, Desiree’s new employers.

On the last day, Desiree was summoned to a private office on the top floor, a room looking out over rear lawns and away to the Welsh hills. The room was Spartanly furnished, a plain table set before the window with a basic chair on either side. On the table was a recording machine, and there was no one else in the room.

Desiree glanced through the window. Two local guys were mowing the lawns. To the left, on the grass, behind a tall wire fence, was a bank of five impressive radio aerials, and two supersats, large white dishes pointing at the sky. Beyond another wire fence, fifty sheep grazed.

The door opened and Mrs Bloemfontein breezed in.

She smiled her distant smile and asked Desiree to sit.

‘How are you?’ she said.

‘I’m well, and you?’

‘I’m good.’

‘I am recording this meeting; it saves the bother of taking notes. It will go on your file. Every word uttered. Any objections?’

Desiree shook her head.

‘Please answer aloud.’

‘I have no objections,’ said Desiree.

‘This is your last opportunity to withdraw from the programme. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you wish to do that?’

‘No.’

‘Good. You will know we now have new masters.’

‘So I heard. Trencherman Research.’

‘Yes, they are our new paymasters. We must get used to it. I am assured nothing will change.’

‘It’s all new to me.’

‘Quite. No doubt you will want to know where you are going next.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Nowhere romantic, I’m afraid. You’ll be going to the Eden Leys complex.’

‘Which is where?’

‘Not so far from here, south of Whitchurch, north of Shrewsbury.’

Desiree would be lying if she hadn’t imagined an exciting posting to California or Kobe or Bavaria, but once in a laboratory, it didn’t matter where one worked. All labs were the same, and she didn’t stare through windows, admiring scenery. Shropshire was cool. She could get home to her parents easy enough, though she would have to pass her driving test first.

‘Here are your accreditation documents, your security, and your tags. They must be worn at all times on site.’

Mrs Bloemfontein pulled an envelope from her bag, removed the items she had mentioned, and slipped them across the table.

‘Desiree Holloway is taking possession of her documents,’ she said to the machine. Desi picked up her security tags and admired the startled picture of her face, a colour photograph she couldn’t remember being taken.

‘Nice picture,’ she said.

‘Not bad, you should see mine.’

The women shared a nervous laugh

‘When do I start?’

‘Monday.’

‘And where do I sleep?’

‘There is accommodation booked for you on the base. It is an enormous site; you will want for nothing there, supermarket, cinema, bowling facilities, swimming pool. I doubt you will leave that often.’

‘I see.’

‘You will report to a Professor Mary Craigieson, got that?’

‘Mary Craigieson,’ Desiree repeated.

Mrs Bloemfontein nodded and said, ‘Any questions?’

‘No, none.’

‘If you think of any later, you have my number. That concludes this meeting. Good luck. I am sure you will do well.’

Mrs Bloemfontein stood, switched off the device and offered her hand. Desi took it and shook it, the same cold handshake, and an awkward moment as Desi stood her ground, only to be nodded away. Desi was dismissed. Time for someone new. She bobbed her head and left the room.

In the morning, a black BMW took the same four students back to Ludlow railway station, where they boarded separate trains and headed home. Desiree would never see Billington Hall again.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The PM report on Sally Beauchamp was in. Walter mulled it over in his mind. Death by asphyxiation, but a considerable amount of flunitrazepam evident in the body, Rohypnol by any other name, the date rape drug.

Where does one acquire flunitrazepam? In the past, there might have been a lead there, tracking the supply chain, but now? No chance.

It came from the Internet, Where else? Log on, type prescription drug supply into the browser and away you go. The Internet was a wonderful invention, but it had a lot to answer for, and policing it was impossible. 

The suppliers were likely to be in Latvia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Jamaica or Belize. A hopeless task and what about quality control? Who knows what substandard product might be delivered, if anything ever came, when one went online and paid through the nose for prescription drugs bought without a prescription?

Death by asphyxiation.

What kind of person could do that? Walter put himself in the killer’s shoes, tried to imagine what was going through his, or her sick mind, as they wound a whole roll of sticky tape around someone’s face. What was the point in that, when a couple of feet would have done the job? No fingerprints on the roll either, not a surprise. Walter hadn’t expected any.

He wondered if the killer enjoyed it, the drawn-out act of murdering a fellow human being. It wasn’t like a single gunshot or stab wound, over in a second. No, this must have gone on for minutes. Hadn’t it worried them? Were they happy in their work? Smiling, grinning, chuckling, what? Were they talking too, as they went about their murderous work, winding round and round, perhaps talking dirty as if frantically making love. What was in the killer’s mind? Would he ever know?

He was sitting in John’s office, Mrs West’s, and Cresta was rabbiting on about something. He glanced across at her. What was this? A primrose blouse, unbelievable, that was different. The purple garb must have been in the wash. It still left purple skirt, eye shadow, nails, hair, and lips. Darting lips, spouting forth her latest theory. Not that he heard a word. They were a nightmare, those purple salivating lips.

He pondered on whether Cresta was someone’s squeeze. She had never mentioned anyone. No rings that day, either. If she had worn any, they would have contained purple stones. A nightmarish thought flashed through his head. Him waking on a Sunday morning, finding Cresta there in the bed, purple from toenails to hair, some kind of weird purple alien, talking, talking, talking, spewing out verbiage through those restless lips, expounding new thinking, fresh from the killer’s mind.

Sounded good, meant nothing.

Walter had been in the game long enough to know that no matter how well you knew someone, whatever they said, did, wrote, or intimated, you never knew what was in the dark recesses of the human mind. You couldn’t imagine what complicated thought processes were going on in there, because human beings didn’t want you to know, because they were too scared, frightened, and ashamed of their real thoughts, and of other people knowing them.

Cresta Raddish had been a useful addition to the team, he would admit that. When any bunch of human beings met and mulled over a complicated case, there was always the chance someone might throw a new thought into the communal pot. It hadn’t happened yet, but it didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. But neither did it mean profilers were the answer to all their problems and thank God for that.

Cresta Raddish contributed nothing toward the killer’s arrest, but no one had, because the killer was still at large. Free to murder again, something Walter was convinced he, she, or it, would do, and sooner rather than later. Or maybe they had already. At least they knew the Chester Mollester was the killer. Any idea of a crazy hoaxer was out. The last missive named the latest victim’s initials, SB. Long before a body was discovered, before any murder was known about.

Death by asphyxiation, the latest in a long and differing line, death by asphyxiation, by slitting wrists, carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, being flattened by a train, by being run down by a car. What next? Where does The Chester Mollester go after that? Was there any pattern to it? There was a build-up in the ferocity of the personal violence inflicted on the victims, but where and when and what was to come? If Walter had to guess, he would plump for firearms. But could the he-she thing gain access to a gun? The Internet again. Could anyone buy a firearm online? Probably, if you looked hard enough.

Cresta’s lips ceased flexing like a rubber puppet’s. Thank heaven for that. She had run out of words, for now.

Earlier, Mrs West had called him into her private sanctum for a one-to-one. She explained she was under enormous pressure. Weren’t we all, Walter wanted to add, but didn’t, and he could imagine the daily strained telephone calls from her superiors that must have wriggled into her business-like head.

He didn’t envy her that. One more reason he had never sought the top dog job. He would remain in the field for as long as he could. The idea of him sitting in his run down Edwardian detached house, flicking through daytime TV channels, alone, with his Police magazines and newsletters and Racing Post, was one too dreadful to contemplate.

‘It’s coming to crunch time,’ she said.

He knew what that meant, but she explained it in more detail.

‘The Met will be brought in. We’ll lose control of the case. Lapdogs, that’s what we’ll become, lapdogs to the mountain lion, do you want that?’

There had been a time when he was the mountain lion, as she described it. He’d enjoyed it too, being parachuted in, taking charge of complicated murder cases from Cornwall to Norfolk, from Northumbria to the south coast, annoying the local plod, detecting errors, pointing out their provincial mistakes, and getting up everyone’s nose. But he would produce a result by identifying the killer, making an arrest, prosecuting the criminal, securing a conviction, witnessing the satisfying moment of sentence, and seeing the devil being taken down. So why couldn’t he do that again?

‘It will be a huge stain on my curriculum vitae...’ she said, ‘and yours too.’

He knew that, about his record being stained, but was too old to worry about failure. It wasn’t the stain on his record that concerned him; it was failing to bring the culprit to justice that irked him. He had never failed to track down and prosecute a serial killer, and he wasn’t going to spoil that record.

‘Let’s get Karen and Cresta in and go over everything again,’ she said, and the four-way meeting began.

‘We are missing something,’ said Joan West. ‘Missing something!’

Of course we are missing something, thought Walter. Six bloody deaths and we still don’t have a prime suspect. But what?

‘How is the car search business going?’ he asked, though he was thinking of something else.

‘Almost finished,’ said Karen, ‘only about twenty to do.’

‘Maybe that will turn something up,’ mumbled Walter.

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Mrs West, becoming more impatient.

It wouldn’t turn anything up because it couldn’t, because unbeknown to them, the killer had already been checked and passed and eliminated from their enquiries. It had happened the previous Saturday afternoon. Two rookie police officers had called at Iona House as Samantha was preparing to go out.

‘Sorry to bother you, ma’am,’ said the first, as the second checked out the slender, classy woman. ‘Just routine enquiries, but we want to look over your car?’

‘Sure,’ she said, in that gentle way of hers, producing the keys from her designer bag and leading them across the small car park to her gleaming Cayton Cerisa. She didn’t need to go near the car. She could have stood on the doorstep and pointed and fired, but that seemed bad manners, so she followed them toward it before opening up.

‘Is it OK to go inside?’ said the handsome younger bloke.

‘Course,’ she said, nodding, her blonde bob cut shivering in the breeze.

He opened the boot.

Empty, nothing there at all, pristinely clean, like the lady herself. You could always tell. Not a hair out of place, perfect make-up, everything immaculate.

He opened the doors and climbed inside. Glanced in the glove compartment, under the seats, in the side panels, in the cash box nestling beneath the handbrake, in the CD holder secreted up toward the roof to fool potential car thieves, nothing on the parcel shelf, nothing in the pouches on the back of the front seats except for an old and outdated UK road atlas, once common. Now redundant through satnav.

No craft knives or rolls of brown tape, no railway timetables with details of services along the North Wales coast, no hose-piping to introduce gas, no lingering smell or sign of gas either, no bumps or scratches on the front of the vehicle, no syringes, or signs of drugs of any kind, not even a blessed aspirin. Clean as a fresh penny whistle.

They tried to engage her in casual conversation. Samantha knew that. Perhaps they were hoping she would invite them into the flat. There was no chance of that. Hell would freeze over first. Perhaps they were hoping for a relaxing coffee and a sit down on her leather chesterfield, even a free sandwich. It was never going to happen.

‘Will you be much longer?’ she asked. ‘It’s just I have a date, and William goes crazy if I’m late.’

The two guys shared a look. Lucky William.

‘No, miss, I think we are finished here.’

‘Excellent,’ she said, locking the back door and getting into the car, making ready to drive away.

They smiled at her again, and she smiled back.

They would never forget that smile.

Jumped in the police car and drove away.

Before they had gone twenty yards, one of them said, ‘Before you say anything, I most definitely would.’

‘Me too, no doubt about it.’

‘You’re married.’

‘Don’t care.’

‘It couldn’t have been her anyway,’ said cop number two. ‘The killer has green eyes, so Cresta Raddish said. Did you see her blue eyes?’

‘Of course I did. You couldn’t miss ’em.’

‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen such blue eyes.’

‘William goes crazy,’ cop number one mimicked her words.

‘I’ll bet he does,’ said the other.

‘He probably gives her a right thrashing.’

‘I’d give her a good thrashing if I had the chance,’ said the other, and as they were thinking about that, driving concentration waned. Neither was the young woman concentrating as she stepped out into the road, pushing a buggy containing two gurgling toddlers.

The cop braked at the last moment, throwing up smoke, depositing rubber on the tired tarmac; blowing a loud squeal into the air. Stopped in time, no sweat, only just, though, as the dizzy young thing grinned into the car and mouthed: Sorry, as if it had been her fault.

After that, the policemen forgot about the fragrant woman. They were thinking of their next five appointments, all in Handbridge. They were nearly finished, and because flashy Japanese hatchback owners were likely to be owned by young and attractive career girls, with any luck, they might find the lady of their dreams. There was more chance of that than finding the killer.

Cresta Raddish was saying something about a female serial killer in Arkansas she had studied who had cut off her victims’ fingers and fed them to her dog. It didn’t go anywhere, and Walter wondered if it was to fill in time, or perhaps to demonstrate how well qualified and experienced in her field she was.

A sharp rap came to the door.

Mrs West harrumphed.

She had given strict orders they were not to be disturbed.

‘Get that, Karen,’ she snapped.

Karen opened the door.

It was Jenny Thompson, a satisfied smirk on her face; none of them could miss.

‘Sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but Walter’s had another letter, I mean Inspector Darriteau,’ and she produced another skinny manila envelope. ‘Same wacky print,’ she said, holding it up for all to see.

Walter leapt from his chair, surprising everyone, including himself, at how quickly he moved. Took the envelope between finger and thumbnails like some old-fashioned fairground machine trying to grasp a prize.

‘Thanks, Jen,’ he muttered.

Karen nodded at the WPC and closed the door in her face.

He set the envelope on the desk before them.

Mrs West handed him a metal letter opener and a pair of tweezers, and retrieved a clear plastic sleeve from her drawer.

Walter drew out the sheet of paper and set it on the desk.

All three women were standing behind him, staring down at communiqué number three.

Well Wally,

You need help man.

You’ll never catch us at this rate.

Lady’s Day. We’ll see you there.

We have so much to talk about.

Can’t weight.

Can you?

The Chester Mollesters.

PS: Make sure your life insurance is paid up.

The same font, same inkjet production, same obvious bad spelling, same weird use of the plural, as in we’ll, not I’ll, when everyone was convinced they were looking for one person, one man or one woman. Perhaps that was where the “we” came into it, the he-she thing was so confused it believed it was two people, split personality gone crazy. We are murdering. We are a murderer. We can’t be caught. We are laughing.

‘What does he mean there?’ said Cresta, revealing that even she thought it might be a man, ‘When he says Lady’s Day.’

‘Chester races,’ said Karen.

‘Biggest day of the year,’ said Walter, recalling several carefree days spent on the tight but cute track, admiring the tiny but cute visitors, and especially on Ladies’ day, as it should have been spelt.

‘When is it?’ asked Cresta.

‘Day after tomorrow,’ said Mrs West.

‘It doesn’t give us much time,’ said Karen.

‘Time enough,’ said Walter.

‘I don’t think you should go anywhere near the track,’ said Mrs West, back in her chair, glancing at Walter.

‘I’m going, ma’am. I have to.’

‘Am I missing something, or has the killer not made a direct threat against you? Make sure your life insurance is paid up.’

‘Maybe, ma’am,’ said Karen, ‘but if he doesn’t go, the killer may walk away. Walter will have to be there, and be high profile too, so the killer can see him; and when and if the he-she thing makes its move, we strike.’

‘I agree with that,’ said Cresta. ‘Hundred percent. I mean, what’s the he-she thing going to do, gun him down in broad daylight before thousands of witnesses? Unlikely, don’t you think?’

‘Hope not,’ muttered Walter.

It may have been unlikely, but the image of it was powerful.

‘We’ll flood the place, thirty, forty, fifty, how many officers do you think you’ll need?’ Mrs West asked Walter.

‘Thirty is more than enough. We don’t want the killer frightened off by hundreds of suspicious looking police officers lumping around, not interested in racing.’

‘They’ll all have to look their best,’ said Karen. ‘They’ll stick out like sore thumbs otherwise. Best party wedding day frocks, jackets, pressed trousers, ties, neat shirts, and buttonholes for the boys.’

Great! Thought Walter, but when necessary he could dress up, when the occasion demanded, and this time it did.

Mrs West asked Karen, ‘Have you renewed your firearms licence?’

‘Yes, ma’am, recently done.’

‘Good. Go fully armed; and you too, Walter.’

Walter nodded; he always intended to do that.

‘You don’t think this could be a bluff, do you?’ said Karen.

‘How do you mean?’ asked Mrs West.

‘A diversionary tactic? While we are concentrating on the racecourse, the killer strikes somewhere else.’

‘The world is a big place,’ said Walter. ‘We can’t be in hundreds of locations at the same time. If it’s a diversion, so be it, but I don’t think it is.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Cresta in a rush.

‘Get on to the racecourse right now,’ said Mrs West to Karen. ‘We want thirty of the most expensive tickets, access all areas, we don’t want police staff flicking IDs every five minutes, and we are not paying either, and it’s to remain most secret, and don’t take no for an answer. I don’t care if they have been sold out for months. No, on second thoughts, we can do better than that. It’s only just across the road. Go down there right now, see them in person, throw your weight around if you have to, and take that Gibbons bloke with you for added muscle. He always seems to have time on his hands.’

Karen grinned and glanced at Walter.

He nodded the briefest of nods.

She frowned, flicked a smile and headed for the door.

Cresta was thinking of what to wear. She had bought a beautiful tight fitting purple frock in New York the last time she attended the International Profiler’s Conference. That should do.

‘You better call everyone together,’ said Mrs West to Walter. ‘Explain what we want. Everyone is to look as if they are attending their favourite brother’s wedding. I’ll organise the buttonholes. If anyone lets me down, they will have me to answer to. Oh, and remind the girls they will need to wear a hat. If they don’t have anything suitable, come and see me; I have a cupboard full of fancy items. I’ll want everyone dressed and ready and on parade by nine o’clock Thursday for final briefing, remind everyone there are big prizes to be won for the best turned out people.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Walter, standing and ambling outside.

They shouldn’t be thinking of winning bloody prizes.

He might forget to mention that incentive.

They should be thinking of arresting a serial killer, someone who had murdered six people to date, and was still running amok; someone who had the impudence to suggest that he update his life insurance.

There was no point in doing that. He didn’t have any.

What was the need?

After he’d gone Cresta asked: ‘So what do you think the he-she thing is going to do now?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Mrs West. ‘You?’

Cresta pursed her lips, pulled a face, shook her head and regretted asking the question.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Armitage celebrated his eighteenth birthday sitting alone in the Dublin Packet public house; set on the square opposite the picture house in Chester city centre.

He was staring at a barely touched pint of lager, a folded newspaper, the Liverpool Echo, on the table, a brown paper parcel at his side. He was looking for a new job, but there was nothing suitable in the paper.

Saint Edmond’s fixed him up with a job selling shoes in a branch of a multiple in Frodsham Street. To say he detested it was an understatement. He was amazed at the number of people who arrived with stinking, sweaty feet and ragged socks. Armitage paid attention to his appearance, both what you could see, and what you couldn’t, and was surprised so many people did not.

Many of the lads from Saint Edmond’s had found jobs as waiters or barmen where the punters regularly tipped. Some of the young guys made more money on tips than they did on wages, and Armitage liked the sound of that. When did you last hear of anyone tipping a shoe salesman, he would mutter to Dennis.

Answer, no one, and never!

He was waiting for Dennis, who had left the halfway house, Bellingfield, where Armitage now lived. Bellingfield was the Ritz Hotel compared to Saint Edmond’s. A maximum of two boys per room, unlimited showers, and usually they were hot, plus decent food and no lack of it. It was the closest thing Armitage had experienced to a proper home for longer than he cared to remember.

Dennis had done well at the soup factory. He was coming up twenty and had already been promoted twice. Seven trainees worked for him, at his beck and call, and at least three of them had arrived from Saint Edmond’s, so he knew what they would be like.

He worked hard, saved a little money, and put down a deposit on a small third-floor flat in Hoole. The flat had been cobbled together in the eaves, but he didn’t care about that. Too busy was he in revelling in having his own home. A place where on his days off he could get up whenever he chose, where he could bathe in hot water any time of the day or night, where he could eat what he wanted, and when he wanted, drink whatever he liked, though that freedom had turned him away from binge drinking. A safe place where he could watch television when he chose, and the channel he preferred, every time, and there was never anyone to tell him different. Dennis was like a pig in muck. He had never been happier.

His happiness was complete when in a greasy spoon café he met the mousy Jillian. She followed him everywhere and linked his arm at every opportunity, as if frightened someone might steal him from her. Dennis came into the Packet with Jillian, bought two halves of lager, and joined Army at the table.

‘How are you doing?’ asked Dennis.

‘Fine. You?’

‘Yeah, great,’ he said, ‘never been better,’ smiling at Jillian, who blushed.

Armitage glanced across at her. They were the perfect match. Dennis looked more like a rodent with each passing month, his long pointed nose and narrow face, truly rat-like, while Jillian boasted mousy hair, and a mouse like appearance bordering on the cute animals you could see in any American cartoon in the local picture house.

Sitting together on that bench seat, she linked Dennis’s arm, pulled herself closer, and squeaked, ‘Are we going to the pics, or what?’

‘Yeah, when I’ve finished my drink. Bought you this,’ Dennis said, sliding a wrapped present across the table.

‘Ta,’ said an embarrassed Armitage.

It would be the only birthday present he would receive.

‘It’s not much,’ said Dennis, ‘Jillian chose it.’

Jillian smiled awkwardly.

‘Ta,’ said Army again, ‘I’ll open it later.’

Jillian didn’t like Armitage. Perhaps she saw him as a threat to her future happiness, but she put up with him because she didn’t have any choice. Dennis had been on at her to find a girlfriend for Army for weeks, and she had fixed him up with three dates. Two of the girls didn’t repeat the performance, while the third lasted a month before binning Army.

‘They don’t like his attitude,’ explained Jillian, as she and Dennis were alone in bed at the top of the oddly named Charwell Mansions. ‘He’s too sarcastic.’

‘That’s only his way,’ Dennis explained.

‘That’s as may be, but girls don’t like being compared to animals. He told Shania she looked like a wild boar, and Lesley said he began calling her my favourite giraffe.’

Dennis laughed. He could see the logic in Army’s thinking. Lesley was giraffe-like.

‘And when he said to Sharon, she reminded him of a meerkat, and did that silly nat-nat-nat impression, I could have died. She was furious. No wonder she didn’t want to see him again.’

‘He’ll grow out of it,’ said Dennis, trying to excuse his friend’s awkwardness with women.

‘That’s as may be, but my friends won’t wait until he does.’

Dennis and Jillian finished their drinks and stood up to go. Dennis, at the last moment, turned and asked Army if he’d like to go with them to the pics. Armitage saw the horrified look that Jillian flashed Dennis.

‘No,’ he said, ‘you go on, I’ve got things to do.’

Dennis grinned and bobbed his head, and the pair of them left. After they had gone Army picked up the paper and folded it and stuffed it in his back trouser pocket, collected his present; and the brown bagged parcel, glanced at the beer, realised that he didn’t like lager, and left it on the table.

He would walk around the complete city walls. It was something he did to relax. He enjoyed the history of it, and it had become a new interest for him, and as he walked around that vast clockwise circle, it enabled him to think things through, to work things out. 

He was aware he was at a crossroads in his life.

The actions he took and the decisions he made would affect the rest of his days, and if those thoughts were unusual in an eighteen-year-old on the brink of adulthood, perhaps it was understandable, given the turbulent years he had endured.

Losing his mother, losing his home, losing his father, all before the age of eleven, losing the happy days at the flower shop, the scholarship to King’s, the dance classes, losing his voice and the mini stardom and adulation that it brought through his angelic singing, and living in the rough house that Saint Edmond’s was back then, open to bullying, harassment and predation, both physical and sexual, by pupils and staff alike. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising Armitage was not like other eighteen-year-olds.

Little wonder he could be sarcastic.

He had learned tough lessons.

He had learned that the only person who would ever do anything for him was himself. When he returned to Bellingfield, he ripped the paper from his present. It was a pack of three string vests. He hated string vests. Jillian had chosen them. Yep, that would be right.

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ARMITAGE STILL ATTENDED Saint Jude’s church, though he never went near the choir stalls. All the McGowan boys were away at college, and Machara had gained entry to Saint Andrews University, studying medicine, which thrilled her parents because the reverend had studied at that fine university.

Blair McGowan noticed the hangdog look that sat on Armitage’s face, and the general sense of gloom that cloaked him. One Sunday, standing on the steps after the service, shaking hands and smiling at parishioners as they left, Blair said, ‘Is everything all right, Armitage?’

Army nodded unconvincingly, and the reverend asked him to stay behind for a chat. Armitage had nothing better to do and agreed.

When everyone had gone, he followed Blair through the church to his private rooms at the back. Seated in that same musty office where Chris de Wyk had first touched him brought back dreadful memories, that he thought of getting up and leaving, when the reverend spoke.

‘I can’t help noticing that something is troubling you.’

Army took some time to reply.

‘I don’t seem to be making any headway in life. I can’t seem to get a steady girlfriend, I have a hateful job I despise, while everyone else seems to be getting on with their lives, I am stuck in a stinking rut.’

‘It will come, Armitage. Don’t be in such a rush, don’t force it, relax and try to enjoy life.’

‘That is easier said than done.’

Blair said something that surprised Army.

‘Have you ever felt the calling?’

‘The calling?’

‘Yes, to God, of course. You believe in God, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’

‘The thing is, Armitage; I have always thought you would make a fine vicar.’

Armitage smiled. It made a change for anyone to think he would make a fine anything.

‘Don’t you have to have qualifications, and stuff?’

‘Yes, you do, but you have plenty of time. You’re a clever lad; if you worked hard, I am sure you could get there. Why don’t you think about it, and if you are interested, I have dozens of books you could borrow from my old seminary. I could give you some lessons if you wanted?’

Armitage bobbed his head and promised he would think it over.

When he told Dennis, he laughed like a drain.

‘It could be worse,’ Dennis said, still guffawing, ‘at least you’re C of E; imagine if you were a catholic, you wouldn’t even be allowed nookie!’

‘I think if you wanted nookie you’d get it, regardless of whether you were a priest or not.’

‘True. You’re probably right.’

Army didn’t know what nookie was, or more accurately, he knew what it was, but not how and where to get it.

The following Sunday, Armitage told Blair McGowan that he was interested in taking things further. Blair smiled a satisfied smile, produced some books that he had brought with him in case of that eventuality, handed them to Armitage, who took them home and started out on the long road to becoming a Church of England vicar.

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WHILE HE STUDIED, IT took him four years to find a new job, an employer who would take him seriously, by offering a post that he deemed acceptable. He raised his standards and rejected supermarket shelf stacking, bar work, waiting on table, telephone selling for commission only, loan sharking around the council estates on behalf of minor criminals, and not so minor drug dealers, (good pay, short life expectancy). He rejected retailing of any kind; his days of pandering to the ungrateful and smelly public were behind him.

Rejected agricultural labouring too, picking swedes in the rain, for God’s sake, backbreaking work where the pay was lousy, and none of his colleagues would speak English. He didn’t try it. He didn’t try any of them, he wanted something better, and was determined to find it.

The day the letter came from the Inland Revenue offering him a clerking job in their brand new offices at the bottom of Northgate Street was a day he would never forget. It gave him huge satisfaction when he handed in his notice at the stinking feet farm, as he referred to Mawdsley’s Shoes.

What had broken him was not the sweaty feet, nor the holey socks, not the lack of tips, nor the poor money, or the complete lack of a career structure, no, the thing that had annoyed him the most was the arrogant and cold way so many of the Great British public treated shop assistants.

Boy, can we try the size nines? Boy?

These are awful, get something else!

I said tens, for God’s sake! Are you stupid?

Haven’t you anything better than this?

Pay attention when I’m speaking to you!

Wilsons up the road are much cheaper than you.

Go to bloody Wilsons then!

It wasn’t as if the customers were anything special. If they had been, they wouldn’t have been seen dead in Mawdsley’s. They were jumped up middle class pricks, most of them, who imagined that was the way to speak to servants like him.

When he left the store for the last time he vowed he would never look down on shop assistants, never treat them like dog dirt, and the next time he bought a pair of shoes, he would tip the assistant.

He did too. The young hard faced woman into whose hand he slipped the fiver; looked at him in disgust, imagining and wondering what he was offering her money for.

‘Bugger off!’ she yelled, thrusting the fiver back in his direction, a scruffy old note that fell to the maroon carpeted floor.

Armitage didn’t wait to retrieve it, but turned and left after noticing the heavy brigade coming to the girl’s assistance. Though it didn’t put him off being polite to shop staff.

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IN THE BEGINNING HE enjoyed working for the taxman. After a while he was doing what everyone else did, what they were told not to do. When no one was looking he would log on to the central computer and inspect the tax returns of all the people he knew, and illuminating they were.

How much money they earned; how much tax they paid, how much money they didn’t declare, though you had to know them personally and be able to read between the lines to calculate that.

Mrs Greenaway in the flower shop, under declared by forty percent, he estimated. Armitage felt guilty at prying into Dennis’s financial affairs, but it had to be done, and it was only in fun. It turned out he didn’t earn anywhere near as much as he said. Jillian the mouse; she was doing well, typing away in a big insurance company, running round and round and round the corporate wheel. She was earning more than Dennis, though he would swear blind that was not the case. No wonder they were planning to buy a house and get married, with all that money plopping into the communal pot.

As for Reverend Blair McGowan, Army had no idea vicars were paid so well, or were so wealthy. Look at the share dividends for God’s sake; are you listening and watching, dear God? And income from property too, let out in Scotland. The parishioners would be surprised to learn about that. Even Hancock at Saint Edmond’s, and his manager at Mawdsley’s, just about everyone he had ever known who was still alive and employed, all fascinating stuff, and contrary to his current terms and conditions of employment.

The Inland Revenue management were becoming extra keen on team bonding. It built a more efficient office and added to the happiness and contentment of staff, so the mantra said. There had been an alarming increase in people becoming bored and jumping ship, though Armitage did not mind that, because he landed two promotions through it, and two pay increases too, enabling him to take over Dennis’s flat, when the happy couple bought a dinky house down at Saltney, at not too many feet above sea level.

It took him a long time to get used to living alone.

No matter what hour he arrived back at Bellingfield there would always be someone there to share a pot of tea and a chat. Returning to his deathly quiet flat stuck high in the gods was a depressing experience.

Dennis and his mousy spouse took what little furniture they possessed to dinky town, and after paying rent and deposit and insurance on the flat, there was precious little left for Armitage to spend on luxuries... like furniture.

He visited the Salvation Army centre for wayward boys and girls, who supplied him with a clean single bed, he was single, so single was all he qualified for, one small stained settee, one tiny yellow plastic topped dining table with two rickety chairs, and a filthy set of pans he tossed in the dustbin.

It was a start.

It was home.

It was his home.

But it was damned depressing.

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THE LATEST WHEEZE OF team bonding was bound to terrify all but the boldest of staff. Parachute jumping, or skydiving, as they preferred to call it.

When it was first announced many of the team mouthed ‘Oh yeah? Not me, pal,’ but over the days that followed it became a test of one’s bravery or lily-liveredness, indeed one’s cowardice.

Who was up for it, and who was not?

Armitage was not the boldest young man there, but neither was he the weakest. But when Alan Steadman, the guy who’d always been considered the office wet, said he was looking forward to it and would jump, and declared that anyone who didn’t was a “fucking weed”, it became harder to refuse.

The date was set, engraved into the diary, logged up on the brand new office notice board as: Who’s a Yellow Bastard Day?

It was a Saturday morning.

The scruffy hired coach set off from outside the tax office at nine o’clock sharp. Anyone not there would be nominated an “utter weed” by none other than Alan Steadman.

Armitage dragged himself from his single bed, threw on a jumper and jeans, staggered down the stairs, and set off for the office, determined to hide his shaking legs.

The coach was packed with nervous sweaty-palmed tax collectors, as it headed west toward Hawarden airport, and the Glendower Aero Club. The rattled tax team would be taken up in groups of six and hurled from the Skyvan plane, yelling some ancient Indian war cry as they plummeted to earth.

If there was a God, pondered Armitage, and he wasn’t sure about that, this was as near as he was ever going to get to meet him.

The nerves kicked in as they ambled through the old tumbledown buildings that sufficed as reception centre and warming down rooms, trying to appear nonchalant.

The previous party of adrenaline fuelled lunatics were making their way back from the landing grounds, rolled up parachutes in hand, talking aloud, recapping their terrifying experiences, more than one saying, ‘I was certain the chute would not open!’

Doesn’t everyone think that?

The tax party was making ready to go, forced to listen to several barbed comments from the staff dishing out the gear: This party are tax inspectors; make sure they get the dodgy chutes, followed by strange laughs and weird looks. It was all in jest, wasn’t it?

The previous party were coming back, many of them saying they couldn’t wait to do it again; when everyone knew that once they were clear of the airfield, wild elephants would not drag them back.

Then it was Army’s turn.

They could see the aeroplane. The Short Brothers’ Skyvan, twin-engine turboprop, propellers stationary and waiting for the next gang of terrified pioneers.

The instructor turned up; assuring them there was nothing to it.

Piece of cake! Easy peasy! Come on! Let’s do this! Let’s go!

Armitage was no longer listening.

In an instant, he was miles away.

A million trillion miles above the earth, for the lights had switched on.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Ladies’ Day dawned bright and clear; the perfect early May day. Samantha was up early, took a shower, wanted to be in plenty of time. She hated rushing; nothing good was ever created in a rush. Even God took seven days.

She glanced at the expensive navy blue suit she’d bought on the last expedition to the expensive Manchester bazaars. No party frock for her, nothing flash and garish, but a businesswoman’s suit, for Samantha was on business.

Breakfast. Crushed fresh orange juice, bran flakes, a slice of toasted low carbo bread, dry and crunchy, no butter, no margarine. She would eat nothing more than an apple before her seven o’clock dinner.

Brush those perfect teeth, brush, brush, brush, no one would flash better teeth on the Roodee today, ’cept perhaps the favourite for the big race. Desi had good teeth too, but much larger than Sam’s. Some people might have thought they were too large, ugly even, but Sam didn’t, and Desi was comfortable in her own skin. Didn’t care a jot what anyone said or thought about her, and she was never short of admirers, lovers, that in her time Desi took full advantage of, until that hateful Toby Malone appeared and spoiled everything.

Sam took ages on the makeup. Foundation, a hint of blusher, perfect eyebrows, perfect lashes, understated lipstick. So many women looked tramps by going over the top, not Sam. Brilliant eyes. So blue. Unmissable. Desi said they were the brightest, bluest eyes she had ever seen. Sam had slept well. No need for chemical eye droplets to induce sparkle, not a hint of a bag. The eyes were alive with excitement as adrenaline rushed through her slender body.

Dressing. Stockings and suspenders. Very sexy. New bra and pants, not that anyone would ever see them, no one had, no one ever did, not since Desi went away. Perfect figure hugging suit, it was as if it had been tailored especially, fit her like a glove, and bound to attract wandering eyes. Many people went to the races to admire the punters. That was half the fun. To smile and chat and become better acquainted, and maybe, just maybe, collect a telephone number or two.

Sam could cope with that, being pursued, courted, quite enjoyed it if truth be told, and she’d dispense a telephone number if necessary. Not that it would be a real one, not one that could ever ring.

Ridiculously expensive black shoes, low heels, necessary because high heels could be such a drag, plus matching bag, and don’t look at the price tag, also culled from Manchester. What would mother and father have made of that?

Black hair, bob cut, thick and shiny, healthy appearance, like the best mare favourite for the big race, black beauty, shiny coat, top condition. No wonder she had a big following.

All the cash would be laid down that day.

Pose before the long mirror. Pout, for there would be no more pouting later. Turn to the left, perfect, turn to the right, yes, all good. Does my bum look big in this? Of course not, don’t be absurd; Samantha had the perfect, pert bum. Desi always said that after the eyes it was the first thing she noticed, though she must have had x-ray vision to see because Sam was facing Desi at the time.

Adjustment of the bra, adjustment of the breasts? Why in heaven’s name? Young, upturned, unmoving, pert, not too big, not too small. What more could any woman ask?

Dandruff on the collar? Don’t be ridiculous.

Red and gold member’s pass, shaped like a shield, classy braided tie-ons, fitted neatly on the suit collar. They had kept their membership since they’d first gone to the Roodee. They didn’t even have to apply for tickets, never missed a meeting, came automatically, bank account debited, tickets and tags in the mail, through the post box, on the mat, reliable as Christmas, just a pity one of them, Desi’s, would remain unused.

Ah well, just have to make it a year to remember.

That was the aim.

A finger on the doorbell.

That would be the taxi, bang on time.

Good man.

Where to?

The races, of course.

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THE INCIDENT ROOM RESEMBLED someone’s front room prior to the wedding of the year. No one had turned in late; everyone had gone to great effort. Walter was amazed at how an attractive bunch they were. Such a change to the scruffy mob who normally lounged through the building.

Mrs West was flapping about like a nervous bride’s mother, calling out: ‘Everyone got their buttonholes?’ and, ‘is there anyone who still hasn’t selected a hat?’ Meaning the women, Walter imagined, for he had no desire to wear a spring bonnet.

He was becoming annoyed at the all-pervading party atmosphere. They shouldn’t be thinking about hats and bonnets and bouquets. They should think of finding and arresting a serial killer, a cheeky wretch who’d had the nerve to threaten him, Inspector Walter Surprise Darriteau, the family joke was that he came as a complete surprise. Walter clacked his lips and glanced at the ceiling. Karen watched him do it and smiled to herself. She wondered what he was thinking about.

What an unusual man he was.

Walter’s patience ran out.

He stood up and clapped his huge hands.

‘Quiet! Settle down. It’s time to focus, get your minds in gear. Remember why we are here today!’

The hustle bustle noise and frantic fiddling with dress abated.

They turned and stared at the man.

That’s better, he thought, though said nothing. Took a beat.

‘Today is the day,’ he said, pointing at the ceiling, doing his best Churchillian impression, so he imagined, when in reality he came over more as a revivalist Christian minister. It wouldn’t have been out-of-place if someone had chirped in with a big, ‘Yeee-esss, A-men!’

At least he had their attention.

‘Today is the day we are going to catch the bastard!’

This time there was a reaction.

Gibbons yelled, ‘Yes sir! We bloody are!’

For once Walter enjoyed the interruption, nodded at the guy appreciatively, and said, ‘Karen! Over to you. Update on description of the killer.’

That caught her off guard. She hadn’t expected it.

Thanks, Guv. Thanks a lot.

‘Yes, well,’ she began, picking up the latest papers from her desk, re-gathering her thoughts. ‘The killer is, we believe, around five feet five inches tall.’

‘Could be taller in heels,’ threw in Cresta, her of the tight fitting enticing purple frock, voluptuous breasts, or so they appeared, white spray of carnations strategically positioned, interesting backside, Gibbons wasn’t the only one who looked at Cresta in a different light after seeing that dress.

Karen nodded and continued. ‘Believed to be blonde, believed to have bright green eyes, slender, attractive, well dressed, but then most people will be today, I mean, look at you lot, you look as if you’ve stepped out of Brown’s shop window.’

A few nervous giggles.

Walter gave her a gentle look that reminded her not to stray from the point.

‘Drives a smart Japanese hatchback, though might not arrive by car today.’

Seeing as parking was at a premium anywhere near Chester city centre, and especially on race days, it was likely the car would be left at home, wherever that was.

Walter wasn’t the only one to think the description was useless. Blonde hair, could be changed. Height, same applied, stick on bigger heels and away you go. Green eyes, maybe? Japanese hatchback, yeah, if indeed it came, it would be in good company with hundreds of identical others, slender, attractive, well-dressed people.

What on Chester Ladies’ Day?

Are you kidding?

Have you any idea how many slender, attractive, well-dressed men and women would flaunt themselves on the Roodee today? No one did, because the answer would be thousands. No, the description was worthless.

What they had to look for was someone who was not at the races to watch the horses, not to bet, not to party, not to get drunk, not to socialise, not to meet friends, not to cop off, and was probably alone. Someone not involved in press or TV, not catering, nor bookmaking, not pick-pocketing. No, this person was coming to the race meeting with one aim in mind, to murder him, and though no doubt the killer would carry the necessary props, binos, racecard, Racing Post, Member’s badge, they would merely be that, props, and they shouldn’t be distracted by them. This fiend was coming to divvy up death.

The only question was, how were they intending to do it?

Gunshot? In a public place, before thousands of other people? Seemed unlikely. It was feasible to gun someone down at close range, but how would they escape? And escaping was high on the killer’s agenda, Walter was certain of that. He ruled out guns, he couldn’t see it, but still encouraged his officers to search bags when the opportunity arose. The women officers on the entrance gates, making snap inspections of handbags under the guise of a random drugs search, the slim guys having their bino cases opened.

So if not guns, what then?

Poison? A la KGB. Poisoned tipped umbrella. Seemed far-fetched, but the killer had consistently showed imagination. Perhaps the idea wasn’t so stupid, and you didn’t need to carry an umbrella. A little scratch would do, so long as you had access to toxic poison. Walter wouldn’t rule that out. He didn’t rule anything out.

It only needed a little accident with a glass, a minor scratch to the cheek or neck or arm. It was easily done. He would have to watch out for that. Not bump into people, and not have people bumping into him, especially young and slender ones, though on a busy race day that was easier said than done.

Walter shared his thoughts with his captive audience, and plenty of other ideas too.

Karen said, ‘Don’t forget, this person, this he-she thing, is equally likely to be dressed as a man or as a woman.’

That was all they needed.

They were including every slim youngish person in attendance that day. What percentage was that? God knows. Pretty high, for sure. Just as well to know, though, to remember the young green-eyed guy standing at the bar next to you could be your potential nemesis.

So if guns were unlikely, and poison a possibility, what other crazed methods might the killer employ? What fiendish thinking was coursing through the maniac’s mind?

Walter did what he always did. He put himself in the killer’s shoes. If he were going to the races to kill someone, how would he do it?

An answer flashed into his mind.

He would wait. He would be patient. He would do it at the end of the day, when everyone’s guard was down, when everyone imagined the killer had bottled it and fled, or not shown at all. Or maybe this had been a diversionary tactic as Karen had suggested. Maybe the he-she thing was busy murdering elsewhere, some unfortunate soul in the suburbs while the police were otherwise engaged and sidetracked. That couldn’t be helped, but the end of day theory held water.

Walter envisaged that, as they made their way toward the exits at the end of an unsuccessful day, ambling out, muttering their disappointment, dispersing home, hands in pockets, eyes down, imagining the day had been wasted, but maybe not. Perhaps that was the exact moment the he-she thing was waiting for, and if so, how would the he-she thing strike?

Run him down as he came out through the gates?

Why not? He, or she, had done that before, though it didn’t follow the established pattern.

It had always been something different.

It would be different this time too.

But how, and where, and when, and why?

There was only one way to find out.

Display the target and see who fired.

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THE POLICE OPERATION split into ten distinct groups, left the building at three-minute intervals, ambled down to the course, not speaking, not seeing their own kind, not thinking of racing, not hearing the clip clops on the cobblestones as the thoroughbreds began unloading, not admiring the pretty girls or handsome guys, though that was more difficult for some than others, some of them armed, some of them not.

All nervous, and some afraid. 

Chapter Thirty-Six

A tall, dark gentleman bought her a glass of champagne. They were in one of the best bars at the back of the main grandstand. He knew Samantha, or at least remembered her from last year.

Gerrard was his name, ran his own engineering business on the Wrexham Road Business Park, so he said, not that Sam was in the least bit interested in that.

She was glad to be in his company. A lone person at the races can look out of place. Who goes racing alone? Not many, especially on Ladies’ Day.  They made a handsome couple, jet black hair on the pair of them, the man instantly smitten, the classy lady looking demure and cooing, ‘No-ooo, Gerrard, not today,’ or similar nonsense.

He asked her for her telephone number.

She glanced at his wedding ring.

He watched the track of her eyes.

‘Oh that,’ he said, ‘that’s long finished, been over for years.’

Liar, liar, pants on fire, Samantha wanted to scream, but didn’t, stopped herself in time. Weren’t all men so damned predictable, all spaffed the same nonsense, as she smiled and flicked her eyelashes, and made some excuse and went to freshen up.

It wasn’t the first pass she had received that day, nor would it be the last. It was Ladies’ Day after all; it was to be expected.

She had already clocked Walter.

It hadn’t been that difficult.

Chester was still primarily a white city, and a big black man with a head of misbehaving grey hair was hard to miss. She had seen him twice. First, he had been standing in front of the rows of bookmakers before the first race, before it was too packed to move. He was talking to three others, two goonish blokes, and the same slim blonde, his rock, from the broadcasts. They had been talking, mumbling under their breath, glancing at their racecards and newspapers, binoculars slung around the goons’ necks, pretending to be discussing the favourite’s chances, when all along they were saying, ‘Check out that character by the rails, could be him, or her,’ or, ‘Look at these two coming now, they fit the description.’

Samantha almost felt sorry for them.

They did not have a clue, literally.

And what was that bulge in Walter’s trousers? Ah, Wally, do I excite you that much? Sam inwardly giggled, the thought of meeting his dream date, but ah, alas no, it wasn’t Sam he was excited about; he wasn’t excited at all, not in that way. It was a gun, a pistol. Naughty Walter, naughty boy, fancy coming tooled up, if you pardon the expression. What do you think I am going to do, blow you away in broad daylight before ten thousand people? God, give me strength, grant me a smidgeon of credit.

Did you think I was as unimaginative as that?

Samantha had identified twenty-two plods.

It wasn’t difficult, and the racing hadn’t even started. It was so easy. They were not enjoying themselves. They weren’t checking out the talent, not as they should have been. Yes, they were inspecting people, but in a different way. They weren’t laughing and joking, and meeting and greeting old friends in that hearty way you see at the races, at Wimbledon, and Henley and Cowes too, though Sam had never been there, though she was young and ambitious, and there was plenty of time.

They looked too earnest, as if they had the troubles of the world on their shoulders. As if one of their number might be in for a nasty surprise. Samantha giggled, aloud this time, enough to attract the attention of a passing Jockey Club steward, dressed in tweeds, hurrying away to his position, but not in too much of a hurry that he couldn’t pause and doff his trilby before the stunning woman and say, ‘So nice to see you here again this year,’ whether he had met her before or not, and departing with, ‘I’ll be in the Grosvenor Bar later for a snifter if you fancy it?’

Sam smiled and bobbed her head and said she might be there, and the steward grinned and turned and hopped away, an additional spring in his aging step.

‘Where’s Karen?’ grunted Walter.

‘Gone to the ladies again,’ said Jenny, ‘had a bad curry last night, by all accounts, touch of the runs.’

That was more information than Walter needed. He rolled his eyes and swept them over the gathering throng. Was the murderer among them? Of course he was, and Walter still believed it was a man, despite Cresta’s protestations otherwise. He found it difficult to believe there was a woman in Chester who was evil enough to murder six people, and attempt to murder him in broad daylight at the big May meeting. It was a man. It had to be a man. Of course it was a bloody man! He scanned the crowd again. But which man? Which one of these crazy bastards had come with murder in mind?

Karen came back. She looked awfully pale.

‘You all right?’

She nodded. ‘Touch of the squits, bloody curry.’

Again, too much information.

Walter slipped his hand in his pocket. Stroked his pistol.

Comforting, it was. Cold and menacing.

Glock 22, new issue, seven point three inches long, five point four inches tall, twenty-three ounces in weight, when empty. Walter’s was fully packed, as was Karen’s, forced into her black, shiny bag. The Glock 22, made by Glock GMBH in Austria. The American law enforcement officer’s favourite handgun, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Bet that annoyed the hell out of Smith and Wesson. Five hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of protection, brand new, plus carriage and taxes, you must never forget the carriage and taxes.

At least Walter hadn’t paid for the damned thing.

First race down. Favourite bolted up. Punters happy. Lots of smiling faces and fattening wallets. Early days.

Sam ambled to the Grosvenor Bar.

There was no hurry.

Gerrard was there, talking to three middle-aged fattening women. They looked like farmer’s wives with ambitions to join the Cheshire set. He spied Samantha over one of their shoulders, and made his excuses and left them to their fizzy drinks, and nonchalantly ambled across, becoming bolder; the champagne working its magic.

‘There you are,’ he said, as if they had known each other for years. ‘How about dinner tonight? Everything on me.’

‘You are a persistent man, aren’t you?’ she said, scrawling a non-existent telephone number on his racecard, or maybe it really did exist, who knows? But certainly not hers. Random numbers that popped from her pretty head. Someone could be in for a cranky surprise call.

‘You won’t regret it,’ he said.

‘I hope not,’ she smiled, ‘I’ll have to go, my friends will wonder where I am,’ and she left him there to his imaginative thoughts, as she swayed away.

Second race over. Favourite number two wins by a nose, roared home by a jumping crowd. Bad day for the bookies. Good day for the gamblers and bars. Corks popped. Still early doors. A dangerous time. More ammunition to take on the bookies. Many punters bet too big when they have cash in hand. Lose big too.

That was when she saw Walter again, at the back of the main stand where the corridors went through to the bars and restaurants and toilets and corporate and private function rooms, where the hospitality was high, and the big money spent.

She was happy to see him there.

Closer to where she wanted him.

Walter was thinking his theory of a late strike when guards were down was most likely. Unobtrusive runners came to him with reports all afternoon. He reminded them of his earlier thinking. Don’t let your guard down, stay alert, stay focussed, right till the end of the day. It wasn’t over till it’s over.

Race three.

One of the big ones.

The popular mare. Could she win again?

Who cares? Forget about the damned horses!

While everyone was heading for the expensive boxes and trackside bookies, and the rails, and saddling enclosure, anywhere to get a better look at the popular mare, Samantha was heading in the opposite direction.

Based on the theory that everyone needed the lavatory sometime, she was waiting, standing in the doorway to one of the hospitality suites, as if she had popped out to take a personal call, talking on a mobile phone to a non-existent lover. No one glanced at her twice.

A fat woman waddled by and went into the toilets.

A slim woman followed her in. The slim woman.

The broadcasting blonde. Walter’s rock.

Time to move.

Time to go to work.

Samantha closed her phone, slipped it in her pocket and followed them inside.

The fat woman was washing her hands.

The blonde woman was locked in a cubicle. The big woman glanced at the smart woman with the bright blue eyes. Rolled her eyebrows in half recognition and said, ‘Mustn’t miss the big race.’

‘You’ve got time; one of them’s split a plate.’

‘Really? Super, I fancy the favourite,’ and she bustled away, time enough to get a big bet on the shiny black mare.

Samantha followed her toward the exit, through the narrow corridor toward the door. White-tiled walls from floor to ceiling. In the background the sound of dripping water, the chemical stench of disinfectant block. The door flapped closed. The big woman had gone. Sam opened her bag, took out a light chain, drew it across the entrance, fixed it to the walls with sticky tack, blocking admission, pulled out the homemade sign, bright red letters, Toilets Closed For Cleaning, not in wacky type, amazing what you could knock up on the computer, hung it on the chain, it wouldn’t matter to desperate users, there were plenty of other facilities along the way.

Went back to the main room.

One cubicle door still closed.

Noises coming from within.

Plenty going on.

Samantha crept into the cubicle next door.

She’d left her bag open, no need to unclick.

Closed the pan lid. Stood gently on top.

Took the thin rope from the bag.

Set the bag on the window ledge.

Reached up to the top of the dividing wall.

Pulled herself up.

Outside, the crowd was going crazy, the racket flooding in through the open windows. The mare was leading, a hundred and fifty yards to go, the crammed stands had never been so raucous. Karen didn’t hear Sam, couldn’t hear a thing above the crowd.

Samantha peered over the top.

Blondie was down there, still busy; looking straight ahead, upset tum by the smell of things. Still hadn’t heard a thing. Couldn’t hear a thing.

Neatly tied, pre-prepared rope, brand new, white, almost silky, thin but strong, there would be only one chance. She had been practising at home on a large imported teddy bear. Had it off pat.

Lowered the noose.

‘Go on Pandora! Go on!’ yelled the crowd.

The colt was catching the mare.

The crowd was in ferment.

Quickly down, over the hair, around the porcelain neck, perfect, and PULL!

The knot tightened.

Karen’s eyes almost popped from her skull.

What the bugger! She wanted to scream, but couldn’t say a word.

Reached for her bag and the salvation of the Glock 22.

The bag was on the floor.

Karen was rising fast.

She grasped at thin air.

Samantha yanked the rope hard and fastened it to the strut of the open metal-framed window.

Karen’s hands clutched at the rope, trying to slip her fingers inside the knot. Her weight dangling on the rope tightened the noose.

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t shout.

She couldn’t reach the gun.

She couldn’t ease the knot.

She was turning purple.

She was dying.

Samantha smiled.

Seven up.

100 Ways to Kill People.

Hang them in the lavatory at the local racetrack.

That should give them something to think about.

That might make that arrogant bastard Darriteau think again. Serve him right for his negligence. Serve him bloody well right. He could pay this time. See how he liked it, to lose someone he cared for. And all the time he thought it was his turn today. Arrogant prick! Typical man. Couldn’t see beyond his own importance. Couldn’t see the end of his gigantic nose. Arrogance, a fatal flaw.

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THE COLT PIPPED THE mare on the line, spoiling Ladies’ Day for many. The crowd grew quiet. Long faces. Wallets were being checked. How much are we down?

Samantha collected her bag and hopped down from the pan.

Choking sounds, soft dying gurgles, came from the cubicle next door, growing ever fainter. She made her way to the exit. Eased her way over the sign.

Two women were coming in after the race

‘Closed for maintenance,’ Sam said, smiling and pointing at the notice. ‘There’s another one just along there,’ and she took them outside and showed them the way.

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Samantha turned and hurried away toward the exits.

Job done.

Number seven.

Seven times over.

Mission accomplished.

There would be no more.

Now she was satisfied.

She would leave Walter alone to mull over forever his own inadequacies. To miss the one he loved. See how he liked it. See how he coped. He could stew in his own filthy juice. He’d probably get fired, which was what he deserved. He could spend the rest of his days mulling over how he let down his rock. How he had failed to detect the Chester Mollester. To reflect on what a useless piece of shit he was.

Karen blacked out.

No feeling, no sense.

Gently swinging on the end of the rope, her hands limp by her sides, knickers around her ankles, filthy muck oozing down the inside of her thighs, designer handbag and loaded Glock 22 still asleep and unemployed on the floor.

Ladies’ Day at Chester races, in the Ladies.

The mare’s in trouble.

Favourite downed.

Seven up.

Balmy breeze floating through the open window.

Swaying body. End of a rope.

Job done.

All over.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The first time Desi saw Eden Leys, she went there by taxi. She made a mental note of the route for she was determined to pass the imminent driving test. She had been collected from the small railway station at Whitchurch, and they headed south on the A41, until the road forked at the big truck stop, left to Wolverhampton, right to Shrewsbury.

She held on tight as the taxi swerved around the roundabout to the right, before turning left onto the Shrewsbury road.

‘Not far now, miss,’ said the cabby, in his gentle local accent. ‘Coming up on the left.’

Desiree peered that way, at the gigantic former aircraft hangers that were used as grain stores, though the European grain mountain had long since vanished, flogged off to pay for the club.

Then a sharp left turn down a narrow straight road, a single square red sign on the left, TRENCHERMAN RESEARCH PLC - No Unauthorised Persons. The road continued onward, bisecting two vast grey neglected hangars. Up ahead she could see a guard post, red and white barrier across the road, tall wire fence topped with rolled barbed wire, winding away to the left and right as far as she could see.

Set back ten yards inside the wire were conifer plantations, thick enough to stop anyone on the outside seeing the interior.

Beyond the entrance was a two-story redbrick building, wide and flat-topped, that also blocked any view of what lay beyond. The cabby stopped at the gates, nodded to one of the security guards as if they were familiar, and completed a three-point turn, making ready to leave.

‘That’s twelve pounds, miss,’ he said.

Desiree tugged fifteen from her purse and slipped it into his hand.

‘Thanks miss,’ he smiled. ‘Do you want a hand with your bag?’

She had brought one large wheeled case.

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said, and stepped out into the sunshine.

‘Good luck,’ he called over his shoulder, and drove away.

Desiree turned and looked at the two guards who were eyeing her up. They wore dark blue uniforms with yellowy-gold flashes on their shoulders, badges on their left chest. When she was closer, she could read the gold writing: Trencherman Research – Security, that ran all the way around the outside of the badge in a circle.

She walked toward the guard hut and smiled.

‘Desiree Holloway signing in.’

The guards nodded and one muttered, ‘Let’s see what we’ve got,’ and began tapping on his laptop.

It must have checked out.

‘Passes?’ he said, holding out his hand.

She showed ID, and that was checked and entered.

Must have been OK.

‘That’s fine, ma’am,’ and he turned and called another bloke forward who was sitting and reading a trashy tabloid.

‘Tom, another one for Mary Craigieson,’ he called, and Tom set his paper down and came forward and said, ‘Right-ho.’

‘He’ll take you there, ma’am.’

Desiree nodded and in the next moment she was following Tom through the gate to a dark blue four by four parked on the inside of the fence. He took her case and set it in the back, started the vehicle, and drove around the redbrick building, left, right, right again, and then left again, and headed into the heart of Eden Leys.

‘Are you busy?’ she asked, making small talk.

‘Always busy, ma’am, always,’ and that was that. He didn’t speak again until he was saying goodbye, after dropping her at a modern grey and glass structure somewhere in the centre of the complex.

She glanced up at the entrance. Terminal 19, it said, in big silver letters, grabbed her bag and wheeled it inside.

––––––––

PROFESSOR MARY CRAIGIESON showed Desiree her accommodation, modern, comfortable, but small, showed her where she would work, within Terminal 19, explained something of the work she would do, an area where most newcomers began, advised her that her four-day induction and basic training programme would begin at eight thirty the next morning. Then introduced her to another young woman named Sarah Sleepman, who would show her the facilities and explain the daily routine. Desiree Holloway was in, an accepted member of the Eden Leys Research team.

She was excited at the prospect of starting work, contributing, of using her skills and expertise, of pushing her research programmes further than she had ever been permitted before.

All the training, all that hard work, all the imaginative and creative ideas flowing through her head, all engendered through her total love of science, was coming to fruition. She couldn’t wait to begin.

––––––––

NOT FOR NOTHING WAS Eden Leys known within the scientific community as the Porton Down of the north. Desiree had been expecting a large site. What was it Mrs Bloemfontein had said? It is huge, you will want for nothing, supermarket, cinema, bowling facilities, swimming pool, I doubt you will feel the need to leave.

She hadn’t been wrong. The complex was far bigger than Desiree had ever imagined, mind boggling, like a mid-sized town, beavering away on countless research projects in dozens of modern buildings, all set behind the ring of impenetrable conifers and juniper trees that were set inside the ring of firs.

The other four countries involved possessed their own terminals within the site, more than one for the United States. They always had to be bigger, but all results and breakthroughs were shared, fed into the giant central computer system housed within Terminal 10. 

Desiree was surprised to bump into Professor Jim McClaine, and he was surprised to see her. He explained he had never realised how qualified she was, how brilliant she was, now that he knew her pioneering work was gaining universal praise. Jim said he wished he could turn the clock back, have that time together in Australia again, where he admitted he had kept things from her.

He’d underrated the young woman, and he wasn’t the first to do that. He couldn’t believe that someone so young, from such an ordinary background, could be so talented, and he apologised, almost embarrassingly so. Afterwards they became friends, sharing an occasional coffee, joining the same bowling teams, for teamwork and extra curricula activities were encouraged at Eden Leys.

––––––––

EXPERIMENTING ON LIVE animals had always been part of Desiree’s brief. She had known that all along, since the early days at Liverpool University. It didn’t bother her at all. She understood the best way to advance science, to find cures, to engineer scientific breakthroughs, to make genuine progress, advances that only a few years before would have been unthinkable, was experimentation on live and living tissue.

Started on mice, worked up through rats, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, to chimpanzees, that was the accepted ladder of progression. Most of the animals were bred on site; the breeding programme carried out in the single story green roofed Terminal 8. It saved a great deal of hassle. What people didn’t know about, they couldn’t crow about.

Working with mustard gas had long been one of Desiree’s aims. She had written a dissertation on the Effects of Mustard Gas on Living Tissue, and was becoming an authority on the subject.

Introducing mustard gas to a chimp’s arm took courage.

Desiree steeled herself. Once it was done the first time, it became easier. She was desperate to get onto the PLACAD programme and would do anything to achieve it.

Working on fresh human body parts was interesting too. They would arrive daily by dispatch rider from hospitals within a hundred-mile radius of Eden Leys. Most times they were young and healthy parts, maybe from patients who had died through accident, or other diseases, that had not contaminated the portions that arrived vacuum packed and ready to go. There was little difference between working on a human liver to that of a pig, lamb, or chimp, and freshness was everything.

Desiree wallowed in her work. She made rapid progress, enjoyed three pay increases in her first two years, and attended further crammer colleges in California and Bavaria. She had made new friends, had passed her driving test first time, had treated herself to the latest updated version of the Supa Cayton Cerisa, silver with a dashing maroon flash; that she drove home. Those visits became fewer and less often. There was little to leave the site for. All her requirements were catered for, and she rarely left.

She joined, and enjoyed the frantic social life, though never took a lover, despite the many overtures that came her way, including during one drunken night in the Red Caves Social Club, from Professor McClaine himself.

She was no longer interested in the squelchy business, or so she told herself, and afterwards an idea spread round the quarters that she was a lesbian, a rumour that returned to her like a boomerang, and one she laughed off in a millisecond.

Desiree was content.

It was what she was born to do.

But she had a problem, and one she couldn’t share with anyone.

There were voices in her head. 

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Samantha left the grandstand and made her way toward the exit. No hurry. No rush. No alarms. No intention of attracting attention. She skipped down the stairs and headed out across the forecourt toward the gates.

Behind her, the crowd were still murmuring, wondering how they had lost so much cash. An elderly gent was manning the exits. He saw the classy young woman coming toward him, a gentle smile on her pretty face.

‘Not going already?’ he said.

‘Lost on the first three races,’ she said, ‘that’s enough for me.’

‘Ah well, never mind. There’s always next year, pity about Pandora, wasn’t it?’

‘Sure was.’

He held the door open for her and she smiled again, stepped through, and headed up the cobblestoned hill toward the city.

The old guy took a last look outside, at the opportunistic group of five or six rough looking youths gathered there, hoping to bunk in without paying. They could forget that, and he stared at them and frowned and closed the gate and fastened it shut. 

––––––––

WALTER WAS BUSY DOING his rounds. The favourite mare had been turned over, pipped on the line, much to the annoyance of the crowd. Almost everyone backed Pandora. The collective smile had returned to the bookies’ faces.

Walter wasn’t smiling.

He made his way to the back of the main stand. Gibbons was there, hanging about, hands in pockets, looking bored.

‘Where’s Karen?’ asked Walter.

‘Bog,’ muttered Gibbons, nodding up at the Ladies sign.

‘How long has she been in there?’

‘Five minutes, maybe ten. She’s got a touch of...’

‘Yes, I know. Diarrhoea. Anyone else go in?’

‘Nah. Two women came out. A fat gal and a black-haired woman.’

‘What was she wearing?’

‘Navy blue suit, black bag, black shoes.’

‘Slim, slight, and attractive? Right?’

‘Yeah,’ said Gibbons, standing straighter, taking his hands from his pockets, pondering on what Walter had said.

Walter glanced at the Ladies sign. Ladies’ Day. Ladies.

It wasn’t him the bastard was after; it was the lady.

‘Come on!’ he yelled as he headed for the entrance.

By the time he was at the door, the younger Gibbons was ahead of him. He pushed through the door as if it didn’t exit, ripped down the homemade sign that brought their instant nightmares home, and dashed into the room.

All stalls wide open, bar one.

Gibbons shouldered it. It didn’t budge.

Went into the next cubicle.

Jumped on the closed lid.

Saw the rope tied to the window strut.

Pulled himself up.

Looked down.

‘Oh, hell!’

‘What is it?’ yelled Walter.

‘She’s been hung, Guv.’

‘Oh my God! Get her down! Now!’

Gibbons didn’t need telling. He was busy working on the rope. Karen’s weight had contributed to the cord being tied real tight. Gibbons broke his nails, wrestling it undone. He grabbed Karen’s body as it fell toward the floor.

‘Open the door!’ yelled Walter.

One hand supporting her, one hand slid back the catch.

‘Oh God!’ shouted Walter when he saw her. ‘Set her on the floor.’

Two women came in for a pee.

‘Police!’ screamed Gibbons. ‘Out!’

They glanced down at the purple-faced unconscious young woman; and the terror etched on the two guys’ faces and hurried away.

‘I don’t think she’s breathing, Guv,’ said Gibbons, ‘I think she’s gone.’

‘There’s a pulse,’ said Walter, loosening her blouse, ‘faint, but there. Ring for an ambulance. Quick!’

Walter crouched down and took a deep breath. Circled his lips around hers. Blew in. Came off her. Another big breath, down on her mouth again, and blow.

‘There’s an ambulance on the course,’ said Gibbons. ‘They say they’ll be here in two minutes.’

Same thing again, breathe in; breathe out, into another human being.

‘Come on, Karen! Come on!’ yelled Gibbons.

The sound of the ambulance’s beep-borp beep-borp filtered in through the open window.

Walter blew in again. Came off her.

Karen spluttered.

The men shared a look.

Two paramedics rushed in. Saw her. Knelt down. Asked what had happened.

‘Been hung!’ snapped Gibbons.

The medics took over. She was just about breathing. Her eyes revolving in their sockets, and foam on her blue lips.

‘Stay with her,’ bellowed Walter, ‘and don’t forget the bag... and the gun.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘After the bitch!’

‘Be careful!’

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WALTER BUMBLED DOWN the twenty-five steps. Headed toward the exit. The same old guy was there, surprised to see a big puffing black man coming his way.

Walter flashed ID.

‘Have you seen a slim young woman come this way, navy blue suit, black hair?’

‘Certainly have,’ he smiled. ‘A few minutes ago. You couldn’t miss her. Why, do you know her?’

‘You could say that. Which way did she go?’

‘Straight up the hill toward the town.’

‘Thanks,’ said Walter, as the old guy opened and closed the gate behind him.

Walter puffed his way up the hill, pondering on where the killer might go next. If she’d parked her car close by she would be away and out of the city. But what if she hadn’t come by car? What then? Where would she go? The railway station? That made sense. He jumped on his mobile, rang the train station, spoke to the railway police guy there and asked him to take a look. The bus station too? She didn’t come across as a bus station kind of girl. No matter, he rang home base and ordered a car there.

Where else? Where have you gone, he-she thing?

Young, smart, trendy, personable, slender, where do you see people like that in the middle of a sunny May afternoon. Coffee bars, that’s where. Not the old-fashioned milk bar places he preferred. No, the new American inspired trendy places, where people sat all day long with their mobile devices and laptop computers, half asleep over a cup of coffee or two, each cup costing more than a fiver, and don’t dare ask the price of a calorie busting cake.

He’d been in one or two of those poncy dives; sometimes with Karen, for she adored the places, and sometimes by himself, and he wondered how Karen was now, as the ambulance dashed northward through the traffic toward the Countess Hospital.

He checked the coffee bars. No sign of the he-she thing, and no one fitting the description. Plenty of pretty women but dressed in worn out split jeans. He questioned the staff. Slim, black hair, navy blue suit? Seen anyone? No one fitting the description, sorry, Inspector. He checked four or five alcohol watering holes. The trendy places she might patronise. They were all packed, people crammed around television screens, watching the racing from down the road, spent and alive betting slips still on the bar, weighted down with full pints, and G & T’s and pretty vodkas, discarded racing papers everywhere. Plenty of slim and attractive women in there too, but none that fitted the bill.

Where the hell are you, he-she thing?

Where have you gone?

––––––––

SAMANTHA HAD JUMPED on the first double-decker bus that came her way, took the four stops south, over the Grosvenor Bridge that afforded a splendid view of the packed racecourse. The horses were coming round the bend, the fourth race of the day under way; another favourite about to take an early bath.

By the time Walter had arrived in the first of the bars Samantha was already home, getting changed, planning a shower, reflecting on a satisfactory day’s work, thinking of dinner, duck breast and Jersey Royals, very nice, the end of an adventure, seven was enough, seven times over, getting ready to go to work, there would be no more killing. None. It was all over and she could celebrate at last.

Walter jumped back on the phone. Rang base. Nothing at the railway station, nothing at the bus depot. Rang the hospital. Gibbons came to the phone.

‘No news, Guv, she’s in with the consultant now.’

Walter clicked off and headed back to the station. Perhaps the he-she thing didn’t need to catch a bus or train. Maybe she lived bang in the centre of the city in any of the thousands of flats and houses crammed within the city walls. But where, he-she thing? Where?

They had missed her this time by a whisker, but they were getting closer, Walter knew that. They would nab her next time for sure; maybe Karen had seen her, might have some vital information, just so long as she was all right. Gibbons shouldn’t have left her alone, none of us should. What were we thinking?

Walter wasn’t to know the he-she thing had retired.

He hurried into the police station. Everyone was back at base, bar Gibbons and Karen.

The de-brief got underway.

Mrs West looked at Walter as if he’d blown his last chance. Said, ‘We almost lost one of our own today.’

That brought it home.

Cresta stared through the window as if in a trance, trying to make sense of it, trying to come up with a nugget of thinking that no one else had stumbled on. Jenny Thompson brought Walter a cup of coffee and set it down with a supportive look.

‘Thanks,’ muttered Walter.

Jenny smiled without showing teeth and retreated.

Mrs West was talking again.

She had a harsh voice. Shrill and hard on the ear.

Walter had not noticed that before, and though she was still speaking, she didn’t say a word, leastways not one that mattered.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

To be accepted on the secret PLACAD programme was the ultimate aim of all the ambitious scientists employed by Trencherman Research at Eden Leys. Desiree Holloway was no different.

She was desperate to be included because it brought huge cachet, but far more than that, it was where she felt she belonged. It was where she knew she could make the greatest contribution. 

PLACAD stood for Parkinson’s, Leukaemia, Alzheimer’s, Cancer And Dementia, and the ultimate aim of Eden Leys, aside from defence projects, was to find cures for the five devils, as some of the younger scientists christened them.

Trencherman Research had been set a target of producing results showing they could conquer these diseases within ten years. They were three years into the programme. It wasn’t a matter of if they could produce satisfactory vaccines and cures, but when.

All the scientists believed that, and Desiree was no different.

One morning Desi was called to Professor Mary Craigieson’s office where she was told to sit. There were two faceless gentlemen present who were not introduced and said little.

They asked her about her research; they quizzed her on her social life, though Desiree gained the distinct impression they knew the answers to the questions before they were issued. They asked for her views on PLACAD, and demanded to know where she could produce her weightiest contribution, and they asked about her own health, and in particular, her mental health.

Mental health issues had long been a major concern throughout the industry, stretching way back to 1917, when the serious work began. It was not everyone’s cup of tea; spouted one of the grey suited gents, repeating facts that everyone already knew.

Desiree answered their questions, assuring them she was happy, which she was. She said she gleaned great satisfaction through her work, and that bred happiness. She was healthy, and appeared that way, shiny hair and glowing rouge skin, and confirmed all was well up top, as they described it.

No one knows if all is well up top until it is too late, as all four of them knew when they sat round that desk, and mulled over the question. But her affirmation that mental health was not and had not been a problem for Desiree, was comforting to her inquisitors, and it was on her record.

They asked her if she had any plans for marriage and motherhood. She replied she had no such thoughts and had no intention of ever bearing children. That reply was both satisfactory and unsatisfactory. Satisfactory because it meant that she could concentrate on her work at Trencherman without maternity interruptions, unsatisfactory because wasn’t it normal for any woman to want to produce children? Could that lack of interest point to a slight problem up top?

Perhaps that should be investigated further.

They dismissed Desi from the room and told her to wait.

Professor Craigieson assured the gentlemen there were millions of women who did not wish to produce children, and that it would be ridiculous to deny her access to PLACAD on such flimsy grounds. The gents reluctantly concurred and PLACAD AUTHORISED was stamped on her record.

Desiree was called back and given the news, subject to her signing and agreeing to the new five way Security Secrets Agreement, drawn up by the CIA in far away Langley, Virginia, in cahoots with the British security services.

Desiree’s face beamed like no other the panel had witnessed. The smile that broke across her face was amazing. Her large white teeth reflected the neon light back across the desk; her whole demeanour one of total elation. She would be included among the world elite in her field. She was determined, single handedly if necessary, to produce a cure for one of the five devils, and particularly Alzheimer’s, which had afflicted her father.

––––––––

EXPERIMENTS ON LIVE human patients at Eden Leys were one of the key benefits of being accepted into PLACAD. Prior to that, Desiree was unaware such research work existed at Eden, or anywhere else.

But she understood the benefits.

Experimenting on chimpanzees was one thing, experimenting on live human beings was something else. The possibilities were endless.

Where the patients came from she did not know, or care. All of them were severe sufferers of that dreadful disease, and all died soon after the experiments were completed.

Afterwards they were issued with standard death certificates and taken to the on-site crematorium. She never saw a relative attend the brief ceremony in the all faiths chapel that sat alongside, and Desi attended every service whenever she could.

All too often, she was the only one there.

––––––––

WHY SHE BEGAN TAKING her work home, she could not explain. She had bought a smart maisonette in Chester that sat just above the weir, and the old stone bridge on the Handbridge bank of the river. During summer evenings she would sit on her balcony, alone with her thoughts, Singapore Sling in hand, gazing out toward the ancient city across the water, as the River Dee tumbled over the weir, the relaxing sound of constant dashing, crashing water, as it made its inevitable way toward the New Cut, and the wide estuary beyond.

Samples, blood, data, phials, all found their way to the office she had created in her spare bedroom. Security at Eden had become lax. There had never been a problem detected before, and that contributed to a lowering of standards. Vehicles were not properly checked, sometimes not at all. Security staff were poorly trained and badly managed. They did not know what was going on inside, and had little understanding of what they should look for. It was only a matter of time before it all blew up in someone’s face.

In the meantime, Desi’s collection of data and samples exploded. Sometimes she would sit and stare at them. Perhaps it gave her a feeling of power. After all, much of the data and samples were products of her pioneering work. Why shouldn’t she bring some of it home? It was hers.

If the neighbours had known of the toxic substances and discarded body parts living on the other side of the thin walls, they would have been aghast. Perhaps she spirited them away as some form of unconscious protection from the voices that infected her head, though she would not have agreed with that.

Didn’t everyone hear voices?

Didn’t everyone steel themselves when necessary and say: Come on, you old fool, you must deal with this!

Didn’t everyone do that?

Isn’t that the same?

Voices in the head.

Desiree explained away her troubles in that way.

It wasn’t a problem for her.

It wasn’t anything she couldn’t deal with.

It wasn’t worth worrying about.

Live human tissue experimentation was producing results.

That was the only thing that mattered.

She was closing in on the ultimate prize.

Conquering one of the devils.

A huge breakthrough was expected any day.

One day Desiree Holloway would be feted.

One day her second bedroom trophies might include a Nobel Prize.

Chapter Forty

Walter was denied access to his sergeant for the whole of the day after she had been attacked. He tried to bully his way in by saying she was a vital witness in an ongoing murder hunt.

He was rebuffed. She almost died, she’s still ill; you can’t see her today, go away; try again tomorrow.

Walter harrumphed and went home and sat up all night, thinking.

He stirred himself at first light, ran the electric shaver over his lined face, cleaned his aching teeth, applied deodorant, and left the house. The birds were singing as he ambled down the tree-lined road. Another fine day forecast. At the junction he jumped a bus the few stops into town. Went to the market, bought a bunch of seedless grapes from the surprised to see him sellers, who were just setting up.

Jumped a cab to the Countess Hospital.

They were surprised to see him there too.

He was asked to wait, perched on a padded bench at the end of the corridor. Breakfasts were being wheeled in. Sizzling bacon and eggs, porridge, orange juice, all came trundling by.

No one offered him any. He wasn’t hungry.

He’d try to catch a sister’s eye, a doctor’s. But they would rush by without recognising his nod. When they did, he was told to wait. The patient was not ready to see visitors. He would have to continue waiting, or he could go home. It was his choice.

He waited, nibbling on the sourish grapes.

At gone eleven, a doctor appeared. A young Indian man, greasy parted hair, the demeanour of one who’d worked a twelve-hour shift.

‘You’re waiting to see Karen Greenwood?’

‘Yes,’ said Walter, getting to his feet.

‘She’s been very ill, a close call.’

‘I realise that.’

‘You can see her for five minutes, no more; then you must leave. Understand?’

‘Sure.’

The doc bobbed his head and said, ‘Follow me.’

She was in a room by herself. Sitting up, or propped up against a bank of pillows, hooked up to a drip.

She looked appalling.

The last time Walter saw her, she was purple. Now she was as white as milk, her blue eyes sunken in her head, like circles of lapis lazuli tossed into deep snow. Her usual vibrant blonde hair was lank, parted in the middle, and tied back revealing extensive bandaging around her neck.

Walter nodded down and pulled up a seat.

‘How are you?’

A slight movement of the head, a forced smile, a croaked, ‘OK.’

‘I bought you these,’ he said, setting the grapes on the side table.

She glanced at the browsed fruit and wondered how long he’d been waiting. He couldn’t have known she couldn’t eat a thing.

Walter exhaled and checked out the room. There were so many things he wanted to ask, but it didn’t seem the right moment.

‘I didn’t see him,’ she said, her voice coming out in half whispered croaks.

‘A him?’

Karen nodded and mumbled, ‘Strong.’

Walter’s turn to nod.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘this person has a big grudge against us, against me. He tried to hurt me by taking you. He must have seen us together on the TV, in the papers; it’s very personal for him. Who would have a beef like that?’

Karen pulled a face and shook her head. Whispered, ‘Could be anyone, must be hundreds...’ as her voice tailed away.

‘Yeah, but this guy’s got a bigger grudge than the usual nutters.’

She frowned and shook her head.

‘Beats me,’ he said, ‘there must be something.’

He glanced into her face. Was there a hint of recognition? She tried to speak. An otherworldly breath escaped her lips. She turned to the bedside table, pointed to a pad and a blue pen. There was ample writing on the pad: need loo, need water, terrible headache, another pillow, hungry. He placed the pad in front of her and the pen in her right hand. She was cack handed, he’d forgotten, took it from the right, slipped it into the left. She half smiled and began writing.

H...

‘Harris?’ he said.

Shook her head. O...

‘Hooker?’

She shook her head.

He gave up trying to guess.

L...I...D...A...Y.

‘Holiday, when I was on holiday?’

Karen bobbed her head.

Walter never took holidays. He hated going away. He hated leaving his station to come back to find other people sitting at his desk, other officers dealing with his cases, poking around. He hated missing the day-to-day things, tiny facts that could later build into a case, clues that once missed were gone forever, and you could miss so much in two long weeks. It took ages to get back up to speed afterwards. Holidays were for amateurs.

The spring before last Mrs West lost patience with him and ordered him away from the station for two weeks. She said he was tired, jaded, and not the Walter of old, all facts he decried. He’d gone home, where he’d sat alone for forty-eight hours, before ringing in and pleading to be allowed back.

‘No!’ she said, ‘You come back and you collect your cards.’

Why he did what he did next, he couldn’t explain. He jumped a train to London, then the express commuter to Heathrow, and caught the first plane to Kingston. Had to pay through the nose for a standby ticket and that annoyed him. He hadn’t been back for twenty years and most of the people he knew were dead. His parents had been dead when he’d left the island as a nine-year-old, packed off all alone to see his Aunt Mimosa in Brixton. He thought he was on a holiday treat back then, only to discover he had a one-way ticket. Walter wouldn’t be going back. He’d never gone back, not permanently. His Aunt Mimosa was his new mummy, the only person he had in the whole world. She was dead too.

Throughout the ten-day stay, he revisited all the haunts of his childhood. Reminiscing, seeing fleeting ghosts from his past, playing with his schoolboy pals in the fields and on the beach with Jackie Nurse. Jackie had later gone to the States and fallen in with the wrong crowd. Got busted for car theft, drug running, and possessing an illegal weapon. He was sent to the FSP, the Florida State Prison in Bradford County.

And Wellworthy Griffiths, Welly, as everyone called him. Walter tried to find out what happened to Welly, but no one knew. They shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘He’s gone away,’ as if he’d vanished. ‘He’s gone away,’ no one knew where, no one knew when, hadn’t been seen in years. No one seemed to care much either. Walter wondered what happened to his friend, the tall skinny happy kid who would bowl at him all day long, as Walter tried to copy the main man, Everton Weekes, Sir Everton DeCourcy Weekes, to give him his full title, the greatest batsman ever to pick up a cricket bat, according to Walter Darriteau, even if he was a Barbadian.

Maybe when Walter retired, he could return to Jamaica and use his detection skills to find out what really happened to Wellworthy Griffiths, though even as the thought occurred to him, he knew he wouldn’t.

The holiday took ages to run its course, and when it was through, he was glad to be going home, for Britain was his home. It had been for fifty years, more than five sixths of his entire life. It was where he belonged, where his work was, where his friends were, where the he-she thing lived, where he wanted to be.

He glanced back at Karen.

‘What happened when I was on holiday?’

Karen gulped, tried to speak. Pointed at the glass of water. Walter handed it to her. She noticed his hand shook. Took a big pull on the glass, emptied it. Walter refilled it. Set it on the table. Karen nodded her thanks. Started writing again.

D...E...A...

‘Death?’ he said, unable to stop himself.

Karen half smiled and nodded.

O...N

‘Death on the Nile?’

Karen smirked and shook her head. Began again.

R...A...

‘Radio? Range? Race? Rally?’

Karen shook her head, carried on.

I...L...

‘Rail? Death on the railway?’

Karen stopped and nodded.

‘Like at Mostyn?’

‘Ya,’ she said, one short, sharp syllable.

‘Where?’

Karen shook her head.

‘You can’t remember? You don’t know?’

She nodded.

‘What about a death on the railway?’

She looked spent, close to tears, looked in need of a week’s sleep.

‘I need a name, Karen, I need a name.’

She closed her eyes, thinking, resting, sleeping, maybe.

Her blue eyes popped open again. Recognition, memory, fighting through whatever drugs they’d pumped into her. Began writing again.

H...O...L...L...O...

It took an age to write.

W...A...Y.

‘Holloway,’ he said aloud. It meant nothing to him, and yet, there was something there, but what? He couldn’t remember. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever known.

‘What about Holloway?’

She shook her head, closed her eyes.

Walter noticed the doc hovering in the doorway. Glanced over his shoulder. Whispered, ‘One more minute, it’s all I need.’

The doc didn’t say a word, just looked angry.

Walter glanced back at the girl.

She was writing again.

The doc came over to see.

T...H...A...N...X

‘Thanks? Thank you?’

Faintest of nods.

‘Thank you for what?’

F...O...R

‘Yeah? What for?’

X

He glanced at the doc, then back at the girl. Her eyes were closed; the pen had fallen from her hand.

‘That is enough, you must go now,’ said the doctor, and the hand on Walter’s shoulder, urging him to stand and turn and leave brooked no argument.

‘But what is the X?’

‘A kiss of course, it’s not an X, it’s a kiss.’

‘Ah, that,’ said Walter, ‘I see,’ he said, annoyed at his slowness, smiling to himself, as the doc waved him off down the corridor, as his medipager beeped.

Chapter Forty-One

Three years before.

––––––––

DESIREE’S RAPID PROGRESS was confirmed the day she received a letter from the Scientists’ Society, advising her she was to be the year’s recipient of the Sir Fred Berrington Memorial Trophy, a huge silver cup that most young scientists coveted.

Everyone knew the Memorial Trophy was presented to the best young scientist of the year, though the Society was far too conservative to repeat that.

But, as with awards that came from the Palace, she was forbidden to tell anyone of her prize, not even her nearest and dearest. It had to remain a secret, a total surprise to everyone but the winner. Desi was desperate to broadcast her news, not least to Professor Mary Craigieson, who had in her day won the trophy twenty years before. Desi bit her tongue and kept the secret.

The award would take place at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London, before a thousand of her contemporaries. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would present it amidst a blaze of smiles and flashlights.

Desi couldn’t wait.

The clock seemed to slide backwards; days felt like years, as she counted down toward her big day.

Finally, it arrived, and Desi set off for London by train.

Chester to Stafford, change there, jump on the Glasgow to London Euston service.

It was a crushing bright morning as she stood on Stafford’s Platform One, close to the rails, waiting for the connection. There were plenty of people about, and Desi knew the train would be full when it pulled in. She didn’t want to be at the back; she didn’t want to miss out on a seat; she didn’t want to stand all the way to London.

Later that evening, she’d have to make a big thank you speech, and though she had rehearsed and refined it time and again, standing before her long hall mirror, rehearsing her gestures as much as the words, she still felt the need to go over it again, memorising things one last time, making slight alterations too, cutting out a phrase here, adding something there, trimming the silly jokes that had sounded fine and dandy when she was daydreaming in the Red Caves Social Club with Professor Jim McClaine. Some of his Antipodean cracks in the club were incredibly funny, but probably not suitable for the occasion. No, she would add something topical that was in the news, something in the papers that day, and she couldn’t do all that standing up. She could never concentrate when standing on a train.

She wanted a seat.

She needed a seat.

She must have a seat.

Please stand clear!

The train now approaching Platform One will NOT be stopping at this station. Please stand clear.

She heard the tinny announcement and was pleased to see everyone taking a backward step. Desi did not. She stooped and grabbed her new maroon case and edged closer to the track.

She could hear the train approaching. She couldn’t miss it. A Manchester London non-stop express, hurtling past the signal box at the end of the platform, entering the station, closing on the main buildings, closing on Desi, no hint of slowing down, thundering through.

The whole place shook.

The voice in her head returned.

Jump, bitch! Jump!

Go on!

Jump, bitch! Jump!

From nowhere, she felt dizzy, unsteady on her feet.

Perhaps she had been working too hard.

She lifted her right foot to take a step... and stepped backward.

The train whistled through, less than two feet away, puzzled faces streaming by, as if Desi was flicking through a roll of film. Coloured, blurred faces, anxious faces, as if they weren’t real people at all, fleeting spirits, as if in a movie, or a dream.

From behind, an elderly lady stepped forward and said, ‘Are you all right, dear? You look awfully pale.’

Desi glanced down and focused on the lady’s grey-haired face.

‘I’m fine thanks, must have been something I ate.’

A mischievous glint formed on the lady’s phizog.

‘I’ve seen that body language before,’ she said. ‘In the way, are you?’

‘In the way?’ asked Desi.

‘Yes, you know, expecting good news to come?’ and she glanced at Desi’s trim tummy.

‘Oh God, no!’ said Desi, her hand going to her mouth. ‘God, I hope not. Impossible.’

The lady smiled and nodded at her knowingly and said, ‘You wouldn’t be the first girl to say that,’ still believing that she was right.

The tinny announcer returned.

The next train arriving at Platform One is the eleven sixteen to London Euston, stopping at Nuneaton and London Euston.

‘That’s me,’ said the lady.

‘And me,’ said Desi, and five minutes later they were sitting together, chatting, as they watched the gentle, green Staffordshire countryside rolling by.

––––––––

THE AWARD CEREMONY went perfectly. The Sir Fred Berrington Memorial Trophy glistened in her arms. She’d collected it to thunderous applause, and embraced it as a long-lost lover. It was the second most prestigious prize of the night, only the all-embracing Golden Scientist of the Year Shield ranked above it in importance. Desi had already thought about that. She was determined to return next year and bag the Gold Shield. She possessed the ammunition to do that too, for she was on the verge of a mind-altering breakthrough.

Her speech went well; the audience laughed where they were meant to laugh, and more importantly, listened intently to the serious stuff. Desi had a talent for public speaking. She’d always known that, but that night it was reinforced.

Desi could hold an audience like an osprey gripping a slippery sea trout. She wasn’t about to drop them, not until she was good and ready. 

The following day she would return to her riverside maisonette, where she would set the glittering silver trophy down among her other spoils of war, like a proud magpie, in the spare bedroom, now crammed with the weird and wonderful flotsam and jetsam of her experiments. She would polish the cup every month, and when the day came to return it, it would be in better shape than ever.

In the meantime, she would occasionally glance at the prestigious names engraved there; going back fifty years, fifty eminent people, the best young scientists Britain had to offer, and there at the bottom, the very last name, freshly engraved, was Desiree Mitford Holloway, only the second woman to bag the prize, following in the pioneering footsteps of her tutor and mentor, Professor Mary Craigieson. How neat was that?

Desiree inwardly smiled. She was at peace with the world.

Chapter Forty-Two

The moment Walter left the hospital, he took out his phone and rang base. Jenny Thompson answered.

‘Is Gibbons there?’

‘Gone out, Guv. Had a bit of an alarm.’

‘What kind of alarm?’

‘A woman in a big house over at Curzon Park reported a maniac in the kitchen threatening her. We all thought it was another, you know, he-she thing attack. We’ve been trying to contact you.’

‘Phone’s off. I’ve been with Karen.’

‘How is she?’

‘Rough. What happened?’

‘Nah, false alarm, it was that idiot Davey Seed.’

Jenny didn’t need to say anymore. Davey Seed was a basket case who should never have been walking the streets. Made a habit of wandering into other people’s houses, usually in the summer when side gates were unlocked and conservatory doors were thrown wide open. He’d stroll in and sit down and gurn at the householder and say, ‘Tea? Tea? Any tea?’

‘The lady’s very shaken up,’ said Jenny.

‘I’ll bet. The sight of Davey Seed would upset anyone who didn’t know him. Forget about that. I want you to do something for me. Urgent.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘There was a case a couple of springs ago.’

‘I wasn’t here then.’

‘I know that,’ said Walter, keeping the irritation from his voice.

‘Sorry, Guv.’

‘Something about a death on a railway? Something to do with someone called Holloway. It must be on file somewhere. I want an address. Got that?’

‘Sure, Guv. Holloway.’

‘Find out all you can, oh, and can you drive?’

‘Yes, sure, Guv.’

‘Arrange an unmarked car, and change into civvies. You do have plainclothes?’

‘Sure, Guv, in my locker.’

‘OK, Jenny. Get on that, top priority. I’ll be back as soon as I can grab a cab.’

––––––––

JENNY WAS SITTING AT Karen’s desk when Walter hurried in.

‘Well?’ he said, before he’d even sat down.

‘Desiree Holloway met her end under a Glasgow-Euston express at Crewe Station. Several witnesses stated it was suicide, though there were allegations she had been pushed.’

‘Allegations by whom?’

‘Don’t know, Guv. The records are not great. Think there was a big admin shake-up shortly afterwards.’

‘Ah yes,’ he mumbled, remembering the Mrs West big shake-up spring clean. Joan’s shake and whack, the lads called it. He’d forgotten about that. It had to be done, but by God she milked the moment. ‘Have you got an address?’

‘Not Holloway’s. That seems to be among the lost data, but I do have an address for the next of kin.’

‘Where?’

‘Iona House, Wrexham Road.’

‘Good girl. We’ll try there. Car organised?’

‘Yep, though it’s a bit crap.’

‘Don’t care, so long as it’s in civvies and gets us there.’

‘Shall I tell Mrs West where we are going?’

Walter gave her a look that said everything.

He unlocked his desk drawer and retrieved the Glock 22. Slipped it into his raincoat pocket. Jenny watched him do it and wondered what was going down, and what she had let herself in for.

‘Come on,’ he said, striding for the door, Jenny hurrying to keep up.

For a big man with a limp, he couldn’t half shift when the feeling took him.

––––––––

WALTER WAS A DECENT driver, but he preferred being driven. It gave him thinking time when they were coming or going. When he was driving, he still thought about cases. Sometimes it had almost brought double trouble to his door. Hence Jenny was driving, and anyway he liked company, especially young company, especially on a case like this.

Jenny pointed the car south, past the Roodee, crossed the river, headed toward Wrexham.

‘So what’s this all about?’ she asked.

‘Not sure. Just an idea I had. It’s not far now.’

He was right. The building was coming up, set on a brow on the right-hand side. You couldn’t miss it, a late Victorian or early Edwardian detached house. As they drew closer, he stared up at the fascia. Built into the gable were the words Iona House, picked out in blue Mucklow bricks. It must have been a heck of a property in its day. It was divided into four spacious flats, as they discovered when they pulled into the driveway, set to the right side of the house.

There were two cars sleeping in the small rear car park, an old rusting Jaguar and a green Ford saloon that badly needed a wash. No smart Japanese hatchback. Disappointing. They went round to the front, their feet crunching on the gravel drive, and peered up at the four white bell pushes set beneath one another in a neat line. Before he could ring any of them, the front door opened and an elderly lady peered out.

‘Can I help you?’ she said. ‘But I must warn you I never buy from cold callers, and I don’t have any antiques I wish to sell.’

Walter smiled as gently as he could manage. Flashed his ID.

‘Your name is?’ he said.

‘Mrs Hymas, Elizabeth Hymas, Betty to my friends, though there is no Mr Hymas,’ she said, smiling at the pretty girl. ‘You know how it is, went his own way, thank the Lord for that, liked the booze, you see,’ and she pulled a crazy face. ‘Got a bit handy with his fists too when he was worse for wear,’ and she nodded slowly at the girl, as if it were a dire warning. ‘Horrible man!’

‘Which flat do you live in?’ asked Jenny.

‘Number one, though we prefer to call them apartments. I have the whole place to myself at the moment. Everyone’s out, so it’s quite nice to see you. It gives me someone to talk to. Mr Kenson and Mr Watson, they have the top flats, they go away together every May, never miss. They rent a place in Spain for two weeks. But they are not homo-funnykins, and all that peculiar business, they don’t sleep together, or anything like that, or at least I don’t think they do,’ and she grinned mischievously at Jenny, and added, ‘But who knows?’

‘And flat number two?’ asked Walter.

‘Nicest people you could wish to meet. Samuel and Samantha Holloway. They keep a lookout for me, run me on errands sometimes, bring me back heavy shopping, spuds and stuff, and the odd bottle of how’s your father,’ and she winked at the pair of them. ‘Tell you the truth, I don’t know what I’d do without them.’

‘They’re husband and wife?’ asked Jenny.

‘No, silly... brother and sister.’

‘And they are away at the moment?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘No, but I do know something very important is about to happen.’

‘Oh yes, like what?’

‘He’s a writer, you know. She does fashion, but it’s him who’s had the big success.’

‘What’s that, then?’

‘His new book, of course. Been a huge hit in America, he was telling me the other day. He’s going to the United States in a few days to collect his prize, a million dollars, can you imagine?’

‘Is he tall?’ asked Jenny.

‘No, not really, not as tall as this big fellow.’

Walter and Jenny shared a look. Jenny wanted to giggle. Walter hid a scowl.

‘And the sister; is she tall?’ asked Walter.

‘Pretty much. Not huge, but taller than her,’ she said, glancing back at Jenny.

‘Lovely slim figure, I’ll bet,’ said Walter.

‘Oh yes, mine was like that one day, you know,’ and suddenly she appeared guilty, as she ran her hands across her not overlarge stomach.

‘When are they due back?’ asked Jenny.

‘Tomorrow evening, he was most specific about that, said they would be back tomorrow evening.’

‘Tell me, Mrs Hymas,’ said Walter, ‘have you ever seen them together?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Have you ever seen Sam and Samantha together?’

‘Of course I have, well at least I think I have, I must have done, mustn’t I? They have been in my flat many times.’

‘And both at the same time?’ asked Jenny. ‘Say, had a meal together, you and the two of them round the table?’

‘Well, no, we never eat together. We are not that close. But I get a separate card and present from them every Christmas. One from him, forward sloping writing in blue, and one from her, backward sloping writing, in black. Generous they are with their presents too, I’ll say that. More so than misery guts Kenson and Watson, sounds like an estate agents, don’t you think? Kenson and Watson. Yuck!’

Walter smiled.

Jenny did too.

‘I want you to do us a big favour,’ said Walter.

‘Anything to help the police.’

‘Don’t tell Sam and Samantha we called. We want it to be a surprise. It’s to do with the book, you see,’ and he touched his nose and winked.

‘Ooh, is it? How exciting. I won’t say a word.’

‘And one other thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘Would it be OK if we waited in your apartment tomorrow until they came home?’

‘Sort of a nice surprise for them both?’

‘That’s correct,’ said Jenny, ‘a smashing surprise.’

‘Of course you can. I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll bake some fairy cakes. My fairies have won prizes right across Chester.’

‘Don’t go to too much trouble,’ said Walter.

‘It’s no trouble at all, tell you the truth, I’ll enjoy the company, it’ll make such a pleasant change.’

‘We’ll come just after lunch.’

‘Come whenever you like. I won’t be going anywhere. The kettle is always thinking of boiling.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ said Walter. ‘Thanks so much, Mrs Hymas, you’ve been most helpful.’

They smiled at her one last time and turned away and retreated to the car park.

She didn’t go in until they were out of sight.

Round the back, Walter went to the window of flat 2, placed his hands on the glass to shade his eyes, and peered in.

‘See anything?’

‘Not really. These lace curtains don’t help. Just a normal kitchen as far as I can see, maybe a stove.’

‘You think it’s him or her?’

‘Not sure. As soon as we get back to the station, arrange a search warrant. If he doesn’t show tomorrow, we’ll turn the place over, see what’s in there.’

‘OK, Guv.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, thinking of something else, as he turned back to the car.

‘Guv?’

‘What?’

‘Would you ever think of kicking in the door, taking a sly look? You know, just in case.’

Walter turned back to her and peered at the door. Glanced at her again. Course, he’d thought of it.

‘That, WPC Thompson would be illegal, and in any case, if we did, and made a mess, and there was nothing of interest in there, it might warn the bastard off if he came home later when we weren’t here. Understand?’

‘Yes, Guv. I see.’

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There are things I want to research in the records.’

Jenny started the car and headed back toward the city.

Walter laughed inwardly.

He could hardly believe what he had just heard.

The young WPC advocating breaking and entering on the off chance they might stumble on information. What were they teaching them at Police College these days?

Showed initiative, though, you had to grant her that.

Walter giggled.

Jenny glanced at him from the corner of her eye and wondered why he was tittering.

His mouth was dry. He needed a pint. He needed several pints.

Chapter Forty-Three

Karen was discharged the following day. She was young and fit and had rapidly recovered and they needed the bed. She wanted to go home but didn’t want to be alone, so she rang Gibbons and asked him if he’d like to come over for a chat.

He said he would, though his shift didn’t finish until 8pm. He’d be round at ten after taking a shower and grabbing a bite to eat.

‘Thomas Telford House,’ she said. ‘Number fifty, on the ring road, overlooking the locks.’

‘I know it,’ he said, ‘I’ll see you later.’

It was only a couple of hundred yards from his police digs; it wouldn’t take two jiffies to get there.

––––––––

SAM SETTLED DOWN IN front of the television. Looking forward to seeing the news. See what spin they put on events at Chester racecourse. A tiny smile played across the lips.

Sam was in for a big surprise.

There was nothing on the national news.

That was weird. Why not? There should have been.

Wanted to see the fat black cop squirm; wanted to see him angry, to see him disconsolate, wanted to see him shaking with rage, wanted to see him feeling the loss.

The local news came on. A little common sense had returned. It was the lead story.

The sexy announcer carried that excited inflection in her voice, only present when a major story broke. 

They were showing library footage of the racecourse, hazy distant pictures of groundsmen preparing the track, mowing and clipping, and other guys with paint pots looking for something to paint white.

The breathy voice cut in.

A woman police officer was attacked in the toilets at Chester races on Ladies’ Day. Thankfully, she is making a rapid recovery. Her injuries are not life threatening. The police are looking to interview a slim woman aged around thirty, black hair, wearing a navy blue suit and a member’s badge.

How could the injuries not be serious?

Of course, the injuries were serious!

They were lying. They were all lying.

In cahoots with the authorities. Liars!

Conspiracy, a pathetic attempt to trick Sam and the public into believing barefaced lies.

When someone is hung by the neck, when they blackout and are left for dead, the injuries are deadly serious. Get real. Be honest!

But what if she wasn’t dead? What then?

Seven times over was seven times over.

Now they were saying it hadn’t happened.

Six times wasn’t enough.

Six times wasn’t the deal.

Six times meant unfinished business.

––––––––

10.30PM THAT NIGHT.

––––––––

STILL NOTHING ON THE national news. Nothing new on the local either. Same old cannon fodder. Something had to be done.

––––––––

THE MAN CAREFULLY DRESSED, all in black. Sweatshirt, jeans, socks, leather gloves, woolly hat, trainers, all black. Picked up the black sports bag and let himself out. Went downstairs to the underground car park. Opened the car, threw the bag on the back seat, jumped in the front, started the engine, cruised out into the black night. No moon, no stars, thick cloud, a cloaking mist creeping up the river on the late tide, a chilly night for May. The only light piercing the gloom, the cold orange sodium that was everywhere. He didn’t have far to drive, three miles max, through the city centre and on to the northern suburbs.

In the city the early drinkers and diners were leaving town, the late night hard boozers and boppers and gamblers were going in. The centre was lit up like Christmas. All around, young people filled the pavements, chattering like gulls, shrieking, laughing, pointing, threatening, punching, fighting, fainting, puking.

The man drove on, didn’t see them at all, didn’t see anything; just drove. The suburbs were quiet. He parked in a tree-lined boulevard, a hundred yards from the target. Slipped the car in amongst a dozen similar middle class vehicles.

Cut the engine. Turned round, grabbed the bag, stepped out, locked the car; walked away, not too quick; not too slow, heading down toward the house. Two sleepy squirrels in one of the trees above his head watched him go. He didn’t see them. They cuddled up together and closed their eyes.

At the target property, there was a dim light on in the front room. Nothing upstairs. All dark. He glanced around. No one about. Crept up the path. Opened the side gate, not too difficult, just the one bolt, no padlock, pushed open, not too noisy, slipped through, eased closed, stood still in the absolute blackness, eyes growing accustomed to the dark, tiptoed down the alleyway, hand out ahead; feeling for bins or bikes. All clear. Nothing there.

Somewhere nearby a dog barked, not next door, maybe three or four houses away. Not an alarmed bark, not a people come running bark, maybe a play bark, or an I’m hungry bark. At the back of the house, down the garden, beyond the hedge, he could see similar properties through the bushes and pruned trees. Some lights were on over there, all the curtains and blinds were closed; no one was looking out, no kid playing up at well gone bedtime. One house had security lighting illuminating a flat extension. Two cats were yowling and fighting there, the black and white one breaking off and dashing away. A fraction of light filtered over the hedge into the garden where he stood. The man shrugged and turned back to the house that interested him.

He stared up at the old home. Jammed on the rear of the building as an afterthought was a small single story extension, pebble-dash and brick, perhaps a kitchen. It boasted a wide window, three panes across, no curtains or blinds, nothing. There was no light on inside, just the hint of brightness filtering in from another room, or maybe from the hallway. The window frames were the original wooden structures. They had begun to perish. His gloved hand rubbed one corner. A little came away on his thumb. He set the bag on the floor, stooped down, opened up, the metal zip sounding like gunfire, took out a small jemmy, stood up, inserted it in the vertical edge of the left window, and levered it back. Not too much force. Not too little. Gently does it.

The old window frame was no match for a modern tempered steel tool. The metal catch inside securing the window burst with a crack. The window came open in his hand. He stood quite still, half expecting someone to come running. No one did. The same dog barked again. No one paid attention. Somewhere over the back, a door opened, the metallic blurred sound of a TV or radio spilled out, drifting on the still night air, and someone yelled, ‘Come in Felix!’ and the door closed again.

Silence returned. The man bent down, returned the jemmy to the bag, picked it up, hooked it over his arm; pulled the window open. It came toward him like a small glass front door, four feet above the ground.

He stuck his head inside. It was a kitchen, dimly lit, but he could see what he needed. Someone had eaten a curry. The remnants were still there, a ready meal job, detritus scattered around the worktop, the coloured cardboard sleeve, the blackened, clear vinyl top, the plastic base, some rice still remaining, looking rejected, the smell, not korma, something stronger, tikka, Jalfrezi perhaps, he didn’t care.

Put his hands on the sill, flexed his trainers and toes on the path outside, jumped and pulled himself up and through the window, landed inside on the vinyl floor. Stood perfectly still. Glanced around. Blue pilot light on the boiler. Green power light on the freezer. Red warning light on the burglar alarm sensor, not activated, couldn’t have been. Thank God for that. No one came running. The freezer cut in with a loud hum, startled him for a second.

There was music in the air. Radio, television, maybe, coming from down the hall, maybe from the sitting room set off toward the left. He crept to the kitchen door; it wasn’t closed, just pulled to, eased it open. A gloomy long narrow hallway much as he expected, coats hanging up on wall-mounted hooks, a small table, old-fashioned telephone on top, the room off to the left as he’d imagined, another door, another ajar, the music louder, but not too loud. Jazz of some kind, puke music, he would say, and slightly more light so he could see better. Total silence other than the music, no sound of anyone talking, no noise of anyone moving about, no newspaper being turned over, no gobbling irons scraping on china, nothing from upstairs, no bath or shower running, and yet as he eased inches forward there was another sound, heavy breathing, and more than that, snoring. The occupant was asleep.

How opportune was that?

Crept to the sitting-room door. Peered through the gap at the hinge’s end between the door and the frame. Saw a coffee table covered in empty beer cans, three, no four of them; bent over in the middle as if someone had been flexing them in the hand, aids to relaxation, wreck the cans, while thinking of the day’s events.

Irish stout. Fattening stuff. Sleepy stuff.

The snoring grew louder.

Eased the door open to a dimly lit sitting room. Stood in the doorway.

The weighty guy was sitting in a big, old-fashioned armchair, wooden arms, his head back, eyes closed, sturdy furniture. The man in black glanced around the room. Flowery wallpaper, patterned carpet, needed a clean, old oak standard lamp trying hard to light the room, ridiculous flowery lampshade, writing desk, old books on the top, slab down, wide open, bills and cheques scattered about, matching armchair pushed into the far right corner, slight musty smell, and curry and beer and sweat. It all looked and smelt like something his great aunt might have had, or from a fifties Ealing comedy film. Same thing, really.

Old-fashioned brown telly, Grundig, sturdily made, last for years, never blew up. Someone on the screen was blowing on a horn. At least it was in colour. A dusky woman was cooing along, sleepy music, and it was working well on the guy in the chair. Glanced back at him. Still fast asleep, completely out of it, as if he’d had a hard week, or maybe two. His frizzy grey hair standing on end as if he’d had an electric shock.

The man in black smiled and slipped four heavy-duty plastic cable ties from his bag. Set the bag carefully on the hall floor. Crept into the room.

The guy didn’t stir.

Continued snoring.

The man in black slipped a tie through the wooden arm of the chair, around the black guy’s right wrist, fastened it; eased it tight, but not too tight.

The guy didn’t stir.

Moved around the back of the chair.

Same job, left wrist, same result.

The eyes remained shut.

Nothing would shift the tie, other than a sharp implement.

Crouched down. Slipped the third tie around the right ankle. It couldn’t have been better positioned, next to the wooden foot. Eased it tight. Job done.

Back round the other side.

This one was tricky. The left foot was splayed away from the furniture, lazily resting on the heel, the aromatic worn carpet slipper half off. Fed the last tie around the wooden furniture leg, around the black guy’s ankle, slipped one end through the loop, and yanked it tight, bringing the whole leg back with a jolt, securing it fast to the chair leg.

The black guy woke up.

‘What the hell!’

Began shaking frantically, trying to free his limbs, realised he was stuck fast, stopped shaking, focused his tired eyes, stared at the man in black. He was busy revisiting each plastic tie, gently easing them tighter. The black guy thought of biting him, but by the time he’d thought of that, the man in black had finished and moved away. No one and nothing could break free from that chair.

The man in black stood in front of the TV, his back to the screen, bent down to the coffee table, grabbed the remote, fired it over his shoulder, and the music stopped.

The black guy stared up at the intruder.

Five feet six, slim build, small feet, nice lips, clear skin, pretty face, short neatly trimmed light brown hair, maybe a touch of blond, maybe a touch of highlighting, bright blue eyes, and a pert bum, a pretty boy, or a pretty girl?

Walter grinned.

The man in black grinned back.

‘You recognise me?’ he said.

‘In a way.’

‘Good, that’s good, Walter. It shows if nothing else that you are not totally incompetent, pretty much, but not completely.’

The man retreated to the hallway, picked up the sports bag; came back inside; swept the empty cans from the coffee table with a metallic clang, set the bag in their place.

‘You know why I am here?’

‘I guess you have come to try to kill me.’

‘Wrong! Incorrect! I haven’t come to try to kill you. I have come to complete my task. I will kill you, in a few minutes from now. It’s your own fault. You should have left the bitch to die. That was a big mistake. It’s say your prayers time for you, Wally.’

Walter didn’t answer. He didn’t have anything to say. He was fighting his mind clear of alcohol. Thinking how he might get out of there. Glanced at his mobile phone on top of the TV. Couldn’t remember if he’d charged it. Couldn’t figure how to get hold of it. Couldn’t think how he could use it. The landline in the hall might as well have been in Mongolia. The man in black began taking items from his bag, setting them down on the table before him.

Walter glanced at them.

He didn’t like what he saw.

He didn’t like what he saw at all.

Chapter Forty-Four

A year after Desiree won the Sir Fred Berrington Memorial Trophy, she was invited back to London, up for the big prize, the Golden Shield. The Shield was different because it was the top prize any British scientist could win, but it was different in another way too.

The winner didn’t know who had won it. There were five nominations, and the name of the lucky recipient was known only to the eight souls who sat on the Scientists’ Society Committee.

Desiree was on the shortlist, nothing more, though secretly, she was confident of picking up the top prize, though she was far too modest to suggest such a thing, even to her mentor, Jill Craigieson. She had been poorly with a bout of serious back trouble. It happened often, and she was resting up at home. She rang Desiree the night before she set off for London and wished her well.

When she’d called, Desiree was in the process of giving the Berrington silver cup its final clean and polish. It was as she knew it would be, brighter, more gleaming, spotless; cleaner than when she’d picked it up and clasped it to her breast a year before. She imagined the sparkle would bring her luck, bring her the success her outstanding work deserved. She didn’t want to hand it back, though she would happily exchange it for the Gold Shield.

This time the Chester to London train changed at Crewe.

When she arrived there, she found the station busy. The previous London train had been cancelled due to the wrong kind of leaves on the line, or the wrong kind of snow in the air, or the wrong kind of electricity in the wires, or the wrong kind of idiot in management, which was probably closer to the truth. Desiree wasn’t alone in thinking that, as she checked her two bags were still at her side, the same smart maroon suitcase from the previous year, and the worn crinkly purpose built black case housing the Sir Fred Berrington Cup.

Whatever the reason for the non-arrival of the previous London service, passengers were backing up. The platform was crowded and becoming more so, standing room only, people nudging in from the rear, passengers flooding out of the waiting rooms, not wanting to be left behind, people dashing down the steps from the passenger bridge only to be confronted by thick crowds, travellers desperately trying to wheedle their way closer to finding a carriage door, when the train eventually arrived.

“Please stand clear! The next train arriving at Platform Three will NOT be stopping at this station. Please stand well clear!” 

Desiree exchanged a nervous look with her neighbours and sniffed a rebuke. How could anyone stand clear when the pressure from behind was easing more people forward toward the track, toward the rails?

It was laughable.

A tall bespectacled man in a tweed suit standing at the front, three along from Desi, turned around and gawped across the packed heads, back toward the station buildings and shouted: ‘Stop pushing at the back! We cannot move any further forward! Please stop pushing!’

The pressure eased for a matter of moments. Some people used the lull to edge into better positions, slip a tad forward, closer to the rails, reintroducing pressure, only more so than before.

Desi felt her feet being pushed forward and dug in her heels.

She glanced down at her bags. They were slightly behind her, as if some invisible tide was washing her out. She manoeuvred the maroon case forward with a touch of her toe, while picking up and cuddling the black one.

The non-stopping train was rumbling toward the station approach. Past the signal box, past the end of the platform, entering the main body of the station, a rhythmic, thundering beat as the heavily laden express began to whip through.

Out of nowhere, the voice returned.

She hadn’t expected it.

She hadn’t wanted it.

She shook her head and tried to obliterate it.

Jump, bitch! Jump!

Go on!

Jump, bitch! Jump!

The voice of destiny, and this time it was the unmistakable voice of the hateful Toby Malone.

No! I won’t. Go away! Leave me alone!

Do as you’re told!

Jump, bitch! Jump!

Let’s face it darling... you know you want to!

Come and join me!

Jump! Do it! Do it now!

No! No! I don’t! I won’t!

Still more people had arrived at the rear, more pressure, more eagerness to get closer to the front, regardless of the massive weight of moving steel and wood and fabric and luggage and food and prams and bikes and humanity, all crammed together on the express train that was hurling itself through the station.

In the melee, Desi stumbled.

She grasped the Sir Fred Berrington closer to her heart as if it might protect her and fell.

The crowd gasped. The sound drowned out by the express.

Hands went to mouths. Eyes widened. Shocked mouths opened.

People looked away, not that there was much to see.

Desi was beneath the still moving last six carriages, as they hurtled over her remains. The crinkly black box had burst open on first impact, throwing the old and coveted trophy toward the centre of the track where it bounced once and stumbled under the far steel wheels, flattened beyond recognition, the passengers feeling the tiniest of jolts, not enough to be of concern. How were they to know that Sir Fred Berrington had been mutilated beyond use, beneath their restless feet?

Desiree Mitford Holloway hadn’t fared any better.

Death was instantaneous.

Decapitation.

Mutilation.

An horrific death.

In five seconds flat Desiree Holloway ceased to exist.

‘Oh my God!’ shrieked a teenage girl, clutching her face. ‘Did you see that?’

She glanced around at her shocked neighbours.

‘I told you!’ yelled the tall man, turning round and staring at the rear of the crowd as if they were personally responsible. ‘I told you so! A poor lady’s gone under the bloody train!’

Thankfully, no one had witnessed her final moment, not after Desiree had disappeared beneath the locomotive. It seemed an age before the long train cleared the station, cleared the view, and as the rear of the train dashed away, shaking people stared down at the bloody remains, strewn along the track toward London.

Unrecognisable.

Was that a head?

Is that really hair?

Isn’t that her black jacket?

Poor woman!

Look, there! A hand, see, just beyond the brown sleeper. It’s a hand, I tell you!

Everyone peered, but not everyone saw it.

‘She jumped, you know!’ someone said.

‘She did not!’

‘She bloody well did!’

‘She stumbled under the weight of the crowd,’ said a third.

‘She jumped, I tell ya!’

“The train now approaching Platform Three is the eleven nineteen calling at London Euston only. Platform Three for the London Euston Train.”

‘Oh, my God; hasn’t somebody sent for someone?’ cried a woman.

The tall man turned round and yelled, ‘Stop this! Fetch someone! Now! A woman has gone under the train!’

Still more people were funnelling down the steps, pushing onto the platform, urged on by the strident tannoy announcement. Latecomers and day-trippers and poor timekeepers and runners with pushchairs; and students with music in their ears, and coloured rucksacks slung over their shoulders; and a big man with a cello, and gaggles of confused foreigners, and school children on a day trip, and lots of them.

‘What’s all the fuss about?’ asked one, jokily.

‘Gawd, it’s busy down here today,’ said another suited man, as he pushed his wheeled bag before him, muttering, ‘Make way, make way! I must get on this train. Matter of life and death.’

Several bystanders looked at him with disdain.

Eyewitnesses at the front, feeling more pressure from the rear, thought better of it, turned about and fought their way away from the trackside. They would go straight home, and not by train, leave it for another day when things were quieter, and safer, and they had re-gathered their nerve, and rediscovered some courage.

The London train was spluttering into the station as if it had a cold, unknowingly cloaking the horror, hiding the evidence. The passengers on the train thought the people on the platform looked a miserable bunch, even more so than usual.

A moment later, a hundred tried to get off. Had to push their way off and fight their way through the nervous throng. God, what was wrong with everyone today? The instant the doors pulled open, three hundred fought to get on, pushing and shoving and elbowing and cursing and grimacing. 

Someone said, ‘There’s nothing we can do for her now, and I need to get to London.’

Another said, ‘She jumped anyway, it was her own choice.’

‘You cold bastards!’ yelled the tall man, refusing to board the train, turning around, fighting his way back through more latecomers.

‘Who’s in charge here?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s the station manager?’

People looked at him as if he were a troublemaker, a shilling short of a quid, there’s always someone who wants to make a fuss.

‘Bit of a loony,’ someone suggested, as they hurried on by, and no one was going to argue. There were loads of loonies about these days.

‘He looked a loony,’ said someone else. ‘Very tall people are often loonies!’ and several people glanced around to see if they were standing next to anyone particularly tall.

Not everyone managed to board, though most of them did, crammed together like football crowds from years ago, trying to read their newspapers and magazines and devices over someone else’s shoulder, trying to eat a cheese sandwich or a piece of spicy sausage out of a green packet, or a muesli bar without appearing to do so, trying to reach the packed lavatories, trying not to sniff someone else’s armpit as they stretched, trying to read vital texts, trying to make or receive a phone call, trying to get online, trying to access their Bookface page to broadcast their vital news to the waiting and voyeuristic electronic world, of what they had seen and where they had been, and you should have seen it too, and how exciting it all was, and how incredibly bloody. My God! Better than the TV! Far better!

One standing passenger was heard to intone into his palm-pootler: ‘I’m having a bad day, I’m on the train... but someone else has had a far worse one... they’re beneath it!’ Followed by a cold laugh, and hostile stares.

After the London train had slipped away, one or two remaining on the platform noted that the supposed severed hand had vanished. A few more were taking pictures with their mobile phones, hands in the air like weird worshippers to the modern God, Techno, to be sent on up ahead to wherever they were going, like a harbinger of doom. 

Gross! Look at that. Yuck! I’ll just take a few more, perhaps from over there, a better angle. You never know when you’ll get another chance!

The sight of the remains of the person formerly known as Desiree Holloway would affect the minds of the unfortunate souls summoned to clear up the mess for years to come.

Didn’t seem to affect the passengers much.

Belatedly, the station closed.

Services were suspended.

Police summoned, and cleaners too.

Passengers were still arriving.

It was nothing to do with them.

What the hell’s going on?

Railways of today, eh? Waste of space! I remember when... blah blah blah.

Tempers flared.

They simply had to get where they were going. Had to!

But they wouldn’t. And they couldn’t. And they didn’t.

Not for several hours afterwards.

It was an hour later before anyone noticed the fancy maroon suitcase, still sitting unattended on the platform, close to the edge where Desiree had placed it. Could it be a bomb, someone said. It contained her expensive dinner outfit, culled from the Manchester bazaars, never worn before, never worn again, not by Desiree Holloway, not by anyone.

––––––––

THE SCIENTISTS’ SOCIETY Annual Dinner and Presentation went ahead as planned, oblivious to the bloody events up at Crewe. The committee were furious with the young woman for not turning up, but most particularly, for failing to return the much loved Sir Fred Berrington Memorial Trophy. No one had ever done that before. One crusty old sod said, ‘That’s what you get for giving it to a woman in the first place. We might have known!’

‘Shut up, Lionel!’

The winner of the silver cup was a gawky tall girl wearing dreadful black specs. She was assured it would be hers, just as soon as it could be located. It had gone missing in transit. Nothing to worry about. Sorry about that. You’ll have it in a few days. In the meantime, the committee went into emergency session.

Later, the Gold Shield was presented to the scientist of the year, Michael Fixington of Allied Chemical Industries, for his innovative work in non-drip paints. Michael was amazed, as was everyone else. 

––––––––

THREE DAYS LATER WHEN the Society discovered the truth, the committee met in emergency session.

‘I’d like to apologise,’ muttered Lionel.

‘I should think so,’ sniffed three of the others.

‘Well? What are we going to do about it?’

Many ideas were mooted.

A posthumous award. A special award. A citation. A press release. What exactly?

Then Lionel said, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t make such a big fuss about it. There is a rumour she committed suicide, after all.’

‘Did she? I didn’t know that.’

Doubts and rumours filled the room.

Much nodding and muttering.

The committee pondered for an hour and did nothing.

Desiree Mitford Holloway would soon be forgotten. There would always be a bigger, brighter star next year. There always was.

Nothing ever changed, not really. 

There wouldn’t be a Sir Fred Berrington Memorial Trophy though, leastways, not the original. They didn’t even get back the few mutilated pieces of scrap metal that were found. A month later the gawky girl in the glasses was delighted to receive a gleaming replica.

It didn’t bother her for a second. Why should it?

Chapter Forty-Five

Walter glanced back at the coffee table. At the bottles. Three full bottles, different coloured caps. They looked like spent indigestion relief bottles. They weren’t spent any longer.

They were full of scarlet liquid. Looked like blood to him, and he had seen plenty of that in the previous thirty years.

There was another smaller container too, a phial, he’d guess that’s what you’d called it. Clear glass, clear liquid inside, tiny white label, and tiny white print. He squinted, but couldn’t read a thing.

He knew his best chance was to engage the man in black in conversation, to play for time. Walter’s hostage dealing training kicked in. He’d been on a refresher course only six months before. Mrs West’s idea, and for once she might have been right. Cresta Raddish would have loved it, been in her element, trying to read the mind of the hostage taker, concentrating on the central issue of having the hostage released in one piece. It was the only thing that mattered, except in this case, Walter was the hostage.

‘So,’ said Walter, ‘how did you get into cross-dressing?’

The man was busy putting out another item on the table like a stallholder setting up at an antique fair.

Walter didn’t like the look of that one either.

It was a large syringe.

The man in black let slip a sarcastic little laugh. A girlish laugh.

‘Well?’ persisted Walter. ‘Did you get your rocks off on it? Was it Desiree Holloway? Was it her idea? Was she into all that kinky stuff?’

‘You don’t know anything!’

‘You’re right, I don’t, but I’d like to. If you are going to kill me, what’s the harm in telling me, you might as well, you’re not ashamed of it, are you?’

‘Course not!’

‘So how did you get into it? And what do I call you, by the way? You must have a name.’

‘Sam, you can call me Sam.’

‘So, how did it happen, Sam, your idea or hers?’

‘I know what you are after!’

‘I’m not after anything. I’m hardly in a position to be after anything, am I?’ said Walter, glancing down at the hand ties.

‘Yes, well, just so long as you understand that. If I were in your position, I’d be saying a few prayers to your God, if I were you, if you believe in that kind of thing. You haven’t much time left.’

‘Do you believe in God, Sam?’

He thought about that for a second.

‘Yes, maybe, sometimes.’

‘And you’re ready to meet him, knowing what you have done?’

‘God will be merciful. And anyway, I have a sneaking suspicion that God is a woman.’

‘That’s a novel take.’

‘Let’s face it, Walter; none of us has any idea what God is like. God could be a gigantic chicken for all we know, and imagine how angry that great Cock in the sky will be when we meet it. Had chicken for dinner, did you? That’s not going to go down well, is it? Sorry God, I’ve been eating your children for these past fifty years.’

That little laugh again. Some people might find that attractive. Predatory men, for example. This guy would be in big demand in a high security prison. How would he cope with that? Maybe he’d like it. Maybe it was time to change the subject.

‘Tell me about Desiree?’

‘Just you remember, Darriteau, this time tomorrow, you’ll be long gone! Kaput!’

‘There’s not a lot I can do about that.’

‘You are right there, pal!’

‘Tell me about Desiree?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything. I’ve got time,’ and forgetting his dire situation for a second, Walter couldn’t keep a sly grin from spreading over his drooping chops.

‘That’s one thing you don’t have!’

Walter glanced at the clock.

‘It’s only quarter past eleven. I’m not due on till eight. No one will miss me till nine. That’s ten hours away. We’ve got plenty of time. Tell me about Desiree? After all, it’s what this thing’s all about, isn’t it?’

Sam backed away. Sat in the chair in the corner. Crossed his legs. Thought a moment.

‘She was strikingly beautiful, not classically beautiful, but once you’d seen her, you’d never forget her.’

A moony look came over his fair face, the kind of look Jenny Thompson occasionally portrayed when she was reading those love novels in the lunch break.

‘She meant a lot to you?’

‘She was everything to me! She said we were soul mates. I was her other half, and she sure as hell was mine.’

‘And you started wearing her clothes. Was that before she died, or afterwards?’

‘Before, don’t be ridiculous, long before!’

‘Why did you do that?’

He closed his eyes, as if remembering, as if he were thinking things through, as if he didn’t want to answer, as if maybe he was ashamed of the answer, thinking he might come across as some kind of weirdo.

‘You can tell me, Sam, I’m going to meet my maker, remember. No one will ever know.’

‘Just so long as you understand that! When we have finished talking, that stuff,’ and he pointed to the bottles, ‘is going into you!’

Walter glanced back at the table, and the bottles.

Didn’t like what he saw.

‘What’s with the different coloured tops?’

Sam smiled. ‘RGB, red, green, blue.’

‘I can see that. What’s the difference?’

Sam grinned again, not so pretty this time.

‘Red... is rat. Green... is great ape; chimpanzee, to be exact. Blue is basset hound, pretty doggy to you and me. And the thing is, Walter, I am going to give you the choice of which you’d prefer. Interesting, eh?’

It was interesting all right, but not that interesting, and anyway Walter didn’t appreciate the thread of conversation, preferred to talk about Desiree Holloway, didn’t want to talk about the blood in the bottles at all. But before he could say anything, Sam was talking again.

‘Come on, Wally; rat, doggy, or chimp?’

‘I can’t possibly decide that.’

‘You don’t make a decision, you get them all! And you get them now!’

It was a threat that Walter took seriously. Talking about it seemed to rile the guy, and that was always frowned on in hostage school. Rule number one: Never make the hostage taker mad, never antagonise them. Another rule broken. It wasn’t the first; and sure as hell wouldn’t be the last.

‘What’s in the glass phial?’

‘Ah, now that’s an interesting question. It’s what we call witches’ brew. Blow you away, it would, blow the whole street away, come to that, I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do with it. But take it from me, Wally baby, you don’t want to get too close to it.’

‘Suits me, Sam.’

‘Red, green, or blue? Last chance!’

‘Green.’

Sam relaxed in the chair.

‘Great ape! Good choice. Any reason?’

‘Our nearest living relative; seemed logical.’

Sam nodded and said, ‘I’d have chosen green too, if I were in your shoes,’ and he went into thinking mode again, and Walter didn’t want that. You could never tell what the guy was thinking about, or what he would do next. 

Walter said, ‘Tell me more about Desiree?’

Sam smiled at her memory. He couldn’t help himself.

‘Tell me about how you got into cross-dressing.’

‘Why should I?’

‘I’m trying to paint in the background, to understand everything about the case, about you. It’ll let me die happy, my last dying wish, if you like.’

‘Desiree didn’t die happy!’

‘Why not? Tell me about it, Sam; it will do you good to get it off your chest. Why didn’t Desiree die happy?’

‘It’s very complicated.’

‘I am sure it is. We’ve got time, Sam. Tell me everything about Desiree. She sounds such a fascinating person. I’d really like to know.’

‘She was a genius.’

‘Really? A genius. Wow!’

Sam nodded.

‘Far too good for this world.’

‘Tell me all about Desiree, Sam, it’s killing me not knowing.’

Pretty boy giggled.

‘It’s killing you knowing, that’s your problem.’

‘I can live with that.’

‘You can die with it too.’

‘We all have to die sometime.’

‘Yeah, but not today, eh?’

He lifted his right hand and made a gun shape and pointed it at Walter’s head and said, ‘Bang, bang, you’re toast.’

‘Tell me about Desiree, Sam... please.’

It was the please that did it. Sam always knew he was a soft touch.

‘You really want to know?’

‘Yeah. Sure. Everything.’

‘One condition.’

‘Name it.’

‘You don’t tell anyone,’ and he did that pretty boy laugh again.

‘Agreed,’ said Walter.

‘All right, Walter, Wally, Inspector Darriteau. Why did you never make Superintendent, by the way? Don’t answer that, I can guess, not clever enough, eh, sticks out a mile, now where were we?’

‘You were going to tell me about Desiree.’

‘Yeah, you got it, all right; just this once, and afterwards you get the green.’ 

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘It is what I want.’

‘You’re the man.’

‘Don’t you forget it!’

Chapter Forty-Six

DC Gibbons arrived at Thomas Telford house at five past ten. Went to the door and pressed fifty. Karen’s metallic voice appeared to one side of the door. ‘Hello?’ she croaked.

‘Hi there.’

‘Come on up,’ and the door sprang open.

Up in the flat Karen whispered, ‘Do you fancy a beer?’ opening the fridge and demonstrating the well packed shiny green cans.

‘Nah, rather have a coffee.’

She rather liked that. She’d always considered Gibbons to be some kind of boorish lager lout. She set the coffee machine burbling and told him to go through to the lounge area.

‘How do you like it?’ she said, straining what remained of her voice.

‘Milk, dash of shug-shug.’

She brought the mug in and set it on the coffee table, and sat on the two-seater sofa. He was sitting in the chair by the window. The curtains or blinds or whatever she had, were still wide open, and he could see the headlights of cars dashing along the inner ring road, and occasionally heard the sound of a honking impatient driver or the beep-borp of an ambulance. The sodium light glistened on the damp road and bounced off the contrasting flat and still waters of the canal. It was a peaceful picture. It was a nice place to live. Gibbons couldn’t wait to have a gaff like it.

‘So,’ she said, struggling to get out words. ‘How goes it?’

‘Yeah, good, Walter thinks we might make an arrest tomorrow.’

‘Yeah? Really?’

‘Yeah, that address you gave him, came up with a weird couple, Sam and Samantha Holloway. Walter thinks they are the same person, away today, back tomorrow, apparently. We’re going in early doors to the flat next door. When they, or he or she, or it comes home, we’ll be waiting.’

‘God, I hope so. That’s a relief, I can tell you. Have we been inside their place yet?’

‘Nope, search warrant all ready, being turned over tomorrow.’

‘It was Walter who put me on to it,’ she said.

‘Yeah, how?’

‘He figured out it was someone with a major grudge. Holloway was the one that stuck out. Obvious really when you think about it.’

‘It’s always obvious afterwards.’

‘Yeah, suppose so, I vaguely remember this guy, coming to the station three or four times, demanding that we investigate a suicide further, his girlfriend apparently. I never saw him myself, just remember the desk sergeant going on and on about this bloody nuisance who kept coming back. He was boring the life out of him.’

She coughed and tried to clear her throat. Perhaps she shouldn’t be talking at all, thought Gibbons, and he said, ‘So he thought, this guy, that the suicide was murder?’

‘Must have done.’

‘And could it have been?’

‘Nah, several witnesses said she jumped in front of the train, middle of the morning. No doubt.’

‘Bloody way to go.’

‘Terrible way. The station was unusually crammed.’

‘All pressed up against one another?’

‘Yep, probably.’

‘So someone behind could have given her the slightest of nudges, just enough to send her over the edge, and I suppose it was possible no one saw it.’

‘Maybe. We’ll never know now.’

‘So his girlfriend is killed, accident, murder or suicide, we don’t know which, and he broods about it for quite a while, and then goes on a murdering spree. Does that sound right to you?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Looks like something must have sent him or her over the edge. Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.’

‘I bloody hope so; this case has gone on long enough.’

‘You can say that again,’ she said, reaching forward for her ice-cold cranberry juice she was sipping.

‘What do we know about the dead girlfriend?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Not much. Bit of a high flyer. Worked in some chemical company down on the Cheshire-Shropshire border, from what I recall.’

‘And what did the guy do?’

‘Don’t know, no idea, don’t think we ever knew. Did you find out anything yesterday?’

‘Jenny was telling me the old lady living next door said he was a writer; and a successful one, too. Apparently he’d won a million dollar contract in the States.’

‘Do you believe that?’

Gibbons pulled a face. ‘Seems far-fetched to me. Perhaps he’s a Walter Mitty type guy.’

‘Yeah, that rings true. Hopefully, we’ll find out tomorrow.’

Gibbons sipped coffee.

‘There’s something that’s worrying me,’ she said. ‘Something doesn’t fit. It’s why I asked you over.’

‘Yeah, like what?’

‘He tried to murder me, right?’

Gibbons drained his drink and said, ‘Yep, he did.’

‘Well, he now knows he didn’t succeed, doesn’t he?’

‘He does if he watches telly.’

‘Bound to, these people get off on publicity.’

‘So what are you saying?’

‘That he might come back, try again. Come here, maybe.’

‘No, he can’t. Does he know where you live?’

‘Hope not, but we all know with the bloody Internet you can always find out where anyone lives if you try hard enough.’

‘Don’t worry about it. This time tomorrow he’ll be behind bars.’

‘Yeah, but he’s not yet, is he? I don’t want to be alone. Could you stay over tonight? Sleep in the spare room? I’d feel a lot safer.’

Gibbons pulled a happy face. ‘Sure, if that’s what you want.’

‘It is; thanks. I appreciate it.’

Chapter Forty-Seven

Sam sat in the chair in the corner and closed his eyes tight. A picture of Desiree flooded into his head. It was so realistic, so colourful; so close, he could almost touch her, smell her; it was as if she was there with him.

A contented expression spread over his cute face, and his eyes opened and he realised she wasn’t there at all. His face turned sour. Not a good moment for Walter.

Then Sam said, as if remembering he’d told Walter he would tell him all about her before he put him out of his misery, put him out of this world for good like an old dog being put down.

‘We were exactly the same size.’

‘You and Desiree?’

Sam bobbed his head. ‘Yep, identical, except for her narrower waist and boobies, of course. Same height, same weight, same shoe size. We seemed to fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw. I’d never experienced anything like it before, and she said exactly the same thing.’

‘Go on.’

‘We’d been out to dinner, some expensive place, she was doing so well in her work, didn’t mind paying, can you imagine that, a wonderful, beautiful woman who couldn’t get enough of me, and she paid as well!’

‘For the meal?’

‘Course for the meal. What do you think, sex? Geez, Desiree would never have to pay for sex; they were queuing round the block for her. She told me the other guys at work were always making passes at her, and back at uni too, almost every bloody day.’

‘What happened next?’

‘We had an extra bottle of wine; shouldn’t have done, I suppose, but we did.’

‘And all inhibitions flew out the window?’

Sam smiled at the memories.

‘You could say that.’

‘And?’

‘Are you getting your rocks off on this, Walter? You dirty old bugger.’

‘I am trying to understand.’

‘Yeah, sure, I believe you, thousands wouldn’t.’

‘Well?’

‘I took her dress off.’

‘And?’

She said, ‘Put it on.’

‘I will if you will.’

‘And you did?’

‘Yeah, anything for a bit of fun. I mean not just the dress, every goddamned thing, knickers, suspenders, stockings, the whole shebang. She insisted on it. Her, standing there in my best suit and tie. She made me fix up the tie for her, she couldn’t do it herself, me in her red shoes, her in my shiny black ones, oh man, it was a weird sight, and then she started on the makeup.’

‘She made you up?’

‘Yeah, made me up good and proper. Have you ever worn red lippy, Walter?’

Walter grinned at the thought. ‘Don’t think it would suit me.’

‘No, you’re probably right.’

‘You enjoyed it?’

‘I bloody did. That was the weird thing about it, never had any cross-dressing ideas before, but with her, it just seemed to be the most natural thing in the world.’

Natural behaviour wasn’t how Walter would describe it.

Then she said, ‘You need a wig... and tits.’

‘There’s nothing I can do about that.’

‘No, she said, but leave it with me,’ and we stood in front of the mirror, hand in hand, her in my grey suit, white shirt and tie, me in her red party frock, and lippy, drunkenly grinning at our images. ‘You make a fabulous woman,’ she said, and I have to admit, I did. I’d have fancied me if I’d seen that person in the mirror strolling through Tattersalls at the races on Ladies’ Day. You would have too, Walter, I guarantee it.’

‘Maybe I would.’

‘She didn’t make such a great guy, and I think she knew that. She didn’t look like a guy, and secretly I think she was happy about that, and I sure as hell was, and then we slowly undressed each other, and you can guess the rest.’

‘You made love?’

‘You really want to know all the freaky little details, don’t you, Walter? You naughty boy. Yes, we made love, but more than that, we made love like we had never done before, ’cept perhaps the first time, and afterwards Desi said exactly the same thing, and I believed her. She was freaky that way. Something had gone down at college. I think she had a wild time there. I never found out exactly what. But I’ll tell you one thing, Walter, if your sex life is ever in a rut, put on a red frock and some lippy. You’ll be amazed at the results, except, shame, it’s too late for you now, Walter, isn’t it? So don’t go getting any crazy ideas. But at least you’ll pass over with the benefit of my expertise.’

Walter’s sex life was infrequent at best, but that was his business, and he had no intention of discussing it with the freak.

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Do you know what, Walter? I fancy a coffee. Have you got any coffee in? You don’t mind if I help myself, do you? Course you don’t,’ he said, standing and giggling and patting him on the shoulder, and heading for the door, and then he said, ‘You won’t mind if I don’t make you one, I’m not feeding you.’

‘Help yourself. It’s instant.’

‘That’ll do, and a pee while I’m at it,’ and he went into the kitchen and put on the kettle, and ran up the stairs to the bathroom.

Walter bent down and tried to bite through one of the plastic ties. His teeth were not what they once were. He didn’t make any progress, and visions of exploding teeth filtered into his head. Better to be alive with no teeth than dead with intact ones. Tried again, came off; looked at his handiwork, slight marks, nothing more. It wasn’t going to work. Tried to stand up. Quite impossible. Tried to shake the chair toward the coffee table. Didn’t go anywhere. Swung from side to side. Imagined he could turn the whole chair over, but with what intent? A picture came into his head of himself lying face down on the floor with the heavy chair on his back, like a bloated turtle, and Sam coming back and laughing and leaving him there, undignified and uncomfortable, and vulnerable to injections from the rear. No, at least sitting there, up straight, he could see what the maniac was doing.

The cistern was running. He’d flushed the bog. Then he came down the stairs, singing or humming. The guy was a head case, no doubt about that, jauntily, making himself at home, went through to the kitchen, made a mug of black coffee, and came back and carefully set it on the table, next to the blood; rat, chimpanzee, and basset hound, and instant coffee, a strange mixture, the steam curling and rising away.

‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, Walter, but your kitchen and bathroom could both do with a bloody good clean.’

Walter rolled his eyebrows. He knew that to be true. He did once have a cleaner, but she was most unreliable, and often turned up smelling of gin. One morning she went up to clean the bathroom and Walter heard nothing more for the best part of an hour. Went upstairs and found her sleeping it off on his bed. He couldn’t be doing with that, and Mrs Gretton received her notice, swore at him she did, called him a jumped up black fucking bastard! It was nothing he hadn’t heard a million times before. Walter laughed it off, but had never got round to finding a replacement. If he got out of this jam, he would.

Sam picked up the coffee, cupped it in his hands, sat in the chair in the corner, and peered across at the dozy cop.

‘Now where were we?’ he said. ‘Oh yes, I was about to tell you about the wig ’n’ tits. Do you know something, Walter? You were right; I really am enjoying getting this off my chest. It’s therapeutic. But don’t go getting any ideas, remember, it’s great ape for you, my man, just as soon as we have finished.’

‘Wig ’n’ tits?’ said Walter, eager to keep the conversation flowing.

‘Ah yes, they were amazing, those tits.’

‘Yeah?’

‘They were just like the real thing. Not like those ugly comedy jobs you see blokes strapping on the front of their shirts on rag days. No, these looked dead real, and felt real too. God knows where she got them, said they cost her sixty-five quid, came in the morning post, said cancer babes bought them, money well spent, I’d say. Stuck on my chest natural like, God knows how, no glue or nothing, just natural adhesion. On they went, followed by Desi’s red bra, and Bob’s your uncle... or your aunty, to be more accurate. They were part of me, unmovable, except for the occasional flirtatious wobble. I’ve never been a hairy guy myself, never was, even now I only have to shave once a week, and it’s more down than bristle, caused me all kind of angst during my teenage years, I can tell you, and I’ve always waxed my chest too, so they seemed like a natural extension. When I was younger, I always knew I wasn’t gay, never fancied a bloke, ever, but I wasn’t butch either, not like the other guys, different somehow, it was very confusing. Knocked my confidence, it did.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘Then she brought out the wig. Blonde bob thing it was, amazing, cost a packet, there was nothing cheap about Desi, and she did the makeup and painted my fingers and toes and dressed me, and when I looked in the wardrobe mirror afterwards, it was like there was a stranger in the room. I was looking round to see where I was because there were these two beautiful women, chatting and laughing as girls do, sipping a glass of white wine, and I was absent, missing, kind of vanished.’

Walter nodded as if he understood everything.

‘Then Desi said, let’s go out, and I was so unsure about the idea, but she insisted, called me a scared bitch, which kind of worked. So we rang for a cab, went to the station, and jumped a train to Manchester. Had lunch in the big hotel on the square, what’s it called, The Albert, is that it? I can’t remember, but as we were sitting in the lounge afterwards over coffee, these two ultra smart Dutch businessmen came in and sat close by, and starting hitting on us. Told us they were in electronics. Millionaires, they said, over here to buy some big company in Bolton. Thought it might impress us. Desi couldn’t stop grinning at me, as these two handsome guys were pestering us for a dinner date that night.’

‘They had no idea?’ said Walter.

‘Not an inkling! Man, it was weird, and then Desi suggested we went to the loo and that was weird too. The first time I had ever been inside a Ladies’ lavatory. No one looked at me twice. Mind you, checking out some of the dogs in there, it wasn’t surprising. These days I’ve become quite used to it. Occasionally, I make to go in there when I’m dressed as a man. Walter, you wouldn’t believe how confusing life can be. Then we went back to the coffees, and the guys, and gave our apologies and made to leave, and the tall guy stood up and grabbed my arm, and tugged me to one side and asked for my phone number. Just like that, practically begged me for it, said I was the most beautiful English woman he had ever seen, in that cute Dutch accent they have, and yes, I know he probably used that line on all the women, but hell, I didn’t know what to do. Said the first thing that came into my head. Said I was engaged, and that Martin wouldn’t approve, but by God, he was a persistent bugger. I didn’t know men could be like that, refusing to take no for an answer.’

‘How often did you go out with Desi dressed as a woman?’

‘Couple of times a month, we’d make a big deal of it, get all dressed up, go somewhere really swanky, every time we went to Manchester for sure, hang around all the boutiques and department stores, sampling the perfumes, trying on ridiculous dresses, me sitting and waiting in the hairdressers while Desi had her black locks done, me reading Cosmo and giggling, as Desi had her nails done, and then she insisted I had my nails done too, fingers and toes. God, I thought the assistant must surely know, but she didn’t, it was so exhilarating, and afterwards we’d scurry home to Chester and screw each other senseless. Geez, Walter, I can’t find the words to describe it. Best days of my entire life. Best days.’

Walter allowed a decent pause. Sam had that far distant look back on his face. Then Walter said, ‘You were in love with her?’

‘Course I was! What do you think? Isn’t it obvious? Head over heels, completely and utterly. I was mad for her. I’d never felt that way about anyone before. Never.’

‘And she loved you?’

‘Yeah, I think she did, though I know she found it hard to love anyone. That bastard at uni really hurt her. Messed with her mind. I have no idea what he did to her, and I don’t want to know, and she never told me. But sometimes she’d wake up crying in a cold sweat, mumbling, Stop Toby, Stop! And I didn’t think it was sex she was talking about.’

‘What then?’

‘Torture, my friend, that’s how it came across to me. The bastard tortured her.’

Walter pulled a sympathetic face.

‘That’s when I asked her to marry me.’

‘Marry you?’

‘Yeah, right there at half-past three in the morning. The bed sheets soaked with her terrified sweat. I held her in my arms and asked her to marry me.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said she couldn’t possibly marry me; she couldn’t marry any man because she never wanted to lose her name. She wanted to be famous, she was determined to be famous, and she wanted to be known as Desiree Mitford Holloway, and nothing else. I always knew she would achieve that too. She was so special in every way. Once she’d decided on something, hell itself wouldn’t get in her way.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I told her I wasn’t an ordinary man. I think she knew that by then, and I told her we could still get married, and if need be, I would change my name to hers. I think that impressed her. I think it made a difference. You can do that, you know, if you really want to, if you go through the right legal procedures. It doesn’t have to be the woman taking the man’s surname, you can do it the other way round, so she agreed, and that’s what we did. Got married in Chester Registry office as soon as we could, just a couple of friends there, and afterwards we flew to Barcelona for our honeymoon, and the moment we arrived we slipped on two identical little black dresses and hit the town. Wicked, it was, wicked. The club scene there is second to none. The best honeymoon ever, the best. It’s all down in my diary. Did I tell you I keep a diary, Walter, have done for years, it’s very therapeutic, Sammy Pepys had nothing on me. You should try it, but then again, it’s too late for you, pal, isn’t it?’

Walter ignored the question and said, ‘So you were deliriously happy, and it stayed that way?’

‘Damned right it did! We’d have our little quarrels like any couple, but when we made up, we really made up! I’d have spent my entire life with her. I never wanted to be with anyone else. I’d still be with her now... except you bastards murdered her.’

The spiteful look crashed back onto his face.

He stared across at Walter as if he were personally responsible.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know damn well what I mean!’

‘I don’t, Sam, I don’t, you tell me.’

Sam frowned. The black guy was playing for time. Sam knew that, and he was running out of patience. Stared at the blood. Stared at the syringe. Stared at the copper.

Walter saw him looking, pondering.

‘Tell me about Desiree’s death, Sam? Please.’ 

Chapter Forty-Eight

Karen glanced at the digital clock. It was ten to midnight. She’d enjoyed her chat with Gibbons, but she was tired and weak and began yawning. Gibbons yawned too. ‘I’m going to have to go to bed,’ she said, ‘I’ll show you the spare room.’

‘Great,’ he said, ‘I’ll just slip to the bathroom.’

Five minutes later he was in the spare room, in bed. He was knackered; it had been a long shift; it had been a long month.

In her room, Karen lay on her back staring out at the blackness, revisiting the horror of being yanked from the lavatory, being hung out to die. She knew she would never forget it. She wondered what kind of person could do that. To cold bloodedly attempt to murder someone they had never met, in a busy public place, without any fear of being discovered, and having no qualms about what they were doing. She wondered where he was now, the killer, and what he was doing, and who he was terrifying. Samuel Holloway, she contemptuously spoke his name, and she knew she wouldn’t rest until he was stopped.

––––––––

WALTER PEERED ACROSS at the clock. Both the hands were super erect. Outside he could hear the old church bell announcing the new day, chiming across the city, somehow comforting, floating on the night air, and he wondered if the new day might be his last. Think positively! Always engage hostage takers in conversation.

‘Tell me why you think we killed Desiree?’

‘I don’t think, I know!’

‘But why?’

‘You know why!’

‘I don’t, Sam, I don’t. Please explain.’

Sam scowled and shifted in his chair. Thought the black guy was taking the piss, but he could wait a little while longer before he put him to sleep. Maybe he should recall and replay what happened to Desiree one last time, for her sake, to remind the copper of exactly what they had done. Not that he didn’t know already. Yeah, that’s what he’d do. He’d go over it one final time for Desi’s sake, and then he’d kill him. For certain. He’d murder him, sitting in that chair, in his own front room, and he was looking forward to it.

‘Desi began bringing stuff home.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

‘Information, theories, samples, experimental stuff, top secret stuff, weird stuff, stuff most people wouldn’t want in the house.’

Walter glanced at the table. Saw the bottles. Red, Green, Blue. Rat, great ape, basset hound. ‘Like the stuff on the table?’

Sam nodded.

‘Why did she do that?’

‘She worried her work might be taken from her, appropriated by someone else. Eden Leys had a history of it. You know how it works, some brilliant scientist in her twenties or thirties makes a ground-breaking discovery, some supervising scientist in his sixties, looking for one last hurrah, jumps in and grabs the credit. She said it happened all the time, been going on for years. She said the senior ones said that was how things worked. They always looked after the older guys, the younger ones had plenty of time to break new ground, to make their name, and that they, when they were old, would be looked after by the younger ones in turn.’

‘The world doesn’t work like that,’ said Walter.

‘Damned right it doesn’t!’

‘So what happened?’

Sam pointed at the table.

‘That blood came from animals she’d personally killed. She said she’d kept it for their memory. It kept her grounded. It kept her focused. Normally, it would be disposed of, thrown away, flushed down the drain. She said that wasn’t right. Disrespectful, she said.’

Walter nodded, tried hard to imagine the fate of those unfortunate creatures, and especially the chimpanzees.

‘So what happened then?’

‘There was an Australian guy, I forget his name. He was always creeping round her when she was working; looking for hints of what she was up to, where she was going. He knew she was brilliant. She knew he would steal her stuff, given the chance. He was all smiles and charm, he’d take her down to the social club they had going on the site, buy her a bottle of wine, and pump her for info. She grew wise to that; began feeding him duff stuff. The schmuck was so thick he took it all in and worked on it for weeks. It led nowhere, down a dead-end corridor, and you have to laugh at that. You had to admire her cunning. Not only was she pioneering her own work, she was staying up all night setting up faux avenues for pricks like him, theories that looked promising, and all the while they were nothing more than gigantic time-wasting exercises. Futile diversions. He was furious when he found out. Can you imagine? Wouldn’t speak to her for weeks. Started spreading rumours about her, telling tales behind her back, said she was a lesbian, all sorts.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Can you, Walter? Can you?’

‘I think so. I’m on her side. What happened next?’

‘She began bringing data home. Reams and reams of the stuff. Several years’ work. I asked her if it would be missed. She said it was mainly copies she’d printed. She wanted it in case the originals ever went missing, or were stolen, or destroyed in a fire or accident of some kind Or in case she was relieved of her post.’

‘She was worried about that?’

‘Petrified. The place had a history of dumping high fliers who made life uncomfortable for the middle grounders who wielded the power. The brilliant ones put the dull ones firmly in the shade. There was an enormous amount of jealousy and backbiting. You wouldn’t believe some of the stories she told me.’

‘Did she have any trouble getting it out?’

‘Not at the beginning. Security was a joke. She’d wear a long, heavy skirt with a big hem on the inside. I modelled it for her, as she did the alterations. There was a large false pocket inside. She showed me how she’d slip a file in there like a kangaroo’s Joey and walk back to her car and drive away. If the guards stopped her, it was only to say hello, or maybe to wink at the striking dark girl, perhaps ask her for a date. At worst there was a casual glance in the boot of her car. They may have wondered what was beneath her neat skirt, but they would have been amazed to discover what was really there.’

Sam giggled in that pretty way of his.

‘And then?’

‘There was a big step up in security. They brought in new people. Everything changed. It was much harder to get anything out. That was about the time she started being followed.’

‘People were following Desi?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

‘Your lot, of course.’

‘What do you mean; my lot?’

‘Government police, security police, how the hell do I know?’

Walter puffed out his cheeks, breathed out heavily.

‘I can’t see that,’ he said, ‘I certainly knew nothing about it.’

‘Course you wouldn’t. It was MI7.’

Walter zipped a sharp laugh through his nose.

‘Now I know you’re wrong, Sam. MI7 doesn’t exist, except in the minds of spy writers, and in the movies.’

‘No, no, no, you’re wrong! MI7 exists. They followed and killed Desi. I know it may be unpalatable to you, Wally, but that’s the truth. That’s what happened!’

‘MI7 existed during World War II,’ said Walter. ‘It dealt with propaganda and stuff like that, but it was disbanded, early sixties, I think it was. It doesn’t exist anymore.’

Sam did the same sharp, dismissive laugh.

‘Shows how much you know, Wally. Stop living up to your name, shows how out of touch you really are.’

Walter remained quiet for a moment, thinking things through, then said, ‘Tell me everything you know about MI7?’

‘Desiree told me it was reactivated soon after it was decommissioned. They had special responsibility for chemical warfare secrecy, weapons of mass destruction in the modern vernacular, hence their huge interest in Eden Leys. They were interested in everything that went down there. You must know that, and they weren’t happy when the plant was semi-privatised, I can tell you that. For a short while they were replaced with contracted in security. That feeble lot couldn’t detect an ant in an ant hill. Not surprisingly, they soon got pushed. Desi became tense. I couldn’t get her to open up to me. I knew something was wrong. She said the whole place was subject to new American secrecy orders, she was bound to silence. It was too dangerous for me to know anything. She had this spare bedroom full of stuff, data, samples; you name it, a huge amount of gear. She said we had to move it, and quick, so we switched it from her place by the river, down to mine at Iona House. We always kept on both properties and it was a good job we did. It took us three car rides to move everything, that’ll give you some idea how much gear was involved. We did it on the Friday night. On the Saturday night we went out to celebrate, got dressed up, kissing cousins she called us, Desiree and Samantha, took a cab down to that fancy hotel in Cheshire where they do the ballooning, enjoyed a fab meal, danced for hours, curled up in bed together, made love, got up late on the Sunday morning, fab breakfast, cab back to Chester...’

‘And?’

‘Desi’s place had been ransacked. Made a hell of a mess. We called the cops round. It wasn’t you, was it? Don’t answer that, I know it wasn’t. They said there had been a spate of opportunistic burglaries in the area. Oh yeah, I’ll bet, the ransackers, whoever they were, made it look realistic by breaking in and turning over the two neighbouring gaffs for good measure, but Desi knew was MI7. That’s what she said as soon as the regular cops had gone, and I believed her. She also said the Aussie bastard had tipped them off.’

‘Why did they do that? Break in and ransack the place.’

‘Looking for evidence, of course!’

‘Evidence of what?’

‘Oh, come on, Walter, keep up, man! They were trying to find evidence that she was leaking stuff outside, taking stuff off prem. They thought she was feeding info to a third party, but the only third party was me. If we hadn’t moved everything, Desi would have been arrested. They would have thrown the book at her; thrown the key away. God knows what she would have been charged with. That night she told me if she ever had an accident, ever disappeared without warning, leaving a letter behind saying that she’d gone away, or ever died suddenly, it would be the work of MI7.’

‘Where’s the stuff now?’

Sam thought about that for a moment.

‘I still have it. There’s no harm in you knowing. The knowledge you have will be extinguished when you go,’ and he glanced at his petite, girlish wristwatch, and said, ‘I’d say, Walter, you have just entered your last hour.’

Walter needed to pee, but didn’t say. He wanted to keep talking. There were still things he didn’t understand.

‘What exactly goes on at Eden Leys?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘Course not. You tell me.’

‘They are experimenting on live human beings.’

Walter laughed again.

‘Don’t laugh like that! They are! I’ve got the proof. Some of it is in my spare room, but most of it, the juicy bits, including photographs and IDs, are locked away in a solicitor’s office miles from here.’

A picture of the offices of Lambourn, Harcourt and Snapes flooded into Sam’s mind, and their luxurious suite on the sixth floor of the Royal Liver Building, Liverpool. Those fab rooms staring out across the wide and murky river, and the huge storeroom in the basement that housed the gigantic safe, a piece of kit that was too heavy to be set up anywhere but on the ground itself. In that vast safe lay the evidence, Desi’s life’s work, Desiree’s masterpiece. Proof of what was going on. Proof of why she had been murdered. Sam paused, switched off.

Walter switched him on again.

‘Tell me about the experiments on living human beings?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything you do.’

Sam pursed his lips, sorted his thoughts into some kind of order, and began again. 

Chapter Forty-Nine

Karen tossed and turned. She couldn’t sleep. She slipped from the bed and went through to the kitchen. Poured another glass of ice-cold cranberry juice. Sipped and swallowed. Sipped and swallowed.

Her throat felt as if a piece of barbed wire was jammed down there. Her eyes hurt and her hands shook. She expected him to return, the killer, maybe that night. He had tried and failed to murder her, and he now knew it too. He’d tried to kill her for a reason, the seventh death in his reign of terror.

Maybe there was some significance to the number seven.

Seven was a strange number. She knew that well enough. When a group of people are asked to name a number between one and ten a huge majority choose seven. Why? Some people say it is a lucky number. Racing car drivers fight to have it on their cars. Others say it is dreadfully unlucky.

Seven days in the week, the seventh day is the Sabbath, the holy day, seven deadly sins, seven sisters, seven dwarfs, seventh son of a seventh son, perhaps Sam was a seventh son of a seventh son, seven wonders of the world, seven sacraments, seven heavenly virtues, seven stations of the cross, seven years bad luck if you break a mirror, seven-year itch, seven murders, or at least six killings plus one attempted, and an old rhyme came back to her from when she was a little girl:

One means anger

Two means mirth

Three, a wedding

Four, a birth

Five is heaven

Six is hell

But seven’s the very devil himself.

A strange thing to teach a kid, she thought, and amongst it all were seven murders... but he’d only completed six. He was coming back; of course he was coming back. She went through to the spare bedroom. The door was ajar. Eased it open. Rays of light fed in from the hallway. Gibbons was asleep, lying on his back, snoring like a child. He’d said he was dog tired. He certainly looked it. The duvet cover had slipped down, revealing his chest. He was surprisingly muscular; she would never have guessed it from the grubby and worn flappy shirts he liked to wear to work. Perhaps they were a fashion statement, like ripped jeans, though she doubted it.

She wanted to wake him and talk some more, but he looked serene and peaceful. It would be wicked to wake him, a sin. Never wake a sleeping person, her mother always used to say, it’s a sin, unless it’s an emergency. Was this an emergency? Maybe, maybe not. He’d surely think her crazy, his neurotic female sergeant. She didn’t want that. She pulled the door closed and went back to bed. 

––––––––

SAM TOOK A DEEP BREATH, reflecting on his words, and began again.

‘Desi said she was on the cusp of a breakthrough in the quest to find a cure for dementia and Alzheimer’s, and yes, I know Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia, but some people think of them as separate diseases. She was working on producing a pill that could reverse the aging process in the human brain. The idea was it would protect the brain. It had worked on rats and apes and she was sure, with more tests, it could work on humans too. The opportunity to experiment on live human beings was one she could not turn down. She said one final push, and she’d crack it. She had been experimenting on apes for at least a year before that. It’s not such a big step from apes to humans. The people were handpicked. They had no known relatives. They were terminally ill and not expected to survive for long.’

‘So what happened to these people?’

‘They all died, according to Desi. Every one of them. Cremated on site. She always went to the funeral services. Most times she was the only one there.’

‘And their deaths were covered up?’

‘You tell me, Walter. You’re the detective.’

‘I don’t know. I know nothing about it. Did she make any progress?’

‘Progress, yes, a cure? I’m not sure.’

‘How many people are we talking about?’

Sam pulled a face.

‘Don’t know for sure, twelve, maybe twenty.’

Walter’s turn to pull a face. Between twelve and twenty deaths, if the guy was to be believed. Legal deaths? Or Illegal? Murders or mercy killings? He didn’t know, but he wanted to find out.

Sam was talking again.

‘It wasn’t just experiments on live humans that Desi did. She was obsessed with all aspects of progress in the field. Her father had been struck down with it. That made it personal. She wasn’t interested in much else. She’d developed a theory called Distant Consciousness. It’s an idea that in severe cases memories can be stimulated by documents and items from long ago. Everyday items, but objects dear to the heart, things associated with beautiful memories, precious events, such as a programme from the 1951 Festival of Britain, an occasion attended with a loved one, a fiancé, a life partner. Or maybe an early Elvis Presley record, or tickets to an early Beatles concert when no one outside of Merseyside had ever heard of them. Even football programmes from big games like the 1966 World Cup Final, that kind of thing, memory jolters, she called them. People who’d not shown any sign of recognition of anything for years, recognised those items. She had genuine success with it. She was communicating with them.’

‘Go on.’

‘She’d visit country nursing homes, study the patients, and bring her research data and techniques back to Eden Leys. Adding that to the secret live experiments, she told me she was this close to cracking it,’ and Sam held his forefinger and thumb half an inch apart, and jabbed them into the air. ‘This close, Wally! And then you bastards murdered her.’

‘I didn’t murder anyone.’

‘You know what I mean!’

‘Why seven, Sam?’

‘MI7 were responsible. It was just a number, it seemed fitting at the time, it stuck in my mind, seven times one is seven. You had to pay seven times over. They all had to pay.’ Sam glanced at his watch. ‘You’ve got fifteen minutes left, Wally, fifteen minutes. Said your prayers yet?’

‘There are still things I don’t understand.’

‘Tough luck! Fifteen minutes.’

‘Tell me about the day Desi died.’

The guy sighed hard, but started talking again.

‘She was on the way to London to pick up some top scientific award. A train had been cancelled. The station was packed. She was desperate for a seat. She had work to do. Her speech to complete. She was standing at the front. The train came in. A little nudge from behind. It could even have been done with a muscular chest, thrust forward at an opportune moment; that would have been enough. Over she went, out of this world, out of my life forever, my darling Desiree, my other half, my soul mate, my reason for living... murdered in cold blood in broad daylight in a public place by some government assassin.’

Sam looked away and stared at the wall.

Walter gave him a moment, then asked, ‘How do you know all this?’

‘I studied all the police reports I could lay my hands on. I had to bribe one guy in your department, there you are, one juicy titbit of gossip you can take with you. You’ve got a mole who will sell their soul, cost me three hundred nicker, worth every penny. Plus the coroner’s statement, everything I could find. It was obvious your mob was convinced it was suicide from day one. You never really looked at alternatives. You didn’t give Desi a chance. You’d made up your minds.’

‘I was on holiday.’

‘Gee bloody whiz! Well, that’s you off the hook, isn’t it! I don’t think so!’

For once Walter didn’t have an answer.

Sam snarled and started again.

‘Along with what Desi told me about unexpected accidents, and how scared she was, I knew she had been murdered. I just knew.’

‘But didn’t you say she was upset about something in her past; that she woke from nightmares. Couldn’t that have had something to do with it? Couldn’t that have been preying on her mind?’

Sam thought a beat and said, ‘She didn’t commit suicide, if that’s what you think. But she did once tell me she was hearing voices.’

‘Voices?’

‘Yeah, you know, nasty voices in her head ordering her about. I think it went back to that Toby Malone character. I’d like to have met him. I’d like to have killed him, but thankfully someone else got there before me. Good and bad in everything. Good, that he’s long dead, bad, that I didn’t eradicate the bastard first.’

‘Could Desi have murdered Toby?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Really? Are you so sure? She was used to death after all, and if he hurt her so much...’

‘She didn’t! But even if she did, he deserved it, and even if she did, it had nothing to do with her demise.’

‘You don’t know that!’

‘I visited the cop shop seven times. Seven times, Walter. Seven bleeding times! Pleading with your people to reopen their inquiry. Begging them to start an investigation into everything that was happening at Eden Leys. And what did they do? Damn all! That’s what. Bugger all!’

‘I guess your enquiries never made it past the station sergeant. I could have a word about that.’

‘Too late now!’

‘They are overworked and underpaid and are snowed under with crazy people coming in and demanding all sorts. It’s not excusable, but it is understandable, that occasionally they may send the wrong people away.’

‘Like me, you mean?’

‘Yes. Maybe. Like you.’

‘So you concede I might have a case?’

‘I’d like to look into it further.’

‘Too late, mate. Far too late!’

‘Tell me something about the Chester Mollesters thing, and the bad spelling.’

‘Not much to tell. A futile attempt to mislead, I regretted it afterwards.’

The landline telephone in the hall rang.

They both jumped.

A phone ringing in the small hours is far louder than during the day. Walter glanced at the clock. Sam at his wrist. Five to one.

‘Who the hell’s that?’ said Sam. ‘Who’d be ringing at this time of night?’

‘No idea, probably a wrong number.’

The phone rang for ages, maybe thirty, forty, double rings.

Sam didn’t answer, just cursed it. It still rang.

‘Whoever it is, they’re a persistent bastard!’

The ringing stopped.

Sam sighed. He looked nervous.

Walter did too. He wanted to ask another probing question, preferably one that might produce a thirty-minute answer. For a moment his mind went blank. He really needed a pee.

The mobile atop the television set began leaking sound. Karen had programmed it to chime that awful seven-note ringtone, the one that sounded like water splashing off the roof. God knows how she did it. He didn’t care, didn’t like it either. Each note lower than the last, splash, splash, splash, splash, splash, splash, splash, stop. Then the same seven splashes again and stop. Seven. And again. Seven and again.

Sam jumped from the chair. Went to the phone. Picked it up. Saw who was calling. Grinned.

‘It’s time, Walter, it’s time.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Who do you think?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘The lucky bitch.’

‘Karen?’

‘Yeah! The very same. You’re only in this position because of her; you know that, don’t you? If you hadn’t saved her, I’d have vanished. Mission accomplished. I’d have cleared off to Barcelona. Happy memories there, you understand. I would have enjoyed a second honeymoon, all alone, yet not alone at all. Sometimes dressed as a lonely lady, a striking woman in mourning, a woman with admirers. Wealthy old businessmen would have paid court to me, felt sorry for me, sent me flowers, dinner invitations. Who knows, I might even have let them buy me jewellery... I might even have let them live. You would never have seen or heard from me again, except you couldn’t stop interfering, in your size ten clodhoppers. Big mistake, Walter. Fatal mistake.’

Walter fired off another question, ‘Why did you leave it so long afterwards, before you began killing people?’ He was desperate to keep Sam talking, encouraged in knowing that Karen was awake, and thinking.

‘I’d been considering it for ages, planning it, wondering how I might go about it. I guess I hoped you might see sense and reopen your enquiries. But you didn’t, and there was no sign you would. And then that guy came along on the highway. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. There he was, nodding at me, and there was my foot hovering above the accelerator; and something in my head was shouting: Don’t stop! Do it! Do it now! And I did, and I don’t regret it, not for a moment.’

‘He was an innocent family man.’

‘Tough shit!’

‘A decent person, don’t you have any regrets?’

‘Desi was a decent person! Devoted to searching for cures to save mankind, and look what happened to her!’

Sam stood up and went to the sports bag, took out a large pair of gleaming scissors, held them in the air, practiced a few snips. ‘I still hoped you might reopen Desi’s case, that justice would prevail, that you might see sense, get it right for once, but no...’ and his voice trailed away.

He was suddenly busy, scissors in hand, cutting into Walter’s right shirt cuff, clean through, up to the wrist, careful not to snip the plastic tie, and then all the way up to the shoulder, cutting off the raggy bits, exposing Walter’s flabby arm, his wrist still firmly fixed to the arm of the chair.

‘I’ll reopen the case, you’ll get your justice; we’ll open the whole damned can of worms.’

‘Too little, too late, Wally! Time’s up. Here we go.’

‘And the different coloured eyes?’ he said, desperate to say anything to prolong the conversation.

‘You know the answer to that. Contact lenses, of course, you can have any colour you like. There’s a place in Manchester that sells nothing but weirdly coloured lenses, fab it is. We built up quite a collection, red, yellow, black, gold, purple, you can have any colour eyes you want.’

Walter sniffed and said, ‘I know someone who’d adore purple eyes.’

‘Do you? Who?’

‘You don’t know her.’

‘Who, Walter? Who?’

‘Cresta.’

‘Who’s Cresta?’

‘The profiler on the case.’

‘Ah yes, Cresta Parsnip, or whatever she’s called, I read about her in the Sunday supplements. American, isn’t she?’

‘Raddish, her name’s Raddish. She’s not American, just studied there. Crazy about the colour purple.’

‘Yeah, well, I considered doing her, taking her down. But your sweet chick was a more enticing target. Are you plugging that girl, Walter?’

‘No, course not. I’m old enough to be her father.’

‘Doesn’t stop a lot of men, Walter, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

Walter shook his head and said, ‘Which killing gave you the most satisfaction?’

‘Oh, that’s easy.’

‘Which one?’

‘The Right Reverend, of course, the railway killing. That was so sweet, so poetic. I thought of Desi every second, as he was crunched under the wheels. It seemed appropriate that there he was, a man of God, meeting his maker in an identical fashion. God could chew on that, part payment for my Desi’s loss. Had to be that one, didn’t it?’

‘I still don’t understand why Desiree was killed.’

‘She was killed, Walter, because she was stealing information, you moron! That’s how they saw it; they couldn’t prove it; so they eradicated the problem. Simple as that. One day there’s a big difficulty, the next day there isn’t. You are beginning to annoy me! Great ape, you say?’

Walter glanced up at the guy. He was standing like a bartender waiting for the drinker to choose his poison.

‘I said: Great ape did you say?’

His eyes were wilder this time, didn’t look like he’d brook an argument.

Walter nodded.

‘Good man,’ and he carefully unscrewed the green cap. Fixed a large needle on the syringe. Slipped it into the bottle. Carefully drew it back, fully loaded, scarlet blood, foreign blood, killing blood.

‘Byes-e-bye, Walter baby, it’s been nice knowing you.’

In went the needle.

Walter grimaced. Said nothing.

Down went the plunger. In went the blood.

Walter cursed. Stared at the syringe.

Stared at the blood as it left the vehicle, entering his body.

Nothing happened.

He wondered how long it would take.

Sam grinned.

Mission accomplished, at long last.

Seven times over.

Seven times one is seven.

Seven deaths.

Desi avenged, at last.

The fat black cop on his way to hell.

Desiree could sleep easy in her grave.

100 Ways to Kill People.

Inject an Inspector with the blood of a great ape, this time a murdered chimpanzee.

Poetic. Truly poetic.

‘Time to be going, methinks,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to be here when the cavalry arrives, if indeed they ever do. Bye-bye, Walter, have a nice death.’

‘You’re sick in the head. You should see someone.’

‘And you my friend; are dying. Make the most of the tiny time you have left, and just to be on the safe side, to make sure there is no mistake this time, I think a dash of rat is called for, don’t you?’

The killer grinned and picked up the red-topped bottle.

Walter shook his head. He still needed a pee.

Chapter Fifty

Karen and Gibbons jumped from the car. Ran toward the house, Karen stumbling, still weak. Gibbons helped her up. ‘Go on!’ she said. There was a dim light in the front room. Someone was in.

Perhaps the old fool had fallen asleep in the chair. She joined Gibbons at the open front gate. ‘How do we get in?’ he whispered.

‘There’s a key,’ she said, ‘under a big stone. We came back late one night for a chat, he’d left his keys in the office, and he said there was a key under the stone, but it had been snowing and we couldn’t even find the bloody stone.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘By the peony, Walter said.’

‘What does a peony look like?’

‘No idea, try that big stone there.’

Gibbons turned over the stone, nothing but wriggly worms and pregnant earwigs caught out in the streetlight. Turned over another. Same as before. Turned over another one. Faint light glinted from a rusty key, half buried in the mud. He grabbed it, wiped it on his sleeve, and raced to the front door. Slipped it in the lock. Gently turned. The door opened, with Karen at his shoulder.

Muffled voices came from the front room. They ran to the doorway, looked in.

Walter was tied to the chair.

There was a slight guy standing over him, dressed in black, a stupid grin on his face, a huge syringe in his hand loaded with scarlet liquid. More bottles on the table, one empty, one full, one half empty, plus another smaller, clearer container.

‘Are you all right, Walter?’ screamed Karen.

‘Oh no sister, he isn’t,’ said the man in black. ‘He’s on his way to meet his maker, a gigantic chicken, we believe. Have any thoughts on the subject?’

Gibbons ran at the guy.

Sam turned toward him, syringe first, jabbing it in the air between them, snarling, ‘Come on hero boy, want some?’

Karen staggered to the hall, thinking about the Glock she’d left at work, went to the kitchen, rummaged in drawers, came back with two old carving knives, one sharp, one not, slipped one to Gibbons. Sam looked nervous. Karen moved around to the guy’s left, Gibbons to his right.

‘You’re finished,’ said Walter. ‘Finished! Give yourself up before you get hurt.’

Walter didn’t look well. He needed a pee.

‘Shut up, old man! It’s you who’s finished.’

Gibbons thrust the knife forward, tried to knock the needle from the guy’s hand. What was in that thing?

Karen lurched at the guy from the left, almost fell over. Sam had expected it. She was loyal to the end and seeking revenge. He jabbed the needle toward her face, aiming for the eye, Karen swayed left, missed by a whisker, but the needle grazed her right earlobe, not enough time for him to press the plunger. In the scramble he’d taken the knife from her, yanked it clear from her weak grasp. He was strong. Much stronger than he looked. Surprisingly strong, but she already knew that.

Sam hurled the syringe at Gibbons while jabbing the knife at Karen. The loaded needle turned over in flight and bounced harmlessly from Darren’s shoulder. Sam turned on the balls of his feet and flashed the carving knife at Gibbons.

Gibbons slashed back. Both missed. Karen glanced at Walter.

His mouth was open, and he was breathing heavy. He didn’t look well at all.

Sam and Gibbons were jabbing at one another like feuding pirates.

Karen saw her moment, rushed in from the side, used the last of her strength, issued a left-handed forearm smash, cack handed. Walter remembered she always took people by surprise, every time. It knocked Sam off balance. Gibbons waded in. He dropped the knife. He’d never liked knives, flexed his muscles and punched the guy in the chest, a thundering blow to the torso, a professional strike, honed in the gym he adored.

Walter managed a grin. Sam went down, falling backwards, over the coffee table, squealing and panicking and scattering the bottles of blood, and the scissors and the empty coffee mug, shattering the glass phial. Shards of razor sharp glass slipped into his body, injecting clear chemical into the small of his back.

They stared down at the immobile man in black.

At his startled and panicked eyes.

At his trembling and unmoving body.

At his quivering and silent lips.

At his final movements and moments.

At his death.

‘Don’t touch anything!’ yelled Walter. ‘It’s some kind of chemical weapon; you’ll need to ring HAZCHEM. And call an ambulance. Quick! He’s injected me with foreign blood. And cut me loose! And get me a bucket! I need a pee!’ 

Chapter Fifty-One

The following morning, the police arrived at Iona House earlier than planned, Karen, Gibbons and Jenny Thompson, but no Walter. He was getting fixed in the Countess hospital, having his blood changed, tests run, a lucky escape, no rat, but the chimpanzee had been removed, just in time, along with all the rest, though it had been a close call.

‘Where’s the big black chap?’ asked Mrs Hymas.

Gibbons and Karen shared a look.

‘The big black chap is unavoidably detained. He sent his apologies,’ said Karen.

‘Oh, really? That’s a shame. I’ve made him some fairies specially.’

‘Perhaps we could take him some back.’

‘Oh yes, would you?’

‘Sure,’ said Karen. ‘You don’t have a key, do you, for flat number two?’

‘No. Why? What time will Sam and Samantha be back?’

‘Sam and Samantha won’t be coming back.’

‘No! Why? They haven’t had an accident, have they?’

‘You could say that,’ said Gibbons.

‘How terrible.’

‘We have a search warrant,’ said Karen, flashing the document before Mrs Hymas’s face.

There was a momentary pause, and something clicked in her old watery eyes.

‘They have been naughty, haven’t they?’

‘What makes you say that?’ asked Jenny.

‘They used to spin me yarns. They used to think I was doodle alley, senile, and I am not.’

‘Did they?’ said Gibbons. ‘Tut tut tut.’

‘What kind of yarns?’ asked Karen.

‘Oh, crazy things. They said if I was ever naughty, they’d wrap me in Christmas paper and throw me in the river at midnight. Silly things like that. Only a joke I know, but sometimes it kept me awake at night.’

‘You don’t need to worry about anything like that any more,’ said Karen. ‘We’re going into the flat; we’ll come back and see you later.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No, you’re all right. You stay here.’

‘Shall I put the kettle on?’

‘Great idea, you do that.’

The officers smiled and nodded and left Mrs Hymas to her fairies, crossed the hall and stared at the stripped timber door. Karen followed procedure and knocked. No sound, no reply, no surprise. Gibbons took out a small jemmy from his deep trouser pocket, placed it on the rim of the door, applied pressure, his biceps bulging beneath his shirt as he began levering; Karen and Jenny both noticed that. Three seconds and the timber split with a loud crack. One more jerk, and the door flew open, two chunky and rusty wood screws tumbling to the hall floor, as if in protest at being disturbed.

The officers slipped on latex gloves and went inside, with Walter’s parting words ringing in Karen’s ears.

‘Find me that diary; and any details of any documents deposited with a solicitor.’

They’d entered a large sitting room with views out over the front lawn and the driveway. Karen wasn’t alone in wondering what had gone on in that room. It was pretty ordinary. A little old-fashioned, too. A leather settee, modern TV, nothing of any great interest, clean and tidy, well cared for, but no obvious diary. They went through to the kitchen. A large solid fuel stove, long since gone out, ideal for disposing of bloody clothing, Karen imagined. No evidence of any kind in there, and no body parts. Who knows what had gone through that furnace?

Into the bedroom, nice double bed, everything clean and neat and tidy. Opened the floor to ceiling wardrobe, fine clothes, and lots of them, expensive too, men and women’s, dozens of shoes on the floor, all neatly stored side by side, again, men and women’s, similar sizes, very expensive, Karen noted that, top ticket designer gear, better than she could afford, and sitting on the shelving to the right-hand side, were four white heads, polystyrene models, topped with trendy styled wigs, four different colours, black, blonde, red, brown, and very smart.

Gibbons thought he recognised the black one.

‘Look at these,’ said Jenny.

She’d opened a bedside table. Five contact lens containers, five different coloured lenses.

‘Explains a lot,’ said Karen.

‘And these!’ said Gibbons, brandishing a pair of touchy feely breasts in front of his chest. ‘They’re fab, just like the real thing!’

‘Put them down!’ said Karen, grinning.

‘What’s he like?’ said Jenny.

But still no diary. Karen thought it might have been in the bedside table, last chore of the day, maybe, before a peaceful night’s rest, update the terror records; update the murder diaries. She returned to the inner hallway, opened the door to the second bedroom.

‘Oh...my...God!’

The other two hurried to join her, peering over her shoulder at the noticeboard she was gawping at. Seeing her picture staring back, a blown up black-and-white photo culled from one of the news conferences. Through the middle of her face in scrawled red ink was a splashed handwritten cross.

Next to her image was one of Walter, a large red question mark next to his likeness, and an unmarked one of Cresta Raddish.

‘Proof if proof be needed,’ said Gibbons.

‘Look at this lot!’ said Jenny.

Karen and Gibbons swivelled round and saw the bottles of what looked like blood, and specimens of what appeared to be living tissue stored in formaldehyde. Animal or human, it was hard to tell. The blood and samples were sitting on a tall teak shelving unit that housed clear glass bottles, containing God knows what substances, some labelled, some not, and binders containing computer printouts, large red notebooks, smaller secretary sized notepads, all full of neat handwriting. No obvious diary, not that Karen could see.

‘Look at that,’ said Jenny, pointing to a steel craft knife. The blade was retracted, the tool partly hidden behind one of the larger glass jars.

‘Potential murder weapon for killing number five, I’d say,’ said Karen.

‘Remind me which one that was,’ said Gibbons.

‘Cripps, Jago Cripps,’ added Jenny, ‘the one at the flat.’

‘Ah yes, that’s the fella,’ said Gibbons.

‘Give me a bag,’ said Karen.

Gibbons pulled a plastic bag from his pocket and unfastened the top, held it open; Karen took the knife and slipped it inside, and wondered what they would find next.

Pushed against the far wall was a computer desk. On top, an ultra modern computer and printer with failed red printed notices discarded to one side. Gibbons recognised them from the Ladies’ loo.

Toilets Closed For Cleaning. 

He said nothing, didn’t want to remind Karen of that dreadful day.

‘Maybe the diary’s on the computer,’ suggested Jenny.

‘Could be,’ said Karen. ‘Boot it up, Gibbo.’

Gibbons fired up the machine as Karen turned back to the info wall. Practically every newspaper article ever written on the case was up there, some with rude comments and threats scrawled over them, others blank. Gave her a weird feeling, staring at her own defaced face. She looked so worried up there, frightened even. Perhaps she was. Not an image any police officer would wish to portray. In future she’d address that. She shivered and turned back to the computer.

Jenny and Gibbons were standing over it.

‘Need a password, sarge,’ said Gibbons.

‘Could be anything,’ said Jenny.

‘Try Samantha,’ said Karen.

Didn’t work.

‘Let’s try Desiree,’ said Gibbons.

Didn’t work.

‘Try seven,’ said Karen.

Didn’t work.

‘How about Sam, the man, or son of Sam?’ said Jenny.

Neither worked.

‘What about murdering bastard?’ said Gibbons.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Karen.

Didn’t work, anyway.

‘Could be anything,’ said Jenny again.

‘Bag the lot up and take it back to the station,’ said Karen. ‘They have password detection programs there. Won’t take them too long.’

Gibbons nodded and went outside to collect the police canvas bags from the boot of the car.

‘What about these?’ said Jenny, pointing at the samples and bottles.

‘I don’t think we should touch them,’ said Karen. ‘They could be hazardous. Think we need advice on that.’

Gibbons was back, overheard her, and said, ‘I agree. You saw what it did to Sam the man.’

‘Sam, the he-she thing,’ corrected Jenny.

‘Yeah, that too.’

Karen turned back to the shelves. Took out one of the red notebooks. Opened it for a better look, and noticed a date. It was a diary; they were all diaries, all seventeen of them, page a day diaries for the previous seventeen years.

Walter’s gruff voice flashed into her head.

Bag it up and bring it home. Don’t open it, don’t read it, and don’t give it to Mrs West or Cresta, not until I’ve seen it.

‘Give me a bag, Gibbo.’

He passed her a canvas bag. She counted them in, seventeen in all. Seventeen years of what? Hatred, violence, murder, what? A step-by-step account of how to terrorise and murder people. And for what? The guy was sick in the head, but weren’t they all? Bring back the rope, Karen thought, and yet, when it came to it, did she want that? To see and hear of criminals dangling to their deaths from the end of a rope?

She flexed her head and felt her neck beneath the dark polo necked jumper, still sore, still horribly marked. She remembered being hung less than a week before. She recalled how it felt, the darkness of it, the panic, the final thoughts, the kicking of the feet, and all she could think about was the crazy image that when they found her, her knickers would be dangling around her ankles, and how crazy was that? She would never forget it. She could never forget it. Never, ever. She closed her eyes and shook her head. Bring back the rope.

Oh yes. Sooner the better!

Her mobile began bleating. She didn’t recognise the number.

‘Hello.’

‘Have you found it yet?’

It was Walter, and he sounded even more impatient than usual.

‘I haven’t found it,’ she said, but in the way she spoke, he guessed there was more to come.

‘Well? What?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘Seventeen what? Diaries?’

‘Yes, page a day, crammed full, some days with added extras.’

‘You haven’t read them?’

‘Nope. Course not. When do I have the time to do that? How are you, anyway? Where are you?’

‘I’m still in bed, still plugged up. The docs said if it had been a few minutes longer, I’d have died. I had to play merry hell to get the phone wheeled down here. I hope to be back in the morning.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘That’s rich coming from someone who’s just suffered a hanging!’

‘I was just thinking about that.’

‘Well, don’t.’

‘I can handle it, I’m twenty-five.’

‘Yeah, and I’m not, so what, big deal. I’ll see you in the morning, and don’t read them, and make sure fussy britches doesn’t see them either, not before I do. Lock them in the cupboard in the spare room.’

‘You’re asking a lot.’

‘I know. It’s what I’m paid for; it’s why you like me so much. Did you find any solicitor’s stuff?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Keep looking. I’ll have to go; the medical mafia are back, curtaining me off. God knows what torture they’re planning for me now. I wish I was down there with you. Ta-ta... and well done.’

She’d wanted to ask him for advice on what to do with the bottles and jars. Never mind, Mrs West could rule on that. Another job for HAZCHEM, most likely, the hazardous chemicals division. They’d had a busy twenty-four hours, ended up with a couple of bemused boffins from Eden Leys perched on their shoulders. She took out a tin of throat lozenges and slipped one into her mouth. Offered them round. The pair of them shook their heads.

‘The computer stuff’s in the car, sarge,’ said Gibbons.

‘You’d better go and protect it because Guv would have our guts for garters if someone stole it now.’

Gibbons nodded, realising how right she was, waved at Mrs Hymas through the window on his way out. No tea and cakes for him.

‘You’ll have to stay here,’ Karen said to Jenny. ‘No one is to enter the flat under any circumstances. Understand?’

‘Yes, sarge.’

‘I may come back myself, depends on what ma’am says. They’ll send some top brass down, but I won’t forget you. See if you can find any details of papers lodged at a solicitor’s. I’ll get more people down here as soon as I can.’

‘Thanks, sarge.’

‘Talk to Mrs Hymas if you like. Have some tea and cakes, perhaps collect some for Walter, but don’t let her in here, and don’t tell her anything. I don’t need to remind you this is a major crime scene. Put some tape across the door. No one enters.’

‘Got you, sarge.’

‘We’ll see if we can break into the computer.’

‘Good luck with that. See you later.’

‘Yeah, you will.’

Chapter Fifty-Two

Walter was a man of his word. He was back in the office first thing the next day. He looked dreadful, as if he’d had the lifeblood sucked from him, which was pretty close to what had happened.

Karen was there too, and she looked little better. She slipped him the key to the metal cupboard as Mrs West arrived.

She barked a shrill Good Morning everybody, glanced at Walter, thought about saying: You look terrible, thought better of it, and mumbled: Good to see you back; and hurried toward her office, went inside, and closed the door. Walter and Karen shared a look.

‘You’re going to have to tell her,’ Karen said.

‘I know. I’ll do it now, before she’s wide awake.’

He stood up and limped toward her office door, knocked hard once so he wouldn’t have to do it again.

‘Come!’ came the distant voice.

Walter went inside.

‘Ah, Walter,’ she said, ‘sit down. I wanted a word with you. How are you anyway?’

He puffed out his cheeks. ‘They tell me I’ll live, which is good enough for me, and more than the unlucky six have to look forward to.’

‘True, but at least, thanks to you and the team’s fine efforts, there won’t be a seventh.’

It seemed small compensation, though not much, and nothing for the relatives of the dead.

‘So,’ she said, ‘you’re wrapping everything up?’

‘Busy on it now, ma’am.’

‘And the general debriefing?’

‘Arranged for this afternoon, half-past two.’

‘Good. Is Cresta in?’

‘Not yet, due in any minute.’

‘So what can I do for you?’

Walter took a deep breath.

‘The killer left a diary, ma’am.’

‘A diary?’

‘Yes, seventeen volumes.’

‘And where are they?’

‘Locked in the cupboard, ma’am.’

‘And why wasn’t I told?’

‘With everything going on, I don’t think they wanted to bother you with it.’

Mrs West sniffed. She didn’t believe that. She grabbed her bag and took out an embroidered handkerchief and blew her pink nose. Walter glanced away. For some reason, he found it funny and had to fight not to laugh.

Once done with the hankie, she said, ‘Seventeen volumes, you say?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Well, I can’t be spending all day reading that. I’ve staff assessments to complete, up to and including this case, on everyone, Walter, including yours, and God alone knows what else,’ and she glanced at him over the top of her pink framed specs. ‘They are probably full of childish ramblings. Could you read them ASAP and report back?’

‘Of course, ma’am, if that’s what you want.’

‘Yes, Walter, it is, do that, and note anything important I need to know.’

‘Fine, ma’am, I’ll get on with it right now. When I have finished with them, is it all right if Cresta sees them?’

She thought about that for a second, pulled a face, and then said, ‘Don’t see why not.’

‘Right-ho, ma’am.’

‘And I don’t think you should be here all day. You look bloody awful. Go home and get some rest as soon as you can.’

‘Yes, ma’am, thank you, I will,’ though the thought of going home to a boarded up kitchen window, and an empty house full of all too recent memories of torture and near death, was not one to tempt him home early. He’d stay for as long as he could keep his eyes open. She nodded him away, and he was glad to be out of there.

‘Well?’ said Karen.

‘I’m assigned to read them all, starting now.’

‘Good. And am I in the clear?’

‘Course,’ he said, unable to keep a smile infiltrating over his drawn face. ‘Would I dump you in it?’

‘Don’t answer that,’ she grinned, as she watched him limping away toward the private office, key in hand.

––––––––

THEY WERE MAROON, ALL seventeen of them, made by the same manufacturer, and each one still had the price sticker affixed to the back cover. A seventeen-year record of inflation in the British stationery industry. He opened the earliest one, sat back and began reading, and was struck by the carefully constructed handwriting.

This wasn’t a hurried record; this was a detailed account of the guy’s life, a considered account, as if he had debated long into the night over every word. It soon became apparent the entries were not written on the day in question, but often some time afterwards, as if he’d left blank pages to be filled in later, as if he’d wanted to reflect on events before committing them to paper.

How many people could do that?

Keep a regular and detailed diary, but leave matters to mature before recording them. It was obvious he’d gone back, sometimes years later, to change and add material, perhaps recently recalled or discovered.

Walter had seen nothing like them before.

As in most diaries, Sam had recorded everyday events, met so and so in the pub, drank too much wine. Shirley was there and I fancied her. But also detailed personal items that many people wouldn’t care to see written down. Intimate details of all the dirty little habits that everyone possesses, and everyone denies.

It didn’t make for easy reading.

It was clear Sam hadn’t enjoyed an easy life, but Walter had expected that. No one goes out and murders six people at random, and tries hard to complete the hand of seven, if they have enjoyed a comfortable and contented existence.

Or do they?

Walter pondered on the point.

Had there ever been a random serial killer who had enjoyed a trouble free, stress-free life, with nothing hidden in their background, to suggest at what was to come? He was struggling to name a case, and he had known more than enough.

The main point in studying the diaries, so far as Walter was concerned, was to see if there were any pointers or hints as to what he, Walter Darriteau, or his successors, could have done differently in the case. Or do differently next time. Any tiny thing that might have enabled them to apprehend the killer earlier; any missed fact that might have saved lives. That was the point of the exercise. Nothing more. No doubt Cresta would think and say different, and in due course, she would have her chance, after he had finished.

If he couldn’t glean such intelligence, the time spent reading Sam’s neat, but tiny handwriting, a style that enabled the guy to cram a maximum amount of information and trivia into those bound A4 pages, would be, in his eyes, wasted.

Cresta would end up writing some best-selling book based on the murder diaries, but Walter wasn’t jealous about that. If she had the time and tenacity to produce such a work, good luck to her. He did not. 

He ploughed on, pausing to scribble notes in not so neat handwriting on a foolscap pad. At eleven o’clock, he needed a breather, went outside, and headed for the cloakroom.

Cresta glanced up from her desk. She was still writing her final report that she would portray as groundbreaking. Walter had returned and interrupted her train of thought with a comment of his own.

‘Morning, Cresty, how are you?’

Cresta glanced up.

‘Walter, there you are. It’s Crest-A, Walter, as you well know, Crest-A, and you look somewhat pasty, if I may say, how are you feeling?’

Pasty, he thought, she’d look bloody pasty if she’d had the lifeblood sucked from her, but he resisted the temptation to make a joke, and came to the point.

‘What would it be worth to the history of this case, and indeed to the whole subject of criminal profiling, if the killer had written a detailed account of his activities going back years?’

‘A great deal, that goes without saying,’ and then the penny dropped. ‘He wrote a diary?’ she asked, her eyes widening.

Walter grinned and nodded once.

‘Where is it?’

‘I’m reading it now.’

‘Can I see it after you?’

‘I might persuade ma’am to let me release it on one small condition.’

‘What, Walter, what?’

‘You buy me lunch at Pierre’s. I’ll be there at 12.30 if it’s a deal.’

Cresta smiled in purple. What a devious man he was.

‘I’ll be there,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Good. They do a wonderful quiche, and I’ll have chips with mine too, brilliant, it is, see you later.’ 

Chapter Fifty-Three

After an excellent lunch, Walter retrieved the diaries from the locked cupboard, burped, and sat back in the chair. Pierre’s quiche was the most expensive bacon and egg pie in the universe, but it was lovely, even if it encouraged indigestion.

Blood making pie was how he described it to Cresta, and that brought a grimace to her purple decorated face. She’d chosen the cold smoked trout with a sprinkling of green leaves, which said everything.

‘I need all the blood I can manufacture,’ he continued, before she suggested they talk of something else, and most particularly of the murder diaries.

She wasn’t bad company as it turned out, and hadn’t Karen once intimated they would make a handsome couple? He wouldn’t have gone that far, but away from the confines of the office and the competitiveness of that environment, she relaxed and was bearable. Perhaps she was being agreeable because she knew he had something she desperately wanted, and it wasn’t his ravaged body. Walter sighed and shook those recent memories from his mind and began reading.

––––––––

THE FIRST TIME I REMEMBER feeling uncomfortable about myself was the day I discovered I possessed initials that spelt a mildly rude word. It could have been worse, I suppose. I could have been christened Steven Harold Ian Truman, or Freddy Umberto Chapman King, or even, God forbid, Colin Uriah Norman Trethowan.

My name, by comparison to those horrors, and no doubt there are poor unfortunates padding around out there with initials such as those, could be considered comical, a joke. I didn’t see it that way. It wasn’t a joke to me, not back then, and I suspect most boys wouldn’t have thought so either. It was strange I hadn’t noticed it before Billy Freeman yelled at me in the playground: ‘ASS by name, ASS by nature, you’re a complete ASS!’

We were eight, and even then I had to ask him to explain what he meant. It was a small and silly incident that shouldn’t have brought me discomfort, yet it did. Even now, looking back from years later, it makes me uncomfortable to think of it. You’re an ASS! Maybe I am. Who knows, who cares? I dumped the problem as soon as I could by ditching my first name. Who wouldn’t have?

––––––––

WALTER FLIPPED THROUGH the pages. It was an easy thing to do, to dip in and out, because though they were written on dated pages, oddly, they didn’t come out in chronological order. It was all a little haphazard. The writer was either extremely gifted, or totally disorganised, and it was mighty difficult to decide which.

Karen knocked on the door and came in.

‘I’m going to Iona to oversee the removal of the contents. Anything you want me to look out for?’

‘Yes, the solicitor’s name and address.’

‘Besides that?’

‘Nope, not that I can think of.’

‘How’s the reading going?’

‘Confusing.’

‘In what way?’

‘Jumps about all over the place.’

‘You’ve got Cresta jumping up and down.’

‘Good. Well, she’s going to have to wait, and for quite some time too.’

Karen grinned. He enjoyed winding Cresta up. Karen was surprised he’d told her about the diaries at all.

‘OK, I’ll see you later.’

‘Yep, see you, oh; some more of those fairies would be nice.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

He turned over the page.

––––––––

MY LIFE TOOK A TURN for the better the day I fell totally and utterly in love. It had been a slow burner. I’d known the girl for several years before I thought of her in any way other than as the quiet but cute vicar’s daughter. Unlike my friend Dennis, who the very first day I mentioned her, said ‘Yeah, yeah. But would you fuck her?’

At the time, that notion had not permeated my confused head, though a few years later that idea was fixed in my mind from first thought in the morning till the last at night. The second or third time I saw her I glimpsed her knickers, as she’d curled her legs beneath her at the vicarage tea party. I’d looked away and Dennis told me off about that too. It was an image framed in time that returned to me time and again. It still occasionally does. I know it shouldn’t, but it does, locked in my head, as if to tease me, as if to remind me of something I never had, something I could never attain, as if to say: You’ve wasted an opportunity there! You ass! You’re an ASS!

The ironic thing was that at one time, she had a real crush on me. She bought me a rabbit’s foot, especially for my big concert on the radio. I was too stupid or too embarrassed to notice her feelings, and it was a couple of years later, when she returned from college during the summer holidays, that I finally asked her to the pictures. It wasn’t easy persuading her either. I had to ask her four times before she agreed. Later, I discovered she only consented because her father, the vicar, encouraged her to do so. Imagine how I felt. The girl at my side was there because her father asked her to be, not because she wanted to be.

That night, I made a complete and utter fool of myself.

I wasn’t the first young man to do so on their first meaningful date, and I won’t be the last, but that doesn’t erase the hurt one feels when looking back on it from some years later.

On the way home, I pushed her against the back of the bus shelter and kissed her. She didn’t resist; she didn’t cry out; she didn’t do a thing. Her response was spelt out through her icy lips. I imagine now that she must have grimaced through the whole experience, though I was far too smitten to realise that, and too innocent to understand that it was any different to how it should have been. Maybe I had an inkling. If I did, I buried it in the outer reaches of my expanding mind. I didn’t want to know a thing, other than what I saw and felt and smelt in front of me.

Flushed with success, for I had dreamt of kissing those pink cherry lips for weeks, no months, nay years, I pressed onward, determined to achieve my goal, as any hot-blooded male might, strike while the iron is hot, show her you love her, as the agony aunt pages always say, tell her you love her, they always recommend. How is she ever to know how you feel if you don’t tell her? So I did.

‘I love you, Machara,’ I said.

She didn’t say a word. She was probably squirming with embarrassment.

I loved everything about her, even her name I found alluring. I had never met a Machara before, still haven’t. I loved her to bits, and what does a passionate man do when he loves someone? Asks them to marry him, that’s what, so I did.

‘Will you marry me, Machara McGowan?’

She giggled derisorily.

I didn’t look into her eyes; I couldn’t, because my head was set to one side of hers. I was staring at her neat left ear that was poking through her bonnet of black hair, that ear, a white protuberance that resembled those ultra precious mushrooms one finds in the forest early on a Sunday morning, a variety you never see in the shops. That night in the bus shelter there was something particularly sensual about her ear. I still remember that, it’s difficult to explain, I could have bitten it off, though I didn’t understand it at the time.

When she spoke she said, ‘I couldn’t possibly marry you, you’re no-ooo a Scot.’

She didn’t reject me because I was too young, too inexperienced, too short, too nervous, too lacking in prospects, too ugly, too dull, too horrendous. She rejected me because I didn’t belong to the Scottish race. Stupid girl! How peculiar was that? I suspect it was a condition that would one day come back to haunt her, and only two years after that, she did indeed find her ideal man.

Robertson was six feet four inches tall, broadly built, sandy beard and hair, with a glint in his eye. His highland accent alone was enough to win Machara’s heart, or so she imagined, and the fact that he wore a kilt, and his birth was registered in Fort William, would have clinched the deal.

When I heard the news, I was mortified. 

I didn’t understand how the love of my life could want to marry this huge ginger pig, this hairy legged oaf who delighted in prancing around in a green and yellow tartan skirt. But marry him she did, in her father’s church, where I had once led the choir. I didn’t attend, I couldn’t bring myself to do so, for when the Reverend Blair McGowan stood up and uttered the immortal words: Is there any lawful impediment as to why these people should not be joined in holy matrimony, I knew I would have jumped to my feet and yelled: ‘He’s no-ooo a Scot!’

’Cept he was, and she did.

It didn’t turn out well.

Robertson Brothy had a weakness.

Many men do.

His fatal weakness was not women, or girls, or even boys, or gambling, or money, or calories, or whisky, or drink, or lack of ambition, or laziness, or of being a bully, or of being violent, no, his weakness was one of egotism.

Robertson Brothy loved himself above all others.

He was used to getting his own way in all things. He possessed a booming voice and adored the sound of it. He would dominate conversations, he would talk others down, he would talk over people, and talk endlessly about himself and his life and his successes. He would cut others short, often in a rude manner, without ever seeming to notice, he would belittle people, especially anyone Machara liked, and he’d insist that people listened to him and his brilliant ideas, and especially his new wife, who at first tolerated it, but gradually retreated into her shell until she never spoke at all, unless he spoke first.

‘I’d like some sirloin steak for dinner.’

‘Yes, Robertson, I’ll see what I can find.’

‘And we’ll go golfing again at the weekend. Carnoustie, I think.’

‘Yes, Robbie, whatever you say.’

‘And don’t call me Robbie!’

––––––––

MACHARA DETESTED GOLF, but would never mention it, and would hack her way round Scotland’s championship links, embarrassing her husband, infuriating committee members who would reluctantly ban her. Though it made little difference, for there are thousands of golf courses across Scotland, as they moved up the coast to the next untouched collection of fresh holes.

‘You’ll get the hang of it,’ insisted Robertson.

‘Yes, dear,’ she would say, but she knew she wouldn’t, and she never did. She didn’t want to. She hated golf, and everything that went with it, and she grew to loathe Robertson Brothy.

Machara’s father was against divorce.

Prior to the marriage, he had taken his only daughter to one side and had lectured her on the sanctity of marriage, imploring his beautiful girl to be certain that Robertson was indeed the man for her, before she agreed to anything. Blair was not blind to Robertson’s overbearing nature, (the Reverend liked Robertson to come calling at the vicarage for a day or so, but was mighty pleased to see him leave). But his daughter was blind to that. Sometimes love really is blind.

She had made her decision and would stick with it, whatever it took, for better or worse, however hard the rock strewn road became, however unhappy it made her. She had chosen him freely and fairly, and anyway, she couldn’t possibly divorce Robertson Brothy, because he was a Scot.

I confess I imagined the last part of the previous sentence, and I laughed at it too, maybe a little unkindly, when I did. I have made many dreadful decisions in my life and I take little comfort from knowing that I am not alone.

Would Machara do the same thing if she had her life over again?

Of course she would, because she was a passionate human being, and passionate human beings do not know their own minds. They make mistakes. They are guided by exterior forces. We all are. Our actions are often not what they should be, not truly our own. They are dictated by events and passion.

––––––––

WALTER SET THE DIARY down and paused for thought. Read that line again. 

Our actions are often not what they should be, not truly our own. They are dictated by events and passion.

Your actions, young man, were your own, and no one else’s, and no amount of window dressing, or fiddling with history, could ever alter that.

––––––––

I REMEMBER MY EIGHTEENTH birthday well. Dennis’s girlfriend, Jillian, had fixed me up with one weird girlfriend after another. I don’t know why, but they all reminded me of animals, giraffes, meerkats, chickens, walruses; you name it, they were all there, as if they’d just vacated the ark. I wasn’t a success with her zoo, and stopped taking the dates, or perhaps she stopped providing them. I can’t remember which.

They left me that night to go to the cinema, and I picked up my brown paper parcel, and the present they had given me, a pack of string vests, the only gift I received that year, and later I walked around the city walls three times, alone with my thoughts, before I retreated to my flat where I opened my parcel, took out the first of my maroon diaries, and began making notes, recalling a haphazard history of my life. If you are reading this, you will know what I mean.

Soon afterwards, I embarked on a series of brief affairs, more by luck than judgement, brought about through alcohol. Thinking back on it, I can’t remember whether I was more or less drunk than the girls in question. Truth is, we were both stoned.

As you might gather from my coldness toward the business, they were not great successes. I’d discovered women, but I hadn’t found my woman, and that wouldn’t change for a good few years.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Walter was getting a headache. Sam’s writing was tiny, and it took considerable concentration to get through it. Karen came knocking again and entered. Walter glanced up. ‘How goes it?’

‘OK, everything of interest is now out of Iona. No solicitor’s details anywhere. Perhaps we should start ringing round the usual suspects and ask them.’

‘It’s a thought, but give it a little longer.’

‘One bit of good news.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘We’ve cracked the computer password.’

‘And?’

‘It was Ionahouse.’

‘That was difficult. And?’

‘Nothing much, love letters, the usual flattering stuff that men write.’

Walter wasn’t sure what men wrote in love letters. He couldn’t remember that far back. Come to think of it, he wondered if he had ever written a true love letter... or received one.

‘Like what?’ he said, striving to sound disinterested.

‘You know, the usual cock and bull.’

‘Like what?’ he mumbled again, staring down at volume nine.

‘You don’t need me to tell you that; use your imagination. You can read them yourself if you like.’

‘Mmm, maybe later.’

She glanced down at him. He seemed barely to notice she was there. She glanced at the diaries. She was becoming interested in those damned books. He seemed riveted, and she regretted not taking a quick peek when she had the chance. It was a pity they were going on the Cresta run next.

‘See you later,’ Karen said, and she let herself out.

‘Mmm, yeah.’

––––––––

MY LIFE CHANGED THE day I met the woman of my dreams.

As so often happens in matters of the heart, it was by accident. If I had been five minutes earlier, or she five minutes later, I would never have seen her, or met her. Our paths would never have crossed, and we would never have known of each other’s whereabouts. The chances are, we would have gone through the rest of our days pining for the other half that we knew existed, but could never find.

It was a Saturday morning, and I was terrified.

Some idiot at the tax office where I worked at the time decided it would be a good idea to improve team bonding, and the best way to do that, they reasoned, was through skydiving. I confess I didn’t want to participate, and would never go again, but the shame and embarrassment of being seen as a coward forced me from my bed that clear and dry Saturday morning.

A coach took us to the aero club where we’d gone through all the procedures and prelims. We were packed into our multi coloured gear and we headed outside. She was coming in. Some idiot at their place, Eden Leys, had had the same peculiar idea. Parachuting brought people together, they said, killed people too sometimes, I recalled, but there we are, and just this once, it did bring people together, though not as they imagined.

She was coming back, walking along the narrow tarmacked path. I was going out, same path, same place, same time.

We set eyes on one another at the same moment.

We were the same height and almost identical weight, and we even possessed the same sized feet. Eye contact was easy, straight ahead; there it was, eye to eye. Hello there!

I stared into her mesmerising dark eyes. She told me later my blue eyes were the first thing she saw, like lasers spearing into her soul. She said she couldn’t look anywhere else. She felt as if she were being hypnotised. It was the same for me. I couldn’t look anywhere else.  

I paused on the path, maybe five paces away.

She paused too.

‘Hi,’ I said, ambling closer.

‘Hi,’ she said, her white teeth picked out against her rustic skin, as she smiled that special smile reserved for the one we love. I doubt if she smiled in precisely that way again in her entire life. I know for sure I didn’t.

I was lost for words, said the first thing, nay the only thing; that came into my pounding brain.

‘Just been up?’

She grinned and glanced down at her spent chute.

‘Yep,’ she said, still smiling beams as if from an ultra-violet lamp, pausing, waiting, hoping, for me to speak again.

I was struck dumb.

‘Just going up?’ she said.

‘Yeah, looks like it. I’m so nervous.’

‘Don’t be, there’s nothing to be nervous about, you’ll be fine,’ and she reached across and squeezed my wrist. Electricity charged into my arm, sweeping through my entire body. I swear to God I could hear it crackling, see it arcing.

Her friends had passed by and had moved on toward the buildings. One of them turned round and shouted back, ‘Come on, Desi! It’s your round!’

She glanced at them and shouted, ‘Just a minute!’ Glanced back at me and said the most warm and kind thing that anyone has ever said to me in my entire life.

‘Would you like me to wait on for you?’

No one had ever said anything like that to me before. No one had ever wanted to wait for me for anything, not since I was a child. I could barely find the words to reply. Of course I would like her to wait.

I said, ‘I’d love you to wait.’

She moved closer, smiled at me again, zipping sparks down my spine, as she said, ‘I’ll wait. For sure. What’s your name?’

‘Sam.’

‘OK, Sam, mine’s Desi.’

‘I know.’

Alan Steadman, the office wet, turned round and saw me standing close to this dark and pretty girl, and shouted: ‘Eh up, looks like yellow balls is ducking out. Come on, Sam, if you’re coming,’ and he started making chicken noises.

We glanced back at Steadman and scowled, and she said, ‘You’d better go, Sam,’ and she leant across and kissed me on the cheek. I couldn’t believe it. I could feel the fire on my face. I cannot explain in writing how I felt back then. Certainly I had never experienced feelings the depths of which swept through my entire body at that moment, being kissed tenderly by a complete stranger, though of course we were not strangers, we never were. It was as if we had known each other since the womb, and I still cannot explain that, as I write this memoir of the earth shattering events of that late Saturday morning.

What kind of girl kisses a total stranger?

In broad daylight.

In front of other people.

How much courage did that take?

What kind of person could do that?

I know I couldn’t.

Can you imagine how special I felt at that second?

I suspect there are no words in the English language to describe it.

Far better men than I have tried and failed. The closest I can get is to say that if the whole of a person’s life could ever be compressed into a split second, then that second was that exact moment.

The Glendower Aero Club, I will love you forever!

‘I’ll wait for you,’ she said again, ‘Good luck, Sam, you’ll enjoy it.’

I doubted that. But she smiled me away, and I ran after the others with springs on my feet, and bragged about pulling a new girlfriend. Me, the same guy who had pushed Machara up against the bus shelter and forced her to kiss me, the same boy who was rude to Jillian’s friends, the same guy who had to be drunk to find a girl at all, and she drunker still.

They didn’t believe me, of course, my friends from the tax office, that she said she’d wait for me, and I had my doubts about that too, and as I jumped from that plane, I volunteered to be the first to go. I was in a hell of a hurry to get back down to earth, and the moment before the chute opened, I thought that if ever God was going to be nasty, mean and wicked, now would be the moment to be so, minutes after I had found my life partner. He or she or it, or whatever God is or was, might have snatched that happiness away, by snagging my chute. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when that multi coloured mushroom swirled open above me, and when it did, slowing the fall, I wished it had opened later, so that I could have been on earth sooner.

Desiree was a woman of her word.

She always was.

There she was, standing there, swaying back and forth, her hands clasped together behind her back like a little girl at her first school assembly, or a mother flushed with happiness when her first son learns how to ride a bicycle, beaming at me just as before, only more so.

She linked my arm, asked me how it had been, asked me to explain my emotions, and said she shared the same feelings, though neither of us wanted to talk about parachuting. There were so many more important things to relate, as we made our way back toward the buildings.

Her friends were still there, hanging about, becoming irritated.

‘Come on, Desi,’ one of them pleaded, ‘We are going to the Snooty Fox!’

‘Can’t today, boys. I’m sorry, but I’ve met my old friend, Sam, and we have so much to catch up on. Don’t we?’ she said, pulling me closer and peering and smirking into my eyes.

I nodded and said, ‘Yes, we do.’

And that is what we were. Old friends. Old friends who’d known each other minutes, yet we had known each other forever.

We had so much to say.

Everything that had gone before, we couldn’t wait to share, and everything that was to come, we couldn’t wait to see, and think about, and whatever the future held, we would share every moment, hand-in-hand. The good times and the bad, and there would be plenty of both. We didn’t stop talking for hours. We didn’t stop talking once, not until we were making love in her apartment that overlooked the River Dee, just above the ancient bridge.

She’d asked me if I’d like to accompany her back to Chester, and of course we both knew the answer to that. She’d led me back to her brand new Cayton Cerisa hatchback, while my friends and her friends gawped on in amazement, as if we were in a bubble, as if we couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see us. And after that we’d driven to town, shared our first meal in some old pub in the main street, as we talked and talked, and begged each other to know where we had been all our lives, and why the hell we hadn’t met sooner.

That night we made love on and off till the sun came up, and for longer still.

After that day, I never slept with anyone else.

I have never thought about sleeping with anyone else.

I have never desired anyone else, and she said the same thing, and I believed her.

I shall never lie with another woman.

Why should I?

Desiree Holloway was everything I desired.

Desiree Holloway was everything.

Desiree epitomised desire.

It was as plain and simple as that.

Desiree Holloway was desire.

When you have the best, nothing else will do.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Walter yawned and glanced at the clock. Twenty to six. He felt dog tired. Someone else’s blood was gallivanting around his body, maybe donated by nine different people. Thank you, the nervous nine, I couldn’t live without you.

At least it was human blood. He set the diary down and ambled outside. Mrs West came out of her office wearing her going home face.

‘You still here? Thought I told you to go home early.’

‘Things to do.’

‘Don’t stay too late.’

‘I won’t, ma’am.’

She nodded and headed for the door, just as Karen was coming back in. She ambled over and said, ‘How’s it going?’

Walter pulled a face and nodded.

‘Chapters and chapters of his love for Desiree Holloway. He was sure smitten.’

‘Men get that way,’ she grinned. 

‘Do they?’

‘Have you never felt that way?’

He thought for a second, and said: ‘No.’

She pitied him, but didn’t say; then she wondered if he was being truthful. Men often aren’t when it comes to such matters, women too, though men were far worse, in her eyes, they were. Much worse.

‘Do you mind if I shoot off? I’m going to have an early night.’

‘Nope, sure, fine, you get away, see you in the morning.’

He seemed distant.

‘Are you all right?’

He focused his large dark eyes on her as if she’d just come in, and said, ‘Yeah, sure, I’m fine, see you tomorrow.’

Karen collected her bag and smiled and bobbed her head and turned about and left.

Walter went to the cloakroom and pondered on what she had said.

Have you never felt that way? 

Yes, once, maybe, but that was long ago, and there was little point in dragging up old sores. He washed his hands, blew them under the drier, and returned to the private office. And the diaries.

––––––––

I HAVE SUFFERED MANY setbacks in my life; I am not alone in that, and I am not making excuses, and I don’t want pity, but the knocks I took were bound to leave their mark.

My beloved mother died before I started school. My father took a mistress, the hateful and deceitful Donna Deary, who would slap me when my father’s eyes were turned elsewhere. I suffered the loss of my beautiful house and garden where I played and learned of life. Then came the loss of my father in a violent and catastrophic accident, along with his new wife and my stepbrother, though I confess I did not shed a tear at their deaths. The loss of my inheritance, wasted in propping up a failing business, sucked dry by the scheming leech, Deary. The loss of my income and job at the flower shop I loved, the first true interest I ever developed, a love of flora that will remain with me always. Mrs Greenaway’s surprising rejection, and the trauma of being taken into care.

The cancellation of my scholarship to King’s, losing my dancing lessons I adored, the harassment and bullying at Saint Edmond’s, the sickness to the pit of my stomach at being rejected by countless foster parents, who would stare down at me and force a closed mouthed smile, and shake their heads. He isn’t quite right, they’d often say, or, he’s not the one for us, just look at him! As they made little attempt to conceal their opinions or contempt or distaste, as if I were stone deaf to their spitefulness.

The shame and worry of being harassed, pressurised and touched by the vicar, Christian de Wyk, coming to terms with my weird adolescent appearance during those crucial formative years, and almost worst of all, the breaking and loss of my wonderful voice on the eve of my big broadcast concert, a festival that some forecast would change my life forever.

My silly falling in love and failed attempts at wooing Machara McGowan, and her trite and hurtful putdown, you’re no-ooo a Scot! And my unsuccessful dates with Jillian’s friends; and failed affairs with drunken women, old and young alike, some with teeth, some without.

Everyone suffers setbacks in their life. It is natural. That is what life is all about. Adversity, but few will have encountered as many as I.

And yet I would have traded all those losses in an instant to be rid of the one catastrophic blow that struck me down the day that Desiree was murdered. Something deep within me died that day. My love of life, perhaps, my love of people, my sanity. They all came under ferocious attack.

One month before she died, Desiree confessed her sins to me.

She had been keeping secrets from me, terrible things, appalling things, unbelievable things that at first I could not comprehend.

She was a killer.

I was living with a killer.

I was married to a killer.

She was killing innocent human beings.

The person I shared my life with, the person I shared my body with, the person I shared my mind and destiny with, my soul with, was killing other people.

Can you imagine how you would deal with that?

If the love of your life came home one day and spilled such wickedness, what would you do? What would you say? Would you want them to touch you again? Would you move out? Would you divorce them? Would you call the police?

If you loved someone as I loved Desiree, you would not do those things because you could not live without them. Yet you would never feel the same way again. It placed terrible strains on our marriage, and on our love. 

Long after she was snatched from me, I saw the black policeman on the television. He was threatening me. Saying things like we would be meeting soon, he would catch me, and I would have to look into his eyes and deal with him. While he was talking he’d look at the blonde sergeant, and she would glance affectionately back, and I knew there was a close bond between them, and wanted to destroy that bond. I wanted to hurt them; I wanted to hurt them so bad. I wanted him and her to feel what it was like to lose someone that mattered, someone they deeply cared for. I wanted them to share my pain; I wanted to kill one of them, to see how they coped with that, and in time, I wanted to kill them both.

So, black policeman, if by some strange quirk of fate you should ever cast your bloated eyes over my diaries, as one day I know someone will, even if it is one of your successors, I want to recap the names of the dead, for they deserve to be remembered.

Pay attention.

Roll-call begins.

Harold James Craddock.

Hilda Mary Anderton.

George Bellway Milkins.

Ena Frances Marlow.

William Richard Amos Clarke.

Michael Patrick O’Leary.

Thora Joyce Beckett.

Not the names you expected, eh?

Seven names. Seven human beings. Seven deaths. Seven murders.

Seven criminal killings committed by my darling wife, Desiree Mitford Holloway, during her experimental work at Eden Leys. There were others too, but these were Desiree’s personal work. Seven deaths that affected her profoundly. Seven deaths that cost Desiree her life, seven deaths that provoked me to murder, seven times over.

Investigate that, why don’t you!

If you dare. 

––––––––

WALTER SCRIBBLED THE names on his pad and set down his pen. Out of nowhere, he felt quite ill. He glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to eight. Stood up. His legs shook. Walking wasn’t easy. He was hungry and wanted to go home. He eased the diaries into the metal cupboard, locked the door, attached the key to his key ring, went outside, slipped on his raincoat, bade the skeleton night shift a curt goodnight, and limped away to find a cab.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Walter was back in the private office by 8am, wrote a note for Karen to come and see him as soon as she arrived, and returned to the quiet room, and the diaries.

––––––––

YOU MUST THINK I AM mad, and, as I have written before, I questioned my sanity. Perhaps that is why Desiree and I dovetailed so perfectly. She too questioned her sanity, and not without reason. But I am not mad when it comes to the information I have provided. Desiree killed those seven people. They lost their innocent lives in the headlong pursuit for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and I can prove it. I possess all her case notes, all the gruesome and grizzly facts.

She showed them to me because she could see the doubt in my eyes. I did not believe her; I did not believe she was capable of such heinous acts. I sat on her balcony as the beautiful Dee gurgled by, and read in detail what she did, what drugs she introduced, what incisions she made to the bodies and brains, what tissue she removed, and what torture and torment she inflicted on the seven unfortunates.

I still find it difficult to comprehend, but I know it is the truth.

You will too when you read the evidence.

Desiree’s file of terror is lodged at the offices of the Liverpool solicitor, Lambourn, Harcourt and Snapes, Sixth floor, Royal Liver Building, Liverpool.

The partner looking after the file is one Ms Bradbrook, though she likes to pronounce it Braybrook. For her to release the file, you will need to quote the password: Deliverance. 

––––––––

WALTER SET THE DIARY down and picked up the phone and asked the operator to get the solicitor in Liverpool on the line.

The phone ran back a moment later, a sweet young girl boasting a slight Liverpool accent.

‘Good mornin’, Lambourn Harcourt and Snay-eeps.’

‘Is Ms Bradbrook there?’

‘Ms Braybrook, you mean?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Joost a mo, I’ll put ya through.’

Karen knocked and came in. Walter beckoned her to sit. Musak played in his ear. He pulled the names off the pad, handed them to her, said, ‘Suspicious deaths, all at Eden Leys, see what you can dig up.’

Karen glanced at the seven names and tried to whistle through her teeth.

‘And organise a car.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Liverpool.’

‘Okey-doke.’

Elizabeth Bradbrook came on the line.

‘Braybrook,’ she said, as if she were busy and didn’t care to be disturbed.

‘Good morning, this is Inspector Darriteau, Chester Police.’

‘I’ve been expecting you.’

‘Really? You have something for me?’

‘I’m not sure I’d describe it quite like that. I have paperwork here I can release... on certain conditions.’

‘You have a file for me and I want it and I shall have it.’

‘We both know you would need a court order to do that, unless...’

‘I have the client’s password?’

‘Correct. And do you?’

‘Your late client was a mass murderer.’

‘Yet to be proven, I’d say.’

‘He tried to murder me!’

‘Oh dear. That was unfortunate. Do you have the password, Inspector?’

‘I do.’

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘I’m trying to.’

‘What time do you want to come?’

‘Eleven.’

‘I can do that.’

‘I’ll see you later.’

––––––––

KAREN DROVE AS SHE always did, too fast, zipping up the M53 in the unmarked jag, and on through the new Mersey tunnel that was no longer so new, before turning back toward the river and the Liver Building, the largest of the impressive structures known as The Three Graces, set facing the Pierhead overlooking the river. Karen found a metered parking space as Walter took a police badge from the glove compartment and set it in view. They stepped out into the windy sunshine, glanced at the grey river, back at the grey building, and the big clock at the top that said five to eleven.

Ms Braybrook didn’t keep them waiting. She was older than she sounded on the phone and came straight to the point.

‘The password is?’

Walter glanced at Karen.

‘Deliverance,’ she said.

‘Good. A little dramatic maybe, but there we are. Sam was always that way inclined.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Karen under her breath.

‘Sign here, please.’

Ms Braybrook pushed a document across the table with a pen. Walter picked it up, scanned the paper and signed it.

‘Good,’ she said, retrieving the authorisation docket. She opened her desk drawer, pulled out an orange card file, perhaps two inches thick, and slid it across the table. ‘I’m sure you’ll find it interesting reading.’

‘I am sure we shall,’ said Walter, as Karen stood and scooped up the file.

‘Have you made copies of the contents?’

‘Of course not! I am a solicitor.’

Walter sniffed and nodded and stood up.

Ms Braybrook frowned and stood and nodded too.

Three minutes later, and they were back in the car.

‘Look at that!’ he said, pointing at the window.

A green parking ticket in a plastic raincoat jammed under the wiper. Karen laughed and jumped out and retrieved it.

‘So what’s in the file?’

‘Proof of deaths at Eden Leys, if Sam’s diary is to be believed.’

‘Criminal deaths?’

‘Are there any other kind?’

‘Course there is; natural causes, accidents, deaths in war, for example.’

‘Those Alzheimers’ patients were not at war.’

‘Only with their own minds.’

‘Precisely.’

‘You’re determined to follow this up, aren’t you?’

‘As far as I can.’

‘Could be tricky.’

‘Life can be tricky, Karen, as we both discovered this past week.’

‘You can say that again,’ she said, and her hand returned to massaging her still sore neck.

‘Start the car, let’s get home.’

––––––––

AS SHE DROVE HE SAID, ‘That night when Sam was at my place; what made you think I was in trouble?’

‘I figured he was determined to do seven. He thought I was the seventh, but when he discovered he hadn’t finished me off, that he hadn’t completed what he’d set out to do, I was convinced he was coming back, to try again. That’s why I asked Gibbons to come over to keep me company. But when the killer didn’t come, something told me he’d switched his attention to you, and when you didn’t answer either of your phones, alarm bells went off. I had to come and see for myself. I had to check.’

‘Good job you did.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘though if I hadn’t bothered I might have been promoted by now.’

He glanced at her grinning face.

‘Do you want my job that bad?’

‘Course I do.’

‘Do you think you’re ready for it?’

‘Yes, I do. Don’t you think so?’

Walter thought about that for a second. If he’d been asked the same question a week before he would have said a resounding no. But now he owed his very existence to her detection and reasoning skills, he knew she was ready. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her.

‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘That’s a huge improvement,’ she grinned. ‘Last time we discussed this you said I was nowhere near ready.’

Walter turned to his left and smiled at the green fields of the Wirral hurtling by. Glanced at the dash. 95mph. Geez!

‘Not so quick!’

‘Sorry, Guv.’

He didn’t say anything else for a while until she said, ‘So is that it then? The Sam serial murder case is over?’

Walter sniffed.

‘Pretty much, it’s now down to the coroner, though I should think it’s fairly straightforward. Six cold-blooded murders, he confessed them all to me, and the murderer dead too, attempting to escape the full force of the law.’

She giggled at that. The full force of the law. Her, as weak as a kitten who could barely speak, drink or breathe, and him lashed to the chair, looking helpless. An image of Walter strapped to his seat swept back into Karen’s mind. God, how ill he looked, and then on to the last moment when the man in black fell on the phial. She never discovered what was in that damned thing. She didn’t want to know either. She wanted nothing more to do with it.

Then she added, ‘And two attempteds, don’t forget that.’

‘Ah yes, that too, two attempteds. No one will be charged with those.’

‘No one will be charged with any of them.’

‘True.’

‘Saves us the hassle of going to court, giving evidence.’

‘That’s true too, though I quite like that part, of seeing them in the dock before their peers, of witnessing justice being meted out.’

Karen could take or leave that experience; so long as they weren’t free to re-offend, that was the only thing that interested her.

Walter yawned and said, ‘I’d liked to have seen Sam in the dock much earlier.’

‘Goes without saying.’

‘No, the real question is, how much did the knowledge that Desiree was involved in the deaths of innocent civilians, assuming that to be true, after her confession to Sam, how much did that tip him over the edge?’

‘I think there was murder in him, it just needed a catalyst.’

‘You could be right, we’ll never know.’

‘There is one other outstanding question,’ said Karen.

‘And that is?’

‘How did Desiree die? Accident, suicide, or murder?’

‘The coroner said suicide.’

‘Coroners can be wrong.’

‘We can all be wrong, Karen.’

‘You’re right there, Guv.’

Chapter Fifty-Seven

When they arrived back at the station, Walter went straight to see Mrs West. He told her of the file. She kept it, told him there were things she needed to bone up on. Walter was disappointed but returned to reading the diaries. He had almost finished.

––––––––

WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I toyed with the idea of becoming a minister. To tell the truth, it was not my idea, but that of the vicar, Blair McGowan. I would never have considered such a thing without his input. I studied hard and took the first informal examinations that I passed. The Rev was mighty happy at that, and I guess at the time I thought it might have impressed Machara.

All the while there was something bugging me. I found it hard to convince myself there was a Christian God. I mean, if there were, would there be so much suffering and evil in the world?

Or was the doubt in my mind the devil’s work?

Perhaps it was. But the thing that made me bin the whole preaching ethos, was the overwhelming feeling that the devil’s work was a damned sight more exciting, more alluring, more tempting, than anything our so called God had to offer. The big D puts temptation in all our ways, if you believe the Christian doctrine, and that much is easy to accept. My problem is I was always more inclined to bite the apple than walk away. I figured out pretty early that a potential vicar shouldn’t think that way.

Now, as I am coming toward the end of these diaries, you might think I should say sorry for what I have done. I can’t do that. I’m not sorry. I enjoyed my work. Desiree’s murder was worth at least what I accomplished in revenge. Maybe more so, despite the terrible things she did. To my mind, it was repayment to the world for her loss, and for my loss too.

If I had my time over again, I would do the same thing. Looking back on it now, as I write these words, the only surprise is that it took me so long to begin. If there is something eating you, whoever you are, wherever you are, something you need to accomplish, then do it now before it is too late.

I doubt I shall write much more. Things are coming to a head. Whosoever readeth these words, you may be assured they are the truth as I see it, and nothing but the truth.

I am not sad; I am not even disappointed; I am satisfied.

I can’t wish you well. I don’t wish any of you well. Just the opposite. I wish you all great unhappiness, and especially that black copper. I hope he rots in hell, and sooner rather than later. I hold him responsible. And remember this, Walter Darriteau, you and I will meet soon, nothing is more certain, so think about that!

Recognise those words?

They were among the first words you spoke to me - you pompous bastard!

The difference is, beyond the curtain, I shall be waiting for you, with a grin on my face, and a sharpened knife in my hand.

––––––––

ARMITAGE SAMUEL HOLLOWAY, nee Shelbourne, Iona House, Chester.

––––––––

WALTER SIGHED AND CLOSED his eyes. He set the book down and stretched his arms and legs. He still didn’t feel quite himself. Perhaps it was to be expected; perhaps he was getting old. Though he would never admit that, not even to himself. Threats from beyond the grave, from a psychopath. Was that a first?

He strolled outside and sat opposite Karen.

Cresta glanced across the desks.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Finished. You can have them.’

‘Great!’ she said. ‘Not before time,’ and she bolted to the private office before he changed his mind.

‘Well?’ said Karen. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘He threatened me with hell from beyond the grave. Said he’d be waiting for me.’

‘Does that bother you?’

‘Course not! I’m not going to hell.’

Karen grinned her cheeky grin and said, ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

Walter sniffed a laugh. He thought she was looking better, and as he was thinking of that, two strangers entered the office and strolled across the room as if they owned the place, as if they knew their way round blindfolded.

They were both just north of thirty and north of six feet, fit looking blokes, like rowers. The leading one, a grammar school boy judging by his accent, white skin, short mousy hair, tiny nose that looked as if it belonged on a rabbit. The other was fractionally taller, tanned, overlong straight and floppy blond hair that he adjusted with his palm, a loud voice speaking poncy English, as if he couldn’t care less who heard what he had to say. Dai Williams over at Prestatyn had a name for men like him, Rodneys, he called them, and Walter could empathise with that.

They hustled through and disappeared into Mrs West’s room without knocking.

‘Who are they?’ asked Karen.

‘Dunno,’ said Walter, though he had a good idea. ‘Anything else happening?’

‘A newsagent in Boughton got attacked, some dispute over a lottery ticket.’

‘Serious?’

‘He’ll live.’

‘Anything else?’

‘A bloke at Blacon was attacked by his wife.’

‘Oh, aye?’

‘She hit him over the head with his computer gaming machine; he had to go to hospital.’

‘Poor love.’

‘You’re not really interested are you?’

‘Nope, I’m not, but I’ll tell you what does interest me.’

‘Go on.’

‘I want you to look into the deaths at Eden Leys. They’re bugging me, I can’t think of anything else. If any laws have been broken in that hellhole of a place, I want to be the man at the front of the queue asking the questions.’

‘OK, if that’s what you want.’

‘It is what I want.’

‘Where do we start?’

‘Coroner’s reports would be a good place.’

‘I’ll look at it now.’

Walter bobbed his head and tried to imagine what had gone on in Eden Leys. He’d checked their bland website, edenleys.com. Didn’t tell him much. No surprise, there. Bland exterior, bland content, bland words, but inside? Who knows what?

Mrs West’s office door opened. The two guys came out looking pleased with themselves, closed the door behind them, and marched across the room without looking round. Headed straight for the exit, and within seconds they were through and away and out of the building.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ said Karen, ‘but didn’t the blond twerp have our file under his arm.’

‘Looked that way.’

‘And you’re not going to do anything about it?’

‘What do you suggest I do? Limp after him and snatch?’

Karen pursed her lips and sighed.

The phone before them burbled.

She snatched it up, said ‘Sure,’ and handed it to Walter.

‘Step inside, Walter, please,’ the voice commanded.

He didn’t answer, just set the phone down; shared a look with Karen and limped away toward the door. Once inside, she pointed to a chair and began speaking before he’d settled.

‘The Desiree Holloway case is closed.’

‘Just like that.’

‘Just like that, Walter.’

‘Who were those guys?’

‘Don’t be dim, Walter. You know the answer to that as well as I do.’

He exhaled a huge breath as if he had been holding it in all week.

‘People down there,’ and he pointed south, adjusting his arm toward Eden Leys twenty-five miles away. ‘People down there are killing innocent people, and they are getting away with it, and we don’t seem to give a toss.’

‘You can’t prove that.’

‘I could have proved it!’

‘You can’t prove it now, and that is all that matters. They have assured me nothing like that is happening today.’

‘Oh, bully beef!’

‘Don’t be rude, Walter.’

‘I am not happy about it, ma’am.’

‘There are lots of things I am not happy about, but we have to get on with it. We are a small cog in a big machine. It’s best to keep on turning as if we are well oiled. Best not to jam and screech and bugger up the works,’ and she glanced at his lips-pursed face. ‘Don’t look so offended, Walter, it’s nothing personal. We’ve put a stop to our killer. That’s the important thing, that’s what will be remembered. Let’s be thankful for that.’

She paused a moment and forced a smile and said, ‘Now, what’s next? I believe there is a problem over at a Boughton newsagent. I think you should pay them a visit and show the flag.’

Walter’s mind was still elsewhere.

‘That is all, Walter. Good morning.’

He heaved himself from the chair and muttered something she didn’t hear, and went outside.

‘Well?’ said Karen.

‘The Desiree Holloway case is closed.’

‘Can’t say as I am surprised.’

Walter sat heavy in his chair.

‘Closed but not forgotten, Greenwood. So long as I live I will monitor that place. Somewhere down the track an opportunity will arise to reopen it, and when it does, I shall be there, grinning at those responsible like the grim reaper, waggling a big stick.’

Karen smiled. She could imagine that. He was like a huge Scotty dog, and a hungry one at that.

‘Do you still want me to dig out the coroner’s reports?’

‘Not officially,’ and he winked at her.

‘Got you, Guv, leastways I think I do.’

There was a pause for thought, and then he said, ‘What are you doing later?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Thought we could have a few jars, celebrate the closure if you like, maybe a nice meal afterwards, my treat, on me, say Pierre’s, I love it there.’

‘Oh sorry, Guv, I can’t, not tonight, I’ve promised to cook a meal for Darren.’

‘Who’s Darren?’

‘Gibbo, Guv, Darren Gibbons, you know, our colleague.’

‘Oh, yeah, DC Darren Gibbons, he of the youth and body building muscles and a solid punch.’

‘It’s a little treat for him for coming over to my place the other night.’

Lucky Gibbo, Walter thought, but didn’t say.

‘I see. Ah well, never mind, another time, maybe.’

‘Yeah, sure, anytime, just say.’

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WALTER LEFT THE OFFICE at just on seven. He ambled away and limped up the high street, bought an evening newspaper from Reg the Rag, and went into his favourite watering hole. It was a popular place and already half full. He knew people there, enough to exchange nods, and many of the drinkers recognised him from his recent TV appearances. But he was in no mood to chat. He took up his usual station at the end of the bar and ordered a pint of stout.

There was something bugging him. Sam told him he’d bribed one of his officers to release secret files. Who’d do that? Gibbons? He thought of him enjoying a meal over at Karen’s place. No, he didn’t think it was him. And someone had tipped off the press as well. Who’d do that? Jenny? Surely not. Gibbons maybe, and he thought of him again, enjoying a lovely meal over at Karen’s place. Bugger it! Forget about it.

There was a stinking mole in the team somewhere, and he would make it his business to snag him, or her, and something else that Sam had said came back to him. Walter’s bathroom and kitchen were dirty. Maybe they were. Most men didn’t notice such things, leastways not normal men. He’d stick a card in the post office window the next day for a cleaner. No visitor would enjoy a dirty bathroom and kitchen. No female visitor.

He sank half the pint in one swoop and began thinking of the dead.

Colin Rivers, the Lay Preacher with a penchant for going out late, planning church events, run down and smashed on the ring road. The Right Reverend James Kingston, upwardly mobile through the cathedral ranks, talked of as a future bishop, pushed under a train in an almost replica death to Desiree’s. William Camber, the lonely old fisherman, drowned in the New Cut. Maggie O’Brien, a gentle old lady who never hurt a fly, drugged and gassed to death in Delamere Forest. Jago Cripps, the confused young guy, dabbling in drugs, trying to make sense of life, had his wrists sliced open with a craft knife. Sally Beauchamp, another young kid, caught up in high-class prostitution, drugged and suffocated with brown parcel tape, wound repeatedly around her head and neck until she looked like a brown mummy, her body dumped in a North Wales’ quarry.

And what about the seven deaths at Eden Leys?

Walter was ashamed to think he could not recall their names, plus the two attempteds, as Karen called them, one on her at the racetrack, his sergeant, his oppo, hung out to die, and one on him, in his own house, for God’s sake, the bloody cheek of it, in his front room, in his favourite chair, injected with foreign blood. He shivered at the memory of the syringe emptying its poisonous cargo into his body.

What had it all been for?

There was still something bugging him.

How many of those deaths could have been avoided if he’d been on top of his game? How many lives could have been saved? How many of those people would still be walking round the city, perhaps in this pub, enjoying a quiet pint, if only he had apprehended Armitage Samuel Holloway, nee Shelbourne, sooner?

One, two, three, four, five, six, how many?

Had he failed them?

He hated to think of it that way. Maybe he had.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

He had attended all the funerals, looking the relatives in the eye, seeing the confused mixture of respect and doubt that lingered there, and all the while he knew what they were thinking. Why my son, my daughter, my husband, my aunt, my father? Why oh why oh why?

It was a question he couldn’t answer.

It always was.

His glass was empty.

He nodded the barman over and bought another pint, extra cold.

Forced a smile and paid the guy.

Drank a silent toast to all the dead.

Seven times over.

Author’s Notes

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real characters, living or dead, is coincidental. Many of the places mentioned in the book are real. The Shroppie Fly at Audlem, for example, is an excellent place to spend a sunny afternoon. But many places are fictional, such as the Eden Leys complex, which has never, and will never be built. Rumours persist operations were carried out on live Alzheimer’s and dementia patients at the Porton Down site in Wiltshire. Do they still? Let us hope not.

Please don’t write and tell me that Mostyn Station doesn’t exist. I know that, but for the purpose of this book it does. Artistic licence, if you will. The station was closed in 1948, though some buildings remain, and trains still rumble through there. Perhaps one day, with a more user-friendly attitude to rail, the station might re-open, and if it does, let us hope it avoids any fatal accidents. And I know the Chester Police HQ is no longer in the city centre, but for this series of books, it is!

MI7 existed, though it was reported to have been closed after World War II. Could it still exist today? Of course it could. Whether it does, I shall leave you to speculate. Special thanks to Anne Sellars, RMN, who knows more about people with dementia type illnesses than most, having nursed such patients for more than thirty years. She put me right on technical matters and also thanks are due for her proofreading skills, advice, and encouragement.

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The End

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We hope you enjoyed that.

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The second book,

“The Sound of Sirens”

is coming up in two seconds...

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The Sound of Sirens

Chapter One

The young man hid in the shadows, cigarette in hand. Moonless night, dry too, a hint of June balminess in the air. He thought he heard someone coming and peeked out from the disused shop entrance. He was right.

He had heard someone, but not the man he was waiting for. Pulled back into the shop doorway, took a drag on the fag. The stranger ambled by on the other side of the road, yanked along by a short-sighted Alsatian dog.

There was music in the air, soft rock, slipping from the Friday night pub across the way, drifting down the road, floating across the river, vibrating through the city.

Another man came round the corner. This time, the right man, an older guy wearing an expensive tweed cap, carrying a packet. He walked fast toward the doorway where the young man was taking one last suck on the ciggie, before tossing it to the ground and dancing it out. The older guy stopped in the doorway, right up close, peered through the darkness at the young guy. Said, ‘You ready?’

The young bloke nodded. Didn’t speak.

The older guy handed him the packet. It wasn’t sealed, just folded over at the flap end, and said, ‘It’s the tall white guy, the guitarist, lead singer; you can’t miss him.’

The young bloke grabbed the packet and nodded and said, ‘When do I get paid?’

‘When you deliver the goods.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘OK, two o’clock, by the clock.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Don’t muck up!’ the old guy said, and he turned around and walked smartly away.

The young guy opened the packet. Took out the handgun. Gleamed in the moonlight. Nice piece. Easy in the hand. Easy on the trigger. Not too large, not too small. Slipped it in the right blouson pocket. Stepped out of the shadows. Headed toward the pub.

––––––––

THE MUSIC WAS GETTING louder, reaching a climax, the end of the song, and the end of the session. It had gone eleven and the live music licence expired at eleven o’clock.

Sissy Burke, the licensee, nodded at the boys to stop. She’d already had one warning from the police about over-running, and she didn’t want another. Her licence was at stake.

Sweat was pouring down the lead singer’s face. Half a dozen pretty girls were hanging about, sipping the last of their drinks, glancing at the singer, seeking eye contact, looking for recognition, hoping to get lucky. His straight black hair was sticking together, plastered to his forehead. He was very sweaty, but still cool.

He needed a pee.

He needed a wash.

‘Hey, Jeff,’ he said, ‘hold my guitar a mo, I’m going to the bog.’

Jeff jumped on the stage. It was more of a platform, set at one end of the lounge bar. He’d been angling to join ALL SOULS for weeks. Thought his big moment had arrived. Grabbed the guitar, and stood at the mic and glanced at the other guys. Imagined himself on lead vocal. Imagined himself on lead guitar. Imagined the women staring at him in the way they looked at Neil. Jeff felt good; grinned and began strumming the guitar.

Sissy shot him a look. Glanced her displeasure at the others. They shrugged their shoulders and looked away. It was nothing to do with them. Jeff caught the mood and stopped strumming, began composing a silent song in his head.

The young guy walked into the pub. It was still pretty full. The music had stopped, but the conversation was bubbling. Friday night and the weekend starts here, lots of smart guys hanging about, gaggles of pretty women in sophisticated weekend frocks, sexy summer shorts, tight jeans and tiny skirts, some drinking, some laughing, some joking, some planning on getting a burger, some planning on getting laid, some wanting to be sick, some holding empty glasses and discussing where they were going next, some checking on their remaining funds, some checking in their bags for their ciggies and tabs and lighters they would bring out the moment they were outside.

The young guy made his way through the bar toward the makeshift stage. All four ALL SOULS were there. The Asian guy on drums, packing his sticks away, the Chinese guy polishing his violin, the mean looking black guy holding his trumpet down by his side, trying to look cool, trying to connect with the women, not wanting to go home alone, and the long lanky piece of shit in the middle, the white guy, the lead singer and guitarist, with a distant look on his face, and a price on his head.

Pulled the gun from his pocket, pointed it at the white guy’s torso, no second thoughts, let go four shots in quick succession, one, two, three, four, as if he was about to launch into a classic sixties rock song.

At the sound of the first shot, a moment of stunned disbelief crashed through the bar. Someone was playing a joke, right? A second of silence. Then screaming and yelling broke out, and looks of disbelief at the sight of the guitarist blown on his back, bleeding, still clutching the guitar, not moving a muscle, eyes wide open, staring out in disbelief, not comprehending what had happened, hurting, shocked, and dying on his back like a beached and injured turtle.

The young guy turned round, waved the smoking gun at the crowded bar. Girls screamed, parted like the Red Sea. He grinned and walked through the valley of death and out into the balmy night, gaining speed as he went, hurrying round the corner, the hot gun back in his pocket, his neat new car just up the road. One minute later and he had vanished into the night, laughing as he went.

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NEIL HAD BEEN WASHING his hands when he heard the first shot. Thought it was some kind of prank. Heard the second and third and fourth. Some racket, some joke. Shook his hands dry and ran outside.

The girls were still screaming; the boys looking shocked, dazed and confused. Some were calling the police on their mobiles, some calling their friends and family. Some idiots were taking pictures of dead Jeff, bloodied and on his back, couldn’t wait to get them on their Bookface site before anyone else. Live murder in graphic colour, online and fresh. It’s amazing what the modern world offered, you wouldn’t believe it!

Neil ran to the stage. Couldn’t comprehend what he saw. His guitar was ruined. Two slugs gone clean through it; right through dopey Jeff as well; and clean into the wall at the back.

‘Who did it?’ asked Neil.

‘Never seen him before,’ said the black guy, ‘some young white piece of shit.’

Neil glanced at the other two. They pursed their lips and shook their heads and peered down at dead Jeff. What the hell was going on?

The sound of sirens floated in through the door. Police? Ambulance? Maybe both. Sissy was bent over the bar, crying. She’d lose her licence, she was certain of that, and she had big bills to pay, and bigger loans to service, and some from not so nice people.

Some guys who didn’t want to be interviewed by the coppers were scurrying away. But too late.

The cops were already there, surrounding the place.

Two armed response units, plus four unarmed officers, rounding everybody up, setting up temporary barriers, tapes across the exits, keeping the nosey parkers out, keeping the witnesses in. No one would be allowed to leave until their details had been taken and checked, and until their initial witness statements had been heard.

One dizzy ginger girl said, ‘I know that guy, he used to live on the estate.’

The bloke she was with said, ‘Trust me, Sharon, you don’t know him.’

‘I bloody well do!’

The guy took her arm and squeezed it hard and said, ‘He works for...’ and he leant over and whispered the rest in ginger’s ear.

Her brow furrowed, and she said aloud, ‘Yeah, you’re right, Billy, I was mistaken, never seen the guy before.’

Chapter Two

Walter Darriteau had just finished his late meal. He hadn’t been in the house long. Chicken chow mein. Ready meal job, one of the better ones.

Ready meals were improving, and not before time, even if they were two to three times more fattening than your traditional meat and two veg.

He ambled back to the kitchen. Emptied the detritus, the cardboard cover, the plastic tray, the stained clear top, into the chrome kick bin. His cleaner was coming in the morning and he didn’t want to be dirty and untidy for her.

Galina Unpronounceable was her name, Polish or Byelorussian, or Ukrainian, she was, something like that, one of those eastern European races where Europe thought about becoming Asia. Not an illegal, not our Galina, not working in Walter’s house, no way. That would not have gone down well. He’d seen the proof. He’d seen the papers. Her real surname was full of w’s and z’s and c’s and s’s with nary a vowel in sight. Hopeless to him, he couldn’t begin to say it.

She was a good kid, though. Tall and slim and blonde and blue-eyed and hardworking. Did two straight hours every Saturday morning for a few pennies more than the minimum wage, worked like a maniac when she was in the house, never stopped once, even when Walter begged her to slow down and take a coffee with him.

Let herself in with the key under the stone if he didn’t open the door. When she first came, Walter left cash lying around as bait. Not a thing went missing, not a penny, and he felt guilty afterwards at trying to trap her, but the police officer in him would never go away.

She thought Walter was doing her a big favour, and she liked the man, and she liked his house. Couldn’t believe he was a policeman. Laughed her head off when she discovered that. Thought he was joking when he first told her.

‘Really? A black detective in England? How strange!’

He was thinking of watching a Spike Lee movie. He was thinking of going to bed. Couldn’t decide which. He’d toss a coin. Heads bed, tails tales.

Walter glanced at his image reflecting from the new window recently fitted in his kitchen. No one would ever get through that, bragged the salesman, dead locks and steel bolts that went straight into the wall. It had cost him an arm and a leg, but Walter didn’t care about that, just so long as it kept the bloody burglars at bay.

He grabbed a damp cloth and began wiping down the worktops. Strange thing was his house was a lot cleaner than it had been for years, even before Galina came in the morning. Perhaps he was ashamed of inviting a foreigner into a dirty home; perhaps he was trying to impress her.

She was thirty, almost half his age; but he knew it would take more than a gleaming kitchen to impress Galina Unpronounceable.

The old phone in the hallway rang.

Who the hell was that at this hour?

An even money bet.

Had to be a wrong number... or work.

He hoped it would be work.

He always hoped it would be work.

It was indeed work.

Walter liked that and smiled a smile that no one would ever see. 

‘Sorry to bother you,’ said Karen, his sergeant.

‘What are you doing working at this time of night?’

‘Gibbons called me in. It’s only a couple of minutes from my flat.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘There’s been an incident down by the river, The Ship Inn, some guy’s been shot.’

‘Is he on his way to hospital?’

‘Too late for that, Guv. Morgue candidate.’

‘Oh!’ That surprised Walter, and he took a moment out.

She jumped into the vacuum and said, ‘I’m going down there now. Do you want me to pick you up?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Thought so. I’ll see you in five.’

Just enough time to swig mouthwash and find his shoes and cover the hole in his sock, and slip on a light jacket, and when he went to the front window and peered through the crack in the curtains, in the moonlight Karen was already there, pulling the unmarked BMW to a halt outside.

He went out and locked the front door and eased into the car. Karen pulled away and headed for the river.

‘Know any more?’ he asked.

‘Not much, armed response are already there. Place packed apparently. Some guy came in and blew the singer away, member of the band, lead guitar or something.’

Walter resisted making a crack about the poor choice of music, or the crap playing, and stared ahead and already they could see pulsing blue light swirling around the roofs of the old buildings at the end of the narrow road.

He knew The Ship well, used to go there himself, but fell out of love with the place when it was taken over by the twenty somethings and their shouty louty music.

A minute later and Walter and Karen were walking through the bar. The uniforms were busy taking statements, kids huddled around tables, an older man who an hour before had been glad-eyeing the young things, looking guilty and eager to get home to his wife and kids. The woman licensee was still standing behind the bar.

She’d regained her composure and stood upright with her arms folded across her chest. She nodded at Walter as he came through the lounge. She’d seen him before, and you wouldn’t forget Walter Darriteau in a hurry, though he hadn’t been in for ages, and she wondered why.

The dead guy was still there where he’d landed on his back on the apology for a stage. The doctor was there too, staring down and pulling faces.

‘There you are, Walter,’ he said. ‘I thought you might show up. This time you can ask me the time of death.’

‘Thanks, doc. What was the time of death?’

‘Six minutes past eleven, I know that because these guys tell me they had just finished playing at five past and death was pretty much instantaneous.’

Walter bobbed his head. Looked at the tall white guy standing to one side, the guy with his arms folded across his chest.

‘What was the dead guy’s name?’

‘Jeff, something or other.’

‘Jeff, what?’ snapped Walter.

‘Player,’ said the Chinese guy. ‘Jeff Player.’

‘Appropriate name,’ said Walter, glancing down at the holed guitar. ‘Was he a good player?’

‘He didn’t play at all, he was hopeless, he wasn’t even in the band, bit of a loner,’ said the white guy.

‘So what was he doing with the guitar?’

‘I asked him to hold it for me, keep it safe, make sure it wasn’t nicked while I went to the bog. He couldn’t even do that right.’

‘So you’re the guitar player?’

The white guy grinned. ‘Yeah sure. That’s me.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Neil, Neil Swaythling.’

‘And you didn’t see the shooting?’

‘Nope. Heard it though.’

‘Did you see it?’ Walter asked the Chinese guy.

‘Couldn’t miss it. Happened right next to me.’

‘And your name is?’

‘Ang Ung, spelt NG, my mates call me Nug.’

Ang Ung, smart name, thought Walter.

‘Did you know the killer?’

‘Nope. Never seen him before.’

‘Did any of you know the killer?’

The Asian guy behind the drums shook his head. The black guy was putting his horn away in its case. He didn’t say anything, didn’t shake his head one way or the other.

‘You! What’s your name?’

The black guy stared at Walter in that look he’d seen a million times. The I hate coppers look, and especially black coppers... like you.

‘You talking to me?’

‘We can do this here, or we can do it down the station. It could take all night, it’s no problem for me.’

‘Johnny,’ he said.

‘Johnny what?’

‘Phillips.’

‘And are you known to us, Johnny Phillips?’

‘These days it’s hard not to be.’

Maybe he had a point.

‘Did you recognise the killer?’

‘Course not. I’d have said if I had.’

That was a moot point.

‘Thank you... Johnny.’

Karen came back to Walter’s side. She’d been checking on how the interviews were progressing, looking for any ID on the assassin.

‘Surprise, surprise, no one knew him,’ she whispered.

Walter bobbed his head and whispered back, ‘Where have I heard the name Swaythling before?’

‘There’s the builder bloke,’ she said. ‘That’s the only Swaythling I know.’

‘Ah yes, Homes for the Discerning,’ he whispered, parroting their advertising speak. Swaythling Homes built only a small number of properties, but they came individually designed and built, invariably on a huge plot, every one quite different, and every one with a huge price ticket attached, a price that began with seven figures and went upwards. Walter turned to the white guy and said, ‘Could it have been meant for you?’

Neil shrugged his shoulders. ‘The bullets?’

‘What else?’

‘Been wondering that meself.’

‘I’m not surprised you thought about it. Can you think of any reason someone might want to kill you?’

‘Nope. Definitely not!’

‘Do you deal drugs?’

‘Do me a favour, and even if I did, I’m hardly likely to tell you.’

‘You might, if you were a dealer...  if you valued your life.’

‘I don’t! Don’t touch the stuff. Never have done. Don’t deal, don’t smoke. Don’t approve of it! None of us do.’

Karen glanced round the band.

The black guy looked uncomfortable.

‘It’s an odd line up for a band,’ Walter said, glancing at the logo on the base drum. ALL at the top and SOULS beneath. ‘What kind of stuff do you play?’

‘Mixture, everyone brings something to the table, fusion music,’ said Neil.

‘Fusion music is...’ started Karen.

‘I know what fusion is!’ barked Walter, stopping her mid-sentence. ‘And if I didn’t, there’s a big clue in the phrase.’

‘Sure, Guv, sorry.’

Walter glanced at the guy at the back. ‘What’s your name, drummer?’

‘Shastri.’

‘First name?’

‘Patna.’

‘Did you recognise him, Patna Shastri? Did you know him?’

‘I did not.’

‘But you saw him, and you could give us an accurate description?’

‘Course,’ he said, nodding. ‘And I’ve got an excellent memory.’

Walter bobbed his head, happy to hear something positive.

‘And you all did... you all could?’

‘Not me,’ said Neil.

‘Other than you,’ said Walter.

No further disagreement.

‘I want you down the station right now, all of you, while the killer’s image is fresh in your minds. Make up photofits, we’ll arrange the transport.’

‘There’s no point in me going,’ said Neil.

‘Oh yes there is,’ said Walter. ‘You might recognise the pictures, and you could be safer there too.’

Neil pulled a face. Perhaps the copper had a point, and said, ‘What about the instruments?’

Walter glanced across at Sissy, seeking help.

‘They’ll be safe here,’ she said.

‘They will, because police officers will stay here too.’

From the corner of his eye, Walter noticed the doc covering the body. Made sense. Some people were disturbed by dead bodies, especially bloodied and holed ones.

‘Get Neil out of here,’ said Walter, wondering if there might be an accomplice secreted somewhere in the crowd, and Karen bundled him out through the back door and away to a car. Ordered the driver to take him straight to the station and hurried back to the crime scene.

‘It’s almost midnight,’ moaned the Chinese.

‘I don’t care what time it is,’ said Walter. ‘There’s a gunman out there who’s partial to shooting people dead, and we need to find him. Your cooperation would be most appreciated.’

Ang Ung had promised his girlfriend a night to remember. She’d be disappointed and so would he. Ang sighed.

‘Turn into a frog at midnight, or something, do we?’ said Walter.

Nug pulled a face and shook his head and closed his violin case.

‘What about Jeff?’ asked Patna.

‘He’ll be looked after.’

‘Bit late for that,’ said Johnny Phillips, eyeing up a young uniformed policewoman. She was all right for a copper, pity about the job, but he’d still like to get to know her better.

‘All the more reason to catch the culprit,’ said Walter.

A striking woman appeared in front of Walter’s face. Not the usual young crowd from the Ship, more business-like. Glanced down at the covered body, looked back at Walter, straight in the eye and said, ‘Inspector Darriteau, do you have any leads as to who was the assassin?’

Walter glanced down his nose at the newcomer. She knew his name. She was on the wrong side of forty, but not by much, auburn, wavy hair parked on her shoulders, pretty face, nice teeth, quality dark green suit. Walter glanced at Karen, as if to say, who let this woman in, and who the hell is she? Karen shrugged and turned away. Walter glanced back at the woman and said, ‘And you are?’

‘Gardenia Floem,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you, Inspector. Chester Observer, chief crime reporter,’ and she held out a pink-nailed hand.

Walter ignored it. 

‘To answer your question, I have been on this case for precisely ten minutes, so the answer is: No.’

‘Is this a drugs related case?’

Walter shrugged as if to say, How the hell would I know? Said, ‘We’ve nothing to say to the press at this time, now if you don’t mind,’ turned back to Karen and mumbled, ‘Get her out of here.’

Karen stepped between them and tried to usher her away.

‘The citizens have a right to be concerned when one of their sons is gunned down in a busy city centre pub,’ the woman shouted, each word further away from Walter than the last.

‘Goodnight, Miss Floem.’

‘This is going to be big news, Inspector,’ she squawked from further across the bar, as Karen continued to ease her toward the door and outside. ‘Big news!’

Walter shook his head and tried to eradicate her words from his mind. Is this a drugs related case? Maybe it was. Who knows? Walter whispered to himself, but I am not jumping to conclusions. He turned round and shouted, ‘Come along now!’ and glanced and winked at Sissy behind the bar. She was still standing in that same hard pose. He thought he might have detected a softening in her eyes, but he could have been mistaken. ‘We haven’t got all night.’

Karen came back and said, ‘Sorry about that, Guv,’ then turned to the remnants of the band and said, ‘Where does Jeff Player live?’

‘He used to live down by the canal, one of those new flats,’ said Patna.

Karen noted the use of the past tense and nodded and took down the address. Someone would have the shitty job of telling Jeff’s mother, delivering the death-o-gram, and she hoped to God it wouldn’t be her.

Chapter Three

Luke Flowers was at the clock five minutes early. He leant on the railings on top of the ancient city walls and stared down at the frantic shoppers below, bustling around like bees in a blooming rapeseed field.

He was waiting for Jimmy. He was waiting to get paid.

£25,000 for one night’s work, one minute’s work. You couldn’t beat it. Luke enjoyed his method of making a living, and he was good at it, too. Much preferred it to drug dealing or loan sharking or copying dodgy software. In his current line of business, one night’s work could keep him in treats for an entire year. Less hassle, less stress, less effort, less worry, more money, more free time, more travel, more cachet, more respect. It suited Luke just fine.

He was going to take his bird to Venice, two whole weeks with the lovely Melanie Kirton. Twenty-two, five five, long blonde hair, light brown eyes, figure to die for, the dentist’s daughter with the incredible teeth and amazing tongue.

They thought, Melanie’s parents, that their sweet child was far too good for the likes of Luke Flowers, and they might have had a point, but it didn’t matter what the hell they thought, because Melanie was besotted with Luke. She adored her bit of rough off the estate, and couldn’t get enough of him, and anyway, he was good looking in a boy band kind of way; a little on the short side, it was true, but she could live with that. He drove a super silver sports car too, and was never short of money, and she was always thrilled to walk into a busy pub on his arm, to show him off to her mates, and besides all that, he was great in bed.

Luke planned to visit the travel agent as soon as he had been weighed in. He was taking her to the Royal Palace Hotel in Venice; Venezia, he liked to say the name in Italiano, brought it home to him how far he had come up in the world, a five-star place Luke would once have felt uncomfortable in, but it was amazing how soon a working-class boy could become used to luxury. You only had to look at footballers to see that. One minute a bit of rough, the next, hobnobbing with royalty and celebs. It was only a tiny step... providing you had the cash.

He thought of Melanie again, and the prospect of having her all to himself for two whole weeks. No whiney parents lurking in the background, no distractions, no work, no worries, just Melanie. He planned to give her a holiday to remember. He planned to give himself the holiday of a lifetime. When she returned to England, she’d need a holiday to get over it. He sniffed a laugh and heard footsteps approaching.

He turned to see Jim’ll fix it Mitchell striding toward him, that same tweed cap on his head, that same unhealthy look on his weaselly face. He wasn’t carrying any packets, and that was worrying. Maybe it was inside his short suede jacket. Jimmy joined him in leaning on the railings and stared down at a gaggle of giggling short-skirted girls. Didn’t say a word.

‘Got the dough?’ asked Luke.

‘Nope.’

‘Don’t play games with me, Jimmy.’

Jim sniffed and coughed and spat down on to the road below, narrowly missing a guy carrying a red placard bearing a quote from the gospel according to the book of Saint John.

‘You whacked the wrong guy!’

‘What!’

‘You heard me. You whacked the wrong guy. The client is not happy.’

‘I whacked the guy you told me to whack. The tall white guy, the guitarist, the guy in the middle. That’s what you said.’

‘You whacked the wrong guy. The right guy was in the bog.’

‘Oh, geez. So who was the guy with the holes?’

‘Some innocent local kid. But that’s not the point. The client gave you a contract and you haven’t delivered. They’re most unhappy about it.’

‘Well, they are not alone in that! You’ll have to set up another hit, Jim, and bloody quick.’

‘You’re telling me. I’m working on it now.’

‘When?’

‘Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after.’

‘Sooner the better. I am going away on holiday.’

‘You are going nowhere! Not until this mess is sorted.’

Luke pursed his lips and slowly bobbed his head. Melanie could wait for a little while. Sometimes it was best to make them wait. Made it more exciting. Made them all the more eager.

‘What kind of name for a band is All Souls? Sounds like arseholes to me,’ said Jimmy, laughing a short, sharp laugh.

‘I’ll keep the gun,’ said Luke.

‘You will if you value your neck,’ said Jim, giving Luke a hard stare.

‘You phone me, yeah? When you’ve set it up.’

‘Oh yes, Luke, I’ll be phoning you. You can be sure of that.’

‘Sooner the better.’

‘Do you need more ordnance?’

‘Need what?’

‘Ammo, Luke, ammo.’

‘Nah, I’ve enough for this baby.’

‘Just make sure you use it on the right guy.’

‘Just make sure you find him... and soon!’

Jimmy touched his cap; muttered, ‘I’ll be in touch,’ and then, ‘Keep your phone on,’ and he ambled away. 

Chapter Four

Walter had finally crept into bed at gone three. The completed makeup of the three photofits had been remarkably similar. A neat square headed guy, short brown hair, perfect unbroken nose in the dead centre of his pretty face.

They all placed the guy at around five, seven tall, slim, wiry build, but fit looking, like a cyclist or rower or a racing driver or even a slightly taller jockey.

Neil remained adamant that he didn’t know the guy in the pictures, and neither could he come up with any explanation as to why he was the target of an assassin, and Walter believed him.

The last thing Walter thought of before falling asleep was the woman in green, standing before him, issuing questions; that come-on smirk on her fair face.

Do you have any leads as to who was the assassin?

Is this a drugs related case?

How the hell had she got there so quick?

She was an attractive thing; that was for sure. What was her name again? Gardenia Floem, that was it, not the kind of name you might expect, or ever forget. He wondered why he hadn’t come across her before.

––––––––

WALTER DRAGGED HIMSELF into the office at ten past eight. He felt wrecked, and it still hadn’t been early enough to beat Karen. She was already there, poring over the photofit pics. She looked as if she’d had a full night’s kip. How did she manage to do that, pondered Walter, though he knew the answer well enough. It was called youth, something that Walter hadn’t visited for at least thirty-five years.

He ambled to the coffee machine, yelled over, ‘Want one?’

‘Nope,’ said Karen, brandishing her bottle of cherry flavoured water in the air.

Walter shook his head and squeezed out the coffee and returned to his desk.

‘What do you want to do today?’ she asked.

‘I’d like to go swimming at Barmouth, forecast is good, but that looks unlikely, don’t you think?’

Karen stared at him in that way of hers, telling him to behave, didn’t say a word.

Walter grinned. ‘I want to go and see Swaythling senior.’

‘He’ll probably be at the office, that’s cool; it’s only five minutes from here.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘And after that, I want to speak to Neil’s mother.’

‘Do you know where they live?’

‘Not yet, daddy Swaythling can tell us all about that, can’t he?’

‘Is this drugs related, do you think?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Neil didn’t come across to me as a liar. If he was lying, he was very good at it.’

‘I agree. So if he’s not into drugs, why is someone trying to kill him?’

‘Million dollar question, Greenwood, million dollar question. Find the motive, find the killer, that’s how it usually works.’

‘I’ve an idea,’ she said.

‘Fire away.’

‘He’s very attractive to the ladies.’

‘Really? I didn’t see that, especially.’

‘I think, Guv, I am in a far better position to judge than you. Trust me; he will have a string of girlfriends a mile long. Didn’t you see the way his personal band of groupies were gawping at him?’

‘Can’t say as I did, but if you’re right, what are you saying?’

‘Crime of passion? Jealous girl wreaking her revenge on her former lover?’

‘Is that what girls do in modern day Britain? Have their boyfriends gunned down dead for turning their backs on them?’

‘They might, if they were wealthy enough, and angry enough; and well connected enough. It’s nothing new.’

‘It’s a thought,’ said Walter. ‘Though not a happy one. Where would such a girl locate an assassin? You can’t look in yellow pages, not even on the Internet either, not yet, God, I hope not.’

‘Who knows? A casual word spoken in a pub or club, perhaps in jest, and some chancer says, I could do that, if the money was right, and the thing snowballs from there.’

‘The sorry thing is, Karen, your theory is looking better the longer we examine it. This afternoon go and see Neil again and get a list of all his abandoned squeezes.’

‘It’ll be a long list.’

‘So you said. And take Gibbons with you, just in case you can’t withstand his charm.’

Karen giggled, and said, ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.’

‘What have I got to be jealous about?’

‘Other than muscles, youth and looks, nothing at all, Guv,’ she said, grinning again, and before Walter could say anything else, his phone burbled to life and he snatched it up.

––––––––

IT WAS HALF-PAST TEN when they entered Swaythling Construction’s offices. The whole place was luxurious. Deep pile blue carpet, sweeping semi circular light oak reception desk, blonde dolly girl behind the counter, large silver letters on the wall behind her announcing: Swaythling Construction, Homes for Discerning People.

Walter and Karen ambled to the desk.

Karen said, ‘We’ve come to see Mr Swaythling.’

‘Who shall I say is calling?’

Karen flashed ID and said, ‘This is Inspector Walter Darriteau.’

The girl looked nervous. Pursed her lips and said, ‘He is very busy today. Not to be disturbed. I may be able to fit you in at twelve.’

Walter turned about and set off down the corridor, said over his shoulder, ‘This way, is it?’

Karen followed in a hurry.

The girl screamed, ‘Oh, but you can’t go in there.’

‘Oh, but we can,’ said Karen, as Walter came to the end of the corridor. Three sturdy light oak doors, one left, one right, one straight ahead.

Opened the straight-ahead and went right in.

Huge office, same thick carpet, same light oak furniture, big wide window looking out across the city, big-haired man, salt and pepper style, nudging fifty, sitting behind a heavy, impressive desk. Neil Swaythling in twenty-five-year’s time, Karen couldn’t help but notice, still attractive though, heavy white shirt, perfectly knotted red silk tie, dark suit. The man stood up. He wasn’t used to being interrupted. In the centre of the room was a square table and on the table was a detailed model of the latest creation Swaythling Construction was trying to flog. Brambury Heights, it was titled, and some map location in North Wales.

On the other side of the table were two well scrubbed people, man and wife by the look of them, well turned out for a Saturday morning, both around fifty, both slim and tanned, both greying, both light blue eyes, like two peas in a pod. House hunters, pound to a penny. They stared at the wild black man as if he were a bum.

Karen smiled down at them and the woman forced a smile back as if to say: Who he?

‘Do you mind telling me what the hell you are doing in my office?’ said Swaythling.

Walter flashed his ID. Introduced himself and his sergeant.

‘We’ve come to talk to you about an attempted murder on your son, and the murder of one Jeffrey Player.’

‘What!’

‘You heard me.’

The palace buyers stood up, and the bloke said, ‘I think we’d better be going, darling, I’ll call you in the week, Gerry.’

The woman stood too, looked uncomfortable, gathered her things together, smiled across at Gerry Swaythling, then at Karen, gave Walter another cursory glance as if he might smell, and followed her husband outside.

Gerry sighed and exhaled and stared at the strangers.

‘You’d better sit down, and you’d better tell me what the hell is going on, and it had better be good. I’m a friend of Mr and Mrs West.’

Mrs West was Walter’s boss, not that he cared one jot about that, or of who Gerry Swaythling happened to be friends with.

‘Neil hasn’t told you?’

‘No, he has not! When did this happen?’

‘Last night in The Ship.’

‘Now that you mention it, I heard something on the radio. Didn’t connect it with Neil. Is he all right?’

‘He’s fine, which is more than can be said for Jeffrey Player,’ said Walter. ‘Where were you last night? We tried to contact you.’

‘In Cardiff. Sales visit.’

‘And you can prove that?’ asked Karen.

‘Of course I can. Not that I would need to.’

‘What we want to know is, are you aware of anyone who would want to kill Neil, or indeed Jeffrey Player?’

‘I have never heard of this Jeffrey Player character. As for Neil, we don’t see much of him these days. He has his own flat in town, and to be honest, he rubs me up the wrong way. We don’t agree on anything, and he can be an irritating little turd sometimes. He seems to make enemies for fun, though I’d be surprised if anyone should treat him so seriously as to want to kill him.’

Hardly a ringing endorsement of the son and heir, thought Karen.

Walter was speaking again. ‘We’d like a word with Mrs Swaythling too.’

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Be that as it may, I will want to talk to her,’ insisted Walter.

‘She’s ill, Inspector, she’s not a well woman.’

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Karen, Walter thought coldly. But what the heck, he wanted to know too.

‘Motor Neurone, early stages, though she doesn’t get out of the wheelchair much.’

‘Still like to talk to her,’ said Walter.

‘She needs to know that someone was gunning for her son, and we need to know if she knows why,’ said Karen.

Gerry sighed and pursed his lips and said, ‘All right, if you must. You can come tonight, say eight o’clock,’ and he passed a card across the desk.

Karen stood and glanced at it, before pocketing it.

Walter said, ‘How’s business, Mr Swaythling?’

‘Could be better, could be worse. We are never working on more than five projects at any one time.’

‘How many at the moment?’ asked Karen.

‘Three, it might have been four if you hadn’t interrupted.’

‘I’m sure they will be back. They seemed to like you, Gerry,’ said Walter, standing and examining the model of Brambury Heights. ‘How much would this little pied-à-terre set me back?’

Gerry Swaythling pulled a face, said, ‘It’s hardly that,’ and he stood up and moved toward his latest baby. Thought he’d humour the guy and answer his question. ‘About eight, depending on finish and precise requirements.’

‘Eight what?’ asked Walter.

Gerry considered answering, thought better of it, and gave the black copper a look that said everything.

‘So what do we get for the eight mill?’ asked Karen, remembering that she hadn’t checked her last four weeks’ lottery tickets.

Gerry glanced at the girl. She was a decent piece of totty. He’d talk to her anytime. ‘State-of-the-art kitchen and bathrooms goes without saying, Italian marble, granite, whatever you want. Cinema, as big as you need, indoor pool, outdoor too if you’re brave enough to have such a foolish thing in hilly, windy North Wales, and stables. Jacuzzi of course, hot tub, worldwide television, state-of-the-art music in every room, individual climate control. It can even tan you while you are having your breakfast if that’s what you want. You could enjoy sex on the carpet and top up your tan while you are doing it,’ and he glanced at Karen to see if he’d shocked her. He hadn’t. Swaythling shrugged and continued. ‘Nuclear fallout shelter if you’re of a nervous disposition, state-of-the-art touch electronic controls, no switches in the place, not a one. As many garages as you can handle, solar heating, your own independent water and sewerage supply, your own independent electricity grid, the latest security sensors and systems, no one would ever get in there without the CCTV telling you about it first. It would send real-time colour video to your mobile phone wherever you were in the world. You could live in a property like that while the rest of the world went extinct.’

‘I’m impressed,’ said Karen, holding eye contact.

A smile played around the corner of his mouth.

The guy was old enough to be her father, but he still thought he had a chance.

Maybe he did.

‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll have two of the buggers,’ said Walter, becoming bored, ‘where do we sign?’ feeling left out.

‘No one has ever bought two, Inspector.’

‘There’s a first time for everything,’ said Karen.

‘Oh, indeed there is, my dear, there is. And don’t forget we can add anything else to the property you may desire?’

‘Like what?’ asked Walter.

‘We are dealing with the super rich. Some of them have very discerning requirements, shall we say, not the normal run-of-the-mill extras.’

‘Like what?’ repeated Walter.

‘Could be something as simple as a detailed model railway running through all the rooms, delivering cups of tea, could be special state-of-the-art quarters for weird pets like crocs, tigers, wolves and boas, or it could be something of a more personal nature.’

‘Like what?’ said Karen and Walter as one.

‘Do I have to spell it out?’

‘You do to me,’ said Walter.

Gerry rolled his eyes and sighed.

‘Let’s just say dungeons and torture, get the pic, I am sure the young lady understands.’

Karen puffed out her cheeks and blew hard and said, ‘Why me? Don’t think so.’

‘That’s as may be, but I don’t think you are as innocent as you look, my dear, but there we are. I must get on, I have another client arriving in ten minutes, so is there anything else I can do for you?’

‘Not right now. We’ll see you at eight,’ said Walter, heading for the exit. ‘And go easy on the babe on the doors.’

Gerry held up his hand. ‘You have my word,’ he said, smiling at Karen as he closed his office door behind them.

On the way out Walter waved at the doll and shouted across, ‘Thank you, miss, no problem, Gerry’s fine about it, bye-bye.’

The girl nodded and said a nervous ‘bye,’ and in the next minute they were outside on the pavement.

Walter said, ‘What did you make of that?’

‘He wasn’t exactly devastated someone had tried to murder his son.’

‘No, very casual, wasn’t he?’

‘You don’t think he could be behind it?’

‘Rule nothing out, Karen.’

‘But why would he do such a thing?’

‘No idea. Maybe his wife will shed some light.’

‘Neil’s mother?’

‘If she is his mother.’

‘You think she isn’t?’

Karen watched Walter’s lips forming, and she knew what he was going to say, and beat him to it. ‘I know, rule nothing out.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘You’re going off to see Neil, are you?’

‘Might as well.’

‘Come back and collect Gibbons before you go.’

‘I don’t need Gibbons.’

‘You may not need him, but I want him with you. Come on; take me back to the station.’ 

Chapter Five

Jim’ll fix it Mitchell had built his network more than a quarter of a century before. He’d lost his job as a twenty something working in a Chester department store, where he’d developed a profitable sideline of opening up the storeroom doors when no one was about.

Two friends he’d met in a sleazy city-centre pub grabbed whatever they could, threw it in the back of a white van, and made their escape.

Jimmy Mitchell failed to spot the cameras that had watched his every move. They were still a new thing back then, and Jimmy was arrested and convicted of conspiracy and theft, something he could hardly deny when he saw the pictures. The judge didn’t believe his story that he barely knew his co-conspirators and added another year to his four-year sentence for insolence. Jimmy did not ID the men.

He enjoyed his break from society, tucked away in Shrewsbury prison on the banks of the sunny river Severn. He made new friends, learnt a great deal, and when he came out, using the contacts he’d made in Criminal College, he set up his own firm where he’d endeavour to supply any client with any product or service they required, no matter how outlandish or absurd it might be. So long as they could pay for it.

Any scruples he might have possessed were flushed from him as he’d festered in his cell. Society had made an example of him, and in turn, he would make an example of society.

His business model worked well. His clients never knew the identity of the agents Jimmy employed, while his agents never knew the identity of the person, persons, or businesses, for whom they were acting. Jimmy provided a safety buffer between the two, a broker dealing in skulduggery. Jimmy prospered, and his reputation grew. The police tried hard to identify his clients, but had little success.

From the outset the clients, some of whom Jimmy Mitchell had shared time with, fed him work, and in due course were impressed with his organisational skills and results. The agents in the field loved Jimmy because he was always thorough in everything he did. He would set up much of the plan and would set the agent running, and besides that, he paid them promptly, and he paid them well.

Jimmy understood there were only three things that ever changed matters. The first was money, backhanders, bribery, call it what you like; the second was threats, which were often enough by themselves, especially if the threats were directed at the loved ones of the target, rather than at the target himself, or herself.

Funny that, thought Jim, so many people were more afraid of violence against their family, lovers, or friends, than they ever were against themselves. He didn’t think that way. Never had.

The third event altering factor; was violence.

Jimmy was not afraid to issue orders divvying up brutality, indeed in the early days he deemed it necessary to gain the kudos and respect he needed. He was proved correct. Cutting off the occasional body part and packing it in a gift box and delivering it to a target worked wonders, though some parts carried more effect than others.

Not many people could stomach that.

The clients came to respect Jimmy Mitchell, because they feared him. His business grew and prospered. Jimmy became a wealthy man who could do anything he wanted.

Eventually his tentacles stretched far and wide, covering the whole of Cheshire, spreading out across the map like black ink on a fresh blotter, throughout North Wales, the Wirral Peninsula, North Shropshire, and more recently into the heart of the twin squabbling cities of Liverpool and Manchester, where there was always a tense atmosphere, and considerable numbers of commissions to be gained. Specialists like Jimmy Mitchell were in high demand.

Following Luke’s recent failure to eradicate the Swaythling kid, Jim had alerted his entire network that the real guitarist had to be found. Top priority, five big ones in it for the spotter, and they only had to name the time and place, nothing more. Jimmy would deal with the rest.

It was easy money for someone, and the streetwalkers knew it and gave it their undivided attention. It didn’t take long.

Bunny Almond came back with the news that Jimmy was desperate to hear, and it was as well he had, because Jimmy’s client was more than a little miffed at Luke’s failure to hit the target.

‘Tell me what you know, cheapskate,’ said Jimmy, pressing the mobile hard to his ear. He was addressing Bunny Almond, and cheapskate was Jim’s nickname for the mixed race guy. Jimmy always used nicknames, especially when using mobile phones, because he worried about who might be listening.

He’d only use the same mobile for a maximum of two weeks and lob it in the canal and buy a newer, better one. It was a pain having to distribute a new number, but better that than run risks.

Bunny did not like the nickname, but he’d let that pass. Jimmy was a good employer and Bunny was desperate for cash, he needed a hit, and five big ones provided a great deal of happiness.

‘He’s in his flat right now. He’s talking to two people, a blonde girl and a young fit bugger, think they could be filth, but he’ll be going out soon. He often does in the late afternoon, he’s got some older woman up on the Wirral, wealthy bitch, word is she pays him, couldn’t comment on that. Lucky bastard, I say. He always wears a black leather jacket when he goes to plug her.’

‘Where’s the best place for action?’

‘That’s easy. Two rows of lockups at the back of the flats. One way in, one way out, very quiet there in the afternoons before the worker bees come home, an ideal place. The guitar player has to go there to collect his car, half an hour I’d say.’

‘Well done, cheapo, and you’d better be right.’

‘I am right. When do I get paid?’

‘I’ll ring you later.’

Jimmy rang off and rang Luke.

He was lounging in a packed bar down by the river with friends. The place was full of tourists and locally based Americans who worked in the American banks. Luke was drinking orange juice because he was expecting the call. Made his excuses and went outside and ambled along the riverbank to listen to the news.

‘Wellington road flats, lockups behind, half an hour. Wearing a black leather jacket. Don’t buy the wrong shoes!’

Jimmy rang off without another word. Luke pursed his lips and slipped the phone away. Went back into the pub, emptied his drink, said his goodbyes and left. The adrenalin kicked in. It was the best high imaginable, better than drugs, better than money, better than sex, better even than sex with Melanie Kirton, though that was a close-run thing.

He hurried across the city, smiled at a couple of neat female passers-by, apologised when he went to take the same slab of pavement as an oncoming pair of business type gents. He was in a good mood, no point in having conflict over pavement real estate. There was still time to fix that flight to Venice the following day, all he had to do was settle the score, and that was what he was about to do.

There was no one about at the lockups.

The place was deserted, and perfect for the job in hand.

Fourteen prefabricated garages on either side, metal up and over doors, fading coloured graffiti on three of them, featuring the names and logos of rock bands, some that Luke knew and liked, and breaking outfits that even he had never heard of. All that kind of youth crap design. All the garage doors were locked bar one. The open garage was empty, other than a dozing black cat hoping a rat might stumble by.

Between the garages was a dusty unmade road, compressed rough gravel, dry as a bone. At the far end was a solid high wall with ancient shattered green glass set in the cement on the top. Luke thought that was illegal. Damn well should be, someone might get hurt.

Perfect place for an ambush, perfect place for a killing; one way in, same way out, Luke understood that, retreated to the main road. Crossed over, propped himself up outside a bookmakers that was set next to the bus stop, and a big new orange wastepaper bin. He grabbed an old newspaper from the bin. Pretended to read the racing pages. He had a great view from where he was. Anyone coming out of the flats would have to pass by on the other side of the road, before cutting up the jigger toward the garages.

Five minutes passed, and nothing happened. Ten minutes, and Luke was sweating in his slacks. Fifteen and he was getting worried. Twenty, as he flicked his wrist again and glanced at the silver Rolex he had treated himself to on his last trip to Geneva.

On the other side of the road a tall guy came round the corner, black leather jacket, walking with a purpose toward the jigger, turned right, cut up toward the garages. Luke dumped the paper, dashed across the road between bad tempered traffic, cut up the alley, shadowing the target. Crept to the end where the lane turned left. There the pre-fabbed garages stretched out on either side, high glass-topped wall at the far end.

Slipped the gun from his pocket. Peered around the corner.

The guy was walking away down the centre of the lane, heading for his garage.

Luke followed. There was still no one about, just the rumble of traffic from the main road.

‘Neil?’ he called, friendly like, ‘I think you forgot this.’

Neil turned round and saw the gunman; saw the gun in his hand. Didn’t run. Didn’t panic. Began walking back toward Luke, a cocky swagger about him.

‘Why are you doing this?’ he demanded.

Luke didn’t answer.

‘Who are you working for?’

Luke didn’t answer.

‘Bugger off out if it!’

Luke didn’t move a muscle.

He wasn’t lacking courage, this Neil character; Luke noted that. They weren’t usually like him.

Neil ignored the gun, scowled, and kept on coming.

No skinny street punk was going to cow him.

Luke grinned and raised the gun; aimed and fired.

One, two, three, four!

The start of a rock number for the leader of the band. All Souls. Arseholes! All four striking home, thudding into Neil’s torso and chest. His eyes carried that disbelieving look, as if no one ever believes they could be the one who was getting shot. It was something that only happened to other guys. It was something that only happened to losers on the telly, in the movies and in books, but not in real life, and certainly not in pretty Chester in the middle of a sunny summer afternoon. That would be impossible. Unthinkable.

Neil fell on his back, arms outstretched, surprised look still on his face. Didn’t move, didn’t utter a sound.

‘One, two, three, four,’ whispered Luke. ‘Start singing your prayers, punk.’

Neil Swaythling didn’t sing, didn’t move, didn’t bat an eyelid.

Luke heard kids coming up the jigger, maybe three, maybe four, sounded about eleven-years-old, and then a football being booted against a wall. It was as good a place to play footie as any, quiet and off the road. Time to leave. Luke turned round and hurried away, past the kids. One had a Chelsea shirt on, one a Manu, one Liverpool, one Everton, some mixture, some team, some arguments. The kids didn’t notice him, so busy were they trapping and heading and shooting and shouting and chewing gum, and showing off.

Luke hurried back toward the city centre, the gun still hot in his pocket. Sat on a bench in the busy square, close to the statue of the baby elephant. Rang Jimmy.

‘This time I’ve bought the correct shoes.’

‘I bloody hope so.’

‘When can you pay me?’

‘Tomorrow, same time, same place.’

‘I’ll be there.’

Luke rang off, feeling good, headed down the hill toward the travel agents. Went inside, chatted up the smart, dark girl. She assured him he could still be on the following evening’s flight from Manchester. Last late rooms available in the Royal Palace Hotel, Venice, so the computer said. Seven grand all in. Did he want it, or did he not?

‘Hold on a sec, I’ll give her a bell.’

Melanie answered on the third ring. She was taking a cigarette break from her job as an assessor in the Chester and Stafford Insurance Company. She was outside in the sunshine, sitting beneath the ornamental silver birches, watching the fishes swim round and round their modern rectangular pool.

‘Are you still on for tomorrow?’

‘Do you want me to be on for tomorrow?’

‘Course, babe.’

‘Where?’

‘Venice, two whole weeks.’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On what you are going to do to me.’

Luke smirked at the girl behind the monitor. She was all ears. Smirked back.

‘You know the answer to that.’

‘Will I like it?’

‘You’ll love it.’

‘All right,’ she said, ‘just this once.’

‘I’m at the travel agent right now, I’ll book it.’

‘If you must, Luke-ee, if you must.’

Luke rang off; grinned at the girl. Paid a deposit, said he’d bring the rest of the cash in the next day. He was well known in Deeside Travel, a regular punter. They trusted Luke Flowers; he’d flown with them many times before.

‘Bye,’ said the travel agent girl when they’d finished their business, wondering why she couldn’t find a handsome and respectable boyfriend like him, someone who’d splash seven gees on her without a second thought. Some girls were just born lucky. She probably didn’t even appreciate what a fine man she had.

Chapter Six

Karen and Gibbons strolled back into the office. They’d been to see Neil.

‘You’ve been ages,’ moaned Walter.

‘Hungry,’ said Gibbons, ‘picked up a burger.’

‘How did you get on?’

‘Much as I said,’ said Karen.

‘Go on.’

‘He’s got a woman friend up on the Wirral, an older woman,’ said Gibbons.

‘He’s very protective of her,’ said Karen. ‘Seems she’s worth a bundle of money.’

‘Where did the money come from?’

‘He wasn’t keen to say,’ said Karen.

‘Doesn’t this guy realise he’s the target for a paid assassin? Doesn’t it bother him?’

‘He’s writing a song about it,’ said Gibbons.

‘Oh, bully beef! That’s going to keep the killer at bay!’

‘He’s confused,’ said Karen.

‘We are all freakin’ confused! We are trying to help this guy... but he needs to help himself.’

‘He doesn’t think the gunman will try again,’ said Karen.

‘Oh yeah, and how does he work that out?’

‘Says he’ll move onto something else, says it was mistaken identity.’

‘Do you believe that crap?’

‘Nope,’ said Karen.

‘Me neither,’ said Gibbons.

‘Ah well, you can’t help those who don’t want to be helped. Did he have any fresh ideas as to why he should be a target?’

‘Not that he told us.’

‘The guy’s an idiot!’ muttered Walter.

‘Or brave,’ said Karen.

‘Brave, my size ten brown boots! Well bugger it, bugger him, leave him to stew! We should be concentrating on finding the killer of Jeffrey Player, not worrying about someone who’s acting like a prima donna.’

The phone before Walter burbled into action. Karen grabbed it. Results of the post-mortem on Jeffrey Player. Told them nothing they didn’t already know. Four shots, four holes, two slugs lodged in the wall. Death by gunshot, one through the heart, stopped it dead, death instantaneous.

––––––––

ACROSS THE CITY, NEIL Swaythling opened his eyes. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest by the leading stallion in Michael Cowley’s Cheshire yard. Neil felt dazed and dizzy. He felt sick. He tried to sit up.

Four kids came round the corner. They wore different coloured soccer shirts and were booting a football up against the garage doors. Kerrang, Kerrang!! as the heavy ball rebounded off the metalwork.

One of them saw the man half lying, half sitting on the ground, said, ‘There’s a fella there, look!’

They all turned to see, then ran towards him.

He looked shaken up. His cool leather jacket had neat holes in it. His face was pale and his hands trembled like a drunk’s.

‘Are you all right, mate?’ said the Evertonian.

‘Yeah,’ managed Neil.

‘Did a car run you down?’ said the Liverpool.

‘Yeah, a car ran me down.’

He glanced at the kids’ shirts.

‘Why don’t you support City?’

‘Moneybags City, you must be jokin’!’ said the Manu.

‘Not Manchester City. Chester City.’

They all looked at him as if he was touched. Deranged.

‘Sod that! They’re not even in the league!’ said the Chelsea.

‘You should support your hometown club.’

‘Don’t think so,’ said Manu. ‘Do you want us to fetch the bizzies?’ he said, as Chelsea looked on, quite unconcerned, the heavy ball under his arm.

‘Nah,’ muttered Neil, ‘I’ll do it,’ and he tugged his mobile from his pocket, relieved to see it still without a scratch. Searched in his slacks for the card the black copper had given him and poked in the number.

The phone in front of Walter burbled again.

He looked round for Karen. She’d gone to the Ladies. Gibbons was over the other side of the office haggling over some boxing tickets for the Friday night card at the Liverpool Arena.

Walter sniffed and picked up the phone.

A distant voice said, ‘Can I speak to Inspector Darriteau.’

Walter thought he knew who it was, but didn’t say. Said, ‘Speaking.’

‘It’s Neil, Neil Swaythling, he’s back, the killer, I’ve been hit.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Between the lockups at the back of the flats in Wellington Road.’

‘Has the guy gone?’

‘Yeah, long since.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘Never seen him before.’

‘And he thinks you’re dead?’

‘Guess so.’

‘OK, stay where you are, I’ll send someone down for you right now, a few minutes, that’s all, it’ll be Karen and Gibbons, the people you saw before.’

‘OK, don’t be long.’

‘We won’t.’

Karen was back, standing beside Walter. She’d picked up the end of the conversation. Walter filled her in. A moment later Karen and Gibbons shot from the office and took the lift downstairs on the lookout for a good unmarked car.

Less than ten minutes later, the BMW pulled into the jigger and turned between the garages. The kids had vanished. Neil had staggered to his feet and was leaning against one of the dividing walls between two of the garages. Gibbons turned the car round. Karen jumped out and went to Neil.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I feel like I’ve been run over by a steamroller.’

‘Here, take my arm,’ and she helped him into the back of the car.

Neil collapsed into the back seat.

‘Where did he get you?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Heart, chest, all over.’

‘Those new Kevlar bullet proof vests are the business,’ said Gibbons.

‘Made from oil, weight for weight seven times stronger than steel,’ said Karen, ‘Good job you put it on.’

‘Good job he didn’t shoot you in the face,’ said Gibbons.

‘Good job he didn’t shoot me in the balls,’ muttered Neil.

‘Yeah, that too,’ said Gibbons.

Karen grinned as they cruised down the jigger, as the first of the evening worker bees was coming home from work.

Five minutes later, and they were back at the station.

Walter jumped from his chair and went toward the kid. Took his arm and eased him into his own chair.

‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a quick chat, and then we’ll get you to the hospital for a thorough checkup.’

Neil bobbed his head and managed a brave smile.

Walter clarified: ‘You had definitely never seen the guy before?’

‘No! Never.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘Yeah, something like: Hey Neil, I think you forgot these.’

‘And you turned round?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Local accent?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘Not that I remember.’

‘What was he wearing?’

‘Grey slacks, white polo shirt, short lightweight jacket.’

‘What colour?’

‘Beige, I think.’

‘And the photofits, how accurate are they?’

Neil glanced down at the pics that Walter had laid out on his desk. Neil pursed his lips and said, ‘Pretty good, that’s the best one, for sure,’ he said, pointing at Nug’s result.

Walter bobbed his head. ‘We’ll go with that one. Gibbons, get this pic out to all stations. Man wanted for murder. Airports as well, just in case he does a runner.’

Gibbons grabbed the pic and took it away for distribution.

‘Do you want a coffee?’ asked Karen.

Neil shook his head.

‘Tell me about your lady friend?’ asked Walter.

‘I don’t want her involved.’

‘She might already be involved.’

‘She isn’t, I tell ya.’

‘And she’s loaded?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where did she get the money?’

‘Her husband had his own business. He was much older than her. They went on holiday to Miami; it was during a heat wave. He collapsed and died from a heart attack on the quayside. She inherited the business, plenty of cash in the bank, she says.’

‘What kind of business?’

‘No idea.’

‘And now she’s a lady of leisure?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Where did you meet her?’ asked Karen.

‘At the Greenfield Country Club, in the disco. She came over to me and grabbed my hand and tugged me onto the dance floor. We just seemed to hit it off.’

‘How old is she?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Age doesn’t matter.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Walter, ‘but what are we talking here?’

‘Forty-three.’

‘That’s freaking old,’ said Gibbons.

‘Excuse me,’ said Walter, ‘but that’s young!’ and he shared a smile with Neil.

‘Look!’ Neil said, then stopped as if thinking of his words, as if pondering on whether to say any more, ‘I’ve had dozens of girls, maybe hundreds.’ Karen thought to herself, I told you that, Walter, but didn’t say, as Neil continued, ‘but I have never met anyone like Veronica. I love her to bits, and I want to marry her.’

Karen glanced across at him. He sure looked cut up about something. Gibbons thought him a stupid prat.

‘And your parents don’t like the idea?’ said Walter.

‘They hate the idea, hate her, threatened to disinherit me.’

‘We’d still like to talk to her,’ said Walter.

‘Nope! I don’t want her involved.’

‘All right, we’ll leave that for the moment, but I want you to do something else for me?’ said Walter.

‘If I’d done what you suggested before, I wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘True, but forget about that. Will you do what we want this time?’

‘Yeah, you name it, so long as it doesn’t involve her, and on condition you nail the bastard.’

‘That’s the aim,’ said Karen.

‘OK,’ said Walter. ‘This is what I want you to do.’

Chapter Seven

The Swaythling’s house was on a hill high above the river Dee. It was a striking new property set between the road and the escarpment that dropped away down toward the river.

Built in traditional style, gables and tall chimney-stacks, but using every modern material and intelligence available.

Blackened windows like you see in people carriers to abolish the need for blinds and lace curtains, silver framed windows, self-cleaning glass, smooth Cotswold stone appearance, though it was not built of stone.

It wasn’t on the grand scale of the palaces that Swaythling constructed for his clients, even Gerry Swaythling couldn’t afford that, but it was a huge and striking property. Walter and Karen arrived outside at ten to eight. They drove past the house and turned round and came back.

‘Pull in here,’ he said, pointing to a disused paddock gateway on the other side of the road. From there they could see the house, protected by high and substantial black railings. In the centre of the railings was an electronic-controlled curved-topped set of metal gates. The tops were painted gold. The gates were closed. Walter and Karen could see the intercom and digital pad set next to them for the chosen few to punch in a password, and the gates would swing open.

There was a gleaming black Bentley parked on the brick paved driveway, presumably his, and a small BMW hatchback, maybe hers. Beyond that, slightly out of sight, was another vehicle, perhaps a coupé, silver by the look of it, though the evening sun was reflecting from it, making it hard to tell. Maybe Neil was at home.

‘Eh up,’ said Karen, and they both stared across the road, as a tall and slim young woman came out of the house. Tight blue jeans, short white top, flat stomach. She walked round the Bentley and the BMW and jumped in the far car. Through their open car window they could hear the soft purr of the engine starting, as the coupé eased toward the gates that opened. In the next second, the silver Mercedes coupé swept out onto the road and flashed past them, the blonde’s mane flowing behind her in the summer breeze. She didn’t give them a second glance.

‘I don’t know who she was,’ said Karen, ‘but it wasn’t Neil’s mother.’

‘Mmm,’ said Walter. ‘It wasn’t Neil either. Interesting. About the same age as Neil. He doesn’t have a sister, does he?’

‘Not that we know of.’

‘Come on, let’s go and pay our respects.’

They jumped from the car, crossed the road, and in the next second Walter was buzzing the intercom.

A woman answered, a foreign lady, by the sound of things.

‘Hello, who there?’

‘Inspector Walter Darriteau, Chester Police, to see Mrs Swaythling.’

‘Hold on. I check.’

They seemed to wait an age. Then the lady was back, ‘You come in now.’

The gates swung back open, and they walked through to the front door and pressed the bell.

‘Some house,’ said Karen.

‘I’ve seen better,’ said Walter, as the front door pulled open. A slight young woman in a white blouse and black skirt smiled and said, ‘Please come in. They will see you in a moment.’

Filipina, Walter guessed, the housekeeper by the look of her, about thirty, quite attractive, wondered if she was legal.

‘I tell them you are here,’ she said, and smiled and disappeared down a white marble floored corridor. Then she was back. ‘They see you now. Please follow,’ and they followed her along the same corridor that opened out to the left into the largest living room either of them had ever seen.

Mrs Swaythling was sitting in a winged back chair. She didn’t look well. Grey hair, drawn face, very slight. Gerry was standing behind her, hands on her shoulders. Mrs Swaythling tried a smile.

‘This is my wife,’ he said, ‘Holly.’

‘Forgive me if I don’t get up.’

‘Of course,’ said Walter, striding toward her, taking her delicate hand and gently squeezing it. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Inspector Walter Darriteau and this is Sergeant Karen Greenwood.’

The two women exchanged glances and half smiles as Karen wandered toward the open window. It was floor to ceiling glass and swept back open, as if some giant had removed the entire wall.

‘Mind if I have a look?’ she asked.

‘Be my guest,’ said Gerry, leaving his wife’s side and crossing the room and beckoning her out onto the terrace.

‘Wow,’ she said, ‘some view.’

Far below on the river were a pair of rowing eights, chasing one another, and a couple of packed pleasure cruisers in line astern, working late and busy, and beyond that, the water meadows where beasts grazed, as the river wound away upstream, the setting sun lighting it up like liquid gold.

‘What a view,’ she repeated.

‘We like it,’ said Gerry, looking into her eyes.

‘Take a seat, Inspector,’ said Mrs Swaythling, and Walter slouched into one of the vast cream sofas.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

She pulled a face, didn’t say anything, then she said, ‘Good days, bad days,’ as the other two came back inside, Gerry returning to his station behind his wife, Karen perching on the end of the sofa beside Walter.

‘We want to talk to you about Neil.’ 

‘Of course you do,’ said Holly. ‘Gerry said someone tried to kill him.’

‘Yes, they did. Why do you think they did that?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘I told you that,’ said Gerry, taking a moment to admire the seated sergeant.

‘He has a lady friend, I believe?’ suggested Walter.

‘That bitch!’ Holly Swaythling said.

‘Veronica?’ said Karen.

Holly sighed and nodded. ‘Veronica Camberwell. Should be ashamed of herself, corrupting a young man half her age.’

Neil’s words came back to Karen.

I’ve had dozens of girls, maybe hundreds.

Corrupted, he wasn’t.

‘Where does she live?’ asked Walter.

‘Up at Willaston, big ugly house, built in the 1800s, must cost a fortune in upkeep,’ said Gerry.

‘Neil says that you have threatened to cut off his inheritance,’ said Karen, watching their faces for a response. She certainly got one.

‘Did he?’ shouted Gerry. ‘Damned cheek!’

‘The stupid boy!’ said Holly.

‘And did you?’ asked Walter.

‘We might have mentioned something,’ said Gerry.

‘Only in jest,’ added Holly, ‘more to bring him to his senses.’

‘Do you have children, Inspector?’ asked Gerry.

‘Not that I know of,’ said Walter.

‘Well, if you did, you might understand,’ said Holly.

‘Could Veronica Camberwell have anything to do with this attempt on Neil’s life?’ asked Karen.

Gerry pursed his lips, pretended to think.

Holly said, ‘Who knows? Someone must have done it. Nothing would surprise me.’

‘You see,’ said Walter, ‘there has been another development.’

‘What kind of development?’ snapped Gerry.

‘A big development,’ said Karen, looking straight into Gerry’s eyes.

Chapter Eight

‘Well?’ said Gerry, unaccustomed to being kept waiting. ‘What kind of development?’

‘There has been another attempt on Neil’s life.’

Holly’s mouth fell open. She balled her fist around the handkerchief and glanced around at her husband, then back at the police people.

‘Where, when?’ asked Gerry.

‘Is he all right?’ asked Holly.

‘He’s fine,’ smiled Karen, ‘we persuaded him to wear a bulletproof vest. It did the business.’

‘Oh my God!’ she said, close to tears.

‘Where is he now?’ asked Gerry.

‘He’s in a safe place. He’s going to stay there until we sort this out.’

‘I demand to know where my son is being held!’ yelled Gerry.

‘Neil wanted it this way,’ said Karen. ‘He said no one was to know, not even you.’

‘The fewer people that know the better,’ said Walter.

‘But that shouldn’t include us,’ said Holly.

‘For the moment it includes everyone,’ said Walter.

‘Ridiculous!’ snapped Gerry.

‘The thing is,’ said Walter, ‘we were wondering if you can think of anyone who might want to hurt Neil?’

‘We’ve already told you the answer to that,’ said Gerry.

Holly didn’t say a word; just turned and stared up at her husband.

‘Yes, you told us that,’ said Karen, ‘but we need more to go on. We can’t find the culprit until we know the motive.’

‘If we knew that we’d tell you,’ said Gerry, growing increasingly irritated.

‘Have you got any enemies?’ asked Walter.

‘No!’ he answered, too quickly for the officers’ liking.

‘Tell me how it happened,’ said Holly.

‘The latest shooting?’ said Karen.

Holly nodded and sniffed into the embroidery.

Karen glanced at Walter, who said, ‘Earlier today, between the lockup garages at the back of the flats, one young man, here’s his picture,’ and he passed the latest photofit to them. ‘Four shots, all struck Neil on the bulletproof vest. He was very lucky.’

‘Oh my God,’ wept Holly.

‘You are upsetting my wife!’ said Gerry.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, glancing up at him again. ‘We need to know what’s happened; we need to help if we can.’

‘Have either of you seen this man before?’

They both stared at the picture and shook their heads.

‘Neil says it’s a very close likeness,’ said Karen. ‘Are you certain?’

‘Course we are!’

‘And Neil doesn’t know him either?’ asked Holly.

‘He says not.’

‘This is drugs related, I’ll bet!’ said Gerry.

‘Neil doesn’t do drugs!’ said Holly. ‘You know that.’

‘He insists he’s not into drugs,’ added Karen.

‘That’s what I said!’ said Holly.

Neil’s mother gazed down at the picture of the neat young man staring back.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she whispered. ‘You evil, evil boy.’

‘There is something else you need to know,’ said Walter.

‘Go on!’ said Gerry.

‘We have agreed with Neil that the press release will say that he was killed in the shooting.’

‘What! Oh no!’ grimaced Holly.

‘That way we believe the killer will think he has done what he set out to do,’ said Walter.

‘Seems sensible to me,’ said Gerry.

‘But...’ said Holly.

Walter interrupted. ‘People are bound to ring for news. We don’t want you to tell them he is alive and well.’

‘Why ever not?’ asked Holly, nearing the end of her tether.

Gerry answered the question. ‘Because the police believe it might alert the killer, and he might try again.’

‘Correct,’ said Walter.

‘But our friends wouldn’t do anything like that!’ she insisted.

‘We don’t know that,’ said Gerry. ‘Not for certain.’

‘And you promise me he is well?’ said Holly, turning back to Walter.

‘Of course,’ said Karen, ‘he’s fine, you can talk to him later on the phone.’

Walter clarified. ‘He is a bit shaken up, anyone would be, badly bruised, and I’m sure he’ll feel rotten for a few days, but he’s been to hospital for a complete checkup and they don’t need to keep him in. That’s the main thing.’

Holly smiled nervously at the thought.

In the next instant, they all became aware of phones ringing through the house. The Filipina came running, ‘Sorry to bother, but I getting calls, say Neil dead, what I say?’

Walter shared a look with Gerry. He nodded hard and said, ‘I’ll take the calls, Hilario, put them through to me.’

‘Thank you,’ said Walter, nodding, ‘And don’t forget, if you can think of anything, no matter how small, please ring me any time,’ and he reached forward and set a fresh card on the light oak coffee table.

‘Thank you, Inspector,’ she said, ‘now if you don’t mind I am exhausted,’ and she closed her eyes and settled back into the winged back chair.

The meeting was over. 

Gerry came back to the hall as they were on the way out.

‘Condolence calls,’ he said.

‘First of many, I would think,’ said Walter.

‘And you’ll get Neil to ring his mother?’

‘We will, be later this evening,’ said Karen.

‘We’ll let you know if there are any developments,’ said Walter.

Gerry nodded and opened the front door, let them out, and watched the woman sergeant walk away toward the opening gates.

––––––––

A MINUTE LATER BACK in the car Karen said, ‘Well, what did you make of that?’

‘The mother knows something.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘What do you make of him?’

‘Flighty bugger, if you ask me,’ said Karen.

‘He liked you.’

‘I think he likes women, full stop. Like father, like son.’

‘We’ll pay another visit tomorrow, when Gerry’s at work.’

‘OK, Guv.’

‘In the meantime, find out everything you can about Veronica Camberwell. Where she lives, where the money came from, where and what her husband’s business was, and see if you can find any link to Gerry Swaythling.’

‘OK, Guv. So who was the glamorous blonde, do you think? I’m surprised you didn’t ask about her.’

‘I want to do that tomorrow, when he’s not there.’

‘Gotcha.’

‘Come on; let’s get back to the station. Time’s marching on.’

––––––––

THEY HAD ONLY BEEN back in the office a matter of minutes when Walter took a call. He glanced up at the clock. Half-past nine. He thought he was getting hungry. A woman’s voice.

‘Inspector Darriteau?’

‘Yes. Who’s this?’

‘Gardenia Floem. Remember me?’

‘How could I forget?’

‘Would you like to make any comment on reports that Neil Swaythling was shot dead this afternoon?’

‘Would you like to tell me where you received such information?’

Gardenia laughed girlishly, and said, ‘You know us journalists, never reveal our sources.’

‘Speak to the press office, they’ll fill you in.’

‘But is it true?’

‘Speak to the press office.’

‘Just a simple yes or no would do.’

‘Ditto.’

She laughed again. She had a nice laugh.

‘Are you any nearer to finding the killer?’

‘Mizz Floem, I am very busy. The press office will give you everything we have.’

‘Even I don’t believe that.’

Karen came back and stood beside the desk. She’d freshened up. She touched his shoulder and softly said, ‘Is it OK if I get off?’

Walter nodded and shouted after her, ‘See you in the morning.’

‘Do you mean me?’ said Gardenia.

‘No, I did not mean you, I really must go.’

‘I’ll ring you tomorrow.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘Funnily enough, lots of people say that,’ she said, still giggling.

‘I can believe that too. Goodnight, Mizz Floem,’ and he put the phone down before she could say anything else.

––––––––

MUCH LATER, AFTER HE’D climbed into bed, he was still thinking of the case. He knew he wouldn’t get much sleep; he never did when a tough case was ongoing. He’d keep pulling all the facts apart and putting them back together in a different order, hoping something might look wrong.

It sometimes did.

It hadn’t yet.

He thought of poor Jeffrey Player and wondered what the last thoughts were that gushed through his head before he was shot dead, the moment he saw the killer raise the gun, point at his heart, and fire. What had he been thinking of? Friends? Family? A girl? A boy? Becoming a rock star? Did he think it was a prank, or did he recognise his days were exhausted? And most important of all, did Jeffrey Player recognise his killer? Could this case yet be about Jeffrey, and not Neil? Maybe the killer meant to murder Jeff. It was possible. Rule nothing out.

Walter pondered on the expression on the killer’s face at the precise moment of execution. Was he smiling, grinning, grimacing, what? Or maybe he showed a cold, indifferent face to the world as he went about his foul business. If Walter had to guess, he would go for that, the cold, indifferent look, though he would never know.

But of course he would. He could ask Neil, for he had witnessed the same pre-killing look the murderer adopted at the moment he was about to end someone’s life. The key question was, why had the killer done it? Where was the motive? If Walter had to guess he would plump for personal gain, for money, pure greed, and if that were the case, he must have been working for someone else, and if that was right, then who, and just as importantly, why?

That was where they should concentrate their efforts.

Finding the client. Finding the brains behind the operation. Finding the person or persons responsible for winding up and letting go the boy band look-a-like squirt of a killer with a gun, the same person running riot on their patch, on his patch.

Bloody cheek!

Would you like to make any comment on reports that Neil Swaythling was shot dead this afternoon? 

Gardenia’s words came back to him. She seemed to have her finger on the pulse. Where had she dug up that little gem? She had a nice laugh though, and a sexy giggle, and long after that, the final thoughts that flickered through Walter’s mind before he surrendered to sleep, were of Gardenia Floem, and her cute giggle.

Chapter Nine

Luke was at the clock at five to two. There was no sign of Jimmy. He leant on the railings and watched the young women below in their cute summer dresses going about their city business.

They all looked so happy and carefree. He didn’t hear Jimmy arrive. Sometimes he was like that, quiet and slippery.

‘Well?’ said Luke.

‘The task appears to have been completed.’

‘Of course it has been completed!’

‘Did you actually see him dead?’

‘I pumped four shots into him. I’m a good shot, I don’t miss, not from that range. The guy walked towards me, he seemed to want it; he seemed to have a death wish. No one could have survived that.’

‘You’d better be right.’

‘I am right, now pay me!’

Jimmy shot him a look that told Luke not to be lippy.

‘May I have my money now, please, Mr Mitchell?’

That was better.

Jimmy produced a packet from his jacket and slipped it across to Luke and said, ‘It’s not all there.’

‘What do you mean, it’s not all there?’

‘I incurred additional expenses, after your earlier cock up.’

‘What expenses? How much?’

‘Eight grand, I had to pay out eight grand to fresh runners to locate the target.’

‘Eight grand! Geez! Who did you employ? God?’

Jimmy laughed.

‘It’s your own fault, you shouldn’t have screwed up.’

Luke harrumphed, then said, ‘I’ll have to go, I’m off on my holidays, taking the tart to Italy, gonna screw her senseless.’

Luke made to leave.

‘Um, haven’t you forgotten something?’ said Jimmy.

‘Oh yeah, sorry Jim,’ and he reached inside his jacket and pulled out the envelope containing the gun. Passed it over. Jim peeked inside. Saw it was right, nodded his head. Said, ‘When are you back?’

‘Two weeks.’

‘I might have something else for you.’

‘Cool. You know my number, give me a ring.’

Jimmy nodded, didn’t say a thing, and Luke nodded too and turned about and set off toward the travel agency.

Jimmy sniffed and took out his phone and rang Bunny Almond. Fixed a meet. Pay off his debts. He always paid his debts, even to a lowlife like Bunny Almond, though he wondered how he could reduce his cut. Couldn’t think of an adequate reason. He’d pay him in full, this time. The guy would soon be off his head for a month, but that didn’t matter because Jimmy didn’t plan to use Bunny Almond again. He had too much to say for himself, and besides, changing runners was always good policy.

––––––––

TEN MINUTES LATER, Luke bounced into the travel agents.

The same pretty girl was there.

‘How are you today?’ he asked, leaning against the desk and smiling.

‘I’m great and I can see you are too.’

‘There is no point in being miserable, is there, darling?’

‘You’re dead right there.’

‘So how much do I owe ya?’

She glanced at her screen and pulled an invoice from her file and pointed to the figure.

She had nice nails, deep red and polished; the kind of nails that attracted a man. Luke pulled a fat roll of cash from his trouser pocket and began counting out the twenties. The girl couldn’t look at anything other than the money. After he’d paid the balance, he peeled an extra one and rolled it up and slipped it down her blouse.

‘What’s that for?’ she said, grinning.

‘For being so helpful, you’ve been great.’

‘Thanks, Luke. I hope you have a lovely holiday.’

‘Oh, I intend to, you can be sure of that.’

He collected the tickets and papers and made his way to the door, turned round and smiled and winked and said, ‘You behave yourself,’ and in the way he said it, she imagined he was saying that one day he might come back for her.

She sure hoped so. She couldn’t wait.

What a lovely and caring man he was.

Then he was gone, bouncing up the high street, tickets in hand, a smile fixed on his face. He popped into the bank and made a deposit, stopped off at Reg the Rag and bought an early evening newspaper, and headed across town toward the park where he could make his calls in peace.

––––––––

THE PUBLIC PARK WAS at its best. There was a team of council workmen there, brandishing old green watering cans. Red pelargoniums, multi coloured dahlias, yellow pompom marigolds, blue alyssum, all jostling for space and sunshine in the crowded beds, pretty colours and aromas to attract the bees, not that Luke Flowers would have known that. He thought of it as a peaceful and pleasant place from where he could run his business and make his calls.

Two young women were sitting gossiping on the first bench, one rocking a tiny pram back and forth. They both looked well under twenty and they both smiled at Luke as he wandered by in his tight pants. Luke smiled back, and the girls giggled. On another day he’d join them and try his luck and attempt to lure them back to his flat for an afternoon threesome. It had worked before, but not right there because he had more important things on his mind.

He found an empty bench and rang Melanie. She had taken the day off to get ready. Her bag was packed; her passport was waiting on her dressing-table. She’d bathed and made-up, and brushed and combed her long blonde hair, and all she had to do was wait.

Luke often kept her waiting. He seemed to get off on it. That was cool, in small doses. She could handle the wait, and his mind games. Luke Flowers was worth waiting for. She went downstairs and sat on the sofa and explained to Pugsley that she would be away for two whole weeks and that he had better behave himself, or she wouldn’t take him walkies when she returned.

The Springer spaniel coughed, he’d been eating something he shouldn’t, and that was nothing new. He had a solid track record of eating non-food items. Mr Kirton’s slippers, the plastic tiles on the utility room floor, the lavatory cleaner container in the upstairs bathroom, a sleeping hedgehog at the bottom of the garden, spines and all, the next door kid’s football, not to mention Mrs Kirton’s prize winning water lilies, all had succumbed to Pugsley’s unusual diet.

She picked up her mobile and willed it to ring, and lo-and-behold, it did.

‘You ready?’ he said.

She could tell from the tone of his voice he was in a good mood, and he was a very moody man. But that was another reason she liked him so much. She could always tell when he was grinning.

‘I might be,’ she said.

‘You’d better be.’

‘Or what?’

‘I can feel a spanking coming on.’

‘Mr Flowers, don’t be so horrible.’

‘I’ll pick you up at four.’

‘I’ll be ready.’

‘You’d better be. Your parents won’t be there, will they?’

‘Course not. You know they don’t get home till gone six.’

‘Good! I don’t want to meet them. Your dad’s a right miserable git.’

‘No, he isn’t, not all the time.’

‘Yes, he is!’

‘Where are you now?’

‘In the park.’

‘What are you doing there?’

‘Admiring the blooms.’

The two unmarried mothers came strolling by, glanced down and smiled at Luke. He was talking on the phone, to his girlfriend, they guessed, judging by the expectant look on his face, tight jeans on the pair of them, tight butts, and once past, the darker one glanced back over her shoulder, pouted her lips and blew him a Hollywood kiss, and the pair of them burst into fits of laughter and continued on toward the gates.

‘Don’t you think you should come and admire this bloom?’

‘Sure, babe, I’m on my way home, quick shower and a change, and I’ll be at yours for four.’

‘Don’t be late,’ she said.

‘Don’t be cheeky.’

‘Or what?’

‘Torrid time for you, squeaker.’

‘Don’t call me that, you know I don’t like it.’

‘You shouldn’t squeak so much, should you?’

Melanie flushed.

She couldn’t help it if she squeaked when he aroused her.

Didn’t all women squeak?

‘Be ready!’ he said, and he cut off and rang his mother.

She was at work, sitting at the bench, the sewing machines firing staccato thread into the blue denim. They weren’t supposed to take calls at work, but the supervisor wouldn’t hear above the din. She pressed the phone to one ear and her palm across the other.

‘Luke?’ she said. ‘Are you there?’

‘Yeah, mum, just to let you know I am going on holiday for two weeks. I’ll send you a card.’

‘Thanks, son.’

‘And I’ve paid a grand into your bank account.’

‘Oh, thanks, son! You didn’t have to do that.’

‘I know, but I did.’

‘You’re such a good boy.’

‘Yeah mum, I am.’

‘Have a wonderful time.’

‘I intend to. Have to go,’ and he rang off, just as the supervisor came back into the machine shop. His mother dropped the mobile into her lap and resumed firing.

One more call for Luke and then home.

He rang his little friend, Sahira; he couldn’t forget her, must keep her sweet, promised to see her again soon.

She was pleased to hear from him, but whinged it had taken him so long to call, and then he was on his way back to the flat to wash and change.

Chapter Ten

Langley Wells resembled a hyena. Short and stocky with powerful cuffing forearms, and a weird head that started wide and narrowed down to a snout, a proboscis through which he regularly sniffed.

His father had been short and stocky too, and his father before that; and all the male Wells inherited the same tapering face.

His mother was little and dumpy too, so as Langley grew, his final adult shape surprised no one.

He possessed a temper like a hyena, was fiercely territorial, quick to hatred, and never forgave. But he was also loyal to his friends and family, and generous with his cash when the situation merited it, albeit selectively.

His father was a baker, up at 2am every morning, sometimes waking the entire household as he banged around their council house looking for his boots.

As a boy, Langley Wells had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, but he knew that baking wasn’t for him. He wanted a job that was clean and comfortable, where he could wear nice clothes, one where he could sleep in until at least 8am. It wasn’t asking a lot, he reasoned, as he pondered on how he could attain his goals and dreams.

His father had been generous too, giving Langley more pocket money than any of his friends, and his mother topped it up, believing his father never gave the boy a thing.

Langley wasn’t about to set her straight.

He wasn’t interested in most of the things the other kids on the estate went crazy over. Expensive cards of footballers’ ugly mugs stuck in albums, used and manky postage stamps. What was the point in spending good money on that? Trashy plastic toys that wouldn’t see out the week. 45’s you’d play a handful of times and become bored with, and any of the other faddish rubbish that everyone would be ashamed of buying two months down the line.

No, the young Langley valued his hard-earned money far more than that, and he wasn’t about to squander it on worthless junk.

It was Willie Masefield who first asked Langley Wells for a loan. They were at school one morning just before lessons began. Langley and Willie shared a desk.

‘I need ten bob,’ Willie floated in the air, ‘to buy a new tender for my engine. The old one’s knackered. I could pay you back on Thursday, it’s my birthday, Thursday is. Granddad always gives me cash for my birthday present.’

Langley pondered on the idea for a second.

‘I might be able to help you,’ he said, staring up at the ceiling as if thinking, another queer trait that all the male Wells family adopted.

‘Could you?’ said Willie, getting excited.

‘Maybe. You certain you could pay me back on Thursday?’

Willie nodded, and gasped, ‘Sure thing, pal.’

‘I’d want fifteen shillings back.’

‘What!’

‘You heard me; I’d want fifteen shillings back.’

‘Bit steep, ain’t it?’

‘Take it or leave it.’

Willie Masefield could comfortably afford fifteen shillings, after his birthday he could, and he so wanted that black coal tender with the yellow British Railways logo painted on the side.

‘I’ll take it!’ he said, holding out his hand as if to shake on the deal.

That surprised Langley.

He had never shaken anyone’s hand before, not to seal a deal, but he did so at that moment, though afterwards he wasn’t sure he liked the idea. Willie’s hand was fleshy and hot and sweaty. Not nice at all. It would put Langley Wells off shaking on deals forever.

‘Well?’ said Willie. ‘When can I have the money?’

‘Now,’ said Langley, delving into his deep pockets where his mother’s discarded maroon purse spent most of its time. It was a tiny purse, yet it bulged with coins, and to Willie’s amazement, banknotes too. No other kid on the estate possessed money like that. Langley dragged out a shrivelled and torn rust coloured ten-shilling note. Laid it on the desk. Ironed it out with his wooden ruler. Picked it up and offered it across to his friend.

The temptation was too great. Willie grabbed it.

Langley did not let go.

‘I’m giving you this on condition that you pay back fifteen shillings on Thursday.’

‘I know. So you said.’

‘Don’t even think of letting me down.’

‘I won’t.’

Langley fixed Willie with his steel-grey eyes.

Said, ‘I’ll poke your eye out if you do.’

Willie glanced at Langley’s muscular forearms and an horrific thought flashed into his mind of running round the playground with one eye; and one patch. He knew Langley meant every word.

Both boys were eleven.

––––––––

THE DEAL WENT WELL. Willie had his coal tender, and on the Thursday Langley was at school early, sitting at the desk, waiting. Willie joined him soon after and pursed his lips. Langley imagined Willie was preparing an excuse. He couldn’t wait to get down to business.

‘Got it?’ he said.

Langley was pleased to see Willie nodding.

Langley held out his hand.

Willie reached into his satchel, opened his plastic lunch box. There was an unsealed white envelope in there. Willie held it close to his face so that Langley couldn’t see inside, pulled out a crisp new ten-shilling note, and slid it across the timber.

Birthday present from grandpa, by the look of it; imagined Langley. He picked it up and said, ‘And the rest?’

‘My mum says...’

‘I don’t care what your mum says! Pay up... or go blind!’

Willie peered into Langley’s face. He didn’t like what he saw, and he didn’t want any hassle. Opened the envelope again and fished out two pristine and shiny silver half crowns and reluctantly set them down on the desk.

‘Thank you,’ said Langley as he scooped them up. ‘Nice to do business with you, Willie,’ and he rammed the whole fifteen bob into the maroon purse, and snapped it shut.

The cash would stay there forever, until next time.

Willie was close to tears.

––––––––

AFTER THAT, WORD WENT round the school that if anyone ever needed cash, no matter how small the amount, no matter how soon the borrower needed it, no matter what they wanted it for, just don’t tell your parents, Langley Wells could help. He began keeping a notebook, a small red card backed affair he’d bought in the post office for nine-pence, thin lined, all the better to cram more data into.

Business boomed, especially on Mondays, dinner money day, when some kids would often be short. In his specialised market, Langley had no competitors; and it wasn’t long before he was expanding.

Mrs Buxton was her name, a skinny wastrel of a thing who was always complaining about something or other, four kids, no husband, always in and out of the bookies, dying for a fag and a pint and a hand out giro cheque. It wasn’t hard to figure she would be short of cash before the week was out.

Sure enough, there came a day when she had no money to feed the kids. The pasta jar was empty. It was her daughter Denise who suggested the idea. Denise was hungry and so were the siblings.

‘Why don’t you try Langley?’

‘Try Langley for what?’

‘Money of course, mum, he’s loaded.’

‘And he’d lend me some?’

‘Course he would. He lends to everyone.’

Mrs B pursed her lips and thought she’d try it.

‘Look after the kids,’ she said to the ten-year-old Denise, and she shot out of the house.

Lots of the estate kids hung around outside the red brick post office after school, where they bought crisps and cola and sweeties and comics. And even if Langley wasn’t there, one of the others would know where he was.

He was usually to be found hanging about because it was a good place to do business. There would always be some kid willing to borrow a couple of bob to buy some chocolate or an ice cream and a bottle of Corona. Three bob back tomorrow. Not too bad. It suited both parties well. Most of the kids could find three bob later if they needed to, if they needed to pay back Langley Wells, even if they had to sneak it from their mother’s purse, or the gas or electric meter money tin.

Mrs Buxton hustled over and saw him loitering there, leaning up against the side brick wall of the post office. The ugly little bugger was admiring the short skirt on Willie Masefield’s younger sister, Rosie.

‘Langley, love,’ she called, ‘can I have a word with you?’

Langley did not like being called Langley love, and he didn’t like Mrs Buxton either, and wondered what the hell she wanted, as he wandered sulkily across to her.

‘I need a little money, Langley love, just to tide me over.’

Langley switched on.

‘How much do you want?’

She only wanted a fiver but thought she’d try it on; see what the queer little twerp was made of.

‘I could do with twenty notes.’

Langley pulled a face, whistled through his teeth like they did in the old black and white movies. He could stump up the cash if need be, that wasn’t a problem. Mrs Buxton was the problem. He didn’t rate her, not one bit, and he wondered how and when he’d see his hard-earned money back.

‘When will I get paid?’

‘Thursday, Langley love, when my benefit comes in.’

Langley pulled a face and stared at the clouds. Then he said, ‘Thirty quid back, Thursday without fail.’

‘Bugger off!’

‘Suit yourself,’ and he turned on his heels. He wasn’t that bothered, and headed back toward Rosie Masefield who was skipping on a big rope being swung by two friends, her pink skirt flicking up interestingly on the down jump.

‘Oh, Langley love, wait a sec. You’re all right, you’re a good boy, I can do that, yeah, thirty quid back on Thursday. I can do that. I’ll see you right.’

Langley paused and turned back and peered into her darting eyes. Against his better judgement, he agreed. There was something dangerous about it, something pioneering, with her being an adult, of sorts. It brought a feeling of excitement and exhilaration over him, and he liked that, he liked it a lot.

He took out his newer, larger, black leather purse, and yanked two tenners free. Held them screwed up in his balled hand. Offered them to her, palm down, so no one could see.

‘Thirty back, Thursday night,’ he reiterated through the side of his mouth, ‘I’ll call at five; make sure the money’s ready.’

‘You’ll get your cash back, you little monkey, I’m trustworthy, me.’

She’d wanted to say little prick, not monkey, but guessed correctly that might have screwed up the deal.

Langley stared at her, and slowly opened his hand, and the hot balled tenners flopped into her grubby mitt.

‘Ta, love,’ she said, and she shot off toward the bookmakers, for she knew the evening meeting at Haydock was about to begin. The kids could wait a wee while yet.

It was the biggest loan he’d ever made, and it brought with it the biggest excitement, and the greatest worry.

––––––––

THURSDAY NIGHT TURNED out a bright sunny evening. Langley was knocking on the Buxton’s door at dead on five. He valued punctuality; he valued reliability, and if he expected his customers to be punctual and reliable, the least he could do was be the same. Young Denise came to the door.

‘Hiya, Langley.’

‘Hi, Denise. Is your mum in?’

‘Yeah, sure. Come in.’

She was slumped on the sofa; staring at the telly, a mean look on her skinny face. She’d lost a bit of weight, and she didn’t have much to lose. Maybe she wasn’t eating well. The kids were dreadfully skinny too. Denise had legs like matchsticks.

‘S’pose you’ve come for your money ’ave ya?’

‘Yes, Mrs Buxton.’

‘Don’t you Mrs Buxton me!’

‘We said five o’clock, Thursday. It is Thursday, it is five o’clock,’ he said, glancing pointedly at the mantelpiece clock.

‘I can’t give you all of it; the best I can manage is a freaking fiver.’

‘No good, Mrs Buxton. I don’t do instalments. It’s all or nothing.’

‘Suit yourself, it’s nothing then.’

Langley had planned for such an event. He reached into his pocket. Took out a box of matches. Struck a match. Denise’s eyes lit up, stared into the flame. It reminded her of bonfire night. Langley presented the burning match toward the crammed newspaper rack.

‘If you don’t pay me right now, I’ll burn the house down.’

‘Watch what you are doin’, you little bastard!’

‘Pay me then!’

‘Like hell! You can kiss my arse!’

Langley lit the corner of a section of the red-topped daily trash that was hanging out of the rack. Smoke filled the room. Flames licked up the side.

‘Mum!’ screamed Denise.

‘All right, all right! I’ll pay! Put that fire out!’ she screamed as she leapt from the couch.

Langley grabbed a cushion and smothered the fire.

Mrs B went to the kitchen, came back a moment later, threw three tenners on the floor. Yelled, ‘There’s your money, you little prick! Now get out of my house before I throttle ya, you ugly little bastard!’

Langley stooped and collected his cash.

He was never too proud to get down and pick up money.

‘Look at my beautiful cushion!’ Mrs Buxton shrieked, smacking it, as Denise struggled to open the window.

Langley had his money and that was the only thing that mattered, for he understood what money meant: power. He would have the last laugh, as he usually did. On his way out Mrs B screamed after him, ‘You have no idea what you are messing with! No idea!’

––––––––

BACK THEN, HE DIDN’T. Langley Wells had crossed the Rubicon. He had begun lending to adults. He had moved into a different league. From that day, he would face real and ferocious competition. He would soon find out how tough business could be, though he did have one small compensation.

Setting light to Mrs Buxton’s house brought him a reputation. People gossiped about him, became wary of him, feared him even. He wasn’t quite right in the head. Everyone knew that. Langley Wells was a psycho, a loony. He was almost twelve, a moneylender, and a known arsonist. 

Chapter Eleven

Walter and Karen arrived outside the Swaythling home at two o’clock, rang the buzzer, and the Filipina let them in. Holly Swaythling was sitting in the same chair in the same room.

‘Well, Inspector, I am surprised to see you back so soon.’

‘There were one or two things we wanted to ask you, confidentially, while you were on your own.’

‘Gerry would be furious if he knew you were here. You know that, don’t you?’

‘That’s as maybe, but all we are concerned with is the safety of your son.’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘Did you speak to Neil?’ asked Karen.

‘I did, thank you, and he said I was not to worry... but mothers always worry.’

‘Yes, of course they do,’ said Walter.

‘So ask away, Inspector, before I fall asleep, as I always seem to do in the afternoons these days.’

‘When we asked you yesterday if Gerry had any enemies he said no, but we thought you thought different.’

‘I wouldn’t have said enemies, exactly.’

‘What then?’ asked Karen.

Holly took a deep breath, as if that was an enormous effort.

‘Ten, maybe fifteen years ago, Swaythling Construction wasn’t anything like it is today.’

‘Much smaller?’ said Walter.

‘Yes! Tiny in comparison, and delicate. We were going through one of the cyclical building slumps, as we always seem to do; it was a time when the banks would only lend to the people who didn’t need the money.’

‘Nothing much changes,’ said Karen.

‘True.’

‘And Swaythling’s did need money?’ asked Walter.

‘Very much so. The business was called Swaythling & Ford back then. Gerry had a partner.’

‘A Mr Ford?’ clarified Karen.

Holly nodded. ‘Munro Ford to be specific.’

‘What happened to him?’ asked Walter.

‘The business was in serious financial difficulty. They needed a hundred and sixty grand to survive. Eighty grand per partner. Munro had no connections; no money, nothing. His expertise was on the construction side. He needed to be led when it came to running and pushing a business forward. Pity, really, he was a decent enough chap. But he had no influence, and not a lot of get up and go, and when it came to it, he couldn’t raise a bean of finance, and there’s no sentiment in business, Inspector. Gerry made it clear, he told him straight, if he couldn’t help to save the outfit he would have to go.’

‘And that’s what happened?’ asked Walter.

Holly nodded again.

‘Munro took the huff and buggered off. He didn’t get a penny for his share in the business; it must have rankled terribly, especially when you see what the organisation has grown into today.’

‘It’s profitable now?’ asked Karen.

‘Yes, very,’ she said. ‘You only have to look at this place to see that. Bought and paid for, this house is, not a penny owed on any mortgage. Neil will be a very wealthy young man one day, just so long as he sorts himself out, stops acting the goat, and dumps that fat cradle snatcher.’

‘So what happened to Munro Ford?’ asked Walter.

‘Last I heard, he was driving a taxi.’

‘Ouch!’ said Karen.

‘Precisely,’ said Holly.

‘And Gerry raised the money?’ asked Walter.

‘Yes, he did.’

‘All hundred and sixty K of it?’ persisted Walter.

‘He did.’

‘From the banks?’ asked Karen.

‘No! Course not! They wouldn’t touch him. Not back then.’

‘So from where?’ asked Walter.

‘He wouldn’t tell me for ages, years after.’

‘But you know now?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘So where did the cash come from?’ asked Karen.

Holly paused for a few seconds, as if weighing up whether to reveal what she knew.

‘The Lodge, of course.’

‘The Masonic Lodge?’ asked Karen.

Holly nodded.

There was a moment’s silence as they all thought about that; before Walter said, ‘There’s something else I’d like to ask you.’

‘You’d better be quick, I’m getting sleepy.’

‘Yesterday, as we arrived, we saw a young woman leaving.’

‘Ah, you mean Suzanne?’

‘Do we?’ asked Karen.

‘The pretty blonde?’ clarified Holly.

Walter nodded.

‘I suppose you’d like to know who she is.’

‘Yes,’ said Karen. ‘We would.’

‘Well she’s... she’s Gerry’s mistress.’

Another brief silence and Walter said, ‘And you don’t mind?’

‘Course I mind! But there is nothing I can do about it, is there? He, Gerry that is, has, what shall we say, a very large libido, and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, I, with this condition,’ and she glanced down at her failing body, ‘can no longer fulfil his wishes. I suppose it’s only fair. She’s a decent enough kid, and to tell you the truth; we have become quite close. Crazy, isn’t it? Best pals with my husband’s bit on the side.’

‘Where did he meet her?’ asked Karen.

‘The last holiday we went on, Portugal it was. Suzanne was one of the air hostesses. Gerry took a shine to her right off, as he often does, and she fell for his mature charm, hook line and sinker, stupid girl.’

‘What’s her surname?’

‘Knight.’

‘Where does she live?’ asked Karen.

‘Is that relevant?’

‘Maybe.’

‘She has a flat in town. Gerry pays her visits in the afternoon. Thinks I don’t know about it, but I do. He stinks of her when he comes home, understated French perfume, and he’s always in a good mood.’

‘And what was she doing here yesterday?’ asked Walter.

‘Had some papers to sign.’

‘What papers?’

‘Something to do with her life insurance and Will. Gerry’s organising it for her. They need a lot of life insurance in that line of work. Now I’m sorry, Inspector, but I will have to take my afternoon nap,’ and she called for Hilario to show them out.

‘Thank you so much for seeing us again,’ said Walter, standing.

‘If it helps find the maniac hunting my son, it will have been worthwhile.’

‘Yes, of course, I am sure it will.’

––––––––

A COUPLE OF MINUTES later, they were outside in the car and Karen said, ‘That was revealing.’

‘Yes,’ said Walter, seemingly miles away.

‘Guv?’

‘What?’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘Are you on the square?’

Walter guffawed, didn’t say anything.

‘Well?’ she said, in that persistent way of hers. ‘Are you?’

He still didn’t reply, just pinched the flesh of his right cheek between his finger and thumb and shook it and said, ‘What is this?’

‘Your jowls.’

‘Do you mind! I don’t have jowls! What else?’

‘Your cheek.’

‘What else is it?’

‘It’s the side of your face.’

‘What else!’

‘It’s your black skin.’

‘Aha! At last! Correct!’

‘And they don’t accept black people?’

‘They didn’t back then.’

‘And now?’

‘Who knows? Don’t care.’

‘Would you have joined as a younger man, back then, if you’d had the opportunity?’

‘That’s a hypothetical question.’

‘So what’s the answer?’

‘I don’t do hypothetical questions. I want to talk about the here and now.’

‘If you must.’

‘When we get back to the station, find out where Munro Ford lives. I think we need to pay him a visit.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ but she was still thinking of the Lodge when she said, ‘How come the Masons provided Gerry Swaythling with so much cash when the banks wouldn’t touch him?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Don’t you think we should look into that?’

‘Where do you suggest we start? They are not going to talk to me, are they? I’m black, and I’m not a member, and they are not going to talk to you. You’re female, and you’re not a member either.’

Karen grinned and said, ‘No, but Gibbo is.’

‘Is he? I didn’t know that.’

‘I think so.’

‘Well, even if he is, he’s not going to help us out on this. They are sworn to secrecy, threatened with having their tongue ripped out at dawn if they spill the beans. You know the score.’

‘Oh Gibbo won’t mind about that.’

‘I think you will find he does.’

‘Leave Gibbo to me,’ and she grinned wickedly and said, ‘I still think we should put the frighteners on them.’

‘I think you will find they are not easily frightened. Let’s talk about something else.’

‘Like what?’

‘Suzanne Knight.’

‘I am not surprised at all about that.’

‘About her shacking up with Gerry?’

‘Yeah, I knew he was that kind of man the moment I set eyes on him. He couldn’t let a woman pass in the street without checking her out... and wondering.’

‘He’s fifty odd, for God’s sake.’

‘Doesn’t matter, Guv, not with men like him. He’ll never change.’

‘Come on, take me back to work, we seem to be getting sidetracked, let’s have an update meeting, everyone there, talk it through, see what ideas everyone has.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ she said, smiling to herself, for she still had clear ideas of pumping Darren Gibbons for information. She just might extract things where Walter couldn’t, and that appealed to her.

Chapter Twelve

Langley Wells often thought about the old days. He liked to remember those tough but happy times. He liked to remember Rose too, as she was back then, Willie Masefield’s kid sister, the same girl cum woman he had been married to for longer than he cared to remember.

He had celebrated his fifty-fifth birthday and was still running the same game, and business was still good. When had it not been? People always needed cash.

He still lived on the estate, and in the same house too, though they had long since bought the property under the right to buy scheme. It would have been foolish not to. He’d had an extension built on the side, another one jammed on the back, and another jemmied into the roof space, and they needed it too, with their three twenty-something sons, Lawrie, Lenny and Lewis, all still living at home, all enjoying on-off live-in girlfriends, and on-off grandkids that Langley liked to play with and spoil. The three boys, the L’s, as they were known, all worked in the family businesses. Fact was, none of them had ever considered doing anything else.

There was a rumour going round the estate that Langley was a multimillionaire and possessed a sprawling villa on one of the Spanish Costas overlooking the Mediterranean.

That was ridiculous.

It was in Tuscany.

Or Tuscanshire, as the ever-growing band of expat Brits preferred to call it, as they roamed the countryside as if they owned the place, inspecting their vineyards in their dusty right-hand drive Range Rovers and Norton motorcycles.

It was a rambling building, the Wells Italian home, one that he’d added to over the years. It became something of a fortress, set on top of the perfect hill that looked out over the rolling Italian countryside, where heat-haze bobbled into the air like scent from a rose. Langley had acquired the run-down property years ago for a song during one of the regular property slumps, and had turned it into a wonder home.

He would disappear there twice a year to recharge his batteries, and would return with a deep tan, though he would never discuss it, and trained his family to do likewise. So far as anyone else was concerned, he had been on a cheap package holiday to Benidorm. What they didn’t know, they couldn’t become jealous about.

Outside the family, no one knew of il Pratino Del Cielo, the adjoining lawn of heaven, in roughly translated English, though Langley much preferred the Italian version. He had learnt the language. It had taken him some time, but he’d managed it in the end. Il Pratino Del Cielo, the words rolled off his tongue, his Italian home, the epitome of his life’s work.

He was happy there and one day he would retire there too, but not yet because he still had business to accomplish at home, for he could never lend money in Italia. That would have been beyond the pale.

He was sitting in the courtyard, straw hat on his head to keep off the worst of the midday sun, a half bottle of best Chianti before him, barely touched. He was not a glutton, never had been, preferred to savour the finer things of life in small quantities, figured that was the best way to gain true enjoyment, to take pleasure from everything, sparingly. Pigging out was for pigs, or porco, as he preferred to say in the local lingo.

He was still thinking of the early days.

He was thinking of his forthcoming marriage.

He was twenty and she almost eighteen.

He was thinking of the McIntyres, and bloody Bobby Watson.

––––––––

ROSE MASEFIELD WAS Catholic and to keep her sweet, the wedding was held at Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. Langley’s mind was not on the wedding. He still hadn’t got dressed. He was thinking of Bobby Watson.

The freak had borrowed money from Langley, two hundred and fifty quid, and afterwards he had point blank refused to repay the loan. No one ever refused to repay Langley Wells because most of his customers knew full well they would need to visit the bank of Langley again next week, next month, next year, some time for sure, and they were desperate not to cut off his safe supply of ready cash.

If Bobby Watson could get away with it, and was seen and heard to be bragging in the Golden Bell about how he hadn’t bothered to repay the strange Wells man, then anyone could. Langley grimaced at the thought, and tried hard not to see the total figure of unpaid loans he had outstanding. It was vast, stretching to more than two thousand individual transactions. The small red notebook had long since morphed into several vast maroon ledgers that could be screwed open and expanded, into which additional pages would often be added.

What would happen if they all decided not to pay?

He would be ruined.

All his hard work would have been for nothing.

Langley belched. The thought of it was giving him indigestion, and on his blessed wedding day, too.

‘Are you ready yet, Langley?’ his mother called through. ‘I swear that boy would be late for his own funeral,’ she muttered.

‘Don’t speak of funerals today of all days, mother,’ said Langley’s father, ‘not on the boy’s wedding day.’

The problem was still in Langley’s head when they piled into the car, patiently waiting outside. Fact was, he was late for his own wedding, forcing Rose in her larger, smarter car to circumvent the block three times, as she grew more upset at the thought the crazy man had grown cold feet overnight. She would remind him of that countless times through the coming years. She imagined he experienced second thoughts when nothing was further from the truth, though he wasn’t about to set her straight on that.

The thought of not turning up had never crossed Langley’s mind. He loved Rose Masefield completely, loved her to bits, always had, and had never touched another woman, not in passion, and yet he still couldn’t stop thinking about bloody Bobby Watson.

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CAROLE AND NORMAN MCINTYRE had been married for twenty-two years, coincidentally married in the same church. They lived on the far side of the estate and were irregular customers of Langley’s. For once they didn’t owe him anything and were mighty happy to be that way, and that was down to Carole Mac, as her friends called her, because she worked her rocks off.

Starting at seven cleaning at the local primary school, washing and polishing the brown square tiled floors. After that, she’d hurry to the kwik discount utilitarian supermarket on the out-of-town shopping estate, the place where they piled it high and sold it cheap, or at least told everyone they did, where Carole would spend the day working flat out on the tills, often serving many of her neighbours and friends who would smile at her embarrassingly.

She enjoyed her work there. It was interesting to see the rubbish everyone else bought, and the quality of the meals, or lack of it, some of them enjoyed. If Carole Mac had been forced to eat the sludge some of her neighbours took home, she would have emigrated.

At six o’clock she’d hurry home for a frantic tea, a quick wash and change, and scurry to the Golden Bell for half-past seven, where she’d turn on her smiley, bubbly head, and face many of the same people she had served earlier in the not-so-super supermarket. They would gaze into their pints, and check their lottery tickets, and moan about their lot in life, and throw some cash into the coin eating fruit machine, and wonder where it had all gone wrong.

By the time they had put the towels up and washed the glasses, Carole would rarely get home before half-past eleven, in time to see her husband ensconced in front of the television set eating cheap crisps and watching football. For the most part, the McIntyres kept away from the tentacles of the eager moneylenders, and that was down to Carole Mac.

‘Had a good night, love?’ he’d say, the same thing every night.

Yeah, sure, wonderful, she would think, though she wouldn’t say. 

Norman hadn’t been to work. He never did. He had a bad back. Collected a decent whack of disability allowance. That would do him.

He would struggle, grunting in pain, into their old hatchback, and drive to the Golden Bell and force down a few pints, yet when he was in the house alone he would race the dog up and down the stairs, laughing crazily, the dog barking mad, a game that he and the dog enjoyed. It kept them fit, and nary a twinge.

Carole Mac staggered to bed searching for sleep, for she had to be up again at six.

The following day when she came home for tea, he imagined he would make her happy because he’d bought an old goose in the Bell at lunchtime for three quid from Jackie Spenser. This time, it had been plucked and gutted. God knows where it came from; probably from the canal.

You could always find something to eat on the canal if you were desperate enough, and especially where the smallholding ran down to the water, where chickens and ducks and geese would break free and make a run for it, out of the frying pan, and all that.

Norman McIntyre fancied himself as a cook.

He had taken to watching cookery programmes on the television when there was no football showing, and would copy the dishes and try them on his tired guinea pig of a wife.

He was experimenting that evening.

Intended to serve up roast goose with apples and prunes, and that was a first. He had been at it ages, and hoped his wife understood and appreciated how much hard work he had put into bringing the creature and creation to the table. Cutting and peeling and slicing the Cox’s orange pippins, de-stoning the pound of no-soak prunes, messy job, as he squinted at his illegible handwriting, scribbled down, for those TV chefs spoke far too quick.

The old goose was roasting.

Smelling delightful, the aroma of sizzling fowl permeating every corner of their small home.

Needed a lot of emptying though, the fat did. Do all gooses, or was it geese, produce so much fat? He pondered, or was it because this was an old beast caught on the hop? He had no idea, didn’t much care either, so long as it tasted good, and his dear wife appreciated how much hard work he had put in, and all for her.

Still time for another run up those stairs with Daisy, though.

Up and down the stairs, up and down!

Deep breath!

Daisy was a cross bull something or other with a Doberman, Rottweiler cross, and an ugly bitch at that, and the thought occurred to him that his dog was almost as pig ugly as Langley Wells. He was getting married that same day, almost as ugly, but not quite. Norman laughed aloud.

Daisy worked herself into a state of excitement not seen since the last turkey roast the previous Christmas. The scent of roasting goose was too much for her, but there was still time to play, as Norman hurried to the stairs and yelled, ‘Come on, girl! Indoor walkies!’ as he strode up the stairs one more time. He would try to complete fifteen runs that day. Twenty-two was his all time record, though he failed to match it.

Three times up and three times down, Norman laughing like crazy, the dog barking louder than ever, when Norman caught a whiff of burning goose.

Time to empty the bloody fat... again.

‘Just a sec, Daisy,’ he said, ‘won’t be a mo. You stay there, I don’t want your snout in the tray,’ and he closed the hall door, shutting the dog out of the kitchen.

Went to the cooker. Saw the collected fat in the glass basin, three quarters full, sitting on the top of the cooker. Saw the electric ring beneath, glowing.

‘Oh, shit!’ he said. ‘You’re not supposed to be on!’

Reached across to the dials at the top of the back of the cooker, turned the front ring to zero, and breathed out. Glanced back at the smoking fat, knew he couldn’t touch the glass for the heat. Considered reaching for the oven glove.

Too late.

Crack!!!

Crash!!!

Bang!!!

The toughened glass basin exploded.

Scolding fat blew into his face.

A chunk of jagged glass buried itself deep into his shoulder; another smaller piece removed his right eyebrow. Norman McIntyre collapsed to the floor. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t move. He entered a state of shock. Daisy barked, but no one paid any attention because Daisy was always barking.

Ten minutes later, Carole arrived home.

Something smelled good, she thought, as she shrugged off her raincoat and let herself in by the back door. Duck by the smell of it, and Norman did a decent duck `a l’orange, even if he went a little heavy on the l’orange. The dog was barking, but the damn dog was always barking.

‘Shut up, Daisy!’ Carole yelled as she entered the kitchen.

Norman was lying on his back, moaning. His face covered in smoking goose fat and broken glass.

His shoulder bleeding fast.

There was a cut on his face, and a glutinous mixture of fat and fresh blood decorated her kitchen floor. Broken glass everywhere, ugly vindictive pieces that you wouldn’t want to step on.

In the background, the aroma of burning old goose.

‘Norman!’ she shrieked, bending over him.

Norman moaned, nothing more.

In the hall, the dog barked again.

‘Shut the hell up!’ screamed Carole. She had never liked that hideous animal. 

‘Oh, God!’ and she reached over and turned off the cooker, went to the hall door, pushed her way through without letting the dog into the kitchen. The dog wanted to play, the dog wanted to eat, the dog would have licked Norman’s face clean, given the chance.

Carole hustled to the phone. Dialled triple nine.

‘Ambulance quick, my husband is cooking! Quick as you can. I think he’s dying!’

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THE AMBULANCE SET OFF five minutes later, the driver and his mate laughing at the tale they’d been told about a bloke roasting a dinner, set himself on fire, and now he was cooking too. You had to smile. You couldn’t make it up. You heard such weird tales in the job. You’d better get your foot down before he gets cold!

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BOBBY WATSON HAD BEEN having trouble with his hearing. He was on the way to the evening surgery to have them syringed.

He was thinking of buying a new colour television, complete with the new revolutionary front-loading video recording machine. You could record dirty movies on them, and stop the picture still and replay the filthiest moments, and how clever was that? He still had most of the money he’d screwed out of the tight arse, Langley Wells, and Langley wouldn’t miss the money. Everyone knew he was loaded, though Bobby would have to borrow more. He would use one of Langley’s competitors, and they would welcome the business too, because word was, they were struggling to compete with the ugly little git.

Bobby skipped across the road to jump the bus the three stops to the surgery. Thought he heard the bus coming. Probably not with his ears. Glanced up to see the ambulance hurtling round the corner. Dashing toward the house of the roasting man, dashing toward Bobby Watson.

Bobby stood frozen, transfixed, in the middle of the road.

‘Look out!’ yelled the paramedic, sitting alongside the driver.

Too late.

The aging, but chunky ambulance, smacked Bobby Watson full in the face, knocked him into the air, kicked him hard, bashed him again as he fell to earth, and ran him over for good measure. The ambulance skidded to a halt, half way on the grass verge. The paramedic jumped out and rushed back to inspect the carnage, as the driver slumped in his seat, shaking his head, cursing the day.

––––––––

LANGLEY WELLS STRUGGLED to recover the money from Bobby Watson; and he never did.

––––––––

WEIRD RESULTS SPRING from unexpected events, and they did from the sudden and violent death of Bobby Watson.

People began talking. Gossip was rife.

When Langley heard of Bobby’s violent death, he was mortified. His business had never suffered such a loss. He would have to work doubly hard to recoup the damage.

But he need not have worried, for when he returned from his honeymoon in Corfu, the first time he had ever travelled to the sunny Med, he was surprised to discover that all his clients were up to date with their repayments, not one laggard among them. More than that, many of them adopted a more reverential air toward him. Spoke to him more politely too, even asked him for advice, something no one had done before.

He made discrete enquiries to find out why.

The intelligence he received back amazed him.

Common wisdom had it that Langley Wells had ordered Bobby’s execution. No one believed it had been an accident. Everyone knew Bobby Watson was in hock to Langley Wells for hundreds of pounds, and everyone knew Bobby had taken a stand and had reneged on the debt, and how it had cost him.

Langley Wells was putting matters straight; everyone believed that, it was obvious. It was only to be expected. It was a lesson to them all. Don’t pay, don’t live, an easy equation. The man had a history of it, setting fire to people’s homes, bullying and intimidating them. It was no surprise. It was simple. If you borrowed money from Langley Wells, you paid him back, whatever it took, and woe betide you if you didn’t.

Langley smiled inwardly and remained silent.

Business boomed like never before.

Two of his thorny competitors melted away, frightened at what might happen to them. The aftermath of the peculiar death of Bobby Watson rumbled on for years.

Norman McIntyre was OK though, after a year or two, and several painful skin grafts, though his face never quite recovered.

He never laughed at ugly people again.

Carole Mac went back to work, determined more than ever to keep her family from the iron grip of Langley Wells, and his ilk. She’d heard there might be a few extra hours available at the school, maybe even weekends, too. She’d take it if she could. Of course she would. She needed the money. The whole family did.

Chapter Thirteen

It was a couple of minutes to four when Luke pushed the doorbell at the Kirton’s four bedroom detached family home. Melanie was in for a big surprise.

He’d grown a thick moustache and was taller than before, Cuban heels, and most weirdly of all, he’d gone orange.

‘What the hell?’ she said, as she opened the front door, as Pugsley tried to dash out and race next door to see the black poodle Pugsley was sweet on.

‘Oh no you don’t!’ she said, as she grabbed his collar and dragged him back to the kitchen.

‘This it?’ said Luke, glancing down at the single case.

‘Yep, plus my hand luggage,’ she said. ‘I’ll be with you in a tick.’

Luke turned about and hurried back to the car and rammed the case in the back of his silver sports. He was eager to get away, didn’t want anything to do with either of the parents who were stuck up pricks, so far as he was concerned.

He sat in the car and watched her lock the front door. He wasn’t sure he liked the primrose trouser suit, but the jacket was short and the pants were tight, and she had the most perfect backside, and the beige extra high heels were amusing.

Then she was in the car, glancing across at him.

‘Are you going to tell me what this new image is about?’

‘I felt like a change.’

‘It’s that all right. I’m not sure I like it. You look like a spiv.’

‘You’ll like it, squeaker,’ he said.

‘Don’t call me that, I don’t like it.’

‘I’ll call you what I like.’

‘I thought the point of going to Italy was to get a tan, not to go there caked in a false one.’

‘The point of going to Italy, doll, is for us to spend some quality time together, get my meaning? Are we going to enjoy this holiday, or are we going to bicker?’

She glanced at him again and into his blue eyes and realised she might spoil things, and remembered how much he excited her, and said, ‘Oh sorry, darling,’ and she reached across and kissed him, depositing pink lipstick on his lips, and muzzy.

The moustache tickled, and she didn’t know whether she liked that either. It wasn’t even his, it couldn’t have been; it wasn’t there when she last saw him. What was the complete wazzock playing at? He was always doing crazy things, though she didn’t say, for she didn’t want to upset him again.

In the next second he’d started the car and they were away, heading toward Manchester airport and glorious Italy beyond.

––––––––

THEY HAD BEEN ON THE flight for twenty minutes when he ambled to the lavatories and removed the moustache and slipped it into the slim plastic cover and then in his wallet. He didn’t think it possible the police were looking for him, but it was always best not to take chances, and he liked the excitement of disguise.

He hadn’t yet decided whether to wear it on the return journey. He washed his face, but the tan was not for turning, so he winked at himself in the mirror and returned to Mel.

‘That’s some improvement,’ she said, staring up at him and linking his arm as he sat beside her, and maybe she could get used to the additional height too. It had never bothered her before, his slightness, but this new taller Luke could grow on her. ‘Come here,’ she said, and she pulled him close and kissed him properly. A promise of things to come, he imagined.

Honeymooners thought the older couple across the aisle, stuck out a mile, lucky things. Make the most of it, for it will only be a fleeting moment.

––––––––

THE HOTEL WAS BEYOND fabulous, their suite luxury beyond compare, the views to die for, the food incredible, the wine as good as she had ever tasted, and the sex beyond measure, and so much of it. The guy was like a buck rabbit on rechargeable batteries. He could not get enough of her, something she put down to her innate ability to attract men, something she had recognised since she was twelve, and something she felt very comfortable with, and grateful for.

True, he could go over the top, become a little rough, more than a little sometimes. But she could live with that, especially if it pleased him, because that was what she wanted to do. Please Luke Edward Flowers totally and utterly, and she would do whatever it took to accomplish it, almost anything.

––––––––

SHE WAS SITTING IN the salon, Luigi’s this time. It had become something of a ritual whenever they went to Italy, or anywhere else. She would have her hair done in the best local salon, and that meant the most expensive place, and expensive in Venice was expensive indeed.

She needed it too, after the torrid night he’d put her through. Her hairstyle was wrecked and ruined and needed all of Luigi’s skills to set it right.

‘Signorina,’ he pleaded, ‘what-a you do with this fine-a blond-a hair? Mamma Mia!’

She smiled at the handsome man in the mirror and shrugged her shoulders, tried hard not to blush, too embarrassed to say a word, for she imagined Luigi could guess if he tried.

––––––––

LUKE SAT OUTSIDE ON a crowded bench, as a bunch of middle-aged Americans hiding under straw hats, threw corn for the pigeons. One of the birds thanked the visitors by squirting poop at them as it dashed for the barley.

Luke saw it coming, swayed to his left out of the way, and it landed on the corn thrower’s left forearm.

‘It’s lucky, you know,’ the guy grinned, beaming round and staring stupidly at the others, and Luke, and anyone else who saw it, as the American’s wife handed him a tissue and said, ‘Wipe yourself, Wilbur.’

Lucky my backside, thought Luke, as he took out his phone and rang Sahira.

‘Where are you?’ she whispered.

‘Venice,’ he said. He could tell she was whispering, but he heard her OK. If she was whispering, it could mean she was at home and didn’t want to be overheard.

‘What are you doing there?’

‘On holiday, what do you think?’

‘With her again, I suppose.’

‘Don’t start that again. Where are you?’

‘In my bedroom. I was just thinking about you. When are you coming home?’

‘Week on Friday.’

‘That long! When are you going to see me again?’

‘Don’t know yet, we’ll have to fix something later.’

‘You do want to see me again, Luke, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, course I do, doll. You know that.’

‘Sometimes I wonder.’

‘Look, I’ll bell you as soon as I get home. I’ll have to go, the battery’s going.’

‘OK, make sure you do, and Luke...’

‘What?’

‘I love you very much.’

‘Course you do, doll.’

Then she said in a rush, ‘Sorry I’ll have to go, dad’s coming!’ and she cut off, leaving Luke staring at his silent latest design handset.

Silly bitch, he said aloud, but it didn’t matter, for the Americans had gone, to be replaced by a gang of nouveau riche Russians who smiled down at him, but couldn’t speak or understand a word of English.

Ten minutes later, Melanie came out of the hairdressers and stood before him and said, ‘Well, what do you think?’

Luke’s eyes widened, and he jumped up and grabbed her and kissed her lips and blonde hair and whispered, ‘You look fantastic. Come on!’ and he grabbed her hand and tugged her back toward the hotel.

‘I thought we were going for a trip on the lagoon.’

‘Bugger the lagoon!’

‘Luke!’ she protested. ‘I was looking forward to that.’

‘I have something far more important you can look forward to. Come on!’ and he dragged her back to their suite, and the amazing big bed.

Chapter Fourteen

Walter stood up and called across the room, ‘Listen up, everyone!’ The hum of conversation died away, and they all turned and stared at Darriteau. ‘Better!

Time to focus. Jeffrey Player, murdered, shot dead in the Ship pub, Friday night.’ Walter nodded at Karen, who was standing by the info board.

She nodded back and smiled at the gang and pointed at the smiling picture of Jeff Player, the photograph supplied that morning by his sniffling mother.

Walter began again. ‘The attempted murder of Neil Swaythling between the lockups,’ Karen pointed to Neil’s pic. ‘We believe the killing of Player was a mistake, an accident. We think the killer was gunning for Neil. The unfortunate Player got in the way.’

No one disagreed.

‘Neil is housed in a safe place,’ Walter’s deep and lugubrious voice filled the room. He kept the young Swaythling’s whereabouts secret to three people, himself, Karen, and the boss, Mrs West. He’d done that because he was worried there could be a mole in the house. Some idiot prepared to sell info to the press, or anyone else who waved a bunch of banknotes. It had happened before, and Walter wasn’t taking any risks. ‘He will remain out of sight until the killer is caught. As you know, the murderer believes his last strike was successful, that’s what the press believes too, so let’s keep it that way. Anyone found releasing anything different will be disciplined, and if I have my way, fired,’ and he glanced at Mrs West, as if seeking support. Most of those present did so too. She sensed her moment.

‘Make no mistake about it,’ she said. ‘Anyone releasing information on this sensitive matter could be endangering Neil Swaythling’s life. In the event of Neil being murdered, anyone doing so could be charged as an accessory to murder.’

In her strident and unattractive voice, she’d made her point.

Walter bobbed his head and said, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

Mrs West stared out at her charges. She found it hard to imagine any of them had sold intelligence for cash, but Walter believed it, and that was enough for her to take it seriously. Walter was talking again.

‘This is an accurate picture of the killer.’

Karen pointed at the pic and smiled at her audience, much like a porter might at an art auction. 

‘Neil Swaythling saw the killer up close and personal, and he says this is a good likeness, so we know it to be true. We believe the killer is local, Neil said his accent was definitely local, so he shouldn’t be that hard to find.’

‘Maybe he’s fled the area,’ said Hector Browne.

Detective Constable Hector Browne was the newcomer on the team. He had been fast-tracked from university and made no secret he was aiming for big things in crime detection. He was six feet tall, thin as a rake; boasted wavy dark reddish hair, side parted, and wore heavy spectacles that he said he didn’t need. Everyone was wary of Hector Browne; but they always were with strangers.

Walter bobbed his head and pressed on.

‘Yes, that’s possible, though we have been watching ports and airports, but even if he has, it’s maybe temporary. If he’s local, it’s likely he’ll soon be back. There are three big questions here. One, why was he trying to kill Neil Swaythling, what is the motive? Two, who is he, and three, where is he now?’ Walter motioned to Karen, and she took up the story.

‘Neil Swaythling’s father is Gerry Swaythling, the owner of Swaythling Construction. For those of you that don’t know, Swaythling Construction is a successful builder of super-luxury homes. We are talking of dealing with the mega rich here. Some years ago Swaythling had a partner called Munro Ford, but they fell out big time and Munro was ruined. I am expecting to trace his address later today and when we do we shall pay him a visit.’

‘So what are you saying?’ interrupted Hector. ‘That Munro is trying to kill the son to get back at the father?’

‘Could be,’ said Karen. ‘We don’t have anything better.’

‘So this killer guy is a hired gun doing it for money?’

‘That’s possible,’ said Walter.

‘Geez, it sounds more like Chicago than Chester,’ said Hector. ‘Are you sure you guys are not getting carried away?’

Walter glared at Hector, as did everyone else. Didn’t appreciate his bumptious tone. Perhaps he needed bringing down a peg or two.

‘If you don’t think it’s possible, wonderboy,’ muttered Gibbons, ‘have you got anything better?’

‘Could be any number of things,’ said Hector, aware he was basking in the not altogether unwanted spotlight.

‘Such as?’ said Karen.

‘Maybe Neil stole the killer’s girlfriend. Neil’s a handsome guy, maybe the killer got annoyed and tried to kill him.’

‘So why did he shoot the wrong man?’ asked Walter.

‘Ah yes, hadn’t thought of that.’

‘Geez,’ said Gibbons. ‘We are wasting our time here, Guv.’

Walter nodded at the crowd and began again, as Hector faded into the background.

‘Ten, maybe fifteen years ago, when the bust up at Swaythling occurred, the business almost went bankrupt. They needed a big loan to climb out of the black hole. There was a recession on at the time...’

‘When isn’t there?’ muttered Gibbons, and one or two tittered at that.

Walter continued. ‘The company survived by introducing finance from an outside source.’

‘Like where?’ said Hector, unable to keep out of things for long.

‘We don’t know exactly where,’ said Karen, ‘but it would seem it came from someone within the Lodge.’

‘The Masons?’ clarified Hector, eyes wide and interested, and Walter wasn’t alone in wondering if Hector Browne was a member of the Lodge.

Walter nodded and checked out Gibbons. He’d gone quiet, Karen watched him too. He may have been silent but she would ask him about it one-to-one when the opportunity arose.

‘What is the significance of that?’ persisted Hector.

‘We don’t know,’ said Karen, ‘but if there was any trouble repaying the loan, or if the lender and the lendee fell out, there could be something there.’

‘Also,’ said Walter, ‘bear in mind if the bank wouldn’t lend, the eventual lender would demand hard terms, a big interest rate; maybe more than that, maybe additional difficult terms and conditions, and that could have placed more stress and pressure on the business.’

‘What does Swaythling say about that?’ asked Hector.

‘We haven’t asked him yet.’

‘Why the hell not?’

Karen pulled a face and glanced at Walter. He jumped in.

‘Sometimes it’s best not to leap in like a blind bullock, especially when we are not sure of our facts. We are throwing ideas around here, nothing more at this stage. We are looking for constructive comments and anything that might push the inquiry forward,’ and Walter nodded at Hector to see if the penny had dropped.

Hector scowled and looked away.

‘There is another thing,’ said Karen.

‘Like what?’ said Gibbons.

Karen continued, ‘Relationships between Neil and his parents are strained. Neil said his parents threatened to disinherit him. Gerry admitted the two men didn’t get along and rarely spoke. Neil doesn’t live at home anymore, he’s dating a woman in her forties and the parents are aghast at that.’

‘Probably looking out for grandkids,’ said Walter. ‘Neil’s an only child and this Veronica Camberwell woman ain’t gonna provide that.’

Hector again, ‘Are you suggesting the father might be targeting his only son because he hasn’t given him grandkids? Killing him isn’t going to do it, is it?’

‘We are not suggesting anything, Hector; we are merely looking at all possibilities, examining the known facts. We know the relationship between them is strained, we can’t ignore that, and until we know different, we keep an open mind. Gerry Swaythling is someone who could be behind this. No more, no less.’

‘Geez, a bit of a long shot.’

‘Sometimes long shots come up,’ muttered Gibbons, glaring across at Browne and mouthing, ‘knobhead!’

‘Rule nothing out,’ said Karen, echoing Walter’s words, ‘until we know different.’

WPC Jenny Thompson had been quiet to date, though she didn’t miss much. In a moment’s silence she asked, ‘This Veronica Camberwell woman, what do we know about her?’

‘I am coming to that,’ said Karen.

‘She’s hardly likely to order Neil’s killing if they are lovers, is she?’ said Hector, sighing aloud.

‘I’m not saying she is,’ said Jenny, fighting her corner. ‘But if we know something of her background, it might lead us somewhere.’

‘Quite right, Jenny,’ said Walter, nodding at Karen who he knew had been working on Camberwell’s CV.

Karen took up the thread and said, ‘She lives in a big rambling house near Willaston village on the Wirral, a former Baronial manor; built yonks ago. She was left it by her husband when he died of a heart attack when they were on holiday in the States. He was twenty years older than her. There’s no mortgage on the property and she’s got pots of cash in the bank. Seems she likes to spend it by going out clubbing where she has met a succession of attractive young men. Neil is the latest model.’

‘Lucky her,’ said Jenny, and the two women shared a knowing glance.

Karen continued, ‘Her husband invested in a sleepy Mersey based freight forwarding business in the seventies, bought out the partners, changed its name to Camberwell Freight, and built it into one of the biggest businesses of its type operating out of Liverpool. They have offices in...’ and Karen glanced down at her notes, ‘Tower Buildings, that’s the one, fifth floor. A conservative value for the business is put between four and five mill; and Veronica has recently placed it on the market.’

‘For sale?’ clarified Walter.

‘Yes, with Jones and Sons in Hamilton Square, Birkenhead.’

‘How the other half live, eh?’ muttered Gibbons, thinking of his burgeoning overdraft, and the frequent hoity toity letters from his bank manageress.

‘You’re just miffed she didn’t make eyes at you,’ smirked Jenny, and they all laughed at that, and Gibbons said, ‘Too bloody right.’

‘Is there any connection between Camberwell and Swaythling?’ asked Walter.

‘Not that I can find, other than Neil,’ said Karen.

‘Keep looking. Just because we haven’t found it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.’

‘So where do we go from here?’ asked Mrs West, who had been silent for some time, content to watch her charges, allocating each one a five-minute slot, for staff assessment purposes. Those individual reports would soon be due again. It was a good question, and Walter was eager to answer.

‘We are going to interview Munro as soon as his whereabouts are known. Gibbons, I want you to keep looking into Veronica Camberwell’s background, and Browne and Thompson, you concentrate on Swaythling. The rest of you, take a good look at this ugly mug,’ and he pointed at the killer’s photofit face, ‘and get out there and find him!’

Chapter Fifteen

Walter called Karen into the private office. She sat by the desk and wondered what was on his mind. He sighed and eased back in his chair and said,

‘This Masonic business, I’m loath to do it, but I think we need to pay them some attention.’

‘My thoughts all along.’

‘Thought we might ask Gibbons in, see what he thinks.’

‘Doubt he’ll say a word.’

‘We don’t need him to say anything,’ and he winked at her and picked up the phone and dialled Darren’s extension.

‘Supercop!’ said Gibbons, expecting it to be the switchboard girl.

‘Yes, well, thank you for that, Gibbons; would the supercop care to join us, room four?’

‘Sorry, Guv, be with you in a tick.’

Karen budged over and set out another chair close to the desk. Gibbons knocked, Walter yelled him in, and in the next moment he sat at the desk, wondering what was going down.

Walter said, ‘We need to look more closely into the affairs at the Lodge, we need to look at any big loans that came Gerry Swaythling’s way; who they were from, and on what terms.’

Gibbons shifted in his seat.

‘Can’t talk about that, Guv, you know how it is, sworn to secrecy, and all that.’

‘One man has been murdered,’ said Karen, ‘and another is in the crosshairs; you can’t ignore that, Gibbo.’

‘I know that! But I am not involved, and I can’t say anything about it.’

Walter leant across the desk.

‘I don’t want you to say anything about it, Gibbons; I don’t want you to betray any solemn oaths into which you may have entered.’

‘Thanks Guv; knew you’d understand.’

‘I don’t want you to utter a word, and I won’t ask you anything about the Lodge. I just want you to give an indication, say strum your fingers on the desk, to one simple question. You don’t need to speak, you don’t even need to think about it, no one will ever know.’

‘I don’t know about that, Guv.’

‘This is important, Darren, for you, for us, and for Neil Swaythling. Think carefully about it,’ and Walter stared into the vulnerable young man’s eyes.

Gibbons stared back, didn’t say a thing, didn’t blink; didn’t move a muscle.

Walter paused as if thinking of his question and then said, ‘Are we wasting our time, or do we need to look further into Swaythling’s financial affairs?’

They stared at Gibbons, glanced down at his hand on the desk. It didn’t move, not a flicker. Muscular arm, big firm hand, rock solid, neatly clipped and clean fingernails, fingers still. Walter sighed, said nothing; still looked. The middle finger, right hand, flipped up and down in an instant, just the once. If you hadn’t been concentrating, you’d have missed it. Nothing else. Gibbons turned and glanced out of the window. Sat perfectly still and said, ‘Is that everything, Guv?’

‘It is, thank you, Darren, you can get off now.’

Gibbons jumped up and shot outside.

‘What did you make of that?’ asked Karen.

‘Definite affirmative, I’d say.’

‘Not a nervous twitch?’

‘Nah! No chance. Does he look like a man with a nervous disposition?’

He didn’t. Karen shook her head.

‘The local Lodge meets at 8pm on Tuesday,’ said Walter.

‘How do you know that?’

‘I overheard two traffic guys talking about it in the bog. They shut up like nervous clams when I came bumbling out of the stalls to wash my hands.’

Karen couldn’t stifle a laugh.

Walter was talking again. ‘You know the friendly fire solicitor?’

‘Which one?’

‘Wilkes and Partners.’

‘What about them?’

‘Their office overlooks the Lodge.’

‘So?’

‘I thought you could go down there and sweet talk Mr Wilkes into letting us use his premises to monitor who goes in and who comes out, on Lodge night. You don’t need to tell him that. Say we are monitoring street violence at night, something like that. We’ll have to send a couple of the rookies down there to do it, otherwise he might get suspicious.’

‘What if he’s a Mason?’

‘He isn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He’s Jewish.’

‘And Jews are not admitted either?’

‘Not often.’

‘Wilkes doesn’t sound like a Jewish name to me.’

‘It isn’t. The family name was Wilkenberg; they came from Germany, years ago, long before the Nazi scum oozed from the slime. Around 1900 I think.’

‘Why did they change their name?’

‘Expediency. It’s a common thing, immigrants fiddling with their names to fit in with the locals, been going on for centuries. Muller becomes Miller, Rainsberg becomes Rainsbury, that kind of thing. You don’t think those guys in Buckingham Palace were always called Windsor, do you?’

Karen giggled, then pulled a thoughtful face and said, ‘Don’t tell me, your name isn’t really Darriteau?’

‘Oh, shut up!’

‘When do you want me to see Wilkes?’

‘No time like the present, Sergeant, and take Jenny with you. Mr Wilkes likes the ladies. I’d have gone myself otherwise.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Retentive memory, all good policemen have a retentive memory.’

‘And women, Guv, and women.’

‘Yeah, that too, I’ll see you later.’

––––––––

AFTER SHE’D GONE, HE went and had a chat with Mrs West. Fixed up for Gibbons to attend a five-day course on dealing with hostage situations, it was a local thing up at Bromborough, and it started the next day, he didn’t even have to leave home, and it would get him out of the way, just in case DC Darren Gibbons was the mole.

Gibbons wasn’t best pleased about it, thought he smelt a rat, but Mrs West insisted it was something he must do, and ten minutes after that he was on his way home to get ready to listen to five dull days of hostage speak.

––––––––

KAREN CAME BACK AN hour later and called Walter into a private room.

‘We’re in luck.’

‘Oh yeah?’ 

‘The room that’s overlooking the street has a great view across the road to the Lodge entrance and it’s being redecorated, the room that is. They haven’t started yet, but all the furniture has been taken out. It’s perfect.’

‘And Mr Wilkes?’

‘Sent his regards, said we could have it for the week.’

‘We only need it for the one night.’

‘Told him that, he seemed happy enough.’

‘Do you think he knew what we are after?’

‘He’d have to be pretty thick if he didn’t.’

‘I don’t care what he thinks, so long as we get what we want.’

‘Course. We need to have our people in there in situ before seven.’

‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘Who are you thinking of using?’

‘Jenny and the new guy.’

‘Hector Browne?’ she said. ‘Is that wise?’

‘I think so, he’s a bright kid. Any reason why not?’

‘No reason at all, just so long as he isn’t a Mason.’

‘He isn’t, I’ve checked.’

‘How did you do that?’

Walter tapped his nose, and she knew he wouldn’t say anymore more about that.

‘He’s young, he’s keen, and he’s capable.’

‘He’s also bumptious, big-headed, unlikeable... and a moron.’

Walter grinned, didn’t say a word.

‘You were right about Wilkes, by the way,’ she said.

‘Oh?’

‘He asked Jenny for a date.’

‘The fool. He must be fifty if he’s a day. What did Jenny say?’

‘Said she was engaged.’

Walter laughed. ‘Is she?’

‘First I’ve heard of it.’

‘What a pillock.’

––––––––

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Walter and Karen called Jenny and Hector into the private office.

‘We have an important job for you,’ Karen explained.

‘Great,’ said Jenny.

‘What kind of job?’ asked Hector.

‘Reconnaissance. Observation and photography,’ said Karen.

Hector exhaled and sat back in his chair. Long boring hours doing nothing, trying to keep the eyes open. It wasn’t his idea of detection in the twenty-first century.

‘Where?’ asked Jenny.

‘Across from the Masonic Lodge,’ said Karen.

‘When?’ said Hector.

‘Tuesday night.’

‘It’s an important job that has to be done well. Are you up for it?’ said Walter.

‘Course,’ said Jenny.

Hector nodded.

‘Don’t nod, Hector, speak,’ said Walter.

‘Sure, Guv, if that’s what you want.’

‘Good. We want you to photograph everyone going in, and everyone coming out. We’ve arranged a room for you in Wilkes & Partners, solicitors, they have an office opposite, Jenny has already seen the room, it’s perfect, isn’t it, Jen?’

‘Sure, Guv, great view, first floor, right across the street.’

‘We want video and stills, you’ll need to be there by half-past six, and you won’t get away until the early hours, so get plenty of sleep the day before, and don’t come in till lunchtime. Understand?’

They nodded, and both said, ‘Sure, Guv.’

‘On the Wednesday morning at nine we’ll go through everything you take.’

Hector was already wondering how much kip he’d get on Tuesday night.

Walter said, ‘Go and see Bob Smith, he’ll show you the equipment we want you to use. He’ll kit you out with everything you need, ask him to fill you in on anything you don’t understand. Make sure you know what you are doing, and don’t muck up.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Jenny.

‘Off you go,’ said Walter, and Jenny and Hector left the room.

‘Do you think they are capable?’ asked Karen.

‘They’d better be,’ said Walter. ‘Anyway, how hard is it to take a few pictures?’

There was a knock on the door.

‘Yeah!’ shouted Walter.

Debby Wilson opened and looked around the side of the door.

‘Thought you’d like to know we’ve found an address for Munro Ford.’

‘Good girl, where?’ said Walter.

‘Marnon Heights.’

‘Number?’ said Karen.

‘Fifteen.’

‘Is he in now?’ asked Walter.

‘Don’t know, Guv.’

‘Thanks, Debby,’ said Walter, and the girl smiled and closed the door. ‘She’s a bright kid.’

‘She is,’ said Karen, ‘and she’s easy to work with, which is more than can be said for...’

Walter interrupted. Stood up and said, ‘Yes, I know. Come on; let’s see if Mr Ford is at home.’

Chapter Sixteen

Marnon Heights was an eight-story council owned block a couple of minutes from the railway station. Not many of the occupiers had taken up the option to buy their flats, and it was easy to see why.

The properties were hard to sell; the tenants forever coming and going, and the police were regularly called to the block to sort out domestics and worse cases.

Karen pulled the car to a halt in the small car park. There were three or four tired vehicles there; one had a flat tyre, and another a broken rear window. A large dog came running toward the BMW as the car rolled to a standstill. Karen didn’t much like dogs; she’d faced more than her fair share of wild beasts, and this one looked real mean.

‘After you,’ she said, glancing across at her boss.

Walter looked out and smiled at the brown and black mixed up creature.

‘She’s a pussy,’ said Walter, as he opened the door and got out and faced the sniffing, growling, and nervous animal. Walter’s hand went to his pocket, pulled out a digestive biscuit, and tossed it to one side. The dog leapt on it as if it hadn’t eaten for a week.

‘Come on, Karen,’ he said, smiling back at her, and she jumped out and scuttled round behind her boss, ensuring he was always between her and the dog.

‘I told you, a pussy.’

––––––––

NUMBER FIFTEEN WAS on the third floor. The lift was off. It could have been worse. Walter cursed.

Karen sprinted up the cold stone steps, shouted back, ‘Keep you fit, Guv, come on!’

She was standing outside the door of number fifteen, looking bored and relaxed by the time he arrived, panting and unhappy. She went to knock.

‘Give me a minute,’ he said, struggling for breath.

She pursed her lips and waited for him to knock.

They could hear music, though whether it was coming from number fifteen, or somewhere else they couldn’t be sure.

Walter knocked; three heavy bangs.

Muffled sounds came from within; and the door opened.

White guy, maybe forty-five, looked tired and world-weary, wiry build, curly hair, going grey, grubby white tee shirt, hundred times washed jeans, cheap worn out trainers.

‘Munro Ford?’ asked Karen.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘This is Inspector Darriteau.’

Munro blew out through his nose. Said, ‘Cops! Geez! What have I done now? Failed to buy a TV licence, mucked up my council tax, forgotten to tax the car?’

‘None of those things,’ said Walter. ‘Not today.’

‘So what do you want?’

‘We want to talk to you about Gerry Swaythling.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ he said, and he went to close the door.

Walter’s big boot put a stop to that.

‘We can do it here, or we can do it at the station.’

Munro scowled and said, ‘You’d better come in.’

There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the flat. The place was untidy, but not dirty. The furniture and fittings were all past their best, but Walter and Karen had been in hundreds of worse places. There was a white clothes-horse set up to one side of the living room with freshly ironed clothes onboard, as if he’d had a busy morning. The radio was on and he turned it off.

‘Take a seat,’ the guy said. ‘How can I help?’

‘Someone shot Gerry Swaythling’s son.’

‘Neil, yeah, read about it in the paper.’

‘Did you know Neil?’ asked Karen.

‘Met him a few times when he was young, haven’t seen him in years.’

‘Why would anyone want to kill Neil?’ asked Walter.

‘How the hell would I know? Drugs probably, that’s the thing behind most street violence these days.’

‘Neil wasn’t into drugs,’ said Karen.

‘Then I have no idea,’ Munro said, plopping into a small armchair in the corner.

Walter studied the guy and raised an eyebrow. Didn’t say a thing. It was enough.

‘Wait a minute; you don’t think I had anything to do with it, do you?’

‘Did you?’ asked Karen.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘You had the motive,’ said Walter.

‘Who’s been telling tales?’

‘No one,’ said Karen. ‘It’s public knowledge you fell out with Gerry Swaythling. He ruined you, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, he did, the creep, but that doesn’t mean I’d take it out on Neil.’

‘Tell us what happened between you and Gerry?’ asked Walter.

Munro scratched his nose, thinking about it. Took a big breath, decided to talk.

‘There was a recession on, we’d had two terrible years. Things were getting worse. Most builders can’t hack it after two lean years. The bank wouldn’t extend the overdraft, worse than that, they began calling in loans. We needed to find cash to survive, and fast.’

‘How much cash?’

‘About a hundred and fifty K.’

That stacked up, thought Walter, ‘Go on.’

‘He was in the club, wasn’t he? And I wasn’t.’

‘You mean the Lodge?’

‘The very same.’

‘Who lent him the money?’

‘No idea, I never found out. Gerry wouldn’t tell me; perhaps he worried I might go to the same source to raise my half.’

‘Did you try to raise the cash?’ asked Karen.

‘Course I did; got nowhere, I was a builder, a former brickie; people didn’t take me seriously, especially in the economic climate back at the time. I think Gerry liked that, figured out it would be easier to get rid of me, him and his scheming wife, Holly. They couldn’t wait to see the back of me.’

‘She’s ill,’ said Walter.

‘Yeah, I know. Doesn’t change things.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Somehow he raised the cash, God knows how he did it, the banks wouldn’t touch him or the company by then, but give Gerry credit, he found it, and made the most of it by firing me.’

‘Any compensation?’

‘You have to be kidding!’

‘When did you last see Gerry?’ asked Karen.

‘Bumped into him four or five years ago in town. He blanked me, him and his stuck up wife, blanked me as if I was a dead man. Can’t say as I was surprised. They are both stuck up berks, the pair of them, imagining they are better than they are. They think that money makes a gentleman, but it sure as hell doesn’t.’

Walter could empathise with that, took a moment out, then said, ‘How do you make a living, Mr Ford?’

‘Drive a taxi. Do you need a lift? I’m on in an hour.’

‘We’re OK,’ said Karen.

Walter pulled the photofit from his pocket. Set it on the coffee table. ‘Ever seen this guy?’

Munro picked up the picture. Studied it a second, and said, ‘Tell you the truth; you can see dozens of kids like him any Friday and Saturday night in the pubs in the city, dozens of them.’

He had a point; the guy sure was ordinary looking, typical twenty-first century boy next door.

‘You must have had a burning desire to get even,’ suggested Walter.

‘Maybe I did, but I’ve never done anything about it; if that’s what you think. Life’s too short to go round bearing grudges like a mean pit bull. I’ve moved on. I have a new girlfriend and we hope to get married. Gerry and Holly Swaythling can go fuck themselves for all I care. I’m sorry for Neil, but there we are. There is nothing I can do about that. It had nothing to do with me.’

Walter bobbed his head and stood up. Karen followed suit, and a minute later they were back outside, staring down at the same dog. It licked its lips and looked hopeful, its docked tail doing its best. Walter glanced down and pulled another bicky from his pocket and set it before the dog. The animal barked a gentle and appreciative thank you, and the coppers jumped in the car.

‘Where did you learn that little trick?’ said Karen.

‘What, that dogs get hungry, ooh God, let me think,’ and he pulled a face and glanced at the roof.

‘Don’t be sarky.’

‘Don’t ask silly questions.’

‘What did you make of Munro Ford?’

‘Pretty grounded individual, I’d say,’ said Walter. ‘You?’

‘I believed him.’

‘So did I, doesn’t mean to say we should rule him out. He’s still got a good motive. Find out where he drinks; find out who he talks to, find out who his fiancée is, and it would be interesting if we could connect him to the killer.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t drink.’

‘He does, for sure, didn’t you smell his breath?’

Chapter Seventeen

Hector Browne and Jenny Thompson arrived at Wilkes & Partners offices at half-past six. There was an office manager there who had been expecting them.

He invited them up to the room, and they began setting up the tripods and cameras that would be pointed across the road.

The manager showed them the kitchen and told them to make whatever they wanted, coffee, tea et cetera, bade them a good night, and left them to it, leaving last-minute instructions to make sure they pulled the front door closed on their way out.

Jenny made two mugs of coffee as Hector fiddled with the equipment until it was just so. She came back and set the mugs on the bare floorboards and settled down into one of the old office chairs they had taken back in there. There was a whiff of white gloss paint in the office, but nothing they couldn’t cope with.

‘You’d better turn off the lights,’ he said, and she jumped up and switched off as they sat in the evening light.

‘How many do you think will come?’ she asked.

‘I asked the sarge that, she said between forty and ninety depending on holidays and sickness, and how many could be bothered. I’ll look after the live video, you do the stills.’

Jenny was cool with that. The camera was ace, almost new, Japanese, superb zoom lens, and easy to operate.

‘It won’t get dark till ten,’ she said, ‘plenty of light.’

‘The streetlights will go on long before that,’ he said, pointing at the glass globe antique-style triple lamp standard ten yards to the left.

‘Should have no problem picking them out,’ she said, glancing through the viewfinder again, before double-checking on the mini screen on the rear of the camera.

––––––––

THE PYTHAGORAS LODGE 888 had met in that same Chester building for more than a century. It was a prosperous and popular Lodge where admission was reserved for men who fulfilled the Lodge’s exacting criteria.

As the Worshipful Brother Harry Quirke always said: Be very cautious who you recommend as a candidate for initiation. One false step on this point may prove fatal. If you introduce a disputatious person confusion will be produced which may end in the dissolution of the Lodge itself. Where you have a good Lodge, keep it select, great numbers are not always beneficial.

The officers of the Pythagoras Lodge 888 took great heed on those words and remained strict, and far more potential candidates were blackballed than not, even in difficult times.

The first visitors arrived at 7.29 pm.

‘Hey up,’ said Hector, swivelling the camera. ‘Here come the early birds.’

Two men aged about forty, evening suits, dicky bow ties, white gloves. Hector pressed the record button and the camera silently whirred. He could hear the noise of the still camera beside him, clicking and clacking, as Jenny went to work.

The officers watched the men ring the bell, the door open, two similarly dressed guys inside, younger, burly, fit looking, come to the step, smile at the early arrivals, step to one side, and the visitors were ushered into the building and the door closed behind them.

‘Get them?’ asked Hector. He was surprised at how much he was enjoying the evening shift.

‘Yep. You?’

‘Oh yeah, sure.’

Five minutes flew by, then two more, and another one running behind to keep up. Same set up. Evening suit, white gloves, exchange greetings, and in they went.

The next guy was by himself.

‘It’s Gibbons!’ whispered Jenny, her eyes widening. ‘Wonder what he’d say if he knew he was on camera. Smile Gibbo!’ and the cameras clicked and whirred.

After he’d gone in, Jenny asked, ‘Why do they all wear white gloves?’

‘Dunno. Think it’s something to do with keeping clean hands.’

‘Clean hands, from what? Physically or metaphorically?’

‘Everything, both, I guess.’

‘Does that include giving dodgy loans?’

Hector laughed.

‘We don’t know if anyone gave any loans, and neither do we know if they were dodgy.’

Jenny didn’t answer. She was too busy. Another three guys had arrived, one in his fifties, two in their twenties, short and stocky, all looking alike. Click, click, click, and then they were gone. Then two more.

‘Look who we have here,’ said Jenny, grinning.

‘Who?’ said Hector, going to work on the movies again.

‘Hoskins and Hooper, Traffic Division, pair of tossers, the both of them.’

‘I’ll take your word for that.’

Click, click, click, click.

By eight o’clock they had counted and recorded fifty-two evening suited gentlemen into the building, all of them white, most of them aged between thirty and sixty, a sprinkling either side of the great divide. Three more came late, they’d be for the high jump; everyone knew what sticklers the Lodge was for punctuality. A big cash fine and a public rebuke heading their way. Jenny’s mobile burped. It was Walter.

‘How’s it going, Jen?’

He was sitting in front of the telly, steaming chicken Madras balanced on his lap.

‘OK, Guv. Fifty-five happy souls gone into the happy house, including Gibbons, Hoskins and Hooper.’

‘And you’ve filmed them all?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Good girl.’

‘And you want us to stay until they come out?’

‘Yeah, ’fraid so, I want to see if any different ones come out, maybe some of the higher officers who could have been in there all along.’

‘Got you, Guv. We’ll stay till the lights go off and the place is locked up.’

‘Well done. I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Night, Guv.’

Hector and Jenny shared a look. Now for the long, dull, and boring part. Three, four, maybe even five hours, while those inside got up to heavens knows what, before they all started coming out again.

‘Do you want another coffee?’ he asked.

‘Please,’ said Jenny, and Hector went off to have a good snoop round the offices. Solicitors were like everyone else. In a busy office someone would always leave some interesting papers lying around, and perhaps forget, under pressure of work, to lock confidential documents in the huge safe. Hector was optimistic. It wasn’t an opportunity he was going to miss.

––––––––

THE NEXT MORNING, WALTER arrived at the station at twenty past eight. Karen was already there, looking pleased with herself; and surprisingly, so were Jenny and Hector.

‘Get much sleep?’ asked Walter.

Jenny stopped at Walter’s desk and grinned and said, ‘About six hours, not too bad.’

‘Did you get what we wanted?’

‘Yep, spot on, Heck’s just getting the stills printed, should be ready in five.’

‘Well done, room four when you’re ready.’

Walter went and fetched coffee and took his place in room four. Karen came in and sat down and said, ‘It’s looking good.’

Hector arrived and slipped the CD into the play machine. Turned on the big screen fixed to the wall, as Walter said, ‘I’d like to see the stills first, and then the movie.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Hector, looking happy with himself, as Jenny came in and closed the doors and set her fat file down on the desk.

Walter glanced round the team and nodded, and they all nodded back.

‘Stills first,’ he said. ‘Can we do it in chronological order?’

‘Sure,’ said Jenny, setting the first twelve by nine photo on the desk. Black and white images, good resolution, clear picture, white time and date impressed in the bottom left corner, 7.29 yesterday evening. Two middle-aged guys. The officers stared down and then at each other.

‘Anyone know either of them?’

‘Nope.’

They all agreed on that. Strangers.

The next set of pics were of three men. Same thing. All unknown. So far, so bad.

The next one, a couple of minutes later, was Gibbons.

‘He looks so serious,’ said Karen.

‘Maybe he’s thinking about us, thinking about him,’ said Jenny.

‘Maybe he is,’ said Walter, recalling that single strumming finger.

The next shots were of three guys, two young and one old. There were numerous images of them, including one of the younger ones approaching the door, ringing the bell, the other two standing back, conversing about something, none of them smiling, none of them smoking.

‘Well, look who we have here,’ said Walter, grinning at the others.

‘Who?’ said Hector and Jenny as one.

‘Langley Wells, isn’t it?’ said Karen.

‘The same,’ said Walter. ‘And, if I am not mistaken, two of his fine sons as well. I can never tell them apart.’

‘Who’s Langley Wells?’ asked Hector.

‘Loan shark,’ said Karen.

‘Loan shark?’ said Jenny. ‘Could he have financed Swaythling?’

‘Good question,’ said Walter.

‘I wouldn’t have thought back then they were that big,’ said Karen.

‘Wouldn’t you?’ said Walter. ‘You’d be surprised. I think we’d better pay Mr Wells and his fine family a visit.’

They laughed at Hoskins and Hooper going in next, looking serious and uppity. Walter reminded Hector, Jenny, and Karen not to discuss the inquiry with anyone else, and no one was to be ribbed or teased about the pictures. They were all strictly secret, and that meant from anyone.

Two more middle-aged men, one of them known, one not. The known guy was none other than Gerry Swaythling.

‘Still a member, then,’ said Karen.

‘Never a doubt,’ said Walter.

Then a couple of dozen blanks; faceless white guys that none of them knew. Then another single guy, strolling fast toward the door, flamboyant white scarf around his neck, tall and confident in his own skin.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Walter, grinning down.

‘Who he?’ asked Karen.

‘Don’t any of you know?’

No one did.

‘That’s Donald West.’

‘Who’s Donald West?’ asked Hector.

‘Don’t you know?’ said Walter. ‘Penny still not dropped? That, ladies and gentlemen, is Mrs West’s husband, your boss’s better half.’

‘Oh cripes,’ said Jenny, taking a closer look at the picture, for there was always something fascinating about other people’s partners.

‘Did you know he was in the Lodge?’ asked Karen.

‘I did not,’ said Walter.

‘Does she know about this surveillance op?’ persisted Karen.

‘Not yet.’

‘Oops!’

At Walter’s request, Hector started the film show, and they watched the same comings and goings on live video. It didn’t show anything more than Jenny’s stills. They moved on to the departures, picture quality so good after the daylight had vanished.

There were nine people on the leaving shots that hadn’t appeared on the going in pics, perhaps committee members, bar staff, and security people, but none of the nine were identifiable.

Walter thanked Jenny and Hector and sent them on their way and after they’d gone Karen said, ‘When are you going to tell Mrs West?’

‘Soon. After we’ve been to see Langley Wells.’

‘When do you want to do that?’

Walter’s stomach rumbled.

Karen jerked her head back and grinned.

‘I’m going to grab a bite to eat, pie and a pint, fancy it?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve brought tuna on brown.’

‘OK, be back in an hour; get a car organised, and we’ll go then.’ 

Chapter Eighteen

Langley Wells’ home was in the centre of the biggest housing estate in Chester. He had lived there all his life. The house looked in fine fettle, as Karen pulled the blue unmarked BMW to a standstill behind a pair of black four by fours parked on the road outside. 

Walter stepped out. It was thinking of drizzling; he thought he saw lace curtains rustling in the downstairs front room, though he might have been mistaken. Karen joined him, and they walked up the path and rang the bell.

Rose Wells came to the door. She looked tired and weary.

Karen said, ‘I’m Sergeant Greenwood, and this is...’

‘I know who he is,’ she said. ‘What do you want?’

‘We’d like a quick word with Langley, Rose,’ said Walter.

‘What about?’

‘Just a little business.’

‘Have you got an appointment?’ she asked, unable to keep a smirk from her wan face.

Karen glanced up and down the road, as if surprised anyone would need to make an appointment to see anyone on the estate.

‘Come on, Rose, it would be much easier if we do it here,’ said Walter. ‘We don’t want to take him to the station.’

‘I’ll see if he’s in,’ she said, and she closed the door.

They weren’t kept waiting long.

Rose came back and sniffed and said, ‘You’d better come in, and wipe your flippin’ feet!’ and she beckoned at the new copra doormat.

They were shown through to a rear sitting room set in a section of one extension. There was a modern desk there, nothing much on the desk surface, a pocket calculator, a tub of pens, little else. Langley Wells sat relaxed behind the desk; and behind him were three younger, fitter looking copies of the man himself.

‘Hello Langley,’ said Walter. ‘Long time, no see.’

Wells bobbed his head and said, ‘Darriteau.’

‘This is Sergeant Karen Greenwood.’

Langley nodded at her. Said nothing.

She thought they all looked a little strange.

The three standing men couldn’t keep their eyes off her, and they were all thinking the same thing. What would father say if I dated a copper? This copper? Karen smiled at them nervously. They disconcerted her; didn’t smile back, didn’t speak; just stared.

‘Are these your sons?’ asked Walter.

‘They are unless Rose has been keeping things from me.’

‘They look like you.’

‘They should be so lucky.’

Walter nodded at the boys. They didn’t nod back.

Langley thought he’d better introduce them.

‘Lawrie, Lenny and Lewis,’ he muttered.

Three peas in a pod, thought Karen, and that idea made her smile. The guys all imagined she was smiling at them, and them alone.

‘Take a seat,’ said Langley, pointing to the two chairs placed before the desk for the purpose.

Walter made himself comfortable.

Karen did too, crossed her legs, her long grey skirt riding up a fraction, attracting the attention of see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, who stared down at her, as if they were one pig ugly three-headed-being.

‘So, what can I do for you?’ asked Langley, picking up a pen and tapping it on the polished desk.

‘Some years ago,’ said Walter, ‘you lent a considerable amount of money to the builder Gerry Swaythling.’

‘Who says I did?’

‘Do you deny it?’

‘If the coppers ask, we deny everything,’ and he grinned and turned round and smiled at his sons. ‘Isn’t that right, lads?’ They grinned too. Nodded like dogs in the back of a car. Focused back on the girl.

‘What I’d like to know is, was the loan repaid?’

Langley sniffed.

‘I can’t comment on a financial transaction I know nothing about.’

‘Let me fill in the details,’ said Walter. ‘The amount was around 150K.’

Langley blew a rush of air from his puffed-out cheeks.

‘Really, Inspector, do you imagine I could afford to lend that kind of money, and years ago at that, you say? I wouldn’t be living here, would I? I think you must be mixing me up with someone else.’

‘A few days ago Gerry Swaythling’s son, Neil, was gunned down in broad daylight.’

‘I read about that in the paper. Terrible business. How is he?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Really? I heard he was holed up somewhere.’

‘Where did you hear that?’ asked Karen.

‘Little birdies twitter, little bird, that’s where I hear everything.’

‘You know Gerry Swaythling well, don’t you?’ asked Walter.

‘Do I?’

‘Oh yes, you met him as recently as yesterday.’

‘You do your homework. I’ll give you that, Darriteau; own a spy in the Lodge, do you?’

Walter didn’t answer, said, ‘How is the money lending business doing these days?’

‘Don’t do it anymore, you know that, Mr Darriteau, hundred percent legit these days.’

‘Doing what?’ asked Karen.

‘I am sure your boss knows.’

‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘I don’t have to answer your questions, you know that, but I will, because I’ll humour you, and I have nothing to hide. Lawrie looks after Wells Motors, nice garage on the Greyhound Industrial Estate, you must know it, pop in next time you want a good car, hope to land a Ford franchise next year, make our fortune it will, won’t it boys, if we get it.’

The boys muttered, ‘Sure thing, dad.’

Langley took a breath and sailed on. ‘Lenny looks after our property letting business, Well-Lets, we rent out property all over the area, find a tenant or full management, do you a good deal if you want to find somewhere nice to live, or if you have a property you want to rent out. Property letting, that’s the future, people will always need somewhere to live, better than any pension plan, solid as lead. We have a few of our own hooses these days, buy-to-let jobs, you know how it works, it’s doing well, I’m proud of it, and I’m proud of the boys, all three of them. Lewis looks after our finance business, investing some of our hard-earned money here and there, could be in anything, wine, stamps, pictures, sculpture, even ostriches, we’ve tried most things. Some pay a big dividend; some give us a good kick up the backside.’

‘But you still lend money?’ said Walter.

‘Can’t do that, Mr Darriteau, can’t get a consumer credit licence, you know how it is.’

‘Why can’t you get a licence?’ asked Karen.

‘Because in my misspent youth I had one or two minor transgressions, that’s why, and the authorities never forget these things, and if you add that to the small fact I live on a council estate, there are your reasons.’

‘Why don’t you move?’ persisted Karen.

Langley laughed. ‘We can’t afford to, and even if we could, we like living here, don’t we boys?’

The three monkeys nodded and the middle one said, ‘That’s right, pa. We like being amongst our own kind. People round here are reliable, straight and honest,’ and they all nodded at that weird notion.

‘What gets my goat,’ said Langley, ‘is these companies advertising short-term loans on daytime TV. They are charging more than I ever did! 3680% APR, as clear as day, up on the screen for all to see, for God’s sake. How does that work? I’m portrayed as a heinous criminal for providing a public service people want, when I used to do it, that is. While they are held up as paragons of blinking virtue, members of the establishment, robbing the public senseless. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that interest rate on the TV the other day. How brazen can they be? Something should be done about it. Shouldn’t be allowed, leeches on the backs of the common people. That’s what they are.’

‘Ridiculous!’ said one son, and they all nodded like hungry hyenas, and licked their lips and tut-tutted and re-focussed on the delicious blonde, as if they could surround her and eat her.

‘Let’s get back to Gerry Swaythling,’ said Walter.

‘If you must.’

‘There’s a young killer walking round out there who has shot dead two young men at least, and he needs catching. Don’t you agree?’

‘Couldn’t agree more, Mr Darriteau. Naughty boys always need disciplining. There’s nothing wrong with a good smack.’

‘Do you know who the killer is?’

‘Ooh Mr Darriteau, even if we did, which we don’t, we have never been grasses, as you well know, sorry and all that, but we can’t help you there.’

‘It’s not grassing, it’s a public duty,’ said Karen.

Langley didn’t comment. The sons looked angry.

The cheek of the little bitch to correct their father in front of them.

Walter spoke again.

‘There is a line of thinking that says you could have a big grudge against Gerry Swaythling, that you might want to hurt him, and his business, or his family.’

‘If somebody would care to utter those thoughts in public, I would take great pleasure in suing the backside off them.’

‘Did you pay the young man to shoot Neil Swaythling?’ persisted Walter.

‘Oh, come on, Darriteau, that is pathetic. If I did such a thing, which I did not, I am hardly likely to admit it to you, am I?’

‘Conspiracy to murder carries a very long sentence,’ said Karen. ‘At your age, you’d probably never get out alive.’

Langley pointed the pen across the desk. The blonde bird was annoying him.

‘That, missy prissy policewoman, sounds too close to a threat for my liking. I’d be careful if I were you.’

‘We are trying to stop anyone else getting hurt,’ said Walter.

‘So you say, though I can’t say as I like how you are going about it.’

‘All I am saying, Langley, is that if you are not involved, and I take your word on that, maybe you might get to know who is. All we need is a name.’

‘I could give you many names of people I don’t like, and you could go out and hassle them, and, I’ll be honest with you, that would amuse us.’

‘You could do that, Langley, but that’s not your style.’

Langley nodded his agreement.

‘Then I am sorry, but I can’t help.’

‘Does Gerry Swaythling still owe you money, still paying off the debt?’

‘We seem to be going round in circles, Inspector. I have no comment to make on that.’

‘We will find out in the end, Langley.’

Langley sat back in his chair and sighed.

Didn’t say a thing.

Karen and Walter glanced at one another. It seemed the meeting was done.

Walter said, ‘Thank you, you know where I am if you hear anything.’

‘Good day,’ said Langley, and one of the boys showed them out, patting Karen’s backside as she went through the front door. She spun round to remonstrate, but he closed the door in her face.

‘What did you make of that?’ she said back in the car.

‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Drive down by the canal.’

––––––––

SHE DROVE TO TELFORD’S Quay and parked and switched off the engine and repeated her question.

‘Much as I expected. I didn’t imagine he’d tell us much.’

‘Do you think he lent Swaythling the money?’

‘Oh, yes. There wouldn’t be many candidates who could manage that back then. He would have been one of them, either in whole or in part.’

‘Do you think he’s been repaid?’

‘That’s the old thing with illegal lenders. The debt is rarely, if ever, paid off. The interest piles up, and the lender doesn’t want it to end. It’s possible Swaythling is still paying, it’s possible he’ll always be paying.’

‘Do you think Wells has an interest in the Swaythling Construction business?’

‘If there are still payments being made, then one way or another, he does. The question is, has Swaythling fallen behind with the payments, or maybe stopped making them altogether, and is that the reason why Wells, or one of his agents, has taken a pot-shot at Neil?’

‘It was interesting that Wells said that Neil was holed up somewhere. Was that a guess?’

‘Flying a kite, I’d say,’ and Walter reminded Karen of the possibility of a mole. It had happened before, and he asked her if she thought it might be Gibbons.

‘I wouldn’t have thought so, Guv, but who knows?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Come on; let’s get back to the station. I have that awkward meeting with Mrs West to look forward to, and after that, maybe we should review everything to date.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and she started the car and headed for base. 

Chapter Nineteen

Jimmy Mitchell tried Luke’s mobile again. He’d been trying to get hold of him for a few days. This time the call was answered.

‘Hey up, my man,’ said Luke. ‘I’ve been thinking about you.’

‘Thought you were never coming back. I’ve been trying to reach you for a while. How did the holiday go?’

‘Brilliant, gave that blonde wench a holiday she will never forget. Polished the old fella senseless, you know how it is.’

‘Good for you. Now forget about her and what’s in your trousers, and let’s talk business, assuming you still are in business?’

‘Could be. Have you had any hassle?’

‘None at all, things have gone very quiet.’

‘That’s what I like to hear. Do we need to meet?’

‘Yes, we do. Can you be at the usual place at two tomorrow?’

‘Don’t see why not.’

‘I’ll see you there.’

Jimmy rang off while across the city, Luke punched in Sahira’s number.

‘Hi, Luke,’ she cooed.

‘How are you, my darling?’

‘I’m good. Been thinking about you. Thought you must be due back.’

‘Oh yes, honey, I’m back, and I’m so looking forward to seeing you.’

‘That’s good to know. When?’

‘I’ve booked a room at the Red Rose Motel, same name as usual, same room as before. I’ve a short business meet at two tomorrow, and I’ll see you there at three.’

‘Oh, Luke, I don’t think I can make it, family ties and all that, you know how it is.’

‘No, no, no! I’m not having that! You get your black arse down there! I’ll expect to see you naked and waiting, understand?’

Sahira sighed and took a beat. ‘I’ll do my best, Luke.’

‘You’d better!’

––––––––

LUKE RANG OFF AND GRINNED. He liked the foreign birds; there was something exotic about them. True, Melanie Kirton had been an exciting girl to spend a whole fortnight with, but he wouldn’t want to marry her, no way. He wouldn’t want to marry anyone. He wouldn’t want to wake up every morning and find her there. He’d lose interest within a month. The foreign birds offered something different.

There was that Chinese bint from last year, Lee Pung was her name, she was the same, a real thrill. They seemed more submissive somehow, more grateful for the attention, whereas the English birds took it for granted they were wonderful, and deserved to be courted and bedded, if they wanted.

The foreign birds took nothing for granted and tried harder. Looked after their figures better too. Lee Pung tried hard, and Luke would still have been seeing her, but for the annoying fact her boyfriend jetted in from Hong Kong, gave her a sound thrashing, and took her back east on the first available flight. No sweat, no worries, for there were plenty more exotic creatures in the sea, so far as Luke Flowers was concerned. Sahira Khan slotted into the unexpected vacancy perfectly.

She’d served him his late night curry in The State of Kerala takeaway restaurant close to the railway station, and the way she looked at him, unsmiling, but wanting, through those deep and dark eyes, as her father fussed about behind her, chasing up a bad tempered backlog of aromatic dinners. That look told Luke everything he needed to know.

He knew she would fit the bill; and take the place of the departed Pung; and be overjoyed to do so. He’d rung the restaurant three times over the following twenty-four hours under the auspices of placing an order until she was the one who picked up the phone.

‘I saw you last night,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she whispered, knowing it was pointless in denying she remembered him.

He gave her the time; he gave her the place, and he looked forward to spending time alone with her, and after that they enjoyed frequent afternoon liaisons at the Red Rose Motel when the feeling took him, when he wasn’t busy elsewhere. The following day he intended giving her a sharp reminder of what he was about.

––––––––

LUKE ARRIVED AT THE clock at dead on two. Jimmy turned up a few seconds later. They leant on the rails and gazed down, then waited for a party of German school kids to pass by behind them, and Luke said, ‘Some business in the air, I believe? Economy picking up, is it?’ and he laughed aloud.

Jimmy took out a cigarette and stuck it in his thin-lipped mouth. Silver lighter, cupped his hands, lit and sucked.

‘Shouldn’t smoke, it’s bad for you.’

‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

‘So? Do you have some business for me, Jimmy, or don’t you?’

‘Could be, Luke-ee boy, could be.’

‘Worth my while getting out of bed?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘So? Don’t keep me waiting and sweating, Jimmy boy, spill the beans.’

‘It’ll pay a lot more than usual, because it’s more risky than usual.’

‘I’m still listening.’

‘There’s a guy, hasn’t been paying his bills, upset important people.’

‘It’s a common thing in twenty-first century Britain. Not coughing up. Long may it continue; I say, keeps us all in business.’

Jimmy didn’t comment on that. The sad economy might keep an irritating little slug like Luke Flowers in business, but Jimmy had fingers in countless commercial pies, legit and otherwise, and he could take it or leave it. When anything became too risky, he’d junk it; and he knew the current proposition could do that.

‘The guy in question is famous.’

Luke smiled. He liked the sound of that. He adored glamour in all forms. A bit of celebrity never did anyone any harm.

‘How famous?’

‘Very famous.’

‘In what field?’

‘Can’t tell you that yet.’

‘So what’s the deal?’

‘100K. All payable on completion. Not a bean up front.’

‘Reliable paymaster?’

‘Very.’

‘What’s your cut of the 100K?’

‘Nil, nothing, nada, I’ve negotiated my slice on the side.’

‘Sweet Jimmy, sweet. That’s why I like dealing with you.’

‘The thing is, after the deed is done the heat will be tremendous. The Met will get involved. It wouldn’t just be the local plod on your tail, or mine. You’d have to go abroad, maybe for six months, lie low; keep schtum. Disappear. Understand? Could you do that, Luke?’

Luke pursed his lips. He could use another long holiday, he’d been home three days, and already the travel bug had bitten again. Jimmy seemed nervous. Maybe he was on to something big.

Jimmy was speaking in that mumbling, quiet way of his, as if he thought he was being overheard.

‘You’d need to have everything in place beforehand, all booked and paid for, get out of the country before the curtains came down. If you didn’t leave within a matter of hours, you wouldn’t make it. It would involve detailed planning.’

‘You’re the planning maestro, Jimmy.’

‘I’ll help you all I can.’

‘I’ve always fancied doing the cross America drive thing. It might be a good time to arrange that.’

‘That should be OK, though I suggest it would be a good idea to cross the border into deepest Meckico, lie low for a while, hunker down with a couple of senoritas, and stay away for as long as possible.’

Luke liked the sound of that. He’d grown to adore the sunshine; and he knew he’d love the senoritas.

‘By the sound of it, this guy must half be famous.’

‘He is.’

‘And you’re not going to tell me who it is?’

‘No! All I need from you is confirmation that you are up for this, now you understand the risks.’

‘You want an answer now?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘But soon?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can give you an answer now.’

‘Go on.’

Luke smiled that charming smile of his, the one he flashed at the girl in the travel agency, and the sexy piece in the unisex cutters who clipped his hair, and the common girl with the big lashes and huge jugs who served his petrol, and the girl in the Indian restaurant, the same bit of skirt he would soon be on his way to see, that crushing smile that few women seemed able to resist.

‘Course I’m up for it, Jimmy, you know me. I’m mister reliable.’

‘Good boy! I’ll be in touch as soon as I get the green light.’

Jimmy tossed the dying cigarette to one side, kicked it into the wall, and walked away without looking back. Luke hurried back to the car, a zesty spring in his step. His mind was working overtime, pondering on who the target might be, as he headed south for the Red Rose Motel.

––––––––

THERE WAS A DARK AND dusky maiden on the reception desk at the Red Rose. Luke smiled and winked at her. She played the ice maiden and looked away, as if it happened ten times a day, which it probably did. Luke grabbed the key and made his way through to the ground floor bedrooms. Found room fifty, his favourite place on earth.

Sahira was there, just as expected, naked on the king-size bed, her hands clasped behind her head, her body language one of longing. She stared up at him, that same deep unsmiling look she had given him the first time they’d met. There was something desperate about that look, something Luke found irresistible.

He hurried to the side of the bed and sat down and said, ‘How much have I been looking forward to seeing you! I’ve missed you,’ as he clasped his hands around her head and stooped and kissed her on her ample lips.

A second later, his whole demeanour changed.

She wasn’t surprised at that.

That was Luke all over.

He was such a moody guy; it was one of the reasons she liked him so much, as all the books on the subject confirmed. Sometimes you had to put up with the moodiness of a man to enjoy the passionate times he produced when the feeling took him. With a man like Luke Flowers sometimes you had to accept the friction that came with it. Sahira could do that, for she thought he was the most exciting individual who had ever cast eyes upon her. Fact was, she’d put up with almost anything to be alone with Luke. She couldn’t help herself. 

He grasped her long, dark hair and dragged her from the bed into the centre of the room. Hands on her shoulders, and forced her to her knees. 

Chapter Twenty

Walter tapped on Mrs West’s door. ‘Come!’ she said, peering over the top of her slim-line designer specs. Walter shuffled in and tried a smile.

‘Take a seat, Walter. I can see there is something on your mind.’

Walter huffed and puffed and sat down.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘Is it the Swaythling case?’

‘In a way, ma’am, yes.’

‘Fire away, I’m all ears,’ and she set her fountain pen down.

‘We’ve been carrying out a surveillance operation.’

‘Oh yes, where?’

‘Across the street from the Masonic Lodge.’

She sat back in her seat, removed her pink specs and folded her arms.

‘Did you not think to keep me posted about this?’

‘You were busy, ma’am, and you said I was not to bother you with day-to-day matters.’

‘I’d hardly call that day-to-day, but I’ll let it pass. And what did you discover?’

‘That Langley Wells and his sons are members.’

‘The loan shark family?’

‘The same.’

‘And? What else?’

‘Gerry Swaythling is a member too.’

‘So? Are you surprised by that?’

‘No, ma’am, not at all. The thing is, we think it was Wells who baled Swaythling out when his firm was in trouble, enabling him to dump his partner, Munro, and gain control of the business. If that was the case, it is possible Swaythling is still paying off the debt. Maybe he was getting peed off by that, maybe he stopped paying, or imagined the debt had been paid in full. Perhaps the pot-shots at Neil were a gentle reminder that their business had not been concluded.’

‘All possible scenarios, Walter, I grant you, but can you prove any of this?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Could one of the sons have carried out the shooting?’

‘No, ma’am, the description doesn’t fit, and it’s not Langley’s style.’

‘So you think the Wells outfit hired an assassin?’

‘Maybe, yes. There are lots of desperate people out there who will do anything for a good payday.’

‘What does Swaythling have to say about it?’

‘Haven’t asked him yet.’

She gave him that schoolmarm look, as if to say, why come telling me half a story, crack on and finish it, and come and see me.

‘He’s the next call on the list, ma’am.’

‘Good. Anything else?’

‘One little thing. Your husband is a member of the Lodge.’

Mrs West smiled her cold smile.

‘Is that a statement or a question?’

‘It’s a fact, ma’am, he was photographed going in and coming out.’

‘It’s not a criminal offence, so far as I know.’

‘Course not, ma’am, just wondered if he ever said anything about the gentlemen in question.’

‘No, Walter, he hasn’t, and before you say anything else, I’m not asking him either.’

‘No, course not, ma’am, I was just keeping you informed.’

She slipped her glasses back on, picked up her pen, and began reading and correcting some long report, and then she mumbled, ‘Anything else I can do for you?’

‘Nothing right now, ma’am.’

‘Good. On your way then.’

Chapter Twenty-One

Wazir Khan was born in the 1920s in a small village ten miles from the city of Calicut, the ancient capital of the state of Kerala, on the southern tip of India.

He came from a good middle class family who took their Islamic religion seriously, but kept it to themselves.

Wazir’s parents had always enjoyed good relations with their Hindu neighbours, and as a boy, Wazir played cricket with them on the public field behind the Christian hospital.

He delighted his parents. He was a capable boy, eager to learn, keen to better himself and would cram in three part-time jobs, aside from his school work, that he completed under pain of the punishment the disappointment his parents would portray if he failed them.

When he was fourteen, his father arranged for him to take an apprenticeship in his uncle’s locksmith’s shop in Calicut. Wazir rose at six every morning to walk barefoot the ten miles to work. As in everything, he worked hard and pleased his master, who increased his tiny pay packet, as Wazir learnt everything there was to know about making, dismantling, and servicing locks of every size and shape.

Most of the locks came from England and the best ones too. MADE in ENGLAND, they had stamped on the reverse, or the underside, and Wazir would imagine what that great land might be like.

When he was twenty, he disappointed his parents.

He became involved in politics, and everyone knew that politics brought trouble, and being a good Muslim, he wasn’t a follower of the mad Mahatma Ghandi. Like so many young men, he wanted a lot more than that. He wanted direct action, and he wanted it now. He wanted change and recognition. He wanted independence, and he wanted power. The country was going through a period of enormous turmoil.

The British were sidetracked with their own silly wars against Japan and Germany. Little wonder magnificent India was low on their list of priorities. Wazir Khan and his friends sensed their moment approaching.

Yet when it came, after so much longing, the twenty-something Wazir felt crushing disappointment. True, the country was heading for the yearned for independence, but not as one united country, but as three: India, West Pakistan, and East Pakistan.

Muslims were encouraged to pack up and move to one of the Pakistans. Wazir’s parents were too old and frail to contemplate such a hazardous journey. Both Pakistans were some 1400 miles from their southern Indian home, and none of the family wanted to leave Kerala, the place of their birthright, the place of their ancestors, stretching back for as long as anyone could remember, or trace.

The Khan family stayed put, avoiding the mass migration of some twenty million people, both ways across the borders, avoiding the inevitable slaughterings and destruction that followed, violence and mayhem that would account for the lives of a million human beings.

Soon afterwards, when Wazir was at work, an out-of-control Hindu mob attacked and burnt the Khan family home to the ground. Both of his frail parents died in the inferno, embraced together in the corner of their home, clutching metal photograph frames to their chests, the glass and the pictures long gone, the frames bent and buckled and ruined in the ashes.

It was only by luck that Wazir’s wife, Nadirah, and their young son Ahmed escaped. They were attending the Christian hospital where the nuns were concerned about a cut to Ahmed’s foot, an injury caused by a rampant mule stamping on the child. When Wazir heard the news, he was distraught and angry.

He gave up his job in Calicut, and drew his paltry life savings from the bank, and retrieved the ancient ceremonial sword, the same family heirloom handed down from father to son for over four hundred years. Sensing upheaval, Wazir had buried it in a shallow grave at the back of the house. During his noon meal break at the locksmiths, when no one was watching, he secreted it in the centre of a large hollowed out cricket bat.

He worried that rioting street gangs would steal it if they ever set eyes on it. The crazy hooligans had taken his parents; they had destroyed his home, but they would not set their filthy hands on the family’s ancient artefact. Aside from his savings and what remained of his family, it was the only thing of value he possessed.

The family treasure with the mythical past was sound asleep inside the largest cricket bat Wazir could find. He’d halved the bat from top to bottom, hollowed it out, and once the sword was in place, had stuck it together as meticulously as he did the locks he worked on all day, the deadly tip running up into the bat handle, the be-jewelled ivory sword handle safe and sound within the blade of the bat. The cracks where the two halves joined were barely visible, and the moment he applied a fresh coat of varnish and a smudge of Kerala mud, they disappeared.

Wazir decided he would move what remained of his family, but not to either of the Pakistans, for that seemed so far away. Two days later, they began the shorter four hundred mile journey to Colombo in Ceylon.

It took them five days, some by mule, some on foot, then a short distance on an old single-decker bus that was stoned by angry Hindus, then two hundred miles on the cranking and clunking British built railway, and a sea crossing on an overloaded ferry, that heaved and yowled in protest at the weight it was expected to carry across the stormy Gulf of Mannar.

Wazir, Nadirah, and Ahmed arrived in Colombo, found a small and inexpensive guesthouse by the docks where resting sailors stayed. The Khan family would stay there for three days, as Wazir sought accommodation and work. He wasn’t alone. Thousands of displaced persons had the same idea, for Colombo was thought to be a safe haven. Wazir trudged the docks seeking inspiration, and it was there, one afternoon he found it.

The steamship, The City of Cairo, a City Lines boat from Liverpool, was busy unloading tractors, cars, and machinery from Britain. It would take back cotton, cottonseed, and a small quantity of jute. It would sail in three days. Just enough time for Wazir to obtain the necessary documentation from the back street forgers who could produce anything, for a price.

The British had concocted the mess that was partition, reasoned Wazir, they should be held accountable. The family would travel to Liverpool, England, on the big ship, where the Khan family would live in peace and harmony, amongst the English. That was the plan.

When she first heard the idea fall from Wazir’s lips, Nadirah thought her husband crazy, imagined the sun and losing his parents had turned his mind. But she was a good Muslim wife, and good Muslim wives do their husband’s bidding, no matter how ridiculous the idea might seem, and besides, Wazir was set on the plan. He had already spent money on the necessary papers and she would do as he commanded. The boy Ahmed thought the prospect of a long trip on the big ship incredibly exciting. His foot was on the mend, and he couldn’t wait to board and set sail.

––––––––

THEY SUFFERED TERRIBLE seasickness as the steamship lurched across the Arabian Sea, heading for the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal beyond. On through the Med, a cursory nod at Malta and Gibraltar, and into the fearsome Atlantic Ocean. The Khan family had never experienced cold like it, and were eternally grateful when on one bright spring morning in 1948, the steamship the City of Cairo slipped toward the mouth of the placid Mersey river, where one hour later, she was nudged home by Rea tugs, as she edged into the King’s Dock.

The Khan family collected their meagre belongings and staggered down the gangplank and stood confused on the quayside, glancing up at the grey and rusting hulk of the steamship that had delivered them to this strange, cold, and windy land.

Wazir, wielding the cricket bat, took out the wallet his wife had bought for his birthday, and removed the small scrawled note from within, taking care to hold it tight, lest the biting wind rip it from his fingers. He glanced at the untidy writing his great uncle had written for him. Four words that would determine the destiny of the Khan family: 99a Upper Parliament Street.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The sound of the front door bell at Walter’s house burst through the hallway. Walter was in the kitchen glancing at the weekly freebie newspaper, while running an electric shaver over his face.

He switched off and ambled to the front door, pulled it open. Galina Unpronounceable smiled in. He’d forgotten it was her day.

‘I come in?’ she said, her big blue eyes sparkling in the summer sunshine.

‘Sure, course,’ said Walter, standing to one side as she swept in and down the hall toward the kitchen.

She didn’t wait a moment. Filled the kettle, switched it on. She would always need a good supply of boiling water to clean, didn’t seem to understand it came out of the tap that way.

Walter followed her into the kitchen.

‘Want a coffee?’ he asked.

‘No, not now, maybe later,’ she said, as she unwrapped a fresh pair of yellow rubber gloves and slipped them on her long, dainty hands.

‘How have you been keeping?’ asked Walter, making small talk, taking advantage of having another human being in the house, in his house, and a mighty attractive one at that.

‘I good, I busy, I must get on, and you, Mr Darto, how you keeping?’

She always called him Mr Darto, couldn’t seem to cope with Darriteau, though Walter hadn’t given up on that.

‘Yeah, I’m good, very busy at the moment.’

‘You have important case?’

‘Yes, I have an important case.’

‘Chasing naughty men?’

‘Yes, you could say that, though girls and women can be naughty too.’

The kettle boiled, and she tipped the contents into the sink, a cloud of steam rising in her face.

‘Women not naughty like men, never,’ and she half turned and smiled at him, standing there leaning against the worktops.

‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘What these naughty men do?’

‘Murder.’

‘Killed someone?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘Gunshot.’

‘Terrible. What happen when you catch them?’

‘They will be tried and if found guilty, they will be sent to prison for a very long time.’

Galina scoffed. ‘Not enough! They take someone, they should go,’ and she turned again and swept her index finger across her porcelain-like throat.

‘Mmm,’ said Walter. Fact was, he didn’t have a view on that, just so long as they were off the street, away from society, unable to repeat their crimes; that was all that concerned him.

‘You good policeman?’ she asked.

‘I have my moments.’

‘Your moments?’ she said, not understanding what he meant.

‘Sometimes good, sometimes bad.’

‘We all like that,’ she said, ‘sometimes good, sometimes bad.’

He found it hard to believe she could ever be bad, but he knew well enough that anyone could, in the right circumstances, become as bad as it was possible to be.

‘Why you not married?’ she asked.

That took him aback. Said the usual thing.

‘No one would have me.’

‘Bull-shit!’ she said, two separate words, surprising Walter with the language.

‘Are you married, Galina?’

‘Oh yes, husband back in Ukraine, he work on railway, two children, two boys, Dimitri and Alexander.’

‘You must miss them.’

‘Yes, sometimes, but they enjoy the money I send.’

‘I’m sure they do.’

She was busy washing the breakfast things that Walter had left in the sink. She did everything in a hurry, and she did everything with great purpose. Walter wondered what her husband was like; and why he had let his pretty wife travel to Britain and skivvy around people like him for a few pennies above the minimum wage. If she were his wife, but that was a pointless line of thinking, because she wasn’t and never would be, and already she had grabbed the cleaning things and was heading down the hall.

‘I clean bath,’ she shrilled, and hustled up the stairs, muttering. ‘Sure to be filth!’

––––––––

WALTER TOOK THE NEWSPAPER and went and sat in the front room, but though he glanced at the type, he didn’t take it in. ‘Sure to be filth!’ he said aloud and guffawed. Yes, that was probably right, and then he thought of the Jeff Player murder again, and the attempted murder of Neil Swaythling, and wondered why he couldn’t figure out what it was about.

Twenty minutes later, Galina breezed into the sitting room carrying the old Hoover. Set it down. Walter resisted asking her if she had found ample filth.

‘I make coffee before I start, Mr Darto?’ she said, staring down at the big man hunched in the armchair.

‘Dar-ri-teau,’ he clarified again. ‘Good idea,’ he said, ‘have one yourself; there are chocolate biscuits in the tin.’

She came back with a tray bearing two mugs of steaming instant coffee and set them on the low table. Handed him the red tin of biscuits.

‘I not eat, bad for you, bad for figure,’ and she set her palm on her flat stomach and patted and said, ‘You think I have good figure, Mr Darto?’

‘You have a fine figure.’

That seemed to please her, judging by the satisfied smile that swept over her fair face as she shook her head, and her blonde tied back hair waggled like a horse’s tail.

‘You like me come and cook you dinner one night?’

That was new.

‘Maybe, after the case is over.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Who knows?’

‘Who knows what?’ she said, not understanding him again.

‘I don’t know when the case will be closed.’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘You a good cook, Galina?’

‘I think so, but you decide.’

‘Maybe I will.’

‘Good Ukrainian food, that what you need, Mr Darto, from Kiev. I cook you food from Kiev.’

Did she mean chicken Kiev? He hated bleeding chicken Kiev.

‘I must get on, I won’t get finish,’ and she plugged in the cleaner and looked ready to go.

‘Sit down for a second, drink your coffee, take a break; everyone is entitled to a break.’

She exhaled a big breath and cupped the mug in her hands, and sat down in the chair opposite, crossing her blue-jeaned legs.

‘Tell me about murder?’

He knew he shouldn’t discuss the case with this immigrant worker he barely knew, but he did precisely that, leaving out names and places, and other details she didn’t need to know.

‘You have very exciting job.’

‘You think so?’

‘For sure.’

‘It doesn’t seem very exciting to me at the moment, I’m stuck.’

‘Drugs!’ she said.

‘Don’t think so, there’s no evidence of it.’

‘Jealousy!’ she said.

Walter smiled. ‘Maybe,’ but who was jealous of whom, and more to the point, about what? That was the question.

‘I know why he did it,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘For money, for sure, bad men only ever do anything for money.’

‘Or women?’

‘No! Bad men, bad money, find the money, find the bad man.’

That seemed simple enough.

Made sense too.

A couple of minutes later and she was on the move again, grabbing the cleaner, turning it on, running around the living room, swishing his legs and feet aside as she flashed by. She didn’t once stop again that day until her hand was out, and he was placing the notes into her grateful paw. Then she gathered her things together and made her way toward the front door.

‘You not forget,’ she said, ‘I cook you dinner when case closed.’

Walter nodded and mumbled, ‘See you next week,’ and then she was out through the door, leaving him with one parting comment, ‘Bad man, bad money, Bob’s your uncle, as you English say,’ and she giggled, and set off down the road without looking back, leaving Walter to mutter to himself, ‘I’m not English... I’m Jamaican, and British,’ as he closed the door, and went upstairs to get dressed and ready to go back to work. 

Chapter Twenty-Three

Luke Flowers rolled out of bed. He was alone in the flat, though he didn’t plan to be alone later that night. He strolled to the kitchen and dumped cereal in a bowl, and splashed milk over it. In the sitting room, his mobile called.

Luke set his spoon down and went into the other room. Picked up the phone. A number he didn’t recognise.

‘Hel-lo?’

‘There has been a development.’

It was Jimmy on another new phone, and Luke’s heart beat faster.

Jimmy Mitchell had that effect on men like Luke.

‘Can you be at the usual place at 2pm?’

‘Sure.’

‘See you later.’

––––––––

BOTH MEN ARRIVED AT the same time, a couple of minutes past the hour. Jimmy was carrying a padded packet. There was a gaggle of Japanese tourists laughing and joking beside the clock, having their picture taken, and when they saw the two local men, they fell silent and respectful, and Jimmy and Luke liked that, and acted as if they were important.

‘Come on,’ said Jim, ‘I’m not talking here. Let’s go for a stroll.’

‘So long as it’s worth my while.’

‘It is Luke-ee, it is.’

Luke jammed his hands in his slacks’ pocket, and the two men followed the city walls down toward the river. At the riverbank they walked upstream past the multi coloured pleasure boats, busy loading up tourists.

‘So,’ said Luke, ‘Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind?’

‘Not here, too many people about,’ said Jimmy. ‘We’ll find somewhere quiet.’

They took the old pedestrian suspension bridge and headed across the river. A group of young men had ignored the warning signs and were taking turns to leap from the bridge. One fell close to a passing cruise boat packed with camera waving visitors. The dregs of the splash squirted over the nearest passengers, and everyone thought that hilarious.

‘Daft git!’ muttered Jimmy.

‘I used to do that,’ said Luke, ‘when I was younger.’

The men shared a look and Jimmy said: ‘Why am I not surprised?’

Once over the river, they turned right and followed the bank downstream towards the weir, seeking a vacant seat. They didn’t have to go far. The third bench was empty, and well away from its neighbours. Jimmy sat down, and Luke followed suit.

A young woman in tight pink leisure pants came jogging by, her black and white spaniel panting alongside. She half smiled at Luke sitting on the seat and headed down toward the old road bridge.

‘Shouldn’t be allowed,’ whispered Luke, following her taut figure with his eyes as she trotted away, half expecting her to turn round.

She didn’t.

‘Don’t you ever think of anything else?’

Luke smirked. ‘Nope, not often. What else is there?’

‘Business, that’s what,’ said Jimmy. ‘Now pay attention!’

‘I’m all yours,’ said Luke. ‘All ears.’

Jimmy glanced about again. No one coming, no one behind them on the bank, no one on the nearside of the river, just the subdued hum of people at play in the distance, and the gentle flowing water on an ordinary sunny summer’s day in the old city, down by the river.

‘I’ve firmed up the contract,’ whispered Jimmy through the side of his mouth.

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘Terms as discussed. 100K, all payable on completion.’

‘I can live with that, so long as you assure me the paymaster is kosher, and you personally will make the payment.’

‘I can do that. Everything’s in order.’

‘Then I don’t see a problem.’

Jimmy glanced around again. He seemed uncharacteristically nervous. Maybe the big deal he was talking about was getting the better of him.

‘I’ve organised a false passport for you.’

‘My, you are looking after me, Jim.’

‘I’m honouring my side of the deal, but once the deed is done, you are on your own.’

‘You are making me nervous now.’

Jimmy fished in his shirt pocket and took out a packet of cigarettes and a gold lighter.

‘Want one?’

Luke shook his head. ‘I am trying to cut down.’

Jimmy took a heavy draw on the cigarette and said, ‘Your name is Jason Mondale; you are booked on the four o’clock flight to Florida on Sunday afternoon from Manchester. You can hire a car and travel to Mexico from there.’

‘So soon?’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Nope, just interested. So when’s the hit?’

‘Sunday, late morning.’

‘Where?’

‘Ness gardens.’

‘Where the hell’s that?’

Jimmy took another drag, and grinned and said, ‘Funnily enough, Luke, it’s in a place called Ness.’

Luke danced his head left and right and said, ‘OK, funny-funny, I deserved that, but where the hell is Ness?’

‘Up Wirral way; just before Neston and Parkgate. Maybe fifteen minutes’ drive, tops. Study your map, use your satnav, or whatever crap you use these days. I don’t give a toss. Just make sure you know where you are going, and when you need to be there. Go and recce it out beforehand. That would seem sensible.’

‘Sounds OK to me. Is there a big do going on there, or something?’

‘Yeah, a charity bash, the main man’s presenting some prizes, and then there’s a walkabout planned, and a chance for people to have their pictures taken with him, and an autograph session after that. He’ll be signing his new book, encouraging the kiddies, all kinds of shit like that.’

‘And his autograph will be in big demand?’

‘Oh yeah, big time, lots of press, and maybe TV, too, but none of that will happen. You understand? He’ll be gone by then. You’ll hit him the moment he first enters the car park and gets out of the car.’

‘You’ve got it all planned.’

‘That’s what I do, Luke, I plan things, and you DO things. Understand? I plan, you do!’

Luke nodded three times like a horse looking out of a stable, and said, ‘So, are you going to tell me who the target is?’

‘Haven’t you guessed yet?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘The big black git!’

Luke shook his head. Still none the wiser.

Had no idea who Jimmy was talking about.

‘Which big black git? There’s a lot of them about.’

‘The footballer of course, the main man, the centre forward.’

There was a brief silence.

Jimmy imagined he could see and hear Luke’s brain ticking over.

Recognition at last.

‘The England centre forward?’

Jimmy’s turn to nod.

‘As I said, he’s made a lot of enemies. His time’s up, he’s run out of credit.’

Luke whistled through his teeth, said: ‘Good job I’m not a Liverpool City supporter.’

‘Don’t give a toss about football, me,’ said Jimmy, dragging on the cigarette one last time and hurling what remained of it down the bank and into the water. ‘It’s business. That’s all you need to think about. Business. Good... paying... business.’

‘Can see now why you said there will be a lot of heat.’

‘It’ll be massive. The authorities won’t take kindly to the England centre forward being blown away.’

‘Has anything like this ever happened before?’

Jimmy thought about that for a second.

‘Not that I can think of, not in this country, anyway. Maybe in Colombia, or some other filthy hole of a place, but not here.’

‘Jermaine Keating,’ said Luke savouring the name, ‘Jermaine Keating.’

‘That’s the fella. I don’t think you’ll whack the wrong guy this time, do you?’

Luke stifled a laugh. ‘No, Jim, not this time. So what time does this bash at Ness gardens kick off?’

‘Half-past ten. I want you in the car park by ten o’clock. All the details are in here,’ and he waggled the brown packet. ‘Park the car where I’ve indicated, and when the guy arrives, and by the way, he drives a huge black Audi, blacked-out windows, the works, private plate KEAT1, all the usual rubbish, you can’t miss it. He’ll probably show up with his mistress, a white bitch. Miss Birkenhead, something like that, big tits and thick as pig-shit, but don’t be sidetracked by the tight skirt.’

‘You know me, Jimmy.’

‘Yeah, that’s what worries me.’

‘You worry too much, Jimmy, that’s your trouble.’

‘If the girl gets in the way, tough tits Tallulah, but make sure you hit the target, usual thing, four hits, all in the chest. You’ll only be feet away, you won’t miss. You won’t bugger it up!’

‘Oh no, Jim, I won’t miss.’

‘Any questions?’

‘Yeah. Loads of them. How and when do I get paid?’

‘I was coming to that.’

‘Good for you.’

‘I’ll meet you in Thornton Hough, in the car park, by the cricket ground. After it’s over, you’ll come straight to me. It’s only a ten minute drive, max. There’s a map in the pack; you can’t go wrong. I’ll weigh you in there and send you on your way.’

‘How will you know I’ve completed the job?’

‘I’ll know, my watchers will tell me.’

‘I wouldn’t have expected anything less.’

‘You know me, Luke-ee, I’m an organiser.’

‘I take it you’ve got the piece in the bag?’

Jimmy nodded, didn’t say a word, set the padded packet on the bench between them.

‘And afterwards?’

‘You can return it when you get paid.’

Luke frowned and visualised the scene.

The tall black guy, super fit, radiating health and vitality, perfect teeth, big smile, diamonds in his ears, razor short hair, slashed eyebrows, big busty blonde at his side in a tight dress, with an inner city voice that could kill cuckoos, maybe a security guy or two in attendance as well. What about them?

‘What happens if there’s security?’

‘Shoot them dead!’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes! If you have to.’

‘You don’t mess about, do you?’

‘Never compromise your own safety. Listen, the weather forecast is fantastic, everyone will be relaxed and in a good frame of mind. It’ll be the perfect Sunday morning. No one would ever imagine that some lunatic in the car park is about to blow away the England and Liverpool City centre forward. Trust me, it’ll be a doddle, it’ll come as a complete surprise. But if any hurray heroes get in the way, do as I say: Shoot them dead!’

‘You are not asking much.’

‘It’s what you’re being paid for!’

There was a short silence as they envisaged the scene; and the inevitable chaos afterwards. It would become one of those landmark days that everyone always remembered. Where were you the day the England centre forward was gunned down and killed? No one would ever forget that.

‘How long before I can come back?’

‘Six months, not before.’

‘How can I contact you?’

‘There’s a secure email address in the pack. Make sure you talk in abstracts and never use a name.’

‘I am not stupid, Jimmy.’

‘I know that, but you can’t be too careful.’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘May as well. It’ll be the last chance you get, at least for the foreseeable future.’

‘What has Jermaine Keating done to deserve this?’

‘I told you, he’s made a lot of enemies. He hasn’t been paying his bills, he hasn’t been paying his debts, thinks he’s gone above everyone else, forgotten where he came from, forgotten who he owes. It’s more to knock him down a peg or two than anything else.’

‘Blowing him away is not knocking him down a peg or two!’

‘Yes, it is. It’s a warning to his cronies. One or two of his mates are treading the same disrespectful path. You do the job and they will know how dangerous the path is.’

‘You are marking their card.’

‘Of course! Big time. In future they would rather step on an IED.’

Luke pulled a face. Guessed there was more to it than met the eye. More to it than he would ever know. Didn’t care less.

Didn’t want to know.

There was always more to it.

Everything seemed clear enough.

Ten seconds work.

Big payday.

One hundred grand!

Simple as that.

Dozens of people would kill to be in his killing shoes.

That was a gimme.

Luke was already counting his blessings.

He had three days to wind down his affairs, literally in some cases.

He’d have to make some final assignations to give himself fresh memories to take away. He’d have to concoct a story they would believe, and an idea germed in his mind. A new job in Australia, six months trial so he couldn’t take them with him, maybe later when he saw how the job panned out. Yeah, that had some mileage in it. It would be interesting to see which of them took his impending departure the hardest.

Luke giggled like a kid. Sometimes life was sweet.

‘Any more questions?’ asked Jimmy.

‘Nope. None.’

‘Good, see you on Sunday at the cricket ground in Thornton Hough.’

‘You will Jimmy, you will.’

The pink jogger returned. Luke smiled at the girl, and she smiled back. Then she was past and gone.

Somewhere close by, a gaggle of geese were kicking up a racket.

Luke peered up the path.

Jimmy had gone too.

Luke Flowers was alone with his padded envelope, and his instructions that would change English football forever.

Chapter Twenty-Four

1948, and Wazir Khan and his family were still standing on the quayside. He approached three dock workers who were taking a break, leaning against a brick wall, brown paper packs of cheese sandwiches in their filthy hands.

‘Please,’ said Wazir, ‘Please, where I find?’ and he showed them the old piece of paper.

The men stared at the scruffy strangers, the foreigners invading their homeland, glanced disdainfully at the oft-folded note, as if it contained vital words of an illegal proposition.

‘Upper Pearli?’ said one.

‘They all live up that way,’ said another.

‘Sod off!’ said the third. ‘Fuck off back to where you came from! We don’t want youse lot round here!’

There was beer on their breath. Wazir peered into their hateful, bloodshot eyes. It wasn’t as he had imagined. It wasn’t as he’d hoped. He turned and beckoned his family away from the men, away from the quay. They picked up their tiny bags and headed down the dock road toward the big buildings they could see in the distance. It began to rain. Ahmed the boy shivered. Above them, the overhead dock railway clattered along. They took shelter beneath, out of the rain, out of the wind, as the Khan family hurried on toward the big buildings.

Wazir noticed two policemen coming toward them. He guessed they were policemen. He had seen pictures in books of English policemen; indeed, some police in India wore similar, if lighter weight uniforms. It was the strange hats that were so familiar.

Wazir approached and stood before them. Adopted his best English accent, pronunciation he had heard on the radio, and said, ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, but I am seeking this address. Could you possibly help me? Can you set us on the right road? Please, sirs.’

‘Please, sirs, is it?’ said one to the other, grinning.

Wazir nodded and added, ‘Yes sir, please.’

The first policeman nodded across the dock road and said, ‘See that tram, the green tram,’ he was speaking loud as if Wazir was deaf, or an idiot, ‘THE GREEN TRAM!’

Wazir glanced at the old tram as it clanked along the road. ‘I see the tram.’

The policeman nodded and grinned at his colleague as if he were making headway. ‘That tram goes to Upper Parliament Street; all you have to do is follow it.’

Wazir glanced back at the green and cream tram, gaining speed and clanking and heading away.

‘But we can’t follow it, it goes too fast, we have child,’ glancing down at Ahmed.

The policemen peered down at Ahmed, too. He was a cute kid, and the boy looked worried.

The officer was talking again, ‘That’s OK, the trams run every fifteen minutes, just follow each one as they come along, you can’t go wrong.’

Wazir beamed. ‘Oh I see, thank you so very much.’

‘You’re all right, pal,’ said the policeman.

The second one spotted the cricket bat.

‘YOU LIKE CRICKET?’

Wazir glanced at the bat; thought of the bejewelled sword sleeping within.

‘Oh yes, I like cricket. We all like cricket in India.’

‘MIND IF I HAVE A GO?’ said the policeman, reaching down and easing the bat from Wazir’s grasp. Nadirah looked alarmed. The boy still looked worried.

The policeman didn’t notice. He grabbed the bat and was practising his batting stance, grinning at the others. Playing a classic cover drive, an aggressive cut through the slips, a hook over his left shoulder, high in the air, over the ropes. ‘SIX!’ he yelled, and looked pleased with himself.

The officer stood up and handed the bat to Wazir.

‘IT’S A HEAVY BAT!’

‘Yes,’ said Wazir, ‘heavy bat,’ confused and unsure of what to say.

‘YOU MUST SUPPORT LANCASHIRE,’ said the show-off batsman, ‘LANC-A-SHIRE!’

‘Lanc-a-shire,’ repeated Wazir. ‘From now on I support Lanc-a-shire.’

The policemen shared a look. One nodded and said, ‘That’s the ticket.’

Wazir turned around. He thought he heard another tram coming. The policemen smiled at one another, grinned at the strangers, and pointed across the road to the approaching tram.

‘YOU FOLLOW TRAM!’ said one of them. ‘YOU’LL BE ALL RIGHT.’

‘Yes, we follow tram,’ said Wazir, and he beckoned his family across the busy road, to be closer to the clanking beast banging toward them.

After they had gone, one policeman said to his mate, ‘See! They are not all thick. I have always been able to communicate with foreigners.’

‘Yeah, Harry, course you have, let’s grab a cuppa tea.’

––––––––

99 UPPER PARLIAMENT Street was a four-story mid Victorian property. Its best days were long behind it. One window on the second floor was smashed. The front door was cracked and bowed and needed a paint, and up above, some of the Welsh slates on the roof had come loose and slipped down, several balancing on the edge, as if a puff of wind would send them hurtling to the street below, but to the Khan family, it looked like a palace.

They were tired and cold and hungry, and needed to get inside out of the drizzle. There were four white bell pushes lined up beside the door, and after studying them for a second, Wazir pushed A. He could hear the long continuous sound of a bell ringing inside. They all could.

A moment later, the door opened and a handsome face peered down at them, a friendly face, an Indian face, who glanced at the little boy, and the pleasing-on-the-eye woman, and the upright gentleman... and the impressive cricket bat he was holding.

Had they come all this way from the State of Kerala, carrying a blessed cricket bat? What did the man imagine he was going to do? Play cricket all day? In this climate? Ignorance is bliss. What a fool! The handsome man scoffed and said the most welcoming words he could have uttered.

‘You’d better come in, you look tired and hungry. We have been expecting you.’

––––––––

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Wazir was set to work in the laundry. Worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, but the work wasn’t overtaxing, and his family was safe and fed, and at the end of the month Wazir received two crisp green one-pound notes. Nadirah worked in the kitchen, and when she wasn’t doing that, was told to clean and polish the house. She received nothing and was happy to do that, for a while. Ahmed would be instructed in prayer, while discrete enquiries were made as to where he could attend a suitable school.

The Khan family shared one small room at the top of the house, set in the attic where water would drip in whenever it rained.

Wazir volunteered to climb up and fix the roof; and everyone stood outside in the street on the morning he did it. The roof wouldn’t leak again, and Wazir’s determination, skill, and courage were noted.

He spent part of the money he received on a good lock, MADE in ENGLAND, it said, like the ones at home, and fitted it to a cupboard that was set in the eaves in their little room.

Inside the cupboard the cricket bat soundly slept, safe and secure, out of sight, out of mind, and inside the bat, the bejewelled ceremonial sword slumbered on.

No one outside the Khan family knew it was there.

It would remain incarcerated for years.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Walter and Karen were back in Swaythling’s office, sipping best Robusta coffee. Swaythling insisted, and even Karen tired some.

The same model palace was on display, and Gerry Swaythling had topped up his tan. His new white teeth stood out against his face, and that was the way he liked it.

Walter and Karen sat a little way back, on the visitor’s side of the desk. Gerry eyed the black bloke hunched over his coffee like a grizzly bear, the girl relaxed in the chair, her legs crossed, displaying a little leg. She was easy on the eye; that was undeniable, though Gerry guessed she would have a score of admirers lurking in the undergrowth.

She had a way of smirking as she spoke some men might find irritating, disconcerting even, but Gerry didn’t. He liked it, for he imagined it sent out come-and-get-me signals. He saw such signals, real or imaginary, every day of the week. She was giving another positive signal too. Her right leg, the top one was drifting back and forth, the foot thrusting in and out, rhythmically, a sure-fire sign in Gerry’s eyes she was interested in him. He’d seen that telltale movement many times before, and it was a big plus point.

Walter guzzled the rest of his coffee and set the china cup and saucer on the low glass table.

‘So, Mr Swaythling, why didn’t you tell us you are a member of the Pythagoras Lodge?’

‘Call me Gerry, please, fact is, you didn’t ask,’ and he exchanged eye contact with Karen. His eyebrows twitched, hers were as still as Stonehenge. ‘And anyway, unless the law has changed, there is nothing wrong with being a member of the Masons. Why don’t you join? Do you want me to propose you? You should see the charity work we do...’

Walter had heard it all a thousand times before, and didn’t want to hear it again, and he didn’t want to join either, and said, ‘It might have helped.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘Because, Mr Swaythling, you borrowed a significant amount of money from someone in the Lodge to enable you to buy out Munro Ford, and save the business.’

‘Oh yes, and who have you been talking to?’

‘That is irrelevant, the question is, who did you borrow the money from? Has it been paid back? And did the arrangement end amicably?’

‘I can’t see the relevance of all that.’

Karen jumped in, ‘The relevance, Mr Swaythling, is that if the loan was not repaid, and if the arrangement turned sour, the lender might have put pressure on you by targeting your son, and murdered, perhaps accidentally, Jeffrey Player.’

Gerry Swaythling uttered a nervous laugh.

‘You’re barking up the wrong tree, young woman. The arrangement has not turned sour. It’s a ridiculous idea. You are wasting your time with this line of enquiry.’

Walter noted the use of the present tense. Has not, not did not. The arrangement was ongoing; the loan had not been repaid.

‘So the loan has never been repaid in full?’

Swaythling shifted in his chair and muttered, ‘The loan is being satisfactorily serviced.’

‘Oh, come on, Mr Swaythling, that won’t do, it isn’t a straight answer. How much of the loan is outstanding, and how much is being repaid?’

‘This has nothing to do with the attacks on Neil! And if I may say so, it has nothing to do with you either.’

‘We will decide that,’ said Walter. ‘How much are you paying?’

There was a momentarily silence as if Gerry was weighing up his options before he said, ‘Three grand a month.’

‘And how long has this been going on?’ asked Walter.

‘For longer than I care to remember.’

‘And how long will it go on for?’ asked Karen.

Another pause for thought, another short silence, then he let slip from the side of his mouth, ‘In perpetuity.’

‘You are repaying three thousand pounds a month forever?’ clarified Walter.

Swaythling looked uncomfortable. He glanced at Karen as if for sympathy. She thought he looked like a chastised boy at an upper class prep school, and he didn’t seem far from tears. Pathetic.

Swaythling bobbed his head and looked away.

‘So you are now paying £36,000 a year to service the debt?’ said Walter.

Again Swaythling nodded as if he couldn’t bear to hear it spoken aloud.

‘And how long has this been going on for?’

‘Fourteen years.’

Walter pursed his lips and stared at the false grey ceiling. Walter’s own grey matter churned over, albeit slowly.

‘That’s over half a million.’

‘Yes!’ said Swaythling, one short sharp single abrupt word. ‘So what?’

‘With no sign of it ever ending?’ clarified Karen.

He didn’t look at her this time, just nodded again, and glanced nervously at his watch.

‘And you are happy to pay this forever?’ asked Walter.

Swaythling shrugged his shoulders as if to say, what choice do I have?

‘Is Langley Wells happy with the arrangement?’ asked Walter.

‘I suppose... What has it got to do with him?’

‘I think we both know he is the lender,’ said Karen.

‘I’m not confirming that, and regardless of who it is, it is not illegal. We have done nothing wrong.’

‘It is illegal,’ said Walter, ‘if you have borrowed money from Langley Wells, and are paying excessive interest, because he does not have a credit licence to lend. In fact he has been banned from obtaining one by the Office of Fair Trading.’

‘Be that as it may, it makes no difference to me; this is a private arrangement between friends. It is legal and above board.’

‘That’s debatable,’ said Karen.

Walter again. ‘In effect you are being blackmailed by Langley Wells to hand him £3,000 a month, every month, forever. Why bother?’

‘Blackmail is an emotive word.’

‘Why don’t you stop paying? Tell him enough is enough is enough. You have more than repaid the loan,’ said Walter. ‘Several times over.’

‘I think we both know that would not be advisable, and anyway, I can afford it, it’s chicken feed.’

‘That’s not the point,’ said Walter.

‘What hold does he have over you, Mr Swaythling?’ asked Karen.

‘He doesn’t have any hold over me, little miss know it all!’ his voice rising to a crescendo, sufficient to alert the staff outside their boss was being given a tough time by the local police. ‘You are missing the bloody point!’

‘What is your point?’ asked Walter.

‘The point is that if I hadn’t been paying, then the Wells gang, or whoever it might be, might have had cause to give my family grief, but I have. I can show you the bank transfers, if you are that interested! I have never missed a single payment, not once!’

‘Quite! But if your son was out of the way, Wells couldn’t threaten to harm him, could he?’ said Karen.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

Swaythling was on his feet, pacing up and down behind where Walter and Karen sat.

‘So who is trying to kill your son, Mr Swaythling?’ asked Walter.

‘How the hell should I know? That’s your job! But one thing I can tell you, it isn’t me, and it isn’t Wells either! Now do you mind?’ and he opened the office door and said aloud, ‘Show these gentlemen out!’

Walter and Karen shared a look, Karen smirked, and they left the room. Walter first, Karen following, and as she passed him, holding the door she whispered, ‘I am not a gentleman.’

‘You could have fooled me!’

––––––––

IN THE CAR OUTSIDE Karen said, ‘Where does that take us.’

Walter shuffled his thoughts into some kind of order.

‘We now know it’s definitely Wells who lent the money. We have a better idea what he is capable of, how much clout he possesses, for want of a better phrase, and, that he is still receiving illegal payments. We could prove it too if the bank records back it up.’

‘So why don’t we build a case against Wells?’

‘That will come, though it will be difficult to prove. Swaythling will deny it, concoct some story the payments were for something else, perhaps something to do with the Wells property outfit. Wells will deny it too, and they’ll both employ the best weaselly solicitor available, probably that Herringbone gentleman, or whatever his name is.’

‘Robertson Herring-Shone,’ said Karen.

‘That’s the joker.’

‘Is Wells capable of murdering someone?’ asked Karen.

‘Course he is,’ said Walter. ‘We all are, but I don’t think he has, not in this case. As Swaythling said, why hassle someone who is paying you £3,000 a month. You don’t murder the golden goose.’

‘So if it’s not Wells, is it Gerry Swaythling?’

‘He didn’t pull the trigger, we know that, but if you are asking me, did he order it, then the answer is, he could have done. The question is, why would he?’

‘We know Gerry and Neil don’t get on,’ said Karen.

‘We do, but it’s a hell of a big step from arguing with your son, to ordering his murder.’

‘So, if it is Swaythling senior, there must be some terrible hidden skeleton in the cupboard we are unaware of.’

‘True, I wonder what that could be? Maybe we should have another go at Neil.’

‘And if it’s nothing to do with Gerry, the only others in the frame are Munro Ford... and Veronica Camberwell.’

‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘Or someone else. I think it’s high time we paid a visit to Willaston, and Mrs Camberwell. I wonder what she’s like.’

‘Makes no difference,’ said Karen, starting the car, ‘You’re far too old.’

‘Cheeky!’

––––––––

THEY DIDN’T GET FAR with Veronica; they didn’t see her at all. A neighbour said she had gone to stay with her cousin in Leeds; she’d taken Neil’s death badly and couldn’t bear to live in the big house alone. At some point Veronica Camberwell was in for a big surprise.

––––––––

THEY HADN’T BEEN BACK in the office more than ten minutes when Karen took a call for Walter.

‘It’s that newspaper woman again for you, Gardenia Floem.’

‘Oh, OK,’ said Walter and he grabbed the phone.

‘Hello, Inspector.’

‘Hello, Mizz Floem.’

‘It’s a quiet day here on the news desk so I thought I’d give you a quick ring to see if there’s any news, more specifically any progress on the Player murder, and the attack on Neil Swaythling.’

‘Am I missing something?’ asked Walter.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Was Neil Swaythling not murdered too?’

‘I don’t know, Inspector, you tell me.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Rumours are circulating.’

‘What kind of rumours?’

‘I suspect you know well enough.’

‘Come on Mizz Floem, do your duty, tell me what you have heard.’

Karen was engrossed. She couldn’t hear all the conversation, but had a good idea what Ms Floem was saying.

The interesting thing was Walter had adopted the chatty-up soft voice he used whenever he was talking to a woman he fancied. He fancied Ms Floem, didn’t he, the dirty old dog. No wonder he had employed a new cleaner to smarten up his house. Maybe he was hoping to lure the reporter back there. Karen could imagine that, she could almost hear his words, why don’t you come round to mine and we can swap notes, you help me, I’ll help you, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, et cetera et cetera, and who knows where that might lead? Geez! They might even have children. Imagine that! Little Darriteaus running round the office creating havoc. Karen smirked again.

‘Not to put too fine a point on it,’ Mizz Floem continued, ‘word on the street has it that you have Neil Swaythling holed up somewhere as you tempt to lure the killer into the open.’

‘Don’t be silly, Mizz Floem.’

‘Come on Inspector, help me here. I am feeding you intelligence; surely you can give me something that might interest my readers. My paper can be very useful to you, we both know that, but sometimes we like a little gem in return. What have you got hidden in that office of yours I can use?’

‘You should speak to the Press Office, Mizz Floem, Bernie Porter is the man.’

‘Useless dog turd, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Mizz Floem, I am surprised at you.’

‘Walter,’ she said, and she had never called him that before, ‘Is there nothing you can tell me?’

‘Not today, Mizz Floem.’

‘Pity, you disappoint me.’

‘Keep in touch, Mizz Floem.’

‘Oh, I will... ciao,’ and then she was gone.

‘Ciao,’ Walter repeated. ‘Who the hell ends their conversations with “ciao”?’

‘You like that woman, don’t you?’ said Karen.

‘Don’t know the woman,’ said Walter, keeping a straight face.

‘No, but you’d like to, eh?’

Walter harrumphed.

The phone rang again.

Karen snatched it up. Turned serious.

Walter watched her face. She wasn’t smirking any longer.

‘Yes, he’s here, I’ll put you through.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Langley Wells.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Walter shared a look with Karen and rippled his eyebrows and grabbed the phone. What could have made Langley Wells swallow his pride and ring the police? Walter sniffed and grunted, ‘Hello.’

‘Inspector Darriteau?’

‘That’s me.’

‘It’s Langley Wells.’

‘Mr Wells, what can I do for you?’

‘I have been thinking about our chat.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘I’d like another meet, just you and me.’

‘Why don’t you come into the station and we can talk here?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘I want you to come here, alone, leave that smart arsed girl behind, she got my boys into all kinds of a tither.’

Walter and Karen shared another look.

She couldn’t hear the conversation, but guessed they were talking about her.

‘What about Pierre’s restaurant in town?’

‘No! Too public. I want you to come here.’

‘I’m not happy with that.’

‘Suit yourself! What’s the matter? Are you afraid? Look, I’ll personally guarantee your safety. You know me, Darriteau, if nothing else I am a man of my word.’

For a lowlife, Walter knew Wells had some vague notions of standards, though they were not values Walter could share.

‘When did you have in mind?’

‘Come at three o’clock, the boys will be out. They’ll be just you, me, and Rose.’

‘All right, I can do that.’

‘Come alone, Darriteau. If there’s more than one of you, we won’t open the door.’

‘I get the picture.’

‘Good!’ said Wells, and he cut the line dead.

‘What did he want?’ asked Karen.

‘I don’t know; must have taken a lot for him to call; wants to see me at three, just me.’

Karen pulled a face and tried to hide her disappointment.

‘Do you want me to drive you?’

‘No, but you can organise an unmarked car.’

‘OK, Guv,’ and there was a short pause before she said, ‘Go wired up, and I’d take a gun if I were you.’

Walter sniffed a laugh and said, ‘I don’t think that will be necessary.’

––––––––

HE LEFT THE STATION at a quarter to three. Karen had fixed him up with a dark green Ford saloon that had seen better days. It stank of cigarette smoke and stale coffee, but it was the only unmarked vehicle available.

Walter started the car and headed onto the inner ring road. It was roasting inside. He made to buzz down the windows. Couldn’t find the buttons, no surprise, the car didn’t run to electric windows. He grabbed the handle and began turning, and hot air rushed in.

He remembered the weather forecast predicted one of the hottest days of the year. He blew out hard and pulled the car to a standstill at the lights at the fountains roundabout. Wished he hadn’t bothered with the jacket, and that was a first for the year.

The house looked the same, the neighbourhood quiet, grassy unkempt lawns turning brown, an abandoned kid’s trike on the pavement; the kids not home from school. The four by fours were missing. Walter guessed the sons were busy at their property and second-hand car businesses, and whatever mischief they were up to. The drapes were open, but no one could see into the house through the doubled up lace curtains. Most of the locals knew better than to try. He imagined he saw the curtains shivering, though he might have been wrong.

Pulled on the handbrake, wound up the windows, and hauled himself out of the car. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Blew out hard and wished he’d double deodorised that morning, but it was too late now. Eased open the gate, limped up the path and rang the bell.

A moment later, Rose came to the door and opened up.

‘Right on time,’ she said. ‘Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.’

Unless he was mistaken she half smiled at him, and that was a first.

‘Well, don’t just stand there; come in before the rats get in.’

Same copra mat, same wiping of the feet, same performance, shown through to the room at the back, the sitting room cum office. Langley wasn’t there. No one was.

‘Wanna cup of tea?’ she asked.

‘No thanks, though a glass of water would be nice.’

‘Might run to that, you look hot, make yourself at home,’ and she turned and left him alone in Langley’s private office.

He glanced down at the desk. Same tub of pens, same calculator, no papers visible; one wood-effect filing cabinet to one side. He hadn’t noticed that before, maybe it hadn’t been there last time, locked by the look of it. No obvious key. Walter wondered what secrets lay within, details of all of Langley’s transactions maybe, going back years and years, perhaps including the Swaythling business.

Walter pondered on the half warm welcome, and why he had been left alone. It couldn’t be an accident; the Wells family weren’t stupid, they were up to something. Maybe he was being monitored, his every move filmed. Were they hoping he might attempt to enter the filing cabinet, or the desk drawers? Maybe they hoped it might produce some juicy blackmail material. Who knows what went through the minds of the Wells gang?

There were several family photographs on the wall, some with young children, looked like recent pics, probably the boys’ kids, but there was another larger black-and-white photograph, not of the family.

It featured a large gathering, perhaps fifty or sixty people, taken a few years before, not ancient, but not recent either, and there in the middle were Langley and Rose, looking pleased with themselves, while a few heads along the row was another familiar face, Gerry Swaythling, a little younger, but not much, looking mischievous and happy with his arms around an attractive girl on either side, a brunette and a blonde, no surprise there, and no sign of the wife anywhere.

The men were dressed in evening suits and bow ties, the girls in dresses to die for that must have cost a month’s wages for some people. Beneath the smiling faces was an inscription: Imperial Hotel, Valletta, Malta, and a date from ten years before.

It was a Masonic meeting, had to be, holiday bash in the sunshine, took along the girls so they didn’t feel left out, and Malta had a long history of freemasonry, Walter knew that because reading up on the subject was a passion of his, along with native American Indian chiefs, Geronimo being his particular favourite, and cricket of course. Wisden was essential reading and a must buy at Christmas, even if he had to buy the newest edition for himself. No one else would. It would be his little treat.

‘1730,’ he said aloud, recalling his history, as Rose came back into the room carrying a large glass of water, clinking ice cubes as she walked, a slice of lemon floating like a tropical fish.

‘What?’ she said, setting the glass on the coaster on the desk.

‘Oh nothing, just talking to myself.’

‘You can get done for that.’

Walter grinned. ‘Thanks for the water, Rose.’

She almost smiled, but thought better of it.

‘Langley will be with you in a minute. Sit down and take a drink. You look whacked.’

‘Yeah,’ said Walter, ‘good idea,’ and he grabbed the glass and sank most of the content, and dropped into the chair.

‘No charge for the water, and no interest either,’ and this time she did smile, before she disappeared.

1730 he mused again. The year the French first took freemasonry to Malta, if his memory was still intact. It had probably been there longer, and there would be active branches still, willing to host UK parties, especially the wealthier visitors who were going to stay in the best hotels, and spend a great deal of money. The door opened again and Langley Wells came in and shut the door behind him.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Darriteau, had my accountant on the phone, awful windbag, he is,’ and he hurried around the desk and sat down. Walter glanced at Langley and thought he looked more hyena-like than ever. He emptied the glass and set it on the coaster.

‘Want another?’ asked Langley.

‘No, I’m fine,’ and Walter folded his arms, an obvious invitation for Langley to begin.

‘It’s taken an awful lot for me to invite you here.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, it has. No one must know of this meeting. Does anyone know you are here?’

‘Only my sergeant.’

‘Ah yes, the sex bomb.’

‘You think so?’

‘Not me, the boys!’

‘Can’t say as I have noticed.’

‘Liar!’

There was a short pause, as if Langley was debating whether he should say anything further. Walter waited.

‘No one else knows you are here?’ said a nervous Langley.

‘Rose does,’ said Walter.

‘Ah well, she doesn’t count, she’s my right arm, Darriteau, trust her with my life, I would, and there are few people I could say that about.’

Walter rolled his eyebrows; he was becoming bored with small talk.

‘You’re not wired, are you?’ said Langley, rippling his nose.

‘Course not, give me some credit.’

‘Didn’t think you would be, just checking. The thing is, Darriteau, I have been thinking about our last little chat.’

‘So you said on the phone.’

‘Yes, well, this isn’t easy for me. We, the people on this estate, are brought up to be wary of the police, and not without cause, and the idea of grassing someone up, it just isn’t done.’

‘What are you trying to tell me, Langley?’

‘I abhor violence, Darriteau, always have.’

Walter raised his eyebrows. Didn’t say a word.

‘Don’t look like that! I do, and that’s the God’s honest truth. Yes, I may have clipped the odd out-of-liner over the ear once or twice when they were misbehaving, just knocking them back into line, that kind of thing, the sort of thing your lot used to do before you got so paranoid about it, and damned scared of the lawyers.’

‘Things change, Langley. None of us can carry on like we did thirty, forty years ago.’

Langley picked up a pen and began fiddling with it.

‘Yes, well, what I am trying to say is that I cannot do with guns. Young men, not much more than youths, in short kecks only ten years since, running round toting weapons as if they are in the O.K. Corral. I can’t be doing with it, and neither can my family, and you have my word that we do all we can to put a stop to it, and that’s the truth. But these days sometimes, and it is most unfortunate, things can and do get out of hand. Out of control.’

‘You are referring to the Jeffrey Player killing?’

Langley nodded. Didn’t say a word.

‘Do you know who did it?’

There was another pause and Langley said, ‘I have heard a few things, whispers, things I don’t like.’

‘If you put someone in the frame for murder for your own ends, I am duty bound to warn you that you could be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice, and that offence carries a hefty sentence.’

‘God give me strength, Darriteau! Don’t threaten me! I am trying to help you here.’

Walter held up his hands; palms facing Wells and said, ‘Just so long as we understand one another. I am not anyone’s fool.’

Wells shifted in his seat as if the ordeal of speaking to a police officer was the worst torture imaginable.

‘I know that! I wouldn’t have invited you here if I thought you were.’

Walter bobbed his head.

Hoped Wells would start speaking again, and he did.

‘Do you want my information or not?’

‘Of course I do, Langley. All information from the public is gratefully received, and will be investigated. You can be sure of that.’

Wells didn’t look convinced. His bottom lip came out. He looked from side to side for comfort and support, as if he half expected to see his sons standing there, but the room was silent and empty.

‘This information is anonymous.’

‘If you want.’

‘I do!’

Langley Wells took a big breath.

‘The prick’s name is Luke Flowers.’

It meant nothing to Walter, but that wasn’t important. A name had spilled from Wells’ lips and that meant something, though Walter was unclear why Wells was talking to him.

‘Does he live on the estate?’

‘I have no idea, and I don’t want to know either!’

That came out in a rush and carried a hint of spite, and then as if Wells had thought better of it, he said, ‘Not any more, but I’m sure you won’t have any trouble in finding him.’

‘Why did he do it?’

‘No idea!’

‘Drugs?’

‘Told you... no idea!’

‘This Luke Flowers character, was he working for himself, or for someone else?’

‘Don’t know that either! But it was nothing to do with me, you can be sure of that. Gerry Swaythling is a friend of mine, and I don’t care whether you believe that or not.’

‘Gerry Swaythling is paying you a great deal of money. You can afford to be friends.’

‘Don’t start that again!’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’

‘No! There isn’t. I’ve said far too much already.’

––––––––

ONE BENEFIT OF WEARING a considerable pair of trousers was small objects could be concealed in deep pockets. Walter stopped the car in a private road of fifties detached houses less than five minutes drive away, each home protected by a high hedge. That protection worked two ways. He couldn’t see in, but no one in the houses could see Walter sitting in the car. He fished out the state-of-the-art mini recorder and played the conversation back. 

––––––––

YOU ARE REFERRING TO the Jeff Player killing?

Do you know who did it?

I have heard a few things, things I don’t like.

––––––––

HE HADN’T BEEN TRYING to entrap Langley Wells. He knew the evidence wouldn’t be admissible. He’d done it for the sheer hell of it, and if Langley confessed to crimes, it would encourage the investigation.

As it was, Wells had fingered the killer. Walter wondered who Luke Flowers was, and where he was at that moment, and, if he hadn’t done it off his own bat, then who was the young man working for? But most of all, Walter pondered on why Wells had told him at all.

––––––––

HE RANG KAREN AT THE office.

‘We have a name in the frame.’

‘For the Player killing?’

‘The same.’

‘Did Wells tell you that?’

‘Maybe.’

‘So? Who is it?’

‘Luke Flowers.’

‘Means nothing to me,’ she said.

‘Me neither; and it’s a name I would remember.’

‘I’ll run it through the computer.’

‘Do that, I’ll be back soon.’

––––––––

SIX MINUTES LATER, and Walter was ducking the car into the underground car park. A minute after that he was in the private office playing the tape to Karen. 

––––––––

DOES ANYONE KNOW YOU are here?

Only my sergeant.

Ah yes, the sex bomb.

You think so?

Not me, the boys!

Can’t say as I have noticed.

Liar!

––––––––

‘SKIP THAT BIT,’ SAID Walter.

Karen laughed and fast-forwarded.

‘How did you get on?’ asked Walter, slumping in his chair.

‘We have one Luke Flowers in the system. Luke Edward Flowers.’

‘And?’

Karen opened her diary and slipped a printout containing a photo across the desk. It was unmistakable, the likeness to the photofit and artist impressions, though the official photograph had been taken some years before.

‘Why didn’t you say?’

Karen smiled. ‘I wanted to hear what you had first.’

‘Cheeky! Where does he live?’

‘The address we have is Moorcroft Avenue on the same estate, about a quarter of a mile from Langley’s place.’

‘I don’t think he lives there now,’ said Walter.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Just a feeling.’

‘He’s not on the voters’ roll,’ said Karen.

Walter sniffed. ‘Voters’ roll, be damned, when did people like him ever vote?’

‘I think he might still live there.’

‘I’ll bet he doesn’t,’ said Walter.

‘Wanna bet?’

‘How much?’

‘A tenner?’

‘Done! Organise an arrest warrant, fix a car; and get some backup too, and make sure you wear a vest.’

‘Your concern is touching, Guv.’

‘It’s not you I am worrying about. It’s my hide that gets kicked black and blue if my sergeant is mashed.’

‘I am not planning on that happening.’

‘Good! And take a gun.’

‘You can rely on that.’

‘By the way, what was he done for?’

‘Copying and selling CDs at car boot sales. Seventeen he was at the time.’

‘Big time?’

‘Oh yes, had 5,000 items in the car when he was arrested, must have made a lot of money, got six months’ youth detention.’

‘Obviously didn’t cure him.’

‘Course not! What do you expect?’ 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

1950s Liverpool: and Wazir Khan landed a decent job. Everyone told him the English would never employ an Indian Muslim, but Wazir took no notice of that. He was determined to find employment, and did.

In his spare time he had been pounding the streets, and his wanderings took him to the Skelhorne Street city centre bus station.

Wazir knocked on the office door, entered when commanded, and stood before a broad man sipping a mug of the sweetest stewed tea imaginable. Jimmy McTavish was his name, and Jimmy McTavish interviewed Wazzie, as he was to become known, in ten minutes, and employed him in another ten.

Wazir Khan was pleased and amazed in equal measure. He would become a bus conductor employed by the Liverpool City Council, when all the double-decker buses ran a crew of two, or three, when the Inspector hopped aboard.

He would start training the following morning, and would be let loose on the old green AEC Regent III double-decker bus, on the city centre to Crosby run the following week.

Wazir thanked Jimmy Mac and hurried home to share the momentous news with his wife. He would earn six pounds ten shillings a week before stoppages, whatever they were. Jimmy Mac grinned and returned to sipping tea.

Despite his name, Jimmy Mac was black, and proud of it. Came from one of the oldest black families in Liverpool. Could trace his roots back five generations to slavery and Jamaica, where his ancestor was known as Reego. He, like so many others, took his owner’s name as his own as soon as he could. He received the amazing news of his freedom on arrival in Liverpool, where he was working on a sugar trader, took one look round, and stayed. Jimmy Mac never considered living anywhere else, and was more scouse than most of the locals.

He shared a two-bedroom flat in Toxteth with his wife Norah, who was almost as black as Jimmy Mac, and three eating and sleeping machines, his sons, Reego, Daniel, and James Junior. All the menfolk in the McTavish family were avid Liverpool City Football Club followers, though they were far too clever and cute to consider attending a match in the flesh. No one was stupid enough to do that, not in their community, for in the fifties blacks weren’t welcome in the stadium. Times were a-changing, but they weren’t there yet.

The football club employed a new manager, a man the McTavishes had never heard of. The new guy had a huge job on his hands, for Liverpool City were languishing in the second division, living in the shadow of the big clubs in the city. Like many others in the area, the McTavishes hoped for the best, and feared the worst.

––––––––

WAZIR ENJOYED HIS JOB. He’d brush off the racist remarks; he’d laugh them away, and grew to enjoy the banter with the office girls commuting to and from the city, morning and night.

Some of them were fascinated by his smooth, dark skin, and thick and shiny, neat parted hair he wore longer than the fashion, and the sparkle that flashed from his brooding dark eyes, even if his English was difficult to the local ear. Wazir thought the same of them, but didn’t say.

He wasn’t short of offers, from the women, he could see that in their English eyes, but would never entertain such a stupid thought, for Nadirah was the love of his life, and always would be. She had been chosen especially for him by his parents when he was seventeen, and surely that was the correct way of doing things. A man was given a pure wife, and a woman was married to a decent man. Both families had seen to that.

Three months after he began work on the buses he began doing something that would concern him for the rest of his days. Things were not going well at home. His hosts were unhappy he had taken independent employment. They demanded more and more money from Wazir and his wife, and made suggestions they would be kicked out onto the street if it wasn’t forthcoming.

Nadirah had secured two additional cleaning jobs that paid a little cash, and the Khan family were determined to save every penny, for England had fired unimaginable dreams and targets within them, and they wanted them soon, this year, not next.

Wazir worked out a way to supplement his wages.

When a passenger left the bus, he would go to their empty seat and look for the spent ticket. If he could find it, and if it was in perfect condition, he would rescue it and slip it into a small wallet he kept for the purpose.

If a new passenger required the same fare the recently departed soul had paid, Wazir would turn around on some spurious mission, as if to help an old lady toward her seat, or to the jumping off platform, or to help someone with luggage, he would recover the used ticket and hand it to the new traveller. No one suspected a thing.

The paid fare would not go into his corporation leather satchel, but into his deep trouser pocket. Wazir had perfected a way of doubling his wages; and tax-free at that, trebling even, at busy times like Christmas.

It worried him and affected his sleep. He told his wife he was working all the overtime he could find, never mentioned his deceitful scheme to her, for he knew she would be aghast. He felt guilty at deceiving her, but he could not stop himself. He could barely look Jimmy McTavish in the eye, and lived in dread of discovery, of an inspector jumping on his bus, and especially one particular inspector, known to the men as Ged the Gestapo.

Gerrard Fox lived on the Wirral peninsula in a semi-detached house in Prenton, a residential area that Gerrard portrayed to his city bound colleagues as akin to Beverly Hills.

Wazir decided he would go there and see for himself. In his mind, one day Wazir Khan would possess a house in Prenton too, but for now, he was more concerned in balancing the books whenever the inspector appeared.

The old bus was standing at the Pier Head, coughing and wheezing filthy black smoke that anointed its passengers, before they boarded for the four o’clock run to Crosby where it would turn around at Endbutt Lane, and trundle back down to the city.

‘Move along the bus, please, plenty of seats upstairs,’ Wazir called out, as the bus filled.

Ding! Ding! He pressed the bell, and the bus heaved and shook and eased away from the stop.

At the last second, Ged the Gestapo flew through the air, caught hold of the vertical bar, and heaved himself on board with a glare at Wazir, and a smile and a wink at the pretty young wife with the podgy toddler on her lap, on the bench seat just inside the bus.

‘And how’s my Paki-Lackey?’ Ged yelled down the cabin, as Wazir went about collecting fares.

Ged always addressed Wazir in that way, and many of his workmates did too, including his own driver. Not many thought it odd; it was the norm, it was only in jest. Foreigners had to learn to have a sense of humour.

Jimmy Mac never used the phrase.

‘I am not a Pakistani,’ Wazir protested, on first hearing the expression, ‘I am a Muslim from India, I am Indian.’

‘India, Pakistan, there’s no difference to me,’ Ged sneered, smirking at some passengers, some of whom stared at Wazir with a mixture of curiosity and sympathy, though they would look away when Wazir caught their eye. ‘All the same hellhole to me,’ continued Ged. ‘I served in Ceylon in the war; I know what I am talking about.’

Wazir would bite his tongue and grin his way through the tense times that Ged the Gestapo spent on Wazir’s bus.

Ged didn’t like Wazir Khan.

Didn’t agree with it at all, the policy of letting in the natives, as he referred to Wazir, and anyone else with a less than pristine white skin, come to that. Ged was determined to get rid of Wazir Khan, he had no business working on the buses, on his buses. Come to think of it, he couldn’t imagine why the hell Jimmy Mac had employed him in the first place. But then again, it was Jimmy Mac, and natives always looked after their own. It was just the same in Colombo. Lazy fookers they were, the lot of them, Ged would tell his pals in the Bus Staff Club at the back of Paradise Street, where you could get a pint of sour local Higsons ale for a penny less than anywhere else.

Ged would air his views in public when Jimmy Mac wasn’t present, because for some godforsaken reason Jimmy Mac was well thought of by the powers that be, and was senior to all the inspectors, including Gerrard Fox.

‘Show me your papers!’ snapped Ged.

Wazir presented the records of his journeys that day. It was only the start of the shift and the standard cash float was accurate and intact. Wazir was a meticulous bookkeeper and would always pay his overspend fund, as he referred to it in his mind, into the Post Office in India Buildings, indeed he had done so that lunchtime, in case he was checked and searched. Good job he had.

Ged wasn’t convinced.

‘Takings are down, Khan. Can you explain that?’

‘How do you mean, Inspector?’

‘It’s plain English, oh I forgot, your English isn’t great, is it? I’ll spell it out for you, lah! Four buses are out on the Crosby run, and your takings are the lowest. How do you explain that, my subcontinental chum?’

Wazir pulled a puzzled face and shook his head. He couldn’t explain it at all, and had no intention of trying.

‘Someone has to take the lowest,’ suggested Wazir, after a few seconds thought.

‘Yeah, but it’s funny how it’s always you, Paki-lack!’

‘Maybe they don’t like me.’

‘I can understand that!’

‘I’ll try to sell more tickets, Mr Fox.’

‘Inspector, to you! Have you got any money on you?’

‘I have four shilling and thrupence in my pocket.’

‘Show me!’

Wazir took out the change.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’

‘It is, Inspector, I tell you.’

‘Well, let’s have a little look, shall we,’ and Ged Fox began tapping Wazir’s pockets for evidence of stolen money.

Nothing there. Clean as a whistle.

Ged grimaced and rammed his hands deep into his dark raincoat pockets. He leant toward Wazir and whispered, ‘I’m watching you, Khan, you’re up to something, one slip from you and you’re out,’ and he turned and heaved himself up the stairs.

‘I not slip up,’ shouted Wazir, after Gestapo Ged, ‘I honest man,’ but Gerrard Fox was already on the top deck sitting on the back seat sucking hard on his pipe, and wondering how the hell the native was getting away with it.

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SATURDAY, AND WAZIR was late home. Nadirah fretted. Wazir had jumped on the ferry across the Mersey, a pleasant enough ten minutes and the river was busy, but soon across, where he strode up the gangplank after everyone else. The tide was out and the climb substantial, and the air thick with the stench of oily mud and filthy seawater. At the top at the exit Wazir took in the view.

To the left was Birkenhead Woodside railway station. The London train was about to depart and was letting everyone know about it. Black loco and tender spitting smoke and steam, ten rapidly filling maroon carriages, as latecomers raced from taxis and buses to board. Ahead, and to the right, were a sprinkling of blue and cream Birkenhead Corporation buses, the same old work horses that Wazir crewed every day, as an old green Crosville single decker came bumping down the hill, its journey done, an F27 from Frankby, wherever that was.

Wazir hurried past the bus shelters, glancing at timetables and journeys, until he found one that went to Prenton, the number 77. He’d remember that, and he jumped aboard. He asked an old guy to tell him when they arrived and the old bloke dressed in filthy work clothes said, ‘Sure, kiddo,’ before taking a second glance at the dark stranger, and then back at his Liverpool Echo.

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PRENTON WAS PLEASANT. Three story Edwardian properties stretched along the main street, shops and banks and a post office on the ground floors, what looked liked spacious apartments above. Across the road were garages and petrol stations and smaller shops that sold wine and flowers and stationery, and all the things needed in suburbia.

Everywhere gaggles of sallow people gathered in groups, dressed in old and worn dark coats smelling of mothballs, brown and green and blue, though it wasn’t cold, and Wazir should know about that, because England was bitter. Folks gossiping and sharing news, and they would stop talking and stare at Wazir as he approached, as if he was the first dark skinned man they had ever seen, which for many of them, he was.

He glanced in the window of an estate agent. Looked at the houses, and the prices, and beyond that to two bored looking staff, a man and a woman, the woman almost falling off her chair when she focussed on the dark and threatening looking stranger with the big bright eyes gawping through the glass, staring menacingly, she imagined, at her.

Wazir turned and set off down a side street. A long straight road crammed with almost identical semi-detached houses. Why did the English like to live attached to their neighbours so much? He wondered, and pondered on which of these houses could be Gerrard Fox’s. In truth, it wasn’t as Gerrard had portrayed his hometown.

It wasn’t what he expected of Prenton either, on the much-praised Wirral peninsula. There must be better areas than this, he imagined. It was pleasant enough, but it sure as heck wasn’t Beverly Hills, and Wazir Khan had set his sights higher.

He returned to the main street and jumped a bus back down toward the river. He wouldn’t come that way again. In the future, he’d find somewhere else to live. 

Somewhere nice.

Somewhere better.

Somewhere more exciting.

Somewhere with prospects.

Somewhere to build his empire.

Somewhere to spend the rest of his life.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

18 Moorcroft Road, Chester. Coming up teatime. The curtains were drawn, but that wasn’t unusual on the estate.

Some residents were mighty protective of their precious possessions, and the fewer people that knew they existed, or could see them from the street; the more chance they would remain unmolested. Some curtains were never opened, some lights never switched off.

Karen pulled the nondescript Ford to a gentle standstill on the far side of the road and glanced at her boss. Gibbons and Hector Browne were in the back. Three toddlers were playing with a big yellow toy dumper truck on the grass verge outside the house.

The old fashioned radio crackled to life.

‘In position, Guv.’

It was the back-up crew covering the road at the rear. Four men, all in civvies, another unmarked car; two of them unarmed, two of them armed, all with sweating palms. The local watchers had clocked both cars had long since, and phones were ringing all over the estate.

‘Wait for orders,’ purred Darriteau.

‘Got you, Guv.’

‘We are going in now, stay in the car, stay alert, keep the weapons out of sight.’

‘Got you, Guv.’

‘Come along, children,’ said Darriteau, and he heaved himself out of the car. Karen, Gibbons and Browne jumped out and followed Walter across the road.

The toddlers glanced up from their play. Karen smiled at one boy and he smiled back. The little girl looked worried, been listening to mummy and didn’t trust strangers. The third one, another boy, jumped up and down and ran down the road, an anguished look on his face, shouting nonsense.

Walter and his team were outside the front door. Exchanged a look. Walter’s hand relaxed in his right trouser pocket, caressing the trusted Glock pistol. He prayed he wouldn’t have to use it. Karen’s left hand in her light blouson pocket, hot and sweaty, wrapped around the handle.

Walter nodded Gibbons to the door. He glanced at Browne, bobbed his head, and stepped forward and pressed the bell.

No sound, no big barking dog, always a relief, no man shouting, then the distinct sound of footsteps inside approaching the door, heavy feet on a wooden surface.

The door opened and a hefty middle-aged woman peered out, stared at the four of them, coppers, obvious as hell. She recognised the big black bastard. He had something of a reputation, been in the papers and on the TV, and you couldn’t miss him.

Walter could see the guy’s photofit picture written in her face, fatter and older, but distinctly Luke. It was all over her. This was the mother.

‘Mrs Flowers, we have a warrant for the arrest of Luke Flowers,’ said Walter, as Gibbons and Browne pushed past her and headed down the hall.

‘What the hell! You can’t go down there,’ she screamed, and hurried after them. Walter followed too, saying, ‘Is Luke in, Mrs Flowers? It would save an awful lot of time. It’s for the best.’

She swivelled round and came back to him.

‘No, he is not! Hasn’t lived here for years! Now get these morons out of my house before I lose my temper!’

‘Where is he, Mrs Flowers?’

‘I have no idea!’

‘He’s wanted for a very serious offence, Mrs Flowers,’ said Karen. ‘Murder and attempted murder.’

The woman’s mouth fell open. A brief silence and then she yelled, ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ and as if a tiny hint of recognition seeped into her brain, she added, ‘Not my Luke! Surely not. He’s a good boy!’

‘Where is he?’ asked Walter.

‘I told you, I have no idea, and even if I had...’

The hall phone rang.

Mrs Flowers snatched it up. ‘What!’

Then she calmed down and said, ‘Yeah, they are here now, thanks for ringing, Ronnie, thanks for letting me know,’ and she put the phone down.

‘Upstairs clear!’ yelled Gibbons.

‘Kitchen clear!’ shouted Hector.

‘There is no sign of him here,’ said Karen, coming back to the hall.

‘Aiding a man wanted for murder carries severe penalties,’ said Walter. ‘Even if he is your own son.’

‘Listen to yourselves! My son could no more kill next door’s cat as murder a human being,’ yet even as she spoke the words she recalled the regular thousand pounds that dumped into her bank account. Where had that come from? She had always known he was involved in something shady. But who wasn’t? She assumed it was dodgy DVDs and CDs and knock off phones and computer software. He had always been a whiz at that stuff.

‘Someone is going to get hurt, Mrs Flowers. You could help stop that,’ said Walter.

‘Tell that to the fairies, you’re away with the mixer, man!’

‘When did you last see him?’ asked Karen.

‘I’m telling you nottin’.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Walter. ‘Your choice. Cuff her Gibbons and take her down the station, we’ve got all day.’

Gibbons produced a pair of steel cuffs, shiny, strong, new and cold.

‘Oh eh, there’s no need for that,’ she protested.

‘You can help us here, or you can help us there; it’s up to you,’ said Walter, attempting a smile.

‘Why don’t we go into the front room and sit down,’ suggested Karen, beckoning them all into the Flowers’ lounge as if she owned the place, and she took Mrs Flowers by the arm and led her inside and sat her on the sofa. Karen balanced on the arm, as Walter sat in the comfy armchair opposite.

‘When did you last see him?’ asked Walter.

Mrs Flowers sighed and glanced round the room, at her own house filled with coppers, the two young blokes were in the hall, leaning on the lounge doorframe, looking in. She’d brain Luke for bringing trouble to her door the next time she saw him.

‘Before he went to Venice.’

‘When was that?’ asked Karen.

‘Three, maybe four weeks ago.’

‘Why did he go to Venice?’ asked Walter.

‘Holiday. Took his girlfriend. Posh bit of stuff. Far too good to be introduced to me.’

‘Do you know who she is, and where she lives?’ asked Karen.

Mrs Flowers shook her head. Sighed hard. ‘Think he’s ashamed of me, doesn’t like me meeting his girls. Father’s a dentist, think that’s what he said.’

‘Where does Luke live now?’ asked Walter.

Mrs Flowers knew that question was coming, and she didn’t want to answer it. She didn’t want desperate coppers on her son’s tail. Said the first thing that came into her head.

‘He’s got a caravan or summat, no, maybe it’s a chalet, on the coast up near Rhyl.’

‘Come on, Mrs Flowers, you can do better than that, you must know where your son lives.’

‘I don’t!’ she snapped. ‘He’s at that stage when he likes his independence, doesn’t want me dropping in on him every five minutes. Cramps his style, he says. Rings me now and again, and that’s about it.’

The look in her eyes told Walter that was at least partly true. The woman had been abandoned by her husband, and by her children. She’d been left alone to grow old by herself; to face old age alone, sitting on that comfy sofa, with nothing more for company than a 65” television. The kid had probably bought that as some kind of compensation, as if he were fulfilling his family duties, or maybe salving his conscience. Walter had seen it a thousand times before. People grow slow, fat and old, and sometimes the relatives don’t want to know.

Then she said, ‘You won’t hurt him, will you? He’s all I’ve got.’

‘We don’t want to hurt him, please believe me on that,’ said Walter. ‘But we need to speak to him; and he needs to come forward. He will be safe with us; you have my word on that.’

She stared across the room at the black man and into his still and determined eyes, and she believed the policeman, and that was a first.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said, and out of nowhere a tear formed in the corner of her eye and stuttered over her ample cheek.

Karen spotted it and put her hand on Mrs Flowers’ shoulder, gave her a squeeze and said, ‘Can we make you a cup of tea?’

‘No!’ she snapped regaining her composure. ‘The only thing I want is for you to get out of my house.’

‘Have you got an up-to-date photo?’ asked Walter.

‘No!’ she said again, only school ones, ‘he was most particular about that, never wanted his photo taken, hated it, said it would bring him terrible bad luck.’

‘I wonder why,’ said Karen under her breath.

Walter bobbed his head and took a card from his wallet and set it on the tile-topped coffee table.

‘That’s my number, call me any time.’

Mrs Flowers said nothing.

The officers let themselves out. They hadn’t expected to make an arrest, but it would have been nice. 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The first time Wazir Khan visited Chester he knew it was the place for him. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt at home there.

He had been scouting out various towns with a view to relocating his family, Southport, Frodsham, Prestatyn, Formby, he had visited them all, considered them all, but it was the city of Chester that captured his heart.

Jimmy Mac gave Wazzie a glowing reference, and the Chester City Bus Company could hardly refuse him a position, and because their accounting and reporting of cash taken was more stringent, Wazir could no longer supplement his income, though he didn’t mind. It didn’t worry him for he was happy to be away from the deceit and shame of stealing money from the public purse.

He found a small first-floor flat in Brook Street just around the corner from Chester General Railway Station. The flat was damp and cold, partly because the shop downstairs had been abandoned and was semi derelict. It wasn’t unusual to wake in the morning to find a drunk there, sleeping off a heavy night, curled up in the muck and rubbish that gathered in the empty shop. 

In his spare time Wazir set about painting and decorating the flat until it was the best home the Khan family had ever enjoyed. It was 1964; the height of Beatlemania, and their son Ahmed had just turned twenty. Ahmed boasted the haircut, the clothes, all the records, and the girls too, one in particular, a local kid by the name of Gloria Barnes who worshipped the ground that Ahmed trod. George Harrison with a tan, she called him, my gorgeous Georgie, with a tan.

Despite that, Ahmed was a conscientious boy. He continued to work hard; studied mechanical engineering at Chester Technical College, and was working on innovatory lock designs, an interest that impressed his father. He worked hard in the expanding local mosque too, and was well thought of in the community, even if he was consorting with a Christian girl.

Wazir had confided in Nadirah that perhaps they could take over the shop downstairs and open a new locksmith business, and all the family were in favour of that.

They were to be surprised and disappointed.

Wazir took a lease on the shop, and came home beaming, to announce his latest bright idea.

‘We will open a restaurant, an Indian restaurant,’ he said. ‘We will serve curries and make our fortune.’

‘But you know nothing about cooking!’ protested Nadirah.

‘No, but you do,’ countered Wazir, ‘and your Aunty Husna in Calicut does. Write to her. Get her to send her best fifty recipes. Ask her to send us a new recipe every month. Send her a two-pound postal order. She’ll help the family, of course she will! For two pounds she will.’

‘Do you want to know a secret? I ain’t being no waiter,’ chipped in Ahmed.

‘And everyone knows the English don’t like curry! You’re wasting your time,’ protested Nadirah.

‘They do, they will! You’ll see! Once they get the taste, they’ll love it,’ insisted Wazir.

‘Slow down!’ shouted Ahmed, glancing at his excited parents. ‘I feel fine about it; but don’t expect me to wait on table.’

‘Shut up, boy,’ said his mother, ‘and stop talking gibberish.’

‘Oh, please me!’ said Wazir, joining in the fun, as Ahmed and Nadirah shared another smile.

‘Just don’t expect me to hold your hand,’ said Ahmed, grinning.

‘I am not cooking curries all hours of the day and night. It’ll be a total disaster!’ said Nadirah, and she stormed out, leaving Ahmed to share a knowing masculine look with his father.

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THE STATE OF KERALA Restaurant opened for business on the fifth of October 1964. It was the first authentic Indian Restaurant in the city. Wazir took a small display advertisement in the Chester Observer; even invited the newspaper’s food writer to attend the big opening night.

The writer arrived with his wife, as did fourteen other curious souls. The writer cleared his plates, the wife barely touched a thing; and her constant grimacing worried Wazir, for he imagined a crucifying review would follow, a report that could kill the new enterprise stone dead.

The subsequent write up was substantial. It even carried a picture of the Khan family outside the front door, pointing up at the sign, Ahmed smirking, wearing his pressed high collared Beatles’ jacket and well groomed Harrison-esque hair.

The newspaper text included the phrase: While this will not be to everyone’s cup of tea, the State of Kerala is a welcome addition to the city’s eateries. Whether it will catch on, only time will tell, but in the meantime, make sure you pay a visit, in case you miss it.

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THE KHAN FAMILY PORTRAYED it as being a great success, which it was not. But they were open for business, and taking money, and backed up by Aunty Husna’s unique recipes that flowed in once a month, as reliable as one of Ahmed’s lock designs, the menu grew, as did the clientele, and in time, the reputation of Wazir’s weird culinary establishment.

‘If you want something different for your tea, or your dinner, get down to the State of Kerala,’ was a comment that began to be uttered in hushed tones in the city’s bars and clubs, and slowly, very slowly, people did just that. ‘It’s hot!’

And it was, in more ways than one.

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THE YEARS ROLLED BY and the State of Kerala prospered. Wazir hated paying tax and reinvested as much of the profit in improving the business as he could. He bought the freehold of the building they rented; and the one next door too; and expanded the restaurant into there.

He was forever improving the fixtures and fittings in the parts of the restaurant you could see, and the parts you could not, the kitchen, and the living quarters, and the one thing that remained the same, untouched and unrivalled, was the prized menu, for it was the foundation stone of the business.

No one else possessed a menu like it, and no one knew the recipes either, and they were jealously guarded. Cheapskate copycats came and went leaving the State to prosper. The Khans began importing ingredients, rare and exotic spices that could not be obtained in Britain.

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LYING IN HIS BATH ONE evening, Wazir imagined the bare main wall behind the bar needed a focal point. He thought a picture of rural India would do the trick, but the three pictures he commissioned were disappointing, and to put it bluntly, were not up to the job. Not substantial enough or eye catching.

It was Ahmed who suggested the answer.

‘Use the sword,’ he said. ‘Use the sword! It was what it was meant for!’

Despite his initial misgivings Wazir warmed to the idea, and the following Saturday the cricket bat was retrieved and opened. It was a defining moment in the history of the Khan family. Everyone was there. Wazir, who had glued that bat together all those years before, Nadirah, who had helped to bury it in Calicut in the yard at the back of their house to save it from Hindu looting, Ahmed, his hair now lank and thinning, and his fattening English wife Gloria, with their fast growing son, Mohammed. They stared in wonder as the bat was split, and the magical sword revealed.

It looked as if it had been made yesterday, as if it had been cleaned that morning, as if it had been sharpened an hour before. It was hundreds of years old, yet a thing of unique beauty, as those gathered there staring down at the flashing jewels set within the ancient ivory handle would forever testify.

What warrior had first held it?

What tales could it tell?

How many people had fallen under its spell?

How many foes had perished to its blade?

It was high time the sword saw the light of day again.

Time indeed for the precious artefact to regain its glory.

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THE KHAN FAMILY COMMISSIONED a special display case that would house the family weapon that had taken on mythical status. The box resembled the cases English fishermen used to display prize catches. But this box was different. The glass was toughened, unbreakable, bullet proof, cost a fortune, but the taxman was paying, anything to reduce the tax liability on the business. It would go through the books as essential fittings for the restaurant.

The wood was solid mahogany, hundreds of years in the growing, nurtured in the tropics, like the sword itself, tough as nails, virtually unbreakable, while the case was fastened shut utilising a special heavy duty lock that Ahmed had designed and built himself.

There were only two keys.

One for Wazir, and one for Ahmed.

It was fitted to the wall behind the bar, and floodlit, enabling the jewels to shimmer and sparkle, mesmerising passers-by. The case was draped in best Calico cloth, made in, and imported from, Calicut in the State of Kerala, especially for the occasion.

The sword would be unveiled on the Sunday evening, where Wazir, always with an eye for free publicity, invited the same aging food writer from the Chester Observer to attend the ceremony, and the special dinner that followed. In the next edition the writer wrote a fabulous review, and afterwards the crowds flocked to the ever-expanding State of Kerala like never before.

Next, Wazir set his eyes on another adjacent empty unit that had come available. Many people wanted food in a hurry, they didn’t always want to come in and sit down and be waited on. A take-away was the answer, and like everything else he touched, it became a great success. Wazir Khan and his family were on a roll.

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WAZIR WOKE UP. HE HAD been dozing and was alone, sitting in the luxurious lounge above the main restaurant. He’d been thinking about the old days, about how he first thought of opening a restaurant, and all the things that had happened since. He thought about the old days a great deal, though he strived hard to think of the future too. The doctor said he should retire, take it easy, he deserved it, but he won’t. He’s in his late eighties. Frail but sharp, and as full of plans as ever. Nadirah potters around, oversees the menus and cooking, and worries that quality standards might slip, though they never do. She’s eighty-four.

Ahmed is in charge, or at least he thinks he is, though Wazir might disagree. Gloria has long gone. Christian, and flighty. Only to be expected. Ahmed doesn’t miss her. None of the Khans do.

It took him a long time to fall in love with catering and the restaurant business, but he did. He was proud of the perfect State, as he called it, and proud of his parents for all they had achieved; through the hardships they had endured.

He’s sixty-seven, that cute boy the two policemen stared at on that drizzly day on the Liverpool dock road, as one officer wafted the cricket bat high in the air.

Mohammed, Ahmed’s son, was forty-four, and in his prime. He boasted a pretty wife in Akleema, and two fine children who both work in the business. Sahira, his beautiful daughter, and Maaz, the son and heir, who one day would carry the flag for the Khan dynasty.

Recipes and ingredients still arrive from India once a month, though not from Aunty Husna, she has long gone. But from her niece, and payments still flow to the subcontinent in exchange. They are not as good as they once were, but that is to be expected. The late Aunty Husna was something special.

The State of Kerala prospered like it never had before, and Wazir was a contented man. He’d enjoyed a good life, aside from the terrible demise of his parents. God had been kind to him, and to the family.

The phone in the private quarters rang.

Ahmed answered.

It is the local Imam.

He wants to speak with Ahmed and Mohammed and Wazir too, if the old man is up to it.

He wants to see them in the morning, first thing. Can they come before eight o’clock? It’s a delicate matter that cannot be discussed over the telephone.

Ahmed agreed and goes off to find his father. He is watching cricket, the ubiquitous Indian Premier League.

‘It’ll be something and nothing, the summons,’ mutters Wazir. ‘They probably need more funds for some project in Pakistan. Take your chequebook.’

That was the usual cause of excitement at the mosque.

‘Watch the cricket,’ implored his father. ‘Watch the Indian batsmen, they know how to play the game.’

Ahmed’s cricket watching days were long behind him.

He was a worried man.

He saw black clouds everywhere.

Chapter Thirty

The Incident Room was packed. Still before 8am, and the aroma of bacon butties filled the air. Jenny Thompson rushed round with cups of coffee.

She didn’t need to do that, but Walter was happy she had. Karen declined, Gibbo happily seizing the unwanted cup.

‘Listen up,’ said Walter, getting to his feet, the polystyrene cup steaming in his hand. ‘Thanks to all who came in early; and thanks for those who came in on their day off, and so to business. Luke Flowers,’ and everyone glanced at the photofit on the wall they believed accurate. ‘He is not living with his mother. She says he’s got a caravan or chalet on the North Wales’ coast. Rhyl, somewhere like that. I think Mrs Flowers is being protective. We know he likes travelling, just come back from Venice, according to his mother. He doesn’t sound like a caravan type of guy to me. I think he has a flat in the city. He’s not on the electoral roll, but it shouldn’t be difficult to trace his address. Gibbons and Jenny, I want you round the local travel agents. He must have booked that holiday somewhere, and they will have his address. If he does have a flat, he should be paying council tax. Hector, that’s your job. Find him on the council tax roll, and we are in business.’

Hector nodded and appreciated being given a job to himself. Said, ‘Sure, Guv, that makes sense.’

‘You two,’ Walter continued, pointing to two junior officers he was ashamed to say he couldn’t name. ‘Get on to the local health centres and libraries. You might have some joy there. Don’t take any flannel from the health centres. They can be an awkward bunch of lilies on those helpdesks. We don’t want to know about medical records, we just want an address. Tell them it’s a matter of life and death, and maybe they’ll understand, and check out the dentists too,’ he shouted to no one in particular. ‘Find one with a pretty daughter with a boyfriend called Luke, and you could find his address that way.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ they said in unison.

‘And remember this, this guy has killed one person, and thinks he’s killed another. He’s armed and dangerous and not to be messed with. He won’t hesitate to shoot again. I don’t want any dead heroes. I don’t want to tell someone’s mother their faultless offspring has stopped a slug. As soon as you find an address, you tell me, got that?’

Walter scanned the room and everyone nodded and muttered, ‘Sure thing, boss,’ and even his boss, Mrs West, who was standing observing proceedings, propped up in her office doorway, nodded her assent.

She did a lot of that, nodding and staff observation. It was as if the bi-annual officer appraisal reports were never far from her mind, as she took five minutes to watch each officer in turn. They all knew she was doing it because she always did. They felt her steely eyes settling on them; usually when they had something to say. They’d answer Walter, and glance nervously at John, as she was known, to gauge how they were doing.

It unnerved them. It sure as hell unnerved Walter.

‘Questions?’ asked Walter.

‘Where did he get the gun?’ asked Hector, unable to pass up an opportunity to speak.

‘God knows,’ said Walter. ‘There are suppliers of such things. Hopefully when we find Luke it will lead us to the gunsmith. Anything else?’

No one had.

‘Right, get on with it! I want to make an arrest before teatime; drinks on me if we do.’

‘That’s more like it!’ said Gibbons. ‘Mine’s a double vodka.’

‘Come along, children! Be on your way,’ yelled Walter, beckoning those that were going out through the door.

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THE KHANS PULLED THEIR black BMW 5 Series into the mosque car park. Ahmed was driving, he often did. His son Mohammed sat beside him, and the old man, Wazir, was in the back, his eyes closed, his breathing heavy.

‘Just before we go in,’ said Ahmed, ‘does anyone have any late thoughts on why we are here?’

Wazir opened his eyes and said, ‘Pound to a penny they want money. Famine and flood. The same old stories.’

‘Famine and flood are not to be ridiculed,’ said Mohammed, from the front seat, turning round and fixing his eyes on the grandfather Mohammed thought was getting more out of touch with each passing week.

‘I know that!’ snapped Wazir, fighting to keep the irritation from his voice. ‘I was only saying...’

‘For what it’s worth,’ said Ahmed, ‘I think it’s something more serious.’

‘Like what?’ asked Mohammed.

‘I wish I knew.’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Wazir. ‘Let’s go in and see,’ and he opened the car door and dragged himself out onto the tarmac.

Mohammed and his father shared a look and joined him and headed for the front entrance of the refurbished mosque.

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LUKE FLOWERS ENJOYED an early breakfast. He had a busy day because the next day he would leave for Mexico. He had a lot to do. Melanie was arriving in an hour and that would enable him to say his goodbyes properly. He intended giving her something to remember him by. She’d be surprised he was going to Australia at short notice, but absence makes the heart grow fonder. He was a great believer in the maxim, so long as it wasn’t out of sight, out of mind.

After he’d seen her off, he’d still have time for Sahira. There would always be time for that, and though he wouldn’t have time to see anyone else, there were several others that kept infiltrating into his busy brain.

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THE IMAM SABIR WAS waiting in his office for the Khan family. He was wearing his best robes; made from the cloth his proud grandfather had bought for Sabir’s birthday, robes he would only wear on solemn occasions.

The Imam had adopted the name Sabir, for it meant patience, for he was astute enough to realise it was one attribute he did not possess. He hoped that through taking the name it might seep into his consciousness. So far, it hadn’t worked.

The Khan men were shown to his room. The Imam sat behind his polished mahogany desk. He would not get up. It wasn’t for him to stand. Three generations of Khans entered the room and glanced nervously down. It had never happened before, being summoned at an early hour. Something important was happening, and none of them could guess what.

The assistant Imam, an older man named Hujjat, was standing to one side of Imam Sabir. Hujjat was also fully robed, but unlike Sabir, he was happy to take a backseat, less ambitious, content to defer to Sabir. He didn’t make eye contact with his superior, nor with the summoned ones. Hujjat hailed from the Punjab; was pious, gentle and even-tempered, a man Wazir liked and respected.

Wazir said, ‘Hello Hujjat,’ barely breaking the silence.

Hujjat didn’t reply, didn’t smile, just pursed his lips and nodded slightly.

There were three plain chairs set out before the desk.

The Khans were not invited to sit.

Wazir was becoming irritable.

Imam Sabir glanced up from his laptop computer, as if surprised. Saw three men standing there, as if they had come into his domain uninvited, as if he, Sabir, had been impolite to them.

‘Oh, gentleman, please sit,’ beckoning toward the seats.

Ahmed said, ‘Thank you, Imam Sabir,’ and sat in the centre chair, Wazir to the left, Mohammed to his right.

The Imam looked upwards, as if to heaven, as if seeking inspiration, as if calling on all the patience God might grant him. He closed the laptop with a click and began.

‘Thank you for coming at short notice, and thank you for coming at such an early hour.’

‘It matters not what time you call, Imam,’ said Ahmed. ‘We would come at any time for you. You know that.’

‘For sure!’ said Mohammed, not wishing to be left out of any burgeoning conversation.

Wazir glanced across the room through his tired eyes. He had been wrong. Whatever the Imams wanted, it wasn’t funds for food and famine, and he felt ashamed he thought such a thing. Something important was about to be revealed.

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THE BELL TO THE DOOR at Luke’s flat rang. One long ring. Luke finished his coffee and jumped to his feet. Ran to the door, a spring in his step. Opened up.

She looked fabulous.

Two items of clothing only.

Short-sleeved white blouse, tight fitting stone-washed jeans.

First thing Saturday morning or not, she’d spent a great deal of time on her makeup, and had washed her blonde hair, and that was as Luke would have expected.

He reached out onto the landing, grasped her left wrist and dragged her inside, cooing: ‘How’s my darling Melanie?’

A big smile cracked across her face.

He’d shaved and applied best aftershave, over applied, but over application was always better than under, gelled his perfect hair too, and he looked cute in a red jockey shirt and black trousers. What was it about him that excited her so, that brought butterflies to her entire being? That was something that mystified her, but it always had.

They kissed hungrily and when they came apart she said, ‘What’s all this about, Lukee, baby?’

‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘Like what, Lukee?’ whispering her reply into his ear, and dreaming that maybe, just maybe, he might propose. It was about time he did. Most of her lovers managed that after a few weeks. It sure wasn’t as she imagined he might do it, but so long as he did, that was all that mattered.

‘I’ve got something to show you.’

Melanie smirked. ‘Like what, Lukee?’

‘Get in that bedroom and get your kit off!’

‘But Luke, it’s not yet nine o’clock.’

‘Don’t care. Do as you are told!’

Chapter Thirty-One

The Imam Sabir sniffed and rubbed his nose before beginning. ‘This is a matter of great delicacy.’

‘So we understand,’ said Ahmed.

The Imam held up his hand, as if to tell the middle Khan not to interrupt. Ahmed sat back in his chair. He could recognise a reprimand when he saw it.

‘This matter concerns a member of your family.’

‘It’s bound to be Maaz again,’ muttered Wazir. ‘What’s the crazy boy done this time?’

Imam Hujjat fixed Wazir with his eyes and growled: ‘It has nothing to do with Maaz! He is a decent, God fearing boy, and a man we have high hopes for.’

Wazir looked duly rebuked, shifted in his seat, and glanced at the others, but no one looked back.

Ahmed and Mohammed were one step ahead.

It only left the women. It had to be Sahira.

The Imam fixed Mohammed with his gaze and spoke the words, ‘Your daughter, our sister, has shamed us all. She is fornicating with a kaffir.’

Stunned silence.

Mohammed broke the spell.

‘But... but, that cannot be right, Imam. She is never left unattended in the house. She is not permitted to have boys, men, to the house unless we are present, and she has never brought a kaffir to our property, never, not once.’

The Imam brought his hand to his mouth and scratched his scrawny grey whiskers. Glanced up at Hujjat, and back at the stunned Khan clan. The Khans had been negotiating a good marriage for Sahira, and filthy rumours could scupper everything.

‘She is fornicating with a kaffir!’ repeated the Imam, ‘letting herself be abused by a Christian youth, the scummiest Christian yob you could ever meet. A man of terrible repute, a lecher, sinner, criminal, and fornicator!’

Mohammed clasped his hands together and squirmed in his seat. Beads of sweat popped from his forehead like mini-sprouting cabbages.

His father Ahmed glanced at his anguished son.

Mohammed went to speak but Ahmed interrupted, ‘Let us hear what the good Imam has to say, Mohammed. We need to know more about these dreadful accusations.’

Sabir glanced to his left and looked up at Hujjat, and bobbed his head once in as pious a manner he could muster.

Hujjat was on the move, making for the side wall where dark drawn curtains obscured part of the wall as if there was a window there. He drew back the curtains, but there was no window, just a large flat screen television fixed flush to the wall. Giant size, top ticket price, donation no doubt from Javed Grewal’s electrical shop. Hujjat glanced back at Sabir, as if for instruction. Sabir nodded, and Hujjat slipped the DVD into the player.

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DC HECTOR BROWNE HAD been brought back to earth. He had no idea how hard it was to trace someone through the local council tax records. He could not find a Luke Flowers, nor a Luke Edward Flowers, nor an L Flowers, or L E Flowers, or a Luca Flowers, or Lucan Flowers, or Look Flowers, or any similar name.

If this guy Luke Flowers had a flat in the city of Chester, he wasn’t registered to pay council tax. So either he had registered in another name, possible, though Hector thought unlikely, or he hadn’t registered at all, in the hope of avoiding paying. The council would catch up with that. They always did. Browne pondered on it and wondered where he should go next.

DC Darren Gibbons had visited five travel agents with his oppo, Jenny Thompson, with no luck. There were still another five to do, including the one on the high street, where the pretty girl always smiled at fit young men like Darren Gibbons.

The other teams were finding out how difficult and busy receptionists could be on health centre counters. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help, but essential health matters took priority, and some of the officers had some sympathy with that.

Libraries had proved equally useless. Luke Flowers was not a library kind of guy, or if he was, he was into the book reader devices that were revolutionising the whole publishing and reading business.

Karen owned one, adored the thing, given to her by an ardent admirer who had long since been binned, though she kept the electronic reader after he’d gone. She had to have some decent memories of David Gardner, for there weren’t many others, and she would squint at that grey slab at every opportunity. 

Walter sat back in his chair, his hands behind his head, and gazed unblinking at the ceiling. He often did when he was reviewing a case in his mind. Karen had seen that semi-trancelike state many times, and when he visited planet Darriteau, she knew better than to interrupt.

Mrs West had been to the Ladies to freshen up and was coming back when she spotted him, sitting there, unmoving and silent.

She didn’t accept the deep thinking scenario that Walter portrayed. In fact, she often wondered if he had perfected the art of falling asleep with his eyes open. She wouldn’t put it past the strange man under her command.

Joan West was concerned.

She had a violent unsolved murder on her desk, and the buck would stop with her. She was thinking Walter Darriteau’s best days might be behind him. She’d give him another forty-eight hours. If there were no developments by then, she would consider calling in outside help. She had to be seen to be proactive. No one liked a leader who sat alone in their office and did nothing. Leaders had to lead, and had to be seen to lead, even if she led everyone up the garden path. Being seen to be doing something was important in the service, and far more important than staring into space. Walter’s sloth-like manoeuvres irritated some, and had sometimes resulted in a lack of promotion. 

Walter was still thinking. Didn’t care less what other people thought. Why had Luke Flowers tried to kill Neil Swaythling?

He was no nearer a satisfactory answer. Indeed, the question seemed to be getting lost in the headlong pursuit to arrest the cretin. 

––––––––

IMAM HUJJAT DREW THE curtains across the actual window on the other side of the room. The glass was frosted to keep out prying eyes, but the summer morning light was excluded, too.

A colour picture filled the big screen.

Shivering images, a humming sound, nothing spoken. Then a clear image.

There was a long corridor, bland cream walls, bland beige carpet, bright blue doors, as if to point out to worse-for-wear travellers where the doors actually were.

A figure came down the corridor and opened one of the doors and went inside. It was a maid, white skin; some might consider quite pretty, early twenties, tied back dark hair, going about her duties.

Everyone stared at the screen.

No one spoke.

Another minute passed.

The time and date appeared at the bottom left corner of the screen, flickering unobtrusive transparent letters and numbers. The tape was made ten days before.

Wazir tried to remember what he was doing ten days ago. Trouble was, he could barely remember yesterday. Mohammed and Ahmed were pondering on the same thing. What and where and who?

Another person came down the corridor. A young woman, a pretty young woman, long dark hair, brushed western style, black suit, the skirt a little shorter than usual, as if it had been taken up, or folded up, pretty legs, as if to attract the eye, flaunting red lipstick.

The woman was Mohammed’s daughter, Sahira.

She had no luggage, other than her handbag, a present from her mother. All the Khans recognised it. She produced a key, glanced around, opened up and disappeared into the room, the next room to where the maid had gone in.

The Khan men shared an anxious look.

Still, no one spoke.

The film rolled on.

Nothing happened.

The door next to Sahira’s room opened, and the maid came out. She was carrying a large red plastic box of cleaning materials and bustled into another opposite room.

Another break, a period of nothingness, just shaking film of a bland, empty, and still corridor.

The Khans shared another look as if to say, ‘Is that it?’

In their hearts, they hoped it would be.

In their heads, they knew it would not.

A man came down the corridor, short, young, slight, boy band good looking, a spring in his step, a clear smirk on his face. He was swinging the key around in his hand as if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if it was his birthday, and he was about to receive the best possible present.

He stopped and opened a door and went inside.

He had gone into Sahira’s room.

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BACK IN THE PRESENT, in another part of town, Luke patted Melanie’s backside and pushed her out through the door of his flat. He hadn’t been altogether honest with her. He had told her he was going to Australia for three weeks to attend a computer software conference. He had attended similar things before, but only in the UK.

It wouldn’t be three weeks at all, more like three months, more likely still, six months; in fact, the real truth was he didn’t know when he’d be back.

It depended on how exciting Mexico was, and how alluring the senoritas, who he knew would adore him, and his newfound wealth.

He took a shower, and a soak in the bath for a short while, and then arrange another going away meeting while he still had time.

––––––––

THE PRETTY GIRL IN the travel agent was real helpful.

Of course she knew Luke Flowers.

He was one of their best customers.

Always going away somewhere or other, a real jetsetter, though she did not know he was leaving for Mexico. No one did, because that jaunt had been arranged by Jimmy Mitchell under a false name.

She spoke of Luke in glowing terms, and it was obvious to Darren and Jenny she had a crush on the guy. Probably hoped he would take her with him next time. She didn’t know how lucky she was.

‘And you have an address?’ asked an excited Jenny.

‘Course we do. Here it is. 28 Glanford House. It’s a new building, only ten minutes from here, on the way to the station, just beyond the city walls.’

Darren rang base and spoke to Walter.

‘Guv? Got an address! 28 Glanford House, new build flats, near the railway station.’

‘Good boy! Well done! I know the place. Make your way there. Meet you there in ten. Don’t go in till we arrive. Don’t do anything stupid. Be careful!’

‘Got you, Guv, see you soon.’

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IMAM HUJJAT FAST-FORWARDED the DVD. Explained that nothing much else happened, then stopped and started it again.

The door to the room opened, and the man came out. His short hair dishevelled, as he walked jauntily away down the corridor and disappeared.

Two more minutes and the door opened again.

Sahira came out. She paused and touched her hair.

Her father, Mohammed, thought she looked guilty.

He stared at his feet.

Ahmed frowned and glanced at his father as if for support.

Wazir stared straight ahead as if he couldn’t see a thing.

They all watched her hurry down the corridor and disappear.

They were all thinking the same thing.

How could she betray them in such a way?

Ahmed asked: ‘How long was she in there?’

‘Two hours and twelve minutes,’ said Imam Hujjat without a moment’s hesitation.

‘There must be an innocent explanation,’ said Wazir.

‘There is no innocent explanation!’ said Imam Sabir, his patience deserting him. ‘She has been regularly fornicating with this kaffir!’

‘You don’t know what she has been doing,’ suggested Ahmed.

‘What do you think she was doing in there, playing marbles? Take the scales from your eyes, Mr Khan,’ said an exasperated Sabir.

‘What do you mean... a regular basis?’ asked Ahmed.

‘This is the fifth time, same man, same place!’ said Hujjat. ‘We do not know how many other times there have been, in other places, with other men.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Mohammed, his hand going to his forehead. ‘You mean?’

‘We don’t know for sure,’ said Sabir. ‘It is up to you to find out. She is your daughter, and she is disgracing herself, she is disgracing the Khan family, and she is disgracing this mosque. You must do something about it... and you must do it soon.’

‘You can rest assured we will act today,’ said Ahmed, keen to bring the disgusting business to an end.

‘How did you get this video?’ asked Wazir.

‘That is none of your business!’ said Sabir, patience finally exhausted.

Hujjat said, ‘We have a spy in the hotel, Wazir. It was only by God’s good fortune we discovered the matter. If it had been anywhere else, then...’ and he wafted his hand through the air, and let that thought die on his lips.

‘You should leave us now,’ said Sabir. ‘Come again on Tuesday morning and explain what actions have been taken. Ring me if there is any news.’

The Khans stood as one. They did not need telling twice, Wazir taking longer to get to his feet. They bowed to the Imam and left the room.

––––––––

IN THE CAR GOING HOME Wazir said, ‘Times are changing, things are changing, try not to be too hard on her.’

Mohammed almost choked.

‘Wazir, you are becoming senile in your old age! I cannot be too hard on her for the sins she has committed!’

Ahmed didn’t think his father senile, but he didn’t agree with him either. The girl had behaved abominably, beyond abominably, and he wondered how he could show his face at the mosque again. He would be a laughing-stock. The entire family would be a laughing-stock; people would stop and stare at them in the street, raise their hands to their mouths and gossip behind their backs about the dreadful Khans whose womenfolk had gone astray, shaming the community.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Luke dressed in a hurry. He fancied a farewell drink. He left the flat and hurried to the Laughing Cavalier that was set overlooking green lawns by the river. He often went to the LC, as it was known.

It was a trendy place, one of those new pubs that opened at 7am and filled the void, before alcohol could be dispensed, by serving coffees and breakfasts. He might jump on a poached egg on toast. Saying girly goodbyes was a hungry business.

Janice was there, the boss’s wife, getting on a wee bit, but still attracting the eye, her of the tight blouse and amazing chest. None of the young men missed that, nor the old ones either.

‘How are you, Luke?’

‘I’m great, going to Australia tomorrow. Can’t wait.’

‘Lucky you. What can I get you?’

‘Just a coffee, ta, maybe have some eggs later,’ and he took a seat on a corner pew and found his mobile and pondered who to call next.

––––––––

WALTER AND KAREN ARRIVED at the flat by car. Glanford House, three stories high, red brick, white windows, gabled roof, like a million other blocks that had shot up across the kingdom in the past ten years.

On seeing their car, Darren and Jenny came out from behind some camellia bushes. Hector Browne arrived panting, saying, ‘Thought you might need some extra help.’

Walter nodded at them in turn and slipped his hand in his jacket pocket to where the Glock was sleeping.

‘Come on, team,’ he said, ‘time to earn your corn,’ and they strode up the path.

The outside door was security locked. Inside, they could see a tall guy in full multi coloured cycling gear. He had brought his racing cycle out from the storeroom and was busy fitting his helmet. He was taller than Luke and older than he looked. He came to the door; saw the five strangers hanging about outside, thought they were perhaps Jehovah’s Witnesses, or some other weird bunch. He pushed the bike to the door and opened up. Walter held the door open for him and the guy said: ‘Can I help you?’

Walter flashed ID. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Colin Cresswell.’

‘And you live here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which flat?’ asked Karen.

‘24. Look, what’s this all about?’

‘Do you know Luke Flowers?’ asked Walter.

‘Lukee, yeah course, he’s a neighbour of mine.’

‘Is he in the flat now?’ asked Karen, her hand caressing the weapon in her pocket.

‘No, you’ve just missed him, went out about fifteen minutes ago.’

‘Do you know where he went?’ asked Walter.

‘No idea, but he was all dressed up. Hot date, I’d say. He’s got a fancy girlfriend; father’s a dentist, so he says.’

Walter bobbed his head. Thanked the neighbour. Told him to have a good ride, and Walter said, ‘If you see him, tell him his mother’s looking for him.’

‘What about?’ asked Cresswell, straddling the bike.

‘Tell him his dog’s died.’

‘Didn’t know he had a dog.’

Walter grinned, and the guy shook his head; a puzzled expression on his face, and rode away.

Gibbons had set his boot in the outside door to stop it closing. It had a strong spring. It would have snapped shut in seconds. They went inside and sprinted up the stairs, Walter puffing behind, knowing he should have used the vacant and standing lift.

Gathered outside the flat, Walter, breathing hard, said, ‘I’m getting fed up with this. Just missing things. Either we are getting slow, or criminals are getting cuter.’

No one said a word. Just glanced at the dark brown door, and the brass figure 28.

‘Kick it down!’ said Walter.

Hector and Gibbons approached the door, drew back their right foot in unison, and kicked hard in perfect symmetry, like a pair of marching fascist soldiers on parade. Straight legged, thrusting, decisive, and forward.

The door crumbled under the impact and surrendered, shaking and collapsing in a noisy and showy heap into the tiled hallway beyond. Walter stepped into the void and his troops followed him in. 

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THE ADMONISHED KHAN men arrived back at the State of Kerala. Hurried up the stairs, even Wazir, for ancient adrenalin had woken up his old body. They found Nadirah and Akleema in the private kitchen, baking cakes.

‘Where is Sahira?’ demanded Mohammed.

The women turned and saw the blazing looks on the men’s faces.

‘She’s taking a bath. What is the matter?’

‘Get her out of the bath and get her in the sitting room!’ said Mohammed.

‘Why? What’s going on, Mohammed? Tell me what is happening.’

‘Do as your husband says!’ snapped Ahmed. ‘And do it now!’

Maaz came running, alerted by the raised voices.

‘What’s up, peeps?’ he grinned, as he unplugged his iPod from his ear.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Mohammed. ‘Turn that bloody thing off and put it away!’

‘Of course, father,’ said Maaz, eager to know what was going down.

––––––––

WAZIR WAS SITTING IN his favourite armchair in the sitting room. Ahmed came in and stood in front of the window. Mohammed arrived and stood beside him. Maaz ran in and sat beside Wazir, and said from the side of his mouth, ‘What’s happening here, old man?’

Wazir scowled and said, ‘You’ll know soon enough.’

Nadirah and Akleema came to the door, and Akleema said, ‘Here she is, the naughty girl, whatever she has been up to.’

Sahira breezed in, still not understanding the seriousness of the situation. She had finished bathing and had dressed in grey slacks and a Hamas Tee shirt. The Khan men were all there, one in his twenties, one in his forties, one in his sixties, one in his eighties, four generations of misery, judging by the look on their sour faces.

‘What’s the matter, folks?’ she said, but by the time she had finished her question, those same looks told her everything she needed to know. She was in big trouble, and she could guess why.

Mohammed, her father, stepped forward three paces and slapped her hard across the left cheek.

Sahira yelped and held her face, tried hard not to cry. Her cheek was on fire. Stinging hot. She flicked her tongue over the teeth on that side. Felt blood, and tasted it, and thought a tooth had come loose.

‘What is happening?’ screeched Akleema.

‘Get the women out of here!’ yelled Mohammed, and Maaz leapt to his feet and ushered Nadirah, who was staring at Wazir; and Akleema out of the room. Maaz closed the door in their faces and retreated to the sofa.

‘Do you dare deny it?’ yelled Mohammed.

‘Deny what?’ said Sahira, regaining a little composure as a trickle of blood spilt from her lips.

‘That you have become a common prostitute! That you are sleeping with kaffirs, and God alone knows what else you have been up to.’

Maaz’s mouth fell open.

He grinned and glanced at Wazir, as if for confirmation.

Wazir stared at the door as if he could see through the timber to his wife and Akleema, waiting and listening on the far side.

‘I am not a prostitute!’ insisted Sahira. ‘I love Luke, if that’s who you mean. We hope to get married.’

Mohammed had heard enough.

He slapped her again, and yelled: ‘You have brought disgrace to this door, to this family, disgrace to the mosque, disgrace to your religion, disgrace to me, your father. You will never be allowed out unaccompanied again!’

‘But father...’

‘Don’t but father me! From now on you will only eat one day in three. If I catch you stealing food, I will cut off your right hand!’

‘But father, I...’

‘I can’t tell you how much you disappoint me. You are nothing but a common whore!’

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IN THE LAUGHING CAVALIER, Luke finished his coffee. He had decided on his next assignation and he would make it a good one. It would be his last meet in England for a long time and it had to be special. He made a quick phone call, and after that he began to text. When he’d finished, he ordered an early light lunch. An active man had to keep up his strength.

––––––––

IN THE SITTING ROOM above the State of Kerala, the text dumped into Sahira’s mobile with a tinkly sound, alerting the recipient it had arrived.

Everyone heard it.

Sahira pulled her mobile from her slacks’ pocket.

Tried to delete the text.

Too late.

Mohammed jumped forward and jerked the device from her hand.

He had always been against her possessing a mobile phone. It was a ridiculous idea. Wazir had bought it for the girl for her birthday, to curry favour, so Mohammed imagined, but Wazir was losing touch with reality. His day-to-day decisions were becoming more questionable.

Mohammed glanced at the incoming text.

Raised his eyebrows.

Shook his head.

For one moment, it looked like he might cry.

He read it aloud so they could all hear.

––––––––

GOING AWAY FOR 3 MTHS. Need to see you before I go, this aft. 1pm, same pad. Get yr black arse down there. B naked + waiting. Thrashing awaits. L.

––––––––

SAHIRA BURST INTO TEARS.

Maaz looked disgusted, confused, and dumbfounded.

Wazir scratched his chin.

Ahmed tried to feel pity for the misguided girl, but could not.

Mohammed felt murderous; then said, ‘Where is the “same pad”?’

Sahira thought a moment, and said: ‘The Red Rose Motel, room fifty.’

Mohammed bobbed his head, deep in thought, aware all eyes were on him.

‘You are not to use the telephone, you are not to use the Internet, you are not to leave the building, you are not to eat or drink until I say, you are not to play music, turn on the radio or television, and you are not to discuss this matter with a living soul. Not with your mother, not with your great grandmother. You are not to open your mouth to speak at all. You are to remain silent. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, father.’

‘Maaz, take her to her bedroom, shut her in, make sure she does not come out, and no one speaks to her.’

‘Yes, father,’ said the twenty-one-year-old Maaz, and he jumped up and grabbed the twenty-two-year-old girl’s arm, and dragged her from the room. As far as he was concerned, she was no longer his sister. She was a sinner, a reprobate, an outcast, and he wasn’t in the least bit surprised.

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WALTER’S TEAM SEARCHED Luke’s flat. Found something interesting. A loaded gun wrapped in an American sweatshirt. It was a British made Webley Scott automatic pistol, 9 millimetre, an ugly, dated looking thing. Walter had seen one like it before, years ago, when he was attached to Scotland Yard.

There had been an anti-apartheid rally and riot going on outside the South African embassy. Windows were broken, and a main door damaged. Things had turned nasty. An in house security guard, a BOSS South African secret service agent, had been knocked over in the melee. A similar gun had tumbled from his pocket and had been kicked away by a rioter. The young Darriteau had gained a mention in reports by dashing in and recovering the weapon before it fell into the wrong hands. Just as well he had, for it was loaded.

This one was loaded too, six rounds, way more than enough to kill someone. Walter pondered on whether Luke Flowers was looking to kill someone else, and if so, who, and where, and when. One thing was certain, Luke would have to come back to the flat to retrieve the gun, unless he had another one stashed away somewhere else.

‘Hector?’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Go downstairs and man the front door. Keep an eye out for Luke and keep out of sight.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

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BUT LUKE DIDN’T RETURN to Glanford House, and time was marching on, and the team was growing hungry, and that included Walter, and that was nothing new.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Luke finished his early lunch of poached eggs on toast with lots of brown sauce and set down the complimentary newspaper the Laughing Cavalier provided.

He went outside to walk the meal off before he’d head for the Red Rose Motel. He hurried along the riverbank, across the pedestrian bridge, and back along the opposite bank, past the bench where he sat with Jimmy Mitchell, admiring the joggers.

There was no one sitting there, and no joggers either, and then on toward the old stone bridge that linked Handbridge to the city.

He crossed the bridge, going back into town, took the first left, and found a vacant seat. During the week, those seats would be sought after. People would hang around like hungry gulls, waiting for someone to vacate a place, giggling office girls sharing their lunches, and tales of last night’s hot date, or of gossip about a new guy who had turned up in their department.

But it was Saturday, and though there were lots of people about, they were a different crowd at the weekend; they weren’t stopping and eating. There was more urgency in their body language, in their movement, as there always was on a late Saturday morning, coming up lunchtime, as if they had vital shopping to find in the city, or were going on a first lunch date with a potential lover, or were in search of concert tickets, or hurrying to catch a train or bus to the evil twin sisters, as Luke thought of them, the big, hard cities of Liverpool and Manchester, an hour away.

He found a vacant seat and sat down. Pulled out his mobile. He would make a few last calls while he had the chance, for he knew better than to neglect his women friends for too long. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, too true, but one still had to keep in touch. He spent ten minutes on goodbye phone calls and then put his phone away, for he’d spotted a taxi coming. He jumped up and waved, and the old black cab rumbled to a standstill.

Luke clambered in and shouted: ‘Red Rose Motel.’

‘Gotcha,’ said the driver, and the cab snorted and shook, and blew out black smoke and rumbled away.

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IN THE STATE OF KERALA, the atmosphere remained tense. Doors opened and closed. Muffled male conversation. Hushed phone calls were being made. Calls to the mosque. Long-distance calls. International calls to the real State of Kerala on the subcontinent, calls to Pakistan, calls to London. More calls back to the mosque. The phones had never been so hot.

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AT A QUARTER TO TWELVE, Wazir was still sitting in the same seat, still staring ahead, looking sad, still thinking hard on the family crisis. Ahmed and Mohammed stood before the window. They ordered Maaz to bring Sahira back to the sitting room. Mohammed glanced at his expensive wristwatch, a present from Wazir on his last birthday.

Mohammed nodded Maaz away, and he stood up and went to fetch Sahira. He was back within minutes, ushering her into the room without saying a word. Then he strode over and sat beside Wazir, and stared up at the girl, his erstwhile sister, who he now looked on as if she were a hunk of rotting fish.

‘Look father, I can explain...’

‘Shut up, girl!’ snapped Mohammed.

‘Show some respect!’ yelled Maaz.

Wazir touched Maaz’s wrist, and the young man fell silent.

Mohammed held up his hand. Adopted a grave face.

‘As you know, Sahira, we have been seeking a suitable husband for you for some time. With the gracious help of Imam Sabir, and Imam Hujjat, at the mosque, this important work has been completed.’

Sahira shook her head and said, ‘No, father. I don’t want to be married.’

‘Quiet, girl!’ insisted Ahmed.

Mohammed continued.

‘Tomorrow you will fly to Pakistan. We have obtained a standby flight. You will be married in three days to a warlord based in the city of Chitral in the north of the country, close to the Afghan border. The man is well known to people at the mosque. They speak well of him. They say he is a good man, kind and understanding. He will make you a good husband, though he is sixty-eight, and he does not speak English. You will need to learn the language, and you will need to do that fast.’

The Khan men glanced at the girl.

Her head moved slowly from side to side.

‘I won’t do it, father. I won’t.’

‘You will do it! Or face the ultimate.’

Sahira stared at the men; saw the stony looks on their faces, not a scrap of compassion to be seen.

‘No, father.’

Mohammed continued.

‘You may take one bag. Make sure you do not pack any western clothes, or cosmetics or technology of any kind. Maaz will check the items when you have done.’

‘I won’t do it, father.’

‘You will do it, Sahira. Believe me, you will. Maaz, escort her back to her room. Make sure she doesn’t leave it.’

Maaz jumped up. Went to grasp her arm. She pulled away and ran outside and hurried back to her room and slammed the door.

Maaz shouted through the timber, ‘Make sure you say your prayers, slut!’ and he grinned, and after that he slipped out of the building for ten minutes, for there was something he needed to buy.

––––––––

AT HALF-PAST TWELVE, Mohammed and Maaz left the State of Kerala. Jumped in the BMW and pointed it toward the motel.

––––––––

AT FIVE TO ONE, LUKE strode into the motel.

The same dusky girl was there in her immaculate green uniform. She didn’t say a word. Wouldn’t look him in the eye, True deference, Luke imagined; as he picked up the room key she set on the check-in desk. Discrete or what? It was one reason he liked the Red Rose. He smirked and thanked her and turned round and headed for the internal door.

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IN THE FLAT ABOVE THE State of Kerala, Wazir straightened his tie and went downstairs, and wandered through the restaurant. The dreadful affair had taken the men’s eyes off the principal business, the breadwinning business that he, Wazir Khan, had thought of, and pushed through, and made happen despite all the doubts and opposition of his own family. It was the restaurant that, with the grace of God, had put food into their mouths all these years.

He set that gentle smile on his face and for a moment forgot his worries and creaking bones and greeted two newcomers at the front door, nervous first-timers who had never eaten there before. There was a gentle hum of conversation through the place. He ambled around, speaking with one or two regulars who had been coming in for years, and then sat down and ordered his own lunch, as he always did, in full view of the diners, the same food, the same size portions, the same length of wait, the same dining experience, to prove to the world that only what was good enough for Wazir Khan was good enough for his valued clientele.

He had great troubles on his aging mind, though, as always in the restaurant, he struggled not to show it. He wasn’t feeling quite himself, but he had good cause. He was in his late eighties. After his main meal he ordered a plain ice cream, for ice cream often washes away any bad taste in the mouth.

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LUKE DIDN’T RETURN to the flat. Hector Browne and Jenny Thompson had remained there in case. They would still be waiting at 5pm when Walter relieved the pair of them, and sent down another team who secured the front door, and waited in a car across the road.

Walter went home for a change of clothing and a quick bite to eat. On the way, he’d call in at the local parade of shops he preferred to patronise, for he rarely used supermarkets.

In the end shop, Abdul sliced him four slices of boiled ham, moist and delicious, Abdul assured him, and it usually was, though Abdul would never touch a morsel himself. Next door in the old bakery, Queenie Richards had saved him a crusty loaf. She had waited on a little later in case he came in, granary, brown, and she couldn’t resist the same old joke that it was a fitting colour for a man like Walter, as he forced a grin, and headed next door to the off licence owned and run by Paul Leishman.

Paul was openly gay and didn’t care who knew it, as he minced up and down behind the counter, quite at home in his own private domain, two hands clasped together to the left of his heart, as he tried to sell bottles of perfumed Chianti that he knew Walter would love. Paul had bought too much of the blessed stuff and it was slow moving, but Walter wasn’t a Chianti man, and grunted and shook his head.

‘I’ll have four cans of stout and four cans of real ale,’ he said.

Paul, or Pauli, as he preferred to be called, set the beers on the counter.

‘Anything else you’d like, Mr Darriteau?’ minced Pauli; pursing his lips horribly as Walter glanced away at something else.

Truth was, Paul Leishman had the hots for Walter, and Walter, being a detective of some repute, hadn’t missed the signals. Couldn’t imagine how Pauli had fallen under his spell, but it takes all sorts. Why couldn’t he attract women in that way, he pondered?

‘No, Paul, I’m fine, thanks,’ he muttered, and slipped a twenty-pound note across the counter.

Paul made a big issue of slapping the change into Walter’s oh-so-manly bear-like paw, and Walter bade him goodnight, and went out into the still sunny evening, clutching his provisions, laughing as he went.

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LUKE STILL HADN’T RETURNED by 10pm and Walter, who was back at his desk by then, agreed with the consensus that Luke had probably shacked up with his girlfriend. Might be staying there now, wherever that was, and they were sure they wouldn’t see him again that day. At least they had his DNA, courtesy of the hairs extracted from his hairbrush, plus any number of perfect fingerprints. It was only a matter of time before they nailed him.

What was it that cyclist Colin Cresswell had said?

He was all dressed up. Hot date, I’d say.

Yeah, that made sense. All they could do was get some sleep and hope to pick him up in the morning. Walter closed his diary and left for home, where he intended making a big dent in those cans.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Iskra and Radka Kolarov were twenty-one-year-old twins. They had spent all their life in the north-eastern Bulgarian industrial town of Beloslav.

They could not remember their father. He had gone into the Bulgarian army when they were nine months old and never returned.

Rumour had it many Bulgarian troops were killed during the last live firing exercises involving Warsaw Pact troops. Locals said the Bulgarians were shot dead by gloating Russians, but then they would. The official verdict was accidental death, and the Kolarovs received a modest pay-off.

The twins’ mother, Nikolina, was ill, respiratory disease. They lived in a small rented house crammed in between the glass factory, the power station, and the busy, deep, and wide canal.

The quality of the air in Beloslav wasn’t brilliant, but it had improved since the old communist days when production figures were everything. Back then, if the beloved workers had to suffer poor air quality to meet targets, that was how it was. After all, the central politburo did not live anywhere near blighted Beloslav.

After the fall of communism prices on everything skyrocketed. Wages struggled to keep pace, and though healthcare was free for everyone in Bulgaria, even for some foreigners from within the European Union, good additional healthcare cost cold, hard money.

Nikolina Kolarov needed ample additional healthcare.

The Kolarovs held an urgent family meeting.

They agreed one of the girls would go abroad to work. Once there, she would find a job and send money home, and Nikolina would benefit. The Kolarovs had friends and distant family members working abroad, far away in a place called Chester in the north-west of England. The daughter who went to Chester would not be alone; she would be well looked after and had been assured she would soon find work.

Both of the girls wanted to go for the prospect was exciting, to see something of the world, away from industrial Beloslav, while they were still young, while they were still pretty. Both studied English hard, for who knew what might happen in a western country, and what adventures they might experience?

They quarrelled over who would go, and who should stay and look after mother, but could not decide, until Nikolina stepped in and said she was sick of the bickering, and would settle the matter with the spin of a coin.

Iskra agreed.

Radka wasn’t sure, for she suspected collusion. In her eyes Iskra had always been the favourite. Both girls were strikingly pretty in a squarish, Slavic kind of way, milk white skin, jet black hair, often worn in a ponytail. It was Iskra everyone said was prettier, and sometimes, within Radka’s hearing.

Radka eventually agreed, providing the coin was thrown in the air in their small kitchen and allowed to fall to the floor. She worried it could be caught by mother and flipped over in the hand to produce the desired result.

It was agreed. The toss was on.

The coin would fall to earth.

The spinning would take place at 11am on Sunday morning, tossed by Nikolina, and allowed to bounce free to the cracked terra-cotta tiles that lined the damp kitchen floor. 

Sunday morning arrived, and the twins eyed each other hard. Nikolina produced the coin that would decide the fate of the family, a silver fifty Stotinki piece, one half of one Lev. Both sisters inspected the coin. It was a brand new piece drawn from the post office especially for the occasion.

The twins remained suspicious, but seemed satisfied, as their mother reminded them of the rules: The winner would go abroad to work hard, and send money home. The loser would stay behind, work in the glassworks, and look after mother, and the house.

‘I agree,’ said Iskra, keen to learn her fate.

The other two stared at Radka.

‘Yes, I agree too,’ she said, ‘providing the coin falls to the floor.’

‘We have already decided that!’ said mother, becoming irritated. ‘The coin will fall to the earth. It will be a free and fair spin. One spin, and one spin only.’

‘Who’s going to call?’ asked Nikolina.

‘I don’t mind,’ said Iskra.

‘You call!’ said Radka.

Nikolina glanced at the girls. Both twins bobbed their head, crossed their fingers, and eyed their sibling.

Nikolina flicked her thumb and tossed the coin high in the air with a fizz.

‘Heads!’ screamed Iskra, and she said a silent prayer to Saint John of Rila, the Patron Saint of Bulgaria.

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JIMMY MITCHELL SAT in his five-year-old Mercedes Benz at the Thornton Hough cricket ground and opened a packet of sandwiches. They were fish. He’d bought them in the petrol station and he was beginning to wish he’d chosen chicken. They smelt like cat food, and it promised to be another hot day. He bit into the bread. It tasted better than it smelt.

He grabbed the big Sunday newspaper from the passenger seat and shook out the supplements. Through the windscreen he could see the groundsman preparing the cricket square ready for action, mowing the track, painting the lines, setting up the stumps, wiping his brow.

Jimmy’s mobile burst into life.

He hoiked it from his pocket and said, ‘Yeah?’

‘Just letting you know I am in position, boss.’

‘Good man.’

‘And that action man isn’t here yet.’

Jimmy glanced at the dashboard clock. It was still early. There was plenty of time.

‘He’ll be there soon, any sign of the main man?’

‘Negative.’

‘Keep me posted.’

‘Sure thing,’ and the phone went dead.

He set the newspaper down.

One more hour and both England and Liverpool City Football Club would be seeking a new centre forward. Didn’t bother Jimmy. It was business, pure and simple, and lucrative business at that.

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IN THE SMALL KITCHEN in the Kolarov’s house in Beloslav, the coin clattered to the floor. It landed on edge and bounced high, then landed and bounced sideways, thumping into the grey metal foot of the old gas cooker. It rolled across the centre of the kitchen, dithering over which way to lean, before settling flat on the centre tile in the room.

‘Heads!’ screamed Iskra, clapping her hands and doing a little jump and a dance. ‘It’s a head!’

‘Heads it is,’ confirmed Nikolina, for it was true she would prefer Iskra to go abroad, because Nikolina was more confident Iskra would send home regular funds.

‘It’s not fair!’ whinged Radka.

‘It was fair!’ insisted Nikolina. ‘Perfectly fair! Iskra will leave for England next Saturday.’

‘When do I ever get any excitement?’ moaned Radka. ‘When do I get to go anywhere?’

‘Don’t worry, child,’ said Nikolina, slipping her arm around Radka’s shoulder, and patting her on the head. ‘Iskra will go to England for two years, and no more, and after that, she will come home, and then you, Radka, my darling, will have your turn.’

The twins shared a knowing look, for both of them imagined that in two years their mother might not exist.

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THE TOSSING OF THE shiny silver fifty Stotinki coin had taken place three months before. Iskra went to England, Radka sulked for days as Iskra headed to Chester by bus, where she was met by friends and distant relations. They took her back to the big old redbrick Edwardian house in a suburb called Hoole, a property they were renting close to the railway lines.

Iskra would share a room with two other Bulgarian girls.

The room was not large, and there was barely enough space for three single beds, but it didn’t matter because they would be working long hours, and different shifts, so they were rarely home at the same time.

The other girls came from Sofia and considered Iskra to be a provincial no nothing. They didn’t treat her bad, but neither were they friendly. Iskra didn’t care. She thought them stuck up and superior, not that she had any kind of inferiority complex. She thought she was prettier than them, a fact confirmed when the menfolk in the house, and local community, were often found sniffing round the bedroom door, enquiring after Iskra’s whereabouts.

That didn’t help her popularity with her roommates, but that couldn’t be helped, as they quizzed her and helped her with her English, and advised her of the questions she would be asked when she went for a job. Not so much out of kindness, but more because it was important she passed the interviews at the hotels. Iskra could only pay her share of the rent if she could land a job, and when she did, they would pay less.

She need not have worried.

The manager at the Red Rose Motel was tall and skinny, a Mr Heale, and he was desperate for cleaning staff. Iskra was clean, had a pleasant smile, could say please and thank you, nodded hard when asked if she was a good worker, possessed the correct documentation, and that was it, she’d passed the interview. Iskra was in. She would start the following day, and later on the same thing occurred at the Holiday Lodge Hotel. She was employed there too, and had two jobs, thirty hours a week in the mornings at the Red Rose, and the same again at the Holiday Lodge in the afternoon.

It amazed her how easy it had been.

England was a strange place.

So many people; and all rushing round everywhere, all in cars, nary a horse to be seen, and sometimes impatient too, blaring car horns, screaming at passers-by, so much shouting and bad temper and pent up fury. The least thing often seemed to send them over the edge. They should all learn to relax a little, to enjoy and savour life, for they were missing so much. They seemed to have lost the knack of contentment. Perhaps they’d never had it. Why were they all so het up all the time? In Iskra’s eyes their problem was that they didn’t know how lucky they were.

In the morning she would rise at 6.30, eat a quick breakfast, often the remains of last night’s evening meal, and then set off on the three-mile walk to the Red Rose. She would finish there at 1pm, walk home, take a quick lunch, a roll and a piece of sausage, and then undertake another three-mile hike in the opposite direction, even when it was raining, to the Holiday Lodge.

There was no point in taking public transport.

For a start, it was expensive, second, she had the time to walk, and last, she wanted to earn as much as possible, for she was always asking about her mother’s condition. Iskra discovered she could afford to send home a clear thousand pounds every month, sometimes more, and in Bulgaria her mother could get a great deal of additional healthcare and medication with a thousand English pounds.

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SHE WAS AT THE RED Rose Motel that Sunday morning, humming an old Bulgarian folk tune, as she went about cleaning and preparing the rooms. She was a quick worker and conscientious too. So much so that Mary McGrory, her supervisor, had to plead with her to slow down, for she was putting the other room maids’ performance to shame.

Iskra promised she would, with a smirk and a shake of her ponytail, and they couldn’t get angry with her because of the smile that rarely left her mischievous face.

She had finished in room forty-nine.

In her eyes it was just perfect.

Ready for the next guests that Iskra always imagined might be a honeymooning couple, and because of that, everything had to be just so, though honeymooners rarely troubled the Red Rose.

On to the next room with a spring in her step, and a change of record in the music in her mind. She pulled out the master key they had entrusted her with, unlocked and let herself into room fifty.

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JIMMY GLANCED BACK at the clock on the dash. It was twenty minutes past ten and his spotter had still not confirmed that Luke was in place. Jimmy was getting worried. He rang his man again.

‘Well? What news?’

‘Nothing boss, I’d have told you if he was here.’

‘Are there many there?’

‘People are arriving now. Think the sunshine has brought them out.’

‘No sign of the main man?’

‘Nope, not yet boss. Come on, come on, you little turd.’

‘He’s testing my patience.’

‘Mine too, boss. Loads of cars are queuing now, quite a few people about, a number of coppers as well. Maybe he’s been caught in traffic.’

‘I told him to get there early!’

‘Well, he’s not here. Eh up, I think he’s here now.’

‘Thank God for that!’

‘No, not your man, the main man.’

‘What!’

‘Yep, looks like it, big black Audi, blacked-out windows, registration KEAT1, yep it’s him alright.’

‘Jee-zus, my client will not like this.’

‘Lots of people round the car, autograph hunters, people with cameras, at least one professional photographer, I’d say, and now a copper’s trying to push his way into the shot.’

‘And no sign of our little weasel?’

‘Nope, nada, nothing, sorry boss.’

‘Don’t suppose you’ve packed the wherewithal?’

‘Geez no, boss, out of my comfort zone with that.’

‘He’s going to regret this.’

‘The door to the car’s opening. The crowd’s pushing forward, not that many of them, maybe twenty odd, and the bird’s got out, smiling and waving as if she’s royalty. Stupid bitch, nice looking though, tumbling blonde hair, curvy body, tight flowery cotton dress.’

‘All right, all right, I get the picture; this isn’t a report for bloody OK magazine.’

‘Sorry boss, just trying to paint the scene.’

Something in Jimmy’s mind told him that Luke was there. In the past he had always been a reliable operator, and a clever one at that. He seemed to possess an almost unique ability of blending into the background, a slight, unremarkable guy who could often go unnoticed. Jimmy hoped that was the case, and that Luke had fooled everyone, including the experienced spotter he was talking to on the phone.

‘JK’s out of the car, grinning, waving, acting like a tosser.’

‘He is a tosser!’

‘If you say so, boss.’

‘Now, boy, now!’ whispered Jimmy to himself, sitting in the Mercedes overlooking the cricket field. He still half expected to hear four shots ring out, the sound bolting down the spotter’s phone, and spilling into Jimmy’s ear.

There was plenty of sound coming through the ether, but only that of a happy holiday crowd greeting their hero, the Liverpool City and England centre forward, the grinning man with magic in his toes and a price on his head.

‘What a pompous arse he is. Wish you were here to see it, boss. He’s loving every minute, lapping it up, I’ve half a mind to go over and slap him myself.’

Jimmy said nothing.

His mind was running free.

Where the hell was Luke Flowers?

What the heck would Jimmy’s client say about this mess up?

And what would be a suitable punishment for Luke?

Castration would be too lenient.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Room fifty was smelly, but that wasn’t unusual. It was the same design as most of the other rooms. Bathroom on the left. Ahead, a short corridor and the room opened out.

There was a king-size bed there, out of sight from the doorway, with matching light oak bedside table on either side, a big TV fitted to the opposite wall, most of them now flat screen, though there was still the occasional unliftable monster around, two small armchairs, and a long bench table fixed to the far wall where the coffee and tea and cups and saucers and glasses and menus and brochures were scattered about.

Iskra pulled the main door closed behind her and carried her box of cleaning potions and rags, hurried into the bathroom, and set it down on the tiled floor.

Most of the white towels looked as if they hadn’t been used, but they would be taken out and washed again, just in case they had. She saw two or three specs of blood on the floor, and on the closed lid to the lavatory too. Maybe someone had cut themself shaving, or perhaps someone had had an accident.

The main mirror above the hand basin was clean, but Iskra took out the spray and spurted scented chemical goo over the mirrored glass, hoping it would conquer the smell. She wiped and buffed up the glass. Leant forward and huffed on a tiny mark, wiped it away, and burped, catching her mischievous face in the glass as she did so. She had indigestion all morning; it was the hurried breakfast that did it, the warmed up leftovers from last night’s Bulgarian beef stew. Someone had overdone the paprika, the cayenne and the garlic. Iskra burped again and spoke to the image in the mirror as if it were her twin sister standing there with her.

‘How is my mother, Radka? I hope you are looking after her, and getting value for money for all the cash I am sending back.’

And she laughed, and Radka in the glass laughed back.

‘I’ll bet you wish you were here now, have you got over it yet?’ and Iskra frowned, just as she knew Radka would have frowned, and the image in the mirror frowned too, exactly as she imagined.

Iskra bent down and picked up the green squirty lavatory cleaner and opened the pan.

A young man’s face stared back through blue eyes.

Iskra jumped back a pace.

Her mouth fell open.

‘Jee-sus Christ!’ she said, clutching hard the plastic bottle of cleaner.

She realised it was a joke.

The girls were always playing silly jokes on one another, especially on the new girls, and this had to be another. Iskra had been expecting it; and everyone knew the English had a strange sense of humour. For a moment they had her fooled. The head looked so real, so lifelike, ’cept it could not be alive, not down there, not without an attached body. Iskra grinned.

It was jammed down the pan so the back of the head was resting on the water, the face staring straight up.

She took a single pace toward the pan.

The mouth in the head was open and there was something inside the mouth, something pink, not the tongue, something else. Iskra dropped the cleaner and pointed at the face. Her forefinger approached the lavatory and closed on the head.

She touched the displayed teeth.

Nice teeth. Real teeth. Human teeth.

She touched the eye.

Nice eye. Real eye. Human eye. It didn’t blink.

Her mouth fell open, and she wanted to scream, but nothing came, no sound, just flavours of garlic and cayenne and paprika and overdone fatty beef.

And then something came, flavoured vomit, a torrent of it, undigested breakfast, as it splashed down and covered the head’s blue eyes, filling the open mouth, burying whatever was inside, blanketing the face.

And when she had finished, she screamed.

One long, terrible exclamation from the depths of her soul.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

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MARY WAS BUSY IN THE room next door. Couldn’t fail to hear the row through the wall.

It was Iskra, and Mary McGrory from Dungannon, an older lady with a penchant for barley wines, had taken a shine to the young and pretty Bulgarian, taken her under her wing, and by the sound of that horrendous screech, she had either fallen... or had been attacked. Maybe there was still a creepy punter in there, and he had tried it on. It happened, though never to her.

She hustled into the corridor, shouting, ‘You all right, Iskra?’ as Iskra opened the door and pushed past Mary without looking her in the eye, and fled down the corridor, holding her mouth, shaking her head, wanting to scream again.

‘What is it, my child?’ asked Mary, as she crept into room fifty, into the stinking bathroom, and saw the Technicolor mish mash that greeted her eyes when she peered down the open bowl, and the outline beyond of a young man’s head.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ she muttered, and crossed herself, and turned about and set off down the corridor, after Iskra, shouting, ‘Mr Heale, Mr Heale, you’d better come and see this!’

Mr Heale was in reception, standing behind the counter, talking on the phone.

The dusky girl, who never said much, was sitting at the desk, busy on paperwork, every now and again glancing at her computer screen.

‘Mr Heale, you must come and see this!’ repeated Mary, sniffling into her handkerchief.

She didn’t look well, Mr Heale thought. Bout of summer flu coming on, maybe.

He was talking to some American computer company who wanted to block book sixty rooms, but they were haggling hard on the rate.

‘Mr Heale!’

He put his hands over the mouthpiece and whispered, mouthing it as if she were deaf, ‘I am speaking to International Computers!’

‘Mr Heale, there is a man’s head in the lavvy!’

The dusky girl glanced up, same impassive expression.

She’d heard it all before.

There wasn’t much that could surprise her.

For once Mr Heale was lost for words. Then he said, ‘I am so sorry, Mrs Wendlesham, can I call you back in ten, there’s just something I need to check on right now,’ and he bobbed his head and said, ‘Right-ho, I’ll call you back,’ and put the phone down.

Then he was out in the public area, pulling the door open to the corridor, muttering about how bloody busy he was, and he hoped she wasn’t wasting his time, and that it was all probably some stupid student rag stunt, just like last year, don’t you remember that, because it was approaching the end of term time again, rag week. That daft stunt when they dressed a whole pig in an evening suit, complete with a red silk bow tie, and placed it on the bed, sat straight up, pillows supporting its back and neck, a fat smoking cigar in its grinning mouth, and a glass of red wine somehow wedged into its front right trotter, and when Mr Heale had been called to the room, the students were outside in the car park. They’d removed the lace curtains, and were filming the event, and they put the thing up on pooptube, or whatever that time wasting trite Internet site is called, and it had received over ten million hits in forty-eight hours, and the students had done well out of it.

‘It’ll be a freakin’ hoax again,’ he said, ‘sure as eggs are eggs.’

‘Don’t think so, Mr Heale. Don’t think so, not this time.’

‘Was that why Iskra came running and crying through reception?’

Mary pulled a long face and nodded twice, and by then he was opening room fifty and going inside where he hurried into the bathroom and glanced down the open lavvy bowl, and poked through the vomit, poking the head in the eye, as if he half expected the jabbing motion to wake it from its slumber.

‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘Bugger me!’ taking out his mobile and jabbing in 999.

‘Emergency, which service do you require?’

‘Police.’

A couple of seconds ticked over, no more, and then a girl said, ‘Police. Emergency.’

‘Someone has left their head down one of my lavatories,’ said Mr Heale, straight faced, then smirking at Mary McGrory.

‘Say again.’

‘There is a man’s head jammed down one of my lavatories.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘I would think so.’

‘Who’s calling, please?’

‘My name is Mr Heale; I am the manager of the Red Rose Motel.’

‘Are you being serious?’

‘Of course I’m being bloody serious!’

‘OK, no need to swear. We’ll get somebody to you.’

‘Be obliged,’ and he rang off.

––––––––

MARY MCGRORY HAD GONE into the main part of the bedroom.

‘Oh hell! I’ve found the rest of him.’

He ran to see.

So much blood.

Dreadful stink.

Flies too.

It was another hot day

‘Look at the state of the carpet!’ he said.

‘Poor, poor man, what has been going on here, you think?’

‘God alone knows!’

––––––––

AT THE SAME MOMENT, Jimmy was sitting in the car overlooking the cricket pitch. He shook his head and started the engine and drove home, determined to find the little weasel before nightfall, the sad little git who had failed him.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Sunday morning and Walter was standing in his kitchen, his back propped up against the worktop, eating a weighty slice of buttered toast, smothered in a generous coating of thick cut Dundee marmalade.

Galina Unpronounceable was there, busy in the sink, giving it a thorough cleaning. She’d rung to say she couldn’t make Saturday, had a big job on the go, and would Sunday be all right. He was happy to see her there, and he was always more likely to be in on a Sunday.

Luke Flowers still hadn’t been located. Feeling was, he’d jetted abroad again, a theory that carried some weight, after they discovered a receipt in his bedside table for a considerable amount of travellers’ cheques, or checks, as they were spelt on the documentation.

She was wiping down the worktops; aggressive short right to left movements, and her neat jeaned bum was shaking in time to the swipes. Walter took another peek then glanced away, and bit into his toast.

‘You catch bad man yet?’ she said, as she finished what she was doing.

‘Not yet, but we are close.’

‘I come cook you meal when you do?’

‘If you want to.’

She turned and smiled and said, ‘Yes, I do that.’

‘What food?’ he asked, slipping the last of the sticky toast into his mouth and licking his fingers.

‘You like dumplings? Meat and dumplings?’

Walter nodded, said: ‘Yeah, I like meat and dumplings,’ and rubbed his stomach with both hands at the thought of it. It sure as heck beat bloody chicken Kiev.

‘I do meat and dumplings,’ she said, moving over to the stained cooker top. She glanced at the mess and back at him. Walter shrugged his shoulders as if someone else was responsible.

The old phone in the hallway rang, loud tones reverberating through the Edwardian house. Ring-ring. Ring-ring.

‘Phone rings,’ she said, unnecessarily thought Walter, as he loped through to the hall.

‘Guv?’ it was Karen.

‘What are you doing in today?’

‘Making up lost hours, remember, I had that day off for my cousin’s wedding.’

‘Oh yeah. So, any news on Luke Flowers?’

‘Maybe.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘A man’s head has been found jammed down a lavvy in the Red Rose Motel.’

‘That’s a first, and you think it’s him?’

‘Might explain why we can’t find him. You want me to pick you up?’

‘Yeah, course, I’ll get dressed.’

‘See you in ten.’

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WALTER RETURNED TO the kitchen, where heavy scrubbing was going on.

‘I’ve got to go out; we might have found the bad man.’

‘Good! I order meat!’

‘Not yet, Galina, not until we know for sure. I am going upstairs to get dressed.’

Five minutes later he was back, fiddling with his tie, setting her pay down on the draining board.

‘Thank.... you,’ she said, two distinct words. Almost two separate sentences.

‘You can let yourself out, can’t you?’

‘Course, do, easy.’

Pretty much the right words, maybe not quite in the right order, thought Walter.

‘I work here many times before when you not here. I not steal anything.’

‘I know that, Galina,’ and then they heard Karen honking from the unmarked BMW.

‘Must go.’

‘I see you out.’

He’d rather she didn’t, but she did anyway, standing at the front door, smiling and waving a yellow duster above her head, as Walter fell into the car.

Karen smirked.

‘Friend of yours?’

‘No, just the cleaner.’

‘Funny day for a cleaner.’

‘She couldn’t come yesterday.’

‘Pretty, too.’

‘You think? I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Liar!’ and already they were round the corner and heading across town for the Red Rose.

––––––––

MR HEALE WAS TALL AND skinny and languid, and acted as if the whole business was a minor irritant to his day. Didn’t act like a man who had discovered a severed head down one of his lavvies.

Heale showed them through to room fifty, and a moment later Doc Grayling showed up.

Walter nodded a greeting, and the short, stout doc nodded back.

‘Another one called in on a Sunday?’ said Walter.

‘No problem to me. I was on call anyway. Had a run down infant, but he was OK,’ said the doc, handing out disposable latex gloves.

‘So what have we here?’ said Walter, as all four of them peered down at the vomit splashed head.

‘Well, as you can see, it’s a man,’ said Heale. ‘I thought it was a practical joke when they first told me.’

‘Who found the body?’ asked Karen, correcting herself. ‘The head.’

‘One of the maids, Bulgarian she is, nice kid, Iskra Kolarov, she’s a bit shaken up, spewed up all over the place. The rest of him is in there,’ and he nodded through toward the bedroom.

‘She would be shaken up,’ said Walter. ‘I’d be shaken up if I discovered that in my bog! Where is she now?’

‘Having a coffee in the staff room, with Mary McGrory, she’s the supervisor, she’s with her.’

Walter nodded at Karen, ‘Go and see what they can tell you, but before that, ring SOCO and tell them to get down here straight away, and I don’t care what day it is,’ and Karen bobbed her head and disappeared.

There was a combination of smells in the bathroom, blood and vomit, and old dinners, and God knows what else.

Doc Grayling said: ‘Goulash, methinks,’ sniffing the vomit.

‘Goulash is Hungarian,’ said Walter. ‘If the girl’s Bulgarian, probably some kind of Bulgarian beef stew.’

‘Well, whatever it is, there’s paprika in it,’ said the Doc, cleaning the face to reveal a clearer picture of Luke Flowers.

The doc saw the look of recognition in Walter’s eyes.

‘You know who he is?’

‘Yeah, unless I am much mistaken, that is the head of Luke Edward Flowers.’

‘Known to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bad egg?’

‘Wanted murderer.’

‘Looks like someone wanted him more than you did.’

‘Seems that way.’

Mr Heale cocked his wrist and glanced at his watch.

‘Look, am I OK to get away? I have so much to do.’

They had almost forgotten he was there.

‘Yes, for now,’ said Walter. ‘But don’t leave the building until we have spoken again, and DON’T tell the press.’

‘I am hardly likely to do that, am I? It’s not good publicity, is it? One of the guests has been decapitated; that’s the place for me!’

Walter nodded the guy away, and the doc said, ‘Strange fellow.’

‘Yes, he is,’ said Walter, peering at the head.

‘There is something in his mouth,’ said the doc, grabbing a pair of tweezers from his bag, getting closer, almost close enough to kiss. Peering deep into the mouth, obscuring it from Walter’s view.

‘What is it?’

‘Just a minute. I think I have it. Yes, there you are!’

And he stood upright and displayed the foreign body.

‘Soap,’ said Walter.

‘Pink soap,’ said the doc. ‘Standard motel issue, I would say,’ and they both looked round, and the absence of any other soap encouraged that belief.

‘And the hidden meaning is?’ asked Walter.

‘Wash your mouth out, mend your ways, cleanse your sins, wouldn’t you think?’

‘Looks that way to me.’

‘We are going to have to get him out of there,’ said the doc.

‘Seems sensible.’

Doc Grayling retreated to his bag and brought out a large heavy duty clear plastic bag. Shook it open. Gave it to Walter.

‘You hold, I’ll grab.’

Walter shook the plastic bag again as the Doc slipped some implement between the head and the side of the bowl and eased it out. Filthy, bloody water dripped from the hair, and the head, and the ears, and the nose and mouth, and splashed down into the bowl, and onto the rim and the floor beyond.

‘Mucky business,’ whispered the doc.

Grayling lowered the head into the bag that Walter was holding open, the static blue eyes still staring out. He fastened the top and took it from Walter and through to the main bedroom. It was surprising how heavy a fresh human head could be.

Walter followed. ‘Good God, what have we here?’

‘Place of execution, I would say.’

Walter bobbed his head, couldn’t speak, because he was already on the phone, ringing Karen just along the corridor.

‘Find out who booked room fifty. I want to know what time they arrived, how did they pay, and did they have any visitors? Oh, and see if there is any CCTV, inside the building and out, and find out if anything in here was touched by the staff, such as the body, and we’ll need fingerprints of all staff to eliminate them. We’ll also need a full record of everyone employed here, and another list of all the guests from yesterday and today, no, make that the whole of last week, to be on the safe side, and the last month for this room.’

‘Sure, Guv. On to it.’

‘Everything else all right out there with you?’ muttered Walter, as he glanced over his shoulder and watched the doc staring down at the severed neck.

‘Shaken up, but they’ll be OK,’ said Karen.

––––––––

THE BODY WAS FULLY clothed, facing down, except there wasn’t a face, lying with the shoulders at the foot of the bed, feet at the top, both arms out straight to the side, as if it had been a cross. It was a big king-size, and he was a small guy, and the hands didn’t overlap the sides. At the foot of the bed where the head would have been, should have been, was a large maroon stain, turning deep brown, spreading down onto the carpet. There were flies in the room and they were all getting pretty excited, not easily put off by wafting, living humans.

The doc had set the head up on the wall table so that it could watch what was going on in the room. Walter stared at the face in the plastic bag and said to himself: What’s this all about, Luke?

The doctor went to the body and was touching the severed neck with his gloved hand.

‘Seems a clean cut, might even be a single blow.’

‘Drugged first, you think? Or restrained?’ asked Walter.

‘Can’t tell that yet, the PM will though.’

‘Restrained means more than one person.’

‘Yes, it would, because if it was one blow, it would have required a great deal of leverage. No one person could both hold, and sever.’

‘But if the victim was drugged, that would be a different ball game.’

‘You have it, Darriteau, you have it.’

Walter looked around the room, checking for a murder weapon, but he didn’t expect to find one, and didn’t.

‘What kind of weapon are we looking at?’

‘Hard to say,’ said the doc, standing up straight, pursing his lips. ‘But a sharp one, and a big one too. This wasn’t done with some home kitchen carving knife; you are looking at something bigger, and more impressive.’

‘Like an axe or a sword?’

‘Yes, that would fit the bill, or a specialist implement from an abattoir maybe, or butchers.’

‘And time of death?’

‘You want everything, don’t you, Walter?’

‘Course, I am a demanding man,’ and he grinned at the doc who bobbed his head and grinned back.

‘Judging by the colour of that,’ and he nodded at the ruined carpet, ‘and the state of the remains, over twelve hours ago, and possibly more.’

‘How much more?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if death occurred yesterday afternoon, say in the middle of the match, around half-past three, how does that suit you?’

‘OK, doc, I get it.’

‘A little demo.’

The doc lifted one arm. The entire body jerked up as if it were one solid piece of timber. ‘Rigor mortis speeds up in hot weather. Not to put too fine a point on it, the stiff is as stiff as a board.’

Walter sniffed a smile and said: ‘Guessed as much.’

‘Fly activity will support the time of death. They are industrious little buggers. Reliable as...’ and he paused as if searching for the right word.

‘Flies?’ suggested Walter.

‘Yes. We learn more from their activity than practically anything else.’ 

Walter took another look round the room. He was hoping to find a mobile or a wallet. Couldn’t see either. Went closer to the bed. Took out his pen, poked in the back trouser pocket. There was a wallet in there, black, small, fold-over style, shut in by one closed trouser button. He undid the button and eased out the wallet. Took a quick peek inside. The usual thing. Plenty of cash, plenty of credit cards, all in Luke Flowers name, and not much else.

Went back and checked the other pockets.

Half a handy pack of paper handkerchiefs, a small throwaway lighter, and a crushed pack of cigarettes containing five fags, and some loose coins. Nothing else. The mobile phone was missing. The killer or killers must have taken it. 

A soft knock came to the door.

SOCO arrived earlier than expected. Mob handed, two guys and a girl, already changed and ready to go, looking like operatives from the Sellafield nuclear facility.

Doc Grayling said, ‘I’ve just about finished here,’ and Walter nodded the SOCO team on, and a couple of seconds later the cameras were clicking and rolling, as everything was committed to multi-million or was it billion trillion now, pixels, digital photographs instantly available on the back of the camera, or downloaded onto a laptop in a few seconds flat, sent to anywhere in the world in a millisecond.

Every angle, every viewpoint, every spec, nothing would be left to chance, before the remains would be removed.

In due course they would call the mother to ID the body, and it would be a whole body by then. It was amazing what they could do nowadays, even when the body was in bits. Perhaps she might regret being less than helpful. Sometimes parents had to be braver and put their own children in the frame, even if they faced a heavy punishment, though it was easy to be wise after the event. But better that than the ending that befell the young man once known as Luke Edward Flowers. 

––––––––

ACROSS TOWN, IN THE first floor private quarters of the State of Kerala, another meeting was taking place.

Only one woman was present, Sahira Khan, dressed in her hijab, ordered to stand in the centre of the room, her face showing, no hair on view, looking like a Christian nun.

As before, Nadirah and Akleema were outside, listening at the closed door, and as before Mohammed and Ahmed were standing, Wazir and Maaz sitting together on the sofa, stern-faced, like a jury about to deliver a verdict.

Ahmed spoke first.

‘You will leave for Pakistan tonight.’

‘Yes, grandfather.’

‘Mohammed and Maaz will take you to the airport.’

‘Yes, grandfather.’

‘You will leave at 9pm.’

‘As you wish, grandfather,’ and she glanced at her father, Mohammed, as if for comfort. He didn’t look away, but stared straight through her as if she didn’t exist.

‘Before you go, you will say goodbye to your mother and your great grandmother. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, grandfather.’

‘It will be a long time before you see them again... if ever.’

‘I understand, grandfather.’

‘Do you have any questions?’

‘None, grandfather.’

‘Maaz, have you checked the sinner’s bag?’

‘Yes, grandfather.’

‘And was it in order?’

‘It was, grandfather.’

‘And the passport?’

‘I have it safe,’ said Maaz, ‘ready, with the flight details.’

Ahmed nodded his assent and slipped his hands into his tailored jacket pocket.

‘Maaz, take her back to her room,’ said Mohammed. ‘Make sure she does not speak to the women, and that she does not leave her room.’

‘Yes, father,’ said Maaz, getting up and taking hold of Sahira’s arm.

She didn’t pull away. Didn’t resist. Allowed herself to be led away.

After the youngsters had gone, Wazir said, ‘What a dreadful business.’

‘Too terrible to imagine,’ said Ahmed, sitting down.

‘The girl is getting off lightly,’ muttered Mohammed, still fuming.

‘She’s very lucky indeed,’ said Ahmed, and at the other end of the landing, as Maaz shut her in her bedroom, he whispered, ‘You disgust me!’

‘But Maaz...’

‘Don’t speak to me! Don’t ever speak to me again! You whore!’

Back in the sitting room, Wazir pleaded: ‘When are we going to get back to normal?’

‘Tomorrow, father,’ said Ahmed. ‘Tomorrow all will be as it should be.’

––––––––

EARLIER, SAHIRA HAD told her mother under no circumstances would she allow herself to be put on a plane to Pakistan. Akleema set her straight. She must go to Pakistan, she must carry out the family’s wishes, and she must marry the warlord. The most important thing was, she should get out of the family home, and the family business, as quickly as possible, if she valued her life.

‘You must have heard the stories of what can happen to an adulteress?’ pleaded Akleema, grabbing her daughter’s shoulders and staring into her dark eyes, her beautiful clear eyes. Akleema could understand how they entranced men so, but Sahira had shown herself to be weak, and she must bear the consequences.

‘But he’s sixty-eight, mamma, and he’ll probably reek of goat.’

‘Of course he will smell of goat, child, and so will you after a day or two, but after a while you won’t notice. At least you will be safe. At least you will be alive, and sometime soon you might write to me, and after a while, well... who knows?’

‘But, mamma...’

‘The only thing that matters is that we keep you alive. You must show contrition. You must not argue. You must remain silent. You must do as the men say. To do otherwise is dangerous for you.’

‘But, mamma...’

‘No buts, child, you have no choice, you must do as they say, and pray that God will be merciful.’

––––––––

MAAZ CAME BACK INTO the sitting room and nodded at his elders. He had done his work well. Everything would proceed as they had arranged. The adulteress would go to Pakistan.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

At five to nine Mohammed brought the BMW round to the front of the State. There was still plenty of daylight; it was close to being the longest day of the year.

It had seemed like it to Sahira. She was saying her goodbyes to Akleema and Nadirah, determined not to cry.

Maaz was there too, dressed in his best lightweight suit, shirt and tie, as if he had an important meet, as he glanced at his expensive watch.

‘Get in the car!’ he said.

‘Open the boot for my bag.’

He took the bag from her and repeated, ‘Get in the car!’

She kissed her mother on the cheek and pulled the rear door open and climbed inside. Maaz grabbed the open door and threw the fat bag in after her, slammed the door, ran round the front of the car and jumped in beside his father.

Sahira waved through the glass to the women standing in the doorway. They smiled and waved back, trying hard to act as normal as possible. Maaz clicked on his belt, and the car was on its way toward the inner ring road.

‘What time is the flight?’ asked Sahira.

‘Shut up!’ said her father.

‘Don’t you say a word!’ said Maaz, as the car weaved on through the light Sunday night city traffic.

––––––––

SHE SAT BACK AND SET her cheek on her hand and stared out through the window at the bright lights of the late evening city. At the print shop, the golf shop, the electronics warehouse, the sofa shop, the DIY shed, the hairdressers, as they floated by, multi coloured name signs above the display windows, lighting up the evening.

It made the place look cheerful, she thought, as did the lovers walking hand in hand and arm in arm, the old man walking the perky West Highland terrier, and the group of Christian lads in their best clothes and tight short-sleeved shirts heading down towards the Peacock pub, maybe for a night on the town, perhaps looking for a girl, maybe hoping to find a girl like Sahira, and after that she saw the young black man walking along the pavement, and making to cross the road, hand in hand with his white girl, a smile of inner satisfaction on both their faces, as if they didn’t have a care in the world, and that made her jealous, as the city buses and taxis bustled to and fro, and even though it was Sunday, they all seemed busy and alive and vibrant.

It was the ancient city of Chester, full of life, her home, England on a shut down Sunday night, and it was all she had ever known. She’d been born there, never lived anywhere else, never wanted to live anywhere else. It was where her friends were. She was still in touch with most of the girls from the sixth form, and they would miss her at the next reunion, and wonder what happened to the pretty and vivacious Sahira Khan, that same girl who was always smiling and laughing, and showing an interest in everyone and everything, even in their troubles.

She had been abroad on holiday before, but not to India or Pakistan, and never into a war zone like the Pakistani-Afghani border promised to be. She wondered where Luke was, for she knew no matter how long she was away, she would never stop thinking about him, and loving him, and wondering where he was, and who he was with, and what he was doing. I love you, Luke; she whispered.

‘What did you say?’ snarled Maaz, turning round to gape at the girl.

‘Nothing, never said a word.’

‘Keep it that way!’

He’d probably be with that blonde piece, that girl he’d taken to Venice, the one he thought so much about, and that was only to be expected, because Luke Flowers had a deep need for the company of women, and not just one woman either. He would never be a one-woman man, and Sahira understood that. She was happy to share him. She loved him, always had, and always would, regardless of what he did and what he said, and how he treated her.

She shivered in the back seat of the heavy saloon, though it wasn’t cold, and glanced at the neatly cut hair and shaved and perfumed necks of the men sitting in the front seats. Her father Mohammed and her brother Maaz, who had both treated her so badly since her affair with Luke had come to light.

It wasn’t as if they were innocent.

She had seen how her father had looked at the sixth formers coming out of school in their neat short-sleeved blouses, and short and tight skirts, how he looked at her friends with lust in his eyes, and she knew for a fact that Maaz had been out with white Christian girls, several of them, maybe more than that, slept with them too, if the street gossip was to be believed. So why in hell’s name was it different for girls?

It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. Not at all. Not for a young British Muslim woman. She loved England, but in her world it wasn’t a fair world, it wasn’t a fair England. She wondered how long it would take to get to Pakistan, and how she would get from Islamabad to Chitral, wherever the heck that was.

Would there be transport?

Would she have to walk, or ride a blinking donkey, or what?

She shivered again and tried to shut such thoughts from her mind.

And what would he be like, this sixty-eight-year-old warlord who couldn’t speak a word of English, this old man from the interior who she was now betrothed to? It didn’t bear thinking about. She wondered if he had any teeth. She wondered if he would stink.

Some men in their sixties were rickety wrecks, while others were passable. With her luck she knew what her future husband would be like, and the thought of him touching her, and sleeping with her, this old man who her mother had said would stink of old goat, well, it wasn’t guaranteed to turn on a girl. How could she cope with that?

She wondered if she could buy a mobile phone and ring Luke. If she could do that there was still hope, and then she wondered why she should allow herself to be taken in that car with such opinionated men, who couldn’t abide her company, and she pondered on why what she had done was so reprehensible.

She didn’t want to go to Pakistan, and she didn’t want to be married, unless by some miracle it was to the sweet Luke Flowers. But most of all, she didn’t understand why she should do as these over-bearing men ordered.

Result? She wouldn’t.

Not a chance.

She would rather kill herself than that.

Much rather kill herself.

The car had joined the motorway.

She peered between the heads of the two silent men before her and glanced at the speedometer. The German blue tints sent back their eerie message. The car was travelling at well over 70mph toward her destiny, and with a little luck they would get stopped for speeding, and maybe she could plead to the officers that she was being kidnapped, which to all intent and purposes was true, even if one of her kidnappers was her father and the other, her brother.

No, that would not happen, being stopped, she knew that well enough, and she knew too she would not go to Pakistan. That wasn’t an option.

She would rather open the door and throw herself from the speeding vehicle. She would wait until they were overtaking a rumbling truck. Then she would do it, ease open the door and dive beneath the rolling wheels of the truck in the inside lane.

It would be a terrible end, but preferable to reverting to the Stone Age, and an ancient way of life, and a vile and illiterate husband who beat her and reeked of goats, living in a faraway land where the locals did not speak either of her languages.

––––––––

THE MOTORWAY HIT AN incline. It wasn’t yet dark. There was a truck up ahead, travelling the same way. It was coming back into the dipped beam of the BMW. The wagon was one of Midge Ridge’s, those maroon and cream trucks that haul grain and animal foods the length and breadth of the kingdom. Those famous trucks you could buy models of in most service stations and toy shops, models that guilty fathers acquire for their sons in a hurry when they have forgotten to buy anything else.

It was hauling a full load of Canadian durum wheat out of Birkenhead, bound for one of the Manchester corn mills, and it was struggling with its heavy load up the hill. It was less than forty yards away.

Sahira’s left hand snaked out toward the door, low down, out of sight of the men. For a moment the BMW had to slow too. There was a caravan in front being pulled by a four by four, and Mohammed glanced in the right wing mirror, thinking he might move out and overtake, but the third lane was full of fast traffic. Nowhere to go.

He held station, eased back on the accelerator.

The truck was slowing still, and though the BMW was slowing as well, it was still overtaking the long wagon. Sahira glanced to her left. Saw the driver in the cab, seemingly going backwards, minding his own business, singing to the radio, something about Angels, if her lip reading was correct, and that seemed appropriate.

Sahira said a silent prayer, and mumbled a goodbye to her beloved mother, and a goodbye to Luke too. At least she had known him, at least she had known what life was about, and how exciting life could be, as she flipped open the door handle and threw herself to the left.

The door didn’t open.

Central locking.

Wonderful invention.

Childproof locks.

Better still.

They’d saved another life.

Worth having.

‘What are you doing back there?’ snarled Mohammed, hearing the noise, sensing the movement, glancing back over his left shoulder.

‘She tried to open the door and throw herself out!’ snarled Maaz.

‘Did you, Sahira? Is that what you tried to do? You stupid girl!’

‘She’s not only a sinner, she’s a coward,’ said Maaz, and he grinned at his own summation. ‘Can’t take her punishment, that’s her trouble.’

‘I want no more of it!’ yelled Mohammed, glancing ahead and seeing a clear road. He took his right hand from the wheel and aimed a slap at her over his left shoulder, but missed. She felt the draught from his hand as she swayed back into her seat. Then he was facing the front, muttering to himself, and easing his right foot down on the accelerator, for he wanted the day over and done with. He wanted an end to the whole sorry business. He wanted to be rid of the girl once and for all, the stupid, selfish woman who had shamed him and his family, and had brought humiliation, disgrace, and dishonour down on them all.

The car surged forward, thrusting Sahira back in her seat.

She closed her eyes and thought of Manchester airport, and how and where and when she could make a break for it. That’s what she would do; that was the new plan. She would distract them, perhaps go to the Ladies and climb out of the window and dash away. Claudia Williams, her best friend from school, who still sent her a Christmas card every year, a card her father usually found and burned in the naan bread oven, would offer Sahira sanctuary.

Claudia possessed her own car; and her own mobile too, how lucky some girls were, and if Sahira could reach a phone, she could ring her and plead for help. Sahira had no money, the over zealous Maaz had seen to that. ‘You won’t need money where you’re going,’ he said, grinning. ‘You’re supposed to be fasting,’ but Sahira didn’t need money because Claudia’s phone accepted incoming calls without the caller paying.

Her concerned father had set up the tariff so that Claudia could ring home when she liked, and they could call their daughter any time of day or night without ever having to worry about credit. That’s what Sahira would do. Claudia Williams would help.

––––––––

WITH EACH PASSING HOUR Jimmy Mitchell was becoming more irritated. There had still been no word from Luke Flowers. He could not be contacted at any of his usual haunts. No one had seen the beggar.

More worryingly, when he sent a messenger to Luke’s flat the guy reported back the place was swarming with the law. Luke was a wanted man. Somehow the police had twigged that it was he who had shot the Player boy and Neil Swaythling.

Perhaps Luke had gone to ground, maybe the police already had him in custody; that would explain why no one could find him, but in case he was still out there, Jimmy employed a small army of street rats to look for the weasel.

He re-employed Bunny Almond, something he swore he would never do, and for once Bunny was not living in a parallel universe. He went about his work in tracking down Mr Flowers with zeal. Bunny remembered the great payday he’d enjoyed when he found Neil Swaythling and was still basking in that success.

He’d even taken a big bet he would be the one to find Luke Flowers, a stupid bet he could never honour, if he lost.

Jimmy Mitchell remained a worried man. It was a mystery. He imagined a scenario where Flowers was already in custody, under pressure from their best interrogator, and that probably meant that fat, black bastard with the ridiculous name, and the worry was Luke might be persuaded to point the finger at Jimmy.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Jimmy had fielded three heavy phone calls from his client enquiring why the England centre forward was still living and breathing, and bragging and drinking and feeding and snorting his way through Wirral’s most expensive watering holes, whorehouses, and nightclubs.

‘I gave you the contract, Jimmy, not to some loser you might have employed. It’s your responsibility. I expect you to complete the deal, and within seven days. Is that clear?’

Those ominous words were rattling around Jimmy’s head. There would be no sleep until matters had been resolved, and the most annoying part was, he was nowhere near resolution.

––––––––

THE BMW APPROACHED Junction 5 on the M56, the Manchester Airport turnoff.

Sahira sat forward in the back seat and saw the lit-up overhead blue gantries. Get in lane. Get in Lane. Manchester Airport. But her father didn’t change lane.

She thought he was leaving it till the very last moment.

Then he would cut across.

He imagined himself to be a wonderful driver, they all knew that, egotistical, quick and cute, thought of himself as a regular Lewis Hamilton, even bought the monthly F1 magazine, and annoyed everyone by sitting for ages in the bathroom reading when other people were waiting to visit.

If he didn’t switch lanes in a second, he’d miss the turnoff. Both men sat in silence in the front seats. Sahira had expected Maaz to shout, ‘Get in the right lane, Dad,’ but he didn’t. Neither man spoke. The car travelled on in silence.

Time was up. They had missed the turnoff.

They were not going to Manchester Airport.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Sahira wondered if there was another exit a little further up the motorway, a new turnoff perhaps, an expressway in. They were always fiddling with the myriad of motorways and exits and entries around Greater Manchester, and she wouldn’t have been surprised.

But on reflection she thought not, and couldn’t remain silent.

‘Didn’t you miss the turnoff?’

‘Shut it!’ said Mohammed.

Maaz turned around and grinned manically at her, but said nothing.

Psychological warfare, the men thought they were masters at it. But the truth was, the Khan women could play that game too, only differently. They had to be more subtle, so the men weren’t aware the women were playing with them. Considering the serious handicaps the women suffered, when it came to mind games, they won hands down.

She would bide her time and wait for the right moment. She would listen and observe. Sahira would use every scrap of intelligence she possessed to outwit them. She saw them for what they were, filthy pigs, no more, no less. If they weren’t going to Manchester Airport, they must be going somewhere else, and in Sahira’s mind, anywhere was better than boarding that midnight flight to Islamabad, and the Stone Age that lay beyond. A place she imagined still existed up on what used to be called the North-West Frontier. It had always been a bloody place where people were being raped and murdered, and it still was, despite the billions being poured into the area by the Americans.

Some time later she said, as sweetly and as young girly as she could muster, ‘Where are we going, father?’

‘Shut up!’ yelled Maaz, spitting as he spoke, depositing splashes of spittle on the glove compartment before him.

But the girly question worked on her father, to a degree, triggered some kind of long ago parental protection thing in his racing mind, and on the spur of the moment he answered the girl’s question. He couldn’t do anything else.

‘Bradford,’ he said. ‘We are going to Bradford.’

––––––––

SHE SAT BACK IN HER seat and thought of Bradford. Why were they going there? Her mother, Akleema, originated from Bradford, so they must have relatives in that cosmopolitan city, though Sahira didn’t know any. They hadn’t kept in touch.

Perhaps they had made a UK arranged marriage for her after all, and anything was better than some old goatish man far away in the mountains. Perhaps her new fiancé would be young and handsome, and for a moment she allowed herself to daydream of the wonderful man who lay ahead, a man who would become her husband. The daydreaming didn’t last.

She knew she wasn’t about to be rewarded for her behaviour. That was out of the question. So if she wasn’t being rewarded, why were they heading into the Pennine hills, toward Bradford?

They had switched onto the M62 and being late Sunday night the traffic was light. It wasn’t at any other time, as they whizzed along at 90mph. Sahira watched for the big blue signs, ticked off the exits in her mind, past gate 20, past 21, and she noticed a clicking in the car, the regular click-click, click-click of an indicator.

She glanced behind her.

No traffic, so he wasn’t pulling out to overtake. He was indicating to turn left, to leave the motorway, and they were nowhere near Bradford, as he exited at gate 22.

‘Where are we going, father?’ she repeated.

‘Shut your mouth, bitch, or by God I’ll cut your throat!’ screamed Maaz, as if he was nearing the end of his tether. He had turned round and was glaring at her, and she saw the hatred and violence in his black eyes.

She wasn’t surprised.

He had always been a weird brother.

There had been that strange incident five years earlier when he had attacked someone in the restaurant, a middle-aged man who had taken one glass of red wine too many. The guy had the temerity to glance longingly at Maaz’s mother, leaving his eyes there far longer than he should, and after the confrontation that followed, a fracas that involved smashed crockery and a bleeding and damaged ear, Maaz went away for two years.

The family explained he was sick and receiving the best attention available, convalescing, they said, but one day she found a letter from some Outreach Centre that, according to the strap line beneath the name, advised: Specialising in the Treatment of Young Men with Mental Disorders.

She had started to read the letter. It said he was much better, that the medication was working, and he could soon return home, though he would remain on medication for the foreseeable future. Her frantic reading was interrupted by her father coming up the stairs, and she slipped the letter into its envelope, and back in the dressing-table drawer, in the nick of time.

There had been another incident too. On the landing upstairs, he had lobbed a full bottle of spring water at mother after she had insisted he tidy his room. Not a plastic bottle, but one of those teardrop-shaped heavy, green glass bottles. It missed by a whisker because she had the foresight to duck. Sahira was always wary of Maaz after that.

It was still just light, though darkness was coming down fast. It had been a dry day, a little breezy for the time of year, but pleasant enough. The car was following a minor road, twisting and turning, rising more than falling, headlights on full beam. They had crossed the border, and were now in the white rose county, Yorkshire, as they entered the small town of Hebden Bridge.

She had never been that way before and didn’t want to go that way again. Everything looked dark and doom-laden, though maybe that was just her state of mind. She again pondered on why they were there, and for a moment she imagined her father was lost, that he was driving aimlessly through the hills, maybe to frighten her, maybe to bring her to her senses. It wouldn’t work. She was Taurus, and Taurus’s were renowned for their stubbornness.

The town was behind them and they were heading due north; then cutting left toward the last dismal light of the setting sun far away to the west. They passed another sign: The RESERVOIRS, and a minute later they were skipping by the first of many vast reservoirs that sleep in those hills, manmade lakes that quench the ever-growing thirst of the vast conurbation known as Greater Manchester.

Two more signs came and went, The PENNINE WAY, a long path and track for walkers that straddles the Pennine Hills, running south to north for a hundred miles, and then: WALSHAW DEAN RESERVOIR, a vast lake of fresh water set high in the hills to catch the frequent rains, and enable the force of gravity to deliver its precious cargo down to the city, pumps non essential. Turn a tap on down there and the goddess of gravity delivers.

Mohammed pulled the car to a standstill.

There was a small pull-in to the left of the single lane of tarmac. It was debatable if any traffic came that way, other than occasional Water Company inspection and maintenance jeeps, and bad-tempered motorised farmers seeking lost sheep. But her father seemed to know the place existed. It was as if this was the spot he had been seeking.

‘Have you been here before?’ she asked.

Her father sniffed a soft laugh, as if forgetting himself.

‘Shut the hell up!’ yelled Maaz.

‘It’s all right, Maaz,’ father said. ‘I have indeed been this way before, when I was courting your mother, we used to drive up here and picnic on this very spot, her dressed in her most expensive green robes, gold thread interwoven into the green. It was designed to impress me, and of course it did, I’ll always remember that.’

‘I thought you had an arranged marriage,’ said an amazed Maaz, becoming interested in the strange conversation.

‘Oh yes we did, through the Mosque, and I’d always recommend it. But I still had to court Akleema first. That was only right and proper, and she’d expect it too. We’d sit here and talk, never touching of course, rarely daring to look into each other’s eyes, because her father and his brother, big bulky men, the pair of them, sat in the gold Ford Granada behind, staring at me in the mirror every time I glanced in the glass.’

Mohammed sniffed another laugh, as if remembering those carefree days from long ago, and then he said, ‘Sahira, get out of the car!’

Maaz jumped out and opened her door.

‘You heard father. Get out!’

Sahira gazed at her crazy brother and did as she was told.

The men seized a wrist and walked her away from the car, down toward the glassy water. From somewhere, Mohammed produced a torch and pointed ahead.

It was grassy, but deep unkempt, windblown grass, and difficult to walk through. There were no trees to be seen anywhere and no buildings either, nothing, just thick grassland turning to heather on the moors higher up.

‘What are you going to do? Throw me in the lake?’

No answer. They carried on walking, leading her away, maybe a hundred yards from the car.

The wind blew hard against their faces, whistling through the dark sky as the final jagged shards of daylight were extinguished. Not an obvious living thing about. Even the ubiquitous sheep had vanished.

It was a famous place in a quirky kind of way, not that any of them knew that. It marked the halfway spot for those individuals, crazy or hardy enough, to attempt the 875 mile Land’s End to John O’Groats walk.

It often broke rainfall records, hence the proliferation of reservoirs, and not too far away, were remote buildings and Halls that had inspired some of the Bronte novels.

It was still a famous place, but that wasn’t important, and fact was, everywhere in Britain is a famous place if you look hard enough.

They came to a standstill.

Maaz let go of her wrist.

Her father did not.

He stared down at her in the gloom. Shone the torch into her puzzled face.

‘You have failed me, daughter. You have brought great shame on the family.’

‘I am sorry, father. I was only following my heart.’

‘You behaved disgracefully.’

‘You’re a stinking slut!’ yelled Maaz, waggling his arm and pointing into her face, his poisonous words grasped by the swirling wind and whisked away into the night.

Sahira glanced at her brother. She pitied him.

The boy wasn’t well. Everyone knew that.

‘We could never trust you again,’ Mohammed continued.

‘She sleeps with filthy kaffirs! She’s nothing more than a common prostitute! You are no sister of mine!’

‘Oh Maaz, listen to yourself,’ said Sahira.

‘She’s shamed the family, shamed her religion, shamed her sex, shamed her parents, shamed me!’

‘Oh, and you’re so pure, are you?’

‘Don’t you... don’t you dare bring my conduct into this! It is you that has behaved blasphemously! You are an evil woman... pure evil!’

‘Yes, but at least I’m not a mental case!’

The men stood before her, stunned to silence.

How could she have known about that?

How long had she known?

And how had she found out?

She glanced at Maaz’s face.

Took a little comfort in knowing she had silenced him, hurt him too, by the look of him. There was spittle on the corner of his lips. The moon was out, and the spittle glistened silver in the moonlight. She thought he looked like some kind of extra from a zombie movie, or a madman from a crazy pop video.

Sahira pulled a defiant face straight at him, as she often did when they were children, a face framed in her white hijab, and then she twisted her head from side to side and glanced away. She didn’t want to look at him any longer. She had seen enough.

Maaz scowled and stared at his father, as if for guidance; then let out a guttural noise. He pulled the short-handled ball hammer from his pocket. The gleaming tool he had slipped out to the hardware store to buy. He brandished it in the air, and crashed it down on the centre of her head, splitting her skull asunder. She fell to the ground, falling backwards, and died at their feet.

Maaz glanced across at his father.

Mohammed stared up at the black skies and yelled her name: ‘Sahira!!!’

‘It had to be done, father,’ said Maaz, as if they had put down a rabid dog.

‘I know that, son. Go back to the car and get the petrol.’

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MAAZ NODDED AND SHOOK himself; took the proffered keys and jogged back to the vehicle. Opened the boot, took out the can of petrol, and the matches, and ran back to his father. He was kneeling down, talking to the bloody remains of his only daughter, perhaps offering one final prayer. Who knows? Who cares? Maaz thought him soft. He couldn’t hear what his father was saying. Didn’t want to hear either.

Mohammed stood up.

‘Over the body,’ he said. ‘Empty it.’

Maaz splashed the stinking, oily petrol, grinning in his work, emptying the can.

‘Stand back,’ said Mohammed, and they moved well away.

He struck a match and tossed it forward.

It caught in an instant.

WHOOSH!

Lighting up the area, spreading warmth, destroying everything that was there, the fine cotton cloth of her best white hijab, her flat shoes, her undergarments, her hair, her flesh, everything.

‘You’d better get her case,’ said Mohammed.

‘Yes, father,’ said Maaz, and he ran back to the car.

Aromas of roasting meat floated across the moor.

Burning meat. Overdone.

The bones in her hands flexed and bent, as if they were still alive, as if they were in pain, contorting like a witch, as the heat burnt away the flesh, taking longer over the bones.

Maaz was back; bag in hand.

‘Open it,’ said Mohammed.

Maaz did so, and in the next second they were dripping her belongings onto the fire. Maaz giggled. When it was empty, Mohammed took the open bag and ripped part of it away, nicking his wrist. Set it on the fire. Twisted off the plastic handle, threw it in the flames. Black polluting smoke swirled in the wind. They wafting it away, and threw the remains of the holdall on the fire, where it burnt to nothing.

Mohammed moved closer and kicked in some remnants of cloth that had escaped the flickering flames.

He glanced across at his son.

The flames were dancing in his wide eyes.

There was nothing else there, no emotion, just coldness and total indifference. Mohammed wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. There was nothing more to be done in those inhospitable hills.

‘Your trouble is, you are far too soft,’ said Maaz.

Mohammed shook his head and said, ‘Take the hammer, wipe it clean of prints, and using your handkerchief, throw it into the centre of the lake.’

Maaz bobbed his head.

It seemed a good plan.

Jogged across to the reservoir, and in the moonlight his father watched him wheeling around twice, like a hammer thrower at the Olympic games. Maaz hurled the ball hammer high into the sky and listened as it splashed down into the deep and black water.

If anyone ever searched there, they would find deep water, total blackness at the bottom, and a short-handled hammer sleeping in the mud. Mohammed imagined it would never be discovered, and even if it was, it couldn’t be traced to their door.

The fire was burning still, though there wasn’t a lot left, as Mohammed handed the empty petrol can to Maaz, and ordered him to take it to the car and stay there.

Sitting in the vehicle, Maaz watched his father crouch down and stare into the dying embers. It was true; he was too soft. Far too soft. Then his father was back on his feet, walking toward the dark outline of the BMW, the torch beam pointing the way. He never once looked back.

Sitting together in the darkness Maaz said, ‘I did the right thing, father. I did the right thing.’

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, and one issued without a shred of doubt.

‘Yes, son. I know.’

‘It had to be done. Now we should forget all about it. About her. Get on with living our lives. Get back to normal.’

‘We must never tell the others.’

‘Course not! So far as anyone is concerned, we dropped the sinning bitch at the airport. The last we saw of her, she was going through the gate.’

There was a short pause and Mohammed said, ‘You didn’t have any qualms?’

‘About killing her, you mean?’

Mohammed nodded.

‘No! None! Not after you showed me the pictures.’

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THE BLAZE HADN’T GONE unnoticed. Two miles to the north, they were spotted by Sandy and Gerald. They were two of the hardy walkers crazy enough to attempt the great Land’s End to John O’Groats walk. They were doing the trek for charity in aid of Aids awareness, and were on track to raise more than £30K. Gerald was HIV positive. They had camped there for the night. Sandy stood up and peered southwards.

‘Looks like someone’s having a great party.’

Gerald stood beside him and gazed south, too. Imagined a spectacular barbecue. Roasting pork sausages with lots of mustard and tomato ketchup and cans of cider. They’d made do with a tin of beans and a cold and gristly Cornish pasty.

‘Why don’t we scoot back and join them,’ suggested Sandy.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Gerald, sitting down again, feeling his blisters. ‘If it were north of us I might go, but the idea of retreating even a hundred yards is foreign to me, sorry.’

Sandy had blisters too, but would have gone. But not alone, not without Gerald, and as the flames in the distance died down, they forgot about barbecues and fires on the horizon and fresh company, and smiled at one another in the moonlight, hugged, and hunkered down together in their small two-man tent.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Monday morning, and the Luke Flowers decapitation murder was all over the newspapers, Internet, and TV. Someone had talked, but something else important happened that morning.

It was the day of the coming of the monster. Or, to give it its full name, the Hytec Corp’s of San Diego, California, Constructor System.

The monster, as it had been christened the moment the team first saw it, had been trialled in the Incident Room over the previous three weeks. That day, it would go live for the first time, and everyone was there to witness it.

From the back of the room it looked like a huge white rectangle, like a half or quarter size cinema screen, but the difference was, it was alive. In the past, whenever a presentation was made, or when a case update was required, they would do what they had always done, what every police department throughout the country did. They would use the white board and felt-tip pen method, stick photos and diagrams and names up there for everyone to see, and comment on.

No longer the case, not with the monster.

The monster could handle everything.

Joan West had badgered Walter into leading the opening presentation, but he had sidestepped that date by giving the gig to Karen. Walter wasn’t averse to technology; he could appreciate what it could offer, and he would use it too, but was happier still if he wasn’t the driver.

She grasped the opportunity, as he always knew she would. When does a confident and striking blonde not want to be the centre of attention? Rarely, if ever, in his experience. Everyone was there. No one wanted to miss the coming of the thing.

Karen stared at the throng and seized her moment.

Stood before them, the monster to her left shoulder, smiled and said, ‘Welcome to the monster.’

Ricky, the Hytec rep, who was sitting on a desk at the back, had made a big effort to get there on time, jumped up and said, ‘It’s the Constructor System. Can we please call it by its correct name?’

Everyone glanced back at him without comment; then back to Karen, who was gazing at the slight Ricky. He tried a smile and winked, and she began again.

‘The Constructor System,’ and she beckoned toward it, and did a cute little curtsey.

The crowded room applauded.

‘All right,’ said Walter, ‘Let’s be getting on with it.’

‘Luke Flowers,’ she said, and she touched a tiny thumbnail photo of Luke that was in the border of the screen that only she could see; then touched the centre of the white mass and an instant colour pic of Luke appeared. It was an old pic taken from when he’d been in trouble years before, flogging counterfeit software. She tapped his face twice, and the pic grew larger, left her finger on it, and the pic grew smaller until it was just as she wanted.

‘Wanted for the murder of Jeffrey Player, and the attempted murder of Neil Swaythling.’

Two more touches, two more colour pics on the screen, headshots lined up together like the defence in a sports team.

‘But no more,’ and she made a downward sweeping motion on each of the pics, and they fell to the floor of the screen. ‘Because yesterday, Luke’s decapitated body was discovered rammed down a lavatory in room fifty at the Red Rose Motel.’

More touches on thumbnails, more commands, and the monster produced six enlarged full colour pics of Luke’s head and his headless body. Nothing spared, some taken in the hotel, some from the prelim report. She zoomed in and out on three of them to show what she, and the monster, could do.

Karen noted the grimacing faces and soft hum of conversation as people shifted in their seats. Some of the younger ones had never seen a decapitated body before, so much blood, and some of them had never seen a murder victim, either. There was quadraphonic sound too. Doctor Sara Carney’s commentary as she carried out the post-mortem.

Karen again, ‘The time of the killing has been estimated at between 3pm and 4pm, Saturday just gone.’

More touches and documents appeared supporting the ToD, but not big enough to make any sense to those watching, not readable. More touches and the documents were so huge even Ricky at the back could read every word.

It was going well. He liked it and grinned at Karen, as she tried hard to ignore him.

Then she was talking again. She was a good presenter, Walter wasn’t alone in thinking that, and easy on the eye, and Ricky wasn’t alone in thinking that.

‘Luke Flowers was held down on the bed and killed by a single blow from a sword, machete, axe, or meat industry implement.’

‘How do we know he was held down?’ asked Gibbons.

Walter thought that a planted question because Karen gobbled it up. Brought two new pics to the audience’s attention. Luke’s bare shoulders, head obvious by its absence, two sets of bruises of fingers, one on the back of either shoulder, two matching heavy thumb bruises closer to the shoulder blades.

‘A man’s hand,’ she said. ‘Medium sized, strong, holding him down. One restraining the victim, one delivering the blow, a minimum of two people, busy carrying out bloody murder.’

‘Don’t suppose we can get any fingerprints from that?’ suggested one of the younger women.

Several of the men laughed.

Hector Browne said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

Ricky intervened.

‘That is a good question, and the answer is not yet. But we are working hard on that, and by next year with the latest enhancements we should be able to reconstruct usable fingerprints from bruises.’

‘They wouldn’t be allowed in any court of law,’ said Gibbons.

‘They could still trap a killer,’ muttered Walter.

‘Correct,’ said Chief Superintendent Joan West, not wishing to be left out, and hoping to justify the enormous expense of Hytec’s Constructor System, as she would always refer to it.

Walter nodded Karen on.

‘The motel room was booked in the name of Larry King, an obvious false name. He had booked the room many times before, always insisted on room fifty for reasons of his own, and always paid in cash.’

‘Any luck with CCTV?’ asked Walter.

Karen beamed and said, ‘Glad you asked.’

More soft touches, and a picture of the scene outside the Red Rose Motel flashed up. A car pulled in and ran across the screen. The system was live in real time, showing what was happening at the Red Rose at that exact moment.

‘Wowser!’ said Gibbons.

Karen touched again, and the picture switched to the corridor camera.

Iskra Kolarov was walking toward the camera, carrying her red box of potions and sprays, smiled at the technology, as she always did, because she knew someone somewhere would be watching. Her mother always said that people, especially foreigners, liked pretty girls to smile.

‘Brilliant,’ said Walter. ‘So, where are the pictures from Saturday?’

Fact was, he knew the answer.

‘There aren’t any,’ admitted Karen. ‘System down.’

‘Shit!’ said Gibbons, louder than he intended.

Mrs West glanced over her shoulder and stared at him as if she had stood in dog muck.

Ricky at the back butted in, ‘I’d like to add that the failed software was nothing to do with the Constructor System. Nothing to do with Hytec at all.’

‘We appreciate that,’ said Mrs West, glancing round and smiling at Ricky, like a mother to a favourite son.

Karen again, ‘The body was found by Iskra Kolarov, the Bulgarian girl, that’s the girl you just saw in the corridor.’

‘She legal?’ asked Hector.

‘She is,’ confirmed Walter.

‘It was Iskra,’ continued Karen, ‘who threw up over Luke’s face.’

Karen saw several of them grimace.

‘Who else works at the Red Rose?’ asked Mrs West.

‘Jack Heale, the manager, Mary McGrory, room supervisor, Mary Hussein on reception, and a small army of part-timers and temps who come and go,’ said Karen.

Mrs West continued. ‘One of them must have seen two, maybe more, strangers entering the hotel, carrying a large and threatening looking implement.’

‘It would seem not, ma’am.’

‘Could have been in a case,’ said Hector.

‘It could. Probably was. Carry on,’ said Walter.

Karen bobbed her head and moved on to the post-mortem.

‘The head was decapitated by one blow.’

More gory photographs, and a brief sight of the PM report, magnified so that it was almost as tall as Karen.

Most of them scanned it, looking for clues or inspiration, but none were forthcoming.

‘So,’ said Karen, ‘we are now investigating the murder of the murderer we were originally seeking.’

‘That’s about the size of it,’ said Mrs West.

‘More importantly,’ said Walter, ‘we still don’t know what this is all about. We don’t know why Luke was taking pot-shots at Player and Swaythling, and we don’t know why Luke was killed.’

‘It looks drug orientated to me,’ said Hector.

‘It may look like it,’ said Karen, ‘but there is no history of drugs or drug dealing involving Player, Swaythling, or Flowers.’

‘So how did Flowers make his living?’ asked Mrs West.

For the moment, the monster seemed to be out of the loop.

‘It’s possible that he was paid for carrying out the killing,’ suggested Walter.

‘A hit man,’ added Gibbons.

‘Don’t like the term,’ said Walter, ‘but that seems likely.’

‘Unless he was into software piracy in a big way,’ suggested WPC Jenny Thompson.

‘I think he’d left that gig behind long ago,’ said Gibbons. ‘Not enough cash in it, if you ask me.’

Ricky joined in from the back.

‘Software piracy is a big problem, and some business software can cost £20,000 or £30,000 a pop.’

They turned and gawped at the systems rep who had suddenly become part of the investigation team.

‘Thank you, Ricky,’ said Mrs West, smiling at him. ‘That’s most useful. Anything else you can tell us.’

‘Comes in from China usually. Worth big bucks, but it is specialised. You’d need to have contacts in big business. It’s not an easy sell,’ and he added a rider, aware that all eyes were on him, ‘I would imagine.’

‘This thing is not about software,’ said Walter. ‘There was none in Luke’s flat. He had left that behind. It’s something to do with Neil Swaythling.’

‘But what?’ asked Mrs West.

‘I don’t know,’ said Walter, ‘but I have closed down the Neil Swaythling protection programme and sent him home.’

Mrs West nodded, happy to have that unnecessary expense off the book.

‘So if it’s not drug related, and it’s not software piracy, what is it about?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Non payment of loans?’ suggested Karen, back on the monster, bringing up fresh faces, Langley Wells and his three monkeys of sons.

‘That’s more like it,’ said Walter. ‘And Neil Swaythling’s father could still be involved in this somewhere.’

More monster prods and Gerry Swaythling’s still picture appeared. Not a great shot, and then more video taken by Jenny and Hector from the solicitor’s office opposite the Masonic Lodge, Gerry grinning and going inside.

Gibbons recognised the location and looked uncomfortable, realised his pic could be up next. Karen noted that too.

‘So where do we go from here?’ asked Mrs West.

‘I want everyone to lean on any contacts they might have,’ said Walter. ‘Go round the lowlife pubs and clubs tonight. We all know which ones they are, put a bit of pressure on. All we want to know is what this is about. Discover the cause, and we’ll find the killers.’

‘Good,’ said Mrs West, turning round and smiling at Ricky again. ‘Thank you, Ricky,’ she said. ‘Very nice.’

‘Anyone anything else they’d like to add?’ asked Karen.

‘What else can this thing do?’ asked Gibbons.

She was happy to demonstrate, as was Ricky, grinning at the thought of her showing it off. She brought up a map of Britain and touched on Chester. The map zoomed in. ‘Give me an address,’ she said.

‘Percy Road, Handbridge,’ said Jenny.

In seconds, the map located the road.

‘It can bring up in moments any street map from any town in the UK. Works on speech recognition. It’s amazing.’

‘Pity it’s not actual pictures,’ said Hector Browne.

Karen grinned. Touched an icon and the map on the screen switched from map format to the view of Percy Road from space. Karen zoomed in until the roof tiles on an individual house were clearly visible.

‘Jesus!’ said an impressed Gibbons.

‘Mind your language!’ said Mrs West.

‘You can bring up pictures of any street, any house, any pub, any factory, any river, field, bridge, forest, mountain, church, graveyard, in Britain, any time you want, you name it.’

‘Can you put up the Red Rose Motel?’ asked Walter.

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Karen, two prods, maybe three, and there it was, as she zoomed in and out.

‘Leave it just there,’ said Walter.

The aerial view was from an angle, the bedroom windows visible, overlooking the car park, only one way in and one way out.

‘What are you thinking?’ asked Mrs West.

‘Just wondering which guests might have seen the killers coming and going.’

‘All along that side for sure,’ said Karen, pointing at the windows.

‘Only if they were looking out of the window,’ said Gibbons. ‘When I am in a hotel I don’t spend my time gawping out of bloody windows.’

‘We won’t ask what you would be doing,’ muttered Hector.

Gibbons grinned and muttered, ‘Shaddup.’

‘Let’s try those visitors on that side again. Anyone who arrived before say, half-past twelve on Saturday,’ said Walter. ‘Someone must have seen two anxious looking men arriving together, two people we have not been able to account for. We might get a break.’

There was a short pause and Karen said, ‘Anything else?’

No one had. The monster had passed its first audition, and was put into standby mode, temporarily dead, definitely alive, always there, waiting and brooding and hoping to solve dastardly crimes, as the human beings went back to their day-to-day duties, searching for food to feed it.

––––––––

TEN MINUTES LATER AND Walter said to Karen, ‘I want to go back to the Red Rose. Something isn’t right there.’

‘OK, Guv, when?’

‘Give me an hour.’

The phone before them burbled and Karen snatched it up.

Walter heard her say, ‘Yes, he’s here, just a moment.’

She held her hand over the mouthpiece and said, ‘It’s your girlfriend?’

He smiled; in a ridiculously optimistic moment he imagined it might be Galina the cleaner. Picked up the phone, said in as syrupy a voice as Karen had ever witnessed, ‘Hello you, what can I do for you?’

‘Who’s been a naughty boy, then?’

Chapter Forty

It was 2am before Mohammed and Maaz arrived back at the State, plenty of time to reflect on the day, and the night, and perfect their stories.

Closing in on Chester, they’d stopped at a remote spot and dumped the petrol can in the canal, and when they arrived home were surprised to find Ahmed still up.

‘The old man gone to bed?’ asked Maaz, acting out the everything is fine routine.

‘Yeah, he gets tired, I’m worried about him,’ replied Ahmed. ‘Everything go all right?’

‘Yes,’ said Mohammed. ‘The sinner should be somewhere over the Arabian Gulf by now,’ and he shared a nervous look with Maaz, as Ahmed stared at his shoes.

‘Just forget her,’ said Maaz. ‘It’s finished with. She’s gone for good. Let’s get back to normal. We are better off without her.’

For what she had done and the shame she brought down on the family, Ahmed concurred, and he went downstairs and locked up and they all went to bed. Mohammed was the last to find sleep. He’d been wondering about Maaz’s wellbeing, and whether he was taking his medication. He’d check on that in the morning. He said the last prayers of the day and lay on his back on the bed. Beside him, Akleema slumbered on, unaware her man had returned, unaware that he had witnessed the murder of their only daughter.

He couldn’t sleep and got up and went to the lavatory. Sat there for a long time, thinking, replaying the horrific events of the night in his head, flicking through the pictures as he did so. 

––––––––

THE FIRE IN THE LONG grass had long gone out. A black stain on the landscape, very little left, ash, fragments of human being, fragments of bone, traces of woman’s clothing, and part of her skull, not immediately recognisable. It could have been a sizeable chunk of charcoal from the end of a decent log, burnt in a campfire. It wasn’t something most people would stop and examine, though if they did they might have given it a kick.

Inside the chunk of skull, protected from the blaze, sat a perfect set of blackened teeth.

––––––––

‘WHO’S BEEN A NAUGHTY boy, then?’

‘Who’s this?’ said an irritable Walter as he adjusted the phone.

‘Oh Walter, have your forgotten me already?’

‘Who is this!’

‘Gardenia Floem of course, your favourite crime reporter.’

‘It’s Inspector Darriteau to you!’

‘Sorry... Inspector... Darriteau, but you have been a naughty man, misleading us all with that ruse of yours that Neil Swaythling was dead. You didn’t fool me, as I said before, and I don’t think you fooled many others either. It was all too neat and convenient.’

‘What can I do for you, Mizz Floem?’

‘Who killed Luke Flowers, Inspector?’

‘No idea. Who do you think?’

‘Oh, don’t ask me. I ask the questions, not answer them.’

‘I ask questions too.’

‘Yes, of course you do, but here’s another one from me. Should the Cestrian public be alarmed at the outbreak of what appears to be a spate of gangland murders in their otherwise idyllic city?’

‘If you know of any connection to gangland murders, Mizz Floem, perhaps you could enlighten me.’

‘What else could they be?’

‘I don’t know, that’s why I am investigating, a task you are keeping me from.’

‘So sorry to delay you, Inspector, I’ll be in touch.’

‘Don’t bother!’ though by the time Walter said that, she had gone.

––––––––

KAREN DROVE THEM BACK to the Red Rose in an unmarked car. Nothing much had changed; a few different cars in the car park, not rushed off their feet, though there was plenty of time left in the day. There was no sign of any photographers or TV newshounds. They’d all been and sniffed round and click-click-clicked and had headed off somewhere else.

It was a bright day, almost no cloud, and as Walter stepped from the car he glanced into the sky to where he imagined the satellite might be stationed. Couldn’t see a thing, shaded his eyes and squinted in a different direction. Same thing, not a thing.

‘What are you looking for?’ Karen asked, gazing across at him.

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘You can’t see them with the naked eye, and not during the day.’

Walter bobbed his head and headed for the entrance.

‘Seems strange to think we are being photographed as we go about our daily business.’

‘That’s the modern world for you.’

‘You don’t think they’d have any pics of the two guys parking the car and going inside?’

Karen laughed her neat laugh and said, ‘Don’t think so, Guv, and even if they did, they’d never share their images with us. They’d be too scared of litigation.’

Yeah, thought Walter, everyone was frightened of being taken to court in twenty-first century Britain, but not by the police, but by litigators and ambulance chasing solicitors. Too many people viewed the law as a potential earner, especially rogues when they were released from custody, or found not guilty, or had their convictions overturned.

––––––––

THERE WAS A NEW GIRL on the counter, a temp they hadn’t seen before, skinny, pale, mousy hair, bad spectacles, eminently forgettable, name of Cynthia. Mr Heale wasn’t there, but she summoned him and a couple of minutes later he slipped into the reception area from the corridor.

‘Just a few more quick questions,’ said Walter.

Heale sighed and took them through to his tiny office, enough room for one chair on either side of a small desk, three grey metal filing cabinets away to his left. Walter sat down. Karen stood in the doorway.

‘Fire away,’ said Heale, glancing at his watch, giving the impression of busy-ness.

‘This CCTV system you have.’

‘What of it?’

‘How reliable is it?’

Heale nodded his head and said, ‘Pretty good, cost a lot of money, why do you ask?’

‘But it didn’t work on the day of the murder?’

‘Seems that way.’

‘How often does it fail?’ asked Karen.

‘Oh, let me see,’ and he sat back with his hands behind his head as if thinking. He needed deodorant. ‘Can’t remember off the top of my head, but it will be logged.’

‘Try a guess?’ asked Walter.

Heale pulled a surprised face, shook his head; blew out from his closed mouth, rippling his lips, making a silly horse-like sound.

‘Oh, I dunno, a month, maybe two.’

‘Could it have been turned off deliberately?’

‘By whom?’

Walter’s turn to say, ‘Dunno... you tell me.’

‘I don’t think so. Don’t see the point.’

‘How about the girl on the counter, Mary Hussein? Might she have turned it off?’

Karen added, ‘Either deliberately or accidentally?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so, but it’s not a difficult thing to do. Throw one switch and off it goes.’

‘So she could have turned it off,’ said Karen, ‘When the guys came in, and back on again after they had left.’

Heale smiled. ‘She could have done, but she wouldn’t. She’s a reliable person, quiet and conscientious, a valued member of the team, and there’s no way she would get mixed up in anything like that. She’s hardly likely to become involved in conspiracy to murder, is she?’

Walter pulled a face. Didn’t answer. Then he asked, ‘How long has she worked here?’

‘Five, maybe six years.’

‘Where does she live?’ asked Karen.

‘32 Fisher Street in Hoole.’

He’d answered without hesitation, hadn’t needed to look it up, Walter noted that. How many bosses would know the home addresses of their young female staff? Especially the prettier ones like Mary. Probably quite a few, and Heale certainly did. Maybe he was giving her a lift into work, maybe more. Walter would try him with another question.

‘Where does the Bulgarian girl live? Iskra whatshername?’

‘Kolarov, it’s Kolarov, I don’t know, I think she lives in Hoole too, but I’d have to look it up.’

‘Do that, please,’ said Karen.

Heale went to the nearest filing cabinet, screeched it open, found the address, gave it to Karen, and she noted it down, along with the other one, and after that they said thanks and drove off toward Hoole.

––––––––

32 FISHER STREET WAS a three-story Edwardian red sandstone house set in a row of similar properties. It was tall and narrow with small bay windows, long windows from top to bottom, almost no front garden, two steps through the gate and they were at the front door. Karen buzzed the bell. Mary Hussein came to the door, surprised to see them. She was dressed in some kind of paint smudged overall as if she was decorating.

‘We’ve a few more questions about the murder at the motel,’ said Karen.

‘You’d better come in,’ she said, though Walter imagined she wasn’t thrilled at the prospect. She held the part-glazed door open and nodded them down the long and narrow hallway, toward a sizeable kitchen cum breakfast room at the rear.

To the right was a modern fitted kitchen, not top of the range, but not budget either, to the left three mismatched armchairs, small and well used, a big square grey TV pushed into the corner, open double doors to a lean-to conservatory fixed on the back. It looked hot in there too under the summer sun. In the centre of the main room was a large old- fashioned square dining table, and on the table was a canvas and a pot of paintbrushes and various oil paints.

‘You paint?’ asked Walter.

‘I try,’ she said. ‘Badly,’ a little embarrassed as they gazed down at her efforts. It was pretty good, maybe half finished, a picture of a man’s face, not Heale, an Asian man, good head of hair, prominent nose, hard looking eyes, if the portrait was true.

‘Someone you know?’ asked Karen.

Mary nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s father, least it’s supposed to be,’ and she nodded across at the wall and a bank of mixed framed family photographs. Karen and Walter took a look. Several of Mary, at school, in the brownies, a leaving school pic, a growing up teenager pic, an only child, judging by the lack of anyone else, and three photos of her parents. The same Asian guy, she was a talented painter; the hard eyes were spot on, and a white woman, presumably her mother.

‘Your mum and dad?’ asked Walter.

She nodded, not over-keen on talking about them. Then she said, ‘Take a seat,’ and pointed at the armchairs.

Walter sat down. Karen stood in the hall doorway.

‘It seems too much of a coincidence that the CCTV went off when the killers came into the motel, and then on again after they had left,’ said Walter.

She shook her head, didn’t know what to say, and said, ‘That’s what happened.’

‘Tell me about the man who booked the room?’

‘You mean the man I knew as Larry King?’

‘The same.’

‘Not much to tell, short bloke, unremarkable.’

‘You didn’t find him attractive?’ asked Karen.

‘Certainly not!’

‘Lots of girls did.’

‘Well, not me!’

‘Why did he want the room?’ asked Walter.

‘How should I know?’

‘Oh, come on, Miss Hussein, don’t be awkward. You must wonder what your guests get up to in their rooms in the middle of the afternoon.’

‘I do not! I have far too much to do to bother with silly gossip.’

‘He wasn’t alone, was he?’ asked Karen.

‘Obviously not, someone must have killed him.’

‘We don’t mean that,’ said Walter, ‘as I think you know.’

‘I did not see anyone come or go from that room.’

‘What about on previous visits?’ asked Karen.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Oh, come on, Miss Hussein, try,’ said Walter. ‘We both know he was a regular visitor, always booking in early in the afternoons. He had a girl there, didn’t he, or a woman?’

‘Mr Heale says we must be a model of discretion. What goes on in the rooms is none of our business. I don’t know and I don’t care, I don’t pay any attention to it. I just do my job.’

‘Miss Hussein, a young man has been decapitated in your hotel,’ said Karen. ‘Aren’t you in the least bit interested in that?’

She shrugged her shoulders. Drew a thin brush from the pot of paints. Walter wanted to smack it from her hand. Shifted in his seat. Gazed at Karen.

‘As I said, discretion-discretion, I want to make a career in the hotel industry. If people want to get up to all sorts, that is nothing to do with me. Jack says I can go a long way in this business; says I might even land his job when he moves on to better things.’

‘Mr Heale?’ said Walter.

Mary nodded. Slipped the paintbrush back in the pot. Sensible girl.

‘Did you ever see the woman?’ asked Karen.

‘No, course not... well, I must have done, but I don’t remember. People come and go every minute of the day. After a while, all the faces merge into one. I just don’t remember.’

‘Does Mr Heale, Jack, know who the woman is?’ asked Karen.

‘Pfft! How would I know? Don’t think so. You’d have to ask him.’

Walter took a card from his pocket and set it on the table.

‘We are investigating a brutal murder, Miss Hussein. If you think of anything that might help, or remember anything about his visitors, call me.’

A brief pause and she said, ‘OK,’ but it was an unconvincing reply, and they didn’t expect her to ring, and after that, she showed them out, and a minute later they were back in the car, driving back toward the station. 

Chapter Forty-One

Walter changed his mind as to where they were going. ‘Take me to see Langley Wells.’ Karen said, ‘OK, Guv,’ and she switched lanes in a hurry, and glanced across at him and wondered what he had in mind.

He was sitting back in his seat, eyes closed, as if asleep.

She thought better than to disturb him, and ten minutes later they were pulling to a standstill outside Langley’s house.

Walter opened his eyes. No four by fours on display. No sons home by the look of it, and that was how he wanted it. Karen buzzed the bell. Rose came to the door.

Surprised to see them.

‘What do you want?’

‘Hello, Rose. We’d like to see Langley.’

‘What about? He’s not expecting you.’

‘I want to thank him.’

‘That’ll be a first,’ she muttered, and then she said, ‘wait here,’ and she invited them into the hall and scuttled off to find her husband.

Karen imagined she could hear strident, muffled voices. Walter didn’t pick up a thing, though his hearing was not what it once was. Rose came back, muttering, ‘You’d better go through, you know where it is.’

Langley was sitting behind his desk, no sign of the boys, and both Walter and Karen gained the impression of an office hastily cleansed of records. The desk was as clean as before, just a pot of pens, and they both wondered what spreadsheets and ledgers and paperwork had been hidden in the previous minute.

‘Darriteau,’ said Langley, not bothering to get up. He didn’t speak to Karen, just gave her the once over. ‘What’s this all about?’

‘Hello, Langley,’ said Walter, and not waiting to be invited, he sat in the guest chair. ‘I thought I’d stop by and thank you.’

‘Thank me? That’s a first. Thank me for what?’

‘For putting me on to Luke Flowers.’

‘It won’t happen again, so don’t get carried away, and it didn’t do the kid any good, did it?’

‘That’s what I wanted to explore.’

Langley let go a high-pitched, hyena-like laugh and glanced at the ceiling. Karen fought to keep a straight face and looked away.

‘Explore? Explore what?’

‘We need to find out who carried out this barbaric killing.’

‘Don’t look at me. It’s nothing to do with us.’

‘I’ll take your word for that, Langley, but who is it to do with?’

Langley smiled and scratched his scalp.

‘If I knew, I wouldn’t tell ya, but I don’t know, so I can’t. Get my drift.’

‘No hints at all?’ said Karen.

He stared at the girl. Policing wasn’t a woman’s business. She should be home raising a family and making the dinner, and more than one of his sons had intimated they would be happy to accommodate her, except she was a rozzer, and rozzers would never be accepted in the Wells’ world.

‘So you’ve nothing more to tell us?’ said Walter. ‘No pointers?’

‘Bugger all!’ he said, smiling at Karen.

‘You know where I am, if you hear anything. Barbarians like that have no place in society.’

Langley shook his head, didn’t say a word, and then right on cue, Rose appeared, ready to show them out.

––––––––

AS KAREN DROVE BACK toward the station, she said, ‘Do you think they are capable of such a barbaric killing?’

‘The Langley family? Oh, they are capable all right, I could imagine it too. But I don’t see why Langley would tell us about Luke, and then kill him. That doesn’t make much sense.’

‘No,’ said Karen. ‘It doesn’t. But those three sons of his give me the heebie-jeebies, and couldn’t you just see it?’

Walter could, and all too clearly, that was the problem. Lawrie holding Luke down, Lenny swinging the axe, and Lewis on the door as lookout, maybe slipping Mary Hussein fifty quid to turn a blind eye, and turn off the cameras for half an hour. Yeah, the pictures were graphic. They could both envision them as clear as day. It didn’t mean it had happened that way, didn’t mean to say they had done it, couldn’t think of a reason why they would, though it didn’t make the vivid images disappear.

––––––––

BACK AT THE STATION, the first call Karen fielded was from Mrs Holly Swaythling. She passed the phone to Walter.

‘I’d just like to thank you, Inspector.’

She sounded tired, but happy too, different to before.

‘Thank me for what, Mrs Swaythling?’

‘For keeping Neil safe, and for returning him to us in one piece.’

‘That’s what we are here for.’

‘Terrible about that young boy.’

‘Luke? Yes, a great pity, but play with fire and you will get burnt.’

‘And there’s more good news.’

‘There is?’

‘Yes, you’ll never guess what. You remember Suzanne Knight, Gerry’s, err... his floozy on the side.’

‘Yes, what about her?’

‘Well, she was so upset about the attacks on Neil that she let slip that she was concerned about him, more than concerned, if you get my drift. To cut a long story short, her and Neil have kind of got together. I can’t tell you how happy it’s makes me feel. Neil practically lives here again now.’

‘I see. That is a turn up. What does Gerry think about that?’

‘Tell you the truth, Inspector, I’m not sure he’s cottoned on. But when he does, he’s in for a big surprise,’ and she laughed like she hadn’t laughed in months, and Walter laughed too, and then she said, ‘I don’t really care what he thinks. Bye, Inspector, and thanks again.’

––––––––

AFTER THAT, THE WEEK petered out and on Saturday morning, Walter waited in for Galina the cleaner. She was busy in the kitchen, up to her elbows in hot bubbly water, washing the dishes that he’d let build up in the sink.

The old portable TV was on, twelve-inch screen, set on the end of the worktop, screwed down so it couldn’t move nearer the water, tuned to one of the news channels, as it always was, and there was a lot of news that morning. Walter could tell that from the excited frisson in the newscasters’ voices.

Three big breaking stories, all vying for lead vocal, each trying hard to elbow the others off the screen.

Crime, Terror, and Weird Sport.

The terror was live from Moscow.

A suicide bomber had blown herself up in Moscow’s largest and most modern supermarket, Saturday morning, busiest time. The early casualty figures were horrendous, and would rise as the day wore on. Ninety-two dead they were reporting, running with newsreel pictures, probably taken on someone’s mobile, showing smoke and debris and human beings lying around in unnatural positions, amongst tins of meat and dead chickens, and smashed bottles of premium vodka, and frantic melons rolling every which way. Galina glanced over her shoulder and stared at the tiny screen.

‘Terrible, Mr Darto,’ she said. ‘Bad men, bad woman, terrible.’

‘Suicide bomber, by the look of it.’

‘Unbelievable!’ and then she said, ‘Mind you Russia,’ though she pronounced it Roo-si-a, ‘Roo-si-a bad to Chechnya, Chechnya bad back,’ and she shrugged her shoulders as if she agreed with the eye-for-an-eye philosophy.

‘Terrible,’ echoed Walter, pondering on what might happen if suicide bombers ever came to provincial England, to Chester. It was a thought that didn’t bear thinking about, and he prayed he would never live to see it.

The robotic news gal moved on, as if she had a great deal to get through, as if she didn’t have time to think about the pictures and words and the death that spewed out, as if it was nothing to do with her, somehow make believe, unreal, manufactured stories for the masses. She had a programme to complete, and was determined to do so, and time was tight. She was on to the crime story.

The remains of a body had been found on the moors north-east of Manchester, most likely a woman’s body, burned beyond recognition. Dull pictures followed from the foothills of the misty Pennines, a weary-looking bloke of a reporter, squinting up the hill at a bleak and cold reservoir, and back to the police tent in the near distance, erected over the remains.

‘So far the body has not been identified,’ sniffed the bloke. ‘In fact, it may never be identified, so badly burned was it, but we believe it is the body of a young woman, though that has yet to be confirmed.’

Walter watched the pictures with interest, listened to the words, as did every off-duty police officer the length and breadth of Britain. Because that is what police officers do everywhere, because they just might learn something from pictures from afar, and anyway, bodies were often dumped by murderers miles away from the scenes of their crimes, and sometimes hundreds of miles away. You only had to recall the number of Scottish murderers arrested on the south coast of England, and vice versa, to see that was true.

––––––––

THE TELEVISION IN THE State of Kerala’s private apartment was on, a forty-eight inch high definition 3D beast, latest top of the range model that Mohammed had insisted they acquire. What was the point in working all hours that God sent if there wasn’t an occasional perk, like a magnificent new television that had cost the equivalent of six month’s wages for a waiter?

Wazir had been against it from the beginning, the frittering away of hard-earned money on frippery, he said, and Ahmed too, but Maaz was all for it, as young people always are when it comes to acquiring modern technology.

Maaz was there too, watching the screen, as was his father, Mohammed. Wazir was enjoying a lie-in, for he was getting more tired with each passing month. They were eating a late breakfast. Akleema was also there, reading a woman’s magazine, and Nadirah, sewing, though heaven knows why she felt the need to sew.

Maaz glanced across at Mohammed and back at the screen. Father saw a hint of excitement in his son’s eyes and shook his head and looked away. Maaz didn’t. He was glued to the pictures.

‘What’s that all about?’ asked Akleema, looking up from her celeb gossip pages.

‘Some human remains found on the moors,’ said Mohammed. ‘Change channel, Maaz.’

‘No!’ he said. ‘I want to watch this,’ and the men shared another hard look, and the newscast stayed on.

––––––––

THE BROADCAST SWITCHED to the red brick Manchester Police Headquarters close to Old Trafford. Walter knew the building well. He’d been there several times, knew some of the officers too, though there was no guarantee they would still be there.

A police press conference was in full swing. Two guys in their forties, one in uniform, one not, and a short-haired woman in her thirties, full uniform boasting several medal ribbons. He didn’t know any of them, doubted if they were even from Manchester, judging by their accents. The woman was speaking. She had a strident voice, a little like their own Mrs West. Maybe a strident voice was a prerequisite for successful women in the force. It was an interesting theory. 

‘We should have more information when the body has been identified. That is proving difficult. Our main hope is a full set of good teeth, and we will be following that up in the coming hours and days.’

‘Can you confirm it is a woman?’ asked one reporter.

‘Yes, I can.’

‘Can you say what age?’

‘Not for certain, but we believe between fifteen and thirty.’

There was a brief break as if for once the hacks couldn’t think of anything else to ask, and then an older guy at the back announced himself from a Manchester local radio station, and asked, ‘Can you comment on speculation that the death is some kind of honour killing?’

The woman officer looked shocked, thrown, as if the hack had hit a raw nerve. She went to speak but stopped and turned to her right and said, ‘I think Chief Superintendent Gitts might have something to say about that.’

The grey-haired man began speaking. He was lean with a hard face and was the senior officer the force put up to face the press.

‘There is no such thing as an honour killing,’ he snapped. ‘The whole idea of any kind of honour being attached to cold-blooded murder is a travesty. Whoever is responsible for this death will be hunted down,’ and he nodded a little nod to the press officer, a nod that Walter knew well, and one that he had used many times before himself. The “I’ve had enough of this nonsense, the conference is over nod”, and sure enough, the gathering was brought to an early end, and the TV feed reverted to the studio.

––––––––

IN THE STATE, MAAZ smiled to himself.

Akleema asked, ‘What is an honour killing?’

‘They don’t know what they are talking about,’ said Maaz. ‘They haven’t a bloody clue,’ and Mohammed wanted to scream at his son and tell him to shut up, but couldn’t, and then Ahmed came in and said, ‘Am I the only one working here today? Have you forgotten we have a Chester Rugby Club lunch at twelve, fifty-two covers, and time is getting on.’

The phone rang, and Akleema picked up.

‘The State of Kerala bespoke Indian Restaurant,’ she said in her best curry house gooey voice.

Maaz squirmed in his chair and thought, what a load of bollocks.

‘It’s for you, Ahmed,’ Akleema called through the open door. ‘Imam Sabir at the mosque.’

––––––––

GALINA FINISHED THE dishes and was busy emptying and cleaning the stainless steel sink. She glanced back at the TV.

‘What that all about?’ she said.

Walter pulled a face. ‘Dunno. Some unfortunate young woman murdered, listening to that. The body burnt. Dreadful.’

‘More bad men?’

‘Looks that way. Don’t you have bad men in Ukraine?’

She gave him a smirk and said, ‘Course, but everyone know who they are, and ignore. Just ignore.’

If only it was that easy, thought Walter, and then she said, ‘They should send for you, Mr Darto. You find bad men pronto,’ and she giggled and began filling the yellow plastic bowl with boiling water. God knows what for, Walter thought, but didn’t say. He didn’t like to interfere in such matters, and would always leave an energetic cleaning woman to get on with whatever business she was about.

Galina disappeared up the hall in a flurry of steam and chemical cleaner aroma, and Walter sipped his coffee and glanced back at the news gal. She was pressing on regardless, still more vital news to relay to the nation, and she had switched to the day’s sports story, the weird sports story.

––––––––

‘LIVERPOOL CITY FOOTBALL Club has announced that Jermaine Keating will not play for the club again this year. This comes after it was announced late last night that Mr Keating, seen here at a recent appearance at the Ness Gardens fete, had failed a drugs test taken after the Cup Final, believed to be for cocaine. In the last few minutes, the club has announced that this is the second time Mr Keating has failed a routine test. He has been suspended pending a full inquiry and is believed to have left the UK. There have been reports, so far unconfirmed, that he is undergoing treatment in a Swiss addiction clinic. A spokesman for the Football Association announced earlier this morning that Mr Keating would not be considered for England internationals for the foreseeable future.’

––––––––

WALTER PULLED ANOTHER knowing face. He would be a big loss. Keating’s goals had been almost solely responsible for England sitting top of their qualifying group, not to mention his importance to Liverpool City FC, whose surging revival and return to the following season’s Champion’s League had been fired on the back of Keating’s impressive strike record.

There was something else that interested him.

During his team’s recent trawl through the low-life bars and clubs and snouts and grasses and bookmakers and drug addicts, a trawl that had picked up precisely zero to do with Luke Flowers’ beheading, one or two of the team had picked up crazy rumours that there was a contract out for a hundred big ones on the head of a famous sportsman. No names, no pack drill, no ID, no further information available, and most of the team laughed it off and assumed, if indeed there was anything to it, it was something to do with the jockey who had failed to bring home the red hot favourite in the previous April’s Grand National meeting at Aintree.

Could those threats have something to do with Jermaine Keating; pondered Walter, and more specifically, with Luke Flowers?

Could that be why Keating had fled the country?

Could there be more to this story than met the eye?

All possible, but nothing more than crazy speculation. The mind can take one to strange places on the back of a titbit of intel.

The news gal returned. She would not be denied. Smiled and said, ‘And now it’s straight back to Moscow for the latest casualty figures...’ salivating, as if it was a sports scoreboard, and everyone must share in the updated numbers.

Walter heard Galina coming down the stairs and remembered there was something he wanted to ask her before he left her to it and went back to work.

Chapter Forty-Two

When Galina came down the stairs, she found Walter standing in the middle of the sitting room, hands in trouser pockets, bouncing back and forth on his toes, as if deep in thought.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’

She lowered her head and focused on him and said, ‘Yes, and what is that?’

‘I am thinking of getting the room done out,’ and he waved his hand around the room, in case she didn’t understand. ‘You know, decorated, smartened up.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, wondering where the conversation was heading.

‘What do you think? What should I do? Any ideas? What needs doing?’

She glanced at his possessions, as if she had never seen them before.

‘Filth!’ she said.

It seemed a favourite word of hers, but she was in the filth game. Filth removal, filth relocation, filth destruction.

‘What would you do?’

Another defiant look. ‘Me?’

Walter nodded.

‘Easy! Get rid!’

‘What? Rid of everything?’ he said, peering round to see if there was anything worth saving.

Galina nodded fast.

‘Everything!’ she said. ‘Chairs, carpet, wallpaper, television, lamps, everything. Get rid, gazoom! Start again!’

‘The whole lot?’ said Walter, unable to resist a smirk.

‘Deffo!’ she said, revealing she had been mixing with, or listening to, some locals.

‘Deffo!’ she said again and then added, ‘You want me to cook meal for you this week?’

Walter waggled his head, put on his thinking face, and said, ‘All right, if you’re sure.’

Galina smiled and said, ‘I sure. Monday night?’

‘Monday night’s good.’

‘Fine. I come Monday, six thirty OK?’

‘Six thirty is fine. If I’m not back by then let yourself in and make yourself at home.’

‘I do,’ she said, as Walter took his wallet from the back pocket of his trousers. Opened it, took out a big note, and proffered it to the girl. ‘For the dinner.’

‘No! No!’ she said. ‘I buy meat, I pay meat, my idea, I pay,’ and before he could say another word, she took a step toward him, took the note from his hand, took the wallet from his other hand, opened the wallet, slipped the note back inside, turned him round, jammed the wallet back in his trouser pocket, and patted it before he could say chicken bloody Kiev.

Walter sighed and shook his head and tried to remember where he had left his black shoes.

‘I’ll have to go to work,’ he said. ‘Time’s getting on.’

‘I not keep you,’ she said, and she switched on the cleaner and frantic back and forward motion began.

––––––––

HALF AN HOUR LATER, he was sitting at his desk, eyes closed, arms locked behind his head. The place was busy, seeking murderers, Saturday morning or not. There had been a quick run on the monster, but not for long; and it hadn’t revealed much, hadn’t solved the crime, and the thing had been wheeled back against the wall as if it were a naughty boy, and switched off. Good job Mrs West wasn’t there to witness it.

They weren’t making any progress in finding Luke’s killers, and neither had they solved the mystery as to why Luke had been going round taking pot-shots at various young men.

Karen came in. It was her day off, but this was a serious investigation and she had taken on the “I must never miss a thing” theory that Walter revelled in. She was wearing casual clothes, Walter noticed that. A long white tee shirt, or was it a short skirt, he couldn’t tell, over the top of black cord jeans. Seemed a funny kind of garb to him, but what did he know?

His interest in fashion had stopped at the end of the seventies when his kipper ties, naturally permed hair, flared trousers flapping in time to disco music, and monster collars were the in thing. Still occasionally worn when there was nothing else clean to hand, and that provoked a laugh or two. He didn’t care. Clothes were to keep you warm, and cover up your modesty, and not much else. To Walter, they served no other purpose.

She sat opposite and said, ‘Can’t stay long, got a girly lunch booked, five of us, going to Pierre’s.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Anything happening?’

‘Nothing concrete. See the news this morning?’

‘Yeah, terrible, death toll now 108, so they say.’

‘Didn’t mean that?’

‘What then? The Jermaine Keating thing? Looks like our info might have been right. If there was a contract out to kill Keating, maybe Luke Flowers had something to do with that, and maybe that was why Luke was killed.’

‘Just what I was thinking.’

‘Keating’s out of the country.’

‘Yes he is, but he wasn’t at the time of Luke’s death.’

‘You don’t think it was him, do you?’ she said, linking her hands together and leaning forward across the desk toward him, her eyes confirming the excitement in her voice.

‘I don’t think it’s anyone in particular. But I’d like a general chat with Mr Keating, if only to discover why his name keeps cropping up. Find out if he’s got an alibi.’

‘He has, Guv. Playing football in front of 55,000 observant souls. Cast iron, I’d say,’ and she grinned at him.

‘Yes, well, even if he has, a bloke like that with more money than sense, he must know people, some crazy people who’d be only too pleased to serve their hero, and it would only cost the main man half a week’s wages, if that, so he could afford it.’

‘Do you know what? I think you could be on to something.’

‘Maybe, ring the club. Find out where he is, and when he’s coming back. Fix an official appointment, and when we get that, we’ll turn up early and take them by surprise. Counter attack, isn’t that what they are famous for?’

Karen shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me, Guv.’

‘Give it a whirl.’

‘I’ll ring the club in a tick.’

‘But strangely enough, Karen, it wasn’t that news story that interested me either.’

‘What else was there?’

‘The one about the human remains on the moors.’

‘Didn’t see that. What was that about?’

––––––––

AHMED KHAN PICKED UP the phone and said, ‘Imam Sabir, so nice to hear your voice again. What can I do for you?’

‘Is that you, Ahmed?’

‘Yes, Imam.’

‘Are you alone?’

Ahmed paused and glanced across at Maaz.

Maaz was interested in the call. He had been expecting it. Tried to listen. The women had gone out, and so had Mohammed. Wazir was getting washed and shaved, and only Maaz remained.

‘Not quite, Imam.’

‘Can you be so?’

‘That can be arranged.’

Ahmed held his hand over the phone and said, ‘Maaz, go downstairs and help your father, and close the door behind you.’

For a moment Maaz pretended he hadn’t heard.

‘Go downstairs!’ repeated Ahmed, pointing to the door.

Maaz pulled an insolent face and sighed and left the room, closing the door on the way out.

‘Is there a problem, Imam?’

‘It would appear that way.’

‘Can you enlighten me?’

‘The warlord’s wife has not arrived.’

––––––––

WALTER SCRATCHED HIS chin and nodded at Karen and said, ‘A body of a young woman was found burnt beyond recognition on the moors above Manchester.’

‘Didn’t hear about that.’

‘Unrecognisable, except for a perfect set of teeth.’

‘That might be enough.’

‘It could well be.’

‘So what about it?’

‘It was something that some hack asked.’

‘Like what?’

‘He asked the officers if they would make a comment on the gossip going round Manchester that it was an honour killing.’

‘Honour killing? Awful phrase.’

‘Precisely. Terrible term that was slapped down by the senior officer.’

‘Comes from India, doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah, there or thereabouts. It’s the old, old story. Been going on since history began. Each of our tribes prefers our children to marry our own kind, and then the kids ignore their parent’s thinking and advice, and as if to be awkward, they fall in love with someone from a different tribe, and a different gene pool.’

Karen was quiet for a few moments, as if thinking, and then she said, ‘What did your parents say on the subject?’

Walter laughed a short, sharp laugh, and said, ‘I have no idea. I haven’t spoken to either of my parents for almost fifty years.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, forgetting for a moment they were both long dead, both died when he was a boy, indeed his mother when giving birth. Karen imagined she had touched a raw nerve.

‘Don’t be.’

‘So what did your aunty whatsername say?’

‘Mimosa. Aunt Mimosa,’ and Walter smiled at her memory, and her wisdom. ‘She said I should find a nice brown girl... with bumps.’

‘Bumps?’ smirked Karen.

‘Yes, bumps, and in the right places.’

Karen grinned. ‘You mean curvaceous?’

‘Yes, if you prefer.’

‘So what happened?’

‘She wouldn’t have me. The brown girl with bumps.’

‘Ah, then you have a problem.’

‘Yes, I did.’ 

‘So what’s your idea on this honour killing business?’

‘I got round to thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘Luke Flowers.’

‘And?’

‘Could that be some kind of honour killing?’

Karen giggled. ‘Don’t think so, Guv. I think you’ll find it’s the girl who is the victim of an honour killing, or slaughtering, to give it its correct title. I haven’t heard of a boy being killed, and never an English boy.’

‘I don’t mean that.’

‘So what do you mean?’

‘I mean, could he have become involved with a girl from a different tribe?’

‘You mean a different colour?’

‘I don’t know what I mean, just different, and the elders in the tribe, whatever that tribe may be, took offence, maybe gave him a warning, a warning he didn’t heed, and the next thing is they fix up a meet at a regular place, and he runs along there pretty damn quick.’

‘Like the Red Rose?’

Walter bobbed his head and said, ‘And the CCTV mysteriously goes on strike that same afternoon.’

‘And the CCTV is controlled by another who is from a different tribe.’

‘You got it.’

‘You could be on to something. Shall we pull in Mary Hussein and put it to her?’

‘Not yet. I want you to ring Manchester. Get them to email over a copy of the odontogram.’

‘The tooth map, right?’

‘You got it.’

‘You don’t think the dead girl in Manchester has something to do with Luke Flowers, do you?’

‘Not especially, but I am curious.’

‘Bit of a long shot.’

‘Have you got anything better?’

‘Only Jermaine Keating.’

‘And he is out of the country.’

‘So they say. I am on it, Guv.’

––––––––

AHMED BUZZED THE PHONE downstairs. The floor manager answered.

‘Send up Wazir, Maaz, and Mohammed right away. The women are not to come!’

‘Yes, Mr Khan.’

A few moments later and the men drifted in. Maaz first, Mohammed behind, and Wazir a full minute later, newly shaven, but puffing and panting, after climbing those stairs he had only recently descended.

‘What’s this all about?’ moaned Mohammed, sitting on the sofa. ‘We are awfully busy.’

‘I can guess,’ whispered Maaz, perching on the arm.

‘Close the door, father,’ said Ahmed to Wazir, who did as he was asked, and then almost collapsed into his favourite armchair.

He was breathing real heavy.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Ahmed.

‘Short of breath, those damned stairs.’

‘Perhaps we should get the old man a stairlift,’ suggested Maaz. ‘I’d use it too.’

‘Quiet, boy!’ said Mohammed.

Wazir waved his hand across his face as if the idea was preposterous. An unnecessary expense he would never countenance.

‘So what’s this all about?’ said Mohammed.

‘I have had a call from Imam Sabir.’

‘What about this time?’ said Mohammed.

‘Sahira, she did not arrive in Chitral.’

‘What? Who says?’ said Wazir.

‘The Imam, he is adamant, the warlord does not have the wife he paid good money for, and he is not a happy man.’

Maaz grinned, wanted to laugh.

Wazir glanced across at Mohammed and the kid. Didn’t like what he saw. He could recognise secrets and guilt when he saw it.

‘What have you done with her?’ Wazir asked.

Ahmed glanced at his father, not comprehending, not seeing what his father had seen, then back to the others.

‘What have you done with her?’ repeated Wazir, louder this time.

‘Keep your voice down,’ said Ahmed, glancing at the door.

‘Done nothing,’ grinned Maaz. ‘The worthless bitch went off on the Pakistan flight as planned, didn’t she, dad?’

They all stared at Mohammed for confirmation.

It wasn’t forthcoming.

Mohammed shook his head from side to side and began to cry.

––––––––

‘YOU’LL HAVE THE TOOTH fairy map within the hour,’ said Karen. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘As you know, there isn’t a national odontological database. There isn’t even a national fingerprint database for all citizens, come to that, so we have no chance with teeth, and even if there were, with so many people never visiting a dentist these days, it wouldn’t be worth a great deal.’

‘So what are you saying?’

‘I want you to make copies of the tooth map and first thing Monday get the team round every local dentist and ask them, plead with them, order them if necessary, to check if the map matches any of their clients.’

‘Do you expect it to?’

‘No, not really, but it would be nice if it did.’

‘How many dentists do you think there are in and around Chester?’

‘About a hundred and fifty.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Just looked it up on Yellow Pages website. There’s a hundred and thirty plus listed in there, so one fifty would seem a reasonable guess.’

‘I’ll make two hundred copies, that should do.’

‘Yeah, do that, and don’t forget to speak to Liverpool City Football Club.’

‘I won’t, and can I get off after that?’

‘Sure, have a good lunch.’

‘I intend to.’

Chapter Forty-Three

Ahmed shifted in his chair. Mohammed was still snivelling. ‘Can someone please tell me what is going on?’ said Ahmed.

‘Maaz knows,’ said Wazir, ‘and Mohammed too, judging by that performance.’

Mohammed produced a clean handkerchief and blew hard.

Sat back in his chair and blinked and stared at the others.

Maaz grinned and said, ‘Shall I tell them, or will you, father?’

‘Mohammed!’ yelled Ahmed, just as he did when Mohammed was a little boy. ‘Explain yourself, and do it now!’

Mohammed sniffed and took a breath and began.

‘We were taking her to the airport as planned.’

‘And?’

‘We didn’t get there.’

‘Why not?’

‘I wanted to frighten her.’

‘Don’t you think we had done that already?’

‘No, I mean I wanted to really frighten her.’

‘You are not making much sense,’ said Wazir.

Ahmed held up his hand and beckoned for his son to continue.

‘She had been far more wicked than you could ever have imagined.’

‘Far more wicked,’ confirmed Maaz, grinning. ‘Far more.’

‘When? How? What do you mean? How do you know?’

‘Tell them, father. Tell them or I will. Tell them about the pictures.’

‘What’s the boy talking about?’ asked an irritated Wazir.

‘What pictures?’ asked Ahmed.

‘On the mobile phone,’ spluttered Mohammed.

‘Of Sahira?’ asked Ahmed.

Mohammed bobbed his head.

Maaz giggled.

‘Shut up, boy, or by God...’ said Mohammed.

‘Ignore the boy!’ advised Wazir.

‘Compromising pictures?’ asked Ahmed.

‘You can say that again!’ said Maaz.

‘Yes,’ said Mohammed. ‘The very worst kind of pictures you could imagine, and she wasn’t alone.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Ahmed.

‘There were hundreds of pictures on the phone.’

‘Of women and girls?’ asked Wazir.

‘Older women and younger women,’ said Mohammed.

‘And children?’ asked Wazir.

‘No! None of children, just women.’

‘And they were unclothed?’ asked Ahmed, having difficulty getting out his words, as if those same words were too shocking to speak. ‘Naked pictures?’

‘Porno!’ yelled Maaz.

‘Does he have to be here?’ asked Wazir.

Ahmed glanced at his grandson and shook his head and said, ‘Now that he’s here, he’d better stay.’

‘Naked pictures of Sahira?’ clarified Wazir.

Mohammed bobbed his head.

‘Not just naked pictures,’ gaped Maaz. ‘Not your average page three calendar girl, girl-next-door type stuff, oh no, but hardcore, man. Hardcore!’

‘What does he mean?’ asked Wazir.

‘Some of the pictures were...’ Mohammed paused, and looked from side to side, weighing up his words, wishing he was anywhere in the world but there in the sitting room of the State. He refocused his eyes and refocused his mind. ‘What shall we say... lewd, use your imagination.’

‘Of Sahira?’ asked Ahmed, seeking confirmation, still not believing what he was hearing, keen to nail down what they were dealing with.

Mohammed nodded.

‘Hardcore porno, man!’ yelled Maaz again. ‘Unbelievable stuff, innit!’

‘Stop using that stupid inner city lout language!’ yelled Mohammed.

‘Keep your voices down!’ said Wazir. ‘Do you want the women to hear?’ and they looked at the door, imagining the women were on the other side, ears to the timber.

‘It’s all right,’ said Ahmed. ‘I told them to keep the women downstairs.’ He pointed at Maaz and said, ‘Are you taking your medication?’

‘I don’t think he is,’ mumbled Mohammed.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me, I don’t need white medicine,’ said Maaz, and he jumped up and ran across the room and banged his head against the plastic window frame. ‘See! No sense, no feeling, there’s nowt wrong with me!’

‘Sit down, boy, before you hurt yourself,’ pleaded Wazir.

Maaz glanced at the old man. Nodded and whispered, ‘That’s cool, old man, I’ll sit with you,’ and he squatted on the floor beside Wazir’s feet and grinned and nodded at the others.

‘Where are the photographs?’ asked Ahmed.

‘Father’s still got them,’ said Maaz.

‘No problem, then,’ said Ahmed. ‘Press the Delete All button, and they disappear. Problem solved. Job done.’

‘Too late for that,’ said Maaz.

‘What does he mean?’ said Wazir, glancing down at his great-grandson’s gelled head.

Maaz answered the question.

‘They’re all over the Internet, innit! Hardcore, my friends, hardcore and available, featuring our very own Sahira Khan, up to her neck in sin and debauchery! Recording a huge number of hits too, and who would be surprised at that?’

‘Oh God, not that,’ said Ahmed.

Mohammed nodded. He’d seen them on the Internet. Free and live for anyone to look at and download. Hundreds of colour pictures of women in various stages of undress, mostly un, with the latest and hottest ones featuring his only daughter.

‘She must have been drugged,’ suggested Wazir. ‘To do anything as vile as that. The local boy must have drugged her and taken advantage of her.’

‘Doesn’t look like she’s drugged to me,’ smirked Maaz. ‘Judging by the filthy look on her face, and the sparkle in her eyes. She enjoyed every damned minute of it, but don’t take my word for it. See for yourself, go on father, show them the pictures, if you dare, show them, let them all have a good look, then they’ll see and know how wicked a bitch she was, how sinful and debauched, and they’ll understand what we had to do. They’ll understand everything.’

‘You knew about these pictures before you took her to the airport?’ asked Wazir.

Mohammed nodded.

‘Course we did!’ confirmed Maaz.

‘So you had no intention of taking her to the airport?’ asked Ahmed.

‘Correct!’ grinned Maaz. ‘And quite right too.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us about the pictures?’ asked Ahmed.

‘Because we knew you old blokes wouldn’t understand,’ said Maaz. ‘This is young man’s business, and the young men should take care of it, and the young men bloody well have!’

‘Don’t swear!’ said Ahmed.

‘You killed her?’ asked Wazir.

A moment’s silence before Mohammed said, ‘Maaz did.’

Maaz grinned and said, ‘I did too, because pops here didn’t have the bottle. Told you, it’s young man’s twenty-first century business, and the young man duly obliged. It had to be done; surely you can see that? That woman was sinful, beyond the pale, an evil sinner, walking round in a temptress’s body, no doubt sent here by the devil. God alone knows how many other men there were. You don’t think that little creep was the first one, or the only one, do you?’

‘I believe he was the only one,’ said Wazir.

‘And you, old man,’ said Maaz, still grinning and turning round to look up at the senile old goat, ‘have long since gone cuckoo, bats, mad as a hatter. I mean for God’s sake, who else would leave ten thousand pounds to Liverpool City Council in their will, but that’s what he’s done. How mad is that? It’s not me who should be on medication. It’s him! The guy should be put in a loony bin. He’s gone co-co. Locked away! Should be sectioned. Spending our inheritance, he is, left, right and centre, he’s gone goo goo. God alone knows who else he is giving our money to. You need to watch him, giving it to the Liverpool Council, I tell ya, it’s true. He needs seeing to, and you two,’ and Maaz pointed at Ahmed and Mohammed, ‘should wake up and do something about it before it’s too late... or I bloody will.’ 

Wazir turned red with fury. He struggled to get out his words.

‘You have stooped so low as to read my will?’

‘Just as well I did, innit. You shouldn’t have left it in your bedside table, you mental case, and I’m not alone either. Bet Nadirah’s read it too, Sahira as well, I shouldn’t wonder. You’re freakin’ loopy,’ and Maaz pointed to the side of his head and revolved his finger round and round and round, and nodded back up at Wazir.

‘How did you kill her?’ asked Ahmed.

Mohammed grimaced. Glanced at Maaz.

Maaz smirked. ‘Hammer innit, thwack! One little blow to the sinner’s head, sinner down, sinner dead. Amazing how easy it is, to slay a sinner.’

Wazir shared a look with Ahmed. Shared a thought, too. Maaz needed help. The boy was dangerous. Something would have to be done about him.

‘You killed a girl in cold blood, your own sister,’ pleaded Wazir. ‘Didn’t you have any qualms about what you were doing?’

Maaz turned around and smiled up at the old man. Jerked his flattened hand across the room in front of his face. ‘Nah man! Easy peasy. When it’s God’s will, it’s always so easy. I don’t imagine you could understand.’

‘Never mind that now,’ said Ahmed. ‘We’ll come back to that in a moment. There are more pressing questions here.’

‘Like what?’ snapped Maaz.

‘Like, can the police identify the body? And if they do, and I think they will, they will come here, and if they do that, what do we say? What’s the story?’

‘I’m not ashamed of what I have done,’ grinned Maaz.

‘You should be!’ said Wazir.

‘You might not be ashamed, Maaz, but do you want to be locked up for the rest of your life?’ asked Ahmed.

Wazir wasn’t the only one to think that wouldn’t be the worst outcome.

‘And Mohammed too, he’d get life if the police could prove he was there,’ continued Ahmed.

‘Father’s all right,’ said a cocky Maaz. ‘Innocent, he is. Didn’t do a freaking thing. Didn’t have the bottle. I’d tell the cops that. They’ll believe me. They’re stupid, the cops. Father’ll get off.’

‘Don’t think so,’ said Wazir. ‘He was there, he’s involved. He’d be charged with murder, just as you would.’

Maaz turned around and sneered at Wazir.

‘Well, just tell them he wasn’t there! What the hell do I care? I’ll tell them I did it by myself. I’m happy with that. It’s bugger all to do with you, old man, leave it to the younger generation who understand these things.’

‘There’s something else we need to talk about,’ said Ahmed.

‘Like what?’ snapped Maaz.

‘The warlord hasn’t taken delivery of the wife he was promised, the woman he paid the mosque for.’

‘That’s camel shit!’ said Maaz. ‘Tell the old perv to sod off!’

‘We must refund the money straight away,’ said Wazir.

‘Good thinking,’ said Ahmed. ‘I’ll repay it tonight.’

‘I suppose we could say she was kidnapped in Pakistan,’ said Mohammed. ‘Gone missing, don’t know where she is. She wouldn’t be the first. Pretend we are distraught. Pretend we are looking for her.’

The idea of pretending anything did not appeal to Wazir, but before he could say anything Ahmed was talking again.

‘That might appease the warlord. He can buy another wife anywhere, but it won’t appease or convince the British police when they come snooping round. The records will show she did not board the flight.’

‘We’ll have to come up with a better story than that,’ said Mohammed.

‘But there is a bigger problem than that,’ said Wazir, rubbing his recently shaven cheek.

‘Like what, old man?’ asked Maaz.

‘Like for example, how did Mohammed get hold of the phone, and what happened to the owner?’

‘Burn it!’ yelled Maaz. ‘Chuck the phone in the oven. Obliterate it!’

‘I don’t think we should destroy the evidence,’ said Ahmed. ‘Sahira was killed because of what was on that phone. Obliterate the phone and we have no reason to kill her.’

‘Mad as it sounds, I agree with that,’ said Mohammed.

‘Whose phone were the pictures on?’ asked Wazir, trying to get a clear picture in his mind.

‘Wake up, old man. The kaffir’s, of course!’ said Maaz.

‘And how did you get the phone?’

‘We went to see him,’ confirmed Mohammed.

‘What happened?’ asked Wazir.

Mohammed glanced at Maaz, as did Ahmed and Wazir.

Maaz shook his head from side to side and started laughing.

Chapter Forty-Four

Ahmed picked up the phone on the coffee table and dialled downstairs. ‘Send up coffee and biscuits for four.’ ‘Yes, Mr Khan.’ ‘And the women are not to come upstairs under any circumstances, is that clear?’

‘Of course, Mr Khan.’

The coffee arrived a couple of minutes later, brought by a young Punjabi lad who hadn’t been in England long. Quite legal of course. His mother and father were both doctors, and both were working at the Countess of Chester Hospital. The State of Kerala never employed illegals. It was too risky. More than one competitor had been put out of business by the heavy fines. No paperwork, no job, a policy that kept the State out of trouble with the police and immigration officers.

The youth worked most weekends and some evenings during the week. He was a good boy, worked hard, a conscientious type that Wazir, Ahmed, and Mohammed had all taken a liking to from the start.

Maaz hated him for the liking his elders bestowed.

The boy set the coffee on the low table and retreated toward the door without showing his back.

‘Close the door and go downstairs,’ said Ahmed.

‘Yes, Mr Khan,’ said the young man, bowing and disappearing from view.

‘Faggot!’ muttered Maaz.

‘Shut up!’ said Mohammed.

If only Maaz could be more like that, thought Wazir, but there was never any point in wishing one human being could be like another, because it never happened that way.

‘So?’ said Ahmed, ‘what became of Sahira’s young man?’

‘It had to be done!’ said Maaz.

He was enjoying himself, thought Wazir, being the centre of attention, revelling in the notoriety of what he had done.

‘And who decided that?’ asked Ahmed.

‘I was just so angry!’ said Mohammed.

‘And this was before you saw the pictures?’ clarified Wazir.

Mohammed nodded and said, ‘It was the shame of it, and the Imams at the mosque knowing about it. The kaffir brought it on himself. By the grace of God he deserved to die for what he did.’

‘You can say that again!’ said Maaz.

Mohammed shot him a look, a stare that turned into a hopeful look that pleaded with his son to learn to keep silent.

‘So, to be clear, you lured him to the hotel and murdered him?’ asked Ahmed.

Maaz grinned and bobbed his head. It was easy to grin. He had enjoyed it, being the deliverer of vengeance. ‘Justice, it was God’s justice. A Jihad.’

‘And who else knows about this?’

‘No one,’ said Mohammed. ‘Not a soul.’

‘No one? I find that hard to believe!’ said Ahmed.

‘The girl, the one on reception, she knows,’ grinned Maaz.

‘And I suppose you paid for her silence?’ said Wazir.

‘No! We didn’t,’ said Mohammed. ‘That’s the great thing. She’s a good girl. She’s converting. Studying at the mosque. I’ve seen her there. She’s with us. She’ll never say a word. Turns a blind eye to everything.’

‘She’s a bit of a babe too,’ said Maaz. ‘I could get quite excited over her, know what I mean, might have a word with her father, see how the land lies.’

‘You will do no such thing!’ said Mohammed. ‘You will stay away from that girl! You know full well you are betrothed to your cousin in Calicut.’

‘What’s her father’s name?’ asked Ahmed. ‘The girl on reception.’

‘Javed, he goes to the mosque all the time, a good man,’ said Mohammed.

‘I know him,’ nodded Wazir. ‘He’s a decent man.’

‘Her Christian name is Mary,’ continued Maaz, still thinking of the babe at the Red Rose, ‘but that’s all about to go up in smoke. Her father now calls her Tanzeela, and she’ll soon be known as that. Her Christian whore of a mother doesn’t have a clue. She’s in for a big surprise. Another one to us, I’d say,’ and he licked his index finger and drew an imaginary figure 1 in the air.

‘You’re a complete idiot!’ muttered Wazir.

‘Don’t be crass!’ said Ahmed almost at the same time.

‘I don’t think you realise the trouble you are in,’ said Wazir. ‘The trouble we are all in. The police will never rest until they solve this case.’

‘Let ’em try,’ said Maaz. 

‘Oh, they’ll try all right, and they will keep trying until they come for you, Maaz, until they come for all of us.’

Maaz shook his head and coughed.

‘Who killed the boy?’ asked Wazir.

Maaz smirked.

His eyes leapt from left to right and right to left.

It was obvious to everyone.

‘How did you kill him?’ asked Ahmed.

‘That’s the great bit!’ gushed Maaz.

‘What does he mean?’ asked Ahmed.

Mohammed sighed hard and stared round at his elders and said, ‘We used the sword.’

Wazir’s mouth fell open.

‘The family sword? The sacred artefact I brought from India?’

Mohammed nodded.

Maaz was still enjoying himself.

‘You couldn’t have done! I have never noticed it missing. Ahmed and I hold the only keys,’ said Wazir. ‘You’re lying!’

Maaz couldn’t contain himself. Idiotic laughing poured from his slim and taught body.

‘I am sorry, father, but I borrowed your key,’ said Mohammed to Ahmed. ‘Took it when you were bathing, slipped the key back before you had noticed it had gone.’

Ahmed and Wazir shared another look.

Had things come to this? Had the family sunk so low? Their son and grandson betraying the family trust, reading wills, stealing keys, removing precious family artefacts without permission, an ancient and priceless sword demeaned by using it to carry out murder. Yes, it was true; Sahira had behaved abominably, beyond abominably. Most people would sympathise with that, and mere words could not describe the sin and shame and degradation she had committed and brought down on the family, but this? How could they ever deal with it?

Truth was, the family would never be the same again.

‘So we have two murders on our hands,’ said Wazir, rubbing his cold hands together, before clapping them hard. ‘The blood of a local man and the blood of one of our own.’

‘Stop calling them murders!’ shrieked Maaz. ‘No one has been murdered! We have justice! That’s what it is. An eye for an eye. Start calling them by their correct name... justice!’

‘Is that what you call it, justice?’ asked Wazir, feeling quite ill.

‘Yes, I do! It is up to the younger generation to protect our family name and maintain standards, and that is what we have done. I am proud of what I did, and I’ll tell you something else: Whoever made that sword, whichever member of our family, going back deep into history, whoever held and wielded that weapon, that is a man I would like to have met. He would understand and approve, and you won’t be surprised to hear it worked so well. Better than I ever imagined. One blow, that’s all it took, and the kaffir’s filthy head was rolling about my feet like a culled turnip in the field, as red rain came tumbling down. You should have seen the look of terror and surprise on his cocky little Christian face!’

‘It’s a strange way to protect the family by murdering one of our own,’ muttered Wazir.

Maaz jumped to his feet and did a child-like tantrummy jump, and screamed, ‘Shut the hell up, you stupid old man! What do you know? It’s not murder! It’s justice! I won’t tell you again!’

‘Don’t speak to my father like that,’ ordered Ahmed. ‘Or I’ll have you sectioned.’

Maaz turned and stared at Ahmed in silence, as if he had been shot.

He didn’t say a word.

Didn’t want to go there.

Didn’t like Ahmed.

Didn’t like the old man either.

Didn’t like any of them.

They should all look out. One thing was certain: The world would belong to the young. It always did, and for Maaz, that couldn’t come soon enough.

Ahmed stood up and went to the jug of coffee.

‘We need a break,’ he said. ‘Here, take a coffee, everyone, and a sweet biscuit, and after that, we’ll sit down together and make our plans.’

‘Good idea,’ said Mohammed. ‘Do you want a coffee, granddad?’

‘Our family has committed two murders and you want to sit there and drink coffee?’ said Wazir.

‘Might as well,’ said Mohammed. ‘We can’t go back on what has been done. Do you want one?’

Wazir shook his head in disgust and managed a nod. ‘Please, black.’

Maaz sniffed and laughed and bobbed his head and grabbed a sweet biscuit. Threw it in his mouth and crunched it like a rabid dog.

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ACROSS TOWN, WALTER was studying the odontogram. Not that there was a great deal to see. The victim had possessed a beautiful set of teeth, unlike Walter’s, just the one hint of dental treatment. Small filling, bottom left molar, second from the back. Other than that, a perfect set of gnashers, teeth that would never bite or laugh or speak or eat anything again. Such a waste. Such a shame.

The young woman who had perished on the Pennines had still not been identified. The smiling teeth presented the best opportunity of doing that. It was a case of comparing the post-mortem report on the teeth with the ante-mortem reports, seeking a match. But before they could do that, they had to locate an ante-mortem report, and only the deceased victim’s dentist would possess that. It wasn’t like fingerprints or DNA. It wasn’t a foolproof system. Two individuals could have an almost identical set of teeth.

Fact was, the less dental treatment present, the harder it would be to positively ID the teeth, and the body, what little of it remained. But it had to be followed through. It had to be tried; because there was little else the police and forensic scientists had to reach an identification.

In Walter’s experience, it was more likely a family member, or friend, perhaps a boyfriend, would come forward and report the woman missing. No doubt that was what the Manchester police were hoping too, but it hadn’t happened, and there was no guarantee it would.

He turned the odontogram over in his hand and in his mind tried to match the teeth with a face. Beautiful, she was, of that he was certain, though he had no evidence to back up such thinking. He wondered how old she had been, and he wondered how she had met her end. 

In the meantime, Karen and her team would get on with things first thing Monday morning, paying a visit to every dentist in the area, backing the outside bet that somehow the dead woman had received her filling locally, on Walter’s patch, in Walter’s town, and for him, Monday morning couldn’t come soon enough. 

Chapter Forty-Five

The coffee jug was empty and only crumbs remained on the biscuit plate. Ahmed called the meeting to order and everyone paid attention.

‘If the police cannot identify the remains on the moor, they will never come calling, and however distasteful and upsetting the whole business might be, the problem is solved.’

Mohammed went to speak. Ahmed waved him away and continued.

‘But if they identify the body, as I think they will, they will come calling, and we will have some explaining to do. Therefore, our plan must be based on the assumption they will come here; and sooner than we think. So what is the plan, where do we go from here?’

‘Mohammed and Maaz could go to India, back to Kerala,’ suggested Wazir. ‘We still have relatives there. They’d be safe; they could go into the hills. No one would find them there.’

‘I’m not going to some third world country, old man. You may have crawled out of some stinking hellhole out east, but I’m British Asian, born and bred, and proud of it. I’m staying here.’

‘Don’t be so ungrateful, Maaz,’ said Ahmed. ‘India is not like it used to be, it’s a wonderful country, you’d enjoy it.’

‘Bollocks! I’m not going. That’s final. Move on granddaddy, next on the agenda.’

‘So what’s your plan?’ asked Wazir. ‘Stay here until the police come knocking on the door, drag you away in cuffs, lock you up and throw away the key?’

‘The old men are right,’ said Mohammed. ‘The police are clever. Sooner or later they will ID the body.’

‘I’ll go to London,’ said Maaz. ‘Or Landon as they like to say, I can do cockney, innit, man. I’d be right at home, and there are plenty of bro’s in the east end, innit, Brick Lane, that’s where I’ll go, they’ll never find me there. Buy a fresh ID and papers too; you can get anything you want with ready cash.’

It was a dreadful idea but the only one on the table, and it was true, it just might work. It would get the unpredictable Maaz out of their house, and out of their hair.

‘What about you, Mohammed?’ asked Wazir.

‘Don’t know, granddad, but I don’t want to go to London.’

‘Do what I said before,’ suggested Maaz. ‘Get your head round the fact that I did the business myself. Blame me, I don’t care. Father wasn’t there; he might as well have missed it. I am the justice dispenser in this firm,’ and he laughed at his description.

The others shared a look and glanced back at Maaz who was still grinning, though his eyes were still, as if he were miles away, visiting crazy future adventures that only he could imagine.

‘The sword,’ said Ahmed.

‘What about it?’ asked Mohammed.

‘It will tie us to the killing of the boy,’ said Wazir. ‘Forensic tests, it’ll connect us.’

‘Then get rid of it,’ said Mohammed.

‘We can’t do that!’ said Ahmed.

‘No, we can’t, and anyway, I have a better idea,’ said Wazir.

They all looked across at the old man.

‘Well?’ said Maaz, staring at the old fool. ‘Are you going to share it or keep it to yourself? Perhaps donate it to the Liverpool City Council?’ and he laughed at his train of thought.

‘We’ll get a copy made, put the copy in the case, and I will hide the original.’

‘And where are you going to hide it, old man?’

Wazir grinned. ‘I shall bury it.’

‘Don’t be so freakin’ stupid! Who do you think you are? Long John Silver?’

‘Why not? It has been buried before and it can be buried again.’

It was true; it had been buried before, all the family knew the extraordinary story of the family artefact, sleeping underground to avoid looting Hindu mobs.

‘Where can you get a copy made?’ asked Ahmed.

‘I know a craftsman from Madras; he lives in Stafford. He will do a good job. No one will be able to tell the difference once it’s locked in the case.’

‘It’s Chennai now, old man,’ said Maaz. ‘Madras doesn’t exist anymore! Get with the programme. Geez, give me strength.’

They ignored Maaz’s nonsense and Mohammed said, ‘It’ll cost a lot of money.’

‘Money is not an issue, not where family safety is concerned,’ said Ahmed.

‘How long will it take?’ asked Mohammed.

‘Not sure, maybe a week.’

‘Sooner the better,’ said Ahmed. ‘And make sure he makes it sharp. We don’t want some feeble, impotent copy.’

Wazir nodded. ‘It’ll be sharp, like the original.’

‘Then get it done,’ said Ahmed, before turning his attention to Maaz. ‘And you, young man, when are you going to London?’

‘Dunno, granddad, don’t think there’s any hurry. We did a good job, didn’t we, father? Don’t think they’ll be identifying the sinner’s remains any time soon.’

Wazir thought different, though he didn’t say.

‘What about the women?’ asked Ahmed.

‘What about them? They are not to know!’ said Mohammed. ‘Not a thing.’

‘Of course they are not to know, but they will wonder about our meetings. What do we tell them?’

‘Tell them bugger all!’ said Maaz, the silly grin back in position. ‘Give them a good slap if need be!’

It was all right for him, he didn’t have a curious wife asking questions half the night.

‘Tell them we are thinking of taking over a string of restaurants in Birmingham. That should do it. They’ll believe that,’ said Wazir, and the men agreed with that.

‘What about Mohammed?’ asked Ahmed. ‘What is he going to do?’

Everyone looked at Mohammed.

He scratched his chin and said, ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll think of something.’

‘It’ll have to be good,’ said Ahmed. ‘And it will have to be quick!’

‘Don’t worry about me!’

There was a short pause before Wazir said, ‘What is done, is done, however much I may abhor it. The important thing is we act normally, and run the business as per usual. We must not betray our worries to our customers, our family, and our friends. That could bring big trouble to our door.’

Maaz grinned and said, ‘That’s the ticket old man; we go on as we always have, as if nothing has happened, because nothing sodding well has!’

‘Your language is getting worse,’ said Ahmed.

‘I don’t know what to do with him,’ said his father.

I know what I’d like to do with him, thought Wazir.

‘After my parent’s death, this has been the worst day of my life,’ said Wazir. ‘And no one outside this room must ever hear a word of what was said here today. Is that clear?’

Everyone agreed, even Maaz.

‘Come on,’ said Mohammed. ‘We’d better show our faces downstairs.’ 

––––––––

JIMMY MITCHELL WAS also in a meeting, one that would reshape the rest of his life. The client had called him to the private home, and that was unusual. They demanded to know why the target, Jermaine Keating, had not been taken down. It was the latest in a series of cock-ups Jimmy Mitchell had presided over, and the weasel of a man had come highly recommended.

But in the days that followed, the clients were not as bitter as they might have been, not when Keating’s cocaine habit caught up with him. The latest intelligence suggested Keating would never play serious football again. Liverpool City FC would cut their losses, terminate his contract, and cash in their insurance policies. No one else would touch him, and the man had outgoings, substantial bills he could not meet.

He had a gambling habit too, wagering enormous sums on the betting exchanges most afternoons, often when he was worse for wear. He’d earn a week’s wages of £150,000, and would often lose twice that amount over a single session.

No, the rest of Jermaine Keating’s life would be spent running from his creditors, angry people who would not take no for an answer. The girls would vanish, and the hangers on would fall away like amber leaves in October.

Before a year was out, the man would be nothing, destined to spend whatever time he had remaining wondering how it had all gone wrong. The clients got a kick out of that, of envisioning the misery that was coming Keating’s way, and for that reason they didn’t persist with the contract. They would take their money back and bide their time.

Sometimes a long, lingering, and miserable existence was greater punishment than a quick and clean death. For a person like Keating it would be, a man who had enjoyed the high life, but was plummeting toward the gutter.

It didn’t stop them berating Jimmy Mitchell.

It didn’t stop the client pointing out Jimmy Mitchell owed them, big time.

And it didn’t stop the client smiling after Jimmy Mitchell had been dismissed from their custody.

Jimmy knew he would be called on to make matters good, and whatever favour was required, it would be big, difficult, and expensive. He wiped the sweat from his brow and drove home cursing the day he met Luke Edward Flowers.

Chapter Forty-Six

Sunday night. Feeding time. Walter approached the State of Kerala. Reached out and pushed open the brass and glass doors, stepped inside, wiped his feet on the copra mat.

Breathed in the unmistakable aroma of the best food the subcontinent offered. There was a gentle hum of conversation, perhaps half the tables were taken, it was only just gone eight, still plenty of time.

He stepped forward onto the deep pile maroon carpet, almost disappeared into it. The half moon bar was right ahead, eight chrome stools set before it, three or four taken, people studying menus, sipping drinks, peering into a lover’s eyes, maybe treating a partner to a birthday surprise.

Wazir and Ahmed were there, expensive grey suits, white shirts, colourful silk ties, polished black shoes, talking to the Punjabi kid. Nothing too strident, perhaps gentle advice dispensed, as if issued by kind mentors to someone eager to learn. The kid was wearing some kind of colourful national dress. Anywhere else he’d look ridiculous, but in the State he looked incredible.

Wazir heard the gentle clunk of the door. Knew that someone had come in. He set his best welcoming look on his handsome, if elderly face, and turned about. There was a big black guy standing there, wild grey hair, cheap looking summer jacket, standing alone; a face Wazir instantly recognised.

Walter stepped forward across the reception area. Wazir did too, only his walk betraying his eighty-eight summers, as he held out his hand.

‘Walter!’ he said. ‘Nice to see you again. You’ve been away too long.’

‘It’s great to be back.’

The men shook hands gently, for Wazir had no wish to aggravate the arthritis, and then he said, ‘Is it just you?’

‘Just me, Wazir.’

‘Would you like your usual table?’

‘That would be nice.’

‘Come then,’ and he beckoned him toward the table that Walter preferred. It was set against the wall; midway between the half moon bar and the doors, from where he could see everything.

The table was square, covered in maroon linen and gleaming glasses, laid for four, and Walter took the seat on the far side with his back to the wall.

‘Will you join me, Wazir?’

‘Probably not. I’ve had plenty of food today, and I don’t eat like I once did. Maybe I’ll have a pancake later.’

‘Join me for that, at least.’

‘I may. I in the meantime, would you like company?’

‘Who did you have in mind?’

‘Harry Barrett’s due in.’

‘Harry’s OK, why not, if he comes in, bring him over, but spare me Austerity Hayes.’

The men shared a look. No further words were necessary.

‘I’ll send the boy over in five, we’ll look after you.’

‘I know that, Wazir.’

––––––––

WALTER GRASPED THE vast menu. He thought it the best Indian food outside London. He glanced through the dishes, though he already knew he would have lamb tikka, a particular favourite of his. Walter had been on at Wazir for years to add curried goat to the house fare, which would have been his preferred choice. But Wazir had yet to find a reliable supplier. Bought the lamb from the two-hundred-year-old butcher in Llangollen high street, and both men would swear by the quality.

The boy came over and took his order and disappeared.

Walter noted all four of the Khans were on parade, Wazir meeting and greeting, as he still insisted on doing. Mohammed working the bar, serving and chatting and flirting and smiling. Ahmed floating, as was his wont, ready to pounce on any problem in an instant, and hyperactive Maaz, who dashed around as if his life depended on it.

One man in his eighties, sixties, forties, and twenties, and Walter wasn’t alone in thinking that with each passing generation the quality of the man diminished. Strange that, pondered Walter, or maybe he was getting old. He had been patronising the State for over ten years; and might have spent more cash in the place than anyone else.

In that time he’d seen half a dozen refits, including the recent one that must have cost a fortune, but one that Wazir insisted they needed to make to avoid paying trillions in tax, his expression, and if the taxman was paying the bill, it would be rude not to. The heavy brass double doors had cost over five thousand pounds, and that was before you entered the place!

Some time ago, Walter had tried the other curry houses in the city, but he’d had a bad experience in the Bengal Tiger. He’d been served by a young man in national dress, similar to the Punjabi kid, and when the guy brought the order, as he set it down, he uttered soothing words in a language that Walter did not recognise, a well-meant phrase that Walter assumed was the subcontinent equivalent of bon appetite.

An Asian lady at the next table, quite a pretty, dumpy thing, turned round and began screaming at the youth in the same tongue, and the young man looked aghast and hurried away. She leant over and said aloud, ‘I don’t suppose you understood what he said?’

‘You’re right, I didn’t.’

‘He said,’ and she lowered her voice, “I hope you choke on your meal and wake up with cancer, you fat, Christian cunt!” Sorry about the language.’

It put Walter clean off his meal.

‘I don’t care for the “fat” much,’ he said, and the lady laughed and returned to her party.

Walter hadn’t set foot in the Bengal Tiger since.

Never felt the need.

The State of Kerala had everything he wanted, and Wazir Khan was one of life’s true gentlemen, a man Walter was proud to call his friend. 

––––––––

WAZIR RETURNED AND lowered himself into the opposite chair. Walter thought he looked tired, but at eighty-eight, he was entitled to look tired.

‘Busy as usual?’ said Walter.

‘Yes, sixty-six percent full tonight, not bad for a Sunday,’ said Wazir, ever the businessman, always monitoring the figures. ‘Over sixty percent and we make money, under sixty and I worry.’

He’d said it deadpan, and Walter wasn’t sure how to take it.

‘You don’t know what worries are,’ joked Walter.

Wazir presented his deadpan face.

He’d make an excellent poker player.

‘This country has been good to us,’ said Wazir. ‘You and I.’

Walter grinned and said, ‘It has, and to some more than others. I can’t compete with an MBE.’

Wazir sniffed a laugh.

‘Baubles. Tokenism. Doesn’t mean a thing.’

‘You can pass it to me if you don’t want it.’

‘Ah, now that I couldn’t do.’

‘Will you ever retire, Wazir?’

‘Doubt it; I don’t know what I’d do with myself. You?’

‘I don’t want to, but sooner or later they’ll retire me.’

That was the benefit of working for oneself; thought Wazir, you could work for as long or as short as you wanted. Working for the government like Walter did, and you were at the mercy of politicians, and everyone knew politicians weren’t up to much.

The doors clunked and Harry Barrett came in, stood in the foyer, and blinked around the room. He didn’t see much, didn’t have much eyesight. The clocks were responsible for that.

Walter waved his hand and said ‘Harry!’ and in the next moment he joined them at the table, as Wazir made his excuse and left. Harry took off his glasses and began wiping them on a maroon napkin, just as Walter’s sizzling meal arrived.

‘Tikka is it?’ said Harry, gawping down, mouth agape.

Walter nodded.

‘I’ll have the same, and a jug of cold beer.’

‘Good idea,’ said Walter. ‘One for me, too,’ and the kid hurried away to fetch the beers.

Harry had been working with clocks for over fifty years. Servicing them, cleaning them, trading them, loving them, it was all the same to Harry. He was still operating out of the same small shop set halfway down one of the jiggers, opposite the cathedral.

He’d developed a tic, or more accurately a tick, as his head moved from side to side in perfect second time like a pendulum. When he was concentrating or engrossed on something, his tongue would click clock against the roof of his mouth, again in perfect time, and sometimes Walter would have to say, ‘Harry, you’re ticking again.’

Harry would grin and stop, for a while.

He’d lost his wife six years since, and frequented the State, the British Legion, the Connie Club, and the Masonic Lodge, ringing the changes, doing the rounds, anything to take him out of the loneliness of a chiming house at night-time. It didn’t do his waistline much good, or his cholesterol count either, but he was a cheerful man, and great company.

The doors clunked again and Walter peered that way, hoping it wouldn’t be, but it was, Austerity Hayes. He tried to hunker down without success. They had been spotted.

‘Yoo hoo!’ she screamed, and she was on her way.

‘Bugger,’ whispered Walter.

‘Problem?’ ticked Harry.

‘Austerity’s here.’

‘You can say that again. Sales are bloody awful!’ said Harry, guffawing at his little joke, as Austerity grabbed the chair between the men, whisked it out and sat down. 

‘That’s what I like to see,’ she said. ‘Good company, enjoying their food. Tikka is it?’

‘Yep,’ said Harry, sucking sauce covered meat between his dentures.

Walter nodded and sipped his beer.

‘I’ll have the same,’ she said, and raised her arm and yelled, ‘Boy!’ and the Punjabi kid came running, not portraying any offence as being addressed in that a way. In a few years he would be a specialist heart surgeon, but for now he was, in Austerity’s eyes, her boy.

Walter pinched a look at her. He tried hard not to stare, but that was difficult. She was a big ruddy woman born in 1943, and with the hard food rationing on at the time her father thought it something of a jape to call her Austerity. It would remind her forever of the importance of being frugal, he said, and if she was, she didn’t show it.

She was wearing a ridiculous navy blue bonnet and matching blue suit, stretching at the seams, and could have passed as a Sally Army choir-mistress.

Her father had once owned the largest independent department store in Chester and had sold it to one of the multiples in 1977 for a tidy sum. Twelve months later he was dead, and as Austerity was his only surviving relative, she had never married and never come close, Austerity copped the lot in the will.

Quite what made her put all her money into commercial property throughout the city, no one knew, but she did, and within ten years her investment had quadrupled before she sold out and banked the cash. Some called her lucky, others astute, Austerity didn’t care. Looked forward to the quarterly bank statement dropping through the door.

She spent her money on eating, socialising, taking three cruises every year by herself, where she could eat and socialise her way around the globe against a different backdrop every morning. She smoked cheroots, though Walter had never seen her with one. In one of her quiet moments she calculated that at her current rate of spend, she had enough cash to last her one hundred and ninety-two years.

In her late seventies that seemed unlikely. She was trying hard to dent the cash pile, but not hard enough.

She was talking about an amazing meal she had enjoyed the previous night in a new Indonesian restaurant that had opened in the city centre.

‘Never eaten an Indonesian before,’ she said, laughing at her little joke. ‘Gave me dreadful indigestion.’

Walter thought she looked capable of it, two if she was peckish, as she described the meal, course by course.

Walter’s concentration wandered. He was thinking of ordering a pudding. He glanced across the bar. Something caught his tired eye. The chrome stools glistened in the gold light. There was only one couple sitting there now, a glamorous pair, if it were ever possible to describe any two people as glamorous from a rear view. The woman had an hourglass figure and was wearing a fine, flowing dress, maroon, perhaps especially chosen to match the restaurant. Who knows what extremes some people would go to make a statement. She possessed long, wavy, auburn hair that shimmered across the naked skin of her upper back, as she laughed at the stories her attentive companion dispensed.

The dress was long, halfway between knee and ankle, a classy number, imagined Walter, a show-stopper, and even though she was sitting down, it still looked elegant, so much nicer than the mini-no-dresses that many young women preferred.

The lady possessed a dainty pair of heels set in a good pair of shoes, jet black, shining like polished jade, legs tucked up, her feet perched on the lower frame of the stool, with the toes forever on the move, twitching an inch or two this way or that, restless and desperate to play footsie with her partner, and that would begin once they were sitting opposite one another.

But as her feet danced, a mini spotlight above them caught the shining surface of the shoes, and glinted across the room. But it wasn’t the shoes that caught Walter’s eye, or the new chrome stools; nor the chunky diamond ring on her finger she couldn’t stop touching and admiring. It wasn’t the polished glasses on the bar, or the lit up bottles of liquor standing to attention behind, but something higher up, further away, something more glittering, imprisoned in an impressive display case. It looked as if it should have displayed the king of salmons, but no. The item within the case, glinting in the ambient light across the restaurant, was a bejewelled sword.

Austerity was a quick eater, seemed to shovel it down as if she hadn’t eaten for a week. Slammed her fork down and burped.

‘Sorry,’ she said, smirking, hand to mouth. ‘Tikka always does that to me,’ and she wafted her hand across the table over the soiled and empty dishes, and said, ‘This one is on me, fellow curry lovers.’

‘Oh, that’s kind of you,’ said Harry, who had never refused a free meal.

‘Thanks, but I’ll pay for my own,’ said Walter, who’d given up on the pudding.

‘Oh, come on, Darriteau, take my hospitality when it’s offered. I need to spend my money somehow.’

‘I insist,’ said Walter, and he slipped a twenty from his wallet and set it on the table and bade them a good night.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked Austerity.

Harry pulled a face and shrugged.

‘Public servant, police inspector, maybe he imagines he’d be compromised.’

‘Compromised! Oh, you are stupid, Harry. What tommyrot!’

––––––––

WALTER DECIDED HE WOULD walk home. It was a lovely night, balmy, clear and still, and as he ambled along, gears crunched and banged in his head, as imaginary pieces of crazy jigsaws were being removed and retried in unlikely places. He was still doing that as he strolled up the garden path, offering those difficult pieces into the hardest part of the puzzle an hour later, before he drifted away to oblivion.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Monday morning and the team were out on the dentist round. Nothing fresh had come in from Manchester. As far as the Chester police were concerned, there was still no ID, no motive, and still no one had come forward to report the dead person missing.

As for Walter’s own murder, that of Luke Flowers, the trail had fizzled out. The Hytec monster hadn’t been able to help either because monsters need feeding, and nothing of any consequence had been offered for a couple of days. The monster was starving.

Karen was out with Gibbons, crawling around the dentists on the north side of the city. Hector Browne and Jenny were doing the south side. Karen wasn’t alone in thinking it was a complete waste of time, and she was probably right.

While it was quiet, Walter would investigate who lived in the State of Kerala, and if they were known to the police.

The men were all well known; you could see them any time you paid a visit, but what of the women? Fact was, the women were kept away from prying eyes, as if they were the prized wives in some Arab Sheik’s palace, hidden away, never to be seen by visitors and the general public, and Walter didn’t have a problem with that.

If he was ever lucky enough to land a pretty wife, though that seemed unlikely, he wouldn’t be that keen on other men looking at her, coveting her, and even lusting after her. Or would he?

Wouldn’t it be nice to take her out and flaunt her in front of friends and workmates, take her to the State, to the theatre, or the races on Ladies’ Day? Of course it would, and he would too. But therein lay one of the many differences between him and Wazir, between their differing backgrounds and cultures. They had originated from opposite sides of the planet, and who was to say which way was right, and which way was wrong? It would still be interesting though, to see how many women lived in the State.

He checked the PNC, the Police National Computer, that huge beast that began life in the same year that Walter joined the force. It was mainly a register of stolen cars back then, but now it handled almost seventy million, what they quaintly called transactions, as if it were some branch of the Stock Exchange, every year.

It was a mammoth operation, split into five sections, QUEST, VODS, ANPR, PROPERTY and CRIMELINK, and it could and would chatter into the ear of the monster every time it was switched on. Walter searched them all. Came up with a few titbits of interesting information.

Wazir held the liquor license, had done for years, no surprise there, and the police had never objected to it. Mohammed had once been caught speeding on the Wirral peninsula, three points and a seventy-pound fine, and young Maaz was recorded too. He had been in more serious trouble and that did not surprise Walter, though he hadn’t been aware of it.

The younger Khan had lost his temper in the restaurant one night and had assaulted a man. Maaz had pleaded that the guy had been disrespectful to his mother, Akleema, but more than that, Maaz Khan alleged the man had made lewd comments and propositioned her. The youth, as he was then, had flipped, and the guy called the police and later left the State, bloodied and bruised.

The case was considered sufficiently serious, and Maaz’s behaviour sufficiently weird, for the CPS to suggest to the family they would not prosecute, on condition Maaz attended an institution for the treatment of mental illness.

Walter called down the report.

Maaz had “gone away” for two years, had received extensive medication, drugs that appeared to have cured whatever problem there was going on inside the mixed-up mind of young Maaz Khan.

That was five years before, and Maaz was only sixteen back then. It was probably why the CPS took a lenient standpoint on the case. It wasn’t unusual for teenagers, and especially boys, to suffer mental difficulty in their transforming growing-up years, and boys from minorities were more prone to that.

Walter thought back to his own teenage years. He’d struggled through them with the aid of a handful of good friends, young guys of every race, who stood by him when he needed support, came to his aid when he needed muscle, though most people would think twice about taking on the ample framed Walter. It helped that back then there was a lot more muscle and less flab. Walter weathered his teenage years unscathed, but only just, and with the help of those friends.

Maaz had been less fortunate. Perhaps he never had any real friends. They were so family orientated, very close, perhaps too close, inward looking, insular, imagined Walter. Maybe that didn’t help. The last report said Maaz Khan should remain on medication indefinitely. Walter wondered if the headstrong young man agreed to that, and was acting on it.

There was nothing in the PNC relating to the women at all, or maybe that wasn’t a surprise. No drivers’ licenses, no licenses of any kind, no prosecutions, no reports of lost property, no filed complaints, nothing. It was as if they didn’t exist. Perhaps that was how the Khan dynasty wished it to be.

Walter’s next port of call was the Voters’ Roll, and there he discovered a little more. Seven people listed on the Roll, the four generations of men, plus Nadirah Khan, aged eighty-four, presumably Wazir’s wife, Akleema Khan, aged forty-two, possibly Mohammed’s wife, or maybe even Ahmed’s, and Sahira Khan, aged twenty-three, possibly Maaz’s wife, though Walter doubted that, more likely a sister and daughter, could be Mohammed’s, could be Ahmed’s. That was how Walter saw it.

He tried to remember them, the women. He had sometimes seen them, but not recently, and he couldn’t remember them, not so well as he could identify them if they walked into his office. Walter pondered on where they might be at that moment, and what they were doing, and most of all; he hoped they were safe and well.

––––––––

HIS MIND TURNED TO food. Later on, Galina the cleaner was cooking for him, and he wondered what it might be like. He had never eaten Ukrainian before, but the thought of it made his mouth water, made him hungry, and he made his excuses and left the office and ambled over to Pierre’s for a light lunch, a large portion of quiche and a pint of best. He ate alone in silence and pondered on whether he could leave early, get home on time for once, allowing plenty of time for a good wash and shave, a chance to change his shirt and lash on the deodorant, for it was another hot day, and Walter went through deodorant like water.

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THE TEAM CAME BACK late afternoon. Every dentist in the area had been spoken to and a copy of the odontogram left. Most promised to get back the following day, some said it would be the day after. All had promised to help, and Walter wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anything positive.

He pondered on whether he should hurry back to the State and have it out with Wazir, man to man. Just where were the womenfolk? But that kind of strident talk would only sour relationships, and he didn’t want to lose his friends there.

Fact was; it was likely none of the local dentists would come up with a match, so there was no point in blundering in and making a fuss. He’d bide his time and wait. There were more pressing things on Walter’s plate. Mrs West was giving him gip over why he had not brought the criminals to book for decapitating a Chester citizen, even if the deceased man was a proven murderer.

The drip, drip, of intelligence from the underworld had yielded nothing substantial which suggested the killers, whoever they were, were not established villains, and if they weren’t known criminals, who could have done such a vile thing? So-called honour killers, that’s who, and Walter shivered at the thought.

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IT WAS A LITTLE AFTER six by the time he arrived home. He had made Pauli Leishman’s day by stopping off and buying two bottles of his perfumed Chianti, a drink Walter imagined Galina might enjoy.

Galina the cleaner had become, for one night only, Galina the cook, and she was already in the house, and the old house felt more like a home, because of the presence of a young woman he barely knew.

Maybe it was her quiet perfume. Perhaps it was the occasional foreign song that slipped from her lips, and the aromas she brought with her, or maybe it was because of the energetic, youthful movement she brought that is always associated with vibrancy and happiness.

She was in the kitchen, still in tight jeans, ponytail alive and kicking, up to her arms in flour and pastry, and she smiled at him through her big blue eyes, as he ambled in.

‘Hi, Mr Darto!’

‘Hello Galina, call me Walter, how’s it going?’

‘All goes well. Should be ready for seven, fifteen. Seven, fifteen, OK?’

‘Perfect,’ he said.

There was an old-fashioned brown cane basket set on the end of the worktop, the kind of thing his Aunt Mimosa would have used forty years before. He didn’t think modern women were still using such things. Maybe Ukrainian women thought they were trendy. The top was covered with a patterned red cloth. He went to lift it, to look inside.

‘Ah ah!’ she said. ‘No! My secrets, not for you, you must wait!’

Duly admonished, he grinned and limped away and went upstairs to find hot water and a clean shirt.

It was half an hour before he returned. Exciting aromas were seeping from the kitchen and drifting into the hall and sitting room. Pastry, dumplings, meat, cheese, they were all there, Walter detected that, and all were very much on his list of must haves for dinner.

He ambled into the sitting room.

Toward the rear of the room, set in front of the window, was a drop-leaf table. He rarely used it, sat in front of the TV most nights, with his ready meal on a tray on his lap like so many others. But there was something fine about raising the leaf, fixing the table, finding the white tablecloth that hadn’t been unfolded for more than a year, and setting out two neat places.

There was a fat candle there too, in the tall and narrow cupboard hidden within the end of the oak table, still two-thirds remaining, and once it was lit, no one would ever know it wasn’t new. Walter felt good. His nose twitched. It was driving him batty. He’d investigate.

His large pan was bubbling, maybe some kind of pasta, no, dumplings more like, and he adored spicy dumplings, and she had mentioned dumplings, he was sure of it. Another pan had meat on the go; he could detect that from two thousand yards, boiled beef maybe, tender and juicy, while oil was coming to the bubble in the frying pan and garlic going in, as he shared a smile with the pretty woman.

‘Ready in ten,’ she said.

‘What are we having?’

‘Borscht to start.’

Some kind of soup, he thought, he’d have to find soup spoons.

‘Then Varenyky,’ she said, ‘with sauerkraut, cheese, cabbage, and meat.’

‘Varenyky?’

‘My special dumplings, you will love, you go, I busy,’ and Walter got the message and headed back to the table to find the soup spoons and light the candle.

‘Nearly ready,’ he heard her call through from the kitchen. ‘You sit down,’ and then she was in the doorway looking in, at Mr Darto sitting, waiting, opposite the candle, opposite another empty place.

She came to the table, smiled down, glanced at the vacant place. ‘You ask someone else? You expecting someone? There is enough. Your pretty friend from work, maybe?’

‘No, no,’ said Walter, beckoning to the empty chair. ‘That’s for you, your place.’

She gasped. ‘Oh no, Mr Darto, I not eat! I cook, I serve, I wash, but I not eat, I eat before, I not hungry, I not eat, no, no, all for you,’ and she turned and headed back to the kitchen.

Walter’s shoulders slumped.

He put his right elbow on the table and his chin on his hand. He was expected to dine alone. He ate on his own every bloody night when he stayed in. He’d even prefer to eat with Austerity Hayes than dine on his own, and that was saying something.

Truth was, he hated eating on his own, and though he tried once more to persuade Galina to sit opposite, even if it was only to watch him eat the fine food she had prepared, she point blank refused, and served him his dinner in a cold atmosphere that neither of them could miss.

‘What a fool I’ve been,’ he said aloud, an hour later, after she had gone, as he opened another can.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Throughout the following day the dentists reported in, by phone, email and fax, all reporting that the teeth did not belong to one of their clients, or former clients, some adding, thank goodness for that.

The info was drip-fed into the monster and it seemed happy with that, oblivious to the fact all the data was negative. It seemed to Walter that so long as it was fed; it was happy. By the end of the day two-thirds had reported back. Mrs West told the team to remember to thank the dentists for their help and cooperation, though she didn’t elaborate on how they were to do it.

It had been a dead day on every front.

Walter went home at six and re-heated what remained of the Ukrainian fare. An hour later, the phone rang. Call box by the sound of things, plenty going on in the background.

‘Mr Darto! Mr Darto!’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s Galina, the cleaner.’

‘I know who it is, Galina, what’s the matter?’

‘Dimitri, he sick.’

‘Your son?’

‘Yes! Radioactivity sick, they say he better, but he much worse. He bad. I have to go. I’m at airport. I fly home to Kiev pronto. I can’t clean for you anymore, Mr Darto, I so sorry.’

‘Don’t be. Obviously you must go home if your boy is ill.’

‘I must go now, Mr Darto, plane sailing.’

‘The plane’s departing,’ said Walter.

‘Plane sailing, Mr Darto. Goodbye!’ and the phone went dead.

‘Damn!’ said Walter aloud. He had grown used to having Galina around the place at the weekend. He’d grown used to having a clean and fresh smelling house too, and unless he found someone else, he knew it wouldn’t be long before that well lived in look and aroma returned. ‘Damn!’ he said again, and went upstairs to run the bath.

––––––––

THE NEXT DAY FOLLOWED the same pattern, a steady stream of negatives the monster ate in a trice. At ten past five, Karen took a call. Didn’t give anything away. Attracted little attention. Walter barely glanced at her. She wrote something in her diary, slipped the phone down, and looked across the desk.

‘You will not believe this, but we may have a match.’

Walter sat up straight and said, ‘Where?’

She glanced back at her notes.

‘A dentist called Kirton & Baines; they say Mr Kirton is taking the paperwork home with him. Curzon Park. We can pick it up after seven.’

‘Did they give a name?’

‘Nope.’

Walter glanced at his watch. It was quarter past five. 

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THEY PULLED UP OUTSIDE the house at five past seven. Sizeable detached property, post-war by the look of it, four, maybe five bedrooms, impressive well-tended gardens, plenty of roses competing for the bees, double garage on the right side, big driveway, two almost new cars visible.

‘Fixing teeth pays well,’ said Karen as they strode up the drive.

‘Always has,’ said Walter.

Karen rang the bell, took a step back, and peered through the wavy glass door.

Someone was coming up the hall, a young woman, slim and blonde. Opened the door and stared at the strangers on the step. She was holding a pedigree dog that looked happy at the attention.

‘I am Sergeant Greenwood, and this is Inspector Darriteau,’ said Karen, flashing her card.

The pretty girl nodded and said, ‘It’s about my poor Luke, is it? I have been expecting you.’

Walter and Karen shared a look. One of some surprise, the girl thought, and then Walter took a punt and said, ‘Yes, that’s right, Luke Flowers, may we come in?’

‘Sure,’ she said, standing to one side, ‘I’ll just put the mutt in the kitchen; he’s been on his own all day, that’s why he’s so pleased to see me. Go through to the lounge, take a seat, I’ll only be a sec,’ and they heard her say, ‘Go in, Pugsley! I won’t be long,’ and then she was back, taking a seat on the sofa opposite to where the coppers were sitting.

‘How well did you know Luke?’ asked Walter.

‘We were a couple, hoped to get married later in the year.’

‘What did he do for a living?’ asked Karen.

‘Don’t know. He was cagey about that, but I think it was something to do with computers. Said it was a secret, and he’d tell me when we were married.’

‘Were you surprised when he was murdered?’ asked Walter.

‘What do you think? Course I was, devastated, still can’t get my brain around it. Still expect him to walk in the door.’

‘Did you know he possessed a gun?’ asked Karen.

‘Course not! Never saw him with one. I still find that hard to believe. I think it might have been planted.’

‘So you wouldn’t know where he could have obtained such a thing?’ asked Walter.

‘I have no idea, Inspector. I still feel this is all one huge mistake.’

‘No mistake, Miss Kirton,’ said Karen. ‘He murdered one man, and tried to murder another.’

Melanie shook her head, still in denial. Then she said, ‘One minute he is telling me he is going to Australia and the next thing, he is all over the papers, dead, murdered. I can’t believe it.’

The officers gave her a moment. She was holding herself together well. Then Walter asked ‘Did you know Jeffrey Player and Neil Swaythling?’

‘Not really. I’d seen Neil about, playing in the band, but the other bloke I’d never heard of.’

‘Why would Luke want to kill either of them?’

‘I have no idea; keep thinking about that, it’s just so unbelievable. The kind of thing you see in movies and on TV.’

‘Was he ever violent?’ asked Karen.

‘No. Not really. He was a bit moody, and he could be feisty, but only in play, you know what I mean?’ and she glanced into Karen’s eyes as if she would understand better than the big black bloke.

‘How long did you know him?’ asked Walter.

‘About a year, I suppose.’

‘How was he fixed for money?’ asked Karen.

‘No problem with that. We’d recently come back from Venice, he always paid for everything, very generous, he was.’

‘Did he have other girlfriends?’ asked Walter.

‘Not that I know of, but there was always the suspicion. He was the kind of guy who had a roving eye. Know what I mean? Always looking at the girls. When we were in Italy he couldn’t help himself, he was forever taking pictures of the senoritas on his mobile and flicking through them later.’

‘The senoras,’ said Walter.

‘Yeah, them too.’

‘We can’t find his mobile,’ said Karen. ‘You wouldn’t have it, would you?’

‘No, that’s odd, he’d never go anywhere without it. Should be in his flat somewhere.’

‘It isn’t.’

Melanie blew out and shrugged her shoulders.

‘We want to find it because we’d like to see the pictures he took,’ said Walter. ‘We think it might help us find his killer.’

The girl looked puzzled and said, ‘Can’t think where it could be. Maybe someone stole it.’

Karen and Walter shared another look before Walter said, ‘We’ll need you to come in and make a statement. Can you call in at the station tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, suppose so, after work OK?’

‘Sure,’ said Karen.

‘As I said earlier, I am surprised you haven’t been to see me before.’

‘Until today, Melanie, we didn’t know your identity. We knew he had a blonde girlfriend with a dentist for a father, but that was about it,’ said Walter.

‘So how did you find me?’

The police officers shared a puzzled look, before Karen said, ‘Information received.’

Melanie nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

‘Anyway,’ said Walter, ‘About the other matter.’

‘What other matter?’

‘Your father is a dentist?’ asked Karen.

‘Yeah, course he is.’

‘He said he’d leave something for us.’

‘Did he? First I’ve heard of it. Just a sec, they’ve gone out early, Round Table do, took a taxi. I’ll have a look.’

She went away and was soon back, clutching a large brown envelope. Walter took it and got up and said, ‘We’ll see you tomorrow?’

‘Yep, OK. Bye.’

Karen drove the car round the corner and pulled up. Walter slipped the envelope to Karen and said, ‘That was a crazy stroke of luck.’

‘Amazing.’

‘Look in the envelope, but don’t tell me what it says.’

Karen opened up. There were three pieces of paper inside. A tooth map, a brief explanation from Kirton & Baines detailing their findings, and some details of the patient they thought it could be.

‘Don’t tell me, but is there a name?’ he asked.

‘There is.’

Walter sighed.

‘You know who it is, don’t you?’ she said.

‘Maybe I do.’

‘Well come on, clever clogs, who do you think it is?’

‘Sahira Khan, aged twenty-three.’

Karen set the papers back on her lap. Shook her head, half grinned, half sniffed, muttered, ‘How could you know that?’

‘Luck, and judgement. Wazir Khan is a friend of mine.’

‘Oh, geez. So what now?’

‘Back to the station. I want to speak to Mrs West, and after that we’ll need to put a party together of ten officers, and then we are going down to the State of Kerala, and this time, not for dinner.’

Chapter Forty-Nine

Mrs West viewed the quiet day as an opportunity to go home early. She was up to her armpits in steak and kidney pie. Her husband was going out early, and she wanted him well fed before that. 

She shook some flour from her rubber gloves and grabbed the ringing phone off the wall in the kitchen.

‘Sorry to bother you, ma’am.’

‘What is it, Walter?’

‘The odontogram, we may have a match.’

‘Good God, that is a surprise.’

‘Thing is, ma’am, I know the family concerned.’

‘Who are they?’

‘The Khans, they own the State of Kerala restaurant.’

‘Heavens above. I think I know the guy too. Didn’t he recently get an MBE?’

‘That’s the one, ma’am. Services to race relations and providing harmony and opportunities for under privileged kids in the inner cities, something like that.’

‘You think this could be a so-called honour killing?’

‘Don’t know yet, ma’am, but it’s not looking good.’

‘So what are you proposing?’

‘I am putting together a team of ten, going down there as soon as we are ready, going to scoop up all the family and bring them back here for questioning. We’ll close the restaurant, it could be a crime scene, get the SOCO shift in, and take it from there.’

‘Do you want me to put someone else on it, seeing as you know these people?’

‘No, ma’am, I can handle it.’

‘If you’re sure, Walter. Look, I am up to my neck in something important here; I’ll try to get back in later.’

‘Fine, ma’am, I’ll keep you posted.’

‘Can’t wait to tell Gitts about this.’

‘Do I detect a little hostility?’

Walter guessed at the smile that came over Mrs West’s face.

‘Chief Superintendent Gitts, Gitt by name, git by nature. He crapped on me from on high during a course a year ago. Put me right in it, and lo-and-behold, we seem to have identified the body in his murder, and with a little luck, may have caught the ruddy killers as well! Justice, don’t you think?’

‘Sure, ma’am, yes,’ said Walter, hoping to God they had not identified the killers.

‘Well, get on with it, man, and well done. Can’t imagine how you could have known the teeth belonged to that family, but something’s still ticking in that old brain of yours, eh? You haven’t lost it yet, have you? Keep me informed.’

‘Of course, ma’am, and thank you.’

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WALTER RETURNED TO the Incident Room. Karen had rounded up the team and had prepared a brief presentation. The tiny green power light, bottom left, on the monster was flashing on and off like a hospital heartbeat, monsters never sleep, not completely, and it seemed to wink faster than normal, as if it had an inkling that something big was going down.

Gibbons, Hector Browne, and Jenny Thompson were there, plus two SOCO blokes, or at least one bloke and one lass; and three uniforms Karen had press-ganged into service. Not that they needed much persuading, because it was clear something exciting was about to happen.

Walter sat on the desk at the back and nodded to Karen, and she smiled and caressed the monster’s face. A big colour picture appeared of the Khan menfolk, culled from the StateofKeralaRestaurant.com website.

‘The Khan family,’ she said, ‘or at least the men. Wazir, Ahmed, Mohammed, and Maaz,’ and she pointed to each in turn, and as she did so each picture magnified. ‘There should be three more members of this family too, but for whatever reason, they are not pictured. But then they are women. Nadirah, an old lady, believed to be Wazir’s wife, Akleema, and Sahira Khan.’

She minimised the pics and almost threw it to the bottom of the screen. Brought up a copy of the odontogram. The tooth map supplied by Manchester police.

‘Late this afternoon a local dentist, Kirton & Baines, reported they had matched the odonto with one of their clients, none other than Sahira Khan. However, there are some provisos to this. Odontos are not like fingerprints. They are not foolproof, and are more likely to be compromised the less dental treatment the victim has received. With our teeth,’ and she couldn’t resist bringing up an enhanced picture of the perfect set of cleaned gnashers, ‘there was only one small filling.’

‘Lucky her,’ muttered Gibbons, stroking his chin.

‘She wasn’t that lucky, was she?’ snapped Karen.

‘Yeah, no, course sarge, sorry.’

‘However, the dentist has written a note to say that he would be amazed if the teeth in the body were not the ones that belonged to his client,’ and Karen tapped and swiped the screen again and brought up the dentist’s report, magnified it ten times so everyone could read it.

‘Are we looking at some kind of honour killing?’ asked Hector.

‘We don’t know,’ said Karen. ‘But we aim to find out.’

Tapped the screen again, and the monster must have liked the feel of her fingers, for it brought up a skypic of the State of Kerala, taken on a sunny day.

‘This is the Indian restaurant they own in Brook Street. As far as Indian eateries go, it is very upmarket. Expensive and luxurious. Guv eats there a lot, don’t you?’ and she grinned and everyone turned and leered at the boss.

‘I wouldn’t say a lot, but quite often. I know the people there. Up to now they have been model citizens, which makes it all the more puzzling.’

‘How the hell did we get on to them in the first place?’ asked Hector.

Karen grinned. ‘You’d have to ask Guv about that.’

‘Get on with it!’ said Walter.

Karen began again.

‘As soon as this meeting is over, we are going down there mob handed. All family members are to be isolated in separate cars and brought back here for questioning. Jenny, have you sorted out separate rooms for them?’

‘I have, sarge, yes.’

‘Good, and a word of warning. Look out for the younger one, Maaz,’ more screen taps and more action, and a huge colour pic of Maaz, twice life size, culled from the website publicity guff, looking devilish, beamed out across the Incident Room. ‘He’s been in trouble before, spent some time in a mental institution. If he needs to bring medication with him, make sure he is allowed to do that. There is a ceremonial sword we are interested in too. A family artefact, brought with them from India, generations ago, when Wazir, the old man, first came to this country. It’s in a display case behind the bar. We need that for tests. No bare hand touching. Do we have the necessary bags?’

Gibbons tapped a bag of equipment on the desk before him. ‘All present and correct, sarge.’

Karen nodded and continued.

‘I want one uniform at the front entrance to stop anyone else entering, one uniform at the back to catch absconders, another uniform to go in with us, the senior man, to ask and tell existing diners to leave.’

The senior uniform bloke looked pleased with himself, even if he was going to be home late.

‘Once we are inside, I’ll make an announcement to that effect,’ said Walter. ‘Diners will not be charged for any food they may have eaten, but nor will they be allowed to finish their meals, and no further food or drink will be served. Take all their names and addresses, with ID, and they are to be escorted off the premises as soon as possible,’ and he nodded Karen back into action.

‘Jenny will video everything. Hector, you are to go in from the back too. Gibbons will be at the front with us. As soon as the place has been cleared, the SOCO guys and gals can get to work.’

‘Six vehicles lined up?’ asked Walter.

‘Sure, Guv, three marked, three un.’

‘What happens if Sahira’s there, too?’ asked Hector.

No one had considered that possibility.

‘Unlikely,’ said Walter. ‘We’ll have a party and I’ll pay for everything,’ and he nodded at Karen to continue.

‘The Khan family will be interviewed separately by myself and the Guv as soon as we get back, starting with the youngest. The interviews will be screened live on the monster for those that want to watch.’

‘Fantastic,’ said Jenny.

‘Count me in,’ said Hector.

‘Maybe later, Hector, but first I want you to stay behind at the State and interview all the other staff. Names, addresses, how long they have worked there, how long they have been in this country, how well they know or knew Sahira, and when they last saw her, all that stuff.’

‘I get all the good jobs,’ sulked Hector.

Walter jumped in. ‘It IS a good job! You may unearth information that we don’t have. Treat it seriously!’

‘Yeah, sure, sorry, Guv. Do you want me to check immigration papers as well?’

‘May as well,’ said Karen.

‘And don’t forget,’ said Karen, ‘we are investigating not one but two murders,’ and she brought back a pic of Luke Flowers. ‘We are seeking any link between Flowers and the Khans. Find out if he ever ate there, find out if he knew Sahira Khan, because that could unearth a motive, however misguided, for both murders. Go through the restaurant bookings; find out when Flowers last visited the place.’

‘Got you, sarge,’ said Hector.

‘And while you are looking for links with Luke Flowers,’ said Walter, ‘See if you can find any links to Neil Swaythling as well. We still don’t know what sparked this whole thing off.’

Karen saw the mention of him as something of a challenge, but a simple one, and a second later a colour pic of Neil was staring down at the evening gathering.

‘This operation is top secret. No mention of it is to be leaked anywhere, no TV, press, no reporters, no nothing, until I say so. That clear?’ said Walter.

Everyone nodded and muttered, ‘Sure, Guv.’

‘I don’t want reporters trampling all over the place. Mrs West will be back in later, so stay alert and be positive. She’ll be watching.’

‘Questions?’ asked Karen.

The team looked round and stared at one another.

Hector had a question. He always did. 

‘Will the Manchester boys be coming down?’

‘No!’ said Walter. ‘Mrs West was adamant about that. There is history there. The Manchester boys know nothing about this operation, and that is the way it will stay until we are good and ready. Everyone understand?’

More knowing looks and nods, and Karen said, ‘Right! Come on! Operation Korma is under way.’

‘Couldn’t you think of anything better than that?’ teased Gibbons, grinning at his sarge.

‘Belt up, Gibbons!’

Chapter Fifty

The convoy of six cars pulled into Brook Street and parked on double yellow lines, twenty yards ahead of the State. No flashing lights, no sirens, no weapons on display, no hurry, no panic. Karen sent Hector and a uniform around the back in case anyone did a runner.

Walter strode toward the doors, Jenny to his rear, videocam in hand, Karen at his side, SOCO still in the cars waiting to be summoned.

Walter eased open the brass and glass doors, conscious that it was only a short time since he had enjoyed a good dinner in the place.

Inside, the same subdued golden light, the same aromas, the same gentle hubbub of Cestrians enjoying exotic evening meals, the same expensive copra mat, the same deep pile carpet, the same discretely lit half moon bar. Walter glanced across the room toward the display case. The soft light glinted back from the sword, locked away in that expensive glass box.

The male Khans were all in the house, enjoying their evening meal, sitting at the same table Walter had used on Sunday night. Wazir with his back to the wall, perched in Walter’s favourite chair, Ahmed opposite with his back to the doors.

At the next table sat Austerity Hayes and Harry Barrett, deep in conversation. It seemed they had ordered meals, but no food had yet arrived. She was wearing the same ridiculous bonnet, looked hungry, looked like she could eat everyone in the house, as she glanced up and spied people she knew.

‘Yoo-ee, Walter,’ she called. ‘Come and join us, and bring your friends over too.’

Walter gabbled, ‘Not tonight, Austerity,’ and turned away and approached the Khan’s table, Jenny filming the scene, Karen a pace behind.

Wazir stood up and wiped his mouth.

The other Khans turned and stared into the camera.

‘Hello, Walter,’ said Wazir, wiping his mouth and setting his napkin down. ‘This doesn’t look like a social call to me.’

‘It isn’t, Wazir. We are making enquiries into the whereabouts of Sahira Khan.’

Wazir said nothing; sat down.

‘She’s gone to Pakistan,’ blurted Maaz, inspecting the bitches. The blonde one in the tight fitting cord trousers, he could give her something to think about, and the more curvaceous girl-next-door type, carrying the camera, filming him. What the hell was that all about? Filming him at dinner? That was a first. He smiled for the camera and stuck out and waggled his tongue, turned his eyes back to the blonde. Fit looking bitch, for a copper, for a Christian, fit looking.

‘And when was that?’ asked Walter.

Maaz giggled. ‘Ages since, innit, man.’

‘Be quiet!’ said Mohammed.

Ahmed looked at Walter and said, ‘Would you care to explain what is going on?’

‘It’s you who have some explaining to do,’ said Karen. ‘You are all to accompany us to the police station, right now.’

‘Are you crazy?’ asked Mohammed.

‘Good job we’ve finished eating, innit,’ grinned Maaz, staring down at the picked clean stainless steel serving dishes.

‘What about the restaurant?’ asked Ahmed.

‘The restaurant is now closed,’ said Walter.

‘You can’t do that!’ protested Mohammed.

‘I just have.’

‘But it’s never closed,’ said Wazir. ‘Not once since the day it opened, not even on Christmas Day, never, other than when it was being refitted.’

‘There’s a first time for everything,’ said Karen.

Maaz gave her a hard look.

‘Where are the women?’ asked Walter.

‘Where they should be!’ snarled Maaz, staring at the black bloke. ‘Not like your bloody lot.’

‘My lot?’ queried Walter.

Maaz grinned and looked round at his family, as if for support, and back at the coppers. ‘Yeah you know, one third of your women are out on the streets doing tricks for twenty-five quid, another third are off their heads on coke and ganja, and the other third are at home, single mothers bringing up little brats to be just like them... and some of your women do all three,’ and he giggled and grinned.

Karen glanced at Walter. She thought he was going to strike the guy and considered interrupting, but Walter was talking again.

‘My lot, as you so elegantly describe us, are too busy driving the buses and trains and keeping the capital moving, too busy becoming doctors and nurses and keeping the national health service on its feet, looking after sick people, like you, too busy winning half the medals Britain wins in the Olympic Games, too busy making and influencing most of the music that pops out of your radio.... you halfwit!’

‘Wow!’ said Maaz, determined to come back at him. ‘Fo-yi, fo-yi, innit!’

Walter and Karen glanced at the others.

‘It’s one of his stupid made-up words,’ explained Mohammed.

‘Meaning?’ snapped Karen.

‘Figment of your imagination, darling, know what I mean? Figment of your freaking imagination, and mine,’ said Maaz leering at Karen through her clothes, as if she was standing there naked.

‘Gibbons!’ she said. ‘Take him away!’

‘Love to!’ said Gibbons, seizing Maaz’s wrist.

‘Do you need anything, Maaz?’ asked Walter.

Maaz ignored the copper and began shouting, ‘I took the bitch to the airport myself. Me, Maaz Khan, took her alone. It was all down to me.’

Walter nodded at Gibbons and he slipped one end of the cuffs on Maaz’s wrist, the other on his own, and led Maaz outside and back to the cars.

Walter stared around the restaurant at still, stony faces, gazing back. He clapped his hands like gunshots and ordered everyone outside. ‘What you have eaten is free, but there will be nothing else!’

Karen watched the weird Austerity making a big issue of getting her things together. Heard her say to her companion, ‘We’ll just have to eat an Indonesian,’ followed by raucous laughter, and as the restaurant cleared, a little queue formed at the main doors as the police took the customers’ details.

‘Where are the women?’ repeated Walter.

‘Upstairs, having their evening meal,’ said Wazir.

Walter nodded Karen and Jenny away to find and deal with the womenfolk.

‘They’re not involved,’ explained Ahmed.

‘We’ll decide who’s involved and who isn’t,’ snapped Hector, after making his way in through the back.

‘I need the key to the display cabinet,’ said Walter, nodding across toward the sword.

‘It’s lost,’ said Mohammed.

‘In that case we’ll have to break it open.’

Wazir stood up and took out his keys. Removed the smallest one from a hefty clump and handed it across the table.

Walter nodded his thanks and gave it to Hector.

Within half an hour the State had closed, the remaining staff were being interviewed, while the Khan family were making themselves comfortable in six separate interview rooms on the fifth floor of the main Chester police station.

––––––––

THERE WAS QUITE A CROWD gathered round the monster as Jenny switched on the interview room live feed. There was a single table in the room with the grinning Maaz on one side and the home team opposite. The Guv, still looking grumpy, after Maaz’s earlier stupid comments, and Karen who had been at her razor sharp best all day.

Karen began proceedings.

‘This interview is being recorded on live sound and video.’

‘It sure is,’ said one of the uniforms in the Incident Room, crowding round the live colour footage beaming in from upstairs. An officer who had brought one of the Khans back from the State, and was keen to see it through, desperate to have something exciting to tell his wife over the liver and onions that would be on the table when he managed to get home. Everyone settled in for a long session.

‘Are you all right, Maaz?’ asked Walter.

‘Never been better, fat man, black man. How did they ever let you become an Inspector?’

Walter ignored the comment and said, ‘Tell us about Sahira?’

‘What do you want to know, nigger?’

‘Cut that out!’

Again, Karen thought Walter was about to strike Maaz. She admired his self-restraint. He was already talking again.

‘She’s your sister, right?’

Maaz blew out air.

‘Phew! Detection gone crazy. Go to the top of the class.’

‘And you took her to the airport?’ asked Karen.

‘Said so, didn’t I?’

‘Why was that?’ asked Walter.

‘Why do you think?’

‘We don’t know, Maaz. Why don’t you tell us all about it?’

Maaz blew out again and looked from side to side. He seemed to be thinking of what to say, or whether to say anything at all, and for a moment it looked like he might adopt the guilty looking and unhelpful “no comment” stance. But for whatever reason, he began talking, and once he started he couldn’t stop.

‘She was going to Pakistan to get married, some stinking old warlord in his sixties. Can you imagine that, bitch?’ he said, glaring at Karen, as if he thought that fate would be good for her too.

‘Why?’ asked Walter.

‘Why what?’

‘Why was she going to Pakistan?’

‘I just told you!’

‘But why Pakistan? Why not marry someone here?’

‘She’d been a naughty girl, hadn’t she, a very naughty girl, been shagging Christians. I mean, how low can you go?’

‘Have you ever shagged a Christian, Maaz,’ asked Karen through a deadpan face.

‘None of your damn business, bitch! But if you want me to shag you, I’ll do you right now across the desk, live on video. You’d get quite a thrill out of that, wouldn’t ya? Just tell the black twat to leave and we can get down to business!’

‘Behave yourself!’ bellowed Walter.

Maaz sniffed and glanced away.

There was a brief period of silence before Walter asked, ‘Who arranged the marriage?’

‘The old blokes, who do ya think?’

‘And you drove her to the airport?’

Maaz nodded.

‘Speak your answer, please,’ said Karen.

‘I... drove... her... to... the... air... port.’

‘When was that?’ asked Walter.

Maaz gave them the date, didn’t have to think about it, just spilled it out as if it were ingrained on his confused brain.

‘And you saw her depart?’

‘Nope! Threw her out of the car at the airport. Couldn’t stand to be with the bitch for a second longer than necessary.’

‘So you didn’t see her on the plane?’ asked Karen.

‘Just said so, didn’t I. Are you thick, or what?’

‘The thing is, Maaz, we don’t think she ever got on that plane.’

Maaz grinned and shrugged his shoulders. Then he said, ‘If that’s the case, the old warlord is going to be mighty angry. But maybe it was for the best, ’cos no right-minded man would want her as a wife. I mean, would you?’

‘What was for the best?’ asked Walter.

‘What you said, if she didn’t get there.’

‘What happened to her, Maaz?’ asked Karen.

‘God alone knows, but let’s hope it was something horrific.’

‘Did you kill her, Maaz,’ asked Walter.

‘Oh yeah, strangled her with my bare hands. What do you freaking think?’

‘Someone killed her,’ said Karen.

‘Is the bitch dead, then?’

‘It’s possible,’ said Walter.

‘Good oh, best news of the day!’

‘She was your sister,’ said Karen.

‘Was, is the operative word, blondie. Are you a bit of a goer, by the way? You look as if there’s a bit of mileage in you,’ and Maaz grinned again in that odd way of his.

Karen ignored him.

‘Tell me about the Christians she was involved with?’ asked Walter.

‘What do you want to know? Chapter and verse, old man. Bet you’d love that, wouldn’t you? Get your rocks off on it, would you? The dusky wench dropping her knickers for all sorts?’

‘Was she involved with one particular man?’ asked Karen.

‘How the hell would I know?’

‘Was she involved with Luke Flowers?’ asked Walter.

Maaz went to speak, reined himself back, like a pulling stallion being reined in at the last second by a tough rider.

‘Luke who?’

‘You heard what the Inspector said,’ said Karen. ‘She was involved with Luke Flowers, wasn’t she?’

‘I have no idea.’

––––––––

IN THE INCIDENT ROOM, the crowd was enthralled. Gibbons grinned at Hector who had joined the party.

Gibbons said, ‘He’s guilty as hell. We’ve nailed them.’

‘Not yet,’ said Jenny. ‘There’s no proof.’

‘Guilty as sin!’ said Hector. ‘How the hell can anyone do that, murder their own sister, because they don’t like who they date?’

There was a collective shrugging of shoulders as they turned back to the monster, as Walter was asking his next question.

‘Tell me about the sword?’

‘What sword?’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Maaz,’ said Karen. ‘The ceremonial sword that we now possess.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘We think it will prove to be the weapon that killed Luke Flowers.’

Maaz let go one of his silliest, girlish, most confident giggles.

‘I’ll bet you anything you like it isn’t!’

‘Are you a gambling man?’ asked Walter.

‘Course not, it’s against my religion.’

‘But drinking alcohol and indulging in pre-marital sex are also against your religion, but it doesn’t stop you doing that, does it, Maaz?’ said Karen.

Maaz stood up and pointed across the table and shrieked, ‘You have no idea what you are talking about! Don’t you go accusing me of all sorts, you bitch!’

‘Wowser!’ said Gibbons sitting watching, ‘It’s all kicking off!’

Walter stood up and stared into the kid’s face and said, ‘Sit down, Maaz, we are not accusing you of anything. Not yet. We just want to know what happened to Sahira... and Luke.’

Maaz glared at the fat black guy, then his eyes changed down a gear, and he looked around as if surprised to find himself there, and sank back into his chair, and for the next few minutes he would not look at Karen at all.

Chapter Fifty-One

The sword was sent for immediate forensic examination. If they could link it to the killing of Luke Flowers, the Khan family were nailed. The police were confident it would.

They couldn’t wait to receive the report, and while they were waiting, the questioning of Maaz Khan continued without a break.

‘How did you find out that Sahira was seeing Christians?’ asked Karen.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’ snarled Maaz.

‘That’s why we are asking,’ said Walter. ‘Did you see them together?’

‘Nah!’

‘Did you listen to her telephone calls?’ asked Karen.

‘What do you think I am?’

‘So, how did you know?’ asked Walter.

Maaz shook his head hard, leered again and said, ‘It was the pictures, innit.’

‘What pictures?’ said Walter and Karen, almost as one.

Maaz smiled, almost charmingly, and raised his hand and arm and pointed across the desk. ‘Ah, now you’re interested, aren’t you?’

‘Of course we are interested, Maaz,’ said Walter. ‘We are interested in everything you have to say.’

‘What pictures?’ repeated Karen.

‘Filthy they were; porno, of my sister.’

‘Where did you see these pictures?’ asked Walter.

‘Where do you think?’

‘On a mobile phone?’ suggested Karen.

Maaz grinned at the girl and looked at Walter. ‘See! She knows. Filthy bitch, been there, done that, bet she has, she knows all about it. I’ll bet if you looked at her Bookface page you’d see porno pics of her, all tastefully done. It’s the main use for mobiles these days, taking filthy pictures.’

‘Is that what you do, Maaz?’ asked Karen.

Maaz ignored the question and said, ‘Ever thought of starring in a porno pic, whore-face?’

‘I don’t think it would suit me,’ said Walter.

‘Not you, old man. Blondie here, there’d be a few quid to be made with pics of her, I can tell you.’

‘Is that what you do?’ repeated Karen.

‘Not me! But Sahira, that’s another matter. There was no low point to which she wouldn’t stoop. No wonder she was struck from the earth... if indeed that’s what’s happened.’

‘Did you strike her from this earth, Maaz?’ asked Walter.

Maaz shook his head. ‘Dropped her at the airport, mate. That was the last time I saw her. Why don’t you check through some CCTV or summat? That’ll back me up.’

‘I am sure that will be done,’ said Karen.

‘Too true, sister, sooner the better for me, so I can get outta here and get home.’

‘These mobile phone pictures,’ said Walter. ‘Where are they now?’

‘Still on the phone, I suppose.’

‘And where is the phone?’ asked Karen.

‘Now there I can’t help you.’

‘It was Luke Flowers’ phone, wasn’t it?’ asked Walter.

‘Luke who?’ grinned Maaz.

Walter shrugged his shoulders.

It was time for a reassessment break.

‘This interview is suspended,’ said Walter. ‘Terminated at 9.38pm.’

‘That it then? Can I go home now?’

‘No, you can’t,’ said Walter. ‘Have him taken to the cells, and get Mohammed up here.’

––––––––

MAAZ WAS TAKEN DOWN to the cells by a broad red-faced twenty-five-year service man who looked way older than he was. Maaz didn’t stop talking for a second. The police officer barely said a word.

There were fifteen cells in the basement, all in a line off the narrow corridor, seven feet wide, but longer than usual, to use all the available space. The building was late fifties design when cost was an issue, and early sixties build, when quality control was not much of an issue at all. There were no windows to the cells, no heating, and no air conditioning. In the winter, they were freezing and in the summer, it was always stifling.

Inside the cell were two items.

A metal framed bench-like bed, brown leather clad, easy to clean, hard to vandalise, welded to the floor, set parallel to the right wall of the cell. The second item was a heavy blue plastic chamber pot, unbreakable, no en suite facilities, the whole building had been earmarked for demolition and replacement, but budget restraints had delayed that, and temporary guests had to cope with nineteenth-century standards of hygiene and comfort.

There was nothing else in the cell, no table, no chair, no blanket, no radio, no knife and fork, nothing but the prisoner himself, or herself, alone with their thoughts, under the one protected ceiling light, a bulb that could be switched off at any time, plunging the visitor into total darkness, or left on all night.

Maaz Khan had been searched earlier, and before he was left alone, the custody sergeant took away his tie, checked his shoes for laces, but found the guy preferred designer gear, neat slip-on loafers; must have cost a pretty penny, maybe half a week’s wages for a police officer.

Maaz was eased inside and the door slammed behind him.

He stared round and stopped talking, stopped grinning.

Licked his lips and sat on the bench, his mind a total blank.

He didn’t know why he was there.

Didn’t know what he had done wrong.

Didn’t know where he had been.

Didn’t know where he was going.

Didn’t know how long it would be before he was spoken to again.

––––––––

IN THE INTERVIEW ROOM, Mohammed was next up.

‘Tell us about the pictures?’ asked Walter.

‘What pictures?’

‘Don’t waste our time!’ snapped Karen. ‘Maaz has told us all about the filthy pics on the phone.’

Mohammed shook his head.

‘Where is the mobile phone now?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘If it’s in the State, we’ll find it,’ said Karen.

‘Of course you will,’ said Mohammed.

‘So, where is it?’ asked Walter.

Mohammed shrugged his shoulders.

‘Did you kill Luke Flowers?’ asked Walter.

‘Luke who?’

‘You know who we are talking about!’ said Karen.

‘Nope, don’t know anything about it. Is my solicitor coming?’

‘He’s been notified,’ said Walter.

‘He’s in Birmingham for God’s sake!’

Karen grinned. ‘That’s hardly our fault.’

‘I think I’ll wait until he’s here.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Walter. ‘But fact is, he won’t be here ’till tomorrow. I thought you’d prefer to get on with things, get home all the sooner.’

Mohammed twisted around in his chair, back and forth, then settled and said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Let’s get on with it; I have nothing to hide.’

Walter and Karen shared a look and Walter said, ‘What did you think when you discovered Sahira had been sleeping with white boys?’

‘I wasn’t happy about it. Do you have any children? Any daughters?’

‘No.’

‘Well, if you did, I can tell you it would burn you up inside.’

‘Enough to kill the people involved?’ asked Karen.

‘You don’t know anything, you coppers.’

‘Maybe we do, maybe we don’t,’ said Walter. ‘Here’s your chance to set the record straight.’

‘Look! We discovered Sahira was having this affair and for her own good, we agreed she should go to Pakistan and marry there. If anything bad happened to the white guy, that’s unfortunate, but don’t expect me or any of our family to grieve for him.’

‘She didn’t get to Pakistan,’ said Karen.

‘So you say.’

‘You don’t seem particularly worried about the fact your only daughter is missing,’ said Walter.

‘Wherever she is, God will look after her.’

––––––––

A LOUD RAP CAME TO the door. Karen jumped up and opened it. Jenny Thompson was there, holding a folded over note. Handed it to Karen. The women shared a silent nod, and Jenny left. Karen sat down and slipped the note to Walter. He held it up against his chest and opened the half sheet of paper.

Mohammed, sitting across the table, tried to read the words through the paper. Someone had written something heavy in ball-pen. He could see the indentations, but could not make out the message.

Walter read the five words twice and passed the note to Karen. Her eyes raced across the writing.

Sword not the murder weapon. 

‘What’s up?’ asked Mohammed.

‘Nothing. This interview is suspended, timed at 10.22pm.’

Chapter Fifty-Two

Walter scratched his head and gazed through the window at the falling darkness. The last of the daylight streaks were vanishing over the Roodee. He glanced back at Mrs West sitting behind her desk and then across at Karen.

‘It’s not the murder weapon,’ said Mrs West, leaving the thought floating in the air, and then she added, ‘that’s a bloody nuisance.’

‘They must have had it changed,’ said Walter, ‘a copy made and substituted.’

‘So where’s the original?’ asked Mrs West.

‘Not in the State,’ said Walter.

‘How long has it been on display?’ asked Karen.

‘Years!’ said Walter. ‘For as long as I have been eating there.’

‘Course they had it changed!’ said Karen. ‘Look at the report. It says it is newly made, less than a year old.’

‘Where are we up to with the interviews?’ asked Mrs West, stifling a yawn.

‘About to start on Ahmed?’ said Walter.

‘Do you want to give it a break and come back refreshed in the morning?’

‘No! Rather do it now, ma’am, if you don’t mind.’

‘If that’s what you want, Walter. You’re in charge. Get on with it and wrap it up. I want to ring Gitts and tell him we have solved his case,’ and she smiled a stiff smile they hadn’t seen before, and nodded them toward the door.

––––––––

THE INTERVIEW WITH Ahmed Khan was brief and to the point. He refused to say a word until his solicitor was present. Fact was, his lawyer had set off from Birmingham as soon as he’d taken the call. He wouldn’t have done that for just anyone, but the Khan family were one of his oldest clients, and from what had been said, they were in big trouble. But he was stuck on the M6 behind a major accident that showed no sign of being cleared. The latest forecasts predicted he wouldn’t arrive in Chester for another couple of hours; and he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

––––––––

AHMED WAS TAKEN AWAY, and Wazir was brought to the interview room. Those watching on the monster hadn’t lost interest. There was something about this patriarch of a man that demanded one paid attention.

Walter admired Wazir. Always had done. Everything about him. His demeanour, his principles, his conscientiousness, his hard working ethic, his achievements, his family, his sense of humour and duty, and his looks. The man was eighty-eight-years-old and looked immaculate. Walter admired that too, for he couldn’t match it.

Wazir’s steel grey hair was neatly side parted, not a single strand missing, a little longer than one might expect in a man of his age. He preferred it that way. His slim and sleek moustache had been trimmed that morning, while his calm dark eyes watched the officers, never darting about. He wasn’t a nervous man, never had been. It wasn’t an easy moment for either of them, and they both knew it.

Karen made the formal introductions and checked the recording equipment was working. Walter glanced at the tiny camera in the topmost corner of the room, thought about how it would be portrayed on the monster downstairs. Sniffed and began again.

‘Wazir?’ said Walter, settling into his chair.

‘Walter,’ said Wazir, acknowledging the man.

‘How long have we known each other?’

Wazir sucked in a half smile, a cold smile that on another day would have been warmer. He threw his head back and glanced at the false ceiling. ‘Hard to remember, but it’s a long time.’

‘Have you ever lied to me, Wazir?’

‘Of course not.’

‘And you wouldn’t lie to me now?’

‘No,’ yet as he said the word, Wazir wondered at the truth of his answer. Every honest man promises himself he will not tell lies. But there comes a time, maybe when one’s own flesh and blood are involved, perhaps when their entire future was at stake, in those circumstances, maybe an occasional lie might be uttered, might slip from the mouth, even from the cautious and careful lips of the irreproachable Wazir Khan.

Walter, too, pondered on whether Wazir could make it through the interview without lying.

‘Tell me about Maaz?’ said Walter.

‘He’s not a well boy.’

‘We had gathered that.’

‘You will have to make allowances for him,’ said Wazir. ‘He needs treatment, he needs professional attention.’

‘That’s as maybe, but we need to know. Did he murder Sahira?’

‘I wasn’t there, I cannot say.’

‘What happened to the sword?’

‘You took it away.’

‘No!’ snapped Karen.

‘That was a copy,’ said Walter, ‘as I am sure you know. We are not stupid and we want to know what happened to the original.’

Wazir opened his mouth but did not speak. Thought hard. Didn’t come up with an adequate answer, and said, ‘I can’t help you there, Walter.’

––––––––

IN THE CELL DEEP DOWN below, Maaz had taken to running from one end to the other. Seventeen feet. Longer than usual. He could get up quite a speed. He was working up a sweat. Paused for a moment. Removed all his clothes. Tossed them on the metal-framed bed. Slipped off his shoes and started running again, naked.

––––––––

WALTER ORDERED WATER and offered a glass to Wazir. The old man bobbed his head, thanked Walter, and accepted the drink.

‘I want to go over it again,’ said a refreshed Walter. ‘From the beginning. Tell us again why and when it was decided Sahira should leave for Pakistan. Take your time, Wazir, but think about it, and please, don’t insult our intelligence with any lies.’

Wazir sipped and thought and sipped and thought. He considered the Jamaican to be his friend. But at what point did he drop the “r” from the word friend? Despite the iced water, his mouth was dry. He possessed an MBE, the African didn’t. That must mean something.

‘I have told you everything I know, Walter.’

‘Tell me again, Wazir, tell us again.’

––––––––

THE TEMPERATURE IN the cell was eighty-eight Fahrenheit and with the exercise, Maaz was covered in sweat. Wet footprints decorated the clammy floor. Out and back, out and back, fifty times, and pause, time for a quick break. Maaz went to the far wall. Banged his head on the grey painted plaster. Six times, ten, twenty times, gradually harder and harder. He enjoyed it. He usually did, though it was more satisfying when he performed before an audience. Maaz treasured the looks in their eyes and the puzzled masks on their faces. Obtained a real thrill through bemusing people.

He jerked away from the wall, laughed aloud, and ran down the cell. Pushed off the far wall and ran back again, pushed harder still, picking up speed, dashed down the cell, and took off, arms outstretched wide like a jet aeroplane, feet together high into the air behind like a tail-plane, straight back, a strange smile set on his face, as he crashed into the far wall, face first, head first, happy in his work, with as much pent up energy as he possessed, like a jumbo jet smashing into a skyscraper.

No one would ever know the final thoughts that swirled through his tortured brain. Split his head open. Blood gushed. Crashed to the ground in a sweaty, bloody heap. Plane down. Plane dead. Pilot error. Crew killed. No survivors. No black box. No explanation, nothing.

––––––––

FOR THE FIRST TIME, Walter thought Wazir was lying. He couldn’t have told you why, just a sixth sense kicking in, as if he was playing for time. Maybe he was dragging it out until the family solicitor arrived. He was due in the building at any moment. Not that it would make any difference.

‘Go over that again, Wazir, once more please.’

––––––––

THE CUSTODY SERGEANT flipped open the metal hatch on the door to Maaz’s cell. Regular checkups were the norm. Couldn’t believe what he saw. Maaz was naked and crumpled on the floor at the far end, his body scrunched in unnatural angles. Blood had oozed across the floor. The red river had reached almost back to the door.

‘Oh, God!’ and all hell broke loose as he smacked the alarm.

It was Gibbons who knocked on the interview room door and entered without waiting to be invited. Walter glanced up, irritated at being disturbed. Gibbons handed him a note. Just four words. Maaz Khan Committed Suicide. Gibbons left the room without a word.

‘Oh dear!’ said Walter, showing the note to Karen.

She said, ‘Ouch!’

‘Something the matter?’ asked Wazir.

‘Interview suspended at...’ said Karen, as she glanced at her watch and spoke the time.

‘What’s happened?’ asked Wazir.

‘There’s been a development,’ said Walter. ‘We’ll keep you informed,’ and the police officers left the room, leaving Wazir to his racing thoughts.

––––––––

THE SUICIDE OF MAAZ Khan provided an unexpected impetus to the case. On hearing of his son’s demise, coming so soon after his daughter’s death, Mohammed Khan confessed to the murder of Sahira Khan and Luke Flowers. Initially, the police imagined it was a case of Mohammed taking the blame on himself. But after questioning Wazir and Ahmed for a further twenty-four hours, they concluded the violent deaths had been the work of Maaz and Mohammed alone. Walter reserved judgment. The papers would go to the CPS, and they would decide if Wazir and Ahmed would face charges too.

Mrs West was understandably jubilant. Two murders cleared up in one night, and one of those was not even on her patch. It gave her great satisfaction in ringing Chief Superintendent Gitts in Manchester with the breaking news that her wonderful team had solved his murder and had charged Mohammed Khan. Gitts bit his tongue and congratulated Mrs West, the officer he referred to behind her back as that stuck-up bitch from Chester, though inside he was seething, as the woman had always riled him for reasons only he understood.

The following morning, she called Walter into her office.

‘Sit down, my man,’ she said, smirking. ‘Fancy a snifter?’ and from her desk drawer she produced a half bottle of Irish whiskey and two tumblers.

That was a first, so far as Walter could remember, and in such circumstances, it would be rude to refuse.

Mrs West was on a high. Her face glowed as she poured two measures and slipped one across the desk.

‘You did a great job, Walter, thank you,’ and she raised her glass and winked at him.

Walter smiled and sipped away. It sure as hell made a change from the usual carping, and hints that maybe his retirement day was coming ever closer.

‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘you remember that memo that came down from on high saying we should make the most of any successes we attain through publicity. After all, our failures are always magnified a thousand times. So I thought we’d have a little party, a small cocktail effort, that kind of thing. Invite Gitts down,’ she said, grinning over the top of her glass.

‘If you think that’s wise, ma’am, but there shouldn’t be any hint of triumphalism.’

‘Good God no, Walter, there will not be any triumphalism on my watch,’ and she pursed her lips and smirked at him.

‘Do you think Gitts will come?’

‘Chief Superintendent Gitts, Walter, yes, I think he will. To not do so would be seen as sour grapes, and he wouldn’t want that.’

‘Whatever you say, ma’am.’

‘And the press, too. Local telly, that kind of thing, and the printed press of course, and that woman as well, what’s her name? Gardenia Floem, that’s the one.’

‘Oh no, not her.’

‘Eh? Why? Don’t you like her?’

‘Not particularly, and the thing is, I think she might have a thing about me, ridiculous as it sounds.’

Mrs West spluttered on her drink. ‘Lucky you. You could do a heck of a lot worse.’

The suggestion the local crime hack might fancy her star inspector, well, that was indeed news, and besides, it was too late, Walter’s doubts aside, for she’d already invited the woman. It would make the party more interesting, and it was high time Walter found someone to look after him, though Gardenia seemed awfully young. And as Mrs West explored that fascinating train of thought, Walter said, ‘The thing is, ma’am, we haven’t really finished the case. There are far too many loose ends.’ 

‘Meaning?’

‘We still don’t know why Luke Flowers was taking pot-shots at Neil Swaythling, or why he killed the other kid. Perhaps we should suspend any party until all the facts are known.’

She wafted her hand fast across the desk. ‘Poppycock, Walter! If we waited for all loose ends to be tied up in complicated cases, we’d wait forever. The killing of Jeffrey Player was almost certainly an incidental accident, you said so yourself, and Flowers’ feud with Swaythling was probably a drugs issue. He’s in a rock band, for heaven’s sake. How much more proof do you need than that? And as Luke Flowers is no longer with us, that feud is dead and buried. No, I can’t see too many loose ends of any consequence. The case is over, solved, lock, stock and barrel, thanks to you, so the party’s on, Walter, the party’s on.’

‘If you say so, ma’am.’

‘I do say, Walter. Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know I have already invited the Floem woman. She rang before, said she wouldn’t miss it for the world. I quite like her. She seems to have her finger on the pulse. You could do a lot worse. Now perhaps you could leave me to get on; I have my reports to write.’

Walter sighed and slurped what remained of his drink and bobbed his head and fled the room.

––––––––

THAT NIGHT HE SAT SLUMPED in his favourite armchair before the TV. It was on, and he was staring at the screen, but he wasn’t watching. He was still working, pondering the case, thinking how lucky he had been to stumble on Sahira Khan’s disappearance, because he patronised the State of Kerala.

Another unconnected thought entered his mind. The dirty dishes were piling up in the sink. He needed a new cleaner. He wondered how the much missed Galina Unpronounceable was getting on back in the Ukraine, or just Ukraine, no “the”, as she insisted it should be said, and he recalled her pretty blue-eyed face admonishing him about that. You don’t say “the” England, do you? Perhaps she had a point.

He glanced at his watch. 9.28pm. Pulled out his mobile and rang the office.

Gibbons answered, working the late shift, surprised to hear Walter’s voice.

‘Anything happening?’

‘Nowt, Guv, quiet as the proverbial. You have a good rest, boss, you deserve it.’

‘Could you come and pick me up?’

‘What! You want to come back to work?’

‘Might as well, I’m doing nothing here.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘Yeah, why not?’

‘OK, Guv. If that’s what you want. See you in twenty.’

‘Thanks, Gibbons.’

Chapter Fifty-Three

The party began at 4pm. Everyone was there. Free drinks and snacks in HQ was a rare event, though the boots on the ground lot would have preferred beer to the gnats pee white wine on offer, and crisps and sausage rolls, to the fancy canapés Mrs West’s niece had rustled up at short notice.

A considerable bill would be in the post before the day was out.

Chief Superintendent Gitts swallowed any chagrin he may have possessed and attended, indeed he brought two colleagues, the same pair Walter remembered had taken the original press conference in Manchester, smart uniforms, pristine medal ribbons, the look-a-like quiet man, and the forceful thirty something woman who drank juice, ate nothing, said little, and listened a lot. Ambition on legs, Walter surmised, he’d seen countless similar officers in his time. Perhaps Gitts should watch his back, maybe he already was, though Walter would be the last man to tell him.

Gitts made a beeline for Walter at the first moment, grabbing his sleeve and tugging him into a quiet corner.

‘So come on, Darriteau, tell me how you got onto the Khan family?’

Walter didn’t appreciate being addressed by his surname. Much preferred either Inspector or Walter, but at least he hadn’t been called “Boy”, something he’d often endured when he was a young uniformed bod, and sometimes until he was almost forty. But he swallowed any annoyance he possessed. Truth was, he was too tired to get annoyed.

‘I had a bit of luck,’ said Walter, sipping and grimacing. ‘I happened to be a regular diner at the Khan’s restaurant and noticed Sahira was missing...’

‘Thought so all along!’ said Gitts, sweeping round and calling his female colleague over to share the news. ‘It was pure coincidence! A fluke! No great detection at all.’

‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that,’ said Walter, finishing his wine. It seemed to get better the more one drank, as the Manchester officers moved away to collar someone else. Walter cast his eye across the large room, filled almost to capacity. Gibbons was holding court, no doubt telling one of his mild, and sometimes not so mild, filthy jokes. Karen, Hector, Jenny, and a couple of others were gathered round. The women protesting they weren’t interested in rude jokes, yet still desperate to hear the punch-line. They all burst into raucous laughter. Walter heard Karen say, still laughing, ‘You are disgusting, Gibbons!’

The press were all there, too. The Liverpool Echo, Manchester Evening News, Chester Observer, Crewe Observer, and all the other little Observers, and a few other local titles too, some of the hacks relaxing, enjoying a drink and a laugh, some of them working. Even some of the London papers had sent people. There was always mileage in a good murder. Murders sold newspapers. Always had, always would, ever since Crippen. Fact was the general public were as fascinated and intrigued with murders and murderers as they had ever been. Funny that, thought Walter, the public couldn’t get enough information and gossip about people who enjoyed going round killing people.

TV there too. Granada, BBC Northwest Tonight, and Sky. Several TV crews were hovering in the doorway, eager to get a better view, for it had been leaked that Mrs West would make a brief speech. Great! Walter couldn’t wait. He’d enjoyed a sneak preview. He’d let himself into her office to find her practising before the glass, hand movements, eye contact, a clear, if somewhat strident voice, a winning combination in her eyes. Geez, thought Walter. Thank the Lord I’m not the senior officer.

Gardenia Floem entered the packed room. Smiled at one or two people close to the door as if she knew them. Pushed her way through the thickening crowd to the drinks table. Helped herself to wine. Bumped into Mrs West, and the two of them enjoyed a chat, though Gardenia glanced over her shoulder a couple of times. Walter noticed that, as if she were looking for someone. Walter recalled the time he first set eyes on her. How was it? She was on the wrong side of forty, but not by much, auburn wavy hair parked on her shoulders, pretty face, nice teeth, quality dark green suit. Yep, that was about right.

He didn’t go in for noting women’s fashions, but his eye for detail recalled that green suit, and lo-and-behold there it was on display. It suited her, so to speak, fit her like a glove. She had a great figure, that was undeniable, as she stood with her back to him, talking to Hector. The young man probably thought he had a chance. No hope, son, Walter whispered. Find someone your own age, but then again, wasn’t he hoping for the same thing, coming from the opposite end of the spectrum? It would keep Mrs West happy, if nothing else.

Gardenia glanced over her shoulder again. She wanted to be away from Hector, and that was understandable, for he could be a boring twerp. He had the right name, but who was she looking for? She spotted Walter through the crowd, on the far side of the room, standing alone, hiding at the side of the monster; looking across at her. She smiled and mouthed a ‘Hi’, and in the next second made her apologies to Hector and began edging through the crowd and over toward where Walter was standing, holding an empty glass.

‘There you are,’ she said. ‘For a moment I thought you’d chickened out and not come.’

‘No such luck, Mizz Floem.’

‘Oh Walter, call me Gardenia.’

Walter didn’t answer.

‘Big turn out,’ she said.

‘Yep, we can’t miss Mrs West’s big moment, can we, live on TV?’

‘How exciting,’ said Gardenia, glugging the drink, and noticing his glass was empty. ‘Do you want another?’ she said and answered her own question. ‘You must have a drink, Walter. They might have a toast,’ and she grabbed his bear-like paw and tugged him across the room towards the refreshment table where they loaded up on wine and canapés. Something very fishy he didn’t appreciate. Mrs West, who rarely missed anything, didn’t miss the pair of them crossing the room... holding hands. Just as she thought.

Mrs West stood in the centre of the room. At her request, those around her backed away, leaving her alone in a clear circle, the centre of a halo from the TV lights. From somewhere she produced a metal dessert spoon and began thwacking her empty glass, Ping, Ping, Ding!!!

‘Attention, everyone,’ she called, smiling that well practised civil servant smile.

The crowd fell silent; her strident voice demanding it. She could stop a troop of police dogs dead with one command. Walter had witnessed her do it, and though she didn’t actually say ‘Sit!’ to the gathered throng, Walter wouldn’t have been surprised if she had.

‘I’d just like to thank you all for coming today. There are a few people I would particularly like to thank. First, my super team, wonderfully led by Walter.’

‘Go on, Guv!’ yelled Gibbons, the wine doing its work.

Everyone stared at Walter. Gardenia beamed at him and touched his forearm. They were getting real pally, thought Karen, and not many missed that.

‘And Karen too, of course,’ continued Mrs West, and everyone looked at the striking blonde, including the TV crews, as she performed a silly curtsey in her beige cord jeans. ‘For the wonderful way they solved the Sahira Khan murder and the Luke Flowers murder too, through sheer hard work and determination, finally bringing the perpetrators to trial. It goes without saying we were sad to hear what happened to Maaz Khan, and you can be sure there will be a full and thorough inquiry into that. I don’t want to say anymore on that today. I’d also like to thank our friends and colleagues from Manchester who have taken the time and trouble to come over to be with us today,’ and she bobbed her head and smirked at Gitts, and through gritted teeth he forced a smile back across the room, and raised his glass. The woman officer didn’t smile, just looked plain surly, thought Walter, as if she’d endured a dreadful result.

‘I would also like to thank the Chief Constable, Alan Marshall, who is with us today, and who has given me such great support in all things,’ and everyone glanced at the grey-haired guy standing closest to Mrs W, a tall man who pulled a face and nodded once at the crowd, and then at the cameras, as everyone looked back at their drinks, as if to gaze upon him for too long was bad karma, ‘and finally I would like to thank the local press and TV for all their help in these matters, even if, what shall we say, we don’t always see eye-to-eye. But frank cooperation is the key, and especially to my new friend, Gardenia Floem, who has followed this case diligently right from the outset.’

Good God, thought Walter, whatever next?

He glanced at Gardenia’s face, her white cheeks with a dash of rouge, and for a moment he imagined she was blushing. Gardenia smiled round at the throng, lifted her head and changed her profile for the TV cameras, determined to make the most of her newfound fame, as she glanced back at Mrs West and mouthed a big, ‘Thank you,’ and moved closer to Walter and whispered ‘Well, that was a big surprise!’

‘You can say that again.’

Mrs West was winding up.

‘So thank you all again, and I believe those that want to, are going to The Bell afterwards, where I understand there will be a two hundred pound float behind the bar. Enjoy that while you can, and thank you again for your diligent hard work.’

‘Yeah, ma’am!’ yelled Gibbons, and Mrs West shot him her serious school ma’am look and Gibbons muttered back, ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

It looked as if the speeches were over, but not quite.

Walter stepped into Mrs West’s circle of light and muttered, ‘May I say a few words, ma’am?’

Mrs West’s eyebrows departed for the top of her head.

‘Of course, Walter, if you feel the need, the floor’s yours.’

‘Go on, Guv!’ yelled Gibbons.

‘Shut up, Gibbons,’ snapped Karen.

Walter stared at him, disgust writ large, and Gibbons snorted, looked away, and fell silent.

‘I would just like to reiterate your words, ma’am, about our wonderful team who work very long hours for not too much money, who put their lives on the line every day of the week, who suffer abuse on a daily basis, and who have done such a fantastic job in bringing these matters towards their close. So please, give yourselves a good round of applause, you deserve it,’ and they all did precisely that, bringing the house down, Gibbons cheering the loudest.

Walter was speaking again, and the crowd hushed.

‘But this case is not wrapped up, not complete or closed...’

Mrs West was heard to say, ‘Oh no, Walter, not that again, not here, not today!’

But Walter was already talking again. ‘I would just like to say there is still work to be done, so have a drink tonight, but not too much. There is more to do tomorrow, and lastly, I would like to say to our new-found friend, Gardenia Floem, loud and clear that... you are under arrest with regard to the murder of Jeffrey Player and the attempted murder of Neil Swaythling.’

Chapter Fifty-Four

Mouths popped open, yet no one said a word. There was a moment of stunned silence throughout the room, before Mrs West said, ‘Oh, Walter! Don’t spoil things. You will have your little joke.’

‘No joke, ma’am.’

‘I know you don’t like the woman, but this is ridiculous.’

Gardenia smirked. ‘So you don’t like me, eh, Walter? I am surprised.’

‘I am only interested in facts, Mizz Floem, nothing else.’

They all stared at Gardenia’s puzzled face, including the cameras.

Then she said, ‘What are you talking about, Walter?’

‘It’s Inspector Darriteau, to you. There was always something nagging me about this case. It was only in the last couple of days that the pieces began falling into place.’

‘Go on!’ commanded Mrs West. ‘And it had better be good.’

‘I think the guy’s going senile,’ said Gardenia, laughing it off. ‘It’s time he was put out to grass.’

But everyone else wanted to hear what Walter had to say.

‘I’d always been puzzled how Mizz Floem here could have arrived at the scene of the Jeff Player murder so quickly. The answer, of course, is that she knew the murder was about to happen; she was probably waiting in her car around the corner. Oh, she didn’t pull the trigger, Luke Flowers did that, no one is saying she did. But she’s just as responsible, more so in my view, for she commissioned the murder, either directly, or more likely through an intermediary, and she couldn’t have foreseen that the wrong man had caught the bullet, and she couldn’t tell who had been slain, she didn’t know there had been a disastrous mistake, because by the time she arrived in the bar the doctor had ordered the body covered, and Neil, the intended target, was long gone.’

‘And motive?’ said Gardenia, glancing around for support.

‘I’m coming to that.’

‘Better be good, Walter,’ said Mrs West.

Walter bobbed his head and continued.

‘When I visited Langley Wells office, I saw a photograph on his wall. It was taken on a jolly holly in Valletta, Malta, and there they were, Langley and all his Masonic chums.’

The Chief Constable pursed his lips and wondered what was coming next. Mrs West pulled a big lined face.

‘Gerry Swaythling was in the pic too, Neil’s father, the builder bloke. He had his arms around two women. This was a good few years ago, and hairstyles and fashions have changed, which is why I didn’t immediately recognise that one of those women, the brunette, was none other than our Mizz Floem here, was it not?’

Everyone turned back to Gardenia. Cameramen began jostling for a better view.

‘No,’ she said, ‘well, yes, but... that means nothing and proves nothing either.’

‘There’s your motive, ma’am. Gerry Swaythling changes his women like I change my shirt. It was only a matter of time before Gardenia was out, and the newer, younger model was in. How does the phrase go? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Pretty apt, I’d say. Gardenia thought it would be a great idea to have Neil Swaythling blown away to get even with Gerry. That’s the sum of it. Pretty good motive, I’d say.’

‘You don’t know what you are talking about!’ yelled Gardenia.

‘I think I do. Only yesterday the pieces fell into place. Mrs West told me she had invited you to this soiree, and spoilsport that I am, and I’m sorry, ma’am,’ and he nodded at Mrs West, ‘but something told me you didn’t belong here. So I rang the Chester Observer to ask you not to come, and what am I told? They did not know who Gardenia Floem was, let alone employ a person of that name. Is there anyone here from that newspaper?’

Everyone stared around.

A young man in his twenties holding a tablet computer held up his hand.

‘And your name is?’

‘Alan McCaughey.’

‘And you work for the Observer?’

‘I do.’

‘As what?’

‘Chief crime reporter.’

‘And do you know this woman?’

‘No, I don’t. I have never seen her before.’

Gardenia sighed in an exaggerated manner.

‘You’re fixing the facts to fit your case. It’s nothing really. That was just a joke, about being a crime reporter. I was interested in police work, I’m writing a book about it, that’s all. I found it glamorous, if you must know, still do, to be honest.’

‘Yes, I’ll bet you do. But let’s move on. Last night I needed to use the computers, various things I wanted to check, so I asked Gibbons to come and pick me up. Interesting things, computers. What an amazing contraption the Internet is. Mine of information, if you know where to look. Floem isn’t your birth name, is it?’

‘Well no, what of it?’

‘And your maiden name is?’

‘Dennis.’

‘Precisely. And you married one August Floem in Munich, possibly on the rebound from being dumped by Gerry Swaythling.’

‘You don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘I think I do. What happened to August Floem?’

‘He fell down the stairs.’

‘Yes, that’s what Interpol told me, fell down the stairs and broke his neck and died. Though whether he fell or was pushed is open to conjecture. Either way, you’ll be delighted to know the German police, the Bundespolizei, will be re-examining the case. Married for seven months, large life insurance policy, August meets his unplanned and untimely end, and a brooding Mizz Floem arrives back in the UK, bearing funds aplenty, seeking revenge. Isn’t that what happened, Gardenia?’

‘You haven’t a clue! I’ve always had money! And I have heard quite enough of this.’

‘Not yet, Mizz Floem. What was Veronica Camberwell’s maiden name?’

‘How the hell would I know? And who is she anyway?’

‘Oh, come now, Mizz Floem, this isn’t a time for lies, don’t be bashful. Veronica’s maiden name is Dennis, the same as yours, and that’s no surprise... because you are sisters.’

Karen glanced from Gardenia to Walter and back at the Floem woman, and back at her boss. Where the hell had he obtained this information, and why hadn’t he shared his thoughts with her, and how come she hadn’t picked up on the same things? And while she was thinking of that, Walter was talking again.

‘You fell out with your sister, didn’t you?’

‘Did I?’

‘You know full well you did, and I will tell you why. You haven’t always had money at all, and when your father died he left everything to her, didn’t he? Didn’t leave you a bean, while Veronica did very nicely, thank you.’

‘He always preferred her!’

‘Yes, so it would seem, and that anger in your heart, and in your head, festered until you could stand it no longer, and when an opportunity came along to get even with Gerry Swaythling and Veronica at the same time, you couldn’t resist it. Using your ill-gotten gains you thought you’d take away the one thing that Gerry and Veronica loved more than anything, the young man, Neil. Sad thing is, an innocent young man stood in the way and paid the ultimate price.’

‘They deserved it! They bloody well deserved it!’ she screamed, and she stared round, stunned by her own lack of self control, and realising what she had said, she bolted for the double doors. In the surreal atmosphere, no one thought to stop her. The cameramen and TV people were too busy filming the scene to intervene. It would make the best live news show since anyone could remember.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Walter. ‘She won’t get far.’

And she didn’t.

Gibbons had been forced to leave the room, not that he wanted to, but the copious amounts of wine he’d taken on board in double quick time had driven him to the Men’s room, and as he came out Gardenia ran slap bang into his muscular frame, almost knocking him over.

‘Where are you going, my garden girl?’ he said. ‘I think Guv might have a few more questions for you,’ and he grabbed her wrist and tugged her back into the glare of the arc lights.

Mrs West was tapping her glass again.

‘Well thank you everybody for coming, hope you enjoyed it, and I’ll see any of you who are going to The Bell a little later.’

‘Gibbons, take her to interview room three,’ ordered Walter, nodding at Gardenia.

‘Walter! My office!’ shrilled Mrs West.

Walter clicked his lips like a reprimanded schoolboy and bobbed his head, something that Mrs West didn’t see, as she had turned tail and was last seen opening the door to her large room. Walter grinned at Karen, and mouthed, ‘See you later.’

Chapter Fifty-Five

Mrs West was standing behind her desk, arms folded across her chest. She didn’t look happy at all, as Walter sauntered in.

‘Sit down!’ she said, and she ambled over to the large window and stared out at the green sward far below that ran down to the twisting river Dee.

She didn’t say anything for a moment, just sighed heavy. Walter examined her back. She looked pretty good from the rear, he hadn’t noticed that before, especially in that beige long tight skirt, or was it pink, he couldn’t tell. Maybe it was time for an eye test.

‘Do you mind telling me what that was all about?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Don’t act the innocent with me! You have embarrassed me in front of my entire team, and those buggers from Manchester, and all on live local television!’

‘Sorry, ma’am, but I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’

‘You did, Walter, you did!’

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

She snorted like an irritated sow and said, ‘What was the thinking behind that performance?’

‘As I said, ma’am, it was only in the last twenty-four hours it started falling into place.’

‘And it didn’t cross your mind to inform me of your findings?’

‘I wanted to keep it until I was certain. I wanted to keep it as a surprise...’

‘Well you did that, all right!’

‘It was mainly circumstantial, ma’am. I was trying to trick her into confessing in front of everyone.’

‘And you think you did?’

‘Pretty much, yes.’

‘Oh, Walter, you are such an oaf sometimes,’ and she came round and slumped in her vast chair.

‘I just wanted your big day to be crowned with a definite result.’

‘Well you did that all right too! No one will ever forget it!’

A knock came to the door and before Mrs West could answer, the door opened and Chief Superintendent Gitts showed his head round the door and said, ‘We are just on our way, Joan. Just thought I’d say a final thank you,’ and he glanced down at the rebuked Walter and said, ‘How’s the naughty boy doing?’

‘He’ll live, if he’s lucky! Anyway, thanks again for coming.’

‘My pleasure,’ he grinned, and closed the door.

‘Gitts by name, git by nature,’ she muttered.

‘Can’t argue with that, ma’am.’

‘Now, where were we?’

‘You said that no one would ever forget it.’

‘Well that’s true! In future, Walter, you discuss with me first your theories and thinking before you broadcast it to the entire world. Clear?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Are you going down to The Bell?’

‘I will be, ma’am, it would be rude not to. But first I want a good go at Mizz Floem, so to speak, to see if she has any more gems to share with us.’

‘Don’t tell me there are still more loose ends to tie up?’

‘Minor ones, ma’am.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as, who supplied the gun, was there a middle man involved between her and Luke Flowers, and where in all this does Mr Jermaine Keating fit? Because his name keeps cropping up.’

‘Well, good luck with that, but I have a feeling we have just about got to the bottom of it.’

‘You’re probably right, ma’am.’

‘I may see you down there, don’t leave it too long or the float will be exhausted.’

Walter took his cue and stood and went to the door.

‘And Walter?’

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘Well done, now get out of here.’

He bobbed his head and smiled and headed down to the interview room where Karen was setting up ready.

––––––––

THEY ARRIVED IN THE Bell an hour later. The place was packed, and the TV was on.

‘Turn it up, Gibbons!’ someone shouted, and he obliged.

The early evening news programmes were beginning.

‘Here it is!’ yelled Gibbons, and in the next moment Mrs West’s opening speech was hurtling through the air, just as she came into the bar and stood beside Walter and Karen.

‘Oh, no,’ she said.

‘You looked great,’ said Karen, and Walter wondered if she meant it, or was saying it to make her feel better.

A moment later Walter was on the big screen and Gibbons led the cheering. Walter hid behind the big pint of stout Gibbons had thrust into his hand. On the screen Walter was talking.

They did not know who Gardenia Floem was, let alone employed a person of that name.

Mrs West rolled her eyes and sipped her gin and glanced away.

Then Gardenia herself.

They deserved it! They BLEEP, BLEEP deserved it!

‘Case proven, I’d say,’ said Gibbons.

‘Did you really not like her, Walter?’ asked Mrs West.

‘She irritated me.’

Karen sighed, not believing what he said.

‘Just for a moment when you said, and lastly I would just like to say to our new-found friend Gardenia Floem... I thought you were going to propose to her, or tell us all your happy news.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Karen!’

‘I thought that too!’ said Gibbons.

‘How easily led you all are,’ said Walter, sinking half of his pint in one visit.

Karen and Mrs West exchanged knowing glances.

‘Has she confessed?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Pretty much,’ said Karen.

‘She wants to do a deal,’ said Walter. ‘She’ll name the fixer, the armourer, tell us everything she knows about that and other things too, providing we go easy on her.’

‘We don’t do deals!’ said Mrs West.

‘Course we don’t,’ said Walter, ‘but I’d like to nail one or two more villains while the opportunity’s there.’

Thankfully the news item was over. Hector shouted, ‘Turn it on the other side, it’ll be on there in a sec,’ and sure enough it was, and they all had to endure it all over again. 

––––––––

IN THE MORNING KAREN looked dreadful.

‘Heavy night?’ asked Walter.

‘Not really,’ she said a bit too quickly, and Walter knew she hadn’t had much sleep. She must have realised he knew that, and added, ‘It was, if you must know, we all ended up going to some dance club, bobbing till dawn. I can still hear that heavy techno beat thumping in my bones.’

‘The pleasures of the young,’ he said, unable to keep a satisfied smile creeping over his flabby face.

‘We’re only young once,’ she mumbled.

Too true. Thank God.

‘Anyway, I have a job for you this morning. We have an arrest to make.’

‘We do?’

‘We certainly do.’

‘Who?’

‘Get a car organised and I’ll show you.’

‘Marked or unmarked?’

‘Un!’

‘OK, Guv,’ and she shoved off, and as she did he said, ‘I’ll be down in ten.’

––––––––

IT WAS A NICE FORD, pretty new, no sign of vomit on the back seat, which was always a plus, and she was standing beside it in her neat black jeans and white blouse. Hungover or not, she looked classy.

‘Can I ask you something, Guv?’

‘Sure.’

‘Would you mind driving today?’

It wasn’t what he thought she was going to say.

He pulled a face and held out his hand for the key.

‘Don’t make a habit of it.’

‘Thanks, Guv.’

He drove across the city to the Red Rose Motel.

‘Mary Hussein, right?’ she said, as he pulled into the car park.

‘Correct.’

‘On what charge?’

‘Aiding and abetting, perverting the course of justice, accessory before the fact, obstructing the police, wasting police time, take your pick.’

Karen jumped from the car, while he eased from the vehicle, and they walked toward the main entrance.

‘Do you want to arrest her?’ asked Walter.

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘Be my guest.’

It would give her arrest stats a welcome boost, and she deserved it.

‘Thanks.’

Inside, they bumped into the manager, Jack Heale.

‘Not more questions,’ he whined, glancing at his watch.

‘No questions today,’ said Walter, ‘just solving murders, one of which took place on these premises.’

‘Yes well...’

He couldn’t say anything else because the officers were at the reception desk, staring across at Mary Hussein.

‘Mary Hussein?’ said Karen.

‘I don’t recognise that name,’ she said, ‘My name is now Tanzeela.’

‘Not under English law, love. You are under arrest for aiding and abetting murder, and perverting the course of justice,’ and with that, Karen opened the end of the counter, stepped through and asked the girl to get her things together.

‘But she can’t go now!’ protested Heale.

Walter pulled a face, a face that said, oh, but she can.

‘Who’s going to do the bookings? We are short-staffed as it is!’

‘Employ more people, Mr Heale, that’s what the country needs. More people like you to employ more people. At the end of the day, it’s all about people, there’s nowt else.’

‘Will she be back later?’

‘No idea, but I wouldn’t count on it.’

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake.’

‘He won’t help you either.’

––––––––

KAREN LED MARY BACK to the car and saw her safely into the back seat. Walter fell into the front. Found the key. Located the hole. Managed to insert it. Turned the key. Looked up and ahead. A young woman was approaching, pretty girl, coming on fast, looked as if she meant business, looked as if she was late.

‘Hang on a sec,’ said Walter, and he turned off the engine and heaved himself out of the car.

Iskra Kolarov saw him coming. History told her to always be wary of the police, even in England. What could he want now? Her papers were in order, she had a visa, she had a work permit. She hadn’t done anything wrong, that she knew of, yet she still felt uneasy. The big black man worried her, and he was standing right in front of her, obstructing her way to work where she was already one minute late.

In the car, Karen and Mary watched the conversation from thirty metres away. It began with stern faces and concern, but they soon turned to smiles and nods and thank you’s, and ended with Walter giving her a card and touching her arm.

Back in the car, Karen said, ‘What was that all about?’

‘Need a new cleaner, Iskra’s starting on Sunday. Lovely girl.’

‘Iskra, is it?’ teased Karen. ‘She’s far too young for you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ and he started the car and pointed it toward HQ.

––––––––

THE FOLLOWING DAY WOULD be the hottest day of the year. At Police HQ all the windows were wide open. The air conditioning wasn’t working again, and even the monster was working slow.

Karen clasped the top of her blouse and gave it a good shake.

‘So?’ she said. ‘Is that it, everything squared off?’

‘Pretty much,’ said Walter. ‘Gardenia realised her only hope was to come clean and help us as much as she could. She’s named the armourer cum fixer as one Jimmy Mitchell.’

‘And he’s known to us?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Do you want us to pick him up?’

‘We’ll do that later.’

‘Here’s his address. Get the paperwork ready, search warrants, the full McCoy.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘But better than that, she’s implicating the sister, Veronica Camberwell in various misdemeanours. She knew Mitchell too, and I think that will lead us to Keating.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me what you knew?’

‘I didn’t know anything, not really, just lots of pieces that didn’t fit together. Truth is, I took a bit of a punt.’

‘A bit of a punt! You were damned lucky, then.’

‘Mmm, maybe, but once I discovered she wasn’t a reporter all the bits fell into place.’

‘Not sure I would have come to the same conclusions, if you weren’t here, that is.’

‘Well, I am here, Karen, and I’m not going anywhere just yet. Leastways, I hope not.’

‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘Love one.’

––––––––

THE SOUND OF SIRENS waved across the old city and flowed in through the open glass. Walter stood up and limped toward the window. She’d meant to ask him about that, the limp, and made a mental note not to forget. He stood in front of the glass and gazed across at the inner ring road.

‘Even money it’s the fire department,’ said Karen, ‘in this weather. Probably some bedding set alight by the sun shining in through the glass.’

‘You’ve just lost your bet. It’s our guys, two cars, heading south toward Wrexham as if their lives depend on it.’

‘Wonder what’s going on there. Want me to find out?’

‘Too right. And why don’t we know about it, anyway?’

‘Probably some burglar alarm gone off in a big house in Rossett.’

‘I wanna know,’ he said.

But he always wanted to know. He fed on cases like a silkworm on mulberry leaves, and despite his age and build he showed no sign of slowing down. He glanced back at her. She’d given up on the coffee and was on the phone, trying to find out what was going on. Walter sighed. He hoped it would be an interesting case. Please God, not some snotty-nosed sixteen-year-old burglar with half a brain. Give us something more testing than that.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Mohammed Khan pleaded guilty to the double murder of his daughter Sahira, and Luke Flowers. The judge sympathised with the man who had acted with great dignity and honesty throughout the trial.

She took into consideration his previous impeccable record, but in the end, handed down the only sentence she could.

Life imprisonment. With good behaviour it was possible that Mr Khan could be out in twelve years.

Gardenia Floem suffered a similar fate. She’d fulfilled her side of the bargain, so far as she saw it, and told Walter everything she knew, and that information proved invaluable. Walter attended every day of the trials and testified on her behalf, reiterating how helpful she had been. Before the same judge, facing charges of murder and attempted murder, she received the same sentence. Her information had been helpful, but the law’s the law, and murder is murder.

‘Thank you,’ she mouthed across the packed courtroom to Walter, words accompanied by a warm smile.

Walter nodded back, and whether he knew he smiled, only he could tell say. Afterwards he visited her in prison. He still does, once every month. The two have become quite close, in a platonic way.

––––––––

ON SUNDAY NIGHT, JUST over a week after her trial, Walter remembered he hadn’t done a shop. The house was bright and shiny, thanks to Iskra Kolarov, but there was nothing in for dinner. He hobbled upstairs, took a wash, shaved, and slipped on a clean shirt. Came back down, slipped on his lightweight jacket and let himself out. The bus stop was at the end of the road and his luck was in. The bus came within a minute. He hauled himself onboard and rode the handful of stops into the city.

He got off at the railway station and headed down Brook Street toward the State of Kerala. The lights were on, business as usual. Sundays were always a good night at the State because many other restaurants closed early, or didn’t open at all. Walter hurried by, glanced in the windows. It was pretty busy, maybe half full. He walked to the end of the road, turned and limped back, and passed by. He couldn’t bring himself to go inside. His stomach rumbled. He was getting hungrier, and limped back.

Inside, Wazir was sitting in his favourite seat. He’d finished his evening meal, and he’d eaten alone. He often did, for Ahmed was busy running things, and the others were gone. He had been reflecting on his life. People often said he had lived an eventful life, and that was true. There can’t be many families with double murders at either end of their adult lives. His parents incinerated by angry Hindus, his great granddaughter, murdered by her own kind, and then that confused and angry young man, Luke Flowers, who had made his fortune by taking the lives of others, before perishing by the sword. What a senseless waste. What an incredible mess.

Despite everything, Britain had been good to him and his family. He recalled that inauspicious start, so many years before, those foul mouthed and angry dock workers, snarling, Fuck off back to where you came from! We don’t want youse lot round here! And that invaluable first job given to him by Jimmy Mac, and how Wazir had repaid him by stealing from the public purse, every day for several years. The thought of it made Wazir shiver, and he tried to erase the shame of it from his mind. He hoped there was still time to repair the damage done there, and one day he would set matters straight. He took out his diary to make a note, then heard the main doors open. A customer, and that was always good news. A ticking till still had the power to make him happy. 

Walter returned to the outside of the Kerala. Turned left, up the single stone step. Reached out and pushed open the brass and glass doors, stepped inside, wiped his feet on the copra mat. Breathed in that unmistakable aroma of the best food the subcontinent offered. There was a gentle hum of conversation, perhaps half the tables were taken; it was half-past eight, so there was plenty of time.

He stepped forward onto the deep pile maroon carpet, almost disappeared into it. The half moon bar was right ahead, eight chrome stools set before it, three or four taken, people studying menus, sipping drinks, peering into lover’s eyes, perhaps treating a partner to a birthday surprise. But would Walter be made welcome? The display case on the wall was empty, the spotlights switched off. The new sword was in police custody and might never be returned, while the original was unaccounted for, sleeping out of sight of the wicked world.

Wazir glanced up from his maroon State of Kerala restaurant diary. He had finished eating and was jotting a few notes. He saw the policeman, standing alone, looking confused and forlorn. Wazir struggled to his feet and ambled across the restaurant.

‘Walter,’ he said, offering his hand.

‘I wasn’t sure I’d be made welcome.’

‘Don’t be absurd, you’re an honourable man. You were only doing your duty. You will always be welcomed here.’

‘Thank you, Wazir,’ said Walter, shaking Wazir’s icy hand for some time.

‘Come,’ said Wazir, ‘come and join me, I have just finished, but you can eat with me, if you so desire.’

‘I do desire, Wazir, I do.’

They sat down, the near sixty-year-old, and the near ninety-year-old, and it was debatable who possessed the most creaking bones.

They talked about everything and nothing. The Punjabi kid came and took the order, and then Walter said, ‘Off the record, did you know about the murders?’

Wazir paused and thought. He could be wired, the policeman, though he thought not.

‘No, Walter, I didn’t.’

‘I didn’t think so, Wazir, and I believe you.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘And the sword, the original. Where’s that?’

‘Please don’t ask me a question I cannot answer.’

‘I understand.’

‘And the phone? What happened to that?’

Wazir pondered the question; then answered.

‘I found the phone in a can of sugar. I went to turn it on, but knew I did not wish to see pictures of our unfortunate young woman. Whatever had driven her to such a place, whatever evil might have been involved, I knew if I were to see such pictures, those images would have remained with me forever. I didn’t want that, and she didn’t deserve it. I took the phone to the kitchens and set it in the gas oven, and watched it burn to nothing. Did I do wrong, Walter? Am I too now a criminal?’

Walter pulled a face.

‘Technically, yes. Destroying evidence is a serious offence, but that will not affect the case now. It is all over and done with, and besides, you could deny you ever said and did such a thing. It would only be your word against mine.’

‘Your word is weightier than mine, Walter, but I make no bones about it, that’s a relief. It has been preying on my mind, bringing me sleeplessness.’

‘Forget it,’ said Walter. ‘It’s finished.’

The old man deserved a little peace. 

The main doors opened again and Austerity Hayes and Harry bustled inside.

‘There!’ she exclaimed. ‘Darriteau’s back!’ and they hustled toward the table.

Walter and Wazir shared a look.

Wazir smiled and said, ‘I’ll leave you to your friends.’

Walter rolled his eyes, and Austerity pulled out a chair.

‘Thought you’d deserted us, you old rogue,’ she said. ‘Glad you’re back, anyhow, enjoy your company,’ and she patted him on the back.

Walter and Harry exchanged glances and nods, as Austerity told them about her latest effort to spend her inheritance.

‘I’ve booked six weeks in egg-wiped,’ she said, laughing beneath that ridiculous bonnet that appeared welded to her head. ‘It was the British soldiers who first christened it that in the Great War. They couldn’t say eee-jipt,’ she explained, ‘poor loves!’

Harry smiled at Walter, a begging smile that asked him to bear with the woman, and she was already talking again.

‘And you’ll never guess what?’

‘What?’ said Walter, right on cue, keen to humour the woman.

‘They’ve booked us all a trek into the desert... aboard camels!’

Walter and Harry laughed, and Austerity said the thought that came to both of their heads.

‘It’ll have to be a big bugger to carry me!’

Walter glanced at Harry whose head was twitching in second time.

‘Why don’t you come with me, Darriteau?’

Walter glugged on his beer and stared at the tablecloth.

‘Too busy, I’m afraid.’

Austerity snorted and said, ‘Too bad. It would be fun!’

There were plenty of women Walter would like to go on holiday with, and plenty that he would not. But those he wanted to, didn’t or wouldn’t, and vice versa, and in a way that summed up his life in a sentence. It was a conundrum that he’d never come to terms with.

Austerity continued to tell them of her latest wheeze to spend her funds while she was still alive.

‘If I don’t spend it quick, the Crown will nick it!’ she said.

Harry’s tongue was clicking aloud, second time. Walter didn’t have the heart to tell him. Austerity was rushing through her story at a rate of knots of the childcare facility in the poorest part of the city that had its funding withdrawn. She stepped in and guaranteed to cover the bill for four years.

‘I read about it in the Observer,’ she said. ‘In the bloody paper! And Darriteau! I’m not taking no for an answer this time, I’m paying!’ and she wafted her podgy hand across the table.

Walter and Harry shared a smile.

‘We are living in a time of great austerity,’ she said, ‘and the great Austerity is alive and well and ready for anything,’ she whooped, and that was that.

‘If you insist,’ muttered Walter.

Sometimes graciousness overtakes pride.

They sat and listened to the woman, as she made her way through most of the menu, sometimes eating and speaking at the same time, but Walter’s mind drifted away. He began thinking about the case, about Wazir and Ahmed and Mohammed and Maaz, about Luke Flowers and Jermaine Keating, Gardenia Floem and Sahira Khan, because Walter was a thinking man. It was the thing he did best. It was the one attribute that made him the best detective in Chester, and beyond. Imagination, and deep thought, a potent combination.

Austerity was still eating, speaking, and talking for England. Walter half tuned in. Thought he heard her say: Tomorrow I’m going to eat an Egyptian, though he might have been mistaken. Tuned out again. He’d heard enough. Returned to his thoughts. 

He valued his mind above all else, and consoled himself that it would last a year or two yet. He wasn’t yet ready for the home for retired and retarded minds. Nowhere near. Thanks be to God. Walter caught the eye of the handsome Punjabi kid and ordered the biggest jug of beer they could find. The kid smiled and nodded and turned back to the bar. The world moved on. There would be another fascinating case along in a day or two. There always was.

––––––––

The End.

Book III is coming up in two seconds

and is called “The Twelfth Apostle”.

The

Twelfth Apostle

Chapter One

Kit Napoleon woke up and scratched his neatly trimmed grey beard. He’d slept surprisingly well, despite the fact he had a big day ahead.

He sloped from the bed and went into the bathroom. Glanced in the mirror. Pulled out his tongue. Didn’t care for what he saw, and put it away.

Ran his bear-like hands through his overlong grey hair. He didn’t mind the grey look. He’d long since grown used to it, ever since the occasional grey hair had sprouted while he was still at grammar school, and that was almost thirty years ago.

He began brushing his teeth, all the while rehearsing the brief but witty speech he knew he would be expected to deliver. Casson & Cates, publishers, paid him well, but they needed to, for they sure as heck took a big enough slice of his earnings.

Kit thought ahead to the celebratory luncheon at the Grosvenor Hotel in the centre of Chester, laid on to publicise his new book, Make Money While You Sleep, glossy hardback, big page count, big ticket price. It would be his eighth book, and advance orders had ensured it would enter the book charts in the top five. C & C, as everyone knew them, were still hopeful it could blockbust its way straight in at the top of the pile, and it wouldn’t be the first of Kit’s books to do that.

Kit Napoleon smirked at himself in the glass. Winked even. Life was truly sweet, and what made it all the better was things hadn’t always been that way. He’d tried umpteen avenues as a young man to find fame and fortune and glory, but it was only when he began writing self-help books under his nom de plume of Kit Napoleon that things changed for the better.

So taken was he by the success he changed his name by deed poll and Kit Napoleon became his legal name, much to the chagrin of his parents, who had often been baffled by their offspring, who appeared oddly uneasy in his own skin.

It was true, Kit had never felt secure and comfortable as Keith Higginbottom, a fact he would often allude to in his inspirational speeches where he would invariably include the line: People judge a book by its cover... and a man by his name, and for some reason that brought a guttural laugh to his devoted followers.

A hundred pounds a ticket they paid for their celebratory lunch, and they had sold out within four minutes of being put on sale online. C & C whinged that the punters would have paid five times that, but Kit grinned at the cameras when asked about it, and said it was one of his tiny ways of repaying his growing army of believers and readers.

Parkgate prawns, Flintshire lamb, Cheshire ice-cream, and a more than decent looking hock, light but surprisingly potent, would be set before the diners, including Kit, and he was looking forward to the hock most of all, for he knew it would put him in the mood to charm the gathering. He would use the moment to let slip a teaser piece of news about the forthcoming sixth level that would have them all salivating, as they perched on the edges of their seats, and became used to the thought of producing their credit cards, while thinking of the untold riches that would become theirs.

Kit Napoleon was a genius. Everyone said so, a phenomenon, even, and it was quite true. There had never been anyone before quite like Kit Napoleon.

He glanced at himself in the glass one final time. Navy suit, thin grey stripe, perfect white shirt from the best London maker, gold cufflinks, KN motif, royal blue tie, again bearing the understated gold KN initials, brilliantly knotted, good hair, grey, but neatly refreshed and parted, thoroughly refurbished and whitened incisors that would soon be on full display, trimmed short grey beard hiding his slightly fattening face, bright, light-brown eyes, and he was ready for anything.

Jennifer shouted through, ‘The car’s here, Kit!’

Let them wait a moment longer, he mused. Indeed, it would amuse him to keep them all waiting for a good fifteen minutes. He’d done that before, and no doubt he would do it again.

He fiddled with his cuffs and made certain the links were just so, and then he was ready. He turned about and headed downstairs to collect his calf leather bag. It would be a fine day in more ways than one, and he couldn’t wait to enjoy it to the max.

Chapter Two

Inspector Walter Darriteau had given his sergeant, Karen Greenwood, the day off. She had some kind of fancy luncheon appointment, the kind of thing that Walter would go to great lengths to avoid.

But for once her absence wasn’t important because there had been a lull in serious crime in Chester, and the powers that be considered it a good time to get some of the much-owed holidays out of the way.

True, there was still crime right enough. Stolen cars, shoplifting aplenty, that had almost become a national sport, drink driving, hooliganism, minor spats in pubs; they were all there in abundance, just as they were in almost every developed city on the planet.

But not crime with a capital C. There had been a dearth of that since the Luke Flowers and Maaz Khan case had been put to bed, though Walter wasn’t sure he liked the new quiet and peaceful ambience that threatened to put them all to sleep. In truth, he knew it wouldn’t last, the undeclared amnesty, and he didn’t want it to last either because he only had so many serving days left, and he didn’t want them wasting away on paltry nonsense.

The large phone before him burbled into life.

Walter snatched it up. ‘Yes!’

It was the switchboard person advising him there would be a fire drill in an hour, and did he know where everyone was supposed to assemble? He didn’t, and the girl, young woman, proceeded to give him a rundown on what was expected, throwing in a comment about Mrs West, Walter’s boss, who was also away, on leave for the week, that she was most insistent the drill was carried out to the letter, and a full report be on her desk for her inspection on her return.

While the girl, young woman, was relaying this vital information, his other phone rang. Not one of the deskbound jobs, but his private mobile secreted in his deep trouser pocket, and that was something of a rarity. It was ringing that silly tumbledown ringtone he hated so, but his lack of knowledge of the contraption’s workings had so far meant he was stuck with it.

The girl, young woman, was relaying the location where they must meet. ‘Do you have that?’ she asked impatiently, as she had the distinct impression she was not being listened to.

Walter pulled the mobile from his trousers and looked at the screen. Unknown Caller. He pressed the button and someone, a man, an older man, deepish voice, though not as deep as Walter’s, said. ‘Darriteau!’

Walter did not like being called “Darriteau”. He was happy with Inspector Darriteau, Mr Darriteau, Sir, Guv, Boss, or even plain Walter, but “Darriteau” was how, in his eyes, the gentry addressed their manservants, and Walter was not a servant to anyone, well, maybe the Force, but that was out of choice. He considered it below the belt, and didn’t approve of it.

‘Have you got that?’ asked the girl, young woman.

‘I’ll call you back,’ said Walter.

‘You will not!’ said the man.

‘Are you talking to me?’ asked the girl.

‘Yes, young lady!’ said Walter, and he cut her off.

‘Don’t call me young lady,’ said the deep voiced man, laughing at his little joke.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Walter.

‘Okay, let’s start again, shall we? Do I have your undivided attention, Darriteau?’

‘Yes! And you are?’

‘Chief Superintendent Wortley.’

Walter did not know a Chief Superintendent Wortley, but somewhere at the back of his mind, something vague and distant, it did strike a chord.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

‘Almost,’ said Walter, truthfully, for he was still sorting through the myriad of acquaintances he had made through his long and varied career.

‘Scotland Yard, man, years ago!’

Ah yes, thought Walter. Coins dropping into slots, but he was a mere sergeant back then, Wortley, that is, but still Walter’s boss from those long-ago days, one of Walter’s first bosses, come to think of it, more than thirty years before, when Walter had been attached to Scotland Yard. Melvyn Wortley, to give him his correct name, or even Melvyn Leslie Wortley, if you wanted to be precise and annoy him, because he hated the Leslie part, that’s the fella. What could Chief Superintendent Melvyn Leslie Wortley want with Walter Darriteau after all this time? His voice was the same standard estuary English, south-east England, smart cockney, Wortley certainly thought so. Liked to flash it up a bit, the accent that is, if Walter’s memory served, maybe an octave or two lower now, but he always did like a smoke.

‘The thing is, Darriteau, I need your urgent help on something.’

‘Oh?’

‘We have a little problem down here. I’m still attached to the Yard, by the way.’

What did “attached” actually mean, pondered Walter. Could be any number of things, could hide any number of things, too.

‘I’m now the head of the WPP.’

Walter exhaled. That made things marginally clearer.

‘And, as I said, we have a wee problem.’

‘Namely?’

‘Compromised security.’

‘In what way?’

‘It’s a little embarrassing.’

‘Security breaches usually are.’

‘Yes, well, there’s no point in denying it. It’s happened, so we have to get on with it and make the best of it.’

The best of what, exactly? thought Walter. The guy had always been a windbag. Walter wanted to scream: Get to the bloody point, man! but he resisted. Instead, he found himself saying: ‘Go on.’

‘The location of the safe houses... non secure, not any more.’

‘Oh dear. Then you have a big problem.’

‘We do, and that’s why I need your help.’

Walter did not like what he was hearing and said, ‘How come you are calling me?’

‘Now that’s an interesting point, Darriteau. We ran a computer search, all former colleagues, going back yonks, ex members of the team, so to speak, strict criteria, - still serving, unmarried, reasonable home, no commitments, honest and reliable, trustworthy, and the central brain threw out just twelve names. Only twelve, man, can you believe it? And the funny thing is, we need twelve people, isn’t that a coincidence?’

Walter tried hard not to yawn, but failed.

‘Are you all right up there?’

‘Fine, sir, yes sorry, late night.’

‘Yes, well, we all have to work late nights occasionally. Nature of the beast, Darriteau, as you well know. But going back to what I was saying, if you must know, you were the twelfth and last apostle. You only just made the cut!’

‘Lucky me,’ Walter muttered under his breath.

He still wasn’t sure what his old boss, Melvin, was asking, and when he didn’t understand anything, he had never been afraid to ask. Got him into trouble many times throughout his career, that questioning thing, but he would always ask, always better than acting dumb, keeping the head down, looking for a quiet life. That was never Walter’s way.

‘Chief Superintendent, would you mind explaining exactly what you want from me?’

‘Sorry, I thought I had.’

‘Not quite,’ said Walter, straining to be polite.

‘I’d have thought it obvious. You’re an intelligent man, if memory serves. I have twelve people I need to get out of London today, pronto, pronto, away from our unsafe safe houses, and into safe ones... like yours.’

‘You mean my home?’

‘That’s the ticket.’

‘But I can’t...’ but before Walter could say anymore, Melvin was talking again.

‘I’ve run all the checks, you live alone, your house is perfect, checked it out on Google Earth, not too working class, not too a la la, well away from the big smoke, spare bedrooms aplenty, very few callers, easy to defend.’

Easy to defend? What the hell did that mean, and what was he being roped into?

‘They’ll be with you around 7pm. One Protector, and one Protected. It’ll only be for a few days, a week tops, probably less. It’ll be a breeze.’

‘But I can’t...’

‘Oh, but I think you can, Darriteau, and think of the big gold stars that would be stamped on your record. Helping out Scotland Yard at such short notice: The man couldn’t have been more helpful. I can see that glowing comment on your records right now. You might even land that long hoped for promotion I am sure you deserve.’

Truth was, Walter did not want promotion, he never had, not really. He preferred to remain an Inspector, a Detective Inspector, where he could concentrate on what he did best, detection work. He was a full time detective and wished to remain so. Further up the greasy pole, and he would be pushed into politics and pandering and faffing about with committees and decision making and red tape, and meddling bodies, alive and inert, and worst of all, budgets and finance and blasted administration and damn form filling, and God knows what else.

‘Now listen, Darriteau, this is strictly between you and me, understand? Secrecy is the key. We have already had one breach and there must not be another. Don’t mention anything to your woman boss, and nor to that sexy sergeant of yours either. I know they are both away today and that’s ideal. Here’s my number. Call me anytime you like,’ and Melvin rattled off a mobile number. ‘Tell no one! Got that?’

‘I hear you.’

‘Good man!’

‘Anything else I need to know?’

‘The Protector’s name is Stevie Cliffe, sergeant; he’s a good lad. Been around a bit. Armed. of course.’

‘And the Protected?’

‘Stevie will tell you all about that when he gets there, all you need to know, anyway.’

‘7pm you said?’

‘You got it, Walter. And they’ll need feeding too, nothing too fancy. Steve will have all the official chits. Put in a claim, you’ll be reimbursed the accommodation costs, semi-generous they are too, you don’t have to worry about that.’

Semi-generous, mused Walter. What the heck did that mean?

‘Any more questions, Darriteau?’

‘None.’

‘Good! Just remember, this is TOP secret, so let’s keep it that way. People’s lives are at risk.’

What a pompous oaf he was.

‘Anyway, must dash, eleven more apostles to brief,’ and with that, Chief Superintendent Melvin Leslie Wortley was gone as if he had never been there, the only evidence a scrawled telephone number on Walter’s desk blotter, and scrambled thoughts racing around Walter’s creaking brain, crazy thoughts that no one would ever share, and probably as well.

He stood up and ambled across the quiet office and sat at the screen and signed into the main police computer and searched for DCS Melvin Wortley. There was a lot there, and a great deal of reading to catch up on.

Chapter Three

Gregory Orlando stretched his well-muscled arm around the beautiful blonde and stepped forward to meet the main man. Kit Napoleon liked the look of this couple.

The guy, wide and clean cut and smiling, and the blonde, young, fit and beautiful, just the kind of people he was keen to see at his soirees. One of Napoleon’s minions made the introductions.

‘This is Gregory Orlando,’ he said, looking down at his notes. ‘He’s been with us ages, now a level five man.’

‘Greg!’ smiled Kit, reaching forward and shaking the proffered hand as if they were old buddies. ‘Strange we have never met before, but we have now, that’s the main thing.’

The minion glanced back at his notes.

‘I don’t seem to have a note of the young lady’s name.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ said Greg. ‘This is my girlfriend, Karen Greenwood.’

‘Hi, Karen,’ said Kit, in the mid Atlantic drawl he’d permanently adopted. ‘So glad you could be here with us today,’ and he took her hand and pulled her closer and air kissed her twice, mwah mwah. Karen grinned awkwardly, and glanced at Greg, and tried to return the show of mock affection they all seemed to share and perfect. Her nose was assaulted with thick and fruity man-cologne that Kit bought by the bucket load, and marketed too. That was to be expected, never waste an opportunity to sell, sell, sell, and expensive-looking KN motif bottles would be on sale in the foyer afterwards at £99.95 a pop, and tiny bottles they were too. Exclusive, they liked to say, and to some extent they were. You couldn’t buy them in the shops. Karen recognised the aroma because Greg was invariably daubed in the stuff.

‘I am just in the process of signing her up,’ said Greg, trying hard but failing to think of the fat commission cheque that would come his way.

‘Good! That’s what I like to hear,’ said Kit, grinning and smirking at Karen as if they shared secrets that no one else knew.

‘Make a note of her name and address,’ said Kit to the minion. ‘See if you can get her on the Dubai party.’

It was a line that Kit used a great deal to impress would-be customers, and in due course the flattered newcomers would discover that unfortunately all tickets for Dubai have gone.

Just for once Kit might make an exception, for she would look good on any trip, and would bring something new and vibrant to the party, even if they had to bring the incredibly dull big bloke along too.

Greg bent forward and cupped his hand around Kit’s ear and whispered, though loud enough the others could hear, ‘We’ll all have to be on our best behaviour, Kit. She’s a policeman.’

Kit guffawed. ‘She doesn’t look like a policeman to me! Does she to you?’ he asked the sidekick.

‘No, no, not at all!’ said the minion, glancing at his schedule again, for each individual meet’n’greet hoo-hah was only allocated three minutes. Someone else would have to be cut short.

‘Sorry!’ said Greg, looking sheepish, something he did often. ‘Policewoman I mean, course I do, you know what I meant, she’s a sergeant.’

Karen didn’t worry about that. It wasn’t the first time he’d introduced her as a “policeman”, and anyway, she was too enthralled with Kit. He winked at her through incredibly sparkly eyes for an older man, before he turned away to kiss the hands of a pair of blue rinsers who were taken with the charm of Mr Napoleon, and his wonderful money-making plans and books, and they were in, lock stock and barrel, one hundred percent.

‘Shall we grab a drink?’ said Greg.

‘Sure,’ said Karen. ‘White wine spritzer.’

And they went off toward the bar, as Karen glanced back over her shoulder and saw Kit charming his audience. She watched him glance away from them and back at her and wink again.

Chapter Four

Walter finally accessed the information on Chief Superintendent Melvin Wortley. He, Walter, wasn’t averse to technology, and fully understood the benefits it could bring to the modern policeman, and no modern force could do without it.

He just wished that some people understood that all the modern whizzbang digital go-go-go in-your-face methods should work hand-in-hand with tried and tested old-fashioned police work and systems too.

Both strands had obvious merits, and it was clear to him both were equally beneficial. Technology could and would never supersede human expertise and experience, not completely.

The delay in accessing the pages he wanted and needed had nothing to do with his lack of computer knowledge, but was all to do with jumping through the various hoops and walls with passwords and codes that a man of his rank just about possessed.

He was in. Chapter and verse.

The Witness Protection Programme, WPP, except it was no longer known by that name. Mrs West would dress down anyone calling it by anything other than its correct title: The UK Protected Persons Service. UKPPS! Walter grunted. No one called it that, far too wordy and pompous, but don’t tell Mrs Joan West, his superior, who wasn’t averse to a dash of pomposity.

The UKPPS had been specifically designed to combat organised crime and was run by the National Crime Agency. No doubt that was where DCS Melvin Wortley came in when he’d said he was: Attached to Scotland Yard. ‘Attached, my backside!’ muttered Walter. But sure enough, there was the guy’s name in slightly pulsing green capital letters, Chief Superintendent M L Wortley MBE, answerable only to some unnamed cabinet minister, definitely a woman, because she was listed as a Mrs————, in that way, Mrs dash dash dash etc, because Walter’s security codes only took him so far, solid information, brick wall number one, for him, but that was cool, he didn’t need to know the name of Melvin’s fragrant boss.

There were currently 3,160 people in the United Kingdom being protected, and that was a big number. Hiding, for want of a better word, so the computer informed him, under the auspices of WPP, sorry, the UKPPS. ‘Geez!’ said Walter, ‘How much is all that costing the nation?’

Walter read some of the official speak: Witnesses were the unsung heroes of society. True, thought Walter, and bloody courageous ones as well. The appalling stats came thick and fast. 26% of collapsed prosecutions occurred last year because witnesses or victims were unwilling to give evidence. Shit scared, in street parlance. ‘Geez!’ muttered Walter again. ‘How much is all that costing the nation?’

The UKPPS, so it went on, had been set up to counteract the problem by giving the best protection to anyone whose life might be in danger wherever they may be in the UK. The programme was costing the taxpayer in excess of twenty million pounds a year. ‘There’s your answer,’ muttered Walter, and he added, ‘and the rest!’ for Walter believed in the see a figure and double it maxim whenever budgets and costs and figures and stats were ever mentioned.

‘Did you say something, Guv?’ asked DC Gibbons, who had just come in from a meet with a street drug dealer who sidelined in intel.

‘Oh, nothing. How did you get on?’

‘Waste of time! Not for the first time. Patsy’s all mouth and no trousers.’

‘Keep him sweet,’ said Walter. ‘He still produces the occasional gem.’

‘Well, he’s long overdue! Wanna coffee?’

‘Yeah, ta.’

Back to the screen. 20% of all witnesses reported they had been intimidated, or worse, and 40% reported concerns about coming into contact with the defendant or their associates. Nowt new there, thought Walter. Been going on for centuries. If you say a thing agin me, you’ll have me and my mates to deal with! If you value your life... blah blah blah. Little wonder so many people, vital witnesses in major cases, held their tongues, and you couldn’t blame them for that. But the UKPPS was designed to assist with the problem. That was the theory.

Walter tried to access locations of London safe houses. ACCESS DENIED. Only to be expected. ‘Phut!’ Walter said, his in-word of the moment, for Mrs West preferred it in the confines of the office to the F thing that she certainly did not approve of.

Searched on Twelve Apostles. ACCESS DENIED.

Searched on his own property. UNKNOWN.

That was something.

Searched on Sergeant Steven Cliffe, Stephen Cliffe, Stevie Cliffe, all either UNKNOWN or ACCESS DENIED, so compromised security or not, some firewalls and systems and beta-blockers were still working well enough. Nor could he find anything that related to any operation coming his way, to his manor, to his house, that very evening, if DCS M L Wortley was to be believed.

Walter would have to get home early and hunker down and wait and see what came his way. He wasn’t looking forward to it, and yet it had intrigued him, the whole thing, for nothing like it had ever happened before.

Gibbons came back and dumped the steaming coffee on his desk. It was slurping about in a Women’s Institute mug. Made a change.

‘What are you busy on, anyway?’ asked Gibbons, trying to snatch a look at the screen, just as Walter logged off.

‘Oh, nothing of any interest. Staff assessment reports, that kind of stodge. Boring stuff and nonsense.’

‘You don’t get involved in that claptrap too, do you, Guv?’

‘Try not to, Gibbo, try not to.’

‘I thought that was Mrs West’s domain.’

‘Yeah, it is, usually.’

Walter picked up the coffee. Eased it to his mouth.

The fire alarm went off, very loud, new system, cost a pretty penny; they could probably hear it down in the Wrexham station seventeen miles south, by the sound of it.

‘Shit!’ said Gibbons. ‘And look at that!’ gesturing towards the sheeting rain smacking on the window.

‘Never rains, but it pours,’ said Walter, sinking the drink. ‘Meet you at...’ now where was it? Where did the girl, young lady, say? ‘And don’t forget to take something out with you of value... in case it’s for real.’ 

Chapter Five

Gregory Orlando and Karen arrived back at her flat at a quarter to six. They slumped on the sofa and stared across the sitting-room. He leant across and turned her head and kissed her cold lips.

‘What do you want to do now?’ he asked, grinning.

‘Not much,’ she said. ‘Why? What do you want to do?’

He smirked and rippled his eyebrows and said, ‘Well, you know, we could... it’s your day off, and I took my day off to be with you, and I thought we could maybe cuddle up and have a lie down?’

Geez! she thought. Sometimes he was such a dork. She wasn’t in the mood for a lie down, as he so romantically put it, not with Gregory Orlando or anyone else, come to that, and if that was his best idea as to how to woo a woman, well, hey, maybe he wasn’t the right guy for her after all. But she did like him. She would admit that, if only to herself, and she would miss him too if he wasn’t there, though by crikes, sometimes he could be a real dork.

She’d met him at the health club on the north side of the city. She was a swimmer, did fifty lengths with barely breaking breath, which was why there wasn’t an ounce of surplus fat on her, and she returned to the pool whenever she could.

He was a lifter, iron-shifter, thought himself something of a gym monster, and loved to show off his massive biceps and tiny waist at every opportunity. If there was ever a chance for Greg, as he liked to be called, especially as Karen point blank refused to call him the Hunk, as his previous girlfriend had, good for the ego, if ever there was a chance for him to walk around shirtless, Greg would be there. Thought it killingly attractive to women, and it probably was, though there had to be more to it than that; didn’t there? He wasn’t great on making her laugh, and that was important to Karen, just as it was to most women, and he was pretty hopeless at... well, the whole goddamned business of courtship.

Not like Rodney, who had been brilliant at all that, and Karen would still have been with Rodney, but for the fact that her constant unsociable hours had peed him off, big time.

‘It’s me or your job!’ he’d said one Saturday morning after another frosty row. ‘You choose!’

And she had, and she loved her job more than anything, and certainly more than Rodney.

As for Greg, or Gregory Orlando, to give him his rather flash full name, he was good-looking. That was undeniable, but he was also a.... dork, that was undeniable too. Karen had come to the conclusion he wasn’t especially bright, which was all the more surprising as he was a highly qualified professional man, though for some reason, for any man, especially one with the build of a brick outhouse, to be a male nurse, it did seem a wee bit peculiar, though in twenty-first century Britain there was no reason it should.

‘So,’ he said again. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she said. ‘And after that you can take me out for a light dinner and tell me again all about what I am getting into with Mr Kit Napoleon and his Future Growth and Prosperity Program.’

‘Okay, you got it. He’s great though, isn’t he, Kit, so much KA–RIS–MA! And you won’t regret it, Miss Greenwood. That’s for sure. I love the man.’

‘That much was obvious, Greg,’ as she strode across the room and hustled away to the bathroom.

So that was why she was being a bit peculiar, a little off with him, a bit cold. The dopey bint thought he liked Kit more than he liked her. He grinned and grunted and turned on the TV and tuned to Cee Beebies. He’d show her, later on, by God he would.

Chapter Six

Walter sat quite still in the front room with all the lights off. It was early autumn and still daylight, but with the thick cloud and showers about, and the light fading, no one could see him hunched low in his armchair as he stared out at the road.

Three older kids ran by, bouncing a basketball. The young woman from number 58 came out of the house opposite, all dolled up, a look of excitement and expectancy on her fair face, crossed the road and approached Walter’s house. For a moment, he thought she was going to knock on his door, but she hurried on by. She was out on the town early. Maybe she had a bus ride to a hot date, or perhaps she was going up to Liverpool on the train to meet someone new, or take in a concert. Oh, to be young again. Walter glanced at his watch. Ten past seven. They were late.

He peered around the room. It was tidy enough. His regular cleaner, Iskra Kolarov, worked hard, and kept things from getting too untidy, though he still hadn’t got round to replacing any of his worn out furniture.

He’d hurried home at the earliest moment and made up the single bed in the small bedroom. The Protected would have that. The Protector would have to kip on the couch that lay on the left side of the lounge. If he didn’t like it, tough. One thing was for certain; Walter wasn’t giving up his new king-size bed he’d bought a year or two before. Nothing would move him from that.

An ice cream van rolled up, a jingly bell jangling some popular kid’s tune. What the hell was that doing at this hour? harrumphed Walter, but sure enough a couple of infants appeared from nowhere, stretching up with their precious pennies to reach the small plastic counter. Walter was happy to see a dad appear too, as if supervising things, as he gathered the kids together and herded them home, as they clasped their oversize cornets, all big eyes and happy faces and jerky movements, and it seemed only a matter of time before a dollop of ice cream lay on the street, and tears would be sure to fall.

‘Should be in bed!’ muttered Walter, ‘not slurping ice cream at this hour,’ and for some reason he laughed aloud at his own grumpiness, and sat back in the chair and closed his eyes in the gloaming.

Maybe twenty minutes later, maybe more, squeaky brakes opened his eyes.

Dark nondescript saloon, possibly navy blue, two aboard, both in front, one broad, one slight, if Walter’s watering and squinting eyes were to be believed. Yeah, that was right, two out of the car, looking about, six footers, the pair of them, taller than Walter for sure. The skinny one was wearing a long coat, jeans and trainers, by the look of it, and a trilby hat pulled down over the face. Pound to a penny: the Protected. The wide guy, no hat, short coat, bulky pockets, nervous disposition, glancing about, seemed happy enough, and a moment later two tall strangers were walking up Walter’s garden path as if they owned the place, something that ten hours before would have seemed most unlikely. Walter shivered and hauled himself out of the seat. What the bloody hell had he done to deserve this?

The doorbell rang. Ding Dong, and again, Ding Dong, Ding Dong, sound waves floating down the hall.

‘Okay! Okay! I’m right here!’

Walter unlocked the door. The wide guy, what was his name again; Walter struggled to recall, Stevie Cliffe, stood before him. Spoke with minimal back lift, of the mouth that is, thought Walter, almost like a ventriloquist.

‘Inspector Darriteau?’

‘That’s me, come in.’

The wide guy nodded as Walter stood to one side and the pair of them entered and Walter shut the door.

‘First things first, can I see ID?’

‘Sure,’ said Cliffe, producing his card that Walter took and examined before returning it. He was never one to glance casually at anything important.

‘You can hang your coats up there,’ said Walter, nodding to a row of coat hooks on the other side of the hall screwed into the wooden partition beneath the stairs. They weren’t quite straight. But what the hell did that matter? Walter had never been a DIY fiend and had long realised it, and employed outside experts if it was anything important.

The skinny one turned his back on Walter, removed his hat and coat, and hung them up. Cliffe took his coat off too and jabbed it on the hook.

‘I’ll just go and get the bags,’ said Cliffe, and he nodded at the door for Walter to open it again, and then he was outside, checking up and down the road. Walter could see him through the open door, and he heard the car door open and close, and then the guy was back with two small overnight bags. At least they hadn’t brought long-stay suitcases; that was something.

The tall skinny one shook his head and his short black hair neatly fell into place, only to be pushed this way and that, and then he turned round. The skinny six foot “he”, was a skinny six foot “she”, and no heels either, just flatty trainers.

Cliffe grinned and said, ‘This is Robyn Dapper,’ and Robyn held out a slight white hand.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, letting her tiny hand be enveloped by Walter’s massive black paw. A lightweight voice from a lightweight woman. There was no meat on her anywhere, yet she still looked down on Walter, and smiling that coy smile she probably thought attractive to men, leastways, that was how Walter saw it.

‘Yeah, sure,’ said Walter. ‘Do you want to come on through? Or do you want to see your room,’ he said to Robyn Dapper. She pulled a face. Cliffe said, ‘Maybe later, we’d like something to eat if that’s possible.’

‘Yeah, I can do that.’

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I could use the bathroom.’

‘Oh yeah, sure, I was forgetting, you’ve had a long trip. Help yourself. Top of the stairs on the left, should be nice and clean. I have a good cleaner, Iskra, comes every week.’

The skinny six foot she pulled a face and nodded and bounded up the stairs in three jumps, and the next thing the guys downstairs heard was the squeaky door latch being slid over, something that Walter never used. When he was in the house by himself, he never closed the bathroom door, rarely did even when the cleaner was there, and he couldn’t remember when he last locked the blessed thing.

The men shared a look and went into the sitting-room.

‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Walter, out of something to say. ‘Hope you’re not Jewish... or Muslim, I didn’t think.’

Cliffe grinned and nodded and muttered, ‘Sounds good to me. Got any bread and butter?’

‘Yeah,’ muttered Walter. ‘This is the twenty-first century. I think even I can run to bread and butter, ’cept it’s low fat margarine,’ and Walter slapped his ample tum to make the point that he was trying at some kind of diet.

Cliffe sat on the sofa and took a gun from his pocket and set it on the coffee table. Walter glanced at the weapon. Glock 17. Safe Action Pistol, so the official spiel went. Semi automatic, Austrian made, been around since the 80s, but tried and tested, solid and reliable, polymer framed, in other words it was made of high grade plastic, but don’t let that deceive you, and you would never know to look at it.

Supposed to be invisible to metal detectors in airports and suchlike, though that was debatable, but that was the thinking behind its construction. Massively successful in the USA, outselling most local products. Big in the UK too. A good gun that Walter knew well, if any gun could ever be described as good. Fired seventeen rounds without reload, hence the name, and it was fully loaded too, though Walter wasn’t to know that.

Robyn Dapper came down the stairs; stood in the doorway, glanced at the men, saw the pistol on the low table. Seemed happy enough to see it there, no alarm in the eyes, Walter detected that.

‘Would it be possible?’ she said, not addressing anyone in particular. ‘If I could have a bath later?’

Walter nodded. Extra leccy cost, thought Walter, and he wondered if he could bill the utilities on Stevie’s official little chits.

‘I really need a bath,’ she said again.

‘No probs,’ said Walter ‘I’ll put the immersion on,’ and he disappeared into the kitchen, and the next thing his two visitors heard was the Ping! of the microwave as the sweet and sours came to the boil.

‘Dinner’s up!’ he yelled through, and in the next second they were in the kitchen, grabbing buttered bread and cutlery and a hot steaming plate of ready meal, sweet and sour.

‘Lovely jubbly!’ said Cliffe, making off toward the lounge with his booty.

Robyn and Walter shared a smile.

‘Would you like something to drink?’

‘Juice,’ she said, ‘I only ever drink juice.’

‘Yes, juice, quite. What else? You go on in, I’ll see what I can rustle up.’

––––––––

THE HURRIEDLY PREPARED juice consisted of peach juice stolen from an old tin of the creatures, don’t look at the sell-by date, at least five years out of time, but heck, it was juice, wasn’t it? Juice never goes off... does it? What the hell? Walter had long forgotten it was there hiding at the back of the cupboard, and half and half with tap water, seeing as it was thick and oil-like, and voila, a juice she would sip all evening until it had gone. But she resisted the temptation of a second glass, and Walter made a mental note for day two: Buy juice!

They sat together for a couple of hours in silence and watched TV, mainly the news channels, whether by accident or design, and then she said, ‘Bath, okay?’

‘Sure,’ said Walter, ‘Should be steaming hot by now.’

She stood up and walked to the door, but paused. ‘Do either of you chaps need the bathroom before I get in there. I may be some time.’

‘I do!’ said Cliffe, jumping up and pushing past her and running up the stairs, leaving the gun unattended. Walter noted that.

‘Yes, well, I think I’ll go too,’ said Walter, as Robyn smiled at him as if he were the inmate of a nursing home. The thought of being caught short in his own house was too much to contemplate, and he didn’t fancy filling a bucket in the kitchen, not with company in the house.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Take your time, Walter.’

Bit familiar, he thought, but she seemed friendly enough, if a little weird.

Both men were soon back downstairs, suitably relieved and refreshed, and Robyn smiled again without showing teeth and jogged up the stairs, as Walter sat opposite Cliffe and turned off the TV.

‘Don’t think you should have left the gun unattended.’

‘You think she might have grabbed it?’

‘Not so much that, just the thought of you being unarmed.’

Cliffe adjusted his seating position and reached in his left pocket. Pulled out another gun and set it on the table. It was a chunky, ugly thing that Walter did not recognise.

‘What is it?’ 

‘SIG Sauer P226. Some of the guys don’t like it, but I do. Originated in Switzerland from Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft, but Swiss law restricts the export of firearms, except in exceptional circumstances, so they are made in Germany under licence.’

Walter nodded. ‘What do they fire?’

‘Nine 19 mill Parabellums, packs a punch... you wouldn’t want to mess with it.’

Walter reached over and picked it up. Got the feel of it. Guns all felt different. Some you like, some you don’t. Bit like women, but he could see the attraction of the kit.

‘Which do you prefer?’

Cliffe grinned. ‘Both!’ and he leant over and took back the SIG and slipped it in his pocket.

‘So, do you want to tell me what this is all about?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Every damn thing.’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘We’ve got all night.’

‘Got any beer?’

Walter nodded and went to the kitchen.

Came back with four cans of stout and two glasses.

‘Lovely jubbly,’ said Cliffe, taking a can and squishing it open. ‘She’s famous, you know?’

‘Who? The stick insect?’

Cliffe grinned. ‘Yeah, who else?’

‘Not to me. Go on.’

‘Well, Inspector, have I got a story for you...’

Chapter Seven

Greg and Karen found a table in a smart city brasserie and ordered drinks and gawped at the menu.

‘What do you fancy to eat?’ he asked.

‘The usual.’

‘What? Poached salmon and a few assorted leaves?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Why don’t you have a proper dinner for once? Steak and chips?’

‘No!’ she said, brooking no argument. ‘Would you still like me if I was huge?’

‘Course I would.’

‘Liar! A figure like this doesn’t happen by accident, you know. It has to be worked on.’

‘You don’t need to tell me of all people that. Do you think it was just luck that I got to look like this,’ and he pulled up his loose shirt cuffs and bent his arm and flexed his massive muscles that resembled a particularly fine ham, and that attracted the attention of two dolls dining on an adjacent table. One smiled at him, fluttered her eyelashes, and raised her eyebrows. Good for the ego.

‘Stop showing off!’

‘So,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know about Kit Napoleon?’

‘Pretty much everything.’

‘We’ve been through all this before.’

‘Well, we are going through it again,’ and not for the first time her professional training came in useful when dealing with, and talking to, an evasive man. Always get them to tell the whole story twice, and if and when any of the important facts and figures differ, they are the lies. Most men are liars. Sooner or later they are, that went without saying. ‘Tell me how much it’s going to cost and what precisely I get for my money, and most importantly, what guarantees have I got the whole thing’s not going to go tits up?’

Greg exhaled over-loudly, annoyingly so, as far as Karen was concerned, and then he began, just as his rare T-bone steak was placed before him.

‘Brill!’ he said, smirking at the pretty waitress. ‘French mustard please.’

‘Go on,’ Karen said, hand feeding a couple of leaves into her pinkened mouth. ‘Don’t get sidetracked.’ 

Chapter Eight

Walter leaned back in the chair and made ready for his evening bedtime story. Stevie Cliffe sniffed and began.

‘Her real name’s Jessica Stone. I wouldn’t normally reveal such information, but as you’re likely to see her face in newspapers and magazines everywhere, there’s no harm in you knowing, no point in denying it.’

‘Famous for what?’

‘Geez! You are out of touch, old man.’

Walter shook his head. ‘It’s Inspector, actually.’

‘Sorry, Inspector, no offence. She’s a supermodel. Very successful. Highly paid. Very desirable.’

Walter sighed and said, ‘Do men really find women like that attractive?’

Cliffe smirked. ‘I bloody do!’

Walter recalled his Aunt Mimosa’s old advice to him as a young man. Find a nice brown girl with bumps. Robyn, Jessica, the skinny six foot she thing, whatever she was called, could hardly be more different. The thin, albino complexioned woman barely had a bump on her anywhere, and that ridiculous short black hair that flopped up and down in an incredibly irritating manner whenever she loped across the room would drive him crazy. He’d like to grab the scissors when she was asleep and snip it off, that or insist she grew her hair like a proper woman.

‘She comes from a good family.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Her dad was a marquis, something like that, some kind of minor aristocrat, though she pretends to hate the idea.’

‘It’s easy to hate and make fun of the aristocracy when you belong to it.’

‘Yeah, s’pose so, though things have not been so good for the guy.’

‘In what way?’

‘Had big financial problems, so the stories go, brought on ill health.’

It wasn’t unusual for old money landed families to get into financial difficulties in twenty-first century Britain. Big old crumbling houses costing a fortune in upkeep, and hefty death duties whenever a daddy died. Been going on for more than two hundred years. It wasn’t uncommon.

‘So the strange looking daughter goes out and finds herself a lucrative career as a model to bring money into the happy home.’

‘That’s how I read it,’ said Cliffe, squishing open a second can. 

‘So why’s she on witness protection?’

Cliffe stroked his chin and upper lip.

‘You’ve heard of the Barton brothers?’

‘Yes, course, I am a policeman of almost forty years standing.’

‘Yeah, sure, sorry Guv, well apparently Ricky Barton used to take his floosies to all the London fashion shows, actually the truth was his floosie of the time dragged him along against his better judgement.’

‘And?’

‘Robyn, let’s call her that, came out on the catwalk wearing some stunning, if outrageous dress, more absent than present, loped along the platform, sulky sultry look set on her fair face, fringe bobbing up and down like billy-o, and the story goes that Ricky, who was sitting on the front row with his tart, stood up with his mouth open like a starving shark, and shouted: “Fuck me!” which, as you can imagine didn’t go down so well with the fashion glitterati. Someone behind him gently pulled him back into his seat and Ricky was politely warned about his behaviour. Usually, if anyone so much as objected to anything Ricky said, or did, they would end up with a cracked nose at best, or a missing or busted limb at worst. But that day, so legend goes, he was so smitten he actually apologised. Funny thing was, Robyn was so taken by his outrageous attention, and gawping eyes, that she smiled, something that no one could remember witnessing before. There’s a famous photo of it somewhere, you must have seen it, that smile, her face cracking up, and then she winked at our dear friend, before turning about, and the backless strapless number loped off down the track and slipped out of sight through the dry ice.’

‘And they got together?’

‘Sure did.’

‘That very night?’

‘Yep. He hurried backstage and wouldn’t be denied, bribed a few handlers with handfuls of twenties, and there he was before her, kissing her hand, apologising for making a show of himself, pledging undying love, or whatever it takes to win a supermodel’s heart, and that was that. It must have worked because from that day on the previous floosie was given the bum’s rush, and Robyn, Jessica as she was then, was well and truly in. Living with him within the month, wanting for nothing, in that vast white house down by the Thames he bought off the England football captain when he lost all his money in the insurance market scandal.’

‘So what happened next?’

‘When the brother, Billy Barton, set eyes on her, well, he felt the same way.’

Walter exhaled. Shook his head. Didn’t say anything else, and Cliffe continued.

‘Rumour has it she liked Billy too, rumour has it that before long Robyn was seeing both of them, but I don’t know about that, none of my business.’

‘It caused a rift between the brothers?’

‘Maybe, but that wasn’t the main thing.’

‘Go on.’

‘After a year or so Robyn, or Jessica, must have discovered the Barton brothers were not the rough-arsed builders and hauliers she imagined them to be. Oh yes, they did operate those businesses too, but also as you know, they were, or are, hoodlums, extortionists, robbers, and... murderers.’

‘She must have been a bit naïve?’

‘Maybe so, but don’t forget she was young, and when you take into account her background, she must have lived a fairly sheltered life, maybe it wasn’t surprising.’

‘So it came as a bit of a shock to the upmarket girly?’

‘You can say that again. But nothing compared to witnessing a brutal murder.’

‘Mmm. Yes, that would wake up most of us. Go on. Tell me more.’

Chapter Nine

Karen was masticating leaves like Daisy the cow.

‘I’m waiting,’ she said.

Greg emptied his mouth of tender steak and said, ‘I told you before. The in-ticket to level one is three grand.’

‘Sounds a heck of a lot to me.’

‘No it isn’t, not for what you get.’

‘And what is that exactly?’

‘You know all this.’

‘Don’t keep saying, you know all this! You are trying to relieve me of a month’s pay and I want to know what I’m getting for my hard-earned. Either put up... or forget it!’

‘Yeah, sorry.’ Greg recognised his commission cheque was on the line. He needed to do more work on the girl to close the deal.

‘It sounds to me like a pyramid scheme.’

‘It’s not! That’s rubbish, Karen,’ and he wanted to say again that they had been through it all before, but didn’t dare.

‘So what do I get?’

‘You get the products and... you get the privileges.’

‘Good! At last. Maybe we are getting somewhere. Let’s start with the products.’

‘You want me to list them all?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘God, you are one hard woman to deal with,’ said Greg, and he smiled his best hunk smile, ‘but if the woman wants the details, she shall have them.’

‘Good. Go on.’

‘Well, first of all, you get your own website.’

‘I don’t want a frigging website!’

‘You do!! It’ll be an earner for you. A sleeper. You’ll earn money while you sleep, while you are at work, while you are on holiday, while you are in the pool, while you are being naughty, while you are doing absolutely any damned thing! All the time you are on this planet you are earning money.’

‘And the website will be called what?’

Greg exhaled and cut another piece of steak. ‘WWW dot FGPP dot com forward slash Karen Greenwood.’

She grinned and said, ‘And the forward slash is important?’

‘Course it is... get out of here!’

‘And what else?’

‘The website sells the products for you. You don’t need to do a thing, the books, the software, the courses, it’s all automatic, re-routed through HQ, and it’s on all the time, 24/7. That’s the beauty of it, you’ve seen how well my site does. Yours can be just as good.’

‘And it recruits too?’

‘It can do, if you want it to, but there’s no obligation.’

‘Can I ask you something about money?’

‘Course! You can ask me anything you like. We’re a couple, we don’t have secrets, you can ask me anything you damn well please, you know that.’

Karen nodded and said, ‘This three grand I am giving you to give to Kit and his mob, how much of that does he kick back to you as commission?’

‘Well... err, well, I am on level five now, as you know, and well, you’ll be on level one, just as soon as you sign up, so it’ll be something quite decent.’

‘How much, Greg?’

Greg shifted in his seat and tried to catch the eye of the waitress. It wasn’t going as well as he hoped and maybe another white wine might smooth the way.

‘God, you are a hard man to pin down! How much, Greg?’

‘A thousand.’

‘Geez. Lucky you! You’ve done all right, haven’t you?’

‘I was thinking of taking you on holiday with it, if you must know.’

Karen smiled. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘Where to?’

‘Anywhere you like.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah... within reason.’

‘I’d like to go to Madagascar.’

‘God, that’s different.’

‘You said anywhere.’

‘Within reason, I said. Anyway, the thing is, if you don’t sign up soon someone else might get in before you and take your website address.’

‘The Karen Greenwood part, right?’

‘Yes. Exactly.’

‘Unlikely, I’d have thought.’

‘There are sixty Karen Greenwoods on Bookface alone.’

‘Are there? How do you know?’

Greg smiled and said, ‘I looked, when I was checking out your pages. So, can I tell Kit you are in?’

‘I’m still thinking about it.’

‘Geez! What have I got to do to convince you?’

Karen gazed into his eyes and smirked.

‘Say no more, I’m right there!’

Chapter Ten

Cliffe sat back on the sofa and blinked and said, ‘The story goes she came back late one night from a fashion soiree. Ricky had wanted to go too, went to all her shows, but cried off, blaming vitally important business.

‘She arrived home earlier than expected. Heard shouting and hollering in the house. The brothers probably didn’t hear her come in for all the commotion; the door to the sitting-room was ajar. She glanced in and saw the deed.’

‘Who was it?’

‘A guy called Bradley Samuelson, ran an online bookies, the brothers had lost a huge bet, but insisted they had won all along and demanded a big payout. Samuelson wouldn’t pay and it cost him his life.’

‘Shot?’

‘No, nothing so clean. Billy had hold of the bookie, pulling him back with an old wire coat hanger around his neck, Ricky went to the kitchen, collected the biggest and sharpest carving knife in the house, sliced off Bradley’s nose with one swish, the guy’s mouth must have opened, too good an opportunity for Ricky to miss, grabbed the guy’s tongue, hacked that off too, it was found later on the carpet, then stabbed him in the eye, and again in the guts.’

‘Jesus!’

‘You can say that again.’

‘And the skinny six foot she thing witnessed all that?’

‘Pretty much. It must have looked like the bloodiest scene in some gangster movie. Probably didn’t believe what she was seeing.’

‘Must have messed with her mind.’

‘You can say that again.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Jessica turned about and staggered across the hallway intent on getting out of there, but it must have got the better of her, she felt dizzy and began vomiting over the marble floor, and the retching must have alerted the brothers. Next thing is they are beside her, comforting her, but she is not to be comforted, started screaming “MURDERERS!” at them, and didn’t stop.’

‘How did she get away?’

‘She didn’t, not initially.’

‘So, what happened?’

‘They kept her in the house. In the morning Ricky called the model agency, told them Jessica had fallen down the stairs, broken her leg, would be off for at least six months, told them to cancel all her bookings, they were shocked of course, sent flowers and cards and chocolates, all that stuff. Tried to get in and see her too but were turned away, too ill, they were told, and that house is a fortress, and Jessica Stone was held there as a captive against her will, not allowed access to the phone or internet, cut off from the outside world.’

‘What about the father? The marquis? He must have wondered what the hell was going on.’

‘Conveniently, for the Barton brothers, he had suffered a heart attack while out grouse shooting in the frozen north. Financial worries had got the better of him, so the doc’s report said. He wasn’t in any position to make any enquiries about anything, at death’s door for a while, and shortly after that he popped his clogs.’

‘Does she know?’

‘She does now. She didn’t then.’

‘So how did she get away?’

‘That’s a story in itself.’

‘Well, go on, do tell.’

‘The boys were at the races. Derby Day it was, big showpiece event. I think there’s a bit of the gypsy in them, Derby Day and gypsies go hand-in-hand, and the Barton boys booked an expensive box in the main stand a few doors down from the Queen herself. They didn’t want to miss out on that. Left Jessica in the house with two minders. Let her watch it on the TV. Promised to wave if the chance arose. She must have realised it was her best opportunity, while the brothers were out of the house, probably realised she’d have to be brave and decisive. It might be her only chance.’

‘Go on.’

‘She killed one of them.’

‘What!’

‘God’s honest truth, Guv. She gutted one of the minders like gutting a bloater. The bigger more imposing of the two as it happened, using the same knife the forensic boys say, and it must have been too much for the other guy who, terrified, fled upstairs. She hurried outside, walked into Henley-on-Thames and jumped a cab for Scotland Yard.’

‘What happened next?’

‘She spills everything she knows, strikes a deal that gives her immunity from prosecution, so long as she puts the Barton brothers away forever. She receives new ID the lot, though it’s hard to give new ID to someone famous.’

‘Thought we didn’t do deals?’

Cliffe grimaced. ‘You know how it is, Guv, if the benefit’s great enough the world’s your oyster.’

‘And the bookie?’

‘Never found him. Rumoured to reside beneath a vast new hypermarket in Essex, probably beneath the butchery counter.’

‘So, Robyn or Jessica, is put into a safe house and guarded round the clock?’

‘Correct.’

‘But the location of the safe houses are compromised?’

‘Correct again.’

‘How? By whom?’

‘Presumably agents operating on behalf of the Barton boys who are now in custody and on trial for murder, and much more besides, and there is one key eyewitness on whom the whole shebang depends, and that person, the skinny six foot she thing, as you call her, is wallowing in your bath.’

‘And these agents would do anything to shut her up, to kill her?’

‘You got it, Guv. There is a known contract out on her life. One hundred gees. Big moola!’

‘That would attract the pond slime.’

‘Sure would, and it does.’

‘And no one knows you are here?’

‘Let’s hope so.’

‘So who does know?’ asked Walter.

‘You, me, six foot she, and the Chief Super.’

‘No one else?’

‘Not that I know of, you haven’t told anyone, have you?’

‘Course not.’

‘Just as well. Secrets have a habit of leaking out.’

‘Yes, as we’ve seen with the safe houses.’

Stevie nodded.

‘They’ll come looking for her,’ said Walter.

‘Course they will. That’s why there’s a loaded gun on the table, and another in my pants.’

They both glanced at the dozing Glock, happy to see it there.

Walter coughed.

Cliffe continued. ‘You didn’t know all this, about the Barton brothers and Jessica Stone?’

‘No, not all of it, knew they had been arrested, but how many times have they been arrested over the years? Must be dozens. After a while it doesn’t register.’

‘It’s had loads of coverage in the gossip pages.’

‘Don’t read the gossip pages.’

‘Maybe you should.’

Walter snorted. Said, ‘Yeah, maybe I should,’ and then he added, ‘Been busy on my own murders, tends to dominate the thinking.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘So now I am sharing a bed with a supermodel who is known to have killed a man?’

Stevie nodded and grinned and said, ‘Lucky you!’

‘I don’t mean literally, providing a bed for, if you prefer.’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘Do I need to lock up my carving knives?’

Cliffe laughed. ‘If it makes you feel happier.’

‘Mmm, maybe I will.’

‘Hi, guys!’

They glanced up and the skinny six foot she thing was standing in the doorway, wrapped up in a long white towelled gown, barefoot, neat feet, nice toes. Her black hair, wet and neatly combed like a choirboy’s, severely parted on the left, not a hair out of place, a hint of pinkness in her white cheeks, a hint of rose perfume permeating the sitting-room.

‘Talking about me, were you?’

The men shared a look.

‘Course not,’ said Walter. ‘Stevie’s been showing me his weapon.’

Robyn Dapper smirked down and didn’t say a word.

Cliffe laughed, as she sat down and began painting her nails, bright scarlet.

Chapter Eleven

Greg and Karen arrived back outside her modern block of flats at just on 11pm. Greg was driving, though Karen would have preferred to. He switched off the engine and extended his arm around her shoulder and kissed her.

‘So,’ he said, ‘Do you want me to come in?’

‘You’d better,’ she said. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ said Greg, though she was already out of the car and didn’t hear.

She fixed some coffee, and they sat together on the cream sofa, as she said, ‘I’m a bit uneasy about the whole thing.’

Greg pulled a face, blew out air and said, ‘Can’t understand why. What’s the problem?’

‘It all feels a bit dodgy.’

‘Dodgy! Don’t be silly. Dodgy, it isn’t! You saw that presentation about Artesia.bmg. There’s nothing dodgy about that, is there? I could see you were moved by it. God, we all were!’

That was true. She had been moved by the Artesia.bmg video. Who wouldn’t be? Began with little black kids in Africa drinking water from a muddy hole shared with cattle and assorted wild animals, who pissed and shat in the water. Then it showed the same village a year later, after Artesia.bmg had been in and opened up an artesian well, complete with three stainless steel taps, and the same, slightly larger but still familiar kids, filling their cans and bottles and plastic containers, and their mouths with the cold, fresh clean liquid that bubbled up from the earth, and tumbled forth from the taps. The kids stared at gushing water as if it was done by magic and clung to the Artesia.bmg engineers who had transformed their lives. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

‘Don’t forget,’ Greg said, ‘Five percent of all earnings, yours, mine, Kit’s, everyone’s, goes directly to Artesia.bmg to eradicate poor drinking water supplies across the globe, and the more one earns, the more one donates. I’m proud to donate my share and you will too, and I often think of the kids I’ve helped, and maybe even saved some lives though this fantastic initiative.’

‘That’s true,’ mumbled Karen, though she couldn’t help think the way Greg described it sounded awfully pompous, or was it pretentious? Perhaps both, and she smirked at the idea.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘So,’ he said, thinking he might have won her round. ‘Can I sign you up?’

‘I’m thinking about it.’

‘Don’t be such a doubting Thomas!’

‘I am not! And that’s the second time today you have referred to me with a male name.’

‘Thomasina, if you prefer.’

She went quiet for a moment and said, ‘I’ll sleep on it,’ when in reality she wanted to run the idea by Walter and get his opinion. ‘Might ask Walter about it.’

‘You do that,’ he said, rubbing her back like a baby’s. ‘He’s an intelligent man. I’m sure he’ll see the benefit of saving little black kids’ lives in Africa.’

Karen thought that a stupid thing to say, but didn’t comment, as Greg said, ‘Do you want me to stay the night?’

Typical of him, the finesse of a blind rhinoceros, though in truth she had considered the idea, though he didn’t need to know that, and she found herself saying: ‘No, not tonight, Greg, I’m really not in the mood.’

‘Oh, why not?’

‘I’ve got too much on my mind,’ which was not really true. More of a stock answer.

Greg grinned and said, ‘I thought I was here to banish these horrible thoughts from your mind.’

‘Yeah, well, it hasn’t really worked tonight, Mister Orlando. Sorry, and I’m really tired,’ and she jumped up and hustled into the kitchen and washed the coffee mugs, and Greg realised she wanted him to go home. 

Chapter Twelve

Across town, Walter and Stevie Cliffe watched the newly bathed super model walk across the room and plonk herself in an armchair.

She sat with her legs scrunched up beneath her, which looked awfully uncomfortable to Walter, and began painting her nails.

‘Nice bath?’ he said.

‘Super thanks, Walter. I take it I’m in the small front bedroom? Taken the liberty of moving my stuff in there.’

‘Yes,’ said Walter, ‘Is that okay?’

‘Fine. Slept in plenty worse places,’ which conjured up odd images in both of the men’s minds. One couldn’t imagine that of a marquis’s daughter.

She yawned, and did even that in a gangly kind of way, thought Walter, and then she said, ‘Actually, I’m bushed. I think I’ll turn in.’

Walter stood up and said, ‘Yes, me too. I have to be up early in the morning. You all right on the sofa, Steve?’

Stevie Cliffe nodded and scratched his ear.

‘I’ll get you some bedding, a duvet and stuff.’

Stevie grunted and nodded and Walter followed the model upstairs, where he gathered up the necessary and went back down. Cliffe was standing by the sofa, stretching his arms wide as he yawned.

‘This should do you,’ and Walter threw the bedding on the couch.

‘Ta.’

‘What time are you thinking of getting up?’ asked Walter.

‘I usually get up around seven, but I’ll let milady sleep in as long as she wants.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘Will you be going out?’

‘Definitely not! And you won’t tell anyone at the station we are here?’

‘Course not. ’

‘Are all the doors locked?’

‘Yep. Locked and bolted.’

‘I’m a light sleeper, comes with the job. I’ll wake you if there’s a problem.’

‘You do that,’ said Walter. ‘Shall I leave the door open or closed.’

‘Wide open. I don’t want to have to open internal doors.’

‘Okay, sleep well.’

‘Ta Guv, you too.’

Walter took the empty beer cans to the kitchen and threw them in the bin. Checked both of the doors one last time and headed upstairs. The loo had been flushed, and the model came out of the bathroom, smiling.

‘Are you sure the small bedroom is okay for you? You can have my big bed if you prefer.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but thanks, Walter, I am fine in here,’ as she headed for the little room.

‘If you’re sure.’

‘Goodnight Walter, and thank you.’

‘Goodnight, err, miss,’ momentarily unsure what to call her, for she seemed to be the girl with a hundred names.

She paused in the bedroom doorway. ‘And no sleepwalking during the night, eh?’ she said, ‘accidentally stumbling into my room. I need my beauty sleep. My career depends on it. I know what you older gen’mum can be like,’ and she giggled and closed the door behind her.

Walter went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. She’d been using his toothpaste. Must have left wherever she’d come from in a hurry. He went into his room and undressed and slipped into the bed, naked. He always slept naked even in the depth of winter. He reflected on her words. I know what you older gen’mum can be like.

Dopey girl! If she happened to sleepwalk into his bedroom, she’d see more than she bargained for, and before he went to sleep he tried to remember how long it had been since two other people had slept under his roof. He couldn’t think of a single occasion, and he was still thinking of that as he tumbled down into sleep. I know what you older gen’mum can be like!! Phut!!

Chapter Thirteen

He slept well, no interruptions, woke early, wet shaved, tried not to make too much noise, and dressed. The door to the little bedroom was closed, and he went downstairs.

Cliffe was already up too, making coffee and toast in the kitchen.

‘Making a bit of brekkie, hope that’s okay?’

‘Course,’ said Walter. ‘Help yourself,’ cutting a fresh piece of bread to make toast for himself. ‘All quiet?’

‘Yep, not a sound all night. Let’s hope it stays that way.’

‘I’ll bring in something for dinner,’ said Walter, making a mental note to add it to the ever-growing official chit to cover his expenses.

‘Great,’ said Cliffe. ‘Fish and chips would be nice.’

Walter hadn’t considered providing fish and chips, and cod was bloody expensive, but so long as someone else was paying, why not?

‘There’s a spare set of keys in the kitchen drawer if you need it.’

‘Ta.’

‘Do you want me to ring you during the day?’

‘Rather you didn’t,’ said Cliffe, and Walter could understand that.

‘Okey-doke, I’m off,’ and Walter let himself out.

It was a lovely autumnal morning, dry and bright, though Cliffe’s car was covered in dew. A huge spider had built a web across a space in the garden gate, and was patrolling its domain like an angry sentry. Must have been hoping for the best. Walter would be too big, even for him.

Walter ambled to the end of the road and stood by the bus stop. Glanced at his watch. 7.38. There were three other people waiting, regular early morning commuters, and he nodded at them and they nodded back. The bus came pretty much straight away. It was a good service into town, and he sat and stared through the window on the ten-minute trip.

The traffic was not so busy at that time and he hopped off in the city centre and ambled into the convenience store to buy a morning paper. On the counter beside the till were some short-dated cartons of juice. Down in price! He bought a reduced sugar cranberry and a similar orange. Job one accomplished. Saving the taxpayer a few pennies too, and fact was, the six foot she thing would be long gone before the sell-by-date expired. Leastways, he hoped that would be the case.

Back in the office, Karen came in ten minutes later.

‘Morning, Guv. On a health food fad, are we?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The juice.’

‘Oh no, nothing like that, buying them for the neighbour.’

It was a lie, but what could he do about that? He couldn’t tell her the truth.

‘Did you have a nice lunch on your day off?’

‘Yeah, it was great. As a matter of fact, I wanted to talk to you about that, but first things first. Anything happening here?’

‘Nope. Not a great deal, nothing to get too excited about. The great Chester crime famine seems to be continuing, but make the most of it, because it won’t last, nothing’s more certain.’

‘Give me a chance to get some of the old paperwork up to date.’

‘In saying that, there was a burglary in a house adjacent to the zoo, and you’ll never guess what went missing.’

‘Do tell.’

‘A bag of bananas!’

‘Geez! Maybe it was a gorilla!’

‘I thought that, but no residents reported missing from the zoo, so we can rule that out. Probably just some local kids. Tell me about your lunch?’

‘Bit of a long story.’

‘Well, the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll finish.’

‘Have you ever heard of a guy called Kit Napoleon?’

‘Charlatan!’ Walter snapped.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Sells, in quotes, Money Making books, and runs some kind of weird income schemes and streams. Wouldn’t touch it with next doors.’

‘Greg says...’

‘Who’s Greg?’

‘Oh, didn’t you know? He’s my new man,’ Karen said, grinning.

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘Where I meet all my men friends, at the fitness club.’

‘Is he fit?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘And how long has this been going on?’

‘There’s nothing going on, as you quaintly put it, but I’ve been seeing him for about six weeks.’

It was nothing to do with Walter, but she didn’t mind talking to him about it.

‘What’s he like? This Greg person? Is it serious?’

She smirked and said, ‘Questions, questions,’ and then she added, ‘he’s a bit of a gym monster, if you must know, and no, it’s not serious. To tell you the truth, he can be a bit of a dork.’

Walter wasn’t sure what a dork was, but it didn’t sound great.

‘And this Greg, he’s in one of Kit Napoleon’s schemes, is he?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And he wants you to join?’

‘He does.’

‘And how much is that going to cost you?’

‘Three grand.’

‘Three grand! I hope you told him to stuff it.’

‘I didn’t. I mean, I haven’t yet. I told him I’d talk to you about it.’

‘If you want my advice, and presumably you do, seeing as you wanted to talk to me about it, my advice is run a mile. Keep your hard earned in the bank, in an ISA, in a building society, in premium bonds, even under the bed is better than giving it to Kit Napoleon and his ilk.’

She thought about that for a second and said, ‘The thing is, Guv, Greg is doing really well out of it. I’ve seen his figures.’

‘Course he is, because he is getting others to pay his commission.’

‘Suckers like me, you mean?’

‘Correct, if that’s how you want to put it.’

‘But that’s not all. There is this amazing company called Artesia.bmg that collects five percent of all the earnings across the entire group, and all that money goes to providing wells for clean drinking water to kids across Africa and God knows where else, It’s saving lives, Guv, really it is, the presentation was so moving.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘I’m not. It’s probably either faked, or just a sentimental strand to get you to part with your cash.’

‘Yes, maybe, that’s why I thought if you have a few minutes, some time, could you look into this Artesia.bmg thing for me?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Aw, please Guv, I’d really really value your opinion.’

‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘when I’m not too busy,’ and they both knew he wasn’t too busy right then.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Walter, ‘I think the provision of good clean water to the third world is an absolute priority, and I’m not alone in that. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, to name but two, are pouring untold wealth into that. Billions of dollars, and good on them too. But it’s a global disgrace to mankind in the twenty-first century that young children are dying because they are drinking fucked up water!’

And in the way he said it, Karen knew she’d touched a raw nerve.

‘Yeah, course, you’re right Guv, anyway, any info and insight you could offer, I’d appreciate it.’

Walter harrumphed.

‘He’s a very impressive man, by the way.’

‘Who is? Greg?’

‘No, well yes he is too, but I meant Kit Napoleon.’

‘In what way?’

‘He is just so damned...’ and she paused as if trying to think of the right word, and came up with ‘charismatic, no... magical, that’s what he is, magical.’

‘He’s a snake charmer!’

‘You seem to know a lot about it all of a sudden.’

‘Met dozens of snake charmers in my time. He’ll charm every last penny out of your bank account, mark my words...’

‘I’m not a fool!’

‘Well, don’t act like one!’

And with that, Karen picked up some files from the desk and disappeared in a mini huff down the corridor to the old paper records department.

DC Darren Gibbons sauntered in, carrying a large polystyrene cup of coffee and a tablet computer.

‘Glad you could make it,’ mumbled Walter.

‘Sorry, Guv. I had another message to meet Patsy. He said it was urgent.’

‘And?’

‘Load of tosh! Talking through his backside.’

‘Care to elaborate?’

‘I wouldn’t want to waste your valuable time, Guv.’

‘Let me decide, eh?’

‘Well, Guv, he came out with some cock and bull story about some gangsters from the big smoke who have put up a big reward for anyone who can find one of their girls who’s done a runner, and I mean BIG money! The guy wants her back PDQ. Must think a lot of her.’

‘Any description? Of the girl?’

‘For what it’s worth, tall, white, educated, good-looking, that’s about it.’

Good-looking is relative, thought Walter.

‘Do we have a name?’

‘No, not that I know of.’

‘And they think she’s holed up somewhere round here?’

‘No, not particularly. I think it’s an all stations kind of alert.’

That was something, at least.

‘Keep in touch with Patsy about this. He might be on to something. Go and see him again tomorrow morning. Lean on him hard if you have to.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and Gibbons made to move away, but stopped and said, ‘Do you know something about this?’

‘No.’

‘It’s just... you seem unusually interested.’

‘No, DC Gibbons, just interested, that’s all. Not unusually interested. Good detectives always pay attention to any intel coming from the streets, you know that.’

‘Yeah sure, Guv. Whatever you say.’

Gibbons sat down, still thought it a bit odd, and began making phone calls.

Walter went online. Logged on to Artesia.bmg’s website.

Made interesting reading too.

Chapter Fourteen

At the end of the day, Walter asked Karen to drop him off at the supermarket.

‘Didn’t really think of you as a supermarket kind of man,’ said Karen, as they headed onto the ring road.

‘We all have to eat, Karen.’

‘Mmm,’ she said, unconvinced.

On the way he said, ‘I looked into Artesia.’

‘Did you? Thanks. And?’

‘Looks pretty genuine. Based in Austria. Now why would that be?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Perhaps a tax dodge? Doesn’t mean to say that Kit Napoleon and his frizzy plans are above board and legit, mind.’

‘Is Kit on Artesia’s board?’

‘No.’

‘What do you make of that?’

‘It would have been better if he was.’

‘I’ve been thinking...’

‘What about?’

‘If Kit Napoleon’s business is above board and legit, I have nothing to worry about. But on the other hand, if he’s bent and up to no good, maybe we should know about it, anyway.’

‘So what are you proposing?’

‘I thought if I put some money in, it would make it easier to get involved, and investigate, from the inside.’

‘And if it’s dodgy you lose your money, while if it’s not, you might, and I say MIGHT in capital letters, you might get your cash back.’

‘Something like that.’

‘And you’re willing to invest three grand of your own money to find out?’

‘That’s the thing, Guv. I wondered if you could have a word with Mrs West...’

‘Oh, no! There is no way on earth I am going to ask my boss to tie up public cash with this Napoleon character, and even if I did, she’d bounce me in an instant.’

‘Pity,’ Karen said. ‘In that case, I might have to bite the bullet and do it myself.’

‘You know my thoughts on that. I think you’ll lose your cash, but if there is anything I can help you with, you only have to ask.’

‘Thanks, Guv,’ and as she said that, she pulled the unmarked car into the supermarket car park. ‘But Artesia’s good, yeah?’

‘Looks that way.’

‘Thanks again.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘Be careful!’ and slid out of the car and grabbed a trolley, and even that appeared a wee bit odd to her, Walter limping away, pushing a clattering trolley.

Chapter Fifteen

He bought more than he intended, but didn’t everyone in these palaces of consumption? He’d planned to get the free bus service back into town and then the usual bus back home.

But there was a small taxi rank outside the store and the temptation was too great, and he did not fancy wandering around, waiting for buses with three bags of supermarket swag.

The taxi driver was a chatty, middle-aged woman with blonde hair and dark roots.

‘Spent a lot, ’ave ya, mate?’

‘Too much.’ 

‘S’always the way.’

‘Tis that.’

‘What’s your line of business, if you don’t mind me asking?’

Tell no one nothing; that old line came back into his head.

‘I’m a zookeeper.’

‘Are ya? How exciting. Love the zoo, me. Take the grandkids as often as I can. Don’t suppose you have any free tickets?’

‘Sorry, we don’t get them anymore.’

‘Typical,’ she said, ‘miserable sods,’ and she clicked her tongue and shook her head. ‘What animals are you on?’

‘Eh?’

‘What animals do you look after?’

‘Alligators!’ said Walter, trying not to laugh.

‘Are ya? God, that must be exciting.’

‘It can be.’

‘Bloody dangerous things, I would think.’

‘You have to keep your wits about you,’ and as he was saying that, she was pulling the car to a standstill behind Stevie Cliffe’s dark saloon. Walter gave her a big tip, and she said, ‘Ta, pal, I’ll remember you,’ and she watched him in the mirrors as he struggled out with his groceries.

He gave her a little wave as best he could and she nodded and grinned, and she pulled away and turned left at the end of the road, and thought, hang on a minute, hang on, she had never seen alligators at Chester zoo. Didn’t believe there were such things. He was a bullshitter, that’s what he was. But that wasn’t unusual; there were a lot of them about. She didn’t believe half of the nonsense she was told in that cab. He was a good tipper though. She’d remember that, and she’d remember him. 

––––––––

INSIDE, THE TWO OF them were playing pontoon on the coffee table, using Walter’s cards out of the old sideboard. The Glock was still on the table, didn’t look like it had moved an inch.

‘Hi, Walter,’ she said, and he wondered if they’d had a boring time locked up in the house all day. Walter stood in the lounge doorway and nodded at Cliffe and said, ‘Everything okay?’

‘Quiet as the proverbial. Just as I like it.’

‘I’ll get some dinner on.’ 

She jumped up and followed him into the kitchen.

‘Have you had a busy day, Walter? Can I help you with anything?’

‘Yes, and yes, and look here,’ and he took the two cartons of juice out of the bag and handed them over.

‘Thanks, Walter, you are spoiling me.’

‘And for dinner, three fish, chips, and mushy peas, ready meals, take thirty minutes in the oven.’

Didn’t say anywhere on the packet they were cod. God alone knows what the fish was, but within the hour all the food had vanished, though the girl with a hundred names carefully picked all the batter from the fish, pushing it to one side of the plate. Cliffe noticed that and reached over and jabbed his fork into the leftovers and stabbed them on to his plate. Walter thought that a bit of a nerve, because he wanted to do the damn same thing.

‘Bought a lemon cheesecake for afters,’ said Walter, grinning at the thought of it.

‘Great stuff!’ said Cliffe. ‘Don’t forget to put it down on your expenses.’

‘None for me, thanks, Walter,’ said the girl. ‘Watching my weight.’

‘What weight?’ said both of the guys as one.

Jessica grinned like a happy kid.

‘No, but I would have if I ate your cheesecake, and then where would I be? Out of work, that’s where.’

‘Getaway!’ said Walter, and after that the evening followed the same pattern as the night before, almost a carbon copy.

‘I know you’ll think it’s silly, but do you think I could have another bath? I like a regular bathe.’

Walter raised his eyebrows. He bathed twice a week in the winter, and twice as often in the summer. The autumn was mix and match, but if she wanted to bathe every day, that was fine by him. Immersion heater on again. More leccy. More cost. More things to remember for the ever-growing official chit list. But it served a purpose, getting her out of the way, because Walter wanted to talk to Cliffe about a couple of things.

––––––––

WHEN SHE’D GONE, WALTER said, ‘There’s been a little development.’

Cliffe sat up in his chair. ‘Like what?’

‘One of our snouts reported there’s a big payday on offer for anyone who can locate a girl.’

‘Our girl?’

‘Looks that way.’

‘That’s worrying.’

‘Yes, it could be.’

‘Do you think they have an inkling she’s holed up round here?’

‘Hard to say.’

‘Did you tell your boss?’

‘No, she’s still away. I’ll have to tell her when she comes back. How long are you likely to stay?’

‘I’m waiting for a call from the gaffer.’

‘Maybe you should call him, tell him what we know, see if he has any news on moving you on.’

Cliffe nodded and pulled out his phone. Selected the number. Pressed call. Phone switched off. Not very helpful.

An hour later, the girl reappeared. Same white robe.

‘I know you have been shopping already today, Walter, I didn’t think, and I’m sorry about this, but I have a little shopping list.’

‘Typical woman,’ said Cliffe, as he sat and polished the Glock.

‘Do you want some money?’ she asked.

Walter glanced at the list. Toothpaste. Mouthwash. Camomile tea. Decaf coffee. So much for only drinking juice. Echinacea. What the hell? Shampoo, very specific brand. Vegetarian sausages. Low fat yoghurt. Cholesterol busting margarine, and a few other things too.

Walter glanced at Cliffe.

He nodded and said, ‘Stick it on expenses.’

‘Thanks,’ said the girl, ‘I’m turning in, need my beauty sleep, night-night,’ and she disappeared.

Chapter Sixteen

In the morning Walter was up early, Cliffe was up too, no sign of movement from the little bedroom, door closed. Not a sound. Walter nodded a goodbye to Cliffe, paused in the front door and came back for the shopping list, nodded again and went outside.

Same as, same as. Sid the spider was still there, dewy web, ever hopeful, the car was still there too, sleeping, untouched dew covered, getting dusty, tyres inflated ready for a quick getaway, and the sun was still on display, low in the sky, getting into its stride. Another fine day forecast, a true Indian summer.

Gibbons had been to see Patsy. Reported back the money was still on offer. Girl still missing, so the underground grapevine reported. A big opportunity for someone, and the Cheshire county crime amnesty had stretched into another day. No murders, suspicious deaths, serious assaults, rapes, armed robberies, serious frauds, terrorist offences, et al, reported anywhere. Walter knew darned well what would happen. They would all come at once.

At the day’s end, Walter asked Karen, ‘Can you drop me off at the supermarket?’

‘What, again?’

‘You heard me.’

‘If I didn’t know better,’ she said, grinning, ‘I’d say you have a new woman holed up in Darriteau towers... with a big appetite.’

‘Nothing like that. Just take me to Bestdas, or whatever it’s called.’

On the way she said, ‘I’ve decided to take the plunge.’

‘What? You’re getting married?’

‘No! Don’t be stupid.’

‘Don’t tell me, Kit Napoleon?’

‘Yeah, in a way.’

‘What way?’

‘Well, Greg, my bloke, has guaranteed my money.’

‘How does that work?’

‘Exactly that. He says if I lose a single penny of my three grand he will reimburse me.’

‘Mmm,’ said Walter, seeing holes in that arrangement everywhere.

‘You don’t sound impressed.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Why?’

‘Well A: I simply don’t think it’s a good idea, and B: what happens to your guarantee if you and Greg go your separate ways?’

‘I asked him about that, and he says he will still pay me. Though honestly, I don’t think I’ll lose anything, and anyway, the more I think about it, the more interested in the whole organisation I’ve become. I’d really like to check it out from the inside, and to do that I need to be a member of the team.’

‘Be careful, that’s all!’

‘I’m always careful, Guv, you know that.’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘Do you know what Echinacea is?’

It wasn’t what she thought he was going to ask. She waggled her fair head, slowed the car to a crawl as it entered Bestdas car park and said, ‘Some kind of health pills, I think, yeah, I’ve seen them at the fitness club.’

‘What do they do for you?’

‘I have no idea. Are you okay, Guv?’

‘I’m fine, just a favour I am doing for a friend,’ but she knew that was a lie because she could tell when he was not being truthful with her. But she knew he would tell her if and when he wanted.

‘Have fun,’ she said as he slid out of the car.

‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Money is hard earned and easily lost.’

‘I’ll cut off his nadgers if he lets me down,’ she said, grinning and laughing as she drove away.

––––––––

WALTER BOUGHT EVERYTHING on the list, plus four cans of stout and a huge crusty loaf, including the Echinacea that came in a funky purple bottle. Good for boosting the immune system, it said, use in moderation. Didn’t that apply to everything? He might try some. Almost as stupid a comment as bags of walnuts bearing statutory health warnings that said: MAY CONTAIN NUTS. Yeah right, and that applied to the European Union, too. Freaking nuts!

Outside in the watery sunshine, Walter spied the taxi rank, and the cab, and the blonde woman, and the protruding roots.

‘Hello again, Crocodile Dundee,’ she said, grinning, as Walter loaded his swag into the car. ‘You told me a porky-pie!’

‘Did I?’

‘You know you did! There is no such thing as alligators at the zoo. Fibber! So what do you do?’

‘I’m a bus conductor.’

She seemed to accept that for a second, but then said, ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire! They don’t have bus conductors any more.’

Walter clutched his shopping and guffawed.

‘So what do you really do, mister man of mystery?’

‘I’m a private investigator.’

‘Are ya? That must be exciting.’

‘It has its moments.’

‘I’ll bet. I could have done with you.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Yeah. You could have followed my bastard of a husband around for a start. He said he was playing golf at all hours, when all along he was f..., well, you know, with that fat cow behind the bar in the Crown. It’s why I’m working the bloody cabs.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘Don’t be! Got my own back. Cut the legs off all his best suits, just above the knee, you should have seen his face!’

Walter laughed and said, ‘I can imagine.’

‘What’s your name, man of mystery?’

‘Walter. What’s yours?’

‘Carrie. Carrie the Cab, they call me.’

‘Nice to meet you, Carrie the Cab.’

‘And you too, Walter. Are you married?’

He was about to say no, but found himself saying, ‘Yes.’

‘Yeah, thought you would be. The funny ones always are.’

Funny ones, thought Walter, and as he was thinking of that, she was gently pulling up behind the saloon. He paid the fare gave her another big tip, and she smiled and said, ‘May see you around, Walter.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, as he glanced at the open gate, and the gun that lay on the grey slabs half way up the garden path.

Chapter Seventeen

It was Cliffe’s SIG Sauer P226, the Swiss gun made in Germany to comply with Swiss law, or one just like it. Walter approached in silence and carefully set his shopping down on the small lawn to the right side of the path. He stooped and picked up the gun.

By weight, it felt loaded. Sniffed the barrel. It had not been fired. He approached the front door. It was pulled to, but not closed, not locked. He eased it open.

There was no sound in the house. No TV or radio, no happy card playing going on, no running water, no chatter, no music, no food being prepared, nothing.

Walter crept inside, did not close the door, didn’t want to make a sound, searched the house, his house, his home. There was no one alive in the building. There was a dead body in the lounge. Flat out on the floor. Head slightly propped up against the sofa. A single hole in the centre of the white forehead. Lots of blood on the carpet. Walter’s old knackered carpet that he’d meant to replace. Oddly, he thought of his cleaner, Iskra Kolarov, the bright Bulgarian girl. She was due in on the Saturday morning. What the hell would she make of that? One thing was certain; the crime amnesty in Chester had come to a brutal and bloody end. He needed to speak to Chief Superintendent Melvin Wortley.

––––––––

LIZZY MORGAN FROM NUMBER 58 opposite had seen Walter return home. She’d been waiting for him. She came out of their house, checked the light traffic, crossed the road, nodded at Sid the spider in the front gate, and went up the garden path. The recently painted maroon front door was ajar. She tapped on it and stepped into the hallway.

Walter appeared from the sitting-room and met her in the hall. She thought he looked nervous, no not nervous exactly, alarmed, no, not quite that either, it would take a lot to alarm Walter Darriteau, everyone knew that. But something weird had gone on in that house that day.

‘I did knock,’ she said, ‘the thing is, can I come in for a sec. I need a word with you.’

Walter thought of the body and bloody floor.

‘Sorry, what’s your name again?’

‘Lizzy Morgan.’

‘And you live opposite, don’t you? Number 58?’

She nodded and smiled, exhibiting large immaculate whitened teeth which stood out against the fake tan.

‘The thing is, Lizzy,’ and he tried to usher her back toward the front door, ‘I am just in the middle of something important right now. Can I come over and see you in half an hour?’

‘Yes, course you can,’ she said. ‘That’s fine, Mr Darriteau.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you soon.’

The young woman nodded and backed out onto the step and then she paused and said, ‘You will come, won’t you, Mr Darriteau? It’s very important. Mum and dad want to speak to you too.’

‘Oh yes, Lizzy, I’ll come.’

She nodded and grinned self-consciously and turned about and hustled down the path and across the road and disappeared into number 58.

Walter closed the front door and went back into the lounge. Tried hard not to look at the body. Sat in the armchair and pulled out his mobile and rang work.

Gibbons answered straight away. ‘What are you on the phone for so soon, Guv? You’ve not long left.’

‘There’s a phone number on my blotter, forgot to put it into my mobile. Need it now.’

Gibbons jumped up and went to Walter’s desk.

‘Have you seen your blotter? It’s covered with mobile numbers.’ Fact was, Gibbons wanted to say: You need to get into the twenty-first century, mate, and though he knew his boss could take a joke, maybe that wasn’t the right moment.

‘Down in the right corner somewhere.’

‘There’s three or four numbers there.’

‘It’s the one with the name Wortley by it.’

Gibbons scanned again and saw the name and found the number.

‘Oh yeah. Here it comes...’

Walter fed it into his mobile.

‘Is anything going on?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Nope, nothing,’ said Walter, glancing at the body and the blood, before looking away at a print on his wall of some beach in Jamaica that always made him homesick, though the feeling never lasted long.

‘Anything happening with you?’

‘No. Not a thing, Guv. Unnaturally quiet, don’t you think? Hate it when it’s like this. What we need is a couple of good bodies.’

‘Be careful what you wish for. Make the most of it, Gibbons. It won’t last.’

‘Yeah, sure, Guv. Anything else?’

‘Nothing, see you tomorrow,’ and Walter cut off.

He rang Wortley, and the man answered as if he was half way through his dinner.

‘Ah, Darriteau. What’s the matter?’

‘Big problem.’

‘Go on.’

‘We have a body.’

‘Oh geez! Protected, or Protector?’

‘’Tor.’

‘Any sign of the Ted?’

‘None, she’s missing.’

‘Any sign of a struggle?’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Oh my God! How was Cliffe killed?’

‘One shot through the forehead. Very neat, very professional.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘I came home just before seven. Found the front door ajar. Found...’

‘Okay, listen; I’ll get D7 to you before midnight. Don’t let anyone in the house, don’t report it to anyone, you got that?’

‘The people opposite want to talk to me. Think they might have seen or heard something. I’m going over there as soon as I have finished talking to you.’

‘Okay, report back on that. But don’t tell them anything, nothing at all. Tell them it was a police exercise if you have to say something, spin any kind of waffle you like, seem to remember you were quite good at waffling.’

Walter didn’t comment on that drivel and said, ‘He tried to ring you last night.’

‘Cliffe?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was our anniversary. Took the wife to Covent Garden, I fell asleep. She loved it. You have to keep ’em sweet.’

‘I have the SIG Sauer. It has not been fired. The Glock 17 is missing.’

‘Doesn’t get any better, does it?’

‘Just reporting the known facts.’

Wortley coughed, didn’t comment

‘Does he have any children?’

‘You mean Cliffe?’

‘Yes,’ who else? Walter wanted to add, but didn’t.

‘Yeah, two, boy seven, girl five. Very proud of them, he was.’

‘I’ll bet. Oh dear.’

‘Okay. Get across and see the neighbours. Find out what they know and report back.’

‘Has there been any trouble with any of the other Apostles?’

‘No, nothing, nil, as far as I know. Just with the Twelfth Apostle, that’s you, Inspector.’

That’s hardly my fault; Walter wanted to put on record but knew that would be a waste of time. Instead he said, ‘So what does that tell us?’

‘It tells us that the Barton brothers have better intel and informants than most.’

‘You might want to look into that.’

‘Oh, we will, Walter, we will,’ and with that Wortley rang off and returned to his luxury steak and ale pie.

Chapter Eighteen

Walter slipped the phone in his trouser pocket. Gathered his thoughts, glanced down at Cliffe’s body, pondered on the whereabouts of the six-foot she thing, and what sort of state she was in, and went to the front door and let himself out.

Sid the spider scurried away into a crevice when he saw Walter approaching, or maybe he was hunkering down for the night, for the sky was clear and the temperature falling.

Walter crossed the road and opened the garden gate to 58 and walked up the path. They must have been watching and waiting because the door opened before he could knock. The young woman was there with a nervous smile.

‘Thanks for coming, Mr Darriteau, go on through. Mum and dad are waiting for you.’

Walter couldn’t remember setting foot inside number 58 before. The house was the same layout as his, three bedroom Edwardian detached, built around 1905. A substantial building, built to last. The Edwardians didn’t muck about. Wouldn’t tolerate shabbiness in any form, and that trait had been inherited from the values of the late Queen. But any similarity between the Morgan’s place and his ended there.

He glanced around the room. Thick pile carpet, trendy grey, looked new. Light oak furniture, looked new too, two inviting cream sofas, expensive, smelt that way. Mr Morgan did something at Hawarden airport, Walter wasn’t sure what. The sofas were placed parallel opposite one another, with a vast flatscreen TV that took up half of one wall. The whole place resembled a five-star hotel.

‘You know mum and dad?’ said Lizzy.

‘Yes, sure,’ and he stepped forward as Mr Morgan stood up and shook Walter’s hand.

Mrs Morgan said, ‘Hello Walter, I won’t get up, I’ve ricked my back.’

‘Take a seat,’ said Mr Morgan, and Walter plopped down opposite them in the most comfortable sofa known to man, with Lizzy balanced on the end.

The Morgans knew Walter well enough, they knew he was a policeman, and a Detective Inspector. Everyone in the road knew that. He was a celebrity in a minor way, often appeared on the telly or in the papers. There was that horrible murder diaries murder business from a year or two ago and Walter had been on the telly a lot back then, and no one would ever forget Walter Darriteau. He’d even been invited to open the church fete, but had stipulated that he could only attend depending on the number of murders he was investigating at the time, and that sure as heck impressed the fete committee. The vicar wasn’t so sure he was the right man for the job.

‘So what’s been going on?’ asked Mr Morgan, and all three of them leant forward as if he were about to tell them a thrilling story.

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

Daddy Morgan nodded at the apple of his eye, Lizzy, and said, ‘Tell the Inspector all you know, Liz.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I was just coming home, half-past three, it was.’

‘You’d been to work?’ asked Walter, unable to stop himself asking questions.

‘Yeah. Bestdas. I’m on the till.’

‘Go on.’

‘I was coming up to your house when I saw your front door opening. I thought that was unusual ’cos you are never in during the day.’

‘And?’

‘A tall gangly woman came out. Two men had hold of her, gripping her by the arms. I thought, what the hell’s going on here, must have been two policemen arresting the girl, that’s what I thought, well you would, wouldn’t you?’

‘And then?’

‘They pushed her into the car, ’cept it was more of a people carrier thing, dark green it was, perhaps Japanese, maybe a Toyota, I’m not very good on cars, but I thought it a funny vehicle for the police to use.’

‘Did they say anything, shout anything?’

‘Not that I heard.’

‘Tell me about the men.’

‘Like what?’

‘Description, anything.’

‘They were fit looking, but not like the fancy young guys you see in the pub. Late twenties, or more likely early thirties now I come to think about it. Not the kind of guys I’d go for.’

‘What were they wearing?’

‘Blue jeans and black jeans,’ she said, impressed with her own recollection. ‘And white short sleeve shirts like you see at Wimbledon. But grubby.’

‘And what happened after that?’

‘Not much. They jumped in the car thing and drove smartly away, not roared, but didn’t hang around either. It huffed away.’

‘Huffed?’

‘Yeah,’ and she grinned in that captivating way of the vivacious teenager. ‘I didn’t get the number plate, but the first part was definitely HUF, so I remember thinking it kind of HUFfed away, silly I know...’

‘No! That’s great Lizzy; you are doing well, what else? Tell me about the men. Were they white?’

She nodded. ‘Oh yeah.’

‘Hairstyle.’

‘Nah!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They didn’t have a style. They’d be laughed out of the pub. Kind of greasy, unkempt, uncut, neglected, really,’ and on hearing that all the Morgans couldn’t help but glance at Walter’s wild grey hair that kind of stood on end as if it had seen a ghost, and that needed a cut too, but no one would say.

‘After they had gone,’ continued Lizzy, ‘that’s when I saw the gun.’

‘On the path?’

Lizzy bobbed her head.

‘Did you touch it?’

‘Nah. I was going to, but I had this horrible feeling I might fire it by mistake and blow my foot off.’ And then she said, ‘I need my feet,’ and she giggled like the kid she was. ‘Kept an eye on it though, all the while until you came home in Carrie’s cab. She’s well known at Bestdas, is Carrie. I kept watch in case any kids saw it and picked it up, but none of them did. Just as well, really.’

Mrs Morgan, who has been quiet till then said, ‘I heard the shot.’

‘A gunshot?’

‘Yep, pretty sure it was. A loud crack. Had the windows open. Was lying on the couch with my bad back, and all, heard this big bang, it was just before our Lizzy came home.’

‘Just the one shot?’

‘Yes. I sat up and saw the three of them coming down the path, just as Liz said. There was a bit of a struggle in the middle of your path and then they bundled her into the van thing.’

‘Maybe that’s when they dropped the gun,’ suggested Lizzy.

‘Maybe it was,’ said Walter.

‘What’s going on here, Walter?’ asked Mr Morgan.

Walter exhaled. ‘Can I take you into my confidence?’

They all sat closer still.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Morgan, breathlessly, and the others nodded.

‘I have been advised to tell you that it’s all a police exercise, but that’s not true.’

The three of them exchanged puzzled but impressed glances.

‘The fact is, I have been looking after the young woman. Some very bad men have taken her away against her will. If you tell anyone about this, ever, her life might be endangered. Understand?’

He glanced at each of the Morgan family in turn. They all had their mouths open, and were nodding gently.

‘Total secrecy,’ whispered Walter. ‘Can you do that? This is most important. I can’t stress it enough.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Morgan. ‘You can rely on us.’

‘Will you catch them?’ asked Lizzy.

‘We will, with your help. If you think of anything else call across and tell me, come anytime. It’s never too late, or you can ring me no matter what time it is, here are my numbers,’ and he took out a card and set it on the oak coffee table. ‘Okay?’

Mr Morgan picked up the card and passed it round.

‘How exciting,’ said Mrs Morgan.

‘Better than the telly,’ said the kid.

‘Don’t forget, you mustn’t tell anyone, not a soul, not the neighbours, not at Bestdas, not in the pub, not at the airport. Her life could be in danger. Understand?’

They all nodded again and Mrs Morgan did that zip movement with fingers across her mouth, and the other two copied and the kid said, ‘Total silence,’ and Walter nodded and Mr Morgan said, ‘I’m forgetting myself. Would you like a cuppa tea, Inspector? Or something stronger, maybe?’

‘No thanks, not now. Another time, perhaps. I have to go back to work. Lots to do.’

‘Course,’ said Mr Morgan. ‘We won’t keep you a moment longer,’ and with that he showed Walter to the front door. 

Chapter Nineteen

Karen had only been in the flat ten minutes when the landline rang.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hi, sugar.’

‘What can I do for you, Mister Orlando?’

‘Well, I thought I might be able to do something for you.’

‘In what way?’

‘Thought I might buy you dinner.’

‘Oh Greg, I don’t feel like going out again.’

‘Actually, I didn’t mean that.’

‘What then?’

‘I have to go to Bestdas, ran out of razor blades, so I thought I might pick up one of those fresh carrier bag type things they do, you know, those complete Indian or Chinese meals.’

Karen liked Indian food, and Chinese too, and she hadn’t planned anything for her evening meal, which was her only real meal of the day. ‘Just one thing...’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Two things.’

‘What, what?’

‘Get a shave first.’

‘Yes, milady.’

‘And bring all the Kit Napoleon stuff with you.’

‘Okey-doke. Indian or Chinese?’

‘Indian, and not yucky korma, something fiery, I’m in the mood for something hot.’

‘Best news I’ve had all day.’

Karen giggled. ‘Not you, you schmuck!’

Greg ignored that and said, ‘I’ll be a couple of hours.’

‘Fair enough, I’m not going anywhere.’

‘See you later,’ and then he was gone.

––––––––

HE TURNED UP AT THE flat an hour and three quarters later, clutching a bag of lamb tikka, and cans of premium cider he knew she liked. She’d slipped on a tiny beige skirt and a skinny flower patterned blouse that was almost see-through, and she looked hot.

‘Something hot,’ he said, trying to think about food, setting it down on the kitchen worktop.

‘Kiss first,’ she said, and he was happy to oblige, as she fell into his bear-like chest.

Minutes later they were eating their way through Bestdas best supermarket Indian curry, sitting together on the sofa, steaming curries balanced on their knees, and by crikes, it was hot, tasty though, and Karen tried not to think of the calories. The only things she had consumed that day were two muesli bars and an apple, so she was comfortable with that.

‘Did you bring the Napoleon stuff?’

‘Course I did.’

‘I have a few more questions.’

‘Geez! Are you a detective, or something? Ah, but of course you are,’ and they both laughed. ‘Guess I didn’t expect anything else. Fire away?’

‘Artesia.bmg are an Austrian company. Why is that?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s a tax thing, I have no idea. Is it important?’

‘Probably not. Walter mentioned it. And you’ll guarantee my money?’

‘Said so, didn’t I?’

‘Will you put that in writing?’

‘Do I need to?’

‘Are you prepared to?’

‘If I have to.’

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘You don’t, I’ll take your word on that. I’m in, but on two conditions.’

‘Like what?’

‘What level are you on again?’

‘Five, you know that.’

‘When I get involved in anything, Greg, I only do so on the basis of full commitment. I always give everything I’ve got to give, no matter what I’m involved with. It would be the same with this. I’d want to get to level five too, and soon.’

‘Okay, but you’ll have to work at it.’

‘I can do that.’

‘I’ll help you all I can.’

‘You’d better.’

‘There’s a conference coming up, a weekend promotional thing, next month sometime.’

‘When exactly?’

Greg checked his tablet, showed her the dates.

‘Sign us up!’ she said.

‘Don’t you need to check first if you can get the time off?’

‘Leave that to me. Just sign us up.’

He was happy at the thought; she was an amazingly decisive girl when the mood took her, though something in him wondered where all this newfound enthusiasm had come from.

‘Do I make the cheque out to you?’ she asked, setting the empty dishes to one side. She jumped up and went to the low modern Danish sideboard her dad had acquired for her when she first bought the flat. She pulled open the drawer and took out her chequebook and a good pen and went back and cuddled into Greg’s arm.

Pen poised over the cheque she said, ‘To whom?’

‘The Future Growth and Prosperity Program. American spelling on the Program.’

She wrote the cheque and signed it with a flourish.

‘Can’t wait to meet Kit Napoleon again. Will he be at the conference?’

‘Course.’

‘Good!’

‘It’s not all about him, you know.’

‘I think you will find it is.’

He pulled a face and didn’t say anything, went over to his case and tugged out the paperwork. Then he was back, balancing the file and papers on his massive thighs.

‘This is the contract, in duplicate, you have to sign it there and there, and there’s a thirty-day cooling-off period if you change your mind.’

‘I won’t change my mind.’

‘Whatever, and this is the direct debit for your ongoing subscription. £99.95 a month.’

Funny how that had never been mentioned before, thought Karen, but what the heck. She was either in or she wasn’t, and then she asked, ‘How much of that do you get back in commission?’

It was an uncomfortable question and after a pause he said ‘A third,’ without any hint of guilt.

‘And how many members does Future Growth now have?’

‘It’s become a rapidly growing worldwide organisation.’

‘How many members, Greg?’

‘That’s a confidential number. No one knows for sure.’

‘How many members, Greg?’

‘Well, if you must know, that’s a stat that only level five members are privy to.’

‘How many members, Greg?’ she asked, pointedly holding on to the cheque.

‘78,000, give or take, and you didn’t hear that from me. The big target is to bust a hundred thou. Think we might do it for Christmas. That’s the goal.’

Karen’s brain ticked over. 78,000 each paying in a hundred quid in round figures every month, that was £7,800,000, or seven point eight million in easy round numbers, every single month, and that was before the up front investment of three grand a pop. That could easily total a hundred and fifty million quid a year, gee whiz, and growing fast. No wonder Kit Napoleon looked smug.

Karen felt the adrenaline careering about her slim body. Wondered how much of that the charismatic Kit was creaming off for himself. Wondered what kind of con she had stumbled into. Wondered too about how much she could slice off for herself, she had a big mortgage to pay, before thinking again about Future Growth’s numbers. Released Greg the cheque. Signed the contracts. Jumped up and went to the kitchen for another can of cider.

Shouted through, ‘Want another drink?’

‘No, better not, driving.’

She came back into the sitting-room with two frosty cans. Stood in front of him. Handed him down a can and said, ‘Don’t drive.’ 

Chapter Twenty

Walter let himself back into his house. Went into the sitting-room. Tried not to look at Cliffe’s body. Failed miserably. Thought of the children who now didn’t possess a father. Tried hard not to. Failed again.

He took out his phone and rang DCS Wortley. The guy must have been standing by because he answered real quick.

‘Two men,’ said Walter.

‘Go on.’

‘Aged around thirty, white, unkempt, blue and black jeans, grubby white tennis shirts, took the Protected out, put her in a people carrier, Japanese vehicle, possibly a Toyota, dark green, drove off smartly, but not too quick, and the registration plate is thought to start with HUF.’

‘I’ve got that. Anything else?’

‘One gunshot heard, possibly from the missing Glock. The SIG Sauer I have, as you know. That has not been fired.’ 

‘Give it to the D7 people later.’

‘Got it.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not that I can think of.’

‘What did you tell the neighbours?’

‘Told them it was top secret and people could get hurt if they mentioned it to anyone.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think they’ll keep quiet.’

‘Good man.’

‘Did you locate the source of your security breach?’ asked Walter.

‘Oh yeah, didn’t I tell you?’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘Some stupid young sergeant. Took the big payday. Forty grand. He won’t do it again, he’ll be charged with accessory to murder.’

‘Too late for Stevie Cliffe.’

‘Correct.’

‘What about the Protected?’

‘What about her?’

‘What’ll happen to her?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Suppose it depends on how much the Barton brothers like her. No doubt they’ll have her holed up somewhere, pending the trial.’

‘I quite liked her.’

‘I thought you might. Between you and me I don’t think we’ll ever see her again.’

‘Do you want me to look into her abduction from this end?’

‘No! Certainly not. So far as you are concerned, once the D7 boys have been and done their stuff, the case is closed.’

‘Bit of a mess, really.’

‘Sometimes it goes that way, Darriteau, as you well know. The Twelfth Apostle is now officially redundant.’

‘Call me if you need anything else.’

‘Oh, I will, and you call me if anything new turns up.’

‘Okay.’

‘Speak to you in another thirty years, Darriteau,’ and Wortley rang off.

Walter went through to the kitchen. He hadn’t eaten but wasn’t really hungry. Kept thinking about Jessica Stone, and wondered where she was right then. Wortley had instructed him not to look into her disappearance, but that didn’t sit right. And he wasn’t especially busy either. He’d have to do it quietly, but he wasn’t about to let it go.

He cut some bread and made some toast. Opened the cholesterol busting margarine and whacked it on top. It wasn’t bad, better than he expected, especially after he’d trumped it with a layer of solid honey.

––––––––

THE BLACK UNMARKED van cruised to a stop outside his house at ten to midnight. Walter was sitting in the dark, sharing the room with a dead body, a small gap in the curtains to monitor arrivals. He jumped up and closed the curtains, turned the lights on and went to the front door. Two guys there, late thirties, Londoners, neat haircuts; world-weary attitude that said they had seen everything there was to see. Walter beckoned them into the hall and asked for ID. Studied them carefully, as one said, ‘Can I use your bog?’

‘Top of the stairs on the left.’

The other one said, ‘Show us what you’ve got?’

‘He’s in here,’ and the guy followed Walter into the sitting-room.

The guy took one look and said, ‘Nasty!’ and a couple of minutes later the second guy was there too.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I’ll get the gear,’ and he went outside to the van. He thought he saw curtains twitching across the road at number 58, though he might have been mistaken. He came back into the house with a large black trunk that had a shiny external metal frame. It was new and boasted decent wheels that made it easy to move, bit like the things you see rock bands shifting gear round in. He opened the trunk, revealing camera and lighting equipment. They set up the lights, full beam on Stevie Cliffe, and in the next moment they were taking dozens of pictures from every conceivable angle.

‘Finished?’ one said to the other.

‘Yep.’

Walter watched them pick up the body and in the next moment they were folding Cliffe’s remains away into the trunk as if it were a ventriloquist’s dummy. It went in easy enough and the lid was snapped shut.

They wheeled the trunk to the front door, down the path, and Walter watched from the door as it was loaded into the side door of the van. Then they were back in the house with numerous thick plastic bags and sacks.

Walter watched them dismantling and bagging up the lights and camera equipment, and one of them said, ‘We’ll need the blood stain,’ and they all glanced down at the still moist red turning brown stain on the carpet.

‘What, the whole carpet?’ said Walter.

‘Nope. Just the stain,’ and one of them produced a carpet-cutting tool and got down on the floor.

‘Okay?’ he said, glancing up at Walter.

Walter blew out his cheeks and said, ‘Whatever.’

The guy went to work with the knife, cutting out a large shape, leaving maybe three inches spare all the way round the blood marked carpet. Took the underfelt too where the blood had soaked through, revealing bare Edwardian floorboards that hadn’t been seen in years. The clipped out piece was perhaps three feet by one foot six, a long rectangular section now missing from the centre of the carpet, just before the sofa.

‘Well that’s buggered that!’ said Walter, staring down, hands on hips.

The guys glanced at the remainder of the carpet.

One of them said, ‘To be honest, mate, it was buggered long before we came.’

The other one said, ‘We’ll need to collect the missing one’s things. Everything she brought.’

‘It’s all upstairs, I’ll show you,’ and one of the guys followed Walter up the stairs to the small bedroom. He began bagging up Jessica’s clothes, cosmetics, toiletries, bathrobe, handbag, purse etc, and then they were back down again, as Walter pointed to the coats and the trilby on the hooks.

‘Anything else?’ the guy said.

‘Yes. This,’ said Walter, producing the SIG Sauer from his pocket.

‘Loaded?’

‘Fully.’

‘Has it been fired?’

‘Not recently.’

‘Potent weapon,’ the guy said, obviously impressed.

‘Not potent enough,’ said Walter, wondering what exactly had happened in his sitting-room.

One guy took everything outside and loaded up the van. The curtains in number 58 definitely twitched.

Then the guy was back inside.

‘Do you want my expenses claim now?’ asked Walter.

‘Nope, nothing to do with us. You’ll have to sort that out with DCS Wortley.’

Walter said nothing, though his expression said, Great!

‘Anything else?’ the guy asked again.

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Thanks for your help, and sorry about your carpet,’ and he grinned and then they were outside, starting the black van, and it trundled down the road as if it had never been there, and disappeared into the night. Walter closed and bolted the front door. But before he did, he glanced over at number 58. The curtains to the main front bedroom were drawn, but the lights were still on. Walter glanced at his watch. Twenty past one. An odd time to still be up, and Mr Morgan and Lizzy both had work in the morning, as did Walter.

He went through to the kitchen. The purple bottle of Echinacea was still on the windowsill.

‘You forgot the Echinacea!’ he said to an empty house. He opened the bottle and sniffed. Took out a capsule, went to the fridge, poured a small glass of Jessica’s juice and washed down the pill. The juice was vile. That would remain in the fridge. Maybe Iskra the cleaner might like it, and after that he went upstairs to bed.

Walter had lived alone a long time and he had grown used to his own company. But having other folks in the house for a few days, he’d grown used to that too, and he knew which he preferred. Despite the lateness of the hour he struggled to find sleep. Kept thinking he heard someone moving about the house, kept thinking that someone was running the bath, kept imagining Stevie Cliffe making toast in the kitchen, kept remembering Jessica on his landing, smiling and grinning and mumbling, I know what you older gen’mum can be like. But did she? And where was she now, and most important of all, was she safe?

Chapter Twenty-One

Walter was late arriving at work in the morning. Karen was there poring over some crime stats that had just come in. She seemed remarkably cheerful despite the detection stats not being great.

The way the stats were computed had been amended, and most of the wise judges who gabbed about these things said it was a blip, and next month would be better.

Didn’t really interest Walter. All that concerned him was that serious criminals operating on his territory needed to be apprehended, and that was no different to how it had ever been, and right there the only criminals and the only case he could think about was the murder of Stevie Cliffe, and the abduction and kidnap of Jessica Stone. The infuriating thing was, he couldn’t discuss it with his colleagues and he couldn’t investigate the case. Or could he?

‘Karen?’ he said.

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘What do you know about Jessica Stone?’

‘Jessica Stone?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Don’t know anyone of that name. The only Jessica Stone I know is that quirky supermodel.’

‘That’s the one.’

Gibbons entered the office. He’d been to see Patsy again, and had picked up the end of the conversation. Gibbons also had an interest in Jessica Stone, for she had always intrigued him.

‘What are you talking about Jessica Stone for?’ he said.

Karen and Gibbons stared at their boss, keen to know more.

‘What do you know about her?’ repeated Walter.

‘She’s fab looking,’ leered Gibbo.

‘You think?’ said Karen. ‘Bit of a giraffe, no?’

‘Besides her looks, what else do you know about her?’ persisted Walter.

‘Well, she’s different,’ said Karen.

‘You can say that again,’ said Gibbo.

‘Aside from her looks! Forget about her looks,’ said Walter. ‘Do you know anything else about her?’

‘I read she’s out of action at the moment. Broken a bone on her foot, summat like that,’ said Karen.

‘I read that too,’ said Gibbo.

‘Anything else?’ asked Walter, becoming exasperated.

‘I think she likes wild men,’ said Gibbo.

At last, thought Walter. Maybe they were getting somewhere.

‘Don’t we all,’ said Karen, smirking and looking away, and thinking of hunky Greg, and last night in particular.

‘She likes to date criminals?’ Walter floated in the air.

‘So they say, but don’t a lot of celebrity women?’ asked Gibbons.

‘It’s nothing new,’ said Walter.

‘Why are we talking about Jessica Stone?’ asked Karen.

‘No reason,’ said Walter. ‘Just wondered what the youth of today had to say on the matter.’

Gibbons and Karen shared another puzzled look.

Gibbons shrugged his shoulders and made to leave the room.

‘Oh, and Gibbons?’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Next time there’s a fire drill, and we have to assemble outside, and you are required to take something out with you, to save important documents, or equipment, you don’t take out your cheese and pickle sandwiches!’

‘Did he do that?’ said Karen, grinning and sipping water.

‘He did. The pillock!’

‘Sorry, Guv. Just picked up the first thing that came to hand.’

‘Yeah, your lunch!’

Gibbons nodded, looked sheepish and turned about and went off about his business.

Later, Karen told Walter she’d signed up with Future Growth, FGPP, and had unearthed some astonishing facts and figures.

‘We are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds, Guv. If that isn’t dodgy, I don’t know what is.’

Her FGPP website was up and running, and with the aid of her cousin, who was a whiz at all things computer-related, she had already started driving traffic to the site using Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, a subject guaranteed to reduce Walter to early snores. But at her insistence Walter looked at her site and it did seem impressive, and lo-and-behold while they were watching, someone logged on from the Isle of Man and signed up in front of their eyes, and Karen had earned her first thousand pounds and had begun recovering her initial outlay.

‘It’s brill, isn’t it?’ she said, looking chuffed.

‘Are you in this to investigate or to make money?’

‘Both!’ she said without a second thought.

‘I should remind you that you need your boss’s permission to carry out a second “job”, a second form of income, while in your present form of employ.’

‘That’s okay, Guv. You’re my boss.’

‘No, my boss.’

‘Mrs West?’

‘The same.’

‘Do you want me to ask her?’

‘It’s not what I want. It’s what the regs say you must do.’

‘In that case, Guv, it’s the early stages of an investigation.’

‘Don’t be smart, KG.’

‘Don’t worry, Guv. I’ll keep you posted.’

––––––––

AFTER THAT, THE DAY petered out and Walter hurried home, for he wanted another conversation with Wortley.

He had to ring five times, time enough to imagine the guy was avoiding his calls.

‘Ah, there you are, Darriteau,’ he said, as if it were Walter who was avoiding him.

‘What news?’ asked Walter.

‘Cliffe was not killed with the missing Glock.’

‘That makes sense. It’s hard to take a gun off someone, especially someone like Cliffe, when he knows what he knows, and then kill him with it.’

‘We are going through all the Jap dark green people carriers with the number HUF. Haven’t turned anything up yet, but I think we will. How sure are you about the number?’

‘Pretty good, she’s a bright kid.’

Wortley coughed. He didn’t sound so good.

‘Any news on Jessica?’ asked Walter.

‘Nothing.’

‘Do you want me to look around up here?’

‘Course not! She won’t still be there.’

‘And there’s the matter of my expenses.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘They buggered my best carpet!’

‘They say your carpet was buggered already!’

‘Be that as it may, I now have a huge hole in the middle of my lounge carpet.’

‘Okay, Darriteau. Itemise everything and send me the bill.’

‘To where, exactly?’

‘That would be helpful, wouldn’t it?’ and Wortley reeled off an address in some nondescript building in Guildford, Surrey, that Walter had never seen or heard of before.

‘I’ll let you know when Jessica turns up.’

‘If she turns up.’

‘Don’t be such a pessimist, Darriteau, but from what I remember you always were that way inclined.’

‘No, sir, just concerned for the girl.’

‘Yes, of course, we all are. I’ll be in touch,’ and with that Walter was again alone in the house with his notepad and his figures and his thoughts and recent memories.

How much would a good new carpet cost for his front room? Quite a bit, he imagined. He would take a trip to that out-of-town carpet shop after work, those prunes who were always advertising a price with 50% off, and then another 70% off the 50% off. What a load of nonsense! Why couldn’t they just give the customer a good price to begin with? That was all the buyers wanted. What colour, he mused, royal blue, warm maroon, ubiquitous beige? Grey like the Morgans? It was a hard decision. Perhaps he should ask Iskra. She’d be there on Saturday. She’d have a better idea than him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Very early next morning, and the church clock chimed four times, its reassuring ring echoing across the old city. Full dark, though a half moon on a clear night gave plenty of visibility to those few strange people still wandering about.

A Vauxhall saloon pulled into the swimming baths car park. It cruised to the far end, well away from the inner ring road, and turned round. Two men got out, not in any great hurry, but not slouching either. They left the engine on, idling, sounded sweet enough. They went to the back and opened up. Grabbed something from the boot, one man either end, and threw it on the tarmac as if it were a bag of trash.

Jumped back in the car, a little quicker this time, closed the doors, jammed the car into gear, and away. Fly-tipping. A ruddy nuisance to the council, and someone would have to pay to clean up the mess.

––––––––

WALTER DARRITEAU HAD a headache, not an all-consuming cruncher like a migraine, more of a minor irritant, and he couldn’t make up his mind whether it was the four cans of stout he had drunk the previous night, or the late jazz movie he had stayed up too late watching. He dropped two saccharin tablets into his coffee and picked up the polystyrene cup and revolved it slowly before his ample chest, hoping the tiny tabs would disperse, but they never did.

Karen came in, said, ‘Morning, Guv.’

Why did she always have to sound so damned cheerful, and at 7am at that? Walter hated the early shift. He was getting too old for it. She went off, heading for the vending machine where she’d buy a bottle of ice-cold blackcurrant water.

Walter watched her go. Slim, young, eager and ambitious, everything that Walter was not, or at least that was how he saw things. Then she was back, water already opened and raided. She sat opposite and glanced at her boss.

‘You look a bit, err...’ but she didn’t finish the sentence.

Walter did it for her. ‘Knackered?’

‘No, I wasn’t going to say that.’

‘So what were you going to say?’

Karen smiled that crushing smile of hers, the one she imagined, with some justification, hugely attractive to men, and said, ‘Shit, actually, Guv... sorry.’

It was only as he expected. Walter sniffed and was still thinking of a suitable reply, but before he could utter a word, the phone in front of her burbled and she snatched it up and said, ‘Incident Room, Sergeant Greenwood speaking.’

Walter pursed his lips and stared at her.

‘Where was this?’ he heard her say, concentration etched on her fair face.

Where was what? wondered Darriteau, thinking it might have something to do with Jessica Stone. He had been thinking about her most of the night.

‘Okay, we’ll be there in fifteen.’

She set the phone down and said, ‘Action stations, Guv.’

‘What?’

‘Major incident. Woman’s body, dumped on the forecourt outside the swimming baths.’

‘Bugger!’ said Walter.

‘Sorry?’

‘Carry on.’

‘There’s a uniform there now. I’ll go and get a car. See you downstairs.’

Darriteau sighed and nodded and thought of Jessica and watched his sergeant gather her recently unpacked things together, before she headed off toward the lift to head down to the basement to grab the best car she could find. At that hour, there would be a decent choice. Greenwood was a big petrol head, always had been, fascinated by the bloody things, a fascination that Darriteau neither understood, nor shared. Walter thought of the skinny six foot she thing. Hoped to God it wasn’t her. She didn’t deserve that. Fact was, he liked her.

If the quiet period in local serious crime hadn’t already come to an end, it had now.

He picked up the coffee and emptied it down his throat. Bent down and did up his black shoes. He preferred to leave them undone when sitting at a desk, good for the circulation, so they said, though it was important one remembered that fact, especially when making a quick getaway.

Stood up, stretched his heavy arms above his head; yawned aloud, attracting some attention, and turned and limped toward the lift. Bumped into Gibbons, coming in.

‘Have you been to see Patsy?’

‘No Guv, not this morning.’

‘Make sure you see him today!’

‘Is there something I should know?’

‘Maybe. Just do as I ask.’

‘OK, Guv, if it’s important.’

‘It is,’ and Walter pushed past him and stepped into the lift.

––––––––

KAREN WAS WAITING IN the car right outside the lift entrance. A big unmarked navy blue BMW idling, spewing lethal fumes into the stinking underground car park. She leant across and opened the passenger door and Walter fell in. Before he had a chance to slip on his seatbelt, she’d hit the accelerator and the car squealed away toward the exit ramp.

‘This isn’t the bloody Sweeney,’ he said.

‘Sorry, Guv. Thought you wanted to get there quick.’

‘Did the uniform say anything else?’

‘Not much. Oriental, he thinks. That was about it.’

Oriental, mused Walter. That sounded promising, at least from Jessica’s point of view.

‘Cause of death?’

‘Didn’t say.’

They dashed around the Chester inner ring road, Karen bullying other dozy vehicles out of the way. She had a way of driving that sent others scurrying, even before she put on the blue light, and Walter wondered how she managed to do that. Talented girl. Too talented, some said, but could one be too talented?

Quarter past seven, another sunny autumnal day forecast, town predicted to be busy, some kind of big food and drink festival on. People were coming from all over, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the swimming pool would be open to allcomers. Pity the car park was a crime scene, and for the foreseeable future would be closed to Joe Public and his sweaty chums.

The road was surprisingly busy for the hour, proving that Walter and Karen, W and K, or W AN K, as DC Gibbons had christened them behind their backs one night in The Bell, were not the only people to be at work by 7am.

Karen swerved the car into the car park and spotted the uniformed officer on the far side. It wasn’t difficult. There was an ambulance there, a civilian, and bike rider too, a traffic cop off the ring road who had come to offer support, so he said. In reality, he wanted to see what was going down, and that was no bad thing. Better to be interested than to head in the opposite direction.

She stopped the car twenty yards away. Walter already knew it was not Jessica, and that was something. Simply not big enough. They got out of the car and hustled over.

‘Who found the body?’ asked Walter.

‘I did,’ said the civilian with the red boozer’s face.

‘And your name is?’

‘George Reece.’

‘And what do you do, George Reece?’

‘Car park supervisor. Just tidying up. Getting ready for a busy day.’

‘What time did you get here?’

‘Six thirty on the nail.’

Walter doubted that. His timing worked out that he would have received a call a good fifteen minutes earlier if Reece had arrived at 6.30. Chances were he was late for work and didn’t want anyone to know. Not a criminal offence, not yet.

‘And you found the woman?’

Reece nodded.

‘Did you see anyone hanging around?’

‘Nope.’

‘Did you touch her?’

‘No way!’

‘Not even to see if she had a pulse?’

‘No chance! She was dead all right. Look at her!’

‘Not even to see if she had any money, a purse, a wallet?’

Reece shook his head, looked away and fished out a cigarette.

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said Karen.

She was trying hard to give up.

The cigarette remained unlit.

‘Okay,’ said Walter, ‘give your details to the uniformed officer.’

‘I’ve already taken them,’ said the young uniform.

He looked about fifteen, or at least he did to Walter. Clean cut and clear skin, bright eyes, optimistic, enthusiastic, the complete package. A couple of centuries before, Walter looked like that. Hard to believe, but true. The long hours, difficult work, and poor pay would soon knock that out of him.

‘What’s your name, kid?’

‘Squires, Guv, PC Julian Squires.’

Yep, that was about right. He looked a Julian, but nice enough.

‘Right, PC Julian Squires, you and Mr Reece here can go about your normal business once you have closed the car park. But make sure you drop the information on my desk before you go off shift.’

‘Will do, sir,’ and he backed away and went about his business, leaving Reece to head down toward the public toilets that were set to one side of the baths. The police bike rider had long since gone.

They looked down at the young woman. She didn’t look great. Maybe twenty, maybe fifteen, maybe thirty. It was hard to tell. Just over five feet tall, very slim, cheap jeans, cheap grubby logo-less tee shirt, cheap trainers, nothing else. Just cheap, cheap, cheap. No jewellery, no obvious piercings, no rings, no makeup, no visible tattoos, and no obvious cause of death. But someone had given her a beating, pound to a penny, someone bigger, perhaps a bully, and Walter envisaged that person. There were heavy markings around her neck too, strangulation, maybe? Black hair in a ponytail secured by an old beige rubber band.

Definitely Oriental, that was unmistakable, but from where?

Karen pursed her lips and said, ‘Chinese, Japanese, Korean? What do you think, Guv?’

‘She’s Chinese.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Koreans look harder and are generally fitter. Japanese are more rounded in the face.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘That’s the probability.’

Karen shook her head. Wanted to keep an open mind.

Walter took a pen out of his pocket and carefully poked around in the girl’s pockets. Nothing there other than a well used paper handkerchief. Only to be expected. Whoever killed her wasn’t going to leave easy ID.

He stood up and peered round the car park. Lots of city centre CCTV, both there and on the ring road.

‘Get all the CCTV you can find,’ he said, ‘and ring the Chinese Consulate in Liverpool and ask them if they can help in identifying one of their young women. She could be a student. Tell them we’ll have fingerprints by lunchtime.’

‘Is there such a thing? A Chinese Consulate in Liverpool?’

‘Big seaport, big trading nation, big population, loads of consuls scattered around the world, doubles as intelligence centres, money to burn, just waiting for your call.’

‘I’m on it,’ and she was, on the latest mobile device she adored.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Walter turned round. Two vehicles were approaching, Doc Grayling’s ageing grey Jaguar, and SOCO’s white van. Five minutes later and the body was shaded by a fresh white tent. Doc Grayling crouched over her.

‘Don’t you dare ask me for a ToD,’ he grumped.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. When, do you think?’

The doc sighed, but there was a semblance of a smile there too.

‘Why don’t you push off and I’ll ring you as soon as I have something to say? There’s nothing more you can do here.’

Walter bobbed his head. Seemed a sensible idea. ‘Ring me,’ he said, and he beckoned Karen back to the car, and they headed back to HQ.

––––––––

THE POPULATION OF CHINA, so far as anyone knows, is 1,399,824,999, and counting. That’s more than one and a third billion. Fact is, as soon as you write it down, it’s out of date. That’s more than twenty-two times the population of the UK, and to boost the figure further, the one child policy had been scrapped.

But whatever the number, the Consulate was interested in one of their own, especially one who may have come to a troubled and tragic end. They promised to check fingerprints and to send embassy staff if she was known to them. The electronically dispatched prints brought back a blank. As far as they were concerned, she was an unknown, and that cooled their interest, though they insisted they would give any additional support required. They pointed out that, as in the UK, there was no all-embracing fingerprint directory in China. They were getting there, so they said, but the memory-busting database was not yet complete. 

She could have been Chinese, it was true. But equally she could have been British, or Singaporean, a Hong Konger, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Taiwanese, if you counted that as a separate country, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, even an American, and heaven knows what else.

One thing was for sure, no one was in any hurry to come forward and report her missing.

The rushed through post mortem showed death by strangulation. Seemed the marks on her neck were important after all. She wasn’t a virgin, and neither was she pregnant. She hadn’t had a child, nor did she carry any diseases, sexual or otherwise, and nor were there any drugs in her body. Her age was estimated to be between eighteen and twenty-three. Dinky unbroken nose, somewhat surprising seeing as someone had given her a beating, and perfect teeth. Estimated time of death was put at between 3pm and 8pm on the previous day. She was slightly underweight, but otherwise in good health, or had been. But who was she? And why had she been murdered and dumped by the swimming baths?

There was one other thing of note. She wore glasses, a fading ingrained mark on the bridge of her nose, but she hadn’t done for some time. None were found, and she wasn’t wearing contact lenses.

Her fit body had been wrapped in six items of clothing: jeans, knickers, bra, T-shirt, right trainer, left trainer, plus one used paper handkerchief. All the clothing was of the cheapest kind, and all had emanated from the Far East, but that wasn’t unusual. You could buy identical garb in almost every British high street discount store. There were marks and bruises in several places on her body, and she had not had intercourse for some time, which one might have expected in certain lines of work.

There was some good news for the investigators. Four tiny hairs, two brown, two grey, definitely not hers, found on her clothing, providing abundant DNA. It was all you needed.

––––––––

WALTER WAS SITTING in his boss’s office high up in police HQ. Mrs Joan West had returned to work after a well-earned week’s break. She’d insisted Karen be there too, as Mrs W got up to speed with everything going on.

‘So,’ she said, ‘we have a body, a murder, no ID, no one reported missing, no motive, and no prime suspect, indeed no suspect of any kind.’

‘It’s early days,’ said Walter. ‘We have just finished going through the CCTV.’

‘And?’ she said.

Walter glanced at Karen. She recognised her moment and jumped into the conversation.

‘Two men were in the car that dumped the body. Average guys. Five eight, five nine, slim, fit, difficult to age as they wore scarves across their faces, and big unmarked dark baseball hats.’

‘White?’

‘Certainly not blacks,’ said Walter. ‘The pictures are not great, they could be Oriental.’

‘That would make sense, I suppose,’ said Mrs West, glancing at her watch. I believe we have recently found the car?’

‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘Burnt out on waste ground in Saltney. We won’t get anything from that.’

‘And it was stolen?’

‘It was, ma’am,’ confirmed Karen, ‘from outside the cinema on the Greyhound Industrial Estate.’

‘So where do we go from here?’

‘We have some photos,’ said Walter, ‘of the dead girl, but they are not good.’

That was always the problem with photos of dead people. They always looked precisely that, dead, very dead indeed, and usually pretty unhappy about it too, and no matter what the experts did with a corpse to cheerful it up, it was damned hard to make it look natural, or to make it look remotely happy. The bumps and bruises didn’t help.

‘I’m sending some people round Chinese restaurants and Chinese laundries to see if anyone knows the girl.’

‘Is there such a thing as Chinese laundries these days?’ asked Mrs West.

‘I have never seen a Chinese laundry in my life,’ added Karen, smirking at Walter.

Walter harrumphed and said, ‘Chinese businesses, you know what I mean, anything Chinese. Delicatessens, supermarkets, that kind of thing.’

‘Who are you going to send?’ asked Mrs West.

‘I thought I’d try that new Polish chap, Jan, whatever his name is.’

‘Not by himself?’

‘No, thought I’d send Jenny to keep an eye on him. They’re a bright pair, they don’t miss much.’

Mrs West and Karen both nodded at that, and Mrs West said, ‘and the deceased is not known to us?’

‘That’s correct, ma’am.’

‘No record anywhere?’

‘None, neither within our records, nor on immigration fingerprint scans.’

‘So, if she’s an illegal, which is looking likely, no business is going to put their hand up and say, “oh yes, she’s one of ours”, not with the hefty fines involved.’

‘True, ma’am, we are just hoping for a hint of recognition at this stage.’

‘Have you got the photographs with you?’

Karen opened her file and slipped three large mug shots across the desk.

‘Oh, dear! See what you mean. Well, good luck with that. Everyone has been telling me how quiet it has been, and I come back and all hell breaks loose! Anyway, crack on with it, I want this matter resolved as soon as possible,’ and she nodded at the door, and Walter and Karen took their cue and stood up and left, and as Walter vacated the room, he muttered under his breath, You don’t know the half of it, ma’am.  

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jan Popieluszko had been with the team for barely two weeks, but he was a bright lad and popular, and everyone had taken to him from the get go.

He was ferrying mugs of coffee across the office and when he saw Walter and Karen come back in, he smiled and said, ‘Do you wanna coffee?’

Karen returned the smile and shook her head. Never touched the caffeine-ridden stuff. Predictably, Walter said, ‘Sure, never say no to a caffeine fix,’ and added, ‘and I want a word with you when you come back.’

Jan pulled a face and wondered what he had done wrong and hurried back to the coffee machine to fetch the boss a drink. When he returned, they were all sitting round the bank of desks. Walter, Karen, Darren Gibbons, Hector Browne, and Jenny Thompson. Jan set the coffee down before the boss and sat on the end of the desk.

‘You wanted a word?’

‘Yeah,’ said Walter. ‘I have a job for you and Jenny, to do with this dead Oriental girl. Karen has some new pictures,’ and she set them down on the desk before them.

‘Oh dear,’ said Gibbons.

‘Poor girl,’ said Jenny.

Jan didn’t say a word, just grimaced and looked away.

‘I want you to go round all the Oriental businesses in the city. Restaurants, laundries, deli’s, grocery shops, herbal medicines, altmed practitioners, anything you can think of or can find in the yellow pages, and not just Chinese, any Oriental businesses, Korean, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, the whole works, and I want you to show these pictures to everyone there, not just the big cheeses either, and I want you to be very observant and study their faces and see if you can see a hint of recognition anywhere. Chances are, she could be an illegal, so people are going to be wary of admitting they knew her. Have your wits about you. It’s not just about what they tell you, it’s about how they react. Read the body language. Someone out there must know who this unfortunate young girl is, and someone somewhere will be only too keen to help because they will know the same fate could come their way. Am I making sense so far?’

Jenny bobbed her head and said, ‘Sure, Guv.’

Jan said, ‘I understand what you are wanting.’

‘Take your time; don’t rush it. If you do, you might miss something important. Be thorough, be savvy, and be careful.’

The young officers noted the tone, and both nodded.

‘What’s your surname, Jan?’

Jan’s face broke into a smile beneath his head of black, wiry hair.

‘Popieluszko, but it’s pronounced Poppie-Wushka, that’s near enough.’

They all tried it, Poppie-Wushka.

‘Think I’ll just call you Poppie,’ said Gibbons.

‘Then I will call you Funky,’ said Jan, grinning, and they all laughed at that, and then Jan said, ‘It’s Polish, of course, but I was born here. I have dual nationality. My parents came here in ’91 and I was born soon afterwards. My home is here now.’

It all sounded familiar to Walter, and he said, ‘I don’t suppose you might be related to Jerzy Popieluszko?’

The Pole’s face broke into a huge smile.

‘You know of Jerzy?’ he said incredulously.

‘Doesn’t everyone?’ said Walter, looking round at Karen, Gibbons and Jenny, whose faces were a picture of confusion.

‘Pardon my ignorance, but who he?’ asked Karen.

Walter smiled and said, ‘Jan will tell us all later, but for now, he and Jenny have work to do. Grab your pics and be on your way, and don’t forget, be observant, and fill me in later on how you got on.’

Jan and Jenny picked up the photos and headed for the door. They were going to start with the big and expensive Chinese restaurant in the city centre set right beside the canal. Seemed as good a place as any.

After they’d gone, Karen said, ‘Sadie used to wear spectacles.’ 

In the absence of her real name, they had taken to referring to the unfortunate one as Sadie because of the sadness evident in the photographs. ‘But she stopped wearing them some time ago.’

‘Why did she do that?’ asked Hector.

‘Vanity, perhaps,’ suggested Walter.

‘Don’t think so,’ said Karen.

‘Maybe she lost them or had them stolen, maybe she couldn’t afford a fresh pair,’ said Gibbons.

‘Maybe someone didn’t want her to wear glasses. Perhaps ordered her not to,’ said Karen.

‘Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,’ said Walter, ‘though I’ll tell you something for nothing. They do, if the girl’s attractive.’

‘If it’s a girl, female, then some men make passes... don’t they Gibbons?’ grinned Hector.

‘I’m very particular who I....’

‘Yes, all right,’ said Walter, ‘but some people perceive they don’t.’

‘Well, she wasn’t a hooker,’ said Hector.

‘No, but maybe someone wanted her to be, and her refusal cost her dear,’ said Karen.

‘All very possible, Sergeant Greenwood, but all conjecture.’

‘So where do we go from here, Guv?’

‘Wake up the monster, let’s see if there’s any fresh missing persons’ reports.’

Karen jumped up and went over to the Hytec Corporation’s Constructor System and switched on. There was indeed a fresh report of a missing person. How could Walter have known that, she wondered, or was it another lucky guess? A twenty-three-year-old this time. Only one problem, it was a man.

Walter’s mobile phone rang. Everyone stopped, stared, and listened.

‘Darriteau?’

It was DCS Wortley.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Go into a private office where we can talk.’

‘Okay.’

Walter glanced at the others and said, ‘Don’t stare at me, I have a call to take, crack on with it, and Darren, you go and see Patsy again, see if he has any news,’ and they all jumped up and went about their business.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Walter hustled into a private office and closed the door. He sat in the big chair behind the clean and little used desk and said, ‘DCS Wortley, what can I do for you?’ Walter half expected it to be a bollocking over the significant expenses chit he had submitted.

‘We have a problem, Walter.’

Didn’t like the sound of that.

‘We do? Like what?’

‘Jessica Stone has not been returned to the Barton brothers.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just know, trust me. They have increased the reward for information on her whereabouts.’

‘That could be a smokescreen. They could have done anything with her. They are not going to admit it, are they?’

‘Negative! Look, Darriteau, I have a spy in the camp; she tells me they are going mental over this. They still believe she is going to turn up at the Old Bailey and give evidence against them that will send them down forever.’

‘Then someone else must have her.’

‘Yes, Darriteau, that would follow.’

‘Any idea who?’

‘None whatsoever, but the tiny amount of intel we have suggests that it could still be someone on your patch.’

‘Why would anyone do that?’

‘Use your brain, Darriteau! Jessica Stone is worth a lot of money, could be worth her weight in gold. All kinds of shysters are going to be interested in that.’

‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘I want you to find her, that’s what! There’s a lot riding on this. If she’s on your patch, you should be the one to do it.’

‘I’ll have to tell my boss about it.’

‘Course you will.’

That at least was something, thought Walter, for he knew that Mrs West was bound to find out about the whole sorry business sooner or later, and it would be better, marginally better, if it came from him, and soon.

‘I’ll get my team on it.’

‘You do that; just don’t go public. Understand?’

Walter grunted.

‘Got your exey’s chit by the way.’

‘And?’

‘Bloody ridiculous, if you ask me.’

‘It was only actual costs incurred.’

‘Yeah, thought you’d say that, signed it off for payment, anyhow.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it. Just find Jessica Stone. You tell me the moment you unearth something, understand?’

‘I hear you.’

‘Good! Seems like the Twelfth Apostle is not dead yet after all,’ and with that DCS Melvin Leslie Wortley was gone. 

––––––––

WALTER WENT BACK TO the general office and sat down. Karen was talking to someone on the phone about Sadie. When she’d finished, Walter said, ‘Anything new.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Have you spoken to Mrs West about Kit Contrick?’

‘No! And if you call him that in public I might have to sue you.’

Walter grinned and said, ‘You could try.’

‘And I’d win.’

‘Debatable. How’s it going, anyway?’

‘Unbelievable, Guv. I’ve already signed up two new people, don’t suppose you’d be interested?’

‘Pass.’

‘And with some book sales and course sales I’m starting to believe it could really work.’

‘The fool and his money, Greenwood.’

‘Her money...’

‘It’s all the same. Anyway, I have to speak to Mrs West about something, I’ll fix up an appointment for you to see her later.’

‘Thanks, Guv, thanks a bunch.’

Walter stood up and limped across the office and tapped on Mrs West’s ajar door. She glanced up and saw his bulky shadow lurking in the doorway, threatening her domain, and she knew who it was, and removed her pink trendy spectacles and set them down on the desk.

‘Walter?’ she cooed.

Walter pushed the door open and bobbed his head and nodded down.

‘Ma’am?’

She’d been busy writing yet another report, not a staff appraisal job, for once, but her take on the staff’s safety and well being, taking into account the recent fire drill and evacuation procedure. Fact was, she had been giggling, something she rarely did. But for some reason the picture of her staff queued up outside in the rain clutching vitally important records and paperwork saved from the blaze, only for Gibbons to produce cheese sandwiches, deemed to be the most valuable thing in the office, well, that had tickled her fancy. 

‘Why is it, Walter, that when you come stealthily to my office in this way with that hangdog look on your face and your tail obviously between your legs, I just know that you’re in trouble?’

‘Not trouble, exactly, ma’am.’

‘Come in, sit down, spit it out!’

Walter entered her large office. It wasn’t his favourite territory, and slumped into the visitor chair set before her desk, a chair used more often than not for pep ups and dressing downs.

‘When you were away, ma’am...’

‘Yes, Walter, Yes?’

He took a big breath and told her all about it. Everything he knew, and when he’d finished she put her pink specs back on and peered across the desk and said, ‘So what have we got here, exactly?’

Walter went to speak, but she held up her hand.

‘A dead Oriental girl, dumped outside the swimming baths like a sack of rotten potatoes, a missing supermodel who has been bunking down at your place, a girl who just happens to be the star witness to potentially the biggest criminal case of the year, a police officer, one of our own, shot dead in your bloody house, and a senior officer from Witness Protection, who, unbeknown to me, has been ordering my staff around?’

Walter could never remember Mrs West swearing before, that was a first. He bobbed his head and said, ‘That’s about the size of it, ma’am.’

‘God, give me strength! And are we supposed to be investigating the death of a police officer on my patch?’

‘No, ma’am. Their officer, they have dealt with that matter, D7 business and all that, they’ve tidied that up, the only thing DCS Wortley wants is help in finding the girl.’

‘I’m not happy about this, Walter.’

‘Sorry ma’am, but I was expressly ordered not to divulge a thing.’

‘That would not include me!’

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

‘Have you got this DCS Wortley’s number?’

‘Ma’am,’ and he reeled it off as best as he could remember.

‘The Chief Constable is going to have to be told about this.’

‘Whatever you think best, ma’am.’

‘Do the others know anything?’

‘Not about Jessica...’

‘Jessica, is it?’

‘Well, not about Cliffe’s murder, and not about Jessica’s abduction either, but I did ask them what they knew about her in general, that’s all.’

‘And what did they know?’

‘Not a lot.’

She took her glasses off again and slapped them down on her notepad.

‘I want you to find the killer of the Oriental girl first. Is that clear? That’s the priority.’

‘Yes, ma’am. We’re working hard on that now.’

‘I’ll have a word with Wortley and give him a piece of my mind, and not a pleasant piece, either!’

‘Whatever you think best, ma’am.’

She glared across the desk. ‘Is that it?’

‘I want to tell the team what’s happened, bring them up to speed.’

‘If you must.’

‘And Karen, DS Greenwood, she needs to talk to you about another small matter.’

Mrs West blew out. ‘She’s not pregnant, is she?’

‘No, nothing like that. God, I hope not. She’ll tell you herself.’

‘Not more dark secrets of operations about which I am totally unaware?’

‘Nothing like that, ma’am. No.’

She pursed her lips and nodded fitfully like his old teacher used to do when Walter failed to spell “received” correctly in grammar school a couple of centuries before, and she said, ‘Well don’t sit there like a pissed pumpkin, on your way, man!’

Another incidence of language he had never heard uttered from her thin lips before. Maybe she had a crap holiday. Walter eased from the chair as Mrs West said, ‘Send Karen in!’ and as Walter made to close the door behind him she said, ‘And Walter?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Tell Gibbons he’s a plonker!’

‘I think he knows that, ma’am.’

‘Good! Shut the door.’

Walter closed the door and limped away.

Mrs West grinned and giggled. Sometimes they all had to be kept on their toes, and she had long since realised that they were amongst the best times of her service. Fact was, coming down hard on people now and again gave her true pleasure, and it really didn’t matter on whom, or about what. Funny that.

Back in the general office, Walter said, ‘Mrs West will see you now.’

‘Oh thanks, Guv, thanks a lot.’

‘Be careful, she’s in a very funny mood.’

Karen stood up, frowned, and said, ‘In what way?’

‘She swore at me... never done that before.’

Karen stood behind him and patted him on the back and said, ‘Ah, never mind, did the big bad grizzly bear get a good talking to? Never mind, there, there, there,’ and she giggled and made to walk away.

‘Just go and see the boss!’

‘Yes, Guv!’ and she laughed and hurried away.

––––––––

FIVE MINUTES LATER Gibbons came back in the office. Before he had the chance to take off his jacket Walter said, ‘What did Patsy say?’

‘He said the girl is still missing and the rightful owners would pay an increased figure to recover their property.’

‘Any name?’

‘Nah. But I have a better description.’

‘Go on.’

‘White, young, pretty, six foot plus, gangly, striking, Knightsbridge accent, and annoying short, black hair.’

Walter recalled the irritating locks bumping up and down as she bounded round the house, his house. Pretty accurate description, all things considered.

Gibbons said, ‘I think it should help, the description that is. There are not many birds who’d fit that picture. I was thinking on my way back, I don’t know any girls who look like that,’ and predictably he added, ‘and I know hundreds of women.’

‘We are not looking for a bird, Gibbons, we are looking for a striking young woman.’

Gibbons thought about that for a second and said, ‘Are we, Guv?’

‘Maybe,’ said Walter, keen to change the subject. ‘By the way, Mrs West says you’re a plonker.’

‘What! Why?’

‘Cheese sandwiches, Darren, cheese sandwiches.’

‘Oh that, is that all? I’ll never get in that woman’s good books.’

Walter thought of saying, you’re not alone in that, but left it. He was still smarting from being likened to a pissed pumpkin.

Karen came back.

‘All right?’ said Walter.

‘Yeah, fine, she actually wants me to send her the papers, seems she might be interested.’

Geez, muttered Walter under his breath. Whatever next?

‘What about?’ asked Gibbons.

‘I’m in this new thing,’ said Karen, ‘an earning opportunity.’

But before she could say anymore Walter cut her off.

‘No, not now! We have important work to get on with.’

‘Yeah, sorry Guv, what do you want us to do?’

‘Where’s Hector?’

‘Caressing the photocopier. It only works if you are nice to it. A bit like a woman,’ said Gibbons.

‘You are so predictable, Darren,’ said Karen.

‘Get him over here, will you, it’s story time.’

Karen glanced at her boss and wondered what was coming next.

Darren said, ‘Great, I could do with a laugh.’

Walter proceeded to tell them all he knew about Jessica Stone and the late Sergeant Stevie Cliffe, and DCS Wortley, and the Morgan family, and the whole sorry business.

‘Geez, Guv, I thought you’d been quiet, but all the while this is going on, including the cold blooded murder of one of our own in your front room,’ said Gibbons.

Walter nodded. Didn’t speak. Just looked at Karen.

She stared back and he could tell she was miffed he hadn’t told her a thing. ‘I was under strict orders not to say a word. Come on, get off my case, it’s bad enough that Mrs West thinks I’m a...’ and he paused as if searching for the correct word.

‘Glory hunter,’ suggested a grinning Gibbons, and that was such a ludicrous idea they all laughed aloud.

‘So what’s the priority?’ asked Karen.

‘The Oriental girl,’ said Walter. ‘Mrs West wants us to concentrate on that.’

‘But you don’t?’ suggested Hector.

‘No, I do, but I want to keep abreast of the Jessica Stone hunt too. If she’s on our patch, I want to know where she is, and who is holding her and why. Fact is, she could be in danger. We need to find her, and quick.’

‘What’s she like?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Well, she’s... different,’ said Walter.

‘In what way?’ asked Hector.

‘Just different, not your average girl next door type. You’d certainly take a second look if you saw her in the street, or in the pub, or if she came in here.’

‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ said Hector.

‘Is she sexy?’ asked Gibbons, ever eager to get down to basics.

Walter made to speak, but no words appeared.

‘The Guv’s lost for words, must mean he likes her,’ teased Karen, smiling at the others.

‘Not quite,’ said Walter.

‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Karen.

‘I want everyone here at 7am sharp. I want the monster on, and we’ll go through everything we have. We’ll divide up the team... and solve crimes.’

They all looked at him without saying a word. The quiet period in Chester crime circles had definitely come to an end. Things were going to get exciting, and that was precisely the way they liked it.

‘I don’t wish to complicate the issue,’ said Karen, ‘but we have this missing person report as well.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

‘Shall I send Jan and Jenny when they come back?’

‘No. We’ll go ourselves. Some fresh air might do us good.’

‘When?’

‘Now. Organise a car.’ 

Chapter Twenty-Six

Donny Rushnell lived on a smallholding that backed onto the canal at Waverton. In the centre of the plot stood a large detached high gabled Edwardian house, red brick, original black and white windows, Welsh slate roof.

The house was called Remembrance though it didn’t live up to its name, as no one could remember why, and now that it was a centenarian, only more so, the ravages of time were catching up with the old dear. It was draughty, cold, damp, and rambling, and would cost a fortune to put right, money the Rushnell family did not possess.

Donny lived with ageing parents, Colin and Christine Rushnell, and they just about kept the wolf from the door with their tulips and chrysanths, Chrissie’s department, and leeks, vegetables, raspberries, and pigs, Colin’s domain. It was the only house Donny had ever known.

Donny was an only child and a late one at that. Both of his parents had been over forty when he arrived, and both were well past sixty, and time was catching up with them. They were finding it harder to get out of bed in the morning, harder to till the land, and harder still to find any motivation.

Yes, Donny did help on the land when he could, but he also went out to work, a paper shuffling job in some city centre finance company, where he assessed loan applications all day, a job he hated, but one that paid the bills, or at least, most of them.

Outside the front of the house was an ageing mauve van. It had muddy wheels and doors, and a rusty back-end.

Remembrance boasted a large old-fashioned kitchen and in the centre of the room was a vast oak rectangular table that had come with the house. It had probably been too big and too heavy to take out when the previous owners evacuated the place in 1975.

Colin and Chrissie were sitting on one side of the table, Walter and Karen on the other, four unmatched mugs, two chipped, of stewed steaming tea between them.

‘So,’ said Walter, ‘how long has Donny been missing?’

‘Four days,’ said the skinny old man, who wasn’t much older than Walter.

‘Has he ever gone missing before?’ asked Karen.

‘Sometimes for a couple of days, but never as long as this.’

‘Have you got an up-to-date picture?’ asked Walter.

Chrissie smiled, happy the question she had anticipated was issued. ‘This one,’ she said, taking a colour picture from her pinny pocket. ‘It was his twenty-first, he hasn’t changed a bit since.’

Walter and Karen shared the photo.

‘He’s a good-looking boy,’ said Karen, staring down into his dark eyes.

‘Oh yes he is,’ said his mother.

‘Does he have a girlfriend?’ asked Walter.

‘He says he likes to play the field,’ said Colin, ‘though he rarely brings anyone back here. Think there was someone at work he was sweet on, but he doesn’t share information like that with us, we’re just his parents.’

Seemed a point of issue there, noted both officers.

‘Has he got worries?’ asked Karen.

‘What kind of worries?’ asked his mother in a rush.

‘Well, you know, money troubles, relationship difficulties, lack of friends, does he drink?’

‘He doesn’t drink, none of us do, we can’t afford it, for one thing,’ said the father.

‘How are things generally, money wise?’ asked Walter.

‘We’re fine!’ said Chrissie.

Colin pulled a face. Didn’t look fine to Walter, and then Colin said, ‘We’re finding it hard, I’ll make no bones about that. But we are no different to everyone else in the country, what with everything going up all the time, petrol, insurance, car tax, VAT, you name it. But flower prices and fruit prices and pig prices, they don’t go up, do they? They go down, so how the hell does that work? We’re getting screwed both sides of the cake.’

Walter and Karen knew he could talk a lot more on the topic if the feeling took him, and they could imagine he did just that when they were sitting alone around that table at night-time.

‘Is there anywhere he might have gone?’ asked Karen.

‘Like where?’ said Chrissie.

‘We don’t know, Mrs Rushnell, you tell us.’

She shrugged her shoulders and turned and looked at her unshaven husband.

‘Did he know any Oriental girls?’ asked Walter.

‘What? Like Chinese?’ said Colin.

‘Yes, that kind of thing.’

Colin shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

Chrissie said, ‘He likes Chinese meals, his favourite, we did a Chinese banquet for his twenty-first.’

Walter smiled and nodded.

‘He’s twenty-three,’ said Karen. ‘Do you think he might have found a flat of his own?’

‘What? Without telling us!’ said Chrissie. ‘No!’

‘Sometimes an only child can have problems fleeing the nest, so to speak,’ said Walter. ‘Sometimes they do it in strange ways, sometimes they just decide, almost on the spur of the moment, to make a clean break of things. Maybe secretly, he was a little unhappy and decided to change his life, hopefully, as he saw it, for the better.’

‘He would have told us!’ insisted Colin, leaving no room for argument.

‘Is there anyone out there who would have wanted to harm him?’ asked Karen.

‘Harm him?’ said Chrissie. ‘How do you mean?’

Walter looked at Chrissie and he knew that she knew what Karen was getting at.

‘We just want him home, Inspector, we just want him home.’

‘Course you do,’ said Karen, ‘we’ll see what we can do.’

‘We’ll go and talk to his employers and see if they know anything,’ said Walter.

‘We’ve rung them, he’s not been to work,’ said Colin.

Walter bobbed his head. ‘We’ll go and see them and find out what we can.’

‘Thanks,’ said Chrissie.

‘We’d like to see his room,’ said Walter.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Chrissie, and she pushed her chair back with a screech. ‘It’s this way,’ and she showed them upstairs.

In the bedroom, Walter said, ‘Do you mind leaving us to it for five minutes?’

Chrissie pursed her lips and nodded once and glanced at Colin.

He said, ‘We’ll be downstairs if you need anything.’

Karen watched them go down the stairs and closed the door.

It was a sizeable room, the second main bedroom of the house. It was situated at the back and looked out over maybe an acre of ground, rows and rows of cut flowers, leeks, runner beans, and Brussels sprouts, if Walter wasn’t mistaken, some of them starting to go over the top, autumn taking its toll. The rows of plants went all the way down to the canal where a couple of narrowboats could be seen berthed on the far side. No lawn, no patio, no decking, no room for waste ground, times were hard and every square foot had been set to work as if the ground was at war, which in a way it was, economic warfare.

In the far right corner of the garden, or smallholding to be fair to it, was an area penned off, containing at least three prime porkers, well ready for market, thought Walter, which reminded him, he was getting hungry and a bacon bap with lashings of brown sauce would not have gone amiss. He turned back to the room.

One neat bed, not a double, but not a single either. Queensize maybe. Side table to the left, with a shaded light on top. Three books there ready for reading, men’s fiction, not erotic, thriller type special forces stuff. There were a few photographs on the wall of Donny, but no one else in the shots, and pretty ordinary for all that. In one of them he was looking a little self-conscious, his arm in a sling.

Karen opened the wardrobe and looked through the clothes. High street clobber, not cheap, but not expensive either. Had the look of someone who wanted to look good, but couldn’t quite afford it. There was a chest of drawers pushed against the opposite wall to the bed with a CD player on top. Karen flipped open the CD. Middle-of-the-road slush. Enough said. The drawers were full of neatly washed and ironed T-shirts, underwear, just what you might expect to find, but there were no love letters to be found, no old Valentine’s cards, no pictures of girls, or boys come to that, no condoms, nothing at all that hinted at excitement and fulfilment and satisfaction and happiness. That was obvious. It was an ordinary, yet unhappy room, in an unhappy house. Walter and Karen had seen it many times before. They would not have been surprised to find a number for the Samaritans, but did not.

‘Seen enough?’ Karen asked.

‘I think so. I’m getting bad vibes.’

‘You and me both.’

‘No computer anywhere?’ said Walter.

‘Not that I can see, maybe he just uses a mobile.’

They let themselves out and went downstairs.

The parents met them in the hall.

‘Does he have a computer?’

‘No! He says he uses one all day long and the last thing he wants to do is compute when he comes home.’

‘Do you have one?’ asked Walter.

‘No! Hate the damned things,’ said Colin.

‘Does he have a mobile phone?’ asked Karen.

‘Yes, but he doesn’t use it that often,’ said Chrissie. ‘And before you ask, he’s not answering, and that’s not like him at all. I’ve rung and left messages but they are not returned.’

Karen pulled out her mobile and said, ‘What’s the number?’

Chrissie rattled it off.

Karen tried it. Straight to voicemail.

‘This is Sergeant Karen Greenwood from Chester Police. Your parents are very worried about you, Donald, can you please ring them as soon as possible, or you can call me anytime.’ She glanced at Chrissie. She nodded and looked pleased that Karen had made the effort.

‘Same for me,’ she said. ‘He’s not answering.’ 

‘Has he ever been in trouble with the police?’ asked Walter.

‘Never!’ said Chrissie.

‘Not that we know of,’ said Colin.

‘Does he have a car?’ asked Karen.

‘Can’t afford one,’ said Colin.

‘He gets the bus into work,’ said his mother.

‘Can he drive?’ asked Walter.

‘No,’ said Colin. ‘Never shown any interest in it whatsoever.’

‘Whose is the van?’ asked Walter.

‘Mine,’ said Colin.

‘Ours,’ said Chrissie.

‘And he never drives that?’ asked Karen.

‘He doesn’t drive!’ insisted Colin, ‘Never.’

‘He has a bike, though,’ said Chrissie.

‘A motorbike?’ asked Walter.

‘No. A push-bike,’ said Colin. ‘But he hasn’t been on that in years.’

‘Can we see it?’

‘Sure, it’s in the shed at the side of the house.’

‘So you last saw him when?’ asked Walter.

‘Four days ago,’ they both said, almost as one.

‘In the meantime,’ Karen said, ‘here’s my card,’ and she slipped it into Chrissie’s hand and she stared at it blankly. ‘If you think of anything at all, where he might have gone, why he might have gone away, any friends he might be staying with, and especially anyone who might have a grudge against him, or might want to harm him, do please ring me at any time.’

‘Okay,’ Chrissie said, her mind drifting away.

‘And will you ring us if you have any news?’ asked Colin.

Walter bobbed his head and promised to ring, and five minutes later the officers were outside looking in the shed. One old rusty bike; flat tyres, hadn’t been used in years, just as they said. Wherever Donny had gone, he hadn’t used the bike.

––––––––

THEY WAVED GOODBYE to the Rushnell couple who were standing in the doorway and headed back to town.

‘What do you make of that?’ asked Karen.

‘The guy’s grown up. He’s bored to tears and the penny’s dropped that he might be living in that house until his dying day. What’s more, he’s staring at looking after not one, but two elderly parents. Give it ten years, maybe less, and they’ll both need a lot of care. Maybe he thought he’d better live a little before it’s too late. He could have gone anywhere, jumped on a train to London, or anything.’

‘Or under it.’

‘God, I hope not. Did you mean it when you said he was a good-looking boy?’

‘Nah, course not. But all mothers like to think their son is the best looking kid in the world. That’s only natural. If you want my opinion, I thought he looked weak.’

‘You don’t mince your words.’

‘You know me, Guv. I’ll always tell you how it is,’ and by then she was ducking the car down the underpass and heading for that foul-aired car park. She was in a hurry. She wanted to get away that evening. She wanted to see Greg and tell him about Mrs West’s possible interest, and she wanted to check if Greg had booked the conference. Mrs West had given her the okay to have a couple of days off if need be, providing the Sadie case had been cleared up by then. It was as good an incentive as any.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

At five to seven the next morning Jan set a steaming cup of coffee before his boss. Everyone was there, Karen, Jenny, Gibbons, Hector, Jan, and even Mrs West.

Walter glanced at Karen and nodded, and she jumped up and went to the monster, as everyone still called the Hytec Constructor System, despite Mrs West pleading with them not to.

Karen touched the screen, and a computer generated happy face appeared that said, ‘Good morning, team!’

‘Good morning, monster,’ all the younger ones said in unison.

Mrs West stared at Walter, shook her head, and clicked her tongue and glanced at the false ceiling.

‘Get on with it!’ said Walter.

Karen began.

‘Sadie,’ she said, and a facial photograph of the dead Oriental girl, or was it woman, came on the screen. Karen prodded a touch control with her silver nailed finger and the photo magnified thrice. ‘For want of a better name.’

‘Well, she ain’t sexy Sadie any more, is she?’ said Gibbons.

‘Oh, please,’ said Mrs West.

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

‘The deceased,’ continued Karen, and they all stared into those forcibly opened eyes, dead eyes, literally so, seemingly staring down at them, as if communicating from the other side, wherever the hell that might be. ‘So far, unidentified, no fingerprint record, no immigration scan, no recognised fingerprints from the Chinese Consulate, no one reported her missing, no clues as to her identity or place of residence, an unknown woman of unknown nationality, who came, so far as we know, to an unknown end.’

‘Sad really,’ said Jenny.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Walter.

‘She must be someone’s sweetheart, lover, daughter, sister, someone must know her,’ continued Jenny.

‘Correct!’ said Walter, ‘and that is why we are going to find out who she is, and where she lived, and what happened to her. Jan and Jenny, how did you get on yesterday?’

Jan and Jenny went to speak at the same moment. Jan ceased, deferring to Jenny who had longer been part of the team, but she hesitated.

‘No, you go ahead, Jan,’ she said.

Jan Popieluszko bobbed his head and smiled and stood up and began. ‘We spent the day visiting Chinese and various other Oriental businesses. We showed the pictures to as many people as possible. As you said, some of the bosses were not keen to talk, but the general workers, many of whom could not speak English, were curious. They did at least seriously look at the pictures. Some of them said they might have seen her years ago, but no one we found said they definitely recognised or knew her.’

‘Did you visit all the businesses?’ asked Walter.

‘No,’ said Jenny. ‘About half.’

‘You can carry on with that today.’

They nodded.

‘We’ve also had some leaflets printed showing her face and asking for assistance,’ said Walter, nodding at a big pile of printed papers on his desk. ‘Take some of those with you, and that goes for all of you. Give them out wherever you can. They are no good to anyone sitting on that desk.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Jan.

‘I have managed to raise funds to put up a reward for anyone who can identify the girl,’ said Mrs West.

‘Excellent,’ said Walter.

‘How much?’ asked Hector Browne.

‘£10,000.’

‘That’s not much,’ he said.

Mrs West pursed her lips and glared at him and said, ‘Would you care to make a contribution to boost it a little?’

Hector shook his head and said, ‘No thank you, ma’am, sorry.’

Walter nodded at Karen again and she took the meeting in a different direction.

‘Jessica Stone,’ and a reel of twenty pictures of the striking girl shone down from the monster, pictures from the catwalk, pictures at some glossy magazine shoot, pictures at Wimbledon on the arm of one of the Barton brothers, pictures from the Brit awards with various musos, all bright-eyed and out of it, pictures from her portfolio, and despite the fact that many of the photos showed her with other celebrities, hanging out with other supposedly glamorous people, the eyes were drawn to the images of Jessica Stone.

‘Missing, presumed kidnapped and abducted, from, and I can hardly believe I am saying this, from Guv’s house,’ and Karen mischievously prodded the monster and an aerial pic of Walter’s home filled the screen.

The front gate was open, the lawn needed cutting, and the curtains looked as if they needed some attention.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing to see here.’

‘You’ll know by now,’ interrupted Mrs West, ‘that a London protection officer was shot dead in Inspector Darriteau’s front room. We are not investigating that case per se, that is being handled from London, but nonetheless if you do discover, or hear, or come across in the course of your work, any information regarding that killing you will tell me, or Inspector Darriteau. Understand?’

Everyone muttered ‘Yes ma’am,’ and she nodded at Karen to continue.

‘Jessica Stone was abducted by two men and bundled into a Japanese people carrier, dark green, middling condition, number plate reported to begin: HUF. So far, we can’t find it on any CCTV.’

Walter spoke next. ‘Gibbons and Browne. I want you to find that people carrier. Do what you have to, but find it.’

The young guys nodded.

‘There is another matter that’s come to hand,’ said Karen.

‘Like what?’ asked Gibbons.

She glanced at Walter and he nodded her on.

‘We have a missing person on our patch. A twenty-three-year-old man by the name of Donald Rushnell,’ and she tapped the screen and his colour picture appeared, and she tapped it again and magnified it. Good-looking boy, Walter recalled her saying, but not really, and then she said, ‘He’s been missing for four, five, days now. Lives with his parents at Waverton,’ more tapping and a splendid aerial shot of Remembrance came on the screen taken in sunshine, looking better than it did in reality. ‘We do not believe there is any connection between the cases, but who knows, there could be.’

Walter took up the story. ‘Yesterday evening I went to the finance office where Donald works. A company called Lion Loans & Finance, spoke to the manageress, a Mrs Cresswell. It appears the guy seems a bit of a loner. Behind his back some of the staff think him a bit weird. One girl said she thought Donald fancied her, but she didn’t return the feeling. She said he had never had a girlfriend, so far as she knew, though she did say that recently he might have met someone, though he never confirmed that, just a feeling she had, said he seemed a bit happier with life, a bit more contented.’

‘Maybe he’s gay,’ suggested Gibbons.

‘Could be, though I suspect not,’ said Walter.

‘So we have no reason to think he ever met the dead woman?’ said Hector.

‘No Hector, we don’t,’ said Walter, ‘but I can tell you this. If he met her he would be interested, unless he is gay, and I don’t think he is, and if she met him, she would be interested in him, especially if she was lonely, and couldn’t speak much English, and he showed her kindness and affection.’

‘Maybe he met her and killed her,’ suggested Jenny.

‘Sadly, Jen, that is a possibility,’ said Walter, ‘so as we are not getting too far with Sadie, the missing woman, the IC5, it would be good to locate Donald Rushnell, if nothing else than to rule him out of the equation. And remember this, Sadie was dumped outside the swimming baths by two men, and Donald doesn’t appear to have many friends, or even any friends. Today, while Jan and Jen are finishing their enquiries, we will try to trace if Donald left the area. So it’s CCTV time at the railway station and bus terminus, and even Liverpool and Manchester airports. He doesn’t drive, and it’s visits to travel agents to see if he made any bookings. Both photos will be released to the media, his and hers, with a plea for help.’

‘That’s going to take ages,’ moaned Hector.

Gibbons grinned. He liked the work, specialised in it, going through lists, watching CCTV, searching, searching. He adored it because of the high it brought when he found amongst the dross, what they were looking for. It was what he thought police work was all about. The daily grind. Detection.

‘Got anything better to do?’ Gibbons asked.

‘Nope,’ said Hector.

‘OK, team,’ said Walter, ‘let’s see some action.’

Everyone nodded and grunted and finished what was left of their cold coffees. Karen tickled the monster and put it in standby mode.

The cheery face momentarily reappeared and sweetly said, ‘Good luck, team!’

‘Good luck, monster!’ the young ones replied.

Walter and Mrs West shared another look. Ricky, the Hytec rep would have to be spoken to about that. The naff comments would have to go.

Before those going out left the office Gibbons said, ‘Are you going to tell us about Poppie-Wushka’s friend?’ and he grinned at Jan.

‘Another time,’ said Walter. ‘Too much to do.’

Jan nodded and held the door open for Jenny and the long drawn out detection business began all over again.

At 11.30 that night Karen was making ready for bed. Greg had been over for a light tea and he’d gone home early as he had an early shift the next morning. Preparation for a Casualty Awareness Open Day, something like that. Karen’s bedside phone rang.

She rolled over and grabbed it. ‘Hello?’

‘Karen Greenwood?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Kit Napoleon.’

Karen smiled to herself and said, ‘Hi.’

He must have culled the number from her application form.

‘I am sorry to bother you so late.’

‘Not a problem. I’m a light sleeper.’

‘I thought I’d ring and welcome you aboard. I have been going through the recent new recruits and was so pleased to see your name on the list.’

‘Great,’ she said, unsure of what to say.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Pretty good. I’ve signed up two recruits already, sold some courses and books too, so yeah, it’s been good so far.’

‘Oh, that is good. So glad to hear you are getting underway so soon. That’s half the battle, just to get started, but the real reason for my call was to advise you of a conference coming up next month and I was wondering if you and Greg could make it?’

‘Yeah, we know all about that, and we both hope to attend.’

‘That is good. You are just the kind of people we want there. I am so pleased. Have you a pen handy?’

‘Yep.’

‘Here’s my private number,’ and he reeled off the digits. ‘You can ring me any time you like, don’t hesitate, if you need any advice or input from the top, so to speak, just give me a call. Will you do that?’

‘Sure. Thanks, Mr Napoleon.’

‘You’re very welcome, and do call me Kit. I’ve kept you long enough. I have a few late calls still to make, so good luck and good night, Karen.’

‘Goodnight, err... Kit,’ and he rang off.

Karen set the phone down. Maybe a bit strange to be ringing so late, maybe a bit strange to be ringing her at home, but hell, at least he had taken the time and trouble to call, and she wondered if Kit rang all the new recruits. But there were so many of them that would be impossible. Perhaps he only rang the women; or the young women, or the single women, or the attractive women. Who knew what thoughts went through the guy’s head when it came to contacting new members late at night? Maybe he was just an old perv? Stranger things had happened. She’d ask Greg about it the following evening. Did Kit ring Greg when he joined? And she was still thinking of that, and him, not Greg, but Kit Napoleon, as she drifted into asleep. 

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Later that night. A people carrier swept out of the newer of the two Mersey Tunnels; Liverpool side, turned left and headed down toward the dock road, and turned right, northbound.

Two men inside, working the late shift. Worker bees, employees, unsocial hours, but the pay was good.

Not much traffic about, the odd cop car, the odd articulated wagon, the occasional cab, and a few revellers on their way home after a night out, most with a non drinking nominated driver at the wheel, most, but not all, so be aware. 1.26am, streets still well lit, economy cuts or not, orange sodium everywhere.

The dark green people carrier chugged on, heading for the Liverpool Freeport. Lots of docks on the left-hand side, lots of ships too. 95% of Britain’s trade still comes and goes by sea. Britain had been a trading nation since the land had severed itself from the Continent eight thousand years before, and it still was, and Liverpool was still a major player, maybe the second biggest, depending on whose figures you believed.

The people carrier motored on past Gladstone Dock and took a left fork into the Liverpool Freeport, Britain’s largest and most successful Free Zone, where a plethora of companies large and small, were located to utilise the business-friendly Customs duties regimes, and take advantage of the high security offered within the sprawling 383 hectare Free Zone site.

The driver pulled the people carrier to a standstill at the red and white barrier. Buzzed down the window. The glass hatch in the nearby brick-built hut opened, manned twenty-four hours, and the driver handed over documentation. Delivery and collection notes, authorisation dockets, and two new fifty-pound notes. The red-faced guy yawned and stamped the dockets, handed back the paperwork, most of it, and said, ‘Same papers on the way out?’

‘That’s the arrangement,’ said the driver.

The barrier rose, the carrier slid through, and did a big left swerve past containers all neatly laid out in a row, then a hundred yard straight run, and another left turn heading for the arc-lit State of Heavenly Peace, one of the newer Chinese built tubs of the China Changjiang National Shipping Corporation.

The people carrier pulled up at the quayside adjacent to the large vessel that had finished disgorging its containers. There was a narrow gangplank there, running flush against the side of the ship. A red sign flapped around at the base. It was in English and Chinese and said: Private: Crew and official visitors only. The tub did not cater for paying passengers.

Man Two got out of the people carrier and slid back the offside middle door. Glanced up at the gangplank. High up on the ship someone looked over the side and Man Two saw a shadowy figure trotting down the gangplank, and as he did so, the mobile stairway rattled and bounced and creaked up and down. Then he was at the foot, standing on the quayside, but he wasn’t alone. One man, Oriental, holding a dirty half-inch rope that fed out behind him to another Oriental, a woman. The rope went around her wrist and was knotted and on again, to the next, and so forth. Five women all told; in line astern, skinny and world weary and tired and hungry and confused and happy to get off that vast hunk of metal that in a previous life, had once been thousands of rusting western European cars.

The man at the front of the chain produced a piece of paper. ‘You sign,’ he said. ‘You take responsible.’

Man Two signed the paper, M Mouse, and took the offered line.

‘You fuck offey,’ said the Oriental. ‘Go!’ and he pointed at the people carrier and turned and scampered back up the gangplank, happy to be away, happy to be rid of his charges and trouble, and the risk and angst.

‘Come on, ladies, into the van,’ said Man Two, and he tugged them toward the people carrier door and beckoned them inside. They climbed aboard, happy to be away from that ship, happy to be off the sea. Anything and anywhere had to be better than being locked up in that windowless metal room, ten by ten, no furniture, cold metal floor, no bedding, no facilities, no fresh air, five people, one bucket, emptied once a day, one bowl of rice per human unit, one small bottle of water, per unit, per day. Damn all else. The people carrier door slammed closed.

Man One glanced round and saw them all aboard. Spoke on his mobile.

‘Five units collected. Leaving now. Out.’

It was thought the women couldn’t speak English, not that it mattered.

Man One started the engine and headed back toward the Freeport exit point. Same procedure, same documentation, same payday, same lighter papers coming back into the cab, and then they were out, onto the public highway, going south, heading for the Mersey Tunnel and the Wirral peninsula beyond.

Man Two rubbed his hands together and winked at Man One. Job done. Very nearly. Think of the money. Easy peasy. Best employment he had ever had. Life was sweet. 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It was a quarter past two in the morning when the people carrier popped out of the Mersey Tunnel, Wirral side. Stopped at the automatic barrier. Man One buzzed down the window and tossed the necessary coins into the plastic basket.

Behind him, five units slept on, sitting back in the comfortable padded seats, still tethered together. After four weeks on a rutted metal floor, it must have felt like heaven. Man Two yawned and told Man One to get a move on. Cruising down the M53, very light traffic, past the Moreton Spur, then the Woody, the giant council housing estate built after the Second World War to house bombed out Birkenhead residents, that, and the baby boomers that were about to burst on the nation. Past the Clatterbridge turnoff for the hospital where Man Two had his hand fixed the previous year after a ruck in a Bromborough pub. Past the A41 interchange, and not long after that they pulled off the motorway to sample the delights of the industrial complex of Ellesmere Port.

In the distance the vast chemical and petroleum works at Stanlow lit up the night sky, arc lights everywhere, excess gas being burnt off. One of the units stirred and yawned and gazed through the window at the free light show. It reminded her of home.

They entered a sprawling modern industrial estate, and at the far end, the vehicle pulled through an open pair of substantial grey metal gates, turned in a semi circle, and stopped with a squeak outside the main entrance.

Man One yawned. It was a quarter to three, and he’d been up since the previous 8am. He wanted home, he wanted his bed; he wanted his woman. Not long now. Man Two jumped out and slid back the doors.

‘Out ladies, out!’

Whether they understood English or not, they obeyed and staggered from the vehicle. The middle girl, perhaps the prettiest, though all things are relative, stared up at the large silver sign set above the entrance. Minstrel Electronics PLC, though whether she could read English, Man One and Two neither knew nor cared. They had completed their task, and that was all that mattered.

Man Two grabbed the leading rope and tugged them inside. There was an old guy sitting on a stool behind the reception desk, night porter maybe, night security, though it was debatable whether he could or would deter robbers. He looked up from his well-used red-topped newspaper and sniffed. What a motley bunch.

Man Two nodded at him and the old guy nodded back.

The old man spoke. ‘Mr Pryce said to lock them in the stationery room. It’s through there,’ and he nodded along the corridor. ‘Marked Stationery.’

It was a long corridor. It was a big building. Very big.

‘I think they might need the bathroom,’ said Man One, who was loitering inside the main doorway.

‘There’s one in the room,’ said the old guy.

‘I think they might need feeding too,’ said Man Two.

‘You’re fussy buggers, aren’t you? Worry ye not!’ and he stooped down and grabbed a large cardboard box. Inside were five small bottles of water and five packets of salt and vinegar crisps. ‘Mr Pryce thinks of everything, very keen to ensure the units are well cared for,’ and he laughed at his little joke and said, ‘come on, I’ll show you.’

He eased himself off the stool and led the way down the corridor and opened the stationery room. Inside, were steel shelving racks on both side walls, piled high with pads and files and packs of paper and office detritus, and a door opposite that led to a small cloakroom. In the centre of the main room was a large modern office table and that was it. There were no windows in either the main room or the cloakroom. The old guy set the box down on the table and pointed at the cloakroom, as if inviting the guests to inspect the facilities. Man Two dragged the human crocodile inside and let go of the rope.

‘Have fun, ladies,’ he said, and backed away toward the door.

The Oriental women looked at him, didn’t say a word, glanced at each other, heard the door lock, and began yakking, as they set about untying the rope. Soon as done it was feeding time, and five minutes later the cardboard box was empty, and the queue for the loo had begun.

Back in reception, Man Two said, ‘Five units successfully delivered.’

‘All right, clever dick! It wasn’t that difficult.’

‘When do we get paid?’ asked Man One.

‘Mr Pryce will be in at 9.30am. He’ll expect to see you here ready and waiting... now bugger off!’

Man One and Man Two shared a sour look. Not much time to get home and grab some kip. ‘Come on,’ said Man One, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ 

––––––––

EARLIER THAT EVENING Walter had decided to take a bath. The water was running, the steam was rising, as he wafted it away and emptied a generous amount of herbal relaxant oil into the churning water. He slowly removed his clothes. He’d just finished and was about to step in the bath when the mobile in his trouser pocket rang.

‘Bugger!’

He thought of leaving it, but Walter wasn’t a leave it till later kind of guy. Went to the trousers, retrieved the phone, yelled ‘What!’ in the vague direction of the device.

‘How’s the TwelfthApostle doing?’

‘DCS Wortley.’

‘That’s me.’

‘Have you spoken to Mrs West?’

‘I have had that pleasure.’

Walter sat down on the closed toilet lid and exhaled.

‘Are you all right? You sound a bit knackered?’ said Wortley.

‘I’m fine, I was doing my workout.’

Somehow Wortley couldn’t imagine Walter working out, but he hadn’t seen him in years. For all he knew Walter could have transformed into some kind of lithe and energetic figure, though he doubted it.

‘What did she say?’ asked Walter.

‘She wasn’t happy.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘I haven’t rung to discuss the delectable Mrs West.’

‘So why have you rung?’

‘I wanna know what progress you are making.’

‘Give me a chance.’

‘Have you any idea where the Protected might be?’

“The Protected”, thought Walter. It was a ridiculous phrase, and it certainly hadn’t done Jessica any favours.

‘No, is the short answer to that.’

‘We need to get a move on.’

‘We’re working hard on it. I’ll contact you as soon as I have something to say.’

‘Do you want me to send up a couple of additional officers, beef up the team, kind of thing?’

‘Rather, you didn’t.’

‘Okay, Darriteau. I’ll give you a week!’ and with that Wortley was gone.

‘I’ll give you a week,’ Walter parroted, as he set the phone down and stepped into the bath. A week to sort out someone else’s pile of excrement. But that was nothing new. Walter had been a shit shifter and shit sorter all his working life, and that wasn’t going to stop.

He lay back in the bath and closed his eyes. Turned the tap on and filled the bath to breaking point with water as hot as he could handle. Where was Jessica Stone, and who was holding her? And he thought of her in his house, in his bath, the very same avocado pear bath that he was now languishing in, it seemed hard to believe. Come to think of it, she was the last person to avail themselves of the fine facility, and he wondered how she found it, the bath, for it was only just long enough for him to stretch out, so the six foot she thing must have found it a little cramped. People above six feet tall must spend their entire lives with their knees stuck up in the air in baths that didn’t quite fit. Maybe being six foot plus wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

He thought of her killing a man. It didn’t seem to have damaged her. She had spoken of it briefly, but she’d shrugged her shoulders as if it was something that had to be done. Maybe she was right, but it never surprised Walter at people who turned out to be killers, because he knew that in certain circumstances, every human being walking the planet was a potential killer. That was obvious, and the stats confirmed it.

No one knows precisely how many murders occur on earth every day, but the best guess figure is around 27,500... per day! That’s in excess of ten million murders every year. A huge number of murderers, and a great deal of work for policemen and policewomen... like him and Karen. The human being is a killing machine. Maybe it was designed that way. No other warm-blooded mammal kills their own kind in such quantity, and certainly no other mammals kill in such numbers, unless it was for food. How many human killings were carried out to provide food? A tiny percentage, that’s for sure.

Walter pondered on a world where humans only ate human flesh, like say, pandas being addicted to bamboo. Geez! How would that work? There would have to be farms to produce human beings just to be culled for dinner. A nightmarish scenario if ever there was one. Human beings were supposed to be the civilised ones, but when you looked at it, that fact didn’t stack up. Truth was, human beings were the most ruthless and consistent killers the world had ever known. They always had been and still were, and it was up to the likes of him to bring some of those perpetrators to book.

He thought of the six foot she thing again, lying in his bath, and he wondered who was holding her, and where, and he wondered if they knew she had killed before, and therefore was capable of killing again. Maybe they should watch their backs, maybe they, whoever they were, were in for a big surprise. And as he was thinking of that, and thinking of her, and thinking of the Oriental girl dumped at the swimming baths, providing more proof that all human beings harboured, however deep down, however long dormant, however well hidden, however much denied, a proclivity to kill, and kill their own kind. A proven truth, and as his aunt used to say: The truth always hurts.

‘Shit!’ he whispered.

The water had gone cold.

He stepped out of the bath and grabbed a towel. Was it just him or had it turned a wee bit colder? Goose bumps on the ample arms, a harbinger of winter to come. Maybe he should think of turning on the heating. Just as well he was well padded and ready for anything. The heating would stay off a while yet.

Chapter Thirty

Mr Pryce’s silver Jaguar entered the gates of Minstrel Electronics at 9.15am. He walked rapidly through reception, nodding at the guy on the counter, a younger guy this time, he’d known for years.

He walked straight down the corridor and entered his office, fifth door on the right.

Threw his briefcase on the desk, slipped off his jacket and hung it up, and a second later his partner, Mr Brinton, entered the room.

‘The units arrived okay, I’m told,’ said Pryce.

‘Sure did,’ said Brinton. ‘Ready when you are.’

‘Okay. Bring them on.’

Brinton retreated to the stationery office. Opened up. The units were sitting on the far floor, backs to the wall. They stood up and stared at Brinton. Didn’t say a word. He retrieved the discarded cord and slipped it round their wrists until the crocodile was lined up, fresh and ready to go.

‘Come on, Ladies,’ he said, ‘it’s meet ’n’ greet,’ and he tugged the line away and down the corridor and into Mr Pryce’s office.

Mr Pryce stared up from his chair.

‘Motley bunch,’ he said.

‘Don’t seem to get any better, do they?’ said Brinton.

The units stared back, didn’t say a word.

‘The two fatter ones are no good, production line for them.’

‘The taller one’s passable, nice teeth too,’ said Brinton.

‘Yeah, and the petite one. I could see some mileage in her, a good wash, a proper haircut, and some decent clothes. The middle one’s just plain pig ugly, so that’s done and dusted. The tall one and the petite one go to Manchester, and you can have the rest.’

‘Okey-doke.’

‘Have they been fed?’

‘Not today.’

‘Make sure they have something, and get them moving, they have a lot of money to pay back.’

‘Will do.’

‘And have a word with Sammy Tang. Tell him they have got to be better than this. We’re paying $10,000 a unit and this lot are shite.’

Brinton nodded and muttered, ‘Sure boss.’

Mr Pryce bobbed his head and scratched his chin.

‘Are the couriers in yet?’

‘Not yet, due in any minute.’

‘Send them to me as soon as they arrive.’

‘Will do. Come on, ladies. It’s feeding time,’ and Brinton tugged the crocodile outside and back to the stationery room.

Man One and Man Two arrived soon after, bleary eyed, and waiting at the end of the corridor.

‘Mr Pryce will see you now,’ yelled Brinton, and he nodded them toward the boss’s office.

Man One paused outside and knocked on the open door.

‘Come!’

Man One and Two sauntered in and stood before the king.

‘Two units are to go to Manchester. I want you to take them as soon as Mr Brinton says they are ready.’

‘Sure, boss,’ said Man One.

‘The Cicero Club, Eastlands, near the football ground. You know it?’

‘Yeah, we’ve been there once before.’

‘Pay attention: You’re to collect £30,000 for each one, in cash, £60,000 in total. Make sure you count it. And check they are genuine, and take this little fella,’ and he opened the desk drawer and pulled out a small machine that could instantly determine whether a note was live or dead. ‘You don’t need to check every note, but you should check a random number as you are going through. Don’t be fobbed off, and don’t be in too much of a hurry. Take your time. Do it right. Understand?’

‘Yes, boss,’ said Man One.

Man Two grunted and nodded.

‘Any questions?’

‘When do we get paid?’

Pryce sniffed and went in a drawer on the left side of the desk and pulled out two fat brown envelopes and tossed them on the desk top.

‘We’ll need some juice money for Manchester,’ said Man One.

‘See Brinton.’

‘Sure thing.’

‘Take this case for the money,’ said the boss, handing a rectangular black briefcase across the desk. ‘And one other thing, don’t even think of doing a runner with the money. We’d find you, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Course, boss. More than my life’s worth.’

‘Precisely. And even if you did, we know where your women live... and your children.’

‘You can trust us, boss,’ said Man One.

Man Two said, ‘Implicitly,’ which to Pryce seemed a big word for him.

‘Have the plates been changed on the people carrier?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Get it done before you go.’

Man One nodded.

‘And when you come back drive the vehicle into the warehouse and spray paint it grey.’

‘Will do.’ 

‘I’ll ring Harry now,’ and Pryce jumped on the phone and spoke to a man named Harry, and advised him the couriers would be leaving soon with two excellent units, and to have the cash standing by.

‘Okay, that’s done, now get on with it!’ said Pryce, still on the phone, as he nodded the men away toward the door.

––––––––

AN HOUR LATER, BRINTON came out of the stationery room with the two lucky selected units. They’d been fed, washed, and had combed their hair, and looked about two percent better. Brinton offered the lead and Man Two took it and tugged them toward the exit.

‘Come along, ladies, you are going on a nice little trip,’ and he smirked and tugged them outside toward the people carrier as if he was walking his rescued greyhound in the local park. The last thing Man One saw was Brinton locking the other three back in the stationery room. Outside, Man Two opened the side door of the van. He grinned at the girls. ‘You lucky things. You are going to be in such demand. You will never have had so much attention,’ and holding the frame of the door, he leant inside to push one of the seats back.

The taller Oriental leant forward and down, the one with the nice teeth; sank them hard into Man Two’s left hand, deep as she could, tasted blood and flesh, and pulled back satisfied, like a snake delivering a fatal bite.

‘Holy shit!’ screamed Man Two, and he lashed out with his good hand, the same hand he had broken in a Bromborough pub. Couldn’t help himself. Automatic reaction. Crashed it into the Oriental’s face. Smashed her nose every which way.

She screamed and bent at the waist, looked like she might go down, his hand covered in blood, more scarlet dripping to the tarmac, her nose bleeding like a dripping tap. Man One had come outside in time to witness the bite and the smite; and had two bleeding and unhappy characters on his hands.

‘What the hell did you do that for?’

He grabbed the petite unit who was standing looking baffled, and led them back inside, shaking his head.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ yelled Brinton, surprised to see them back. He saw blood everywhere, all over the better looking unit, and hell, her face looked a mess. Blood on the courier’s hand and shirt too, and on the floor inside the building, fouling up reception.

‘She bit him... he hit her,’ Man One explained.

‘Not good! Manchester Harry won’t take damaged goods. Mr Pryce will have to be told. He is not going to like this. I don’t need this hassle!’

Chapter Thirty-One

At the same moment, Karen set the phone down. She’d been updating the Rushnells, not that there was a great deal of updating to do.

They’d heard nothing from Donald, either. It was still a mystery, so they said, and Donald remained unaccounted for.

Karen glanced at her boss. He seemed miles away. ‘We haven’t used all the facilities on the monster; you know that, don’t you, Guv? Barely scratched the surface.’

‘Oh, yeah. Like what?’

‘It has a suggestion feature, for a start.’

‘A suggestion feature? What’s it going to suggest? Back Liverpool at the weekend? Steer clear of Kit Contrick?’

‘Court papers coming your way,’ she said, a mock expression of anger on her face. ‘Seriously, Guv, we won’t know if we don’t ask it.’

Darriteau suppressed a scoff and nodded her toward the machine that had been pushed back against the wall like a naughty boy. She smiled and jumped up and trotted toward it. Woke it up with a prod in the midriff.

‘Hello again, team,’ it said in that irrepressibly cheerful voice via a computer generated young woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes, a woman that, it had to be said, bore more than a passing resemblance to Karen.

She brought up the Sadie case and pressed the suggestion button.

‘Thank you. I shall now investigate the case and try to solve the puzzle.’

Walter scoffed. ‘And how long is that going to take?’

‘No idea, Guv.’

‘Whatever next? Computers solving crimes. We may as well go home! I’ll tell Mrs West to prepare the redundancy papers.’

‘Give it a chance!’

‘Conclusions reached! Conclusions reached!’

Karen and Walter glanced at one another and shared a look.

‘Not that long,’ she said.

‘And what conclusions are they?’

‘You can have them in audio, audio with visual, text, or printed.’

‘Just get on with it,’ he said, becoming annoyed that it was interrupting his thinking time.

Karen selected audio with visual and the generated fairy was back and talking.

‘There is no proof there is any connection between the Rushnell case and the Sadie case.’

‘Tell us something we don’t know! And who told it the girl’s name is Sadie?’

Karen pulled a face. Didn’t say a thing.

The monster hadn’t finished.

‘Sadie originates from overseas. That could be first generation, we do not know for certain, but if she is an overseas student, a visitor to the UK, she may have been studying at one of the many Chester English-language schools. In that case, she will be missing from class. Would you like me to produce an up-to-date list of possible educational establishments?’

Karen and Walter shared another look.

‘It’s a thought, Guv.’

‘Not the worst idea in the world, I’ll give you that.’

‘Do you want the list?’

‘Sure, and does it have anything else to add?’

As if hearing the question, the monster began again.

‘According to the post mortem, Sadie used spectacles, but they were missing.’

‘Tell us something we don’t know!’

‘She may have obtained them from a local optician. They should be visited and checked. Do you wish me to prepare an up-to-date list of opticians?’

‘No good,’ said Walter. ‘What do we do? Visit them armed with a dreadful picture of a Chinese woman who may or may not have visited a year or two ago, and even that is unlikely. Who in God’s name is going to remember? Imagine the wasted man-hours in that? Mrs West would be furious.’

‘Give it a chance, Guv.’

The monster still hadn’t finished. ‘As for Donald Rushnell, the thing that stands out about this person is his very ordinariness. Statistics show that citizens who are, on the face of it, particularly ordinary, often have another side to them that is anything but ordinary.’

‘Like what?’ said Walter.

Karen shrugged, pressed the suggestion button again.

‘You need to input more information and intelligence about all the characters in this case for me to solve the crime.’

Walter harrumphed and said, ‘We need to input more information and intelligence into here,’ and he tapped the side of his head, ‘and I will solve the crime.’

‘And the language schools, Guv?’

‘Get Gibbons and Hector on it PDQ.’

Karen broadly smiled. One up for the monster.

––––––––

WHEN MR PRYCE HEARD and saw what had happened to his star asset, he was furious.

‘How could you be such a bloody idiot?’ he yelled through the building.

‘She nearly bit my hand off, boss!’ pleaded Man Two, displaying his still bleeding paw before the boss’s eyes.

‘You didn’t have to smash her face in!’

‘Sorry, boss. I didn’t think.’

‘No! You don’t think, that’s your problem. There’ll be a big stoppage in wages.’

Man Two looked suitably downcast.

Pryce turned to Brinton.

‘We can’t send her like that. Harry wouldn’t pay. Waste of time. You’ll have to send a substitute. The slightly thinner of the two fat ones.’

Brinton nodded and said, ‘I’m on it.’

Pryce turned back to the damaged unit. Grabbed her wrist, pushed her against the wall. Jabbed his huge hand around her neck. Jerked her head back against the breeze-block wall and squeezed.

‘I don’t know whether you understand me, you thick Oriental whore, but if there is any repetition of that, if you attack anyone else ever again, you’ll be down the road. For good. Make myself clear?’

‘Don’t think she understands English, boss,’ said Man One, still holding the wrist of the petite unit, who had remained silent throughout.

‘She’ll understand this!’ said Pryce, applying pressure to her dainty throat.

The unit looked suitably terrified. Couldn’t breathe. Thought she’d better nod. Pryce looked deep into her dark eyes. Nodded too, and smiled. They understood each other. It would be her last chance.

Pryce said, ‘When your nose is fixed, I’m going to make sure you get what’s coming to you.’

The bloody nosed unit nodded again through the pain.

Brinton was back with the Manchester substitute. God knows what Harry would make of her. Pryce relaxed his grip. The taller unit with the smashed nose gulped air.

‘Here!’ said Pryce. ‘Take this worthless piece of shit away before I lose my temper,’ and he threw her into Brinton’s arms, as he passed over the substitute unit to Man One.

‘All right, show’s over,’ said Brinton. ‘Let’s get back to some semblance of normality,’ and he nodded the couriers away. ‘Come on, you!’ he snapped, tugging the lead and jerking the damaged unit down the corridor. He paused and took out his big bunch of keys and unlocked the doors and tugged her through, and on again to another set of solid locked doors, and through those and onward into the main body of the vast building. 

Chapter Thirty-Two

Yet Kwai, or Beautiful as a Rose, or to give the girl her full name, Yet Kwai Dang, was born in the outskirts of the central Chinese city of Chungking in the Yangtze basin. The city was now known as Chongqing, or Yu, to give it its official abbreviation.

On the day Yet Kwai emerged into the world, her father’s shoulders slumped. Another damned girl! What good were girls to him? Her father hated her from the first moment, and she never stood a chance. Her mother was the only friend she ever had, and it was her mother who called her Beautiful as a Rose.

The Dang family were gangsters, always had been in their own mean-spirited way, a deeply ingrained family trade they practised regardless of what government or political party were in power. They always needed added muscle, operating on the fringes of, or just outside the law. Smugglers, currency exchange, opium dealers, blackmailers, for the main, though they weren’t beyond a little old-fashioned thieving when the opportunity arose. To achieve their aims, they had remained in business through bribery and kickbacks to local officials, even in the most difficult times, and when that didn’t work, they employed outright violence.

Knives were their speciality, always had been, attracted less attention than a gun, and cheaper and quieter too, and some said, more satisfying for the user, and more terrifying for the target. Each member of the Dang family carried several knives.

Theirs was a male dominated clan, unnaturally so, if anyone cared to look at the statistics, and that grew worse when Yet Kwai’s father punched his wife in a drunken rage. She fell backwards across the kitchen, striking the back of her head on the top of the old cast iron gas stove. The mother was made of stern stuff and put up a tremendous fight. Lasted fourteen hours, lying on her reed bed, groaning terribly, where the young Yet Kwai would bring her drink, and comfort, before the mother slipped miserably from this cruel world.

The girl was seven, and by the time she was twelve, the father, who never once spoke to her, took to renting her out to various uncles for the weekend. When she was sixteen, he finally was rid of her when he sold her for $500 in the local tavern to a travelling hoodlum from the coast who made regular buying trips to the interior. The father thought he’d done well. It was a decent price for a piece of rubbish, and the girl had finally contributed something of use.

Her new master gave her a good slap to establish his credentials, took her to Macao, and on to Hong Kong, where her future would lie in the House of Serene Happiness, an upmarket, or so it liked to believe, brothel.

She never quite made it to the trading floor, for in a big government cleanup, or was it a clampdown, the place was raided, and Yet Kwai was spirited away before the Hong Kong Police could take her into custody for questioning. She was sold again, for a $1,000 this time, about the right price for used and battered goods, and a week later she ended up on the vast modern motor vessel, the State of Heavenly Peace, outward bound for Liverpool. She had no idea where she was going, nor did any of the others, and she didn’t care that much because one thing was certain, it couldn’t be any worse a life than the one she had endured.

––––––––

JUN WOO, MEANING TRUTH, was born in the same year as Yet Kwai, in the bustling metropolis that is Hong Kong. She was born into a loving family who owned a beautiful house set high on the hill, a house that had been in the family for almost a hundred years.

Like everyone else, the Woo family were mighty apprehensive when the communist troops arrived on their doorstep in 1997, for the Woos imagined their smart property might be seized, their tailoring business located in one of the busiest commercial districts, be closed down or impounded or nationalised, their capital assets taxed out of existence, and in their most vivid nightmares, these were only the beginning of their woes.

But the opposite happened. Mainland party officials began beating a path to the Woo family store where quality was everything, where the best English woollen cloths, tweeds, and worsteds would be imported and transformed into amazing clothing that sold all across the world for a hefty price.

The Woo family could complete a perfect handmade suit in forty-eight hours, or in half that time if it were really important, or if it were made worthwhile, or if the buyer was of sufficient status. It would be a rare day when the team were not working on an important order for a party official somewhere or other.

The red and cream Woo tag on a jacket became a highly sought after label, and the Woo family was clever enough to realise the fact, and exploited it for all it was worth. The business prospered like it had never done before, and the cute young Jun Woo wanted for nothing. Her childhood was happy and loving and she could be forgiven for thinking that all kids enjoyed such a joyous upbringing.

She went to good schools, enjoyed lavish holidays in Australia, the United States, and England, still the preferred destination, and when the time came, it was made clear to her that she would be granted the privilege of choosing her own husband, as was the way in the West. She knew she was a lucky kid.

When she was eighteen, everything changed.

She angered her parents beyond belief, and after that, their confidence in her drained away.

Two young Chinese women, Yet Kwai, and Jun Woo, neither of whom could remember the 20th century, and coming from differing backgrounds, it was no surprise they had never met. 

Chapter Thirty-Three

Walter and Karen were sitting in Mrs West’s office, chewing the cud, going over again what they knew, and speculating on what they didn’t.

‘Any joy with the language schools?’ asked Mrs W.

‘We have nearly finished checking them,’ said Karen. ‘Nothing so far.’

‘It was worth a punt. Who thought of that?’

‘It was the monster, ma’am,’ said Karen, smiling, before correcting herself. ‘The Hytec system.’

Walter pursed his lips and looked away and out through the window to the tree-lined river on the far side of the green Roodee.

‘And no one’s reported the dead girl missing?’

Walter grimaced and shook his head.

‘And nothing more on Donald Rushnell?’

‘Not so far, ma’am,’ said Walter. ‘I am beginning to think he has done a bunk to London, or something similar, looking for excitement.’

‘Could be,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t be the first. And no connection between the two?’

Walter again shook his head. ‘Doubt it.’

‘What about Jessica Stone?’

‘Not much good news there either, ma’am. Usually in a case like this we would be mining the underbelly for all it’s worth, looking for help and intel from our snouts and grasses, but this time they are already scouring the city for her, in case she’s still in the area, not to help us, of course, but to line their own pockets. There’s a huge reward out for anyone who can locate the girl and we’re not going to get a look in.’

‘Do you think she’s still here?’

‘I’ve no reason to, but DCS Wortley and his crew at the UK Protected Persons Service seem to think so. We have to take that seriously.’

A hard knock came to the door.

Mrs W nodded Karen to deal with it. She stood and opened up and a grinning Gibbons was revealed.

‘Think I’ve found him, Guv, on the CCTV.’

‘Progress at last!’ said Mrs W, and they all hustled across her office and headed outside.

‘Can you put it up on the Hytec?’ asked Mrs West.

‘Sure!’ said Gibbons, and a minute later the slightly blurred CCTV black and white pictures were beaming down from the monster, courtesy of Chester railway station.

‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ said Gibbons.

They watched a guy walk down the platform and get on a train.

‘The time line’s right,’ said Gibbons, ‘the day’s right, looks like him, I think it’s him.’

The pictures were not great, but the moving man definitely resembled Donald Rushnell. He was carrying one medium sized modern canvas bag.

‘Maybe we should get his mother to come in and see if she can confirm it’s him.’

‘It’s him,’ said Walter. ‘He’s wearing the same lightweight jacket his mother told me about. Where was the train going?’

‘Newport, Guv,’ said Gibbons.

‘What, in Shropshire?’ asked Karen.

‘No, the South Wales Newport.’

‘And where was it stopping?’ asked Walter.

Gibbons looked down at his sheet. ‘Oh God, Guv, loads of places.’

‘Like where?’ persisted Walter, just about keeping the irritation from his voice.

‘Whitchurch, Wem, Shrewsbury, Church Stretton, Craven Arms, Ludlow, Leominster, Abergavenny, and Newport.’

Pretty close to the England-Wales border all the way down, thought Walter. ‘Fair enough. Find out which of those stations has CCTV. Get hold of any that have, upload it to the monster, and go through it all.’

‘We need to be careful,’ said Mrs West. ‘The guy hasn’t committed any crime that we know of, and we have to use our resources where they’re most needed.’

Everyone knew she meant the Sadie killing first, and the Jessica Stone abduction second, but those enquiries were stalling, and sometimes good news elsewhere had a positive effect on another inquiry, and sometimes two separate cases could morph into one.

‘I know that, ma’am,’ said Walter. ‘Only Gibbons and Browne will work on this.’

She pursed her lips and reluctantly nodded.

‘Why would he be going to any of those places?’ speculated Karen.

‘Good question,’ said Walter. ‘Could be any number of reasons. Might have a secret lover there, or a bolthole of some kind. And you can get a London train or down to the south coast from Newport.’

‘Bit of a long way round of going about it,’ said Karen.

‘Maybe he considered he might be on film, so perhaps he was trying to shake us off. Better chance of that with several shorter journeys using lesser known stations. And anyway, Mrs West is right, let’s forget Donald Rushnell for the time being, and get back to thinking of the dead girl, and the missing girl.’

Mrs West nodded her approval and made her way back to her office. Walter nodded at Karen and said, ‘Ring the Rushnells, ask them to come in and ID the pics.’

Before she could do that, her phone rang, and she grabbed it.

‘Yes, he’s here, just a moment.’

‘Who?’ said Walter.

‘Mrs Cresswell, from Lion Loans.’

Walter bobbed his head and reached out for the phone. 

Chapter Thirty-Four

Another phone rang in Minstrel Electronics.

Pryce picked it up. Said, ‘Hel-lo?’

‘What the hell are you sending me?’

It was Harry from the Cicero Club and he didn’t sound happy. Truth was, Pryce had been expecting a call.

‘What’s the problem, Harry?’

‘You know full well what the problem is. The units are faulty!’

‘Oh?’

‘Don’t “Oh” me. One’s as thin as a starving rat, and the other’s just plain pig ugly.’

‘Untouched by human hand,’ said Pryce in an annoyingly upbeat manner.

‘Don’t give me that crap! The quality of the units has been deteriorating for some time. I ain’t paying for these.’

‘Come on, H. I am sure you can do something with them. Good wash, a tight dress, subdued light, and away you go.’

‘I’m not paying for them, Pryce. They’re shite!’

‘Shame. I guess my boys will have to bring them back.’

The line went quiet. Maybe Harry had been a bit hasty, and he did need new stock. ‘I’ll give you 40K for the two. Take it or leave it.’

Pryce’s turn to take a moment out, though he already knew his answer.

‘I could maybe do 50K.’

‘No, no, no! 40K or you can bugger off!’

It was only as Pryce imagined.

‘You drive a hard bargain, H. But on this one occasion, I’ve bought well, so I think we can accommodate you.’

‘It’s me that’s doing you a big favour!’

Pryce sniffed and said, ‘Put my man on, I’ll confirm that’s okay.’

‘No more faulty units!’ blustered Harry. ‘I’m warning you, Pryce. Any more like this and I’ll be returning them pronto, pronto!’

‘I’ll look into the quality control aspect.’

‘You do that! Here’s your guy.’

––––––––

AT THE POLICE STATION, Walter rammed the phone against his bushy grey hair and said, ‘Mrs Cresswell, what can I do for you?’

‘Donald Rushnell has been thieving.’

‘Oh?’ Walter sat up straight. ‘How much?’

‘As of now, £263,838, and that’s before interest!’

‘What! How?’

‘He’s been making fraudulent loan applications. One per month going back over the last eighteen months. Between 15K and 20K a time.’

‘And he was responsible for processing and passing the loans?’

‘You got it, Inspector. He checks out the creditworthiness of the applicants and approves or rejects them.’

‘And they are all bogus?’

‘They are.’

‘How did this come to light?’

‘All the monthly repayments were due this morning. None of them were paid. Up to now, all the monthly payments on all the loans have been made like clockwork. No one’s going to query an open loan where the payments are coming through on the nail. So, on the older ones, we’ve maybe had eighteen payments, the most recent, we’ve had none, nothing at all. Over time he’s gradually increased the value of the loans.’

‘So the most recent loans are the biggest?’

‘Correct. That £263,838 figure is the outstanding balance.’

‘Clever.’

‘Yes. But not for me, and not for this business. I want him caught, Inspector, and the money recovering, and quick, before he spends it. This could ruin us.’

‘Could there be more loans you don’t know about?’

‘God! I hope not, though I guess it’s possible.’

‘Okay, I’ll be over to see you within the hour. I’ll want to see the paperwork.’

‘Of course.’

‘See you soon.’

Walter set the phone down and stood up.

‘Listen up, everyone. We now have serious crime with regard to Donald Rushnell. He’s no longer just a missing person. He has relieved his employers of more than a quarter of a million pounds. I’m going over there in a tick. Hector, get authority to access and freeze all his bank accounts, and get access to the parents’ accounts as well. Also mobile phone records for all three of them. Gibbons, crack on with the CCTV, he must have got off that train somewhere.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

Hector said, ‘If the Rushnells don’t have a computer at home, maybe they went to the local library to use one.’

‘Possibly,’ said Walter. ‘Check the local libraries, see if they had access to computers, and see what they were up to.’

‘Do you think the parents are involved?’ asked Gibbons.

‘No! But what do I know? Anything’s possible.’

Karen was busy acquainting the monster with the latest developments.

‘Karen, get a car ready for five minutes. I’m just going to keep Mrs West up to speed.’

‘What about Sadie?’

‘Sadie will have to wait,’ and he paused, as if thinking better of it. ‘Are Poppy and Jenny still checking out the Oriental businesses?’

‘Far as I know, they are.’

‘Good! We’ll talk to them again later,’ and he stood up and limped toward Mrs West’s office.

For the moment, Jessica Stone didn’t rate a thought. No doubt Wortley would ring again later to check on progress. He was going to be disappointed. Couldn’t be helped. A hot lead was a hot lead.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Saint Mary’s College opened for business in Hong Kong in 1963. It was a Catholic based school and determined to teach all its lessons in English. It still did, though it teaches Cantonese, Mandarin, French, and Russian too.

Over the years, it built up an envied reputation for turning out bright, well-qualified individuals, many of whom went on to glittering careers.

The Woos were not Catholic, but were delighted when Jun passed the entrance examination with some ease at age eleven. Jun attended the school for seven years and enjoyed every day she went there. She made friends for life, fell in and out of love at least six times, nothing too serious, gained confidence, and was popular, always amongst the first to be invited anywhere by everyone. 

She passed her final examinations with flying colours, finishing second in her year.

‘Such a pity you couldn’t have been top,’ whinged her mother, but Jun wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in that. She had worked hard, done her best, and was more than satisfied with her schooling and qualifications. The fact that one other individual had done marginally better, and a boy at that, was irrelevant.

‘Pity you couldn’t have been top,’ repeated her father.

Jun shrugged her shoulders and returned to her book. She was looking forward to her career. She was bright and personable and could have done anything she chose. Her parents had always favoured a profession: medicine, law, or accountancy. That would be good, they said. You could do the Woo company books in your spare time, save us a fortune, suggested her father, but Jun was having none of that. She had long since decided where her career path would take her. She had known since she was fifteen. She would join the Hong Kong Police Force, for that was where her heart lay.

‘But you cannot be serious!’ moaned Mrs Woo.

‘It’s what I want to do, mother.’

‘No, girl! Wandering the city all hours of the day and night, smiling and kowtowing to tourists, arresting drunks, being beaten up by crazed druggies, carrying a gun! Have you lost your mind?’

‘I want to be a policewoman, mother.’

‘Whatever will the neighbours think?’

‘It has nothing to do with them! It’s my life, and my career.’

‘What about the stock market?’ suggested father. ‘I could get you into a good firm? You’d make bundles of cash.’

Jun pulled a face. It was true she had never wanted for anything and had never been without money. But the thought of becoming its slave, that was too hideous a prospect to contemplate. She could not think of anything worse.

‘She needs to go to university,’ said Mrs Woo.

‘Of course she does! That’s a very good idea,’ said Mr Woo. ‘Why not be ambitious and try for Oxford?’

‘I don’t want to go to university!’

‘It’s not all about what you want!’ said Mrs Woo.

‘It’s just a phase you are going through,’ said Mr Woo.

‘It’s not!’

‘It’s all those stupid cop programmes she watches on TV,’ said Mrs Woo. ‘There’s far too many of them, and they’re too violent. All those European subtitled things. Dreadful they are! Awful! Dead bodies all over the place. Miserable people. Miserable lives. Shouldn’t be shown! Shouldn’t be allowed! I’m surprised the authorities permit it.’

‘It’s not a phase,’ repeated Jun, working hard to contain her teenage temper.

‘Why don’t you come and work in the office in the tailors for a year or so, and look at it all again then?’ suggested Mr Woo. ‘Gain a bit of experience in the real world. It’ll give you a different perspective.’

‘No father, I have already arranged to attend the prelim interview.’

‘What! Where? When?’

‘At the Hong Kong Police Force, I told you.’

‘You’ve done what?’ asked Mrs Woo.

‘The first interview, it’s next Tuesday.’

‘Well, you’re not going! So you can get that idea out of your mixed up mind,’ said Mrs Woo, turning to her husband. ‘Tell her she cannot go!’

Mr Woo shrugged and knew that whatever he said wasn’t going to make any difference.

‘Why Jun, why? Why do you want to join the police?’

‘It’s my calling, mother.’

‘Don’t be so stupid! You sound like a Christian nun!’

‘It’s what I want, and it’s what I am going to do, and if you want the best for me, if you want me to be happy you should encourage me every step of the way,’ and with that Jun picked up her book and stepped outside to the balcony and settled down in one of the cane chairs in the sunshine to read.

Most other people, most other kids, would have let such a conversation interrupt their train of thought, but not Jun, for she was certain of her decision and her forthcoming course of action. There was no reason to let a few heated words distract her. And anyway, she was reading the latest Japanese police blockbuster novel that was riding high in the book charts, so true to life, so realistic, gritty, it was a great read, about a team of special agents, all female, all conquering, and it was just fab, fab, fab.

Mrs Woo huffed and puffed and made some tea. She said, ‘I don’t know why we are worrying about it. There’s nothing of her. A puff of wind would blow her over. She’s as much chance of passing the physical training exam as I have,’ and she snorted and looked at her husband for support.

But he was playing with his new Korean tablet that dominated his life. He had heard his wife well enough, but said nothing. He knew Jun as well as anyone, and he knew she possessed the Woo gene, the determination gene, that would always get the Woos through, often against all odds, logic, and reason.

Mr Woo enjoyed the occasional gamble, the Woo family business maintained an executive box at the Happy Valley Racetrack where they would entertain family, friends, and business acquaintances alike, and come to think about it, there was a big race meeting coming up on Saturday. A bigwig party member had been overheard in the tailor shop. All the guys were talking about it, bleating on about a horse that was sure to win the big race. What was the name again? Big Effort, that was it, Big Effort, strangely appropriate really, as it was clear they would have to make a big effort to talk Jun out of her ludicrous decision.

Mr Woo placed the odd flutter too, nothing too serious. He always knew when to stop. He’d never bet high stakes, and never more than he could afford to lose, which these days was a considerable amount. But, yes, he would invest a few of his hard-earned Hong Kong dollars on Big Effort at Happy Valley on Saturday. But if he really had to have a wager, he’d liked to have bet on Jun passing the physical training examination, because he knew Jun possessed the Woo gene in spades. Not that he would tell his wife about that. She seemed upset enough about things as it was. 

Chapter Thirty-Six

Mrs Cresswell at Lion Loans & Finance was hard to age, thought Walter, probably around forty. She wore her long dark hair up in some kind of elaborate bun that Walter imagined must have taken her hours to prepare in the morning, and deconstruct at night-times.

She was sitting on one side of the boardroom table, as he and Karen were shown in.

Black suit, little make-up, businesslike, stern demeanour, though that might have been the circumstances she found herself in. All the loan applications and relevant documentation were spread over the large polished table.

‘How long has he worked here?’ asked Karen.

‘Ages, longer than me, I’m not sure of the exact time. I can check if you like?’

‘Later. Could you go through the loan application procedure?’ asked Walter.

‘Sure. The customer fills out an application form, like this one here,’ and she showed the detectives a typical form, ‘sends it, or hands it in, together with an application fee and two forms of ID.’

‘And all the applications had relevant ID?’

‘Correct, on the face of it, perfect ID.’

‘How did the applicants pay the application fee?’ asked Karen.

‘In cash, every time, according to the records.’

‘Is that usual?’

‘It’s not unusual.’

‘And the IDs would have been checked by Donald?’ asked Walter.

‘Correct, and of course they are all forgeries,’ and she passed plausible forged utility bills across the table.

‘Was Donald ever left alone here?’

‘Yes, especially when we were busy. He would often be the only one here after work, supposedly catching up on things.’

They shared a look at that, as images of Donald Rushnell filled their heads, hard at work, alone at nights in the Lion Loans office, busying himself with loan applications and forgeries and theft, and on a grand scale.

‘So he had keys?’

‘He did.’

‘Wasn’t anyone else responsible for overseeing and checking the loans he processed?’ asked Walter.

‘Of course.’

‘And who was that?’ asked Karen.

‘Me. But in my defence, as you can see, the documentation and IDs look perfect, and all payments on previous existing loans he arranged were coming through on the nail without a hitch. This was not a quick hit-and-run raid, this was a long, calculated, and drawn-out process. He must have been working on this scam for years, literally.’

‘How were the loans paid out?’

‘By direct transfer.’

‘And they all went to different bank accounts?’ clarified Karen.

‘Correct again.’

‘So, Donald must have opened new and quite separate bank accounts for each fraudulent application?’

‘Yes.’

‘It isn’t so easy to open bank accounts these days,’ said Karen.

‘It is, if you are good at forging documents, and have a sizeable deposit to pay into the account in the first place.’

‘How many loans and bank accounts are we looking at?’ asked Walter.

‘Eighteen.’

‘So, he must have at least eighteen different bank accounts out there somewhere,’ said Karen.

‘Yes,’ said Walter, ‘and pound to a penny, they will all have been cleared out by now.’

Mrs Cresswell didn’t look happy at that thought.

‘Can you give us details of all the bank accounts?’ asked Walter.

The woman briefly smiled and passed over a pre-prepared list.

‘We’ve looked in his bedroom,’ said Walter, ‘and we didn’t find eighteen chequebooks, eighteen pay-in books, eighteen sets of bank statements. Could he have kept them here?’

‘Bit of a risk if he did,’ said Mrs Cresswell. ‘I’ve searched his desk. They are not there, but you are welcome to look.’

‘Later,’ said Walter.

‘I wonder why he stopped now,’ said Karen.

‘Maybe he’d reached a target figure for the amount of cash he needed to raise,’ said Walter. ‘What did you say the total amount was again?’

‘£263,838.’

‘That could be for a house or a flat somewhere,’ suggested Karen.

‘Yes, it could, but if he has bought a property in the UK we will find it,’ said Walter.

‘Unless he’s using forged ID again,’ said Mrs Cresswell, ‘which, let’s face it, is highly likely.’

‘More likely that any property could be overseas,’ said Karen. ‘And that will be harder to track down.’

‘Don’t say that,’ said Mrs Cresswell. ‘This business could go kaput, and all the staff lose their jobs unless at least some of this money is recovered.’

‘We have no evidence he has been active overseas,’ said Walter, ‘so let’s not jump to conclusions.’

Mrs Cresswell gave a look that said, that’s something, I guess.

‘Have you any idea why he might need a substantial amount of money?’ asked Walter.

‘None. The guy kept himself to himself. Didn’t really talk or mix with the rest of the staff. Didn’t socialise hardly at all. He was quiet and good at what he does, the model employee, if you will.... until this.’

‘We’ll need to take these documents with us.’

‘Okay, but we’ll need copies.’

‘No, you make copies of all of them, and we’ll come and pick the originals up, say tomorrow morning, that okay?’

Mrs Cresswell nodded.

‘Did he have his own computer?’ asked Karen.

‘No. We just have the one central system that we all access.’

‘And could he have forged the documents using your system?’

‘He could, and simply delete the docs once he had printed out what he wanted. We have good colour laser printers here. They do a great job, but there’s nothing untoward like that saved on the system, I’ve checked.’

Walter picked up a forged utility bill. ‘Could this have been done on your laser printers?’

She pursed her lips and nodded. ‘Quite possibly. There’s no reason why not.’

Walter stood up and said, ‘I think that’s it for now. I’d like to see his desk, and while I am doing that, Karen can have a quiet word with the staff, and then we’ll get back to the station and crack on. If you find out anything else, give me a call.’

‘Oh, I will, Inspector, I will.’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jun Woo was an excellent student, and she put that skill to good use by studying in great detail the Hong Kong Police Force website. She knew she must be a minimum of 152 cm tall and weigh at least 42 kg.

She passed on both, not by much, but a pass was a pass.

She knew she would be expected to do seven pull-ups, not a problem to her, and run 800 metres in a maximum of four minutes twelve seconds, which she could comfortably do for she was built like a middle distance runner, slim and wiry.

She had always possessed good stamina, an attribute she boosted by playing squash with her cousin at every available opportunity. But she also knew she would be expected to vertical jump 45 cm, and that was the one she struggled with.

Fact was, she was slightly below the figure, and to help with that she began exercising her calf muscles in the hope she would make the grade. Everything else she was fine with. A fluent multilingualist, an essential attribute for the HKPF, bright and logical, she could solve the intelligence puzzles quicker than anyone, while academically, she was as good as it gets for a young person. She needed to be confident too, and in that she possessed all the confidence of youth. That would not be a problem, and finally, she must be able to demonstrate excellent communication skills, and there, as spokeswoman for St Mary’s Debating Society, she was used to communicating before a sizeable and sometimes boisterous audience. She enjoyed it. The more pressure heaped upon her, the brighter she shone.

The problem was the blessed vertical jump; that would be her downfall, if she were to fail.

She attended two interviews, completed two written examinations, and all had gone well. The final hurdle was the physical fitness test and for once she was nervous at the outcome.

Her parents had not warmed to the whole idea. It was an anathema to them. Their bright and precious daughter was far too good to be a beat policeman, or policewoman, everyone said so, and even her friends thought she had made a strange choice, and even a downright wrong decision.

The running proved easy, the pull-ups a satisfactory pass, and then on to the vertical jump, where, she failed. The instructor glanced at his records and noted that she had passed everything else with flying colours. He noted too the comment written on her records by the Regional Commander of Hong Kong Island that said: This girl is the brightest of her generation. It would be in everyone’s interest if she were to pass all examinations.

Reading between the lines the instructor wasn’t sure what that meant, but he did know he didn’t want to be the sole examiner to fail the girl. That thought was a worry. He called her back.

‘You were close there. Do it again!’

Jun thought it strange she was being given a second chance. It had never happened to anyone else so far as she knew, but that wasn’t the point. She had a second opportunity and she must grasp it.

She summoned all her last strength, gave herself a good talking to, and jumped, and failed again. She had managed 44.7 cm, failing by 0.3 of a centimetre, but a fail was a fail.

‘You’ve failed!’ said the instructor, ‘and that is terminal,’ and he glanced again at the note written by the Regional Commander: It would be in everyone’s interest if she were to pass all examinations, and he made a decision that would always baffle her.

‘In view of the fact that you have completed all other physical tests today, and taking into account tiredness at the end of the session, I believe that had you come earlier and done the jump first thing, I am satisfied you would have passed. In that case I am marking you as a pass.’

She glanced into his face. She could tell he was most uncomfortable with compromising his standards, and she had no idea why he had done that, but that didn’t concern her. Her face broke into a smile and she bowed her head deferentially to him three times. He looked away and nodded her toward the exit. He didn’t want to see her again. He never wanted to be reminded of what he had done. She turned and trotted away, grinning as she went. She’d passed all tests. Jun Woo was in.

––––––––

THAT HAD OCCURRED TWO years before. Her parents tried everything they knew to change her mind, without success. On the day she left for her initial training it was all they could do to wish her well. Her father left the house early for the tailoring business, citing how busy he was. He didn’t even say goodbye. Her mother told her to take good care of herself, but refused to accompany her to the barracks. Jun Woo went there in the company of her cousin alone, who hugged and kissed her at the entrance, and waved her goodbye, as Jun disappeared through the gates and out of their lives.

From the first moment she was fast-tracked for promotion. The HKPF was aware of what they had on their hands. She transferred to plainclothes work at the earliest opportunity, and after that she was introduced to a special unit that dealt with people-trafficking, and human slavery. Jun Woo hadn’t any idea that such a thing was a serious problem, but the more she investigated the field, the more fascinated and interested in it she became.

A position was coming up. It was a dangerous post. The HKPF was proposing to put an undercover officer into the field. They had long been preparing the ground to do precisely that. Jun Woo was informed of the vacancy and advised that it would be two things. First, incredibly dangerous, and second, the post could only be filled by volunteers. There would, and could, be no coercion involved, because the chances of coming back were rated at no better than one in three. The whole operation was highly confidential, and no one would leak information on pain of death. It was a state secret.

Jun Woo volunteered immediately.

She was the first to do so, and she hadn’t needed to think it over for more than a second.

In due course, she was informed that twenty girls had volunteered. That was a lie. Right from the outset the HKPF wanted Jun Woo and Woo alone, to take on the mission, for she was the only one within their ranks who they considered had any chance of success.

She was sent home on a week’s leave with express instructions to tell her parents she was being sent to mainland China for two years intensive training where she would be uncontactable, and this she did. In truth, they had long since lost interest in their wayward daughter’s crazy career, and brushed off the information as if it were an irrelevance. As before, it was her cousin who saw her off.

She did not go to mainland China; indeed it was possible the mainland Chinese had no knowledge of her mission, or even of the small and select unit to which she belonged, for secrecy was everything. She was advised she had a month to prepare. She would not leave the base during the whole of that time.

Her cover story was she came from southern China. She could speak the language and practised the accent. Her fictitious parents had died, and her uncle was keen to be rid of her. He was asking a thousand dollars, US, and that seemed a fair deal to all concerned.

Her age was reset to eighteen; that was not a problem for she did look young. She was issued new ID as Lily Sang, and introduced to the man who would play her uncle.

Her handlers deliberately belittled her and told her she was too clean, too sophisticated, too intelligent, too confident, too worldly wise, too well-turned out, too pretty, and too obviously a plant. She had a month to put all that right or the mission would be cancelled.

She was forbidden to wash or cut her hair. Her neat bob cut was allowed to grow out and then it was hacked to bits by a seemingly short-sighted rural village hairdresser. Her fillings were removed and her teeth downgraded. They discussed breaking her nose, but decided, to her relief, that was unnecessary. Her make-up was confiscated, as was the ring her first boyfriend had given her, and the expensive wristwatch her father had bought her before she fell from grace, was removed and slipped into a plastic bag and filed away. Her good clothes were seized, and she was provided cheap used Chinese garments. Jeans, blouse, bra, knickers, and worn-out trainers.

She looked the part. But when she spoke or walked or laughed, she did not. She was still the confident city girl.

They yelled at her. They bullied her. They pleaded with her.

‘Slouch more!’

‘Slur your speech!’

‘Don’t answer so fast!’

‘Act dumb, you’re not top of the class, you’re bottom, in the basement, with the rats... Act like it.’

‘Eat quickly!’

‘Burp!’

‘Fart!’

‘Act like a slut!’

‘Act like you’ve had every man in Hunan province, and want them all again!’

‘Speak loudly. Shout more!’

‘Bully your colleagues!’

‘Laugh like a lorry driver!’

‘Tell filthy jokes!’

‘Curse and swear.’

‘Get a chip on you shoulder.’

‘Act mean. Look mean!’

‘Glower more... and fucking mean it!’

––––––––

IT WAS THE HARDEST thing she had ever done, but after three weeks intensive training she was a changed being. She was promoted to acting Inspector, and if she were to turn up on the Woo doorstep, it was doubtful her parents would have recognised her. She was scruffy, smelly, uncouth, and just about the least desirable person anyone would ever wish to meet. She became Lily Sang and was almost ready.

She was warned time and again to trust no one. Her handlers said, behind her back, that Lily Sang was perfect, as good as it gets, the best undercover officer they had ever attempted to put into the field. But Jun Woo’s card had been marked from the outset. Her superiors were not surprised. They had expected it all along. Nothing less.  

It would be in everyone’s interest if she were to pass all examinations.

––––––––

HER FINAL BRIEFING consisted of being given a telephone number that she must commit to memory. She could ring that number on call-free from anywhere on earth. Her instructions were to call when she arrived at her destination, should the chance arise. She was offered a credit card that she must secret upon her. It was a big risk carrying such a thing, and everyone knew it, a risk that could cost Jun Woo her life. She weighed up the chances and accepted the card.

Previously, undercover officers had been working for more than eighteen months making contacts in backstreet harbour bars. Her uncle had infiltrated a known trafficking group. It turned out they might be interested in taking a look at the girl, though a thousand dollars, US, seemed a high price to them. They’d consider it, but no promises, and an arrangement was made to bring her to the bar at half past midnight in two day’s time. The undercover team had forty-eight hours to go over everything again. It would be their last opportunity. The officer formerly known as Jun Woo; now Lily Sang, was about to be launched on the world.

––––––––

AT THE FINAL BRIEFING with her handlers, Lily Sang glowered at her superiors through crooked teeth and bloodshot eyes, and swore at them, calling them cocksuckers and motherfuckers, and far worse besides, and spat in their faces for good measure.

For a second, she thought she might have overdone it.

They loved it. Everything about it. They loved her.

Lily Sang was their creation, something of a monster, it was true, but she was theirs, and she was ready. 

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Walter and Karen arrived back in the office after seeing Mrs Cresswell at Lion Loans.

On the way back Walter said, ‘First thing you do is get on to the banks and check all the balances. Freeze them as quickly as you can, even if the balance is zero. And send Gibbons and Browne to see them to get copies of all ID documentation used to open the accounts in the first place, assuming the banks are local, that is.’

‘They are, Guv,’ said Karen. ‘I checked the list.’

‘So he must have gone to some banks more than once?’

‘He did.’

‘Bit risky.’

‘Maybe he got a buzz from it.’

Walter frowned. ‘Possibly.’

They entered the office and Gibbons caught the Guv’s eye and said, ‘The Rushnells?’

‘What about them?’

‘They are in interview room three.’

‘Good. Have they seen the pics?’

‘They have.’

‘And?’

‘Positive ID.’

‘Only to be expected. Do they know about the missing cash?’

‘Nope. Thought you might like to talk to them about that.’

Walter bobbed his head. Gibbons thought he looked happy, and the Guv said, ‘Karen’s got a job for you and Hector, and tell her to join me when she’s free.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Gibbons, and he went to find Karen and see what was going down.

Walter limped toward the interview room. Went inside and said hello and sat down. There were two empty polystyrene cups before them. Chrissie looked hopeful.

‘Any news, Inspector?’

‘You’ve seen the video?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘It’s definitely him.’

Walter bobbed his head and reeled off the stations the train was visiting. ‘Does he know anyone there? Do you have any idea why he might be going to any of these towns?’

Chrissie and Colin glanced at one another and shook their heads and mumbled, ‘No.’

In Walter’s opinion, they were telling the truth.

Karen came in and joined the party.

Walter said, ‘Has he given you any cash in the past, say the last twelve months?’

‘Cash?’ said Colin, as if not understanding the question.

‘Yes, money. That hard-earned thing we would all like a great deal more of.’

‘You can say that again,’ muttered Colin.

‘Only his keep,’ said Chrissie. ‘He gives us £350 every month like clockwork, though I think he’s a bit embarrassed about it, handing it over, that is. So when I am out, he always leaves it on my dressing table, sort of spreads it out as if it were a prize on some TV game show, as if I’ve won the jackpot. The first of the month, or thereabouts. It’s lovely to see it there. We couldn’t live without it.’

Karen thought: You’re going to have to live without it now, but didn’t say.

‘No little presents, no extra bonuses at Christmas, an extra thousand pounds here or there, think carefully about it.’

‘We don’t have to think about a thousand pounds!’ said Colin. ‘We’d notice an extra grand coming our way, I can tell you that!’

‘Why do you ask about money?’ asked Chrissie.

Walter sat back in his chair. Pursed his lips and said, ‘Because funds have gone missing from his employer.’

Colin exhaled.

Chrissie’s hand went to her mouth, and then Colin asked, ‘How much?’

‘A substantial amount.’

‘And you think Donald has stolen it?’

‘There is evidence to say that.’

‘What evidence?’

‘Forged documents, bank accounts opened in false names, unauthorised loan applications, that kind of thing.’

Chrissie began to cry. Colin leant over and took hold of her arm.

‘Are you aware of him having multiple bank accounts?’

‘No!’ said Colin.

‘So he didn’t receive regular bank statements from lots of different banks?’

‘No, only his own.’

‘We are going to have to search the house, it’s now a crime scene.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Chrissie, snivelling into a paper hanky.

‘And to be clear, he does not possess, and never has possessed, a computer?’

‘Only one of those games things, a Segado, or whatever they are called,’ said Colin, ‘but he grew out of it.’

‘Okay,’ said Walter. ‘Are you in the van today?’

Colin nodded.

‘Where is it?’

Colin raised his arm and pointed in the vague direction of the car park and said, ‘Do we need a solicitor?’

‘Have you done anything wrong?’

‘No we have not!’ said Chrissie.

Walter pulled a face as if to say, you don’t need a solicitor, but instead he said, ‘You can call one when we get back to your place, if you feel the need.’

Colin nodded and stood up.

Chrissie blew her nose and followed suit.

Walter said, ‘We’ll see you back at the house,’ and then they were gone. Walter asked Karen to organise a car, and a quick one at that, and on the way to Waverton they passed the old mauve van just as he planned, as if it were going backwards.

On the brief journey Walter said, ‘Any news on the bank accounts?’

‘Yes, all cleared out, left a single pound in each one, took the rest out in cash.’

‘Only to be expected.’

‘Quite clever really.’

‘I disagree. He’s now looking at a lifetime of trouble and heartache, not to mention the stress he’s brought down on his ageing parents.’

‘Mmm... yeah, you’re probably right.’

‘I am right.’

She glanced across at him. The big bear of a man. He hadn’t said that with any undertone of smugness or self-satisfaction, but because it was a known fact. At least to him, as he saw things. She smiled to herself and pressed on. She was enjoying her job, and that was everything to her, and she suspected it was the same for him. Maybe that’s what made the pair of them such a great team. 

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Minstrel Electronics were very busy. They had recently secured a big new order from some Cambridge hi-tec business for miniature circuit boards.

The price was right, but the pressure was on to get the product out of the door. Mr Pryce called Mr Brinton to his office.

‘What’s your best guess as to when the Cambridge order will be ready?’

‘A week, maybe ten days.’

‘Too long! It needs to be a week, tops.’

Brinton frowned. He knew that would be tight.

‘Go and kick arse. Throw your weight around. Tell them it must be a week. Non-negotiable. There’s a follow-up order depending on it.’

Brinton grunted and stood up.

‘Everything else okay?’ asked Pryce.

‘Yeah, nothing I can’t handle.’

Pryce stared at his partner and nodded. ‘I’ll see you later, there’s something else I want to talk to you about.’

Brinton mumbled, ‘See you later,’ and he left the office and headed down the corridor toward the double doors. He unlocked them, went inside and locked them behind him. He was standing in the inner hallway, maybe twelve feet square, windowless, grey green walls, grey carpet, another set of locked double doors ahead. To the right was another solid door that led into a small room that was reserved for pep talks, and other things besides. The door was closed and locked and silent as Brinton went on to the double doors ahead that led into the assembly plant. Unlocked them and stepped inside. Locked the doors behind him.

Sterile tiled floor, cold in winter, hot and clammy in summer, a hum of activity, modern industry at work, small precise machines, long modern parallel work benches, lots of people moving about, supervisors doing what supervisors do. A hundred and fifty people, all told, give or take, heads down, hard at work, going about their business, slaving away on the latest big order, making money for Pryce and Brinton and the outside investors and Minstrel Electronics too, all neatly set out in one gigantic windowless room.

A couple of the closest circuit board assemblers glanced up at Brinton as he strolled past, but soon returned to their work.

Away to the left was an open mezzanine floor, built on metal stilts. It housed the accommodation for the supervisors’ office. Four desks, four basic office chairs, filing cabinets, a table for laying out plans, computer equipment, printers, diaries, pads, pens, tapes, disks, much the same as you could see in any factory office anywhere in the world. But no phones of any kind, not even internal ones, no Internet connections, no email, no mobiles, no tablets, nothing in the way of telecommunications. Not permitted, not allowed. A metal staircase led up to the mezzanine floor. Brinton skipped up the stairs, his heavy shoes making metallic pings as he ascended.

Monica was there, sitting at the far desk, and Monica was the senior supervisor. It would be her who’d get into trouble if the orders weren’t delivered on time, and her who’d feel the pressure from senior management, just as she suspected she was about to do, as Brinton appeared on the level and caught her eye. Monica was talking to Debs and Debs was second in charge. Debs seemed to be getting some grief from Monica, and Brinton was pleased to see it. Debs looked over her shoulder, saw Brinton, nodded at Monica and rushed passed him, carrying plans, and skipped down the stairs without a backward glance, happy to be away and out of there.

Monica stood up and walked toward Brinton.

‘What’s up now?’

She was wearing a grubby navy blue overall with one large pocket right across the front of her midriff, and some kind of jeans or work clothes beneath. She was a dumpy woman, about the same age as Brinton, with a full head of black hair that was hidden beneath a white cap.

‘How long will it be before the Cambridge order is complete?’

‘Week, ten days, max.’

‘Too long!’

‘Whatever I say, you say, too long.’

Brinton suppressed a smirk. Maybe she had a point.

‘It must be delivered to Cambridge within a week.’

‘Not possible!’

‘I say what’s possible, not you! A week, and no more.’

‘You are working the girls too hard.’

‘I am telling you what needs doing.’

Monica sighed and glanced down at the production floor. No one was talking, no one was walking about, no one was eating or drinking or scratching themselves, no one slacking or reading or writing, or doing anything, so far as she could see, but working hard for the company cause.

‘It will be difficult.’

‘Life’s difficult,’ said Brinton. ‘Be grateful you’ve got a job, and an employer who looks after you.’

Monica glanced into Brinton’s eyes, but didn’t say a word.

He went to the metal handrail that ran all the way around the mezzanine floor and leant on it and stared down. It was a great view from there. It was meant to be that way.

He could see everything.

‘How are the new units getting on?’

‘They take time to learn skills. You can’t expect them to be expert straight away.’

‘We don’t have time. Keep on their case. Get them up to speed.’

‘I am trying.’

‘Yeah, but you are not trying hard enough.’

He glanced down and to his right and below to the kitchen and dining areas. Meals were being prepared. The shift change would happen soon and those going off shift would need to be fed. Beyond that, lay the toilet block, showers, and bathrooms, and beyond that were two distinct huge dormitories complete with sitting areas, and one giant sized heavy old-fashioned television set in each one. One was on; one was off, showing some kids programme. In the far dormitory area, the one where the TV was on, people were stirring, yawning, brushing their hair, getting ready to go on shift. It was good to see, thought Brinton, everything working as it should be.

In the opposite corner of the building was the small shop that opened twice a week where the units could buy things. The shutters were down. Not open that day, no one hanging around looking to buy any tat.

All the rooms and corridors inside the assembly plant were divided with eight feet high walls made of breeze-blocks, internal windows only, lightweight blue doors, and no ceilings on top of the walls. Nothing at all.

Brinton could see everything from where he was.

One hundred and fifty units; give or take, hard at work, or getting ready to go on shift, all without exception, women, all Oriental; for they were the best employees you could have for fiddly circuit board assembly work, everyone knew that. Neat little hands, super dexterity, good concentration levels, inbuilt work ethic, happy to be away from the Far East, grateful for small mercies, and warm and safe and fed, up to a point.

Brinton stood up and walked towards Monica. He took two chunky chocolate bars from his trousers and slipped them into her overall pocket without saying a word.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled.

Brinton ignored her.

‘I’ll be back at 9pm to check on the day’s figures.’

‘Okay.’

‘Make sure they’re good!’

‘I do my best.’

Brinton bobbed his head and turned and jogged down the stairs. Debs ran towards him and past him, without looking him in the eye, and ran up the stairs to report to Monica. Debs didn’t like Brinton, never had. She was frightened of him, and of Pryce too, and she had good reason to be. Monica and Debs were not their real names. For some reason, Oriental names presented a problem for western men. In Minstrel Electronics the management would decide who was called what. You’re Monica, you’re Debs, and that was that, and little plastic nameplates were knocked up and pinned on their chests in case they forgot their new names, and woe betide anyone caught not wearing their badge.

Monica and Debs had both worked there for two years and had grown used to their new names. They were supervisors for four reasons. One: they could speak English. Two: they were slightly older than the rest. Three: The units did as Monica and Debs told them, most of the time, and Four: They got results. Good enough reasons. The system worked, and working systems were hard to find.

Monica and Debs would keep their positions with their little privileges attached, so long as they produced results, and for so long as Pryce and Brinton decreed.

Brinton went back to the double doors. The walls there went right up the flat roof thirty feet above. He unlocked the doors, stepped into the inner hall, locked the doors behind him, opened the next set, went through and locked up again and strode past Pryce’s office on the left. The door was open and Pryce was sitting at his desk, talking on the phone.

Brinton hurried past and went into his own office next door. Sat down at the desk and stared at the computer program that would tell him how the work was progressing. The computer updated in real time and it wasn’t updating fast enough. Brinton cursed. They had better improve on that! They weren’t going to make the deadline. Pryce would want a final printout before he left for home at 7pm. It had better be good, for all their sakes.

Chapter Forty

Jun Woo, now known as Lily Sang, stepped into the passenger side of the old Toyota saloon. Beside her sat the agent who was playing her Uncle.

He glanced across at her and saw her filthy face. She looked the part; that was undeniable. They sat in silence for a second, then he started the car and pulled out into the lighter Hong Kong night-time traffic. They were heading for the harbour and the bar where he hoped the traffickers might be.

He drove to the drinking den down by the sea. There was a small car park there with space for eight or ten cars. During the day finding a space was almost impossible, but at that hour, twenty past midnight, according to the Japanese clock on the dash, it was easy. There were three vehicles parked up. A saloon, a van, and a 4x4. He guided the car softly to a stop and pulled on the handbrake.

‘Any last thoughts?’ he said.

‘None,’ she said. ‘I am ready.’

‘Once I take you in there, you are on your own.’

‘I understand.’

‘It is not too late to change your mind.’

‘I will not change my mind.’

‘Tell me the contact telephone number you memorised.’

‘The telephone number is strictly secret. I cannot say.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘But you do remember it?’

‘I do.’

‘And you will not forget it?’

‘I will not.’

‘I wish you all the luck in the world.’

‘The success or otherwise of this operation will not come down to luck.’

Uncle nodded slowly. ‘What will decide it?’

‘Professionalism,’ she said, and they glanced at one another and he knew she was right. She usually was. He nodded again. The kid was as professional as it was possible to be.

He glanced up at the run-down bar ahead. The external advertising lights were off, but the low internal lights were on. Someone was at home; enjoying a late drink, maybe someone was watching, and perhaps they might be interested in doing a little late night business. Hong Kong was a trading centre, always had been, and some said, the greatest trading centre on earth.

Beyond the bar was a small jetty, and beyond that, shipping on the harbour could be seen, all different sizes, some close, some far off, all lit up, all with a story to tell.

‘Come on,’ said Uncle, and they both stood out of the car. He clasped his hand around her right wrist and led her toward the bar. It was a balmy still night, and the water was flat and gently swaying. They could hear warm sea lapping against the jetty, and could smell the sea and late night cooking coming from an all-nighter café not far away. The man led her to the door and knocked six times, three quick, three slow, as arranged. The door opened, a young man in jeans and a grubby vest peered out, looked at the visitors, said over his shoulder, ‘It’s them.’ 

Stood to one side and beckoned them in.

Uncle stepped inside and dragged the girl in after him. She glowered and glared at the three guys there. The older one was standing behind a small bar, a glass of Japanese whisky set up in front of him. The other two, younger, drinking Australian lager from cans, both in jeans and vests and trainers, and all three of them stared at the girl, assessing the goods.

They didn’t seem impressed.

‘This her?’ said one of them.

‘Yes,’ said Uncle.

‘And you want a thousand dollars US for that?’ said one of the vests.

‘Yes. If you don’t want her, I have a man in Macao who will take her off my hands. I’ll take her there tomorrow if we can’t do business tonight.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with these twats!’ the girl spat out.

Uncle let go of her wrist and slapped her hard across the cheek.

‘You will do as you are told!’

The vests liked to see that, a bit of discipline was always a good thing. The whore’s cheek was dirty, filthy, and humming red too.

The older man laughed, a rough, forced laugh.

One of the vests closed on the girl. She was rubbing her cheek hard. She glared at him. He sniffed her scruffy blouse.

‘Bugger me! She stinks! You could have had a wash.’

‘Piss off, you piece of pig-shit!’ snarled Lily Sang.

‘What’s a bit of a smell? Some men might like it,’ said Uncle, smirking and leering, and the older man laughed again.

‘I don’t think so,’ said one of the vests.

‘I am not paying a thousand dollars for that!’ said the other one.

‘Just give her a shower,’ said Uncle. ‘Have you got a shower here?’

‘We have,’ said the older man, ‘but she is not going anywhere near my bathroom. She’s probably got lice and heaven knows what else. Not a chance!’

‘Right!’ said Uncle, ‘she needs a wash, I’ll give her a damned wash right now,’ and he grabbed her wrist and tugged her outside.

‘Let go of me, you filthy bastard!’ but Uncle was fit and strong, Hong Kong Police Force Allcomers Karate Champion. Ample silver cups and medals at home to prove it. She struggled all she knew to get free, but could not. He dragged her down the jetty. The three guys followed, laughing at the entertainment. Uncle picked her up by the waist, held her over the end of the jetty, and dropped her.

The men yelled with glee.

There was a plopping swish as she fell into the warm swaying sea. The water was dirty, oily, filthy, as harbour waters invariably are, for flotsam and jetsam and oil and sewage are always attracted to jetty legs. It was debatable whether she’d come out cleaner or dirtier, if she came out at all. In the darkness and filth they couldn’t see her beneath the surface. Jun Woo was an excellent swimmer. She’d stay under for a while yet. Then she burst the surface below where the four guys were standing.

‘Help! Help!’ she screamed. ‘I can’t swim!’

There was a long boat hook in a wooden frame fixed on the side of the jetty, or was it there to hoik out fallers such as this crazy slut? One of the vests ran to the hook, grabbed it, tugged it free, leant down with it, offering the hook to the girl. She grabbed it, and between them they pulled her up onto the jetty.

The girl floundered around their feet like a giant drowning-in-air tuna fish, coughing and spluttering and spitting and cursing, as she tried to sit up and stand up. Uncle slapped her on the head.

‘I am NOT paying a thousand dollars US for that!’ said the older man, with an air of finality that brooked no argument.

‘Suit yourself!’ said Uncle. ‘I’m not wasting any more time here!’ and he grabbed the girl sitting at his feet, clutching the back of her blouse in one hand, and her sopping mob of badly cut hair in the other, and dragged her down the jetty toward the car, the girl screaming and cursing and slapping his legs and backside as they went.

The three men walked behind, pointing and sniggering.

One of the vests said, ‘Will you take eight hundred?’

‘No!’

‘How about nine?’

‘Forget it!’

‘I’ll take her,’ said the other vest.

Uncle paused and the hint of a smile came over his handsome olive face, a smile they all saw in the bright moonlight.

Perhaps they could do business after all.

‘Are you sure?’ he said.

The vest nodded.

Uncle dragged the sopping girl to her feet and pulled her back inside the bar. The three men followed and closed the door behind them.

‘I’m not going anywhere with these pricks!’ Lily Sang shrieked. ‘Not a chance!’

One of the vests grabbed her face, one handed, pressing in on both of her freshly cleaned cheeks. She tried to bite him. He glared at her.

‘You’re mine now, slut, and if you bite me, I’ll cut your throat,’ and to reinforce that image he pulled a flick-knife from his jeans, flashed it open before her eyes. The lights from the bar glinted on the toughened Korean steel. ‘Understand?’

Lily Sang stared terrified at the blade, and nodded through his hand.

‘Just one small thing,’ said Uncle. ‘She’s not yours yet.’

The vest nodded at the guy behind the counter. He opened the till and grabbed some notes and began counting them out on the bar. When he’d done, Uncle picked up the cash, held it to the light to check it was genuine, and presumably satisfied, slipped it into his trousers.

‘Nice to do business with you,’ he said, and he picked up the Japanese whisky sitting on the bar, and downed it in one, ‘I may have another niece next month,’ and he smiled at the guys knowingly, and looked disdainfully at the girl, as if happy to be rid of the dirty troublesome bitch. He turned and opened the door, and went outside, waved over his shoulder, and walked smartly away and back to the car.

He never once looked back, drove straight to the base. Reported in, handed over the thousand dollars, US, told them everything that had happened, promised his full written report would be on their desks before 9am, and was dismissed to go home to his wife and three small children.

Back at the bar, Lily Sang had her hands bound together. One of the vests went outside to check the all clear. Then the girl was taken outside and led back to the car park, thrown into the rear of the 4x4, and driven away to a new life God knows where. Lily Sang glared and swore at the vests. They ordered her to shut up, or they’d cut out her tongue. Acting Inspector Jun Woo fell silent and sat back in the car, happy in her work. Phase one had been successfully completed.

Uncle had played his part well, and when the time came to write her report she would endorse that, except he hadn’t hit her hard enough. That could have given them away. Maybe he should have stripped her too, before dropping her in the sea. Yeah, that would have been more authentic. 

Chapter Forty-One

Walter and Karen searched Remembrance from top to bottom, Karen glancing frequently at her wristwatch, for she had promised to fix Greg dinner.

Walter picked up the signs. Her new man would have to wait awhile for his feed. Walter had to.

They didn’t find a computer in the house, not that Walter expected to, and they didn’t find any evidence of multiple bank accounts either. Nor did they locate any surplus cash. They didn’t find anything that incriminated Donald Rushnell in any way, a fact that prompted Karen to say, ‘Do we have any evidence that Donald is behind this?’

‘He filled out all the loan applications and passed them for payment. That’s all the evidence we need.’

‘Couldn’t someone else have filled them out, someone else running the scam, and he just passed them?’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘For a kickback, perhaps?’

‘Can’t see it. He’s done the whole thing,’ insisted Walter.

‘But it would be possible,’ repeated Karen; never eager to give up on anything once the idea was in her head.

‘We know he’s got few friends. I just can’t see anyone else being involved.’

Karen pulled a face and said, ‘Maybe you’re right, Guv.’

‘The important thing is why did he want the money, what has he done with the cash, and where is he now?’

Karen shrugged. She didn’t have answers to any of those questions, and neither did he.

They searched the bedrooms, found nothing of interest, and went downstairs. Colin and Chrissie were sitting at the table, looking more miserable than ever.

‘Anything?’ she said. 

‘Not yet,’ said Walter.

‘I’d like to see your bank statements,’ said Karen.

‘Why?’ asked Chrissie.

‘Are you legally entitled to do that?’ asked Colin.

‘Probably not,’ said Walter. ‘Just to eliminate you from the inquiry, that’s all.’

The Rushnells glanced at one another and nodded and Chrissie said: ‘Show them.’

‘All right,’ said Colin. ‘But all the figures will be red, except they are not in red these days - just have that awful DB after the numbers,’ and that was how it turned out. Walter and Karen ran through the past year’s bank statements. There wasn’t a single plus balance figure throughout the whole year. The smallholding business running from Remembrance was running on empty. It was in a critical condition, and things were going to get considerably worse now that Donald’s paycheque and the £350 monthly contribution was about to stop.

‘Is the house mortgaged?’ asked Karen.

Chrissie and Colin shared a solemn look.

‘Up to the hilt,’ muttered Colin.

‘We’re just about finished here,’ said Walter. ‘For now. If you hear anything...’

Colin interrupted. ‘Yes, I know... if he gets in touch...’

‘It’s important you tell us,’ said Karen. ‘For your sake as well as his.’

They didn’t answer.

‘We’ll be in touch,’ said Walter.

‘Thank you, Inspector,’ said Chrissie, standing in the hallway. ‘Please find him. I know you will think all mothers say this, but he really isn’t a bad boy.’

‘He’s just made a silly mistake, if indeed it was him at all,’ said Colin.

They all nodded at one another and promised to keep in touch, and a minute later, Karen was driving Walter back toward the city.

Walter said, ‘Get an order to check all their post, in case any nice packets, any big brown envelopes roll up.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘And we should to monitor the parents’ bank accounts, see if any juicy deposits arrive out of the blue, and we need to run a check to see if they have any bank accounts we are unaware of. And, sad though it may seem, we’d better keep an eye on the mortgages. We don’t want to see them suddenly paid off.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ she said, driving too quickly.

‘Slow down! Did you make a note of their bank account numbers when we were looking at the statements.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Well done.’

‘Could the parents be in on this?’ asked Karen.

‘Could be, but I don’t think so. Do you?’

‘No, don’t think so either; tell you the truth, I feel sorry for them, especially Chrissie. They are going to find it hard.’

‘They are. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the bankruptcy courts before long,’ said Walter.

‘I thought that too.’

Chapter Forty-Two

Back at the station, they finished a few final things and wound down for the day. Karen walked away from the desks and pulled out her mobile and rang Greg.

‘Hi you?’

‘Ah, there you are.’

‘Sorry, I’ve been a bit delayed, pressure of work and all that.’

‘I know the feeling.’

‘Are you coming for dinner?’

‘Am I still invited?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’ll be there for 8.30.’

‘Great!’

Karen rang off, offered Walter a lift home which he declined, saying he was going for a pint in one of the local half-timbered hostelries, so she rushed home to get herself and the dinner ready. Nothing too demanding, spagbol using lean turkey mince. She had her slim figure to think of, and Greg’s heart.

He arrived just after 8.30 and produced a good bottle of Aussie white. She had a similar one preparing in the fridge, and it wasn’t long before that had almost vanished.

She made a decent spagbol, though the turkey mince was vile.

‘So,’ she said, mopping up the last of the tomato sauce with a knob of French bread. ‘I want to talk about Kit Napoleon.’

‘Be my guest.’

‘Have you fixed up the conference thing?’

‘I have. Kit says he’s looking forward to seeing you.’

Kit, is it, she thought, and had he really said that, about looking forward to seeing her? He was an old charmer, that was undeniable. A fascinating character.

‘Just so long as I can get the time off.’

‘I’m hopeful,’ said Greg. ‘I have a good feeling about this.’

‘Well, the thing is,’ she said, ‘I think I am doing pretty well at this game, and I think I should be on level two.’

‘Maybe,’ Greg said, emptying the last of the wine into her glass.

‘So how does that work?’ and she went to the fridge and brought out the second bottle.

‘I think you have done quite well, too. You’ve already recovered your initial investment, isn’t that right?’

‘I have, you know I have, and a bit more.’

‘But are you ready to invest more cash in the business?’

‘You mean another payment would be required?’

‘Course! You get nothing for nothing, K, you know how it is. But what you would get is access to more and better products, which in turn will earn you more money, plus, you’d get to know more company secrets and intelligence. Trust me, you’ll be impressed.’

‘Like what?’

Greg grinned. ‘Ah, now there I am not at liberty to say, not until you commit to taking the next step.’

For a moment, she looked disappointed. She thought the initial investment had been a bit steep, and the idea of making another payment was not one to be taken lightly.

‘Will you guarantee me like you did last time?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much is it?’

‘It will be worth it.’

‘How much am I looking at?’

‘It may seem a lot at first.’

‘How much, Greg!’

‘Eight and a half.’

‘What! Thousand?’

Greg nodded.

‘You must be joking!’

‘Nope, but it will be worth it. I guarantee it, you’ll see.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘Look! Look at it this way. You thought the initial three grand was a big payment...’

‘Yes, I did! And it was.’

‘But you soon recovered that, didn’t you? and more besides. You’ll do exactly the same on level two. You’ll be surprised, and the great thing is, you will also be recovering a third of that amount with every recruit. That’s nearly three grand every time you introduce someone. You’ll be there before you know it.’

‘But eight and a half grand? Geez! Where am I going to find eight and a half grand?’

Greg didn’t comment, opened the new bottle and poured the drinks and said, ‘I am sure if you really wanted to, you could lay your hands on eight grand. You’d find a way. Think of it as an investment. You’ll get your cash back, and loads more besides. You’ll see, and I’ll be there to hold your hand every step of the way.’

Karen took another slug of wine.

‘And you get a third of that eight and a half?’

‘Course, that’s how it works.’

‘Hang on a sec; I thought this thing wasn’t all about recruitment. In fact, recruitment alone is illegal, right? It would make it an illegal pyramid scheme. A Ponzi scheme, I think they call it in the States.’

‘It’s not all about recruitment! And it’s not a Ponzi scheme! That’s an awful term that’s used to describe a myriad of business ideas, and usually wrongly. You’ve sold products already, right, and on level two you will have better and more expensive products to sell with bigger margins and more money coming straight back to you. It’ll be a breeze.’

Karen exhaled and sat back in her chair. Fact was, she knew where she could get the money if she had to; she had a big unused number on her credit card, big enough anyway. Then she said, ‘Hang on a minute, are you saying that with each level the investment goes up and up?’

Greg took a moment to answer, and said, ‘I can’t discuss that, not until you reach each level. It is confidential information; you are getting way ahead of yourself. I sign confidentiality agreements too, you know, and I try to keep them.’

‘You are going to have to discuss it, Mister Orlando! Or I’ll pull the plug on the whole thing right now.’

That didn’t surprise Greg, for he knew she was a headstrong young woman, and a full time detective at that. She was used to asking questions and getting all the facts. He blew out and sipped wine.

‘All right, but if I tell you, it’s strictly off the record, and you didn’t get it from me, and you must not tell anyone else, okay?’

Karen nodded and said, ‘Fair enough.’

Greg sniffed and began. ‘You have to remember the extra benefits are always worth far in excess of the initial cost.’

‘How much, Greg?’

‘And you will learn new things and systems and methods way ahead of anything you know now.’

‘For God’s sake, Greg, how much?’

‘It’s, err... fifteen thousand to take you on to level three.’

‘Bloody hell, and?’

‘Twenty-five to take you up to level four, and err... fifty to make you level five.’

‘Fifty thousand pounds!’

Greg nodded.

‘Don’t tell me you have “invested” fifty thousand pounds to get on to level five? Please tell me you didn’t do that?’

‘Course I have! There are no free lunches for anyone.’

‘How the hell did you manage that?’

Greg smirked, looked full of himself.

‘Easy-peasy, I paid for it out of accrued earnings, and when the time comes, you will too. It’s dead easy to invest money when you’re making money.’

She sat back in her chair, swigged wine, blew out, and said, ‘I’m absolutely amazed. Staggered, in fact. How many people are on level five?’

‘Far more than you think. This is going viral, worldwide, and remember, you are still in at the beginning. It’s huge already, but it’s going to get monster!’

‘I am going to have to think hard about this.’

‘Course you are! But remember, you brought this up. It wasn’t pressure from me. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure you were ready for level two, still don’t, to be honest, so there’s no hassle to move up, not from me. There never will be. You proceed at your own speed. If you want to stay on level one and build up the cash pile to get onto level two at some point in the future, feel free to do so. That’s how it works, and why it works. There is never any pressure in the Future Growth and Prosperity Program, there really isn’t. That’s the beauty of the whole system, so don’t try to run before you can walk.’

That sounded like company speak to Karen, Greg Orlando, parroting from the extensive manuals and information advice they specialised in, and he said, ‘Do you think your boss will join?’

‘Walter? No, not a chance.’

‘Not Walter! Mrs West, or whatever her name is.’

‘Oh her, dunno, she might do. She did seem genuinely interested.’

‘Be nice if she did.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘She’ll have all sorts of contacts. It would be a great feather in your cap if you could introduce her. She is exactly the sort of person Kit Napoleon would like you to sign up. Big kudos for you.’

‘We’ll have to wait and see on that.’

Greg emptied the bottle into their two glasses, and said, ‘Do you want me to stay tonight?’

She glanced at the two empty bottles on the table.

‘You’ll have to now, won’t you? You can’t drive home after drinking that lot!’

‘Great,’ he said, ‘just going to the bathroom.’

He jumped up, and as he crossed the room, she shouted after him, ‘If I didn’t know better, I might think you planned all along to get me pissed!’

Greg guffawed and said, ‘You know you love it.’

And she was alone with her thoughts for a few minutes. Love it? Love what? The wine? Greg Orlando? Kit Napoleon? The Future Growth and Prosperity Program? A combination of all four? God knows! And then he was back. Standing her up. Kissing her hard, getting her excited. Hell! He was a big man.

––––––––

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF town, Walter hadn’t been home long. He’d stayed in the Royal Oak longer than he’d intended. There were a couple of guys in there who told a cracking story, and he hadn’t laughed so much in years. He’d have to try to remember some of the less filthy stories to tell Karen.

He crossed the room, careful not to trip over the vandalised carpet. Wortley’s cheque hadn’t yet arrived and Walter didn’t fancy ordering a new carpet until he had the cash in his hand. He sat down and turned on the TV. Walter didn’t possess satellite television, didn’t feel the need to pay a vast subscription for something he wouldn’t watch often. But there was cricket on terrestrial TV that night, and cricket was a passion of his, and he didn’t want to miss it.

Found the right station, stared out at the pitch, beaming in from the other side of the planet. It was coming from one of the hottest and driest places on earth, and he saw the rain tumbling down, and watched the strapline strolling nonchalantly across the foot of the screen: RAIN STOPPED PLAY. PLAY HAS BEEN ABANDONED FOR THE DAY, repeating itself again and again and again.

‘Damn!’ he said. ‘The one time I get to watch cricket and the game is cancelled.’

The mobile in his pocket began rumbling and tumbling.

‘Darriteau?’

‘DCS Wortley.’

‘How’s it going?’

‘Slowly. You?’

‘It’s confirmed.’

‘What’s confirmed?’

‘Jessica Stone is still on your patch.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just know.’

‘Call me old-fashioned, sir, but I’d still like to see some evidence.’

‘It’s a fact.’

‘What do you want me to do about it?’

‘Thought that was obvious. I want you to find her.’

‘And where do you expect me to start?’

‘Your patch. Your problem. You must know it better than anyone else.’

That was true, but it didn’t help.

‘Do you want me to do your job for you?’

‘No! Course not.’

‘Do you want some help parachuting in?’

‘No!’

‘That’s what I thought. I’ll leave it with you, for now, Walter, but we have to make progress,’ and Wortley added, as if the thought had just come into his mind, ‘You are concentrating on this, aren’t you?’

Walter thought about that for a second. Yes, he was concentrating on it well enough, after looking for Donald Rushnell and the missing cash, and trying to identify Sadie and track down her killers. Yes, he was concentrating on Jessica Stone too; though maybe not as much as he should.

‘I am.’

‘Good! Results, Darriteau. That’s what I am looking for. We are in the results business. Stand or fall by them, as you well know.’

Walter didn’t know what to say to that, so didn’t reply, and Wortley thought the silence indicated Walter had gone. He disconnected.

Walter cursed and turned off the TV and went to bed.

Chapter Forty-Three

Brinton glanced again at the day’s printout, as if by doing so the figures might improve. They did not, and the stats were not great.

Brinton sighed and stood up and went next door into Pryce’s room. He was studying a different spreadsheet on his screen. It made pretty good reading:

––––––––

MINSTREL ELECTRONICS.

––––––––

COMPANY OVERHEADS

––––––––

STAFF WAGES:

150 units earning £15,000 each per annum.

Total annual wage bill:  £2,250,000

––––––––

AND THAT WAS BEFORE national insurance and pension entitlement and tax and God knows what else. A huge commitment.

––––––––

150 UNITS EARNING £10 per month each = £1500 per month.

Total actual annual wage bill:  £  18,000

Total annual saving on wage bill:  £2,232,000

––––––––

PRYCE GRINNED.

They had to be doing something right.

No wonder he could undercut and obliterate his competitors.

––––––––

BRINTON WALKED IN AND sat down. Blew out heavily, not a good sign. Leant forward and set the figures on Pryce’s desk.

‘I guess from your demeanour the figs are shite?’

‘They are not as good as they should be.’

Pryce glanced at the numbers. ‘You can say that again!’

‘They are all working hard.’

‘Not bloody hard enough! I told you to kick ass!’

‘I did... and I am!’

‘It’s not enough! You have to be tougher. More ruthless. You’re not getting soft, are you, Brinton?’

‘Certainly not! What made you say that?’

‘Just a thought I had, an idea that is telling me you have found a conscience.’

‘Not at all! Not a chance. Don’t be absurd! That’s crazy!’

‘Is it? I bloody hope not. You know how it is? There is no such thing as an afterlife, just forever darkness. Therefore, you do everything you can to enjoy the small number of days you have here, right now, to make the best of things for yourself, and to hell with everyone else. It doesn’t matter one jot who you hurt, who you injure, who you upset, or who you kill. You get me? Not one bloody jot!’

‘I know that!’

‘Well, remember it! And act like it! There’s no such thing as a final reckoning, no super-being going to judge you, tell you how you’ve been a naughty boy. It’s dog eat dog out there, and you either eat the buggers, or you get eaten. Comprendez?’

Brinton nodded and wondered where this was leading and said, ‘I hear you.’

Pryce glanced at the figs again and threw the paper at Brinton. ‘This won’t do!’

‘I know that.’

‘If we miss the deadline on the Cambridge deal, heads will roll.’

Brinton knew that would happen and nodded accordingly.

‘That horrible Monica, is she up to the task?’

‘She’s doing a good job. There’s no one better.’

‘And that sulky bitch, Debs, I never get the impression she’s pulling in the same direction.’

‘You might be right there.’

‘Give them a good slap, for Chrissake. Do what you have to. I thought the penny might have dropped after we got rid of that last bitch.’

‘Everyone is working hard,’ Brinton repeated.

‘So you keep saying, but I’m telling you now, Brinton, someone will pay my price if this order is buggered up! My price! You get me?’

He stood up and went to the coat stand in the corner. Hoiked his new blue overcoat off the stand and slipped it on.

‘Was there something else you wanted to talk about?’ asked Brinton.

‘There is! But not now, not until you have sorted out this bloody mess. One thing at a time.’

Brinton nodded and looked as hopeful as he could.

‘You need to come down on them hard!’

‘I’ll be doing that.’

Pryce fixed Brinton with a stare.

‘Hard... and then harder still. Make myself clear?’

Brinton pulled a face and bobbed his head. Pryce picked up his briefcase and went to the office door. ‘Leave it with you,’ he said. ‘Don’t be lenient! Leniency is for losers!’ and with that, Pryce headed down the corridor, said a curt goodnight to the old guy on reception, and a moment later he was out in the car park, heading for his brand new top of the range cream Mercedes that hadn’t yet been paid for.

––––––––

BRINTON SIGHED AND went back toward the assembly plant. Unlocked the double doors. Stepped into the inner hall. Locked up behind him. Glanced to the right at the locked and silent pep talk room. Went on ahead. Opened the doors and went inside. Locked up behind him. The same hum of Britain at work. Hi-tec industry, where the future lay, miniaturisation, that was the key.

Every time a new development came into the market, it was based on doing the same job better with a smaller component. It had been going on since the first transistor appeared, Brinton knew that, and it would continue until phones and televisions and tablets were the thickness of a sheet of decent paper, yet carried the memory and capability of a mainframe computer.

There had been a shift change since he was last in the plant. All units in Minstrel worked twelve hours on and twelve hours off. One day a week off for each unit, when the lazy prats lounged about watching television and recharging their batteries, though the day off was staggered, and in that way it meant the production line was never interrupted, producing goods 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That was the future. Never any downtime, never any non-productive days, hours, minutes, or seconds. So why the hell were they still way behind with the order?

He went to the metal staircase and sprinted to the top.

Monica was sitting at the desk, studying her computer.

Debs was opposite, auditing some figures, trying to look busy, thought Brinton. He lip-read Debs two words. ‘Brinton’s back.’

Monica glanced over her shoulder and saw him approaching. She jumped up and walked toward him.

‘Yes, I know, I know, the figures are not as you would like.’

‘You can say that again!’

‘Everyone is working real hard, surely you can see that!’

‘Excuses, excuses, that’s all I get from you!’

‘Not excuses, facts.’

‘Can we get some of the off-shifters back at work to help catch up?’

‘They can’t work any more. They are all tired.’

‘Tired, my arse!’

‘It is difficult work, hard on the eyes, and the fingers. They must have a break. If they work when they are over-tired, they make mistakes. That will cost you in the long run. It won’t work, it’ll be worse, they must have a break.’

‘Something’s got to be done!’

‘Working them to death won’t do it!’

‘We’ll see about that. Come with me!’

Monica glanced back at Debs. Brinton did, too. Shouted back at the deputy dog, ‘Debs, whatever your name is, you’re in charge. Kick ass, get them working, understand?’

Debs nodded and shouted, ‘Yes, Mr Brinton,’ but by then he was skipping down the steps, Monica hustling to keep up behind. He headed toward the main doors and out of the place. She followed. He was in a hurry; that was obvious. He unlocked the doors. She made to step through.

‘Just a minute, just a minute. You know the sodding rules. Units are only allowed outside on a lead.’

Monica blew out and shook her head. Brinton went to the left of the door, where there was a small table with a brown cardboard box set on the top. The box was full of dog leads.

He grabbed the first one to hand and fixed it on her right wrist. Pulled the door open, stepped through, tugged her into the inner hallway. Locked the doors behind them, went ahead to the next set of doors. Opened up, stepped through, tugged her behind him again, locked up, no one about, all quiet, headed down the corridor, yanking her behind him, past Pryce’s office, door closed, stopped at his own office, opened the door and pushed her inside. The Venetian blinds over the one window were closed, went in after her, and locked the door behind him.

Chapter Forty-Four

Acting Inspector Jun Woo, or Lily Sang, was travelling in the back of a van. There were no windows in the vehicle, and she had no idea where they were heading. But she wasn’t to be in there long.

The van came to an abrupt stop, the squeaky brakes protesting at the poor driving. The van door opened, and she was ordered out onto the tarmac.

They were in the main Hong Kong container terminal. She knew it well. She had studied the port layout, guessing she would be shipped out through there. It was full dark, but lit up everywhere. A man grabbed her by the arm. If she needed to free herself and run away, she knew she could. She had been brushing up on her martial arts training, but it would have been pointless escaping. The guy didn’t know it, but he had never handled a woman who was less likely to escape.

It was late at night. She didn’t know the exact time, tried to see if the guy was wearing a watch, but if he was, she couldn’t see it. Her body clock told her it was 2am, and she was only seven minutes wrong. She should have been dog-tired, but the adrenaline was rushing through her fit body. They approached a huge ship. The State of Heavenly Peace, a mainland Chinese vessel, Jun knew that from her studies of local shipping. The crew gangplank was down, flush against the side of the vessel, and there was a man waiting there, a sentry, guard, lookout, in-on-the-deal guy, she couldn’t decide. Lily Sang scowled and swore at the guard. He said, ‘Shut it, bitch!’ and she was frogmarched up the gangplank.

Two men were waiting at the top. They glanced around as if checking they were not being observed, gave the courier an envelope, and nodded him away. Took hold of the scruffy girl, though she was no worse than all the rest. Took her below deck, one leading, one following, no talking, down and down, six decks down, along a clean corridor, smell of oil, lots of thick coloured pipes, red and orange and blue, running along the ceiling and walls and tucked into the side of the floor, vibrating engines, making ready to put to sea, imagined Jun.

They stopped half way down the corridor and one of the men opened a small windowless room, pushed her inside, and closed and locked the door. She listened at the metal door and heard them hurrying away. She thought she could hear them laughing as they climbed the steps, though she could have been wrong.

There was next to nothing in the room. One bucket, a few blankets on the metal floor, two or three plastic bottles of water, one dismal light on the ceiling protected by thick unbreakable glass, and one scruffy, slight, Chinese girl standing on the far side of the room.

Jun glanced at the girl.

Trust no one. 

She could be a spy. Course she could.

Put there solely to find out everything she could about Jun.

Speak loudly. Shout a lot.

Bully your colleagues!

‘What the hell are you staring at?’ yelled Jun.

The girl looked away, sat down, and drank some of the water.

‘Don’t drink all the water. Some of that’s mine!’ screamed Jun, and she bent down and slapped the top of the kid’s head, and grabbed one of the bottles, and went and sat in the opposite corner and glared across at the kid. She turned away. Jun wondered what she knew, where she’d been, what her story was, and she desperately wanted to ask her so many questions, but not yet. Not until she had seen the lie of the land. The kid lay down and tried to sleep. Jun Woo did too, stayed that way for a couple of hours, until the door opened again, and another frightened beanpole of a girl was thrown into the mix.

––––––––

THE NEWCOMER WAS A similar kid ’cept she was a bit of a talker. First thing she said was, ‘Hi, I’m Fenfang Dong.’

Easy name to remember, thought Jun.

‘Who are you?’ asked Fenfang, accompanied by a big smile from a pretty face. It was hard not to respond.

The little one in the corner stood up and threw her blanket to the floor and looked at Jun, almost deferentially. Jun stared back impassively and the little one said, ‘Hi, I’m Shu Lang. I’m eighteen, I’m a student nurse,’ and they both stared at Jun.

‘I’m Lily Sang,’ she said, and the other two shared a look as if to say: She could be hard work. But they felt more relaxed about things and shared the water and sat together and began telling their stories.

Jun was trying to make up her mind if they were both genuine. Or could one be a plant? She would never know, not for sure, and there was no point in being obviously difficult. She’d made her point, emphasised where she stood in the pecking order, and neither of the girls were about to challenge that, so she traded information as much as she needed.

All their stories were vaguely the same.

Parents dead, or in prison. Disinterested relatives and boyfriends seeing an opportunity to make a quick buck, and a big buck at that, by selling them into, and there was no other word for it, slavery.

‘Where do you think we are going?’ asked the little one, Shu Lang.

‘Could be anywhere,’ said Lily. ‘Europe, America, Australia, South America, even Russia, Korea, or Japan, could be anywhere.’

‘I don’t want to be a prostitute,’ said Shu.

Fenfang put her arm round her. ‘We won’t let that happen, will we?’ and she glanced at Lily.

‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ though all three of them knew deep down that if that was what these ruthless men wanted, they would be powerless to stop it.

Lily improved the mood. Told them about how her Uncle had lifted her up and dropped her in the harbour, to give her a bath, and they laughed long at that. The sullen Lily was a better girl than they first thought.

Someone opened the door. The girls instinctively backed away to the far wall. They expected another girl to be hurled in, but a man entered the room. White T-shirt, blue trousers, triad tattoo on his forearm, new trainers, no watch, no way of telling the time. He was carrying a rectangular metal tray and on the tray were three bowls of lukewarm boiled rice. He slapped the tray on the floor and turned and left without a word. The door was slammed and locked and they heard the man walking away.

‘Weirdo!’ shouted Shu.

‘Dinner is served,’ said a giggling Fenfang, and for some reason they all found that funny and laughed aloud, and settled down together in the centre of the floor to share the meagre food, their legs crossed, their mouths full, and the bottled water finished off soon after.

About an hour later, the vibration through the ship was noticeably greater. They glanced at one another and felt the unmistakable feeling of motion.

‘We’re underway,’ said Fenfang.

‘I hope it’s America,’ said Shu. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to America. Hollywood, that’s the place for me.’

Lily felt herself smiling and glanced at the others. They were smiling too, and she said, ‘I think it’s Europe.’

‘Paris!’ said Fenfang. ‘City of love and romance! Let’s go there!’ and they all smiled a moony smile, and thought of lost loved ones and boys they had known when they were younger and living in happier times.

If only they did have the opportunity of going to Paris, thought Lily, wouldn’t that be great, but that wasn’t going to happen, they all knew that, but where were they going? Only time would tell.

––––––––

IT TAKES THIRTY-FIVE days to shift a huge container ship from Shanghai to Liverpool, give or take, depending on tides, currents, winds, hurricanes, typhoons, storms, war, fuel prices, and pirates.

Every day, the same silent man visited their ten foot by ten foot metal tomb, bringing one bowl of rice per unit and one bottle of water each, and each time he would come back and take the bucket away, empty it, and bring it back ten minutes later.

Shu tried hard to engage him in conversation.

Could you bring me some chocolate?

Where are we going?

What will happen to us?

I like your tattoos.

Give us a smile.

Give us a kiss

Don’t be so cruel!

But the man never so much as grunted, and after a while Lily said, ‘You’re wasting your time. He’s probably under orders not to speak,’ and she was right, but it didn’t stop young Shu trying.

‘Maybe he’s dumb?’

‘A right dumb-ass if you ask me,’ said Fenfang, and they all laughed at that. ‘A right dumb-ass!’

After more than five weeks on the sea they felt the ship slowing. They detected men running to and fro down the corridor, and heard excited chatter, that unmistakable chitchat that comes when a long voyage was coming to an end, though the girls couldn’t make out a word of what the men were saying.

Lily said what the others were thinking. ‘We’re nearly there.’

Shu glanced nervously at the others. Looked scared.

Fenfang went to her and rubbed her shoulders and back.

‘You’ll be fine, we’ll stick together, won’t we, Lily?’

‘Course we will,’ said Lily, and Shu tried a hopeful smile.

An hour later there was the tiniest bump as the State of Heavenly Peace tenderly kissed the wharf.

Another hour passed, and the door opened. A menacing man stood in the doorway. In his hands was one long piece of thin rope. It was a frightening sight. Shu turned away.

‘You! Come here,’ he said to Fenfang, and the tall girl stepped forward. He tied the rope to her wrist, leaving a couple of metres length in his hand. He beckoned to Lily. She stepped forward, anxious to discover where they were. The man tied her wrist, ordered Shu forward. The little one joined the crocodile, happier to be together, attached to the others.

He said, ‘We are going outside. If one of you screams or calls out or tries to escape, I’ll cut all your throats,’ and he pulled a long-bladed knife from the belt of his baggy trousers to make his point.

The girls didn’t say a thing.

The man nodded and tugged the rope and led them outside. It would be the first time they had left that ten by ten tin tomb in more than five weeks. Fenfang was looking forward to gulping fresh air. Shu stared at the armed man and was close to wetting her grubby pants. Lily Sang switched on her Jun Woo head. She wouldn’t miss a thing. Names, places, companies, culprits, criminals, abusers, users, tattoos, distinguishing features, conversations, everything would be recorded in the computer of her mind. Many men would go to prison for this, that was her aim, and for a long time too. Anything less would be failure and Jun Woo had never failed at anything in her entire life.

Chapter Forty-Five

Jan and Jenny’s trawl through the Oriental businesses across Chester turned a blank. Everyone they saw was interested, but no one knew who the dead girl was.

The monster’s idea that Sadie might be missing from classes at some local English language school had proved equally fruitless.

To cap it all, the appeal through local media, releasing those dreadful photographs, had failed to land a single useful lead, all factors that encouraged Walter to believe the dead girl must have been an illegal immigrant, and therefore, not in any UK government computer system.

And despite DCS Wortley’s insistence that Jessica Stone was still on Walter’s patch, no trace of her, or even rumours of her whereabouts, could be found. The Barton brothers’ trial was fast approaching and the prosecuting barrister was getting mighty nervous. He hadn’t won a case in four, and didn’t want to stretch the barren streak to five.

On top of that, neither Donald Rushnell nor the missing cash had been located, and though Walter was reluctant to, he judged the Rushnell case would be the easiest to solve. Not that he ever preferred easy, but when things were not going well, any progress was better than nothing. They splashed good photographs on graphic wanted posters throughout the media, and with the aid of a new £20,000 reward being put up by Lion Loans, it was only a matter of time before someone recognised the guy, and rang the police number in a state of high excitement.

The team needed a break. Not a holiday, but a fresh lead to kick-start their enquiries and revitalise the squad.

It was coming up lunchtime and Walter was thinking of going out for a pie and a pint. Sometimes a solitary meal and a pint of real ale brought ideas and inspiration that nothing else could. That was the hope, but he changed his mind and asked Karen to put a car on standby.

East of the city in Remembrance, Chrissie was preparing a light ploughman’s lunch for her hardworking husband, though hard work was not his burden alone. She had risen early and had cut and boxed thirty cases of beautiful mauve Chrysanthemums, flowers she intended taking to Shrewsbury market the following day. Shrewsbury was a flowery kind of place, always did well with blooms there, ran a flourishing flower show too, and at £15 a box she was hopeful of bringing in some much needed income, for the pile of red unpaid bills on the old sideboard was growing by the day.

She opened the back door and called Colin in for lunch. He’d been rotavating a piece of ground eighty yards by twenty, and he was getting too old for that. They’d cleared away the beans and tomatoes, sold the lot in Wem and Whitchurch, and were running out of produce to sell. It was always a long time between harvests when the figures didn’t stack up. He’d been looking at the pigs, sizing them up. He had hoped to breed from them, but one of them might have to go.

He came into the kitchen, sat on the old three-legged stool, and tugged off his muddy boots, debating whether to say anything about the pigs.

‘Come and get your lunch,’ cooed Chrissie, and she slapped down on the table a blue plate of crusty bread, local white Cheshire cheese sourced from a farm less than a quarter of a mile away, cheese that actually tasted of something.

They never bought supermarket cheese; they tried not to visit supermarkets if it could be avoided. Pile it high and sell it cheap places, and try not to notice it’s all crap.

That was their view of those consumer palaces. Beside the bread roll, were two chunky homemade pickled onions; the last of the previous year’s pickling that Chrissie had worked late into the night completing.

The thought of it brought a smile to her face, for she recalled that even Donald had been roped into the production line, washing and drying jars, filling them with fresh onions from the plot just outside the back door, pickling vinegar in, screw caps, sealed tight, and the essential and surprisingly fancy label that read: Chrissy’s (Donald’s different spelling) Homemade Pickled Onions, with the date handwritten beneath, labels that he had knocked up on the Lion Loans computer system after hours, and Chrissie couldn’t help but wonder what else Donald had been knocking up on those computers, beside pickled onion labels, when he stayed working late.

The current year’s crop would not boast such an attractive and professional label and finish, but that couldn’t be helped. The contents would be just as good. She wondered too where their only child was at that second, and looked across at Colin as if she were thinking of asking him. But he looked so tired and worn out, she didn’t say a word. Colin bit into the cheese and began noisily eating. He did eat in a noisy way, and she’d be lying if she said it didn’t annoy her. But there was no point in nagging him, she knew that, and instead she found herself saying, ‘How’s the cheese?’

‘Champion!’ he said, and he grinned across at her through his gapped teeth, as she set a mug of strong tea before him. ‘Best cheese anywhere,’ and he was right.

She came back to the table with her lunch, minus the onions, they gave her dreadful indigestion when she was stressed, as she was then. She went back for the mug of tea she had forgotten and had just sat down when the doorbell rang.

‘Be that black detective,’ said Colin. ‘Know his type, like a dog with a bone, he is, won’t let it lie, not till he gets t’ bottom of it. Mark my words.’

Chrissie nodded and thought that was no bad thing. She wanted the whole matter clearing up, and as soon as possible. She eased up out of the chair, trying to swallow the small piece of white cheese still in her mouth, and ambled down the hall and opened the heavy half-glazed front door.

There was a young man there, a stranger. Beyond him, parked on the road on the other side of their front gate was a modern cream and green van. He was carrying a packet and some kind of electronic device with an attached pen type thing.

‘You sign,’ he said.

Foreign. Polish probably, they usually were. After English and Welsh, Polish was the most widely spoken language in Britain. Over half a million people speaking it, so reported the local newspaper a couple of weeks since, and who’d have thought that ten years ago? Where had that come from?

She took the packet, scribbled an unreadable signature on the silver screen and said ‘Ta, love,’ and the guy smiled and nodded and said, ‘Good day, you have,’ and he turned and hurried away. He had hundreds of packets and parcels to deliver before he could get home to his sweet wife and teeny twin daughters.

Chrissie closed the door and ambled back into the kitchen, turning the packet over and over in her hand.

‘Private courier,’ she said, setting the packet on the table and sitting down.

‘What is it?’ asked Colin.

‘Don’t know, thought you might have ordered summat.’

‘Not me,’ and he shook his head. ‘Who’s it addressed to?’

She took a bite of crusty roll and stared at the address.

‘Mr and Mrs Rushnell.’

‘Does it say who it’s from?’

A little chew, and another glance.

‘Nope.’

‘Well open it!’ he said. She could be such a dopey cow sometimes.

‘All right, bossy boots!’ and she picked up the padded packet and tore off the end.

The contents, whatever they were, were wrapped in thick newspaper, and then sealed in brown cardboard and taped up, using a lot of tape. Whoever had wrapped the thing had taken a great deal of care. It was hard to open, hard to get at the gubbins inside.

Colin clicked his tongue and glanced at the ceiling. She always had to make a meal of everything. Finally, she’d torn a hole through the paper and the contents fell from the packet and landed in the centre of the table with a dull thud.

The Rushnells stared down.

‘Geez!’ said Colin.

Chrissie’s hand went to her mouth, as it often did when she was surprised at anything.

‘Is there a note?’ he asked. ‘A letter, maybe?’

She ransacked the packing.

‘Nope, not a thing.’

‘Good God,’ he said.

‘From Donald, do you think?’

‘Who else?’

‘How much is there?’

Colin picked up the bundle of cash. Used notes, the lot of it, in twenties, one hundred in each bundle, held together with high street bank manila bands, and stamped, five separate lots in all.

‘Ten grand,’ he said softly, unable to keep a grin from his unshaven face.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Chrissie.

‘Bloody good question.’

The doorbell rang again.

‘Probably another packet he’d forgotten,’ said Colin. ‘Another ten grand would be nice.’

Chrissie slurped the dregs of her tea and set off for the front door and opened up. He was a big man, that Inspector Darriteau, not tall, but wide enough, almost bear-like, as if he was going to take her into his arms and squeeze the living daylights out of her, until she revealed what she knew, and that would be an experience she would never forget.

He stood there and half smiled and said, ‘Hello again, there are just one or two more questions I’d like to ask. Can I come in?’

Chrissie tried everything she knew not to look and act surprised, to act nonchalantly, though she wasn’t sure she succeeded. Probably overdid it, the casualness and bonhomie, and it was only when he had stepped into the hallway that she saw the skinny blonde was with him too.

Chrissie shouted through the house, ‘Colin! It’s Inspector Darriteau back with a few more questions.’

Something in Walter’s DNA told him that was a warning for her husband, though he might have been wrong. Hint of desperation, maybe. Everyone always switched on their best attention and manners when the police came calling, at least they did if it was Walter Darriteau, except for the lowlifes who didn’t care, and thankfully, in twenty-first century Britain, there still weren’t too many of them.

Colin was sitting at the table, an empty plate before him, crumbs of white cheese on the plate, a definite aroma of pickled onions in the air, probably homemade, because Walter had noted the stocks of jams and pickles in the kitchen cupboard when he had searched the house.

‘Would you like a cuppa tea?’ she asked.

‘No thanks,’ said Walter. ‘Just had one.’

She glanced enquiringly at the girl, couldn’t remember her name. Karen half smiled and shook her head.

‘Sit down,’ said Colin, showing more interest in the girl. What a fine young woman she was, and what a wonderful wife she would make for Donald, and a fine mother for their grandkids, though that seemed unlikely.

Walter and Karen sat at the table. Chrissie poured herself another mug of stewed tea and stood against the Aga cooker and glanced down and tried a queer smile.

‘More questions?’ asked Colin.

‘Just one or two,’ said Walter. ‘In the photos on Donald’s wall, there’s one of him with his arm in a sling. What happened there?’

Colin laughed. Chrissie said, ‘Is that all?’

‘So?’ said Karen. ‘What did?’

‘Not sure of the relevance of it,’ said Colin, ‘but if you must know, one of the porkers knocked him clean off his feet in the sty. Banged his wrist against the breeze-block wall, broke it clean as a whistle. The average Joe in the street has no idea how strong a full grown porker can be. Ferocious brutes they are, especially when roused or hungry. Poor Donny was so embarrassed by it.’

Chrissie sipped her tea and said, ‘He kept making up all kinds of idiotic explanations as to how he’d broken his arm. Drove Maisie crazy with it all.’

Walter knew the next question to ask, but let Karen do it for him.

‘Who’s Maisie?’

‘The lass from down the lane,’ said Colin.

Chrissie jerked her head southwards, as if to say, that-a-way!

‘Willow Lodge,’ said Colin. ‘They have a similar op to ourselves, or at least, they did have.’

Chrissie joined in. ‘They got out before it was too late. Sensible people! Turned the place into an upmarket B&B. Big conservatory, planning permission to build an extension, God knows what else, you know how it is.’

‘And Maisie?’ asked Walter.

‘Went down to work in the big smoke,’ said Colin.

‘What did Donald tell her about the broken bone?’ asked Karen.

‘Crazy stuff,’ said Colin. ‘One day he said he’d been run down by a maroon Rolls Royce, another time he said he’d foiled a bank robbery in the city, and your lot had arrived just in time to find Donald wrestling with the blaggers on the pavement...’

‘Yes,’ said Chrissie. ‘And another time he said he’d broken it playing rugby for Chester first XV.’

‘He’s never played rugby in his life, drove the poor girl nuts with his drivel, I think he was trying to impress her, but even I could see it was winding her up and getting her annoyed,’ said Colin.

‘Between you and me, Inspector,’ Chrissie said, lurching into mum-speak, ‘I think he was sweet on her, big crush, like, you know how it is, started dreaming big dreams, hoped she’d say yes to him, hoped she’d fall for him.’

‘But she didn’t!’ said Colin. ‘He fouled it up big time with his stupid stories. Drove her away in the end.’

‘Has he been in touch?’ asked Karen.

‘No!’ said Chrissie, a quick-fire answer if ever there was one.

‘Not yet,’ said Colin. ‘We’re still hopeful.’

The front door bell rang again.

Chrissie said, ‘My goodness, we are in demand today,’ and went through to the hall. Then she was back with a handful of mail, bills, sales leaflets, a card from Aunty Judy on holiday in Magaluf. ‘I suppose you’ll want to see all this?’ she said to the seated police officers. ‘Check if there’s anything from Donald, you know?’

Walter shook his head. Chrissie smiled.

‘Have you had any other callers today?’ asked Karen.

‘No!’ said Chrissie, another quick-fire answer.

Colin said, ‘Is that everything? I have sprouts and apples to pick.’

‘Yeah,’ said Walter. ‘That’s about everything for now, we’ll be in touch.’

Chrissie saw them out, went into the front room and squinted from behind the curtain into the watery sunshine to check they’d gone. She watched them head down the lane toward Willow Lodge, no doubt to check on their stories. Went back in the kitchen, holding her chest. ‘Well!’ she said. ‘What do you make of that? My heart is beating so fast!’

Colin exhaled and shook his head.

‘What on earth did you do with the money?’

‘Open the bread-bin.’

She took the lid off the old enamel container. One fresh loaf, standing proud, baked that morning, standing high, on ten thousand pounds. Chrissie grinned.

‘Good job you shouted through,’ Colin said. ‘Only just got it in there in time.’

Chrissie shook her head and sat down.

‘Good job I didn’t offer them a cheese sandwich! What are we going to do, Col?’

‘I’m going to bury it.’

‘What!’

‘I’m going to bury it, in the pigpen. It’ll be our little secret. We won’t spend a penny of it, that way we’ve done nothing wrong.’

That didn’t sound correct to Chrissie, but she wasn’t going to say, and anyway Colin was talking again, talking nonsense.

‘After all, we don’t know it came from Donald.’

‘Who else could it have come from?’

‘No idea, that’s why, until we get to the bottom of it, we’ll hang on to it, our little nest egg, an emergency reserve, no one will ever know. Where’s that old metal biscuit tin?’

‘In the cupboard.’

‘Fetch it!’

Colin put his boots back on and went outside. Herded the pigs into one corner of the pen and boarded them in. Set about digging a very deep hole. Two canal boaters cruising by at the bottom of the garden thought he looked like he was digging a grave, but everyone knew that country folk were a bit peculiar and did strange things. Colin returned to the kitchen. She showed him the money in the tin, closed the lid, tied it fast shut with thick old string, and handed him the rusty box.

‘Make sure you bury it deep, we don’t want the porkers digging it up and going crazy.’

‘No chance of that.’

‘And make a note somewhere of the exact place the treasure is buried.’

‘X marks the spot,’ he said, laughing like a pirate, as he walked away toward the pigs.

Twenty minutes later after flattening down the ground and sprinkling a handful of barley over the top, he let the pigs back into the run, and ten minutes after that the disturbed ground was covered in trotter prints, and a lovely layer of fresh pig muck.

Walter and Karen went and checked out Willow Lodge. Enquired as to Maisie’s whereabouts. She was working in London, as the Rushnells had said, but her parents had spoken to her that morning. She was happy, by all accounts, met a new man, a bit like you, Inspector, they said, if the description was to be believed. Nothing serious is it? About Maisie? They asked, and duly reassured they all went about their business.

Driving back to the station Karen said, ‘The Rushnells were very nervous.’

‘They were,’ agreed Walter.

‘Do you think they’ve heard from Donny?’

‘We’re checking their mail, monitoring their phone calls.’

‘Private couriers!’ she said.

Walter nodded.

‘Quite possibly. We can’t think of everything. Check on all the local couriers when we get back to HQ. Pound to a penny if they have had a delivery it’ll be cash.’

‘More pounds than pennies,’ she said, and Walter grunted and closed his eyes and turned his mind to Jessica Stone. 

Chapter Forty-Six

Mr Pryce was at work early. Turned on the computer. Glanced at some updating numbers. They were marginally better than expected. Buzzed Brinton in the office next door and invited him to join him.

Brinton came in a minute later and sat down and said, ‘Have you seen the figures?’

‘Yes.’

‘We are getting there.’

‘How did you manage that?’

‘Kicked some ass, well and truly. I’ll know more later. I’m on my way in there as soon as we’ve finished here.’

‘Keep them on their toes. No slacking! There’s no leeway.’

Brinton nodded and waited to be dismissed.

‘About the other thing...’ said Pryce.

Brinton looked up.

‘We’ll talk about it later today.’

‘Okay, whenever you say.’

‘Go and do what you have to do.’

Brinton stood up and left the room and headed for the assembly plant. Pryce went to the large metal wall cabinet. Took out his keys, opened up. There was a green glass mineral water bottle there, about a third full, screw top, no label on the bottle. He picked it up and placed it on the desk. Went back and locked the cupboard, grabbed the bottle and swept out of the office, heading toward the assembly plant.

––––––––

KIT NAPOLEON HAD ENJOYED a superb breakfast. His appetite was better than ever, though Jennifer, his second wife, tried her best to keep an eye on the calorific intake, and Kit’s softening waistline.

He was preening himself in the bedroom, as he liked to do, when Jenny called through, ‘Are you nearly ready, car will be here in a minute.’

Kit glanced at himself in the full-length glass and fiddled with his KN tie one last time, and smiled and said, ‘Coming, hun.’

Jennifer glanced through the sitting-room window over the perfectly manicured lawns and rose-beds that were at their best. She liked the floribunda pinks the best, and then she saw the maroon Rolls Royce purring up the circular drive. The car had been Kit’s present to himself in recognition of all the hard work he’d put into Future Growth over the past eighteen months, though she’d had to lean on him to spend cash on a new and very grand car, leastways that was how she saw it.

It was the first day of the northern tour. The Kit Napoleon road show was about to hit town. It would visit thirteen towns and cities throughout the north of England and Scotland in fifteen days, a gruelling schedule in anyone’s language. But Kit was looking forward to the whole parade, because when he was on his feet talking to members and investors, and the downright curious, he was at his best. The icing on the cake would be the opening of the new Ellie Napoleon Center, deliberately spelt the American way for reasons long forgotten. Located high in the Shropshire Hills, the grand opening would follow, an event that promised to be amazing.

Jenny stepped into the car. Kit followed, and she linked his arm and tugged herself close.

‘Okay, Michael,’ said Kit, and the car moved serenely away.

He turned to his fragrant wife and pecked her on the cheek.

‘Mind my make-up.’

‘Have you got a programme?’

She opened her over-large designer bag and pulled out a copy and handed it to him. He glanced at the schedule. Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Nottingham, Hull, York, Durham, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Edinburgh, Perth, Glasgow, Carlisle and Preston. Thirteen long-since sold out lunches that would test the waistline of any man. But Kit promised he would eat and drink little else during the whole of the tour.

Jennifer was determined to keep him to his word.

‘Have you brought the camera,’ he asked.

‘I have.’

‘Good, you never know when we might need it.’

The tickets had all sold within five hours of being put on sale online, and though his publishers, Casson & Cates, had scored a minor victory by insisting on increasing the price to £150 per head. There hadn’t been any resistance to the price point, as they were fond of saying. That wasn’t a phrase that Kit liked or would use, but he would have his revenge by opening his speeches with an apology for the ticket price, out of my control, my friends, and that was sure to go down well, when he would insist it was forced on him by his publishers using the small print in their extraordinarily detailed publishing contract.

If Casson & Cates didn’t like it, he could always move on somewhere else. There had been several overtures from American book behemoths who were monitoring his astonishing progress by the day. It helped with the selling of the tickets that his latest tome, Make Money While You Sleep, was locked in, seemingly permanently, at number one in the non-fiction book charts, something that irritated TV cooks and TV gardeners to hell and back, for they regarded that as their rightful territory, and theirs alone.

‘Manchester, here we come,’ he said, softly.

‘Yes indeedy,’ said Jennifer and she leant over and kissed the side of his beard. ‘And after that, the big opening.’

There was a brief moment of silence when only the luxurious hum of the locally made engine assailed their ears, before Kit whispered, ‘Ah yes, the Big Opening!’ 

––––––––

PRYCE UNLOCKED THE doors at the end of the corridor, carefully closed them behind him and locked up. Ahead of him was the final set of doors that would take him into the inner sanctum of the assembly plant. He didn’t go in there often, he did not feel the need, and anyway, that was the junior partner’s domain, Brinton’s. He could be chased in there whenever the need arose, as it had recently, with the slip-sliding of the Cambridge order that was now back on track.

Pryce turned right and selected a different key from his huge band of clinking metal. He opened the solid door to the little used pep talk room, turned on the striplight that spluttered to life, and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and set the bottle of mineral water on the desk. It was the only desk in the windowless room, and the only other pieces of furniture were a single executive chair set on either side of the desk. On the floor against the right wall was a blue plastic washing-up bowl.

Pryce set his hand on the high back of the near chair and stared across the office. In the far chair sat a woman. She was opening and closing her eyes, time and again, as the striplight shone down into her face. Sitting alone in the darkness for three hours straight couldn’t be much fun for anyone, though he guessed she had been sleeping.

She was restrained in the chair by plastic cable ties, pretty much unbreakable, unless you had a good knife or scissors, while across her mouth was a length of thick pink tape.

‘How are you?’ he asked, knowing full well she could not reply. Her eyes acclimatised to the neon, glared at him, unblinking. ‘Oh, I’m forgetting myself,’ he said. ‘Would you like a drink of water?’ and he glanced at the green bottle.

The woman shook her head.

‘Ah well, just as you like, maybe as well, come to think of it.’

He reached across and grabbed the bottle and unscrewed the cap. Carefully emptied a couple of drops into the upturned top, knowing full well he could not leave it there long.

He glanced at the girl. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him, and what he was doing, and that was how it should be. He tipped the drops onto the right side of the desk. A couple of seconds passed and hissing and burning began. Smoke, or was it fumes, began ascending toward the light. He glanced at the girl. There was fright in her eyes. Good to see. All to plan, so far.

‘As you can see, my dear, just as well you declined a drink, for sulphuric acid is a mighty strange substance. The thing is, and here’s the lesson, in a moment I am going to remove the tape from your overlarge mouth, no offence, and if you so much as mutter a word, never mind a yell, scream, or shout, I shall drip the entire content of that bottle down your face, beginning at the forehead, just below that ridiculous haircut of yours, and it will roll down, hopefully between your eyes, and not into them, though I suspect it won’t do your nose much good. Do I make myself clear?’

Jessica Stone nodded.

‘Good, just so long as we understand each other,’ and he went around behind her and removed the tape from her mouth. For a brief moment she thought about biting his fingers, but no matter how much pent up anger was in her, she knew that would have been a futile gesture. She gasped for air through an open mouth. Breathing solely through the nose for three hours at a stretch was not the most comfortable thing to do, and regular air was pretty important to anyone.

Pryce sat in the opposite chair and smiled across at her.

‘You must be hungry, and thirsty.’

‘I need a drink,’ she said.

‘And you shall have one,’ and he yanked open a desk drawer and pulled out a similar green glass bottle of water.

He saw the doubt in her eyes.

‘Oh, don’t worry, this is water,’ and to prove the point he removed the cap and swigged the content. The acid on the desk gave a final hiss, as if it were a death rattle, and then all was quiet as the last of the fumes faded away. Remaining on the desk was a deep and nasty scar, or could it be described as a burn, no matter, Pryce had made his point.

‘And you must be hungry too,’ and he went back to the drawer and pulled out a large bar of chocolate fruit and nut, his favourite, full of sugar, calories, fat, and life giving ingredients. He tugged off the end piece, broke it in half and slipped a piece into his mouth, before reaching across and slipping the balance into hers.

‘Nice, isn’t it?’ as he crunched his way through best almonds.

She didn’t reply.

‘Now the thing is, Jessica, you are a woman in great demand.’

‘Am I?’

‘Oh yes, all kinds of people are looking for you. The Barton brothers, as you know, are prepared to break the bank to get hold of your fair skin. But you know that already, though I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes if they do, and the Crown Prosecution Service of course, not to mention the police. They must be tearing their hair out wondering where you are now, and what you are doing, and they would never think of looking here in a million, trillion years.’

‘Walter will find me.’

‘Who the hell’s Walter?’

‘You’ll see.’

‘Ah well, no matter, I have no idea who this Wally fellow is, and frankly I have no interest in that either. Where was I? Oh yes, I know, it must be lovely to be popular.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Oh, didn’t I say? I’ve had a better bid. Two million dollars as it happens, so I have agreed, in principle, to trade you for cash. That’s what I do, you see, trade in humans. Why not? It’s a very lucrative business. I mean, there are horse dealers and cattle dealers and cat dealers and dog dealers, even camel merchants, can you believe? It’s only a small step to human trading, I am a human merchant, if you will, and if I say so myself, one of the most successful in the industry. Though I have to confess there is a great deal more competition these days. It’s just the same as in equine blood, the best colts and fillies always make the best prices. Must make you feel great, eh?’

She looked at him, pityingly, but he wasn’t to be interrupted. He probably didn’t even notice.

‘That must impress you, does it? The thought that another man would pay two million dollars for you, to have access to you, for the rest of your days, whenever he wishes. I wish I was worth two million dollars to another human being, but hey ho, we can’t have everything in life, can we?’

‘Who is it?’

‘Ah, now that will remain a secret for a little while longer. Leave you something to ponder. Anyway, I thought you’d like an update, and I’m sure you’d like to know your stay here will not be overlong. We are just ironing out the final details.’

‘The Barton brothers will kill you.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. They don’t know me, and they don’t know you are here. Must be driving them wild too, all that uncertainty. But hopefully they will soon be convicted, despite the lack of evidence from you, and put away for a long time.’

‘You underestimate them.’

Pryce pulled a face.

‘Don’t think so. In a moment I am going to release you for five minutes. You can finish your meal, and use the bowl,’ and he glanced at the washing-up bowl on the floor, and returned to the desk drawer and pulled out a roll of toilet tissue and set it on the desk.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, my dear, I shall be outside, I am not a voyeur, never have been. You will have your privacy, so if we are ready, I shall release you,’ and Pryce went behind her and unclipped the first of the cable ties. She flexed her wrist, as he went to the other and unclipped that too. She rubbed her wrists hard as he moved around the desk, opened the door to the corridor, paused and said, ‘Ah yes, the acid, better take that, don’t you think, dangerous stuff, we don’t want any nasty accidents, do we?’

He stood in the doorway and grinned and watched her reach across and grab the water.

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘But remember, if I hear a squeal from you, you get the acid, understand? Even I am prepared to forgo two million dollars in certain circumstances, and if you think about barricading yourself in the room, I shall lock the door and leave you inside, alone forever. Wouldn’t recommend it, though. Death by starvation is agony, I believe.’

She emptied the water and took another piece of fruit and nut.

‘You have five minutes. When I return I shall expect to see you sitting quietly in your chair.’

Chapter Forty-Seven

Walter, Karen, Jan, Jenny, Hector and Gibbons were all sitting around the main bank of desks. Walter said, ‘Sadie,’ and everyone switched on, though for some reason the still unproven monster system was not in the loop.

‘Still no ID?’

Lots of puzzled faces and shaking heads.

‘It stands to reason the fact no one has reported her missing is because she has not become fully entrenched in UK life.’

‘An illegal immigrant?’ said Hector.

‘It’s the obvious explanation,’ said Walter. ‘No one has reported her missing because there was no one to report her absence.’

‘That’s sad,’ said Jenny.

‘It is.’

‘Or,’ chipped in Karen, ‘it’s because those who would like to report her missing are in some way being restrained from doing so.’

‘Quite possibly,’ said Walter.

‘Either by threats to the person, or by being physically restrained from doing so,’ said Karen.

‘How do you mean, sarge?’ asked Gibbons.

‘By being denied the means to communicate.’

‘Not sure I follow.’

‘Oh, wake up Gibbons,’ said Walter, ‘Karen means that Sadie could not speak to us before she was killed because she was in captivity, and Sadie’s colleagues cannot report her disappearance for the same reason.’

‘That’s right, Guv,’ said Karen, looking at Gibbons as if he had a screw loose.

‘Shouldn’t we be looking at industries that traditionally target illegal immigrants, offering cheap labour, that kind of thing?’ suggested Hector.

‘Good starting place,’ agreed Walter.

‘So what are they?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Agricultural, working in the fields from dawn to dusk for half the minimum wage, backbreaking work the locals wouldn’t touch with a bargepole,’ said Karen.

‘Correct. And it’s still harvest time,’ said Walter, ‘so that makes a lot of sense.’

‘And there’s plenty of agriculture in Cheshire, Shropshire and North Wales, always looking for cheap labour,’ said Hector.

‘Okay,’ said Walter, ‘Gibbons and Hector, you get on that. Get a list of all the gangmasters in the area, go and see them, take Sadie’s picture, put some pressure on these people, a lot of them are dodgy, we know that, check all their records, make them sweat, see if you get any reaction, and pay particular attention to any of those organisations that employ Oriental labour.’

‘What other industries?’ asked Jan.

‘There’s the cockling thing,’ suggested Jenny.

‘There is,’ said Walter, interested in the idea. ‘And it’s local.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Cockling on the River Dee,’ said Karen.

‘Wasn’t there an incident up in Morecambe Bay a few years ago?’ said Hector.

‘There was, Hector, you’re right, back in 2004, if memory serves,’ said Walter. ‘Twenty-three Chinese workers were drowned by the incoming tide. I think the gangmaster was local too, from Liverpool, I believe.’

‘And were they illegal immigrants?’ asked Hector.

‘Not sure, maybe. Jenny, can you check that out?’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘Trust you to get the cock job,’ said Gibbons, winking at Jenny.

‘Oh, shut up, Gibbons,’ said Karen.

‘And it’s not Cock, it’s Cockle,’ said Walter. ‘The extra L and E are quite important, makes a big difference, and there’s a great deal of it five miles up the road on the Dee estuary.’

‘We could be on to something, Guv,’ said Karen.

‘Does anyone know when the cockle picking season starts and finishes?’ asked Walter.

More puzzled looks and blank faces.

Gibbons shrugged his shoulders.

‘Jan, you work with Jenny on that, find out when the cockles are picked, and if they are in business now, go and see the pickers.’

Jan nodded and said, ‘Sure, Guv.’

The phone in front of Karen rang. She snatched it up. They all heard her say, ‘When was this?’ and then, ‘Okay, thanks for that.’

‘What?’ said Walter.

‘Greenline Couriers delivered a package to Remembrance yesterday, late lunchtime.’

‘Did they now?’ said Walter. ‘I wonder what could have been in that. Sounds like it was just before we arrived, no wonder they were so jumpy.’

‘Shall I get a car, Guv?’

‘Yes. Get on with it, team, you know what you have to do. Meet back here for an update at 6pm, and I want to see some results.’

––––––––

THIRTY MINUTES LATER: another lunchtime in Remembrance, another ploughman’s, another ring on the bell.

‘Who the heck’s that?’ said an annoyed Chrissie.

‘Another courier delivery with any luck,’ said Colin. ‘Just so long as it ain’t that black fella. He’s beginning to annoy me.’

Chrissie went to the door.

Colin heard her say over-loudly, ‘Hello Inspector, back so soon?’ and then he appeared in the kitchen, looking down on Colin as if he were a naughty pupil.

Colin crunched a pickled onion, gave himself a little extra thinking time. ‘What can we do for you? Good news is it?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Yesterday you said, or to be accurate, Chrissie said: We are in demand today, and she said that because Greenline Couriers delivered a packet not long before we showed up. What was in the packet?’ Walter glanced from husband to wife. He looked shifty, she looked sheepish.

‘Nothing special,’ he said.

‘That won’t do, Colin.’

‘Some medication for the pigs.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Karen.

‘Tell him, Colin!’ said Chrissie.

‘It was a new supply of seeds for the spring.’

‘Nope, not that,’ said Karen.

‘Tell him, Colin, or I will.’

Colin grunted and sat back in his chair.

‘Some money came.’

‘How much?’

‘10K.’

‘And where is it now?’ asked Karen.

‘Safe, where no one can touch it.’

‘That won’t do, Colin,’ Walter repeated.

‘Buried in the pigpen,’ said Chrissie, unable to look at her downcast husband.

‘And it came from Donald?’

‘No idea! There was no letter inside, that’s why we didn’t mention it, we wanted to get to the bottom of it first.’

‘Do you often receive wads of money in cash in the mail?’ asked Karen.

‘Do you think we’d be in this mess if we did?’

‘Have you spent any of it?’

‘Course not! We are honest people.’

Walter went to the back door and opened up.

‘Whatcha doing?’ asked Colin.

‘Come along, my friend, away to the pigpen.’

Colin sighed and gave his wife daggers, and dragged on his boots and joined Walter outside. It took quite a long time to dig it up, Colin had done a great job in burying it, but there it was in the red rusty tin. Back in the kitchen, Chrissie cleaned it as best she could with paper towels.

‘S’pose we’ll be in trouble now, will we?’ asked the downcast Colin.

‘That’s not up to us, but you did mislead us, you did waste police time, and you did handle stolen goods, i.e. the cash, so you couldn’t be surprised if the matter is taken further. But if you could lead us to your son, and help us recover more of the missing money, that would help.’

‘I’ve just about had enough of this! I’m going to bed,’ said Colin and he stomped out of the kitchen and went upstairs, still in his pig-muck muddy boots.

If Chrissie noticed she didn’t say anything. She saw the officers out, pausing on the doorstep to say, ‘I am sorry, Inspector.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But if anything else turns up, you must tell us.’

Chrissie nodded and said, ‘I will, you can be sure of that.’

––––––––

ON THE DRIVE BACK TO the station Walter’s mobile burst into action. It was WPC Jenny Thompson.

‘Hi Guv, just thought you’d like to know the cockle picking season is open. We’re going down there now.’

‘Okey-doke.’

‘I had no idea this is such big business, Guv. There’s been over a hundred cockle fishing licences granted this year. Anyone who doesn’t have a licence is looking at a five grand fine.’

‘How much money is in this?’

‘No idea, Guv, but we are going down there to find out.’

‘Think Oriental labour, Jen, Oriental gangmasters, get the pic?’

‘Sure Guv, we’re all rigged out with photos and flyers and stuff.’

‘Good! Just don’t get caught on the estuary by the incoming tide. It always comes in faster than you think, I know that. And watch out for quicksand!’

Karen sniggered. The thought of part of the team slowly disappearing inch by inch was an image she wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

‘How did you get on?’ asked Jenny.

‘We’ve recovered ten thousand pounds.’

‘That’s a start. Things are beginning to happen.’

‘Let’s hope so, be careful!’

‘Will do, Guv, see you later.’

A moment later Walter muttered, ‘Was the dead Chinese girl a cockler? Can you see that?’

‘Maybe.’

‘So what did she do to warrant her murder?’

Karen shrugged her shoulders.

‘Didn’t pick enough? Tried to escape? Annoyed the gangmaster?’

‘Could be any of those,’ said Walter. ‘Or none of them.’ 

Chapter Forty-Eight

Pryce opened the door to the pep talk room. Jessica was sitting in the chair. He entered, carrying the bottle of acid. ‘Good,’ he said, though he was wary, half expected her to fly out of the chair and attack him, but she didn’t.

Maybe she realised her best hope was to be compliant, and in that way she’d get out of there safe and sound with her face intact, and in that line of thinking she was right. He set the bottle carefully on the desk and went around behind her and re-fixed the cable ties.

‘Can you leave off the tape?’ she asked.

‘Sorry, no can do.’

‘At least leave the light on.’

‘Sorry, no can do. It would look odd, with light filtering from round the door from an empty room. Save energy!’ he said parroting TV announcements. ‘Better to sleep in the dark, anyhow.’

He went in the drawer, took out the tape, slipped a knife from his pocket and sliced off an appropriate piece, and set it over her mouth, ear-to-ear, fixed like a dream.

‘Say something.’

She did her best, but it sounded like err uhh err, and pretty quiet muttering at that. He picked up the acid, went to the door, turned off the light, let himself out without saying another word, locked the door, and returned to his office.

Brinton came out of the assembly plant an hour later. It was shop opening day, and there was always chaos in there on shop opening days. Those off shift besieged the little shop, and having recently been paid, they were keen to spend their hard earned cash. Sweets and chocolates, no wonder there was so much toothache about, soap, shampoo, tiny things that made life more bearable, ladies’ things, extra rice, tinned fish, and deodorant, especially in the summer, though some didn’t waste precious money on that, plus ice cream, while in the winter, cheap woolly gloves and scarves would be in demand because it could get really cold in there, garments probably made in the sweatshops of China where some of the units had once plied their trade.

Brinton hated shop opening days and was keen for Pryce to close down the facility, though so far that idea hadn’t been well received.

Brinton had trotted up the mezzanine stairs. Monica and Debs were both there, hard at work. Debs muttered a warning that Brinton was on his way, and Monica stood up and met him as he crossed the floor.

‘Figs better?’ she said.

‘A bit.’

‘I knew we’d do it.’

‘How did you manage that?’

‘Debs and I went downstairs and took our place on the line. We haven’t forgotten the basic work, you know.’

Brinton bobbed his head.

‘Whatever you did, it seemed to do the trick.’ He took a small pack from either pocket, slipped a nice perfume into Monica’s pouch and walked past her and set a thick bar of chocolate on the desk for Debs.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

Brinton ignored her; it was a small price to pay to get Pryce off his case. Then he said, ‘Word is, there could be a few new additions soon.’

‘How many?’ asked Monica.

‘Not sure, four max.’

‘That will help.’

‘That’s what I thought. There’ll be no excuses if you don’t deliver.’

‘We not muck up, do we, Debs?’ and Debs shook her head and opened the chocolate and bit off a chunk without offering any to the others. Perks were personal, not for shares.

‘I’m going to monitor the bloody shop,’ he said, and turned away. ‘I’ll be back later.’

‘You’re the boss,’ said Monica, and by then he was bounding down the steps.

––––––––

IN THE OPPOSITE CORNER to the mezzanine floor was the dispatch bay where completed orders were assembled before being loaded onto trucks. The walls there went right up to the high roof and the same double door locking procedure was adopted, as on the main way in. It was a good security system that very few people had worked out how to break. No units were ever permitted in the dispatch bay. It was a crime that carried the most severe penalties. If units didn’t learn anything else, they learnt about that. First time, a thorough beating, second time, terminal.

The same two guys who did the fetching and carrying and courier duties, and frequent vehicle re-sprays, looked after goods inward and goods out. A large pile of completed orders were standing ready, all neat and tidy on rough timber pallets secured with tightly bound clear polythene, all within the main assembly plant, waiting to be taken into the dispatch bay.

Brinton watched as the main double doors to the dispatch section opened and one of the new yellow forklifts drove into the assembly plant. Man One was driving. He approached the pallets, slipped in the prongs, lifted one up, swung it round, and took it out through the doors. The first pallet of the Cambridge order was off the assembly floor and ready to be loaded onto a truck for the 150 mile trip, south-east.

Brinton watched the forklift return for a second pallet. Man One clocked he was being observed and nodded across at Brinton. Brinton nodded back, and by then the second pallet was disappearing out of sight. Things looked okay, not brilliant, but better.

He went to the small shop that was situated next door. There were still a lot of hungry units there, maybe thirty or forty, still with money to spend, and despite the No Talking rules that applied to the whole of the main assembly floor, there was a lot of cackling going on. Brinton approached and clapped his hands and the cackling ceased.

The waiting units turned and regarded him warily. It wasn’t unusual for him to slap a disobedient unit, often for no apparent reason, and Brinton slapped hard when he did. More than one unit had lost teeth to a Brinton reprimand.

The woman serving in the shop was called Tani, and she worked there because she was older than the rest. She came from Hong Kong and spoke decent English, and that helped.

Brinton entered the shop and stood beside her.

‘All right, Tani?’

‘All right, Mr Brinton.’

‘Are we nearly closing?’

‘Soon, Mr Brinton, soon.’

‘How are the takings?’

‘Good, Mr Brinton, good.’

‘You’re not carving a slice off for yourself, are you?’

Tani stopped and stared at the man. Was he being serious? Was she in trouble?

‘Certainly not, Mr Brinton.’

‘You’d better not be, you’d be down the road, if you did.’

Tani went back to serving the many outstretched hands pointing to various items behind her, proffering the specially printed blue Minstrel Electronics ten-pound notes that Mr Brinton had designed and printed on the company colour laser printer. Brinton thought back to the day when he first floated the idea past Pryce. He had jumped at it, and Brinton was the flavour of the month for a few days.

Truth was, he felt he could do with coming up with another bright idea, but so far his brain had failed to comply. Seemed hard to believe that before, they used real live money. Brinton sniffed a laugh. Glanced at his watch.

‘You’ve got ten minutes!’

‘Won’t be finished, Mr Brinton.’

‘Well, get finished!’

Ten minutes later and there were still customers reaching inside the shutters.

‘Shop’s closed!’ yelled Brinton, but still several customers were thrusting money to Tani.

‘I said the shop’s shut!’ snarled Brinton, and he reached up and unhooked the shutters and let them fall, narrowly missing several pairs of hastily withdrawn hands. That would not have been good, broken fingers everywhere, when fingers were the most important part of the unit’s body by a country mile.

Inside, Tani began cashing up for the day, before straightening out what little stock remained. Brinton went outside. Still a few stragglers about. He glared at them and yelled, ‘Shop shut, shit off!’ and that did the trick and they ambled back, disappointed, to the living accommodation. Brinton went back into the timber built shop. There was only room in there for the two of them.

‘Got the re-stock list, Tani?’

‘Just doing it now, Mr Brinton.’

‘Why do I always have to ask you for things? Why are you never ready?’

He glared into her face. She didn’t look well, looked frightened and scared, as if she thought he might strike her, and he still might.

‘List done, Mr Brinton.’

Brinton held out his hand.

She slipped him the hastily scrawled list.

‘I can hardly read your ugly writing!’

‘Sorry, Mr Brinton.’

He glanced at the list.

13 shampoos.

10 box tampons.

16 large milk chocolate.

12 white chocolate, and so it went on.

‘Is that it? Everything?’

‘Yes, Mr Brinton.’

‘It better be. Give me the money.’

She collected all the money and placed it in the small cotton sack, together with her ready reckoner of the day’s takings. God help her if it didn’t balance.

‘This everything?’

‘Yes, Mr Brinton.’

Brinton nodded hard, just once.

‘Out you go, then, sod off!’

Tani pulled a face, pulled her grubby overall around her, squeezed past Mr Brinton, and shuffled away toward the living accommodation. She had forgotten to buy a bar of chocolate for herself and that upset her, and despite her working in the shop, no one would share their chocolate with her because all the others thought she was Brinton’s spy, that she fed him information, something she had never done. When she arrived back in the dorm, the others went quiet and turned away.

Brinton locked the little shop for another day. It was a good lock too, because on more than one occasion someone had tried to enter the shop out of opening hours. One way or another he was going to close that damned place.

He walked briskly across the assembly floor, the day’s takings swinging in the bag at his side. He glanced up at the mezzanine floor. Monica was there, leaning on the rail, staring down at him.

‘Get back to work!’ he yelled.

‘Yes, Mr Brinton,’ and she smirked and turned away and went back to her desk. 

Chapter Forty-Nine

All of Walter’s team were back in the office for 6pm. Gibbons and Hector, looking into the activities of agricultural gangmasters, had found numerous businesses that needed further investigation.

Jenny and Jan had managed to avoid being snagged by the treacherous incoming tide flooding up the Dee estuary.

They had looked at many cockle fishing licence holders, some of whom were Oriental, and still had further investigations to complete. None of the cockle fishers recognised the picture of Sadie.

The phone next to Karen rang. She grabbed it. They all heard her say, ‘Yes, he’s here, just a sec, I’ll put him on,’ and she mouthed: ‘Mrs Cresswell.’

‘Sorry to bother you, Inspector, but I wondered if you were making any headway?’

‘We have seen a smidgeon of progress.’

‘Oh?’

‘We have recovered some funds that we believe could have come from Donald Rushnell.’

‘Good! How much?’

‘Ten thousand.’

‘That’s not much.’

Walter didn’t comment.

‘Can we have that money back?’

‘Not until our investigations are finalised.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Could be quite some time yet. We’ll keep you informed.’

‘Thank you, Inspector, please do that,’ and then Mrs Cresswell was gone.

Walter and the team shared a look, but before Walter could say anything else, Karen’s phone rang again.

The team stared at her as she said, ‘Who’s calling?’ as she glanced at her boss and said, ‘It’s the Chinese Consulate in Liverpool.’

Walter grabbed the phone.

‘Am I speaking to Inspector Darriteau?’

‘Yes, who’s this?’

‘My name is under secretary Da Chung, but everyone calls me Dan. I’m ringing from the Chinese Consulate in Liverpool.’

‘What can I do for you, sir?’

‘I think it is I who should call you “sir”. I have an apology for you.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, it relates to the death of a young Chinese woman.’

‘Yes, what about it?’

‘You requested information after supplying fingerprints and photographs and we told you the person in question was not known to us.’

‘And she is now?’

‘Yes, Inspector. Additional records have recently been uploaded to the database, and during a routine check on previous enquiries we have now located the person in our files.’

‘I see.’

‘You’d like her details?’

‘I would.’

‘Her name is, or was, Yet Kwai Dang, and it appears she originated in the Chongqing area. She came from a bad family, Inspector, gangsters who specialised in knives. We’ve been able to track her journey through Macao and Hong Kong where we believe she was sold into prostitution, and presumably on into the hands of human traffickers.’

‘Filthy business. Have you a date of birth?’

‘Certainly,’ and Dan read it out.

Walter wrote it down and said, ‘We are still investigating her murder. But thank you for this information. At least we now have a name for the deceased, and we now know she was not a UK citizen. We’ll keep at it.’

‘Thank you. Do you still have the body?’

‘Of course, it won’t be released until the case is closed.’

‘May I ask, Inspector, that you inform me when the late Yet Kwai Dang is released for burial? We would like to look after her in death, as she was not looked after in life.’

‘Of course. I’ll make a note on the file. We won’t forget.’

‘The poor kid did not have much of a life.’

‘No, from what we know, that would seem to be the case.’

‘Are you any nearer tracking down her traffickers and killers?’

‘I’d like to say yes, but it is still an ongoing inquiry.’

‘Well, Inspector, if there is anything else we can do, anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.’

‘Thank you, I will.’

‘And I apologise again for misleading you in the first place.’

‘No need, you only advised us of the facts as you knew them.’

‘You are most kind, very understanding, good evening, Inspector,’ and Da Chung was gone.

‘Listen up everyone! We have a positive ID for the dead girl, so no more referring to her as Sadie. Her name is or was, Yet Kwai Dang, and she came from China via Macao and Hong Kong. She was just twenty. The Chinese Consulate believe she was sold into the hands of human traffickers. We now have a clearer idea of what we are dealing with, a disgusting, despicable business, and one we will get to the bottom of. Tomorrow, everyone in early please, we’ll step up our enquiries across the board.’

Several of the team nodded, some muttered short positive comments, and everyone began to move like pupils in school after being advised they could go home.

‘Do you want a lift, Guv?’ asked Karen.

‘Yeah, good idea, save me from the tentacles of the pub.’

Occasionally he had a way with words, she had noticed that before, as images of the Royal Oak on the high street, morphing into some monstrous sea creature, filled her mind. Blazing eyes, vast tentacles covered in suckers, creeping out across the street, lassoing and dragging the unwary and dry-throated into the saloon bar, though she couldn’t imagine Guv putting up much resistance. 

––––––––

IN THE CAR ON THE SHORT journey home, Walter said, ‘How’s Kit Contrick getting on?’

‘Legal summons in the post,’ she replied, smirking, but she did want to talk to him about that. Her recent discovery that recruits were putting way more money into the company than she’d thought, meaning the flood of cash heading into Kit Napoleon’s coffers could be astronomical. She was in two minds whether to say, but she wanted to go to the Shropshire conference first. Perhaps that was down to the magnetism Kit exuded. She wanted to see him again, and wanted to take it up another level to discover more about the business, and see where it led.

She thought it would be better to tell Walter about it then. It was a fifty/fifty spur-of-the-moment decision she was not entirely comfortable with, but found herself saying, ‘All good, Guv, all good, making a few quid, having a bit of fun, learning all the time.’

‘Mmm...’ he said, and she didn’t really know what to make of that. 

Chapter Fifty

‘Brinton!’ yelled Mr Pryce.

‘Yep?’

‘Come and join me.’

‘Okay.’

A few seconds passed and Brinton entered Pryce’s office and sat down.

‘We need to have an update.’

‘Okay.’

‘Tonight we have three new units arriving.’

‘What time?’

‘The usual, early hours.’

That was a bummer so far as Brinton was concerned, because he had a snooker match fixed up at the local social club, but that couldn’t be helped.

‘Let’s hope they’re better than the last lot.’

Pryce nodded. ‘I’ll be in at 9am, I’ll inspect them and if they’re any good, they’ll go to Manchester. If not, you can have ’em.’

‘I’m almost wishing they’ll be crap, we could use the extra bodies.’

‘Time will tell.’

‘Have the couriers gone for the day?’

‘Yep, half an hour ago.’

‘Get them back for midnight, here are the collection papers,’ and Pryce went in his desk drawer and fished out the documents for the new units, and set them before Brinton.

‘I hope no one ever sees these,’ said Brinton. ‘We’d be up shit creek if they did!’

‘Not going to happen. They are always handed over to someone else, or destroyed. I don’t keep written records like that.’

Brinton nodded, somewhat reassured.

Pryce sat back in the chair and said, ‘We’ve got something else on the go.’

‘I knew there was something happening,’ said Brinton, leaning forward, eager to hear more.

‘I received information about a UK unit who happens to be in great demand. Found out where she was, managed to get hold of her, not without some difficulty, I might add, and hey ho, I discover she’s worth a quarter of a mill.’

‘Good business!’

‘Yes, it would be, ’cept another buyer appeared out of the blue, and he’s willing to pay almost ten times as much.’

‘What!’

Pryce nodded. ‘Bound to be a bit of hassle from the snubbed ones, but that can’t be helped. Business is business.’

‘Course it is.’

‘I hoped to finalise the deal today, but we are still working out the minor details.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘It could do. This unit is a bit special.’

‘In what way?’

‘You’ll see, and that’s not important for now, but if the deal goes through, she’ll be going back to China. I had hoped she might have gone tonight, three in, one out, so to speak, but that’s not going to happen. It matters not, there’s a sister ship due in the week, should have the fine print sorted by then, she can go on that.’

Brinton nodded and said, ‘Where is the unit?’

‘In the pep talk room.’

‘I thought there was something weird going on in there.’

‘What made you say that?’

‘Dunno, just a feeling I had. Every time I walk past there I can’t help but look at the door.’

‘The buyer in China is a billionaire. Third richest person in that country, so they say.’

‘No problem with coughing up the cash, then?’

‘That’s the idea.’

Brinton wondered what his cut was going to be, and when he was going to get paid. Pryce didn’t always pay on the nail, and you had to watch him.

‘Big in light-bulbs, they say,’ Pryce continued. ‘Bigger in light-bulbs than any other bastard anywhere else,’ and Pryce laughed at that, something he didn’t often do. Brinton thought it okay to laugh too, and when he did, Pryce stopped laughing and stared across the desk. Brinton stopped laughing.

‘The Chinese guy,’ said Pryce, ‘always wanted a supermodel all of his own, and now he can have one. Lucky man!’

Brinton bobbed his head, as the penny dropped.

‘It’s not that Barton brothers murder trial witness, is it?’

Pryce smirked. That said it all.

‘That’s going to generate heat!’

‘Maybe, but nothing we can’t handle. The Barton brothers should be convicted, regardless of any missing witness. Anyway, it’s nothing to do with us, and no one knows we are involved, so let’s keep it that way.’

Brinton wasn’t so sure, but didn’t say.

‘Do you want to see her?’

‘Sure.’

Pryce stood up and gathered his bunch of keys and headed out of the office with Brinton following, and in the next moment he was opening the first set of doors into the inner hallway, and the door to the pep talk room. He went inside and flipped on the light. Jessica Stone woke up and blinked. She saw Brinton standing in the doorway. He stared down. He’d never seen a supermodel in the flesh before, and certainly not one strapped to a chair. What a ridiculous haircut!

Jessica wondered if this was the man, her man, so to speak, her new owner. She didn’t like the look of him, he looked mean, but at least he wasn’t old.

‘What do you think?’ said Pryce.

‘Very nice,’ said Brinton, though he didn’t sound convinced.

‘Good,’ said Pryce. ‘Now that you have been introduced she will need feeding twice a day.’

From that remark, Jessica knew that this guy wasn’t to be her new man. That was something.

Pryce retreated to the door. Held his hand on the doorframe and glanced down at the floor.

‘Oh, and Brinton, empty the bowl, will you?’

Brinton glanced down and didn’t like what he saw. So that was why Pryce had shown him the goods. Brinton would be expected to run round after her as if she were a baby. He sighed hard and stooped and picked up the bowl. Pryce turned off the light and Brinton came out and Pryce locked the door.

They retreated to the offices and Pryce said, ‘Are you going to ring the couriers now?’

‘Yes! Just as soon as I have got rid of this!’

Pryce glanced at the bowl and nodded and tried not to smirk, and said, ‘Make sure they are not pissed!’ and he hustled into his office and grabbed his coat, and yelled through the building on his way out, ‘Have fun tonight, I’ll see you at nine!’ and then he was gone.

––––––––

BRINTON WENT TO THE Gents and when he had finished, he had a good wash. Retreated to his office and rang the courier guys. They weren’t too pleased at being recalled, but when they discovered they would be collecting fresh units, always a lucrative operation, they swallowed their annoyance, and promised to be back at Minstrel for midnight, and sober too.

After that Brinton jumped on the computer for an hour, nothing too important or testing, played solitaire, and he sniffed and coughed, and stood up and headed down the corridor toward the assembly plant. 

Chapter Fifty-One

Brinton unlocked the doors and stepped into the inner hallway. Locked the doors behind him. Glanced to his right at the pep talk room and visualised the supermodel sitting in the darkness in that chair, alone and vulnerable.

She’d probably be dozing, and he felt good in knowing that information, the famous and quirky Jessica Stone was less than five yards away from where he was standing, and there were plenty of people out there who would pay a great deal of money to know that.

He sniffed and opened the doors to the assembly plant and stepped inside. Glanced around, everything looked normal. With a bit of luck, there would be some new recruits being trained up by this time tomorrow, and that should make his job easier. Away to the right, the shop was locked and bolted, straight ahead the doors to the dispatch bay were locked and closed too. No one would be using those doors again until the courier guys returned to the shop floor the following day. Before that, those same guys had an interesting night ahead of them.

He glanced across to the left, at the metal mezzanine floor. No one hanging lazily around, staring down from the rails, as it should be. He hurried across to the staircase and raced up to demonstrate to anyone watching how fit he was. Reached the top without gasping for breath. Monica was there, sitting at her desk, gaping at the flatscreen, checking figures, or inputting data. Debs was absent.

Brinton moved toward her. She heard him coming. The metallic floor gave way a tiny amount under human footprints, and vibrated and released a tinny metal ping in time with the footfall, whenever anyone walked across it.

She turned round and saw him coming. What was wrong now?

‘Where’s Debs?’

‘She’s off shift.’

‘Get her back on!’

‘She’s not long gone off.’

‘Get her back on!’

Monica pulled a face bordering on the insolent, and she was on dangerous ground. On another day, she might have felt the back of Brinton’s hairy hand. She hustled past him and skipped down the stairs. Five minutes later she was back, with Debs in tow, looking distinctly miffed.

‘I not long go off shift,’ she said. ‘I work extra hours other day to help get big order out, and still you call me back for more.’

‘You need to man the desk for a couple of hours.’

‘I not happy.’

‘Just do it!’ and in the way Brinton spoke, both women knew not to argue.

He nodded at Monica. ‘Go and wait for me by the door.’

Monica and Debs shared a look.

‘And you,’ continued Brinton, glaring at Debs, ‘prepare the way for three new units later tonight. Sort out some workplaces for them, and find them accommodation.’

Debs sighed and crossed her arms across her chest and stared at Monica, who turned and skipped down the stairs.

‘Get on with it!’ ordered Brinton, and Debs sat down and stared at the screen.

He turned about and jogged down the stairs, and walked across the shop floor to the doors where Monica was waiting. Reached in the box on the table, pulled out a lead, fixed it to her right wrist, opened the doors and tugged her through. Locked up. Glanced at the pep talk room, thought of vulnerable supermodels inside; an interesting thought, wondered what she was thinking about, went on ahead, opened up, stepped through, locked up behind, tugged Monica down the corridor toward his office. Opened the door. Pushed her inside. Went in too. Locked the door behind him. Removed the dog lead. Said, ‘Get your kit off!’

––––––––

MAN ONE AND MAN TWO arrived back at Minstrel Electronics at five to midnight. They entered the building, nodded at the old guy on reception, and walked down the corridor toward Brinton’s office. The door was closed, but the striplight was on inside, a little light filtering from around the door.

Man One knocked hard.

Brinton yelled, ‘Yeah.’

Man One opened the door and went inside.

He said, ‘A delivery to collect, I believe.’

Brinton nodded and told them to sit down and they pulled up the visitors’ chairs and Brinton showed them the necessary delivery and collection dockets, and official documentation they’d need to enter the Freeport, plus the banknotes for the guys on the security buildings on the way in and out.

‘Be a doddle,’ said Man One.

‘Don’t mess up,’ said Brinton.

‘You worry too much,’ said Man Two.

‘That’s what I’m paid for.’

‘What time are we setting off?’ asked Man One.

Brinton glanced at his watch. ‘Ten minutes. Is the vehicle ready?’

‘New grey coat, new number, shiny and waiting,’ said Man Two.

Brinton pulled a satisfied face and nodded again and said, ‘Plenty of fuel?’

‘Filled to the max, today.’

‘Fair enough,’ and Brinton leant back and put his feet on the desk. 

Man One nodded and said, ‘Are we finished here?’

‘Just about.’

Man One said, ‘In that case, I’m going to the bog.’

Man Two said, ‘Will you still be here when we get back?’

‘Ready and waiting.’

Man Two nodded, picked up the papers and the cash, and sauntered down the corridor to wait for his mate in reception.

––––––––

TEN MINUTES LATER AND the people carrier pulled out of Minstrel Electronics car park and headed for the M53. Slipped onto it. No problem, light traffic at that time of night, headed north for the Wallasey tunnel, and Liverpool beyond.

The tunnel was quiet, only two other vehicles heading under the river in the leftmost single one-way tube. One of those was a cop car, but Man One was driving carefully, just under the 40 mph limit, and no hint of beery breath. Then they were out on the Liverpool side, turning left, heading north for the Freeport.

On arrival, there was a small queue of traffic waiting patiently at the red and white barrier. Man One glanced at his watch. Twelve minutes past one. Not such a surprise, a queue being there at that time, for these places worked twenty-four hours a day because downtime was loss-time, and the powers that be were terrified of anything with a red figure attached.

The guy on the gate, a different bloke to last time, inspected the papers, nodded knowingly, slipped the two fifty-pound notes into his back pocket as if it were an irrelevance, opened the gate and said, ‘Nice to do business,’ and they were in.

Left swerve, straight, left turn, and there she was, back in blighty again, the State of Heavenly Peace, a little late this time, running slower to save fuel, exporting goods from China, bringing all kinds of tat to the UK. Boot polish, nappies, cheap mobile phones, Christmas crackers, pencils, pens, calculators, throwaway cameras, throwaway lighters, throwaway yellow dusters, throwaway young women, and all the other vital things that people seemingly cannot live without in the twenty-first century. Cheap and nasty things that for some crazy reason couldn’t be made in the empty factories on industrial estates two minutes’ drive away.

Man One pulled the carrier to a gentle stop as close to the vast ship as he could.

Man Two mumbled, ‘Be as quick as I can,’ and he stepped out and opened the sliding side door.

Glanced around. People about, but not up close, no one who looked like they were on observation duties. No one who appeared to have an undue interest in their Japanese people carrier, idling on the dockside, close to the crew’s gangplank, probably there to return some crew, or take some of them down to Liverpool’s own Chinatown round Nelson Street, and the protestant cathedral, for a good night out on the town, and maybe a cheap chick to finish. No police vehicles in sight either, no Dock Police, just people working hard, earning an honest living while the rest of the world slept noisily on, dreaming of lottery winnings, and supermodels, and the girl next door, and winning the bloody Champions League.

There was movement at the top of the gangplank. Man Two glanced up. A short, skinny guy, prancing down the stairway, walking like a wild animal in the bush, on tiptoe, nervous, anxious of predators, and behind him, he was tugging a rope, and that brought three slim figures into view. All girls by the look of it, though it wasn’t always easy to tell. It wouldn’t be the first time a ladyboy had infiltrated their weird business. They were down on the quayside; same procedure as before, ‘You sign,’ said the mean looking guy, thrusting a paper at Man Two. What was the point? Scribbled D Duck, and the guy threw him the rope, turned about and skated up the gangplank as if an alligator was trying to bite his backside.

Man Two glanced at the fresh flesh importation.

Yeah, three girls, or young women, it was hard to tell, but female for sure, he’d bet his bulging bank balance on that. First glance: better than last time, but that wasn’t difficult, carefully graded too, by the look of it, tall, medium, and short, in line astern, as he yanked the rope towards the people carrier and pointed inside and said, ‘Get in!’

The girls stepped in and sat down, and glanced at one another. Truth was, they were glad to be out of that ten foot tin tomb, and glad to be away from the silent man with the triad tattoos, and off that ship and away from all it meant, and anyway, though they were frightened and anxious, they were also excited at the prospect of what lay ahead. And besides, these guys didn’t seem so bad, youngish and decent looking, and they hadn’t struck anyone, or even been vaguely abusive. The van was warm and the seats comfortable, and they knew they could fall asleep right there. But they weren’t tired, for sleeping was the thing they did the most of in that sea-borne metallic box, and right there was an opportunity to see something of the world that none of them had ever imagined.

The Liverpool Freeport, and they were at the gates, and watched as papers changed hands, and they thought they glimpsed money moving too, and that was pretty normal, for in their line of business money was always being slipped into casual grasping fingers, as the recipient would often glance away, as if checking they weren’t being watched, or fearful of some deep inner feeling that might be telling them that what they were doing was sinful and demeaning. 

Ten minutes later, and the van began descending into the Mersey tunnel, and a few minutes after that, Fenfang Dong, Lily Sang, aka Jun Woo, Acting Detective Inspector, and Shu Lang, were about to be introduced to the delights of the Wirral peninsula. Jun remembered everything. The men’s faces, identifying marks, what had been said, the money changing hands, even the van’s number plate, all safely stashed away in her own personal filing cabinet that no one else could ever access.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Kit Napoleon had been up late too. The latest day on his northern tour, and it was all going wonderfully well.

Record book sales, record course sales, more highly paid speaker engagements booked than he could hope to handle in ten years, record numbers signing up, and the wheels within wheels of the Future Growth and Prosperity Program were spinning like a demented Katherine wheel.

He sat at the dressing table and stared into his own eyes. Five star accommodation; that was only to be expected, and all tax deductible on business trips, weren’t they always? Jennifer was talking about the next day’s engagements, and she swept past him in a chiffon wrap, paused to kiss him on the top of his gelled grey head, and disappeared into the bathroom. She’d be in there ages.

Kit yawned like a hippo, and saw himself in the glass and heard his mother saying from long ago, Hand in front of mouth, Keith, and he did, even there, place his palm across his lips. How glad he was to have rid himself of everything to do with Keith. Yet as he thought that, he knew he never would, not completely.

She was a fab woman, Jennifer, wallowing in the bath next door, singing a Sinatra number, pretty well as it happened, and she was just what he had needed after that soul-destroying episode with Ellie.

Cancer is such a complete and utter bastard!

There is no other word to describe it, set on this earth to destroy flesh, people, loved ones, human beings, yours and mine, before their time was due. What’s that all about? If there was such a thing as a devil, mused Kit, he must have released cancer among us, for it surely was the devil’s work. Maybe cancer IS the devil, maybe we are missing something. She, Jennifer, had been the manageress for a small middling hotel in Leamington Spa.

It was just as Future Growth was really getting going, and Kit knew it was ready to take off, aided by a big loan he had taken on. Yet all that business with Ellie had knocked him hard, and who wouldn’t be jolted by the loss of the love of his life? Seventeen years they had been married, and without question, they were the happiest and most exciting years of their entire lives.

Kit had asked Jennifer for a double scotch, back in that hotel, and she knew the signs of a lonely man, and she’d also noted he was decent looking, and possessed the biggest wad of cash in his wallet she had ever seen on any punter in that hotel in years, not that it would have influenced her. But it sure as hell did no harm.

‘Mind if I join you?’ she asked.

‘Be my guest,’ he said, and they sank three doubles each over the next couple of hours, talking and laughing and joking and sharing stories of their lives to date, and successes and failures, and they both possessed many of those to parade.

At the end of the night, they made an arrangement to meet again in the morning, as lonely people often do when they stay up late gossiping, and taking alcohol, and in the morning Kit had forgotten all about it, initially, but it gradually came back to him over the poached eggs and bacon. By the time he was back upstairs, he’d remembered everything there was to remember.

He’d agreed to take her into Leamington in his old Mercedes, shopping. It was her day off, and she had to buy an outfit for a nephew’s wedding. They had discussed frocks for  some time. He remembered that, and a birthday present for her mother. He had suggested a silver necklace, he remembered that too, and his idea hadn’t been laughed out of court. He even remembered they’d agreed to meet at the front of the hotel at 10.30 sharp, though he was sure she would have forgotten about it.

Nevertheless, he got himself ready, trimmed his beard, swigged extra strong mouthwash, just in case, slipped on a clean white shirt, found a new lilac tie, brushed his shoes, set on his KN cufflinks, they were the first ones he had ever had made, and he’d sauntered as nonchalantly as he could muster, down to the front of the hotel, with some story ready that he was out on his morning stroll, still certain he would be travelling alone.

But there she was, bright as a button, standing in the sunshine, looking fab, grinning and smiling and teasing and saying, ‘You don’t suffer from hangovers?’

‘Not often. You?’

‘Never! I thought you might have forgotten.’

‘Course not! I never forget a beautiful woman,’ and it was when he’d said that: I never forget a beautiful woman, that she thought, aye aye, what have we got here? This guy really could be a bit special, and though she would never have admitted it to Saint Peter himself, she had been on the lookout for a good husband. She’d had her fill of losers, and setbacks, and chancers and creeps, and disappointment. And she was a beautiful woman, neat and tidy and quite girly, which Kit liked. Painted nails, lipstick, lots of jewellery, regular trips to the hairdressers to preen her strawberry blonde hair. But she wasn’t Ellie, and never would be, and that was unfair, because no one could be that. No one could come close to matching Ellie Napoleon.

Sitting alone in front of the mirror in a five-star hotel reminiscing brought a tear to his eye, and that was a weak spot he didn’t wish the singing Jennifer to witness. This time next week, he pondered, the fabulous Ellie Napoleon Center would be open for business, and he was looking forward to that so much.

It had cost a monumental fortune and hadn’t yet been fully paid for. But it would be, before the year was out, lock stock and barrel, and that was no mean achievement, and thinking about capital expenditure, there was the recently purchased house too, that Jennifer had fallen in love with the moment they drove up the drive.

In the quaint Cheshire village of Wrenbury, it was, overlooking the Shropshire Union Canal, where, between April and October, colourful narrowboats cruised left to right, and right to left, at the end of the lawn, a moving view from the drawing-room windows, carrying laughing and joking holidaymakers, even in the rain, seemed to make no difference to them, and beyond that narrow murky strip of water, the view extended to open countryside, where black and white Friesian cows worked round the clock, 24/7, producing milk in the sunshine to make good Cheshire cheese for England.

Five bedrooms it had, the 1930s property, and they didn’t need five bedrooms, but there were occasions when they would put up special people and high achievers, and level fivers, for pep-talk weekends, sharing best wine, and stories and ideas and fun. He had brought his ageing parents there once, when all they could say was: ‘What do you need a draughty five-bedroom house like this for, Keith?’

He hadn’t been Keith for years, though they would never accept that, and he knew that what they really meant was: You couldn’t even produce a grandchild, you failure! Five bedrooms filled with silence and empty beds.

He hadn’t brought them again, nor ever would.

He remembered why he was thinking about the Ellie Napoleon Center. They needed a publicity manager for the place. Someone with élan, someone he could trust, someone who would make a fantastic success of the whole project, and he knew the person he wanted to fill the vacancy.

It had come to him when he was in the shower. Many of his better ideas often did. Ellie knew that too, and occasionally when they were stuck for a good idea or a problem solution, she would suggest, smirking, ‘Why don’t you take a hot shower?’ and usually he would. Sometimes, when he was really stuck, she might join him.

He smiled at himself in the glass, an odd smile if truth be told, and things were happening next door in the bathroom, and the door opened. Had he really been daydreaming at night-time so much? The beautiful Jennifer came out in a haze of steam and perfume, wearing a very expensive nightdress. She saw him sitting there and said: ‘Aren’t you in bed yet? You’re not even undressed. Come on, lover, you have a very big day tomorrow,’ and she stood him up and unbuttoned his waistcoat, and he looked down at her, and she looked pretty cool too, but how he wished that standing before him was Ellie.

‘Shit!’ he said.

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Oh, sorry darling, nothing, I’ve just remembered something I’d forgotten to do.’

‘Something important?’

‘No. Just some printing I wanted doing.’

‘Leave it! And get to bed,’ and she was already in the giant’s bed, spreading herself out on her back in that strange way of hers, an invitation that Kit did not miss, and one he was not about to spurn. 

Chapter Fifty-Three

Brinton glanced at his watch. Half an hour before the guys were due back with the new units. He thought of the supermodel. She might need something.

Better to be safe than sorry. Better check. Better go and give her the once over. He grabbed his keys, and headed down the corridor.

Opened and closed the necessary doors, and opened up the pep talk room, switched on the light. The woman screwed up her face and blinked and peered at the man in the doorway. She’d seen him before. Ah yes, the man who’d emptied her bowl. She didn’t like him, she didn’t like Pryce either, but there was something about this guy that set her automatic antennae on full alert. Perhaps Pryce was away, perhaps number two here might make a mistake, might give her a chance to escape. She only needed one chance, and she’d take it. He entered the room, closed the door, sat on the edge of the desk, and said, ‘Do you wanna use the bowl?’

She shook her head.

‘Do you want something to drink?’

She nodded.

Seemed reasonable.

He went in the desk and pulled out a bottle of water. But was it water? Yes, it must be, leastways it wasn’t acid, because this time it was in a plastic bottle. He went round behind her and roughly pulled the tape from her mouth.

‘Careful!’ she said as soon as she could, before gulping air.

He didn’t reply, unscrewed the bottle and set it to her lips. She was disappointed. Thought he might have released her hands. She gagged on the water. He was tipping it too high and too fast. She moved her mouth away and coughed and it spilt down her blouse and jeans.

‘That was clever. Stupid woman!’

He screwed the top on the bottle and set it on the desk. Grabbed the roll of tape. Pulled out a decent piece, didn’t have anything to cut it with, tore it off with his hands, and it was tough stuff. Perhaps he was trying to impress her. Stuck it on her mouth, but not as carefully as Pryce had done. Maybe she could remove it later with her tongue, lips, and teeth.

He went round behind her and began blowing on her hair. She always knew he was a creep.

‘Weird haircut,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t do anything for you,’ and his hands were round the side of the chair, touching her body, groping her breasts.

Jessica remained still and silent.

Didn’t see any benefit in doing anything else.

‘Not much of you, is there? Methinks your new bloke will soon grow tired of you, and then where will you be? Up shit creek, that’s where,’ and he laughed at his weird reasoning. ‘Never mind, eh, must be off. Got some new meat coming in,’ and he went to the desk and put the tape and water away. Turned round and glanced down. The weirdo woman stared back.

‘Do you want to use the bowl?’

‘Err, ugh,’ she attempted to say, and he laughed at that as he tried to make out what she’d said. Could have been Get Lost! could even have been Fuck Off! Cheeky bint! She should be more careful. Fancy anyone paying more than two million dollars for a weirdo like that, they were sure to be disappointed; just went to prove the world was full of utter poltroons.

He stood in the doorway, his hand on the light switch, and stared down into her eyes. ‘Sweet dreams,’ he said, and added, ‘I’ll be back,’ and snapped off the light.

After he’d gone, she went to work on the tape. She had an active tongue. Slowly, she made inroads into the area where it was least stuck fast. Gradually it came loose, and she began blowing and sucking and that helped, and finally the left side of the tape came free and she was able to suck the loose part into her mouth, clamped her teeth on it, dragged the remaining piece off her cheek and into her mouth. She chewed it into a ball and spat it onto the desk.

A small victory, maybe, but a victory nonetheless, and at least she had the capability of shouting out, of calling for help, though she understood she would only get one shot at that, and when and if it came, she mustn’t muck it up.

––––––––

THE PEOPLE CARRIER arrived outside half an hour later. Man One yanked on the handbrake. Man Two jumped out and opened the side door and grabbed the rope and tugged the units from the vehicle. ‘Come along, Ladies, we’ve arrived.’

Into the building, past the old guy at reception studying page three pics, Man Two gazed at him and said, ‘I know, I know, in the stationery room,’ and he yanked the units down the corridor and pushed them inside and stood guard at the open door.

The old guy arrived, puffing and panting, carrying a box containing three bottles of water and three packets of cheese and onion crisps. He went inside and set the box on the table. Turned and looked at the girls who were all staring back.

‘Chow!’ he said. ‘Yum, Yum!’ and he made silly circular eating movements, bringing his hands to his mouth.

The girls glared at him as if he were mental.

‘Thick as pig-shit!’ he said, and turned about and pushed past Man Two and headed back to his newspaper.

Man Two smiled at the girls. They looked marginally better under the striplight, though by God, they could do with a bath. He nodded at the box, and Fenfang and Shu smiled back and helped themselves and opened and swigged the water, and popped opened the bags and began eating crisps. It was the first thing they had eaten, other than rice, for five weeks.

Brinton came to the door and stared past Man Two and glanced at the girls. Lily Sang was eating and drinking and clocked Brinton watching her. Brinton didn’t like the look on her face, and made a mental note to get her out of the place as fast as he could.

‘Are you going to check them over now?’ asked Man Two.

‘Nope! Mr Pryce can do that in the morning.’

‘They’re better than last time.’

‘So you say, not sure I can see it,’ and he glanced into the room again, and still the middle one was staring back.

‘Okay, that’s it! Lock them in, I wanna get home.’

Brinton was the last one out of the building, leaving the old guy to lock the front doors behind him, and they wouldn’t be opened again before Brinton returned at 8.30am.

––––––––

THE GIRLS REMOVED THE rope, threw it on the table, and checked out their new quarters. At least the place had running water, a toilet and a sink, and it was way more spacious. Things were looking up.

They settled down on the floor for a chat.

Fenfang said, ‘What is this place?’

‘Minstrel Electronics,’ said Lily. ‘Maybe some kind of electronics assembly company.’

‘I can’t do that,’ said Shu.

‘It’s easy,’ said Fenfang. ‘You’d soon learn.’

‘I don’t want to learn.’

‘It’s one way to earn your keep,’ said Fenfang.

‘Could be worse,’ said Lily.

‘Better than working on your back all day,’ said Fenfang.

She’d said it half jokingly, but Shu was aghast. For a second, the others thought she might burst into tears. ‘I was joking!’ clarified Fenfang, but the vile thing was each of the girls realised it was still a possibility.

Lily yawned. It had been an eventful day, and she was tired. She settled down on the floor. Fenfang and Shu did too, and they cuddled up together, for it was beginning to get cold at nights. They closed their eyes and thought of home as Lily Sang switched off and tried to sleep. Jun Woo did not switch off. She was processing data, committing to memory, faces, places, times, sentences, actions, words, looks, and stares. Nothing would be missed or forgotten, especially that hard-looking man who had stared right through her as if she were a dead girl. 

Chapter Fifty-Four

All Walter’s team were in early, as he’d requested. The monster was on; the power light flashing hungrily. There was a fresh picture of the late Yet Kwai Dang on the screen. It had come in overnight from China.

‘Listen up,’ said Walter. ‘Yet Kwai Dang, that’s her on the screen, was almost certainly brought to this country against her will by human traffickers. If you think this is a piddling business that doesn’t affect us in this area, think again. The human trafficking trade has been estimated to be worth, in Europe alone, in excess of £22 billion per year.’

Hector whistled through his teeth.

Walter resumed. ‘That’s a great deal of human misery. She could have been involved in prostitution, though I think not; the post-mortem does not support that theory. She could have been involved in forced labour in the fields, though I think not...’

Darren Gibbons finished Walter’s sentence, ‘The post-mortem does not support that theory.’

Walter grinned coldly and said, ‘Thank you, Gibbons. She could have been involved with cockle picking, but...’ and they all picked up the theme and said in unison, ‘the post-mortem does not support that theory.’

‘Well done! She could have been involved in fast food and catering, but... wait for it... Jan and Jenny have been round all the local restaurants and deli’s and Oriental catering and wholesale businesses, and found no one who knew the late Yet Kwai Dang, isn’t that right?’ And everyone checked out Jenny and Jan. Gibbons thought Jenny looked pretty neat. He hadn’t noticed that before, while Jenny glanced at her oppo, Jan, and thought the same about him.

Jenny looked back at Walter, and said, ‘Everyone examined the pictures and were very interested and concerned, but no one identified her, or suggested they might have known her.’

Jan nodded and added, ‘I don’t think she was known to any of the people we saw. I think we would have got some kind of reaction.’

‘In that case,’ said Walter, ‘if she was working in catering it figures she must have been working out of town somewhere, places we haven’t checked, maybe Liverpool or Manchester or Stoke-on-Trent, and was brought here and dumped outside the swimming pool, perhaps to confuse us, or maybe, as I suspect, she was active in a different line of business, a different industry.’

‘Like what?’ asked Gibbons.

‘You tell me,’ said Walter.

There was a short silence and puzzled faces and frowns aplenty, and one or two glanced at the ceiling, and Karen said, ‘What about clothing manufacture? Every time I see a programme about China on TV, I see vast factories with hundreds of young workers, people like the deceased, it has to be said, working flat out all hours at sewing machines.’

Walter nodded. ‘Yep. Good. Could be. Ask the monster to produce a list of clothing manufacturers within twenty miles. Any more suggestions?’

‘Hotel work?’ said Hector. ‘Maids, and that.’

Again Walter nodded. ‘Yep, possible, though I don’t recall seeing many Orientals working in hotels. Could be worth checking, though. Any more?’

‘Cleaning businesses,’ said Jenny. ‘My aunty, she had a cleaner and both of the last two were Oriental girls, Filipina, I think, but definitely Oriental.’

Walter nodded again. ‘Good, Jenny, I like that one because I too have seen cleaners all over town who are clearly of an Oriental background. List please, monster,’ and Karen was already there, putting requests in, grabbing the paper, pumping out.

‘Jan and Jenny, cleaning companies. Hector and Gibbons, clothing factories, Karen and I will look into hotel work,’ when in truth, Walter didn’t warm to the idea. He clapped his hands. ‘Get on with it! Go and see these people, take pics and flyers and be on your toes. Don’t miss a thing. If you let standards slip, you will miss something. Some bastard shipped this poor girl half way across the globe, and when they’d finished with her, or decided she wasn’t up to scratch, they murdered her in cold blood, and threw her like garbage on the tarmac in the centre of town. I won’t have it! I want these people finding, not least before they do it again. That’s your job. Don’t fail me... and don’t fail her,’ and he pointed at the picture of Beautiful as a Rose, now known to them as Yet Kwai Dang, who stared down at them from the screen of the monster, on a sunny autumnal morning in the quaint English city of Chester.

‘Everyone back at 6pm for recap! On your way.’

Muttering and jacket collecting and paper picking and drink swigging and shared looks and grunts, and the room emptied and the team was out on the town.

After they’d gone, Karen said, ‘So what are we doing?’

Walter glanced up at her. She was standing, flexing on her toes, eager and ready to go. ‘I don’t know. What would you do in my position?’

She moved her head back a couple of inches, one jerky movement, and her eyes widened, as if she’d taken a little shock.

‘Well, if I was running the team...’ 

‘Yeah?’

‘I’d...’ and she paused, desperately seeking inspiration.

‘Tell me in the car. Let’s go down by the canal. It’s a good place to think. Sometimes offices are the biggest thinker-blocker places imaginable.’

Karen smiled and said, ‘Sure, Guv,’ though her mind was steaming ahead on the train of thought that began with: What would I be doing, and where would I be going, if Walter had retired, or was, God forbid, dead. Or perhaps to be more positive, had been posted to another area? It was a good question, and one she was determined to come up with a decent answer, for she knew he would ask her again.

––––––––

KIT NAPOLEON HAD RISEN early too, though in truth he did not want to leave his bed, or his naked wife, but work was work, and all the riches and respect and cachet and outright celebrity he enjoyed was down to sheer hard work and ingenuity, and after so many years in the wilderness, he was not about to surrender one iota of his enhanced lifestyle by lounging in bed.

A good early breakfast, press-ups for two in the bedroom, shared shower, always nice, allowing enough time for a good dress in decent clothes, and before they knew it, the maroon Rolls was waiting for them at reception. The Kit Napoleon road show was on the move again, rumbling down the road, hitting the next city, and the next collection of hopeful critters, as Kit had been known to refer to them to his wife in their quieter moments. Not many days left and it would soon be over, and both of them were looking forward to that. Charming the gullible public was a tiring business.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Karen drove her boss down to Telford’s Quay and parked up in the sunshine overlooking the canal basin. It was another beautiful September morning as the watery sun streamed into the car.

They watched a recently painted narrowboat heading into the pound, a cheerful balding red-faced man busy on the stern-mounted tiller. The craft had come down through the Northgate flight of locks and was proceeding to slow-boat right past them.

‘Have you ever been on one of those things?’ asked Walter.

‘Nope. You?’

‘Yes, I have, but take it from me, it’s all down to who you travel with.’

‘Isn’t it always?’ she said, smirking, and she was right.

‘It can be fun, slow cruising along from one country town to another, stop at a canal-side pub, have a drink and a bite to eat, back on the boat, chill out, chew the cud, move on a bit, different scenery, different town, different brew, very relaxing.’

‘Must be hellish in the rain.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, all part of it, I guess.’

He seemed really interested in the idea, so she thought she’d humour him, and said, ‘Maybe we should hire a boat and rope in the gang, staff bonding exercise. You, me, Gibbo, Jenny and Jan,’ though she pointedly omitted Hector.

‘Don’t know about that,’ said Walter. ‘Not sure I’d like to spend a fortnight cooped up with Gibbons and his dirty socks.’

Karen giggled and nearly added “and his dirty mind”, but didn’t, and said, ‘You’ve got a point there, Guv.’

‘Let’s talk business,’ said Walter.

‘Sure thing.’

‘What have we got here?’ he floated.

‘Well, we have a dead Chinese girl, almost certainly an illegal, beaten and strangled by person or persons unknown. We’ve got a missing supermodel who not so long ago was sleeping in your bed, or at least one of them, and we’ve got a lonely young man who has gone missing after relieving his employers of more than a quarter of a million pounds, gazoom, on the run, though we have no idea where or why.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘And we also have a policeman executed in my front room.’

‘I thought you said we were to ignore that.’

‘I didn’t say we should ignore it. I said the crime was being investigated by the London boys.’

‘So, it’s not one for us?’

‘No, but it is strange no one has been up here to see me, and stranger too there’s no sign of any investigation.’

‘You know D7, Guv, they do things their own way.’

‘Mmm...’ he said, and he continued, ‘Let’s talk about the murdered Chinese girl.’

‘Fair ’nuff. Shall we crack on with checking out hotels and the like?’

‘Nah! She wasn’t involved in hotel work.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because if she were an illegal being held by people traffickers, she would have been working some place where she couldn’t run away. If she was a maid in a hotel, she’d have walked out at the first sign of hassle.’

‘So what was she doing?’

‘What businesses are always in the market for young women... employ young women?’

‘Well, ignoring the obvious, Guv, because the PM tells us to, I think we covered that earlier.’

‘It was something you said, actually, something rang true.’

‘What did I say?’ she asked, trying to remember her words.

‘You said something like: Every time I see a programme about China on TV I see vast factories with hundreds of young workers.’

‘Yeah. So? What of it?’

‘It struck a chord.’

‘In what way.’

‘Not sure, it just sounds right. It feels right. I can see Yet Kwai slaving away on some production line somewhere. I can feel it in my bones, I can see it in her eyes, I can smell the oil on the machinery, maybe in China, maybe here in the UK, maybe both.’

‘Doing what?’

‘What are they invariably making when you see those vast lines of humanity hard at work in the Far East?’

‘Tat, for the most part.’

‘No, no, not so much anymore. There’s a conscious effort going on to increase the value of the produced goods, to move upmarket. They have to do that because increasing wages are slowly pricing them out of the market. Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, are all snapping at their heels, and one day North Korea will too.’

Karen pulled a thinking face. ‘Clothing, possibly?’

‘More like it, but not always. Often it’s more detailed work, more skilled work, more hi-tec.’

She paused and said, ‘Yeah! Phones, mobile phones, computer bits, electronics, circuit boards, all that kind of stuff.’

Walter nodded. ‘That feels right, too. I wonder if we could re-check the girl’s fingers, see if there are any minute particles of electronic guff hidden there to back up the theory.’

‘Got to be worth a try.’

‘It has, you get on to that as soon as we get back.’

Karen thought about it and nodded.

Walter said, ‘Let’s talk about Donald.’

‘Okey-doke.’

‘What did he want the money for?’

‘Well, we know he sent 10K to his folks, maybe he’s going to drip-feed them more and more.’

‘At least we are monitoring the private couriers this time, but that’s only a sideline. If it shows up, we’ll have it. The ten grand was handed into a courier’s office in Shrewsbury. They remember it was a guy, but no more than that. Must have been Donald, I reckon. We’ve got the Mercian police checking out guesthouses and hotels in the town, but don’t hold your breath. I don’t expect them to find him. But giving handouts to his parents, however much they might be needed, wasn’t the main reason he stole the cash. I don’t see that.’

‘Could be any number of reasons,’ she said.

‘Like what?’

‘Maybe to impress a woman?’

‘There’s no evidence of that.’

‘Maybe to buy a house?’

‘There’s no evidence of that, either. No, I think he stole the money for a very specific purpose.’

‘Like what?’

‘Don’t know, can’t figure that one out, but I’m sure as hell going to find out. Let’s talk about Jessica Stone.’

‘What about her?’

‘She is a person in great demand. the Barton brothers have put a big price on her head. But so far, as far as we know, no one has found her. She is being held against her will, that we do know, because if she wasn’t she would have been found, so if we were talking about human traffickers before, here we have a human being who would be of great interest to anyone trading in valuable human bloodstock.’

‘Aren’t all human beings valuable, Guv?’

‘You know what I mean! Some humans, to some people, are more valuable than others. It may not be right, or feel right, but it’s fact, and Jessica would fall into that top pot.’

‘You think Jessica Stone is being sold off?’

‘Why not? It would seem logical to me that anyone trading in human traffic, and it’s beginning to look like we might have a serious operator somewhere on our doorstep, would be interested in a prime example. Think of horses for a second. The best examples make the biggest bucks.’

‘Yeah, but that’s, more often than not, for breeding purposes, the stud thing.’

Walter pulled a face and said, ‘I don’t think we’d better go there.’

Karen giggled and thought of Greg and wondered how much some human dealer breeder would pay for him. Just lately his stock might have risen a tad, and then she said, ‘You think the Yet Kwai case and the Jessica Stone case could somehow be linked?’

‘Again, why not? We have nothing to say they aren’t.’

‘Or to say they are.’

‘Rule nothing out, until you can.’

‘Hate to say it, Guv, but there is another alternative. She could already be dead.’

‘That’s possible too, but a thought I would rather not explore.’

There was a short silence as they both thought crazy ideas and then he said, ‘Okay, clever-clogs, let’s get back to what we were saying before in the office.’

‘About what?’

‘About what you would be doing if I had dropped dead a week ago.’

‘Cracking open the champagne,’ she said without a moment’s hesitation, and she glanced across at her boss, and the look of mock indignation on his face was priceless. She reached over and patted his ample right thigh and said, ‘Only joking, Guv.’

‘Be serious, Greenwood!’

‘I was!... no, not really, erm, I’d like to think I’d be doing exactly the same as we are now.’

‘Good! Me too.’

‘Can I change the subject a minute, Guv?’

‘Sure.’

‘Will I be okay to have the Friday and the weekend off next week to go to this conference?’

‘Don’t see why not. We have identified the dead girl and it could be a while before we find the killers. We can’t be putting the rest of our lives on hold while we are doing that.’

‘Thanks, Guv. I appreciate it. Really think there’s a story there.’

‘We are not newspaper reporters, Greenwood.’

‘I know that, Guv, just a feeling I have. You know how it is.’

‘Yes, I do. Come on, back to the farm.’

‘Eh?’

‘It’s an expression, sergeant, it means back to work.’

‘Oh, okay Guv, you got it.’

Chapter Fifty-Six

Pryce arrived at Minstrel Electronics at twenty past nine. He was looking forward to his day. He was going to make some decent money, and that was always worth getting out of bed for.

He nodded at the young guy on reception, strode down the corridor to his office, fifth room on the right. Brinton was in the office next door, his door open, and he was studying his screen intently, no doubt hoping the figures would be good.

Pryce removed his coat with a flourish and swept it onto the coat-stand like a jaunty cavalier. Sat down and yelled, ‘Brinton!’

He came and stood in the open doorway and grinned.

‘Yep?’

‘Everything all right? New units get here?’

Brinton nodded.

‘Are they any good?’

‘Maybe a bit better than last time.’

‘They’d better be. Bring them on!’

Brinton went outside. Saw Men One and Two loitering around reception. Yelled, ‘The boss has arrived. Bring the units on.’

Brinton went back into Pryce’s office and perched on the end of the desk and said. ‘They’re coming now,’ and in the next second, Man One led the mini crocodile of Oriental fresh flesh into Pryce’s office: Fenfang, Lily, and Shu. Man Two stood in the doorway, ever anxious to watch proceedings, for these initial show-and-decide meetings were often good for a laugh.

The young women, tethered together, stood in a line before Pryce’s desk. He stared up at them, examining their faces, looking them up and down, an initial quick appraisal. He’d paid Sammy Tang $30,000, US, in cash for these units, and as always, he wasn’t sure he was getting value for money. Pryce wasn’t alone in staring, for Jun Woo glared down at Pryce, committing his face to memory. She would never forget him. Never, never, never, and so far, it looked like he was the boss, the mastermind at the UK end of things. He had a lot to answer for, and one day he would.

‘What are you staring at?’ snapped Pryce.

‘She’s trouble, that one,’ said Brinton.

‘Trouble, is she?’ murmured Pryce. ‘She’s come to the right place if she wants trouble. She can have all the trouble she can handle.’

Pryce stood up and ambled round to the front of the desk. Looked down on the first girl, the tiny Shu. Said, ‘Seen worse, I suppose, but she’s so small, looks so young.’

Brinton smirked and said, ‘Some people might enjoy that.’

Man Two in the doorway laughed.

Pryce gave him a look to say: Shut the hell up, and turned back to the girl and barked, ‘Open your mouth!’

Shu stared at him, insolently. He grabbed her face and forced her mouth open, shouting, ‘Open your damned mouth! Decent teeth I s’pose, but we all had decent teeth at that age. She’s a Manchester, maybe.’

Moved along the line. Lily Sang, Jun Woo. Stared into her dark eyes. There was hate and defiance in those eyes, tigerish, deep down, and she was trying to control it, not altogether successfully, but it was there right enough, or so Pryce imagined. They’d soon knock that out of her. Many of them were like that when they first arrived until they had been broken in. It was all part of the job, and occasionally an enjoyable part. Jun stared back.

‘Don’t look at me, bitch!’ snarled Pryce.

Jun did not look away, for she thought that would reveal she understood English, and she wanted to keep that fact secret.

‘She stinks. Looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. Open your mouth!’

Jun Woo did not.

‘I said, open your bloody mouth!’ and he gently slapped the side of her face. Jun opened her mouth, revealing missing fillings and bent teeth.

He looked away and glanced back at Brinton.

‘Don’t think Harry would be too keen on that!’

Moved along the line. Stared into Fenfang’s eyes.

‘A taller one, a bit unusual. One might even describe her as pretty at a push, or she could be in the right hands, potential, for sure.’

‘Bit gangly, though,’ muttered Brinton, still keen on saying goodbye to the middle bitch. ‘Legs are too long.’

‘Maybe they belong around her ears,’ said Pryce, and he smirked at Men One and Two.

‘Open your mouth!’

Fenfang did so.

‘Pretty good,’ said Pryce. ‘Put it this way, if I had to fuck one of them, she’d be the one who’d get it, but you’d have to pay me, not the other way round.’

Pryce laughed at his little joke and went and sat down.

‘So what do we think?’ he floated in the air, not to anyone in particular.

Brinton said, ‘You know my feelings, boss. The middle one should go to Manctopia. Take the money and be thankful, get rid of the troublemaker, and maybe the squirt too. I think I could do something with the lanky bitch on assembly. We do need extra labour to complete those contracts.’

‘Mmm,’ said Pryce, thinking about those lucrative deals, but selling woman-flesh was good business too. Then he said to Man Two, ‘Which one would you have? Take home for the night?’

He grinned and said, ‘Easy decision, boss, I’d do the little one all ends up.’

Pryce nodded and glanced at Man One. ‘And you?’

‘I disagree. The tall one for me, she’s pretty, and has that certain something.’

‘Looks like we’ve a split decision. One vote a piece. S’pose it’s as well we don’t all fancy the same piece of flesh.’

‘Guess you’ve got the deciding vote,’ said Brinton.

‘I know what we’ll do,’ said Pryce. ‘We’ll let Harry decide.’

He picked up the phone and rang Manchester.

‘Hello, H, I’ve got some good news for you.’

‘Oh yeah? ’Bout bloody time.’

‘I’ve just taken delivery of three new units. One fails your exacting standards; I know that, so I’m keeping her here. So it’s a choice between the other two. They’re both pretty, pretty, if you get my drift, bloody good wash, good haircut, nice make-up, sexy dress, big potential in both of them, but the thing is, one is short and petite, very girl-like, if you get my meaning, while the other is tall, slightly prettier face, and dare I say, could be quite elegant. I need to keep one here, so I thought I’d let you decide. You choose. Which one would you like?’

‘How the hell am I supposed to know?’ growled an irritated sounding Harry, as if he had far more important things on his mind. They could hear what he was saying on Pryce’s phone.

‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ said a grinning Pryce. ‘I’ll take their pics right now and send them to your phone. Won’t be a tick. Don’t leave the building,’ and he took out his mobile, stood up, and took mugshots of Fenfang and Shu. Zapped them through the ether, went back on the landline, and said, ‘Get ’em?’

‘Yeah, just looking at them now.’

A minute’s pause, no more, and Harry from the Cicero Cub in Manchester said, ‘The second one’s the tall one, right?’

‘You got it, H.’

‘I’ll have her! No contest. Might even road test her meself.’

‘Good man. Then you shall have her. £30,000 and she’s all yours to do with as you wish.’

‘I’m not paying that. Twenty like last time, I’ll pay twenty again.’

‘Can’t do it, H. This is far better unit merchandise.’

‘How am I supposed to make any money at that price?’

‘She’s a bargain, as you well know. Ten clients a day at a hundred pound a knock, so to speak, thousand pounds a day, you’ll have your money back in a month. Think how much buckshee cash she’ll make for you after that.’

Harry sighed. Sad thing was it all made perfect sense. The figures stacked up. Said, ‘You’ve done your homework, Pryce, I’ll give you that. When can I have her?’

‘This very afternoon.’

‘Okay, but she’d better be worth it.’

‘Oh, she will be, untouched by human hand.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Harry, ‘and my dad’s the Pope.’

‘Think you’ve made the right choice,’ said Pryce. ‘My men will see you later. Have the cash ready.’

‘Done,’ said Harry, and he rang off.

Pryce glanced around the room. He nodded at Men One and Two. ‘Take the tall one back to the Stationery room. Make sure she gets a good wash; smarten her up as much as you can. Have we got some clean gear for her?’

‘Just jeans and T-shirt, but they are new,’ said Brinton.

‘That’ll do,’ said Pryce. ‘We’re not bloody Marks & Spencer. Cicero Club in Manchester is her new career choice. You can have the other two, as of now. Get them trained up and producing as fast as you can.’

There was a moment’s pause when everyone stood still, before Pryce yelled, ‘Come on! Get your skates on and get moving!’

Men One and Two sorted out the ropes, separated Fenfang, and tugged her from the room.

‘Stay strong, Fenfang!’ screamed Jun in Chinese. ‘I’ll come for you, Fenfang, I’ll never forget! See you soon!’

Brinton stepped across the room and slapped Jun as hard as he had ever slapped any unit, and he’d done a lot of slapping in his time. Jun took the blow and almost fell over. Her hand went to her face and she tasted blood, and she glared at Brinton.

Shu shouted. ‘I’ll miss you, Fenfang! I’ll miss you so much!! Oh Fenfang!’ But by then Fenfang Dong was in the small bathroom off the stationery room along the corridor and probably didn’t hear most of it.

Brinton pointed into the little one’s face and glared into her eyes.

‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll smack you into next week, you little slut!’

Shu seemed to understand that.

‘Keep quiet, Shu,’ said Jun in Chinese. ‘We’ll be all right together, you’ll see.’

‘Get them out of here!’ growled Pryce. ‘Show’s over. Let’s see some work, they’ve a lot of money to repay,’ and Brinton nodded his agreement and began taking them away, as Pryce said, ‘Come back later, I want to talk about our star witness.’

Brinton bobbed his head and tugged the two new units away down the corridor toward the double doors that would take them into the assembly plant, and their new home, for so long as they behaved, and for so long at Pryce and Brinton decided to keep them there. 

Chapter Fifty-Seven

The Ellie Napoleon Center opened for business at dead on noon on a late September Saturday on what would turn out to be the last fine and sunny day of the Indian summer.

It was located in a natural bowl in the windswept Shropshire hills above the little town of Church Stretton.

Great care had been taken in its design, especially with a view to renewable energy and carbon emissions. The building was on three floors, though the lower one was built into the ground, the accommodation being hollowed out of the hillside.

The plans were vaguely based on the layout of a Victorian prison. It featured a circular central atrium from where five equidistant spokes ran out like a gigantic wheel. The flat roof was topped with much of the soil that had been excavated from the foundations. It was covered with tough turf that insulated the building, and was completely waterproof. Two of the far spokes from the main entrance ran straight into the hillside enabling the local black-faced Shropshire sheep to wander onto the roof to graze, keeping it neatly trimmed and tidy.

The five spokes consisted of committee meeting rooms, including a small theatre-cum presentation centre that could seat five hundred. An accommodation wing comprising neat and tidy rooms, not luxurious, though there was a private more upmarket apartment for senior bigwigs that not many people got to see. A large restaurant and bar area filled a third spoke, while offices and an administration centre for the entire Future Growth group accounted for spoke four. The fifth limb, the spoke on the far side of the building away from the hustle bustle of the entrance and car park, the most important section of all, so far as Kit was concerned, housed the terminally ill patients’ hospice.

In the hospice, many of the walls were adorned with large black and white photographs of Ellie Napoleon, looking radiant and healthy, before the dreaded disease came out of nowhere and reduced her to the husk of a woman she became. Pictures that would forever remind Kit of the person he was missing, and the residents of the woman who’d inspired the entire complex.

Karen drove Greg’s car south, a sleek new Audi that Future Growth’s commission cheques had paid for. She drove it whenever he tossed her the keys, or whenever she could wrestle them from him. They’d hustled through the roundabouts of the busy Shrewsbury ring road, crossed and re-crossed the mighty Severn River as it twisted its way down the valley, and turned left onto the A49, and headed south again into the Shropshire hills.

At the traffic lights at Church Stretton she turned right, crossed the railway bridge, and cruised up the high street. It hadn’t changed much. It rarely did, lined as it is with antique shops and jewellers and charity shops, and an old-fashioned newsagent and an even older fashioned gents’ outfitters, that appeared from the static window display, to be selling the exact same woollen and tweed garments it had been offering twenty, fifty, or even seventy years before.

Left at the top, and the road narrowed and began climbing into the Long Mynd, or Long Valley, as it was also known, an area of great natural beauty, popular with hill-walkers. It’s a windswept and rugged place, based on sandstone, valleys and escarpments, heather topped plateaux, and natural bowls in the landscape, one of which, fairly remote, was neatly plugged with the Ellie Napoleon Center.

Karen took the final sharp bend and cruised into the car park and slid into one of the last spaces. Glanced at her watch, 12.10, they’d made good time. They took their overnight bags from the boot and walked up the newly laid sandstone path. Three black-faced sheep stared down from the roof and baa’d at the strangers, and went off and resumed the important business of feeding.

‘Cute,’ said Greg.

She smiled at him but said nothing.

The glass doors opened automatically, and they swept inside and headed for the curved weathered-oak reception desk, set on the far side of the circular atrium. To the left, on the wall, were huge black and white pictures of black kids in distress, empty water cans, more kids trying to get into a waterhole filled with zebra and a couple of elephants. Yet more kids with bloated stomachs and starving bodies, and all of them looked nervous and afraid, and who could blame them?

On the right side of the reception desk were similar photographs, but the kids there were smiling, filling the cans from new taps, laughing and joking, even sticking their heads under the gushing liquid, flicking water at one another, having fun, looking healthy and happy. In the largest photo someone had strategically placed a small sign against one of the taps that read: Fresh Water Courtesy of Artesia.bmg. Fresh Hope Funded by the Future Growth Group.

It was impossible to miss the pictures, or the message.

Karen and Greg approached the counter and smiled at the smart and local young man and woman.

‘Greg Orlando and Karen Greenwood,’ he said, smiling at the red-headed girl.

‘Welcome to the Ellie Napoleon Center,’ said the guy.

‘Can you please fill in this short form?’ said the girl.

‘Here’s the autocard to your room, number seventy,’ said the guy, setting a card on the counter. ‘You will find it in spoke 2.’

‘Here are your accreditation badges,’ continued the girl. ‘Please wear them at all times.’

Lots of smiles, lots of happiness and efficiency, and already there were people behind them, waiting their turn.

The girl again: ‘After you’ve left your belongings in your room, please go to the reception area in the main restaurant, that’s in spoke 1,’ and she pointed to the doors that led that way. ‘Kit will be there and he’ll be very pleased to see you,’ and she smiled again, and then she was ready for the next eager couple, word perfect, parrot fashion.

Greg and Karen smiled and nodded and headed away to their accommodation.

Everything in the room was fresh out of a pack, simple and stylish, light green carpets, light oak furnishings matching green upholstery, and neat twin beds.

‘Bugger,’ said Greg.

‘What’s up?’

‘Twin beds.’

‘Not a problem,’ she said, smirking, ‘I’m sure we could squeeze into one of those... if you behave yourself.’

They shared a look and Greg smirked too and waggled his eyebrows, and then they were out of there, heading for spoke 1, and Kit Napoleon, and the pre-presentation reception.

The place was crammed, the men in suits, good shirts and new ties, and the women in smart business-like dresses and suits, just as the dress code demanded. There was a cheerful hubbub going on throughout the place, quite a din that somehow made everyone want to smile.

One of the minions who’d been at the Chester lunch was there. He saw Greg and Karen arrive and grabbed the pair of them and took them over to see Kit.

‘Greg!’ Kit said, again as if he was a long-lost brother, ‘and the delectable KG too, so glad you could make it,’ and he turned and let them take coffees from a hovering waiter. Kit grabbed Karen’s arm and smirked back at Greg and said, ‘I’m just borrowing your woman for a few minutes. Jennifer will entertain you,’ and Kit’s wife took hold of Greg’s arm and waltzed him away, asking questions as to how he was getting on.

Kit linked Karen’s arm and took her to the end of the spoke and said, ‘Now listen, young woman, I need to have a private word with you.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘What about?’

‘Not now, not here, somewhere quieter, somewhere where we can be alone.’

‘Sounds intriguing.’

‘Good! It’s meant to,’ and he smiled that magnetic smile of his, and his eyes flashed and sparkled, and if she didn’t know better, she might have thought he was trying to seduce her.

‘Could you come to my office? It’s located in spoke 4. You can’t miss it. It’s well signposted. Say at 6pm, before dinner?’

Karen nodded and said, ‘Sure, I can do that.’

‘Thank you, Karen. You won’t regret it, it won’t take long, maybe half an hour, tops, but do come alone, what I have to say is for your ears only.’

‘I am sure Greg will be able to tear himself away from me for half an hour, especially with all these beautiful women around, and may I say, your wife looks stunning today.’

‘You think so?’ 

‘Yes, I do.’

Kit nodded a satisfied smile and said, ‘We’d better get back to the others, 6pm, and don’t forget,’ and he led her back towards the crowd, where more fresh-faced and frowning minions were waiting with more guests, who couldn’t wait to be tagged by the incredibly charismatic Kit Napoleon.

Kit tore himself away from the young blonde, though he was reluctant to do so, and said, ‘See you later,’ and then he was minion-grabbed and tugged into the centre of half a dozen eager people, all wanting a piece of the action. All desperate for any nuggets of wisdom that regularly popped from the man’s gleaming mouth. 

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Saturday lunchtime and Walter was at work. It was pretty quiet. Hector was working the weekend shift, but not many others were.

Walter was poring over lists of electronics manufacturers the monster had spewed out.

There were hundreds of them, and he was amazed at that. Had no idea there was so much hi-tec industry in the area: for Silicon Valley, read Cheshire Plain, that was how it appeared to him, and when you added adjoining territories, North Wales, the Wirral, Merseyside, Manchester, Shropshire, and north Staffordshire, the numbers skyrocketed.

It would be a long job, but there were ways to eliminate some of the names. Some were high street retailers, selling the latest gizmos to that part of the public who would always want the hottest toy. Karen sprung to mind. He wondered how she was getting on with Kit Contrick and his weird gang.

Back to the lists. Some of the info looked out of date. He couldn’t tell you why he thought that, but he did, and when he checked if the companies were still operational by ringing the listed telephone numbers, he found some were discontinued and disconnected and dysfunctional. Hi-tec companies were always going belly-up, coming and going, nature of the beast, here today, gone tomorrow Johnnies, as he referred to them. But he was right. Dead companies didn’t employ anyone, illegals or otherwise. They could be ruled out.

Next, he checked some company websites. Some were active and vibrant. Others had ludicrous statements on the homepage such as Site last updated, and a date from five years before. What the hell did that say? For a high-tec electronics company? It sure as heck didn’t mean they were active and current. Slowly, very slowly, he was whittling away the dross. Still left 98% alive and kicking. He roped in Hector. Two persons always better than one. Hector had a mini-whinge and got his head down.

Walter was getting hungry. Reached and grabbed the packet of cheese and piccalilli sandwiches he’d bought in the bus station on the way to work. Opened them up, took a bite, not bad, plenty of flavour, plenty of gazoom, as his old cleaner, Galina, would have said. He thought of how she was getting on back in the Ukraine with her sick kids, and he thought of Gibbons, saving his cheese sandwiches above all else from some imaginary blaze. Walter sniggered.

‘Something funny, Guv?’ said Hector.

‘Gibbons,’ he muttered. Didn’t have to say any more.

‘He’s funny all right,’ said Hector, and he resumed wading through reams of paper of electronics businesses based in the area.

––––––––

IN THE ELLIE NAPOLEON Center things were hotting up. The crowd were ushered through to the theatre/presentation centre in spoke 5. The sense of anticipation was palpable. It had been widely trailed that Kit was about to make a momentous announcement about the launching of the new and much anticipated sixth level, and everyone was keen to get a first heads-up on that.

The theatre housed five hundred people, it wasn’t large, but it was beautiful, and every seat had been specifically allocated to a guest. The auditorium was circular, and the theatre was close to being a theatre in the round. The seats were that same pastel green, comfy looking and steeply banked, so that everyone had a great view. The stage was not large; this was not a theatre for concerts and orchestras and dance troops, but for gurus and experts and teachers and instructors and trainers, where they could hold court and gaze up at their adoring audience, do their stuff, and preach their gospels.

Karen and Greg’s seats were on the highest level, the very back row, in the centre, but that was no bad thing. The view from there was fab. They stood before their seats and looked about and admired the view, said ‘Hi’ to their immediate neighbours, some of whom Greg vaguely knew. He introduced them to Karen and then settled into their seats and studied their programmes.

‘I suppose you’re feeling chuffed with yourself,’ said Greg.

‘Why’s that?’ she said, leaning closer to him.

‘Well, everyone else here is a level fiver... and you’re not.’

Karen pulled a face, shrugged her shoulders. Didn’t really bother her. She paused and said, ‘Is that right? Everyone else here a level fiver?’

‘Yep. Every last one.’

‘So why am I here?’

‘Dunno. Kit must really like you.’

‘He wants to see me at six.’

‘I know. So you said. Just make sure he keeps his hands to himself.’

Karen pulled another face and sniffed into a paper hanky.

‘He’s not a wandering hands man, is he?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘I wonder what he wants.’

‘No idea, but you’ll have to go,’ and as she was thinking about that, a neat young appeared on to the stage, smiled at the audience, and began cajoling them.

‘He’s the warm-up man,’ explained Greg. ‘He’s good too,’ revelling in his position of been-there done-that knowledge of previous meets.

Karen glanced into Greg’s eyes. If she didn’t know better, she thought she detected some of the sparkle from Kit’s eyes had transferred to his. Seemed an odd thing, and then she started thinking of Kit again, and wondered what it was he wanted to talk about. The highly rated warm-up man was telling his topical jokes, not dirty, that would not have gone down well, but funny, for sure, judging by the applause that rained down from the banked seats, she wasn’t really listening, as he fell silent, pausing for effect, as he presented the mic to his mouth.

He didn’t say a word, and repeated the trick a couple of times, so that everyone was fully aware he was about to say something meaningful. He was a master of his craft, for the place had fallen deathly silent, and the guy was speaking softly, and not a soul was thinking of a single thing, other than the slow and careful and supposedly meaningful words that tripped from his neat lips.

‘Normally at this point,’ he said, softly, yet Greg and Karen at the back could hear every word, the acoustics had been tried and tested and were brilliant, ‘normally at this juncture, I would have the great pleasure to introduce the man himself, our great friend and founder, Kit Napoleon. But today, seeing as it is a very special occasion, I am going to introduce you to someone else, and in due course we’ll let him introduce the chief. One of the reasons I am bringing this guy on is because I am sure you’d like to know he is the first person, the very first, a true pioneer, if you will, to acquire level six status.’

That stirred the crowd and someone yelled Woo Hoo and that brought forth laughter. But the compère was talking again, ‘He’s known to many of you already, a friend to many here too, he is the one and only and highly successful... Donald Rushnell!!!’

Everyone stood up.

The applause was deafening.

Greg and Karen stood too.

‘Woo hoo!’ yelled Greg, catching the drift, American style applause.

Karen’s mouth fell open.

She managed to say, ‘You know Donald?’

‘Course! He introduced me in the first place. He’s my sponsor. Met him at the hospital when he came in with a broken arm. I owe him everything. I am so thankful he came in that day. No broken arm, no nothing, for me. He sponsored many of the people here. Lots of them owe him everything. He’s a legend, is Donald.’

Reality bit.

‘But... he’s a wanted criminal!’

‘What?’

‘You heard me! He’s a wanted man,’ but her words were drowned by the applause, and then Donald was speaking, talking about how much he owed to Future Growth and to Kit Napoleon, personally. How he had saved him from a wretched life. How he had boosted his self esteem and made him what he was today, and how he had known Ellie Napoleon too, and how he had watched her sink from being a vibrant and beautiful woman into, well he didn’t like to say any more on that subject, and everyone fell silent and sincere, and then he was talking again about this wonderful new Center. Of how it was a testament to her great courage, and how it would help many people who are and were going through the same terrible traumas that she did, and Donald prayed they might show the same raw courage that Ellie Napoleon demonstrated, and possessed in spades.

Strangely, Karen wanted to hear more, but instead she stood up and said, ‘I can’t do this.’

‘What are you doing?’ said an embarrassed Greg, grabbing the hem of her skirt, and trying to tug her back into her seat.

‘This isn’t right,’ she said, and she yanked herself free and excused herself and tried to move along the row.

‘Karen!’ said Greg.

‘Excuse me... excuse me,’ pleaded Karen, as people stood and made room for her to pass, though they weren’t keen to do so, for they might miss something. Most of them were not in any hurry either, as they were trying to hear what their great favourite, Donny, had to say. They didn’t want to miss a word, for he was on the cusp of introducing Kit himself, and this annoying young woman was obstructing their view. Wasn’t it the same person who someone said was not even a level fiver. How the hell had she got in? Probably nothing more than an ignorant gatecrasher, and finally she was out of the way, and out of the row, and heading for the exit where a minion queried what she was doing.

She flashed police ID and pushed past him, just as Donny introduced Kit to the crowd to unbelievable applause, thundering down from the stalls. Kit and Donald embraced, and Donny had the good grace to retreat, for he had never been a scene stealer or a glory hunter. People had often remarked on that, eager to stay in the background, happy in the shadows, out of the limelight, the main beam now thrust on the main man, Kit Napoleon, basking in the spotlight and glory he’d always known was rightly his.

The deafening applause continued unabated.

Karen dashed down the stairs. She ran round toward where she imagined the rear of the theatre to be. The corridor was crammed with people. Where had they all come from? What were they all doing there?

She glimpsed at the far end of the corridor, Donald Rushnell’s back, being widely slapped, as the bright green emergency exit doors at the far end were pushed open. September sunshine flooded in. He was pushed out through the doors by two be-suited guys. The doors closed, and the sun vanished.

‘Stop! Stop!’ yelled Karen.

People looked at her, pityingly.

‘Police!’ she screamed. ‘That man is a wanted criminal! Let me through!’

The confused mass of people stared at the deranged woman who was screaming nonsense about the police. But they let her through for she seemed capable of anything, and then she was at the doors, pushing them open with a thud, and from there she could see the car park, and Donald getting into a silver Range Rover, into the back seat, and though she screamed again, yelling ‘Stop Police!’ no one heard, or if they did, no one cared or paid any attention. She saw the Range Rover head for the exit, and in the next second it went round that sharp bend and out of sight, as it wended its way down the hill and back towards the town.

She glanced round and saw the Audi on the far side, in the corner, in the last space, and she dashed across towards the car. There in a couple of seconds flat. Ready to give chase.

‘Shit!’ she yelled, ‘Bugger it!’ standing still, breathing hard, staring around, alone in the sunshine, beside the gleaming car.

She’d given Greg the keys.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Brinton opened the door to the assembly plant and pushed Lily and Shu inside. Stepped through, locked up behind him, removed the rope from the girls’ wrists and threw it in the box.

‘You follow me!’ he growled, and he set off across the plant, Lily and Jun tagging along behind.

He raced up the metal stairs, paused for a second, nodded the new units up, and they ran up and joined him on the mezzanine floor.

Monica was there, working on her computer, inputting data, Debs was missing, possibly off shift, possibly troubleshooting somewhere downstairs on the shop floor.

Brinton said, ‘Two new units for ya. Crack the whip and get them trained and working!’

Monica stood up and came over and gave the newcomers the once over. They looked dirty and tired, though she’d seen worse, but they couldn’t rest yet. Their training would begin immediately. Monica spoke to them in Chinese and they both answered in long diatribes, thought Brinton.

‘What are their names?’ asked Brinton.

More Chinese speak and nods, even a smile from the titch.

‘The taller one’s name is Lily Sang; the little one is called Shu Lang. Neither of them have any experience in electronics assembly.’

‘All the more reason to get them started straight away.’

‘They start training immediately, no question,’ said Monica. ‘I like them too. I think they do okay.’

‘They can’t keep those names. Bloody hopeless! Call them Suzy, and... err, oh I don’t know, Foo Foo, yeah, call the taller one freaking Foo Foo!’

Monica pulled a face, didn’t seem impressed, but she knew better than to argue with Brinton, and she didn’t want to feel his hand on her face again. She would enter the names on their computer personnel records as Suzy and Foo Foo. It was more than her life was worth not to.

‘The figures better?’ asked Monica, knowing full well they were.

‘Don’t get cocky, just because you’ve met a deadline for once.’

‘I not. I just interested.’

‘Yeah right, and keep a close eye on freaking Foo Foo, because I am telling you now, she’s trouble. I can sense it in my water.’

‘She be no trouble wi’ me, she be fine.’

‘We’ll see about that. Gotta go, loads to do, get ’em working, they have big money to repay.’

‘I start them right now.’

Brinton nodded and checked out the new units one last time, especially the taller one who always looked him in the eye as if she were casting some pagan spell on him.

‘Work!’ he shouted at her, and he turned away and stared at Monica and said: ‘I’ll see you later!’

––––––––

LILY SANG GLANCED AT Shu and tried a smile. Brinton went down the stairs and hustled across the assembly floor to the exit doors. Lily watched him for as long as she could, saw him dragging the keys from his jeans and open the double doors, saw him step through, he didn’t look back, saw him close the doors behind him, imagined him on the other side, locking up, sealing them in.

Lily Sang switched on her Jun Woo head.

It was crystal clear what had to be done.

She had one problem to solve, and one problem alone.

How to escape?

Once she could do that, everything else would fall into place.

Fenfang could be rescued and Shu and all the others could be freed. Jun Woo was optimistic. It shouldn’t be too difficult. She was already examining the possibilities in her head. As far as the double doors were concerned there were five possibilities.

To steal the keys.

To copy the keys.

To sneak out while the doors were open.

To break the doors down, maybe with a jemmy, maybe with fire.

Or, persuade someone else to open the doors and let her out.

She knew none of those options would be easy. But she wouldn’t have been sent on her mission if it had been easy. It was just another test. She had already achieved more than most of her superiors had imagined she would. But they didn’t know that yet, and they would never know if Jun Woo failed in her mission, failed to get free.

There had to be other places, other exits, other ways in and out, besides those doors. That was where she would concentrate her unmatched logic, on seeking an alternative solution. Jun Woo smiled to herself. She had just realised she was enjoying her task. She saw it as a game, like those sniffer dogs in airports who track down drugs and drug-runners. They saw everything as a game, did everything in their power to gain rewards through success, by playing the game, and that was precisely how Jun Woo would tackle the riddle of Minstrel Electronics. One big deadly game... with one huge prize for the winner... and one terrifying result for the losers.

‘Come on!’ scolded Monica.

Perhaps Brinton was right about Lily Sang.

‘Stop daydreaming, girl, follow me, and we’ll get you started!’

––––––––

BRINTON TAPPED ON PRYCE’S office door.

‘You wanted a chat?’

‘Yeah,’ said Pryce. ‘Come in. New units settling in?’

‘You know my thoughts on buck-teeth. She’ll be more trouble than enough. Oh, her name is Lily Sang, by the way, or some such nonsense. I’ve christened her freaking Foo Foo. She didn’t seem too pleased at the idea.’

Pryce sniggered and muttered, ‘Foo Foo,’ and shook his head.

‘You wanted to talk about the supermodel?’

‘Yeah. How is she?’

‘She’s fine.’

‘You feeding her?’

‘Yep.’

‘She’s not one of the pleb units, you know that, don’t you?’

‘I get ya.’

‘She’s our star attraction, she’s gonna make us a big payday, she’s gonna pay us a whopping Christmas bonus.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

‘You’re looking after her?’

‘Yeah! Said so, didn’t I?’

‘You’d better be, Brinton. No harm is to come to that girl.’

‘It’s not likely to with her trussed up in there like a condemned chicken.’

Pryce nodded, somewhat reassured.

‘How’s it going with the Chinese billionaire?’

Pryce grimaced.

‘It’s crazy isn’t it? The more money they have, the more pernickety they get.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘We’ve pretty much agreed a price, it’s just the payment details they are haggling over.’

‘Haggling over what?’

‘He wants to pay a third upfront, a third on delivery, and a third in three months time.’

Brinton guffawed. ‘Pillock! Just as if.’

‘That’s what I told him.’

‘Looks to me like it could drag on.’

‘Nah, I don’t think so. It’ll all happen in a rush. One day, no go at all, next day go, go, go, one phone call, one bank transfer, job done, and she’ll be on her way. I mean, let’s face it, he’s not going to buy a world-famous supermodel anywhere else, is he?’

Brinton grinned. ‘Seems unlikely.’

‘Correctamundo. We hold all the cards. It’s just a case of how long it takes for the light to switch on in light-bulb laddy’s head.’

Brinton nodded and yawned.

Pryce said, ‘Go and check on my prize asset. I’m getting nervous.’

‘Okey-doke,’ said Brinton, and he got up and set off for the pep talk room, though he didn’t think the visit necessary. He was already giving Jessica Stone all the attention she could handle.

Chapter Sixty

Karen stood in the car park and took out her mobile and rang the office. She guessed Walter would be there, Saturday afternoon or not, and she was right.

‘Guv?’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m outside the Ellie Napoleon Center.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Guess who was the special guest speaker at the conference?’

‘Presumably, Kit Contrick?’

‘No, he came later. Try again.’

‘Your Greg bloke?’

‘No! Don’t be silly.’

‘Then I have no idea.’

‘You’re not going to believe this.’

‘Just tell me!’

‘Can you believe... Donald Rushnell.’

‘What!’

‘I kid you not, as I live and breathe.’

‘So why didn’t you arrest him?’

‘I tried, I was right at the back of the theatre, and by the time I got down to the front he was spirited away.’

‘He drove away?’

‘No! He was driven away in a smart silver Range Rover... the reg is,’ and she reeled off the number.

‘Least you got something right. Just a sec, I’ll do a PNC check.’

In less than a minute Walter said, ‘That vehicle is registered to the Future Growth and Prosperity Group, The Ellie Napoleon Centre, Moorland Way, Church Stretton, Shropshire.’

‘What a surprise.’

‘So let me be clear. It seems Donald has been putting all his cash into these dicky schemes?’

‘Could be.’

‘I told you that Kit Contrick would extract every last penny from your pocket. From everyone’s pocket.’

‘Everyone here seems mighty smitten with him. It’s like being in the presence of an unnatural being.’

Walter guffawed.

Karen continued. ‘I have an appointment to see Kit at 6pm.’

‘You’re not waiting till then, are you?’

‘Certainly not!’

‘Do you want me to come down?’

‘Nope. I can handle it.’

‘Ask him for all the money back that Donald has paid into his dicky little schemes.’

‘He’s not going to agree to that, Guv.’

‘Probably not. But if he refuses, we shall start the ball rolling to seize funds obtained through crime, you can tell him that too, with my compliments, put the wind up him.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘If he doesn’t co-operate a hundred percent, arrest him and bring him back to Chester.’

‘Charge?’

‘Be creative, Greenwood. Wasting police time, obstructing the police, sheltering a wanted man, handling funds obtained through crime, use your imagination, it seems to me they are just the tip of the iceberg.’

‘Okay, Guv.’

‘Is Greg with you?’

‘He is.’

‘And you said he’s a big lad?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Why don’t you take him with you, kind of deputy dog side-kick, safety in numbers?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘You don’t sound so sure?’

‘He seems hypnotised by the guy.’

‘I see. Well, you’re on the spot, read it as you see it. Sure you don’t need any help?’

‘No, I’m fine, Guv.’

‘Okay, but keep me informed.’

‘Will do, Guv, and thanks.’

‘And find out where the hell they took Donald, and where is he now? I want him in custody and I want the cash back!’

‘That’s the aim. I’m on it, Guv.’

‘Leave it with you.’

––––––––

KAREN RANG OFF AND went inside via the main entrance, tried to gain access back into the theatre. Security tried to stop her, but her police ID overruled that. Kitnap was bringing his speech to a dramatic conclusion. Karen climbed up to the back row. 

Lots of excuse me’s followed, and a few tut-tut-tuts, and she slid along the row and sat beside Greg.

‘Where have you been?’ he moaned.

‘Trying to arrest a criminal.’

Greg brushed that off and said, ‘You’ve missed a fantastic speech! The guy is a genius.’

Kitnap was about to make another of his great announcements.

‘And the amazing news is that we have received planning permission to replicate this fabulous facility just outside Los Angeles,’ and he gazed around and waved his arms at the audience and the fabric of the building, ‘in combination with our American partners, and it will be exactly the same as this amazing place, except everything will be twice as big! You know what our American cousins are like!’

Another bout of raucous applause.

‘You should all be so proud of what you have achieved.’

‘Yeah!’ yelled someone in the audience.

Karen wondered if he was a plant.

‘But... we’re... only... just... getting... started!’

‘Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ yelled many of them.

‘Do you know something else?’

‘What, Kit, what?’

‘We are going to conquer the world!’

‘Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

Many of them were on their feet, including Greg.

‘So, in Ellie Napoleon’s memory, let us galvanise ourselves and get out there and achieve great things... Together!!!’

Kit began nodding furiously, as he pranced across the stage from one side to the other, and back again, several times. His eyes ablaze, and he strode to the front and centre of the stage, and mouthed a huge: Thank You, Thank You, and bowed, and turned around and was gone, and despite the bellowed shouts for an encore that went on for fully five minutes, there would be no such thing. The title of Kit’s second blockbusting bestseller came back to many of their minds: Always Leave Them Wanting More.

––––––––

BEHIND THE SCENES, minions clapped him on the back, someone handed him a large fresh white towel and he began wiping himself down, for the sweat was draining off his face, his shirt sopping, as if it had come out of the washer. Jennifer rushed in and gave him a huge hug, as another minion stood urgently by, waiting to acquaint Kit of the incident of the policewoman and Donald Rushnell.

But Kit hustled away, back to his own quarters, to get showered and changed. There was a dinner to look forward to, and at least a dozen pre-organised private audiences. He could do with a drink.

‘Where’s the wine?’ he snapped, as Jennifer went to the private bar and poured him a large one.

Outside the theatre, many of the audience were swapping stories and emotions, and telephone numbers and shared experiences. Greg was networking like a worker bee.

‘I’ll see you later,’ said Karen, ‘there’s something I have to do.’

‘Karen!’ said Greg, turning away from a high-flyer who was imparting a priceless tip, but she was already making her way out, heading over toward spoke 4, and Kit Napoleon’s private quarters. 

Chapter Sixty-One

It took Jun Woo less than a day to suss out how to escape from the assembly plant. If she couldn’t get out via the main doors they had entered through, the only other way out was via the dispatch department.

She began studying Minstrel’s methods and systems. Men One and Two appeared to be responsible for everything to do with dispatch.

Completed products were carefully packed into boxes, maybe two feet square, and stacked outside the doors to the dispatch bay. They were then assembled on rough wooden pallets. The whole thing maybe six feet square, six feet high, perhaps eight feet at a push. The full pallet loads were surrounded in several layers of thick clear polythene to stop any vital boxes falling off, or being pilfered, and one of the yellow forklifts would enter the assembly room floor, slip the forks into the base of the pallet, lift, turn, and away out through the doors, into the dispatch bay.

When the doors were open for a few seconds, she caught a glimpse of the pallets being loaded onto flat-bed trucks. Her plan was simple. She must get into one of the cardboard boxes and onto one of the pallets.

Once outside the assembly floor, she would break out and run free, though whether she would do that when it was just outside, or when the pallet was loaded on a wagon, she hadn’t decided. She had one other problem. It would take two people to carry and place the box on the pallet. Shu and one other. They needed to find a friend.

That night Jun Woo explained her plan to Shu.

‘It’ll be dangerous,’ whispered Shu.

‘Being here is dangerous, for all of us.’

‘You’ll never fit inside such a small box.’

‘I will! There was a guy I knew in Hong Kong,’ but she had to be careful what she said, for she didn’t want to reveal what she knew, and who she was, for the guy she knew, the expert in getting into tiny spaces was her “Uncle”. He was into yoga in a big way, and through his constant exercises, his wiry body could be folded down into an amazingly small space. He had bewildered his superiors by demonstrating that he could prize himself into an astonishingly small shopping bag. He could even close the zip from the inside, and they weren’t slow in realizing the potential in such a skill. Jun edited the story accordingly.

‘This guy I knew,’ she explained to Shu. ‘He was a circus guy with a supple body, and he could be folded down into a box. I could do that too.’

‘But I am much smaller than you,’ Shu protested. ‘It would be better for me to go.’

There might have been some sense in that, but in the end, it didn’t stack up. Jun Woo had the credit card, Jun Woo had the emergency telephone number, Jun Woo had the rank and credibility, and it was Jun Woo who could fetch help. It would have to be her. If Shu went, she might be caught and deported without her story being heard.

‘I’ve been doing yoga too,’ Jun explained, and she had too, so impressed was she by Uncle’s activities. She determined to follow the same path. It was true about the yoga, as she had persuaded Shu and Fenfang to partake in yoga classes in that tin tomb on the long and boring crossing from China.

‘We need to find someone to help lift the box.’

Shu thought a minute and said, ‘I may have someone.’

‘Who?’

‘The girl next to me on the workbench, she comes from the next district to me. She seems friendly enough. Oh, I don’t know her family or anything like that, that would be a billion to one chance, literally, but I do know some of the places she knows, and I know some of the shops she goes to.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘I don’t know that yet.’

‘Find out.’

Shu nodded and said, ‘She started talking to me because she recognised my accent, she speaks the same way.’

‘Can we trust her?’ asked Jun Woo.

‘I don’t know. But we will have to trust someone. Maybe we should leave it a while, a week or two. Build up trust, build up confidence.’

That seemed to make some sense to Jun, and she was impressed with Shu’s logical thinking. It seemed beyond her years. But if they wanted to rescue Fenfang, speed was of the essence. Jun Woo knew where Fenfang had gone, but how long would she be there? She could be moved on again, and the trail would grow cold. No, they had to make a move if they wanted to save Fenfang, and they had to do it soon.

‘Make friends with her. We need to move fast. We are going to get out of here, Shu, and so is everyone else, and we are going to save Fenfang, as well.’

Shu nodded and looked hopeful.

Monica came hustling by.

‘What are you two gossiping about? There’s no talking! I told you that before. If I catch you again, your wages will be stopped.’

Wages, thought Jun Woo, what a laugh. Ten pounds a month and in funny money too. It wasn’t wages, it was slavery, and nothing less, and Jun Woo would willingly risk her life to bring the whole house crashing down. 

Chapter Sixty-Two

Walter glanced up from his info sheets and floated an idea across the office: ‘What are you doing tomorrow, Heck?’

An expectant look flooded over Hector’s face.

‘Tomorrow, Guv, I am going to give sweet Georgia Browne twenty-four hours CPA.’

‘CPA?’

‘Concentrated Personal Attention, you can’t beat it.’

‘Didn’t know you were married.’

‘I’m not, but if Georgie plays her cards right, she might yet scoop the lottery ticket.’

There was a short silence and then Walter mumbled, ‘Pity.’

Just the single word, floating across the office, in Walter’s low and fruity style. Pity, and yet no one could ignore the underlying inferences. Hector pondered the word for a few moments, realising it could mean trouble, and though he knew he might regret asking, he did anyway.

‘Why’s that, Guv?’

Walter sat back in his chair. Clasped his hands behind his head.

‘I really think we are on to something here.’

‘In what way?’

‘Not sure I can answer that, just the more I look at it, the more convinced I am we are on the right road. But the thing is, the thing that really haunts me, is that this could be time critical.’

‘Time critical?’

‘Yes. Time is running out.’

‘For whom?’

‘Not sure. Everyone, maybe.’

‘You want me to work Sunday, right?’

‘The more hands and minds, the merrier.’

A few seconds of silence followed and then Hector said, ‘I suppose I could delay the onset of CPA for twelve hours.’

‘That’s all I need.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Good man.’

‘Okay, Guv. You got it.’

Walter grinned and returned to his sheets.

Two minutes later, he said, ‘Don’t suppose we could rope in any of the others?’

Hector laughed aloud and thought, if he was giving up his special Sunday, the least the others could do was join the party.

‘Leave it with me, Guv,’ and Hector jumped on the phone.

Rang Jenny. She was on the Manchester train with two of her closest friends. It was her monthly Manchester shopping trip, the outings they referred to as their champagne socialising days. Went like this: Don the best new frock, preferably the one with the slightly shorter hem, take the train to the bright lights of Manchester where the programme went: shopping-drinky-shopping-drinky-shopping-drinky, food-food-food, and repeat, and if during that decadence, two or three handsome young men stumbled along and introduced themselves, as they occasionally did, so much the better.

Walter heard Hector say: ‘The thing is, Guv thinks this is time critical.’

‘Time critical? Oh go on!’ she said, her imagination piqued, and she didn’t want to be left out of the loop.

‘Great! See you tomorrow.’

Hector cut off and rang Jan Poppie.

He was at church, helping to prepare everything for the early morning Mass the following day. The priest was approaching retirement, and he had come to rely on Jan, perhaps more than he should.

‘If Mr Walter wants me, and needs my attendance, then of course, I shall be happy to be there. Goes without saying. I shall come directly from the church.’

‘Good man, Jan!’

Then it was Gibbons’ turn. The tricky call. He was out with his pals at some sporting meet. Typical Gibbons Saturday piss-up. Could have been football, rugby, horseracing, motor racing, boxing, tennis, or cricket, depending on the calendar, though it was a rugby cup-tie, which was always a particularly boozy event.

‘Who else is going in?’

‘Everyone!’

‘Yeah, I’ll bet.’

‘The thing is, Guv thinks we are really on to something here, but he says it’s time critical.’

Gibbons thought about that for a second. Time critical? In the past when the Guv had a bee in his bonnet about something, well, on more than one occasion it had proved that the bee was buzzing in the right direction, and he didn’t want to miss out on any excitement, especially if they were about to discover the honey. Someone slapped a fresh pint of German lager into Gibbons’ hand. Fact was, right there, he’d have said anything to get rid of the annoying Hector Browne, for the fellas had shared a massive joke that he had missed out on, and he didn’t want to miss another.

‘I’ll be in!’ he said, and cut off.

Hector sniggered and waited a moment and said, ‘Done, Guv.’

‘What!’

‘They’ll all be in tomorrow.’

‘How did you manage that?’

‘Hector Browne’s natural selection.’

‘How does that work?’

‘Told Jenny, Jan was coming, told Jan, Gibbo was coming, told Gibbo, Jenny was coming. None of them wants to be the absent Aimie.’

Walter guffawed and saw Hector in a whole new light.

Maybe he had underestimated his talents.

‘Well done!’

‘No sweat, Guv. They’d walk over hot potatoes for you.’

Walter pondered the phrase. Walk over hot potatoes. Hot coals, maybe? Hot potatoes? No matter. Gibbons would probably eat the bloody things. But it was a comforting phrase, nonetheless, however it came out. Then he said, ‘Don’t suppose we could rope in a few more.’

Hector’s turn to laugh.

‘Leave it with me, Guv. I’m on it.’

––––––––

KAREN ENTERED SPOKE 4 and stormed down the corridor towards Kit’s office. There was a young guy sitting on a seat outside the door, looking at a programme and his tablet, alternating between the two. Saw the young woman approaching. She seemed to have a lot on her mind. He stood up and smiled and said, ‘Hi, Karen, isn’t it?’

Neat guy, well-dressed, cute smile.

‘Yeah, Sergeant Karen Greenwood. I need to speak to Mr Napoleon.’

‘He’s not here. You have an appointment for 6pm, don’t you?’ he said, glancing down at his tablet, checking his schedules.

‘I want to speak to Mr Napoleon now!’

‘I don’t know where he is.’

And in the way he said that, she knew he was protecting his boss; she knew he was lying. She could always tell when non-practised liars were fibbing. She glared at him, her ice-blue eyes staring through his head.

‘You’ve got two choices. Either you take me to see Mr Napoleon right now, or I’ll arrest you for wasting police time.’

‘Err... sure Karen, err sergeant, follow me,’ and he set off down the corridor, Karen close behind.

They were heading for a dead end. There were no further doors in the corridor; Karen could see that clear enough, and no emergency exit at the end of the corridor either, nothing, just lightly patterned thick green carpet and contrasting green pastel walls. He went to the far end and there, on the right side, was not a door, but a narrow passageway that couldn’t be seen coming down the corridor, and within the passageway was a narrow set of stairs going up.

The neat guy nodded at the staircase, and Karen ran up. At the top was a small square hallway with one solid light oak door ahead. No bell, no names, no number, no letterbox. Karen approached and knocked hard, three times. She glanced around to look at the guy, but he’d scarpered.

She heard someone approaching the door, heels maybe, on a wooden floor, and a woman spoke, perhaps Jennifer Napoleon, ‘I said no callers, Marcus!’ and she opened the door and the smile dropped from her face, as she saw Karen.

‘I need to speak to Kit right now.’

‘But he’s in the shower. You have an appointment later, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but I need to see him now,’ and without waiting to be invited, she swept past Jennifer and on into the main living room of the private apartment.

Kit Napoleon was not in the shower. He was sitting on a luxurious cream sofa, hair wet, wearing an ill-fitting towel wrap, and lounging there, he appeared quite paunchy. Surprising what secrets a well-cut suit could disguise. His face looked lined and tired and much older than before. In his hand was a huge glass of hock. He took a slug of wine and smiled and said, ‘Karen, you’re somewhat early.’

Jennifer was standing behind her.

She said, ‘She just barged in, Kit, I’m so sorry.’

It surprised Karen how apprehensive Jennifer sounded, frightened even, if she didn’t know better.

‘No matter,’ said Kit. ‘Take a seat, beckoning to a chair by the window.’

Karen sat down and said, ‘I need to talk to you about Donald Rushnell.’

‘Donald? What about him?’

‘He’s a wanted man, as I suspect you know.’

‘A wanted man? How would I know that?’

‘Don’t you watch TV? Don’t you read the papers?’

‘If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been away on tour, Scotland, as it happens.’

‘That’s not a foreign country.’

‘Not yet,’ he smirked.

‘You’re saying you weren’t aware that Donald was wanted by the police?’

‘Yes I am. Been very busy, too busy to read newspapers and watch TV, been working my backside off, leading up to the opening of this Center. What is he wanted for, anyway?’

‘Theft, fraud, embezzlement, you name it, and in a big way.’

‘Where? When?’

‘Stole money from his employer. Over a quarter of a million pounds.’

‘Has this been proven?’

‘No, not yet, but it will be.’

‘Well, until it is, I suggest you add “allegedly” to all your accusations.’

‘Your staff impeded me when I went to arrest Donald Rushnell. Your people spirited him away in one of your company vehicles. These are serious criminal offences that someone is going to have to answer for.’

‘Do you know anything about this?’ Kit asked Jennifer.

‘No! Course not. All I know is that Donald had a train to catch in town and asked me to organise a lift to the station as soon as he had finished introducing you. Only too pleased to help, he’s an important member of our team. Why wouldn’t I help him?’

Karen glanced at her watch. Realised Donald had the time to get to the station and board a train and be away. There was no point in sending people to the station. She looked back at Kit and said, ‘Donald Rushnell is a big-time thief and fraudster, and unless you assist me in my enquiries, you could end up in the dock beside him.’

‘Again, “allegedly” needs to be added there. Of course, we will give you every assistance. We are always happy to help the police. What can we do for you?’

‘Where has he been hiding? Here?’

‘Good God no!’ said Jennifer.

‘He’s been staying at our house in Wrenbury. We were only too happy to give our most successful man the run of the place for a few days while we were away. He came down with us in the Rolls this morning,’ said Kit. ‘Between you and me, I think his parents are a little demanding. They don’t understand the boy, work him too hard, he badly needed a break.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘Now that I can’t help you with.’

‘He didn’t say where he was going?’ persisted Karen, staring at Jennifer to make sure she understood the question was addressed to her too.

‘He did not,’ said Kit.

Jennifer shook her head.

‘How much is he supposed to have stolen?’ asked Kit.

‘£268,000. We’ve recovered 10K he sent to his parents.’

Kit pulled a face. ‘That’s a lot of money.’

‘It could bankrupt the company, put people out of work.’

Kit glanced at Jennifer. Karen did too. She kind of nodded, as if understanding the question in his head.

He exhaled and said, ‘We’ll cover it.’

‘What!’ said Karen.

‘We’ll cover any genuine losses, have to see the evidence of course, see all the papers, get all the details, we are not a charity organisation.’

‘We are,’ interjected Jennifer, ‘for the hospice, we are.’

Kit ignored his wife and said, ‘But if what you say is genuine, we will make good any losses. That’s my promise to you, and my word is good. Ask anyone. I am sure there’s a good explanation for everything. I’d like to talk to Donald about it. I’m sure he’ll clear everything up.’

‘So would we.’

‘I’m sure you would,’ said Jennifer. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Just to be clear, you will replace any money Donald Rushnell has stolen from his employer?’

‘I think Kit has already made that abundantly clear,’ said Jennifer.

Karen pulled a face, shook her head and said, ‘Why would you do that?’

‘Friendship, Miss Greenwood! Future Growth has always been, and always will be, a fraternal organisation.’

Karen shook her head and turned about. Truth was, their offer had taken the wind out of her sails. She needed to talk to Walter.

Before she left, Kit called, ‘And Karen?’

‘Yes?’

‘I do hope this rather peculiar interlude hasn’t soured our relationship. The appointment remains in the diary for 6pm. I still want to talk to you. I think you will find what I have to say particularly interesting. You will come, won’t you?’

Karen found herself saying, ‘Yes, I’ll be there,’ but all three of them noticed she said it in a most unconvincing way, and then she was gone and down the stairs, and past Marcus, who was still playing on his tab.

‘Everything all right?’ he called as she hustled by.

‘Fab,’ she said. ‘Great!’ and then she was gone.

––––––––

SHE WENT OUTSIDE AND gulped in the rushing hill-borne air. Glanced around her. The clouds were pouring in from mid Wales. Heavy black dramatic rolling beasts, as if some portent of an all-conquering Celtic invasion coming to the neighbourhood soon. Pulled out her mobile. Shook her head. Cleared her mind. Rang the Guv’nor. 

Chapter Sixty-Three

The girl working on the bench next to Shu was called Jia Li. She was two years older than Shu, but more importantly, she had been a friend of Yet Kwai Dang.

She said Yet Kwai had received a fearful beating from Brinton and after that was taken out and had never been seen again.

The girl, Yet Kwai, knew how to handle a knife, so Jia explained to Shu, and had acquired a chunky screwdriver that she’d gone to work on until it was as sharp as a razor. One afternoon down by the dispatch bay she’d attacked Man Two with the screwdriver, but unlucky for her at that second, Brinton came out of the retail shop and found himself staring at Yet Kwai’s back, as she brandished the weapon at Man Two.

Brinton stepped quietly and quickly toward her and punched her a thundering blow on the back of the neck. She had gone down, the weapon bouncing and clattering away, as Brinton and Man Two grabbed her, tugged her to her feet, and gave her a beating, and the two of them dragged her out to the inner hallway. No one saw Yet Kwai again, though rumours abounded as to what happened to her. Some said she had been sold into prostitution, others that Brinton had taken her home for his own; and some, the scarier ones, said she had been murdered and dumped in the river.

Most of the girls working on the production line that day witnessed the beating, in full or in part, as she was dragged away, kicking and screaming. After that, the girls went on a major go slow. It was the first and only time the workforce at Minstrel Electronics had considered a strike.

Later that day, Pryce put in an appearance in the assembly plant, something he rarely did. He lay down the law. He made it crystal clear, Monica translating his rough words. For every day that work was delayed: one unit would be culled, removed from the floor. They would not be told where the girl was taken. They would not be told what had happened to her, but they were told they would never see her again. They would begin with the youngest and work their way up. It was the units’ decision, and a simple one too. A clear choice: Work, or the culling would begin.

Within three hours, production rates returned to normal. Some said Yet Kwai Dang had it coming. She’d come from a family of gangsters, she’d told them all about it. She was handy with knives; and had threatened one or two of the others. Some said they were happy she’d gone. Jia Li didn’t agree. She liked Yet Kwai and wanted to know where she was. She wanted to know what happened, and perhaps, through helping Shu and her friend, she might accomplish that. Jia Li agreed to help.

Shu obtained an unused packing box and took it back to the dorm, not without risk to herself. That night, they would try to get Jun Woo inside it.

Chapter Sixty-Four

Karen found a quiet place in spoke 1 in the restaurant and bar area and pulled out her phone and rang the boss. In the Chester HQ, Walter picked up the burbling phone.

‘Guv?’

‘Yep.’

‘I’ve spoken to Kitnap.’

‘And?’

‘You’re not going to believe this.’

‘You are full of surprises today. Go on.’

‘He’s offered to make good any losses.’

‘What!’

‘As I live and breathe.’

‘What, for all the money Rushnell made off with?’

‘The very same.’

‘And how is he going to do that?’

‘Not sure, but he was most insistent about it.’

‘I suspect that guarantee holds about as much water as a new sieve.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, I am seeing him again later. He still wants to talk to me about something else.’

‘What about?’

‘I don’t know, but I am thinking of asking him to put it in writing, about the cash.’

‘Not worth the paper it would be written on. How many times have I told you, he relieves people of their money, not bails people out?’

‘Maybe, Guv, but it’s got to be worth a try. See if he’s genuine.’

‘If.’

‘What would be the effect on the case if all the money was recovered?’

‘Well, I say again, “if”, but if it happened, Mrs Cresswell for one would be a happier woman, and the charges might be of a lesser grade. Donald could get away with a lighter sentence.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Do we know where Donald is?’

‘No. They say he was taken to the railway station at his request, and has presumably jumped on a train.’

‘Do we know where he’s been hiding?’

‘Yeah, sorry Guv, didn’t I say? He’s been living in Napoleon’s house in Cheshire.’

‘So, they have been deliberately harbouring a wanted man?’

‘They say they weren’t there most of the time. They were on tour and had no idea he was wanted.’

‘Where have they been, on Mars?’

‘No, Scotland.’

‘He is one slippery customer.’

‘He is that, Guv. He has an answer for everything, and he’s so goddamn sincere about it. It all comes with a greasy smile and platitudes, aplenty.’

‘Sounds like the archetypal form of a top rank conman to me.’

‘You have no idea how much money is involved here, Guv. They are planning on opening another huge facility in California. It’s going global.’

‘I know one thing, Karen. Everyone can’t be making money. Figures don’t lie. Usually at the bottom of the compost heap, you’ll find gazillions of unhappy folks who are left out of pocket. That’s what I am expecting.’

‘You could be right.’

‘So, you’re seeing him later?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ask him for a cheque.’

‘Ha hah! That would stump him.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘See what I can do. How are you getting on back there?’

‘Pretty good, I have a real feeling about this electronics line of enquiry. It’s just there is so much of it. Hector has roped in Gibbons, Jan, and Jenny to come in tomorrow.’

‘How did he manage that?’

‘Hector Browne’s natural selection programme, he calls it.’

‘Good luck with that. Do you want me to come back too?’

‘No, stay there. You seem to be making progress, albeit of a weird kind. See what else you can find out. See what other mischief Kit Contrick is up to, and try to nail him down on returning the missing cash, and if he hears from Rushnell, seeing as they are such great buddies, make sure he tells you.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘And watch him! He’s slippery.’

‘I know that, Guv.’

‘Keep me posted.’

‘Will do.’

Karen saw Greg hustling across the room toward her.

‘Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you all over.’

‘Trying to find out where Donald went.’

‘And did you?’

‘They took him to the station.’

Greg shrugged his disinterest.

‘Can we get back to enjoying our weekend? Get ready for dinner later. Start to have some fun? Meet new people. Forget about crime-fighting for twenty-four hours?’

Karen knew she could never do that, but stood up and said, ‘Sure, Greg,’ though her mind was already elsewhere, and then she said, ‘I still have this meeting with Kit at six.’

‘Do you want me to come?’

‘No. He asked me to go alone.’

Greg hid his disappointment and tugged her away toward the entrance to spoke 2, and the accommodation suites.

––––––––

KAREN SLIPPED AWAY at five to six and made her way to Kit’s main office in spoke 4. The same cute guy was waiting outside, the same neat smile on his face, as he stood and said, ‘Hello again, Karen, Kit is waiting for you,’ and he opened the door and beckoned her inside.

Kit was sitting behind an overlarge desk. He’d changed and freshened up and was back to looking the bright-eyed thrusting businessman, and he wasn’t alone. To his left sat a young guy, expensive black suit, white cuffs, Future Growth cufflinks, and neat dark hair that matched his suit. Karen guessed he was about thirty and she’d never seen him before.

Kit stood and reached across the desk and offered his hand.

‘This is Roland Barraclough,’ he said. ‘Roland is my solicitor. He’s a partner at Barraclough & Coney.’

Karen knew the firm and of their good reputation. She shook both the guys’ hands and smiled and said, ‘Legal representation needed, is it?’

Kit grinned and asked her to sit, and he sat down and laughed and said, ‘No, nothing like that. I thought in view of our earlier unplanned meet, you might feel more comfortable having Roland here.’

‘I see,’ she said, when she wasn’t sure she did.

‘I’ve asked Roland to write to you on Monday to confirm our arrangement where I said that I would guarantee any losses that may have been incurred by our associate, Donald Rushnell,’ and he glanced at Roland and the guy nodded back.

‘They weren’t “losses”, Kit,’ clarified Karen, ‘It’s a clear case of fraud and theft.’

‘Well, whatever it was, surely it must be better for all concerned if every missing penny is made good.’

‘Don’t suppose you’d care to give me a cheque?’

Kit looked blank.

Roland said, ‘We’ll need to see actual figures, backed up with written proof.’

‘Of course you would,’ said Karen.

‘It would be really cool if the whole thing could be settled without the need for courts and trials and what have you,’ said Kit.

‘I can’t promise that,’ said Karen, wondering what she was being coerced into. ‘My superiors will decide.’

‘Of course,’ said Kit. ‘Just so long as you understand the books will be balanced, an offer made in good faith, and one we hope will go some way toward settling the matter.’

‘We’ll get back to you on that,’ said Karen. ‘This is a most unusual situation.’

‘Quite,’ said Kit. ‘Now, if we could move on to another matter.’

‘Fine,’ said Karen, eager to hear what they had to say.

Kit looked at Roland and Roland nodded him on.

‘We, the Future Growth Group, are looking for a publicity manager. The position will be very high profile. It will come with worldwide travel requirements. As you know, we are opening in California, but also Austria, and Africa would be regularly visited. In short, we need someone young, energetic, charismatic, intelligent, diligent, discreet, and enthusiastic. I think it’s fair to say the moment I met you, I thought you were the ideal person to fill the position. In short, Karen, we are offering you the job.’

‘I’ve got a job already.’

‘Yes, you have indeed,’ said Kit, ‘and a good one, too. What’s it paying? About 40k a year?’

‘Just under.’

‘We’ll double that, I mean it, Karen, no hype, no tricks, 80k a year plus expenses, and loads of foreign travel.’

Karen couldn’t suppress a grin.

‘Look, I’ll make no bones about it. There have been times when I’ve sailed close to the wind, especially in my younger days. What I need now is the likes of you and Roland here to keep me on the straight and narrow. It’ll be fun. One huge adventure. You’ll enjoy it, you really will. Come and join us, what do you say?’

‘Even if I wanted to, I can’t just drop everything and leave my present position.’

‘We understand that,’ said Kit, glancing at Roland.

He said, ‘There are always ways and means.’

‘Think about it, Karen,’ said Kit. ‘I don’t need your answer today. I can leave it with you for a week or two. You’re perfect for the job. It would be a marriage made in heaven.’

Karen pulled a face. She couldn’t agree with that.

‘Is that it?’ she said, looking at them in turn.

‘Yep,’ said Kit. ‘That’s about it.’

‘I’ll write to you about the other matter,’ said Roland.

Karen stood and said, ‘Thank you, I’ll get back to you,’ and let herself out.

At the celebratory opening dinner that night, she told Greg of the job offer.

‘I hope you said yes,’ he blurted.

‘I didn’t, and I don’t think I will.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because money isn’t everything.’

‘But double money! A jetsetter of a job, and the chance to work closely with Kit Napoleon. What more do you want? Come on!’

‘Let’s drop it, eh?’ she said, annoyed she’d told him. She wanted to talk to Walter about it. He’d understand.

Chapter Sixty-Five

On Sunday morning Walter was wakened by thunder and lightning. The Indian summer had come to a crashing end. He blinked and glanced at the digital clock. 7.46.

It would have been so tempting to roll over and snuggle down and doze for another two or three hours.

But he remembered Jessica Stone saying: Would it be possible if I could have a bath later? And he thought of seeing her standing on the landing a few feet from where he lay, and he remembered that he hadn’t found her, and that all the team were committed to working that day, Sunday, or not.

He grunted and fell out of bed and ambled to the bathroom. There were some things that get you out of bed, he mused whilst shaving, like murders of policemen, and young Chinese girls who had enjoyed nothing of a life, and desperately needed justice, and kidnapped supermodels, and even the Donald Rushnells and Kit Contricks of this world. There would be years and years ahead, God willing, of days when he could lie in bed, and he knew he would pine through those long days, and wish for decent reasons to get up and scamper to work.

He made toast, banged on the marmalade too thickly, wolfed it down, swigged the instant coffee while still too hot, burnt his tongue, cursed aloud, and heard the rain beating on the new kitchen window. He hadn’t used his raincoat in weeks, couldn’t for the life of him remember where it was, couldn’t find it anywhere, which was no surprise. It was hanging on the back of the cloakroom door at work. He cursed again and made do with a slightly short and totally unsuitable padded jacket.

Then he remembered it was Sunday, and the skimpy bus service there was sure to be, and he saw the taxi company card on the small hall table, and picked it up and rang the number. Despite the day and the hour they still said they’d be with him in five, and they were, on the nail. Impressive. Went outside, locked up, and jumped in the backseat to be greeted by Carrie the Cab.

‘Hello again. You’re out early. Got an important case?’

‘Yeah, something like that.’

‘Don’t suppose you’d like to tell me about it?’

‘Can’t, sorry, it’s confidential, you know how it is.’

‘Yeah, sure. Bet it’s exciting.’

‘No, not really, mundane things.’

‘Don’t suppose you’d tell me if it was something fab like a murder... crime of passion! Something like that.’

It was clear Carrie had a fertile imagination, and driving a car about the city all day, perhaps that wasn’t surprising.

Walter laughed a false laugh.

‘Where to?’ she said in her happy singsong voice.

‘City centre will do.’

‘You got it,’ and she pulled away with a jolt and he fell back into the seat.

He wanted her to drop him at the station. But he didn’t want her to know he was a police detective, and he regretted telling her he was a private investigator. Should have stuck with the zookeeper story. The rain grew heavier, and she slipped the wipers to fast-wipe, yet still she had to peer through the cascading water to see the road.

‘Filthy morning!’ she said.

‘It’s been so nice too.’

‘Sure has; I guess this is payback time.’

‘Mmm,’ he said, trying to clear his head and think of work issues.

A few minutes later and she said, ‘This do you?’

He glanced at the tippling rain, and thought of the fair walk to the station, and remembered his short coat and said, ‘Bit further yet.’

‘You got it.’

A couple of minutes later he asked her to pull over, forty yards from work, as near as he dared. Paid the fare, wished her well, stood out into the torrential rain, hunched into his jacket, and walked as quickly as he could to work.

The jacket hadn’t done the job, his legs were soaked, his grey slacks were now two-tone, the bottom three-quarters, dark, wet, and steaming, the top quarter, light and dry. He cursed again, hurried into the office, sat down and slid and hid his legs beneath the desk, and removed his shoes.

Jenny appeared carrying coffee and set one on his desk.

Walter nodded and said, ‘Ta. Anyone else in yet?’

‘Not yet,’ but as she said that, Gibbons came through the door in a rush, cursing the rain, with Hector in tow carrying a very smart umbrella, the wally with the brolly, as Gibbons called him. Jan arrived apologising, saying Mass had been running late because the congregation was running slow because of the rain, and the priest had been running slow, because he was getting old, and that’s what old people do, run slow.

Walter resisted the temptation to say: You’ll find out soon enough, and besides, he wanted the early morning nonsense out of the way without much comment as soon as possible, so they could get down to the serious business of catching criminals.

He thanked them for giving up their day. They would get their reward in other ways, and he explained why he thought the line of enquiry was vital, when he could barely explain it to himself. It was one of those occasions when he knew he was right. He told them the day was to be spent eliminating electronics businesses from the long list.

They could put a line through any business that had ceased trading or had moved away. They could eliminate high street retailers and out-of-town retail park sellers. They would not be employing and using illegal immigrant workers, they could not be holding people against their will, because the girls or women would simply abscond, and they could also rule out big well known organisations and companies.

FTSE 100 companies, multinationals, and the like were not the kind of businesses that were going to make money through slave labour and human trafficking in the twenty-first century, leastways he hoped that was the case. There had to be standards somewhere.

The aim was to have looked at every business on the list by close of play, and those remaining would begin to receive unannounced physical visits, commencing first thing Monday.

Walter reminded the team there were estimated to be upwards of 10,000 people in Britain today working as slaves at any one time, yes, slavery in the twenty-first century. Seemed hard to believe, but it was fact, and best intelligence concluded someone on their patch was involved in the same evil business. It had to be stopped, and they were the only people who would do it.

Everyone knew the drill, saw the target, got their heads down, didn’t fool around, worked hard, and began eliminating as many companies and organisations as they could. Of those that remained, and there were many of them, maybe there could be a business there working in the heinous trade they were investigating.

The team worked through till 6pm with barely a break for lunch, and as luck would have it, no one wanted to go out for the sheeting rain never once abated. By close of play, standing water could be seen all over the green Roodee below.

Karen rang from the Church Stretton conference, though she had nothing fresh to add. She didn’t possess a cheque, no surprise there, but she did have promises and commitments from Kit Napoleon’s solicitor, and she thought that no mean achievement, and she might have been right. Walter would reserve judgement.

At the day’s end Walter thanked everyone again for their great work. They agreed to convene again in the morning, when those remaining businesses would be allocated out for visits. Gibbo agreed to drop Walter off at home, for it was still tanking down, Jan asked Jenny if she’d like to go for a quick drink, which she agreed to, while Hector hunkered down beneath his two-tone umbrella, and hustled away through the old city, with thoughts of seeing his sweet Georgia Browne, with images of CPA in the forefront of his mind.

It had been a decent day all told in the Chester police HQ.

Only time would tell if it had been a productive one.

In any event, the team were playing together and batting off the same wicket, and that wasn’t always the case.

It had been an interesting day on the assembly floor of Minstrel Electronics too. Plans were being made and tested. After the weekend’s production, a larger than usual amount of finished product was piling up outside the dispatch bay, ready for collection and delivery first thing Monday. It would be the best opportunity Jun Woo would ever get, and she knew it.

Her first attempt at hiding in a box had been a failure. She had tucked her knees up by her chest, legs folded behind her at the knee, head down, arms tight around her, self-hugging, holding herself into a ball, yet still she was too big. It puzzled her for she was smaller than Uncle, and if memory served, he had squeezed into a smaller space.

On the second attempt she told Shu to be firmer with her.

‘Pull my feet tighter! Push my head down!’

With that additional exterior force she just about managed it, though the pain was excruciating, and the girl in a box appeared a dumpy misshapen reject of a thing.

‘I’ll only be able to remain inside for a short while,’ she said. ‘I’ll take some paracetamol to dull the pain. It’s vital I go in as late as possible, but I must go out on the first shipment.’

‘What about the odd looking box?’ asked Shu.

‘I’ll try to squeeze in some heavier card, hopefully that will help retain the shape.’

Shu nodded, though the look in her eyes betrayed her doubt.

Jun Woo said, ‘Will Jia Li be able to help you lift the box onto the pallet in the morning?’

‘Yes, Jia Li will help.’

Jun nodded and returned to sharpening a small screwdriver she had stolen from the production line. She would need that to break out through the thick polythene cover.

Everything was arranged. Jun Woo would attempt to escape from Minstrel in the morning.

––––––––

LATER THAT NIGHT, BRINTON and Monica lay together, naked, spoons position, on the carpet in his office, his back to the radiator, for it was growing cold at nights. His arms were tight around her and she felt wanted and protected and needed and loved. They had the building pretty much to themselves, Brinton knew that, and he’d been staying and working nights quite a bit lately. It sure beat being alone in that cold flat at home. His office door was locked, just in case. It wouldn’t have done for Pryce or the old guy to come barging in.

‘Jimmy,’ she murmured. ‘When will I have paid off my immigration and passenger fees? When will I be able to go free?’

‘Not for a while yet, lover.’

‘I’ve been here ages, it can’t be so long away.’

Brinton didn’t answer. It was not a line of conversation he wanted to explore. No one had ever paid off their fees in full and been freed. Stood to reason. They could hardly have former staff running round Cheshire, full of tales of slavery, beatings, abuse, and murder. But it helped smooth the way on occasion, to perpetuate the myth. Brinton sniggered.

‘Wouldn’t you like me living in your flat, Jimmy,’ and she glanced over her shoulder to look into his face.

That same impassive look. He never gave much away.

‘Well, wouldn’t you?’ she persisted. ‘You could have me every night, and every morning too, if I lived with you?’

Brinton resisted the temptation to say he could have her every night and every morning right now if he wanted, but there was something in what she said. He had never been great with women. Oh he wanted them, all right, he had never been attracted to men and boys, but wanting and getting were oceans apart, especially in Brinton’s world. But that was before he landed his current position, where he had the pick of a hundred or more, and there was not a lot any of them could do about that. Strange that he had chosen the rather dumpy and not particularly attractive Monica. But she looked at him in a way that other women rarely had, and she’d taught him things he’d barely imagined. He was happy enough, for now. He sure didn’t want to lose what he had.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he muttered, though it wasn’t convincing.

‘Will you?’ she said, her face alight. She hadn’t felt so happy in three years.

‘Yeah, said so, didn’t I?’

She snuggled back into his muscular arms, leant forward and kissed his clasped hands that were still around her, those naughty hands that wreaked so much havoc across the assembly floor whenever Brinton lost his temper. They’d even hit her on occasion, though she could understand that. Jimmy was under great pressure from Mr Pryce. He was the evil one, and besides, some of the lazier girls deserved a gentle backhander now and again. The threat of it sure made Monica’s job easier.

They lay and dozed for half an hour and then she whispered, ‘Do you want me again, Jimmy?’

‘Yeah,’ he grunted.

‘Good! Come on!’

––––––––

TWO HOURS LATER, BRINTON was letting himself out of the assembly plant after returning a sleepy Monica to the shop floor.

Glanced at the pep talk room.

Why not?

Took out his key, approached the door, opened up and flipped on the light. All was as it should be, tape back over the mouth, after that slight mishap when she’d managed to remove it.

He went behind her and removed the tape.

‘About time,’ she said. ‘One of these days I’m going to suffocate.’

‘Don’t get lippy with me, or you’ll get this,’ and he balled his fist and showed it to her face. She knew what violent and threatening men could be like. The Barton brothers would eat Brinton and his ilk for breakfast, and maybe literally, and that idea made her smirk, though right there she didn’t fancy sharing her thoughts.

He undid the ties, took some biscuits and water from the drawer and set them before her.

‘Any news?’ she asked.

‘What about?’

‘My future.’

‘Not a thing, maybe you’re going to stay here indefinitely... with me.’

That thought made her want to vomit, but she didn’t say.

‘I’ll leave you by yourself for ten minutes. Make a sound and I’ll cut your nose off and feed it to next door’s dog.’

She didn’t say a word, just wanted him out of the place, and then she heard him locking the door from the outside.

He was back after fifteen minutes. She was standing in the corner, propped up against the wall, nibbling a biscuit and swigging from the bottle of water.

‘Sit in the chair, you know the drill!’

Jessica sat down and waited to be bound, gagged, and groped.

He didn’t disappoint. Went behind her.

‘Time for our nightly cuddle,’ he whispered, and his hands and arms came around her, and on and into her blouse.

Jessica sat bolt still, didn’t bat an eyelid, didn’t flinch, didn’t moan, didn’t move a muscle. There was something inadequate about the guy, as she switched off and thought of other things.

Inside Brinton’s head he was getting ideas above his station. If Johnny Chinaman didn’t want her, maybe he could have her and take her home. Monica taught him a lot, but Monica was nothing, expendable. Jessica Stone was something else, Jessica Stone was a star, famous, and there she was in his arms, at his mercy. Maybe he should take his chance while it was there in front of him.

A weird thought entered his mind. What if she turned up in China, the expensive plaything of a weird billionaire, arriving there with child, expecting Brinton’s baby? It was an interesting idea, though maybe that wouldn’t go down well. It might bugger up the big Christmas bonus he was expecting too. Tempting though, and when would he ever get another chance like it?

He blew on her hair and kissed her parting and sighed, and thought it was time to make tracks for home. But many more days like it, and he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions.

Chapter Sixty-Six

First thing Monday morning, and a maroon Rolls Royce pulled into the car park at Minstrel Electronics. The appointment had been in the diary for a couple of weeks.

Kit was driving. He enjoyed driving on occasion, particularly the Rolls, and especially when he was out on private business.

There were some trips paid chauffeurs were not invited to. It was dark and drizzling as he pulled himself out of the car and headed for the main entrance. Inside, a young guy on reception.

‘You’re expected, Mr Napoleon,’ he said, and he’d never met a Mr Napoleon before, and he thought it a real cool name. ‘Mr Pryce is waiting for you, please follow me,’ and the guy led him down the corridor, eased open the door to the fifth room on the right, and ushered him inside.

Mr Pryce stood and crossed the office and shook his visitor firmly by the hand.

‘Nice to see you again, Mr Napoleon.’

‘Call me Kit, please.’

‘Would you like coffee, Kit?’

Kit declined and sat in the visitor’s chair. Pryce nodded the young bloke away and told him to close the door.

‘So,’ Kit said, ‘how’s business?’

‘Booming.’

‘Glad to hear it. And that means an early return on my considerable investment, I believe?’

‘It does,’ confirmed Pryce.

––––––––

KIT NAPOLEON HAD INVESTED half a million pounds in untraceable cash to establish Minstrel Electronics a few years before, and by all accounts the business had flourished, and he was back to collect the first of four scheduled repayments.

‘£250,000, isn’t it?’ said Kit.

‘It is,’ said Pryce, standing and collecting a modern suitcase that Kit had noticed was waiting by the left side office wall. Pryce set the case on the desk before Kit and flicked open the locks.

Kit glanced down, smiled and bobbed his head. Staring at hard cash always brought an expectant smile to anyone’s face. He was no different, and no matter how many times it happened, the magic never faded.

‘Excellent, and the next payment is due?’

‘Three months today, in time for Christmas.’

‘Ah yes, so it is.’

‘It’ll be ready, on the nail,’ said Pryce.

‘I am sure it will be,’ said Kit, and he added, ‘tell me what it is you do here again?’

‘Circuit boards... for phones and computers and tablets, all that kind of stuff.’

‘Ah yes, of course, and business is hot, you say?’

‘It is.’

‘Must be labour intensive.’

Pryce paused and wondered where the conversation was heading. It was none of his damned business, and Pryce never discussed his company and his business with anyone, not even Kit Napoleon. Pryce had paid his debt and wanted the schmuck out of his office and off the premises as soon as possible. But he controlled himself and said, ‘It can be labour intensive, yes, but we train them up, pay them well, keep them happy, and make sure we keep hold of them.’

‘Yes, of course you do. Anything to sign?’

Pryce slid a hastily prepared document across the desk. Kit signed with a flourish and said, ‘As ever, nice to do business with you,’ and he stood and headed for the door.

Pryce sighed and said, ‘Bye,’ and with that Kit was away and sauntering back to the Rolls Royce, £250,000 in cash in his case, quite coincidentally almost the same amount the weak Donald had purportedly stolen, and that was a big debt he was unhappy about repaying.

Still, it might have to be done, and if it put an end to police enquiries snooping into his organisation, it would be cheap at half the price. Better still, if he could lure that nosy blonde away from the force, and into his sphere of influence. He chuckled and stored the case in the boot.

Inside Minstrel, Pryce picked up the receipt and took it to the shredder and obliterated it. He had no need for such documents, a tell-tale paper trail within and about his organisation. Not a chance. Take no risks, he said to himself again, and he couldn’t wait to be rid of the prick Napoleon, either, whatever his name was, for good. The moment the Chinese billionaire came through and completed the purchase of the supermodel, Pryce would pay off the oleaginous piece of grey slime earlier than he expected.

It couldn’t come quickly enough.

––––––––

IN THE CHESTER HQ, Walter was briefing the team. The lists of local electronics companies were strewn across the desks. Three quarters had been eliminated by the weekend unpaid overtime, but that left more than enough to go round.

Walter and Karen leant on the desk and stared down and pointed at data like generals planning a battle, but was it to be a successful assault, or an organised withdrawal through failure?

‘I want Gibbons and Browne to work together on this. You take the first half, Abacus Electric down to say, let’s see, yeah there, Minstrel Electronics. Jan and Jenny, you take Moonstone Circuit Boards down to Zedshed Electric.’

Everyone nodded and grabbed the sheets they had been allocated.

‘You know what to look for. Oriental workforce, almost certainly women. Check if they are legal, find out where they are living, size up if they’re happy and content, look out for cuts and bruises and plasters and bandages, and any sign of maltreatment or discontent or obvious grievances. Make friends, gain their confidence, ask questions, interview management, ask to see wage and pay records, and if you come across any companies that are obstructive or uncooperative, make sure that sets off a big red warning light in your fuzzy heads. Keep a lookout for living and sleeping accommodation. We are not talking here of a happy workforce trotting home at the end of the day. We are talking about human beings being enslaved, forcibly worked round the clock, long hours, ill-treated, poorly paid, if paid at all, expendable, abused, and murdered too, and don’t forget to take pictures of Yet Kwai Dang. She must have been living and working somewhere, and it could be in one of these companies,’ and Walter poked his fat finger hard down on his list. ‘In one of these! In our area! In our town! And it’s got to stop! Any comments? Any questions?’

Everyone looked at everyone else, seemed happy enough, knew what needed doing, and Gibbons glanced through the window at the light drizzle, and said, ‘Come on, Heck. Let’s go it before it lashes down.’

Hector grabbed more flyers and slipped on his raincoat and said, ‘I’m driving,’ and then they were gone, with the rest of the team following, a spring in their step, revitalised, as Walter watched them go, and hoped they could maintain that enthusiasm through the day, but he knew the only thing that would do that was results.

Mrs West appeared in the office. She glanced at Walter and exchanged a nod, and said, ‘Ah, Karen, have you a few minutes, I’d like a word.’

Karen glanced back at Walter, he pulled a face and she followed Mrs West into her private office, and the door was closed.

––––––––

THE LARGER THAN USUAL stack of completed work, ready for shipment out of Minstrel Electronics, gave one advantage to Jun Woo and her newfound pal. They could hide behind the pile of boxes, while Jun was helped into the box. When they did that, Shu and Jia would only have to lift and carry the box a short distance.

Jun had taken three paracetamol tabs, though she wasn’t sure they would help. Jia had given her some cheap body oil bought in the shop. Jun had showered, applied the oil, thick all over, hoping it might make her limbs supple. Anything that helped, no matter how little, had to be worth trying.

Jun gazed around the floor. Brinton was not in the assembly plant, neither was Pryce. Monica was off shift, though due on within the hour. Men One and Two were not around either, but it was only a matter of time before they appeared, and began forklifting the completed gear into the dispatch bay.

Jun had drunk very little; she’d been to the lavatory several times for it wouldn’t have done for urine to leak from a completed pallet. She glanced around one last time. Nothing new, no alarms, no delay, it was time.

‘Now!’ she said, ‘Pack me!’

Shu produced the cardboard box. Jun stood inside it, knelt down, tapped her pocket to check she had the screwdriver, and began folding herself in, head down, legs behind her, arms tight round her torso. Shu slipped stronger cardboard down the sides of the box to give it some rigidity. Tried to fold over the top of the box. Not a chance. Patted Jun’s head lower.

‘Push harder!’ ordered Jun.

Shu thought of Fenfang and squeezed Jun harder into the box. Nearly there, one more shove and the top flaps would close. Jia had the brown tape ready. It shrieked as it was pulled out, then it was over the join and the sides taped too, though when they’d finished the box sure looked different to the others.

Debs had been walking across the top of the mezzanine floor to check something on Monica’s desk. Something made her glance down at the goods ready for dispatch section, though she wasn’t quite sure why. One of the new girls was there with Jia. It wasn’t unusual for Jia to be there, because she was often involved in loading and stacking finished items on the waiting pallets. But something was weird about the way they were standing there, patting one particular box, and the looks on their faces were ones of apprehension, and maybe even more than that. But what?

Debs thought of going down and investigating but she had lots to do, and she didn’t want to provoke a fight or a scene with Brinton due on the floor any moment. She didn’t want big issues or hassle in the workshop when he appeared. She was all for the quiet life. She let it go, and went back to her desk and tried to forget what she had seen.

The pallet was covered in boxes, one neat square batch of ready product. Shu and Jia began loading on the second level. Only one more box needed to complete level two. Shu and Jia struggled to lift the box. But finally it was placed, on the outside, for the least packing material Jun had to break through to escape, the better.

It was much easier loading another batch on top to create a third level, and the consignment was complete. Shu walked round the completed pallet and slapped the single bulging box straight, but it ballooned again. Jun was doing all she could inside to remain motionless and pull the sides in. No matter, once the strong polythene was around the whole thing that should secure it.

Shu and Jia collected the large rolls of industrial strength poly and began rolling it round and round, over the top, and round and round again, pressed the heat-securing button, and the poly sealed in an instant. It was tough stuff. Very difficult to tear. Scissors or a knife would be needed for that.

Shu glanced at Jia and back at the pallet. Another glance around and all seemed in order. They returned to their duties, and as they did so, the roller shutters to the dispatch bay began clanking and banging and opened up. Shu glanced over her shoulder and saw Man One entering the assembly floor. He paused and yawned and examined the six completed pallets ready for shipment. Seemed happy enough, went back outside, and jumped aboard the forklift truck, and fired it up.

Inside her dark and cosy cocoon, Jun heard the forklift in operation, coming and going, lifting pallets, grabbing product, turning sharply 180 degrees, and dumping them in the dispatch bay, ready to go.

She sensed the forklift close by and was right. She heard a squeak and bang, felt a slight shudder, and the sensation of being lifted in the air waved through her body, being swung dizzily round like a fairground ride she’d experienced on holiday in Florida. Forward movement, as she imagined the pallet being taken out through the doors, and the unmistakable feeling of lowering and being dumped with the tiniest of bumps onto the concrete floor. It all made sense. Delicate components, and they wouldn’t take too kindly to being dropped. Delicate cargo, scrunched up tight like a foetus, breathing slow, heart beating fast, wondering how long she would be incarcerated, wondering how long she could cope with it, pondering on how soon there would be another roll call.

––––––––

OUTSIDE, PRYCE CALLED Brinton to his office. Brinton came in with a smirk on his face, probably been sharing a filthy joke with the other guys, but Pryce had no time for that.

‘Sit down and listen!’

Brinton could tell something was in the air. Sat on the edge of the seat. Looked interested.

‘It’s a big day today.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘In more ways than one. Already had that Kit Napoleon creep in. Paid him off the first tranche. Can’t wait to be rid of the prick.’

‘He’s a slimeball,’ agreed Brinton.

‘How’s the supermodel?’

‘Doing fine, getting a bit hacked off, needs a bit of exercise, if you ask me.’

‘She’ll be getting all the exercise she can cope with soon enough,’ smirked Pryce, and Brinton let go a dry laugh.

‘I’ve agreed the deal,’ said a smug Pryce.

‘Have ya?’

Pryce bobbed his head. ‘Two million dollars, all cash, all upfront. I’m expecting a bank transfer in the next twenty-four hours. I reckon she’ll be leaving tonight or tomorrow night.’

‘Great,’ said Brinton, though he didn’t sound so enthusiastic, noticed Pryce.

‘Have you done a roll call today?’

‘Already done, did it first thing.’

Pryce nodded. ‘All okay?’

‘Yeah, all present and correct, 152 units, Orientals to a woman, all accounted for and working, plus one special unit awaiting your instructions.’

‘Good! Warn the couriers they could be on the late shift tonight or tomorrow. We can’t afford any foul-ups.’

‘I’m on it.’

‘When did Jessica last get fed?’

‘Late last night.’

‘Make sure she gets what she needs.’

Brinton pondered on that for a second and muttered, ‘Oh, I will.’

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Mrs West pointed at the visitor’s chair and Karen sat down. ‘How are you?’ asked Mrs W. ‘Fine thanks,’ said Karen, without thinking, and she wondered if somehow Mrs W had discovered she had been offered another job.

Everyone knew that Joan West was as well connected as anyone could be in a city like Chester. She had contacts and friends everywhere, and if she didn’t, her high-ranking Masonic husband certainly did.

‘I’m fine thank you, ma’am.’

‘The thing is, Karen, I’ve been going through your papers.’

‘My papers?’

‘Yes, you know, those Future Growth things you gave me. Been making a few enquiries too, and though some of them came back with a wealth warning, so to speak, the vast majority were incredibly positive.’

‘I see,’ said Karen, nodding and wondering about the whole idea.

‘I just thought I’d ask how you were getting on?’

Karen paused and considered she might have reached the point of pulling back, but maybe not quite yet, and she found herself saying, ‘Good! Went to a big conference at the weekend down in Shropshire.’

‘Yes, I heard you’d gone on that. How did it go?’

‘Very impressive. Just opened this new cancer hospice in the hills, and they are talking about opening another one in California.’

‘Oh, that is good. Nice to know some of the money is going on good causes.’

Karen nodded, but couldn’t shake off the feeling of discomfort. Wondered what ma’am would say if she told her she was thinking of leaving the force. Wondered if ma’am knew that the wanted man Donald Rushnell had been a star speaker. Didn’t look like Walter had told her. 

‘Sometimes in life, Karen, you have to take a little chance, and so long as you can recommend it, I’m prepared to go with it,’ and she tugged open her drawer, pulled out much completed paperwork, along with a cheque, and slipped them across the desk.

Karen smiled, though maybe not as copiously as she would have done a week ago.

‘Anyway, take it home with you, look at it later, I am sure you have lots to do right now, and maybe talk again tomorrow,’ and she showed Karen the back of her hand and wafted it toward the door, and Karen was dismissed.

––––––––

OUTSIDE WALTER SAID, ‘What was that all about?’

‘She’s signed up, for Future Growth.’

‘God, give me strength! We have a murdered young woman, an executed policeman, a missing supermodel, and a major fraud case on the go, and all everyone can talk and think about is a loopy Ponzi scheme that’s certain to go tits up! Give me strength!’

‘It’s NOT a Ponzi scheme! And it’s not going... well you know.’

‘Well, I am going to prove it is a Ponzi, when I have nothing better to do, which at the current rate of progress could be in five years.’

‘So what are we doing today?’

Walter scowled and sat back in his large chair.

‘We wait.’

‘Wait?’

‘Yeah, the quiet before the storm.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘Developments.’

‘Developments?’

‘If I’m right, things will begin to happen today.’

‘Today? Hope you’re right, Guv.’

Walter resisted the temptation to say, so do I.

‘Actually, Guv, can I buy you a pint and a pie at lunchtime, there’s something I want to talk about.’

‘Okay,’ said Walter slowly, pondering on what she meant by that. Maybe the weekend didn’t go so well? Fallen out with the hunk? Not pregnant, surely? Something like that anyhow, and he found himself saying, ‘I am not interested in joining Future Growth!’

‘I know that!’ she said, not quite succeeding in keeping the irritation from her words.

The phone before him rang, and he scooped it up.

Karen heard him say, ‘You can speak to me about that,’ and he mouthed at her: Roland Barraclough, Solicitor.

––––––––

PRYCE SAT BACK IN HIS chair. Afforded a quiet smile to himself. Glanced back at the Internet. He’d been thinking of splashing some of the oncoming Jessica Stone money, but was cautious enough to realise he didn’t have it yet. He loved Portugal, he was thinking of taking up golf. Looked back at the fabulous pic on the screen. Read the description one more time:

An extremely attractive 6 bedroom Quinta style villa, with a guest annexe set amongst beautiful countryside and enjoying far reaching sea views.

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THE PROPERTY IS APPROACHED via a private driveway into landscaped gardens, with an inner courtyard, and comprises, on the ground floor: entrance hall; double living room with balcony over the extended pool area; dining room; quality fitted kitchen; study; cloak room; laundry room; additional study cum office; 5 en-suite bedrooms with fitted wardrobes; and 6th bedroom next to the luxurious family bathroom, and so it went on and on.

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NO LESS THAN TWENTY fab photos and an asking price of Euros 1,999,000. Pryce grinned again, and realised he would soon be able to afford it, so long at the Chinese Johnny came through with the funds. He switched the screen back to the real-time updating bank balance. Nothing in yet. Damn! His mouth went dry. Hard to believe you could swap a single human being for such a place, and still have change. He wouldn’t pay the asking price, no one would be stupid enough to do that. He’d make them an offer, and found himself saying aloud: I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse! And as he was muttering that, Brinton tapped on the door and came in. He didn’t look great.

‘What’s the matter?’

Brinton held up his hand and showed his palm.

‘Just a slight problem, don’t go crazy.’

‘What the hell’s up?’ said Pryce, imagining there was Jessica Stone bad news.

‘Got a problem with the transport.’

‘What transport, what problem?’

‘The lorry’s broken down, the one taking the stuff back to Cambridge, it’s not going to be here today. They’re sending a replacement vehicle, be here in the morning.’

‘Oh, that,’ said Pryce, somewhat relieved, and then he realised he hadn’t been angry enough. ‘Why can’t it get here today? Where’s it coming from?’

‘Ely.’

‘Bugger!’ said Pryce, and then, ‘Is Jessica all right?’

‘She’s fine.’

Pryce shook his head in exasperation and said, ‘Keep on at them. I want that product out of the place ASAP!’

‘I’m on it,’ said Brinton, and he stood up and loped back to his office, glad to be out of there.

––––––––

INSIDE THE PALLET, Jun Woo was getting cramp. She was puzzled as to why the pallet hadn’t been loaded onto a vehicle, puzzled why they weren’t moving, puzzled why everything was so quiet, and worried in case there was a snap roll call. She had talked to Shu about that eventuality and plans were in place to deal with it, but plans had a habit of falling down, and she knew she was very much at risk.

––––––––

WALTER AND KAREN WENT for an early noon lunch. He was eager to discover what was on her mind, and he knew that Toad-in-the-Hole, one of his all-time favourites, was on the menu that day in the Royal Oak. His Aunt Mimosa used to do the most amazing Toad-in-the-Hole.

‘Do you wants chips with this, Walter?’ asked, Elsie, the catering manageress.

‘What do you think?’

‘Thought so,’ and she smiled at the big man. Why the hell was he so huggable? ‘And what about you, Karen, what are you having?’

‘Poached salmon salad.’

‘Good choice,’ she said, grinning at Walter, ‘Take a seat, I’ll bring them over.’

It was early, and it was quiet and they took a nice table by the window, and for a second, stared out at the bustling passers-by. Chester, lunchtime on a typical autumnal weekday, as the rain had vanished, and Walter said, ‘What’s on your mind?’

Karen glanced around, checked they were not being listened to.

‘Kitnap’s offered me a job. Double pay.’

Walter sat back in his chair, folded his arms, pulled a face, took a deep breath, exhaled loudly, ‘And you’re minded to accept?’

‘Don’t know yet, Guv. Have to think about it.’

Walter already knew he didn’t like Kit Napoleon, not that he had ever met him, but now that dislike had ratcheted up a notch.

‘I suppose Greg’s in favour?’

‘Sure, big time, says we could buy a big house together.’

Walter thought that a bit premature, but didn’t say. There was a short silence, and she said, ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you’d be mad to give up your career to go and work for an odd-ball character like that.’

‘Knew you’d say that.’

‘So why ask?’

She grinned and said, ‘I value your opinion.’

‘Yeah, right. So what are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to sleep on it.’

Walter didn’t say anything else, though it was obvious what he thought. Elsie brought the meals and set them down. Geez! thought Walter, that Toad looks magnificent.

‘Bon appetite, boys and girls,’ she said, and then she was gone.

‘So what did Roland Barraclough have to say?’ asked Karen, dragging a bone out of the salmon.

‘He said what you said, that they would guarantee any losses.’

‘That’s amazing.’

‘Yes, it is, don’t think I have ever come across anything like it before.’

‘Mrs Cresswell will be pleased.’

‘Yes, but you have to ask yourself, why would they do that?’

‘Don’t want the bad publicity, I guess.’

‘An expensive way of avoiding it.’

‘I tell you, Guv, money’s no problem to them.’

Walter was chewing juicy pork sausage, good it was too, and then he said, ‘That’s obvious, if they can afford to double your pay.’

‘Don’t you think I’m worth it?’

He swigged his bitter and said, ‘I didn’t say that.’

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JUN WOO, WITHIN THE pallet, didn’t have any lunch. Wouldn’t get any dinner either. Or breakfast. She tried to relax, but that was impossible, for her joints were aching like crazy.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

The next time Pryce glanced at the bank balance on the screen he couldn’t believe what he saw. There it was, two million dollars, hurriedly exchanged into sterling.

He checked his emails. New one in from China. Dispatch details for the special cargo. Out of Liverpool again.

State of Divine Providence, sister ship to the Heavenly Peace. Lived up to its name, thought Pryce, for it was bringing him plenty happiness. Glanced at the time in the bottom corner of the screen. 15.19.

Geez! He thought, then he yelled, ‘Brinton!!’

Brinton came running, wondering what was up.

Hurried into Pryce’s office and sat down.

‘What’s up?’

‘We’re on!’

‘Jessica?’

‘Yes, she’s going out tonight.’

‘All paid for?’

‘Obviously! Is the gurney ready?’

‘It’s in the van.’

‘Well, it’s no good there! Get it inside and get it ready, and when you’ve done that, go and have a word with that Monica bitch of yours, and find out if any of our Oriental friends has any nursing experience.’

‘Nursing experience?’

‘Why do I have to keep repeating myself? Just do it!’

Brinton shrugged his shoulders and pulled an unhappy face and said, ‘I’m on it,’ and went outside.

Pryce switched back to the Portuguese property website.

It really was going to happen.

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TOWARDS THE DAY’S END, more than half of all the electronics companies in the area had been visited and checked out. Hadn’t produced much. Four illegal workers, by the look of things, all Afghanis, and young men at that. No sign of Chinese young women, no sign of serious employee abuse, and no sign of Jessica Stone, either.

––––––––

THEN SOMETHING SURPRISING happened. The Rushnells turned up at the Police station at 17.30, complete with one contrite Donald.

Developments, thought Karen. How did the old rogue do it? Donald was taken into custody, questioned, held overnight, and the anxious parents were sent home. None of the Rushnells were told of Roland Barraclough’s promise to make good any losses, Walter would believe that when he saw it, and in his eyes it didn’t make a fig of difference. The crime had been committed and the culprit would have to pay the price. In any event, it was out of his hands, the Crown Prosecution Service would decide what charges the young Rushnell would face.

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IN MINSTREL ELECTRONICS, Monica had found a young trainee nurse for Brinton. Her name was Shu Lang, one of the new units, not long arrived. She didn’t speak much English, and she was young, tiny, and scared, just how Brinton liked them. She’d do whatever was asked of her, he’d put his dog’s life on that, and that was how he liked it.

Pryce glanced at the clock. 18.14. Called Brinton to his office.

Brinton came in and said, ‘Yep?’

‘Give Jessica her last seeing to. Feed, water, ablution, and get her ready for the gurney journey.’

‘Okey-doke.’

‘Found a nurse?’

‘Supposedly, yes, that young titch who came in recently. Good job we didn’t send her to Manchester. She was a trainee nurse in Shanghai before she opted for her new career path,’ and Brinton laughed at his own joke.

‘She reliable?’

‘We’re about to find out.’

‘She does speak English?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘You tell Monica if the new girl mucks up it’ll be the last thing she ever does.’

Brinton nodded. Made sense to him.

‘And you can tell Monica the same applies to her!’

Brinton thought about that for a second.

That didn’t sound so good.

‘Don’t just stand there, go and sort out Jessica, and speak to Monica. Make sure she understands how serious this is.’

Brinton looked sour and nodded and hurried outside.

––––––––

IT WAS 18.25 WHEN WALTER went into Joan West’s room and sat down.

‘Are we making progress?’ she said, in that same shrill tone.

‘Of a sort.’

‘Tell me.’

‘As you know, Rushnell’s in custody, and we have a vague promise from Kit Napoleon’s solicitor to make good any losses.’

‘Decent gesture, I’d say. There was no obligation for them to do that. Yet another factor that makes me think the whole Future Growth thing is a worthwhile enterprise, and thoroughly legit.’

‘Are you thinking of investing, ma’am?’

‘Maybe. You don’t approve?’ 

‘I think you’d be mad to go anywhere near it.’

‘Your misgivings are duly noted, Walter. How are the electronics searches coming on?’

‘’Bout half way through, should be finished tomorrow.’

‘Any success?’

‘Not a lot, a few illegals still to be checked out, but I’m optimistic.’

‘Let’s hope so, but not a bad day, Walter, and now I am on my way home because I am going out later. Bridge night. Do you play bridge?’ though she didn’t give him an opportunity to answer. ‘Three diamonds and all that,’ and she grinned at Walter and stood up and went to the chrome coat stand.

‘I’ve had worse days,’ muttered Walter, as he ambled out of her room. Somehow he managed to resist the idea of grilling Donald Rushnell that night. He’d let him sweat overnight and tackle him in the morning. It would give him time to come up with some killer questions, for he was desperate to implicate Kit Napoleon if he could, for removing him from the streets would solve a few problems.

––––––––

18.50. BRINTON LET HIMSELF into the pep talk room. Grinned down at Jessica and actually winked.

What a wanker! She thought, and then she saw the large scissors in his right hand.

––––––––

18.55. WALTER WAS HOME, courtesy of Carrie the Cab from outside Bestdas, grilling bacon, making toast, singing at the top of his voice, some old Marvin Gaye number that Walter gave his own distinct twist to.

––––––––

18.56. KAREN WAS HOME too. Greg had just arrived bearing not one, but two bottles of wine.

‘I can’t get legless tonight,’ she said, ‘big day tomorrow, have to be up early. Donald Rushnell is being questioned.’

‘I don’t understand why you are questioning him at all. You know Kit has guaranteed to make good any losses.’

‘That’s not the point, Greg. The guy stole a quarter of a million quid.’

‘The money’s there, no one has lost a thing, except Kit. Surely you should be concentrating on something else?’

Karen knew they were concentrating on other things, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

Greg said, ‘Did you speak to Walter about the job offer?’

‘I did.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said I’d be mad to give up my career.’

Greg smiled that big smile she liked so much, and said, ‘Yeah, but wealthy mad.’

‘I’m thinking about it.’

‘Don’t think about it too long or the offer might disappear.’

Karen didn’t answer, just set the liver and onions and mash and gravy down in front of him.

‘Where’s yours?’

‘Not having any, had a big meal at lunchtime, I’ll have this,’ and she produced an apple and a pear.

‘You’re mad. And I wasn’t suggesting you get legless, but a glass of wine with dinner would be nice.’

‘Okay, but just the one, and please get used to the idea that you are not staying tonight,’ and she jumped up and went to the fridge, took out a bottle, and unscrewed the top.

‘Oh, Karen!’ he sulked, like a stroppy teenager. ‘I was really looking forward to...’

‘To what?’ she said, grinning, and sitting down.

‘Well... you know.’

Karen paused for effect and said, ‘I said, Mister Orlando, that you will not be staying the night, I didn’t say that you were barred from getting me excited... before you go,’ and she bit the top off the pear.

‘Oh goody, yum, yum,’ and he shovelled liver and mash down his throat, and chased it with cold chardonnay.

––––––––

18.57. BRINTON SAT IN the chair opposite Jessica and tapped the scissors into the palm of his left hand.

‘I have some big news for you!’

She couldn’t answer, face taped up like a closed letterbox, and that was how he liked his women.

‘Johnny Chinaman’s paid the money,’ and he pointed at her with the scissors and said, ‘and you... are on your bike!’

Jessica nodded, it could hardly be any worse than being locked up with this mental case, or could it?

‘So, I thought,’ Brinton continued, ‘that I’d cut off part of your body, retain as a keepsake, souvenir kind of thing, a little memento of our happy time spent together.’

Jessica stared at him, didn’t make a sound, didn’t move a muscle.

‘What do you think, babe?’

‘Urgh, urgh,’ it was the best she could do.

‘So, all we have to do now is decide which bit. What do you reckon?’

Jessica remained silent.

‘I’ve been thinking about this all day, a little pinky, right? Or maybe an ear, or possibly just the lobe, or something a little more personal, say a nipple, yeah, a nipple would be good.’

––––––––

19.10. WALTER SMOTHERED his toasted bacon sandwiches in brown sauce and demolished them in double quick time. Maybe he should have made more. Perhaps he should have taken his time. They made him belch, but no matter, there was no one there to chide him over his table manners. Though he’d have to watch that, letting standards slip was always a risk for anyone living alone, and he had no desire to enter the kingdom of slobdum.

While he was thinking whether to make seconds, the mobile in his trousers did that tumbling down ringtone.

Pulled it out. Glanced at the screen.

DCS Wortley.

‘Bugger,’ said Walter, and he took the call.

––––––––

19.12. BRINTON SET THE scissors in the centre of the desk and grinned.

‘Maybe not a nipple, you’d look a bit lopsided with one nipple on, and one nipple off. Don’t suppose Johnny Chinaman would be too impressed either. So what I’m going to do is give you a little cuddle, for old time’s sake, another warm memory for you to take away, a little reminder of the fab time we spent together,’ and he went round behind her and cupped his arms around her body and hugged her hard. Jessica didn’t move a muscle. Brinton blew on her hair, kissed her parting and said, ‘And after the cuddle, it’s cutting time.’

––––––––

19.25. WALTER’S CALL with Wortley had mercifully been brief... but disturbing. It ran along the lines of: Because YOU, meaning Walter, had signally failed to locate the key witness in the Barton brothers trial, the case had collapsed, the CPS convinced that it would be a huge trial at public expense, a trial the Crown would ultimately lose. Conclusion: quit while you are ahead. Don’t go there. Don’t spend the money. There would be other, better, opportunities to nail the Barton brothers. With people like that it was only a matter of time before they’d give the police another opportunity to put them away. Everyone knew the Barton brothers would ultimately die in clink; that was a gimme. It was just a matter of time.

The conversation ended with, ‘Looks like the Twelfth Apostle turned out to be nothing more than a stinking Judas.’ Probably the most ludicrous thing anyone had ever said to Walter, though there was one parting comment.

‘Expect to see a Barton brother or two turning up on your turf anytime soon,’ a chilling thought, for Walter was well aware of what those charmers were capable of.

‘Bugger!’ said Walter aloud, after Wortley had gone. He ambled back to the kitchen and dumped the plates in the sink, opened the cupboard and dragged out two cans of stout, squished one open and paused and sipped, and returned to the sitting-room. He intended dreaming up some killer questions for Donald Rushnell, but when he sat down, sipping and swallowing and thinking and fidgeting, all he could think about was an angry Barton brother, or two, turning up on his doorstep, and he didn’t even have a firearm in the house, and while he was considering that unsettling thought, his mind returned to Jessica Stone.

‘Where are you, Jess?’ he said aloud. ‘Where the hell are you?’

––––––––

19.40. WHEN HE’D ENJOYED enough “action” Brinton reluctantly let go of his very own supermodel. Went back round the desk and picked up the scissors. Did a passable Jack Nicholson impression by saying, ‘It’s cutting time!’

––––––––

19.50. KAREN PICKED up Greg’s cleared plate, took it to the sink, washed and dried it, and put it away. She hated anything untidy hanging around, especially dirty dishes. Made it her mission in life to obliterate such things whenever they appeared. She’d make some man a fantastic wife, and Greg Orlando wasn’t the first guy to note that. He was beginning to get ideas, and not just for that evening either.

She returned to the table with two low fat yoghurts and two tiny spoons and slid one across the table.

‘Ta,’ he said, making a real meal of ripping the foil top off.

‘You’ll never guess what,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Mrs West has signed the papers.’

‘What! The Future Growth papers?’

Karen grinned and nodded.

‘No!’

‘Sure has, paid the money and everything.’

‘That’s fantastic, Karen, wait till I tell Kit!’

It isn’t all about Kit, she wanted to say, but for some reason didn’t.

‘The thing is, I’m thinking of tearing up the contracts.’

‘What! Don’t be so stupid! The best person you could ever recruit, and you’re thinking of turning her down? Have you lost your marbles?’

‘She’s my boss, Greg, and if anything goes wrong...’ and she left that thought lying hard in the air.

‘Nothing is going to go wrong! You’ve seen how successful everyone is. Think positively for once! Nothing at all. Think of all the people she could introduce. I can’t believe you’ve landed her, hooked a real big fish there, my God, that is amazing, I’m so proud of you.’

Karen bobbed her head, but the anxiousness would not go away. She opened her yoghurt and took half a teaspoonful.

––––––––

19.59. JUN WOO TRIED to turn over. Couldn’t manage it. Breathed out heavily, wondered what the hell she had got herself into. She was cold, hungry, thirsty, and most alarmingly, pained, all over, and the worst thing was, it was forever getting worse, and she’d guessed she would be there until at least the morning. Still, it could have been worse, she pondered, she could have been enduring what Fenfang Dong was going through, and that thought made her shiver. If nothing else, she had to get out of there for Fenfang’s sake.

––––––––

20.00. IN THE WRENBURY house, Kit Napoleon sat down to dinner opposite his neat wife. Sirloin steak and baked potatoes. In the old days he could only afford sirloin once a month. Now that he could afford it every day, he’d gone off it, though he didn’t say, didn’t want to spoil his wife’s evening.

‘Do you think Karen will accept our offer?’ asked Jennifer.

Kit noted the “our” offer, not “your” offer, but didn’t comment on that, and replied, ‘Maybe. Hope so.’

‘The thing is, Kit, if she says “no”, it might be wise to have a backup candidate.’

That made sense.

‘Did you have anyone in mind?’ he muttered, slicing rare beef.

‘I suppose the two obvious candidates are Donald Rushnell... and Greg Orlando.’

Kit shook his head.

‘Donald’s too weak, he wouldn’t do, and as for Greg...’ and he pulled a face and didn’t answer his own question.

‘We might need someone,’ said Jennifer.

‘Haven’t given up on Karen yet. I can be very persuasive with women when I put my mind to it.’

Jennifer smirked across the table. ‘I know, darling.’ 

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20.02. BRINTON STOOD behind Jessica. Took hold of her right ear. Tugged it out.

The model grunted from behind the pink tape. ‘Urgh! Urgh!’

Brinton laughed.

Hadn’t had so much fun in ages, not since he’d killed that rebellious Yet Kwai girl, the one who fancied herself with a knife. That was a laugh.

––––––––

20.10. MEN ONE AND TWO entered Pryce’s office. Man One was told to sit down. Man Two stood in the doorway.

‘Pay attention! It’s a big day,’ said Pryce.

‘So we believe,’ said Man One, rubbing his hands together.

Man Two bobbed his head, anxious to be seen to be in the loop.

‘Special delivery to Liverpool tonight. Export not import. The supermodel, she’s going out to her new owner. The thing is, she’ll have to be sedated. We can’t have her moaning and groaning her way through the Liverpool docks. Is the gurney ready?’

Man One nodded and said, ‘All set up.’

Pryce thought “good” but didn’t say.

‘Here’s the paperwork,’ and he slid the necessary documentation across the desk. ‘And here’s the payment, substantially more than usual, but that’s only to be expected.’

Man One reeled it in and glanced at the papers.

‘There must be no mistakes. Understand?’

Man One nodded. Pryce glanced at Man Two in the doorway. He nodded too and muttered, ‘Gotcha, boss.’

‘The van ready?’

‘Cleaned, new plates, full o’ fuel,’ said Man One.

Pryce scratched his chin, said, ‘Okay, but stand by, we might need your help securing her to the gurney.’

That should be fun, thought Man Two, and they both bobbed their heads, and Pryce nodded them to the door and away.

––––––––

20.12. BRINTON, STANDING behind his charge, held the scissors before her face, and slowly opened them. Chunky things, 100% precision steel, black handles, silver blades, razor sharp. Jessica’s eyes widened. Brinton cut off her forelock, that short irritating floppy hair that had been bugging him all along, two snips and it was gone.

He walked around to the front of the desk and set the scissors down. Took an envelope from the drawer, and tucked the greasy black strands inside, and rammed the envelope into his trouser pocket. Turned back and grinned at her. Took some biscuits and chocolate and water from the desk and set them on the top.

Returned behind the girl. Grabbed the tape and ripped it roughly from her face.

Jessica grimaced and said a single word, ‘Prick!’

Brinton slapped her across the cheek. Not hard. Not a bruising slap, not one that would even bring colour to her pale face, not one that would render her dizzy, just hard enough to remind her that while she was with him, he was in control, and beneath it all was the veiled threat that if she misbehaved again, she was still at risk.

He turned away and picked up the scissors, clipped her ties away and she was free.

‘You have fifteen minutes,’ he said, ‘to do the necessary,’ and he glanced at the bowl, ‘and then I’ll be back, and I’ll be getting you ready to go on your holidays... beginning with your inoculations,’ and he laughed coldly, stepped toward the door, opened up, went outside, closed and locked the door, glanced at his watch, and leant back on the door.

––––––––

20.19, AND COUNTING.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

At 20.40 Brinton went back in the room and gagged and restrained Jessica Stone. Three minutes later Pryce entered and gazed down on his prize asset, the weird creature that would bring him the power to acquire whatever he desired.

‘Everything all right?’ grunted Pryce.

‘Fine.’

‘Go and get the other guys, and when you have done that, fetch Monica and the titch.’

Brinton nodded and left them to it.

Pryce stared down at Jessica and smiled.

‘You’re off on your travels,’ he said. ‘You have a new master, a new man in your life; he must adore you, paid top dollar. I suspect you’re in for an exciting time.’

Jessica stared at Pryce. Didn’t move a muscle.

Man One entered the room, Man Two just behind, carrying the gleaming gurney.

‘Put it on the desk,’ ordered Pryce.

Jessica sniffed and blew out through her nose.

Inside the assembly plant, Brinton rounded up Monica and Shu. Led them towards the door, paused there while he fixed a dog lead on each of them, opened up, stepped through, closed up, locked up, and tugged them behind him and on into the pep talk room that was full to capacity. Pryce, Brinton, Man One and Two, Monica, Shu, and Jessica.

Monica and Shu stared down at the white woman, strapped and gagged in the chair. Jessica stared back, tried to convey something in her eyes, but she didn’t know what, and the Chinese women looked anxious and confused.

‘Stand in the corner,’ said Pryce to Monica and Shu, and he pointed where he wanted them to go. Brinton released them and they did as they were told. Shu looked scared, as she stared at Monica for comfort.

Pryce glared at Jessica and said, ‘In a moment we are going to free you from the chair and set you on the gurney. You will not be harmed, you have my word on that, but if you struggle, you will be beaten. Understand? Nod your head if you do.’

Everyone stared at Jess. She glared back. Weighed up her options, and there weren’t that many. Jessica nodded.

Pryce nodded too and ordered the guys into position. Pryce and Brinton on the arms, Man One and Two on the feet. Brinton cut the restraints and Jess felt four strong men seize hold of her lanky limbs, and lift her clear of the chair and set her down on the gurney. As easy at that. A moment later and new restraints were in place, and Jess was prone and stuck fast.

‘I’m going for the gear,’ said Pryce, and he left the room and returned to his office. Unlocked the wall cupboard, took out the syringes and drugs, and hurried back to the packed pep talk room. Still the same, two Chinese women cowering in the corner, wondering what was coming next, three fit guys standing about, staring down at one restrained supermodel, and more than one of them thought of how valuable photos of that scene would be worth to worldwide tabloid newspapers and scandal sheets, for Jessica was a known face in almost every country. More than their lives were worth, though, and they all knew it.

‘Hold this,’ said Pryce to Man One, handing him the bag of drugs and syringes.

Pryce nodded Brinton to the feet end of the gurney and they eased her across to the far edge of the desk, leaving a vacant area of maybe ten inches of desktop on the near side. Pryce grabbed the drug bag and opened it, took out the contents, and set them neatly on the desk, close to Jessica’s face and eyes.

‘Roll up her sleeve,’ said Pryce, and Brinton did as he was told. Jessica shook her head. Brinton grinned down at her. Pryce smiled at Jessica and said, ‘You have nothing to worry about. It’s a mild sedative, keep you calm on your long journey. I am hardly likely to injure my prize asset, am I?’

That at least made sense.

‘Lie back and enjoy it,’ said Brinton, that sickly grin back on his stubbly face.

‘You two!’ said Pryce, glaring at the Chinese. ‘Over here!’

They ambled reluctantly to his side. He stared at Monica and Shu in turn and said to Monica, ‘Tell her to inject the English woman in the arm, 20mg/4ml. Tell her!’

Monica rattled off the Chinese translation. Shu shook her head. Brinton stepped in and slapped her, harder than he’d slapped Jessica earlier, much harder, the sound echoing around the Spartan room. Monica glared at Brinton and he almost slapped her too. Shu’s head had been knocked to one side. It slowly came back to the upright, her hand rubbing her face, her lips trembling, and tears not far away.

‘I’ll tell you one more time,’ Pryce said to Monica. ‘Tell the little slut to inject the white woman, as I’ve instructed. If she doesn’t do as she’s told I will inject her,’ glaring at Shu, ‘In the eye! Tell her!!’

Monica rattled off the translation, something of a pleading tone in her voice.

Shu stared round the room at each of them in turn and hurried to Jess’s side. Picked up the first of the two 10 mg ampoules of midazolam hydrochloride, fitted a fresh needle on the syringe, broke the head off the ampoule, slid the needle in, pulled back the plunger, fully loaded, wiped Jessica’s arm, said something in Chinese that came across as: Sorry, but I’ve got no choice, but it could have been anything, and gently slipped the needle into the upper arm, pressed the plunger and delivered the cargo.

Jessica jumped and blew out hard through the nose.

‘Again!’ ordered Pryce, and Monica unnecessarily translated, and the whole process was repeated.

Jess fought the oncoming tide of drowsiness, but the false ceiling and striplight were already hazy, and Brinton’s ugly grinning face was getting hazy too, moving from side to side, and that might have been a bonus, as her breathing slowed, and her eyelids fluttered and closed, and she looked at peace.

‘Show’s over!’ said Pryce. ‘Take the dogs back to the kennel,’ and Brinton grabbed the leads and jerked Monica and Shu from the room, and back into the assembly plant. Removed the leads, placed them in the box for next time, and ordered them back to work.

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PRYCE GLANCED AT HIS watch. 21.35. Too early yet to load up the van. ‘Go and get yourselves a coffee and something to eat. No alcohol,’ he said to Men One and Two. ‘We’ll load up the van at eleven. Make sure you are back by then.’

‘Sure, boss,’ said Man One.

‘Yeah,’ said Man Two, and they left the room.

Pryce stared at Brinton.

Brinton gawped back and said, ‘What’s that drug again?’

‘Midazolam hydrochloride.’

‘Where d’ya get it?’

‘Remember when my aunt died a couple of months back? Cleared out her bungalow. The place was stacked with drugs - waste not, want not. Funny thing is, it says not to be given to the over sixties, and she was eighty-eight!’

‘Seemed to do the trick.’

‘Oh aye, it will.’

‘What do you want to do now?’ asked Brinton.

‘We wait, till eleven, and then we get her moving.’

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22.15. IN THE WRENBURY mini mansion, Jennifer said, ‘Do you fancy an early night?’ and in the way she said it, Kit knew what she meant. They seemed to be taking more “early nights” than usual, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Early nights with Mrs Napoleon were always to be looked forward to, though in truth he didn’t fancy one that night. But there again, never look a gift horse... and all that.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘if you like.’

She’d have preferred a more enthusiastic reply, but no matter.

‘I’ll go and get ready,’ and she smiled and left the room.

22.20. In the Greenwood flat twenty miles away, they were just getting up and dressed. Ten minutes later she saw Greg out with an embrace in the hallway.

‘Sign her up straight away,’ insisted Greg. ‘Don’t muck about, don’t miss the chance!’

‘We’ll see,’ she said, kissing him quickly one last time, and then he was gone.

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22.30. ALL WAS SILENT in Walter’s house. He was sitting in the dark in the front room, thinking, hunched down in his favourite armchair, the curtains half open, watching the path, the front gate, and the quiet road. An occasional vehicle ticked by, an occasional dog walker; an occasional couple returning from the pub, an occasional brace of teenagers arm-in-arm, wondering if they were going to get lucky, and land a snog.

He found himself thinking of Joan West and wondered how her bridge night had gone. Maybe he should take up bridge. He could play the game, but didn’t see it as an all important social night out. Crikes, some of those bridge players treated it so damned seriously, bought text books, did homework, studied the masters, became obsessed, almost as bad as golfers pursuing a low handicap. Didn’t they have anything better to do? He mused. Probably not.

He thought of a previous time he had hunkered down in that same way, waiting, watching, and it was the night he first met Jessica Stone, and the ill-fated Stevie Cliffe. The difference was that time he knew someone was coming. This time he only thought it an outside possibility. He still hadn’t decided whether he would go to bed at all.

The moon appeared and shone through the dirty glass, the moonbeams playing on the hole in the carpet in the centre of the room. He remembered he must do something about that. He’d had the money ages, just been a bit busy. Another ten minutes, and he’d get up and close the curtains, curse the spirits, double lock both doors, and slip off to bed.

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22.59. PRYCE GLANCED at his watch. Yelled, ‘Brinton!’ and Brinton came running. ‘Get the boys started,’ and Brinton went off to get the van in situ and the people carrier doors open.

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TEN MINUTES LATER AND all four guys were staring down at Jessica. She was sleeping like an infant and looked quite different.

Pryce said, ‘Have you cut her hair?’

Brinton looked uncomfortable. Said, ‘Just the forelock, it was annoying me.’

‘Sad bastard! What did you do with it?’

‘Threw it away.’

Man One and Two shared a look.

They all knew Brinton was a bit weird.

Pryce shook his head and whispered, ‘Remove the plaster.’

‘Are you sure about that, boss?’ asked Man One. ‘It wouldn’t do if she woke up and started screaming just as we were going through security.’

‘That’s not going to happen, she’ll be out like a light for hours.’

Brinton moved closer and for once, gently removed the pink plaster.

Pryce nodded his approval and said, ‘Take a corner each,’ and in the next moment Jessica Stone, supermodel with the irritating hair, now slightly less irritating, was lifted and turned and taken out of the pep talk room, a room she would never see again, out into the inner hallway, through the doors that led to the corridor where Pryce and Brinton’s offices lay, past them, and the stationery room, and accounts, the boardroom, and reception, and on through the main doors and outside into the crisp night. No one about, not a sound other than a distant budget holiday jet, plying its way in to John Lennon airport in Liverpool, on the far side of the wide and dark Mersey river.

The rear seats in the people carrier had been removed.

The back door was wide open, and the gurney slid easily in and fitted well, Man One had tested that earlier. The tailgate was closed with a gentle clunk. Man Two was told to stand guard over their precious cargo, as the others retreated inside for a final briefing.

‘Stop a quarter of a mile from the Freeport,’ Pryce said. ‘Cover her completely, but loosely with the blanket. It won’t be for long, it doesn’t matter if her face is covered. She mustn’t be seen, she mustn’t be recognised. We don’t want errant former lovers coming to our door. Understand?’

It was nothing that Man One hadn’t heard a hundred times before, but he nodded and said, ‘Sure boss,’ because he wanted to be away, and on the road and completing the job as soon as possible.

Pryce went through the paperwork again, over and over the same ground, here’s the money you know what to do, et cetera, blah blah blah, it was all Man One could do to stop himself yawning, but he managed, and finally, after much faffing around and unnecessary revision, Pryce and Brinton appeared satisfied.

Man One glanced at the clock. 23.49.

Pryce had one final parting comment.

‘If you have any problems, you ring me, understand?’

‘Sure, boss.’

All three of them trooped outside into the late night autumnal air, dew forming on the windscreen, and even then Pryce insisted on the back door being opened, and all four of them looking in at the woman one last time, as if paying their respects, as if she were some ancient Egyptian Goddess, about to cross into the underworld.

Men One and Two both thought that more than a little weird.

Pryce said, ‘On your way!’ and Man One jumped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, flashed the wipers to sweep way the dew, buzzed down the window and said, ‘No sweat!’ and the people carrier pulled gently away and out of Minstrel Electronics car park. Pryce and Brinton watched it heading down toward the M53, and northbound for the Mersey Tunnel, under the murky and cold river, to Liverpool beyond.

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LIGHT TRAFFIC ALL THE way, through the tunnel, cut back to the dock road, headed due north, and about half a mile before the Freeport, Man One pulled the vehicle to a stop beneath the orange sodium light.

‘Cover her face,’ ordered Man One.

Man Two stretched behind but couldn’t quite reach, had to get out on the pavement, did so in an irritated manner, opened the side door, pulled the blanket up over her face, shook it and ruffled it up and down, disguising the outline of a sleeping human figure beneath. It could have been anything. A piece of machinery, an old carpet or linoleum, flat pack furniture, even a large gun, but no, it was a living, breathing, piece of human flesh, and a famous slab of flesh, at that, and yet that meant nothing to them.

Man Two closed up and jumped back in the cab and slammed the door.

Man One glanced behind, everything appeared in order, started the engine, glanced in the mirrors, over his right shoulder, nothing coming, pulled gently away, for it wouldn’t do to attract unnecessary attention at that hour. Everyone knew the rozzers would show an interest in suspicious characters bussing weird equipment around the city late at night, potential burglars shifting gear, but there were no cops about. Minutes later they were queuing to gain entry to the Freeport, second in line, acting like good hardworking boys, slaving late into the night to please their bosses, and fatten their wage packet.

The guy on security glanced at their papers, grinned to himself; let the banknotes fall into his lap, leant over, tried to see through the blackened windows, tried to see what was so important that brought him such a beefy payday. Couldn’t see a thing, muffled shapes in the darkness, it could have been anything.

Man One glared at the guy and said, ‘Okay?’

‘Yep! Same on the way out,’ and the red and white striped bar lifted into the sky as if in welcome, and the vehicle purred through.

‘I don’t like him,’ said Man One.

‘I don’t think even his wife likes him,’ said Man Two. ‘I’d like to shoot him in the face.’

‘Possibly not today,’ said Man One, and they both laughed at the thought, and swung the vehicle around until it was parked adjacent to the State of Divine Providence, a replica of the Heavenly Peace, like twins.

They peered at the gangplank and up at the side of the ship, and were pleased to see they were expected. Two wiry guys hurried down the gangplank and approached the people carrier. Man One opened the door and got out. Man Two followed. Glanced around the quayside. Nothing, and no one up close. That was all good. A few mismatched marked transport vehicles on the jetty, going about their lawful business, no obvious police, no dock police either, though those marked transport vehicles could have been dummies housing observation teams, busy on their radios and phones, keeping their superiors updated. But how were they to know that? Sometimes in life you had to take a risk. It was trying to rain, just a few spits in the wind, and Man One wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

One of the Chinamen said: ‘Delivery for China?’

One short sentence; came out almost as one word. 

‘Deliveryforchina?’

Man One said, ‘Yep.’

Man Two nodded and went to the rear of the vehicle, and opened up and pulled off the blanket. The other three followed and stared and squinted into the dark interior. Man Two began pulling the gurney from the vehicle, the others still watching.

‘Give me a hand, for God’s sake!’ he said, and the others joined in, and lifted the gurney clear of the van. Man One stared down at the girl. She was sleeping peacefully still, blissfully unaware of where she was and what was happening. He could hear her slow and solid breathing in the still night air, they all could.

‘You help lift on ship,’ said the speaking Chinaman.

That wasn’t part of the deal, thought Man One, but what was the alternative? Leave her on the quayside until a dock Bobby came along and asked what the hell was going on? Maybe not. Men One and Two grabbed the head end, the China guys on the feet. Carried her hastily up the gangplank. Reached the top, went through the first open doorway, carefully standing over the raised sill, into the ship. Strange smells, engine oil and cooking oil and disinfectant, and aromas of working men that are pretty much the same the world over, and God knows what else besides. They set the gurney on the floor.

It would have to go down several decks, almost vertically, back to a matching ten by ten tin tomb, where people rarely ventured, yet the Chinamen didn’t want the Brits anywhere deeper into the ship, didn’t want capitalist foreigners knowing their precious secrets. They would deal with that. They had the highly prized goods and wanted the messenger boys off the ship. One of the Chinese guys pulled a docket from his pocket.

‘You sign!’ he said.

Another pointless piece of bureaucracy, thought Man Two, and he grabbed the document and scribbled Fat Twat Matt at the foot of the page, and the guy seemed happy with that, and rammed it back in his jeans.

‘You go!’ said one of the Chinamen, pointing away toward the gangplank, and Man Two was happy enough to turn away. Man One glanced down one last time at the girl. It was tough on her, he thought. God knows what lay in store for her, but shit, life was tough for everyone sometimes. At least she was still alive. He went outside and was happy to gulp fresh air, and by the time he reached the gangplank, Man Two was already jumping off the bottom end, back onto the quay.

Back in the van, Man One’s mobile rang.

‘Yeah?’

‘Well?’ said Pryce.

‘Delivered the goods.’

‘Any probs?’

‘No, none at all, just on our way out now.’

‘Good! See you in the morning.’ 

Chapter Seventy

First thing in the morning, and all the investigating team were called together. Walter gave them a gee up, said progress was being made, though Donald Rushnell being in custody was hardly down to anything they had done.

Five minutes later, and he sent them out across the city and surrounding hinterland, checking on electronics businesses, looking for a lead that would take them to the killers of Yet Kwai Dang. Before they went, Walter reminded them of the collapsed Barton brothers trial, warned them that it was possible one or more of those charming chappies could appear on their patch, issued up-to-date photographs, and reminded them that the Barton brothers were known to be dangerous. Walter’s last words stayed with many of them for most of the day: Stay alert, and watch your backs!

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LIGHT TRAVELS AT 186,000 miles per second, so they say, and sunrays can penetrate thirty metres below the surface of the ocean. Jun Woo had been awake for several hours. She had tried to pass the time sleeping, but the cold and pain in her joints had woken her. She had made it through the night, and surely she would soon be on the move, yet still no light had penetrated into the dispatch bay, and no light had made its way into the box where she lay scrunched up like a ball of screwed-up newspaper.

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PRYCE ARRIVED AT MINSTREL at five minutes to nine. Swept through reception and down the corridor, into his office, whipped off his coat, slapped it on the stand, yelled, ‘Brinton!’

The guy arrived in the doorway thirty seconds later.

‘Yeah?’

‘Wagons? Goods? Dispatched? What?’

Brinton pulled a confused and unhappy face. Said, ‘Just spoken to them, said it would be here within the hour.’

‘Bloody well better be!’

‘Did Jessica get away okay?’ asked Brinton.

Pryce nodded. ‘Out of our lives forever. We’ll never see her again.’

Brinton sniffed. He’d miss her.

‘Do you need more units?’

Brinton perked up; he could always handle a few extra bodies.

‘Sure! Whatcha got?’

‘Nothing yet, but I’m bidding on ten more.’

Ten, thought Brinton; that was more than usual, though on past performance they’d probably keep half and sell off the prettier ones. Said, ‘Whatever. I’m off to do the roll call.’

Pryce nodded and opened his diary and booted up his computer.

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9.10. DONALD RUSHNELL was brought to interview room four. Walter and Karen were there, eager to get started. Formalities over, Walter asked, ‘Did Kit Napoleon put you up to stealing the money?’

It sure took Donald aback, judging by the look on his face, and it took Karen aback too.

Donald exhaled in a rush and said, ‘Course not!’

‘Well you’d better tell us all about it, chapter and verse, or mark my words, Donald Rushnell, you will be going away to spend intimate time with nasty men for a very long time.’

Donald looked anxious and began talking.

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9.35. THE MERCEDES Tautliner truck rumbled into Minstrel Electronics car park and headed for the dispatch bay. The driver knew where to go, he’d been there several times before, and was on nodding terms with Men One and Two.

The transport company preferred curtain-sided Tautliner rigid trucks, highest strength to weight ratio on the road, though they probably didn’t know they had been invented in Cheshire, not many miles from Minstrel, in the early 80s.

As the truck nudged closer to the dispatch bay, the roller shutter doors began opening with a metallic bang and crunch, as they made their way up toward the lintel.

Man One came out of the building and grinned at the driver. The guy jumped down and exchanged words and dockets and shoulder shrugs, that somehow explained away the day’s delay. All seemed in order, and Man One jumped on the yellow forklift, and sniffed and turned on the engine, and turned about and ran inside, and slid the forks under the nearest pallet, lifted it as if it were nothing, turned about, went outside, closed on the lorry, and set it gently down as close to the cab as possible.

Still in the dispatch bay, still in the box, still on the pallet, Jun Woo heard the doors opening, saw light at last, heard men talking, though she couldn’t make out what they were saying, heard the forklift approaching, imagined it lifting up a pallet, and pictured in her head the wonderful thought that she would soon be moving, and out of there, and free.

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9.36. BRINTON ENTERED the Assembly shop armed with his clipboard, intent on completing a quick daily roll call.

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9.37. A NEAT MIDDLE-aged guy in a neat middle-aged Mercedes saloon drove past outside and pulled the car to a standstill. Buzzed down the window. Glanced through the open glass and through the railings, and stared up at the silver sign. Minstrel Electronics. To the left of the building a lorry was backed in against the Goods Out department. A yellow forklift was busy loading completed product. Looked like a profitable business. Looked like they were having a busy day.

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9.38. IN THE COPSHOP Donald couldn’t stop talking. Told them how he came across an early leaflet, one of the very first, as it turned out, for the Future Growth group. Decided he wanted in. Decided it was his route out of boredom, dissatisfaction, and drudgery. Lay awake all night figuring out how he could find the cash to invest in Future Growth, came up with a plan in the wee small hours, couldn’t sleep at all, a plan that looked all the better in the cold light of day, as he was sitting at his desk being told what to do by dullards and fools. 

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9.39. BRINTON HEADED for the accommodation block and the off-shifters. He would always start there when doing his daily roll call. Some were sleeping, some watching daytime TV, some programme on women’s issues. He stifled a laugh. Some were making extra food, others reading well-read English magazines, a good way to improve their shaky language skills, they thought. Some were standing around talking in that high-pitched shrieky language he hated so.

‘Stand still, you ignorant toe-rags!’ he yelled, as he counted and noted, and counted and ticked. 

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9.40. THE FORKLIFT truck scooped up another pallet, Jun Woo ensconced inside. The feeling of sudden movement was a weird sensation inside that small box, inside that heavy pallet load, as it was lifted, turned, moved forward, raised again and set down, presumably on the surface of a truck.

‘At last,’ she said in her head. ‘Soon I will be free, and so will all the rest,’ and she wondered how Fenfang was doing.

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9.45. THE NEAT MIDDLE-aged man sitting in the car glanced at himself in the mirror. Brushed his hair down with his palm. Always look smart, that was what his mother used to say, and mothers are always right about everything. It was time to move.

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9.46. BRINTON HEADED for the assembly area. Shu saw him coming. Guessed what he was about, pen in hand, clipboard in the other. She was at one end of a very long workbench.

‘Keep working!’ yelled Brinton, as he began the count, starting with the titch. ‘There’s no reason to stop!’

Shu saw that he was past her. She slipped off her stool and bent down and scurried along the full length of the bench on the far side from where Brinton was counting. Reached the far end. Pushed a box toward the bench where Jun Woo should have been. Stood high on the box, giving her added height, no longer a titch, looked away so he couldn’t see her face.

Brinton was counting big numbers, not looking at faces, glancing at bodies, and this was a body count. You can’t have a face without a body. Finished the count of assembly worker on-shifters, totalled them up, double-checked, looked at the off-shifters, added the two together. Final answer: 152 units, Orientals to a woman, all accounted for, and working, what else would it be? Minus one special unit from the last count, sold off and paid for and absent, and probably on the high seas and heading across the world to China, and her new master who couldn’t wait to be introduced.

Shu scurried back in the opposite direction, and as Brinton came past her on his way out and back to the offices, she was there in her original place, hard at work, and her work was improving, Brinton remembered thinking, if Monica was to be believed. Maybe little Shu might soon take the place of the departed Jessica, he pondered, as he opened up and left the assembly plant, and that was an interesting thought.

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9.47. JUN WOO HEARD and felt another pallet being placed on the truck next to hers. It was pushed up tight against her to ensure they loaded as many as the wagon could take. She wanted to yell; Hurry up! But didn’t. She wanted to move. She wanted to stretch, She wanted to urinate. She wanted to rub her limbs, and she wondered if she would be able to stand at all once she was out of that confined space. Not long now, she consoled herself. Dig in. Hang on. Nearly there. 

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9.50. BRINTON STUCK his head into Pryce’s office. Said, ‘152 Orientals, all present and correct, one special unit, absent, presumed otherwise occupied,’ and he smirked down at Pryce.

Pryce glanced away from his screen full of villas in Barbados. One had to check out all available options before making an important decision.

He bobbed his head and said, ‘And the wagon?’

‘Here now. Being loaded. Should be away in twenty minutes.’

‘Not before time.’

Brinton thought of moving away but Pryce said, ‘Come in, sit down, take a look at this. What do you think?’ and Brinton went inside and Pryce showed him an unbelievable property in the Caribbean.

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9.52. THE NEAT MIDDLE-aged man stood out of the car. Opened the back door. Took out his photo ID fixed on a long plastic ribbon, carefully placed it over his head so the photo was in front of his royal blue tie, beaming out at the world. Went back in the car, took out a black rectangular leather case. Closed the car door. Bleeped it locked. Turned around and headed toward the gates, and the car park beyond, and the main entrance ahead that led into the business known as Minstrel Electronics. 

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9.55. DONALD RUSHNELL held his hand up. Pleaded guilty to everything. Admitted sending his parents one package jammed with cash. Suggested the whole thing had come about through stress, the stress of a dead-end job, the stress of seeing his parents getting old before his eyes, the stress of seeing them struggle financially, yet they would never admit to such a thing, and the stress of losing his girlfriend from down the lane, though she had never been that.

Excuses! Thought Walter, for that was what they were, and everyone always has excuses for any mistakes and wrongdoings any of us ever does. Donald still didn’t know Kit’s solicitor had confirmed in writing they would make good any losses, and Walter wasn’t in any hurry to tell him. Still wasn’t sure it was relevant. Donald had committed a serious crime and had confessed. He was, at that precise moment, writing a detailed statement to confirm events, and when he had finished, he would sign and date it, and once a written statement was made, you could never take it back.

Donald said he was setting matters straight, getting things off his chest, and Walter was still hopeful of ensnaring Kit Napoleon into a conspiracy of money theft through fraud, but hadn’t yet figured out where and when and how.

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9.56. THE NEAT MIDDLE-aged man pulled opened the front door and stepped inside. A nondescript reception area, three uncomfortable looking armless chairs, presumably for visitors, no silly musak playing in the background, no pretty dolly girls sitting behind the counter, no aquariums and multi-coloured fishes swimming round and round and looking twee, as you see in some reception areas, no hustle bustle, no people coming and going, no tea trolley looking for customers, no printers printing, or phones ringing, no public address system making health and safety announcements, no sound at all except the hum of distant machinery, or air conditioning or heating systems.

To the right was a small counter area, and standing behind the counter was a tidy young bloke. The middle-aged man closed on the young man and smiled, and said in his soft southern accent, ‘Factory Inspection,’ and he took hold of the photo ID that dangled from his neck, and held it out in front for the young guy to see.

Health and Safety Executive. Factory Inspector. John Cowling, BSc, and there was a small laminated colour photograph, headshot, of the guy standing at the counter, looking smug, and definitely him.

‘Just a minute,’ said the young guy. ‘I’ll tell Mr Pryce you are here,’ and he rang the internal phone. The factory inspector imagined he could hear a phone ringing somewhere down the corridor in an office not far away. The phone stopped ringing, presumably because it had been answered. There was a short awkward silence, as if the visit was more than a little inconvenient. 

Chapter Seventy-One

9.57. Pryce listened carefully and didn’t like what he heard. Brinton picked up the mood of alarm and looked worried. Pryce whispered, ‘Keep him there. Stall him. Say I am in a meeting, and I’ll be free in thirty minutes,’ and rang off.

Turned to Brinton. ‘The bloody factory inspector is here!’

‘What!’

‘You heard!’

‘I thought you said you paid him off?’

‘Of course I paid him off!’

Pryce stood up and went to the door and closed it and returned to his seat.

‘Is there anything he shouldn’t see?’ asked Brinton.

‘Oh no, nothing at all! Just a hundred and fifty Oriental women who can’t go home nights, quite a few of whom are sporting black eyes, if I know you, working twelve-hour shifts round the clock for next to no money, every one of them an illegal immigrant, and at twenty grand a pop fine for employing such people! That’s all good then! Work that out!’

‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking, maybe the guy wants another pay-off?’

‘Mmm. That sounds more like it, and right now he can have whatever he wants, so long as he buggers off and leaves us alone.’

Pryce jumped up and went to the safe. Punched in the security number, yanked the door open, pulled out a grand, went to close the door, but dived back in for another grand, just in case, returned to the desk, slipped the cash in the drawer and sat down.

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10.05. THE NEAT FACTORY inspector was sitting in one of the chairs that was as uncomfortable as it looked. Glanced at his watch. Shouted over at the young guy, ‘If someone doesn’t come to see me within five minutes, I shall start my inspection unaccompanied, as I am entitled to do.’

The young guy nodded and jumped back on the phone.

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10.07. PRYCE SAID TO Brinton, ‘Go and see the guy, check him out, bring him down to see me. Leave us to it... but stay handy.’

Brinton nodded and stood up and went outside, and turned left for the reception area. Pryce cleared pictures of exotic villas from the screen and flashed up a meaningless spreadsheet.

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10.08. THE LOADING OF the lorry had been completed. Men One and Two were standing about gabbing to the driver, exchanging cigarettes, muttering about the traffic on the M6, and the ultra-hot receptionist on the transport company enquiry desk back in Ely. Jun Woo could hear them talking, even picked up the odd sentence here and there. Heard the word “Ely”, though that meant nothing to her, but it was filed away in her mind.

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10.09. BRINTON INTRODUCED himself to the factory inspector. Asked to see his ID. It all looked kosher, but these days with laser printers and laminating machines and God knows what else available, anyone could knock up passable IDs and references in ten minutes flat.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Mr Pryce will see you now. Follow me,’ and Brinton set off down the corridor with one inquisitive factory inspector behind, bouncing along in tow.

Pryce stood as the inspector was shown into his office. Beckoned to the chair. The neat well-dressed guy tried a smile and sat down, his case on his knee. Pryce shared a look with Brinton, and he left the office.

‘So what’s this all about?’ said Pryce, sitting back in his chair.

‘Factory inspection, you’re long overdue,’ and the visitor clicked open his case. Pryce strained to see inside, but could not.

‘We made a special arrangement about this.’

‘A special arrangement?’

‘Yes... you know,’ and Pryce opened his drawer, an act that seemed to alarm the visitor.

‘I know nothing of any special arrangement.’

Pryce grinned. Imagined he was making progress. Slipped a grand from the drawer, new notes, twenties, fifty of them, neatly banded, set them on the desk, didn’t push them across towards the visitor, just set them to one side, tantalisingly so, Pryce thought, as his mouth went dry.

The inspector glanced at the cash. Scratched his neck. Didn’t seem that impressed. Pryce retreated to the drawer. Drew out another wad. Set that on top of the first.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the arrangement was that we would pay a small fine as we are not quite ready for your visit. You know how it is, should be ready for you around Christmas. Be all shipshape and Bristol fashion by then.’

The inspector looked cool about that. Set his left elbow on the edge of the desk. His left hand clasped his chin and rubbed it as if concerned he hadn’t shaved well, his right hand now inside the case.

Removed the hand from his chin, smiled and said, ‘Let me be honest with you...’ and he let that thought float in the air.

‘Yes?’ said Pryce. 

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10.20. WALTER TOOK A call from Jenny. It seemed she and Jan were at some electronics company where they were housing and employing numerous young Oriental women. Many of them couldn’t speak English, and some of them looked distinctly unhappy. What made Jenny more suspicious was the answers the management gave had been evasive, and Jan thought Walter should know about it.

‘Where is this?’ asked Walter, sitting up and looking interested.

Karen was already paying attention. She could always tell when he was switched on about something.

‘Saighton,’ said Jenny. ‘A company called Cambrian Electronics,’ and she relayed the address.

‘We’ll come down and join you,’ said Walter. ‘Be with you in twenty minutes.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘Ask them to produce all their work permits and documentation, stall them, ask lots of questions, take your time over everything until we get there.’

‘Got you, Guv. See you soon.’

He turned to Karen. ‘Progress, methinks!’ said Walter. ‘Put up Cambrian Electronics website on the screen, let’s see what sort of firm we are dealing with,’ and as she did that, Walter’s phone rang again.

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10.30. THE FACTORY INSPECTOR ignored the fresh cash and grinned across at Pryce and said, ‘I have a small confession to make.’

‘Oh?’

‘I am not a factory inspector.’

‘Then who the hell are you?’

The neat southern guy took his hand from the briefcase and pointed a shiny steel revolver at Pryce’s face.

‘What the...’

‘Don’t call for help or it will be the last words you ever utter.’

‘So who are you?’

‘All in good time.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m disappointed in you, Pryce, thought you might have recognised me.’

Pryce took another look at the southern guy’s face.

Recognition at last. 

‘Ricky Barton?’

Ricky smiled, always liked to be noticed, always wanted to be famous.

‘The thing is, Pryce, word on the street says that you have something of mine, and I want it back. No one is going to get hurt, just so long as I retrieve what belongs to me.’

‘Ah.’

‘What do you mean, bloody “ah”?’

‘I assume we are talking about one rather strange supermodel?’

Ricky nodded. ‘Where is she, Pryce?’

‘I don’t possess her anymore, sold on.’

‘What! Where to? Who to?’

‘Gone abroad.’

‘You’d better be joking! Where abroad?’

‘China.’

‘What?!!’ 

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10.32. WALTER WAS TRYING to do five things at once. Do up his shoes. Answer the phone. Look at Cambrian Electronics website. Grab his raincoat. Get out of the office. It was Gibbons, on the phone.

‘I’ve been speaking to Jen. She says they might have found something.’

‘Maybe, we’re going down there now if I can get off the bloody phone.’

‘Sorry, Guv.’

‘Where are you, anyway?’

‘We’ve just done MEC Components, clean as a whistle, and then we’re on to Medial Electric, and then we’ve only one more to do,’ and he glanced back at his sheet. ‘Minstrel Electronics, and we’re finished.’

‘Okay. See you back at the office later.’

‘Good luck, Guv.’

‘Cheers.’

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10.35. RICKY BARTON waggled the gun at Pryce’s face and said, ‘You’d better be joking! Is she here?’

‘Course she’s not here. I told you. I sold her. She was a weirdo anyway. You’re better off without her.’

Ricky sat back in his chair, paused awhile, muttered, ‘But I love her.’

Pryce grimaced. What a saddo, a total weakling. Said, ‘Look, I can fix you up with any number of tarts, girls you will never forget. Jessica Stone isn’t the be-all and end-all. I can even slip you a decent whack of compensation. A hundred grand, how does that sound?’

Ricky stood up. Let the briefcase fall to the floor.

Pointed the gun at Pryce’s heart.

‘Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you have sold the woman I love to some bellend in China, and you’re offering to throw me a bit of cash to get over it?’

Pryce said the last thing he’d ever say. ‘You’ll soon forget her, Ricky. Sure you will. Trust me on this.’

Ricky didn’t want to forget her. How could he? The days and nights he had spent with Jessica Stone were the happiest minutes and hours and days and weeks of his entire life, and he was desperate for more of the same. That was the whole point. That was why he was there.

Jess was the best thing that had ever happened to him, nothing had ever come close, and without her he was nothing, and this guy was telling him he’d sold her to some jerk on the other side of the world for a few quid. Not good enough. Simply not good enough. Squeezed the trigger. What else could he do? The gun did what guns do. Made a deafening noise. Blew smoke into the office. Expelled a slug of hot metal. Zipped the eight feet across the office. Zapped into Pryce’s chest. Thwack! Spiralled around Pryce’s heart. Killed him. Stone dead. Record time. Easy as that. The gun did what guns do. Kill. Kill people. Killed Mr Pryce. In an instant. All over in a puff of smoke.

Brinton heard the shot. Jumped out of his seat. Grabbed the Glock 17, the weapon his men had brought back from a previous oppo. Ran outside, peered into Pryce’s office. Pryce was there, in his chair, inert and bloody and dead. Ricky Barton glanced back over his shoulder. Saw Brinton coming and fired one shot. It went over the angle of Brinton’s shoulder and neck, missed his earlobe by millimetres. Brinton panicked and fired back. Single shot. It only needed one. Thudded into Ricky’s neck just above the Adam’s apple. Severed the common carotid artery. Death followed fast. Humans don’t survive a wound like that, not without urgent, immediate, and capable medical attention.

The young guy from reception also heard the shots. Came running. Glanced into the office. Pryce, the boss, was dead in his chair. The factory inspector dead on the floor. Brinton standing there, smoking gun in hand. Blood everywhere. What a mess! What the hell was going on? The guy was only there to inspect the damned factory!

Brinton slipped the gun into his trouser pocket. Closed on the young guy. Said, ‘Listen to me! Go and lock the front doors!’

The young guy looked shocked, as if he couldn’t comprehend what was being said. Brinton raised his hands and slapped the kid’s cheeks. Repeated himself, ‘Go and lock the front doors, and when you have done that, find the two guys in dispatch and bring them here. Urgent! Understand? Quick, quick, quick, away!’

The young guy re-focused his eyes on Brinton and nodded.

‘Good boy,’ said Brinton, and the young guy fled the room.

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10.40. THE LORRY DRIVER said, ‘See ya again,’ and jumped in the cab and started the engine. Jun Woo heard him say it, heard the engine fire, and felt the vehicle vibrate and start to move. It really was about to happen. The truck rumbled out of the car park and headed down to join the motorway network. It was fast motorway, traffic permitting, all the way home, and he was a quick driver, too quick sometimes. Once on the highway, there would be no stopping. He couldn’t wait to get home, for he fancied his chances with the hot piece on reception. His phone rang, the new hands-free kit. Damn!

‘Yeah?’

Inside the loaded pallet, Jun Woo was already at work. Retrieved the sharpened screwdriver. Began cutting her way out. The Tautliner was moving down hill, approaching the motorway junction. Another two minutes and it would be on the network. Once there, unstoppable for four hours, minimum. No way of getting off that. 

Chapter Seventy-Two 

10.50 Men One and Two entered Pryce’s office.

Didn’t believe what they saw.

‘What the hell?’ said Man One.

‘We need to get them out of here, and we need to get them out now!’ said Brinton.

‘Where to?’

‘Formby.’

‘Why Formby?’

‘Sandhills. Loads of them. Bigguns too. Easy to dig, easy to bury.’

‘Seems like a plan,’ said Man Two. ‘What’s in it for us?’

‘Big bonus,’ said Brinton. ‘I’m in charge of the purse strings now.’

Brinton looked at the young kid and said, ‘Go and get two of the smaller tarpaulins from the assembly shop,’ and Brinton handed him some keys.

The young bloke nodded and ran outside, glad to be away from the bloody carnage.

Brinton looked at Man Two and said, ‘Bring the people carrier round to the front door. We’ll put them in that. The front door key’s at reception.’

Man Two nodded and left the room.

‘Who is he?’ asked Man One, glancing down at the dead guy on the floor.

‘Ricky Barton. He was looking for Jessica Stone. We need to get rid.’

‘What about the bloody carpet?’

‘That’ll have to go. We’ll take it up as soon as the bodies are out of the way.’

Man One nodded. It was a big job. The kid came back with two small tarpaulins and laid one out on the floor. It was big enough. Gave Brinton the keys. Brinton slipped them in his trousers and took Ricky’s gun and rammed that in his other pocket. He and Man One and the kid lifted and dumped a very dead Ricky on to the tarpaulin, rolled it up, sealed the ends with brown tape. Job done. Good to go.

Man Two came back and helped Man One carry the body out to the van. Brinton went through Pryce’s pockets, removed his wallet, phone, pen, and small change, and the kid helped him place the body onto the tarp. Man One and Two were back, ready for more, and heaved the package away. Brinton and the kid moved the furniture to one side of the room, rolled up the carpet, lifted the furniture over the roll, completed the rolling, bound it with brown tape, and it was good to go. Brinton dusted his hands.

‘What about the chair?’ said the kid, pointing to the fresh scarlet stain.

‘Have to go!’ said Brinton.

Made sense, thought the kid.

Man One and Two came back and carried out the roll of carpet. Man Two was breathing hard. Have to get down the gym more, thought Brinton.

Then they were back, looking for work.

‘The chair’s got to go as well,’ said Brinton.

‘What are we going to do with that?’ asked Man Two.

‘Dump it in the sea. It’ll wash it clean.’

Man Two bobbed his head. Seemed like a plan.

Brinton gave the guys five hundred quid apiece.

‘Here are your expenses. I’ll weigh you in properly when it’s all done and dusted.’

Man Two took the money and said, ‘Thanks boss,’ and Brinton appreciated that, for he was now the boss, and determined to stay that way, enjoy it, and not before time, and no more coming and running and bowing and scraping every time that prick Pryce yelled “Brinton!” What goes around comes around.

‘Take the van away. Get it off the estate. Leave for Formby later, be there for say 1am, and make sure you take spades and shovels and bury the whole shebang, and bury them deep, and then go home and forget all about it.’

Man One sniffed and nodded. He wasn’t too upset about things, the change in the hierarchy. Now that Pryce was out of the picture, everyone moved up a place, stepping into dead man’s shoes. So the old saying goes, and only Brinton was ahead of him now, and it was amazing how many strange accidents occurred to top dogs all over the world. He’d bide his time. But things were looking up. He’d do Brinton’s bidding... for now.

Five minutes later and the van headed out of the car park. Brinton went into the assembly plant and got hold of Monica, led her outside, back to Pryce’s office, except it wasn’t Pryce’s office anymore. It was his office, and it was bigger and better and more impressive in every way, and he’d always preferred it, and he was going to fit it out and kit it out, befitting a man of his status, and he got hot water on the go, and set Monica moving too, cleaning the room. 

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THE PHONE CALL THE lorry driver took was from his manager. The guy had wanted to know how much room was left on the wagon.

‘Not much. About an eighth.’

‘That’ll do. I’ve another pickup for you.’

The driver cursed. Didn’t want the hassle of additional cargo, another collection address, another delay, another job to complete.

It’s called “groupage”, and the driver was well aware of that.

Groupage: the grouping together of several consignments into a full trailer or container load. It’s also known in the transport world as consolidation, and more often than not, it’s the cheapest and most efficient way to transport goods. It can turn a loss-making trip into a profitable one, that little extra cargo makes all the difference. That was the plan. It was also a pain in the neck for drivers in a hurry.

‘What and where?’

‘A van engine at the Vauxhall car plant,’ and he gave the driver the address. ‘Should go on sweet.’

‘I know it, leave it with me,’ and the driver rang off and cursed aloud, for he knew he’d be late back to Cambridgeshire and miss his opportunity with the girl.

The call had saved Jun Woo too. She’d no longer face trying to leave a speeding lorry on the highway. She’d cut her way out of the box, gave herself some room to stretch her arms and legs, and by God they were sore, as she began work on the industrial strength polythene. She didn’t want to hack it to pieces, didn’t want long loose strands attracting the driver’s attention in the wing mirrors. Had to be careful, take it slowly; it wouldn’t do to mess up. 

––––––––

11.05. KAREN ROARED into the car park at Cambrian Electronics. They’d been delayed in traffic, an extra wide load moving through the city at supposedly out of rush hour times.

Jumped out, slammed the door, as Walter followed. Jan and Jen’s car was parked in the corner. Karen pushed the office door open and Walter followed her in. Two guys were at the end of the corridor, one slim and slight Oriental, one white, short and stocky, bull-like and intimidating. They were talking animatedly with Jan and Jenny.

Jenny saw Walter and introduced him.

‘This is Inspector Darriteau. This is Mr Williams, and this is Mr Chang.’

Everyone nodded and Walter said, ‘So what’s going on here?’

‘Seems we have a small problem with an illegal worker,’ said Williams. The voice didn’t quite match the man. Powerful fit fella, high pitched, weaky-freaky-squeaky voice. Funny how it works out like that sometimes.

‘It’s more than one illegal worker, Guv,’ said Jan. ‘Much more.’

‘I am sure it’s nothing that can’t be sorted out, brother,’ said the guy, looking into the back of Walter’s dark eyes.

Brother, be buggered, thought Walter, and he said, ‘Where’s Jessica Stone?’

Williams and Chang shared a puzzled look.

‘Come again,’ squeaked Williams.

‘I said: where is Jessica Stone? And I am not the most patient of men.’

Williams shrugged.

‘We have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘Search the place!’ said Walter.

‘You can’t do that, not without a warrant!’

‘Yes we can, if we believe a crime has been committed, and crimes have been committed here, you have already confirmed that,’ and he nodded Jan and Jenny and Karen into the building and into action. 

––––––––

11.25. THE TAUTLINER pulled into the Vauxhall factory car park and joined the queue for the collection and delivery bay. Jun felt the wagon stop, saw it stop, and heard it stop as the air brakes hissed on. She cut away the last piece of poly and pushed her head, arms, and body through. She was free. Her legs were numb and her arms weren’t much better. She rubbed and stretched them and waggled and smacked them, and still they felt as if they belonged to someone else. Of one thing she was certain, she must move before she was discovered, and before the truck started again. She edged to the side of the lorry, slipped under the curtain sides, and holding tight, lowered herself to the ground.

She tried to stand and walk away, but exactly what she imagined might happen happened. Her legs gave way like a broken hoola-hoop. She couldn’t walk. Not a pace.

––––––––

11.30. CHANG AND WILLIAMS stood before a bank of desks with Walter in between. All kinds of permits and documents and permissions for this and that were strewn about on the desk before them. Williams kept picking up papers and waving them in the air and moaning about how difficult this one was to obtain, and how much this one had cost.

‘Let’s be clear,’ said Walter. ‘And let’s be honest, too. I don’t have time to muck around. How many illegal workers are you employing?’

‘We’re just waiting for the necessary docs to come through,’ squeaked Williams. ‘That’s what I am trying to tell you.’

‘How many!’

Chang looked at Williams and said, ‘Maybe three or four, Inspector.’

‘Perhaps five or six,’ squeaked Williams.

‘I’ll ask you again, where is Jessica Stone?’

‘No idea on that one,’ insisted Williams.

Chang shrugged his shoulders.

Walter pulled some posters from his pocket. Pictures of the late Yet Kwai Dang, one pic taken before her death, looking reasonably happy, back in China, the other one more recently in Chester, after death, the body looking abandoned and broken.

‘Do you know this girl?’

Chang and Williams glanced at the pics.

Both shook their heads. Chang said, ‘Not one of ours.’

‘Did you kill her?’

Chang glanced at Williams and shrugged. It wasn’t a guilty glance, it was a what the hell is going on here glance?

‘Certainly not!’ squeaked the Welshman, and he pulled out his phone and said, ‘I am ringing my solicitor.’

Karen came back.

‘Anything?’ asked Walter.

Karen shook her head, said, ‘Lots of dubious practices, but the girls don’t seem unduly stressed.’

‘I’m beginning to think this isn’t the right place,’ muttered Walter.

‘I think you’re right.’

‘Go and tell Jan and Jenny to go through everything, and get them to ring immigration, I’ll be in the car, don’t be long,’ and he glanced at the odd couple one last time, shrugged his shoulders, and turned and limped back to the car, sat there and thought again about where Jessica might be. He had a bad feeling about things, for he imagined time was running out.

––––––––

11.35. HECTOR AND GIBBONS drove into Minstrel Electronics’ car park. It would be the last call for two reasons. One: it was the last one on their list, and two: both the guys were starving.

––––––––

11.40. JUN WOO TRIED to walk again, and couldn’t. The driver was away in the office organising the engine collection, but she guessed he would be back sometime soon. She knew she had to get away. Took her life in her hands, waited for a huge truck to rumble by, and began crawling across the road. There was a newly tarmacked pavement on the far side, and beyond that a grass verge, all dandelions, daisies, and dock leaves. A little further along it had been neatly cut, but right opposite where she was, they were all looking happy and pleased with themselves in full bloom. She glanced left and right and began crawling across the road.

It was a scary thing, heaving herself across, imagining she could be squashed like a young rabbit at any moment. She’d just made it to the other side when another lorry, pulling a trailer with eight new hatchback cars aboard, thundered by. She pulled herself onto the grass verge and turned round and tried to sit up. Frantically rubbed her knees, calves, thighs, anything to get the blood flowing, anything to get herself mobile again. It was a strange and unsettling feeling, possessing legs that didn’t work.

A small white van was incoming. The driver had seen her struggle across the road. He stopped and buzzed down the window and called out, ‘Are you all right, love?’

‘Yes! But I must get to the nearest town, it’s VERY URGENT!’

The driver saw she was Chinese, slim too, quite pretty, a bit rough, it had to be said, though he guessed she might scrub up okay. He’d been with a hell of a lot worse.

‘I’m just going to pick up a couple of parts. Be back in five, you wait there!’ and he winked and accelerated and went into the plant.

He wasn’t “five” as he’d said, but he wasn’t that much longer, and by then Jun’s legs were almost remembering how to operate. The guy leant over to the passenger door and slipped it open. Jun took hold of the frame and eased herself inside and settled down into the seat.

He started the van and drove off, glanced across and said, ‘Are you okay?’

Jun nodded. ‘Bad attack of needles and pins, get it every now and again.’

‘I see,’ he said, when clearly he didn’t. ‘Where did you say you wanted?’

‘The nearest town.’

‘Don’t you know where you are?’

‘Yeah, I forget.’

Geez, he thought, what a weirdo. Maybe she was on opium or summat. ‘It’s Ellesmere Port,’ he said, ‘be there in a tick.’

‘Yes, Ellesmere Port, I remember now,’ and the van followed the road up and over a railway bridge and she glimpsed a small passenger train scampering beneath, and they were going downhill and were entering an area of shops and shoppers and banks and money and life and freedom, and busyness and crowds, and safety.

‘This will do,’ she said.

‘I’ll pull into the car park,’ and he did, stopped the van and turned off the engine. Turned to her and said, ‘What are you doing tonight?’

She turned to look at him. He was hitting on her, she knew that, all lank, greasy hair, and blackheads, and black oil under his fingernails, and God alone knows what she must have looked and smelt like, and he was still hitting on her.

‘I busy tonight,’ and she turned to open the door.

‘At least I deserve one kiss,’ and he placed his greasy hand behind her head and tugged her towards him. She saw him coming... and poked him in the eye. Pretty hard too, always worked. Men do not like being poked in the eye.

‘Bloody hell!’ he yelled, as he rubbed his face.

Jun opened the door and fell out and hurried away as fast as she was able, his voice following her away from the van: ‘There was no need for that, shithead!’

Jun hid amongst the lunchtime shoppers and headed across the square. She was looking for a phone box, but public phone boxes were hard to find. The powers that be imagine that everyone has a powered up paid up mobile, but not everyone does, and Jun certainly didn’t. And while she was looking for a phone box, she saw something she did like. A bank, a big, bright, and beautiful bank, with a name she recognised, and a grinning and alive ATM inserted in the red brick wall. Just what she needed. She went up the side alleyway, checked that no one was coming, and retrieved the credit card. Wiped it on her jeans, though she wasn’t sure that made any difference, went round to the ATM, slipped the card inside, and entered the PIN number she would never forget because it was her year of birth, plus five. Thought about how much cash to request. Thought she’d give it something to think about. Asked for five hundred British pounds, and that was approximately 5,500 Hong Kong Dollars.

Didn’t faze the machine for a second.

Spat out five hundred pounds in crisp new notes in double quick time.

Even thanked her for her custom and spat out a paper receipt.

Have a nice day!

Jun glanced around. She couldn’t be too careful handling cash in a foreign country. But there were no threatening persons there, no one hanging around, no one next in the queue, no one watching her, no one looking for a poke in the eye. She folded the money and slipped it into her pocket.

Within two minutes of Jun Woo making her first withdrawal, her Uncle back in Hong Kong was alerted, and even though it was 8pm local time, he apologised to his wife and left the apartment, and jumped in the car and hurried back to work, his heart beating fast.

Chapter Seventy-Three

11.51. Detectives Hector Brown and Darren Gibbons pulled open the doors to Minstrel Electronics and went inside. Quiet as the grave.

No sounds, no one rushing about, just a nervous young-looking guy to the right, standing behind a high counter.

Hector flashed his ID, introduced them, and asked to see the manager. Gibbons stood behind, thinking about dining out on fish and chips.

‘I’ll see if I can find him,’ said the kid, and he jumped on the phone.

Hector turned round and playfully punched Gibbons in the stomach.

‘It’s empty,’ said Gibbons. ‘I’m starving.’

They heard the young guy say, ‘There are two detectives here to see you, Mr Brinton.’

They didn’t hear Brinton’s reply, which was probably as well, and then Brinton said, ‘Bring them to my office.’

A minute later, they were being shown into Brinton’s old room. Brinton stood and said, ‘Good morning, what can I do for you?’ and he pointed at two chairs as he sat down.

Hector and Gibbons sat, too.

Gibbons stomach rumbled, and he smirked and said, ‘Sorry about that, been on the go for ages.’

Hector ignored him and said, ‘We’re checking on electronics companies. Businesses that employ Oriental immigrant labour.’

‘Oh? Why’s that?’

‘Just general enquiries,’ said Hector.

‘Do you employ Oriental women here?’ asked Gibbons.

‘No, we are in the process of moving production facilities abroad. Thailand, as it happens.’

‘That’s not very patriotic,’ said Hector.

Gibbons almost started laughing.

‘When did patriotism ever pay the bills?’ said Brinton.

‘Mind if we have a quick look around?’ said Hector.

‘Be my guest?’ said Brinton, and they all got up and went outside for a walk.

Peeked in the room next door, Pryce’s office. The carpet had gone, and the furniture was pushed against one wall and the room smelt of disinfectant, as if they were cleaning the place prior to evacuation. No sign of activity, and no sign of any workers.

They went to the end of the corridor and the double doors that led to the inner hallway.

‘What’s through there?’ asked Hector.

‘Not much, small storeroom, not much else.’

‘Can we see?’

‘Sure,’ and Brinton opened the door to the hallway.

Gibbons glanced around. Square room, empty, not much to see, thick double doors straight ahead, small single door, presumably to another room, on the right.

‘What’s in here?’ said Hector, trying the door to the pep talk room.

‘Not much,’ said Brinton, opening up. ‘Desk, couple chairs, all going soon,’ and Hector peeked inside, and Gibbons peered over his shoulder at the stale smelling room that housed a bit of office furniture and little else. Brinton stood behind them, the loaded Glock 17 in his pocket, and the gun was bringing bad thoughts into his head he didn’t want to explore.

Gibbons went back to the double doors to the Assembly plant and tried them. ‘And in here?’

‘That used to be the assembly plant, but we’ve sold it and rented it off. Don’t have the keys for it anymore. New tenants coming in soon.’

Gibbons thought he heard something inside, listened at the door, but there was nothing there, nodded and moved back to the door that took them back to the corridor.

‘So you don’t do any assembly work here anymore?’ asked Hector.

‘Sadly, no,’ said Brinton, and he wanted to say, have you seen enough, you schmucks? Get the hell out of here, if you know what’s good for you. But he tried to look pleasant and helpful and it seemed to do the trick, for Gibbons said, ‘Come on Heck! Lunchtime,’ and he set off down the corridor towards the reception area and the doors beyond.

Hector said, ‘Thanks for your help,’ and followed Gibbons outside. Gibbons was getting in the car. Hector walked across the face of the building. Looked at the dispatch bay. The large roller shutter doors were down. Tried them. Locked solid. There were no trucks there collecting any finished product, and no vans in the car park delivering inbound components, and no employees, Oriental or otherwise, coming or going, which you might expect at lunchtime. Not much sound either, other than a pile-driver working hard in the distance, building vast new similar industrial sheds, and the ubiquitous discount airfare jet above their heads, sloping into John Lennon, and only one fancy car in the car park, and that was presumably Brinton’s.

‘Come on!’ yelled Gibbons through the open car window. ‘Before I starve to death,’ and in the next second Hector jumped back in the car, and they headed off to grab some lunch before returning to HQ. 

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11.52. ELLESMERE PORT shops, and Jun Woo found a public phone box. Stepped inside. It smelt of wee and vomit and was covered in colourful graffiti of an eagle with a beautiful blonde woman striding out of its mouth, and there was only one problem, there was no damn phone. Someone had taken it home as a souvenir.

Jun Woo stepped outside, walked back towards the main road, and when she arrived there, she spotted another phone box on the far side of the road. It must have been working for outside the box was a baby in a buggy, and inside the box was a young woman talking animatedly on the phone, the door propped open with her foot, as she kept one hand on the buggy handle.

Jun Woo approached the box and exchanged eye contact with the hard-looking young woman inside. She glanced away and turned away and kept on talking.

Jun heard her say, ‘No, no, no, Billy, I’m not taking you back! You’re always pissed, and you’ve never got any money.’ Short break and she continued, ‘I’ve heard it all before, Billy, you’re just so frigging unreliable!’ Another break and she said, ‘Of course your daughter needs you!’ and she turned round and glanced back at the slumbering infant, and then at Jun who was looking pleadingly that she really needed the phone, but that didn’t work. Jun thought of Fenfang, and what she might be going through, and decided she could not wait a moment longer. She took hold of the open door and said, ‘I MUST make a phone call, it’s an emergency, VERY urgent!’

‘BUGGER OFF!’ screamed the young woman, waking the infant, who began bawling. The young woman yelled, ‘Freaking foreigners!’ and the guy on the other end must have said something for the young woman was yelling, ‘There’s some Chinese bitch here trying to use the phone. No the kid’s fine, just woken up, that’s all. Have to go, Billy, but you better buck your frigging ideas up or you’re out, and out for good! I’m telling ya!’ and she slammed the phone down so hard Jun Woo worried she might have broken it.

She stood to one side, and the woman came out and said, ‘Sorry ’bout that, little domestic,’ and she bent down and grabbed a bottle of purple juice with a teat on the end, and rammed it in the bawling baby’s mouth, and pushed the pram away at a pace, as if she had important business to attend to.

Jun Woo stepped inside and picked up the phone. Clear dialling tone. Thank God. Recalled the long secret number. It was there in her head, imprinted, life or death they had told her, dabbed in the digits, carefully as possible, no point in rushing and mucking things up. A couple of seconds passed; seemed like minutes, and then she heard the phone ringing on the other side of the planet.

Uncle picked up. He’d been expecting the call.

‘I’m in England,’ said Jun Woo.

‘I know that.’

‘I’ve drawn money.’

‘I know that too.’

‘Most of the girls are at a company called Minstrel Electronics.’

Uncle made notes, but had no need to do so, as all calls were recorded.

‘Where is that?’

‘It’s a place called Ellesmere Port, by the River Mersey, near to Liverpool.’

‘Hold the line,’ and Uncle brought up-to-date maps of England on to his big screen. Typed in Ellesmere Port, and the programme zeroed in on the place, and he could zoom in and out as required.

‘It’s near a place called Chester,’ he said.

‘Okay.’

‘Listen carefully, Jun.’

‘I am.’

‘Find yourself a taxi.’

‘I will.’

‘Go to the Chester central police station, the main place, we will contact British police; they will be expecting you. Tell them everything you know and keep me informed.’

‘I’ll do that, go to Chester.’

‘Are you all right, Jun?’

‘I’m fine, I’m going to find a taxi.’

‘Speak soon.’

‘For sure.’

Jun set the phone down and left the box to someone else who went in. She crossed the road back towards the shops and hustled through the square. Two young women in uniforms were coming towards her. Not police, not sure what they were.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘But I need a taxi, urgent.’

They were traffic wardens, and one turned and pointed back toward the red and white supermarket sign.

‘There’s one outside Bestdas,’ she said. ‘You can always get a cab there.’

Jun thanked her and hurried away, and didn’t hear the warden say, ‘You’re all right, girl,’ and the traffic wardens headed off down toward the greasy spoon café, where they’d eat something delicious, and unhealthy, and a little too much of it, at that.

Chapter Seventy-Four

12.14. Walter sat back in his chair and grabbed the morning paper he’d bought from Reg the rag. The front-page headlines screamed: CRIME AT LOWEST LEVEL FOR 35 YEARS.

A little further down the page, detailed analysis revealed that murder rates in western Europe, and even the United States, had halved in the last ten years. Didn’t seem like that to him.

Further down still was speculation about the causes of the drop, one of which was the imaginary idea that the banning of leaded petrol was responsible. Could that really be, he pondered, no leaded petrol so people no longer wanted to kill people? Seemed far-fetched to him, and anyway, why had the lack of leaded petrol not saved Yet Kwai Dang and Stevie Cliffe? Seemed a load of nonsense, and he suspected the truth was in the way the figures were being computed, though no doubt the bigwigs would take a lot of credit for it, the politicians and hierarchy in the force, for the drop in crime, for he knew they had to take their comfort wherever they could find it.

Karen came in after freshening up and said, ‘I had good vibes about that, about the electronics company, thought we’d cracked it.’

Walter ripped open a pack of Coronation chicken sandwiches and began munching.

‘I’m more than ever convinced we are on the right lines. Trouble is, we’re running out of companies to check.’

‘Maybe it’s further afield, perhaps Manchester or Liverpool?’

‘Could be. Imagine the work involved there.’

Karen bit into a green apple, as Walter was already back for the second sandwich.

The door to Mrs West’s office opened fast, and she stood in the doorway and shouted across, ‘Walter! Come here!’

It wasn’t unusual to be summoned by Mrs West, but it was unusual to be summoned in quite that way, as if he had been real naughty, and was overdue a serious dressing down. He and Karen shared smirked looks, as if to say: What have you been up to now? He force-fed the last piece of butty into his mouth and stood up, and still eating, limped across the office and tapped on the door out of habit.

‘Come in, shut the door, sit down,’ she said, not in a dressing down kind of way at all, more of an excited way.

Karen watched him go in and close the door. Wondered what was going down, and would loved to have been a fly on the wall.

––––––––

12.15. JUN WOO FOUND the cab rank easily enough, just in time to see the yellow saloon pulling away. An old lady joined her and said, ‘There’ll be another one along in a tick,’ and Jun thanked her and waited, and waited, and finally another cab turned up, smaller and older, but working and ready for business. The driver actually got out and opened the back door for her, and Jun Woo stepped in.

‘Where to, darling?’

‘Chester police headquarters.’

‘You got it.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘Depending on traffic, about twenty minutes.’

‘That’s good.’

‘You’re not in any trouble, are ya? Been a naughty girl, have we?’

Jun smiled. ‘No, not me.’

‘Least the rain’s held off,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ and she glanced out of the window, as they sped through green countryside and descended a short way, and up and over a narrow bridge over a canal where she glimpsed a blue and yellow narrowboat, with a little dog on the bows, running back and forth and barking happily.

‘What do you want the copshop for?’

Jun thought about that and said, ‘I have friends there,’ and as she said it, she hoped she had.

They took a right fork at the traffic lights by a garage, and there were houses and buildings on both sides of the road, and a pub on the left side, and they passed a large hospital on the right, where a gaggle of nurses were coming out after going off shift, and a petrol station and another pub and a supermarket, and then it was clear they were heading into the city, judging by the number of cars and trucks and buses and bikes, and amount of exhaust fumes, and the speed of the traffic that was coming down to zero, as they tagged on the end of the queue.

‘This is the hard bit,’ he said. ‘Bloody traffic, should be banned!’

Jun nodded and gazed over the driver’s shoulder, and ahead at the long crawling snake, creeping into the city. If she knew where to go she’d have jumped out and run that way, but that wasn’t an option. Nothing for it but to sit back and creep into town with all the others.

––––––––

12.20. ‘YOU’LL NEVER guess what?’ said Mrs West.

‘What?’ said Walter, when he wanted to say something like, the Pope’s a Catholic, England are rubbish at cricket, the crime rate’s fallen dramatically, Gibbons is an infuriating idiot, weather’s turning colder, et cetera. How was he supposed to answer a womanly question like: You’ll never guess what?

‘What?’ he repeated.

‘I’ve just had a call from London.’

‘And?’

‘The Hong Kong Police Force.’

‘What about them?’

‘They have an officer, working in the UK, working undercover, on people trafficking.’

‘And?’

‘She’s operating on our patch.’

‘She? Where?’

‘Ellesmere Port.’

Walter pulled a face. That made sense, lots of shipping on the fat river, lots of industry too, lots of big soulless sheds of factories, some of them quiet and remote, some of them empty, some of them places of ill repute. He’d often seen gypsies and travellers bunking down round there, looking for somewhere quiet, looking to be left alone, an ideal place for hiding workers, and turning them into production line slaves, and some travellers weren’t averse to that kind of similar business either. Come to think of it, weren’t some of the listed electronics factories in Ellesmere Port?

‘Are we going to meet this undercover-queen?’

‘Yes! Didn’t I say? She’s on her way here now.’

––––––––

12.21. THE TAXI HURRIED round the ring road, dual carriageway, traffic dispersing every which way.

‘Nearly there,’ said the cabbie, nodding ahead at the beige block that was hoving into view. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s the head copshop.’

‘Great,’ she said, sitting up straight.

‘What are you doing tonight,’ the cabbie asked, and not waiting for an answer he continued, ‘Fancy going out for a drink?’

‘No!’ she snapped.

Ah well, worked sometimes, thought the cabbie, and he pulled the car into the kerb opposite the police station, on a double yellow line.

‘I’m married,’ she said. ‘My husband wouldn’t like it.’

Funny, she didn’t look the married kind.

Jun Woo had never been married, never come close, but there was plenty of time, early twenties career girl, for the time being, though she hoped one day some handsome Hong Konger would win her heart, and beg for her hand in marriage and make her happy. She thought back to those carefree schooldays at Saint Mary’s College in Hong Kong, and the young kid who’d become smitten with Jun, and had suffered fearsome ribbing because he wanted to woo Woo. He never had a chance. Woo Wooooo!

‘How much?’

‘Fifteen quid.’

She took out the bundle of cash and peeled off a twenty. Slipped it to the driver and said, ‘Keep the change.’

‘Cheers, girl,’ he said, pocketing the money with relish. ‘You can get into my cab anytime,’ as Jun jumped out and ran between the fast traffic and crossed the dual carriageway, and headed into the main entrance of the Chester police headquarters.

––––––––

12.25. ‘CAN WE GET KAREN in on this?’ suggested Walter.

‘Course! Bring her in.’

Walter stood and opened the door and glanced across the office. Karen was watching the door for that very eventuality. Walter nodded her in.

Mrs West repeated what she knew, and then her phone rang and it was the desk sergeant downstairs asking for Walter. Mrs West handed him the phone.

‘Sorry to bother you, Inspector, but there’s a Chinese girl here, says she’s Acting Inspector Jun Woo of the Hong Kong Police Force, she’d got no ID, no nothing except loads of cash, but she says she’s expected. I tried to chase her off, Guv, but she’s most insistent.’

‘She’s genuine, Bill. I’ll send Karen down.’

‘Geez! She looks like she should still be in school.’

‘We’re all getting older, Bill. Karen’s on her way.’

––––––––

12.35. KAREN PUSHED open the door to the general office and ushered Jun inside. Mrs West, Walter, Jan, and Jenny, just back from Cambrian, turned to look at her. Walter grinned a greeting and walked across the office, and smiled down at the slight, but pretty, kid.

‘Inspector Walter Darriteau,’ he said, offering his hand.

She took it and let his huge paw squeeze her tiny olive hand, as she said, ‘Acting Inspector Jun Woo of the Hong Kong Police Force. Am I glad to see you.’

‘And I you, Jun. We have been working on the same thing for some time.’

Walter introduced her to those members of the team present, and Jun glanced down at the desk and saw the billposters featuring Yet Kwai Dang.

She picked one up and said, ‘Who’s this?’

Karen said, ‘Yet Kwai Dang, Chinese national, murdered and found in the car park outside the swimming pool.’

‘Do you know her?’ asked Walter.

Jun shook her head, said, ‘Don’t think so.’

‘Do you want to tell us everything you know?’

‘Yes of course. But there’s something more important. I had a friend on the boat, the ship, her name is Fenfang Dong. She’s tall, for a Chinese girl. They sold her into prostitution. I can’t help but worry for her. They sent her to a club in Manchester called the Cicero Club. Can you send officers there... it’s urgent.’

Walter nodded at Karen and she said, ‘I’m on it,’ and picked up the phone and rang Manchester HQ.

‘Tell us all about it,’ said Walter.

Jun grasped the edge of the desk and looked unsteady on her feet.

‘Get her a chair!’ said Mrs West.

Jan jumped up and slipped his chair behind her.

‘When did you last eat?’ asked Walter.

Jun shook her head, as if trying to remember, as if it didn’t matter.

‘Ages ago... I can’t remember.’

‘I’ll get her a coffee,’ said Jenny, and she went to the machine.

Walter ripped open his second pack of Coronation chicken sandwiches and passed them over. Karen was talking on the phone and they all heard her say, ‘Yes, that’s right, the Cicero Club,’ and she reached in her bag and took out a bottle of peach flavoured water, and handed it to Jun. She snapped off the top and sank it almost in one go.

‘I’m all right,’ she said, through chewing chicken sandwich, ‘It’s a company called Minstrel Electronics.’

‘Minstrel Electronics!’ boomed Walter. ‘That’s on the bloody list! Who went there?’

‘Not us,’ said Jan in a hurry.

‘Must be Gibbons and Hector,’ said Jenny, setting hot sweet coffee on the desk.

‘You were on to it all along?’ asked Jun.

‘Yes, but not fast enough,’ said Walter, showing Jun the list bearing Minstrel’s name. ‘Where’s Gibbons now?’

‘I’ll ring him,’ said Jan, and he took out his phone.

‘Give me that!’ said Walter.

Gibbons answered. ‘Hello, poppie-wushka, can’t you live without me? What can I do for you, sweetie-pie?’

‘It’s me, Gibbons!’

‘Oh, hi, Guv, sorry. What’s up?’

‘Where are you?’

‘We’re in Bertie’s fish ’n’ chip bar as we speak, and bloody lovely it is too,’ and he belched as if to prove the point.

‘Have you been to Minstrel Electronics?’

‘Yeah, sure Guv, dead as a doornail, nothing going on there.’

‘It’s THE place, Gibbons! Who did you meet?’

Gibbons sat up straight and waved at Hector.

‘Just two guys, a young nervous type, and an older cocky guy.’

‘Get back there now, don’t go in, stay out of sight, we’ll be there within the hour. These guys are desperate and dangerous and maybe armed. Don’t take any risks. Don’t go near them. Just monitor who comes and goes.’

‘Sure, Guv. How do you know all this, anyway?’

‘Explain when we see you.’

‘Okay, Guv. When we were there Hector thought there was something odd about the place.’

‘Well, Hector was right! Now lie low. We’re on our way!’

Walter rang off and said, ‘Jun?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are they armed?’

Jun thought back to the first day she’d gone through Minstrel’s doors. Recalled that first meeting with Pryce and Brinton and the other two men. Remembered the calls to Harry in Manchester, remembered Brinton striking her hard. But had she seen weapons? No, she had not, not that she could recall, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if they were.

‘Didn’t see any guns, but these men are ruthless. I think they could be armed.’

‘How many people are working in the factory?’ asked Walter.

‘A hundred and fifty.’

‘A hundred and fifty!’ said Mrs West, blowing out and tut-tutting.

‘How come Gibbons and Hector didn’t pick up on that?’ said Walter.

‘Probably thinking of his belly,’ said Karen, off the phone from Manchester. ‘He only ever thinks of the 4 F’s.’

‘Which are?’ said Mrs West, her curiosity piqued.

‘Fags, Football, Feasting and F...’

‘Fillies, I think the last one is,’ said Walter.

‘How many British guys are we expecting to find?’ asked Karen.

Jun thought for a second. ‘The bosses, Brinton and Pryce, plus the two who picked us up from Liverpool docks, and there’s an old guy, and I think a younger one too, but there may be more, but that’s all I saw.’

‘There’s something important I want to ask you, Jun,’ said Walter.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Did you see or hear anything about a white girl being held in the Minstrel factory?’ And Walter clarified, ‘A special white girl.’

‘All girls are special,’ interjected Mrs West.

He gave her a look that said, I know that ma’am, but you know what I mean!

Jun thought for a second.

‘I never saw her, but there were odd rumours, and Pryce once said when I was there...’ and she racked her brains to get the words as accurate as she could. ‘I want to talk about our star witness, that’s what he said. I thought it odd at the time.’

‘You’re sure he said that?’

‘Definitely!’

‘That’s her!’ said Walter. ‘The star witness in the Barton Brothers murder trial. Jessica Stone is somewhere in the Minstrel Electronics factory!’

‘Unless they’ve moved her to Manchester as well,’ suggested Karen.

‘Don’t even think it,’ said Walter.

‘I think you’d better get down there,’ said Mrs West. ‘And go armed. And be careful!’

‘Organise an unmarked car!’ said Walter.

Karen stood and slipped on her jacket and left to collect her weapon.

‘Have you passed the firearms course yet, Jan?’ asked Walter.

‘Not yet, Guv, take it next month.’

‘No matter, you can still come.’

‘I’ll look after you,’ grinned Jenny, smiling at Jan.

He smiled back and flexed his eyebrows.

‘Go and get kitted out,’ said Walter to Jenny, ‘and take Jan with you. Meet you downstairs in ten.’

‘How do you feel?’ Mrs West asked Jun.

‘I’m good, food’s good,’ and she wiped her hands together after polishing off what remained of Walter’s lunch, and picked up the coffee and sank that.

‘You can come and sit in my office,’ said Mrs West. ‘We’ll monitor things from there.’

Jun looked disappointed.

‘I’d rather go with the Inspector,’ she said. ‘See it through to the end.’

Mrs West glanced at Walter. He nodded and said, ‘It makes good sense ma’am, Jun knows where everything is, knows the layout, she can ID people, I think she should go.’

Mrs West pulled a face and said, ‘On your head be it, Walter, you know my thoughts. Just so long as I don’t have to explain to the HKPF about any nasty accidents,’ and she turned and headed back toward her room, as Walter and Jun shared a grin, and Mrs West yelled back over her shoulder in her unmistakable voice, ‘Keep me informed!’

‘Sure you’re all right?’ asked Walter.

Jun nodded. ‘Never been better!’

––––––––

12.55. KAREN PILOTED the new silver Volvo S80 out of the garage, the recently delivered and shiny executive saloon, Swedish tough technology, ideal for northern European climes, the fab D5 Geartronic SE UX model Karen adored. God knows how they had landed such a beast, but Karen was going to make the most of it. It was the one with the kinky active bending Xenon headlights, though she hadn’t yet had reason to use those. But she’d find one.

Walter sensed her excitement.

‘Don’t prang the car, Greenwood! Five minutes either way won’t make any difference.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ though whether his words sank in he wasn’t sure. The three J’s were in the back, Jan, Jun, and Jen, Jan in the middle. They had all taken to Jun immediately. It seemed like she had been part of the team for weeks, which in a way she had. She recognised the road back to Minstrel, the hospital, the pubs, supermarket, filling station, down the hill, over the canal, no narrowboat this time, no barking running dog, and the right fork, signposted Ellesmere Port.

Karen was a quality driver, Jun instinctively knew that, felt safe in the car, felt safe with Karen at the wheel, felt safe in the team, felt among friends, which she was, colleagues with the same aim in life, to stop a disgusting trade, and put some despicable people behind bars for a long time.

Walter, Karen, and Jenny were armed with the same weapon. Heckler & Koch USP, Universal Self-loading Pistol, made in Germany, launched in 1993, and still as relevant and popular as ever. Used by law enforcement agencies around the world, fired nine 19mm Parabellums, and the reason they had selected that weapon was because they could all take extra ammunition from the one box, should the need arise. Made a lot of sense.

Jenny loved firing it, on the range, but had never fired a gun anywhere else, and didn’t wish to. But it gave her an adrenaline rush, and she loved the short recoil facility. It wasn’t Walter’s favourite weapon, but it sure as hell could do the job. Walter pondered on what was ahead. Going out with guns happened an increasing number of times, and that worried him. But firing them was very rare indeed, thank goodness, and Walter wanted to keep it that way. Firing a gun meant only one thing. Someone could get killed. Modern guns were lethal, and the Heckler & Koch was no different.

If somebody was shot and killed, it could be one of their dedicated team, a real live cheerful human being who might not come home. Or it could be one of the opposition, and both eventualities brought nothing but dread to Walter, not to mention the inquests and paperwork, and inevitable rebukes that would follow.

On the trip, Jun told them about how she escaped, about the excruciating agony of being imprisoned in that tiny cardboard box within a pallet of completed product, that sat there for more than twenty-four hours. It was the hardest thing she had ever done.

Jun stared through the window and recognised the industrial estate, and the cavernous grey soulless buildings, and knew they were only a minute away.

‘There’s Gibbons and Browne,’ said Karen, nodding to the left, and theirs was the only car in an empty car park in front of an empty unit.

‘Pull in next to them,’ said Walter, and Karen did, and they all got out for a final briefing.

Chapter Seventy-Five

13.15. Walter introduced Inspector Jun Woo to the boys.

‘Acting Inspector,’ Jun corrected him.

‘Only a matter of time, kid.’

Gibbons liked her from the first moment.

Jun Woo wasn’t so sure.

‘Layout of the building?’ said Walter.

Jun said, ‘Reception desk on the right, one guy there.’

Walter glanced at Hector. He nodded agreement.

Jun continued, ‘Rooms on the right side of the corridor, Boardroom, Accounts, Stationery, Brinton’s office, Pryce’s office.’

She was good, thought Gibbons. Good memory, perfect English, no accent at all, all courtesy of Saint Mary’s College back in Honkers, though he didn’t know that.

Hector nodded agreement, and said, ‘The last one, Pryce’s office, it was being emptied. Carpet gone already.’

‘Why would Pryce’s room be empty?’ asked Karen.

‘Maybe it was about to be redecorated,’ suggested Hector.

Walter pulled a face, it was possible, but it seemed odd.

Jun began again. ‘At the end of the corridor there are double doors, always locked, they lead into an inner hallway.’

‘Yep, been in there,’ said Gibbons.

Hector confirmed it.

‘There’s a room off to the right, I have never been in there,’ continued Jun.

‘It’s a small room, a bit of furniture, no windows, deadly dull,’ said Gibbons.

‘There are double doors into the assembly plant and accommodation block,’ said Jun. ‘Always locked.’

‘We couldn’t get in there,’ said Hector.

‘The guy said they’d sold that part of the building,’ said Gibbons.

‘So how do we gain access?’ asked Walter.

‘Brinton and Pryce have keys,’ said Jun.

‘What about the other two guys?’ asked Walter.

‘Don’t know their names, they’re always floating about, not nice men, and dangerous, that’s my guess,’ said Jun.

‘Description?’ asked Karen.

Jun reeled off accurate descriptions, as if she had been studying their faces and bodies and clothes for an hour, and Walter realised they were the same blokes as described by Lizzy Morgan. The same guys who took Jessica Stone from his house, the same men who probably shot and killed Sergeant Stevie Cliffe in Walter’s front room. If that didn’t sound like danger, Walter didn’t know what did.

‘Here’s how we play it,’ he said. ‘They won’t be expecting us, so we breeze in. Hector and Gibbons, you take the guy on reception. Put your hand over his mouth and get him out of there quick and quiet, and back to the car. One of you come back in when you’ve accomplished that. Karen and I will take Brinton’s room. Jan and Jen, check out Pryce’s room at the far end. We are looking for keys to gain access to the main warehouse, and don’t forget, we are looking for Jessica Stone, or any evidence that she was there. Keep your wits about you, keep an eye out for the two guys whose names we don’t know. They are dangerous people. Any questions?’

Jun said, ‘Me?’

‘Stay behind Karen and I. You can open up the main building once we’ve secured the place and located the keys.’

Jun nodded; pleased to be involved, though it felt really strange going back inside that terrible place.

‘Anything else?’ asked Walter. ‘Questions?’

Everyone shook heads.

‘Remember,’ said Walter, ‘you do not discharge your weapon unless your life, or someone else’s life, is in danger. Understand?’

Karen and Jenny nodded.

Jenny’s mouth was dry.

Karen licked her light lipstick.

Jun was impressed with the team.

Hector was up for a fight.

Gibbons thought Jun had a cute butt.

‘Come on,’ said Walter, and the mixed up bunch of seven moved toward the main entrance, Walter in the centre, leading the way like the leader of a skein of excited geese.

He pulled the doors open, stepped inside, and the others followed him in.

The young guy was on reception. He was busy, engrossed in that day’s newspaper Sudoku quiz. He glanced up. A big black man staring back, pretty blonde at his side, two guys he’d seen earlier, coppers, they had said, two other strangers, and one of the damned units too! What the hell? But before he could say or do anything, Hector was behind the counter, hand over the guy’s mouth, one hand forcing the guy’s arm up his back, and pulling him out and pushing him toward the doors and leading him outside, and as he took him out he said, ‘Stay with Guv, Gibbo, I can handle this guy,’ and then he was gone as if he had never been there.

Hector was stronger than he looked, and was improving too. Walter wasn’t the only one to notice that. Six officers remaining, three with guns drawn. Softly down the corridor. No one in the boardroom, the door was wide open; shiny table, framed certificate and seal on the walls, Institute of Modern Slavery, Walter imagined. The accounts office door was closed. ‘Check that out, Gibbons,’ whispered Walter, and they left him behind, as he carefully opened the door and peered in. No one inside; no accounts people working hard, totting up figures of hate, no bookkeeping being done that day.

Past the stationery room, the first room that Jun had been locked inside with Fenfang and Shu. Gibbons was back, Walter pointed to the door. Gibbons opened up.

Next, it was Brinton’s room, Walter and Karen led with their guns, shared a look, Jun right behind, not wanting to miss a thing. The door was wide open and they could hear someone inside, breathing, definitely a man, because a man’s breathing is different to a woman’s, strange, but true. Walter nodded at Karen, good to go, and they walked fast into the room, Jan and Jenny passing behind to check out Pryce’s room.

‘Stay still!’ ordered Walter.

Brinton yelled, ‘What the hell!’ and his right hand automatically went out and reached toward the desk drawer.

Karen jumped into the centre of the room. Adopted textbook firing pose, feet apart, slightly crouched, both hands on the Heckler & Koch, pointing straight at Brinton’s head.

‘I would not recommend that!’ she said, and something inside him told him she would shoot.

He relaxed his hand.

Jenny yelled through the open door, ‘Pryce’s office is clear!’

‘Where’s Mr Pryce?’ asked Karen.

‘Don’t know who you are talking about.’

‘Where are the keys?’ demanded Walter, closing on Brinton.

‘What keys?’

‘Don’t bugger about! The keys to the main plant.’

‘At reception.’

‘They are not!’ barked Walter.

‘I’ll check, Guv,’ said Jan, and he ran back down the corridor.

Acting Inspector Jun Woo of the Hong Kong Police Force strolled into Brinton’s view.

‘You!’ he said, focusing his steady eyes on her.

‘No, it’s Woo, actually,’ said Walter. ‘Inspector Woo to you, from the Hong Kong Police Force, and you’re nicked.’

Brinton glared at Jun, all hate, ‘How the hell did you get here, with them?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ said Jun. ‘But you never will.’

Brinton looked downcast, defeated, but it was all an act. Play defeated, play dead, creatures have been doing that since evolution began, then strike. Lulls the opposition every time. He glanced at the blonde, she wasn’t in quite the same position, wasn’t as alert, wasn’t quite as ready. He glanced at the close-up black guy without appearing to do so. The guy’s hand, his firing hand was pointing down, he looked like a man who thought he’d already won the war, the other girl in the doorway was peering away down the corridor, looking for her mate, and the young fit looking guy seemingly wasn’t armed. They had underestimated him, and they would pay the price.

His right hand shot out toward the drawer and the Glock 17 sleeping there. Karen caught the sudden movement, but too late. She wasn’t on the perfect line, but fired anyway, one shot, big racket, plenty smoke, but the bullet missed and slapped into the wall. Brinton had a gun in his hand, bringing it up fast, yet it seemed like slow motion, trying to get off a shot at the Chinese bitch he’d always loathed, always known was big trouble, the same slut who’d brought the law to his door.

There was nothing slow motion about the short arm jab Walter issued, left-hander, too. It connected with Brinton’s chin, flush on the button, one big fleshy hand, packed with fifty-eight-year-old bones. Bones that hadn’t yet gone soft and crumbly. They all heard the crack, as Walter’s fist smashed into Brinton’s stubbly chin. One big lights out punch, issued with no back-lift whatsoever.

Brinton’s eyes glazed over, his iris’s appeared to leap to the top of his eye sockets, his right hand went up and up, still holding the skewing gun, and the last thing he remembered was squeezing the trigger. A single shot thudded into the ceiling, sending down a mini-cloud of dust and muck. The gun fell to the carpet and skittered away. Gibbons jumped on it, picked it up and yelled, ‘Glock 17, Guv, maybe your man’s,’ as Brinton fell over to his right, and against the wall, and collapsed to the floor on his back.

Gibbons knelt down and patted Brinton’s cheek.

‘Geez, Guv, I think you’ve broken his jaw. He’s out cold.’

‘Pity. I wanted to talk to him, and I wanted him to talk to me.’

Karen bent down. She’d been on first aid courses.

She said, ‘I think he’s seriously injured, Guv,’ and she was already on her mobile, calling an ambulance.

Seemed odd to Walter. One moment they were happy to try to shoot him dead, and in the next second they were summoning ambulances because the poor chap had a sore face. But she was right, as she invariably was, just didn’t feel that way, not right there. Felt like rough justice.

Jan came back.

‘There are no keys at reception.’

Walter said, ‘Jun, see if there are any keys in Brinton’s pocket,’ and she said, ‘Sure, Guv,’ which was nice. She didn’t have to say “Guv”, and she nodded and knelt down and felt his trousers, and grinned and came up with a monster ring-load of keys.

‘Onward and upward,’ said Walter, and he and Jun left the room and turned right, and headed for the end of the corridor, and the double doors that led into the inner hallway, and beyond. 

Chapter Seventy-Six

13.30. Jun Woo tried a key. Didn’t work. Tried another. That didn’t work either. No point in getting impatient, thought Walter, think of the blood pressure.

He thought of the short arm jab he’d issued, and realised that all those hours watching videos and DVDs of Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, and more recently, Floyd Mayweather, had all come together to produce one big dividend.

Zonk! Bang! Lights out! Happy days! He hadn’t even hurt his hand.

Jun tried another key, and the lock turned over as clean as a whistle. She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. The big bear of a man grinned and nodded her on, and then the doors were open and they were inside the inner hallway.

Walter glanced about. Saw the small office to the right, nodded Jun that way, and in the next second she was at the door, trying a key, the correct one first time, and in they went. Walter snapped on the striplight. It spluttered and coughed and burst into bright white light. One desk, one chair either side, one empty washing-up bowl on the floor to the right, not the kind of thing you’d expect to see in an office, so why was it there? There was a burn mark on the desk, a neglected cigarette maybe, though it didn’t look like that to him.

He tried the desk drawers. Not locked. Pulled one open. Half eaten packet of biscuits, three-quarters eaten bar of chocolate, attract mice if they weren’t careful. Large plastic bottle of water, almost empty, so what was this place? A break room? A refreshment room where people went to top up their energy levels before going back to work. Or could these be emergency rations for someone incarcerated there? And what was that bowl for? Walter had an idea about that. Opened the second drawer. Large collection of black cable ties, strewn around, loose, and ready to pick one out at short notice, ideal for restraining things, like human limbs, maybe to the chair.

Inspected the chair frames, no skin, no blood, no signs of bodily stress or torture, inspected the floor, no sign of blood either, so far as he could see, and that was positive. But if you had a valuable human being, and were trying to sell her, or him, for big money, you wouldn’t smack it about, would you? It might ruin the deal: Here are your goods, sorry about the state of the face. Nah, you’d keep them looking pretty.

Tried the third drawer, nothing in there other than a couple of ball-pens and some loose white paper, nothing written at all. He took out the top sheet, held it to the light. No indentations so far as he could see, from some previous writing, nothing to be gleaned.

Jun went outside and approached the double doors into the assembly plant. Glanced back over her shoulder. Saw Walter come out of the small room. She glanced down at the keys. Process of elimination. Two of them she had already used. Selected one she hadn’t, slipped it in the keyhole, turned over with the tiniest of squeaks, as Karen joined them, gun in hand. Walter was happy to see that, because the other two, so far nameless guys, could be inside, and they were known to be dangerous, and if things ran to form, could be armed.

Walter nodded Jun on, and she opened the double doors and they all stepped inside.

Big plant.

Big room.

Big area.

Long benches.

Sophisticated machinery, sophisticated products.

Lots of people, hard at work.

Orientals, to a woman.

A gentle hum of creativity, making money for someone.

No men around, so far as any of them could see.

Gibbons joined them, anxious not to miss a thing.

Walter glanced around the huge space. There was a mezzanine floor set high on metal stilts. Looked like some desks up there, maybe computers too, though he couldn’t be sure. But it sure looked like a management area, the kind of place where decisions were made, where the under-bosses hung out.

Then something weird happened.

The hum of creativity, the gentle noise of dozens of people hard at work, faded away. People were stopping and staring, gaping at the open doors, for the doors were never left open, and gawping at the strangers. The big black bloke, the fit young white man, the white blonde, and the one they all recognised, the one who had slipped away only the day before.

Shu was working at the far end of the bench and was one of the last to notice the slowdown and hush, and when she glanced up to see what was wrong, in her heart she was expecting some kind of bad news or bad karma. She glanced the way the others were staring, and saw Jun Woo standing there, a gentle smile on her pretty face, and a slight nod to tell her it was all over.

Shu let out a happy squeal and came running.

Leapt into Jun’s arms, the girl Shu knew as Lily Sang.

Jun said, ‘This is Shu Lang, she’s eighteen, she came across with me, she’s a trainee nurse. These are English police. You’re safe now. You’re all safe now.’

Walter nodded and tried a gentle smile.

‘Does she speak English?’

Jun said, ‘Not much.’

‘Ask her where the other two men are?’

Lots of frantic talking and pointing and the answer came back. She didn’t know. They hadn’t been seen since earlier that day. Shu pointed to the dispatch bay and the closed doors there, and it was obvious Shu thought it possible they could be on the other side. But before that, Walter wanted to check out the mezzanine floor, from where two Chinese women were staring down from over the rails.

He moved over toward the stairs, the others close behind, as Shu asked Jun about Fenfang.

‘They are looking for her now,’ assured Jun. ‘They’ll find her,’ and by then they were all ascending the stairs.

At the top, Monica and Debs turned to face the strangers, their hands folded across their chests, faces looking confused and concerned.

Walter glanced at Jun and said, ‘Who are these women?’

‘This one, they call Monica. She’s the assembly plant manager when the Englishmen are not here. You don’t cross her. Big trouble if you do. She’s also Brinton’s sex slave.’

‘I am not!’ Monica spat out, revealing her command of the language. ‘We love each other. We are planning on getting married.’

Seemed a weird place to be considering marriage, they all thought, and under an even weirder set of circumstances.

Gibbons stared at her and wondered what was wrong with Brinton. If he had the choice of more than a hundred women, Monica, as they called her, would have been about the last one he would have chosen. Seemed odd, that’s all.

Jun was talking again.

‘They call the other one Debs, she’s Monica’s deputy.’

‘Where is Jessica Stone?’ asked Walter.

Debs said, ‘Who?’

‘The white girl! The model! She was held here. Where is she?’

Monica shook her head, looked as if she was weighing up whether to say anything.

Karen guessed they knew nothing about Jessica Stone, though they could have been covering up for others.

‘I don’t think they know, Guv,’ said Gibbons, saying the thought that was in some of their heads.

‘Where’s Jimmy?’ asked Monica.

‘Who’s Jimmy?’ asked Karen.

‘Mr Brinton.’

‘He’s outside,’ said Walter.

‘Is he all right?’

‘He’ll live. You can all stop what you are doing. It’s all over. They’ll be no more work done here, not today, not ever. Gibbons, get on to immigration, get them down here toot sweet, tell them they’ve a big job on.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and Gibbons pulled out his mobile and set to work. Rang the UK Border Agency, a number they were ringing more and more.

Walter said, ‘Let’s check the dispatch bay, and while we are about it, keep looking for anything to do with Jessica,’ and they turned around and retreated down the stairs.

At the foot of the steps Shu grabbed Jun’s T-shirt and began jabbering away. Walter and the rest turned and stopped and listened, and looked at Jun and said, ‘What’s she saying?’

Jun held up her hand as if to say, hold on a sec, and Jun asked Shu some questions, and then Shu was talking again.

‘What’s she saying?’ repeated Walter, for it was frustrating when someone was trying to tell you something when you didn’t understand a word of it.

Jun nodded and asked Shu something else, and Jun said in English: ‘The English girl was here. Shu was forced to inject her with a sedative. Shu’s a trainee nurse. The English girl left yesterday.’

‘Where did they take her?’ rattled off Walter.

Jun translated.

Shu shrugged her shoulders. Then began talking again.

Jun translated.

‘Shu says she was threatened with being injected in the eye by Pryce if she didn’t do as she was told. Monica took her to the room and ordered her to do it,’ and Shu began snivelling, and continued talking, and Jun finished the translation, ‘She says, she is very sorry for what she has done.’

They all stared at Monica.

Monica uttered through a stone face, ‘It’s too late. She’s gone to China.’

Chapter Seventy-Seven

13.59. Jenny came running into the warehouse.

‘Guv! The medics are here, they want to take Brinton away.’

‘Do they now? Well, I want a word with Brinton first,’ and Walter led the team back to Brinton’s office. He was sitting on the desk, looking mighty uncomfortable, swollen face, angry eyes, being attended to by one of the medics. They were both guys, one short and thin, one tall and thinner.

‘We know Jessica Stone has been sent to China. How and when was she sent?’ asked Walter.

Brinton glared at the officers.

The short medic said, ‘He’s got a broken jaw, he can’t speak.’

‘He’s also wanted for murder and attempted murder and God alone knows what else. So I’ll ask him again, where and how was Jessica Stone sent to China?’

The tall skinny medic said, ‘It isn’t possible to speak if you have a broken jaw, and that is about as broken as you can get. We need to get him to hospital, and we need to do that now.’

Brinton beckoned to the desk, and some paper and a pen. Karen stepped in and grabbed the pen and a pad and gave them to Brinton. He took them and began writing.

I am going to sue you for grievous bodily harm. You’re finished!

He tore off the page and gave it to Karen. She passed it to Walter, who sniffed and said, ‘Gibbons, go with Brinton. Don’t let him out of your sight.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and the medics took their cue and escorted their patient back to the ambulance. Gibbons jumped in the back with the short medic, and the damaged Brinton, and the tall guy leapt behind the wheel, fired up the diesel, hit the accelerator, and headed off toward the hospital.

‘Guv?’ said Jun.

‘What?’

‘They can’t have taken her to China by air, not unless they had all the necessary papers, too risky, she must have gone by ship.’

‘Of course,’ said Karen.

Walter thought for a second and said, ‘Can you get the Lloyds List shipping site on your smart phone?’

Karen took out her phone. Said, ‘Should think so,’ and tapped in lloydslist.com and up it came.

‘Departures from Liverpool, heading for the Far East.’

Took a bit of finding, but there it was. The State of Divine Providence, due out of Liverpool Freeport that afternoon, estimated sailing time. 15.15, on the high springtide.

‘It can’t be a springtide,’ said Karen, ‘not in the autumn.’

‘It is a springtide,’ said Walter. ‘It’s nothing to do with spring as in the season, it’s to do with springing forth of the moon, and with tides, the moon’s top banana.’

Karen and Jenny shared a smirking now-you-know, look.

Jan said, ‘I was searching the drawers before and found this,’ and he passed over to Walter an unsealed envelope.

Walter peered inside and pulled out the content. Black hair.

‘What is it?’ asked Karen.

‘Unless I am much mistaken, it’s Jessica Stone’s forelock. Brinton must have kept it as a souvenir. She always had an irritating haircut, looks like it all got too much for poor Brinton.’

‘What next?’ asked Karen.

‘We need to check the dispatch bay,’ said Walter, and they all headed back inside, and made their way to the far exit doors. Jun selected another key, and another good selection, for the lock turned and the shutters clanked and began opening.

Inside, it was empty, no finished product, it had all been shipped out with Jun, and no desperate men waiting around either. Much as Walter imagined.

‘Close it up,’ he said, and the shutters came rolling down. ‘Jenny and Jan, I want you to stay here in case they come back.’

‘Sure,’ said Jenny, as they made their way out and back to the offices.

‘Remember, they are very dangerous. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. They probably killed Stevie Cliffe. That’s all you need to know. I’ll get reinforcements to you. Jenny’s got her gun, and it’s possible I might carelessly drop mine in the hallway on the way out. You’d better check for that, Jan.’

Jan grinned and said, ‘Sure, Guv. Thanks.’

‘We’re going to the Freeport.’

Jenny nodded and said, ‘We’ll be fine.’

‘And don’t forget the Border Force guys will be here soon. They’ll come mob handed and will scoop up all the IC5s.’

‘Does that include Shu?’ asked Jun.

‘Yes, it will have to, but we’ll see what we can do about that later.’

Jun nodded and said, ‘I’d appreciate that,’ and Walter, Karen and Jun hurried down the corridor and away. Jan and Jen peered after them and watched them approach the door without looking back. On the final step, before the doors, they heard a dull thud, and the doors opened and closed, and they’d gone, and all that remained was a Heckler & Koch USP lying on the floor, looking lost and forlorn. Jan ran after it and picked it up. Jenny followed, and Jan said, ‘Now what?’

‘We wait, may as well make ourselves comfortable.’

‘Sure,’ said Jan, examining the pistol, and looking forward to the day when he would be authorised to carry one.

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OUTSIDE IN THE CAR, Hector was quizzing the young guy. To begin with, the kid played hardball, knew nothing, seen nothing, done nothing, heard nothing, all of which even Hector, in his fledgling career, had heard a hundred times before. But as Hector’s insightful quizzing continued, the penny must have dropped in the young guy’s head that he was mired in a well of dead dog’s doo-doos a good mile deep.

Hector watched Guv, Karen, and Jun, come out of Minstrel and hustle toward the car. Walter nodded Hector out. Karen and Jun carried on by and jumped in the new Volvo.

‘How’s it going?’ asked Walter.

‘The guy knows everything. He’s singing for his supper.’

‘We need to go to Liverpool, like now.’

‘You need to know this, Guv.’

‘Tell.’

‘Ricky Barton turned up here looking for Jessica Stone. Pryce told Barton she’d been sold abroad, so he lost his rag and shot Pryce dead. Brinton came back and murdered Barton, and the other two guys took the two bodies away for burial later tonight.’

‘Where?’

‘He hasn’t told me yet, but he will.’

‘Get him back to Chester and question him further. And give Jan and Jen a call and give them an update. And find out everything the young bloke knows, and well done. We’re going up to the Freeport to see if we can find Jessica Stone. Keep me informed!’ and Walter nodded and limped fast, back to the Volvo that was already idling and humming, and ready to jump off. Jun Woo in the back seat, sitting up, with her arms on the back of Karen’s headrest.

‘Pryce is dead,’ said Walter.

‘What! When? Where?’ said Karen.

‘Can’t say as I’m upset about it,’ said Jun.

‘Ricky Barton turned up...’ but his sentence was cut short as Walter’s mobile began bumbling and mumbling in his pocket.

‘Shit!’ he said, and then, ‘Sorry,’ and he delved in his pants for the blessed thing, as Karen swerved onto the M53 at Junction 9, heading northbound for Liverpool.

It was Mrs West. ‘What’s happening, Walter?’

‘Loads!’ and Walter began telling her everything. Almost everything. He left out the bits about Karen firing and missing, big bad mark for that, and about him breaking Brinton’s jaw, another very bad mark, and him losing his gun, unforgivable that one, too.

There would be plenty of time for recriminations and investigations, and all that political stuff, when pious righteousness could all be bathed in, and regurgitated, once the real policing and criminal catching, and wrongdoings had been completed and rectified. When they came his way, those scoldings and verbal bashings and tongue-lashings and superior advice, he would nod his head sagely and ignore them. He was at the stage of his career when he could afford to do that, and he knew it, and so did Mrs West.

‘I need your help on a couple of things, ma’am. Gibbons, Hector, Jan, and Jen are all busy, and it needs someone with a bit of rank and clout.’

‘Fire away.’

‘We’re on our way to the Liverpool Freeport. I believe Jessica Stone is on a Chinese ship called the State of Divine Providence. I need you to get on to the port authority, Peel Ports, Mersey Docks and Harbour Company; I think they’re called these days. Try to get them to delay the ship sailing. It’s due out at three fifteen, and can you ring Dan at the Chinese Consulate in Liverpool? Get him to speak to the captain, ask for his assistance, put some pressure on, and oh, another thing, can you speak to the Port of Liverpool Police as well, and ask if someone could meet us when we get there. Should be there in...’ and he glanced at his overlarge silver watch, ‘About half an hour.’

‘Got that, Walter, leave it with me.’

‘Thanks, ma’am.’

Jun glanced through the windows at the green countryside hurtling by. They were passing another motorway junction, Clatterbridge Hospital, white on blue signage, and Jun said, ‘Can I use your cellphone, Karen,’ and K glanced at Walter, and he nodded. Karen slipped it out of her pocket and gave it to Walter, and he passed it over the back seat. 

––––––––

14.28. ‘THOUGHT I’D ring Hong Kong,’ Jun said. ‘If that’s okay? Ask them to delay the sailing.’

‘Great idea! Be my guest! Anything that helps,’ said Walter, as Karen eased her foot on the neck of the accelerator, and the Volvo whipped past a trio of gravel trucks, two coaches, and several saloons and hatchbacks, that scuttled out of the way.

Karen said, ‘Can you ring the Mersey Tunnel guys, Guv? I don’t plan on stopping.’

‘Good idea,’ and Walter pulled out his mobile and set to work.

Jun was chattering away in Chinese, speaking to Uncle in Hong Kong. He said he’d speak to his superiors, and he was sure they would speak to China proper, regarding delaying the ship, though he admitted it could take some time. Committees and meetings and red tape, you know how it is, and he wasn’t sure of a favourable outcome.

––––––––

14.32. THE MOTORWAY was running on stilts, past the Bidston Moss junction. There was a good view from there. Jun could see DIY and carpet warehouses speeding by on the right-hand side, and the hint of the sea away in the distance to the left, above sand dunes and marram grass. The road bent down a hill to the right, and big docks came into view on the right side. Large rectangular basins, not much shipping about, some new warehouses going up, tipper lorries busy adding weight to brown rusty jagged piles of scrap metal on the quayside, and the car bounced along into a concrete cutting, and the two lanes of traffic slowed to 40mph, as Walter glanced at the dash clock. They’d be in time, so long as the tunnel wasn’t snarled up.

––––––––

14.36. THE TOLLBOOTHS ahead were set right across the wide approach to the tunnel. Cars were queuing, waiting, drivers throwing coins into plastic baskets, buzzing up the windows, jerking away acceleration, and the next in the queue eased forward, and the whole snake stumbled on a pace, and repeated the dance. To the left of the tollbooths was a wide space, maybe twenty yards across, and to the left of that were two or three police cars, standing parked up, some manned, some empty, and a police bike-rider too, cocking his leg over the bike, a big powerful Yamaha, jumping on, firing up, the guy looking about, glancing back over his right shoulder expecting to see a silver Volvo coming on fast, three officers up, and there it was, right on cue.

––––––––

THE TUNNEL COMPRISED two separate tubes, one going downhill eastbound, heading for Liverpool, one coming uphill, westbound, into the autumnal Wirral sunshine. Both tubes, two lanes, and plenty of signs staying: STAY IN LANE – MAX 40MPH - STAY IN LINE – NO LANE SWITCHING. There was lots of traffic in both lanes of the eastbound tube, but it was still moving, around 30mph, not fast enough, but moving. Karen took the right lane, out of habit, for that was considered the quicker lane, though that was debatable.

It made no difference, she was pootling along behind a mini-bus full of pensioners, been over to Hoylake for a day out and a breath of seaside fresh air, and a soft ice-cream, and a laugh and a joke, and a brief reminder they were still alive and kicking, and were now heading back toward some dismal Aintree care home.

In the Volvo, they could hear the bike-rider accelerating behind, the big throaty engine echoing in the confines of the tube, and it squeezed past the left side of the Volvo and the right side of a big old Mercedes saloon. The bike surged ahead beyond the mini-bus, and in the next second the police rider was glaring at the mini-bus driver and waving frantically and telling him to get into the left lane. Didn’t matter what the STAY IN LANE signs said. When an angry yellow and black gauntlet waved you in, it was wise to shift, and he did, jerkily, in a bit of a hurry, and it looked panicky, thought Walter, swaying the grinning punters in their seats, but no matter, they were having fun, as Karen spurted through the vacant space. Walter nodded his thanks through the glass at the fit looking guy on the bike, as he surged forward and did the same thing twice more, to other sleepy drivers as they were hitting the incline on the Liverpool side, and Karen snapped on the blinker for a left turn.

She knew they wanted the first exit that swept away to the left, and the north, and the biker held the traffic in that lane back a second, and Karen glanced over her left shoulder, saw it clear, accelerated again, and moved over, and swept up the exit lane and out into the sunshine, and the moment they saw the sun Walter’s phone rang, and it was Mrs West again.

‘Been trying to get you,’ she said.

‘Been in the tunnel.’

‘Fair ’nuff. Spoke to everyone, and they’ve all been very helpful, though the departure may not be delayed.’

‘It’s a huge ship, ma’am, and we may not have time to find Jessica.’

‘I know that, Walter. But the ship is not British territory, and we have precious little evidence to say Jessica is aboard. If the ship misses the high tide, there would be big cost issues. We’ve done everything we can, but...’

And she let that thought float in the air, as if she had little else to say, and no authority to do more.

‘Okay, ma’am, we’re just joining the dock road now, heading north, busy traffic. Should be there in about ten, maybe fifteen minutes.’

‘One bit of news from this end,’ she said.

‘Oh?’

‘The Manchester boys have recovered Fenfang Dong.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘Bit battered, but she’ll live.’

‘Good to know. I’ll tell Jun.’

‘You do that. Keep me posted.’

‘Will do.’

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14.48. WALTER TOLD JUN about Fenfang and asked, ‘Have you been on this ship?’

‘No. But I have on the sister ship, I think it was, and I’m hoping they are the same layout.’

‘Where did they keep you?’ asked Karen.

Jun thought back to her introduction to the Heavenly Peace. Recalled the details she had committed to memory.

They took her below deck, one man leading, one following, no talking, down and down, six decks down, along a clean corridor, smell of oil, lots of thick coloured pipes, red and orange and blue, running along the ceiling and walls and tucked into the side of the floor, vibrating engines, making ready to put to sea. They stopped half way down the corridor and one man opened a small windowless room, pushed her inside, and locked the door.

Yeah, that was about right, and she told Karen and Walter of the descent, six decks down, to that ten by ten tin tomb, and she hoped this would be the same. But it couldn’t be the same, not completely, because they were not about to board the Heavenly Peace, but the Divine Providence. Just how different would it be? Or how similar?

––––––––

14.58. THE LIVERPOOL Freeport, and the Volvo made to join the small queue, but a guy, a smart uniformed peak-capped sergeant from the Port of Liverpool police, came out of the office, nodded at them urgently through the glass, pointed away to the right side, and he went around behind the double gates and pulled them open, extra access for emergency vehicles, fire engines and the like, imagined Walter. He came to the car, as Walter buzzed down the glass, and the guy said, ‘Got room for a little ’un?’

Walter said, ‘Sure, jump in the back.’

Little ’un, he wasn’t, six foot eight, grey hair just showing under his cap, but still mighty fit and pretty impressive, and to Jun he appeared a giant, as he folded himself into the car and squeezed beside her, and said, ‘Sergeant Gill.’

Walter did the intros, and Gill pointed the way ahead, and Karen cruised the car into the Freeport. Gill waved them round to the left, swerved past a mountain of multi-coloured containers, all laid out in rows, a hundred yard straight run, and another left turn heading for the State of Divine Providence.

‘That’s her!’ said Gill, pointing.

‘She is massive!’ said Karen, slowing and cruising to a gentle halt, close to the vast ship.

––––––––

WHITE STAR LINE’S ROYAL Mail Ship Titanic, built in Belfast, weighed in at 46,329 gross tonnes, give or take. It ran with a crew of almost 900, 700 of whom perished when it sank to the bottom of the cold Atlantic Ocean on that fateful night of the 14th/15th April 1912.

Cunard’s RMS Queen Mary, built in Glasgow, the first Queen, the one with three red funnels, weighed in at 81,237 gross tonnes and ran with a crew of 1,174.

The State of Divine Providence, built in China, categorised as a VLCS, which sounded kind of sophisticated, but simply meant Very Large Container Ship, was a big, big girl, weighing in at 169,500 gross weight tonnes. Imagine putting them on a gigantic seesaw, the Divine Providence on one end and the Titanic and the Queen Mary on the other. No contest! The DP would bust any scales anywhere, far more than the Titanic and the Queen Mary combined, yet it ran with a crew of just 19 human beings and no passengers, so the shipping company’s website stated. But was that strictly true, that statement about No Passengers, on this trip? Walter hoped not.

Liverpool was one of the few ports in Britain capable of handling such a monster. Plenty of room inside a ship like that to hide something of value, even lots of things of value, like a human being, and a super being at that.

––––––––

15.03. THE TIDE WAS high, springtide in the autumn, Karen still struggled with that misnomer, and they’d made it there with minutes to spare. But the ship was getting ready to sail, that was obvious, because there were three tugs from the Rea company fussing around her skirts, pooping a foghorn every now and again when they wanted attention, and there were stevedores on the quayside, standing around the fat poly blue ropes, laughing and joking and thinking of beer and ciggies and football, for there would always be time for that, waiting for their orders.

There were nervous people up top, glaring down over the side, anxious not to make a mistake, eager not to break anything, for 169,500 tonnes could do an awful lot of damage if it bumped things. People staring down at the ropes, and the stevedores and the silver Volvo, and the four people who had just arrived and had stepped out, and were approaching the last remaining gangplank.

‘She is massive!’ repeated Karen.

‘Biggest ship you will ever see,’ said Gill. ‘Bigger than any cruise liner, bigger than the weightiest American aircraft carrier, and the only vessel that could rival a VLCS is the biggest and blandest of oil tankers.’

There were an amazing number of containers on the ship, stretching high into the autumnal sky, while the high cream coloured bridge swept across the width of the vessel, about three-quarters of the way along. Eight stories of accommodation and workspace, judging by the windows and portholes. 

‘She may be vast,’ said Walter, ‘but she’s little more than an orange box, packed with containers.’

‘A big girl like this can carry 18,000 of the buggers,’ said Gill.

‘Let’s hope Jessica’s not in a container,’ said Karen, and that was a dreadful thought that none of them had considered.

‘Unlikely,’ said Gill, ‘They’re all sealed.’

They could all be opened and closed again, thought Walter, and he nodded Karen and Jun up the gangplank, as Walter limped behind, as Gill brought up the rear. At the top, there was a reception committee that would have done the Queen proud. The captain in new uniform; nicely pressed. He’d been seeking an opportunity to wear it for weeks, and he wasn’t going to pass up on his chance. A second officer, younger, nervous individual, career minded, wondering if his chosen path might have been a bad one, smart uniform he’d been ordered to throw on at short notice for the occasion, but old and worn and tired, and it all looked hurried.

Next to him, a civilian diplomat, who turned out to be Da Chung from the Consulate, Dan, as he liked to be called in England, and the pilot, a local man named Beardmore, who was looking to steer the ship out of the dock, and away from the mouth of the river. That was the plan. He’d done it a hundred times before, though not with a vessel the size of the DP.

The captain saluted, to Jun first, maybe that wasn’t surprising, then to the big black man, because he carried gravitas, at the uniformed English Dock policeman, and last, at the young blonde. The second dick saluted too, didn’t want to be left out of the loop. Walter didn’t have time for such niceties, and neither did Jessica, if she was on board.

The captain said something in Chinese and Jun answered back.

‘He welcomes you aboard,’ said Jun.

Walter glanced across at them. They all looked worried, or could that be guilt, if only by association?

Despite all the modernisation in China, and all the money they were accruing, and the rampant consumerism that was taking hold in that amazing country, it was still a strict communist state, one party, one wish, one law, one God, and when the big dog barked, the pooches all fall in line. To do otherwise could be dangerous.

China executes more people than any other country on earth. Human rights are often at the back of the queue, and you don’t always have to murder someone to reap the ultimate sentence. Crossing someone in a position of power, or putting the big dog’s nose out of joint, could land you in hot water. Sadly, sometimes it happened. Just how well connected and important was Jessica’s buyer? How high up the pecking order? How much clout and influence?

But those guys gathered there couldn’t have been more helpful, or so it seemed. Walter gained the distinct impression someone, somewhere, had put big pressure on to squash the problem, whatever it was. He wondered if it had come through Jun’s phone call to Hong Kong, or maybe Mrs West’s to the Consulate, or something else, or all three. But one thing was for damn sure, these guys were under pressure to behave, and to produce.

‘How long have we got?’ asked Walter.

The pilot glanced at his watch. He saw 15.10.

‘I can give you till 15.45,’ he said, ‘not a moment longer, if we are to get away today, we must move by then.’

Half an hour leeway from the original departure time, that was decent of him, but would it be enough?

‘No time to waste,’ said Walter.

Dan had been translating proceedings, as neither of the Chinese officers spoke English.

‘Where do you want to start, Jun?’ asked Walter.

‘Down below,’ she said. ‘The ten foot tin tomb?’

Walter nodded and said, ‘Tell the deputy dog to lead the way,’ and Jun barked something at him that sounded incredibly abrupt. The young officer jumped on the spot, and glanced at his superior, and was nodded on. He led them inside the superstructure and toward the first set of steps, and they began descending, glancing at their watches as they went, leaving the pilot, looking confused, to return to his duties.

Down and down, six decks down.

The Divine Providence wasn’t similar to Heavenly Peace at all. She was exactly the same, an identical twin, as if, as soon as HP had left the stocks some high powered manager had come along and said, ‘What are you all waiting for, guys? Repeat the exercise. Build another one!’ And the DP had been born, using the same yard and the same plans, the same workforce, the same everything, and it all made perfect sense. It’s always easier and quicker to build a copy of an original. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken. A production line for metal monsters, and voila, there you have it, two mighty ships, ready and sailing on the big pond.

Along a clean corridor, smell of oil, lots of thick coloured pipes, red and orange and blue, running along the ceiling and walls and tucked into the side of the floor. Softly vibrating engines, making ready to put to sea. Jun leading, the rest trooping behind, wondering where they were heading. They stopped half way down the corridor and Jun touched the solid metal door and said, ‘Here, this is the room. I was held here,’ except she wasn’t held there at all because it had been on a different ship in a different time, and the young officer glanced at his boss and he yelled, ‘Open up!’

Even Walter didn’t need that translating, and the young guy opened the door and snapped on the solitary light that was set in the centre of a metal ceiling, housed behind thick unbreakable wavy glass.

Jun stepped inside, and everyone followed, Sergeant Gill having to be careful he didn’t bang his head on the light.

The room was empty.

Not a single thing in there.

Just a cold dank tin tomb, ten by ten, thought Walter, and they all glanced at Jun as if she had fouled up.

‘What is this room used for?’ asked Walter.

Dan and Jun both translated.

The captain shrugged as if he felt uncomfortable with the answer. A question he would rather duck. Walter stuck his hands in his jacket pocket and glared across and waited for a reply.

The captain began speaking.

‘It’s just err...’ a stumbled reply came forth, ‘occasionally if we have, err, someone who needs disciplining, or if, err, someone has done something wrong, seriously wrong, they might be, err, shut in here, for a day or two.’

Dan translated, err’s included, with an air of discomfort. Walter glanced at Jun for confirmation, realising that she could be on tricky ground herself, but regardless, she nodded hard.

The officers and the diplomat stepped outside; convinced it was all one big mistake. Walter glanced at Karen and Jun, and they stared at the rutted metal walls, painted off white, and the floor, painted off white, and smudged and scuffed where some poor souls had been brought and locked in for heaven knows how long, without food or drink. There was nothing in there, not a thing, not even a piece of rope or a small tin of paint, a stool, a bowl, nothing at all.

Or was there?

Walter crouched down. Ran the palm of his hand across the cold and dank floor. Bit of dust, bit of muck, bit of detritus that seems to get everywhere, even inside a sealed room, so it seemed, a room that never saw the light of day, but there was something else there too, something small and sharp, something no one else had seen or touched, for if they had, they might have removed it.

Walter’s large index finger and thumb closed around the tiny object in the dim light like a prosthetic limb. He stood up and held it to the light. There was no doubt about it. It was part of a fingernail. A woman’s fingernail, and on the sliver of nail was a fragment of scarlet nail varnish, and a picture of Jessica lounging on his sofa, painting her nails, flooded into his head.

‘What is it?’ asked Jun.

‘Part of a woman’s fingernail,’ said Walter.

‘Let me see!’ she said.

Walter placed it in her hand.

She presented it to her young and perfect eyes. 20:20 vision, passed that test without a hiccup, literally in the blink of an eye, when she’d joined the HKPF.

‘It’s not Chinese!’ she said, with an air of finality that brooked no argument, though how she could tell that she didn’t say.

She stepped outside and showed the officers the fragment.

Yelled at them, courageously, Walter and Karen thought, and though they could have no idea what she was saying, they might have guessed she was repeating, ‘English girl’s fingernail! Where the hell is she?’

And while that was all going on, Walter whispered to Karen, ‘I think Jessica left that there on purpose, hoping that someone might find it.’

‘Like us, you mean?’

‘Could be. Clever girl. She’s here somewhere.’

Chapter Seventy-Eight

15.30. Walter glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes and the ship would be under way. They had to find Jess soon or they would never see her again. But where do you start looking on a ship that weighed almost 170,000 tonnes?

Walter’s phone rang. He shrugged his shoulders. Mrs West.

He turned it off. Didn’t have time for that.

‘Take me to the crew’s quarters!’ Jun ordered, as a messenger appeared and told the captain he was needed on the bridge. He nodded at his number two, and the younger guy led them away, as they all began ascending topside.

Jun said, ‘I think it possible they only just moved her, maybe they were tipped off, moved her in a bit of a panic. We have to start somewhere.’

Walter and Karen and Sergeant Gill agreed, as they climbed further and back toward the crew’s accommodation.

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15.35. ‘EXCUSE ME!’ an English male voice came echoing up behind them.

They all stopped and turned and looked. It was the pilot, and he looked agitated and out of breath.

‘You are going to have to leave the ship in the next few minutes. If you don’t, you’ll be stranded. I can’t delay much longer.’

That made perfect sense, yet it didn’t.

‘How do you get off the ship?’ asked Walter.

‘Pilot launch, but it can be very tricky getting down those ladders, especially in a swell, and the wind’s picking up.’

‘We’ll take that!’ said Walter.

‘It’s not much more than a metal rope ladder running straight down the side of the ship, and it’s a long way down, and it’s moving all the time, and if you don’t like heights, and if you’re not fit, you might not make it.’

Sergeant Gill pulled a face. Said, ‘I’m not great on heights and I’ve a sore shoulder, I think I’d better go,’ and he glanced an apology at the others.

Walter said, ‘That’s understandable,’ and his height and frame might not make it easier either. ‘You get away.’

Gill wished them well and made his way topside.

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15.40. ‘I’M STAYING,’ said Karen.

Any physical test was something she relished. She was light, strong, fit, agile, young, and always up for a challenge. She’d done a little rock climbing in North Wales too, and reckoned that would stand her in good stead, and she was right. What was the point of being a fit young officer if you ran away at the first sign of difficulty?

Walter wasn’t light, strong, fit, agile, or young, and he’d never rock climbed in his life and never would. But wild Chinese fire-breathing dragons would not have dragged him off that ship at that moment.

Jun said, ‘I’m staying,’ and she smirked at them because she had an out. ‘If the worst comes to the worst I’ll stay on the ship and sail all the way back to Hong Kong.’

‘Let’s get moving,’ said Walter, and he nodded the number two on toward the accommodation block.

They found themselves in a better part of the ship, wider and less steep staircases, wider corridors, even hints of daylight through opened doors and large windows and portholes beyond. Came to a door on the right. The captain had gone, number two opened up. Crew accommodation, modern like everything else, yet Spartan. It was a long and narrow cabin, no one in there; no one sleeping off watch, perhaps everyone was on duty while the vessel was making ready to sail, or whenever the captain was agitated, like now.

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15.45. FAUX LEATHER black benches on either side, dormant flatscreen TV fixed on the wall, wall cupboards and a small kitchen area for snacks and top-ups. Not the main eatery for sure, spotless and tidy, no open packets of biscuits left lying around, no unwashed cups and plates in the gleaming stainless steel sink, no spilt instant coffee or soy sauce. Perhaps a spell in the ten by ten awaited any untidy crew, and they knew it.

There were wall cupboards and wardrobes on either side. Not locked. Walter pulled one open. Pretty full, clothes and uniforms and shoes and underwear, neatly folded and stacked, and everything else working men needed, and it seemed it was all men. They had seen no evidence of women anywhere, and yet there was room in those cupboards to hide a human being. So they checked them all, and found nothing but ultra neat and tidy gear, as if all off-watch time was spent housekeeping. 

Then a sleeping area, red metal framed double bunks either side, three sets, back to back, twelve berths, all beds made up, Beijing fashion, one small pillow, bright red counterpane, no one in any of the beds, no one sleeping, no one on sick leave, or if they were, they weren’t doing it there.

Karen bent down and squinted under the bunks. She could see to the end, nothing there, no dust, no shoes, nothing, no one willing and thinking of breaking any of the many rules and regs. Plenty of red notices on the walls in tiny Chinese characters; no doubt plenty of do’s and don’ts with penalty measures attached. New ship. New rules. New regs. New order.

Jun did the same on the other side. Same result. Saw all the way to the end. Nothing to see.

And yet the end bunk didn’t look quite so tidy. As if instead of one pillow, there were three or four haphazardly dumped beneath the counterpane. Walter and Karen spotted that at the same time. Seemed odd when everything else was so neat and correct. Walter limped to the end of the mess, grabbed the hem of the tucked in red cover, pulled it back, revealed a face, a famous face, a supermodel’s face, with a bad haircut.

Jessica wasn’t restrained in the bunk, just sleeping. But she looked okay and her breathing was good. Walter knelt down on the floor, felt her brow. Warm, but not dangerously so. He turned back to Jun. ‘Tell the captain what we have found! Tell him and the pilot to delay the sailing until we have her safely off the ship, and I don’t care how long it takes!’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and Jun turned tail and ran away.

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15.50. ‘I THINK IT’S too late, Guv,’ said Karen. ‘We’re under way,’ and Walter stood and felt the unmistakable feeling of movement.

‘Damn!’ It was true, he was not looking forward to clambering down that ladder in a swelling sea. 

He knelt down again and whispered, ‘Jessica!’

No change. ‘Jessica!’ and he tapped the far side of her face.

Her eyes flickered open.

Focused on a blurry picture.

Maybe she was hallucinating.

Maybe she was dreaming, for what she saw was the kindly black face of Walter Darriteau, staring down at her like some kind of wise old black angel, looking concerned, whispering her name, ‘Jessica! Jessica!’ and that couldn’t be right, could it?

But it was right. She felt his hand on her arm, his breath on her face.

‘Walter,’ she whispered. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

Walter smiled, ‘I was about to ask you the same question.’

Jun came running into the mess. Stood beside Walter. Said, ‘It’s too late, Guv, we’re already underway.’

Walter nodded.

There was nothing that could be done about that.

‘Who’s your friend?’ whispered Jess.

Walter smiled and turned about and grinned up at Jun, and back at Jess. ‘This is Inspector Jun Woo of the Hong Kong Police Force. Jun put her life at risk to break open this inquiry and free all the women held.’

Jessica pulled a weak arm from the bed, waved a silly wave, and they all noticed the missing and broken nail, as she mouthed, ‘Thanks.’

‘I’m a big fan,’ said Jun.

‘Really?’ said Jess.

‘Yes, I have seen you before.’

‘Where? When?’

‘You came to a fashion show in Hong Kong last year. My father’s Jimmy Woo, the tailor.’

‘I know Jimmy Woo, makes great suits. How is he?’

‘He’s well.’

Walter completed the introductions. Karen and Jess shared a smile and Walter said, ‘Are you okay? Can you stand up?’

‘Sure,’ and she pulled her long legs from the bed and made to stand up, and she just about made it, and in the next moment she was towering above them all, and the second after that, her legs gave way, and she slipped her arms around Walter and Karen to save herself from falling, as they led her from the room.

‘What about Pryce and Brinton?’ she said.

‘We believe Pryce is dead, and Brinton’s in custody,’ said Walter. ‘You don’t need to worry about them.’

‘He’s a weirdo, that Brinton,’ said Jess. ‘You want to watch him.’

‘He is,’ said Jun, as they helped Jessica onto the bridge where the captain and his colleagues, and the pilot stared at the drained supermodel as if she were a ghost.

They sat her in the captain’s chair and gave her coffee, as the captain barked orders and enquiries that Walter knew would go on long into the night. Who was responsible for this? Walter imagined he said, and he was close too. He doubted if they would ever get to know who was responsible. But that wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered was that Jessica Stone was alive and well, and in one piece, and would not be exported to China, into slavery, for big bucks, or anywhere else that day, or any other.

The pilot was still busy, barking orders on a phone and a ship-to-shore walkie-talkie at the same time, but he still had a moment to come over and say what the others were thinking.

‘She’ll never make it down the ladder, not in that state.’

Walter nodded and took out his phone.

Winked at Jessica, and rang Mrs West.

Chapter Seventy-Nine

16.10. Mrs West answered immediately.

‘Walter! I’ve been trying to get you. Where are you?’

‘On the massive Chinese merchantman, the good ship, State of Divine Providence.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Good news and bad news, ma’am.’

‘Don’t play games, Walter, not today.’

‘Jessica Stone is alive and well and sitting here, grinning at me.’

‘Lucky you. And?’

‘The vessel’s sailed.’

‘So what does that mean?’

‘We might have been able to get off down a narrow ladder onto the Pilot boat, but there’s no way Jessica could manage that, she’s still under the influence of drugs unknown.’

Mrs West sniffed like an irritated sow and said, ‘You know what that means, don’t you?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Whirly-birdies in the sky!’

Secretly, that was what Walter was gunning for. He had no great desire to clamber down the side of a heaving metal monster, above the cold and swollen and angry seas of Liverpool Bay.

‘If you think that’s necessary, ma’am.’

‘Is Karen with you?’

‘Yep.’

‘And Jun?’

‘Yes, her too, she has been invaluable... just a second...’ for he had a thought. ‘Are you coming back with us, Jun?’

Jun nodded and approached Walter and said, ‘I’d like to, Guv, I’d like to see those other guys in custody, see it through to the end.’

Walter smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, Jun’s here and she’s coming with us.’

‘So it’s you and three attractive young women, is that about the size of it?’

‘Yes,’ said Walter, glancing at each of them, all so different, all very special. ‘How’s it going at your end?’

‘We are managing well, things are happening, lots of info, I’ll brief you on your return.’

‘Thanks, ma’am.’

‘Leave it with me!’ and Mrs West was gone.

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16.40 THE PILOT HAD trained for seven and a half years to gain his Liverpool Pilot’s licence, and that was only the beginning of his rise up the ranks, before he was entrusted with one of the largest vessels ever to sail in and out of the Mersey. The wind was getting up, taking the sea with it, and Walter wasn’t the only one thinking how glad he was not to have to climb down the side of the ship, to the Pilot launch, bucking up and down below.

He’d popped out for a breath of air and his phone rang as he stepped back inside.

‘Walter!’

‘Ma’am?’

‘It’s all arranged. RAF Valley Sea King to remove four persons from the ship. They’ll be contacting the pilot to liaise with him,’ and at that moment Walter was aware that the pilot was talking to someone on the phone about arranging their collection.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

‘Not any alternative. See you back here as soon as poss...’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘There’s still plenty of work to be done.’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Good luck!’ and then she was gone.

Jun said her goodbyes to the captain, all very formal, and Walter wondered what reports would be written on whom and by whom, on the events of the day, and what ramifications would follow. But that was nothing to do with him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Jun Woo, in his eyes, had behaved and acted impeccably throughout.

––––––––

17.15. THE PILOT HANDED control of the vessel back to the captain and would have gone by then, but he’d stayed onboard, eager not to miss the fun. The big yellow RAF Sea King helicopter came in directly above the bows.

‘Never been on a heli,’ said Karen.

‘I have,’ said Walter.

‘When?’

‘Tell you some other time. Let’s concentrate on the job in hand. Jessica will go first, then Jun, then Karen, and last, myself,’ and they saw the ’copter hovering close to the bridge, and the side doors high above them opened. An RAF officer in a crash-hat and orange overalls descended on a wire in the wind. The river pilot stepped forward and reached for him and grabbed him. He beckoned Jessica to him, as Karen and Walter helped her toward the guy. In the next second, she was in his clutches, and being winched high into the sky with a squeal of delight, as they watched her disappear into the safety of the yellow cabin, just as drizzle began to fall.

The others followed without a hitch and there was much excitement inside the ’copter, as they smiled and exchanged stories and thanked their rescuers, and soon after that they enjoyed fantastic views, as they approached the mouth of the Mersey and the Freeport, and the docks and ships and trucks, and the vacant berth below them, from where they’d sailed not long ago.

They could see the silver Volvo, still there, looking abandoned, and a young policeman standing by it, arranged by Sergeant Gill, as the helicopter selected a suitable landing spot, close by, and set down. They thanked their dashing rescuers and stepped out. Walter and the girls headed for the car, thanked the young PC, and in the next moment they were in the Volvo, and heading out of the Freeport, Karen and Walter in the front, Jun and Jessica in the rear.

Back on the ship, the pilot had stood and watched, and waved as the ’copter swept away. He glanced across as the rolling Pilot launch and cursed his luck, and the stiffening breeze, and growing waves. No helicopter ride for him, just that challenging trip over the side, that no matter how many times he’d completed, never seemed to get any easier. 

––––––––

17.50. THE CAR HEADED south, down the dock road, hitting the main rush hour traffic, flowing down toward the tunnel. It would be a long crawl all the way through, no bike-riders to smooth the way this time.

Walter asked Jessica to describe the two men who had taken her from his house. Jun realised they were the same two who had collected her from the Freeport, the men whose names she didn’t know, the men she knew as Man One and Man Two, violent and ruthless criminals who were still at large.

Walter turned in his seat and glanced at Jessica.

‘Will you be all right to come back to the station and make a statement?’

‘Of course. I want those guys catching as much as you do.’

‘And after that we’ll fix you up with a hotel.’

‘I don’t want a hotel, Walter, that’s the last thing I need, to be on my own. Can’t I come and stay with you?’

That threw him. He hadn’t considered the idea, and ridiculously the image of the still to be replaced carpet jumped into his mind and he said. ‘Well, that’s a bit unusual.’

‘I stayed with you before, Walter.’

‘Yes, I suppose you did.’

‘Go on, Guv,’ said Karen. ‘The girl needs help.’

‘Well, okay, just so long as Mrs West hasn’t made other plans.’

‘And I’ll need a hotel too,’ said Jun.

‘No, you can come and stay with me,’ said Karen.

Jun smiled. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Deffo!’ said Karen, ‘not a prob.’

‘Okay,’ said Jun, ‘That would be great. I need to get some new clothes, and a good haircut.’

‘My hair needs attention too,’ said Jessica, and they all glanced at her face, and the rough hack job that the weirdo Brinton had done in the pep talk room, and they grinned and laughed, and Walter said, ‘I am keeping out of any discussion to do with haircuts,’ and they all laughed at that too.

‘The Guv broke Brinton’s jaw,’ said Karen.

‘Did you?’ grinned Jessica.

Walter didn’t reply, and Karen said, ‘He did! One punch. Unbelievable!’

‘I wish I’d seen that,’ said Jess.

‘It was cool,’ said Jun. ‘I wish all the girls Brinton bullied, smacked, frightened, and abused had seen it.’

‘Will you get into trouble, Walter?’ asked Jess.

Walter shrugged his shoulders and pulled a face, ‘No idea. Don’t regret it. Shouldn’t think so.’

‘The guy was trying to kill us!’ said Karen. ‘That’s all you need know.’

‘He would have killed us all, given the chance,’ said Jun, and they all agreed with that.

Karen changed the subject.

‘We’ll go shopping together,’ she said, and Jun nodded, and Karen continued, ‘Are you up for some shopping, Jessica?’

‘Damned right,’ she said. ‘Models and shopping go hand-in-hand,’ and she giggled. ‘And anyway, I’ll need some new things. I don’t suppose my stuff’s still in your house, is it?’

‘No,’ said Walter, ‘they took everything away.’

‘Count me in,’ said Jess.

‘Shopping is important,’ said Walter, ‘but it takes second place to the investigation. There is still work to be done.’

‘Course,’ said Karen, smirking.

‘Deffo,’ said Jun, mimicking Karen’s earlier reply, and by then they were through the tunnel, and past the tollbooths, veering left and south, and heading back toward Chester.

––––––––

18.55. BACK IN THE OLD city, Karen pulled the car into the basement car park. Walter said, ‘Put a note on the car – IN USE – WD – we’re going to need it again.’

Upstairs, the Incident Room was busy. Hector was there, looking pleased with himself. Gibbons too, back from the hospital, two uniforms were at the bedside. Brinton wouldn’t be left alone for a second, and Mrs West was in the office too, thoroughly enjoying herself, because she and Hector had been interrogating the young kid from Minstrel all afternoon, and in her eyes she had “broken” him, well and truly.

Jan and Jenny, both armed, thanks to Walter’s carelessness, were still hunkered down at Minstrel in case the bad guys returned. They’d been reinforced with a couple of keen young uniforms, anxious to impress. 

Walter and the girls streamed in, and Gibbons jumped out of his chair and came over to meet them, and Gibbons said, ‘I have been dying to meet you!’ as he shook Jessica’s hand, and looked up into her eyes, all the while grinning stupidly.

‘He’s talked about nothing else all afternoon!’ said Hector, completing the introductions.

‘There’s still lots to do,’ said Mrs West, bringing them all back to reality. ‘Walter, my office,’ and she turned and scuttled away. Walter limped after her like a naughty boy at school, and all the others watched and grinned and sat down and shared stories, while Jun and Jessica felt safe and much at home, as if amongst friends.

––––––––

19.00. SEATED IN THE inner sanctum of Mrs West’s office.

‘So!’ she said, ‘Do you want to start, or shall I?’

‘Whichever you think best, ma’am.’

‘Bring me up to speed,’ she said, taking off her glasses, and sitting back in her big chair, and closing her eyes.

‘Well, as you know...’ and he told her everything he had to tell, but as before, leaving out certain details she didn’t need to know right there. And then he said, ‘Jessica’s asked if she can stay at my place for a few days. Bit unusual, I know, but if it’s okay with you, ma’am, I’m happy with that.’

‘I’ll bet you are! Not every day a supermodel comes on a sleepover, what?’

‘True, ma’am.’

‘Save spending money from the public purse, I suppose, fine by me.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Brinton’s suffered a broken jaw,’ she said, trying to stifle a yawn, her eyes still closed.

‘So I believe.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘I hit him, ma’am, just the once.’

‘Witnesses?’

‘Several.’

‘And was it necessary?’

‘He was armed and trying to kill Karen and myself. I’d say so.’

Mrs West opened her eyes and smiled, ‘Yes, Walter, from what you say, I have to agree. Make sure it’s all in your report, chapter and verse.’

‘It will be.’

‘Do you want to hear my news?’

‘Sure.’

‘Hector and myself, he has potential, that boy, have been interviewing the young man from Minstrel, one Raymond Edwards. In the end he told us everything. Couldn’t stop talking by the time we had finished with him. Too much to go into now, the important thing is, the two missing guys have taken away Pryce’s and Barton’s bodies for burial. They are going to do that on Formby sandhills at one in the morning.’

‘Do we have a name for these guys?’

‘We do, and you won’t believe it.’

‘Go on.’

‘Smith and Jones.’

‘Really?’

‘As I breathe. They are the same guys who abducted Jessica Stone, and the same guys I believe killed Stevie Cliffe.’

‘Yes, that figures. Are you going to arrange for Merseyside Police to scoop them up?’

A mischievous look came across her thin lipped and sometimes mean-looking face.

‘I thought, Walter, that seeing as we have been active on this operation from the start, we should do the scooping up, as you colourfully put it.’

Walter was happy with that, and said, ‘It would be nice to finish it off.’

‘Indeed! I’ll give them the heads up, of course, the Liverpool boys, tell them we have a little observation operation going on, so they don’t blunder in.’

‘Probably wise, ma’am. Smith and Jones will be armed.’

‘Of course they will, and so will we. It’ll be done by the book. In cases like this, overwhelming fire-power wins the day, you know the drill.’

‘Yes, sure,’ said Walter, trying to figure out a way of retrieving his weapon from Ellesmere Port.

‘I have put together an impressive team. You, Karen, Jun, and Gibbons in one car, and Hector, myself, that huge hunk of a uniform, Richard Spence and his wiry mate, in another, plus four armed uniform guys who are primed and ready to go, in a third. We’ll leave Jan and Jenny at Minstrel in case they turn up back there. What do you think?’

Walter said one word, ‘Impressive,’ and she looked happy to hear it, and he spoiled it a tad by saying, ‘Are you sure you want to go?’

‘Damned right, I do.’

Walter glanced at his watch. 19.30.

‘What time do you want to set off?’

‘How long will it take to get there?’

‘An hour and a half, tops.’

She nodded and said, reverting to a twelve hour clock, ‘If we left at say, ten o’clock, that should give us plenty of leeway.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘They all need a break, ma’am, time to get something to eat. I suggest we send them home now with orders to be back here for half-past nine, for a quick final briefing.’

‘Agreed!’ she said. ‘I’m quite excited. Get them moving, Walter.’

He stood and tried a grin at her, though if she noticed there was no recognition, so he opened the door and left the room.

Chapter Eighty

19.20. Walter stepped out of Mrs West’s office and saw the whole gang gathered in a circle in the centre of the office, Gibbons holding court, his back to Walter.

Walter heard Gibbons say, ‘You should have seen it. I’ve never seen anything like it! A short-armed left jab and Brinton went down as if he’d been shot,’ and Gibbons did a passable impression of the punch, several times in case anyone didn’t get the picture. ‘I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Didn’t think the old goat had it in him, unbelievable. SMACK! Broken jaw! Just like that!’ and Gibbons saw Hector staring over his shoulder toward Mrs West’s office, and he turned round, saw the Guv, and said, ‘Oh, hi Guv, I was just telling them about your short-arm jab.’

Gibbons was known as the office expert when it came to all things Queensbury rules, so maybe somewhere deep down Walter was pleased to hear the guy’s approval.

Walter said, ‘So I heard, Gibbons, but the “old goat”, as you put it, isn’t a pensioner yet.’

Gibbons looked rebuked and said, ‘Sorry, Guv.’

‘Listen up, and pay attention. You can have a couple of hours off, get some food and rest, check your equipment. Torches working, and be back here on the nail for 21.30. Understand?’

They all nodded and muttered, ‘Sure thing, Guv.’

Walter glanced at Karen. ‘Can you take Jessica and myself home, then come back and pick me up at 21.10?’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘And you’re going to look after Jun?’

Karen smiled at Jun and nodded, and Walter said, ‘Come on team... time’s ticking.’

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19.40. KAREN PULLED the car to a halt outside Walter’s house. He said, ‘See you back here at ten past nine.’

‘We’ll be here,’ said Karen, and Walter and Jessica stood out of the car, and the Volvo pulled away.

The drizzle had stopped, but it was still a gloomy evening, and the light was fading fast. The pavements had that smell of recent rain. Sid the spider saw them coming and pelted for shelter. Lizzy Morgan at number 58 had seen them arrive too. She’d been watching one of those cookery romance programmes on TV, but that held no interest any longer, as she jumped to the front window and stared out across the road, and it was true. It really was the supermodel Jessica Stone, in their street, going into Mr Darriteau’s house, and that was too good an opportunity to miss.

She watched them hustle up the garden path and saw Walter open the front door, and they disappeared inside. Lizzy ran up the stairs, shouting, ‘It’s her! Jessica Stone,’ as she went hunting for the supermodel hardback books she’d received the previous Christmas.

Across the road, Walter beckoned Jessica into the front room. He’d slipped an old rug over the cut out carpet, but it sure as hell looked odd.

‘Are you sure you’ll be all right by yourself?’

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘much prefer my own company to what I’ve been enjoying recently.’

She had a point there.

‘Help yourself to anything you want to eat, make some toast, there’s plenty of cheese and ham, make yourself at home. I’m going to have some.’

‘I’ll be fine, Walter. Actually, there is something I could do with.’

‘Yeah? What?’

‘I could do with a bath.’

Walter grinned.

‘Of course you could. I’ll put the immersion on, only take thirty minutes and the water will be hot.’

The front door bell rang.

Jessica looked nervous.

‘Who the hell...’ said Walter, and he went to the front door.

Jessica heard him talking to a young woman on the step.

‘Do you think you could ask her to autograph these? I’m such a big fan.’

She was a cool kid, thought Walter, and he took the books from her excited hands, for he’d had an idea.

‘Would you like to meet her?’

‘Oh yes, Mr Darriteau, that would be fab!’

‘Come on in, you can ask her yourself,’ and in the next second he was introducing them, and Walter suggested it might be an idea if Jessica called across at the Morgans later, be better for her to be with people, rather than being alone. He wouldn’t be back till the small hours, and she’d be sure to get a warm welcome, and Lizzy nodded as if she couldn’t believe her luck. The polite Jessica said, ‘If you’re sure,’ and Lizzy nodded again like crazy, and that was fixed.

‘Jessica’s going to have a shower and something to eat and then she’ll be over to see you in an hour or so, okay?’

Lizzy nodded again and retreated to the door, before they changed their minds.

After the kid had gone Jess said, ‘I’d have been fine by myself.’

‘Yes, maybe, but you’ll be better off with them. They are great people, and you have a big fan there, and anyway, their house is much nicer than mine.’

‘I like your house, Walter, just as it is.’

‘Yes, but you’ll like theirs much better. No arguing, and here’s a key, you can let yourself back in anytime you want,’ and he slipped a spare key into her hand. ‘I’m going to fire up the water.’

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19.55. KAREN PULLED the Volvo to a halt outside her garage, halfway down the modern block, set at the rear of her flats. It was a garage she rarely used. Turned off the engine and stepped out. Jun followed. They were both hungry, and looking forward to the curry that Greg had been ordered to prepare.

He was a huge guy, thought Jun, as he stood before the modern gas cooker, professional striped pinny on, as he poked away at some bubbling scented meal, smiling crazily at the pair of them, as they stood in the kitchen doorway, watching proceedings.

‘Dinner should be ready in ten,’ he said.

‘It had better be,’ said Karen, grinning and smiling at Jun, and Karen took Jun to her bedroom to find her a suitable jacket for the night, his words chasing them away, ‘Don’t be so cheeky!’

‘He’s hot!’ whispered Jun.

‘You think?’

Jun bobbed her head. ‘Hellava hunk!’

‘Yeah, maybe, but don’t tell him that. He’s got a big enough ego as it is, and sometimes he can be a right dork.’

‘Dork?’ queried Jun.

‘Yeah, you know, he has definite man-like tendencies... makes a complete prat of himself at regular intervals.’

Jun laughed, tried on a jacket, fitted well, maybe a little long, but no matter, it was dark and warm and cosy, and most importantly for night-time ops, it didn’t rustle when she moved.

‘If you’re sure.’

‘Course! Are you courting, Jun?’

She looked uncomfortable at being asked the question. Perhaps Hong Kongers didn’t like to talk openly about such things, thought Karen, and Jun said, ‘No, wish I was, I’ve never... well, you know,’ but she stopped herself saying any more, and went back to commenting on the length of the jacket sleeves.

Karen took hold of her arm.

‘It’ll happen, when you are ready, when it’s meant to. Some handsome guy will come along and sweep you off your feet.’

Jun pursed her lips and nodded and glanced away, and then said, ‘I know. I just wish he’d get a move on, that’s all. I’m getting awfully tired waiting.’

‘Are the guys in the Hong Kong Police hot?’

Jun nodded.

‘Yeah, lots of them are, check out their website. One of the guys on the front page, he’s very nice. A real cutey-pie.’

‘There you are!’

‘He’s married.’

‘Oh dear. Never mind. Plenty more fish in the sea!’

‘Not if the Japanese have their way!’ and they both laughed at that, and Jun said, ‘I sure hope so.’

They heard Greg bellowing through the flat, ‘Dinner is served! I’m having mine!’

But he wasn’t, not really, not even sat at the table. Just designed to get them coming and running, and it worked well, as they scurried in and sat down, as Greg dished up his medium hot lamb curry with pops, and it was so damned good. The hellava hunk could cook.

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20.45. JESSICA HAD BATHED and smartened up as best she could. Still hated her hacked hair but what could she do about that? Took an echinacea tab with some herbal tea, nibbled the cheese on toast Walter had prepared, surprised herself at her lack of appetite. Felt a lot better for a bath.

Walter came into the sitting-room and sat opposite.

‘There’s something I need to say, to tell you.’

Jessica stiffened. Sounded like bad news.

‘Like what?’

‘How important was Ricky Barton to you?’

She pursed her lips.

‘There was a time,’ she began, ‘when he was the be-all and end-all, a time when I could think of nothing and no one else. But it seems these feelings I have for men are only transient. At the time they are everything, yet the real question is, how strong are they, for they never seem to last.’

‘Only you will know that.’

‘Well, Walter, when you witness the man you thought you loved, butcher someone in your own front room, fillet them like gutting a herring, without a second thought, without any conscience, well, that kind of thing is inclined to smash any feelings into oblivion. Did in my case, anyhow. Maybe deep down, I kept thinking it could have been me, because he was capable of it, Walter. What makes you ask?’

‘He’s no more.’

‘Dead?’ and she breathed out heavy.

Walter nodded.

‘How?’

‘Brinton shot him in the throat.’

‘Geez! What a mess!’

‘The good news is the whole sorry business is coming to a close.’

‘Hope so.’

‘With a little luck, tonight will be the final chapter.’

Jessica nodded and said, ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword. Can’t say as I have too much sympathy.’

Walter nodded. She was an intelligent girl, and more than that, a strong person, physically and mentally, and he admired her. ‘That’s about the way of it. You ready to go across the road?’

‘Yeah, tell you the truth, Walter, I’m glad you fixed that up now, wouldn’t really have wanted to sit alone in the house all night.’

‘That’s what I figured. No idea what time I’ll be back.’

Jessica nodded, and they went outside. He took her across to number 58 where she was welcomed as if she were royalty. Come in! Sit down. Wanna coffee? Wanna piece o’cake, something stronger, white wine, maybe? We have so been looking forward to meeting you. Lizzy has told us all about you. She’s a HUGE fan! She has SO-ooo many questions for you. Walter grinned at them all, thanked them, left them to it, and went back to his house.

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20.50. GREG WASHED AND cleared away the dishes.

‘You’ve got him well trained,’ whispered Jun.

‘Not really,’ said Karen. ‘He’s not normally like this, I think he’s trying to impress you.’

‘It’s working,’ said Jun, and the girls exchanged a giggle.

‘I’ll wait up for you,’ said Greg.

‘No you won’t!’ said Karen. ‘You are going home, and right now!’

‘Oh, pigs!’ and he moaned like a young teenaged boy denied a treat, and sighed over-loudly, and said, ‘Bye,’ to Jun, and wished them well on their op, as Karen pushed his jacket into his midriff and ushered him toward the door, and out of the flat, as the girls exchanged glances.

‘You only want me for my food!’ he sulked, shouting back through the open door.

‘What else?’ said Karen, and Jun laughed aloud, as she went for her borrowed jacket.

‘Karen?’

‘What?’

‘Do you fancy keeping in touch, once the op’s over.’

Karen grinned and said, ‘Sure.’

‘Maybe you could come and visit us in HK, and perhaps I could come back and see you here.’

‘Great idea!’ said Karen. ‘Love to,’ and as they were thinking of that, exciting exchanged holidays on opposite sides of the planet, the phone rang three times.

‘It’ll be Walter, wondering where we are,’ said Karen, and she picked up the phone and said, ‘Hi!’

‘Hello, Karen.’

It was a man’s voice, but it wasn’t Walter, and what with everything else on her mind, for a moment she had no idea who it was.

‘Who is this?’

‘Have you forgotten me already?’

‘Ah, Kit, sorry, I am just busy on something.’

‘Have I rung at an inconvenient moment?’

‘No, well yes, but...’ How do you explain to someone she was about to go out and tackle and arrest two armed murderers, men who were going about their unlawful business of burying corpses, not the kind of information that your average Joe in the street would ever hear, and would have no idea of how to cope with. The pillock probably thought she was fretting about her mixed up love life like some kind of dipsy teenager.

‘Well, if it is convenient, I wondered if you’d had any further thoughts on the job offer.’

Jun came and stood before her and pointed at the clock.

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20.58. ‘SORRY KIT, I do have to go, I’ll get back to you,’ and she slammed the phone down, ran to the bathroom, swigged mouthwash, zipped on some deo, threw on her jacket, collected her keys, and the girls stepped out into the night, and ran to the car. 

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21.12. WALTER PACED up and down in his front room. It was fully dark and the curtains across the road at number 58 were drawn. But the lights were all on, and he envisaged a happy picture inside that smart room, and the excited chatter and laughter going on, and maybe the Morgans had more success in tempting Jess to eat something than he had. No wonder she was so skinny. Walter glanced again at his watch. Karen was late, and it was not like her, and it was not the day, or the night, to be late. He harrumphed, just as the Volvo arrived in a rush. He heard it before he saw it, Karen testing it to oblivion. It pulled to an abrupt halt outside his gate, sexy headlights full on, and Jun got out of the front and jumped in the back.

Walter closed the curtains, felt for his gun out of habit, but there was nothing there, and that was a painful thought, and he went outside and limped down the path, and slumped into the car.

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21.14. ‘YOU’RE LATE!’ he said, trying not to sound grumpy in front of guests.

‘Sorry, Guv. Traffic.’

‘What? At this hour?’

Karen changed the subject. ‘How’s Jessica?’

‘Fine. Fixed up for her to spend the evening with neighbours.’

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21.29. BACK AT HQ. IN the lift. heading upstairs. Everyone was there, excited and waiting. Mrs West, Gibbons, Hector, six uniformed guys, in civvies, including the huge hunk, Richard Spence, as Mrs West had described him with great enthusiasm.

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21.30. KAREN WENT TO the monster. Turned it on.

‘Hello team,’ said the irritating dolly look-alike.

Walter scowled.

Gibbons blew the creature a kiss.

‘Serious heads on!’ ordered Mrs West, and there would be no more frivolity, because they all realised that before the night was out, someone could get shot dead, and it was a twelve to one chance it could be them.

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21.33. A HUGE COLOURED road map of the Formby coast displayed on the monster. Everyone paid close attention. It wasn’t a moment to daydream, or let the concentration slip. Lots of information followed.

Formby was a small well-heeled town hunkered down on the coast between Southport and Liverpool, much favoured by commuters and the retired. There were some expensive property there too, and was a favourite haunt for footballers and golfers, who regularly showed their faces in the many smart country clubs and upmarket pubs in the area. There were pretty pinewoods too, providing relaxing walks, where red squirrels and weird toads could be seen. 

The ground was sandy, flat, and low-lying, some of it even below sea level, and oddly, the highest point in the whole of the town could be found in the ever changing and windswept sand dunes, banks of sand and coarse grass that restrained the cold and grey Irish Sea from breaking into the town and causing mayhem. The shifting dunes were a place where naturists shed their clothes and sunbathed naked, but not in the autumn and winter, and not at night-time, not often, and not at one o’clock in the morning, leastways that was the hope.

Like many coastal towns there was one main road in and one main road out, the busy A565, that rushed its way north to south up the flat greenbelt land between Liverpool and Southport.

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21.36. KAREN POINTED at the screen and said, ‘The A565, dual carriageway for much of its stretch, a place where speed-bobbies snag speedsters and drunken drivers, a place where kids just out of school, maybe with a driving licence and maybe not, like to show off to their mates and girlfriends how good a driver they are, or not, as the case may be. A place where, according to the latest intel, two men, thought to be Terry Smith and Colin Jones, professional hoodlums the pair of them, are going tonight in the small hours to bury two bodies, believed to be the remains of London racketeer Ricky Barton, and local slave driver and importer and dealer in girls and misery, one Mr Pryce. We believe Barton murdered Pryce in his office at Minstrel Electronics, and that Brinton, now in custody, in hospital,’ and they all glanced at Walter and smirked and smiled, ‘murdered Barton in the same room. Smith and Jones are wanted in connection to the murder of Yet Kwai Dang, the Chinese girl dumped outside the swimming baths, the murder that started this whole inquiry, the abduction of Jessica Stone, and the murder of Sergeant Stevie Cliffe. They are probably armed and dangerous,’ and Karen pulled a concerned face and nodded at Mrs West as if to say, how am I doing so far? Do you want to take it up?

She took her cue and stood up and jumped into the conversation.

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21.38. ‘MYSELF AND HECTOR have been interrogating Raymond Edwards most of the afternoon. He was the young guy working at Minstrel, and after a sticky start we persuaded him of the wisdom of telling us everything he knows. He said that Smith and Jones have the bodies wrapped in tarpaulins in a grey Japanese people carrier, and they plan to bury the bodies on the dunes at 1am. We don’t know exactly where, I don’t think the kid knows, and as the dunes cover a surprisingly large area, we don’t intend letting them get that far. We’ll stop them on the road just after they leave the A565,’ and she nodded back at Karen to show them where.

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21.41. KAREN BROUGHT the map back on the screen. Pointed at the A565. ‘Here’s the airfield, RAF Woodvale; they’ll turn off soon after that. Here’s the coastal road, they’ll turn left there,’ and she pointed it out and enlarged it and everyone nodded and understood. ‘It leads down to the dunes, so the object is to stop them before they get there.’

‘How?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Stinger!’ said Mrs West.

‘It will be deployed on the coastal road before they cross the railway,’ said Karen.

Walter thought about that. The tyre deflation device, invented in America by a Utah patrolman. An effective tool too, even if it had been known to cause serious collisions with stung vehicles running on out of control. His view was it was unnecessary in this case, but Mrs West called the shots, and she seemed to get a real thrill from yelling, ‘Stinger,’ so stinger it was. It was nothing more than a line of upturned metal spikes, nothing hi-tech about it, almost a medieval instrument of war, flung across the road in front of the suspect vehicle. Holed the tyres, slowed the car to a crawl, usually worked without a hitch, so long as the car wasn’t going too fast and careered on and crashed.

‘Whereabouts?’ persisted Gibbons.

‘Here,’ said Karen, ‘before the railway at the junction with Pinfold Lane.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mrs West. ‘Walter, Karen, Jun, and Darren will be parked up on the north side. Myself, Hector, Richard and his pal, Jake, we’ll be in the south side. Richard and Jake will deploy the stinger, and all eight of us will descend on the vehicle like flies round dung. Jun can ID them, she’s met them before,’ and everyone glanced at Jun, and she nodded back and said, ‘Looking forward to meeting them again.’

Mrs West bobbed her head and continued, ‘Our other four guys will be back on the by-pass parked up in Dunlop Avenue. You’ll warn us as soon as the people carrier passes through.’

‘Do we have a number for the vehicle, ma’am?’ asked one of the four.

‘No. They keep changing it, but there won’t be many grey people carriers with two IC1s up, trundling along at around midnight.’

Seemed a fair assumption, thought Walter, but that was all it was, an assumption, and he never felt comfortable with those.

‘White Europeans,’ whispered Karen to Jun.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

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21.50. ‘EVERYONE UP to speed?’ asked Walter. ‘Any questions?’

Everyone glanced at everyone else, but no one had a question.

‘All the gear ready?’ asked Mrs West, ‘torches, stinger, weaponry, ammunition?’

Everything primed and ready to go; just as the team were.

‘I’m going to ring Minstrel,’ said Walter. ‘Make sure everything is all right down there.’

‘Good idea,’ said Mrs West. ‘We leave at 22 hundred hours. Remember, these men are vicious murderers. Don’t take any chances!’

Jenny and Jan and the two uniformed kids were still at Minstrel where all was quiet. Earlier, three coaches laid on by the Border Force, had taken 150 Oriental women into custody for questioning, including young Shu, and in almost every case, eventual repatriation. Jen and Jan and the other two would stay there all night, in case Men One and Two, Smith and Jones, returned.

Jen and Jan hoped to get an early call from Walter sending them home. Though they’d be lying if they didn’t admit to hoping that Men One and Two turned up back on their doorstep, and they could make the arrests and grab the glory.

Chapter Eighty-One

22.02. Three unmarked cars pulled out of the underground car park and headed in convoy for the ring road. It was the same trip that Walter, Karen, and Jun had made earlier that day.

M53 northbound, sweeping around to the east, as they approached the tunnel, past the bank of tollbooths. A cursory wave to the duty officer, who had been expecting them, and he watched them descending into the Mersey tunnel, and under the heavy river and up into the night on the Liverpool side of the water.

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22.32. TRAFFIC WAS LIGHT and no need for outriders to smooth the way. Turning left and heading northward, through the Liverpool suburbs, lots of folks on the streets as the pubs were thinking of chucking out, not raining, no moon, plenty of cloud, not too cold for the time of year, fair bit of traffic about, cabs grabbing late night fares, green buses hurrying home to the shelter of the terminus. People hanging around, gabbing, laughing, joking, pushing, shoving, going for a takeaway, standing on the street, munching hot food, thinking of going on to a late night drinking den or nightclub. Girls arm-in-arm in skimpy outfits, chatting aloud. Didn’t they ever get cold? thought Walter.

They all watched a big drunk take a swing at a startled stranger, but the fat guy was so smashed and unsteady on his feet he missed by a good couple of yards, fell on his backside and looked up, confused, convinced someone had clouted him, and those in the car and on the pavement couldn’t help but laugh.

On through Everton and Kirkdale and Bootle and Seaforth, and past the Freeport where they’d found Jessica earlier in the day. Ocean traders were lit up and busy, unloading and loading cargoes of every conceivable kind, and Walter wasn’t alone in considering, hopefully not human cargo too. Jun glanced across at the illuminated big ships, and cranes and trucks and containers, and massive container shifters that picked up the boxes as if they were piffling shoeboxes. She pondered on how many other women were incarcerated, somewhere deep within those huge metal structures that human beings had assembled to move booty over the surface of the oceans and across the planet. How would any poor souls hidden there, imprisoned against their will, ever be found?

On and on they drove in the warm and purring Volvo, as if they were inside some contented migrating creature, past Waterloo and Crosby and Blundellsands, and that place name gave a big clue to the basic terrain of the land in which they travelled, sands, and sand dunes. They were already on the A565, a designated primary route, marked in green on all street maps and satnavs, and they found themselves at the beginning of the dual carriageway, and what was it Karen had said?

A place where speed-bobbies snag speedsters and drunken drivers, a place where kids just out of school, maybe with a driving licence and maybe not, liked to show off to their mates and girlfriends how good a driver they were, or not. Yeah, that was about right. They closed in on Formby itself, where their mission was to put a stop to any illegal interment of bodies going on amongst the dunes, and arrest two violent men for so many crimes the charge sheets might have to be extended.

Like many other places in twenty-first century Britain, Formby was a growing town, probably against the wishes of the inhabitants. More commuters and more new property, and more retired folks, and more people living longer, and more disposable income, and more incomers, and more workers being employed, as the economy grew. It was a pleasant place to spend one’s life, and if Man One and Man Two had their way, it would be the final resting place for Ricky Barton, London hoodlum, and Mr Pryce too, twenty-first century slave-dealer and driver.

The military base and aerodrome at RAF Woodvale was sliding by on the left side, all still lit up, but a minor airfield. No jets out of there, but it was the home base for the Merseyside Air Support Group, from where they flew their Eurocopter EC135 machine, more often than not chasing road speedsters and stolen cars, but not big enough, or chunky enough, to lift five adults off a Chinese merchantman on the high seas, and anyway, they couldn’t have used it even if they wanted to, because it was out of action, undergoing essential annual maintenance.

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23.05. MRS WEST CAME on the radio. Reminded the spotter guys heading for lookout duty, they should pull off and park up in Dunlop Avenue. The road was coming up fast on the left side, just after the aerodrome. A couple of minutes later the spotters turned in there, turned round, out of sight, doused the lights, and waited, ready and watching for late night people carriers with two IC1s up, and bloody tarpaulins in the cabin.

The first two police cars continued on to the next junction, took a left turn, westbound, onto the coast road that would take them down toward the railway and the dunes beyond. They’d park up and hide before that, just as they intended, to stop the target.

It was a narrow road, one lane either way, not much in the way of street-lighting, not much in the way of traffic. Headlights on full beam, scrubby trees on either side, picking out hideous images in the dark, and the trees on the left side fell away, and what appeared to be wire agricultural fencing took their place, with fields beyond, or so it looked in the darkness. Sure enough, there were beasts grazing there, by the wire in the dark, as the officers came to Pinfold avenue, left and right, running across the coast road at a jagged sharp angle. Mrs West and her crew slowed and took the left-hand side, turned in and turned round amongst tidy and desirable seventies bungalows. Easy to jump out and deploy the stinger from there. Walter and his crew took the right side, where they turned in and turned round amongst sixties red brick semi-detached houses, and from there they’d have to re-cross the lane of oncoming traffic, if there was any, to get back to the people carrier, when it arrived, assuming the stinger hadn’t sent it slewing across in their direction.

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23.17. EVERYONE IN POSITION. Everyone watching and breathing hard. Everyone ready, settling down for a wait, not knowing if it would be four minutes... or four hours.

‘I know a joke about the Formby by-pass,’ said Gibbons, grinning to himself on the back seat, glancing across at Jun and rippling his eyebrows. She couldn’t help but smile. A good supply of jokes had served him well in the past on long stake-out jobs.

‘Is there anything you don’t know a joke about?’ asked Walter.

‘Don’t say that, Guv.’

‘Is it filthy?’ asked Karen.

‘Course not!’ said Gibbons. ‘I’m hardly likely to tell a filthy joke when we have overseas guests present, am I?’

‘Never put you off in the past,’ said Karen, sipping her bottled water that she seemed to take everywhere.

‘Go on,’ muttered Walter. ‘Let’s hear it and get it out of the way.’

Gibbons sniffed his readiness and said, ‘There’s this modern Ford saloon, see, pelting down the Formby by-pass, and it skids on some oil in the road, and crosses the central reservation and smacks into a wall and bursts into flames.’

‘Nice joke,’ said Walter.

‘Hold on, Guv, haven’t finished yet.’

‘Well you’d better finish, now you’ve started.’

Gibbons nodded and began again. ‘Four guys on board, all jockeys coming back from the Grand National, and they’re all badly burned, dead as a doornail, can’t be ID’d. Right mess.’

‘Nice joke,’ repeated Walter.

Gibbons grinned and continued. ‘So we call up one of the jockey’s trainers and ask him if he can come down to the morgue and identify his man, and he turns up and looks at the first set of charred remains and says, “No, that’s not him,” and he looks at the second set of ashes and says, “No, that’s not him either,” and he sees the third lot and says “Nope, that’s definitely not him,” and looks at the fourth and last set and says, “Yep, that’s the bastard!” The mortician looks at the guy and says, “That’s amazing! These bodies are burnt to a crisp and you’ve identified your jockey, just like that. How can you be so sure?” and the trainer grins and sniffs and says: “He’s been my jockey for four years and he’s never been in the first three yet!” ’ and Gibbons chuckled at his own joke. Karen clicked her tongue and glanced at the roof of the car, and Walter said, ‘Wonderful, Gibbons, wonderful... now can we get back to the matter in hand?’

‘Sorry, Guv, sure, over to you.’

Jun broke the silence by giggling. He’s never been in the first three yet! and they all laughed at Jun laughing in that dainty convent girl Hong Konger way of hers. Jun thought of her dad back at the Happy Valley Racetrack in Hong Kong, and for a moment she was there with him, and she wondered how he was getting on, and she thought of her mother too, and a second later the radio crackled into life, breaking the spell. One of the spotters back on the by-pass said in an urgent voice, ‘People carrier! Dark colour. Possibly grey. Two IC1s up. Travelling fast. Do you want us to come and join you?’

‘Yes!’ said Mrs West.

Karen and Gibbons felt for their weapons, and Karen started the car and let the engine idle, and said, ‘Here we go,’ and they all looked at one another, and Walter said, ‘Be decisive, but be careful. Don’t take any unnecessary risks,’ and they all nodded and waited, and breathed heavy, and waited some more. It wouldn’t be long. Minutes at most.

Chapter Eighty-Two

23.40. The big uniformed muscled guy, Richard Spence, not in uniform anymore, and his mate, jumped out of Mrs West’s car, opened the boot, took out the stinger, nodded to ma’am in the car, and headed back the twenty-five yards toward the junction.

Hector started the car and moved forward a length.

Spence stared up the coast road, back toward the by-pass. Headlights coming, full beam, not a saloon, not a hatch, not a truck, but a van, or a people carrier, coming on fact, past the LOOK OUT – TRACTORS TURNING sign, past the 50MPH sign, probably breaking the speed limit, but not by much, going about urgent business, at almost midnight.

Still coming on, not far away, and Spence stepped on to the pavement, stinger in hand, picked out by the powerful headlights. Nothing he could do about that. He detected the van slowing a tad, back within the legal limit. Maybe the driver caught a view of the big guy in the near distance, maybe a policeman with something in his hands, maybe a hand held radar device, checking speeds.

Hector switched on the car lights and eased forward and paused at the junction like any legal late night driver. While across the road, Karen brought the Volvo to the jagged junction on the far side, and they all watched in silence.

Spence, lit up in the streaming wavering beams of light, stepped forward, and like some ancient gladiator in the Coliseum, he swung the spiked weapon in his powerful hands, and tossed it across the road as if it were nothing more than a skipping rope, or a net. Mrs West visualised him doing that shirtless, picked out in the beam of light, muscles rippling, as he let it go with a flourish, his hands finishing above his head, as if he were at some ancient and violent games, and he’d snagged his opponent.

It was the eighth time Spence had deployed the stinger, and a vehicle had never escaped him yet.

The people carrier slowed further. Debatable how much the driver saw or understood, but slowing and stopping are different animals. The laws of physics come into play. The heavier the vehicle, the longer the stopping distance. On a dry road like the coastal road, for a people carrier, the stopping distance was over 145 feet, and especially a loaded up people carrier with heavy tarpaulins in the back. That’s over 48 yards and the vehicle was closer than 48 yards. A lot closer.

The driver saw something jagged in the road, something threatening, something hostile, something spiked, guessed what it was, tried to slow further, tried to drive round it, but Spence had deployed it well, all down to the muscles. The narrow road was a good place for a sting, and there was no escape, and in the next moment the people carrier zipped across the stinger at an angle toward the far side where Walter and Co were sitting and watching and waiting. The tyres popped, and the vehicle kept on going a while, momentum taking over as opposed to traction. Black acrid smoke from heavy braking filled the air, and the sound of steady and controlled hissing of pierced rubber from wounded tyres.

‘Go, go, go!’ yelled Mrs West, which seemed unnecessary, but Karen accelerated out of the far side and overtook the carrier and swerved in front of it, blocking any escape, as Hector pulled in hard behind, blocking any reversing manoeuvres, Spence and his mate came running hard and were almost there, and in the far distance of the coast road the spotter guys were haring down toward them, blue lights pulsing on top of the car, not wanting to miss the fun, remembering just in time the stinger was probably still there, unlike a bumble bee, quite capable of stinging again. They wouldn’t be the first cop car to get stung by mistake, and it wasn’t going to happen to them.

Gibbons was the first one to the vehicle. Glared up at the guy, through the glass, yelled: ‘Armed police! Step out of the car!’ and to make his point, he waved the Heckler & Koch pistol in the guy’s face. The man could see that well enough in the light from the headlights, and it was clear from his eyes he understood what he was facing In the next moment, Gibbons had the door open, dragged out the shocked guy, and flattened him on the tarmac, hands behind his back, cuffed in a second, and the searching for a weapon began.

On the far side, Hector dealt with the passenger in the same rapid and efficient manner, assisted by Spence and his pal, Jake. Walter shone his powerful torch down on Man One and Man Two to see if he knew them, to see if he could tell which one of the cretins had murdered Sergeant Stevie Cliffe in his front room.

Karen threw open the rear of the vehicle. All the spotters were there at her shoulder, eager to see inside, for there was something macabre and irresistible about gawping down at murdered people.

‘Two rolled up items,’ she yelled, ‘still sealed.’

Jun Woo was the first to realise the operation had been a disaster. She skipped to Walter’s side. Leant across and said, clear as a bell on the salty night air, ‘It’s not them, Guv.’

Later, Walter thought it interesting she’d come to him and not Mrs West, and it pleased him. One might have thought she would have informed the senior officer on the scene, but she hadn’t. She’d spoken to him, and that was cool.

Walter nodded, for he knew Woo was right. Limped toward Mrs West to break the news, and she wouldn’t be happy. 

––––––––

23.47. HE TOOK HOLD of Mrs West’s arm and pulled her close and whispered, ‘It’s not them, ma’am. Jun is definite on that.’

‘Shit!’ she said, and turned back to the van, and the commotion that was still going on. The officers were pulling out and unwrapping hefty rolls of something, and she called out, ‘Jun!’ and Jun came running.

‘It’s not them?’ asked Mrs West.

‘No, ma’am. One’s too tall and skinny; one’s too short and fat. Definitely not them. The guys we want are similar in height and build, and fitter than these men.’

There was another distinguishing factor that Jun observed, though she wouldn’t say. The short fat guy had bright ginger hair, almost red, picked out in the lights and the torch beams, and she had never seen hair quite like it. She’d rarely seen hair like that back in Hong Kong, unless it came out of a bottle.

Karen yelled, ‘The rolls are new carpets, nothing else!’

Mrs West dismissed Jun, and hurried back with Walter to the van and the cuffed guys, still face down on the tarmac.

‘What are you doing out at midnight?’ she asked.

‘Not a crime, is it?’

‘Just answer the question!’ said Walter.

‘We’re shopfitters, just finished, on our way home, Gerry is staying with me and the missus,’ said the lanky one.

‘Late for shopfitting, isn’t it?’ said Mrs West.

‘It’s always done out of hours, overnight, weekends, that kind of thing, to minimise disruption.’

Walter knew that to be the case, and said, ‘That’s usual, ma’am.’

‘Where have you been working?’ persisted Mrs West.

‘Just finished a job in Wigan.’

‘Is there anything in the van there shouldn’t be? Arms, guns, weapons, clubs, drugs?’

‘Course not! I’m a bloody shopfitter... not Jessie James!’

‘Cut the language!’ said Walter.

Mrs West glanced at Richard Spence and his mate, who’d been searching the vehicle. Spence shook his head. Said, ‘Clean as a whistle.’

One of the spotters said, ‘And the vehicle’s legal, taxed, insured, MOT’d, the works, not even a faulty brake light.’

‘Stand them up!’ she said, and they hauled the guys back to their feet, the cuffs released, as the lanky one said, ‘I’m gonna make an official complaint about this.’

‘That’s your prerogative,’ said Walter. ‘And we apologise for any inconvenience. But we are seeking dangerous men, murderers. We could not take any chances.’

‘So you say! Abusing your power, if you ask me. And who’s gonna pay for the busted tyres and ruined carpets?’

‘You’ll be adequately compensated,’ said Mrs West.

‘I should fucking think so!’

‘Oi!’ said Walter, ‘I won’t tell you about language again,’ and the lanky one nodded, shook his head, and looked at his mate as if to say: What the hell is going on here?

Karen said to Spence, ‘Shift the stinger before someone else gets stung,’ and they went off to do that, as Mrs West took hold of Walter’s arm, and walked him back to her car.

‘Looks like I fouled up.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Maybe we should have stopped suspect vehicles at the tunnel?’

‘There are two tunnels, ma’am, and thousands of vehicles coming through every hour. Imagine the workload and man-hours and disruption that would have caused. And if they wanted to be really clever, they might have gone round by Runcorn Bridge. No, you did the right thing. One narrow road in; this is the best place to intercept. Always was, still is.’

‘Thanks, Walter. So, what now?’

‘One of three things, ma’am.’

‘Go on.’

‘Either they are still to come through, plenty of time yet, or they are not coming at all, or they have already been.’

‘The young guy, Raymond Edwards, he specifically said they had been instructed to bury the bodies at 1am.’

‘True, but you know what workmen are like, ma’am. They left Minstrel over twelve hours ago. I can’t see them sitting around with two bodies in the van all that time. I reckon they would want to get the job over and done with, get rid, get done. I think they have already been through, either finished already... or are busy at work as we speak.’

‘You think? You could be right. What do you suggest?’

‘You wait on here for thirty minutes in case they still come. Get the shopfitters sorted and on their way. Do what you must to placate them. We’ll head down to the dunes and take a quick snoop round, see if there are any likely looking vehicles parked up. We’ll ring you as soon as we’re done.’

Mrs West nodded and said, ‘And the spotter guys?’

‘Maybe you should send them home in half an hour. We don’t want to exacerbate things by stinging another member of the public.’

‘Yeah!’ she said, and she hustled back toward the stung people carrier, and a bunch of people who were all standing around waiting for orders and apologies and direction and leadership. Mrs West was good at that, leadership and direction, most of the time.

Walter glanced at his watch. 23.51. It had been an endless day, and it wasn’t over yet. He limped back to the action, grabbed Jun, and nodded Gibbons back toward the Volvo. Karen was already there, half expecting some kind of movement, and the car doors opened and banged closed, and Karen started up, and Walter waved at Mrs West through the window. She pursed her lips and nodded the tiniest of nods, and the Volvo headed away and down toward the dunes, Karen glancing in the driver’s mirror, at the skewed people carrier with the headlights still on, and shadowy figures moving this way and that, receding into the distance, as they waited for the vehicle repair team to arrive and fit new tyres.

She looked to the front, no traffic coming, nothing behind, almost midnight on the windy Formby coast, and nothing to show for it, other than a big repair bill and a grovelling apology.

Chapter Eighty-Three

23.53. They went up and over the railway bridge, crossed the Liverpool-Southport commuter line, but there were no trains at that hour of the night.

On into wild country, with dark trees on the left, gorse bushes on the sides of the road, one car coming on ahead, single man up, late night dater going home, maybe happy, maybe sad, as the car flashed by and disappeared.

No other traffic, then a blue road sign, PARKING, straight ahead, so it said, still no streetlights, scrubby vegetation both sides, powerful headlights on full beam, then a LOOK OUT for unusual wildlife sign, but being England it didn’t mean zebra and wildebeest and lions and tigers, but butterflies and moths and toads and maybe a red squirrel.

A heavy gust of wind blew in from the west and slammed sand across their path. They could all see it billowing, and hear it, as if it were sandpapering the car, as they cruised between rough grass-covered dunes, the road turning right and north to run parallel to the flat coast. Out of nowhere small trees appeared on either side, and another road sign showing a roundabout ahead, and there it was, a big roundabout with a chunky and prosperous looking pub set on the far side, with signs to the left for the coast and car parks.

Karen went that way, headed down past old red-bricked buildings, maybe flats, maybe offices, and on between what looked like a picnic site, and a public convenience on the left, and a first aid hut on the right, and down between high sand dunes on both sides of the narrow road, toward a gentle slip-way down to the water. Another small car park with an empty attendant’s booth, bearing lots of rules and regulations that drivers must obey to park their car right on the coast. There was nothing there at all, other than wind and sand, and the tide edging in across a vast expanse of flat beach. No cars and no trucks and no vans and no bikes, but for one vehicle parked there, tucked hard into the left-hand side, looking lonely, looking abandoned.

A dark people carrier. No lights showing. No one in the cabin, but it looked familiar to Jun Woo.

––––––––

23.59. THE LONG DAY was about to end.

‘Check the registration,’ said Walter.

Karen pressed the orange dash display and accessed ANPR. Automatic Number Plate Recognition, technology designed to help detect, deter, and disrupt criminality at local, force, regional and national level, including tackling travelling criminals, organised crime groups and terrorists. Didn’t say anything about slave drivers and dealers, but they were surely included, too. Fed in the number. Not known. False plates. What a surprise!

‘It’s them!’ whispered Karen.

Walter’s tumble down mobile interrupted their thoughts.

‘Well?’ said Mrs West.

‘Found a dark people carrier, ma’am. False plates. Looks like no one on board.’

‘I’m coming down!’ she said and rang off.

Which was not what any of them wanted to hear, and yet there was strength in numbers, and those men were believed to be armed and dangerous. But she hadn’t said, wait for me!

‘Do we wait?’ asked Karen.

‘No,’ said Walter. ‘We take them by surprise,’ and they stood out of the car and felt the wind on their faces, and the rasping sand carried in the air, cleansing their skin, annoying the eyes, and though it was damp and blowy and chilly, it wasn’t unbearable. They peered inside the people carrier, pointed the torches through the tinted glass. Nothing there to speak of, no tarpaulins, and no bodies, and no blood splashes on the sills of the doors.

Jun said, ‘I think it’s Minstrel’s vehicle.’

‘So do I,’ said Walter, and he clasped Jun’s arm and said, ‘Do you want to wait in the car?’

‘No, Guv,’ she said, ‘I’ve come this far, let’s finish it together,’ and not for the first time her words touched him, and Walter said, ‘Turn off your mobiles, I don’t want calls giving away our position,’ and they did, and found a narrow sandy pathway on the left side, going up and into the dunes. Gibbons, Karen, Walter, and Jun, stepped in, Gibbons and Karen, weapons drawn, Jun and Walter torches in hand, not lit, not wanting to reveal a thing.

Cloudy night, no moon, no stars, no light of any kind, pitch dark, edging along a twisty sandy path, sometimes up, sometimes down, dry underfoot, sandy and loose, but dry windblown sand. Karen’s hand on Gibbon’s back, Walter’s on Karen’s, and Jun’s on Walter, sticking together, pausing every twenty paces to listen and squint and peer into the darkness.

No sound other than gusts of wind and a big motorbike in the far distance. No light, nothing at all, not even a glimmer. Or was there? Dead ahead, maybe fifty yards, maybe more, the faintest aura of light, almost indistinguishable, but something was going on out there. It looked different to everywhere else.

They paused and watched and listened again. Couldn’t hear a thing, couldn’t see a thing either, other than the faintest of glow. A tramp maybe with a campfire, kids out drinking, or worse, or a courting couple desperate for some alone time together, even there amongst the gritty dunes on a cold, windy, and sandy foreshore. Or could it be two murdering criminals, out burying corpses? Take your pick, thought Walter, and he knew where his money lay. He glanced at his watch. 00.04. A long day over, and a new one beginning. He reached forward ahead of Karen and tapped Gibbons on the shoulder, and pointed at the faintest of glows and whispered, ‘There!’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and they crept forward, trying hard to keep to the path.

––––––––

00.08. MRS WEST AND her boys arrived at the people carrier and the Volvo parked up behind it. No one about. No one in the car. No one in the people carrier. No sign of a living soul.

‘Damn!’ she said, and she pulled out her mobile and rang Walter. Turned off, straight to voicemail. Understandable, but bloody annoying. ‘Wonder which way they went,’ she said.

The wind was picking up. Not so pleasant. Sand in the eyes and hair. Kept people indoors. That was something.

‘There’s a path there,’ said Hector, ‘and look, footprints. That one could be Guv’s,’ and he shone his torch down and around on the ground, and it was the Guv’s. They switched off the lights and headed after them into the dunes, into darkness, Hector, Spence, Mrs West, and Spence’s mate, Jake, in line astern, on the narrow twisty and sandy path.

––––––––

THE DIRECTION OF THE path did not lead directly to the glow, but twisted this way and that through the uneven ground, and when it looked like it might lead them there, it veered away around to the right, heading down toward the coast and the beach, and the huge expanse of flat and wet sand beyond.

The path didn’t go to the glow at all, and maybe that made a modicum of sense. If you were up to no good and burying something you didn’t want anyone to see or find, you’d likely head off the regular path into the wilderness. He reached forward and tapped Gibbons and pointed to the left. And the glow. Gibbons nodded, and left the path and began stepping through tough long grass, and patches of sand, going up and down, never flat, hard to walk through, hard to keep together, hard to keep upright, and when they next paused, Karen said, ‘Did they really carry two bodies through all this?’

‘Must have done,’ said Walter, ‘If it’s them.’

‘And tools,’ said Gibbons. ‘Spades and shovels, too.’

‘Yeah, that as well,’ said Walter. ‘They must have made at least two trips.’

‘What I can’t figure out,’ whispered Karen, ‘is why come all this way? There are sand dunes on the Wirral.’

She didn’t worry about being overheard, for the gusting wind overwhelmed whispered human voices. No one could have heard her ten yards away. But the glow was closer, only twenty-five yards away, seeping from the top of the next dune.

‘Not dunes like these,’ whispered Walter, nodding at the rounded peaks. ‘And maybe it’s the old thing of not wanting to piss on your own doorstep,’ and he beckoned them on toward the last ridge and the glow.

It was tall and steep, and they stood still at the base and listened. Thought they might have heard a man’s voice, thought they might have heard digging, but those sounds disappeared as soon as they came. Perhaps the wind was playing tricks on their ears, not mirages of an oasis in the desert, but weird sounds in the ears on the wind. Real or imaginary? Only one way to find out. Head that way. Go and look and see and decide.

Walter beckoned at the dune and said, ‘Gibbons, go up and take a quick look, report back, and be careful.’

Gibbons nodded and half strode, half scrambled up the steep grass-topped dune, gun in hand, and peered over the edge. Took everything in, slid back down, grinning.

Chapter Eighty-Four

00.13. ‘It’s them, Guv. Just the two of them. They’re working in a kind of circular bowl. The dune goes all the way round, steep sided, a perfect place. God knows how they found it. They are digging a grave in the centre of the base, and one other thing, Guv, they’re armed, pistols in belts.’

Walter nodded and pondered on whether they should wait for reinforcements. Overwhelming fire-power wins the day, you know the drill, Mrs West’s words, and, Do it by the book, go mob-handed! But they had the advantage of surprise, and the last thing they needed was extra troops blundering in, giving away that advantage.

‘Gibbons, take Jun with you, go round about a quarter of the way, 90 degrees, don’t go any further. If it comes to gunfire, we don’t want to be shooting at one another. Stay a few yards apart. When it comes to it, give the impression there are more of us than there are.’

‘Gotcha, Guv.’

‘Jun, when I shine my torch, you shine yours into their eyes. In the darkness, they will think we are mob-handed.’

Jun nodded, and Walter said, ‘You get away, we’ll give you a minute and the show will start,’ and Gibbons and Jun crept away to the right.

‘Ready?’ he whispered to Karen.

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘Up we go,’ he said, and Karen scrambled up the dune and peered over the top.

A couple of yards to her left, Walter made it to the top and took in the view.

Man One and Man Two finally in vision, Smith and Jones, lit up by one feeble gas camping light. It gave enough light within the bowl, not too much out of it. One of them was in the grave digging; he was up to his chest. It was a big hole, and even as he was digging muck out, sand drizzled back in. Must have been annoying. Must have been hard work. Give them their due, they weren’t skimping.

But they were moaning and bickering about something, preoccupied to notice watchers peering over the rim of the dune in the blackness.

Man One, in the grave, said, ‘Come on! Your bloody turn.’

Man Two, pistol in his pants, as Gibbons reported, muttered, ‘I did far more than you! You carry on a bit!’

But Man One heaved himself out and said, ‘No chance! Your turn. Get on with it! I wanna get home!’ and he threw the shovel at Man Two’s feet.

They had been getting on each other’s nerves all day, bitching and bickering and arguing non-stop, and the longer the day had gone on, the worse it became.

They’d left Ellesmere Port early to get there early, to get the job done and get home. It didn’t matter what Brinton said. They were the ones doing the dirty work, as usual, and they’d do it at a time to suit themselves, not anyone else.

They’d arrived soon after ten, but that was still too damn early. The place was still busy, even in the pitch dark. Dog walkers and courting couples, walking arm-in-arm, and kids, young teenagers, with bottles of cider and potent homemade vodka-cola chasers, and even a couple of druggies looking for somewhere solitary to shoot up, and trip and sleep it off.

Gradually, it grew quiet. But not before Man Two had lost his temper with a young, lippy kid, who didn’t want to go home. Man Two gave him a slap; broke his nose, and the kid ran home to tell his mam.

‘You didn’t have to do that!’ said Man One.

‘Sod off! He had it coming!’

‘He might call the bizzies.’

‘Nah! Told him what I’d do to him if he did anything as stupid as that. He’ll not be back.’

‘Hope you’re right.’

‘I am right!’

They were tired, hungry, and hacked off, as the bickering continued

––––––––

00.15. MRS WEST AND her boys spotted the glow and headed that way. Found the dune, scrambled up, found Walter peeking over, peered over the top too. Saw Man One and Man Two grab a tarpaulin, one on either end, and toss it in the grave.

‘Good riddance!’ said Man One.

‘All the more money for us,’ said Man Two.

They only had Brinton to be rid of and they would be top dogs.

Man One desperately wanted to be top dog. They both did.

They picked up the second tarpaulin and moved toward the grave.

Walter had seen enough.

Switched on the torch. Shone it on Man One.

Yelled, ‘Armed police! Stand still.’

Jun Woo lit up, too. Man Two in her beam.

Gibbons yelled, ‘Armed police!’ from the side of the dune.

Mrs West joined the fun. Lit up, pointed her torch at the fresh grave. Screamed in her shrill voice, ‘You are both under arrest.’

‘Shit!’ said Man One. ‘I told you they’d fetch the bizzies!’

Walter heaved his legs over the rim and slid down into the bowl. Karen followed, Heckler & Koch in hand, ready to go, and they all piled in, Gibbons, Hector, Jun, Spence, Spence’s pal, and Mrs West. Jun slithered down into the darkness and stood up, pleased to see the Minstrel guys again, up close and personal, in changed circumstances. Gibbons pulled out his cuffs and went to cuff Man Two.

A confused picture of milling nervous bodies, torch beams aplenty shining every which way, inside a confined sandy bowl, reminded Gibbons of a night-time Cornish beach rave he’d once attended. Hideous moving faces and shadows everywhere, and a swinging camping light that Spence had picked up, and was holding by his face, as the heavy black canopy of the night covered and surrounded the bowl. A shrieking wind blowing, gusts hurtling up the Beaufort scale at a rate of knots. Man Two saw Gibbons with his glinting cuffs, and pictured his future, and did not like what he saw.

A lifetime in a top security prison, with losers and bores and faggots and maggots, and bullies and druggies and chancers and braggers, and God knows what else and who else. He didn’t want that, didn’t fancy it at all, and he wouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t going to happen because he was going to get out of there, or take some of the bastards with him. When you’re in a war, and he considered he was at war, you take out the officers first. Decapitate the brains, and it was crystal clear who the leader was, where the leadership came from. The big black joker with the torch, and commanding voice.

Man Two slapped Gibbons and his cuffs to one side, drew the gun from his belt. Jun watched open-mouthed. Karen couldn’t get a shot off, for Mrs West had stupidly stepped across her line. Man Two raised and pointed his gun at the mouthpiece. The guy who thought he’d brought him down when he had not.

BANG!

One shot rang out.

A crashing blast that came and went in a moment, but even that was swallowed and gulped away by the wind, and forgotten.

Man Two fell down dead at Walter’s feet, gun still in hand.

Shot in the face.

Blood spouted across the sand.

Karen dashed forward and ripped the gun from Man One’s fingers.

‘What the hell did you do that for?’ screamed Mrs West.

‘Good job he did!’ said Gibbons. ‘For the Guv’s sake.’

‘The shit has been annoying me all day,’ said Man One. ‘For the past week, come to that. He loved violence. He’d have killed your guy, for sure. I’d had enough and seen enough. It was him or the black fella, and your guy didn’t deserve that. It was him who killed the copper at the house, him who smashed that kid’s nose earlier on. He never knew when to stop.’

‘You would say that,’ said Walter.

‘It’s the truth! I was only in it for the money. Nowt else.’

‘You murdered Sergeant Stevie Cliffe!’

‘Not me, pal.’

‘You kidnapped Jessica Stone.’

‘Yeah, but we never hurt a hair on her pretty head.’

‘You killed Yet Kwai Dang,’ said Jun, reminding them all she was still there and involved.

‘Him and Brinton,’ said Man One, nodding at the fresh and bloody body at their feet.

Mrs West took out her mobile.

Rang the local Southport police.

She’d tipped off the station about their operation.

She had good friends there.

She’d grown up in the pleasant town.

Her father had once been the station sergeant.

Still had relatives in the area.

Warned them she might need backup.

––––––––

THERE ARE FORTY-THREE separate police forces in England and Wales, all with their own rules and regs and foibles, and senior officers and command structures, and some get on well with their neighbours, and some don’t, and some were ever eager to give assistance, and right there she wanted and needed assistance, and help was on its way.

––––––––

02.45. A QUARTER TO three in the morning before everything was wrapped up. White tent over the killing scene. Arc lights around the natural bowl. Local men remaining on duty. SOCO, doctor, ambulance, blue and white police tape fixed on temporary fence-posts all around.

Man One, Terry Smith, facing a fresh murder charge, cuffed to Gibbons and waiting in the car to go. Man Two, Colin Jones, in a body bag, heading for the morgue, a man obsessed with violence, a man who would assault, hurt, wound, batter, imprison, and kill no more.

Two more bodies in tarpaulins discovered and recovered. Pryce was one of them, confirmed Jun, and Ricky Barton the other, confirmed Walter from photos and previous intel. Maybe Jessica Stone could complete the official identification later. 

‘You’re all excused duty till noon,’ said Mrs West, as they tumbled back into the cars.

Walter had one call to make.

Rang Minstrel Electronics.

A sleepy Jan answered.

Walter brought him up to speed. One dead, one in custody, told him they should lock up and go home. Told them to be back at work for noon.

Jan and Jen were happy and sad at the same time, glad it was over, but sad at missing out on the denouement.

––––––––

02.47. WALTER STEPPED into the Volvo. Full car. Five adults up. Him and Karen in the front, Gibbons and Jun in the back with Man One crushed in the centre. Jun felt good, for she knew the guy who collected her from the Freeport would be imprisoned for a long time. Lucky he wasn’t in China; they’d have shot him for less, or needled. No question.

Karen drove fast, past the site of the earlier stinger operation, nothing there to remind them of that, onto the Formby by-pass, and south for Liverpool and the Mersey tunnel and the Wirral beyond, and on south again for Chester.

Terry Smith was booked into his special accommodation, left to stew, and everyone went home, Karen dropping off Walter at his house, before taking Jun back to the flat.

––––––––

04.45. STILL FULL DARK. It had been an unending day, a couple of days to be accurate. He glanced across at number 58. No lights showing. Not a surprise. Walter crept up the path. No lights in his place, either. Quietly opened the front door, stepped inside on tiptoe. Shut the door and locked it.

‘What time do you call this?’

A familiar woman’s voice eased down the stairs.

Walter snapped on the landing light.

The six foot she thing was sitting on the top stair, wearing Walter’s dressing gown, staring down. Geez! She had long legs.

‘Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘Nope. Couldn’t sleep.’

‘Do you want some cocoa?’

‘Nope. Fattening.’

Walter went into the kitchen and switched on the kettle.

Jessica Stone came down and wandered in and said. ‘Well?’

Walter nodded. ‘All done and dusted. One dead, one in the cells.’

‘Did you shoot him?’

‘No.’

‘Who did?’

‘His so called mate.’

‘Really?’

Walter nodded again and splashed the boiling water on his cocoa.

‘Why?’

‘Good question. Said they’d been at one another’s throats all day. Said he couldn’t take any more.’

‘How odd.’

‘Yes, it was. How did you get on at 58?’

‘Good. Nice people. Tell you all about it tomorrow.’

‘Today,’ said Walter.

‘Oh, yeah,’ and she smiled real nice.

‘I’ll be going to work at eleven.’

‘I’ll be up,’ she said, and added, ‘Night, night, Walter,’ and she skipped up the stairs and closed the bedroom door behind her.

Walter yawned, glugged the cocoa; sniffed under his arms. Not great, shower needed, and staggered to bed.

Chapter Eighty-Five

At a quarter to eleven in the morning Walter was washed, shaved, fed and refreshed, and was wearing a freshly ironed sky-blue shirt and neat red tie, expertly prepared and ironed by his own supermodel.

‘You still want to go shopping with the girls?’

‘Sure! Shopping and hairdo,’ and she grabbed her hair and tugged it and pulled a quizzical face.

‘Yeah. I see. I’ll ring you. Fix something up.’

‘Great,’ she said, ‘I’m going back to bed, need my beauty sleep.’

‘You do that,’ and Walter went outside and ambled down the road to get the bus.

It was a quarter past eleven when he entered the Incident Room. Everyone was there, waiting. So much for coming in at noon.

‘Manage to tear yourself away from the supermodel?’ joshed Gibbons.

‘She’s in bed sleeping.’

‘I’ll bet,’ and a few of them grinned at that, and Gibbons mumbled, ‘Whose bed?’

––––––––

THEY THREW THE BOOK at Terry Smith. His DNA had been recovered from Yet Kwai. Charged him with everything they could, and that included three murders, abduction, kidnap, attempting to illegally dispose of dead bodies, false imprisonment, and much more besides. Didn’t really matter which ones he was guilty of and which ones he wasn’t. Truth was, they would never know for sure. Fact was, he was guilty of enough, and there would be no way out for Man One, Terry Smith. He would be otherwise engaged for more than twenty-five years, much more.

Mrs West called Walter to her private office.

‘Sit down, my man.’

Walter bobbed his head and slumped into the chair.

‘You’re looking surprisingly dapper, if I may say, seeing as you have been up half the night.’

Walter didn’t know how to answer, and mumbled, ‘Ma’am.’

‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ she said.

‘Isn’t there always?’

‘Yes, true,’ she said, pausing and continuing, ‘In the sandy bowl, at the showdown...’

‘What about it?’

‘Why didn’t you draw your weapon and shoot the guy?’

‘Ah.’

‘He was threatening to kill you.’

It was a question he didn’t want to answer.

He’d earlier retrieved the gun from Jan and had booked it back in.

‘Well?’ she persisted.

‘Spur of the moment thing, I guess. It’s not every day someone points a gun in your face.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Indeed. You froze?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Mmm...’ and she put that down to his fifty-eight long years. Slowing down maybe, the old goat. Came to us all, she knew that. ‘You should watch that, Walter. Could cost you dear.’

‘I will. It won’t happen again.’

‘Yes. Good. When the shot rang out, for a moment there, I thought he’d shot you.’

‘You and me both.’

‘What were you thinking, what were your last thoughts?’

That was a hard question to answer, so he lied.

‘My parents.’

‘Mmm...’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘Thought as much.’

Time to change the conversation, thought Walter.

‘I’m going to invite the team for dinner tonight. My treat, thought we’d go to that fancy Chinese place overlooking the canal. A thank you to everyone, but especially for Jun, she’ll be off home soon, for all she’s done. If nothing else, she can decipher the menu. Always wanted to go in a Chinese and order in Mandarin, or whatever it is.’

‘Good idea, Walter, great idea.’

‘You’ll come, won’t you, ma’am?’

Mrs West smiled and removed her glasses. She looked okay, too.

‘Course, Walter, wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

‘Oh, and another thing, ma’am.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m thinking of taking a week’s holiday.’

She put her glasses back on as if to inspect him more closely.

‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘Though I have to say, I’m quite surprised.’

Walter sniffed and wished he hadn’t, and said, ‘A short break, that’s all, maybe the week after next, if that’s okay.’

‘Can’t see any reason why not. Nothing to do with the freezing business, is it?’

‘Good God no! Just a quick battery recharge.’

‘Put it on the chart, Walter, before you forget.’

He smiled and muttered, bobbed his head and stood up and hustled outside before she could ask him more questions he did not want to answer.

––––––––

OUTSIDE, THEY WERE all standing about gossiping. There was a definite feeling of last day of term about the place.

‘Anything happening?’ he said.

‘Not much,’ said Karen. ‘And probably just as well.’

‘Dinner tonight?’ he said. ‘My treat, that fancy Chinese restaurant overlooking the canal. You’re all invited.’

‘Brill!’ said Gibbons. ‘What time?’

‘Eight-thirty,’ said Walter. ‘I’ll book some tables.’

‘Great idea,’ said Karen.

‘You still going shopping?’

‘Sure!’ she said, glancing at Jun, who tugged at her rubbish clothes and nodded hard.

‘Jessica wants to join you.’

‘Great.’

‘I’ll ring her now, why don’t you get away, and you can pick her up,’ said Walter, and Karen and Jun didn’t need a second invitation.

He rang Jess. Told her Karen would call by, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine the three of them cutting a swathe through Chester’s finest department stores. No doubt the credit cards and store cards and cash would take a battering before the day was through. Sometimes retail therapy does work wonders.

Later on, Walter bummed a lift down to Bestdas. There were a few things he needed to get, with Jessica being back in the house, and he’d been neglecting the shopping runs. Three big bagfuls, heavy too, staggered to the taxi rank. One yellow cab was waiting there. One grinning blonde, dark roots prominent.

‘Well, if it’s not Sherlock Holmes,’ she said.

Walter grinned through the glass.

Heaved the shopping into the back and fell in after it.

‘And what exciting cases are you working on today? Someone’s mucky divorce, no doubt.’

‘No, not quite, no divorces for me. Actually, if you must know, I’m not a private detective, and I’m not married.’

Carrie the Cab started the car and blew out dismissively.

‘I think we’ve been here before,’ she said. ‘I’m tempted to say again, liar, liar, pants on fire!’

Walter guffawed. Such a strange phrase, and one that reminded him of his childhood. His Aunt Mimosa brought him up, and she would utter that slogan when the ample framed Walter, still in short trousers, bursting out all over, told a wee fib. That, and the more menacing, be sure your sins will find you out! And for the most part, in his experience, she had been right.

‘Only little white lies,’ he said.

‘Go on, expunge your sins.’

‘I am a detective, an Inspector with Cheshire Constabulary.’

‘No!’ she said, and the penny dropped. ‘I’ve seen you on the telly!’

‘You may have done.’

‘I did! That Murder Diaries business.’

Walter nodded.

‘Wicked man!’ she said. ‘What a wicked man!’

‘Mmm...’ said Walter, wondering as he always did, whether it was a good idea to let the cat out of the bag.

‘Be safe – Feel safe,’ she said, parroting the local police force’s strapline under which it promoted itself.

‘And do you? Feel safe?’

‘Not when I have some drunken loony in the cab after midnight, quibbling over the bill!’

That was understandable.

‘And does that happen often?’

‘Nah,’ she drawled, ‘only about once a day!’

And they laughed at that, and soon afterwards she was pulling up outside his house.

‘I’m not going to quibble over the bill.’

‘Just as well, or you’d feel the wrath of Carrie’s pepper spray.’

He chuckled and paid the fare and said, ‘Could you come back and pick me up at eight?’

‘Got a hot date, have we?’

‘No, nothing like that, works do.’

‘S’pose I’d better,’ she muttered. ‘Don’t want to get arrested.’

Walter grinned, heaved his goodies from the car and said, ‘See ya later,’ and she was gone. 

––––––––

THE DINNER WAS A HUGE success, fourteen of them gathered around one long rectangular table that kept everyone in the loop. The girls looked amazing, and Walter wasn’t alone in noticing that. Karen in a tight silky maroon number that had the boys interested, Jun sporting a little black dress that reeked of class and expense. She said it was way cheaper than it would have been back home, being a designer number, though the others found that hard to believe. She’d had her hair cut and styled too, very sophisticated and she looked a different girl. Gibbons’ eyes nearly fell out when he saw her, and he grabbed her and made sure he was sitting next to her, and with Jessica on his other side, he looked like a man who’d won the lottery.

Jess had acquired an outrageous flowing lacy creation that splashed hints of green, orange and purple, colours rarely seen together, and on anyone else it would have looked a total mess, but somehow she carried it off. She said she’d modelled the original dress when it had first appeared eighteen months before. It was like an old friend, and no one doubted that for a second. She’d had her hair done as well, what little of it remained.

What a strange girl she was, pondered Walter, the six foot she thing, he remembered calling her. And yet she was an amazing and down-to-earth human being that none of them would ever forget. Jenny, not to be outdone, looking very cute, came in a short black leather skirt and tight white blouse, and sat at the end of the table with Jan opposite, and they all noticed the pair of them rarely glanced anywhere else but at each other.

Mrs West made a big effort too. She’d donned an expensive red dress her husband had bought when he’d taken her to New York the previous summer for their wedding anniversary. She complemented the dress with black fishnet tights that the boys couldn’t miss, and after a few wines, teased her over, something they might regret in the morning. Was it coincidence she sat next to the hunky stinger throwing Spence, pondered Walter?

‘So come on, Guv,’ said Gibbons, intent on making himself heard. ‘Are you gonna tell us about Jan’s famous relative?’

‘Oh, I know all about that,’ said Jenny in a rush.

They all looked at her and Gibbons grinned and said, ‘I’ll bet that’s not the only thing of Jan’s you know all about, eh Jen?’

Jenny flushed.

Jan said, ‘Shut up, funky!’

‘Well?’ said Gibbons, ‘are we ever going to get to know?’

Walter glanced at Jan and he nodded.

Walter said, ‘Jerzy Popieluszko was a charismatic Catholic priest whose sermons and opposition to Poland’s Communist regime made him famous, but inevitably, put his life at risk. He was recognised as a martyr by the Church and was beatified in 2010. There was a film made about him called Popieluszko: Freedom is Within Us. I recommend it to all. He was closely associated with the Solidarity trade union and with the late Pope’s help, they brought down the government. But not before he was murdered by three agents of the Polish communist intelligence agency in 1984.’

Jenny reached across the table and clasped Jan’s big hand.

‘So how come you know so much about it?’ asked Gibbons.

‘In the early eighties, Solidarity was one of the big good versus evil stories. I took an interest, that’s all. Retentive memory.’

Jan said, ‘It was before my time, and we are only distantly related, but of course the family were, and are, very proud and upset.’

‘You must be,’ said Mrs West.

‘What happened after that?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Divers found the priest’s remains in the Wloclawek Reservoir, west of Warsaw after a two-day search,’ said Jan. ‘The kidnappers confessed they had dumped his body in a reservoir on the Vistula.’

‘That’s appalling!’ said Jenny.

‘Anyone got the DVD?’ asked Hector.

‘I have,’ said Walter. ‘I’ll bring it in.’

‘Thanks, Guv.’

‘Anyway,’ said Walter, ‘to change the subject, I would like you to raise your glasses to Inspector Jun Woo, who put her life at risk, came all this way as an undercover officer serving with the Hong Kong Police Force, and whose help and assistance in bringing our inquiry to a satisfactory conclusion cannot be underestimated.’

It was Jun’s moment in the spotlight to look uncomfortable.

‘Acting Inspector,’ she said, glancing at a grinning Gibbons.

‘Err, no,’ said Mrs West, going to her handbag, opening it, and pulling out an email from the HKPF, that she read aloud: Please advise officer Jun Woo that she has been promoted to full Inspector with immediate effect, for services above and beyond the call of duty, and that brought a well deserved round of applause, and a top up of drinks all round.

‘Inspector, eh?’ teased Gibbons, ‘in your early twenties, unheard of!’

‘And a big pay rise,’ said Hector.

Jun smiled back, she was enjoying the attention. It had never happened before, not quite like that, and it wouldn’t have happened in the same way back in Hong Kong, where the Force was more serious and straight-laced. Gibbons seemed awfully keen on her all of a sudden. Just a pity she didn’t feel the same way, and as always happens with great dinners, the time flew by, and it was all over and done with, and there was talk of going clubbing, something that Walter opted out of straight away, and to Gibbons’ disappointment, Jessica did too, citing tiredness and stress, and in the circumstances that made perfect sense.

They phoned for a cab. Walter hoped it would be Carrie the Cab, but some maggoty-faced misery-guts of a man turned up, and moaned about his lot in life all the way home, as Walter and Jessica sat in the back and exchanged looks and grins.

––––––––

THEY HADN’T BEEN IN the house long before the landline rang. Walter ambled into the hall and picked up, but before he could say a word Chief Superintendent Wortley barked, ‘Darriteau!’

‘That’s me.’

‘Seems the Twelfth Apostle has finally come up trumps!’

‘Maybe.’

‘Do you want to run me through things?’

Walter didn’t, but what can you do when a work superior asks a detailed question, even if it was midnight? He told him of Pryce’s murder and Barton’s murder, and Brinton’s arrest, and of how one of the remaining villains had killed the other for reasons that no one seemed to comprehend. But the killer of Sergeant Stevie Cliffe was either dead, or charged with Cliffe’s murder, take your pick. Either way it was closed, solved, finished, though it would never be forgotten.

‘Mmm...’ said Wortley, as if weighing up everything, before saying, ‘and the Protected?’

‘She’s here.’

‘What? Staying with you?’

‘Yes. I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘Yes, maybe originally, but... put me on to her!’

Walter called Jess through, and she took the phone and spoke to Wortley.

‘When are you coming back to London?’

‘The day after tomorrow.’

‘I’ll need to interview you.’

‘Thought you might,’ and they fixed up a time and a place and Wortley hung up as abruptly as he’d arrived, and just as abruptly as he had entered Walter’s life in the first place.

She ambled back into the lounge, deep in thought and said, ‘I always thought the Twelfth Apostle was Paul... not Walter.’

‘Ha, hah, you know your stuff.’

‘So why does he call you the Twelfth Apostle?’

‘You were the twelfth person to be accommodated.’

‘Just my luck, eh? To get you.’

‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘You were. Do you want a cocoa?’

‘Nope,’ she said, ‘actually, Walter, I’m whacked, think I’ll turn in.’

Walter nodded and headed for the kitchen and he heard her say as she ascended the stairs, ‘It could have been worse, Walter, you could have been the thirteenth, and how unlucky would that have been?’

Walter grinned and said, ‘True,’ and wondered whether he would ever hear from DCS Melvin Leslie Wortley again. Come to think of it, that would be nice, if he didn’t. 

Chapter Eighty-Six

The following day Inspector Jun Woo was summoned back to Hong Kong. She’d been expecting it, but it was still too soon, and a big disappointment.

Gibbons beat off allcomers and grabbed the job of driving her to Manchester airport.

He’d have paid for the petrol himself if need be, but if he was hoping for some kind of farewell kiss he was left standing, as Jun grinned and said goodbye, and smiled in that captivating way of hers, and slipped away. She hoped it wouldn’t be long before she was back, staying with Karen.

The day after that was Jessica Stone’s turn to make tracks, but not before she’d ID’d Ricky Barton’s body and autographed any number of fashion mags and lifestyle magazines and photos that Hector brought into the office. Lots of the autographed mags were for Gibbons’ nieces, or so he said, but in the days that followed a few of them ended up at big bucks on that auction website that promises so much, and sure as hell charges the earth for doing so.

Walter arranged for Karen to come to his house and pick him and Jess up and drop her off at the railway station, where she was booked on the 12.55 London train.

Karen arrived at 12.20 in her own car. Walter took one final check round to make sure none of Jess’s newly acquired possessions were still in the house. At the last moment he remembered the blessed echinacea.

Jess jumped in the back, her small bag beside her, and settled down in her seat, as Karen started the car and headed toward the railway station.

‘You’ve got my number,’ said Walter. ‘Ring me and tell me how you get on with Wortley.’

‘I will,’ she said.

‘You can ring me any time you like.’

‘You might be surprised, I might get in the habit of ringing you.’

‘I mean it,’ said Walter. ‘You can ring me any time,’ and after that the car went silent, as Karen weaved through the lunchtime city traffic, as they each thought of something sensible to say before the opportunity was lost, as often happens when goodbyes are coming up fast.

Jessica glanced down at her restless feet, then at the back of Karen’s seat. There was a document pouch on the back of it, the place where maps and atlases used to be kept. But that was redundant, old hat, atlases and paper maps killed off by technology, just as developed photographs had been murdered by digital tech.

There were some papers in there, Future Growth publicity brochures that Karen had been handing out to anyone who might be interested, peeking out, with a sickly and welcoming face on the papers, beaming, part hidden, like a robber with a neckerchief over his chin. Jessica leant forward, eased one flyer clear, looked down at the face, and read the blurb.

‘Kit Napoleon!’ she said, in a voice that betrayed disgust, a note that no one could miss, and certainly not trained officers who made a habit of listening for, and pouncing on, loaded comments.

‘You know Kit Napoleon?’ said Walter, trying hard not to appear too interested.

‘Yes! Worse luck!’

‘How?’ asked Karen.

‘It’s a long story.’

Walter glanced at his watch. 12.40, and the train was due out in fifteen minutes.

‘What time’s the next train?’ asked Walter.

‘Twenty-five to two,’ said Jess. ‘Why?’

‘Would you do us a big favour?’

‘Seeing as you have just saved me from a fate worse than death, Walter, you don’t need to ask.’

‘Take the next train,’ he said. ‘We need to talk to you.’

‘Okay, if that’s what you want.’

‘It is.’

––––––––

KAREN PULLED THE CAR onto the forecourt of the Italianate fronted railway station, close to the cab rank, slap bang on a double yellow line.

He leant round and said, ‘We’re investigating Kit Napoleon.’

That was news to Karen, and she was all ears.

‘He’s a slime ball,’ murmured Jess.

‘In what way?’

‘In any way you like.’

‘Tell us how you know him.’

‘He knew Ricky Barton; in fact Ricky was one of the first backers to put up a slug of seed capital to get the whole shebang off the ground. This was ages ago, before I met Rick. Apparently, Kit brought his first wife to London for a weekend at the theatre, that kind of thing, stayed in a top hotel, and Ricky was there having dinner and a few drinks. Rick was always in and out of those kind of places looking to hang on to, and hang out with, celebrity friends. They must have got talking, and Ricky had money to invest, and if you’ve met Kit, you’ll know what he is like, all sincerity and charm and persuasiveness, and I guess Ricky bit, hook, line and sinker, and put in some cash, and we are not talking small change.’

‘How much?’ asked Walter. 

‘A lot, Walter, a lot.’

‘Give us a ball park figure.’

‘I don’t know the exact number, but it was more than a quarter of a million.’

‘And that’s how he portrayed the business as one with exploding growth?’ said Karen.

‘Of course, and could make prompt payouts to everyone, and they thought he was Santa Claus and whacked in even more money, much more, and so did their friends. It’s like rolling a snowball down a hill. It gets big very quickly.’

‘That stacks up,’ said Walter. 

Jessica nodded and started again. ‘The thing was, Ricky had a hell of a lot of trouble getting his cash out again, but as you can guess with Ricky, he was not a man to be messed with, so eventually Kit paid him off with a decent bonus too, to close the deal and get out of it. Probably as well he did. I reckon, knowing what I know now, that Ricky would have butchered Kit, literally, if he hadn’t been paid.’

‘Did you put in money?’ asked Karen.

Jess sighed and bobbed her head and said, ‘I did, for my sins.’

‘And did you get it back?’

‘Some of it, not all, but that’s not the worst of it.’

‘Go on,’ said Walter.

‘I made a total fool of myself and promoted it to my friends.’

That sounded familiar.

‘Your friends in fashion?’ clarified Karen.

‘Fashion, showbiz, sports, musos, even high profile politicos, you know the type, always looking to make a fast buck, the whole caboodle.’

‘And they invested?’ said Walter.

‘Many of them did, big time.’

‘And they didn’t get their money back?’

‘Most of them didn’t.’

‘I guess that didn’t make you popular?’ said Karen.

‘You can say that again. Some of them haven’t forgiven me yet. But I can live with that. It’s the other thing I can’t live with.’

‘What other thing?’ said Karen and Walter, as one.

Jessica sighed and wasn’t comfortable continuing.

‘Do you want to go for a coffee?’ asked Walter.

‘Nah, rather not, prefer to confess my sins here.’

Walter opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word their attention was taken by someone tapping on the windscreen. A man on a mission. Glancing at his watch. A man in a hat with an electronic device in his hand, and he moved away from the car and squinted down at the registration.

‘Deal with him!’ said Walter, and Karen stepped out of the car and went up close and personal with the figure of officialdom, flashed her ID, and Walter and Jessica heard her say, ‘Inspector Walter Darriteau!’ and she nodded back at the car, and the guy peered into the vehicle again, nodded and muttered and put his device away, disappointed he wasn’t issuing another ticket, shrugged his shoulders and sloped off to ambush someone else further down the rank.

‘What sins?’ said Walter. ‘I take it that’s an expression of speech.’

‘Not entirely. I got my dad involved. Told him how brilliant it would be. He was short of cash as it was, but when Kit discovered my dad was a marquis, well, he couldn’t wait to be introduced, treated him as if he was the Prince of Wales, saw him at every opportunity, saw him behind my back, even invited dad to Dubai of all places, and dad, like so many of us, was bowled over by the guy, became smitten, and put in every penny he could raise. He borrowed from his friends, which if you know how those gentlemen operate, never refuse a friend a favour, and never take money from a friend, unless it was absolutely necessary. All that kind of code.’

‘How much are we talking?’ asked Karen.

‘Hundreds of thousands,’ said Jess. ‘Never got to the bottom of it, not completely.’

Walter sighed. ‘Caveat emptor. Buyer beware, a fool and his money are easily parted, and all that. Dreadful, yes, illegal, no, not by the look of things. This Kit Napoleon chump probably has a team of lawyers going through everything with a fine nit comb, to make sure everything stays the right side of the line, the right side of the law.’

‘He does,’ confirmed Karen, remembering the legal eagle, Roland Barraclough, she had met at Church Stretton.

‘We can’t prosecute Napoleon for accepting monies, it won’t stick,’ said Walter.

‘You should be able to! Evil slugs like him shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. It’s plain wrong!’

‘He’s a conman, and a good one at that,’ said Walter. ‘He knows the law inside out, as good conmen usually do, and he knows what he can get away with, and what he can’t.’

There was a short silence and Jessica said, ‘What about blackmail? Isn’t that illegal?’

‘Course it is,’ said Walter, sitting up straight.

‘He was blackmailing your father?’ asked Karen.

‘He was. Because even with dad, the penny dropped that Kit Napoleon was an out-and-out swindler, and one day dad stopped paying him.’

‘And Napoleon began blackmailing him?’ said Karen.

Jessica nodded.

‘About what?’ said Walter.

‘It’s not something I’m proud of, this is very difficult for me.’

‘About what?’ repeated Walter. ‘We can’t stop him, we can’t put him out of business, or put him away, without knowing the facts.’

‘Dad always liked younger women, and they flocked to him. He was so smooth, slim, and still decent looking, well spoken and funny, and he flashed the cash, and dashed about in an open-topped car, and spent money everywhere he went on girls, girls, girls.’

‘Underage sex?’ clarified Karen.

Jess coughed and sniffed and fidgeted and looked uneasy and then said, ‘No, not exactly.’

‘What?’ said Walter.

‘He met one of my young friends from the model agency. She’d just finished doing a shoot for young teens fashion.’

‘How old was she?’ asked Karen.

‘Fifteen.’

‘And they had a relationship?’ asked Walter.

‘No! Not a sexual relationship. I’m fairly sure not.’

‘A close friendship?’ suggested Walter.

‘Yes. Very close.’

‘What’s the girl’s name?’

‘She goes by the stage name of the Schuft.’

‘The Rascal, right?’ said Karen, ‘in German.’

‘Pretty much. She’s going to be huge, and it’s an apt name. Mark my words, she’ll be the next big thing in the modelling business. This girl is special, the Schuft is coming. She’s going to be a super-supermodel.’

‘So what happened between your father and this rascal girl?’ asked Walter.

‘She fell in love with him, simple as that, big time, or at least she thought she was, in love with him, and Walter, it wasn’t the first time for her either, and I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, just how it was, and he knew she was crazy about him, and he knew he had to do something about it. So stupidly, he took her out to lunch at some swanky London hotel, ostensibly to tell her it was going nowhere, and that she should find a boy of her own age. I don’t know whether he told her or not, but I do know they came out of the hotel together, arm-in-arm, and he appeared to be comforting and consoling her, and she looked real upset, and somehow, by accident or design, I know not which, Napoleon happened to be there with his wife, and he snapped the not so happy couple leaving the hotel and climbing into his sports car.’

‘What happened next?’ asked Walter.

‘Three days later a letter arrived at dad’s London apartment containing a photo of dad and the Schuft close together. On the back was written, The Press would make a meal of this! Suggest payments recommence!’

‘Did he sign it?’ asked Walter. ‘The photo?’

‘No. But it’s his writing, I’m certain of that, and I’m sure you could prove it too.’

‘Have you still got the photo?’

‘Yes. Course. I had thought of burning it, especially after dad fell ill and died. But something made me keep it, something inside me told me one day it could be important.’

‘Can we have it?’

‘I guess.’

‘And a signed statement?’

‘As I said before, Walter, I owe you and your team big time. You can have whatever you need.’

‘I don’t want you to do anything because you feel you owe us.’

‘I’m not. I’m doing it for dad, and for what is right.’

That at least made sense in a curious way. They talked a great deal more of Kit Napoleon and the ways he devised of seducing cash from the unwary and the unwise, from the great and good, and though it was all interesting, and helped build a greater picture, there was nothing else that added anything toward building a case against him. 

Walter looked at the time on the dash.

‘Your train,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you to the platform.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t, Walter. I hate goodbyes.’

Walter and Karen could understand that, and in the next second Jessica was getting out and dragging her bag with her. She leant in and said, ‘Thanks for giving me my life back, I’ll call you in the next few days.’

––––––––

AFTER SHE’D GONE WALTER went to speak, but before he could say anything Karen jumped in.

‘Don’t tell me! I know! You said he was a conman all along.’

‘I wasn’t going to say that.’

‘So what were you going to say?’

‘I was going to compliment you.’

‘Really? About what?’

‘About knowing what the Schuft means. I wouldn’t have had a clue.’

Karen grinned and said, ‘Schoolgirl German. I was struggling to remember, but the word rascal appears a lot in stories, as you can imagine. I was lucky.’

‘No, Karen, you are educated, and have a good memory.’

‘Thanks, Guv. Do you think he slept with her?’

‘I don’t know, and I guess we’ll never know now, and even if we did, there is nothing we could do about it.’

‘We could ask the Schuft.’

‘Not a lot of point. Makes no difference what she says. But one thing is for sure...’

‘What?’

‘I don’t think you should sign up Mrs West.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘perhaps not,’ and Karen giggled and that made Walter laugh, the heartiest laugh he’d uttered all year. He was still laughing when another figure of officialdom, a different geezer appeared. He stared down at the registration number, produced a tablet, and began tapping. Walter buzzed down the window. Flashed ID, and shouted, ‘We’re on our way, soldier, no tickets today, I thank you,’ and the guy looked real disappointed, as Karen backed the car out, turned round, and headed back to HQ. 

––––––––

IN THE EVENT, JESSICA didn’t call. Maybe she felt uncomfortable about it, maybe she wanted to put the whole sorry business behind her, and that was understandable, but for whatever reason, she didn’t ring. A few days later she flew to the States on a month long assignment, and on the same day the photo arrived in the post with a note that said she didn’t want it back. It was exactly as she’d described.

Karen set about matching the writing on the back against an inscription that Kit Napoleon had written for her inside the cover of her copy of Make Money While You Sleep. He’d written: To my dear Karen, here’s hoping for a long and profitable relationship, yours ever, Kit. Perfect match. Identical. Mr Napoleon had some questions to answer, though whether anything would ever come if it, neither of them were convinced.

––––––––

GOD LOVES A TRIER, as Walter was fond of saying, and they would try to build a case. There was no urgency in that. They’d take their time, make it as compelling as they could, set it before Mrs West, who would no doubt add her recommendations, and take it upstairs to her superiors. There, it would be edited, because seniors always edited everything. It was what seniors did to justify their existence, and it would find its way to the Crown Prosecution Service, and the CPS would decide whether Kit Napoleon, or Keith Higginbottom, to give him the name his parents bestowed on him, would face criminal charges, or not.

Walter considered it a fifty-fifty bet.

Karen was more optimistic, for optimism is the natural domain of the young. Time would tell. 

Chapter Eighty-Seven

Walter glanced at his watch. Five to four. He’d tied up all the loose ends he’d meant to do and there was no point in sticking around any longer. He was looking forward to a long overdue break.

‘That’s me done,’ he said, to no one in particular, but Karen was there and heard him and said, ‘Have a good holiday, Guv.’

Gibbons overheard and repeated, ‘Yeah, have a good one, Guv. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’

Walter said, ‘Pfft!’ and bent down and tied up his shoelaces, stood up and ambled over to Mrs West’s office. The door was ajar.

‘I’m away, if that’s okay.’

‘Sure, Walter,’ she said. ‘Have a great break.’

Walter nodded and turned away and limped over to the coat stand, grabbed his jacket, and slipped it on and headed for the door. He paused and turned round and took in the office one more time. Several of them were watching him, as if not quite believing he was really going, while he wondered why he found it so difficult to abandon them, to leave the bright young things steering the ship. It was a conundrum that always bothered him when he was absent, and he had no idea why.

Mrs West appeared in her doorway and saw him loitering by the exit.

‘Get away or I’ll give you some reports to write!’

Gibbons guffawed.

Everyone knew how much Walter hated writing mundane reports.

Mrs West knew well enough how to chase him off.

Walter bobbed his head and mumbled ‘See you later,’ in the modern style, and stepped outside.

Karen shouted after him, ‘Have a good one, Guv,’ though he didn’t hear her because the Otis elevator had already swallowed him whole, and he was falling down fast toward the street.

––––––––

TEN MINUTES AFTER THAT Karen took an urgent call.

‘Where was this?’

Gibbons heard her say the words and immediately recognised the expectant frisson in her voice, that excited tone that only comes when something important happens, or was about to happen.

‘And what’s the child’s name?’

Gibbons couldn’t hear the reply, but Karen did.

‘Mischief Chesters; aged four.’

‘And the address?’

Gibbons watched her scribble an address.

‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ she said, and Gibbons watched her set the phone down in a rush and say, ‘Go and get an unmarked car, a good one, I’ll be down in a tick!’ Gibbons jumped up and grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, shouting, ‘Yes, sarge!’

Karen stood and hustled across the room and tapped on Mrs West’s door and went inside.

‘Could be a major incident, ma’am.’

‘Oh? What?’

‘Four-year-old girl, gone missing from a house in Bache. Been missing for two hours.’

‘What’s the kid’s name?’

‘Mischief Chesters.’

‘Cute name. Appropriate, too. Shall we get Walter back? He can’t have gone far.’

That was the last thing Karen wanted to hear. She could do the job and wanted the job, and do it well, and anyway, Walter deserved a holiday and needed a break, and she did not want him back, not right there, not right then.

‘I can handle it, ma’am. Gibbons is getting a car organised, we’re going down there now.’

Mrs West sucked her pen and stared through the window at grey skies, and glanced back at Karen and nodded her head.

‘Okay, but keep me fully posted. I don’t want to have to chase you on this. You know the drill, if you don’t find the child PDQ it’s full alert, understand?’

‘Sure, ma’am.’

‘Get on with it!’ and Mrs West nodded her away.

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IT MADE A CHANGE FOR Karen to sit in the front passenger seat, the seat known to all as the boss’s chair, and Gibbons was a decent enough driver. But it sure felt strange not being able to brake when she wanted to brake, and change gear when she wanted to change gear, and accelerate when she wanted and needed to.

‘We’re not cruising along on holiday, Gibbons, get a bloody move on!’

Gibbons grinned and kicked the big new silver Skoda saloon, a strange choice of car for the force, some thought, but one they had all been impressed with.

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BACHE WAS A TYPICAL middling Chester suburb, and the house a typical middling Chester house, red brick, three bedroom semi-detached, two reception rooms downstairs, small extension on the back, like thousands of other houses built across the kingdom in the biggest building boom the country had ever known in the years 1925-1935. At the front was a neat driveway with a small red car sleeping on the tarmac, not new, but not old, either. There was a little lawn and the grass could have done with a cut, but the Chesters’ household wasn’t alone in that.

They hurried to the front door and rang the bell.

Someone rushed up the hall, a woman, her shape rainbowing via the coloured glass in the new front door.

An ordinary looking woman pulled the door open and stared out. Medium height, medium build, medium length hair, middling woman in a middling suburb, and she did not look happy, not middling at all. But if your four-year-old child was missing, you wouldn’t either.

Karen did the intros, and they went inside and through to the kitchen/dining room at the back.

‘How long has she been missing?’ asked Karen in a rush.

Mrs Shirley Chesters glanced at her watch.

‘Seems a lifetime ago now, but I guess around three hours.’

‘Have you got a photo?’ asked Gibbons.

It looked like she’d expected the question because she pulled open a drawer beneath the worktop and tugged out three large colour pics. She was a good-looking kid. Mischievous by the look of her.

‘Is Mischief her real name?’ asked Karen.

Mrs Chesters nodded and muttered, ‘Yeah. Michael called her that. Took one look at her sweet face when she was born and said, ‘Hello, Mischief,’ and it just kind of stuck, so we thought, to hell with it, why not? There isn’t another one about, that’s for sure.’

‘Does he know she’s missing?’ asked Karen.

‘No!’ she said, with an air of finality that was impossible to miss.

Separated by the looks of things, thought Gibbons, maybe a bit of bad blood there too. Could he have taken the kid? It happened quite frequently. Thoughts that were floating through Karen’s brain too, as Mrs Chesters said, ‘He doesn’t exist. Not anymore.’

‘Sorry?’ said Karen.

‘Passed away?’ said Gibbons.

Shirley Chesters sighed and leant back against the cupboards and looked close to tears.

‘Blown away, to be precise.’

Short silent break for contemplation, and Karen said, ‘Afghanistan?’

Shirley nodded.

‘Helmand. They told me he’d been hit with a single shot, but that was a complete lie. Maybe they did it to make me feel better, as if I could feel better. But I sought out his bezzie pal, Johnny Waring, and John told me the truth of it.’

‘Which was?’

‘Roadside bomb. Radio controlled detonation.’

Sounded like she’d studied all the details.

‘Can you imagine that?’ she said. ‘One minute you’re walking down a dusty country road, happy as Larry, happy as a trooper can be in Afghan, looking forward to coming home, only three days away, looking forward to seeing your loving wife, but more importantly, seeing your beautiful little daughter again, the kid he doted over, and she him. In the next second, BANG! And that same happy chappy ceases to exist, blown into a million separate pieces, and all the good you are, is food for some rotten Afghan birds of prey. No body, no bits, no uniform, no nothing. Bugger all! We buried an empty coffin with a Union Jack on the top and a name-plate on the side, and all those kind people in Royal Wootton Bassett stood in the rain and saluted and cried over an empty box.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Karen, reaching across and clutching and squeezing Shirley’s forearm, and she was too; but she wanted to get back to the matter in hand. ‘But we must find Mischief.’

Shirley Chesters nodded and sniffled into her handkerchief.

‘Where did you last see her?’ asked Karen

‘In the garden, she was playing on the lawn with her dollies.’

‘Show me.’

They went outside and stared at the square back lawn that had recently been cut, with a neat flowerbed all the way round. Autumnal blooms were doing their best to ignore the shorter days and colder nights, and putting on something of a display, dahlias and chrysanths and browning marigolds. In the centre of the lawn was a square red and white tablecloth, and on the cloth was a child’s tea-set all set out, ready to go, and a bottle of orange squash and some biscuits, and three or four dollies and two worn and well-loved teddy bears looking hopeful, and other unidentifiable, ugly bright coloured soft toys.

‘She was by herself?’ asked Gibbons.

Shirley nodded and said, ‘She had learnt to open the side gate.’

‘Show me!’ said Karen.

They went round to the side of the house where a short narrow fenced off path led to the front. The wooden fence was in good condition and as tall as Gibbons and no kid could have climbed over that. But the rough timber gate, more of a side door, six feet or more tall, was swinging to and fro in the breeze.

‘That’s how I found it,’ Shirley said. ‘Wide open.’

‘Is it kept locked?’ asked Karen.

Shirley nodded. ‘It’s kept shut. There’s a catch on the top, but Mischief had learnt how to open it with a broom handle. I’d found her outside on the front lawn several times, and once, next door but one, where her friend lives. I told her time and again not to go out alone. Time and again!’

Karen nodded sympathetically and said, ‘Have you checked? With your neighbours?’

Shirley nodded and said, ‘Yeah! I’ve checked everywhere! Everywhere I can think of looking. I think someone’s taken the little mite!’ and the tears returned, and Karen said, ‘let’s go back inside, put the kettle on,’ and they went into the kitchen and Shirley sat at the seventies style wooden table and wiped her eyes.

Karen went to Gibbons and whispered, ‘You know the drill. Rule One: the first thing we do is search everywhere thoroughly. You do the outside, gardens, flowerbeds, car, sheds, if there are any, wheelie bins, coal-bunkers, any space that could hide a small child, and check the boundary fences all the way round, see if there’s anywhere else a kid could have slipped out.’

Gibbons nodded and said, ‘Sure, sarge.’

‘I’ll do the inside, meet back here in fifteen.’

Gibbons nodded again and said, ‘I wonder what the Guv would have done.’

It wasn’t what Karen wanted to hear.

‘I don’t want to hear the G word again, understand? This is my inquiry, and I will sort it!’

‘Sure, sarge, yeah, sorry.’

Karen’s phone rang and Gibbons and Shirley stared at her.

‘Well?’ said the caller.

Officious. Shrill. Demanding.

All the things one might expect of Mrs West, and she rarely disappointed.

‘We’re about to search the house and grounds, ma’am. The side gate was open, blowing in the wind. The child might have gone to a friend’s place. She’d recently picked up a habit of doing that.’

‘I’ll give you thirty minutes, after that it’s...’ but she let the thought die on her breath. She’d made her point.

‘Fine, ma’am. Leave it with me. Thirty minutes.’

Karen tried a hopeful look at Mrs Chesters and said, ‘We’ll find her. Get to it, Gibbons,’ and turning back to Shirley, she said, ‘Can you show me Mischief’s room?’

Shirley nodded and said, ‘this way,’ as Gibbons went out the back. Two wheelie bins. Different colours. One empty. One half full. Not enough room beneath the rubbish for a child to hide. One old coal-bunker. Empty, except for some old disused and cobweb-covered plant pots. Gibbons scooted up the side path. Went out to the front. Gazed around. All quiet, some pigeons cooing somewhere, a plane in the sky, and a few cars bringing the worker bees home after a busy day in the fields. But no kids, playing or otherwise, and no sign of Mischief Chesters. Not a trace. He went to the little red car. Placed his hand on the glass and squinted inside. No one in there, bit untidy like so many cars, but he couldn’t see into the hatch at the back. Plenty of room in there for a kid to hide, alive or dead, though that thought didn’t bear thinking about. Could be, though. Ran into the house. Shouted up the stairs, ‘Where’s the key for the car?’

‘On the hook in the kitchen,’ yelled back Mrs Chesters. ‘But she’s not in there, I’ve checked!’

Rule Two: Never accept anything a parent of a missing child ever says. Check and double-check everything yourself! Even Gibbons remembered that one. There were lots of keys set to one side of the cooker including one for the neat little Cayton Cerisa. Grabbed the key. Ran outside. Optimistic. Clicked open the central locking. Lifted the tail. Lots of second-hand clothes inside, looked like car boot sale or garage sale stuff, and a big red tartan blanket. Plenty of room for a kid to hide under that lot, or to conceal a small dead, or drugged, body. Gibbons pulled off the blanket and threw it on the path. Pulled all the clothes every which way. Shirley was right. Mischief was not in the hatch.

He went round to the side of the car. Opened the door. Climbed in the backseat. No one there. Under the seat? Nothing, other than a big plastic bottle of half drunk water, and a spray can of general cleaner. Got out, down on hands and knees, looked under the car. Mini oil leak on the tarmac, and a startled ginger kitten that faced with Gibbons’ enquiring mug and urgent body language, thought it time to skedaddle. It meowed and ran off and leapt over the fence and disappeared into next door’s undergrowth.

Gibbons sniffed his disappointment and closed up and ran back to the rear garden. Began checking the fences all the way down either side. There were one or two places where a child could have squeezed through the rotting timbers, but someone, maybe Michael on his last and final leave, had nailed new chicken wire across the gaps, it hadn’t yet rusted, maybe done for that very reason, and no kid could squeeze through there now. Caring parents think of just about everything, but there’s always something they can miss.

Upstairs, Karen finished searching Mischief’s bedroom. Nothing. Not a sign. Began searching the big front bedroom. On the top shelf of the wardrobe she found a bunch of well read porno mags.

Glanced questioningly at Shirley.

‘Mike’s,’ she said. ‘I was going to take them to the car boot sale but didn’t have the guts. Can you imagine that? Your neighbours turning up at your table and seeing them?’ and she tried a dismissive laugh, but nothing came. ‘I’ll take them downstairs and throw them in the bin while I remember.’

There was nothing else of interest in the big bedroom and time was getting on. Karen glanced at her watch. ‘Where are you, Mischief?’ she whispered, and went out and checked over the bathroom, including under the bath that hadn’t been opened in years judging by the dust and cobwebs and muck under there.

‘I didn’t know the side came off,’ said Shirley, pulling a face and glancing disdainfully at the revealed mess.

‘What’s in the third bedroom?’ asked Karen.

‘Loads of stuff. I use it as my craft room. Materials, implements, tools, boxes and boxes of ’em.’

‘Boxes where a kid could hide?’

‘Yeah, sure, but she’s not in there, I’ve checked.’

‘Show me,’ and on the way down the landing, Karen noted the loft hatch above their heads, and didn’t want to go clambering up there. Though she knew she must if she were to complete a thorough search. She glanced at the ceiling again, no fresh mucky fingerprints around the hatch. No telltale signs of recent entry.

The craft room was full of big plastic boxes, piles and piles of them, maybe twenty or more, some empty, some full, some part full or part empty, whichever you preferred, and they were all stacked up and went almost to the ceiling.

‘I know,’ Shirley said. ‘I’ve got a lot of stuff, but I use it, and I have to have something to take my mind off things. The doctor said I should take up an interest, that it will help, so I have, and it does... a little.’

Karen nodded.

It all made perfect sense, but there were a lot of boxes, and they all had to be checked. She wondered how Gibbons was getting on outside, thought about calling him in to help, and she would do that in ten minutes.

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IN THE BACK GARDEN, Gibbons had reached the foot of the long plot. Builders did that back in the twenties and thirties, no pressure on land allocation, no population pressure. A big percentage had been killed off in the Great War, and they built houses with big plots so the homeowners could grow their own feed. Didn’t happen anymore. Neither the large plots, nor the vegetable growing, leastways it was a rare thing to see. Why spend all year trying to grow a carrot when you could nip down to Bestdas and buy one for a few pence? Didn’t make any sense, not to Gibbons, not to most folks in twenty-first century Britain.

At the bottom of the garden was a large timber shed, more of a building than a shed. It was long and narrow with an inverted V-shape felt roof, and two glazed windows that stared out toward the main house. The shed was painted green, but some time ago, and the paint was flaking and coming away to the touch.

There was a glazed door to either end and it must have been expensive once. Gibbons walked all the way round it. Checked the wooden fence behind it at the far end of the garden. It was rickety and old and patched but still solid, and he didn’t see how a child could get through it, or under it, or over it.

Returned to the shed. Peered through glass of the right side door. Looked like a children’s play room inside, a Wendy house, was that the term? There were toys inside, and old picture books and kiddies’ paintings pinned into the timber wall. He pulled the door open and stepped inside. Opposite, was a solid wooden wall. There were a few pictures on there too, but no access to the other end of the shed.

He glanced around. There were two small older pieces of furniture, and a little white shelving unit where grinning plastic dinosaurs grazed, looking contented and scary. Some well-used crayons and a couple of notepads with many of the pages scribbled and drawn on. There was a reasonable old rug on the floor to make it more soft and comfortable, maybe a discard from the main house. But there was no sign of Mischief, no sign of life at all, other than a startled earwig that scurried away. Gibbons looked up at the inverted V shaped roof. But there were no shelves high up, and nowhere a kid could might hide.

He went outside and hurried round to the far end, to the other door.

––––––––

IN THE HOUSE, KAREN had taken down and opened and searched through more than ten of the big plastic boxes. Nothing, but craft making materials, and tools and soft filler, and similar things. Try as she might, she couldn’t help the thought infiltrating her mind, I wonder what Guv would do, but was that so terrible? The answer was, probably the same thing as she was doing right there, only slower. Sure, it was her inquiry, but that didn’t mean she should forget everything she’d ever learned. She was tired and bored with taking down high piles of big and heavy plastic boxes. What she needed was added muscle, and Gibbons could provide that.

‘I’m going to get Gibbons,’ she said, ‘come with me, will you,’ for she was anxious not to leave Shirley alone in that room, just in case. Shirley nodded and grabbed the porno mags and followed her downstairs.

––––––––

GIBBONS PULLED THE door open to the other end of the shed and stepped inside. It was an altogether different beast. A man’s tool-shed. Okay, women used tools too, in this day and age, they do, but this was still a man’s domain. The facing wall, the other side of the same wall in the other half, was covered in shelves, well stacked with tools and tins and plastic boxes full of screws and nails and solder and wire, and expanding rulers and a torch that didn’t work.

There was an old transistor radio there too, and a portable black and white telly for entertainment if the handyman ever became bored, or if rain stopped play in the garden. There was an empty bottle of Scotch too, and three tot glasses with fading and peeling pictures of Scottish warriors on the side, decked out in red tartan kilts and bagpipes, Stewart tartan, like the blanket in the car. The glasses were dry, empty, and dusty, with a big gangly dead spider in the middle one. It looked like Michael had a couple of friends round for a boys’ happy afternoon, but some time ago.

Below the shelves was a fitted hardwood bench that ran the entire width of the narrow building, waist height, ideal for working on. On the bench, various tools were lying about, some rusty, some new and shiny, and a couple of well-thumbed Handyman magazines, and an old table lamp in the process of being rewired.

Fitted on the near edge of the bench were two vices, a red one and a larger older black one. They were both closed, vice-like, nothing in them, didn’t look as if they had been used in a while, and the way things were, they might never be used again. He couldn’t imagine Shirley Chesters standing there, filing away, wiling away a summer’s afternoon. Not a chance.

But there were no boxes or tins big enough for a child to hide in, or be concealed in, and Gibbons was beginning to think the kid had got out and wandered off down the road, or worse still, had been taken away. Despite what Karen said, he found himself thinking, what would the Guv have said, what would the Guv be doing?

Maybe I should call him, thought Gibbons. But no. Not yet.

He wasn’t there, he’d gone on holiday, and Karen was dead right about one thing: It was her inquiry, their inquiry, and they had to get on with it and solve the mystery, and quick, for these things had a habit of going cold before you knew it.

One thing was certain; there was no kid there, no Mischief, no nothing. But there was something weird. A well-loved and worn rag doll on the floor in the bottom left corner, down below the bench, leaning against the timber wall, as if trying to tell him something, and that didn’t look right and didn’t fit right.

He picked it up and sat it on the bench and said, ‘Where’s Mischief, Sam,’ for the doll had SAM sown right across the front of her sweatshirt. Sam didn’t answer, but Sam was trying to tell him something.

Gibbons crouched down on his haunches and peered back to the wooden wall. There were three large cardboard boxes there, plain cardboard with folded down lids, detergent boxes once, if you believed the black print on the sides. Three in a line from left to right.

He reached in and pulled the left one out. It was pretty heavy. He unfolded the top and revealed lots of crockery and china, all packed away, wrapped up in old newspaper. Surplus gear, by the look of it, maybe given by a thoughtful aunt, but no longer fashionable, and not really wanted. Pulled out the second box. Same decent weight, same kind of content, except it was all glass items. More surplus unwanted gear. Pulled out the rightmost box. Same kind of weight, same kind of content, he imagined. But when he tugged it, the lid burst open and a little girl under a pink sunhat appeared grinning, her hands waggling at the side of her fair head as she screamed, toothily, ‘S’pwise!!’

It sure as hell surprised DC Darren Gibbons.

His head jerked back and up and he banged his bonce on the underside of the bench.

‘Ow!’ he yelled, rubbing the top of his head, just about stopping cursing choice old English that Mischief didn’t need to hear.

‘Been playing hide and seek!’ she squealed. ‘Thought you’d never find me!’

‘Mischief!’ he said, but kind of happily, for she had one of those faces that made people smile. ‘Come here!’ and he reached in and grabbed her shoulders and eased her out and stood up and held her in his arms and she curled her right arm around his neck, and tapped the top of his head as if she was patting a favourite bear.

‘Are you my new daddy?’

‘No, darling, I’m a policeman; we have been looking all over for you. Your mum’s been awfully worried.’

‘Been hiding.’

‘Well, we’ve found you now!’

‘I’d like a new daddy.’

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KAREN AND SHIRLEY WERE coming down the path. They wanted Gibbons to help with those blessed boxes upstairs. Gibbons was hurrying back to the house, and they saw him, carrying a mischievous looking Mischief.

‘Where was she?’ yelled Shirley, grabbing her only child.

‘Hiding in some old boxes under the workbench.’

‘Could have sworn I looked there!’ she said. ‘You are such a naughty girl!’

‘Is he my new daddy, mummy?’

‘No, he is not!’ and she turned to the police officers and said, ‘Thanks so much. You will stay for a cuppa tea, won’t you?’

It would have been rude not to, so they trooped back into the kitchen, where Shirley put the kettle on and produced a box of chocolate biscuits. Naughty but nice, and even Karen let herself be persuaded, and crunched one into oblivion. Gibbons ate three.

‘What are these?’ asked Mischief, staring at the magazines on the table.

‘Rubbish! They are going in the bin,’ said her mother.

‘The ladies have got no clothes on!’ continued Mischief, giggling and getting interested.

‘I’ll take those out and bin them,’ said Gibbons, and he scooped them up and opened the back door.

‘Thank you, Gibbons,’ said Karen.

‘Naughty ladies!’ said Mischief.

‘You are the only naughty lady in this house!’ said Shirley.

Karen smirked and sipped her black sugarless tea.

‘So sorry to have wasted your time,’ said Shirley.

‘Not a prob,’ said Karen. ‘Just glad to be of help, glad there’s a happy ending,’ and she reached over and playfully tweaked Mischief’s nose, and the kid squealed with delight.

Karen’s phone rang.

‘Well?’

Extra officious. Extra shrill. Extra demanding.

‘Case solved, ma’am.’

‘You’ve found her?’

‘We have, all present and correct. Gibbons discovered her playing hide and seek in a cardboard box in the tool-shed.’

‘Oh, that is a relief.’

‘It is here.’

‘I’ll bet! I was just about to ring Walter.’

‘So glad you didn’t, ma’am.’

‘Are you coming back now?’

‘We’ll be leaving in about ten minutes.’

‘Fair enough, see you later, and well done to you and Gibbons.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

Gibbons came back into the kitchen. He’d been ages.

‘Finish your tea, Gibbons, we’ve been recalled.’

Gibbons grinned at everyone, slurped the rest of his tea, and they all said their goodbyes and went outside and Mischief, back in her mother’s arms, her little arm curled around mummy’s neck said, ‘You can be my new daddy if you want!’

‘No, dear,’ said Shirley, ‘not today.’

‘Get a proper lock on the side-gate,’ said Karen.

‘I will,’ and the officers jumped in the car, started the engine and pulled away, waving at the happy Mischief Chesters, and an even happier mother Chesters, as they went.

‘Nice kid,’ said Gibbons.

‘Nice family,’ said Karen.

‘Nice half a family,’ said Gibbons.

‘Yeah, that too. Maybe you should take up the kid’s offer.’

‘Maybe I will. Been with a lot worse.’

That was a stock Gibbons reply, she thought, as something caught the corner of her eye, and she glanced back over the seat, and saw in the back a big pile of porno mags.

‘Gibbons!’ she said. ‘I hope those are for the incinerator.’

‘No chance, sarge, the boys at the rugby club will have a real laugh with them.’

‘Men!’ she said, and said nothing else, just tut-tutted, and thought again what complete dorks they were, all of them, DORKS! There was no better word to describe them, and they were all like it, a separate weird and wonderful species all of their own. Not so wonderful in some cases. Geez! Give me strength. 

Chapter Eighty-Eight

The following morning Walter woke early, snorted heavy and turned over. He thought about work. Thought about ringing in, thought about saying, ‘What’s happening?’ but remembered he was on holiday, and he hadn’t taken a holiday in two years, and maybe he was overdue a break.

He sat up and heard that oh so gentle and steady shushing sound outside. It was drizzling. Typical! Walter’s holiday equalled steady drizzle. Always did. Maybe he should have booked Jamaica after all, and dropped in on those distant relatives unannounced, but it was too late for that.

He dragged himself from the bed and visited the bathroom. Shivered and went back for his dressing gown. Ambled down the stairs and visited the kitchen, cut bread, two thick slices, made toast, plastered on the Dundee marmalade, a weakness he couldn’t conquer. Demolished it in no time, made his way upstairs, shaved and washed and slipped on a crisp white shirt he’d remembered to iron before going to bed.

Threw on a nice tie, yellow and green stripes, almost as an homage to his old primary school from years ago. Old school colours, maybe that was why he’d bought it. But he remembered Karen bought it for him last Christmas, and that was kind of her. Perhaps she thought not many people would buy him anything, and in that she was right. Silk too, it was a quality thing, expensive, she was a good kid, and he wondered how she was getting on without him. Though he tried to force that train of thought from his mind, or he knew he would weaken, and ring.

Slipped into his brown cord trousers. Walter wasn’t a jeans kind of guy, and anyway, where was it written that people going on holiday had to look like they had just come back from a day’s labouring? No thanks, not him. He shivered and pulled on a beige V-neck cardigan, bought in Austerity Hayes old department store, and glanced at himself in the mirror. Not bad for an old-timer, and he held his tummy in for a sec, and that improved the picture a tad.

Went back downstairs. His bag was packed and ready in the hall, done last night, while he had the time. He glanced at his jacket on the ill-lined coat hooks, and as he did that, he thought he heard the cab pull up outside. Opened the front door and peeped out. The drizzle had cleared, and the clouds were breaking up like pieces of jigsaw. Big yellow taxi, Carrie the Cab, grinning through the clean glass. Blonde hair, blonde roots. That was different.

Threw on the jacket and removed the tumbling down ringtone mobile phone, thought about that for a second. Nah, no computer, no tablet, no mobile, they had no place on a Darriteau holiday, and he threw it on the small hall table, no calls, no comms, no nonsense, took one last look round, though he couldn’t think why. Shook his head, picked up the keys, grabbed the bag, went outside, locked the door and ambled down the path and nodded at Sid the spider. He was one tough hombre. He wished him well, smiled at Carrie through the clean glass, and opened the back door and threw his bag on the backseat. Went round to the front and jumped in beside her.

‘Weather’s picking up,’ she said. ‘Nice day to start a holiday.’

‘Hope so.’

‘So where is it?’

‘Barbridge marina, it’s on the Nantwich road.’

‘I know it,’ she said. ‘Near the house with all the dahlias.’

‘That’s right!’ grinned Walter, knowing exactly where she meant, ‘and they’ll be looking their best at this time of year,’ and in the next moment the big yellow taxi was at the end of Walter’s road, turning right and heading out of town.

It took just over thirty minutes to arrive at Barbridge, stuck behind slow farming cooperative vehicles a couple of times, Carrie all the while watching her speed, teasing him he would book her if she broke the limit. Some other drivers wondered why she was dawdling and gave her something of a look when they overtook her, but soon Carrie was turning left off the main road, past the house with those multi-coloured blooms in the garden, quite a show. They should be proud of that, thought Walter. If only he had the time to grow dahlias, but there would be time for that, one day. Up and over the narrow stone humpback bridge, and down toward the marina where more than a hundred craft were moored, some looking tired and abandoned, others being laid up at the end of the season, some still gleaming and cleaned, waiting and ready for late season holidaymakers, like Walter Darriteau and his friends.

Carrie pulled the cab into the car park, gently stopped and tugged on the handbrake.

‘There you are, sir,’ she said. ‘That will be twenty-five quid.’

‘’Bout right,’ he muttered, ‘what with inflation, and all.’

Walter got out of the car and went to the backseat and took out his bag, and slammed the door. Carrie the Cab got out and went to the boot and opened up, took out her bag, and closed the door and beeped the car locked, smiled at him and linked his arm, and they ambled down together in the watery sunshine toward the single story brick block, thirty yards away.

‘Come on, Inspector,’ she said. ‘It’s holiday time.’

‘Call me Walter, please.’

But if she heard him he couldn’t tell, and she didn’t reply, but said, ‘Are you going to inspect me?’

His eyebrows departed for his hairline and he said, ‘Play your cards right!’ and she laughed endearingly. He’d surprised her when he’d asked her to accompany him. But she’d said yes in an instant.

The block housed a grocery shop, but there was no one in there, and next door was a chandler, housing boat bits and parts and ropes and oils and manuals and guidebooks, and everything you needed to pilot a boat up and down the Shropshire Union Canal. Next to that, was the office where new arrivals booked in, and received twenty minutes light training, if they hadn’t sailed a narrowboat before.

Carrie’s brother and his wife Jill were already there, seated and waiting. Geoff in trendy grubby denim from head to foot, too young for him, thought Walter, reading canal magazines, boning up on the routes and pitfalls and all that stuff. Nice people, easy to get along with, though just for a second Walter imagined the holiday might have been nicer if it had been just him and Carrie. But no matter. The others would come in useful crewing the narrow but long craft, what with berthing and locks and ropes, and God knows what other challenges awaited them.

A few days before, Walter met them in the Peacock pub, a quick dry run, to see if they could get along in a confined space for a whole week. It had been a unanimous yes, but they had enjoyed a few drinks together, and yes’s were always more likely in such circumstances. Only time would tell. There were two big boxes of provisions, on the floor, groceries and drinks and matches, and rolls of paper towels and cleaning stuff and nonsense, all kind of gear that Walter would never have bought and brought in a blue moon. Geoff insisted he would get all the gear, and Walter slipped a welcome twenty in his hand when his wife wasn’t looking.

The boat instructor came in and said, ‘Hello,’ a young wiry kid in his early twenties, and he asked them if they’d been on the canals before. They all had, except Carrie, and she said, ‘I’m a virgin,’ and they laughed uncomfortably at that.

‘That’s great! Nowt to it! You’ll be fine, summat ’n’ nottin,’ and that was the sum total of the instruction they were going to enjoy, as he said, ‘Come on! I’ll show you round the Queen Mary,’ and they grabbed their bags and followed him down the towpath, round a corner and past a dozen other moored and sleeping boats, snuggled up close together as if hunkering down for winter. They came to a bright red, white and blue boat that sure enough had a huge placard on the side that said, The QUEEN MARY, and an equally big phone number beneath for the benefit of gongoozling watchers. A walking, floating, boating, advertising hoarding that would mosey on through the Shropshire, Cheshire, and Borderland countryside, before they crossed the line and ventured into deepest Wales, where they planned to take on the high and frightening aqueducts that were more of an adrenaline rush than any fairground ride, even if the boat was restricted to a paltry 4 mph.

The kid jumped aboard and unlocked the door and invited them on. Down three steep steps and they were inside. Large double bedroom at the back, or stern, as the kid insisted on calling it, with a pretty good en suite. A big long lounge with comfortable looking chairs, and a flatscreen TV slapped on the wall to remind them they were in the twenty-first century, and not the eighteenth when the canals had first been dug out by Irish navigators, navvies.

There was a modern kitchen in the corner with everything you might need to make a three course meal, roast chicken, and all the trimmings, or whatever. A small fridge with a bottle of white wine inside, compliments of the “shipping line”, and a pull out table with stools to sit and eat at, and already the kid was through to the front, or the bows, and another similar set-up double bedroom, and another smart en suite.

He took them back to the stern, opened up the engine and showed them the oil and water, and what had to be done down there, and the sewage disposal arrangements, very important, he stressed. You don’t want an overflow in there, and the men glimpsed over his shoulder, and peered knowingly down, as men do whenever engines and drains and motors and grease and muck and gears were discussed, and on show. They mumbled their knowledge and understanding and agreement that they knew what to do, and the kid convinced himself they were model punters, perfect boaters. The kind of mixed crews they preferred.

Stag and hen parties could be a nightmare, and he slipped the keys into Walter’s big paw, because he was in charge, that was obvious. He bade them well and actually said, ‘Bon voyage,’ and skipped off and dashed back to the car park, and jumped in his car and drove away before they could think of tricky questions he didn’t know the answers to.

Walter passed the keys to Geoff who was something of a seasoned boater, as they loaded their gear and provisions onboard.

Carrie yelled through the boat, ‘Walter and I will take the back bedroom, Geoff and Jill, the front,’ and that was decided, and no one argued. In the next minute, Carrie and Walter were in the bedroom together, unpacking their clothes, and slipping them on the quality wooden coat hangers.

‘It’s a double bed,’ he said.

‘It is. You got a problem with that?’

‘No. You?’

‘Not at all,’ she said, grinning, adding, ‘the nights are getting colder, and you can’t beat cuddling up to someone,’ and she glanced at his face, and Walter kind of bobbed his head and did a little smirk that she really liked. That was cool too, as they heard Geoff yelling, ‘Come on landlubbers! Time to cast off. Get on the ropes!’ and Walter sniffed a laugh, and Carrie giggled and ran through and yelled, ‘Yes, Cap’n,’ as she set about undoing the aft ropes, slipping them off the cute little metal bollards. Jill on the front ones, and the boat was free and floating and ready to go. The girls leapt aboard, joined the men on the small open deck on the stern, as Geoff started the engine, grabbed the tiller, eased the accelerator, maybe a tad too quickly, but everyone did that to begin with.

The Volvo diesel engine caught and bit and spurted, and water splashed away from the propeller, surprising a gaggle of mallard ducks, and the Queen Mary was launched and away from the quay. Geoff shouted to no one in particular, ‘God bless her and all who sail in her.’

Carrie disappeared for a moment and came back with an enormous bottle of bubbly, and four tall glasses. Burst off the cork, grinned and shrieked, poured four drinks, handed them round, and toasted: ‘To a fab holiday!’ and they all smiled and winked and chinked glasses, and swigged Prosecco.

It was going to be an exciting holiday.

They all knew that.

The best holiday Walter had enjoyed in ten years.

He’d even forget work, almost.

Chapter Eighty-Nine

The start of Christmas week, and Jennifer Napoleon had hired in outside decorators to set up the large tree and decorations.

It looked the part, but it should have done, for it cost enough. The chunky Norwegian spruce, grown in nearby Delamere forest, filled the house with the natural aroma of pine.

Kit suggested it helped him sleep, though the ample supply of Christmas hock he was taking onboard might have had something to do with that. 

He woke up and scratched his neatly trimmed grey beard. He’d slept well again despite the fact he had another big day ahead. He sloped from the bed and went to the bathroom. Glanced in the mirror. Pulled out his tongue. Didn’t care for what he saw, and put it away. Ran his bear-like hands through his overlong grey hair. He didn’t mind the grey look. He’d long grown used to it, ever since the occasional grey hair had appeared while he was still at grammar school, and that was almost thirty years ago.

He brushed his teeth, all the while rehearsing the brief but witty speech he knew he would be expected to deliver. Casson & Cates, publishers, paid him well, but they needed to, for they sure as heck took a big enough slice of his earnings.

Kit thought ahead to the celebratory luncheon at the Grosvenor Hotel in the centre of Chester. It had been laid on to publicise his new book SMASH! Sell More And Sleep Happy! Glossy hardback, big page count, big ticket price. It would be his ninth book, and advance orders had ensured it would enter the book charts in the top five. C & C, as everyone knew them, were hopeful it could blockbust its way straight in at the top of the pile, and it wouldn’t be the first of Kit’s books to do that. It would be nice to have a Christmas Number One. It had happened before, and it could happen again. Good things had a habit of happening to Kit Napoleon.

He smirked at himself in the glass. Winked even. Life was sweet, and what made it all the better was that things hadn’t always been that way. He’d tried umpteen avenues as a young man to find fame and fortune and glory, but it was only when he began writing self-help books, under his nom de plume of Kit Napoleon, things changed for the better.

Jennifer shouted up the stairs: ‘There’s a letter for you, Kit. Special Delivery. Looks real important.’

‘It’ll be the overseas rights,’ he yelled back, getting excited. ‘Be down in a tick.’

A couple of minutes later and he sat at the kitchen table, as Jennifer set fresh decaf coffee before him, and a plate of berries that he looked at with a mixture of dread and contempt. Whatever happened to good old sausage, bacon and eggs in the morning? Who wanted to live to be a hundred, anyway?

He was expecting the contracts for his books that were being translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. Amazing that those countries were interested in his works, but they were. It was pretty much all signed and sealed, and the projected sales figures were astonishing. It was all about numbers, C & C were fond of spouting time and again, and when the combined populations of those territories could be counted in the billions, the promised sales numbers would look after themselves. Vast riches awaited, so they said, and they were not often wrong.

The letter was there, propped up against the jar of Cheshire honey, and Jennifer was right about one thing, it looked important.

Kit sipped coffee and set the Wedgwood mug from not far away Stoke-on-Trent, down on the table, and picked up the letter. Neatly typed, neatly franked, quality envelope, Special Delivery, yes it had to be from C & C. Slipped his large finger into the corner and tore it open.

But it wasn’t from Casson & Cates at all.

It was from the Crown Prosecution Service.

Neatly addressed, like everything else about it.

Mr Kit Napoleon

Yewtree House

Wrenbury

Cheshire CW5 7BA

Dear Mr Napoleon, it began,

Please be advised, blah blah blah, that it is our intention to prosecute you for the following matters:

Bribery, Extortion, Fraud, and Theft.

Except they didn’t put it that way, the old familiar BEFT. No, they couched it in legal language that sounded more polite and worthy. But it meant the same thing.

They were after him. Big time.

It went on to say:

Please attend Chester Police Headquarters at 2pm on December 23rd where an appointment has been arranged for you to be interviewed by Inspector Walter Darriteau. If he is not available, please ask for Sergeant Karen Greenwood.

If you do not attend a warrant will be issued for your arrest. If required, you may bring your solicitor with you.

Yours, et cetera.

‘Shit!’ he said.

‘What’s the matter, darling?’

Kit passed the letter over and said, ‘That Karen Greenwood was a traitor in the camp all along.’

‘I never trusted her. She’s a tramp. It’s your blind spot, Kit. I’ve told you about that a thousand times. A pretty blonde with blue eyes, you seem to be mesmerised by them. They are not all innocent and there solely for your pleasure.’

‘I know that!’

‘What more do they want for heaven’s sake? We’ve repaid every penny that weakling Rushnell misappropriated.’

‘They want my guts, Jennifer. Pure and simple. Nothing more, nothing less.’

Jennifer poured herself another coffee and said, ‘What have they got on us?’

‘A lot of tittle-tattle, I suspect. We’ve done everything by the book. Everything!’

‘They must have something!’

Kit went silent for a moment as if thinking back, and then he said, ‘There is possibly one thing.’

‘Oh? What?’

‘A photograph.’

‘What of? Who of?’

‘It’s not the people pictured that’s of interest, it’s what’s written on the back.’

‘And that is?’

‘I can’t remember, exactly. It was a long time ago.’

‘Did you sign it?’

‘No, I don’t think I did.’

‘But it’s in your writing?’

‘Yes.’

‘That doesn’t sound much.’

‘It isn’t. Not really.’

‘We’ll have to fight them, Kit, tooth and nail.’

‘Oh yes, we’ll fight them all right.’

‘You know what it’s like, Kit. When you’re wealthy, like we are, people will do anything they can to steal that wealth from us. Use any means. They’ll be ruthless. We’ll have to fight fire with fire. Match them, head to head. Fight dirty, if we have to.’

‘Oh yes, you’re right, darling. I can fight dirty when the need arises. This Darriteau character and Karen have no idea what they are messing with, or who they are dealing with. No idea at all. They don’t seem to appreciate the power and influence I have at my disposal. The gloves are officially off. The true fight is about to begin.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’ll smash them into oblivion!’

‘SMASH!’ he said, grinning, and visualising mountains of red white and blue dust-covered books flying off the shelves. Christmas presents all around. ‘Yeah. Smash them!’

Jennifer and Kit shared a look, and a belly laugh.

Bring it on!

It sounded like fun.

The merry-go-round of life was about to spin all over again.

It sure as hell beat the alternative. 

David’s Note

I am aware the great port of Liverpool is not yet capable of handling container vessels of the size mentioned in this book... but the good news is, it soon will be. More power to their elbow, I say.

The End

The fourth book in this series,

“Kissing a Killer” is following right here...

Kissing a Killer

David Carter

Chapter One

He was strong. Incredibly strong. She stared up into his dark, unblinking eyes. Nothing there. No pity, no emotion, no feeling, no humanity, nothing but an iciness that chilled her bones.

When you are close to death your whole life flashes before you, so they say, but it was not Eleanor Wright’s life that flashed through her tortured brain, but his, the attacker, her killer designate, the cold strong nameless man who held her so.

Why was he doing this? Why did he hate her so much? Why did he hate himself so much? Perhaps he had been abused as a little boy. Perhaps his father had beaten him. Maybe he didn’t have a father and had grown up wild. Maybe he’d been beaten by a wicked stepmother, and this was his idea of revenge. All of those things were possible, or none of them at all. Maybe he simply had a screw loose. There were lots of guys wandering about with loose and missing screws, and she knew that well enough, just as most women do.

It was her mother’s scolding face that next presented itself to her racing brain. Eleanor recalled the conversation as if she had hours to live, days even. It only took a second.

‘You know what you are doing is so wrong!’

‘I need the money, mum!’

‘Get a bloody job then!’

‘What, like you? Serving teas and sandwiches all day to the afternoon coffin dodgers for the minimum wage? I don’t think so! Not a chance!’

‘At least it’s honest.... and respectable.’

‘Don’t start down that line again!’

‘Don’t you think God sees what you are doing... every time you do those perverted things?’

‘God! God? What did your so-called God ever do for you?’

‘He gave me you, for a start!’

‘Well, you drew the bloody booby prize there!’

‘Don’t be so wicked! I am blessed. You are blessed, too. On the day of judgement...’

‘Yeah, yeah, well I have news for you, mother dear; there’s no such thing as a God! Or any crappy day of judgement either. You’re in for a big disappointment. I’m off out. Derek said he’d treat me to a curry.’

‘And that Derek’s a useless article too!’

‘Yeah right, and the hot men are queuing up to see you as well.’

‘Don’t involve me in your sordid business!’

It had been a typical mother/daughter conversation in the Wright family in recent times, but Eleanor’s full attention was brought back to the present, to the man in front of her, strangling her.

She wanted to scream, but he would never allow that. And besides, the caravan was remote, at least half a mile to the next one, and being November, that would be vacant anyway. She could hear the rain drumming on the roof. It was getting heavier, too. Screaming would be a total waste of precious energy. She stared up into those dark eyes. If only she could stab him in those cold eyes with her long and strong fingernails; that would make him think twice, but he’d thought of that. He’d come prepared. She recalled his exact words when he had tapped on her caravan door.

‘You’re open for business, I believe?’

‘It’s a bit late, ain’t it?’

‘Never too late for business, bonny lass. Come on, open up, I’ve plenty of cash, and we have all night.’

‘Can’t you come back tomorrow? I’m not really in the mood.’

‘No! Open up! It’s starting to rain,’ and he leant on the flimsy door, and she would never resist, for one simple reason. She liked the look of him, and the sound of his calm voice, his neat understated smile, and the thought of plenty of cash.

He was so much better looking than the aging creeps who normally found their way down to her old caravan beside the swirling River Dee. Often violent, often drunk, often in need of a damned good wash, often in filthy smoke-ridden clothes, often out of shape and flabby, the kind of gone-to-seed guys that normal women would run a mile from. That’s why they needed her, or someone like her, though they didn’t want to pay for it, and often barely had enough cash even for a quick BJ.

Eleanor Wright knew that her name and whereabouts were an open secret in the local pubs. Fact was, that when she had first started doing tricks, she might even have encouraged the landlords to “Send ’em down to see me after you’ve finished with them!” Though she’d wiped that idiotic chapter from her mind with a big sigh and a shake of the head.

She stood across the caravan from him, weighing him up, as he appeared to be her, as they often did. It was a little strange. A young, fit, good-looking guy like him having to visit the local whore. You’d think he could find a girl of his own. He’d make a fab boyfriend for someone, and for a moment she allowed herself to daydream.

Maybe he could become her boyfriend. Maybe they could go steady, and who knew where that might lead? He’d sure as hell make a heck of a husband, the kind of guy any girl would love to enter the pub with on his arm. Tall, fit, smart, healthy. But the days when young men like him would look at her seriously had long gone. Whoring’s a hard business. It leaves its mark, even on a twenty-something; and there was nowt she could do about that.

She set her newly nail-polished hands on her hips and pouted and said, ‘So what is it you want?’

His soft reply seeped through the caravan.

‘Bit of rough, bit of slap, lots of sex.’

‘All right,’ she said, going to the door and flipping over the catch. ‘Hundred quid.’

He left out a short, sharp grunt and shook his head.

‘Not a chance! Fifty quid, and think yourself lucky,’ and he opened his wallet and took out a fifty pound note and tossed it on the plastic topped coffee table.

Eleanor glanced down at it. It was a brand new note, straight from the bank, or the ATM, by the look of it, and fifty quid was fifty quid, and a girl had to eat, and obtain other vital provisions too.

‘All right,’ she said again. ‘But not too rough.’

She thought she detected another slight smile, maybe more of a smirk.

‘Come here!’ he ordered, and she did as he asked without a second’s hesitation.

He took hold of her shoulders and spun her round. He pulled a length of thick cord from his trouser pocket. He’d come prepared, she remembered thinking that, but then they often did, as he wound it round one wrist and then the other, and pulled it tight and knotted it, tying her hands together behind her back.

‘Not too tight!’

‘Shut it, bitch!’

He was going to be one of those.

An abuser, hopefully more vocal than physical. But she liked him, there was something quite different about this guy, even slightly exciting, and with a little luck she might enjoy what he had in mind. It happened sometimes, though not often.

He spun her round again and stared down into her green eyes. She wasn’t even scared of him. That would have to change. He slipped his hands around her pretty white neck and squeezed. Not too hard. There was no hurry.

She tried to breathe, but couldn’t.

‘No!’ she said.

‘Yes!’

‘Why?’

‘Needs must.’

‘I’ll never understand men.’

‘There’s nothing to understand. Just prepare yourself.’

‘For what?’

‘To meet your maker.’

It was when he’d said that, that she’d recalled that miserable conversation with her overweight mother.

‘I don’t believe in God,’ she gabbled, trying hard to speak.

‘Not many people do,’ he said, and this time he did smirk. ‘Until they are about to meet him, or her, and then everyone does.’

She wanted to stab him in the eye, but that was impossible. She wanted to knee him in the groin, but already her legs were weakening. She thought of spitting in his face, into those dark intense eyes. It would be her final act, to spit in the face of her killer, but was that really how she wanted to sign off from this confusing and cruel world? With anger and spite? Right there, it didn’t seem to her to be the right thing to do, and anyway, his grip was tightening. It was unlikely she could find sufficient puff to spit at all. She knew she would find it hard to manage a dribble.

He squeezed again, not fatally, but frighteningly, as if he was enjoying it. Prolonging the play, getting off on building up to a climax. She leant towards him and reached up. He smelt her cheap perfume.

He imagined she was about to bite him, on the throat or nose, lips or cheek.

‘Don’t you dare bite me, bitch!’

‘No,’ she said, the tiniest of whispers, or had he relaxed his grip sufficiently to allow her reply?

‘Kiss,’ she muttered, and standing on tiptoe, she planted a gentle kiss in the centre of his unlined forehead. She pulled away; and saw the lipstick on his fine face.

She tried to smile, but could not.

The dark was coming down fast.

The truth was, she wasn’t that bothered. In the previous eighteen months she’d thought about doing it herself many a time. At least this way she would never take with her any guilt.

The perfect suicide.

Have someone else do it for you.

Don’t some people pay a lot of money for that in Switzerland these days?

He said nothing further.

Not a word.

His eyes stared down at her, right through her, unblinking.

He was a nice man.

In different circumstances, he could have been a very nice man.

Suffocation.

Panic.

Involuntary struggling.

Even if you want to go, you still struggle. Funny that.

The body overrules the brain.

He was strong. Incredibly strong.

He held her tight and tighter still as she slipped away, and the last thing she remembered before all went black was planting that kiss on the face of her killer.

At least she had gone out with style, grace, and love.

That was something.

In Eleanor Wright’s confused world, it was everything.

She was a loving person, was Eleanor, and love is all you need. It really is true. Love is all you need.

Chapter Two

He held her hard and still for a further two minutes. She was limp in his hands, but growing heavier. Her eyes were wide open as if they were about to pop, but it was clear to him they had ceased to see.

Another thirty seconds, he thought, and he began counting them down. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, and he grinned to himself and let her go. She fell to the floor in a heap at his feet. He leant down and straightened her out, though he didn’t know why he’d done that. Felt for a pulse. There was none. He would have been surprised if there was. He reached across to the coffee table and retrieved the fifty-pound note, and slipped it back in his pocket.

Stood up and went to the door. Unclipped it and went outside. The rain was heavier still, and thick cloud covered the moon and stars. He peered across the fields, back to the twisty unmade up lane that led to the main road. From the caravan doorway he could not see a single light anywhere, and that was as he liked it. There was a plane going over, still quite high, maybe going into Hawarden airport, but the chances of anyone up there seeing him down in the caravan doorway were a million to one.

He skipped outside and went to the end of the caravan, and the group of large old-fashioned blue gas canisters gathered there. They heated the place and provided fuel for the rare bit of cooking Eleanor did to impress an occasional client she deemed worthy of food. An old-fashioned gas canister for an old-fashioned caravan.

He reached behind the first canister, feeling for the red plastic container he had placed there before he’d tapped on the door. The container was wet to the touch, but that didn’t matter. It was watertight. Found the handle and grabbed and lifted it and took it inside and closed the door behind him.

The dead girl was on her back, staring at the ceiling, exactly where he’d left her. Her mouth was wide open, and that was inviting. He crouched down beside her, unscrewed the top, brought the container to her mouth and tipped in liquid, as if she’d asked for a drink of lemonade. The thick clear fluid gurgled down her throat. A smell of petrol filled the small caravan. It was surprising how much went down there. Far more than he’d have guessed.

Then she was full, and overflowing, and petrol began spreading out on the floor, across the old lino that led away to an even older piece of red and green patterned carpet. He stood up and stepped away, and began throwing petrol over the furniture and bedding and old wooden fitments, and back to the girl and that short purple dress with the white frilly trim. He emptied the last of the petrol all over her clothing, soaking her, and set the empty container on the small worktop.

Took another look around.

Had he touched anything?

Not that he could remember, other than the door and the container and the girl, and none of those mattered, for with a little luck none of those things would exist in another ten minutes. But to be sure he wiped the old metal door catch, inside and out.

He went to the doorway, took one last look, and pursed his lips as if deep in thought.

She was a strange girl.

It was almost as if she had wanted him to do what he had done, and he hadn’t expected that. But that didn’t matter, for she had made it easier for him. But there was no denying a little more fight, some genuine resistance, might have made things more interesting and more exciting, but hey, there are 3.75 billion females on this planet, give or take, and that number is growing every day, despite the activities of birth control methods and wars and disease, and people like him.

Murderers like him. He thought about the title. It brought another smirk to his clean-cut face. He was a murderer, and that was something; an achievement he never expected to make. Fact was, if he wanted another victim to fight harder, there were plenty of potential candidates to choose from.

He opened the door, stepped outside, and was happy to see the rain dwindling away to nothing. He turned back and looked inside. Took out a box of matches. Held his hands just inside the door to shelter from the wind, and struck one. Lit first time. Tossed it across the room.

BOOF!

Instant blaze.

The purple dress immediately engulfed.

He didn’t dare glance at the liquid loaded face.

Pulled the door to and turned about and set off towards the twisty lane.

He was a quick walker and needed to be.

He could feel the heat on his neck and the back of his head.

Stuffed his hands deep in his jacket pockets, hunched his back, and watched his feet working hard to get away. He was leaving footsteps in the mud. That was clear, but it couldn’t be helped. Maybe the rain would return and blur his retreat.

BANG!

The first of the gas bottles blew up. He glanced back over his shoulder. The caravan was ablaze. Part of the roof was collapsing into the main inferno. Just the metal frame remained, melting and bending and twisting as if in agony, before falling in on itself. Red and yellow and blue flames leapt into the air like a funeral pyre for a goddess.

‘The Goddess of pleasure,’ he muttered to himself, and smirked again, and already he was half way up that twisty lane on the way back to the main road and his car, and safety and freedom, and then en route back to his demanding day job.

He didn’t see or hear a soul all the way back to the car and he wasn’t surprised, not even a late night dog walker, for he knew not many people used that lane.

As he turned the corner onto the main road, he saw his new silver and black Cayton Cerisa Sports parked up ahead, maybe three hundred yards to the lay-by. By the time he reached the car, one vehicle had passed him coming head on, a large dark SUV. He glanced away as it passed, while one vehicle had passed him from behind, a small scruffy box wagon, carrying God knows what to God knows where.

Twenty yards from the car, he took out his key fob and bleeped the car open. Orange lights flashed. A tiny bleep filled the heavy November air. He opened the nearside passenger door and reached inside and grabbed the old supermarket plastic bag he’d placed on the seat. He sat on the seat with his feet out on the grass verge and reached down and slipped off the black slip-on shoes. Glad to get them off, for they were a size too big.

He slipped them in the bag and added several large pebbles he’d set in the footwell, and bound the bag closed. He reached across to the driver’s seat where he’d left his favourite pair of grey and white trainers. Put them on and tied them up, and they sure felt good, like best quality gloves. Stood out of the car, closed the door, hurried round to the driver’s side, opened up, and jumped inside.

Turned on the engine. The clock said 12.42am. November 18th, and a new Saturday was just beginning, and that was cool, for he always had plans aplenty on a Saturday.

It took him less than twenty minutes to drive back to Chester city centre. The traffic was light, and the car was fast and the rain was back, heavy and sustained, and that was cool too. As he approached the Grosvenor Bridge across the cold, dark and deep river, he glanced in the rear mirror. Nothing behind. Nothing at all. Couldn’t be better.

He buzzed down the passenger window. Some rain blew in, as he took hold of the heavy plastic bag, and with one confident swing he flung it out of the window like a discus thrower. Over the grey stone parapet it went, as he watched it out of sight, falling down fast, splashing and crashing into the swirling and rain-refreshed water, entering the darkness like an arrow-beaked seabird out hunting, where it sank to the bottom in seconds. Only a few dozing mallard ducks witnessed the missile from above. The wrong sized shoes would never see the light of day again.

Chapter Three

Fred Ross opened his business in Chester ten years before and had called it the Cuppa Cha Café, a name his first wife suggested, and as he couldn’t think of anything better, he went along with it, though he’d often thought of changing it after that.

He was tall and slim with neat black greasy hair that gave him an Italianate appearance, something that he would encourage when referring to himself as the Italian stallion. It would make his predominantly female clientele laugh, and that was good, though there wasn’t an Italianate cell in his entire body.

The business had grown steadily, he’d moved to larger premises just the once, and though he would moan and groan that he was working long hours for the benefit of the taxman and the landlord, the business would pay him a decent wage, and show a reasonable return at the year end, profits he ploughed into penny shares, a dangerous world full of sharks that would often bite his ankles, and drain his assets.

The business grew for one solid reason. Attention to detail; and Fred Ross was as good an attention to detail man as you could find. All growing businesses need an attention to detail person, and Fred knew that, and never once took his eye off the ball.

So it wasn’t surprising that on Monday morning he noticed Dorothy Wright wasn’t quite on top of her game. She’d tried to make at least four calls from her mobile, and they were only the ones he was aware of. It annoyed him for two reasons. First, calls from mobiles were not permitted during work hours, and two, when she was staring at that damned thing she was neglecting the customers, and neglected customers had a frequent habit of seeking pastures new.

It wouldn’t do. Competition in the small café world in Chester, just like every developed city on the planet in the twenty-first century, was fierce.

He cornered his manageress, a tall slim well made-up woman named Shirley, who happened to be his second wife.

‘What the hell’s wrong with Dot today?’

Shirley glanced across at Dot, who was serving and gossiping with a regular, and back at Fred. Shirley possessed many talents, but attention to detail was not one of them, a skill lack that annoyed Fred.

‘Nowt that I know of, why?’

‘She’s been fiddling with that bloody mobile all morning.’

Shirley giggled and said, ‘Maybe she’s got a new boyfriend,’ for Shirley was well aware that Dot was in the market for one.

Fred glanced at Dot’s ample figure and doubted that.

‘Have a word with her, will you? She’s doing my head in!’

Shirley realised Fred was annoyed about something major and muttered, ‘Okay love, leave it with me.’

Fred disappeared into the back rooms to see if the next batch of steak pies were ready, as Shirley moved close to Dot and in a quiet moment whispered, ‘Is everything all right, Dot?’

Dorothy pursed her lips and glanced into Shirley’s blue eyes.

‘Tell you the truth, Shirl, no.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s my Eleanor.’

‘What about her?’

‘She’s fallen in with a bad crowd.’

‘In what way?’

‘I’d be too embarrassed to tell you, but it’s not looking good.’

‘Have you spoken to her?’

‘I’ve been trying since Saturday morning. There’s no answer, and that’s not like our Ellie at all. She always leaves her mobile on for the clients.... her customers, like.’

‘Where does she live now?’

‘She has a small caravan down by the river. Horrible it is, old and smelly; I’ve been trying to get her into a decent flat. I can’t help thinking she might have fallen over.... or something.’

‘Well, you are no good to us like this. Fred’s noticed something’s wrong. Do you want to go and check?’

‘Oh, could I? That would be great! You’re fab, Shirl, anyone ever tell you that?’ and not waiting a second in case Shirley changed her mind, or Fred came back, she took off her overall, grabbed her grubby raincoat from the hooks, and headed for the door, calling out over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’

A minute later, Fred returned and noticed Dorothy was missing.

‘Where is she?’

‘She has a problem with her daughter. I told her to go and sort it out and get back as soon as she can.’

‘Brilliant! Just as the lunchtime rush is about to start!’

‘Don’t fret so. We can manage, Fred!’

‘We’ll bloody well have to now! I’m stopping her wages!’

‘Oh, stop being an old grumblebum, Freddy.’

‘I’ll grumblebum you in a minute!’

Shirley smirked at Fred and rippled her eyes and muttered, ‘Promises promises!’ Just as six new customers came in together and began inspecting the day’s food offerings in the Cuppa Cha Café.

––––––––

DOROTHY WRIGHT OWNED the same small modern Ford hatchback car as her daughter, except hers was red and Eleanor’s blue. They’d bought them in a BOGOF deal from the local Ford dealer, buy one, get one free, who couldn’t believe his luck when he shifted two old part exchange jalopies in one afternoon.

Dorothy was gunning hers round the Chester inner ring road, though the little car was not really a gunning kind of car. It was half an hour later when Dot pulled off the main road and onto the unmade up twisty lane that led down to the river. It must have been at least a mile from the turnoff to the caravan down by the water, but that mile seemed like ten.

Horrendous thoughts crashed through Dot’s head. Had Ellie been attacked and injured? Or maybe fallen into the deep river after one vodka cocktail too many. The last twist in the lane revealed Ellie’s little car, parked away to the right on a small piece of hard standing. At least she must be in, and that was something.

Earlier, Dot had a premonition that Ellie might have packed her few precious belongings into that car, and headed off to Cornwall or Oban or Wells-next-the-Sea, wherever that was, as she often talked of doing, after a particularly hard week. As far away as possible, she said, as if running away could ever solve deep-seated problems.

Ten more yards and reality hit.

Dot slammed on the brakes, almost banged her forehead on the hard steering wheel. Ellie’s caravan was no more. Just a blackened heap of wreckage sitting on the red brick base designed to keep the caravan above the winter floods the Dee produced most years.

Dot’s hand went to her mouth and she exhaled loudly.

‘Oh, Geez!’

‘Oh, bloody hell!’

‘No!’

The one sided conversation came to an abrupt close, as Dot booted the car onward and round the last bend and up to the heap of twisted and burnt metal and cinders and ash.

‘Kids!’ she said, crawling out of the car, for she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what there was to see.

‘Bloody kids!’ she repeated. ‘Kids get up to all sorts these days. You’d be surprised,’ and Dot thought maybe Ellie had an outside client, one who preferred “entertaining” in their own home. It happened more and more, so Ellie said one afternoon in one of the local pubs, when she had treated her mother to a Sunday carvery luncheon, a meal that ended in a row after the obvious awkwardness. Two gents, who knew Ellie’s trade, had taken to winking and leering at both Ellie, and worse still, her mother too, across the bar, and Dot couldn’t wait to get out of there.

That was probably it, thought Dot, as she ambled before the face of the wreckage. She’ll be working off site. Dot imagined the bricks were still hot, though she may have been wrong. She thought she could smell petrol, though that might have been a leak from the old Ford.

Thinking of which, she went over to Ellie’s car and peered through the dirty windows. No one about, no one sleeping inside due to a recent loss of quarters. She tried the door. It opened. Ellie rarely locked it, especially down there where few people, other than Ellie’s clients, ventured.

She took out her mobile and rang Ellie’s number again, praying for it to ring, praying to hear some simple explanation. Straight to voicemail – We cannot take your call at this time.

‘Shit!’ she said aloud as she wandered back toward the charred remains of Ellie’s former home.

The sun came out. A weak watery November sun, though quite bright for all that, and for a second Dot shielded her eyes, so much of a surprise was it. When she took her hand away she spotted something glinting in the sunlight within the wreckage.

‘What the hell?’

She stood up uncomfortably on the brick base, set one foot within the charred remains, feeling crunching burnt wreckage giving way beneath her feet, and yes, it was warm too. She bent down and retrieved the sparkle. It was a large diamond, like the one set in Ellie’s silver and diamond ring. Her daughter’s most prized possession, given to her by her father four years earlier, before the afternoon he abandoned them, walking out, never to return.

Ellie never removed that ring. She’d put on a few pounds since then, and couldn’t take it off. It was stuck fast on Ellie’s finger, until now.

‘Bugger!’ said Dot aloud, thinking terrible thoughts as she took out her mobile again and slapped in triple nine.

Chapter Four

Inspector Walter Darriteau was in a great mood. He had a new girlfriend. He’d met her on the Internet. Everyone was doing it, they said, and Walter was no spring chicken, or spring cockerel, to be more accurate.

And you only live once, and he’d lived alone for years and years, discounting a few brief dalliances along the way.

And now, not far from retirement, he’d taken the bull by the horns, so to speak. He imagined it would be nice to find someone a little more permanent.

Sergeant Karen Greenwood had steered him toward the site. She admitted she’d used it in the past, and that surprised him for Karen Greenwood was young, blonde, slim, blue-eyed, very desirable, and, if it wasn’t politically incorrect to think, or say so in the twenty-first century, very pretty too.

‘Everyone’s doing it,’ she’d said, giggling, and she told him the web address, and that was how he’d met the busty Carlene Henderson. Walter began thinking of her, of her heaving bosoms, before the phone rang.

DC Darren Gibbons grabbed it and barked, ‘C.I.D’

Dorothy Wright had been passed through from central control.

‘I’ve just discovered my daughter’s caravan burnt to the ground. Can you send someone quick? I’m worried she might have been in there.’

‘Okay, let’s start at the beginning. Your name is?’

Walter stopped thinking of Carlene’s assets and glanced across at Gibbons, as did Karen, for there was something immediate in his voice, something that alerted experienced officers like Walter and Karen.

Gibbons was talking again, loud, as was his style.

‘Where is the caravan, where was the caravan?’

‘By the river.’

‘Yes, but where by the river, a postal address.’

‘I don’t know! She never gets post here, it’s too remote. Can you come quick?’

‘But where to? We need an address.’

Dot tried hard to remember the name of the twisty lane that led down from the main road but could not.

‘I don’t know!’ she said again, close to tears.

‘Keep calm. Which district?’ asked Gibbons, maintaining his cool. 

‘Off the Farndon road.’

‘Ah, I get you, hold on a sec,’ and he jumped up and ran over to the massive big scale local map that covered half of one wall.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Walter.

‘Not sure, Guv, lady says her daughter’s caravan has burnt down and she’s worried her daughter was inside.’

‘Where?’ asked Karen, jumping up and joining Gibbons at the wall.

‘She says by the river, a twisty lane, off the Farndon road.’

‘Don’t think there are many lanes off that road,’ said Karen, pointing to a possible candidate.

‘Yeah, that could be the one,’ said Gibbons, hurrying back to the landline.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Course I’m still here, and twice as bloody worried. I’ve found a diamond in the wreckage. I think it’s from her ring, and she never takes it off, never could take it off. Please hurry!’

‘Is it at the bottom of Marigold Lane?’

‘It is!! How did you know that?’

‘Detective work,’ said Gibbons, smirking at Karen. ‘Someone will be with you in about twenty minutes.’

‘Thank the Lord! See you soon. Don’t forget me!’

‘We’ll not forget, we’ll be there as soon as we can,’ said Gibbons, hanging up. ‘Do you want me to go, Guv?’

‘No. You hang on here. I want you and Hector to keep going through that CCTV stuff looking for any leads on the drug running op. I’ll go. Karen, organise a car, and an unmarked one at that.’

‘On my way,’ said Karen, jumping up, grabbing her bottle of lemon and lime still water and light waterproof jacket, before heading for the lift.

Walter reached under the desk and put his heavy black shoes back on, and tied them up. Stood up, limped across the office, and tapped on his boss’s door.

‘Could be something, ma’am,’ he muttered. ‘Woman reporting her daughter’s caravan has burnt down, and she’s worried her daughter might have been inside it.’

‘Where?’ said Mrs West, glancing up and over the top of her new pink spectacles.

‘By the river, somewhere down off the Farndon road.’

‘Okey-doke. Go and sort it, Walter.’

Walter pursed his lips and nodded and headed back across the office, grabbed his raincoat from the hooks, and headed towards the lift.

‘Hope all goes well,’ said Gibbons. ‘She sounded mighty agitated.’

‘Wouldn’t we all be agitated at that news?’ said Walter, heaving open the double doors.

‘Yeah, I guess.’

––––––––

KAREN HAD HEARD THEY were due for a delivery of a new Volvo V40 that day, and lo-and-behold there it was, a beautiful silver-grey hatchback with just seventy-two miles on the clock. She looked like a kid with the best new present on Christmas morning.

‘Fab car,’ she said.

‘Indeed, and an expensive one. Try not to prang it.’

‘Me, Guv? When did I ever prang a car?’

Walter thought about that. She was a quick driver, and a good one too, and often drove at way above the speed limit, when on operations, but it was true, he could never remember her actually pranging one of the force’s best high-powered beasts.

‘There’s always a first time.’

‘Hope not,’ said Karen, grinning across at him, as they sped south from Chester heading for Farndon.

Marigold Lane was the last turnoff on the right-hand side before entering the small and cute riverside town of Farndon. Just after lunchtime on a brightish November day, amid light traffic, as Karen turned into Marigold.

For the first hundred yards the road surface was made up in some kind of light coloured concrete, with small detached low build bungalows on either side. But once the bungalows came to an end, so did the made up road. The lane became nothing more than a track, and a pitted, rutted and narrow one at that.

Two distinct blackish tracts where the vehicles’ wheels ran, tough grass and weeds in the centre, and no room for passing anywhere, so it was as well nothing came up from the river. Lots of standing water everywhere, evidence of the recent heavy rainfall, and the further down the lane they went, the worse the craters and ravines in the track became.

Despite Karen’s careful driving, the new Volvo was bucking and jumping and swaying and creaking all over the place. A big test for a hardy new car, and the Volvo would handle it well, though they both wondered if it was doing the new suspension much good.

‘Steady!’ said Walter. ‘Slower!’

‘I am going dead slow now, Guv,’ and she was, which meant progress down that long and twisty lane was tortuous, where one mile seemed like twenty.

A moment later, through the spindly trees, they could see a small blue Ford hatchback parked away to the right, and after one more turn to the left, another similar Ford, red this time, with a short buxom woman standing beside it, her hands crossed before her chest, and what looked like a large redbrick barbeque behind her.

‘Stop here,’ said Walter, and Karen did, and they climbed out and walked over towards Dorothy Wright.

‘Thought you weren’t coming,’ said Dot.

‘We’re here now,’ said Walter as Karen completed the introductions.

The redbrick barbeque was nothing of the kind, but the old foundations where the caravan had once stood. It must have been partly hollow, for the crunched and crashed wreckage had mainly fallen and settled inside.

‘Have you touched anything?’ asked Walter.

‘Just this,’ she said, showing them a large diamond, the one she imagined had come from Ellie’s precious ring. ‘She never took it off, she couldn’t take it off.’

‘We’ll need to take that for examination,’ said Karen. ‘You’ll get it back.’

‘Okay,’ she said as Walter held out a small plastic bag and Dot dropped it inside. ‘I’m really worried about her.’

‘Course you are, we’ll do everything to find out what’s gone on.’

‘Ta,’ she said, holding back tears.

‘Call SOCO,’ said Walter, and Karen jumped on her mobile.

‘So,’ said Walter, ‘tell me about your daughter.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’

‘It’s a bit embarrassing.’

‘In what way?’

‘She wasn’t always a very good girl.’

‘The more you tell us the better, let’s go and sit in the car,’ and they did, in the front of her little Ford. Karen stayed outside, walking round the redbrick base, peering inside, sniffing, a slight but definite aroma of spirit, petrol or paraffin, wondering what had really happened. Dorothy Wright poured her heart out to Walter in the car, about how Ellie had gone off the rails when her dad had left, never to be seen or heard of since. Of how she’d flunked college, hated menial shop serving jobs, had fallen in with the wrong crowd, had taken up drinking and dabbling in drugs, and to pay for it, well, she’d started doing tricks for men; and women too, if the demand was there. Anything to earn a handful of gold.

It wasn’t a pretty story, though not an unusual one in twenty-first century Britain, where a certain segment of society appeared to slip through the gaps in the floor, and into hard times. But that was nothing new either, as Walter was all too aware. It had been going on since Victorian days, and probably long before that, and always would. There were always plenty of hopeless case people who couldn’t cope, and he doubted if that would ever change.

‘What’s your husband’s name?’

‘Tommy, Tommy Wright.’

‘And you don’t know where he is now?’

‘Not a clue, not a frigging idea. Sorry, Inspector. Could be anywhere.’

‘And did Ellie have a boyfriend, someone special?’ 

‘Not really. She knocked around with a guy called Derek Nesbitt, but he’s a useless article. All talk and style but no substance. Vacuous Derek, I used to think.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

Dot nodded and coughed up the address.

‘Look, try not to worry, we don’t know anything definite yet.’

‘But the diamond?’

‘Maybe it fell out. They do that sometimes. Maybe she had burglars, could be anything,’ but the look on Dot’s suddenly lined face betrayed her innermost thoughts.

‘Come on,’ said Walter, ‘let’s go and join Karen.’

––––––––

BACK AT THE BURNT OUT wreckage Karen said, ‘Petrol fumes,’ pointing at the blackened debris.

‘I thought that,’ said Dot.

Walter sniffed and nodded his head. He glanced at Karen.

‘Can you go and tape off the area from the bottom of the lane? We don’t want loads of people and vehicles contaminating the area.’

Karen nodded and retreated to the Volvo. Walter had wanted to say “crime scene”, but there was no crime. Not yet.

Five minutes later SOCO arrived, all young and keen, white suited and booted within minutes, three of them in all, two young women and a slightly older man. Walter filled them in and they nodded and stepped to it.

‘Why don’t you go and sit in the car with Karen and tell her all about Ellie,’ suggested Walter.

‘I thought I told you everything.’

‘I’m sure there’s plenty more,’ and Walter nodded at Karen and over toward the little Ford. She received the message and took Dot Wright’s arm and led her away, saying, ‘Tell me all about Ellie, what’s her star sign?’

Walter wanted Dot well away, for his suspected awkward discoveries would not be long in coming. In the meantime he checked out the ground. Lots of blurred footprints, fuzzed up by the rain, and quite a few tyre tracks too. Looked like Ellie Wright had been busy, a popular girl, and that might make his job all the harder, if harm had come to her, if she had a wide circle of clients.

He ambled back towards the wreckage. Lights had been set up, and a large white almost medieval looking canopy had been erected to keep any further rain off the site. Photographing was going on from every which way. The SOCO people didn’t seem to harbour any doubt, and ten minutes later the guy came over and opened his white-gloved balled fist and revealed a large tooth.

‘Female?’ said Walter.

‘Almost certainly.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Size mainly, I’d bet my pension on it. And I’d say it’s the tooth of a young woman. It’s in good nick. And there’s more.’

‘Like what?’

‘Looks like a full skeleton. As you know, human bones are made of material akin to metal. They rarely burn away in a house fire.’

‘Oh, dear. We’d better get a doctor down here fast.’

‘Thought you’d have done that already.’

Walter shrugged and gave the guy a look, and took out his mobile and rang Doc Grayling. 

Chapter Five

Dorothy Wright never went back to work at the Cuppa Cha Café. She couldn’t pluck up the courage to face Shirley and Fred Ross again. She might have felt a little guilty about that, but surely they would understand.

Instead, she took to drink. Dot had always enjoyed alcohol, but it became her sole release, and for a year she drank as if she’d just staggered from the Gobi desert.

The morning after the events at the foot of Marigold Lane the Chester CID team were in situ in the office, waiting for Walter to start. Everyone was there. Karen Greenwood and Darren Gibbons, Hector Browne, Jenny Thompson, now a full-time member of the CID team, and a new guy called Nicky Barr, a short slight bloke, and recently promoted from uniform. He harboured dreams of becoming the best detective Chester had ever seen. That could become annoying.

He’d replaced Jan the Pole, who had experienced a Paul on the road to Damascus moment, when suddenly changing career, from detective, to studying for the priesthood.

Jan the Pole was missed by everyone, but particularly by Jenny, for they’d briefly become an item, and though the rumour was she was still seeing him, even though he’d moved across the country to Lincoln, there didn’t seem much future in it, with Jan being determined to become a Catholic priest. It didn’t affect Jenny’s work, leastways that was what she said, but the powers that be were keeping a close eye on things.

Mrs West came out of her office and sat in a chair at the end, and pursed her lips and nodded at Walter, and he did the same to Karen, and she opened the meet.

‘Ellie (Eleanor) Wright,’ and a recent image of Ellie Wright wearing a purple white trimmed dress a little too short for her, came on the screen. ‘Met her end in an old caravan at the foot of Marigold Lane by the River Dee, near Farndon. She was a prostitute with a wide client base.’

‘Lots of clients, lots of suspects,’ muttered Gibbons.

‘Maybe,’ said Walter, ‘but let’s hear the MO first.’

Gibbons pulled a face and nodded.

‘Accelerant was used to burn down the caravan. Probably petrol. The reports are in, but we cannot be sure if Ellie was already dead before the caravan went up. It was a fierce blaze and not a lot was left.’

‘Might she have done it herself?’ asked Hector Browne.

‘Fair point, Hector,’ said Walter. ‘Her mother was evasive to say the least, when we asked her about Ellie’s possible suicidal tendencies.’

Hector nodded and scribbled notes, as was his wont.

‘Did she have a boyfriend?’ asked Nicky.

‘Lots of them,’ smirked Darren. ‘I would think.’

‘There’s a big difference between boyfriends and clients,’ said Walter. ‘But they all have to be eliminated.’

‘Just coming to the boyfriend thing,’ continued Karen. ‘There was someone, or is someone, a guy called Derek Nesbitt. The mother didn’t think much of him.’

‘Remind us of the address?’ said Walter.

‘Flat 3B, 56 Easton Road,’ said Karen, glancing down at her notes.

‘Pay him a visit!’ snapped Mrs West.

Walter nodded and mumbled, ‘On it, ma’am.’

Karen again. ‘The location of the caravan was remote, ideal from the perp’s point of view. A few bungalows at the top of the lane, but nothing close by, other than one or two other empty and disused shacks and caravans.’

Walter took up the thread. ‘Jenny and Nick, I want you to interview all the people who live in those bungalows. See if anyone saw or heard anything unusual. If you get nothing there, try further away.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Jenny.

Nicky grinned across at her and said, ‘Me and you, Jen, cool.’

Jenny looked anything but impressed.

‘Because of the remoteness there is no CCTV anywhere near the incident site,’ said Karen.

‘Saves us all day looking through it,’ said a relieved Gibbons, for more and more of his time was taken up gazing at blurry CCTV images. Why the hell couldn’t they be better quality pics with twenty-first century technology?

‘We don’t yet know if this is a murder case, but it looks like it could be, hence our intense interest until proved otherwise,’ said Mrs West.

‘And with that in mind,’ said Walter, ‘I want Hector to go through all recent prison releases, see if there are any possible candidates we need to be checking on.’

Hector nodded and said, ‘Sure, Guv. Going back how long?’

‘Three months to start, but longer if you have to, and all the usual suspects, Manchester, Liverpool, Shrewsbury, and the newer prisons too like Wrexham.’

Hector nodded and scribbled notes, but didn’t look that impressed.

‘Shall I go and check on Patsy the mouth?’ asked Gibbons.

‘I was just going to ask you to do that,’ said Walter.

Patsy the mouth was the local street snout who kept his eyes and ears to the ground, and occasionally came up with intel that proved useful in exchange for the odd banknote and an easy life, when it came to his minor misdemeanours, or so he imagined.

‘Do that,’ said Walter, ‘and after you’ve done that, go and speak to the local pub landlords closest to Marigold Lane. And don’t take any flannel from them. Ellie was known to frequent those pubs, probably picked up customers there, maybe even the odd member of staff too, so lean on them, and hard if you have to.’

‘Be delighted,’ said Gibbons.

‘Any questions?’ asked Karen.

‘If this is murder, what’s the motive?’ asked Nicky, glad to be the centre of attention again.

‘Could be anything,’ said Walter. ‘Robbery, vengeance, jealousy, dissatisfaction, unwanted competition, there’s five to be going on with, and by the way, Ellie was known to use drugs too, though not that seriously, according to her mother, so you can factor that in as an element as well. Where there’s illegal drugs violence is never far away, as you know.’

‘Gotcha, Guv,’ said Nicky, looking mighty pleased with himself.

‘It’s now a quarter to ten, I want you all back here by 5pm with your full reports. Clear?’ said Walter, looking at each of them in turn.

Karen added, ‘And keep Guv informed if there are any developments throughout the day.’

‘That’s it, get to it,’ said Walter, and everyone stood up and collected their coats, except Hector, who would remain behind, and begin trawling through prison records and recent releases, though thankfully a great deal of that info could now be accessed at the touch of a few buttons, courtesy of Police and Home Office computers.

‘Good luck, team,’ said Mrs West in her shrill voice, before she stood and hurried back to her office, for she had revision to do for a promotion exam, and though it wasn’t recommended to do it while at work, sometimes needs must.

––––––––

TEN MINUTES LATER, Walter and Karen were driving the short distance toward Easton Road.

‘What do you make of the new guy?’ asked Karen.

‘Over-keen, as per normal, but better that than the other way round. He’ll soon learn.’

‘Jen doesn’t like him much.’

‘I think anyone could see that!’ said Walter, as Karen pulled the Ford saloon to a halt outside 56 Easton Road. Walter stood out of the car and pulled his raincoat around him and buttoned up. It was dry but overcast, and getting a bit nippy, a warning of winter to come. He gazed up at the grey stone house, Victorian by the look of it, or maybe early Edwardian. A huge semi-detached property with vast and tall windows set on three floors, four if you included the spacious basement, a property converted into flats.

The front garden had been half-heartedly converted into a car park, little more than someone had thrown down a few bags of gravel on the old front lawn. There were plenty of tyre marks, but only the one car, a smart yellow Cayton Cerisa. Most of the flat inhabitants were either out, or non-drivers.

Walter and Karen ambled up the grey stone path and tried the huge front door. It opened without a problem. No such thing as security locks at number 56.

‘3B you say?’ said Walter, looking at doors and numbers.

‘Yep, first floor by the look of it.’

Walter nodded and grabbed the handrail above the elaborate wrought-iron balustrade, and followed Karen up the old stone stairs, their footsteps echoing through the building.

On the first floor landing 3B was facing them. Walter went to the door and in the absence of any obvious bell he banged on the black glossed timber.

No one came. Walter listened at the door. No music inside, no telly on, no people talking, no dog barking, no children home alone.

‘Try again,’ said Karen, and he did that with the same result.

‘Maybe he’s at work,’ said Karen.

‘Looks that way. Damn! If only we knew where he worked.’

The door to 3A opened and a smart woman in a yellow suit and wide-brimmed hat stood out. She looked at the strangers, half smiled and said, ‘Can I help you?’

‘We are looking for Derek.’

‘He’ll be at work now.’

‘You wouldn’t happen to know where he works?’ asked Karen.

‘Sure. He’s a floor manager at First Image.’

‘Gents outfitters,’ clarified Karen.

‘I know that!’ said Walter. ‘I am a gent, and I do buy outfits.’

‘Yeah, sure, course, sorry, Guv.’

‘You’re police aren’t you?’ said the woman, smirking.

‘Yes, how did you know?’ said Walter.

‘Oh every woman knows you now, Walter, you’re quite famous around Chester these days.’

Karen grinned.

‘Really?’ said Walter, unable to keep a smile from his face.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘No one would ever forget a man with an image like yours.’

Karen smiled and gave her boss the once over as if she had never really examined him before. Maybe the woman was right. A big black man with a head of unkempt grey hair, even in twenty-first century Britain there would not be too many Walter Darriteau look-a-likes strolling round Chester, that was for sure.

‘He’s not in any trouble, is he?’

‘No, nothing like that, just routine enquiries.’

‘Ah, that’s what you always say, “routine enquiries”. If I know you, he’s probably mixed up in some gruesome murder.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Karen, picking up on Walter’s body language that suggested he wanted the chatter to end.

But Walter surprised her by continuing the chat.

‘That your car downstairs?’

‘It is. How did you know?’

‘Only one there, and it’s yellow. Colour coordinated,’ and Walter glanced pointedly at the yellow suit and hat.

The woman laughed.

‘We try. Once a detective, always a detective, eh?’

‘Something like that. New is it, the car?’

‘Six months.’

‘Do you like it?’

‘Best car I’ve ever had.’

‘Great,’ said Walter. ‘What’s your name, by the way?’

‘Mary Warner, I’m not a suspect too, am I?’

‘No. Course not, just....’

‘Yes, I know, “routine enquiries”.’

Walter nodded and grinned.

‘Can’t stand about here all day,’ she said. ‘Nice to have met you. Good luck with whatever it is you are looking into.’

‘And you too,’ said Walter, as they followed her down the stairs and out into the gloomy November day. 

––––––––

SITTING IN THE CAR, they watched her back the Cayton out and smile and wave and drive off.

‘What was that all about?’ asked Karen.

‘I have no idea. Nice woman, though.’

‘You fancied her?’

‘I wouldn’t say that exactly. And anyway....’

‘Anyway what?’

‘I have a new lady friend now.’

‘Do you? Since when?’

‘Didn’t I tell you?’

‘No, you did not.’

‘Met her on the Internet.’

‘Did you now?’

‘Yes.’

‘On the site I mentioned?’

‘The very same.’

‘What’s her name? What’s she like?’

‘Not now, let’s get on with the job. I’ll maybe tell you later.’

Karen grinned and made a mental note to come back to that.

‘Where to? First Image?’

Walter nodded and growled, ‘Yep,’ and then he added, ‘how old do you think she was, yellow Mary?’

Karen pulled a face and said, ‘Hard to tell, forty, maybe forty-five.’

‘She was well preserved for that.’

‘You think so? I hope I look like her when I am forty-five. Forty-five is positively ancient.’

‘Forty-five is young, but that’s another issue, come on, I want to talk to this vacuous man, Nesbitt, as Dot described him.’

‘Me too,’ said Karen. ‘Can’t wait.’ 

Chapter Six

The general manager at First Image wasn’t keen on having an important member of his sales staff dragged off the floor during peak time selling, and even less impressed when the police commandeered his office to speak to Nesbitt.

Derek came to the open door and knocked.

‘You wanted to see me?’

‘Yes,’ said Karen, doing the introductions.

‘No trouble is there?’ said a nervous Derek, as he sat down in front of the desk.

‘Just routine,’ said Walter, trying to put the guy at ease.

Walter glanced across as the man. What was he? Mid to late thirties, probably six feet, slim to medium build, short neatly parted brown hair, dark eyes, and neatly and smartly dressed, which was almost certainly a requirement in his profession. Walter kicked things off.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you Ellie Wright’s boyfriend?’

‘Ellie? No, why? I know her but she isn’t my girlfriend, no way, never.’

‘Really?’ said Karen. ‘But Ellie’s mother told us that you went to Spain on holiday with her.’

‘Well yes, we did, but just as mates, not as a couple, we’re not bed sharers, or anything like that.’

‘But you knew her well?’ asked Walter.

‘Yeah, I guess, look what is this all about? What’s Ellie been up to now? What’s she been saying?’

Walter and Karen ignored the questions for both wanted to ask the same thing. Walter got there first. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘Ooh, let me think, last week sometime.’

‘When last week?’ persisted Karen.

‘Let me think, Friday, we went for a curry together, no, hang on, Thursday night it was, Friday I was out playing darts.’

Walter clarified. ‘You last saw her on Thursday night?’

Derek nodded and looked confident. ‘Yeah, Thursday it was, look, do you mind telling me what this is all about?’

Again the officers ignored his question.

Walter asked, ‘Do you know where she lives?’

‘Yeah, course, she’s staying in a dilapidated old caravan down by the river, at the end of Marigold Lane, pretty rank it is too. I’ve been trying to persuade her to get a decent flat.’

‘Do you do drugs, Derek?’ asked Karen.

‘Me? Certainly not. I’m clean.’

‘But you knew that Ellie did?’ said Walter.

Derek pulled a face and said, ‘Yeah, she’s messed about with it, but nothing too serious. At least I don’t think so.’

‘Do you deal drugs?’ asked Karen.

‘Me! No! Course not! What do you take me for? Look, what is this all about?’

‘What else do you know about Ellie Wright?’ asked Walter.

‘How do you mean?’

‘You know what we mean!’ said Karen.

Derek breathed out heavy and fidgeted in his seat. Looked as if he needed a cigarette.

‘Come on Derek,’ said Walter. ‘What else?’

‘You mean the men?’

Walter nodded.

‘The men?’ said Karen.

‘Yeah. You know, she did tricks for men, for cash like, now and again.’

‘Down at the caravan?’ said Walter.

‘Yeah, there, and other places too.’

‘What other places?’ asked Karen.

‘She went to their gaffs sometimes, so she said, even in hotel rooms, on occasion.’

‘And you approved of that?’ asked Walter.

‘Course not!’

‘Are you her pimp, Derek?’ asked Karen.

‘What! No! Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘But you didn’t try to stop her?’

‘Course I did! She didn’t want to know. To tell you the truth, I think she quite enjoyed her way of earning a living.’

‘Is there anyone special in her life?’ asked Walter.

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s a straightforward question,’ said Karen. ‘Are any of the men special to her?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Did she mention any names?’ asked Walter.

‘Not that I remember, and by the way, it wasn’t just men.’

Walter ignored that for he knew it already, and asked, ‘Where did she meet these men?’

‘She was well known around the local pubs.’

‘Which pubs?’ asked Karen, and Derek reeled off four different drinking establishments.

‘Did she have any close friends?’ asked Walter.

‘Not really. There was one girl, a mate. Jani Jefferson, Janice, they’d go out drinking and clubbing sometimes, she’s the only one I know of.’

‘Where does she live?’ asked Karen.

‘She has a little flat near the railway station. Over one of the shops. Over a cycle shop, it is, can’t remember the address exactly.’

Karen and Walter shared a look and Karen said, ‘I know the shop, Guv.’ 

‘Look! What’s going on here? What’s she been up to?’

‘On Friday night Ellie’s caravan burnt down,’ said Walter.

‘No! Is she all right?’

‘We believe she was inside it at the time,’ said Karen.

‘What! You mean she’s dead?’

‘It looks that way,’ said Walter.

Derek leant forward, put his hands on his knees, pursed his lips and breathed out heavy. ‘Shit!’ he said. ‘I can’t get my head around this.’

‘Which pub were you playing darts in, Derek?’

‘Eh? Oh, the Red Lion.’

‘What time did you leave?’ asked Walter.

‘About eleven, why? Hey, hang on a minute. Was this fire started deliberately?’

‘Was it Derek?’ asked Walter.

‘Eh? How the hell would I know? Look, what the hell’s going on here? Are you trying to say she was murdered? Do you think I had something to do with it?’

‘Did you?’ asked Karen.

‘Of course I bloody didn’t! Ellie was a good friend to me.’

‘So far, we don’t think anything, Derek. We are just trying to find out what happened down there,’ said Walter. ‘In the meantime can you please not leave the city without telling us first, and if you think of anything further that may help us with our enquiries, we’d appreciate a call,’ and Walter held his card out across the desk.

Derek took it, glanced at it, and nodded and slipped it behind the red handkerchief in his breast pocket.

‘Do you own a car, Derek?’ asked Karen.

‘Sure. A silver Cayton.’

‘And did you ever drive down Marigold Lane?’

‘Once or twice.’

‘Recently?’

‘Yeah, on that Thursday night.’

‘The last time you saw her?’

‘Correct.’

Walter nodded and glanced at Karen.

Derek jumped into the momentary silence.

‘Is that it? Can I go now?’

‘Yes,’ said Walter, ‘and thank you for your assistance.’

Derek nodded and didn’t need a second chance to flee the room. A moment later the manager reappeared and stood in the open doorway.

‘Everything all right here?’

‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘It would seem that one of Derek’s friends has recently died. He’s obviously a little shaken up.’

‘Oh, fair enough, that’s a relief, I thought he was in some kind of trouble there for a moment.... sorry that didn’t come out quite right,’ said the manager, looking uncomfortable.

‘Do you know any of Derek’s friends?’ asked Karen.

‘Me? No! Certainly not, we don’t socialise at all, purely a boss and employee relationship.’

‘Quite,’ said Walter. ‘And your name again is?’

‘Kenneth Boyce.’

‘Well, thank you, Mr Boyce, you have been most helpful, sorry to have interrupted your day.’

‘Glad to assist,’ he said, as the officers left the room and hurried from the building and back to the car.

––––––––

WALTER SCRATCHED HIS nose and sat back in his seat. Karen took a quick swig of blackcurrant still water and said, ‘What did you make of Derek?’

‘He didn’t come across as particularly vacuous.’

‘No, I thought that.’

‘But if he left the Red Lion at eleven, he could have driven straight to Marigold Lane. He knew where it was, and he probably knew she would be there. And if there are tyre tracks of his, he’s covered that by saying he was there on Thursday.’

‘Does he come across as a murderer?’ asked Karen.

‘Not especially, but who knows what went on down there? Maybe he visited her and things got out of hand. Anything could have happened.’

‘He’s the best we’ve got.’

‘So far....’

‘Maybe we should take a look at his car.’

‘He’s already admitted he’s been down there. We’d expect to find Marigold Lane mud on his vehicle. Doesn’t prove a thing.’

‘Guess you’re right. Where now? Jani’s?’

‘You got it.’

––––––––

IT DIDN’T TAKE THEM long to find the cycle shop, and the flat above, but Janice Jefferson wasn’t there. In Madeira, so the helpful young bloke in the cycle shop said, enjoying a little early winter sunshine, back in a couple of days, he said. Walter wrote a brief note on a card to get in touch, and slipped it through the letterbox. Any input from Jani would have to wait.

––––––––

EVERYONE WAS BACK AND ready and keen to get started by half-past four. There was no point in delaying. Walter called the evening meet to order.

Karen kicked things off by sharing the data about Derek Nesbitt and Janice Jefferson. Next up was Hector Browne, and he had real things to contribute.

‘There were three possible runners in the recent prison releases.’ Everyone glanced at the screen. ‘All of them are out on licence so we have full recent records as to where they are residing, and they all have to report in at varying intervals, and up till now they all have.’

‘Go on,’ said Walter, eager to get to the meat.

‘I think we can rule this one out. Housebound. He’s got a broken leg.’

‘How did that happen?’ asked Karen.

‘Playing football, apparently.’

‘And the others?’ said Walter.

‘Number two is James “Jimmy” Crocker. Aged thirty-six.’

They all stared up at the balding hard-faced figure that insolently stared back through cold eyes.

‘Tell us more,’ said Walter; trying hard to remember if he’d ever met the guy.

‘Long time career criminal, but mainly low key stuff, but then for some reason he imagined he was a hard man and began battering people, sometimes for money, sometimes because he enjoyed it. He’d racked up a big score of assaults before he was finally sent down.’

‘I remember him,’ said Gibbons. ‘A right prick!’

‘Passed me by,’ said Walter.

‘Me too,’ added Karen.

‘Anyway,’ continued Hector, ‘he got ten years for GBH, and was released after five.’

‘When was that?’ asked Karen.

‘Three weeks ago.’

‘Got an address?’ asked Walter.

‘Sure,’ said Hector. ‘He’s back with his mother at Saltney Ferry. 20 Laburnum Gardens.’

Walter grunted and said, ‘One for you Gibbons, I think. Take Nick with you first thing in the morning. Find out where Crocker was on Friday, and thoroughly check out any alibi.’

‘Thanks a lot, Guv,’ said Gibbons, not really wanting to meet Jimmy Crocker again.

‘And the third one?’ said Walter.

‘The most interesting and promising one, in my opinion,’ said Hector, looking pleased with himself.

‘Let’s hear it.’

‘Michael, Mickey Flanagan. Aged thirty-nine. Went to prison for twelve years for the manslaughter of his wife. Released after seven on licence for good behaviour.’

Everyone looked up at the new picture gazing down on them. Long straggly greasy dark hair parted in the middle. Looked like some refugee from a metal rock band. Hard looking eyes; but weren’t they always when they were photographed under stress in a police station.

‘He has one son who was taken into care. He’ll be twelve now. So far, Michael Flanagan has not been permitted to see his son, and indeed the boy has expressed a wish not to see his father.’

‘When was he released?’

‘Twenty-six days ago,’ said Hector without hesitation.

‘Where’s he living?’

‘Christleton.’

‘Address?’

Hector coughed it up. Walter memorised it.

Jenny said, ‘Do you want me to check him out, Guv?’

‘Won’t be necessary, Jen, I want to see this guy myself.’

‘That it, Hector?’ asked Karen.

‘Yep, for now.’

‘How did you get on?’ asked Walter, glancing at Jen and Nick.

‘Not a lot, in truth,’ said Jenny. ‘We interviewed everyone who was available in Marigold Lane. Two families are away, one on holiday, one away working. Of the others no one heard or saw a thing except for a Mr Duffield.’

Nick Barr took up the story.

‘Mr Duffield is not allowed to smoke in his bungalow.’

Slight tittering filled the briefing room.

‘All right,’ said Walter. ‘Settle down. And?’

Nick grinned and began again.

‘His wife won’t permit it in the house; so just before he went to bed he stepped outside the back of his property onto a large flagged patio and enjoyed a late night fag. While he was doing that he noticed a glow in the sky from the direction of the caravan, but put it down to kids who had been known to go down there at the weekends, and make a fire and drink, and stuff. He didn’t think it unusual. He says he didn’t hear or see anything else, and after his ciggie was done he stepped back inside, not least because it was raining, and thought nothing more of it.’

‘Did he see anyone driving up the lane later on?’ asked Karen.

‘Nope. Their room is at the back, so they couldn’t have seen a thing.’

‘Pity,’ said Walter.

‘If someone set fire to the caravan, they could have walked up the lane,’ suggested Jenny.

‘Possible,’ said Walter. ‘But why would you?’

‘Avoid tyre tracks, maybe.’

‘Or maybe a local person?’ added Gibbons.

‘Possibly,’ said Walter.

‘Or perhaps,’ said Jenny, ‘they didn’t want Ellie to hear their arrival by car, so they crept down there on foot instead.’

‘And left the car, if they had one, back up on the main road,’ said Karen.

‘All possible, but we want something more concrete than that,’ said Walter.

‘There is a lay-by on the main road, maybe a couple of hundred yards along from Marigold,’ added Gibbons.

‘Someone might have seen it if a car were left there,’ suggested Nick.

‘Again, it’s possible,’ said Walter. ‘Did you turn up anything else, Jen?’

‘No, we tried lots of other further away properties, maybe thirty or forty, but no one saw or heard anything unusual.’

‘That just leaves you, Gibbons,’ said Walter, and everyone turned and stared at Darren. ‘What did you turn up in the pubs?’

‘Plenty of tittle-tattle and interest. Lots of the punters knew Ellie Wright, though none of them were brave enough to admit to visiting her at home, so to speak.’

‘So there’s quite a few liars in the pubs then?’ said Karen.

‘Clearly,’ said Mrs West. ‘And there’s no point in testing them for DNA because we have nothing left at the possible crime scene to compare it with, and there’s nothing left in the wreckage of the caravan to incriminate anyone. No juicy diary or business records, or appreciative gifts. That would have been nice.’

‘Someone in those pubs must know something,’ said Walter. ‘I think we need to have another go at them.’

‘Is that it for now?’ asked Mrs West, anxious to get on with other work.

‘Looks that way,’ said Walter.

‘Is it a visit to Mickey Flanagan first thing tomorrow?’ asked Karen.

Walter glanced at his watch.

‘It’s only five to six,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and do it now. Never put off till tomorrow, and all that.’

One or two of them smirked at Karen’s annoyance for they knew she had a hot date. She hid it well, you had to give her that.

Chapter Seven

They had expected Michael Flanagan’s address to be some kind of down-at-heel boarding house, or an unloved renter, but they could not have been more wrong.

He was living in a brand new townhouse, one of three, in a small cul-de-sac off the main A41, south and east of Chester.

There were small square gardens at the front, different coloured front doors, red sandstone porches built in the local stone, and they looked a nice place to live.

‘Crime must pay,’ muttered Karen, opening the small white front gate, and wondering why she could not afford a little house like it.

‘Looks that way,’ said Walter, as they headed for the red door and rang the doorbell set to the right.

No one came.

Walter peered through the partly frosted glass panel and squinted inside. Couldn’t see any action. Tried the bell again.

Movement inside. A shadowy figure coming down the stairs, and in the next moment a tall neat man opened the door. He didn’t look happy.

‘We’re looking for Michael Flanagan,’ said Walter.

‘And you are?’ said the guy, though his instinct told him these people were police.

Karen did the introductions.

‘I’m Michael Flanagan,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’ Which was something of a surprise for he didn’t look anything like his photo. He’d cut his hair, short and neat; he was well dressed too, neatly shaved, smelt nice, and looked more like a businessman than a rough killer.

‘Can we come in for a minute?’ said Walter. ‘We need your help on something.’

‘I’m busy right now.’

‘So are we,’ said Karen, as Walter eased the door open, and they both stepped inside, and followed Michael into a small but neat front sitting room. The new theme continued. New large TV, new music system, new sofa, nice pictures on the wall, good beige carpet on the floor, all clean and tidy, all good to go. The three of them stood in the centre of the room and checked each other out.

‘Nice place,’ said Walter.

‘I know what you’re thinking.’

‘What are we thinking?’ asked Karen.

‘You’re thinking, how come a jailbird like me has such a nice gaff as this?’

‘It might have crossed my mind,’ said Walter. ‘So how do you?’

Flanagan breathed out heavy as if he was sick to the back teeth of justifying things, but he would anyway.

‘Thankfully, there are some well-meaning charitable societies and trusts and housing associations out there that look after people just out of prison, people like me. Make an effort to give us a fresh start, and just to be clear about it, I only get this house for eighteen months max. After that I have to find my own place, and just to be clear also, it was an accident, what happened to my wife.’

‘Oh?’ said Karen.

‘She came at me with a poker. I’d caught her playing around. She could have killed me. I had no choice. I gave her a slap, just the one, nothing really; she fell over and banged her head on the corner of the marble fireplace. It could have happened to anyone. Manslaughter, they said, it was an accident for Pete’s sake, but you know all this, no point in going over it again. I’m working hard, and trying to get my life back together, so give me a break and get off my case, eh?’

‘It’s not your case we are looking at,’ said Walter.

‘Oh? So what do you want?’

‘Where were you last Friday night?’

‘Friday? Here of course. I’m tagged, don’t they tell you anything?’ and he pulled up his trouser leg and revealed the white electronic tag on his ankle. ‘Seven till seven curfew. Always knew the bloody thing would come in useful sometime, and now it has,’ and he grinned. ‘You can check.’

‘So you didn’t go out at all that night?’

‘Course not. Said so, didn’t I.’

‘What do you do for a living?’ asked Walter, but before Flanagan could answer, a loud bump came to the ceiling above.

‘We are not alone here?’ said Walter, glancing skywards.

‘Nope. Not a crime is it?’

‘You didn’t think to say?’ said Karen.

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘Who’s upstairs?’ asked Walter.

Michael shrugged his shoulders and looked shifty.

‘A friend, my girlfriend, if you must know.’

‘I’ll check it out, Guv,’ said Karen, going to the stairs and running up them.

The door to the front bedroom was wide open. A naked young woman lay on the new double bed, smirking. Maybe twenties, maybe a little younger.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Karen.

‘Misty,’ she said, propping herself up on her elbows.

‘No it’s not!’ said Karen. ‘I know you, don’t I?’

‘Do you? I don’t know you, lady.’

‘I think you do. What’s your real name?’

‘You never leave people alone, do you?’

‘Real name!’

‘For god’s sake! Tracey Day, if you must know.’

‘Ah yes, I remember now. Tracey Day, you’ve been done several times for prostitution, if memory serves. Which reminds me, do you know a girl called Ellie Wright?’

‘Nope, who’s she?’

‘No matter, just someone we are interested in. Anyway, get yourself dressed, right now! There’ll be no business done here today, I’ll expect you downstairs in five.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! People can do what they like in their own homes!’

‘No they can’t! Not when they are out on licence. Get dressed! I won’t tell you again.’

Tracey sulkily slid from the bed and headed toward her clothes bunched up on a low dressing table. Karen nodded and went downstairs.

‘Well?’ said Walter.

‘Tracey Day, a known Tom, about to do business by the look of things.’

Walter glanced at Michael and pulled a questioning face.

‘I can do what I like in my own place.’

‘Do you think the charitable trust would approve of that?’

‘Oh, don’t tell them, for God’s sake, I’m just getting back on my feet.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Walter. ‘So long as you cooperate.’

Michael scowled, as a sheepish looking Tracey in a very short skirt appeared and stood in the doorway. ‘Can I go now?’

‘You can,’ said Walter, as Tracey headed toward the front door.

‘Give me a ring!’ shouted Michael.

‘You will not be ringing here, will you Tracey?’ growled Walter.

‘No mister black-man-police-man,’ she shouted back, giggling at her own little joke, as she let herself out, and hurried away down the path before they thought to search in her handbag.

‘Where were we?’ muttered Walter.

‘You wanted to know what I was doing for a living.’

‘Ah yes, and what is that?’

‘Cab driver, if you must know.’

‘But only from seven till seven,’ said Karen.

‘Correct.’

‘Don’t you have to have a CRB check to drive cabs?’ said Karen.

‘No! Not with all the firms, and anyway, you’re out of date with that, young woman. It’s a DBS check now, Disclosure and Barring Service.’

Karen glanced at Walter for confirmation. What Michael said was true, the old Criminal Records Bureau checks had been replaced by the DBS, and it was true too that not all cab drivers were checked out.

‘Just what we need,’ muttered Walter. ‘Convicted criminals, even killers, driving around our vulnerable young women at the dead of night.’

‘And young men,’ added Karen.

‘Yeah, that too.’

‘I’m not a killer! I’m working hard. I’m trying to get my life back together, get back on my feet. I want to see my son again. What would you have me do, sit on my backside all day, picking up the dole money? And besides, I’m not driving round young women and young men, rarely anyway. More likely ferrying all the old biddies home from the supermarket, or pensioners to the station, going off on their holidays to Benidorm, or to and from the local bingo hall.’

‘Do you know where Marigold Lane is?’ asked Walter.

‘Course I do. I am a cab driver; we have to learn all the roads. Part of the job.’

‘Have you been down there?’ asked Karen.

‘Once or twice.’

‘Recently?’ said Karen.

‘Last week sometime.’

‘When last week?’ asked Walter.

‘Wednesday or Thursday I think it was.’

‘How far down Marigold Lane did you go?’ asked Karen.

‘All the way.’

‘To the caravan, by the river?’ asked Walter.

Michael nodded and looked uncomfortable.

‘Who did you take down there?’ asked Karen.

‘Some guy. Didn’t give me his name. Customers tend not to.’

‘Did you wait for him?’ asked Walter.

‘Nope. Just left him there.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Got there about six, I couldn’t wait on, tag time coming up, and all that.’

‘Did you see the person who lives there?’ asked Karen.

‘No. Not a soul.’

‘Did you know the young woman who lives there?’

Flanagan shook his head.

‘Did you know she was a prostitute?’ asked Walter.

‘Certainly not! Look, what is this?’

‘Can you describe the guy you took down there?’ asked Karen.

‘Yeah, probably, though after a while all the punters tend to look the same.’

‘Try,’ said Walter.

‘Thirties, maybe, businessman type guy, suit shirt and tie, that kind of thing, didn’t say much, didn’t tip much either.’

‘Height?’

‘Six feet maybe, about my height.’

‘Hair?’ said Karen.

‘Dark, black or brown.’

‘Is Tracey Day a friend of Ellie Wright?’

‘Who’s Ellie Wright?’

‘The woman who lived in the caravan,’ said Karen.

‘I have no idea. You’d have to ask her.’

‘Did you set fire to Ellie Wright’s caravan?’ asked Walter.

Before he could answer Karen waded in with, ‘Did you kill Ellie Wright?’

Mickey Flanagan pulled a face and said, ‘Leave it out. Why would I do that?’

‘Maybe she didn’t want to know you,’ suggested Karen.

‘Maybe she turned you down flat,’ added Walter. ‘You’re in the market for an available young woman, we know that.’

‘Don’t be crazy.’

Karen wasn’t to be so easily put off.

‘Maybe you hit her because she wouldn’t give you what you wanted, and maybe she fell over and banged her head. Sound familiar?’

‘Now you’re just being stupid.’

‘Don’t think so,’ said Walter. ‘We are trying to find out how Ellie Wright died.’

‘She’s really dead?’ said Flanagan, sitting heavily in the sofa, looking surprised, either that or he was a damned good actor.

‘She is dead,’ confirmed Walter. ‘Do you know anything about that?’

‘I do not, I wish I did.’

Walter glanced at his watch.

‘It’s seven o’clock,’ he said aloud.

‘It is,’ said Michael. ‘And I am tag-tied to this house for another day, and night.’

‘Save you getting into any more trouble, Michael,’ said Karen, smirking.

‘We’d better be off,’ said Walter. ‘If you think of anything else about Ellie and her little caravan I’d appreciate it if you’d let us know,’ and he set a card on the small hall cupboard. 

‘Okay, I will, but I’d appreciate it if you’d not tell the charitable trust about, well, you know, Tracey and that.’

‘That could be arranged,’ said Walter. ‘But do yourself a favour and stay away from on-hire girls, get you into trouble every time.’

Michael nodded and muttered something about men having certain needs, and it was damned difficult meeting anyone when you had to be home by 7pm every night.

––––––––

IN THE CAR OUTSIDE Karen said, ‘Back to base, Guv?’

‘Yes. What did you make of that?’

‘Michael Flanagan?’

‘The same.’

‘He’s certainly smartened himself up.’

‘Yes, looked a different man, didn’t he? Wonder when he did that.’

‘Dunno, but I think he’s a more likely candidate than Derek Nesbitt. Flanagan’s got form, killed a woman, for heaven’s sake, and we know he went to the caravan, and frankly, I didn’t believe that he didn’t meet Ellie. He looked real cut up when you said she was dead.’

‘Yes he did. Check if he’s broken the seven to seven curfew, and get hold of the papers from his original case. See if there’s anything in there about the wife’s background.’

‘You mean you think she might have been a prostitute too?’

‘Who knows? No reason to think it, but he said she was messing around. Be interesting to know what messing around actually means.’

‘He’s been in prison for manslaughter, he patronises prostitutes, he admitted he’d visited the caravan site, and we both thought he knew Ellie, that’s pretty powerful stuff.’

‘Yes, it is, but entirely circumstantial. We’d need a lot more than that.’

‘True, Guv. I wonder who the guy was he took down Marigold Lane.’

‘Could be anyone.’

‘If he took anyone at all. That could all be so much smoke-screening.’

‘Possibly, though I thought he sounded quite convincing.’

‘So we’ve now three in the frame, Derek Nesbitt, Michael Flanagan, and the guy Flanagan took down there.’

‘And don’t forget Jimmy Crocker too. He’s no angel.’ 

Karen pulled a face and muttered, ‘True, Guv,’ and shook her head and drove back to the station, fast. She was always a quick driver, but this was different.

‘You in a hurry?’

‘Got a date, Guv.’

‘Sorry if I’ve detained you.’

‘Not a prob.’

‘With your pal, Greg?’

‘Nope. I’m not seeing Greg anymore. Thought you knew.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘Don’t be. His complete lack of an adult sense of humour finally wore me down.’

‘Dare I ask who?’

‘Tell you another time, Guv,’ she said, as they left the car in the underground car park beneath the main police station. Karen dashed off for the lift, for she wanted to get upstairs and finish things off, and get away and not be too late.

Chapter Eight

The first rumble of thunder could be heard across the old city at just gone seven. Heavy clouds had been rolling in from Snowdonia all day, the forecast was dire, and for once the forecasters were on the money.

The rain began falling at half-past seven, heavy bursts that lasted ten or fifteen minutes, and then abated for a similar time, before returning, only heavier.

Belinda Cooper arrived home at just after half-past seven. She pushed the old front door open with her foot and dropped two big bags of Bestdas groceries onto the hall floor, shook the umbrella outside, dropped her handbag onto the Welcome mat, glanced up at the dark and angry sky, just as a jab of fork lightning smashed to ground not five hundred yards away.

Belinda jumped.

She’d always been terrified of lightning.

Wasn’t everyone?

She stumbled into the hall and closed the door behind her, happy and grateful to be home, sopping wet, but safe and sound in her old and happy house. The heating was on, but not too high, came on with a timer at 6.30pm, and it was getting colder with each passing day, or so it seemed, and it would stay on until at least 10pm, big gas bill or not.

Bel, as all her friends called her, slipped off her beige Mac, shook it hard and hung it on the hooks above the hall radiator where it would dry before the morning. She kicked off her boots and sprinted, as best she could, up the stairs. Good exercise; and she didn’t get so much of that. But at thirty-six she was in her prime, everyone said so. Just a pity she was living her prime all alone, though she would tell her friends she was happy and content, and to an extent, she was.

She was off men, she said, whenever any of her friends asked her about it, or even worse, tried to fix her up with someone new. To date she had enjoyed five serious boyfriends, or were they now menfriends? Like so many others she was confused as to when precisely in life boyfriends became menfriends, but in the end, all five had disappointed her.

Two had turned out to be married. (Why did men lie so much?) While another, Marcus, had revealed one night in the Flying Horse after one too many gin and tonics, that he’d enjoyed several gay affairs in the past, something that Bel could never live with. While a fourth gentleman, Iain, with two “i’s” as he was always keen to point out, well, maybe in Iain’s case she was responsible for the break-up there, because she’d become besotted with Gareth, a city solicitor who worked across the road from their shop. He was one of the married men, and after that upheaval and trauma she needed a damned good break from men altogether, and affairs of the heart, and everything that went with it. It was just too much hassle and effort.

Five lovers and five failures, not a pretty record, though only Bel was aware of that stat. Besides, compared to some women she was almost a nun. Nevertheless, she was definitely off men, and for the foreseeable future that would remain the case.

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DINNER CONSISTED OF a pork chop, tinned peas, instant gravy, and mashed potatoes, something her mother and father would have happily served up twenty years before. But as they were both now residing in the central Chester graveyard, there was rarely a need to cook for more than one. Sometimes she didn’t bother cooking at all, just made a sandwich and gnawed on an apple or a punnet of pears, and that lack of heavy dinners helped to keep her fit and trim.

TV that night was even worse than usual, the more channels there were, the worse it gets, or so it seems, and that boredom was only broken when one of her friends, Lena, rang. Bel knew her from the travel company where they both worked. They were planning another trip abroad, and Lena had read all about the Baltic States. ‘They’re fab,’ she’d said, though Bel remained to be convinced, and they could not agree on a destination.

Bel wasn’t happy with the TV being on at all, what with the continuing thunder and lightning, and recalled how her mother always insisted that not only was the TV turned off at the first sight and sound of thunder, but that the mains plug was pulled out of the wall, and the aerial disconnected.

Often they would do that, and the storm would pass over, and they would reconnect everything, only for the lightning to return ten minutes later, much to everyone’s annoyance.

She smiled to herself and thought of her old mum and dad. How nice it would have been if they were there with her again, but how awkward too, for they would never have accepted her drinking alcohol, and having affairs, and they wouldn’t have been happy with her sleeping in that king-size bed in the main front bedroom either, their room, that Bel rarely entered as a child and teenager.

Maybe it was just as well they were gone. After all, they’d had their innings, and a pretty good one at that, seeing as they never once lived alone in their whole lives, and never endured loneliness, something that didn’t worry Bel overmuch. Though she was aware that it could creep up on single people with no warning at all. ‘Watch those creeping years, watch that creeping loneliness,’ one of her friends was fond of saying, though Bel couldn’t recall which one.

She shrugged her shoulders and rewarded herself with a hot herbal bath, and a cold bottle of Pinot Grigio, which she set on an old wooden tray her father had made in the shed at the foot of the garden, and duly varnished, she remembered him presenting it to her mother as if it were made of gold, and the big kiss that was planted on his five o’clock shadow cheek, as his reward. Happy days, but days long gone, days of yore, days that would never return. She shook her head and tried to think of happier things, for if she didn’t she knew she’d shed a tear.

Twenty minutes later, with the latest American bloodthirsty crime novel jammed under her arm, tray and bottle and wine glass before her, she was happy to prance up those dancers, as her mother always referred to the thirteen stairs that took her to the first floor.

Ten precious minutes slipped away, and she was in bed, book in one hand, glass of chilled wine in the other, happy and content, seeking her place in four hundred pages, for she had forgotten to run down the corner, something she knew was frowned on by many, but a simple trick that did the job. Who cared anyway?

It was a particularly violent and bloody book, one of those blockbuster female American novelists who specialised in gory details, and ample murders and autopsies, and handsome men, and mentally damaged wicked murderers, and precisely the kind of thing she went for every time. She adored it, for it gave her a real thrill, and there were not too many of those in Belinda Cooper’s life.

She wasn’t the first woman to imagine the world inside books was a lot more exciting and fulfilling than the real one in which she found herself; and she wouldn’t be the last. Come to think of it, she wasn’t imagining it at all, it was a cold hard fact, and there was no doubt about it.

She slurped another mouthful of fine wine, and was surprised to find her overlarge glass already empty. Not a problem, she reached across and topped it up. The bottle was nearly empty too, though that didn’t matter, for she always kept ample supplies in the old pantry just off the kitchen. Those damned supermarkets gave a ten percent discount if you bought a box of six, an offer she could never refuse. Though she didn’t want to leave her cosy bed and go downstairs for another.

She had no mortgage. She’d never had such a thing, courtesy of her ma and pa. In fact she’d never taken out a loan of any kind in her entire life, and being an only child there had never been any thought or possibility of sharing her inheritance with anyone else. She possessed a decent job, was good at what she did, so it was unlikely she would ever be fired, and she didn’t smoke, or spend too much cash on fancy clothes.

Bel never bought expensive designer items unless she happened to come across something decent in a charity shop, so in Bel’s happy world, there was precious little to spend her money on, other than holidays, and drink.

A huge flash filled the room.

Bel jumped in her bed.

Three seconds later and a thunderclap almost deafened her, so powerful was it she could have sworn the white wine waved and vibrated in the glass like a mini tide coming in and going out.

Another hefty gang of bangs came out of nowhere.

Boom – Bang! Bang! Tumbledown-Bang!

The old wooden floorboards vibrated.

Bel swore at the storm, as if that might chase it away.

There would be no point in settling down and trying to sleep, for that would be impossible to find, and anyway, the young doctor in the book, had just found a severed woman’s arm in a barrel, loosely covered in hay, at the back of the barn, and there was a chestnut horse loose in the lane. Bel shivered and sucked her lips and couldn’t possibly stop reading. Whatever had happened to the poor girl? Dreadful! And was she already dead when the arm was severed? Or was she mutilated whilst still being alive? Bel shuddered at the thought.

Another huge thunderbolt tore down the street and the thick curtains danced and fell still.

Bel grimaced, and considered running downstairs for another bottle, but thought better of it, and then it happened.

She heard the sound of breaking glass. 

Chapter Nine

Karen hurried home to run a bath. She tossed some perfumed herbal relaxant oil into the water, tested it wasn’t too hot.

Slipped from her day clothes, blouse and tight slacks, and stepped in and let the water run as hot as she could bear, until the bath was full to the overflow, leant back and closed her eyes.

Why did she enjoy hot baths so much? She had no idea, but knew she always had, for as long as she could remember.

She had been thinking about what to wear. Over a hurried light lunch she’d read a woman’s mag. Dress to impress, was the definite advice for new or recently met dates, and with that in mind she’d settled on the tried and tested LBD. David hadn’t seen it before, and Gregory had always been excited by that little black dress, and couldn’t keep his hands off her, and if it had the same impression on Dave, though he didn’t like to be called that, the time was fast approaching where their relationship needed to be consummated.

‘Maybe tonight,’ she said aloud, and followed that with a wicked giggle. ‘If you are very lucky, Mr Baker.’

She wondered where they might go for dinner. She hoped it would be somewhere smart. She was sure it would be somewhere good for David had a good job, and earned far more than she did. He wasn’t stingy, or that was the impression he gave in the four dates they had enjoyed.

He was a good kisser too.

And that was incredibly important, as it is to most women. A better kisser than Greg ever was, though his body wasn’t in Greg’s league. Oh, he was fit right enough, David that is, slim and toned, or so she imagined beneath his tight-fitting clothes, but not a muscular hunk like Gregory, but David was six feet and that was all good. But neither of them were as funny and amusing as Rodney had been. Because Rodney was the most amusing and desirable man she had ever met, and she sighed hard, though that was all over, and always would be.

She had taken to fantasising about him, David that is, and it took a lot to remove Rodney from the position of Fantasy Man Number One. But he had, and that had to mean something.

And that was another thing about hot baths. They really did relax her and lull her into a place that few other things did, and the passage of time meant little to her. It flew by, and it was only the significant cooling of the water that brought her back to the present.

‘Shit!’ she said aloud. Standing up and reaching for the fresh white towel, and realising she was going to be late. She dried herself and went through to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe and took out the dress. It still looked cool, and new too. She’d only worn it two or three times, and was confident in its magic. She slipped it on, zipped up the back, looked at herself in the long mirror, front, side, and back, and rubbed her palm down her slim taut body, smoothing out a couple of tiny creases.

Yes! She would do. Damned right she would do. If Davey boy didn’t fancy the backside off her in this, there must be something wrong with the man. She brushed her straight blonde hair, added a little make-up, though not a lot for she never needed it. Grabbed the expensive American perfume her father had brought back from New York, and sprayed a little, and a little more. Returned to the wardrobe, took out the black patent leather heels and slipped them on.

One last look in the mirror, and that produced a satisfied smile. She was a lucky girl, and she knew it. She had everything in life, a nice apartment, good car, a great job that she really enjoyed, good looks, great health, but no steady boyfriend, or husband, and definitely no children, so maybe not quite everything.

Her mobile was on the small dining table in the living room. It sang that old-fashioned jangly double ringing tone.

She ran through and picked up.

It was David. Karen smiled.

‘Haven’t you left yet?’ she said.

‘I have a little problem at this end.’

‘Oh, what?’

‘Something’s come up.’

‘What’s come up?’

‘Work issues.’

‘What kind of bloody work issues?’

‘The boss wants me to go down and see someone in Malpas.’

‘What? Now?’

‘Yep, sorry. Right away. He was going to go himself, but he’s had a fall at home and sprained his ankle, or so he says.’

‘Typical! Can’t it be rescheduled?’

‘No. The contract has to be signed tonight, or we’ll lose it to the competition.’

‘How long are you going to be?’

‘All night. You know what these corn millers are like. Staying power of long-distance runners. It’ll go on long past midnight. I’m really sorry, Karen. Can we do it tomorrow night instead?’

‘I can’t do tomorrow!’ said Karen in a rush.

‘Well, we’ll talk about it tomorrow night and sort something out.’

‘If you want.’

‘Course I want. Look, I’ll have to go, ring you, yeah.’

‘Yeah,’ but by then he’d already gone.

Karen tossed the phone back on the table with a clunk.

‘Shit!’ she said aloud, and returned to the bedroom, kicked off her shoes, and removed the dress and slipped on some loose jeans. Returned to the kitchen and took a vegetable cannelloni from the freezer and set it in the microwave with a bang.

Why did so many men have to be such complete and absolute dorks? It always seemed to come with the territory. She wouldn’t fantasise about David bloody Baker that night, or any other night, come to that, or if she did, it would only be in his gruesome bloody murder. She glanced at her watch. A quarter to nine. Another wasted evening spent alone with nothing to show for it.

Maybe Internet men were just too much trouble. It was beginning to look that way. The microwave pinged. She took the meal out. It didn’t look great. She ate half and left the rest. Went to the fridge. Took out a big pack of fresh raspberries. Saw a half drunk bottle of chardonnay there. Took that out too and poured a large glass. Sat in front of the rubbish telly and sipped the wine and pigged out on the berries. They were good. Best thing of the whole evening. By miles.

A huge flash of lightning lit up the flat. That seemed to sum things up. All flash and no bang. 

––––––––

WALTER HAD DONE WHAT he always said he wouldn’t do, he had made far too much spaghetti Bolognese, but when do you ever see half size jars of that delicious but fattening sauce? Answer: Never, so what are you meant to do, throw half of it away? He wasn’t a throw food away kind of guy, and promised himself that he would only eat half, and maybe save the rest for tomorrow.

But it was so tasty, and he hadn’t eaten much all day, and he didn’t fancy eating the same thing tomorrow, and he’d let temptation get the better of him, and returned to the pot and taken a little more, and then there was only a little left, and there was no point in keeping a smidgeon, so he had eaten the damned lot.

Not long ago, weren’t spaghetti Bolognese sauce manufacturers forced to admit it was bad for you to eat too much of the blessed stuff? Maybe once a week tops, they recommended, and he comforted himself that he would indeed only eat such a thing the once that week, conveniently overlooking the tiny fact he had eaten enough for three or four people.

‘Bugger!’ he said aloud, and followed that with a hefty burp that he wouldn’t have released if there had been anyone else in the house.

The old landline phone in the hall rang.

Walter’s mood lifted for it would be one of three things. Work, and he always delighted in such things; it could never be too late for that. He glanced at his large watch. Just gone nine. It could also be those fools in India who pestered him occasionally. Usually to assure him that his computer operating system was not working properly, and they could fix it right there, right then, for less than three hundred pounds, which was bloody ridiculous, because he did not possess a computer at home. Go away! Clowns!

But it could be the lovely Carlene Henderson, and thinking about it he knew which he’d prefer, though secretly he’d have to admit his preferred caller would still be a close call between work and Carlene.

Walter grabbed the old phone and set it to his ear.

‘Darriteau towers,’ he said, his rich earthy voice winging its way down the line and out into the night.

‘Indeed? And how is Mr Darriteau today?’

She possessed quite a deep voice herself, did Carlene.

‘I am fine thank you, and how is Mrs Henderson?’

‘Oh, please don’t call me that, I haven’t been a Mrs in ages.’

‘So what can I do for you, Miss Henderson?’

Carlene giggled at the thought of being a “miss”.

‘Actually I thought I might be able to do something for you.’

‘Really? Go on.’

‘The thing is, I’ve done barbequed chicken, and of course I have done far too much for one, as you do, and I was wondering if you might like to come round and partake.’

For a second Walter thought of juicy barbequed chicken, one of his all-time favourites, and he tapped his full tum and wondered if by the time he went round there, maybe he might be able to fit some in. But no, there comes a time when even he had to say “no thanks”.

‘It’s the best offer I have had all day, but sad to say, I have already eaten too much, if truth be told.’

‘Ah, well. That’s a pity. Never mind, it’ll keep. What did you have?’

‘Spagbol.’

‘Nice, but fattening.’

‘Yes, but so is barbequed chicken.’

‘Not in moderation.’

‘My trouble is the “moderation” word.’

Carlene laughed her earthy laugh again.

‘You and me both.’

There was something endearing about it, that voice of hers, like an old-fashioned Hollywood film star from the fifties or sixties. No Hollywood stars laughed like that these days. Though come to think of it, the starlets in the twenty-first century came and went without ever making much of a lasting impression on the world. That was how Walter saw things.

Carlene’s deep voice was talking again.

‘You could come round for a glass of wine anyway, if you fancy it, stay over even.... if you want.’

Wow, thought Walter. He hadn’t expected that.

‘What time?’

‘Any time you like.’

‘You got it. Be with you around ten.’

‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘See you later, WD.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there,’ setting the phone gently down.

A thunderbolt rained down on the district.

Walter laughed aloud.

‘Thor’s at it again,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s a good omen,’ and he headed for the shower, and the fragrant shower gel he was intent on soaking himself in.

Chapter Ten

Belinda Cooper stepped silently from the bed and slipped on her soft white slippers. Behind the bedroom door was an old wooden baseball bat. It had been there for almost thirty years.

Her father had picked it up in a local house clearance auction place, and had described it as a burglar deterrent, and all the while it had stood there, it had worked. They had never once been troubled by burglars and thieves.

Bel didn’t think she was being troubled by burglars, but one couldn’t be too careful. She bent down and picked up the heavy timber bat without making a sound. Tried to silently open the bedroom door, but knew that was impossible because the closing mechanism creaked when being opened and closed. Luckily, another thunderclap blanketed the sound.

She stood on the landing and listened.

Not a sound, other than the heavy rain on the stained glass window at the far end of the landing, and the distant sound of wind in the leafless trees across the road.

In films and TV programmes whenever someone was alone in a house, and that person thinks someone else might be downstairs, they always go to the top of the stairs and call out, ‘Hello, is there anyone there?’

How ludicrous is that?

If you thought there might be someone in the house, a thief or attacker or murderer, even, the last thing you would do is yell something, giving yourself away, and alerting the invader that you are coming for them. Belinda wasn’t stupid. She remained silent, and still.

She crept to the top of the stairs. The only light shining was the little coming from her pulled-to bedroom door. Switching on the landing light would only alert whoever it was downstairs, that someone was awake and moving. She wouldn’t switch anything on.

She listened hard. Nothing new, nothing detected, nothing to indicate there was a person or persons in her house. She thought of retreating to her bedroom, getting her mobile, and ringing for help. Maybe ring Lena, maybe even ring the police. But didn’t that sound too ridiculous for words. To ring the police, and say what exactly? ‘Excuse me, but I think I heard a noise downstairs,’ and all that during a fearsome electrical storm. Of course you can hear a noise downstairs, you stupid neurotic bitch, was how she imagined the station sergeant might reply, or at the very least imagine, even if he was too polite to say.

She set her foot on the top stair and, catlike, began descending those thirteen precious dancers.

Belinda’s house had been built in 1925, and was loosely described as Edwardian, even though George the Fifth was parked on the throne at the time, when he was not getting up to all sorts. It was a typical smallish detached house of its day, three bedrooms, two reception rooms downstairs, front lounge, and rear sitting room that Bel’s mother grandly liked to call, the drawing-room.

Bel crept down the stairs, knowing full well the second to last one creaked. It always had. She stepped over the creaking step and was safely on the ground floor, standing still in the carpeted hallway. It was pitch dark, other than occasional lightning flashes, but thankfully the lightning had changed from forked to flash, and everyone knows that flash lightning can’t hurt you, can it? Bel shivered. There was a distinct draught blowing through the ground floor, and a cold one, at that.

It was coming from the drawing-room door. In the blackness, she felt for the door. It was open. That was odd because she was certain she had closed all the downstairs doors before she went to bed, though she couldn’t be sure. After all, she had been carrying a lot of stuff, so maybe she had forgotten and left it open.

She eased it open.

Flash lightning filled the room.

There was no one in there. But there were shards of glass on the maroon carpet, momentarily lit up like huge precious stones. She had a moment to glance at the French doors before the light vanished. One of the small panes of glass, close to the lock, maybe seven inches by five inches, was broken, hence the glass on the floor. Once broken, anyone outside could reach in and turn the lock and open the door.

She had thought many times to have it replaced with a new double glazed unit with super locks that would forever keep her safe, but she could not, for silly sentimental reasons. Her dad had fitted those doors almost thirty years before, with his own hands. It would take something real and tangible away from the building, from the home, if they were removed and dumped, and sterile white plastic replacements fitted. Stupid, she thought right there, but understandable.

She went to the door and found it unlocked. Someone had either been in the house, or had attempted entry, or they were still inside. That thought made her mind up. She would call the police. Stupidly, she had left her mobile upstairs. She would use the landline, and that was in the kitchen on the other side of the hall.

She locked the door and turned round and peered into the darkness across the drawing-room.

A huge flash filled the room, dazzling the eyes.

She put her hand to her face and in that split second saw, or imagined she saw, a man, a tall slim man, standing in the internal doorway, a man who leapt from view the moment the flash appeared.

Bel’s heart raced.

What to do?

Scream? Seemed fairly pointless.

Retreat to the French door, let herself out, and go and find help. But the thought of running down the road in the pouring rain in her dressing gown and fluffy white slip-on slippers, amidst thunder and lightning and rain sodden streets, didn’t fill her with confidence. Besides, she was armed, with the heavy bat, and she was young-ish and fit-ish.

She attended the gym occasionally, though right there she reprimanded herself for not going often enough. But she was strong and courageous, and no damned man was going to chase her from her own home, the same sturdy house that had been the home of the Cooper family for more than forty years.

She would go after him, and hunt him down, and woe betide him when she found him, for she would hit him with all the anger she possessed, and there was a lot of that inside her after five failed relationships, with all that entailed. She was off men, for the foreseeable, no question about it, and if she happened to whack one hard, then so much the better.

And hadn’t the government recently announced that homeowners defending their own homes had the right to attack and injure invaders? She seemed to recall such a thing. She raised the bat ready above her right shoulder and crept across the room toward the door. She paused and waited and listened. She was ready. Couldn’t hear a thing. No man breathing, no man smell, no man’s clothes rustling, no man’s feet on the stairs, or crossing the stone kitchen floor. But he was there all right. Wasn’t he?

Flash!

The hallway lit up better than daylight.

No one there, either. No one visible. No fleeting movement.

Tricks on the eyes? Could have been.

The door to the kitchen was open.

Again, she couldn’t remember if she had left it open or not.

Blackness again, and just the noise of wind and heavy rain.

She crept into the hallway, intent on heading to the kitchen, and the landline telephone there, a tried and tested piece of old technology that never needed charging, that never kept users waiting to get a signal, that never got lost, that rarely if ever let you down, and never got stolen. That’s the thing about old stuff, and old tech. It was built to last. It kept on going.

She felt the cold stone floor beneath her feet, as she tiptoed across the silent and still kitchen. Fumbled for the old grey telephone, the same phone her parents had used, and a phone she had stubbornly refused to upgrade for that very reason. It was another direct connection to her only flesh and blood. She picked up the handset and felt for the number pad, trying to remember where the 9 was, readying to poke in three 9’s, practising her whispered lines. It was only then she realised the handset was no longer connected to anything else. Someone had cut it free. Sometimes old tech didn’t work.

Final proof positive that a stranger had been in her house, or worse than that, was still in the building. A thought raced through her head in a millisecond. What should I do now? Go upstairs and get the mobile. Put all the lights on. Open all the windows and doors and scream the place down. Or get out of there and run for your life.

In the darkness, Belinda was frightened. Terrified even, but there was something else there too. Shear enjoyment. The thrill and excitement of it. It was better than her favourite novel. Her heart raced. She was relishing the hunt. She wasn’t and never had been a pathetic damsel in distress. Her mind flashed back to being a young teenager. That time her pushy mother bought her a decent horse, with one aim in mind.

For her to join the hunting set, and mix with the great and good of the county. Perhaps even one day to land a wealthy and titled husband, and to everyone’s amazement she found that she enjoyed it immensely, the hunting lark, and couldn’t wait for the next one, and the bloodier it was, the more she enjoyed it.

Back then it was legal to kill foxes, and occasionally other creatures too, when not too many nosey parker people with big mouths and big morals and small minds were about, and Bel remembered it as if it were yesterday. The first time, the day she was on hand when that big old insolent fox, Reynard, was torn to shreds before her eyes, and right afterwards the leader of the hunt had grabbed a still warm bloody piece of fresh fox flesh, and had wiped it across Belinda’s brow, the blood dripping into her eyes, seeping down into her pink mouth, knowing full well that she was a hunting kill virgin, and tradition was tradition, going back centuries. Everyone had to go through the initiation ceremony the first time; that was the way of things, and how bloody exciting it was too.

Truth was, it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, the most exhilarating day of her entire life, and five failed relationships with five failed men had never come close to matching that day in any way.

In the darkness she smiled a cold smile. Flexed her muscles around the bat handle, and thought to herself, okay, mister fox, mister invader, mister burglar, mister man, mister tiny mind, you, my friend, have invaded my territory. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew, and now you must pay the price.

Belinda Cooper is gunning for you, or to be more precise, batting for you, for your life, and before the daylight returned, blood was sure to be spilt. It was simply a question of whose? The hunt was on.

Chapter Eleven

Walter arrived at Carlene Henderson’s smart, modern flat at a quarter past ten. He rang the intercom and turned around and squinted up at the hostile sky.

The storm has been rumbling for several hours and showed no sign of abating. Flash lightning lit up the heavens as Carlene’s deep voice floated from the square metal box beside the door.

‘Is that you, Walter?’

‘Were you expecting someone else?’

‘No, Mr Darriteau. You’d better come in out of the rain,’ and the half glazed security door sprang open.

Carlene’s neat flat was on the second floor. No lift, so Walter took the stairs gently, not wishing to arrive breathless. The door was open, and she was standing just inside. Walter smiled and entered and closed the door behind him.

‘Thought you might like a top up for your wine cellar,’ he said, passing over the bottle of white she liked, hurriedly acquired in Abdul’s off licence before he closed.

‘Ooh, thanks,’ she said, taking it and setting it on the small but tall hall table.

‘Let me take your coat,’ she said. ‘You’re soaking, what a wild night it is,’ as Walter slipped off his raincoat and hung it on the 60s style coat stand. She held her arms wide. She was a tactile woman, was Carlene, one of the reasons he liked her so, and in the next moment they enjoyed a huge hug.

She’d slipped on a dark blue figure hugging satin dress. She’d had it ages, but it was an expensive thing. It rustled when squeezed, and it rustled there, and that was nice too, as Walter kissed her ample lips.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she whispered.

‘Thank you for asking me.’

She grabbed his huge hand and led him through into the kitchen cum sitting room. The aroma of barbequed chicken was unmissable. On the kitchen bar lay a large white plate, and on the plate, numerous pieces of succulent fare displayed themselves.

‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’ she said, nodding at the still warm goodies.

‘Maybe later.’

‘I’ll slip them back in the oven to keep warm,’ she said, going about her business. ‘You sit down. Fancy a beer? Or wine?’

Walter sat in the black leather sofa and muttered, ‘A beer would be great. Heavy one if you’ve got it.’

Carlene was well aware he liked stout and had bought in supplies specially. She squished open a can, carefully tipped it into a tall glass, and went over and handed it to him. He took it and sipped it, as she collected a large glass of white wine and sat beside him and linked his arm.

‘How did you get here?’

‘Taxi,’ which was true, though he’d been careful which taxi firm he used for Carrie the Cab, who always did the late duty, was a former girlfriend, and he didn’t want to meet her.

‘Why don’t you get a car, Walter?’

‘I have a driver who drives me around all day. I get the bus to work. It’s only ten minutes, and it’s a good service. I don’t need a car, or the worry of maintaining such a thing. I can always get a car if I need one.’

‘Nice to have, though, especially on a night like tonight.’

‘You have a car, don’t you?’

‘Course I do.’

‘There you are, then. If we need a car, you can always take me out.’

She smiled and kissed him again, just a quick peck. She quite liked the “we” part he mentioned.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Are you going to stay over?’

‘No, can’t do that.’

‘But you’ll stay for a while?’

‘Oh, yes, I’ll stay for a while.’

‘How long.’

‘Till two, if you want.’

‘Oh yes, Walter, I want.’

They both laughed and sipped their drinks before Carlene said, ‘Bloody marvellous invention, the Internet, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is, though it’s not without its faults. What made you say that?’

Carlene smiled that warm smile again and said, ‘But for the Internet, I would never have met you, would I?’

‘Ah, I see. Yes, it has its uses, that’s for sure.’

Walter’s glass was empty.

‘Do you want another?’

‘Later. Much later.’

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ACROSS TOWN, KAREN stayed up late. Till midnight, to be precise, channel surfing the TV, waiting for David Baker to make a contrite phone call, as he made his way home, apologising for standing her up after she’d gone to so much effort.

But the dork didn’t ring.

She wondered where he was and what he was doing.

She wondered if he had been truthful with her. Did he really visit a corn miller to sort out some complicated contract? It didn’t seem likely to her. Maybe that was just a smokescreen, when in reality he’d double booked his dates, and was at that very moment jazzing it up with another woman. That made sense, and that was one thing she would not tolerate, him two-timing her.

She was a detective, and a damned good one. Karen knew how to extract the truth from people, often without them knowing it. She had been on enough courses to learn how to do precisely that, though she had always possessed that particular knack.

Much of the technique centred on asking the same set of questions twice, on two different occasions, fitted into ordinary conversation. Where the answers differed, there were the lies. If he were lying to her, she would find out. If he were lying to her, he wouldn’t see her for dust. Toast, he’d be. Burnt toast.

She crawled into bed at twenty past twelve, miserable and confused, for there had been no late night telephone call. It would be a fitful, unsatisfying sleep and she wondered why that was. Yet she knew the reason why. She liked him. It was obvious. She liked him a lot, though she tried hard not to show it, yet images of David cavorting with other women were never far from her mind.

––––––––

IN ANOTHER APARTMENT in another part of town, Walter was in bed by twenty past twelve, and had been for quite some time. He’d stay there until half-past one, when hot barbequed chicken would be served up in the kitchen, alongside fresh coffee and warm buttered rolls, by a happy looking curvy lady.

Chapter Twelve

Belinda Cooper retreated to the hallway. The lightning had finally abated. She thought again about switching on the lights, but that was a double-edge sword. She might be able to see him, but he would be able to see her.

In her mind, she was now the hunter. Hunters live off stealth and surprise. She didn’t want him to see her. She didn’t want him to know where she was.

She didn’t want him to detect the heavy blow she’d issue when the opportunity arose. Belinda imagined the strike raining down on his fragile head. No human skull is a match for a heavy baseball bat. That’s why drug dealers keep them in their cars and flats and houses, as she had read in those thrillers countless times. Silent but deadly. It was just a case of setting up the opportunity. The lights would stay off. If it were necessary, she would kill him. She was ready for that. But where was he? He wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the hall. He wasn’t in the drawing-room. That only left the front lounge, or failing that, upstairs.

The silent power of touch told her the door to the front lounge was closed. She tried to recall when it was last open. Could he and would he have gone in there? Had he opened the door and stepped inside and closed it again? It seemed unlikely. And what was he doing in her house, anyway? What was the motive for his late-night visit? What was he after? Robbery? Rape? A violent thrill? Simply to scare her, or terrify her? Or something worse, like murder? And why was he playing stupid games? Like disappearing and reappearing. What was that about? Perhaps he was toying with her as a cat does with a mouse before killing and devouring it.

A noise came from upstairs. Not a crashing breaking noise, but a slight bumping sound, as if he had knocked something off her dressing table, or disturbed something in the bathroom. He wasn’t in the front lounge; that was certain. He was upstairs, doing God knows what. But was he luring her into a trap? There was only one thing to do. Find out. Her hands deposited sweat on the varnished bat handle, as she stepped over the telltale stair, and started up the flight.

In total dark towards the top, she stopped and paused. Wondered if he was there, waiting for her, planning on striking her before she struck him. Where would he, and could he be hiding on a darkened landing? When his only hiding place was the darkness itself?

But he wasn’t on the landing. She knew that for sure, because she could smell him. Three distinct masculine odours, and the stink was coming, without doubt, from her bedroom, where someone had turned off the light.

She crept towards the door, her soft slippers enabling silent running, and breathed in through her nose, just once. Not a sniff, not a noise inducing action, but gentle inhalation... of man, and invader, in her house, in her bedroom, for God’s sake.

Deodorant. The first odour. That high profile under arm and all-over brand advertised on the TV and in men’s magazines. The one that was supposed to have women drooling in numbers and falling at men’s feet, the one that men supposedly couldn’t live without, the one that bestowed on all men a magnetic attraction, no matter how ugly, no matter how old, no matter how fat, no matter how cold.

It didn’t attract her. Not one bit.

Aftershave. Odour number two. Another big brand that came at a hefty price. The same brand Gareth the solicitor soaked himself in, imagining that it made him more attractive to women, and in a way it did, for no woman wants a sour smelling man. But you can have too much of a good thing, and in common with many men, he always used far too much of it.

Bel stood stock still outside her bedroom door. She reached out to touch it, but it wasn’t there, not where it would have been if it were anywhere near closed. It was open, at least half way open, and that was as she expected.

The third odour was there too.

The stink of a nervous man.

Not body odour per se, but that indefinable reek that a jumpy male exudes. They probably don’t even know they are exuding, their pores busy expelling surplus natural perfume. He almost certainly didn’t, and that aroma of man hadn’t been present in her bedroom since Gareth had done damned things in there he shouldn’t have, and if that wasn’t enough proof for her, there was the icing on the cake.

She could hear him breathing.

Even though he was trying hard to hold his breath, even though he was standing motionless, even though he was doing his best to keep his heart rate under control, and his body functions neutral, she could hear him operating in the darkness, like the complicated and amazing machine he was.

Bits moving in and out. Air flowing through the gears. Liquid rushing around the pipes. Electricity running through the brain. Fuel digesting in the fires of his stomach, bones readying to move, like some giant locomotive. They all made noise, no matter how soft or how stunted, no matter how disguised or cloaked. She could hear his systems working hard, on slowdown maybe, but still there, excited, readying themselves. The only thing her hyper senses didn’t tell her was where in the bedroom he was.

The door was hinged on the left-hand side. It was a new door, one of the few things she had allowed to be tampered with, for the original high waisted doors had buckled over time, and would no longer close properly. She had replaced all four of them a year before with modern, white panelled models.

She put herself in his position. Where would she be? Where would she hide? Where would she place herself for maximum safety and protection, and the greatest surprise? It had to be behind the door. Where else would anyone wait in ambush?

She flared her nostrils and allowed clean air to circulate in. The same three odours were still present, one-two-three, all quite separate, distinct and unique, yet all combined into one positive trail, telling her that her quarry was not moving, not coiled and about to spring out, but waiting for an opportune moment, biding his time, waiting for her to make her move, waiting for her to enter the room when he could attack. Or bolt for freedom, like a startled fox driven from its lair.

Bel nodded to herself in the sureness of her logic, and envisaged what was about to happen. She made her move. She eased the bat back the last few inches to the top of the back swing, as the golf coaches say, the highest point, the point of no return, the zenith, the point from where all future movement and momentum and force is directed down, and across, and forwards, and on, smashing into the target.

In the blackness, she crept into her bedroom and unleashed a single blow, the likes of which would have brought down a lion. The trajectory went around the edge of the door, and behind the door, and struck hard to precisely where she saw in her mind he was cowering, striking down the triple-odoured man who had invaded her home, her space, her bedroom, and her quiet life.

The bat kept on going, Bel clinging onto the handle, though it almost slipped from her grasp. It slammed into the primrose painted plaster, making a large indentation, a fingerprint from the bat itself, onto and into the wall. He had not been cowering behind the door. In that millisecond of recognition, she realised she was in deep trouble, for she’d given her position away, enabling the man to pounce.

He was immediately on her, behind her. Grabbing the bat at both ends through gloved hands. He was clever, that was clear. He’d done his envisaging well. He’d out thought her this time, and he was incredibly strong.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ she screamed.

It was a waste of breath and vital energy, and worse still, thinking time. He didn’t reply, not a word, but pulled the bat back, hard and true, against her slim throat, pinning her to him, her back to his toned chest. She struggled to get her hands and arms up between the bat and her throat, but had missed her opportunity.

Bel was young-ish and fit-ish and would not go down without a fight. She tried to kick him with her heels, but soft slip-on slippers would never bother him. Where were her stilettos when she needed them? If only she had slipped them on, the ones with the tall slimline metal heels. They could have done real damage. She tried to wriggle free, feinting one way to the left, only to switch all her strength and energy back immediately to the right, but again he appeared to read her every move. He held her fast.

She tried to turn her head around to face him in the darkness, from where she might reach up and bite him, and if nothing else, the restraining wood of the timber would be less of a threat on the back of her neck than on her naked throat, but again he sensed her line of thinking. He held her still. Looking away from him though she could not see a thing. It was as if the hunting cat playing with the mouse had enjoyed its fun, and it was time for the denouement. He snapped the baseball bat back towards him with all the strength he possessed.

It was way more than enough.

He broke two vertebrae as if seasoned twigs. He’d broken her neck. Human beings rarely survive a broken neck without immediate and knowledgeable assistance. Thirty-six-year-old Belinda Cooper would receive neither.

The invader sniffed and tossed the timber bat onto the double bed. He thought of turning on the light, but didn’t wish to imprint on his brain the scene that he alone had created. He clapped his gloved hands together as if in triumph, and left the room. Ambled down the stairs and into the drawing-room. Went to the double French doors, opened them, and stepped outside. It wasn’t raining. He turned around and locked the doors, and tossed the key through the broken pane, and across the room. It fell to the carpet with the tiniest of thuds, bouncing once.

He grinned to himself. Walked around the side of the house. Opened and closed the tall timber side gate. Ambled out onto the pavement as if he owned the place. Glanced at his watch. The neon hands told him it was twenty to one. Peered up and down the road and glanced at the sky. The thick clouds were breaking up. A hint of moonlight filled the sky. There was no one about. No late night dog walkers, no courting couples, no moving cars in the road, no revellers making their way home after a night on the town, not even a shifty burglar looking for an easy and unguarded and unprotected home.

He made his way to the end of the road. The streetlights were popping out. Chester Council cost-cutting measures darkening the area. He smiled to himself. It had been an exciting evening. Better than last time, and it was finished. He’d never do anything like that again. That was something. That was the plan. He walked for ten minutes through suburbia, back to the Cayton Cerisa that was obediently waiting for him, parked up by the canal.

He opened the car and removed two large pebbles he had set on the front passenger seat. Took off the gloves, inserted a pebble in each, crossed the road to the canal, bent down as if to tie his shoes, and dropped both heavy gloves into the murky water. A nearby coot cooed three times at being disturbed. The gloves sank to the bottom and nestled into the cold mud, taking ample DNA with them. No one would ever search for them. No one would ever think of it. He re-crossed the road, jumped in the car, started the quiet and silky engine, and purred away on the fifteen-minute trip home.

What a stupid woman she was, he thought, on reflection, to imagine that she could outfox him, and out-fight him. It had come as something of a surprise, her resistance. Courageous though, you had to give her that. He shook his head and banished all thoughts of the evening from his mind. He would try never to think of it, and of her, ever again. He was strong, very strong, in mind and body, and he knew it too, in the prime of his life, and it would carry him through. 

Chapter Thirteen

Karen usually slept well, but that night, sleep would not come. She tossed and turned and glanced at the clock several times as if to check it was time to rise and dress. By 6am she’d had enough.

She slipped from the bed and went into the shower. Let the water run hot and then icy cold. Dried and dressed, slacks and blouse, light jacket, and through to the kitchen.

She rarely ate breakfast. Went to the fridge and took out a bottle of flavoured water. Opened it and swigged a little, grabbed a large green apple from the overflowing fruit bowl, collected her keys and let herself out.

Her car was sleeping in the garage. The up and over metal door creaked and banged as she opened it, alerting her neighbours she was up and out early. She drove into the old city and parked in the big car park across the road from the central police station, behind the law courts, down by the river. She’d bought a parking season ticket there, and it was expensive, and was intent on getting her money’s worth.

Karen was the first of the regular team in the office. She logged into the computer, bit into the apple, and began reading the overnight crime reports and notes. It was still before 7am. Walter came in twenty minutes later, looking jaunty and content. She noted that.

‘Morning, Greenwood,’ he said. ‘You’re in early. Couldn’t sleep?’

‘Yeah, something like that.’

Walter limped to the coffee machine and came back with a steaming drink. ‘Anything happening?’

‘Nothing new.’

Jenny Thompson came in next and smiled and nodded at the over-nighters, and was followed by Hector Browne and Darren Gibbons.

‘Err, excuse me, but aren’t you and Nick supposed to be seeing Jimmy Crocker first thing this morning?’ said Walter, glugging on the coffee and gazing at Darren.

‘Couldn’t, Guv. Nicky’s going to his grandma’s funeral today, He rang me last night.’

‘Did he now? He kept that to himself.’

Walter made a mental note to check if that were true, for in the past they had once had a clever dick of a PC who had attended at least five grandmother’s funerals over the years, taking the piss, he was, and Walter couldn’t abide being lied to.

‘It still has to be done, take Hector with you, get down there now. It’s still early, you know the thinking, visit early before they get out of bed, before they have woken up, before they have gone to work, or whatever they get up to.’

Gibbons nodded and looked at Hector, who had heard everything and had gone for his jacket. Walter was talking again.

‘And after you’ve seen him, visit those bloody publicans again. You might like to drop a hint the hierarchy here might not be happy to approve the renewal of their alcohol licences next time round, if they can’t be more cooperative and helpful in our enquiries into the affairs of the late Eleanor Wright.’

Gibbons grinned and said, ‘Sure Guv,’ and the two guys shrugged and left the building.

Walter glanced across the desk at Karen. She looked a little tired; maybe she’d enjoyed an exciting night.

‘How did the date go?’

‘Don’t ask,’ she said, throwing the apple core in the metal bin with a clang. ‘Terrible.’

So he didn’t ask, it was none of his business, and he knew she would tell him in her own good time, if she wished to, and if she didn’t, that was cool. He couldn’t stop a grin crossing his heavy face. His unplanned date had gone fantastically well, though he’d keep that nugget to himself.

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HECTOR DROVE THE UNMARKED car to Saltney Ferry and 20 Laburnum Gardens. It was a small redbrick townhouse, two floors, one of five linked houses, one of the middle ones. It looked older than its ten years, but that was down to a lack of care and maintenance. The paint on the white window frames was peeling in places, and the small front garden hadn’t been weeded in at least a year, and it showed. As they made their way up the small path toward the front door, Hector began whistling.

‘Give it a rest, Heck,’ said Gibbons, as he rang the bell.

The bell inside rang, and the big dog barked.

‘Shit!’ said Hector. ‘That’s all we need, a damn big dog.’

Gibbons grinned and muttered, ‘Probably a pussy.’

They both heard a guy inside yell, ‘Ma! Some bastard’s at the front door.’

‘I’m going, ya lazy tyke,’ and in the next second, a big woman appeared wearing a cavernous blue dressing gown. She pulled the door open, while holding back an ugly looking brown beast that was keen to get better acquainted. The woman glared knowingly at them, for she could smell the law at two hundred paces, as did the dog.

Hector did the introductions as the woman turned and yelled up the stairs, ‘Jimmy! Get your arse out of that bed. The coppers are here for you.’

They heard him say, ‘Oh, what the hell do they want now?’

‘Come and find out! I’ll put the dog in the kitchen,’ and she turned around and did just that.

A minute later Jimmy Crocker appeared in the hallway, having thrown on a grubby white T-shirt and a pair of old jeans. He eyed up Gibbons for a second, for he’d come across him in battle before.

‘Come inside,’ he said. ‘I don’t want the whole damned world knowing my business.’

Darren and Hector stepped into the small and crowded hallway. It smelt of big brown dog.

‘We are making enquiries about a young woman named Eleanor Wright,’ said Hector.

‘No comment,’ said Jimmy C, out of habit.

‘We can do this here, or we can do it down the station,’ said Darren, ‘and that could take all day and half the night.’

Jimmy pulled a face and shook his head and said, ‘Eleanor who?’

‘Eleanor Wright.’

‘Don’t know anyone of that name.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Darren.

‘Positive. Who is she?’

Hector ignored Jimmy’s question and asked, ‘Where were you on Friday night?’

Jimmy sniffed and turned away and shouted into the lounge, ‘Ma! Where was I on Friday night?’

‘He was here, with me, all night,’ came back the yelled and predictable reply.

‘Anyone else here?’ asked Darren.

‘Only Bozo.’

‘Who’s Bozo?’ asked Hector.

‘The dog.’

‘Did you go anywhere near the river on Friday?’ asked Darren.

‘Course I did. The river winds through the city, it’s hard not to.’

He had a point there.

‘Did you visit a young woman in a caravan down by the river?’ persisted Gibbons.

‘No, worse luck. Why? Was she a goer?’ and Crocker smirked.

‘The young woman in question is dead,’ said Darren, staring into the back of Crocker’s beady eyes.

Crocker pursed his lips. His bottom lip came out, and he said, ‘It happens. We all die sometime.’

‘She was burned to death in her caravan,’ said Gibbons.

‘So?’

‘Do you smoke?’ asked Hector.

‘Yeah, now and again, not a crime, is it?’

‘So you have matches on you, maybe a lighter?’

‘Now hang on a minute!’

‘Do you own a car?’ asked Gibbons.

‘No. Use me mam’s, when I need to.’

‘Where is it now?’ asked Hector.

Crocker opened the front door and nodded across the road to a small car park where five cars were gathered together, side by side.

‘It’s the old red Vauxhall, buggered it is,’ said Crocker. ‘Hope to get my own soon.’

They all looked out and there it was, second from the end.

‘And you’ve never met Eleanor Wright?’ asked Hector.

‘No I haven’t, said so, didn’t I?’

Hector and Darren shared a look and nodded, and couldn’t think of anything else to ask. Darren muttered something about thanking him for his time, and in the next second, they were walking away across the road to examine the car.

‘What do you think?’ asked Darren.

‘Could be him,’ said Hector. ‘Slippery git.’

‘He is that,’ and Darren took a small plastic bag from his pocket and slipped on a pair of wafer thin plastic gloves and bent down and looked at the tyres. There were some small pieces of mud there, and muddy marks on the edges of the tyres too, but that meant nothing, for with that storm last night and the rain before that, and the wet and muddy roads, almost every car in the city would sport muddy marks that morning. He peeled several small lumps from the rubber and slipped them in the bag, sealed it, and placed it in his jacket pocket.

Hector nodded and said, ‘Where to now?’

‘The pubs, of course, Heck, the pubs.’ 

Chapter Fourteen

At smack on ten o’clock, Walter received a telephone call. It was from Janice Jefferson. Walter told Karen to listen in. ‘Inspector Darriteau?’

‘That’s me.’

‘You slipped a card through my door. I suppose it’s about poor Ellie. Terrible isn’t it? I’m still in shock.’

‘So you’ve heard?’

‘Yeah, when I saw your card I rang Ellie out of habit. Wwe shared most things, bezzie pals you might say, and when I couldn’t get her, I rang her mother. She told me the news, I still can’t believe it.’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘The day before I went to Madeira.’

‘How was she?’

‘To tell you the truth, Inspector, she was a little on edge.’

‘Why? What caused that?’

‘Not sure exactly, but there were men in her life. Some of them she liked, and some of them she didn’t. She was no angel, that’s for sure, but maybe you know that already.’

‘We are not here to judge anyone. All we want to do is find out what happened to her.’

‘Well Inspector, she told me things.’

‘What things?’

‘Terrible things.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

‘I’d rather not, not right now.’

‘Can we come and have a chat?’

‘I guess.’

‘When’s suitable for you?’

‘You can come now if you like. I’m not working at pres, I’m between jobs, I’m at my sister’s for the day.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Portobello Towers. It’s...’

‘I know where it is.’

‘Thought you might. Number 35. Second top floor, but you’re in luck. The lift’s working, for a change.’

‘See you in half an hour, Janice, and thanks for calling.’

‘You’re welcome, I just feel so sorry for Ellie; she had a filthy life.’

Walter rang off and glanced at Karen.

‘Car?’ she said.

‘Sure, I’ll have a quick word with Mrs West. See you downstairs in ten.’

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AT THAT HOUR OF THE day, all the good cars had been grabbed, and the best Karen could do was an aging Ford saloon with a smell all of its own. Strangely, Karen quite liked it for it had a gutsy engine and was quick, but a throaty gas-guzzler. The kind of vehicle being phased out because of high running costs. Petrol, car tax, and insurance were all penalising, and someone in budgets was bound to spot that, and kill it before long.

Portobello Towers was a sixties tower block on the Beacon estate. The kind of place where people stayed because they could not find or afford anywhere better. The kind of place where people lived until they moved on, and moved up. The kind of place where immigrants, illegal and otherwise, were found accommodation. A place where long-term residents grew old before their time, and then could never move out, and the type of place where kids, and not so young kids, set up and ran illegal pirate radio stations.

The tower blocks were ideal places to erect aerials high in the sky, where Ofcom radio aerial inspectors could be spotted from half a mile away, the broadcasting equipment dismantled, and taken down and hidden before the authorities arrived. It was an ongoing irritant that was never quite solved because the people charged with doing so were overworked, and always had something better or more urgent to occupy their time.

Janice was right. The lifts were working, and that was a relief. Number 35 was on the eighth floor. Karen tapped on the light blue door.

A young woman, presumably Janice, came to the door and let them in. There was a radio on, broadcasting the latest pop. The song finished and a station jingle came on. Dee-Bee-Cee – Deva Broadcasting Company – The Happy Sound of Free Pirate Radio for Chester and the North West.

That pirate radio station again, cocky, cocksure, and confident with it, with not a care in the world about prosecution. Both Walter and Karen noticed that. Janice rushed to the set and switched it off.

Another almost identical young woman was sitting in an old sofa in the smart lounge. She grinned at the visitors. She had a toddler of a little boy on her knee who was about to fall asleep.

Both of the young women boasted deep tans, fake or real, pondered Walter. Possibly real. Maybe they had been to Madeira together.

‘This is Chantelle, my younger sister, and he’s Benny, aren’t you, Ben?’ said Janice.

Right on cue, Benny’s eyelids fell closed, and Chantelle stood up and took him into a bedroom to put down for a couple of quiet hours.

‘Sit down, will ya?’ said Janice, and they did.

‘You’ve been to Madeira?’ said Walter.

‘Yeah. Great it was. I didn’t want to come back.’

‘And you’re not working?’ asked Karen.

‘No,’ said Janice, in a rush, going on the defensive. ‘It’s not a crime, is it? No work and going on holiday. I’ll soon get another job.’

‘Course you will,’ said Walter.

‘What do you do when you work?’ asked Karen.

‘Oh, all sorts, shop work, office work, waitressing, stacking the shelves in Bestdas, anything that pays well. I’m a hard worker, me. Hey, hang on a minute, you don’t think I do, we do, me and Chantelle, the same thing as Ellie, do ya?’

‘No, course not,’ said Walter. ‘We are just filling in the background.’

Janice pursed her lips and did not look happy.

‘Did Chantelle go with you?’ asked Walter.

‘Yeah, but the baby was well looked after. He’s not abandoned or anything like that. Mum took him, she adores the kid.’

‘I’ll bet she does. You’ve both got the same tans,’ said Walter.

‘Ah, yes, I see, yeah well, it was so bloody hot there. We were so surprised, at this time of year, and all.’

‘You said Ellie told you things?’ said Walter.

‘Yeah.’

‘Go on,’ said Karen.

‘I don’t think she had anyone else she could talk to. Not really. Derek’s a wet weekend of a man, and I don’t think she talked to her mum at all, so she kind of confided in me.’

‘Anything you can tell us,’ said Walter, ‘will help us a great deal.’

‘Was she murdered?’

‘We think that’s possible,’ said Karen.

‘That’s why anything you can tell us could be vitally important,’ added Walter.

Janice pointed hard at the window and said, ‘Those men, those bloody men out there, some of those men were, and are, quite disgusting. And do you know the worst of it; many of the bastards are married. Can you imagine being married to a man like that, who goes out doing all sorts at all hours, and comes home as if the grass doesn’t grow?’ Janice looked hard at Karen and said, ‘Can you imagine being married to a man who carried on like that?’

For a moment Karen imagined being married to David Baker, and wondered what he would be like as a husband. Would he ever, and had he ever, patronised young women like Ellie Wright and Tracey Day? Maybe he still did. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Walter said, ‘Was there anyone in particular you had in mind, when talking about Those Men?’

Janice breathed out hard and spat out words, ‘There were hundreds of them! Literally. Sometimes she told me she did ten of them in a single day, or night. Can you imagine? Geez! I find one of them hard enough work to deal with, but ten... Or more. No thank you! And of course she had a habit too.’

‘Drugs?’ said Walter.

Janice nodded. ‘Nothing too serious, but it gets a grip of you, so I believe, and even a small habit can cost a pretty penny. That’s why she kept on working.’

‘Coke?’ asked Karen.

Janice nodded and said, ‘Yeah.’

‘Where did she get it?’ asked Karen.

‘Oh, don’t ask, you can get it anywhere if you look hard enough.’

‘Not from Derek?’ asked Karen.

‘No, course not, he’s never going to get involved in anything like that.’

‘Did any of them ever threaten her?’ asked Karen.

‘Course they did! All the time. She lived in fear of it. But I guess it comes with the territory in that line of business.’

‘Was there anyone she told you about who worried her or pestered her the most?’ asked Walter.

Janice nodded. ‘There was one bloke. To begin with, she really liked him. He was dead good-looking and very generous. Tell you the truth, I think she fell a little in love with him, which was something she said she would never do, not with the punters. That was forbidden territory.’

‘Do you have a name?’ asked Walter. 

‘No. But he’s foreign.’

‘What do you mean, foreign?’ asked Walter. ‘Black, like me?’

‘No, no! Not like you at all, Inspector. You’re nice. No, this guy speaks with an accent. Good English but with a definite accent.’

‘German, French, what?’ asked Karen.

‘No. More eastern European, I would think.’

‘What? Polish?’ asked Karen.

Janice pulled face and shook her head, and said, ‘No, Bulgarian or Romanian, I think, she did say once, but I can’t remember now. Latvian maybe, one of them lot.’

‘Did she describe him at all?’ asked Walter.

‘Nope, but she didn’t need to.’

‘Why’s that?’ asked Karen.

‘Because I saw them together once.’

‘You saw him?’ said Walter. ‘Where and when?’

‘In the Crazy Cow steakhouse. A couple of months ago.’

‘He took her for a meal?’ asked Karen.

Janice nodded.

‘To begin with he was always taking her out, and he wasn’t short of money either, that’s when I think she got some fancy ideas about him. She even went away with him to Ross-on-Wye for a long weekend once, stayed in some fancy hotel. Got up to all sorts. He came well equipped, she said. She was made up with that trip, I can tell you. But the dinners and the treats gradually became less and less, and the other thing became worse and worse.’

‘What other thing?’ asked Karen.

‘You know. The services she provided, and the ones he wanted.’

‘Go on,’ said Karen.

‘Do I have to?’

‘A little way,’ soothed Walter.

‘Look! I thought I knew about life, I thought I knew what men were like, but some stories she told me made my hair curl, I can tell you, and I’ve never had a curl in my life. And some of those men often wanted her to do things their wives would never dream of doing, or tolerate doing either. Not ever. It was getting out of hand.’

‘With the eastern European?’ clarified Walter.

‘Yeah, among others.’

‘Do you know what he did for a living?’ asked Karen.

‘Yeah, course I do. Didn’t I say?’

‘Go on,’ said Walter.

‘He’s a banker,’ and Janice laughed aloud.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Karen.

‘She always called him “my wanker of a banker”, and she said he always paid good too, but he wanted his money’s worth, that was the problem.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Course I can.’

‘Go on.’

‘Good looking, six foot, slim, fit, nice dark hair, neatly parted, brown eyes I think, well dressed, perfect husband material, really.’

Karen thought of David Baker again. Perfect husband material, really. But for the foreign accent her description fitted him to a tee.

‘If they were sitting down having dinner how do you know he was six foot tall?’ asked Walter.

‘Because when they had finished the meal they got up and walked out. She linked his arm, and he seemed happy enough with that, not awkward at all. He was a six footer all right, maybe slightly more, I’m not pulling your plonker, if that’s what you think.’

‘We don’t think that,’ assured Walter.

‘Anything else?’ asked Karen.

‘Like what?’

‘Do you know where he worked? Do you know where he lived?’ asked Walter.

‘Nope and nope. Though I think he worked here in Chester, though I don’t know why I think that, just do.’

‘And she never said his name? In all your chats?’

Janice shook her head, but then grinned.

‘Mirror! That’s what she said his name was, only the once, I remember now. She said his name was Mirror, and she could see her own fate in it, the mirror, like, I’d forgotten all about that, strange really.’

‘Mirror?’ queried Karen, spelling it out. ‘M-I-R-R-O-R?’

Janice nodded hard. ‘That’s what she said, deffo.’

‘How often did she see him?’ asked Walter.

‘No idea, but a lot, and he paid her well too, I told you that, so she said. But he didn’t like her seeing other men, I know that much, but she could never stop doing that.’

‘Was there anyone else specific besides this Mirror character?’ asked Walter.

‘Loads of others, lots of weirdo’s too, I mean dozens, but not another one who sticks out. Not like him.’

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ said Walter.

‘I hope I have.’

‘If you think of anything else, no matter how tiny or insubstantial it might seem to you, will you give me another call?’

‘Course I will. Can I call you Walter?’

‘Course you can,’ said Walter, and he smiled his best friendly uncle smile and hoped that it didn’t come out too creepy.

Chantelle came back into the room and grinned.

Pound to a penny she’d been listening at the door.

‘Your sister’s been very helpful,’ said Walter.

‘That’s good,’ she said, nodding and sitting down.

Walter asked, ‘Did Ellie ever mention a girl called Tracey Day?’

‘Not a name I know of. Why?’

‘No reason, just another name that’s cropped up in our inquiry.’

‘You never meet any of these guys, did you?’ asked Karen.

‘Course not! What do you take me for? Got more sense than to get mixed up in all that!’

‘Sure, course you have,’ said Walter.

‘You collect glass paperweights?’ said Karen, nodding at a display case full of round glass paperweights, turquoise, green and blue, that was pushed in against the far wall.

‘Yeah,’ said Chantelle, chuffed that the coppers had noticed her prized collection. ‘Always loved them, and do you know what they are really good for?’

‘What?’ said Karen and Walter as one.

‘Hurling at burglars! Stop ’em stone dead, they would,’ and both the sisters laughed together.

Walter and Karen grinned and stood up, and the girls stood too, and the toddler started crying, and Chantelle let slip the F word.

‘Will you call me? If there’s any news?’ asked Janice.

‘Sure,’ said Walter. ‘And you’ll call me if anything else turns up here.’

Janice grinned and nodded and went to the radio and turned it back on.

Dee-Bee-Cee! The Continuing Sound of Free Radio.

It was time to go, Janice opened the front door, and a second later the coppers were through it and out of there and gone.

Chapter Fifteen

Everyone was back in the office by half-past three, as the update briefing got under way. Mrs West kicked things off by saying, ‘Are we making any progress, or are we wasting our time?’

Which seemed an odd thing to say to most of her captive audience, though no doubt she was under pressure again on costing and time management issues, and the like.

‘We have a new lead, ma’am,’ said Walter.

‘Go on.’

‘Ellie Wright’s best friend, maybe her only friend, is a girl called Janice Jefferson. Janice told us that Ellie was real frightened of one particular client. He’s reported to be some kind of foreign banker, or a banker with a foreign accent, and we have a good description because Janice saw the man. He’s six footish, IC1, clean cut, dark hair and eyes, and speaks good English with a foreign, possibly eastern European, maybe Bulgarian, Romanian accent, that sort of thing.’

‘Do we have a name for this guy?’

‘Janice said his name was Mirror.’

‘Mirror, as in looking glass?’

‘That’s what Janice said.’

‘Odd name.’

‘It is, ma’am, and it’s not a name listed in any names directory. Jenny, I want you to ring round all the local banking institutions and ask if they have anyone of that name.’

Jenny nodded and said, ‘Sure, Guv. Is that a Christian name or surname?’

‘Could be either.’

‘What about getting this Janice girl in to compile a photofit?’ suggested Mrs West.

‘If you think it’s worthwhile,’ said Walter.

‘While we are spending so much time on this, we might as well have something to show for it.’

Walter nodded and said he’d organise it.

‘What happened to the names Hector threw in the ring?’ asked Mrs West, sniffling into a neat hankie.

‘We went to see Crocker,’ said Gibbons. ‘Heck and me. Crocker has an alibi for Friday night, his huge mother. She said he was in the house all night, but I’d say that’s about as reliable as rice paper in a storm. He denied ever knowing Ellie, denied ever visiting any girl in a caravan down by the river. We took a sample of mud from the tyres of his mother’s car, he doesn’t have his own wheels, so he said, and that’s gone to the lab to see if it matches with the stuff at the foot of Marigold Lane.’

‘Good. What was your gut feeling?’ asked Walter.

‘I’d say he’s capable of it, there’s a temper on him, for sure, and violence in him too, we know that. But unless the mud comes back positive we have nothing to connect him with Ellie Wright at all.’

‘You agree, Hector?’

‘Yes, Guv, I didn’t like the guy one bit, but he didn’t give me any reason to think he’d murdered someone in the last few days.’

‘What about Michael Flanagan?’ asked Mrs West, glancing at her watch.

‘Guv and I had the pleasure,’ said Karen.

‘And was it?’ said Mrs West. ‘A pleasure?’

‘Not really, though he’s sure changed his image.’

‘In what way?’

‘Big haircut, now short and smart. Looked more like a businessman about town than a heavy metal rock guy.’

Walter added, ‘When we visited he was entertaining company.’

‘Who?’ said Mrs West.

‘A little local Tom called Tracey Day.’

‘I wonder if Tracey Day knew Ellie Wright,’ said Mrs West, thinking out loud.

‘I asked Janice that. She didn’t know the name,’ said Walter.

Karen added, ‘And I asked Tracey, and she denied knowing Ellie as well.’

‘But there is a definite connection between Flanagan and Ellie Wright,’ said Walter.

‘What kind of connection?’ said Mrs West.

‘Flanagan’s a cab driver. He said he recently took a man down Marigold Lane on several occasions, a man who visited Ellie. Gave us a description, and it’s close to the one Janice gave of this Mirror man.’

‘Could be something,’ said Mrs West.

‘It could,’ agreed Walter. ‘We just need to find him to eliminate him from our enquiries.’

‘Going back to Flanagan for a second,’ said Hector. ‘Doesn’t he fit the description too?’

‘He does now, pretty much, with his new smart image,’ said Karen.

Hector continued. ‘This guy Flanagan has just come out of prison after murdering someone, correction, causing the death of a woman, who happened to be his wife. We know he consorts with prostitutes, and we know he’s visited Marigold Lane, he’s admitted that. That’s powerful enough, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ said Jenny, ‘but he’s tagged, remember? Seven till seven curfew, and I’ve checked with the tagging people and they say there have been no irregularities reported in the last ten days, and we know the caravan went up in flames around midnight, so said our witness Mr Duffield, so how could Flanagan have been there then?’

Hector scowled and said, ‘How reliable are these bloody tags?’

‘Very!’ said Mrs West.

‘They are indeed reliable,’ confirmed Karen, ‘but like all modern technology they can have occasional blips and glitches. No modern tech is ever a hundred percent.’

‘I’m happy with them,’ said Mrs West, thinking back years to when she’d first recommended them, and pondering on how much money they had saved in the intervening time, as against keeping low-grade criminals longer in custody. For people like her, and all administrators and accountants, they were a godsend.

‘There is one other gent we should not yet discount,’ floated Gibbons.

‘Derek Nesbitt?’ said Karen.

‘The same. We know he also visited Marigold Lane. He wanted Ellie to give up her profession, we know that too. Maybe he had some crazy idea of shacking up with her if she’d stop working. Maybe they argued, and it got out of hand. It happens. It’s all possible, and he also vaguely fits the description of the man who dined with Ellie, and the man who visited Ellie in Flanagan’s cab.’

‘But he doesn’t have a foreign accent, or the need to use cabs because he has his own car,’ said Walter.

‘True, just thinking aloud, Guv.’

‘How did you get on with the publicans?’ asked Walter.

Gibbons glanced at some notes and said, ‘Better, Guv. They gave us a list of twenty possible clients. They weren’t too happy at being threatened, mind.’

‘Not threatened, Gibbons,’ said Walter, unable to keep a smile from his face. ‘Persuaded, I would say.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘You and Hector can crack on with that for the foreseeable, checking them all out.’

‘What about Nick?’

‘Ah yes, I’d almost forgotten him, I want a word with that young man when he returns, but yes, he can help you on that too.’

‘So?’ said Mrs West. ‘Do we have a prime suspect?’

‘Mirror for me,’ said Karen.

‘Flanagan for me,’ said Hector. ‘Definitely.’

‘And it’s Nesbitt for me,’ said Gibbons. ‘Just have a feeling about it.’

‘Feelings don’t solve cases,’ said Walter, ‘evidence does.’

‘So who do you think?’ asked Mrs West.

‘I don’t think any of them yet, ma’am, though like the rest of us, I’d sure like to interview the Mirror man.’

Mrs West clapped her small cold hands together. She’d heard enough. ‘Right! Let’s get on with it, you know what you have to do,’ and she jumped up and hurried back to her office and the meeting broke up, and the detectives returned to checking and re-checking all known facts to push the inquiry forward. Was there a murderer on their patch? And was he still active? Probably and possibly, were the best guesses, but they needed much more than that.

––––––––

IN THE TRAVEL AGENTS in the city, Lena Freeman rang Belinda for a third time. Left another message. Both she and her boss were surprised, and not a little concerned that she hadn’t reported in to work, nor had returned any of their calls.

Lena was particularly on edge because Bel had seemed so upbeat and healthy when they’d spoken the previous night. Lena was still confident she could convince Bel the Baltic States should be the destination for their next holiday jaunt. It wasn’t like Bel, for she was such a steady and reliable woman. Lena would try again that evening and give it to the morning at the latest. If Belinda wasn’t back by then, she would go to the house. 

Chapter Sixteen

At five o’clock the team began drifting away. It had been a hard day and progress had been slow. ‘You’ve been quiet,’ said Walter.

Karen forced a smile and said, ‘You never miss much, do you?’

‘Comes with the job. Man trouble, is it?’

‘No, not really, they always disappoint you, don’t they?’

‘Do they?’

‘Mine seem to.’

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

Karen sat back in her chair and breathed out heavy, in two minds whether to say anything, and then she thought, what the hell? And told Walter about her date that never was, and of how much she had been looking forward to it, and now she was wondering whether he was two-timing her, and maybe she was wasting her time.

‘I hope it wasn’t because I kept you late,’ said Walter.

‘Course not, Guv. He was late anyway. It must have been around nine before he called.’

‘That’s all right then. So what are you going to do?’

‘See him again, I guess, see if I can find out if he’s genuine, or just a liar.’

‘You’re training should help you decide that.’

‘You’d think so, Guv. But somehow when it’s so close to home, everything gets cloudy, and I always seem to end up giving them the benefit of the doubt.’

‘I’d back your judgment any day. You know the score. Get more info. Evaluate the intelligence. Act accordingly.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, seeming miles away, and then she said, ‘Never mind me, what about you?’

Walter could not keep a broad smile crossing his face.

‘I had a fantastic date.’

‘Really?’

‘Yep, one of the best,’ and he told her all about the late night barbequed chicken, and threw in a few hints of what had gone on before.

‘Lucky you!’

‘And of course it’s all down to you.’

‘How so?’

‘Putting me on to that Internet dating site in the first place.’

‘She came from there?’

‘She certainly did.’

‘Does she know what you do?’

‘No, not yet, though I don’t suppose it will make any difference.’

Karen didn’t comment on that. But in her experience it wasn’t unusual for members of the team to lose their new partner once a full job description had been discussed, and tossed around.

‘When are you seeing her again?’

‘Don’t know yet. Might ring her tonight.’

‘You do that, Guv. Wanna lift home?’

‘That would be fab, Greenwood, I’ll just go and say ta-ta to the boss lady.’

‘She’s already gone, Guv.’

‘I didn’t hear her go.’

‘Think you were in the bog at the time.’

Walter grunted and bent under the desk and put his shoes back on, and did up the laces.

––––––––

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Karen pulled the car to a standstill outside Walter’s three-bedroom Edwardian detached house. It was already full dark and particularly dismal, the streetlights straining to penetrate the murk.

‘Have a good night,’ he said, heaving himself out of the car.

‘You too, Guv,’ and twenty minutes after that he was setting the surplus barbequed chicken pieces Carlene had insisted he take home, in the oven and turning it on blitz. He didn’t even bother looking inside the silver foil. It didn’t matter about re-heating chicken, did it? No health issues there, were there? He was hungry, and he was going to eat the damned lot, along with a little crusty bread left over from the spagbol.

––––––––

KAREN HURRIED HOME and sat on the sofa and considered making something to eat, though she wasn’t in the least bit hungry. She thought about Eleanor Wright, and what drove her to take up such a hazardous profession. Lack of cash, she concluded, what else could it have been? And she thought about Tracey Day too, venturing down the same precarious road, and wondering if she had any real idea how dangerous it could be.

There were no stats, to Karen’s knowledge, as to the percentage of women under say thirty, who were murdered while practising the same grubby business, but Karen’s guess would be a big number. But what could you do? Make it legal? That opened a whole new can of worms, like making drugs legal. Where do you stop? Where do you draw the line?

She thought of something else. What about the Guv, eh? Wasn’t he just the lucky one, hitting the jackpot by all accounts, with his Internet dating, though she didn’t begrudge him his obvious happiness. He’d lived alone for a long time, but hey, where was her happiness coming from, and she let herself feel sorry for herself for all of twenty seconds, and right there, right then, her phone rang.

She picked it up and glanced at the screen.

David Baker.

Her first thought was to turn it off, blank him, but she didn’t. She’d hear what he had to say.

‘Hi, there,’ she said, as indifferently as she could muster.

‘Am I still in the doghouse?’

‘I don’t know. Are you?’

‘Not at this end.’

‘What can I do for you, Mr Baker?’

‘Wondered if you’d like to go out for a drink later.’

‘Nope. Can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m busy.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Work stuff.’

‘You’re still angry with me, aren’t you?’

‘What gave you that idea?’

‘I can tell.’

Karen sighed over-loudly and said, ‘I thought you might have called me last night on your way home, or something.’

‘I didn’t get home till almost two and didn’t think you’d appreciate me calling at that hour.’

She wouldn’t tell him she’d waited up late.

‘And did it go well?’

‘Yeah. Pretty much. Contract all signed and sealed.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Do you want to see it, or something? Inspect the evidence?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘Don’t be like what?’

‘You know, offhand with me. I am trying to make it up to you here.’

Karen sighed again. ‘I don’t get the feeling that I am the most important thing in your life, and if we’re to go forward as a couple, I bloody well should be.’

‘Course you are!’

‘It doesn’t feel that way.’

‘What have I got to do to make it up to you?’ and in the way he spoke she could tell he was grinning, and feeling super confident about things.

‘Try harder.’

It wasn’t the answer he had expected.

‘Sorry? What did you say?’

‘You heard me.’

‘I am trying. Dinner tonight. Good place, nice wine, my treat.’

‘No, I’m busy, gotta go,’ and she cut him off.

––––––––

AFTERWARDS, SHE REMAINED on the sofa and replayed the conversation in her head. Did she regret giving him a hard time? No, not a chance. Did she think she’d put him off? No, but if she had, he wasn’t worth much anyway. Did she feel better about things? Yes! A hundred percent, he could experience a brush off and a cancelled or missed date for a change. See how he liked it. She grinned to herself. Her appetite had returned. There were some low fat vegetable burgers in the freezer, and she’d grill those and serve them up with a little fromage frais, rocket lettuce, and crisp bread biscuits.

––––––––

WALTER GNAWED THE LAST of the chicken off the bones and set them haphazardly on the plate. He licked his lips and wiped his fingers and mouth on the pieces of paper towel he had brought with him from the kitchen.

He’d have to ask her for the recipe, for they were gorgeous. He stood up and took the plate back to the kitchen and made his way down the hall to the landline phone. Picked it up, dabbed in Carlene’s easy to remember local number that resembled a taxi rank number. 08080.

She answered pretty much straight away.

‘And how is Mrs Henderson tonight?’

‘I am fine, and how is Mr Darriteau?’

‘I’m great. I’ve just finished the chicken, it was fab, you must give me the recipe.’

‘I’ll dig it out.’

‘Actually, that’s not why I rang.’

‘Oh?’

‘I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed last night.’

‘I thought you did, I’m so glad, I did too.’

‘And I wondered if you’d like to go out for a drink later?’

Carlene sighed and said, ‘Ah.’

That didn’t sound so good, thought Walter, so he said, ‘Or maybe tomorrow?’

‘This is a little awkward, Walter.’

‘What is?’

‘I’ve had an email, a couple of hours ago.’

‘From?’

‘My husband.’

‘I thought you said you were separated.’

‘I am. We are. He lives in New Zealand, and you can’t get much more separated than that.’

‘So?’

‘He’s coming back next week.’

‘But when you said separated, I thought you meant it was all over and done with between you two.’

‘It is... in a way. I haven’t seen him for six months.’

‘But you’re not completely separated, are you?’

‘We are! It’s difficult, Walter, awkward, I told you, I’ll have to see him, I can’t just refuse to speak to him, or see him.’

‘I see. So where does that leave...’

‘Leave us? I don’t know. We’ll just have to talk again, when things are clearer, when he’s been and gone. He’s not staying long. Look, I’m real sorry, Walter, we’ll speak again soon, yeah? I’ll have to go now, I’ve things I must sort out, bye-eee,’ and she put the phone down.

Walter glared at the old wallpaper.

‘Bugger,’ he whispered, setting the phone down, and he sighed and returned to the lounge where he put his shoes back on. He didn’t feel like sitting in the house all alone all night brooding on that news. He’d amble down to the local pub where there were a good gang of fellas who welcomed him into their company, not least since he had become something of a minor celeb locally, been on local news TV quite a few times.

He’d sink a few glasses of the black stuff, and no doubt would have to withstand the same old joke: Thick black stuff for a thick black man, and listen to a few other jokes too, some at his expense, some not. A few of them might even be funny, maybe even tell a few too, and he’d do his damnedest to forget about Carlene bloody Henderson for the day, and night. Sounded like a plan, and a good one at that.

Chapter Seventeen

Karen was first at work in the morning, looking refreshed and much happier than the day before. Walter came in ten minutes later looking a little worse for wear.

He’d cut himself shaving too, on the left side of the chin, and though the trace of blood had hardened up, it looked a mess.

Nicky Barr arrived next and said a happy good morning, and as he passed Walter’s desk, Walter growled, ‘I want a word with you.’

‘Sure, Guv. What’s going down?’

‘You were off yesterday.’

‘Yeah, I told Gibbons.’

‘You didn’t tell me, or any senior officer.’

‘Sorry, Guv. Didn’t think.’

‘This job is all about thinking, DC Barr. It’s what we do. If you can’t think, you are of little use to me. Understand?’

Nicky looked at Walter quizzically, thinking he’d got away with it, and said, ‘Yeah sure, Guv, sorry,’ and went to walk away.

‘I haven’t finished with you yet! Funeral, was it?’

Nicky stopped still and said, ‘Yeah, something like that.’

‘Well, was it a funeral or wasn’t it?’

‘It was.’

‘And whose funeral was it?’

‘My old gran’s. I told Gibbons.’

Walter scratched his chin, taking care to avoid the cut, and said, ‘What was your grandmother’s name?’

‘Pardon, Guv.’

‘Please don’t make me repeat everything, DC Barr. You heard me the first time.’

‘Dorothy Barr. Why? What’s up?’

‘And where was this funeral?’

‘At the crem.’

‘And what time was it?’

‘Eh? In the morning. Eleven o’clock.’

‘So if I rang the crem now and asked them who was cooking at eleven o’clock yesterday morning they’d tell me it was Dorothy Barr, would they?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have quite put it like that, but yeah, they should do.’

Walter pursed his lips and said nothing.

‘Is that it, Guv?’

‘Let’s see, shall we? Let’s ring,’ and Walter picked up the phone and spoke to the main switchboard operator, and asked them to get the crematorium on the line.

Nicky Barr looked nervous and scratched his chin.

Walter stared at the phone, waiting.

Nicky said, ‘Actually, Guv...’

‘Actually, what?’

‘There wasn’t a funeral yesterday.’

‘There was no Barr family funeral yesterday? What? Not at all?’

‘No, Guv. Sorry.’

The phone rang and the switchboard operator said, ‘I have the crem on the line.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t need them any longer. Sorry to have wasted your time.’

‘No problem,’ came back the singsong happy voice.

Walter glared at Nicky and said, ‘So you lied to Gibbons, and you lied to me. In fact you lied to me several times.’

‘Sorry, Guv, it’s just that the girlfriend...’

‘I don’t want to know anything about your girlfriend!’

Nicky nodded hard and said nothing, which right there was just about the best thing he could have done.

‘This office,’ said Walter, wafting his big hand around, ‘spends a great deal of time tracking down liars, tripping up liars, tying them up in their own webs of lies and deceit. So how do you think it looks when one of our own, right here, one of my team, thinks it’s okay to casually tell one lie after another?’

‘Not good, Guv.’

‘You’re right, DC Barr. Not good! Not good at all. I give everyone who joins this precious band one chance. You’ve just had yours. If I ever catch you lying to me or anyone else in this room again, I’ll kick your backside all the way to Rhyl and back. You’ll be returned to traffic duty before you could say Llan-bloody-dudno. Is that clear?’

Nicky nodded slowly and looked suitably contrite, and muttered, ‘Really sorry, Guv.’

‘Go away! See Gibbons, he has important work for you.’

Nicky nodded fast and hurried off.

Karen glanced at the departing guy and back at Walter and said, ‘Silly boy.’

‘He ruddy well is, but he won’t do it again. I hope.’

‘How did you know?’

‘I have met my share of Smart Alec’s over the years and I can sus them out at fifty paces. It wasn’t that difficult.’

Karen swigged her water and was keen to change the conversation. He seemed in a real bad mood over something.

‘I’ll ring Janice, see if I can get her in today.’

‘You do that,’ said Walter, settling down to study the crime reports.

––––––––

AN HOUR LATER A BEAMING Jenny came over to Walter’s desk and said, ‘I think I’ve got something, Guv.’

Karen glanced up from the old Michael Flanagan case notes.

‘Mirror man?’ mumbled Walter.

Jenny nodded.

‘I can’t find anyone going by the name of Mirror, but I have found a local banker who works for the Anglo-Slavic National Bank. The ASNB, they are based here in Chester, and this guy’s name is Miroslav Rekatic, though he prefers the shortened version of Miro.’

‘How old is he? Do you know?’ asked Walter.

‘He’s thirty-seven.’

‘And what are the chances he’s six feet tall, speaks with an eastern European accent, and has dark hair and eyes, and is vaguely good looking?’ said Karen.

‘I can’t comment on the height, but the rest fits like a glove. I’ve cribbed his picture from their website. Here he is, our Miroslav,’ and she set a good colour photo down in front of them.

‘I know this ASNB outfit,’ said Karen. ‘It’s one of the new generation of banks that are pushing hard to get a foothold in the UK market.’

‘They are,’ confirmed Jenny. ‘Putting new ATMs all over the place.’

‘Address?’ said Walter.

‘Chester Business Park.’

‘Car?’ said Karen.

‘Please, unmarked.’

‘Shall I see you downstairs?’ asked Karen.

‘Be there in a sec, just going to keep Mrs W up to speed.’

Jenny said, ‘I’ll keep looking, see if I can find anyone else.’

‘Do that, Jen. And well done.’

––––––––

THE HUGE SPRAWLING and modern Chester Business Park was located on the southern side of the city, strategically placed for easy access to the road system, with the nearby A55 and A483 dual carriageways funnelling traffic east west and south, and onto the M53, and the national motorway system beyond.

The modern landscaped site was not far short of 200 acres and was a pleasant place to work, boasting green spaces and lakes and woodland, and it was no surprise that plenty of British, American and European Finance houses and banks had been tempted to set up shop there.

In the short car ride south Karen said, ‘So it looks like Janice misheard Ellie say Mirror when she actually said Miro, you reckon?’

‘Looks that way, let’s hope so anyway, and it would be an easy mistake to make,’ and in less than ten minutes they were pulling off the main road and entering the impressive looking park.

The ASNB building was much larger than expected, and resembled something of a modern glass fronted sports stadium, but oddly fronted with white Romanesque columns flanking the entrance.

‘Banking must pay awfully well,’ said Karen, bringing the car to a halt in the large car park, as she glanced up at the vast glass facade.

‘We all know that,’ said Walter, thinking of the whacking monthly interest addition on his credit card statement, ‘and yet, it’s constantly a mystery to me as to how they manage to lose so much money, every now and again.’

‘Incompetence, do you think?’ said Karen, unable to keep a smile from her fair face, at the thought of it.

‘Probably. Maybe the Mirror man will be able to throw some light on that,’ said Walter.

‘How are we going to play this, Guv? Interview him here, or back at the station.’

‘What would you do?’

‘Here to start with, and if we don’t like what we are hearing, back at our place.’

‘Got it in one! And don’t mention that Ellie’s dead,’ Walter said, getting out of the car, and doing up his coat and limping away. 

––––––––

INSIDE, THE MODERN hi-tech look was everywhere. Ahead of them was a shiny black reception desk with the obligatory bright young thing on parade, eager and willing and waiting to field their enquiries. Walter and Karen hustled over to the desk and Karen flashed ID and completed the introductions.

‘Please show us through to see Mr Rekatic right away,’ said Walter, staring round at the huge pieces of blue, yellow and white modern art adorning the walls.

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, we don’t, and we don’t need one,’ said Karen.

‘It’s a little unusual.’

‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘It is. Mr Rekatic please... now, chop chop.’

The young woman pulled a face and stared at Walter and realised he wasn’t a man to mess with, and pointed to her right at a modern half-glazed door and said, ‘Through there, fourth on the right.’

‘A thousand thank you’s,’ said Walter, turning away and limping toward the door that took them through to a wide and long corridor. They could both hear a modern phone burbling away somewhere up ahead, and both imagined it was the young woman alerting her boss the law was on the way.

The fourth door on the right was wide open, and inside, a smart man was talking on a phone. He was looking at the doorway as if expecting visitors, and sure enough there they were, walking straight in, Karen’s ID on full display.

‘Mr Rekatic?’ she said. ‘Mr Miroslav Rekatic.’

The dark-haired man nodded and said, ‘That’s me, and you are?’

Karen completed the intros, and Rekatic set the phone down without comment, and came out from behind his desk and closed the office door.

‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you? I can give you ten minutes. Lots on the go today, you know how it is.’

Walter sat in one of the grey and black comfortable visitors’ chairs, probably cost a fair fortune, as Karen sat down beside him.

‘It’ll take more than ten minutes,’ said Walter. ‘Much more.’

‘Maybe you should have made an appointment.’

Maybe you shouldn’t be consorting with young for-sale girls, and I’ll bet you’re a happily married man too, thought Karen, though she kept those colourful thoughts to herself.

‘It can be here and now for as long as it takes, or at the station right now, for as long as it takes, I’m not really that bothered,’ said Walter, looking across and into the back of the man’s dark eyes. What was he? Six foot, clean cut, dark hair and eyes, and a noticeable eastern European accent. What a surprise.

Rekatic sat back in his chair, sighed hard, and realised he was in no position to argue.

‘Okay. Let’s get to it,’ he said.

‘Your name is Miroslav Rekatic?’ asked Karen.

‘It is.’

‘And you’re sometimes known as Miro?’

‘Yes, to my friends and acquaintances.’

‘Are you also known as Mirror?’ asked Walter.

Rekatic pulled a face and shook his head. ‘Miro yes, Mirror, no, never. Why? What can I do for you?’

‘We want to talk to you about a young woman by the name of Ellie Wright,’ said Karen, as Walter never took his eyes from the guy.

‘Ellie? What about her?’ said Rekatic.

‘You do know Ellie?’ asked Karen.

‘Yes, I know Ellie. Why? What’s this all about?’

Walter leant forward and said softly, ‘What is your relationship with Ellie Wright?’

Rekatic grimaced and shifted in his chair.

‘She’s a nice kid. Great company.’

‘Good company?’ clarified Karen.

Rekatic nodded, didn’t say anything, though it was clear he was thinking of saying something else. The officers remained silent, awaiting further comment. Karen nodded, encouraging the man.

When he did speak, he said, ‘It’s a little difficult.’

‘Yes?’ said Walter. ‘Is it? What is?’ for he was in no mood to make it any easier for the guy.

‘If you know Ellie you probably know she’s something of a good-time girl.’

‘A good-time girl?’ said Karen, speaking slowly, each word coming out almost as single short sentence.

‘Do I have to spell it out?’

‘You do to me,’ said Karen.

‘You mean to say, she’s a prostitute?’ said Walter.

Rekatic nodded. ‘Something like that.’

‘We might as well use terms we all understand. The thing I find difficult,’ said Walter, ‘is why a successful businessman like yourself, with a beautiful wife and family,’ and he reached across and picked up the silver-plated photo frame that adorned the desk, and glanced at the picture of the attractive blonde woman, and two even more beautiful blonde haired girls, ‘why a man such as yourself should be consorting with street girls at all. Why is that exactly, Miro?’

Rekatic clicked his tongue and shook his head and said, ‘You know how it is, you’re a man of the world.’

It was Walter’s turn to shake his head.

‘No!’ he said decisively. ‘If I were married to a woman like that,’ nodding at the photograph he set back on the desk, ‘I wouldn’t look at a street girl in a million years.’

Rekatic went silent and sat back in his chair. He took a moment out, thinking hard. What the hell was this about? And why was he bothering to answer the English police officers’ questions? He’d humour them a little while longer.

‘It’s the old thing,’ he said, allowing a crooked smile to invade his fox-like Slavic face. ‘Sometimes when a man doesn’t get what he wants at home, he has to look elsewhere.’

His eyes switched from the overweight black man to the underweight English blonde, checking to see if he’d shocked her. He hadn‘t. Not such a surprise. In her line of work she must see all sorts.

‘You mean your wife doesn’t like sex,’ said Walter, mischievously. ‘I would never have guessed that from her photograph. That does surprise me.’

‘Of course my wife likes sex!’ he said in a hurry, ‘not that it is any business of yours,’ thinking he may have revealed more than he intended.

‘But not kinky sex?’ said a stone-faced Karen.

Rekatic grimaced and put out his hand, palm down over the desk, and twisted it as if to say, close, but not quite right.

‘Rough sex?’ said Walter, and Rekatic smiled a cold smile and pointed at Walter as if to say, there’s a man after my own heart, a man who knows what’s what.

‘How rough?’ asked Karen, not giving him a second to think.

‘Well, you know...’

‘No, we don’t know,’ said Walter. ‘Not at all. Answer the question.’

‘I’m not sure how one would grade these things.’

‘On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate your meetings with Ellie Wright?’

‘God! I don’t know.’

‘Well, I certainly don’t,’ said Karen.

‘On a scale from one to ten?’ repeated Walter, keen to not let the guy off the hook.

Rekatic sighed hard and muttered, ‘Maybe seven or eight.’

‘Seven or eight,’ said Walter thoughtfully, pondering on where that took them in the pantheon of rough antics.

‘Yeah, about that,’ Miro said, a hint of cockiness entering his voice.

Walter spoke again: ‘And would that include heat... and burning?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I think you know well enough, Miro. Clamps. Hot needles? Electric shocks. Cigarette burns, stubbed out on the skin? Sound familiar?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Ridiculous, is it?’ said Karen.

‘All we are trying to do is fill in the blanks,’ said Walter. ‘Get a clearer picture of what precisely you are talking about, of what exactly Ellie Wright was expected to accept, and endure, things that your good wife was unwilling to do, and I have to say, that so far, you haven’t shed tons of light.’

Rekatic had heard enough.

‘I don’t know where you are going with this, but I am not answering any more questions until you tell me what this is all about.’

‘What is your wife’s name?’ asked Karen.

That was an easier one.

‘Grizelda, everyone calls her Grizzy. She’s German. Why?’

‘And what nationality would you be?’ asked Walter.

‘Serb. Why? What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘It goes without saying that you have the necessary work permits?’ asked Walter.

‘Course I have! Is this what this is all about?’

‘No, not really,’ said Walter.

‘Do you want to get to the point?’

‘When did you last visit Ellie Wright at the foot of Marigold Lane?’

‘Eh?’

‘You heard the Inspector,’ said Karen.

It looked like Miro needed thinking time on that one, and he got it too, for his phone rang, the landline on the desk before him. Miro grabbed it and yelled, ‘What?’

‘Your next appointment is here for you now, Mr Rekatic.’

It was a good phone system. Crystal clear. Walter and Karen heard every word.

‘Cancel it!’

‘But I can’t, they have come all the way from Leeds!’

‘I said, cancel it!’ bawled Rekatic, as he set the phone down hard. ‘Sorry about that. Work issues. I did tell you I was busy today.’

‘So you did,’ said Walter. ‘Now where were we? Ah yes, you were about to tell us when you last visited Ellie, and what you got up to down by the river.’ 

Chapter Eighteen

In the travel agents in the city centre, Lena glanced at her watch. It was coming up lunchtime. She’d rung Bel three times that morning, still without success.

Her boss came back from the bank and glanced across at an obviously worried Lena, and said, ‘Any news?’

‘Not a thing. Still no answer. It isn’t like Belinda. You know that, don’t you?’

The boss man pulled a face and looked up at the wall clock. It was true it had never happened before. On the very rare occasions when Belinda Cooper had fallen ill, bad flu, badly sprained ankle, that kind of thing, she had always without exception kept them fully informed.

‘Do you want to go and see if she’s all right?’

Lena nodded, and said, ‘It would put my mind at rest.’

The boss nodded too, and said, ‘Fair enough, it’s almost your lunch hour, why don’t you take an early lunch and go and check it out?’

An incredibly generous offer, thought Lena, sarcastically, and she said, ‘I’ll do that, I’ll get back as soon as I can.’

The boss man nodded again and began opening new cardboard boxes full of fresh brochures to restock the shelves.

‘Keep me informed,’ he muttered, as Lena collected her things together and slipped on her beige raincoat, and headed for the door.

It took her no more than twenty minutes to arrive outside Bel’s nice little detached house. All looked quiet and in order from the front. Lena skipped up the short garden path and rang the bell. She heard it clearly enough, but no one came. She stooped and pushed open the old green metal letterbox, and looked inside. She couldn’t see much. There was another internal door maybe four feet away, that led to the hall.

‘Bel!’ she yelled. ‘It’s Lena. Are you okay?’

No sound. No reply. No nothing.

Lena took a step back and glanced up at the bedroom windows. The curtains were drawn. That was a little odd for the middle of the day. She headed round to the side of the house and the side gate. Over the small wall to next door a man came out and began fiddling about with the refuse wheelie bin.

He peeked over the wall and saw Lena there. He thought he’d seen her once or twice before, and he had.

Lena caught his eye and said, ‘Have you seen Bel at all? She’s not been at work, and she’s not answering her phone.’

The man scratched his chin as if thinking, and said, ‘Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her for a few days.’

‘Can I get round the back?’ said Lena, trying the side gate that opened easily enough.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ said the man.

Lena nodded and muttered, ‘Please do,’ and they made their way around the side of the house.

Several puddles of rainwater covered the small paved patio that lay outside the French windows, but it wasn’t the puddles that grabbed Lena’s and the neighbour’s immediate attention, but the broken pane of glass.

‘I don’t like the look of this,’ said Lena, pointing to shards of glass inside on the carpet.

‘You and me both.’

The neighbour tried the door. Locked fast.

‘Look!’ said Lena, ‘the key,’ and they both stared through the glass at the key, nestling in the centre of the carpet, more than half way across the room.

‘Bel!’ yelled Lena. ‘It’s Lena, from work, are you in there, are you okay?’

No reply, nothing at all, other than a wailing and working bin lorry somewhere in the distance, as it approached the road.

‘I could get my fishing rod,’ suggested the neighbour. ‘That’ll do the trick.’

‘Do that!’ said Lena, and the guy hurried back to his house to collect his angling gear. He was back within five minutes, but by the time he’d returned, Lena had changed her mind.

‘I don’t think we should go in,’ she said. ‘I don’t like this at all. I think we should call the police.’

‘I agree, it is more than a little odd. Have you got a phone?’

Lena nodded and pulled out her phone and carefully prodded in 999.

––––––––

WALTER GAWPED AT MIROSLAV Rekatic and rippled his eyebrows as a little reminder that he was awaiting a reply.

‘Sorry,’ said Rekatic. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said, when did you last visit Ellie?’

‘Err,’ Rekatic scratched his chin, trying hard to remember, or was that a charade he was putting on to gain thinking time. ‘Last week, sometime.’

‘When last week?’ shot back Karen.

‘Friday, yes, I think it was Friday.’

‘Come on, Miro, you can do better than that. You weren’t visiting her to drop off a letter, or say hello, or pass the time of day, or take a leisurely country walk together, none of those things were true. You were visiting her for a rough sex session, and in that moment it was the most important and exciting thing in your entire life, and therefore you would remember to the very second what time you got there. You’d probably been looking forward to it all day, all week maybe, and you would know, to the day, to the hour and minute.’

Miro grimaced and said, ‘It was Friday, about six o’clock.’

‘A little teatime excitement session, was it?’ asked Karen.

‘If you want to put it that way. We’re very busy with all the expansion plans at the moment. It’s a very stressful business, top-line banking, we all need some form of release and relaxation. Some people drink, others do drugs, I like female company, and there’s no law against it. Lots of bankers have mistresses.’

‘I’ll bet they do,’ said Walter. ‘How did you get down there? To Marigold Lane?’

‘Cab.’

‘And what time did you leave the caravan?’ asked Karen.

‘About eight.’

‘Cab again?’ said Walter.

Miro nodded and said, ‘Same firm, different driver, you can check,’ and that all matched with Michael Flanagan’s statements.

‘Tell me what happened at Ross-on-Wye?’ said Walter, ever eager to flummox interviewees with a sharp change in direction.

‘What?’

‘You heard the Inspector.’

‘You mean with Ellie?’

‘That’s who we are talking about,’ said Walter.

‘I took her away for the weekend once or twice. Sometimes we went to Ross. What’s your point?’

‘And presumably Grizzy wasn’t aware of that?’ asked Karen.

‘Course not,’ said Miro. ‘What do you think?’

‘Just filling in background,’ smirked Karen.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ said Miro, ‘but it’s not a crime in this country to have both a wife and a mistress, is it?’

‘No. Not a crime,’ said Karen, ‘just deceitful, despicable, disrespectful, and I’m sure your wife might even say, disgusting.’

‘But Ellie Wright wasn’t your mistress at all, was she?’ said Walter. ‘She was a paid whore, servicing any number of clients.’

Miro pulled a face as if to say, whatever, is there a difference? before he said, ‘It’s much easier this way, than to have an actual mistress. You can turn it on and off, as and when you please.’

Walter repeated the words aloud. ‘Turn it on and off, as and when you please,’ and that said a lot about the guy.

Didn’t he have any idea how cold, uncaring, and cowardly he sounded, thought Karen.

‘What went on in Ross?’ repeated Walter.

Miro pulled another surprised face and said, ‘Really Inspector, do you want chapter and verse? I didn’t film it, if that’s what you think.’

‘I heard you went “well equipped”,’ said Walter. ‘Care to elaborate on that?’

‘Did Ellie say that? Stupid girl? You know how it is, just a few little sex toys, to spice things up. Nothing outrageous.’

‘Sex toys?’ said Karen.

‘What kind of toys?’ asked Walter. ‘You mean clamps, electric shock inducers, lighters, candles, what exactly?’

‘Certainly not! You seem to have an obsession there, my friend.’

‘I’m not your friend,’ said Walter, ‘and I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.’

Miro took a deep breath, breathed out heavy, and acted like he was getting tired with the whole thing, and grinned and gurned and said, ‘She liked to be incapacitated.’

‘Incapacitated?’ said Karen.

‘Explain,’ said Walter.

‘It’s just a little piece of equipment I picked up in Hamburg.’

‘Go on,’ said Walter.

‘There’s not much to it, really, just a metal bar that goes behind her neck, her hands go over the top, black leather straps, she can’t really move, not at all, get the picture?’

‘Isn’t the truth of it, that you liked to incapacitate her, when she had no choice in the matter, and that you enjoyed inflicting pain on Ellie Wright,’ said Walter, ‘and she didn’t want to participate in that sordid business at all?’

‘Course she did! She’s a whore, remember; she does things for money, anything you want, and was paid bloody well for it. She told me I was one of her best clients. Even gave me a birthday card, for god’s sake. Said I was her banker, banker.’

Or wanker of a banker, thought Karen.

‘Do you still have the card?’ asked Walter.

‘Nope. Got rid of it, just in case...’

‘In case Grizzy found it,’ said Karen.

‘Yeah. Something like that.’

‘Have you tried this incapacitator on Grizzy?’ asked Karen, suspecting she knew the answer.

‘Course not, don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Ellie told her best friend she was frightened of you because you hurt her, care to comment on that?’ asked Walter.

‘What! Don’t be crazy. She enjoyed a bit of pain. It was all part of the whole business.’

‘Isn’t the truth of it that you enjoyed inflicting pain on Ellie Wright,’ said Karen. ‘That you got off on it, got a high out of it, because your wife wouldn’t entertain such a thing, and Ellie couldn’t do anything about it, because you had incapacitated her, totally, completely, and utterly.’

‘No! That’s not how it was at all. It was just a bit of harmless fun between friends. Look! If you don’t believe me, ask Ellie, she’ll set you straight. She’s not a fool.’

‘We can’t,’ said Walter, ‘she’s dead.’

––––––––

IN THE STATION, GIBBONS took Lena’s call. Recognised the worry and distress in the caller’s voice straight away, and promised someone would be there within twenty minutes. He ran across and told Mrs West about the report of a possible break in, and a possible missing person too. She told him to take Hector with him and go and check it out PDQ. She also instructed Gibbons to tell Jenny Thompson to ring Karen and keep Walter abreast of the situation.

––––––––

IN THE PALATIAL ASNB office Walter’s revelation that Eleanor Wright was deceased took the wind out of Miroslav Rekatic’s sails, or that was the impression he gave. Neither of the officers were convinced of his performance.

‘So,’ said Walter, ‘as it stands, you are the last person to see Ellie Wright alive.’

Miro breathed out heavy and shook his head.

‘How did she die?’

‘You tell us,’ said Karen.

‘How the hell would I know?’

‘Come on, Miro,’ said Walter. ‘It’s time to clean the slate. What exactly went on down at the foot of Marigold Lane last Friday?’

Before he could answer, Karen’s mobile rang. She glanced at the screen. Saw who it was.

‘Can you talk?’ asked Jenny.

‘Just a sec,’ and she glanced at Walter and muttered, ‘I have to take this.’

Walter nodded and Karen stepped outside.

Jenny said, ‘Ma’am told me to advise you and the Guv that we have a reported burglary in Chester where a missing thirty-six-year-old woman resides. Very concerned workmates and friends and neighbours, by all accounts. Could be something. I’ll let you know when I hear more.’

‘Okay, Jen. Keep us up to speed.’

While Karen was outside, Walter said, ‘Did you argue about something?’

‘No.’

‘So, what did you do?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know, I am waiting for you to tell me.’

‘I went to the caravan for sex.’

‘Rough sex?’

Miro shrugged and glanced at the bear-like black man, and thought he’d better elaborate.

‘I gave her a good spanking.’

‘Spanking?’

Karen came back in and exchanged eye contact with Walter and muttered, ‘Could be something, could be nothing.’

Walter turned back to Miro and said, ‘And was the incapacitator used?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I forgot to take it.’

Karen said, ‘Where does it reside, this item of torture of yours, when not in use. At your home?’

‘No, course not. There’s a cupboard here at work, I have the only key.’

‘I want to see it before we go,’ said Karen.

‘I want to seize it as evidence,’ said Walter.

‘What?’

‘You heard me. So, after the spanking session, what happened then?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know. You were the only one who was there who’s still alive. You tell us.’

‘We had... You know.’

‘Sex?’ said Karen.

‘Rough sex?’ said Walter.

‘Yeah, you could say that.’

‘How much did you pay for that?’ asked Karen.

‘Two hundred quid.’

‘Is that the going rate for incapacitation, and torture?’ asked Karen.

‘I guess. She seemed happy enough.’

‘What happened next?’

‘Not much. I got dressed. She got dressed too. I gave her a decent tip. Said I’d see her again next Friday.’

‘A regular appointment, is it?’ said Karen.

‘Not a fixed one, but pretty regular, yeah. I have a big libido.’

‘You tell a lot of lies as well,’ said Karen.

Miro shrugged as if they were little white lies, and no more.

‘What happened then?’ asked Walter.

‘I rang for a cab.’

‘On your mobile,’ said Walter.

Miro nodded.

‘Show me your phone.’

Miro took his phone from his trouser pocket and set it on the desk.

‘You rang the cab company on this phone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bag, Karen,’ and she produced a small clear evidence bag, and Walter dropped it in.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I am seizing this phone as potential evidence to a murder inquiry.’

‘You can’t do that!’

‘I’ve already done it,’ and the bag and phone disappeared into Walter’s cavernous coat pocket.

‘Was she really murdered?’

‘You tell us,’ said Karen.

‘She was alive and well and as happy as I had seen her in weeks when I left her.’

‘And you left her at what time?’

‘About eight, I told you, the cab company will confirm it.’

Karen asked, ‘Did she say if she had any further appointments that night?’

‘Not to me.’

‘Did she say anything about going out to get something to eat?’ asked Walter.

‘No. She had a little kitchen thing there, and a camping style gas stove. I got the impression she was going to cook something, though I could be wrong.’

‘She didn’t offer you anything to eat?’

‘No, course not. She wanted me out of there, and I wanted to get out of there too. I wanted to get home and see the wife and kids, before they went to bed.’

‘That’s noble of you,’ said Walter.

‘I’m not saying it was an ideal arrangement.’

‘Well, that’s a fact,’ said Karen.

‘So you left her around 8pm, and she was fit and well at that time?’

Miro nodded.

‘Pity you can’t prove that,’ said Karen.

‘And you can’t prove that wasn’t the case,’ said Miro, trying to be a little too clever.

‘We will,’ said Walter. ‘If we have to.’

‘Is that it?’

‘For now.’

‘When can I have my phone back?’

‘When we have finished with it,’ said Karen. ‘Maybe.’

‘Just one other thing,’ said Walter.

‘What?’

‘Did you, or do you, visit other good-time girls, as you call them?’

‘In Hamburg a few times, but not here.’

‘Never?’

‘Never!’

‘Incapacitator?’ said Karen. ‘Show us.’

Chapter Nineteen

DCs Darren Gibbons and Hector Browne arrived outside Belinda Cooper’s house in quick time. Gibbons assumed the senior role through length of service, though Hector was better qualified academically, having been fast-tracked from Uni.

Lena Freeman and a man, the neighbour, were standing on the pavement outside.

Hector flashed ID and did the introductions, as Lena said, ‘There’s no reply when we knock, she’s not answering her phone, and there’s a broken pane of glass in the French windows at the back.’

‘What’s the lady’s name?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Belinda Cooper.’

‘Show us the broken glass,’ said Hector, and they hustled round the side of the house to the back, and onto the grey patio.

There was no glass on the patio, but plenty of broken glass on the carpet inside.

‘The key’s there, look,’ said Lena, pointing across the room, and they all looked and nodded.

‘I brought my fishing rod,’ said the neighbour. ‘I could hook the key, no problem.’

‘Fish away,’ said Gibbons, ‘but try not to touch the doors or the glass.’

The neighbour bobbed his head and slipped his long rod through the door. It was lengthy enough to reach the key, and in the next second, he’d slipped the end of the rod through the key ring, and with a little juggling, it was raising up, easing back towards the doors.

‘Careful!’ said Hector, as the neighbour tilted the rod further upwards, and the key slid down toward the near end of the rod, and the hole in the door where the glass used to be, and Darren’s grasping hand, waiting to grab it.

‘Bingo!’ said Darren, key in hand, and into the keyhole it went, one quick anti-clockwise turn, and the door opened inwards.

Darren and Hector stepped inside.

Lena and the neighbour made to follow.

‘No,’ said Gibbons. ‘Rather you didn’t. We’ll go and check, and come back and tell you how we get on.’

Lena bit her lip and nodded, half disappointed, half relieved. The neighbour was downright frustrated for he ran the local neighbourhood watch website, and imagined he was onto the scoop of the decade.

Darren hustled into the kitchen. Took a quick look round, including in the pantry and in the big floor to ceiling cupboards, and yelled back, ‘Kitchen clear.’

Hector went into the other reception room and took a peek. There was nowhere there anyone could hide, alive or dead. ‘Lounge clear!’ he yelled, something they all heard, and in the next moment Darren was leading the way up the stairs, all the while calling out, ‘Belinda Cooper, it’s the police, is everything all right?’

Gibbons pointed Hector into the large rear bedroom. He pushed the door opened and went inside. A nice double bed all made up, no one in the bed, no one in the room. ‘Back bedroom clear,’ he shouted.

Gibbons went into the front bedroom, the main bedroom, the master bedroom; the one that had to be the favourite, if any room was going to shed light on the mystery.

The front bedroom was not clear.

There was a woman, collapsed in a heap, close to the foot of the bed, and on the bed was a vintage baseball bat. Gibbons rushed to the woman and felt for a pulse. He didn’t expect to find one, and he didn’t.

‘Bugger!’ he said. ‘She’s in here, Heck, we’re too late.’

Hector came running.

Took one look.

Grimaced and turned away.

Gibbons was already on the phone.

Jenny answered.

‘We’ve found a body, Jen. Foul play looks likely. Can you rustle up the team? Doc Grayling, SOCO, a couple of uniforms to keep the place secure, and you’d better tell Mrs West PDQ, and no doubt she’ll want the Guv to know.’

‘I’m on it,’ and she cut off.

Gibbons and Hector shared a look.

‘Murder weapon, you think?’ said Gibbons, nodding at the bat.

‘Could be,’ said Heck. ‘Who on earth keeps a baseball bat in the bedroom?’

‘A woman living on her own, maybe, unless the killer brought it with him.’

They both heard Lena shouting up the stairs. ‘Is everything okay up there?’

‘They’re in the house,’ said an alarmed Gibbons. ‘Get them outside. They’re contaminating a crime scene.’

‘What do I tell her?’ asked Hector.

‘Nothing, not yet, tell her Guv will be here soon, and he’ll decide on that.’

Hector nodded, knowing the woman would give him a hard time, but sometimes that was the job. He went downstairs and ushered the pair of them outside, doing his best to evade their probing questions. 

––––––––

IN THE OFFICES OF ASNB Miroslav Rekatic unlocked the cupboard located along the corridor outside his office.

‘That’s it?’ said Karen, nodding down at a neatly folded up black piece of kit, a piece of machinery in its folded state resembled some kind of fancy picnic chair.

Miro nodded.

Karen slipped on latex gloves and pulled it out.

‘Expensive, was it?’ asked Walter.

Miro shook his head. ‘No, not really.’

Walter nodded knowingly.

They were looking for blood, though none readily showed itself, but it could have been carefully cleaned, though blood spatters are almost impossible to eradicate completely. If there was blood anywhere on the incapacitator, it would be found.

Walter and Karen knew huge advances had been made in forensic science in recent years, and if they didn’t fully understand the technology, they knew enough to know that it worked, and incredibly well. Walter thought about it.

It’s called luminol chemiluminescence reaction, and is responsible for the glow of lightsticks, the reaction found to detect traces of blood. The luminol solution is sprayed where blood is suspected of being. The iron from the haemoglobin in the blood serves as a catalyst for the chemiluminescence reaction, and that causes luminol to glow blue when the solution is sprayed where there is blood.

It only needs a tiny amount of iron to catalyse the reaction; Walter knew that, he’d read up on the subject, so fascinating was it.

‘Evidence,’ said Walter.

‘Be my guest,’ said Miro, apparently happy to see the specialist equipment away and out of the premises.

Karen’s phone rang.

She looked at it and nodded and walked away and listened to Jenny, as Jen relayed the news.

‘Have you any plans to leave the country?’ asked Walter.

‘Not in the next three months.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘Good. Come to that, I’d rather you didn’t leave the city, or if you plan to, you tell us first.’

‘I can do that; I’m keen to help in any way I can. I liked Ellie Wright, and I didn’t kill her.’

‘We’ll need to talk again.’

‘You know where I am.’

‘Indeed, we do.’

––––––––

KAREN CAME BACK AND said, ‘We need to go, Guv.’

She picked up Miro’s machinery and stared at him hard.

Miroslav licked his lips, but didn’t say a word; happy they were on their way. A minute later they were outside, heading back to the car.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Body, Guv, suspicious circumstances, a woman, believed to be thirty-six.’

‘Where?’

Karen relayed the address, as they arrived back at the car, and placed the seized equipment in the boot. They didn’t have an evidence bag big enough. Every car couldn’t carry every piece of necessary equipment, every time. It wasn’t possible.

‘Who’s there now?’ asked Walter, settling into the front seat.

‘Gibbo and Heck.’

‘Just thinking back to Miro for a moment, what did you make of him?’

‘A creep!’

‘And a murderer?’

‘Could be. He certainly had a temper on him. Did you see the way he spoke to the switchboard operator?’

‘Couldn’t miss it. Can’t we go any quicker?’

Karen grinned and opened the window, took out the blue light and stuck it on top of the car, activated it, closed the window, and rattled around the Chester inner ring road as if there was a murderer in town, cars scattering every which way before them.

Chapter Twenty

It was a hectic scene outside Belinda Cooper’s neat house. Doc Grayling’s Jaguar was there; he’d arrived quick, thought Walter. Behind that, a grey unmarked van, the trademark sign of the SOCO people, who’d just arrived.

They were busy taking equipment out of the vehicle and lugging it round the side of the house.

In front of the van, half on the pavement and half on the road, was another unmarked car that Karen recognised, almost certainly the transport that brought Gibbons and Browne to the scene, while beyond that was a marked police car. One officer inside, busy on the radio, the other on the pavement talking to a man and a woman, and getting a hard time of it, by the look of things.

Walter opened the car door and heaved himself out. The woman spotted him and rushed over.

‘Are you in charge here?’

‘I am.’

‘Can you please tell me what is going on? I’m Lena Freeman, I’m Belinda’s best friend and workmate.’

‘I’ve just arrived, I know as much as you do,’ he said, trying to get past her.

‘She’s all right, isn’t she? Please tell me she’s all right.’

‘We’ll let you know as soon as we have something to say,’ said Walter, squeezing past her, as the uniformed officer tried to restrain her, as Walter headed toward the side of the house, Karen hustling behind. He heard the neighbour muttering, ‘It’s always the same; they never say anything at all in cases like this.’

‘Cases like what?’ said Lena, though any reply was lost in the melee.

Walter and Karen glanced at the busted glass in the French doors, and the shards of glass on the carpet. They stepped gingerly around the debris and headed for the stairs. Hector Browne was at the top.

‘Up here, Guv, Doc Grayling’s here,’ and he pointed toward the front bedroom door.

Inside, Doc Grayling was kneeling down over the body. Gibbons was standing with his back to the window, taking everything in, for no matter how many dead people, and how many cases he had witnessed, there was always something new to be learnt, or some useful tip that the senior bods might impart. Give him his due; he soaked up expertise like blotting paper capturing ink. Never missed an opportunity.

Doc Grayling heard the coming of big black sized 10s and glanced back over his shoulder, expecting to see Walter Darriteau, and he was not disappointed.

‘You got here quick,’ snorted Walter.

‘Pure luck! I had an appointment two streets away.’

‘What have we got?’

‘Young woman dead, broken neck, and I’d bet my pension on that being the murder weapon,’ nodding at the vintage varnished baseball bat that lay on the bed, now ensconced inside a clear evidence bag.

‘That’s exactly where we found it, Guv,’ cheeped Gibbons.

‘Who found her?’ said Walter.

‘I did.’

‘TOD?’ said Walter, switching back to Grayling.

‘Give me a break, Walter, I have been here precisely five minutes.’

‘A ballpark figure, man, a rough guess? Your best estimate, give me something.’

Doc Grayling sighed loudly and said, ‘She’s been dead twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours, rigor mortis well set in, as you can see, always starts from the head downwards, as you know, stiffening the body to this effect, allowing you guys to refer to dead people as “stiffs”.’

‘Do we ever refer to dead people as “stiffs”, Sergeant Greenwood?’

‘No, never, Guv.’

‘You know what I mean, plenty of your people do.’

‘In films and TV programmes, maybe, but this isn’t a film or a TV programme, or a gruesome story, or a blockbusting novel, but someone who has sadly met a premature end. The body will receive every respect.’

‘All right, Walter. Keep your hair on.’

‘Anything else you can tell me?’

‘Not yet. You’ll get the full report just as soon as...’

‘You can manage,’ Walter mumbled, finishing the sentence.

‘That’s correct, Darriteau.’

Walter nodded and glanced at Gibbons, and then at the mobile phone on the bedside table.

‘Bag that up, Hector!’

Hector appeared in the open doorway.

‘Go and find any computer equipment, tablets, mobile phones, answering machines, diaries, notebooks, and anything else that could contain emails and messages and letters and other vital information. Bag them all and get them to the station.’

‘You got it, Guv.’

‘Karen, I want to know everything about the deceased. Marital status, sexual preferences, partners, blood relations, financial status, friends, workplace colleagues, last visitors, et cetera, and especially I want to know if she has any history of prostitution. Get Jenny on that to help you.’

Karen nodded and jumped on her mobile.

‘You think she might have been on the game, Guv?’ said Gibbons.

‘I have no idea, but we are going to find out.’

‘Doesn’t look like a house of iniquity to me,’ suggested Doc Grayling.

‘I’ll bow to your superior knowledge on that,’ said Walter.

‘What about the empty wine bottle?’ said Gibbons.

‘That’ll need bagging too, and the glass, you know the drill.’

‘Give us a few minutes,’ said the young SOCO guy who Walter recognised, and there was a pause, and photographing and filming and recording of everything in that bedroom, and eventually in the entire house, got under way in earnest.

Walter clapped his heavy hands together and yelled to anyone listening, ‘And I want more officers here now, pronto, pronto, door-to-door, looking for sightings of visitors and callers, pedestrians and cars, and anything at all that could be described as unusual. Get Nicky Barr on that, and don’t forget, nothing is to be uttered outside this house about this case without my say so, and if anyone tips off the press they will have me to reckon with.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Gibbons, enjoying every moment of his day. ‘Keeping it zipped!’

Strange phrase, thought Walter. Almost American. Keeping it zipped, Gibbons had been watching too much American cop TV.

‘And another thing, Hector, check out the immediate neighbours. Are they known to us, are we looking at a neighbour from hell scenario?’

‘On it, Guv,’ said Hector, and the team went to work, looking for evidence they hoped would lead them to a killer.

––––––––

THAT AFTERNOON THE main briefing got under way at half-past four. Everyone knew they would be in for a late night, but that came with the job, went without saying; don’t sign up if you don’t want the hassle. Don’t sign up if you can’t cope. It would be the first time for Nicky Barr.

It was generally accepted that Karen was the most able presenter, and she kicked things off with a recent colour photo of Belinda Cooper, staring down at them from the Hytec display system, an almost 3D image that looked as though it could speak. If only it would. If only it could. Who was the murderer, Bel? thought Walter. Did you know him, or her? Anything you can give us could be mighty helpful.

‘She was thirty-six, generally well liked, worked in a travel agency in the city centre, she wasn’t gay, and so far as we can tell, she did not have a partner at this time.’

‘Maybe on the lookout for one,’ suggested Nicky.

‘Maybe an Internet dater,’ suggested Gibbons.

Walter considered that thought. Seemed a fair possibility, and he tried to remember if he had ever accessed her dating info. He couldn’t remember doing so, for if he had he might have been interested, though she might not have been interested in him, seeing as he was more than twenty years older than her. A decent line of enquiry though, for everyone knows there are a lot of weirdo’s skulking around amongst those characters online.

‘Jenny, check the main dating sites,’ said Walter. ‘See if you can find her details on there, and if she is, find out who’s been in touch.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

Nicky said, ‘Won’t all that info be on her phone and computer?’

‘It will,’ said Walter. ‘But we haven’t yet cracked her passwords.’

Karen took up the thread.

‘Lena Freeman is her best friend at work and a veritable mine of information. She says Bel enjoyed five relationships, talked about it quite a bit, even joked about her five just men. She said Belinda only ever went for tall men, wouldn’t entertain what she called “pipsqueaks”, a word she used quite often, apparently. One of the five is a guy called Gareth Williams, a solicitor, who works just across the road from the travel agents for a firm called Jones, Rees & Wilbert. Here’s his pic from their website,’ and they all looked up at the smart looking guy, at his extravagant dark bouffant swept back hairdo, and dark eyes.

‘How tall is he?’ asked Jenny.

‘Not yet known.’

‘The second guy she was seeing goes by the name of Iain, note the slightly unusual spelling, with two i’s. We want to know who he is and where he is, but the other three are as yet unidentified.’

‘Be nice if we could link Belinda with Flanagan,’ suggested Hector.

‘Or Miro,’ said Walter.

‘Or Crocker or Nesbitt, come to that,’ said Gibbons.

‘Yes, all right,’ said Walter.

‘Do you think this case and the Ellie Wright case are linked?’ asked Nicky.

‘Nothing as yet to say they are,’ said Walter. ‘But two suspicious deaths in less than a week sets alarm bells ringing in my head.’

‘Let’s not complicate matters by splurging all the available intel together at this point,’ said Mrs West. ‘Treat them as separate inquiries until we know different.’

‘What info are we getting from her personal effects?’ asked Gibbons.

‘It’s early days yet,’ said Karen, ‘but there’s sure to be lots of that once we get into her devices.’

‘I hear what you are saying about not mixing the two enquiries, ma’am,’ said Walter, ‘but we could immediately rule out Crocker, Nesbitt, Flanagan and Miroslav, if they have cast iron alibis for the Bel Cooper murder.’

Mrs West scratched her dainty chin and cooed, ‘True, but it’s a wide time frame. We are not sure yet when she met her end.’

‘Should have that back soon, ma’am.’

Walter’s mobile rang. Everyone paused and checked him out, as he glanced at the phone screen and took the call. ‘Thank you,’ he said twice, and then, ‘thank you for that.’ He looked at everyone, and said, ‘There are tiny traces of blood on the incapacitator.’

‘On what?’ said Gibbons.

‘It’s a piece of bondage gear we seized from Miroslav,’ said Karen.

‘Now all we need is some DNA from Ellie to check if it’s hers. Get on to the mother. See if she has a hairbrush or something.’

‘Be strange if it was Bel’s blood,’ suggested Jenny.

‘Unlikely, but possible,’ said Walter. ‘We can check for a match on that PDQ.’

‘Again,’ said Mrs West, ‘don’t get sidetracked by merging inquiries prematurely. We all know of cases where doing that has brought us nothing but untold grief. There’s as yet nothing to say they are linked.’

That’s why we are crosschecking, thought Walter, to see if there is a link.

Mrs West again. ‘Walter, go and see the solicitor guy. See what he can tell us. He might know who his love rivals were, if nothing else.’

‘Will do, ma’am.’

‘Did Belinda Cooper have any known enemies?’ asked Jenny.

‘None as yet identified. She was a popular person, liked by all, so say the early opinions of everyone we have spoken to,’ said Karen.

‘What about the spouses and former partners of the five just men? There might be a bitter and twisted individual in there somewhere,’ suggested Hector.

‘Possible,’ said Walter. ‘Check it out, Heck, as and when we know who they are.’

‘Anything on the SOCO report yet?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Not yet,’ said Karen. ‘Due anytime.’

‘That should be useful,’ said Mrs West.

Walter’s phone burped again. He glanced at a new message. It was dumping in from Doc Grayling.

––––––––

BASEBALL BAT DEFINITELY the murder weapon.

TOD now thought to be between midnight and 2am yesterday morning. Full report to follow.

––––––––

WALTER RELAYED THE news and said, ‘Obviously any and all suspects must account for their whereabouts at that time.’

‘We should ask them all,’ said Mrs West. ‘Rekatic, Flanagan, Nesbitt, Crocker, and this Williams guy.’

‘Flanagan’s tag curfew has not been breached, ma’am,’ said Jenny.

‘That’s him in the clear.’

‘If the tag info is reliable,’ muttered Hector.

‘Don’t start that again!’

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

Walter put his phone away and said, ‘Karen and I will speak to Williams and Rekatic. I want Gibbons and Hector to speak to Flanagan, Crocker and Nesbitt. All first thing tomorrow.’

‘The sooner we get into Belinda’s technology the better,’ said an increasingly grumpy Mrs West.

‘Tech boys say we should be in there before seven tonight,’ said Karen. 

‘If there is nothing more on the Bel Cooper case,’ said Walter, ‘can we talk about Ellie Wright for a moment?’

Mrs West pulled a face and nodded and muttered, ‘Go for it.’

‘How did you get on Nick, checking out the pub clientele?’

‘I was just going to tell you about that,’ he said, grinning and revelling in his moment in the spotlight.

‘Well? Spit it out,’ said Walter, eager to get his teeth into any morsels of fresh intel.

‘As it happens, they did come up with one name.’

‘What?’ said Karen. ‘For one of Ellie’s known customers?’

‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘So they say.’

‘And are you going to share that with us?’ said Walter.

Nicky Barr glanced down at his notes to make sure he had it right.

‘The name they have given me was Ronny, presumably Ronald, Speight.’

‘Is he known to us?’ asked Mrs West.

‘Can’t find anything.’

‘Did you get a description?’ asked Walter.

‘I did. Six feet plus, maybe as much as six feet five inches tall, lucky man, slimmish build, dark neatly parted hair.’

‘There are a lot of tall people in the world all of a sudden,’ said Gibbons, saying what others were thinking.

‘Yes,’ said Walter, ‘and Lena said that Bel only liked tall men. Be nice if this Ronny Speight character was one of the five just men,’ and he turned to Karen and told her to ring Lena and ask her if the name Ronny Speight meant anything to her.

They all heard her ask the question and soon gathered there was a positive answer bouncing back.

‘I’ve been racking my brains trying to remember his name,’ said Lena. ‘How did you know?’

‘Just a name that has come up in our enquiries. Do you know where he lives?’

‘Not exactly, but I’m pretty sure South Wirral somewhere, Burton, Mollington, Willaston, one of them places.’

‘Thanks for that,’ said Karen.

‘Glad to be of help. Is it true what they are saying?’

‘What are they saying?’

‘That Bel’s dead, that she has been murdered.’

‘Just a sec,’ and Karen glanced at Mrs West and Walter in turn, and said, ‘She’s asking if Belinda Cooper is dead?’

‘We can’t go on saying nothing forever,’ said Mrs West. ‘It will be all over the media any time soon.’

‘Tell her the truth,’ said Walter. ‘That we have found a body, but it has yet to be formally identified.’

Karen nodded, looked suitably grim, and relayed the info to Lena Freeman. She gasped for breath, started crying, and rang off.

‘So,’ said Walter, turning over the fresh news in his mind. ‘There can’t be that many Ronny Speights living in South Wirral. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to come up with his address.’

Jennifer Thompson did it in eight, courtesy of the voter’s roll, or at least there was definitely a Ronald Colin Speight living in Sandstone Cottages, Burton, South Wirral, and it seemed more than likely he was the first man who positively linked both cases together.

‘We’ll go and see him in a minute,’ said Walter. ‘In the meantime, crack on with everything else we have discussed.’ 

Chapter Twenty-One

Sandstone Cottages lived up to their name, constructed from the local red sandstone. A pair of semi-detached houses with grey stone lined windows, and small neat gardens to the front.

Karen opened the green timber front gate, and Walter ambled through it and up to the matching green timber front door.

He reached out and grabbed the brass doorknocker and banged twice. In the next second, a bolt was drawn across the door from the inside, and the door opened with a slight squeak. He was a big man, was Ronald Colin Speight, and the door wasn’t particularly high, so he had to stoop a little to see who was bothering him.

‘Ronald Speight?’ said Karen.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Police,’ said Walter, flashing ID. ‘Can we come in?’

‘Can I stop you?’

‘You could do, though we’d think that awfully uncooperative.’

Speight grimaced, clicked his tongue, and nodded them in. They went through to the back of the house where there was a large square kitchen, maybe seventeen or eighteen feet square. In the centre was a rectangular dining table on which sat an opened copy of that night’s Liverpool Echo, the crossword half done, an ashtray with a recent cigarette butt, and a half full mug of stewed tea.

Speight sat in front of the tea as Walter sat opposite. Karen remained standing, looking around at pictures and photos on the walls, and at anything else that caught her eye.

‘So,’ Speight said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You know Belinda Cooper?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Just answer the question,’ said Karen, smiling down at the neat cut man.

‘Yes, Bel and I had an on-off thing that ran for almost four years. She couldn’t get her head round the fact that I was married.’

‘Was?’ queried Walter.

‘Yeah. Was. Though, yes, we are still legally married, and we still share a house, but we have not been married in the true sense of the word for at least five years.’

‘What’s your wife’s name?’ asked Karen.

‘Debra, though I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything.’

‘Where’s Debra now?’ asked Walter.

‘I’d like to say I haven’t a clue, but she did tell me she was going to Spain with a couple of mates. As I say, we share a house these days and bugger all else, so I don’t know where she is, and I don’t care either.’

‘When did you last see Belinda?’ asked Walter.

‘About a month ago, maybe more.’

‘Not in the last few days?’ asked Karen.

‘No, just said so, didn’t I? Why, what’s this all about?’

‘Belinda Cooper has been found murdered,’ said Walter.

Speight’s mouth fell open, though no words popped out.

‘Where were you between midnight and 2am the night before last?’

‘Here.’

‘Alone?’ said Walter.

Speight nodded and didn’t speak.

‘Had you been out at all that night?’ asked Karen.

‘Yeah, I’d been to the Red Lion.’

‘What time did you leave there?’ asked Walter.

‘About half-past eleven.’

‘And it would take you, what, half an hour to get home?’

‘About that, certainly no more.’

‘And you didn’t go out again that night?’ asked Karen.

‘No, I did not.’

‘Did you ever stay at Bel’s house?’ asked Walter.

‘Course I did, many times. We were an item for a while, leastways I liked to think so.’

‘Did you ever see a baseball bat in the house?’

‘That old varnished bat? Yeah, I did. It was her father’s. She kept it behind the bedroom door to deter burglars. That was the theory. Why? Was it used to kill her?’

‘No,’ said Karen, eager to bury the thought.

Walter said, ‘Did she tell you about her other menfriends?’

‘Not directly, no names, oh she mentioned one of them was a solicitor, and I think another one’s name was Ian, but she was always reticent to discuss other men. I think she thought it might have upset me, but it didn’t. Oh, she liked to say she’d only ever been with five, but I took that with a pinch of salt.’

‘You didn’t believe her?’

‘Course not! What do you think? In my experience you can always add a nought, and then you’re not far away.’

‘I believe her,’ said Karen.

‘You would.’

‘I believed her too,’ said Walter.

‘Well, it takes all sorts. I didn’t, not that it bugged me.’

‘Tell me about your relationship with Ellie Wright?’ said Walter.

‘Ellie? What’s she got to do with anything?’

‘Just answer the question,’ said Karen.

‘Look! Who’s been talking?’

‘Mr Speight,’ said Walter, ‘You are going to have to answer our questions, because if you don’t you will leave us no alternative but to take you in for questioning, and if we do that, you could be there for quite some time. Do I make myself clear?’

Speight thought about that for a second, and nodded.

‘Ellie Wright?’ repeated Walter.

‘I am still in shock thinking about Bel. How did she die?’

‘I am not at liberty to discuss that. Please answer the question about Ellie?’

‘And the question was again?’

Walter sighed loudly.

‘You heard!’ said Karen. ‘What was your relationship with Eleanor Wright?’

‘What do you think?’

‘We want your version,’ said Walter.

Speight grimaced and looked to one side and back and said, ‘She was a good-time girl.’

‘A good-time girl?’ said Walter, getting fed up with hearing that expression.

‘Yeah, you know, on the game.’

‘You paid her for sex?’ asked Karen.

Speight nodded.

‘Where?’ asked Walter.

‘Where what?’

‘Where did this take place? Here?’

‘No, course not. At her little caravan, it’s at the foot of Marigold Lane, as I think you know.’

‘What kind of sex?’ asked Walter.

‘Not sure as I follow.’

‘I think you do. Answer the question.’

‘Normal... Man... Woman... Bonk away, what else is there?’

‘There was no torture involved?’ asked Karen, studying Speight’s face, looking for anything that might be there.

‘Course not. What do you take me for?’

‘When did you last see her?’ asked Walter.

‘Last Friday.’

‘What time?’ asked Karen.

‘About two o’clock in the afternoon. I had a free afternoon, thought why not; it’s as good a way to spend a blustery day as any. And then...’

‘Then what?’ said Karen and Walter together.

Speight scowled and shook his head, and said, ‘And then the dopey bint set fire to herself.’

Walter repeated the words, ‘Set fire to herself.’

‘Yeah, isn’t that what happened? Later that night. Talk of the pubs; it was, in the days that followed. Oh, I don’t think she did it on purpose, probably got pissed and knocked a heater over, summat like that.’

‘You don’t think it’s possible that someone set fire to her?’ said Karen. ‘Was that not the talk of the pubs as well?’

‘Course not! Why would anyone do that? She was a good-time girl. She gave the fellas a good time. What’s not to like? Who’d want to kill her?’

‘You tell us?’ said Karen.

‘Hey, now look here, it’s nothing to do with me.’

‘It’s everything to do with you!’ said Walter. ‘You were there on the day she died, and hey ho, you were also regularly present in Belinda Cooper’s house, and guess what? Both of those women met violent deaths in the past week, and you are the only person on God’s earth we know of who knew both of them, and intimately at that. It doesn’t look good for you, does it, Ronny?’

‘There must be others.’

Walter again, ‘Where were you last Friday night between 11pm and 2am?’

‘In the pub, on the way home, in bed, alone.’

‘Two deaths and he hasn’t an alibi for either, Guv,’ said Karen, smirking, piling on the pressure.

‘Not looking good for you, is it?’ repeated Walter.

‘Only one thing wrong with your argument, but it’s quite an important thing. I wasn’t there when either of them died, and had nothing to do with either death.’

‘So you say,’ said Karen.

‘Yes, I do, and you can’t prove any different.’

‘And you can’t prove you weren’t there either,’ said Karen.

‘And the funny thing is, I don’t have to.’

‘Are you involved in drugs?’ asked Walter.

‘Yeah, sure, paracetamol, every time I get a feckin’ hangover.’

‘So you didn’t supply Ellie Wright with cocaine?’ asked Karen.

‘Course not!’

‘But you know who did?’ said Walter.

‘No! Well, not exactly, but...’

‘But what?’ said Karen.

‘There’s a bloke in the pub. Everyone knows if you want anything like that, he can supply. I saw him sitting with Ellie once or twice.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What does he look like?’ said Karen.

‘Ordinary looking, quite tall, modern short haircut, dark hair, I think.’

‘A bit like you?’

Speight grinned. ‘Yeah. A bit like me, young woman, ’cept it wasn’t me. Anything else you want to know? I want to get changed, I’m going out, socialising.’

‘How did you get down to the caravan?’ asked Walter.

‘Got the old 4X4, and by hell, I needed it, that road is dreadful, feckin’ disgrace it is, ruined the suspension, shouldn’t wonder.’

‘So your tyre tracks will be down there?’ said Karen.

‘Most likely.’

‘What size shoes do you take?’

‘Eh? 10s. Why?’

‘Just checking,’ said Karen.

‘You’re not planning on leaving town, are you? No nice holidays in Spain, or somewhere like that?’ said Walter.

‘Not a chance.’

‘Good,’ said Walter. ‘Because if you left the area without advising us first, I’d take a dim view of that.’

‘I have no reason to run away.’

‘Let’s hope so, for your sake,’ said Walter. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

––––––––

FIVE MINUTES LATER, they were outside in the car. It was already full dark and getting colder. There was an old 4X4 parked in the lay-by opposite, dark green by the look of it.

‘His?’ you think, said Karen.

‘Probably, check the number.’

Karen switched on ANPR and fed in the number, and back came the answers. Owned by Ronald Speight, taxed by Ronald Speight, insured by Ronald Speight. All legit, and no penalty points on his licence either.

‘Quite the model citizen,’ said Karen.

‘Yeah, looks that way. The thing is, I don’t think he’s the murderer.’

‘Neither do I, Guv, but he is a sleaze-ball of the first order.’

‘Can’t lock him up for that.’

‘More’s the pity. Could the drug dealer be the killer?’

‘Maybe, but who is he?’

‘Good question. Someone in the pubs should finger him. Did Belinda Cooper do drugs?’ said Karen.

‘Nothing to suspect it, we’ll have the toxicology report in the morning, that’ll confirm it.’

‘Someone here is a murderer, someone we’re close to, but which one?’

‘Buggered if I know. Come on, Greenwood, I’m getting hungry and I’m getting tired, and you must be too, and no one sees things well through tired eyes, and a tired brain. Let’s get back and wind it up for the day, and get home.’

‘Sounds like a plan, Guv. Sounds like a plan.’ 

Chapter Twenty-Two

Karen arrived home at half-past eight. She’d only been in the flat ten minutes when her mobile rang. It was David, and she wondered what he was going to say. Only one way to find out, take the call.

‘You’re in, are you?’ he said.

‘I’ve just come in. What can I do for you?’

‘Maybe it’s what I can do for you. Fancy going out for something to eat?’

‘Oh I can’t, Dave, I’m bushed, and very tense too, we’re so busy at work.’

‘It’s David, actually.’

‘Sorry! DAVID,’ she said, pronouncing the word pointedly, smiling at his mild rebuke.

‘You have to eat.’

‘I’ll grab something from the freezer, maybe a tuna steak.’

‘I know a perfect cure for tenseness.’

‘I’ll bet you do.’

‘No, not that... Leastways, not yet. No, I was thinking of my neck massage, it’s well renowned, I’m famous for it.’

‘Bet you are,’ she said, but on thinking about it, it was true she did have an aching neck, and right there a soothing neck massage sounded like pure heaven, and with that thought in the forefront of her mind she said, ‘Okay, but neck massage and nothing more, and you are not staying over, do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, Miss Greenwood. Perfectly!’

‘Don’t be a prune. Come over in an hour.’

‘I’ll be there.’

––––––––

WALTER DID SOMETHING he rarely did on the way home. He stopped off at the local fish and chip shop and bought a jumbo sized battered cod, together with a large portion of chips, and a tub of steaming mushy peas. Yes, they were dreadfully bad for you, but by hell, they were delicious. The steaming aroma seeping through the damp paper wrapper.

As soon as he was home, he tipped them onto a large dinner plate, added tomato sauce, vinegar and extra salt, that should annoy the salt police, and sat in his favourite chair before the TV and ate the lot, as he followed and giggled his way through the latest cops and robbers caper from the States.

He’d eaten the dinner too quickly, and that brought on indigestion and heartburn, and that meant a trip to the kitchen, and a dose of pink indigestion medicine. Ghastly stuff. Whilst there, he opened the fridge and grabbed a can of black stout and a glass, and returned towards the lounge. On the way, he spotted the landline phone in the hallway. Should he ring Carlene again? He’d sure liked to have talked with her, but she’d been so offhand with him last time, leastways he thought so, and by his reckoning, it was her turn to call him. In any event, he’d not ring.

The TV show was so bad it wasn’t true, and he snapped it off and grabbed his new tablet, and found his way back to that Internet dating site, purely as research, he reassured himself, looking to see if he could find any entries for Belinda Cooper. It went without saying that if she had used the site she had probably used a false name, as so many users appeared to do, as he’d discovered through personal experience. Probably disguised her address and locality, too. That went without saying, and a sensible thing for any woman to do. But the number of fresh photos he had seen of her in the office gave him a head start on anyone else looking. Surely she must be there somewhere. What middle-aged woman living alone in the twenty-first century wouldn’t be?

But if she was there, she had buried herself well, for he could not find her. There were huge numbers of interesting women on display, and many of them local too, and some of them more than passable, and some of those, voluptuous, just as he liked. There was nothing wrong in looking, was there? And he had to admit; it was more interesting and entertaining than the TV.

Little wonder there were more than half a million people online, accessing that site, so the stats boasted at the top of the screen, the figure forever updating, and invariably increasing. The twenty-first century, eh? He said aloud. What would his old aunt Mimosa have made of that?

––––––––

DAVID BAKER ARRIVED at Karen’s flat clutching a bottle of Australian chardonnay. He smiled his cute smile, a grin she couldn’t ignore, as they kissed in the hallway.

‘You’re not staying,’ she whispered.

‘I know... so you said.’

‘Just as long as that is understood. Do you want a drink?’

‘Maybe a little one, I’m driving, and I don’t want to fall foul of the local law.’

‘Quite right, too,’ she said, taking the bottle to the fridge. She dropped it inside and took out a half drunk cold one, and poured him a drink.

‘Ta,’ he said, taking it from her, as she sat on the sofa. She smelt nice, but she always did. Expensive perfume, that was clear, and even though she was dressed in ordinary grey slacks and a plain white cotton blouse, she looked fab.

‘So,’ he said. ‘David Baker’s famous neck massage.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and she reached behind her and rubbed her slim neck. ‘Where do you want me?’

‘On the sofa, on your tum, and undo the top two buttons of your blouse.’

That made sense, as she assumed position; and he took hold of the blouse collar and tugged it back a tad, brushing her blonde hair to one side with his hand, exposing her porcelain like neck. He clapped his hands gently, rubbed his fingers together, crouched beside her, and set them to work.

‘Ooh, that’s lovely,’ she cooed. ‘Yes, please. More.’

‘Good?’

‘Fantastic.’

‘I can tell you’re tense; your neck is not relaxed at all. Just relax, Miss Greenwood, let all your troubles float away. Relax.’

‘Yes, Mr Baker. Ooh, that’s so good. Who taught you to do that?’

‘Can’t remember now. One of my many hidden talents.’

‘You have other talents, do you?’

‘Many.’

‘Such as?’

‘That would be telling.’

‘Do you mean in or out of the bedroom?’

‘Both,’ he said, grinning.

Karen giggled. He was good fun, that was undeniable, but he still had plenty of making up to do after he had let her down last time.

‘Don’t stop,’ she said. ‘I could get used to this.’

They talked about her day, though not in any great detail, though he was interested in everything she said, as he always was.

––––––––

AN HOUR LATER, HE REFUSED a sandwich and another glass of wine; but insisted on another dinner date that Karen agreed to, before he helped himself to a more passionate and lengthy kiss in the hallway, and after that he was on his way, happier than he’d been when he’d arrived, and she was too, judging by the look on her face.

It was already after eleven and she was bushed. Went to bed, slept well, dreamt better, and got up early, refreshed and relaxed, and ready for another busy and long day. They were going to be much more productive in the day ahead. She was confident of that. Sometimes great results could be achieved through positive thought; she was a great believer in such things. It had served her well in the past, it had served the team well many times, and it would do so again. Bring it on.

Chapter Twenty-Three

No one had actually said to be in extra early, but everyone was there, not a soul missing. Mrs West thanked them for their dedication, as the early morning briefing got under way.

Walter growled, ‘Overnight reports?’ and Karen said, ‘Quite a few in, Guv.’

‘Well, let’s hear them.’

Jenny read out the toxicology report on Belinda Cooper. It showed that Bel had not been into illegal drugs, in fact she was totally clean, other than alcohol, and even that figure wasn’t over bad, considering she’d apparently dispatched a full bottle of white wine, unless she’d enjoyed company while doing so.

‘And one other thing, I could not find her on any dating site.’

‘No, neither could I,’ said Walter.

‘You looked, Guv, did you?’ said a grinning Gibbons.

‘Yes, I did, Darren, purely as research, you understand.’

Gibbons muttered, ‘If you say so, Guv,’ and he moved on to read out the report on the scrapings of mud he and Hector had taken from Crocker’s mother’s old car. It was definitive; there was no match to the soil at the foot of Marigold Lane.

Jenny came back with a more detailed SOCO report on the greater Marigold Lane site.

‘There were many footprints in the mud down there, though many of them were downgraded by the heavy rain. But several recognisable footprints in more shaded positions, were recovered,’ and she pointed to the Hytec screen, ‘and as you can see, the vast majority of those were size 10.’

‘So,’ said Mrs West, ‘If we have a murder down there, and if the killer’s footprints have been recovered, we are saying he probably has size 10 boots.’

‘That’s about the size of it,’ said Jenny.

‘Two too many “ifs” for me,’ she said coolly.

‘It’s not conclusive,’ agreed Walter. ‘But it might help us somewhere further down the track.’

Jenny switched tack and changed reports.

‘But there is a positive report. We did get DNA from Dorothy Wright for Ellie, and we did a comparison on the incapacitator, and the traces of blood thereon belonged to Ellie Wright.’

‘Why would that be?’ asked Nicky Barr, coming to after an unplanned late night.

‘Why would what be?’ said Walter.

‘Why is there blood on it?’

Karen jumped all over that.

‘Presumably because Miroslav Rekatic assaulted Ellie Wright with sufficient force to spill Ellie’s blood.’

‘I can’t see it,’ said Nicky, not yet willing to back down.

‘The luminol chemiluminescence can see it, and that’s good enough for me,’ said Walter.

‘I don’t mean that, Guv.’

‘So what do you mean?’ snapped Mrs West, becoming irritated that precious time was being wasted.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, scratching his head. ‘Seems odd, that’s all.’

‘It’s clear enough to me,’ said Karen. ‘That man is a serial abuser of women, even went to the trouble of going to Germany and buying a specialist piece of equipment, a product that is probably not available here, to assist him in doing precisely that, equipment that now has Ellie Wright’s blood all over it. How much more do we need than that?’

‘We need to check his alibi for Bel’s murder for a start,’ said Walter. ‘We’ll go and see him this morning.’

‘Do you want to bring him in?’ asked Mrs West.

‘No, not yet, ma’am, need a bit more before we do that.’

‘How did you get on with Ronald Speight?’

Walter deferred to Karen, and she recounted their meeting. Yes, he had known and met both women, and admitted visiting both women in their homes, so it would be no surprise if his DNA turned up there. He also admitted to a sexual relationship with both, and yes, he wore size 10 shoes too, and it was also true he had no alibi for the TODs on either women. On the other hand, he had no known history of violence against women, or anyone else, and they hadn’t been able to come up with a motive. He’d also confirmed the baseball bat was Bel’s. It had previously been her father’s, and it was kept to ward off possible burglars.

Walter jumped in. ‘He also knew that Ellie was a drug user, and after some pressure came up with an image of Ellie sitting in the pub with a known drug dealer, where he, Speight, imagined that Ellie was buying gear.’

‘Do we have a description of this guy?’ asked Jenny. 

‘A vague one,’ said Walter. ‘Tall, dark hair, clean cut.’

‘So,’ said an exasperated Mrs West. ‘Do we now have a prime suspect?’

‘Speight is the only one we know knew both women,’ said Jenny. ‘That weighs heavy for me.’

‘The Mirror man for me,’ said Karen. ‘We have proved he is violent towards women. He has shown he does not care one bit about anyone else’s opinions, or feelings. Look at the way he has treated his beautiful wife and family. He went to Germany and bought equipment that can be used in torture, gear that has Ellie’s blood on it, and it makes me wonder what he did to that girl. And maybe there were others too.’

‘Some people like excitement in the bedroom,’ said Gibbons. ‘It’s not unusual, and it could be nothing more than that.’

‘Yeah, but not in his own bedroom!’ shot back Karen. ‘That’s the point! He’s playing away from home and spilling blood whilst doing so. How much more excitement do you want?’

Gibbons grimaced and glanced away. Maybe the sarge had a point.

‘We seem to be forgetting here the one man who has already been convicted of killing a woman,’ said Hector.

‘Flanagan?’ said Jenny.

‘Correct.’

‘Tagged,’ said Mrs West. ‘Both times.’

‘You know my views on that,’ said Hector.

‘Well, you’re wrong.’

‘We need to see Miro again,’ said Walter. ‘And we need to speak with the solicitor guy, Williams, too, and I’d also like to talk to Lena Freeman again. She might know more than she’s told us.’

‘You mean you think she’s holding back?’ said Mrs West.

‘Not necessarily, ma’am, just that she may know a little more about Belinda that she doesn’t think, or imagine, is in any way important. There could be something there.’

Mrs West nodded hard and said, ‘Get it done!’

Walter glanced at Hector and said, ‘You and Darren go and see Flanagan again, seeing as you have such a bee in your bonnet about him. See if you can get him to confess with tag tampering. He’d need advanced computer skills to do that, find out if he has such abilities, and after you have done that, go back to the pubs and flesh out this description on the drug dealer. Track that guy down. We want to talk to him.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Hector, as Gibbons nodded.

Walter again. ‘Jenny, you and Nicky see Nesbitt, and check his alibi for Bel Cooper, and do the same thing with Crocker, to be on the safe side, and will everyone please remember that we have not yet identified and ruled out this Iain character, one of Bel’s five menfriends, and two others from the five are still missing too, so think on about that.’

‘Has Bel’s technology been broken into?’ asked Mrs West.

‘Not yet, ma’am,’ said Jenny, knowing the question was coming.

‘Why not?’

‘Seems there is some kind of backlog delay. They have assured me they will do it by this afternoon.’

‘We have a potential double bloody murder inquiry here,’ she snapped. ‘That’s not good enough! Tell them I said so. And tell them to get a bloody move on. Today... Or else!’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Any questions?’ asked Karen.

No one had.

‘Let’s get to it,’ said Walter. ‘Time is slipping by. We don’t want the trail going cold.’

Karen grabbed her water and jacket and headed for the lift and the garage below, to grab a car before all the good ones had gone. The meeting broke up. It was half-past nine.

‘Where to first?’ she said, as the Guv got in the car and scratched his cheek.

‘City centre, solicitors and travel agents. Two birds with one stone.’

Karen bobbed her head and eased the accelerator down, and the car cruised out into another dismal November day. 

Chapter Twenty-Four

The offices of Jones, Rees & Wilbert were located in the ancient Rows, over an upmarket indie dress shop. Two entire floors of small queer shaped rooms.

Lots of paperwork in there, new office equipment, a permanent smell of stationery being turned over, and quiet people with earnest faces, boasting trendy glasses.

Lots of white skin and swept back hair, and a good supply of coffee and apples and bought in sandwiches, just like many other solicitors’ offices across the kingdom. A pretty trainee showed Walter and Karen into Gareth Williams’ small odd shaped office.

Walter went to the window and stared down and across the road, and into the travel agency. He saw Lena Freeman jabbering on the phone, and wondered who she was talking to, and what they were talking about.

‘Take a seat,’ said Gareth, pointing at two small red chairs set before his desk, but they couldn’t sit down because both chairs were covered in piles of files and papers.

‘Chloe!’ he yelled. ‘Come and shift these files,’ and the pretty girl returned and murmured, ‘sorry about that,’ and grabbed the manila files and took them away.

Gareth pointed at the chairs, and they all sat down.

Walter and Karen stared across the desk. By crikey, the bouffant hairdo had put on even more weight, and height too. It was mesmerising. Neither of them could tear their eyes away. It was like a bushy creature living on top of his head, with a life and mind all of its own. Mind you, thought Karen, the Guv had odd bad hair days when he let it grow too long, when it stood up on end as if it had seen a ghost. But Gareth’s dark swept-up-and-back mop was something else. 

‘What can I do for you?’

Walter kicked off. ‘It’s about Belinda Cooper.’

‘Thought it might be.’

‘You know...’ said Karen. ‘That’s she dead?’

‘Yes, I bumped into Lena. She told me about it.’

‘You had a relationship with Belinda Cooper?’ asked Walter.

‘I did... For my sins.’

‘Sins?’ said Karen.

‘Just an expression.’

‘You’re married?’ asked Karen.

Gareth nodded and muttered, ‘Look, I’m not proud of it.’

‘Does your wife know?’ asked Walter.

‘Yeah, she’s forgiven me, at least I hope she has.’

‘Where were you on...’ and Walter relayed the time of death.

‘Home in bed.’

‘Can your wife confirm that?’

‘Sadly, she can’t. She had a bridge night with her friend, and the crazy woman took a few wines too many, and rather than drive home she stayed there.’

‘You could have gone and fetched her,’ suggested Karen.

Gareth shook his head. ‘I’d been drinking too.’

‘There’s such a thing as cabs,’ said Walter.

‘True,’ said Gareth. ‘It was just more convenient for her to stay.’

‘Do you know a young woman by the name of Ellie Wright?’ asked Karen.

Gareth’s bottom lip came out, as if he was thinking, and he shook his head and said, ‘Not that I know of. Why? Who is she?’

‘Just routine enquiries,’ said Walter. ‘How tall are you?’

‘Six, one,’ he said, without hesitation, though Karen imagined he was lying, because men often lie about their height and weight, exaggerating their height, and being economic with the truth over weight, but no matter.

‘Belinda Cooper mentioned on more than one occasion she had only been involved with five men...’ said Walter, and though he hadn’t finished the sentence, Gareth butted in.

‘Yeah, she told me that too.’

‘Did you believe her?’ asked Karen.

‘Had no reason not to.’

‘You’re one, we have identified one other, can you help us out with the other three?’ asked Walter.

Gareth grinned. ‘Well there’s so sorry sad Iain, for one.’

‘Iain who?’ asked Karen.

‘Iain Donaldson.’

‘And why is he so sorry sad?’ asked Walter.

‘Well, he was pissed off with me for a start. She left him for me, you see, and I’m not surprised. She said he could bore for Cheshire, a geography teacher, the poor lamb, works at the high school.’

‘And this was before she discovered you were married and messing her around?’ said Karen.

Gareth bobbed his head and sighed and said, ‘I guess. Look, I am not proud of it. It just kind of happened, mid life crisis, if you will. I’d like to turn the clock back and do things differently, but that ain’t going to happen, is it?’

‘Do you know where this Iain bloke lives?’ asked Karen.

‘No, she never told me, but you’ll find him at the school.’

‘And the other two?’ asked Walter.

‘There was the gay fella.’

‘She had a relationship with a gay man?’ asked Karen.

‘She did, though he liked to say he was bi-sexual. You can imagine how upset and betrayed she felt about that when he told her one night in the pub: “Excuse me darling, but I fancy men at least as much as I fancy you!” Did he really expect to get away with that? He must have been a bit simple.’

‘Name?’ said Walter, his pencil poised over his notebook.

‘Marcus something, she might have mentioned his surname, but I can’t remember it. If it comes back, I’ll give you a bell.’

‘Appreciate that, if you would,’ said Walter, glancing at Karen as if to say, anything I’ve forgotten?

Put on the spot she was lost for words, which wasn’t like her, or for the pair of them, before Karen blurted, ‘What size shoes do you take?’

‘Nine and a half or ten at a push. Why?’

‘Just routine,’ said Walter. ‘Do you know a man by the name of Miroslav Rekatic?’

Gareth shook his head and said, ‘Nope.’

‘Thanks, you have been very helpful, we’ll be in touch.’

––––––––

A MINUTE LATER, AND they were walking down the narrow and twisting staircase, and Karen said, ‘Amazing, isn’t it? Even a solicitor thinks it’s okay to deceive his wife and have an affair, and write it off as a midlife crisis, as if it means nothing.’

‘The way of the world, Karen, and I don’t suppose that will ever change.’

‘Doesn’t make it right.’

‘It doesn’t.’

They crossed the road and went into the travel agency. Lena looked up and tried a smile.

‘Have you got a minute? A few more quick questions.’

Lena glanced down the office and caught eye contact with the boss. He pulled a face and turned away as if he had more important business to deal with.

‘Crack on,’ she said.

‘It may seem a strange question,’ said Walter.

‘Now you’ve intrigued me.’

‘Did Belinda ever mention anything about...’ Walter paused and scratched his chin, thinking of his words.

‘About what?’

Walter tried again.

‘To your knowledge did she ever go with men for money?’

‘What, Bel? You must be joking! You’re way off beam if you think that. She was very particular and most selective about which men she would go with, no pipsqueaks, remember, and as for doing it for money, absolutely no chance! Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘Just another inquiry that’s overlapped into this one,’ said Karen. ‘We needed to be sure.’

‘You can be.’

‘Have you ever heard of a man called Marcus something?’ asked Walter.

‘Oh yeah, the gay one! I’d forgotten all about him. She was so embarrassed about that, when she found out she’d been sleeping with, well, you know,’ and she lowered her voice, and mouthed rather than said the word, ‘a homo, God, she was so upset with him about that, went the very next day and had a blood test, just in case, came back negative, thank the Lord, but she felt so... so... betrayed.’

‘Do you know where this Marcus character lives?’ asked Karen.

Lena shook her head and said, ‘I think he moved away, yeah, I think Bel told me he was so upset and annoyed, with himself, as much as anything, that he upped sticks and moved away, she thought Brighton or Blackpool or Bournemouth, one of the B’s anyway, I think that’s what she said, though I could be wrong on that. It’s a while ago now.’

‘Do you have a surname for him?’

‘Not that I recall.’

‘Thanks for your assistance,’ said Walter. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’

‘Anytime. Has she been officially ID’d yet?’

‘Ah yes, that’s another thing I meant to mention.’

‘Oh?’

Karen took up the thread.

‘She has no relatives; none at all, and it would appear you would be her best friend, so we were wondering if you might identify her.’

‘What? Look at her dead body, you mean? Oh, I don’t know about that, I’ve never seen a dead body, I’m not sure I could.’

Walter frowned and said, ‘I know it’s difficult, but someone has to do it, and it has to be a friend, a real good friend. There’s nothing to it, and it will only take a minute or two. You’d be really helping us.’

‘Oh, go on then, the things I get talked into. Maybe it’s not even her, have you even thought about that?’

‘That’s why it must be someone who knew her well,’ said Karen. ‘So we can be sure.’

‘Where do I go?’

‘The morgue, you can go anytime, right up to midnight, but it needs to be done as soon as...’

‘Yeah, I get you; I’ll go after work.’

Karen grabbed a pen from the desk and wrote the address on a piece of scrap paper.

‘Thank you,’ said Walter, and they said their goodbyes and the officers left.

––––––––

IN THE CAR ON THE WAY to the ASN Bank Karen said, ‘Can we rule out this Marcus guy, if he’s left the area?’

‘We don’t know he has, so no is the answer to that, though I agree, he is looking a rank outsider.’

‘Unlike the Mirror man who, in my humble opinion, is in it up to his neck.’

‘Let’s see,’ said Walter, as she pulled the car into the car park outside the bank.

––––––––

INSIDE, THE SAME BRIGHT young thing was on display behind the shiny reception desk. Walter and Karen headed for the door on the left to the corridor, and he grinned across at the girl and said, ‘Just another few questions for Mr Rekatic,’ and they disappeared through the door, but not before Karen glimpsed the girl jumping on the phone.

Miro’s office door was open; Walter and Karen hurried in to find the man on the phone, looking disappointed his day was being ruined again.

‘Just a few more questions, Mr Rekatic,’ said Walter. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘What now?’ he said, as Walter and Karen sat down.

‘Your charming piece of equipment,’ said Karen.

‘What about it?’

‘It has blood all over it, Ellie Wright’s blood, to be precise, care to explain how it got there?’

Miro grimaced.

‘How would I know?’

‘Not a good answer, Mr Rekatic. I think you need to give that a little more thought,’ said Walter. ‘You are close to being arrested for the murder of Eleanor Wright. I’d come up with a better answer than that, if I were you.’

Miro coughed and said, ‘Ah yes, I remember now, she had a nose bleed.’

‘A nose bleed?’ said Walter. ‘How convenient.’

‘Wonder how that was brought on,’ muttered Karen.

‘Yeah, you know, blood coming from the nose.’

‘I know what a bloody nose bleed is!’ said Walter.

‘What brought it on?’ said Karen. ‘Did you hit her?’

‘No! Course not. Well, maybe a few playful taps.’

‘A few playful taps,’ said Karen, making an issue of writing the comment in her notebook.

‘Yes, look, she liked the submissive role, she got off on that.’

‘Yeah, sure. Isn’t the truth of it you liked to play the dominant one, and you got off on that, as you beat the hell out of the poor girl, as she was trussed up like some Christmas turkey,’ said Karen. ‘And that maybe you even lost your cool and assaulted her so badly you spilt blood all over the place, and eventually killed her? Isn’t that nearer the mark?’

‘And seeing what you had done,’ continued Walter, ‘you cooked up a plan to dispose of the scene by setting fire to that old caravan? Though “cooked up” might not be the best phrase in the circumstances. Perhaps you imagined no one would miss or care about a lonely little tart of a girl who’d taken some wrong turns in life.’

‘No! That’s not what happened at all. If you are going to persist with this, I think my solicitor should be present.’

‘He wants a solicitor present now, Guv.’

‘Yes, interesting that, he needs someone else to speak for him, in case he says the wrong thing, the incriminating thing. But no matter, let’s continue, and regardless of that, we’d appreciate your cooperation for a little while longer.’

Miro pulled a face and slowly nodded.

Karen asked, ‘Where were you between midnight and 2am on the night of,’ and she added the day and night of Belinda Cooper’s death.

‘At home, in bed,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘Could anyone confirm that?’ asked Walter.

‘Yes, of course, my wife, Grizzy.’

‘That’s good,’ said Karen. ‘Is she at home now?’

‘Yes, she should be, why?’

‘What’s your address, Mr Rekatic,’ said Walter, pen poised.

‘I live in Rossett.’

‘Address?’ said Karen.

‘But I don’t want Grizzy dragged into this.’

‘I’ll bet,’ whispered Karen.

‘Why are you asking me about that time?’

‘Because, Mr Rekatic, a woman in Chester was murdered in her own home at that time. It’s just to eliminate you from our inquiry. It’s in your best interests to do that, isn’t it?’

‘What woman?’

‘Her name is, or was, Belinda Cooper. Did you know Belinda?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ said Walter. ‘Because we have a description of the type of man Belinda Cooper was attracted to, and guess what, that description fits you to a T.’

Miro shook his head hard.

‘This has gone far enough.’

‘What’s your address, Mr Rekatic?’ asked Karen.

‘You can bugger off!’

‘Charming,’ said Karen.

Walter made a note in his notebook; spoke it aloud as he wrote. ‘Suspect being most uncooperative.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Karen, and she jumped up and left the office. She hurried down the corridor and out into the reception area. No new customers at the counter. Went to the shiny desk and smiled at the girl. Flashed her ID again for gravitas and said, ‘I need Mr Rekatic’s home address, can you supply it please?’

‘I’m really not sure...’

‘You have two choices, you can either help the police in a murder inquiry, or I will arrest you right now for wasting police time, and obstructing the police in their duty. I don’t mind which.’

The girl gazed into Karen’s steady blue eyes and saw she meant every word. She took a small piece of paper from her pad and scribbled an address.

‘You’ll get me sacked.’

‘Doubt that, but if I were you, and just between you and me, I wouldn’t work for a piece of dirt like that.’

‘Eh?’

Karen leant over the counter and whispered, ‘Have you ever been alone with him?’

‘What, outside of work?’

Karen remembered the incapacitator that once slept in the cupboard along the corridor. ‘Inside work or outside work, you know what I mean, have you ever been alone with him?’

‘No, course not. I’m engaged to Jason. But...’

‘But what?’

‘I’ve heard rumours.’

‘What kind of rumours?’

‘The girl who worked here before me...’

‘What about her?’

‘She left, said she’d been approached.’

‘By Miro?’

The girl nodded.

‘To do what?’

‘Don’t know, but it wasn’t good. Not good at all.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Marilyn Webb.’

‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’

‘I’ll get into big trouble now.’

‘No you won’t. I’ll see to that,’ and Karen turned tail and returned to the office.

Not much seemed to have changed in there, almost as if they had been waiting for her return.

‘12 Sunflowers Close, Rossett,’ she said, grinning. ‘That wasn’t so difficult, was it?’

‘Look, I don’t want you bothering Grizzy.’

‘That’s as maybe,’ said Walter. ‘But we need to check on your alibi. If we can do that, you are in the clear, at least so far as Belinda Cooper is concerned. You must see that.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t mention anything about Ellie.’

‘Can’t make any promises,’ said Walter. ‘But if you could help us some more...’

‘How can I help you? I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘Tell me about Marilyn Webb?’ said Karen.

Walter sat up and paid attention.

‘Who’s been talking?’

‘Never mind that. Marilyn Webb left here under a cloud in a bit of a hurry. Why was that?’

‘She said she’d been suffering from sexual harassment.’

‘By you?’ asked Walter.

‘No, course not!’

‘Did you ever use the incapacitator on her?’ asked Karen.

‘No! Definitely not.’

‘Would we find her blood on it too?’

‘No, I told you.’

‘We could ask her,’ said Walter.

‘Please do!’

‘I think that’s all for today,’ said Walter. ‘Thank you for your help.’

Miro didn’t reply, as Karen said, ‘And don’t you dare put any pressure on the young woman on reception, or I will have your guts for garters.’

Miro pulled a face and said, ‘Are you going to see Grizzy?’

‘Yes,’ said Walter, ‘and no doubt you will ring her first to prime her with answers.’

‘I won’t.’

‘That’s the most sensible thing you have said all day,’ said Walter. ‘Good morning.’ 

Chapter Twenty-Five

During the short journey south to Rossett Karen said, ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’

‘What is?’

‘We are investigating murder, and looking into another suspicious death, and we end up uncovering all kinds of creepy nonsense.’

‘Like sexual harassment at work, you mean?’

‘Yeah, among other things. Adultery, deceit, lies, you name it. It all comes tumbling out.’

‘The human condition, Karen.’

‘Yeah, but it doesn’t always look great does it, Guv?’

‘Too true.’

––––––––

THREE AND A HALF THOUSAND souls lived in Rossett, a small border town, or large village if you prefer, just over the Welsh border, 7.5 miles south of Chester, 6.5 miles north of Wrexham. It’s a smart little place standing on the banks of the River Alyn, a tributary of the big River Dee a couple of miles away.

It’s a pretty place too with a cute watermill, and a couple of quaint country pubs that are always packed out at the weekends, with city people paying a visit to the country, and country people eager and willing to meet the city folks. Pretty girls in short skirts, and handsome hunky farm guys looking for company, and maybe more.

Karen knew the pubs well; she’d frequented them many times herself, but so had Walter, though not for a while. It was a pleasant place to be, and a pleasant place to live.

Sunflowers Close comprised around twenty executive style detached houses, precisely the kind of place one would expect a locally based banker to live. Number 12 looked like most of the others, large gable to the right side, red brick, white windows, red tiles, white people, three large windows to the left, and a double garage with white up-and-over doors to the left of that. Reasonable sized gardens that still housed a few flowering roses, chrysanths, and dahlias, despite it being November, the very last ones hanging on for dear life, courtesy of global warming.

‘Nice place,’ said Walter.

‘Very nice,’ said Karen, as they ambled up the path and Walter rang the doorbell.

A young blonde woman, presumably Grizelda Rekatic, came to the door straight away. Opened up, looked out, saw a big bear-like black man, and a slim blonde. Grizzy hadn’t applied any makeup, though she didn’t need it. She must have looked dreadful, she imagined, though Walter thought she looked incredibly beautiful, in tight jeans and white blouse, not unlike Karen herself.

‘Grizelda Rekatic?’ said Walter.

‘Yes. And you are?’

Karen flashed ID and did the intros.

‘Police?’ she said, alarmed, as people always are. ‘There’s nothing wrong is there? With Miro? Or the children, there’s nothing wrong with the children is there? God forbid!’

‘Nothing like that,’ reassured Karen.

‘We just need to ask you a few questions, routine enquiries, nothing for you to worry about.’

‘You’d better come in.’

Walter smiled and entered the smart house. Grizzy showed them into a luxurious front sitting room, where everything was new and neat and just so.

‘Take a seat,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? The kettle’s just boiled.’

Normally they’d say no, but Walter’s throat was dry, and the chair was particularly comfy, and he found himself saying, ‘That would be nice, thanks, milk no sugar.’

Karen said, ‘No thanks,’ and Grizzy left the room.

There was the same silver-framed photo on the glass coffee table featuring the two beautiful girls, and smart pictures on the walls, but nothing else of interest.

Grizzy came back and set a mug of tea before Walter, and clutching her own cup, sat down and said, ‘So what can I do for you? It isn’t every day the police come calling.’

Walter sipped the tea, and it was good.

Karen said, ‘Can you tell us where Miro was between midnight and 2am on the night of...’ and she repeated the date of Bel’s murder.

‘Miro?’ said Grizzy. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Was he here?’ asked Walter.

‘Of course he was here, we were in bed, sleeping, he is very busy at present, with all the expansion. He’s often exhausted when he gets home, he needs his rest.’

I’ll bet he does, thought Karen.

‘Are you certain he was here?’ said Walter. ‘You wouldn’t lie to us, would you?’

‘Of course I would not lie. My mutter always taught me not to lie. I never lie. Not ever. What is this all about?’

Walter took a deep breath.

‘There was a woman murdered in Chester that night.’

‘Murdered? What has this got to do with my Miro? I not understand.’

‘We are just eliminating people from our enquiries, that’s all.’

‘You don’t think Miro had anything to do with it, do you?’

‘As I said, we are just ruling people out,’ said Walter.

‘I think you not tell me everything.’

You’re right there, thought Karen, biting her lip. Did the woman have a right to know that Miro visited prostitutes, that he restrained them and beat them till they bled, and harassed the beautiful young women at work, and heaven knows what else.

Walter drank tea and took a card from his top jacket pocket and set it on the glass table.

‘If you think of anything else, you can ring me anytime.’

‘Is that it?’ she said, glancing at the card.

‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘That’s it.’

The phone in the hallway rang.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, getting up and going through and answering it.

They heard her say, ‘Yes, they’re here now. What’s this all about, Miro?’ and they guessed he said something like, ‘I’ll tell you later.’ She put the phone down and came back into the room.

‘It was Miro. He was as evasive as you.’

‘You’ve answered our questions, Mrs Rekatic, thank you,’ said Karen, and they got up and headed for the door.

‘I’m not sure I understand what’s happened here,’ she said, opening the front door.

‘Thanks, again,’ said Walter, ‘nothing to it,’ and in the next second, they walked away from the house and got in the car.

––––––––

A COUPLE OF MINUTES later Karen said, ‘That was tricky.’

‘It always is.’

‘Do you think she had a right to know?’

‘Probably, but it’s not down to us to bugger up other people’s marriages.’

‘I think he’s doing a good enough job of that himself.’

‘Yeah, the fool. But I imagine he’ll be in for some tough questioning later.’

‘The least he deserves. Did you believe her?’

Walter pondered on that. ‘What, about him being at home at the TOD? Yes, I did. You?’

‘Yes, I did too, unfortunately.’

‘You know what that means don’t you?’

‘It means he’s innocent of the Belinda Cooper murder, if nothing else, if she’s telling the truth.’

‘The more of them we can rule out, the quicker we can rule someone in.’

‘Yeah, but he’s still in the frame for whatever happened to Ellie Wright,’ said Karen.

‘Maybe we have two separate cases after all.’

‘Could be, so where to now, Guv?’

‘The high school, and Iain Donaldson.’

Walter glanced at the car clock. It was just on noon.

‘Put on the radio,’ he said. ‘See if there is anything on the news.’

She flicked the controls on the steering wheel and the midday news, courtesy of the local radio station, came on.

A woman has been found murdered in Chester in her own home. Police say she has not yet been identified. Our sources tell us she was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat, and some people are referring to the death as the Baseball Bat Murder. In other news the local MP has called for greater action to help youth unemployment...

‘Turn it off,’ said Walter.

‘Didn’t take long for that to get out.’

‘Indeed,’ said Walter. ‘Inevitable, I suppose, and she wasn’t bludgeoned to death.’

‘No, someone’s got that bit wrong. Who do you think leaked the story?’

‘Could be Ronald Speight, he seemed to relish and deal in lurid gossip.’

‘Possibly, just so long as it isn’t one of the home team. Here we are, the high school,’ and Karen turned right off the main road, and down the long straight approach to the redbrick school. The car park was half empty, and they slid into a space close to the main entrance, jumped out, and headed for the door.

The doors were locked. Maybe not such a surprise in the twenty-first century. So many schools and churches were no longer operating an open door policy, with constant worries over theft and security. On the wire reinforced glass window within the double doors was a handwritten note.

Will all visitors please ring the bell and wait.

Walter rang the bell, and waited.

A couple of minutes later a frumpy middle-aged woman came to the door. She half smiled, opened up and said, ‘Can I help you?’

Karen flashed ID and did the intros.

‘We need a quick word with Iain Donaldson, nothing important, just routine.’

‘You’ve picked a good time, he’s on his lunch, I’ll show you through.’

They went along a long corridor, turned right, another twenty yards, or was it metres these days, thought Walter, and knocked on a door on the left, and opened up without waiting to be invited.

There was just the one person in the office, studying a quality newspaper, whilst munching on a decent looking beef sandwich. He glanced up at the unusual visitors.

‘Iain,’ said Miss Frumpiness. ‘These two people would like a quick word, they are police officers, I have seen their ID.’

‘Police?’ said Iain. Standing up. Slim guy, short dark hair, noted Karen, six feet’ish. ‘Nothing wrong is there?’

‘Well, yes and no,’ said Walter, pulling out a canvas and tubular steel chair, and sitting down, as Karen studied the information on the notice board. ‘It’s about Belinda Cooper.’

‘Bel? What about her?’

‘She’s been murdered.’

‘What!’

‘It’s true, I am afraid. And you knew her well, I believe?’

‘Yes, I did, we were... for a short while...’

‘Lovers?’ suggested Karen.

Iain nodded and said, ‘Yes, I had hoped it might have gone on from there.’

‘But she met Gareth Williams and promptly finished with you,’ said Walter. ‘That must have been hard.’

‘Now hold on a minute...’

Karen jumped in. ‘Where were you between midnight and 2am on....’ reciting the date of death.

‘At home in bed.’

‘And where is home?’

‘I have a new flat in the city,’ and he gave an address.

It wasn’t a million miles from Karen’s pad.

‘Can anyone confirm that?’ asked Walter.

‘Thankfully, yes. My new fiancé, I only proposed to her two weeks ago. She was with me.’

‘And your fiancé’s name is...’ said Walter, pen at the ready.

‘Andrea Dennehey.’

‘Thanks for that,’ said Walter. ‘We have it on good authority that Belinda Cooper only ever had five boyfriends.’

‘She was indeed very selective,’ said Donaldson, happy to give himself a backhanded compliment. ‘I can’t believe she’s dead. It’s a big shock.’

Walter gave the guy a moment. ‘You were one, Gareth another, a guy called Ronny Speight, a bloke named Marcus, who turned out to be bi-sexual.’

‘Was he! I didn’t know that.’

‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Karen. ‘So I’m told. Blood tests aplenty. All in the clear.’

‘So who was the missing mister number five?’ asked Walter.

Iain shook his head and said, ‘Search me. I’ve no idea.’

‘Do you know anyone who might have wanted to harm Miss Cooper?’

‘Certainly not. She was a very likeable person; and a popular woman too. I’d still be with her now, but for...’

‘Quite,’ said Walter. ‘Do you know a girl called Ellie Wright?’

‘No. Should I?’

‘No matter. What size shoes do you take?’

‘Ten, why?’

‘Do you drive a car?’ asked Karen.

‘Course I do, who doesn’t?’

‘Model?’

‘New Cayton Cerisa, landed a better job here, thought I’d get a better car. Andrea loves it.’

‘Did you kill Belinda Cooper?’ asked Karen.

‘Course not! What do you take me for?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t leave town,’ said Walter.

‘I have no intention of leaving town.’

‘That’s good. Thank you for your help.’

––––––––

THEY RETREATED TO THE door and down the corridors and through the main doors and out into the dank November air, and back to the car.

Sitting quiet for a moment, Karen said, ‘That’s interesting.’

‘What is?’

‘I know Andrea Dennehey.’

‘Do you? How?’

‘I charged her when you were away on that canal boat holiday.’

‘I didn’t think I’d heard the name before. Charged her with what?’

‘That’s the interesting thing, Guv.’

‘Go on.’

‘Affray, and GBH.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Earlier that morning DCs Darren Gibbons and Hector Browne paid another visit to Michael Flanagan’s modern townhouse in Christleton.

They half expected to find him out and away at work, but he was there, and not in the best of moods.

‘Don’t you people ever leave hardworking folk alone?’

‘Just a few more questions, nothing too demanding,’ said Gibbons smiling, hoping to win the guy over.

‘Can we come in?’ added Hector. ‘You don’t want the whole world to know your business.’

Flanagan scowled and stood to one side and the detectives went inside.

‘No work today?’ said Gibbons.

‘Everyone is entitled to a day off.’

Gibbons sat down and glanced around.

Hector stood in the lounge doorway, observing.

‘Nice place you have.’

‘Do we have to go into all that again? What exactly do you want?’

‘You’re tagged?’ said Gibbons.

‘I am,’ and he lifted his trouser bottoms to reveal the grey technology.

‘We don’t think it’s working,’ said Hector.

‘What gave you that idea?’

‘Just a theory that Hector has,’ said Gibbons.

‘Well, it’s news to me, no one has said anything.’

Hector wandered into the small kitchen, and looked around.

‘Do you have a computer?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Yeah, course I do, who doesn’t?’

‘And I’ll bet you’re something of a whiz on it?’

Flanagan grinned, happy to accept a compliment.

‘I guess. I know a bit, that’s for sure,’ and he glanced over his shoulder and saw that Hector was missing. ‘What’s he doing in there?’

‘Just getting a glass of water, I should think. He suffers from dry throat syndrome. Have you cracked the coding on the tag?’

‘What?’

Hector returned and said, ‘You heard him, Michael. We think you are one clever bastard when it comes to computers, and you’ve cracked the coding on the tag, enabling you to take it off without central control realising it.’

‘I wish.’

‘Did you go out last night?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Course not, you can check.’

‘Ah, but can we though?’ said Hector. ‘That’s the whole point.’

‘Not sure I understand what you are getting at.’

‘Did you go out on the night of...’ said Gibbons, adding the date of the Belinda Cooper murder.

‘Ah! I see. I get you. You’re trying to fit me up for that baseball bat murder because you can’t find the real culprit.’

‘No,’ said Hector. ‘We are trying to ascertain if you are slipping out undetected, because I think that is what you are doing.’

‘You’re heading up a blind alley.’

‘No, we’re not,’ said Hector. ‘You are.’

‘How do you do it?’ asked Gibbons. ‘You can tell me, I’m impressed.’

‘Do what?’

‘Fool the system.’

‘I’m not fooling the system.’

‘If we were to examine your computer,’ said Hector, ‘and looked at the browsing history, I reckon that would tell us a lot.’

‘Can we see your computer?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Not without a warrant.’

‘You’re out on licence, aren’t you?’ said Hector.

‘You know I am.’

‘It only takes a word,’ said Gibbons, ‘from the boss, and you’d be back inside before your feet could touch.’

Flanagan stared at the police officers and insisted, ‘You are not looking at my computer.’

Hector and Gibbons shared a look.

Hector pulled a face. Gibbons shrugged his shoulders.

‘Your choice, Mr Flanagan,’ said Hector, and the detectives made their way to the front door, Flanagan following.

Hector leant over and whispered, ‘Crash coding, is it?’

‘What?’

‘We are on to you.’

‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

Hector nodded, and the officers ambled outside and jumped in the car.

‘What the hell’s crash coding?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Hector laughing. ‘But it sure sounded good.’

Gibbons laughed too.

‘You’re mad. Still think he’d fiddling with the tag?’

‘Course he is.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘One thing I have learnt to do in this job is to spot liars, and he’s lying about something.’

‘Well if he is, he could be our man.’

‘That’s what I reckon. Where to now?’ said Hector, firing up the engine.

‘The pubs. Guv wants us to ID the drug dealer.’

‘Oh yeah, forgot all about that.’

––––––––

WALTER SAT BACK HARD in the car seat and said, ‘Tell me all about Andrea Dennehey.’

‘Hard woman, in more ways than one,’ said Karen.

‘Tell me more.’

‘Mutton dressed as pilchard.’

Walter guffawed.

‘She goes to the same gym as I do. She’s there every day. Does the running machine, and weights. She’s slim, toned, and strong.’

‘Go on.’

‘She’s been on the lookout for a husband for ages. Everyone knows that. She’ll eat Iain Donaldson alive; he won’t know what hits him. Don’t get me wrong, Guv, she’s attractive enough, pretty face, shoulder length auburn hair, but her soul is as cold as ice.’

‘I gather from that, you don’t like her.’

‘I can see right through her. Her whole life is an act. She’s a fraud.’

‘What was she done for?’

‘Affray and GBH.’

‘I know that! So you said. Details of the case?’

‘Oh right, I’m with you. She beat up two women in a nightclub lav. Broke one girl’s nose, cut the other one’s eye.’

‘What did she get?’

‘Big fine, and fifty hours community service.’

‘She was lucky to get that.’

‘She damn well was. The magistrate said she was lucky the case didn’t go up to the Crown Court, which on another day it would have done. He gave her some benefit of the doubt, said something about it being two onto one, and that Andrea pleaded self defence, saying the other two kicked it off, and there was some doubt as to who was telling the truth.’

‘Do we know what the row was about?’

‘The usual, Guv, over a man she’d taken a fancy to, and they were making eyes at, another potential husband, I reckon.’

‘Do you think she’s capable of murdering Belinda Cooper?’

‘Certain of it, Guv. She’s tall and very strong. You should see her on the weights, obsessed by it, she is. She could snap a neck like a chocolate bar, I kid you not.’

‘And she’ll give Iain an alibi, and he will do the same for her.’

‘For sure.’

‘So we have another one to add to the list.’

‘The list?’

‘Of suspects.’

‘Yep, we do.’

‘I think we need to find out a lot more about Andrea Dennehey.’

‘That we do, Guv.’

‘Come on, let’s get back to the station, I want to get something to eat.’

‘Good idea, and I want to find out how we are progressing with analysing the Mirror man’s phone.’

‘And Belinda’s technology too, we should be inside that by now.’

‘Yeah, that too, there could be all sorts of intel in there.’

Karen booted up the car and pointed it at the city centre, back to base, and a busy afternoon in the land of secrets and lies that sleeps and hides in all modern tech.

––––––––

JENNY AND NICKY WERE busy at their desks, frustrated at making little progress, unable to break Jimmy Crocker’s alibi, unable to contact Derek Nesbitt, who’d gone away for a few day’s fishing. 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Walter popped out for ten minutes to visit his favourite purveyor of sandwiches where he picked up two hot beef rolls and a chocolate muffin.

Sometimes comfort food had its place, he reassured himself, though could he restrict his visits in future?

Karen remained at her desk and gnawed on a hard green apple and a packet of almost as hard low fat crisps.

She was scrolling through Miro’s many phone calls. Like so many others he sure as hell used his tech to the max. Hundreds of logged calls, text messages, and voicemails, but nothing that looked out of place, nothing that caught her eye, nothing that incriminated the man, no matter how hard she looked.

The cute young guy from the Tech department came in and hustled up to her desk and grinned and said, ‘Belinda Cooper’s computer and phone?’

‘Yeah?’ said Karen. ‘What about it?’

‘All open and readable.’

‘About time too.’

‘Don’t you start.’

‘What took you so long?’

‘Got hung up on a big regional job from Manchester. Three local Uni’s in big trouble.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah... you know, that ransomware scam.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Big time cyber crime. They hack into the Uni’s mainframes and lock everyone else out, then demand a big ransom to free up and allow access to the data again. It’s becoming quite common, and damn difficult to break. Looks like it’s based in Romania, or Bulgaria, one of those places, but it’s cloaked so many times it’s almost impossible to track down, and to make it worse they constantly shift things around.’

‘Was the ransom paid?’

‘Oh no, we got lucky. Cracked it wide open. No sweat. Do you want Belinda Cooper’s gear?’

‘Yeah, set it down there,’ and he plonked it on the side of Karen’s desk.

‘What’s the password?’

‘Highfive555.’

‘That didn’t sound so difficult to work out.’

‘They never do when you know the answers. Bloody difficult when you don’t.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, thinking about Highfive555.

Belinda Cooper sure seemed hung up on that number.

‘No probs, glad to be of service,’ and he smirked and scuttled off back to the tech lair, wherever that was currently located.

Bulgaria or Romania? She thought. Where was the Mirror man from again? Serbia, didn’t he say? How far was that from Bulgaria and Romania? Just a coincidence maybe, thought Karen, but like most of the members of the team, she didn’t believe in coincidences, for they often pointed the way forward. Maybe worth remembering. Sometimes entire cases fell open like a ripe sweet chestnut on such morsels. She glanced across the office at Jenny and Nick.

‘Are you busy, Jen?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘Fancy a trawl through the Mirror man’s phone.’

‘Sure, glad to,’ and Jenny came over to Karen’s desk and collected the latest model mobile. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘Anything that links him with Ellie Wright, or better still, Belinda Cooper, or anything that looks weird, calls and messages to women, and dating sites, and anything that suggests financing or organising cyber crime.’

‘Cyber crime?’

‘Yeah, the local Uni’s have all been hit, coming from Eastern Europe, played havoc with their systems, and costs them a packet of dosh in downtime and stuff.’

‘Okey-doke,’ and she took the phone away.

Karen plugged in the laptop and booted it up. The tech guys had set it up so that it overrode any existing passwords. Well done them. All the stuff about the number 5 was now redundant.

Walter came back in the office and walked past her and grunted.

‘Bel’s laptop?’

‘Sure is.’

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Just opened it now.’

‘Crack on, I’m going to have a word with the boss,’ and he ambled across the office and tapped on Mrs West’s open door.

Karen went straight to the emails. Sure, people texted a lot, but for the real meaty stuff, that was still to be found in the emails. Love letters, juicy gossip, hopes and aspirations, secrets and lies, diaries, stuff like that, that’s where she’d find it.

And they were all there too, going back over the previous three years. First, the semi-gay Marcus Royce, for that was his name, and his wacky sense of humour and bawdy jokes, some of which Karen understood, and some she didn’t. Moving on as their relationship developed, until the final phase when Bel finished with him after his gay revelations, and his subsequent pleadings to be given another chance, all to no avail. Begging rarely worked, didn’t everyone know that?

Ronny Speight, writing masculine filth, something he thought exciting, and imagined that she would too, though it was obvious to Karen’s eye it made Belinda uncomfortable, as she tried to steer him away from such things, though he didn’t see the advice tactfully written between Bel’s lines, and in the end he paid for it. And there was something else there too that caught her eye, within Ronny’s increasingly furious writings, as their relationship crashed and burned. How could it not? One Saturday night/Sunday morning at 1.28am he’d written: “I could strangle you!” Maybe something there. She printed it off and circled it in red and set it on Walter’s desk. 

Iain Donaldson followed, and his gentler more cerebral caring line, and maybe that came as something of a relief after Ronny’s queer pitch and violent tongue, though by the cringe, he came across as an awful bore, writing overlong emails on how he’d like to travel to Chile and explore the Atacama Desert, to further his knowledge of South American geography, so he said, and would she like to go along with him on the trip of a lifetime? Something she evidently did not wish to do.

Somewhere around that time she began seeing Gareth Williams, and somehow Iain found out. Or maybe she told him, or left hints he was meant to find. Iain mounted his high horse and issued her with an ultimatum. It’s him or me, never a good move, as Karen’s former boyfriend Rodney once discovered. Belinda chose Gareth, much to Iain’s chagrin. 

Onto and into Gareth’s feisty stuff, kind of somewhere between Iain and Ronny, more exciting than Iain’s dull style, but not as bad as Ronny’s over the top rantings that some men imagine attract women. There were some photo attachments there, on Ronny’s emails, photo attachments for God’s sake of close-ups of excited male body parts, presumably big Ron’s, as he liked to refer to himself. Though he wasn’t identifiable, or that big. Karen laughed aloud. No one noticed. Did men really think such things turned women on enough to win them over? It didn’t attract Karen, not one jot, and by the look of Bel’s replies it hadn’t worked on her either.

But back to Gareth, and his gentler more supporting style, but all the while including little digs reminding her of how she was better off with him than the loser, Iain. Or as he described him, the Jogman, geography teacher and daily jogger, to boot. The Jogman could jog off into the sunset, and eventually he was forced to do precisely that. And still it came.

Details of frequent secret weekends away they’d enjoyed together, Gareth and Bel, in five-star hotels in Hereford, Lytham, Buxton, Ludlow, and others too, quite a list, and exciting as well, judging by the detailed descriptions written after the events, equally enjoyed by Bel and Gareth, if the emails were to be believed, before the electronic letters took a serious downward turn, when he admitted he had been married all along, though in his words: It shouldn’t make any difference, we’re strong, for what we have is so special.

Yeah, right. Yuck! Karen tut-tutted aloud, and thought about bouffant man. He was a solicitor for God’s sake, and yet he didn’t understand a thing about Belinda Cooper, and how she ticked, and how she felt, and what she wanted and needed and desired.

Karen felt sorry for Belinda. Who wouldn’t? It wasn’t just Iain Donaldson who was a loser, or Ronny Speight, they all were. The whole damned lot of them. But someone had murdered poor Bel, but who had committed the filthy crime? Was the evidence, the pointer to the culprit, hidden amongst those hundreds of pages, and thousands of words that displayed themselves before Karen’s sharp blue eyes?

There was something vaguely wicked about reading other people’s emails, even if that person was dead, even if you enjoyed the full authority of the British government, and hence the British people, to do so. It was a little like taking a quick sneak at someone else’s diary. Karen did that once, way back when, back at school, when she and her best friend, Kayleigh Mortimer, as thirteen-year-olds, had first discovered boys.

Karen knew Kayleigh and herself had both taken a liking to the clean cut and white shirted Colin Hart, and she knew Kayleigh kept a vivid diary, recounting all her hopes and dreams and fears, and no doubt juicy titbits about Colin too. Karen so wanted to see it and read it, and when Kayleigh was away for a matter of minutes, she had weakened and taken a quick peek.

Kayleigh came back and saw Karen’s eye’s rushing over the pages in that old red diary, and she ran up and snatched it back, yelling and calling her an “Utter Shit!”

That was fair comment in the circumstances. Karen apologised countless times afterwards, but the damage had been done, and Kayleigh never spoke a civil word to Karen again. Karen never told a soul about that sorry episode and banished the event from her mind.

She turned her thoughts back to Belinda and whispered an apology for going through Bel’s most private communications, emails and texts and messages that were never meant for anyone else but Bel and the receiver, or Bel and the sender, including a huge amount of detail of Belinda Cooper’s intimate life. Karen hoped and prayed that Belinda wouldn’t appear at that moment and snatch back her laptop and scream: “You Utter Shit!” That wasn’t going to happen, or if it ever did, it could only be in Karen’s darkest dreams.

There were hundreds of pages in the directory of emails, as she yawned and turned over the page on the screen. Another huge list of messages and letters, another full day’s work, but a fresh email address smacked her in the eye. It was not one she had seen there before. She shivered, and a cold tingle crept up her spine and across her shoulders. Her heart raced, and she felt sudden sweat in her armpits. She blinked and looked at it hard, her racing brain ordering her eyes to zoom in on the handle. No, she wasn’t mistaken; she’d read it correctly.

There it was, black letters on a beige background.

Dozens and dozens, nay hundreds of times.

Shushshish@Comptech.co.uk.

Shushshish@Comptech.co.uk happened to be David Baker’s unforgettable, if faintly ridiculous email handle.

‘Hell,’ she said, breathing out hard, while rushing to open the first communiqué.

‘Did you say something, sarge?’ asked Nicky, glancing across the office, never one to waste an opportunity to check out his sexy sergeant.

‘Nothing, Nicky, get on with your work.’ 

––––––––

AFTER KNOCKING, WALTER was invited into Mrs West’s office. She was correcting some kind of long report, pen poised, plenty of crossings out and suggestions in red ink, testament to her zealousness in all things administrative.

‘Sit down, my man. What is it?’

Walter collapsed in the visitor’s chair and blew out hard.

She took off her pink specs and adopted a sympathetic face and said, ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were getting stuck.’

‘Not stuck exactly, ma’am.’

‘What then?’

Walter sighed. ‘We have yet another suspect ma’am, and to complicate matters, this time it’s a woman.’

‘That’s different. Is she capable of breaking Belinda Cooper’s neck?’

‘She is, ma’am. Karen knows her. She shares the same gym. She goes every day. Weights apparently, is her forte. Very strong, so Karen says.’

‘And she’s known to us?’

Walter nodded.

‘When I was on holiday she was done for GBH and affray. Got off lightly too.’

‘I remember. Andrea somebody, Donohue, or something.’

‘Dennehey.’

‘That’s the one. Where does she fit into this?’

‘She’s Iain Donaldson’s fiancé, can you believe?’

‘So she’d have some kind of twisted motive, coming to the moral aid and defence of her spurned partner, et cetera.’

‘Something like that, though I am not sure it stacks up.’

‘Have you spoken to her?’

‘Not yet, but she’s got an alibi.’

‘Don’t tell me, she was with Iain, and he was with her, so they think they are both off the hook.’

‘That’s about the size of it, ma’am, in fact, that’s what bugs me most about this whole case. If you take out mother’s and lover’s alibis I don’t think any of them are in the clear.’

‘So what’s the roll call now?’

‘Nine, maybe ten.’

‘Namely?’

‘Speight, Gareth Williams, the gay Marcus, the Mirror man Rekatic, Iain, and now Andrea, Flanagan, Nesbitt, and Crocker. And the tenth possible is a sighting of a drug dealing guy who also fits the profile of the kind of man Belinda was attracted to.’

‘You can forget Flanagan, I trust in tags.’

‘Hector and Darren think...’

‘I don’t care what they think. Tags work.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘We know that Speight, Williams and Iain Donaldson have all been in Bel’s house, and in Bel’s bedroom, so any DNA we find there can be explained away. What bugs me is that all these guys, even the unidentified drug dealer, vaguely look alike, six foot or above, slim and fit, dark hair and eyes, and smart, I’ve never known anything quite like it.’

‘What about the missing fifth lover? Any progress there?’

‘Not yet, ma’am. It could of course be that drug dealer. We are into Bel’s tech now, Karen’s going through her laptop as we speak.’

‘That’s good. That’s where the answers usually lie.’

Walter nodded and sniffed and wished he hadn’t, and said, ‘I hope so. We need a break.’

‘So the prime suspect is?’

Walter gave her a quizzical look and his forehead creased.

‘At this moment it’s throw a bunch of balls in the air and catch one.’

‘Wish I hadn’t asked. Go and see this Andrea woman. Find out if she ever met Bel. You might get lucky.’

‘Pencilled in for the morning.’

Mrs West nodded and said, ‘Good. I am getting a bit of flak on this case.’

‘Oh?’

‘You know how it is, Walter, if the case isn’t solved within three days flak begins to fall, and the longer it goes, the heavier the flak.’

Walter bobbed his head and said, ‘And the trail can go cold.’

‘Too true. Are you confident the killer is one of the nine?’

‘As confident as I can be.’

‘You know the drill, Mr D, keep asking them questions, until one of them trips themselves up. We all know they will, sooner or later.’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘Was Eleanor Wright murdered?’

‘I think so ma’am. Just can’t prove it.’

‘If she was, I’d bet my new caravan on there being one killer involved and not two.’

‘I’m with you on that, ma’am.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not right now, and thanks.’

‘No problem, Walter, you know my door is always open.’

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KAREN DISCOVERED DAVID Baker was Belinda Cooper’s fifth lover, and she also knew it put her in a difficult position. If she revealed that fact to Walter and the team, she would be removed from the inquiry for being personally involved, and that was the last thing she wanted. She also knew he was taking her out to dinner that night to some swanky place.

She hated not being straight with Walter about anything, but surely it was better to have her there at the centre of things, pushing the inquiry forward, rather than have her excluded, especially as she was as close to David Baker as anyone alive, to the best of her knowledge.

There was another small matter too. If it came out later she withheld information she could be for the high jump, and that spelt big danger. Yet sooner or later that info would come to the fore, nothing was more certain. The best thing she could do was delay it for a day or two, and see what David had to say for himself.

And there was another factor.

To her knowledge, David Baker didn’t have an alibi for Belinda Cooper’s TOD. Could he possibly be Belinda’s killer and maybe Ellie’s killer too? She couldn’t prove he wasn’t, and that was a thought to make her think long and hard about being alone with the guy. But right there, that was the thing she wanted most, to be alone with him, in order to find out.

She was reading more of his old lovey-dovey emails to Bel, and that was a strange experience. Seeing the evidence before her eyes of how her potential partner-to-be had wooed and won a slightly older woman, a pretty lady with a succession of tall and dark lovers, just like David. It was unsettling, to say the least.

The one thing that Karen took comfort from was that Bel and David had stopped going out together a while before she met him online. That was something. Maybe Karen got him on the rebound, and that was another thing that was odd. They just seemed to stop, the emails between the pair of them. Their meetings came to an abrupt end, with no hint of a fall out or the strife to come. It was like an airliner blown out of the sky, with no time for a mayday call, no time for anything, just total silence, a complete break, and not even a black box to search for in the wreckage to garner clues.

She’d have to ask him about that, but she couldn’t outright. She’d have to be clever and canny, more clever and cannier than she had ever been before, and that was going to be challenging and tricky. Her train of thought was interrupted by Walter’s voice booming across the room.  She hadn’t noticed he’d come back.

‘Well that’s a bloody thing, isn’t it!’

‘What?’ said Karen, turning to look at him.

‘This!’ he said, waving Karen’s printout, and the red-circled words. ‘I could strangle you! I could strangle you! If that’s not a threat to murder someone, I don’t know what is.’

Karen brought him back to earth.

‘People always say things like that, Guv, as you well know. I could kill you. All the time, and she wasn’t strangled either. She had her neck broken.’

‘Yes, they might say that in the heat of the moment, but they don’t write it down in bloody black and white, not like he has.’

Maybe Walter had a point.

Darren and Hector returned, grinning and playing about, as they often did.

‘Well?’ said Walter. ‘How did you get on?’

‘The drug dealer’s name is Marty,’ said Gibbons.

‘Is that all you’ve got? Marty what?’

‘No one seems to know any more.’

‘He must have used a surname to someone sometime, maybe used a credit card to pay for a meal, or something.’

‘That’s one thing drug dealers never do,’ said Gibbons. ‘It’s cash only with that crew, always cash.’

He had a point there, and Walter knew it. The money laundering laws and rules and regs and systems had been tightened hard and were working pretty well. Drug dealers always had too much cash and nowhere to spend it, and would constantly face the major problem of working it back legally into the system. Of course he would have bought all meals with cash. Went without saying, drip, drip, drip it away. There was no doubt about that.

‘You’re right, Darren, thank you for reminding me. How did you get on with Flanagan?’

‘The guy’s taken the day off. He was at home, and get this, he is something of a computer whiz, even liked to brag about it, until he saw it was something we were taking an interest in.’

‘A computer expert, eh? That’s convenient.’

‘He sure is. But he would not let us see his computer.’

‘What do you think? Can he somehow bypass the tag?’

‘I can’t see it myself, but Hector is convinced that’s what he is doing.’

Walter stood still and breathed out heavy and took a moment to think, and said, ‘Can we link him to Belinda Cooper? No. Can we explain how he bypasses the tag? No. Can we prove he killed Ellie Wright? No. That looks dead in the water to me.’

‘He killed his wife,’ said Hector. ‘Known indisputable fact, that says a lot.’

‘Mmm,’ said Walter. ‘Nick, do you know what is happening with the complete SOCO report on Belinda Cooper’s house?’

‘They are still there, Guv. Working hard. They’ll be a while longer yet.’

‘I wish they’d get a bloody move on,’ and raising his voice he said, ‘For those of you that don’t know, we have yet another suspect, and this time it’s a woman.’

‘That make’s a change,’ said Gibbons.

‘Who?’ said Jenny.

‘Andrea Dennehey. Already known to us, convicted within the last twelve months of GBH and affray.’

Hector sniggered and said, ‘Belinda Cooper’s neck was broken. I think we can discount her.’

Karen glanced up from the laptop.

‘Andrea Dennehey could snap you in half like a twig,’ and in the way she said it no one had any doubt that Andrea could.

Walter looked down at Karen.

‘Anything more in those emails?’

‘Not yet, Guv. Just lots and lots of graphic lovey-dovey messages.’

‘I could do with some graphic lovey-dovey messages,’ said Gibbons, grinning.

Most of them laughed at the thought.

‘I could fix you up with Tracey Day for fifty quid,’ said Hector, laughing at his little joke.

‘Oh, funny, yeah!’

‘Maybe we should seize Flanagan’s computer,’ said Walter, thinking out loud. ‘He’s out on licence. We could do that.’

‘I’m up for it,’ said Hector.

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Walter, sitting down and closing his eyes for a big think.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Corla Revelation resembled Oliver Cromwell, high forehead, large flat nose, and hefty warts, aplenty. Yet for all that, she was a vivacious woman, and rarely short of admirers.

She made a decent living through her full-time counselling work, and part-time fortune telling business, though where one finished and the other began was becoming increasingly blurred. She liked to say she was a spiritualist, and a medium, and had gone to the trouble of inventing highfaluting sounding associations she christened, “The British Spiritualist Congress” and the “European Mediums Association” and had printed expensive and impressive looking Articles and Certificates, that she framed and set on her walls. They sure as hell impressed Corla, and in due course wowed her clients too. That was the plan, and most times, it worked. 

In a good light and on a bright day she could pass for thirty-nine, as her friends would eagerly confirm, especially after Corla had bought the drinks. But on a bad day after a heavy night out, and maybe not standing her corner, those same friends would swear she was fifty-nine, looking sixty-nine. Fact was, no one really knew how old Corla Revelation and her close-knit family of warts were, and that was exactly as she liked it.

She’d always had an eye for the main chance, and that had served her well in the past, and would continue to do in the future. She always paid close attention to the criminal cases covered in the press, and especially ones from Chester and surrounding areas, and most particularly the ones where financial rewards were offered. Of special interest to her were the worst crimes imaginable, and that invariably meant rape, murder, and death.

The Chester baseball bat murder had piqued her interest, as she devoured all the media coverage she could find. It was causing quite a stir, for it wasn’t every day a well-liked and well-known local woman was murdered in her own home in the genteel city of Chester.

In her quiet moments Corla believed she possessed ESP powers, and she would test that ability to the max by sitting back in her favourite wing-backed armchair, a bottle of whisky on the small table close by, with her favourite crystal cut glass, as she attempted to reconstruct the face of the killer in her mind. If you don’t believe in yourself, she mused, how could you expect others to believe in you? He will come to me, she would say aloud. He will come.

He was a tall man, and dark too, that was eminently clear, though whether that intelligence had been garnered through her imaginary powers, or subconsciously, via the increasing media coverage, it was difficult to tell.

Corla sipped twenty-year-old malt whisky, closed her eyes, blanked her mind, and let the force swirl over and through her. She spoke aloud in a strange, deep voice: It will appear, as it always does, everything about him will materialise, and sooner than we think, and then I shall be famous.

She reached out and topped up the glass. Always nice to whet the whistle before she went out on the town. She glanced at her expensive wristwatch, a present from a long ago wealthy lover. She’d quite forgotten his name. The watch ticked on as it always did, never missed a beat. 8.22pm. Give it another ten minutes and she would slip on her favourite faux leather coat, and head down to the city centre, meet friends, and drink the night away.

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ACROSS TOWN, KAREN was getting ready too. She’d slipped into a tight-fitting red dress. Okay, maybe it was a tad too short, but that was the idea. She wanted to excite him, engage him, and relax him, for she figured that was her best chance of teasing vital information from the man.

She’d put on her most expensive red stilettos too, the ones she’d bought the previous Christmas, and had only worn once. It made her instantly taller, though she would still have to look up to David when he kissed her, and that was how she liked it. The doorbell rang from down below. Karen went to the security phone.

‘It’s me,’ he said.

‘Glad to hear it,’ she replied, smirking, an intonation that transmitted itself down the line. ‘You’d better come in,’ and she pressed the button and the door below sprang open.

A minute later he was in her apartment. His eyes widened when he saw her, in that dress, in those shoes.

‘Lady in red,’ he said. ‘Ooh la la!’

‘You like?’

‘I love,’ and he grabbed her and pulled her to him and kissed her hard. He smelt good, as if he had just showered. Karen kissed him back, and it was good too, better than good, and she hadn’t kissed a man like that since she and Gregory Orlando had gone their separate ways. But she couldn’t keep a negative thought inveigling itself deep into her brain like a burrowing worm. Was she kissing a killer? Could that be the case?

Two minutes later, and they were motoring away from her apartment block.

‘Are you sure you won’t be cold,’ he said.

‘I rarely get cold.’

‘Hot blooded, eh?’

‘Very. Where are we going?’

Maybe he was taking her into North Wales. There were lots of quiet and remote forests in North Wales, ideal places for a killer to go about his dirty business, she knew that well enough, for she had often driven rally cars through those pinewoods at breakneck speed. She comforted herself in knowing that she was as fit as she had ever been, and possessed the latest most powerful pepper spray in her black leather bag, a spray so potent it was on trial with the police, and had not yet been released to Joe Public and his sweaty chums, for it would find its way into the wrong hands, such as bank robbers and muggers, and rapists, and worse.

But he, David, was fit too. She could never imagine herself being attracted to any man who wasn’t, and he was tall and powerful as well, and that should not be underestimated. But first, she needed to extract information from him, and that was the sole aim of the evening, for now.

‘It’s a secret,’ he said, and that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, for they were heading out of the city, southbound, on a quiet and poorly lit country road. She glanced across at him. He looked fab. Perfect husband material, as no doubt Andrea Dennehey would have said if she had ever spied him in the gym. He appeared relaxed and contented as he drove, and that was as he should look, for the lucky man was dating a beautiful blonde in her prime. It didn’t get much better than that.

‘You’re full of secrets, Mr Baker.’

‘You can talk! You didn’t tell me you were a police officer until we’d met for the third time.’

‘That’s normal,’ she said. ‘One can’t be too careful in my line of work.’

‘You’re right there,’ and still they were driving south into a black and breezy night, and try as she might she found it hard to relax.

––––––––

WALTER SAT ALONE IN his favourite armchair. The curtains were drawn, and the TV on low, though he wasn’t watching. He squished open a can of stout and poured and sipped and pondered on the case.

If he could eliminate enough suspects, then the one remaining must be the killer. Either that, or it was someone else, and that was still possible. Eliminating people was the first step. He began with Flanagan. Mrs West was adamant that tags worked. In Walter’s world, that was compelling enough. He dismissed Flanagan. Next!

The solicitor, Williams. What possible motive could Gareth Williams have for murdering his former lover? The fact she had spurned him? Possible, though he didn’t seem unduly upset about it, and more than that, happy to be back with his wife, and add to that, he was, after all, a solicitor. Could solicitors commit murder? Of course they could, anyone can, but were they less likely to do so than others? Maybe. In the court of Walter’s mind he would give Gareth the benefit of the doubt, for now. He would be excused.

On to Iain Donaldson. Another professional man, a teacher this time. Did teachers commit murder? Of course they did, but statistically they were far less likely to do so than others. When did you last hear of a teacher committing murder? It doesn’t happen often. And he had an alibi, something that Walter would test in the morning when he interviewed Andrea Dennehey. He also seemed something of a wet week of a man. Was he capable of it? Walter couldn’t envisage Iain holding a baseball bat to Belinda’s throat, and coldly snapping her neck. That didn’t seem likely at all. He just couldn’t see it. For now, Walter would give him the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t believe it was Iain.

Maybe he was eliminating the easy ones first, but the field was whittled down to Miro, Nesbitt, Crocker, Andrea, Speight, Marty the drug dealer, and Marcus. Who next to look at again? Miro the Mirror man. Walter took another drink and brought Miro into his mind.

––––––––

DAVID BAKER PULLED off the road and into a small car park. Ahead of them was a long single-story stone building. It looked a little like a traditional Welsh cottage, and that wasn’t surprising for they were only a couple of miles from the Welsh border. There were five or six other cars in the car park, and a warm glow coming from the small square windows.

‘What’s this place?’ asked Karen.

‘It’s the best kept secret in Cheshire.’

‘You’ve been here before?’

‘Yes, two or three times.’

‘How did you find it?’

‘A former girlfriend brought me.’

That was a little nugget. Could that former girlfriend be Belinda Cooper? In any event, it gave Karen an easy way in to starting a casual conversation about previous partners without it appearing too obvious, at least that was her hope.

‘What’s it called?’

‘Ali’s place.’

‘Ali?’

‘Yep,’ David said, getting out of the car into the freshening wind. ‘Come on, let’s get inside.’

––––––––

WALTER BREATHED OUT heavy and thought of Grizelda Rekatic. She had quite specifically said that she never lied. Her mother had drummed that into her, and Walter believed her. She said that Miro was in bed with her, sleeping at the time of Belinda’s death, and if that was the case, Miro was not the killer. He could only have done it if he had woken up, dressed and left the house without his wife noticing. Murdered Belinda, raced home again, and slipped back into bed without waking his wife. Was that possible? Yes it was. Was it likely? Not in Walter’s world.

Plus, he had left Ellie’s caravan at around 8pm. That fact was supported by the cab company, and the fire hadn’t gone up till around midnight. It was witnessed by Mr Duffield who lived up the lane. That all pointed to someone else, at least one other person going down Marigold Lane after Miro had left. If that were the case, that let Miro off the hook. Walter was reluctant to set him free, for in his mind he was a man full of dreadful faults and weaknesses, an incredibly unlikeable person, but facts were facts, and honest people were honest people, and he believed Grizelda Rekatic was honest. He’d bet his pension on that. For now, Miro appeared innocent, and with reluctance, the Mirror man was excused.

Next up, Ronald Speight, another most unlikeable person, in Walter’s eyes. Perhaps deep down Belinda Cooper was attracted to unlikeable men, maybe without realising it. Some women are. Though Iain and Gareth didn’t fit into that box. Walter squished open a second can and poured and sipped, and poured and sipped, and thought and thought.

––––––––

ALI CAMPERDOWN WAS a Scot who’d come to Chester twenty-five years before, to take up a position as a Sous Chef in a top Chester hotel, which sounded grand, but sous chef simply means under chef in French, or deputy chef, or assistant chef, if you prefer.

But like many others before him he worked hard, moved up the table, salted away a little capital, and helped by his Scottish acquisitiveness and careful nature, he set about opening his own small restaurant. He’d launched Ali’s place five years before, and though it was still something of a hidden gem, he was building a decent business based on quality and selectivity.

Unsurprisingly, he specialised in Scottish produce, maintaining his sources of supply from way back when, importing from north of the border most of his ingredients. River caught Scottish Salmon, none of your fish farm frauds for him, and Aberdeen Angus beef were staples, as were hand collected shellfish and seaweed, and the sweetest raspberries you could ever find, grown on the slopes of the pretty Ochil hills where as a boy, he had spent many happy hours, picking and eating the juiciest fruit, and getting paid a few pennies for doing it.

The only way to obtain a table in Ali’s place was by booking, and David Baker had done that; determined to impress Karen Greenwood. Inside the restaurant to the right, was a blazing log fire, and opposite that a tiny stone bar, where Ali held court, greeting his diners personally, warm handshakes and mwah-mwah’s all around.

He remembered David Baker. He’d been in a few times before, and Ali Camperdown made a point of remembering his clientele, and their names, and why not? For his prices were sky high, and anyone willing and able to splash the cash into Ali’s till at least deserved to be remembered. This time Baker had brought with him an attractive blonde in a yes-yes-yes dress that no man would ever miss. She was younger than the women he usually accompanied too.

Intros and aperitifs over, they were shown through to a small and intimate table in the far corner. The little place was almost full with a gentle of hum of satisfied conversation reverberating back from the ancient grey stone walls.

‘It’s fab in here,’ she said, allowing David to tuck the chair in beneath her.

‘Wait till you’ve eaten before you decide that,’ he grinned, taking his seat and smiling across the table.

He handed her the small menu, only four choices, but wasn’t that better than fifty-four? Four choices alone meant more attention to each, and the greater probability of fresh and carefully chosen ingredients.

‘Don’t look at the price,’ he said. ‘My treat.’

Too late, for she had already glanced at the tariffs.

Goodness me. What was he after?

Predictably, she chose the salmon, and he the steak, and both were perfect.

‘So,’ she said, ‘tell me about the lady who first brought you here.’

‘Just a woman I once knew.’

‘No, Mr Baker, you are not getting away with that, I want all the goss,’ she said, linking her hands and smiling and gazing into his dark chocolate eyes, while leaning slightly across the white cotton cloth. 

––––––––

RONALD COLIN SPEIGHT, Walter muttered his name aloud, and pictured him in his mind. What the heck did a lovely lady like Bel Cooper see in the man? He came across as something of a bully, occasionally uncouth, intolerant, impatient, and unbearable, though it wasn’t unusual for Walter to be found wanting when trying to figure out a man’s attraction to women.

Before he’d left the office Karen had showed him the stark photos that Speight had emailed to Bel. What was the point? What was the thinking behind such a move? Did he imagine such pictures would turn her on? Excite her, make him more desirable, and cement their relationship? It seemed unlikely to Walter, and that judgement stood up, for not long after, Bel brought the final curtain down on not so big Ron.

I could strangle you. Walter wondered what brought on the thought. I could strangle you. That infamous phrase that was not only inside Speight’s head and brain, but he had seen fit to write it down and email it to his partner, his lover, his lady, knowing that it would be there in her computer forever. I could strangle you. Okay, it was issued in the wee small hours when alcohol was almost certainly in play too, but that was no excuse. The thought was there, even if it were meant in a jokey fashion.

The fact Belinda was not strangled but murdered with a baseball bat meant nothing. Who would ever say, “I’m going to break your neck with a baseball bat?” It didn’t slip off the tongue in the same manner as: “I could strangle you,” or, “I could kill you.” And he had a motive, and some might say the most powerful motive of all. Jealousy, and Walter had seen first hand that Ronny Speight could be a jealous man.

The man was in a jam. One week he had a beautiful woman on tap, presumably providing him with all his bedroom needs, and in the next, he was reduced to visiting a downmarket call girl in a scruffy and smelly caravan to get his fix at the sexual well. What a comedown that must have been.

That was the picture in a nutshell; throw in threats of attack, even to the extent of murder, a serious motive present in jealousy and revenge, and lo-and-behold the man had no alibi, and through his arrogance he even thought that was something of a joke.

Walter snorted. It was time to bring Ronald Speight in for a serious quest-session, in fact it was overdue, and that would be done sooner rather than later, and yet... and yet, the bottom line was that Walter did not believe Ronald Speight to be the murderer. True, he was the only name in the frame so far to have had a relationship with both dead women, if visiting a call girl could ever be described as a relationship.

The more one juggled the facts, the more likely it looked that Ronald Colin Speight was the killer, yet Walter didn’t concur. He’d been wrong before, and he was well aware of that, and many times too over his long career, and no doubt he would be wrong again before the final curtain came down on his working life. But he did not think he was wrong this time.

What was it that ma’am had said? Keep asking them questions until they trip themselves up. The stock tactic of detectives going back millennia, and Walter would do just that. But the annoying thing was he thought they could go on asking Speight questions until the sun went out, with no discernable results. In other words, it was a waste of precious time, his, and the team’s.

No matter, he made a mental note to send the boys, and maybe boys and girls, round in the morning, to bring Speight in to discover if an intensive questioning session might reveal something. Anything would be nice. Unlike the others, Speight was not excused. Not yet.

––––––––

DAVID BAKER SIPPED his drink and tried to avoid Karen’s question.

‘Come on,’ she said, smirking. ‘Where did you meet her? Is she another online dater?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not a computer babe, in fact you are the first woman I have ever met online.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Karen. ‘And see that flying pig?’

‘That isn’t a flying pig, it’s best Scottish pork loin, Ali’s well known for it.’

They laughed together.

‘So where did you meet her?’

‘Is it important?’

‘I don’t know. Is it?’

‘I met her at her place of work, if you must know.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Forgive me for saying, but this conversation seems to have morphed from friendly banter, to a police interview. Would that be fair to say?’

Karen giggled and said, ‘Course not, sorry if I sound a little officious, it’s just with asking people questions all day in a certain manner, inevitably, I guess sometimes I relapse into enquiro-speak out of hours. I’ve been told off about that before.’

‘I’ll bet you have.’

‘Why did you stop seeing her, or is that a secret too?’

‘She stopped seeing me, she said I was too young.’

‘She was older than you?’ asked Karen, though she thought she knew the answer.

‘A little, but not by much.’

‘Do you miss her?’

‘No, not now, not when I am with you,’ he said, his dark eyes piercing into her blue, holding her gaze, hoping she believed him.

She thought that was so much flannel. She’d always seen through disingenuous male compliments, always been wary of them, but she wanted him to keep talking, and maybe even wanted to believe him. Truth was, she wanted to believe everything about the guy. But he still fitted the profile of the man wanted for murdering Belinda Cooper, and she knew he had a possible motive. Rejection. Simple as that. Plenty of people have been murdered for less.

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WALTER FINISHED THE can of stout and pondered on whether to go to the kitchen and fetch another. Maybe in a second. There were still a few names in the frame to review. Derek Nesbitt? No, there was nothing to suggest he was involved with Bel, unless Karen could come up with something via Bel’s broken passworded tech.

What about Marcus Royce, as Karen had discovered his name to be? What was it Lena Freeman had said? He’d run off to one of the three B’s: Bournemouth, Blackpool or Brighton, seaside resorts all. If Walter had to bet, he’d choose Brighton, though a case could be made for all three. For now, the guy was beyond the reach of questioning, and there wasn’t sufficient intelligence warranting a nationwide search to bring him back to Chester for interrogation. That could change, but for now he was, in Walter’s mind, ruled out.

It didn’t leave much.

Speight of course, a nagging picture that would not go away. Andrea Dennehey, a tough young woman not averse to using violence. A so far unidentified drug dealer called Marty, and that left just two other possibilities. The fifth man, Belinda Cooper’s mysterious fifth lover, also yet to be identified. Surely to God there must be something within Bel’s tech to ID him, and Walter made another mental note to ask Karen about that in the morning. While the last possibility was someone yet to enter the picture. Someone new. Someone unknown. Someone mysterious. Seemed unlikely, but not impossible. But who could that be? He glanced at his overlarge watch. 11.32pm. That wasn’t too late to ring someone, was it? Not when a murderer was at large. He wandered through to the hall and picked up the phone.

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DAVID BAKER PAID FOR the excellent meal and drove Karen straight back to her apartment. It was something of a relief, though if he had suggested a late night drive out into the wilds of North Wales it might have brought things on a little. Earlier, he had parried her questions, and she realised she was going to give her true intentions away if she persisted.

They’d only been in the flat for a couple of minutes when the phone rang.

‘Sorry to trouble you so late,’ mumbled Walter.

‘No problem, Guv. What’s up?’

‘I was wondering how you were getting on with Bel’s laptop.’

‘Good. There’s a lot of stuff in there. It’ll take a bit of time to get through it all.’

‘I was wondering about the fifth man. It would be weird if there was nothing in there about him.’

‘If he exists.’

‘You think he doesn’t?’

‘We only have Bel’s word for it,’ said Karen, glancing across at David, who was busy standing and admiring some Greenwood family photographs on the far wall. He had a cute bum.

‘I don’t see why she’d lie.’

‘I am not saying she did, but we don’t have a fifth man until we have proof that such a person exists,’ said Karen, knowing she was misleading her boss.

‘I think there is a fifth man, and I want you to step up your search in Bel’s tech. He must be in there somewhere.’

‘I’m on it, first thing in the morning.’

Walter sniffed and said, ‘I think the fifth man is the killer.’

‘Really?’ said Karen, still looking at the handsome Mr B who had turned round, and was smiling at her through his fab eyes. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because I don’t think it’s any of the others. Our man is smarter than the ordinary Joes we have in the frame, much smarter, and more dangerous with it. He’s a cunning foe to be reckoned with.’

‘You think?’

‘For sure. I wonder where he is now, and what he’s doing.’

Karen’s mouth fell open, and she shivered.

David smiled. Walter sighed.

‘God knows,’ she said, pondering, maybe he’s right in front of me, about to go to work again, God forbid.

‘Sorry to bother you so late.’

‘No problem, Guv. You’ve discounted Andrea?’

‘Not entirely.’

‘Neither have I.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Walter. ‘Early start tomorrow, yeah?’

‘Yeah sure, Guv, I’ll be there. Sleep well.’

‘You too.’ 

Karen put down the phone as David said, ‘Who was that?’

‘My boss.’

‘Does he always ring so late at night?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Does he fancy you?’

‘Good God, no.’

‘I should hope not.’

That was an interesting thing for him to say, I should hope not, but maybe not surprising. Men are fiercely territorial creatures, they never like other males on what they see as their territory. But it was interesting that David Baker appeared to imagine that she might be part of his domain. Taking a bit for granted, a little arrogant too, but hey, it was a lot better than showing no interest at all, far better, for she liked him, and a bit more with each passing day.

She shook her head and closed on him and said, ‘Now listen, Mr B, I have to be up real early in the morning, and you are going to have to go.’

‘So soon?’

‘Yes, soon, like now.’

‘But not until I have done this,’ and he reached out and tugged her close and kissed her like he meant it. He was strong, really strong. It was good too, though she never let herself go, not completely, for that weird thought was there again, nagging away. Was she kissing a killer? Had this man murdered Belinda Cooper, snapping her neck with a baseball bat as if it were a twig? Walter seemed to think so, and that was worrying.

They agreed to meet again in three days. That would be enough time, she hoped, to prove his innocence, or guilt. Later, in bed alone before she fell asleep, she pondered on her predicament. One lie led to another, or one half-truth to another, or one misleading comment to another, and it had. She had already denied in the office she knew of a fifth man, and his ID, and she had done so again, while looking into the fifth man’s smiling face.

She would have to come clean about it, and soon, and that was going to be mighty tricky. The worst thing was she realised what delicate ground she was crossing. Her entire career was at stake. Nothing less. She tried to switch her mind back to what could have happened if DB had stayed over, stayed the night, stayed with her, in her bed.

It would have been good, beyond good, she was certain of that, and on another day, and another night, she might have forced the issue, though she didn’t imagine she would have to do much forcing. She wondered what it would be like, sleeping with David Baker, or sleeping with a killer, or were they one and the same? In any event, he excited her. That was beyond doubt. Killers often excite. 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It was a new dawn and a new day and I’m feeling good, thought Walter, as he knotted his favourite red and blue striped tie.

But it was a dark one, one of those horrid November days that never gets light, dank and cold and miserable and negative. Was there anything good about November in England?

But Walter wasn’t negative at all, as he went outside and ambled down the road to catch the single-decker bus on the ten-minute trip into town. The usual four early birds were at the bus stop. They were all on nodding terms, like some kind of special club of hard-done-by-ers, out alone, working early, when the lucky world slept on.

‘Be along in a minute,’ said the plump woman, forcing a smile, as she glanced away from her mobile.

‘Hope so,’ said Walter, ramming his hands deeper into his coat pockets. It wasn’t raining, but there was a creeping cold chill and dankness in the air, capable of attacking anyone who was going to stand about in it for too long.

The little bus appeared like some kind of happy dog, its headlights grinning a good morning, bringing relief. Walter imagined a frantic tail wagging at the backend, and all those waiting at the bus stop smirked at one another, and muttered positive vibes, as they changed weight from one foot to another, formed an orderly queue, the woman first, and then the men, strictly in order of time of arrival, Walter bringing up the rear. Then they were aboard, half full, plenty of seats at that hour, lots of room to spread out, and the beautiful heater blowing out comfort and joy, as the bus glided almost silently into town, so much so the November blues were obliterated, almost.

––––––––

IN THE OFFICE EVERYONE was in early, even Mrs West. They were a good crew; Walter couldn’t help thinking that, though they were in because of him, though he would never have realised that in a month of Sundays. A month of Sundays would be like any other month, seeing as Sunday was no longer different to other days. Empty churches, full bookies, frantic shopping, horseracing on the telly, pubs open all day, X-rated pics on the flicks. Things had changed, and Sundays were not like they were.

Hector brought him a coffee and set it down on Walter’s desk.

‘Thank you, man.’

‘Welcome, Guv.’

Walter wasn’t in any mood for gentle introductions, or a gradual build up. He was straight on it.

‘Karen, I want you to stay in all day and get on with disseminating any intel in Bel’s tech.’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘Nicky, I want you to stay with Karen and give her any help necessary.’

‘Sure,’ he said, grinning at his sarge.

‘You know what we are looking for. Any clues the killer may have left in there, any hints that he was about to do what he did.’

‘You said “he”, Guv, but it could still be a “she”,’ said Jenny.

‘Yes, that too. Jenny. I want you to find out where Andrea Dennehey is right now, I want you to get us a good unmarked car, and I want you to take me to see her as soon as we have finished here.’

‘Sure, Guv, leave it with me.’

‘Hector and Gibbons, I want you to find out where Ronald Speight is this morning, I want you to go and see him later, and bring him back here to answer my questions around lunchtime.’

Mrs West nodded and looked happy.

‘What happens if he refuses to come?’ asked Hector.

‘Tell him I’d appreciate his cooperation. If he still won’t come, arrest him on suspicion of the murder of Belinda Cooper, that should concentrate his mind.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ said Hector.

‘Looking forward to it,’ said Gibbons.

‘There’s a £20,000 reward put up for information leading to the conviction of... et cetera,’ said Mrs West.

‘Who by?’ asked Karen.

‘Not sure, some local businessman.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘Thank you, ma’am, anything that helps is good. It’s come to my attention that some of you are not reading all the relevant reports on this case, or these cases, the deaths of Wright and Cooper. Put that right today. Toxicology reports, SOCO reports, fire reports, autopsies, the whole bloody lot. You can’t afford to miss things, so make sure you all read the reports, and I don’t care how long it takes, or how boring some of them may be. That clear?’

‘Sure, Guv,’ mumbled a few.

‘Any questions?’

No one had.

‘Get to it... Today’s the day...’

And people started to move, as Gibbons added, ‘The teddy bears have their picnic!’

‘Shut up, Gibbons,’ said Karen, as Walter nodded to her and said, ‘Use Nicky wherever you can. I know there’s loads of stuff to get through, but use him, he’s supposed to be bright. We need to get finished.’

Karen nodded. ‘Sure, Guv. I’ll see you later.’

Jenny came over to Walter and said, ‘Andrea Dennehey works in Austerity Hayes old department store in the city, on the perfume counter, and she’s there this morning.’

‘That figures,’ said Karen. ‘She uses enough of the stuff, and wears false lashes like big black hairy caterpillars. You won’t miss her, or them.’

‘Car, Jen?’ said Walter.

‘On my way, Guv, see you downstairs in ten.’

Walter glanced back at Karen.

‘Have a good morning, I’ll want you in on the Speight interview later.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and Walter turned about and limped towards the lift. After he’d gone Karen pondered on her continuing predicament. It was even worse, for she had the little runt Nicky there snooping around; and how bad would it be if he found evidence of the fifth man before she did? That didn’t bear thinking about. She’d have to give him something to keep him busy that didn’t jeopardise her own position, and that wouldn’t be easy. One thing was clear; she needed to reveal the ID of the fifth man soon.

Nicky ambled over, smirked down and said, ‘I’m all yours.’

The idiotic little guy seemed to think he had a chance with her. The fool. She gave him Bel’s bank statements, going back five years.

‘What am I looking for?’

‘Clues, DC Barr, clues.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Anything that looks out of order, any payments to and from anyone involved in the case. You have read all the reports involved in these cases, I take it?’

He looked guilty. ‘Maybe not all of them.’

‘Well do that now!’

‘Sure, sarge,’ and he ambled away, as Karen grinned.

––––––––

AUSTERITY HAYES OLD department store hadn’t changed much in forty years, and it was still busy, even first thing. It didn’t matter it was a dank November day; there were still plenty of tourists about. Chester was a touristy town, and they kept the tills ringing with their euros and dollars and yen and yuan, and a goodly proportion of visitors had packed out the perfumes and cosmetics department on the ground floor.

Walter and Jenny stepped through the recently modernised double glass doors to be hit with an aroma that reminded them of first dates, and Christmas gifts, and romance, and, dare one mention the word sex, too? though Walter would keep that colourful observation to himself.

They sought out the floor manageress, explained to her they needed somewhere quiet to talk to Andrea Dennehey. She wasn’t in any trouble, simply helping with their routine enquiries, and the manageress was most accommodating, providing them with a quiet furnished room.

‘Do you want me to fetch her for you?’ she asked.

‘That would be great,’ said Walter, sitting at the modern desk. Jenny to one side of him, as she took out her notebook.

A couple of minutes later the manageress showed a pair of hairy black caterpillars into the room, Andrea Dennehey following immediately behind. The manageress made her excuses and left, as Jenny did the introductions.

‘What’s all this about?’ asked Andrea, still wary of the police after her last brush with the law.

‘Take a seat,’ said Walter, pointing to the chair before the desk. ‘Just a few questions, nothing to worry about.’

––––––––

IT WAS HARD TO TAKE the eyes away from the lashes. Maybe it was because Karen had mentioned them, but by hell they caught the eye, and not all of it was good.

Andrea grinned and sat down and crossed her legs with a flourish, and smoothed down her short black skirt. Walter looked up and across the desk and tried not to see the ’pillars.

‘You’re Iain Donaldson’s fiancé, I understand?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. He said you might want a word with me.’

‘Did he? and what would that be about?’

‘Presumably the baseball bat murder, everyone’s talking about it.’

‘Are they?’

Andrea nodded and said, ‘What do you want to know?’

‘You were with Iain on the night of the murder?’ said Walter, as Jenny chipped in with the date.

‘Yes, I was. All night... you know, together, just the two of us.’

‘Quite,’ said Walter, ‘and you wouldn’t lie about that, would you?’

‘Course not. What do you take me for?’

‘You’re a member of the gym, I believe?’

‘Yep, gotta keep in shape, you know how it is. Mind you,’ she said, looking at Walter’s ample figure, and she glanced at Jen and pulled a face and said, ‘I thought you lot had to keep in shape too.’

Walter ignored the barb.

‘They tell me you are very strong?’

‘What? For a woman you mean?’

‘No, I mean as a human being.’

‘I am strong, I can whack Iain at arm wrestling, lots of fellas come to that, you want to try me?’

‘That won’t be necessary. What would you say if we found your fingerprints on the baseball bat?’

‘I’d say you were lying twats! Because that ain’t possible,’ and she thought about that for a second and said, ‘Hold on a minute, is this what you are about? Trying to fit me up with that murder, ’cos you can’t find the real killer? What’s your game?’

‘We are not trying to fit anyone up. We just want to get at the truth. Iain, your Iain, was once the partner of the deceased. It’s standard procedure to look at all ex-partners, and their new partners.’

‘You mean me?’

‘Yes, in this instance, that’s you.’

‘Do you like my lashes or something?’

‘Pardon.’

‘It’s just you keep staring at them.’

‘Do I? My apologies if you think that.’

‘They’re not expensive,’ and she glanced across at Jenny and back at Walter and said, ‘your young friend here could do with some, if you don’t mind me saying. Improve her no end.’

‘Tell me about when you attacked two young women in the lavatory?’

‘Oh, here we go! They attacked me, is the truth of it. You know all about that. It went to court and I was punished, wrongly in my opinion, but there we are, end of.’

‘Have you ever attacked anyone else?’

‘I have not!’

‘Have you ever been in Belinda Cooper’s house?’

‘Certainly not!’

‘Iain has.’

‘Of course he bloody well has, and it ain’t the only thing he’s been in, in that house, if you get my meaning,’ and she smirked at the two coppers in turn.

‘Were you upset with Belinda Cooper?’

‘No, not really. Why should I be? He dumped her, and then found me, lucky him, and quite right too, for she was messing around with other men, lots of them, if truth be told. You should look at that greasy bouffant-haired solicitor of a dick for one. Belinda was a bit of a stuck up cow, that’s all, so I gathered, from what Iain told me, but I never met her.’

‘What else did Iain tell you?’

‘Nothing special, just odd things here and there that painted a picture of a frustrated woman, who’d never found happiness.’

‘And you’ve found happiness?’

‘I have. Iain and I are good. We’re going to make a real go of it.’

‘Do you know anything about Belinda Cooper’s other menfriends?’

‘No, not by name, though Iain said that one of them turned out to be gay, and that freaked her out, but it would, wouldn’t it?’ And she turned and pulled a face and addressed that question to Jenny.

Jenny glanced at Walter, remained silent, and noted the conversation.

‘On the night of the murder did Iain leave the house at any point? Think carefully before you answer, for an untruthful reply could bring you serious trouble.’

‘He never left the apartment. Not once. We were too busy creating the eight-limbed beast.’

Walter grimaced and continued.

‘Could he have nipped out when you fell asleep?’

‘Nope, not possible.’

‘And why would that be?’

‘Because I’d tied him to the bed, I think he quite likes it. Anything else you want to know?’

‘No,’ said Walter. ‘Thanks for your help. You can go now.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘And another thing, if it had been just you and me when I had that other nonsense, it would never have gone to court.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because I am sure we could have sorted things out between us. Know what I mean... Walter, love. Ta-rah,’ and she stood up and grinned, and flashed her lashes, and left the room in a swirl of expensive gratis perfume.

‘Geez, give me strength,’ said Walter. ‘What did you make of that?’

‘She’s a tramp,’ said Jenny. ‘Imagines all men are overwhelmingly attracted to her. Can’t see what a hard-faced bitch she really is. Thick as a plank, if you ask me.’

Walter pulled a face, never one to be surprised by the outspokenness of the women on the team, and that was cool.

‘But a murdering bitch, you think?’

‘I think she’s capable of it, but I don’t think she did it.’

‘My sentiments, exactly. Come on, back to the office. Ronald Speight awaits.’

‘Lovely,’ she said, grinning. 

Chapter Thirty

The interview with Ronald Speight got underway at 12.25pm. He was furious at being dragged out of work. He was a draughtsman, though not qualified, though he didn’t advertise that fact.

Got by as an assistant, but harboured a grudge against the qualified university educated wallahs, who he hated with a passion, many of whom were younger, and paid far more.

He moaned he could lose his job because of Darriteau and the bird, as he called them, and if he did, he was threatening to sue Cheshire Police and Darriteau, personally.

Walter shrugged. Bluster and braggadocio deserved nothing more. Karen turned on the recorder and said, ‘Interview with Ronald Colin Speight, I am Detective Sergeant Karen Greenwood, also present is Inspector Walter Darriteau.’

Walter set the ball rolling.

‘We’ve invited you here to assist in our enquiries into the deaths of Eleanor Wright and Belinda Cooper.’

‘You didn’t invite me, you dragged me out of work against my wishes.’

‘Whatever the circumstances, we appreciate your cooperation.’

‘Get on with it, I haven’t got all day.’

‘In one of your emails to Belinda Cooper you said, and I quote, “I could strangle you”. What did you mean by that?’

‘Yeah, and I could kill you for dragging me here, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to do it. Get my point?’

‘It was meant in jest?’ asked Karen.

‘Not exactly. It was meant as a rebuke. She was pissing me around, and I felt I needed to make a point.’

‘Despite extensive enquiries you are the only person we can trace who knew both dead women, and you had a motive for Belinda’s murder.’

‘Then you’re not looking hard enough.’

‘Your DNA is all over Bel’s house.’

‘No shit, Sherlock. I was there enough times.’

‘Yes, but not for a while, and DNA degrades over time.’

‘You’re clutching at straws and not particularly strong ones at that. I know it because I wasn’t there when Bel was murdered, and I suspect you know it too, because you haven’t anything better. My guess is you’re under pressure to get a result, but you’re looking in the wrong place.’

‘Where should we be looking?’ asked Karen.

‘How the hell would I know? Do you want me to do your job for you? I would if you paid me enough, and by hell I couldn’t do it any worse.’

‘Let’s talk about Ellie Wright,’ said Walter.

‘Talk about what you like.’

‘We believe you went there again, late that Friday night.’

‘I did not.’

‘We think she didn’t appreciate your return visit. Maybe she was busy, maybe she was tired, perhaps she was cheesed off after a long and hard week.’

‘Didn’t happen.’

‘We think you argued, maybe you hit her, had a fight, you’re a big and powerful man, a man known for his temper, a man who routinely threatens women, and maybe you hit her and she fell over and banged her head. So you thought, the best thing you could do to cover your tracks was burn the place down. You’re a regular smoker, you had matches or a lighter to hand, and before you knew it there was a big fire, and you were running for your life.’

Speight pulled a face and shook his head. ‘Fairy tales.’

‘You have no alibi for that night, because you couldn’t possibly have an alibi because you were there.’

‘Nope, you’re wrong.’

‘And would you know it, but you haven’t got an alibi for the night Belinda Cooper was murdered either.’

‘That’s what happens when you live alone, no one can say whether you were in or out.’

‘You were angry at Ellie because she didn’t want to know, and you were even angrier at Belinda Cooper because you could see your idyllic way of life going down the tubes. One day you have a hot girlfriend on tap, the next, you were reduced to visiting prostitutes.’

‘I can get sex any time I want.’

‘Doesn’t look that way to us. You were reduced to pay and display, or starve.’

‘I do all right.’

‘You are an angry man with a quick temper, a man who writes threatening messages late at night to vulnerable women living alone, and I quote again, “I could strangle you”, and lo-and-behold what happens? That same threatened lady is murdered in her own home.’

‘You’re firing blanks, Darriteau. Is that the best you’ve got, because you’ve got bugger all! Charge me or let me go.’

‘Is your wife back?’

‘Eh?’

‘You heard the Inspector.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Just answer the question.’

‘No, not yet, and don’t ask me where she is, for I have no idea.’

‘When she returns could you ask her to ring me?’ and Walter slipped his card across the desk.

‘No chance!’

‘Thanks for your help Mr Speight, that’s all for today.’

Speight sighed and looked surprised and said, ‘You mean I can go?’

Walter nodded. ‘For now. Unless there’s anything you’d like to tell us.’

‘I’ve got bugger all to say to you two,’ and he kicked the chair back, muttering something about seeing his solicitor, and then he was gone.

‘That was a complete waste of time,’ said Karen.

‘You think?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘No, not entirely. Mrs West said we keep asking them questions until they trip themselves up.’

‘So?’

‘We have, and he didn’t, and that’s probably because he’s telling the truth. I don’t believe Speight’s the killer.’

‘So who do you think is?’

‘More and more likely it looks like the fifth man.’

They exchanged glances, and Karen knew the question coming next and pre-empted it.

‘I’m on the tech now.’

Walter nodded. ‘How’s Nicky getting on?’

‘He’s going through Bel’s finances. Nothing so far.’

‘Crack on with it, KG.’

‘Will do, Guv.’ 

––––––––

CORLA REVELATION SAT alone in her house. The radio was on, but it always was because Corla liked to keep fresh with the up-to-date tracks. The set was permanently tuned to the pirate station, Dee Bee Cee, and there was a solid reason for that. The station was owned and run by young blokes who happened to be good friends of her two nieces. Many of the local families rarely listened to anything else.

DBC pumped out non-stop music, and not just current stuff, but classics going back to the sixties. But in between the sounds there was a decent news round-up, and just as pirate stations have always done, those news stories were cribbed from the BBC, ITN, SKY, and the local radio stations.

The catchy on-the-hour station signature tune came on, and Corla hummed along. The news would follow in a second, and the lead story could only be the Chester baseball bat murder, for nothing like it had happened in the city for quite some time.

There had been slight developments too. A little more information had been released. The deceased woman; named as thirty-six-year-old Belinda Cooper, lived close to Corla, in a wide and pleasant street called Berryland Avenue. And there was more too. A twenty thousand pound reward had been put up by a local solicitor, one Gareth Williams, available to anyone who could provide information to bring the perpetrator to justice.

A radio station run by her nieces’ friends, a news item pinched from legit broadcasters, a murder in a house not so far away, and a decent reward on offer, four facts that didn’t have a great deal to do with one another, but combined and sent through the airwaves, out of Corla’s modern radio, swishing through her dyed blonde hair, down her ears, into her brain, and everything became crystal clear.

She remembered it all. She remembered everything. She had seen the killer on the night of the murder, and could identify him too, if required. She’d always known she’d become involved in the case, and she had. She opened her diary and spotted the direct number for Chester central police station, she’d used it several times before, and dabbed in the number. A minute later, and the call found its way to DC Darren Gibbons.   

Chapter Thirty-One

Walter and Karen came back from the interview room. Gibbons was talking on the phone. He stood up and waved and caught their attention.

They heard him say, ‘Yes, someone will be with you in about twenty minutes. Yes. Don’t go out, we’re on our way.’

‘What?’ said Walter.

‘Witness, Guv, says she saw the murderer coming out of Belinda’s house on the night of the murder.’

‘Fan-bloody-tastic! What’s her name?’

‘Bit of an unusual one. Corla Revelation, so she says.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘Warren Drive, number 20, not far from Bel’s house.’

‘Car, Guv?’ said Karen, not wanting to miss out on a thing.

Walter nodded. ‘I’ll be down in a sec,’ and he hurried across to Mrs West’s room, tapped on the open door, held it open and peeped around the side to bring Mrs West up to speed.

‘Let’s hope she’s not a time-waster,’ said Mrs West, staring at her crammed screen of multi-coloured spreadsheets.

‘We’re overdue a break, ma’am, this could be it.’

‘Hope so, my man, keep me posted.’ 

––––––––

KAREN GRABBED A NEWISH navy blue BMW, no police markings, as he liked them, though for once they weren’t interested in the car.

Karen said, ‘We have to drive down Berryland to get to Warren Drive,’ and ten minutes later they were doing precisely that. Outside Belinda’s house a solitary Community Support Officer stood guard, while on the verge were two large grey vans, lots of personnel in the house, working hard, beavering away, seeking vital intel. A couple of minutes later, and they pulled into Warren Drive, a very similar suburban road packed with well-heeled old houses, some detached, some semis, and all built between Victoria abandoning the throne in 1901, and Edward VIII desperately trying to clamber aboard in 1937.

Karen pulled the big car to a gentle halt outside number 20, a small 1920s detached house, not unlike Walter’s.

‘Here we go,’ she said, turning off the engine and getting out.

‘Please God, don’t let this woman be a dreamer motivated by gold,’ muttered Walter, heaving himself out of the car and into the chilly November afternoon.

Karen opened the squeaking wrought iron front gate, went to the door, and rang the bell.

Corla opened up fast, smiled a greeting, and said, ‘Come on in.’

They stood in the hallway and Walter said, ‘You live on your own?’

‘I do, and I suspect you do too.’

Karen suppressed a smile.

Walter said, ‘You have an unusual name. Corla Revelation.’

Corla smiled, not unattractively, and nodded and said, ‘I do, but it’s all my own. I had an old aunt named Corla, but no one knows where the Revelation part came from. My mother used to say one Revelation in the bible, and one Revelation in the town. We’d always laugh about that. Come on through, would you like some tea?’

Walter thought about that for a second. Was this a lonely lady desperate for company and attention, a woman with an eye on the reward, who would say anything to get it, or was she a potential reliable witness with something serious to contribute? He gave her the benefit of the doubt.

‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

‘No, of course not,’ and she showed them into a neat square rear sitting room overlooking a neat square rear garden. ‘Take a seat, I won’t be a minute.’

Walter and Karen shared a look and glanced around. Pictures on the wall, but no photos, no dead husbands on display like trophies, forever staring down at a former wife who didn’t love them that much. Corla came back almost straight away; the kettle must have been on the go all along, anticipating thirsty police officers. She carried an old wooden tray and on the tray were primrose patterned china cups and saucers, something rarely seen. She set them out on the coffee table and poured from a matching yellow teapot. Karen rarely touched tea, but it was too late to refuse. Steam wafted away, and the tea looked good and strong, as Walter liked it.

Walter checked Corla out. She was a neat woman, tall and slender with a pinched waist, long dark skirt way below the knee, plain white blouse finished off with a flourish by a red silk scarf knotted around her neck. Pity about the warts, but none of us are perfect. The dyed and shiny blonde hair bouncing on her shoulders didn’t do anything for her, making her a hard woman to age. There was something vaguely hippy-ish about her, and the house too, though whether she had any direct connection to the sixties, it was hard to tell.

‘So,’ said Walter, cradling hot tea. ‘My colleague at the station tells me you might have seen something in Berryland Avenue.’

Corla sat in the matching armchair opposite and smiled and said, ‘That’s right. I did.’

‘Would you like to tell us what you saw?’

Corla nodded and began. ‘Before I tell you about that, just to be clear, I understand there is a reward on offer in this case.’

Oh, here we go, thought Walter, his worst fears re-emerging.

‘There is, if your information results in the killer being apprehended, and successfully prosecuted.’

‘Good,’ she said, happy to see Karen taking notes. ‘So long as that is understood.’

Walter prompted again. ‘What did you see?’

‘I saw a tall young man coming out of Belinda’s house.’

‘You knew Belinda?’

‘No, not to speak to, but it was her house all right.’

‘How old was the young man?’

‘Thirty, maybe thirty-five.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Tall, fit, dark-haired, a good head of hair.’

Just like David Baker, thought Karen, but also like Ronald Speight, Miro, Gareth Williams, Michael Flanagan, Iain Donaldson, and Derek Nesbitt, to name but seven.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Around a quarter to one in the morning.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was sitting on a garden wall on the other side of the road, four or five houses down.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘I’d been out. I always go out that night, there’s a group of us go together, socialising. It’s a regular thing, you know, have a nice time, a few drinks, maybe something to eat. I was walking home when I felt like a sit down, you know how it is, and naughty I know, but I needed a ciggie. I was going to wait till I got home, but I thought, to hell with it, I’ll sit and have a quiet fag. The rain had just stopped. Of course everything was sopping wet, and I ruined my coat when I sat down, but you don’t think, do you?’

‘You were by yourself?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Tell me exactly what happened.’

‘He came out of Belinda’s house. I noticed him because he stood there for a second on the pavement and glanced around. I thought he’d see me, but he didn’t. He hunched into his jacket and walked smartly away from the house, and away from me. The streetlights were popping out, one by one, almost as he went past. I thought that weird.’

‘What was he wearing?’

‘Dark trousers, they could have been black jeans, though I couldn’t be sure, and a casual jacket, and gloves. I noticed that too, dark gloves.’

‘No hat?’

‘No hat.’

‘He was a white man?’

‘Oh yes, as white as me.’

‘And he didn’t have a car?’

‘Nope, not that I saw.’

‘Was he carrying anything?’

She shook her head and again said, ‘Nope.’

‘How tall was he?’

‘Six feet, maybe more. He looked like a man who could look after himself, and a man who could look after other people too, if necessary, a man’s man, as they used to say.’

‘What about his feet?’

‘His feet?’

‘Yes, trainers, boots, shoes, what?’

She shook her head and thought hard. ‘Dark shoes, I’d say. I think I would have noticed if he had worn boots, or flashy trainers.’

‘What happened next?’

‘I finished my ciggie.’

‘And you didn’t see anyone else?’

‘Nope, not a soul. It was very quiet.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I got up and noticed my dirty coat, brushed it down, and ambled home.’

‘So you walked right past Belinda’s house?’

‘I did. There were no lights on in the house, and I...’

‘You, what?’

She shook her head and grimaced and continued. ‘I know I shouldn’t have, but right there, I thought naughty thoughts.’

‘What kind of naughty thoughts?’

Corla nodded and continued. ‘You’ll think me crazy, but I imagined he was a lady’s younger lover, and he’d been paying her a night-time visit, passionate like, and they’d enjoyed a lovely time, and she was peacefully sleeping. I was just a little jealous, I guess, and she was perfectly content, and he had a spring in his step, but she wasn’t content at all, was she?’

‘No, she wasn’t. She was dead.’

‘Dreadful business. It beggars belief. Why are so many men so bloody awful?’

‘I can’t explain that,’ said Walter, glancing at Karen.

She said, ‘Women kill too. I don’t suppose you would recognise him if you saw him again.’

Corla smiled.

‘Of course I could. That’s why I rang. I may be getting on a little, but my vision is perfect. 20/20, I have never worn glasses in my life, and I saw him as clear as day. He paused under the light, just for a second, and he looked my way. I saw his face. I’d recognise him again for sure, especially now we know what he’s done. The filthy git. He needs to be put behind bars. I’d string him up if I had my way... But you don’t want to know that.’

‘Just to be clear,’ said Walter. ‘We don’t yet know the man you saw was the killer.’

‘Well, who else would he be?’

‘Do you think you might be able to pick him out of an ID parade?’

‘What? Men lined up in front of me, you mean?’

‘Yes, but you could be hidden behind a glass screen, if you prefer. They couldn’t see you. You’d be quite safe with us.’

‘I think that would be better.’

‘Could you do that tomorrow, say late afternoon, if we arranged it? We’d send a car for you.’

‘Yes, I’d do that, be happy to, so long as I received my just rewards.’

‘You would, on completion of a successful prosecution.’

Corla nodded and said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’

‘One thing I don’t understand?’ said Walter.

‘What’s that?’

‘Why has it taken you until now to tell us what you saw?’

‘That’s the funny thing. I didn’t put two and two together until I heard it on the news today, about the murder being in Berryland Avenue. To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all about it. You know what it’s like when one goes out and has a few drinks. I’d forgotten even seeing him. But then I have special powers, and it all came tumbling back. I can see his face in my mind now. If only you could see that too.’

‘Special powers?’

‘Yes, didn’t I say? I’m a medium, a spiritualist, I do fortune telling as well, and sometimes I receive ESP moments.’

‘ESP?’

‘Yes, extra sensory percept...’

‘I know what it is, I’m just not sure I believe in it, and I know a court would never do so.’

‘What I have told you is not an ESP moment, Inspector. It’s the truth, fact, and when you put me in front of a line-up, I will point the killer out to you, so long as he is there, of course. I am not in this for the money, I can assure you of that, though I’ll admit anything would be gratefully received.’

‘We’ll organise something.’

Corla nodded and said, ‘I know you think I am a stupid woman, but I am not. I have gifts. I could tell you a lot about yourself, you’d be surprised. After this is over, you should consider booking an appointment and come for a consultation. Would you like my card?’

Walter grinned and glanced at Karen. She was grinning, too.

‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ he said. ‘I’ll take your card if you take mine,’ and he pulled one from his top pocket.

‘Deal,’ she said, swapping cards.

‘So what could you tell me about myself?’ he said, reaching out and setting the empty cup on the tray.

‘Loads, Walter. Your current girlfriend,’ and she stroked her lightly pinkened lips and shook her head. ‘That won’t last five minutes.’

‘Nothing new there,’ grinned Karen.

Walter looked glum and regretted asking.

‘Anything else you can tell us?’

‘Not yet, but there could be.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Information is re-materialising all the time.’

Walter pulled a doubting face.

‘But everything you have told us are true facts, not conjecture, or imaginings, or dreams of any kind?’

‘I don’t do dreams!’ she snapped. ‘Dreams are for ordinary folks. Dreams are the devil’s work.’

Walter glanced at Karen as if to say, anything else, have I forgotten anything? She nodded and stood up and said, ‘We’ll be in touch, Mrs Revelation.’

‘Please do, and it’s “Miss” actually.’

––––––––

FIVE MINUTES LATER and they were outside in the BMW.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘I thought it was going great until all that nonsense popped out about ESP and spiritualism, and mediumship, and fortune telling, for God’s sake, and all that ragbag rubbish. It all kind of went downhill after that.’

‘You don’t believe in it?’

Walter breathed out heavy and hard and said, ‘All I believe in are checkable facts. I thought before she might have been in it just for the money, and I still think that could be the case. Let’s hope she’s not a total fruitcake.’

‘I know it’s borderline weird Guv, but I thought she sounded quite convincing.’

‘You would.’

‘Was she right about your current girlfriend?’

‘Maybe, but you don’t need to be an expert to see that.’

‘And how did she know you lived alone?’

‘Lucky guess maybe, or perhaps she could tell from my clothing and body language or haircut, how would I know?’

‘That’s the thing, Guv; she’s a clever woman. Insightful.’

‘Yes, up to a point. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had claimed rewards before, fiddling the facts to fit the case. If she’s doing that, in the end, it won’t stand up. When we get back to the station, see what we have on her; see if she’s claimed rewards before. If she’s taking us for silly Charlies, she’s in for a big surprise. We’ll charge her with wasting police time.’

‘I think she’s kosher.’

‘I don’t know what to think, but hopefully we’re a little further forward than we were this morning.’

‘Back to the station, Guv?’

Walter nodded, still thinking about something.

‘I’ll take a bet now that she’s made any number of claims against insurance companies. I’ll bet she knows every trick going, anything to make a quick buck, and if we think that and can see that, imagine what a smart-arsed defending barrister would do. They’d rip her a new one. Geez, that doesn’t bear thinking about. Makes me shiver, just the thought of it.’

‘A tenner,’ she said, starting the car.

‘A tenner, what?’

‘A tenner says she hasn’t claimed a reward before.’

‘You’re on, and don’t forget.’ 

Chapter Thirty-Two

Back in the office, Mrs West was missing. She had some kind of quarterly update meeting with the local city councillors, something that Walter would do anything to avoid.

Walter glanced at Karen and said, ‘Let’s have a chat in private; there’s an interview room free, there’s something I want to talk to you about.’

Karen stiffened and glanced at him. He didn’t notice, for he was looking away toward the interview room door. They went across the office and into the room and closed the door and sat down.

Karen jumped in first, fearing the worst.

‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘The ID parade.’

‘What about it?’

‘I’m thinking of doing something a bit off the wall.’

You and me both, thought Karen, though she didn’t say. Instead, she said, ‘I presume it’s Ronald Speight you want to put up?’

‘That’s the thing,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to do eight or nine ID parades.’

‘So?’

‘I thought I’d just do the one, have them all in the same line-up.’

‘But you can’t do that!’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, come on, Guv. You know why. For a start, if you tried to use the result in a court of law, any judge would almost certainly throw it out, and for two, surely it’s against the rules.’

‘At this stage, I don’t want to use the result as evidence. I want to get a positive ID on the killer. And as for rules, if by bending one a little it saves another woman from being murdered, I’d say it was worth bending, wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course,’ she said, thinking of her own rule bending.

‘If we know who it is, we can concentrate all our resources on nailing the bastard.’

‘I’m all for that, but it’s a risky strategy.’

‘Okay, your objection is noted, DS Greenwood, that will be in my report, you’ll be in the clear.’

‘That wasn’t what worried me, Guv. You know I always support you where I can. So who do you want in the line?’

‘Speight, Miro, Donaldson, Nesbitt, Flanagan, and Williams. Crocker’s out of the frame, good head of hair, not. We’ll tell them all they’re not the prime suspect; they are there to make up the numbers, because of their similarity to the description we have of a man leaving Belinda’s place at the dead of night. All we are trying to do is eliminate them from our inquiry. Tell them it’s in their best interests, blah-blah.’

‘I don’t think they’ll buy that, especially that solicitor bloke, Mr Bouffant. He’ll see through it straight away.’

‘Maybe, but we’ll appeal to his community spirit, helping the police in such a tragic case, et cetera, and we’ll throw in two ringers as well, just as token bodies, nothing to do with the case.’

Karen shook her head and grinned and said, ‘This is one crazy idea.’

‘Yes, it is, but it might just work.’

‘Mrs West won’t like it.’

‘Mrs West won’t know about it until it’s all set up. Look, I know it’s a bit unusual, but sometimes unusual tactics pay big dividends.’

‘It’s not like you, Guv, but okay, if that’s what you want. I’m with you all the way, but I thought you might have used VIPER.’

Walter thought about that for a second and scratched his head. VIPER, the new digital recognition system: Video Identification Parade Electronic Recording, to give it its overlong and pompous title. VIPER had its place, showing witnesses in the comfort of their own home video line-ups of suspects, but it was better done in the flesh where you could smell the fear on the guilty, see the twitchiness in their eyes, and monitor their body language. You couldn’t beat up close and personal.

‘VIPER has a place, but not here, not now, especially with a woman who supposedly possesses superhuman powers.’

‘I thought you didn’t believe in all that tosh.’

‘I don’t, but if there’s anything in it at all, I want to have her up close to the killer, to be able to look into his eyes.’

‘If he’s among them.’

‘Yes, Karen, there is that, but at least we’ll know if we are looking in the right place, or the wrong one.’

‘Actually, Guv, talking about doing things a little off the wall...’

A heavy knock came to the door and Gibbons barged in. He didn’t wait to be invited, or to speak; he was straight in there.

‘Did you know, Guv, who’s put up the reward in the Belinda Cooper case?’

‘No. Who?’

‘Only Gareth Bloody Williams!’

‘He can’t do that!’

‘Why not?’ asked Karen.

‘Because he’s a suspect, without an alibi,’ said Walter, ‘when I last looked, and no matter how unlikely a suspect he might be, he’s still in the frame, and he can’t be putting up financial inducements to put someone else in the frame.’

‘Thought you’d better know, Guv.’

‘Yeah, thanks Gibbons, we’ll be with you in a minute,’ and Walter turned back to Karen. ‘What were you going to say?’

Karen scratched her head.

‘Oh, nothing important, Guv, another time, maybe. Let’s get on with setting up the ID parade to end all ID parades.’

Walter grinned.

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. We’ll set it up for half-past four tomorrow afternoon. Someone will have to fetch Corla Rev at say half three, so she’s here in plenty of time.’

‘Gibbons and Hector?’

‘No, send Jenny and Nicky. Corla might be happier to see another woman on the team.’

‘Okey-doke. I’ll fix it.’ 

––––––––

OUTSIDE, IN THE GENERAL office, Walter filled the team in on developments. They assigned Hector the job of finding two ringers, and Jenny and Gibbons, the duty of making sure everyone else attended.

‘Don’t forget,’ said Walter. ‘They must all wear dark trousers, short casual jacket, gloves, and no hat.’

As it turned out, Derek Nesbitt had come back bored and early from his fishing trip, and actually said he was looking forward to it. Miro, Speight, Flanagan and Donaldson all moaned like hell, but agreed that if it put them in the clear they would attend, albeit under protest.

Walter phoned Gareth Williams and mentioned he was out of order in putting up a reward. Gareth advised Walter that he had indeed put up a reward, and would continue to do so, and as he believed he knew and understood the law at least as well as Inspector Darriteau, that was how it would remain. The reward stood, and at least that might encourage Corla Rev. Walter was too busy and too tired to argue. At least Williams had agreed to attend, though he too protested long and hard about it.

Everyone went home a little earlier than usual, all hoping and praying the next day the quaintly named Corla Revelation would steer them towards a positive result.

––––––––

AN HOUR LATER, WALTER threw a beef curry ready meal into the oven and slammed the door. He squished a can open and sipped direct. He thought about Corla Revelation and her offer of a consultation. She hadn’t mentioned anything about a discount, but surely that would be forthcoming if she collected cash on the case. He’d be flavour of the month. It might be worth thinking about. What had he to lose?

He thought about Carlene Henderson and how nice it would be if she came round, though right there a phone call would have done, but nothing like that happened, and he wasn’t going to weaken and ring her, not yet awhile. And he thought again about the neat woman in yellow, Nesbitt’s neighbour, what was her name again? Mary Warner, that was it. He wasn’t losing his memory yet. What was it she had said? Every woman knows you, Walter; you’re quite famous around Chester these days, something like that.

She had a way of speaking to men that pleased them, that was obvious, and when the case was over, he might go round there, by way of thanking her for her help, and see what developed. Seemed like a plan. He turned on the TV and watched an old black and white war movie starring Kirk Douglas, or was it an anti-war movie; he was never quite sure with some of those too clever by half pictures, and after that he went to bed earlier than usual, and slept surprisingly well.

––––––––

KAREN LOUNGED ON HER sofa, eating a lightly done tuna steak with an avocado on the side, and thought about David Baker. He would fit right in amongst the planned line-up, but how could she blurt out she knew who the fifth man was, that he matched Corla Rev’s description spot on, but don’t mention the tiny fact she was dating him. It wasn’t going to happen. She hoped to god Corla picked someone out, finger the killer, and anyone would do.

Her mobile on the coffee table rang. Her heart skipped a beat. She reached across and grabbed it. It was him. She smirked and smiled and felt good about life, and took the call.

It was a long call, and a warm call, but one that comprised trivia and gossip, a typical conversation between two people who maybe cared about one another, and perhaps thought they could care about each other a lot more. He had a beautiful telephone voice, manly yet soothing, clear diction with no discernable accent, as similar thoughts swirled through his head about her.

It was only afterwards she realised she knew so little about him. Where he came from, what his parents were like, what they did, how he’d fallen into the job he said he adored, and so much more. How had all that been overlooked and neglected?

Had he been clever and cunning in steering away from discussing such things? They always seemed to talk about her, but rarely about him. Fact was, she still knew little about him, and that would have to change. Had he shielded his background for fear of incriminating himself in ways that made her shudder? That didn’t bear thinking about either, yet she did, for several hours, her mind racing to improbable places she would rather not have visited.

What was it that Walter had said about the fifth man? Karen thought hard. It was something like: Our man is smarter than the ordinary Joes we have in the frame, much smarter, and more dangerous with it. He’s a cunning foe to be reckoned with.

A cunning foe to be reckoned with, a phrase to stick in the mind. But was David Baker a cunning foe, or the cunning foe? The following day might shed light on that crazy idea. But if it didn’t, what then? The only thing for it would be to set a trap. She could be cunning too. She had always known that. Maybe it came with the job. She would have to set a trap that only the killer would know how to trigger, but how, and where, and when?

It wasn’t an easy problem to solve. She would much prefer to have bounced ideas off Walter about that, but that wasn’t possible. Later, much later, she came to a decision. If the ID parade produced no definite result, and no clear trap plan presented itself by close of play, she would miraculously uncover the identity of the fifth man in Bel’s technology, as if for the first time, and tell Walter everything.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was progress, and she would stick with it, and that brought her a better night’s sleep than had seemed possible. 

Chapter Thirty-Three

He sat alone, late at night, in his modern apartment. The TV was off, he didn’t often watch television, but the music was on, loud.

Occasionally, it brought strife with the neighbours; the late night music listening, but he was in the clear. The sound was muted, headphones only.

He reached forward and increased the volume. Holst’s planet suite, Mars to be exact. The bringer of war thundered into his ears. It relaxed him, cleared his mind to the point of making thinking easier.

He had always thought two would be enough, that he would have been sated. But recently he’d come to question that judgement. Truth was, he did not feel as fulfilled as he’d imagined he would, as he wished to be. There was still something missing. A measure of dissatisfaction was growing within him. He was now sure a third incident would finish it off. A third one would signal the denouement of things, closure, as the people who knew about these things liked to say.

Yes, that seemed to fit together so well. A third one it would have to be, but who? And where, and when, that was the greater question. Who, where, and when? He reached out again and turned the volume up high as to be unbearable, thinking that it might drown out such complicated and difficult thoughts. Yet it did not, not completely, for they refused to go away. They were growing still, those dark ideas, like dry rot, as if they were some kind of alien creature that could never be slain.

In his mind, he began sorting through potential suitable candidates, and that brought a smile to his handsome face and satisfaction to his soul. If only they knew what he was thinking, wouldn’t they be surprised and terrified? They damned well should be.

There were several women in the frame, and the thing was, this time the lucky one, or unfortunate one, depending on your line of thinking, would also want to kiss him, or so he imagined, or be kissed by him, which was almost the same thing.

The faces slid through his head, one to six, like slides slipping through an old-fashioned projector, click, bang, show, click, bang, show, and there were pros and cons for each of them, so much so that it made it hard to choose. But a decision would have to be made, and soon. He knew that now. It had to be done.

Click, bang, show, was a maybe, click, bang, show, perhaps not, this time, click, bang, show, another maybe, click, bang, show, a definite possible, click, bang, show, a maybe/maybe not, click, bang, show, oh, right up there, for sure, in fact the favourite to date, and back to the beginning with no resolution in sight. Perhaps a second screening might clarify things. Click, bang, show, and off we go. Perhaps a good night’s sleep would bring clarity to the mind. That seemed an appropriate thought.

Mars came to an end. His favourite part. He reached forward and switched off the sound technology. In his brain, he switched off the slide projector too. He wouldn’t think about number three again until the morning. He could do that, switch things on and off at the touch of a button. It was a rare talent he didn’t know he possessed until recently. Few people could do that, turn things on and off in the mind at will.

He stood up and turned everything off, switched the light out, and headed for the bathroom. Undressed and jumped under the shower, admired his fit and taut body, flexed his muscles, washed and patted himself dry, and went to bed, and dreamt the dreams of a God.

––––––––

THE FULL TEAM WAS IN early again for they understood the importance of the day, the entire team that is with the notable exception of Mrs West, who had succumbed to one of her occasional and very frightening migraines.

On hearing that news, Walter and Karen shared a look as if to say, someone must be looking down kindly on us today. There would be no need to explain to Mrs W the reasoning behind an ID parade containing not one but six suspects. By the time she returned, the pantomime would be played out.

Perhaps inevitably, the morning and early afternoon dragged by, as they often did when something significant, something important, something exciting, was planned for late afternoon. But it gave Karen the time to check on Corla’s history.

She had attempted to claim rewards before, so that looked like her bet had lost. But she had been unsuccessful, so that muddied the waters sufficiently to perhaps get her off the hook. They’d have to look carefully at the terms and wording of the bet, and that brought some temporary merriment into the office when she informed Walter of the news. 

At two o’clock Karen said, ‘Shall I ring Mrs Rev to tell her everything’s on track?’

‘No, I’ll do it, and it’s “Miss”,’ and he pulled her card from his desk drawer, picked up the phone, and dabbed in the numbers.

The phone rang four times and was picked up.

‘Amazing Revelations,’ said the voice in a singsong fashion.

‘Corla Revelation?’

‘That’s me, Inspector. Have you rung to book an early appointment?’

He laughed and said, ‘No, not today, just a quick call to advise you we’re all arranged at this end. Everything’s on track. Jenny and Nick will call for you at 3pm, for you to be here in plenty of time, so we can prepare you, and explain the procedure.’

‘It all sounds most daunting.’

‘It’s not. It’ll be a cakewalk, and I’ll be by your side every step of the way. You’ll be fine.’

‘I hope so.’

‘We’ll see you soon.’

‘Yes, Inspector, you will.’

––––––––

EVERYTHING STARTED at half-past two. Hector was sent to the local Job Centre to pick out two smart looking guys who vaguely fitted the bill, guys who’d imagined they were there for a job interview. They were in the police station by ten-past three, being briefed about the ID parade to come, as fillers, you understand, and reasonably happy about collecting thirty quid expenses for their trouble. Hector had a dental appointment after that and went off to visit the killer driller fiend for urgent attention.

Jenny and Nick departed on the short ride to Warren Drive to collect Corla Rev, and they returned with the star guest by half-past three. She looked smart too in a long fitted beige raincoat and good white shoes. Walter greeted her and asked if she’d like a tea or coffee. Corla declined and muttered something about getting it over as soon as possible.

They took her downstairs to view the set-up. First, Walter took her into the interview room. All the furniture had been removed, and along one wall was a large mirror.

Walter beckoned to the floor.

‘See the line,’ he said, ‘the men will stand on the line. They’ll be holding number cards.’ He turned back to the mirror. ‘You’ll be on the other side of the glass, safe with me. No one in here will be able to see you or hear anything you say, but you’ll be able to see them and hear everything.’

Corla nodded and went to the glass. Put her hands around her eyes and peered through from up close. She couldn’t see a thing.

‘I’m impressed,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said Walter. ‘It’s a tried and tested system. None of the men will ever know your identity. There’s nothing to it. You walk up and down the line, take as much time as you want, go back and forth as often as you like, and only when you are ready, and only if you are certain, you indicate to me who you think the man is who you saw coming out of Belinda’s house on the night of her murder. You do that by saying his number. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly. I’m not stupid.’

‘I know that, Miss Revelation, there are just certain procedures I have to follow by the book.’

‘I see. Sorry, if I was a little brusque, and please call me Corla.’

‘Not a problem, Corla. Do you have any questions?’

‘I feel as if I should have, but I don’t.’

‘That’s okay.’

‘How many men will there be?’

‘Eight.’

‘And are they all criminals?’

‘I’m not allowed to discuss the men involved.’

‘I see, makes sense, I guess.’

‘Let’s go into the other room,’ and they went outside and into the viewing room.

Walter pointed at the glass and said, ‘You’ve a great view from here.’

‘It’s amazingly clear.’

‘It is, perfect vision, and the glass has been cleaned today.’

‘And they can’t hear a word we say?’

‘Not a whisper.’

‘I’m impressed,’ she said again.

‘Good. That’s the way we like it.’

‘Thank you for putting my mind at rest.’

‘You’re welcome. Anything else?’

Corla shook her head.

‘Okay. We’re done here for now. Karen will take you back upstairs and we’ll wait there until everything is ready.’

‘Do you know what this reminds me of?’

‘What?’

‘An American prison movie.’

Walter grinned knowingly and said, ‘I can see what you mean, we’re both law enforcement agencies, after all, but the similarities stop there. We’re not American, and we’re not in a movie.’

‘No, pity,’ she said, smirking.

––––––––

THE GUYS IN THE LINE-up had started booking in. Michael Flanagan was first, grizzling that he was losing vital fare money, and who was going to compensate him for that? Derek Nesbitt, chipper and happy and confident, for he had never done anything like it before. He’d once considered becoming a policeman, though the thought of wrestling with vicious armed thugs had persuaded him into another career path, though for a moment he was having second thoughts about that.

Next in was Iain Donaldson. He’d taken the afternoon off, and Andrea Dennehey had come with him for moral support, to act as a witness, she said, in an overloud voice. Though she was miffed when informed she could not witness events. She would be held in a holding room for friends and family upstairs until it was done.

A subdued Miroslav Rekatic was next up. He listened hard and said little, and both Walter and Karen were surprised at his subdued demeanour, and wondered if he’d been interrogated and rebuked by his fine wife, and if that was the case, it was the least he deserved.

Gareth Williams turned up next, looking confident, freshly preened bouffant prominently on display. He moaned a minute or two about the ludicrousness of the whole exercise, but settled down, realising the quicker the charade was completed, the sooner he could get out of there, and back to his hectic office.

Ronald Speight was late, and no one in the station was surprised at that. The first thing he said was, ‘I didn’t think I was going to come. I shouldn’t be here at all because I’m completely innocent of any crime. But if this is the only way to prove it, then so be it.’

Bob Barnes, an avuncular old bloke of fifty-three, though he seemed much older than that, was the on-duty station sergeant, and it was his responsibility to get the scene set up and ready to go. All eight men were present in the cleared interview room, and all stared at each other and gazed down at the line on the floor that Bob pointed out. He grabbed the two bemused ringers and set one at either end.

The other six were invited to stand in any order, and as usual, much to-ing and fro-ing took place before they settled into final positions.

‘Now, gents,’ he said. ‘Are you comfortable where you are before I give you your number placings?’

‘I’m not comfortable being here at all,’ moaned Speight.

‘I second that,’ said Flanagan.

‘Let’s just get on with it,’ said Gareth, ‘and we can get out of here,’ and that advice had merit, and the grumbling stopped, and the line-up was ready to go.

Bob took the large square white number cards from the top of the radiator and passed them out, left to right, numbers one to eight. He took a step back and made a mental note. From the left, a Job Centre ringer, Nesbitt, Speight, Rekatic, Williams, Iain Donaldson, Flanagan, and the second Job Centre fella.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘No more changes, let’s get the show on the road,’ and he picked up the internal phone and dialled upstairs.

Karen picked up.

‘Bob here, we’re ready for you now.’

‘Be down in five,’ and she set the phone down.

Walter glanced from Corla and back to Karen.

‘Are they ready?’

‘They are, ready and waiting.’

Corla stood up and pulled a face.

‘I feel like I am about to witness an execution.’

‘Nothing like that,’ said Walter. ‘All we are trying to do is serve justice.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ’You’re right, of course,’ and in the next moment they were out of the room, and heading for the stairs to take them down one flight, to inspect a line-up of faces that Corla Revelation would never forget.

Downstairs, Karen opened the door to the room with the false mirror, and Walter stood back and beckoned Corla inside. She smiled and stepped through, and caught her first glimpse of men, all in a line, all waiting on her inspection and decision.

‘Stand still please,’ they all heard Bob Barnes say. ‘Please raise your number board and hold steady in front of your chest.’

The boards went up. Faces went dull and disinterested as they always did, as if inspected men always imagined an ordinary face might help. Walter placed his palm on the small of Corla’s back and eased her to the end of the room. ‘Let’s start with number one,’ he said. ‘Take your time, there’s no hurry, you have all the time in the world.’

‘And they can’t see me?’

Walter shook his head. ‘Not one jot.’

Corla nodded and stood closer to the glass. She studied the face of number one, the Job Centre ringer. He was a good-looking fellow, a little younger than her, but the type of man who always gravitated towards Corla on a night out, and she might let him buy her a whisky if she was in the right mood. But she wasn’t there to inspect potential dates, though weirdly it had that feel to it. Speed dating, with potential criminals. Yes, she liked him, but he wasn’t the man who’d come out of Belinda Cooper’s house at one o’clock in the morning, or whatever time it was.

On to number two. Derek Nesbitt. Right on cue, he grinned at her through the glass, as if sensing his moment in the limelight had come. Corla took a step back and glanced at Walter for reassurance.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘He can’t see you. Keep going.’

It wasn’t number two. He was too young, and not strong boned enough, and she didn’t fancy him one bit.

Number three was Ronald Speight, the tallest of them all. There was something mean looking about this guy, and maybe he even resembled the archetypal picture that some people have of a murderer. She didn’t like the look of him at all. He appeared to her as something of a bully, though whether one can tell such things on looks alone was debatable. He looked pushy and cocksure and was all the things she hated about men. There was little doubt he could look after himself in certain situations, and look after other people too, if the feeling took him. But Corla did not fancy him at all, but neither did she think he was the man she had seen coming out of Belinda’s house.

Number four was the Mirror man, Rekatic. Even though he had a decent alibi for Belinda’s death, Karen harboured hopes he had somehow slipped away from Grizelda in the dead of night to commit the crime. She held her right hand behind her back and crossed her fingers. It would be brilliant if Corla Revelation identified Miroslav Rekatic, but not because they would charge him with murder, but because it would let David Baker off the hook.

The thought occurred to Karen that he, David, would have looked right at home amongst the other suspects, and that didn’t bear thinking about. She and Walter observed Corla taking a definite pace toward the glass, as she stared through at the Mirror man. Was there something there? Had she seen something in him that struck a chord? She was taking a lot longer over Miro than any of the others.

Corla sighed and shook her head, and took a sideways step to the right, to be confronted by the bouffant hairdo of a smirking Gareth Williams. She pulled a startled face and took a second look. It detracted or distracted from his slightly fattening face. Had it been him, retreating from the house in Berryland Avenue? He was dressed right, but he didn’t look right, and he looked better off financially than any of the others, not that that meant anything.

He also looked married, and Corla Revelation had experienced umpteen men who had said they were single when they were not. So much so, she could spot them a mile off. It wasn’t him. She would have liked it to have been, and fleetingly that potential reward money came back into her mind, but to no avail. There would be no bounty paid out on bouffant man.

Another pace to the right. Another bland man’s face, Iain Donaldson, the geography teacher, though Corla was not to know that. He was the right height and almost the right build, but the wrong body shape and the wrong body language, as if he didn’t believe in himself. He wasn’t broad enough or strong enough, but he was somehow involved in the case, her gifts told her that. But he was not the man strolling away down Berryland Avenue in the wee small hours.

Another step to the right, and there was Flanagan, and there was danger. He was a man who could kill women, she instinctively knew that, but had he killed Belinda Cooper? Maybe. It was possible. The height was right. The build was right. The body language was spot on; this was a man confident in his own skin, a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. The best looking man there by a distance, in Corla’s eyes, the type of man she could have fallen in love with, even if he was a little younger than her.

A dangerous man too, that was self evident, but also an exciting man, the kind of guy women gravitated towards in pubs and clubs, maybe without even realising it. She stood stock-still and stared into his face. His neat hair looked recently cut, his dark eyes staring directly ahead, rarely blinking. Number seven was a man she would have liked to have known, but was he a killer?

Had he murdered Belinda Cooper with a baseball bat, as the press said? Was he the man who had looked straight at her in Berryland Avenue before turning and walking away? She so wanted it to be number seven, but she couldn’t be sure. She wasn’t positive, as Walter had reminded her she must be. She couldn’t ID him, she couldn’t pick him out, much as she would like to.

Pity, for she knew through her peripheral vision, it was not number eight, an irrelevance of a man, too nondescript and weak, too much of a loser, too obviously not right, and probably a police plant, on reflection a little like number one. He did not belong there. She glanced at Walter and pursed her lips.

‘Well?’ he said, hopefully.

‘I need to get closer to them,’ she said.

‘You mean you want to go inside?’

Corla bobbed her head and said, ‘I need to smell them.’

‘But you weren’t close enough to the man that early morning to smell him, were you?’

‘Of course not. I want to smell the guilt on them, I need to smell the fear.’

‘Okay, if that’s what you want.’

‘Will you come with me?’

‘Yes, of course, all the way.’

Walter nodded at Karen and she jumped on the intercom and said, ‘They are coming inside, Bob.’

They watched Bob nod, and stare at his charges and say, ‘Best behaviour now, lads, ladies present,’ and unbelievably all the men stood up straighter, shoulders back, chests out, a man thing, in competition, as if they were about to experience an inspection by the Queen. They probably didn’t know they were doing it.

Corla paused at the door and said, ‘May I take your arm?’

‘Of course,’ and she linked Walter’s chunky forearm.

They entered the room, stood still for a moment, without glancing into faces, and turned to face the parade. Corla pursed her lips and looked upward. A dainty sniff at number one. She meant it literally, observed Walter, she was going to smell them all. Mothballs and over-strong soap. It wasn’t him. A stooge. Number two, Nesbitt, grinning and enjoying himself, expensive aftershave, probably imagined it would bring him all he desired; yet she knew it did not. It wasn’t him.

Another pace along and number three, the tall one, Speight. He smelt of musty and dusty offices, and musty and dusty houses, where an absent wife hadn’t kept up with the cleaning. But there was more to it than that. Arrogance and ignorance, for starters. Corla shivered, and it wasn’t cold in there, the heating was full on. She didn’t like the man, in fact she couldn’t stand being near him, and that was often an indicator of a violent and out-of-control guy. But no matter how much she might have liked to, she couldn’t ID him, for he was not the man. Far too tall. Best not to waste a second on the cretin. 

Man number four, Rekatic, was different. He smelt of women. Maybe he had sneaked some of his wife’s perfume, or perhaps there was more to it than that. This was a different kind of man altogether, and possibly dangerous too. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Fear and loathing oozed from his pores. He looked guilty, and he smelt guilty, and he knew it too, a man with many sins to conquer, but was he the man she had seen in the street?

Deep down she knew he did not like women, enjoyed hurting them, even. Corla had met more than her fair share of such brutes. But that worked both ways. She didn’t like him either, and she imagined many women would feel the same. It would have been easy to finger him, and maybe he deserved it, but he was not the man she saw.

Number five, the man with the flourishing hair. He smelt of gel, and cosmetics, probably spent a goodly portion of his lunch hour inspecting the latest products in the high street chemist, something of a supercilious guy who imagined he knew everything, and thought that money could and would solve all the world’s problems. Up close and personal, she thought she might have met him or seen him before, though she could not place where. She peered up into his dark eyes. He grinned back. He imagined she fancied him. What a prick!

On to number six, Iain Donaldson. He smelt of books, and domineering women, maybe an insurance clerk or something similar, mused Corla. He couldn’t murder a woman if he tried. Corla doubted he could fight his way out of a paper bag. A time-waster, and a waste of time.

But number seven was not a waste of time. Michael Flanagan, he of the recent haircut. She wondered why he had done that, and how long his hair had been before he’d had it trimmed. He could kill; she knew that from the first moment, though whether he had killed Belinda, she still harboured doubts. She tried to sniff him without appearing to do so. There was nothing there, so it reduced her to a more pronounced sniff that none of those present could have missed. Still very little, just that tiny trace of man.

He wasn’t sweating, and he wasn’t nervous. Here was a man like Geronimo who could go places and leave little or no trace of his presence. Here was a man totally in control of his own body, and what a fine and strong body it was too, powerful and threatening. Corla lingered. She imagined him wielding a baseball bat. What a sight that would have been. Terrifying, but exciting too. She didn’t want to move along the line. Yet still her overlong inspection and presence did not unnerve him. He wasn’t only strong in body, but rock solid mentally, and that was a rare combination. God had been unusually generous when bestowing gifts on the gentleman.

She wanted to ask him if he had murdered Belinda Cooper, but guessed that would have been beyond her brief, and though his answer would undoubtedly have been a curt denial, she could have deduced things from the intonation in his words and voice. Maybe she was in the wrong job. Maybe the man Darriteau should make an appointment and employ her for her expertise. For a brief second she let her mind run riot.

‘Corla,’ whispered Walter, easing her on to the final fellow.

He smelt of cheap burgers and overdone onions, probably unemployed, possibly unemployable, maybe hauled in from the local Job Centre, imagined Corla, a place filler, a deliberate attempt to mislead her by people who didn’t believe in her gifts, a red herring who stunk out the place. She shook her head, and Walter said, ‘Thank you, Bob, just give us a few more minutes.’

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BACK IN THE SOUNDPROOF room next door Walter and Karen glanced at Corla.

Walter said, ‘Well, what did you make of that?’

She scratched her chin and rubbed her warts and said nothing.

‘Was he there?’ whispered Karen. ‘The man you saw coming out of Belinda’s place?’

‘It’s none of them,’ she said. ‘But it’s all of them.’

Walter jerked his head back and took a second take of her face, and said, ‘I don’t follow. How do you mean?’

‘They’re all involved in the case, aren’t they? Except the two ringers you threw in at each end, they were just so obvious. But all the others are in there somewhere, and at least two of them are capable of killing women.’

‘Unfortunately we are not here to discuss conjecture or theory,’ said Walter. ‘Illuminating though that might be.’

‘Pity,’ she said. ‘I could tell you things.’

‘Which two?’ asked Karen.

‘Karen!’ said Walter, and he shook his head.

‘Four and seven, and maybe number three as well.’

‘The only thing that matters is whether the man you saw leaving Belinda’s house was in that line-up,’ said Walter, and he pointed at the glass.

‘No!’ she said ‘He wasn’t there, you are looking in the wrong place.’

Walter sighed and shook his head.

Karen’s backbone tingled. The worst result she’d feared had come to pass. Walter turned the intercom back on. ‘Thank you, Bob,’ he said. ‘That is all for today, thank you all for your attendance and patience. Everyone is excused. Good afternoon.’

‘Thank God for that!’ snarled Speight, ‘and where’s my apology?’

‘You’ll wait till hell freezes over before you get that,’ said Flanagan.

Speight nodded and said, ‘Anyone fancy a quick pint?’

Gareth Williams, Iain Donaldson, and Miroslav Rekatic made their excuses and left, but the other four were up for it, and they made a beeline for the nearest boozer, amongst much loud and cocky conversation.

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WALTER AND KAREN TOOK Corla back upstairs and Jenny produced tea without waiting to be asked.

‘So sorry,’ said Corla. 

‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for,’ said Walter.

‘I feel as if I have let you down.’

‘Not at all, if the man wasn’t there, he wasn’t there.’

‘Some of the others were involved though, weren’t they?’

‘I can’t discuss that.’

‘No, of course you can’t.’

‘Finish your tea and I’ll get one of the young men to run you home.’

Corla nodded and drank the tea.

‘Nicky! Can you run Miss Revelation home?’

‘Course, Guv. My pleasure.’

Corla and Karen and Walter shared a look of gentle disappointment, as Walter said. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

‘I’d like that,’ she said. ‘I could help you, you know.’

Walter bobbed his head and escorted Corla to the door. Karen left them to it, for they seemed awfully pally all of a sudden.

Twenty minutes later Hector came back in. His face was swollen, his top lip crooked like some kind of fifties rock star.

Gibbons looked across at his face and said, ‘That’s a big improvement.’

‘Funny, funny!’

‘What did you have done?’

‘Two fillings. All done with now, thank God. How did it go here?’

‘Drew a blank, though Karen seemed to think it was worthwhile.’

‘I did, as it happens,’ she said, ‘I think she’s a talented lady, that Corla,’ and she turned to Walter and said, ‘Guv, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.’

‘Guv, Guv!’ yelled Jenny, and everyone turned to her.

She set the phone down and came running.

‘You’ll never guess what!’

‘What?’

‘That was forensics, an update report on Belinda’s house.’

‘And?’

‘They have a fingerprint match from Bel’s bedroom!’

‘Yeah, I’ll bet they have, and it will be Williams, Speight, or Donaldson.’

‘No Guv, that’s the crazy thing, it’s Michael Flanagan’s.’

There was a moment’s stunned silence as communal brains took onboard fresh information.

Karen breathed out heavy.

Gibbons said, ‘Oh no, I couldn’t bear it. Surely Hector hasn’t been right all along.’

Walter pursed his lips as if about to whistle, though no sound came. Then he said, ‘That is interesting, Jenny, mind you, he could have left the print there anytime. Get on to the tag people again; double, double, double check to see if his tag could have been faulty. If he was there in Berryland Avenue at the time of the murder the tag must have been interfered with.’

‘Triple check even,’ muttered Gibbons.

‘On it, Guv,’ said Jenny.

‘I wonder why Corla didn’t pick him out,’ said Walter, thinking aloud.

‘You saw her, Guv, you saw how close she was to doing so.’

‘Mmm, yes, but she didn’t, did she?’

‘What now?’ asked Karen.

Walter glanced at the clock. Nearly half-past six. Michael Flanagan would have to be home within the next half hour.

‘You and I are going to pay a visit to Mr Flanagan’s neat little house in Christleton, where we are going to arrest him in connection with the murder of Belinda Cooper, and maybe Eleanor Wright as well.’

‘Get in, Guv!’ said Gibbons. ‘A result!’

‘Not yet, Gibbons, not yet.’

Hector looked so smug.

‘Do you want us to wait on?’ asked Gibbons.

Walter bobbed his head and said, ‘Please, just until we get back, you can stay on as long as you like after that.’

‘Sure thing.’

‘Karen!’

‘I know, Guv, a car and an unmarked one.’

‘You got it, and Jenny, make sure we have the full forensic report as soon as poss, so we can take a quick scan through it.’

‘On it, Guv.’

Chapter Thirty-Four

Outside, it was already full dark and getting colder. The streets were still busy. On the short trip to Christleton, Walter said, ‘What were you going to say earlier?’

‘Oh, it’s not important, Guv, another time, maybe,’ and that fitted in well, for they were already pulling in close to Flanagan’s house.

Karen doused the lights and said, ‘He’s in.’

‘So I see.’

The lights were on downstairs, though the curtains were drawn. ‘Make sure we seize his computer.’

‘For sure,’ she said, looking forward to getting inside it and checking it out.

Walter felt deep into his raincoat pocket. The cold steel cuffs were there, ready and waiting for business, and Walter intended on using them. They went to the door and Karen rang the bell. A moment later a large shadowy figure appeared behind the glass. Flanagan opened the door, hiccupped, and stared out.

‘Not you again, what do you want now?’

He stank of beer.

‘Michael Flanagan, I am arresting you in connection with the murders of Belinda Cooper and Eleanor Wright,’ and before the guy could say a word, Walter reached forward and slipped the cuffs round Flanagan’s left wrist, grabbed his right, and clipped it shut, as Karen cautioned him.

‘You’ve just had me on an ID parade, for god’s sake! She didn’t pick me out. I’m innocent! What more do you want?’

‘New information has come to light.’

‘What new information? You’re trying to fit me up.’

‘All will be revealed at the station. Karen, collect the computer. We are seizing that as evidence.’

‘You can’t do that!’

‘We can.’

Karen collected the computer from the lounge, as Flanagan slipped into some shoes. She glanced at him and said, ‘There are no pay and display girls skulking about upstairs, are there?’

‘Don’t be absurd!’

‘Anything else you need, medication or anything at all?’ asked Walter.

‘I’m not on bloody medication! It’s you lot who should be on the meds.’

‘Where are your keys?’ asked Walter.

‘On the ring, there,’ said Flanagan, nodding to some hooks beside the door. ‘It’s the fat bronze one.’

Karen took it down and turned everything off, TV, lights, and the cooker, where some kind of heavy and meaty dinner was on the go.

‘If you take me out of the house now, I’m going to break my bloody tag-time.’

‘You don’t need to worry about that. We’ll let them know you are with us.’

‘You’d better! I don’t want to do extra time because of you, and I want to see a solicitor.’

‘All that can be arranged at the station. Do you want a jacket?’

‘Do I hell!’

‘Language, Michael,’ said Walter. ‘No need for it.’

Walter dragged Flanagan outside and put him in the back of the car. Karen closed the door and locked the house and joined them.

‘What about my key?’

‘All in good time. Let’s get back to the nick.’

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IN THE POLICE STATION Karen turned on the recorder and said, ‘Interview with Michael Flanagan starting at 7.26pm,’ and she added the date. ‘I am Sergeant Karen Greenwood, also present is Inspector Walter Darriteau.’

‘I’m starving, I want something to eat, I missed my dinner.’

‘We’ll get something organised for you,’ said Walter.

‘And I want to see a solicitor.’

‘Do you have a solicitor?’

‘No, I shouldn’t need one; it’s only because of you...’

‘Do you want me to get the Duty Solicitor?’ said Walter.

Flanagan nodded and said, ‘I do, and I am not saying anything until he or she, is right here beside me.’

‘Could be a long night,’ said Karen.

‘Suits me, sister, I couldn’t go out anyway. It’s your social life that’s suffering, not mine.’

He had a point there, and he knew it, as Karen thought of David Baker, and wondered where he was, and what he was doing, and what he was thinking.

‘How well did you know Belinda Cooper?’ asked Walter.

‘Oh, no, you are not getting me on that, sliding questions in when you think I haven’t noticed.’

‘How well?’ asked Karen.

‘Solicitor? Chop, chop!’

Walter went to the door and peered out. Gibbons was at his desk, staring at his phone.

‘See if you can find the Duty Sol, will ya?’

‘Sure, Guv, I’m on it.’

Walter sat back down again and scratched his chin and said, ‘When did you last visit Berryland Avenue?’

‘Look! I don’t want to start no commenting, but I will if you persist.’

‘You were having an affair with Belinda Cooper, weren’t you?’ asked Karen.

‘No... sodding... comment.’

‘When did you first meet her?’

‘How could I have been having an affair with this woman if up until recently I was in prison? Answer me that!’

He had another point there, and a good one too. Maybe it was a fresh thing, recent, it had to be, otherwise it didn’t fit.

‘Did you meet her speed dating?’ asked Karen.

‘See this solicitor here,’ said Michael, pointing to an empty chair, ‘I’ll ask him or her for some advice, and then I’ll get back to you.’

‘What’s your email address?’ asked Karen.

‘You’ve got my computer, look it up!’

‘We will, Michael, just thought you might like to speed things up a tad. The sooner we get to the bottom of this, the sooner we get finished and get out of here.’

She thought back to Bel’s computer and tried to recall if she’d seen any recent messages between Bel and another man, a man like Michael, but nothing registered. They only had Bel’s word to say she’d only had five boyfriends. Maybe that figure needed updating. 

‘Where’s my food? And where’s the solicitor?’

‘Maybe you could eat the solicitor,’ suggested Karen.

‘This isn’t the time or place for idiotic jokes!’

He had a point there too. Walter hid his smirk well.

‘Sorry,’ she said, glancing at Walter.

Gibbons came knocking at the door and said, ‘The Duty Sol is on the way.’

Walter thanked him and Gibbons retreated.

‘And the food?’ said Flanagan.

‘All in good time.’

‘Where did you meet Belinda Cooper?’ asked Karen.

‘I have never met Belinda Cooper.’

Walter opened the manila file before him. Took out a solitary sheet bearing a large photograph of a single fingerprint. He turned it around and slid it across the table.

‘Do you know what this is?’

‘Could it be a fingerprint?’

‘It is, Michael.’

‘So?’

‘It’s your fingerprint.’

‘Yeah, so what’s your point?’

‘That print was lifted this morning from Belinda Cooper’s bedroom.’

‘You’re having a laugh! That ain’t possible.’

Walter shook his head.

‘It’s no joke, Michael, that print was found in Belinda’s bedroom, the same room in which she was murdered.’

‘You’re full of shit!’

‘Do you know whereabouts in the bedroom it was found?’

‘How could I know that, when I have never been in Belinda Cooper’s house, never mind her bedroom?’

‘I’ll tell you where it was. Inside the drawer on her bedside table. That’s a pretty intimate place, the drawer of a bedside table, by a lady’s bed, not the kind of place where just anyone would touch.’

‘But a lover might,’ said Karen.

‘Yes,’ said Walter, ‘and it is the kind of place where one wouldn’t think to go when wiping prints. It would be so easy to miss one there, wouldn’t it, Michael?’

‘You’re talking bollocks; you’re trying to fit me up. I was at home, in bed. My tag proves it. It’s a rock solid alibi. I don’t know what your game is, but it stinks. When I first met you I thought you were a decent guy. I shouldn’t have been so naïve. I shouldn’t have been so stupid. I should have known better. You’re just like all the rest, crooked and bent to hell. I ain’t saying another word until I see a solicitor.’

Right on cue, Gibbons knocked on the door and came in.

‘Duty Solicitor, Guv,’ said Gibbons, and he did the introductions and left the room.

She was a smart young woman, was Gayle Drake, neat and tidy too, as any man would testify. No one ever looked quite so good in a plain fitted grey suit. She nodded across the table at Walter and said, ‘May I have ten minutes with my client?’

‘Later,’ said Walter, ‘we are in the middle of something.’

‘For the benefit of the tape,’ said Karen, ‘the Duty Solicitor, Gayle Drake, has entered the room.’

Gayle sat beside Flanagan and studied the photograph on the table, and said, ‘And this is?’

‘That print was lifted this morning from inside the deceased’s bedroom. It matches your client.’

‘I have never been inside that woman’s house, ever,’ said Flanagan.

‘This says you have,’ said Walter, tapping the photo. ‘How do you explain your print being inside Belinda Cooper’s bedside table?’

‘I can’t, maybe you can. And I would remind you my tag proves I was at home.’

Gayle Drake butted in.

‘Am I to understand my client is tagged, and your own records show he was at home?’

‘At present, yes,’ said Walter. ‘But your client is also a computer expert, and we suspect he has been tampering with the tag.’

‘Have you any proof of that?’

‘Not yet,’ said Karen. ‘We’re checking through his computer as we speak.’

‘Well, until you have proof, I would like my client released, pending further enquiries.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ said Walter.

‘Where’s my food?’ moaned Flanagan. ‘I haven’t eaten in nine hours.’

‘Is that true?’ asked Gayle.

‘We don’t know when Mr Flanagan last ate,’ said Karen, ‘but we have ordered something for him. It should be here soon.’

‘It’s getting late,’ said Gayle. ‘Why not chase up the food, chase up the research into my client’s computer, and reconvene in the morning?’

Karen imagined Walter would reject that suggestion out of hand, and was surprised to hear him say, ‘That’s not a bad idea. Mr Flanagan will be detained overnight, and we’ll come back to this at 9am tomorrow.’

Gayle looked pleased with herself and nodded.

Job done, so far as she was concerned.

Flanagan said, ‘Food?’ and back came Gibbons, knocking and entering, bearing a blue and white cardboard box full to overflowing with fried fish and chips. They did look and smell good, and that reminded Walter he hadn’t eaten in hours either. 

––––––––

IT WAS ALMOST 10PM by the time Walter and Karen arrived in their respective homes. Walter bunged a ready meal in the microwave and slammed the door. Karen settled down on the sofa and ate two bananas and a beautiful ripe pear, and afterwards gave herself a rare treat, a portion of mint chocolate ice cream, though she felt guilty about it afterwards.

She thought back on the day, and the last conversation she’d had with Walter. He’d said that everyone was getting tired, and that’s when mistakes were made, and a break would do them good, and things would look different in the morning after a good night’s sleep. She hoped to hell he was right.

It had been a packed day, with the ID parade, and Corla Rev’s revelations, and the forensic info on that print putting Flanagan in the frame, and David Baker out of it. And thinking of Mr Baker, she had thought he might have rung, but he did not. Maybe he was playing tough again, silly mind games, making her sweat, and the annoying thing was; it was working. She thought of ringing him, but that wasn’t going to happen. In Karen’s world the man did the chasing, and if he didn’t, it was clear proof there wasn’t much to him, and didn’t think anywhere near enough of her.

The good news was, as Walter had pointed out, that Mrs West was back in the morning, and with the latest development of Flanagan being in custody, and likely to be charged, she should be more than happy with that. The weird and wacky ID parade featuring not one but six men, all of whom played some part in the case, or cases, might be glossed over and forgotten, if everything went well. That was the hope.

Karen sank a single glass of cold, sharp white wine, albeit a large one, and headed for the shower, ultra hot and ultra cold in quick succession, and then to bed, where she thought awhile, replaying the day’s events in her mind, fantasised for a while longer after that, of a tall dark man who would remain nameless, before she fell into a satisfying sleep.

––––––––

WALTER WAS ASLEEP TOO, dreaming of racing greyhounds made from roast beef he couldn’t catch and eat, and hot sunny beaches in the Caribbean; and playing the perfect forward defensive stroke at Lords cricket ground, only to be given out by an incompetent umpire. Plus some snatches of Carlene Henderson in there too.

––––––––

THE MAN WAS NOT ASLEEP, but fully awake, thinking and planning. The next day promised to be a big day in more ways than one. He planned to prune another, the third and final one, the last act that would bring everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Closure; and he said the word aloud. ‘Closure.’ It would not be easy, it never was. But it was satisfying, and in a weird way, uplifting too.

Anyone who had not travelled the same road would never understand or comprehend the intensity of feeling and exhilaration it brought. Only members of their select club could know.

He smiled a warm smile, and prepared for bed. Sleep would come eventually, and of a satisfying kind. There would be no twisting and turning, no restlessness, and no pangs of conscience. It was too late for that.

Chapter Thirty-Five

8.30am, and Walter brought Mrs West up to speed. The unorthodox ID parade barely rated a mention, for all eyes were on the prize.

Flanagan’s print was inside Bel’s bedside table, proof positive that he had been there, in her house, in her bedroom.

Mrs West imagined him resting in Bel’s bed, maybe after a steamy lovemaking session, reaching over and slipping open the bedside table drawer, touching the inside, leaving evidence that would convict him.

But what was he looking for? A tissue, a condom, surely too late for that, a pill, maybe he had a headache, the poor love, or perhaps he was getting something for her, a sleeping pill, maybe? Though none had been found. It would be interesting to know why he’d gone in that drawer.

‘Ask him, Walter,’ she said. ‘I’m intrigued.’

Her previous certainty that tags couldn’t be broken and interfered with had been washed away, overwhelmed by positive evidence that would stand up in court. She’d speak to the tag people. There had to be an obvious explanation.

––––––––

9.00AM, AND THE INTERVIEW began, as Karen read the intros for the recorder. Flanagan looked unshaven and rough, as if he’d experienced a hard night’s sleep, which wouldn’t have been surprising. Cell beds were not supposed to be five-star comfortable. Some deodorant wouldn’t have gone amiss either. Gayle Drake looked good again, businesslike and smart. Walter didn’t miss that.

He kicked things off by asking Flanagan when he first met Belinda Cooper. The question brought the first of many curt denials, frequently interrupted by Ms Drake, who pointed out the lack of any other evidence. One hour later, and Walter brought an early end to proceedings by ordering a timeout coffee break.

Karen and Walter sat before Mrs West and sipped coffee, or lemon flavoured water, in Karen’s case.

‘Just a pity Corla Rev didn’t ID Flanagan,’ muttered Walter.

‘You saw how close she was to doing so,’ said Karen. ‘She couldn’t keep her eyes off the guy.’

‘Maybe you should see this Mrs Revelation woman again,’ said Mrs West. ‘See what else she can tell you.’

‘I agree,’ said Karen. ‘She’s a gifted woman, she can see things that others can’t, and by the way, she likes to be called “Miss”.’

‘Oh, please,’ said Walter. ‘Let’s not go down that line again, same old hippy nonsense.’

‘We need more than we’ve got,’ said Mrs West. ‘Or he’ll wriggle free.’

Walter bobbed his head and reluctantly agreed, ‘We’ll see Corla again.’

Mrs West grinned. ‘Keep at it team! The same questions half a dozen times, compare the answers, and there you will find incriminating discrepancies.’

It was the same old mantra, give them enough rope, and all that, and that was what they would do.

‘Crack on!’ she said, and they got up and returned to work.

Before they returned to the interview room, Walter said, ‘Strange we never found anything about the fifth man.’

‘Ah,’ said Karen.

‘What do you mean “ah”?’

Karen bit her lip and said, ‘I have ID’d the fifth man.’

‘Have you now? And when did you do that?’

‘Yesterday, I think it was, but with everything else going on, and then the discovery of Flanagan’s fingerprint, it didn’t seem so important or relevant,’ which was not quite the truth, and they both knew it.

‘Would you like to acquaint me with this new intel?’

But before she could answer, he called Gibbons over.

‘Go and tell the Duty Sol there will be no more questioning of Michael Flanagan until later this afternoon. Say it’s due to fresh information that has just come to hand. She can stand down; we’ll keep her informed, and get Flanagan back to the cells.’

Gibbons pulled an impressed face and said, ‘Sure, Guv,’ and beetled off to give the impressive Ms Drake the news.

Walter turned back to Karen. His face said everything, demanding she told him what she knew, and she didn’t need prompting.

‘His name’s David Baker, he’s thirty-six, and works for a grain merchant. Never been in any kind of trouble.’

‘Does he fit the description of the man Corla described?’

‘He does.’

‘What vaguely, exactly, what?’

‘Pretty much on the nail.’

‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’

‘It’s more complicated than that, Guv.’

‘Oh, in what way?’

‘He’s err, kind of my bloke.’

‘What! Your boyfriend?’

Karen nodded.

‘Geez! And does “your bloke”, as you describe him, have a rock solid alibi for both killings?’

Karen shook her head, and said, ‘Not that he’s telling me.’

‘Have you discussed the case with him?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Forgive me, Karen, but I find that hard to believe.’

‘I know it looks odd, Guv, but it’s the truth.’

‘Mrs West will have to be told. It doesn’t look good, does it?’

‘I know that, Guv, but once the fingerprint thing came up, it didn’t seem important.’

‘You know the score KG, ALL intel is important, because it builds up the bigger picture.’

Gibbons came back and shared a look with Walter who said, ‘How was she?’

‘Miffed! She said both she and her client were being unnecessarily messed around.’

Walter pulled a face.

‘That’s the least of my worries.’

He turned back to Karen and said, ‘I’ll need to interview this Mr Baker. Where can I find him?’

Karen gave him the phone numbers and an address.

‘You’ll not be able to attend, you know that?’

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘In fact you may need to be taken off the case. I’ll check that with Mrs West.’

‘I thought that might happen.’

‘You thought that would be the case, didn’t you?’

‘It occurred to me, Guv, of course it did, I just wanted to get to the bottom of it first. I was bending the rules a little, I’ll admit, just as you did with the...’

‘Oh no! Don’t you dare compare my off the wall ID parade with you withholding information, it won’t wash!’

‘Sorry, Guv, but surely it’s all irrelevant now we have concrete proof on Flanagan?’

‘There are numerous holes in that argument, don’t you think? Why didn’t Corla ID him, for one? How did he break his tag time, for two? We still haven’t found any evidence he is tag tampering, and how and where did he meet Belinda Cooper, for three? And that’s for starters. Hardly watertight, is it?’

‘He was in her bedroom.’

‘Maybe, but nothing else fits.’

Gibbons phone rang.

They heard him say, ‘Just a second, Mrs Revelation.’

How that must have been annoyed her.

‘Yes, he’s here, just a sec, I’ll put him on.’

Gibbons grimaced and gawped at Walter.

‘It’s Corla, and she sounds...’

‘Sounds what?’

‘She sounds kind of frightened, Guv.’

Walter grabbed the phone and said, ‘Corla, what’s up?’

‘I’ve seen him!’

‘You’ve seen who?’

‘The murderer, of course! Or at least the man who came out of Belinda’s house. I’ve seen him twice.’

‘Where? When?’

‘First thing this morning when I went for the papers. I always go out early if I can, stretch the legs, that kind of thing. He was across the road, I thought it was him, but he ducked out of sight when I looked his way.’

‘And the second time?’

‘A few seconds ago, crossing the square.’

‘Which square?’

‘The one outside Portobello Towers.’

‘What are you doing there?’

‘I was so unsettled when I saw him earlier, I had to get away from the house, so I decided to come and stay here with my nieces. They live in number 35. Safety in numbers, and all that.’

‘You mean Janice and Chantelle are your nieces?’

‘Yes, how do you know them? They haven’t been naughty, have they?’

‘No, nothing like that. They were helping me with something else.’

‘That’s a relief. Please come over, Walter. I’m frightened. I’m certain he’s coming to kill me. I’m the only witness, you see, without me he’ll get away scot-free. It’s me he wants.’

‘Sure. We’ll come straight away.’

‘Please hurry, and bring plenty of puff.’

‘Puff?’

‘Yes, the damned lifts are off again.’

‘Bugger! Stay in the flat, lock the doors, and don’t go out. We’re on our way.’

‘Thanks, Walter. You’re a love.’

He set the phone down.

Karen, Jenny, Gibbons and Nick had all gravitated to his desk.

‘Where’s Hector?’

‘He’s gone to see Pat the snout. Had some intel for us, apparently,’ said Gibbons.

‘Okay, Nick you stay here and man the phones. When Hector checks in, tell him to get down to Portobello Towers, PDQ, number 35. Jenny and Gibbons, get yourself a car and get over there and wait for us outside.’

Gibbons nodded. Jenny said, ‘Got it.’

Karen slipped on her jacket and headed for the lift to grab a car.

‘Nick?’ said Walter. ‘Bring Mrs West up to speed. Tell her Corla Revelation says she has just seen the prime suspect outside her niece’s flat. She says he’s there to kill her.’

‘Sure, Guv. But if the suspect is there, what’s Flanagan doing in the cells?’

‘Good question! Let him stew for a few hours. We’ll keep you posted.’

‘And what about the Duty Sol?’

‘Humour her, I’m sure you’re capable of that.’

Nicky grinned, ‘Happy to, Guv.’

Two minutes later and they were in cars pulling out of the underground car park.

‘It’s him, Guv, I know it’s him!’ said Karen.

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘David Baker, of course.‘

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘No alibi for either murder. Fits the description to a T. Never talks about his family and background, typical behaviour of the career criminal, and he’s the only one who wasn’t on the bloody ID parade. And just my luck...’

‘I don’t follow. Just your luck, what?’

‘It’s always the same, Guv. As soon as I get to like someone, I mean really like someone, you know what I mean, it all goes tits up!’

‘Let’s see what we see, eh, before we jump to conclusions again. Can’t we go any faster?’

‘Oh yes, Guv, a lot faster,’ and she flattened the accelerator and the big car bucked and leapt ahead.

––––––––

THERE WAS A RAGBAG of cars parked outside Portobello Towers. Some working, some not, some taxed, some not, some owned, and no doubt some stolen, but they weren’t interested in that. 

‘Do you see David Baker’s car anywhere?’

She glanced around.

‘No, Guv, he drives a flash company thing. It’s not here.’

‘Corla said she saw the man walking across the square, maybe he came on foot.’

‘Could be.’

Gibbons and Jenny arrived, Jenny driving, as she mouthed through the glass, ‘Stuck in traffic.’

Walter nodded. Karen’s mobile rang.

They both thought it might be Mrs West.

Karen glanced at the screen and gasped.

‘What’s up?’

‘It’s him, Guv.’

‘David Baker?’

Karen nodded and took the call.

‘Hi, sugar,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Karen, sharing a look with Walter. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Baker?’

‘Well, I got to my first appointment a little early, and I was just thinking about you, and I thought how nice it would be to hear your sweet voice, and talk to you for five minutes, so here I am...’

‘And where are you, exactly?’

He glanced up at the old grey building before him.

‘I’m in Crewe, outside Cheshire Oats and Muesli PLC, a very romantic spot, I don’t think. Got an appointment in ten minutes....’

‘You’re in Crewe?’

‘Yeah, that’s what I said, why?’

Karen turned to Walter and said under her breath, ‘How far is Crewe from here?’

‘About twenty-five miles,’ said Walter.

‘So if my David is twenty-five miles away, who the hell’s the guy Corla saw crossing the square?’

‘IF he’s in Crewe,’ said Walter, getting out of the car. ‘It’s about time we discovered what the hell’s going on here!’

‘I’ll ring you back!’ said Karen, cutting DB off, and jumping out of the car, feeling a lot better about things. She slammed the door, beeped it locked, and hurried after the others. They were closing in on the large dark timber doors that led into the bowels of Portobello Towers.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Gibbons pumped the lift button. Damn all happened.

‘They’re off,’ said Walter. ‘Corla told me.’

‘Bugger!’ said Gibbons, glancing at the stairs.

‘Gibbons and Karen, go on ahead,’ said Walter. ‘And be careful. Jenny, you keep me company.’

‘Which floor?’ said Gibbons.

‘Eight. Number 35.’

‘Bugger!’ said Gibbons again.

‘Language, Darren,’ said Walter, shaking his head. ‘It’s unnecessary.’

‘Sorry, Guv,’ and Gibbons and Karen began the long jog up 128 stairs towards the eighth floor.

––––––––

THE MAN HAD BEATEN them to it by a good twenty minutes. When he arrived on the eighth floor, he found it deserted. The door to flat 35 was open and blowing in the draught Portobello Towers was renowned for.

He eased the door open and crept inside.

Someone had left in a hurry, almost as if they had been tipped off. They couldn’t have gone far. There were three half full mugs of coffee on the small table. Still warm. The kettle in the kitchen was hot to the touch. The place smelt of baby food. It would have been better if there had been just the one cup, but no matter. It wouldn’t stop him. He thought of settling down and making a coffee, and waiting to see if they returned. But he wasn’t a waiting around kind of guy. Always thought it better to take positive action, to be proactive in all things.

He returned to the sitting room and gazed around.

Pushed in against one wall was an old-fashioned glass display cabinet, and in the unit were a selection of round glass paperweights, blue and green and aquamarine. Everyone knew they were heavy and made perfect missiles. He opened the doors and picked up two and slipped them in his jacket pockets. Grabbed another two, and kept them in hand.

He stepped out of the flat and paused at the top of the stairs. Footsteps from below echoed through the common parts, coming higher. A man and a woman’s, one light, one heavy, fit people, coming on, silent, not pausing for breath. He could empathise with that, it had been heavy exercise to reach the eighth floor. 

He crouched and stared down the stairwell. He couldn’t see them, just shadows, and occasional glimpses of hardworking elbows, and fleeting feet, powering the ascent. He could hear them puffing and blowing, the man leading the way, though not by much. He stood tall and thought he’d slow them down. Pulled back his arm and brought it forward, fast and true, and sent the first blue missile hurtling down the stairwell.

It crashed into the black plastic covered metal banister, right beside Gibbons, and exploded into fifty pieces of jagged glass.

‘Bugger!’ said Gibbons, for a third time.

He paused and shook his head. There were shards of coloured glass on his jacket sleeve. He shook them away and checked he wasn’t hit. He seemed okay, and glanced down six or seven steps.

Karen was there, lying on her back, across the stairs, one arm dangling through the metal balustrade. There was blood on her face. Gibbons glanced up the stairwell, checking for further incoming fire. He couldn’t see or hear anything, no movement; no sign of anyone still up there, as if they had seen their chance, and had scurried away.

‘Buggering-hell!’ said Gibbons, retreating to Karen. ‘Are you okay?’

Her nose bled from a nicking flesh wound. He gave her his handkerchief, reached across and tugged in her protruding hand and arm from the edge of the staircase, in to safety, out of sight, and as he did that, for five seconds he showed himself. It was enough.

Karen whispered, ‘Go and get the bastard!’

Two floors up, the man saw his opportunity, glimpsed the head, and let go a second missile. Heavy cobalt Bristol blue glass full of pretty swirly bubbles hurtled through the air, propelled by gravity, and a muscular bicep, running straight and true, like an airborne torpedo. It thudded into Gibbons, striking him a heavy blow, hitting him at the junction of the top of the neck and bottom of the head, right side, where it bounced off and fell straight on down, passing a puffing Walter and Jenny, coming up two floors below, on its way to ground zero.

‘What the hell was that?’ said Walter.

Jenny shook her head and yelled upwards, ‘Karen, Darren, are you okay?’

Gibbons crumpled in a heap on a still prone Karen, and didn’t move. She wriggled free and turned him on his back.

‘I’m okay,’ she yelled, though not convincingly, and a minute later Jenny arrived at her side.

‘You’re bleeding!’ she said, glancing at Karen’s face.

Karen wiped her nose and cheek. The handkerchief was soaked scarlet. It was surprising how much blood can gush from a small flesh wound to the ears, nose and face.

‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure about Gibbons,’ and they glanced down at the man. He was out cold.

Walter arrived, blowing hard, taking a moment out, bending over to clutch his knees. Andrea Dennehey’s words flashed into his brain. I thought you lot had to keep in shape. He stood up, hurried to Gibbons and said, ‘How is he?’

‘He’ll live, I think,’ said Jenny. ‘But he needs checking over, could be concussed.’

Walter glanced at Karen’s bloodied face.

‘Are you okay? You look a mess.’

‘Thanks, Guv. Just a flesh thing, looks much worse than it is.’

‘I’ll take your word for that,’ and Walter nodded and said, ‘Call an ambulance for Gibbons,’ who was showing signs of coming round, ‘And call for backup, and where the hell is Hector?’

Jenny shrugged her shoulders on the Hector thing and pulled out her mobile. Walter did too and rang Hector. He picked up immediately and said, ‘Hi?’

‘Where the hell are you?’

‘Hi, Guv. I’m in Portobello Towers.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘I saw some people on the ground floor. They told me of a little used rear traders’ staircase. I thought I’d try that, seemed a likely getaway route if anyone wanted to use it and slip away.’

‘Good work! How far up are you?’

‘Fourth floor.’

‘Okay, see you on the eighth, and look out! The bastard’s lobbing down missiles, Gibbons and Karen have both been hit.’

‘What? Badly?’

‘No. They’ll live. See you soon.’

‘You got it, Guv.’

Walter sucked in air.

He convinced himself he was enjoying a second wind.

Karen said, ‘Coloured glass paperweights, remember?’

‘Only too well, in that cabinet. Jenny, you stay here and look after Karen and Gibbons. Wait for the ambo people.’

‘I’m all right, Guv,’ insisted Karen.

‘You’re not!’ said Walter. ‘Look at the state of you!’ Brooking no argument. Blood was running again. It didn’t look good.

The man above let go another missile. It had been a precious collectable once. Vivid aquamarine. It crashed into the edge of the stone step close by and exploded. Everyone threw up their hands and arms to protect themselves from incoming glass, and what little of it came their way thudded into the arm of Walter’s heavy overcoat. A further missile followed, but missed everything, and hurtled straight on down. Up above, they heard a man’s footsteps running away, going higher.

‘Hector and I will deal with this character,’ said Walter, striding out towards the next step. ‘Keep undercover, in case,’ and they watched the Guv grab the black banister and haul himself upwards like an irritated snorting bull.

Karen tapped Gibbons’ cheek.

‘Wakey-wakey, boy.’

Gibbons’ alarmed eyes opened with a start.

‘Shit!’ he said. ‘What hit me?’

The girls giggled.

‘Glass paperweight.’

‘Felt more like a cruise missile.’

‘Lie still,’ said Jenny. ‘Ambulance on the way.’

‘I’m okay,’ he said, and Gibbons tried to stand.

He didn’t get half way.

‘No, you are not!’ said Jenny. ‘Just lie still.’

‘Who do you think it is?’ asked Jenny. ‘Up above?’

‘I think it’s the Mirror man,’ said Karen.

‘So do I, I always have.’

‘I think it’s Speight,’ said Gibbons, ‘put money on it.’

‘One thing’s for sure,’ said Karen, ‘it can’t be Flanagan, he’s in the cells, and it can’t be David Baker either, he’s in Crewe,’ if he was telling the truth.

‘David who?’ said Gibbons, wondering what he’d missed.

Karen changed the subject.

‘I’ll look after Gibbons, Jenny, you go on up and help the Guv. You’re more good there.’

She nodded and said, ‘Sure, Sarge,’ and took a run at the staircase, and disappeared up them, Karen’s voice chasing after her. ‘Be careful!’

Downstairs, they heard sirens. Backup, ambulance, maybe both, but it was a comforting noise, for sure.

––––––––

UP ABOVE, WALTER MADE it to the eighth floor. He was breathing heavy, but what man approaching sixty wouldn’t be? Not that many. He made his way along the corridor towards number 35. Hector popped out of a narrow door at the far end of the corridor. He was breathing hard too, but not so much.

‘Am I glad to see you,’ said Walter.

Hector nodded and said, ‘Did you see him?’

‘Nope, but I heard him, and I saw the damage he did with his glass missiles.’

The door to number 35 was swaying back and forth. Walter eased it open and crept inside. Hector followed. There was no one in there, no happy nieces, no gurgling great-nephew. There was a glass display cabinet with half the prize exhibits missing, and half drunk coffee on the table, faintly warm.

‘Looks like they cleared out,’ said Walter, retreating outside. ‘She was frightened, was Corla, maybe made a wise move.’

Hector nodded and said, ‘I think he’s gone higher.’

Walter nodded and said, ‘Agreed. You go on, I’ll follow,’ and Hector hit the stairs running, but before Walter could follow, the door to another flat opened a tad. Eyes peered out, and the door opened further. Corla appeared and whispered, ‘In here, Walter.’

Walter hurried inside and Corla shut the door.

They were all there, Corla and the nieces, and Chantelle’s toddler, Ben. The door to one bedroom was wide open and inside, two young men were busy, headphones on, tape and CD decks all over the place, computers by the dozen, big small and modern and alive, and Walter heard a jingle being played, Dee Bee Cee – the continuing sound of free pirate radio, and one lad said, ‘We are interrupting this programme to bring you a special news report. The man known as the baseball bat murderer is being chased as we speak by police through Portobello Towers. More news as we get it, but for now, steer clear of Portobello.’

One young man came to the door and checked out the suspicious-looking stranger, and pushed the door closed.

Corla said, ‘Ignore them. They’re good boys. Have you caught him yet?’

‘Not yet, but we will, I think he’s gone up on the roof.’

Corla nodded and said, ‘He’s here to kill me. You know that, don’t you?’

‘He’s not going to kill anyone. I’m going after him,’ and Walter headed for the door, Corla following.

‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘He’s mad and he’s dangerous.’

‘I know that. We have two officers down.’

She let him out and closed and locked the door.

Up top, Hector had reached the top floor. There was a small narrow fire escape door with a metal bar across, half way up. He pressed the bar, and the door flipped open with a soft clang. He went through, and up six breeze-block steps to the left, and he was out on the roof.

There was not much there, just a flat pitched roof with a single small building on it, looked like a big square box, located above the on-strike lifts. Probably contained all the elevator gubbins. A minute later the Guv joined him on the roof.

Walter glanced around, surveying the scene. It was a great view from up there, and for once despite being one of the murkiest Novembers on record, it was a clear day. He could see for miles, the River Dee winding its way through the old city, and North Wales beyond, the snow-capped mountains of Snowdonia away in the distance, but he wasn’t there to admire the view.

Away to the right was a suspicious looking radio transmitter aerial, a lashed up effort on the corner of the building, held together with black electrician’s tape, no doubt pumping our Dee Bee Cee’s exciting exclusive. The only other thing on the roof was the small boxy building.

‘Have you looked behind that?’ asked Walter, pointing.

Hector shook his head.

‘Do it now!’

Hector nodded and ran to the building, went behind it, and disappeared from view for a matter of seconds, as if he was visiting the dark side of the moon, and reappeared, shaking his head.

He returned to Walter, and said, ‘What now?’

Walter gazed at the small building, his mind running on overtime.

‘On the top of it, Hector. Check out the top.’

Hector grinned and muttered, ‘You could be right,’ and he took a run at the building, and jumped at it, his right foot hitting it half way up, his hands reaching high, grasping for the top, as he grabbed the roof, and heaved himself up, athletically, not a problem for a six foot fit man like Hector Browne.

He jogged into the centre of the small add-on building and turned and grinned back down at Walter, and said, ‘Nothing here, Guv. Not a thing!’

Walter nodded too and said, ‘Come on down.’

Hector turned around and held onto the side of the topmost roof and kicked off and jumped down backwards, as easy as an Olympic gymnast dismounting the bars.

––––––––

JENNY REACHED THE TOP floor, breathing hard through physical effort. She saw the open door that led up onto the roof, but another narrow door at the far end of the corridor caught her eye. It was blowing open and closed and something about it didn’t look right.

She ran along the corridor and pulled the door open and looked around. It was the traders’ staircase, and she paused and listened. She could hear muffled voices somewhere down below, male voices, and the echoing sound of steps on the concrete stairs. Were they coming up or going down? It was hard to tell.

She shouted down the stairs, ‘Guv?’

A quick reply hurtled back, ‘Bugger off!’

Jenny didn’t recognise the voice and started down the stairs, running, so much easier going down than coming up. She yelled, ‘Stop! Police!’ and caught them within three floors. Two late teenage boys, close cropped hair, not a surplus ounce of weight on them, insolent attitude, but nothing Jenny hadn’t seen and heard and dealt with a hundred times before.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘We’re going to work. What are you doing here?’

‘Where do you work?’

‘On the carwash on the Greyhound estate.’

‘Have you seen anyone else, a six foot tall dark haired man, or a big black guy?’

‘Nope and nope. Is that it?’

Jenny nodded and muttered, ‘That’s it,’ and she turned and hurried back up the stairs.

One of them said, ‘She’s a frigging nutcase!’ And they laughed aloud and hurried on down. 

––––––––

UP ON THE ROOF HECTOR said, ‘What now?’

‘If he’s not on the lift shaft roof, and he’s not behind the building, the only other place he could have gone is in one of the flats, or over the side.’

‘Brave man if he has,’ said Hector.

‘You take north and west, I’ll take south and east,’ said Walter, heading for the eastern edge. ‘And be careful.’

Hector nodded and headed for the north side.

Walter stood as close to the edge as he dared and peered over. There was no wall or fence of any kind on the edge, nothing to stop anyone falling off. About four feet down, all the way round, was a black metal net, narrow gauge, small holes in the netting, sticking out maybe three feet, designed as some kind of safety feature, probably there to stop anything raining down on the unsuspecting public below. Objects like sticks and stones maybe, dropped there by nesting or squabbling gulls, and over time blown towards and over the edge. It was debatable whether that net could catch and hold a human, and certainly not a human determined to go that way... all the way down.

But for someone to climb down there, and over and beyond the net, and back into the side of the building, that appeared almost impossible to Walter. Maybe an ultra-strong ultra-fit gymnast might make it, but beyond the net there was precious little in the way of handgrips or footholds, or so it seemed to Walter, and he couldn’t see how anyone could do it.

Walter retreated into the centre of the main roof and said, ‘East and South clear.’

Hector came back, nodding, saying, ‘North and West clear too.’

‘If someone’s gone over the side they’ve got more balls than I have,’ said Walter.

‘Me too, I couldn’t do it.’

Walter scratched his chin.

Hector said, ‘Looks like he’s got away, Guv.’

‘No,’ said Walter. ‘He’s still here. I can feel it.’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Hector pulled a face and switched his weight from one foot to the other, and said, ‘I’m not with you. I don’t follow. How do you mean?’

‘I think you do, Hector. I only have one question: Why?’

Hector pursed his lips and pulled a grim face, looked downcast and shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘How did you know?’

‘I didn’t, not until a moment ago. It’s the old thing. Take away all possibilities, and the only one left is the correct one, and that set me thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘It was the fingerprint thing that didn’t fit. There was always something too convenient about it, and just the one too. No other trace of Flanagan ever being in Belinda Cooper’s place, and you were the only one pushing for him to be the guilty party, and it was you who went to Flanagan’s place with Gibbons, and my guess is that while Gibbons kept him talking, you made your way into the kitchen and picked up a handy item, a small glass, maybe, and pocketed it, hoping there might be a print on it, and you got lucky, because there was.’

Hector sniffed and stared Walter’s way.

Walter continued. ‘It isn’t easy to lift a print and re-lay it in a different location. But with your expertise, and the things we have taught you, you did it pretty well. Nice touch to put it inside the bedside table drawer, by the way. That took things to a whole new level, intimacy wise. And then there was the ID parade that you avoided by fixing up a dental appointment, no doubt at the last minute. You probably told them you had terrible toothache, and you did that because you’d discovered Corla could and would ID you if she set eyes on you, just as she did this morning on your way here. And you came here to kill her, didn’t you? Well, didn’t you?’ 

Hector sniffed a bitter laugh but didn’t answer.

Walter spoke again.

‘It was a moment ago, when you athletically leapt on that roof, a six foot slim man, leaping up there, and all along we have been looking for a six foot slim man who could look after himself, with dark hair and eyes, just like yours, Hector. And you still haven’t answered my question: Why?’

It looked like he would not speak, but he did.

‘Do you remember that Sunday in the Maaz Khan case when I persuaded everyone to work overtime? It was the day I’d set aside to give my lady, Sweet Georgia Browne, a full weekend’s CPA.’

‘Concentrated Personal Attention,’ said Walter. ‘I remember it well, what of it?’

‘Well, she never forgave me for that, me messing her around, and about ten days later, Heather Holmes, that’s her real name, gave me the elbow.’

‘Is that what this is all about? Being rejected by a woman?’

‘No, Guv, not quite. It’s far more complicated than that.’

‘Explain yourself!’

‘She was everything to me. An exceptional person. Everyone else by comparison was irrelevant, and afterwards she refused to see me, changed her phone numbers and email address, and I couldn’t contact her. I really flipped. I never knew you could feel like that about anyone, kind of numb. I was furious. I can’t explain it. I stopped eating, couldn’t sleep at night, but kept falling asleep at work. It was eating me up, gnawing at my guts.

‘And one night I was out getting drunk, and I got talking to this guy who told me about this good-time girl who had a caravan down by the river, and how she’d do anything for fifty quid, and he meant anything. I thought maybe if I went down there somehow it might bring my girl back.’

’By killing her, you mean? Eleanor?’

Hector nodded. ‘Yeah, that was the deal. I didn’t want anything else. I went tooled up with petrol and matches, and by then my brain was scrambled. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘Go on.’

‘She was a real strange kid, that Ellie Wright.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘As I was doing it, throttling her, do you know what she did?’

‘I can’t imagine. What?’

‘She reached up and kissed me, Guv. Can you believe that? She kissed her killer, as if in thanks, as if she wanted me to kill her all along.’

Walter snorted his disbelief and said, ‘And Belinda Cooper? What did she do to deserve to die?’

‘That was completely different.’

‘In what way?’

‘I only wanted to frighten her. I wanted to spread panic through the city. I wanted to see what you would do, and I figured if I was right there with you I’d always be one step ahead.’

‘You did that all right, spread panic and fear.’

‘You don’t understand, Guv.’

‘Explain!’

‘She came at me, real crazy. Tried to kill me, tried to turn the tables. It was always going to end badly.’

Walter sighed and stared across into Hector’s gaunt face. He’d turned a shade of November dirty white. Some days in November in England everything is dirty black, or dirty white. Seemed like that, right there.

‘You almost killed two of your fellow officers.’

‘I’m sorry about that. They’re not seriously injured, are they?’

‘They’ll live, no thanks to you. You need help, man.’

‘It’s too late for that, Guv.’

‘No, it isn’t!’

But even as Walter spoke he saw Hector’s future. The rest of his life behind bars in a place where he would be a marked man, a sitting duck, shunned, and a big trophy to be hunted down by every sick and evil individual the State had incarcerated. Sooner or later they would get to him, they both knew that. Crooked police officers went through hell in prison, and who was to say they didn’t deserve it? But a police officer who had turned into a killer, that was something else, a rare and heinous thing, and all on Walter’s watch. No doubt the stinking stains would flood across the records of everyone involved.

The door to the roof opened again and Jenny and Corla stepped out and stared across at the two men. The guys’ body language looked wrong; as if it were all over, when it wasn’t.

‘Guv?’ said Jenny. ‘Everything okay?’

‘You!’ yelled Corla, pointing and glaring at Hector. ‘It’s him! He’s the killer!’

Jenny glanced at Hector and Walter.

Walter let go the tiniest of confirming nods.

Jenny grimaced in disbelief and shook her head.

‘Come on, Hector,’ said Walter. ‘We need to go and get this sorted,’ and he slipped a pair of cuffs from his coat pocket.

‘I’m so sorry, Walter.’

Hector had never used his boss’s Christian name before.

Walter nodded and stepped towards him.

Hector brushed Walter’s hand aside.

‘You’ve been great, Guv. I love the bones of you.’

‘It’s time to show some real courage, DC Browne.’

‘It’s all drained from me, Guv. Slipped away forever, forgive me, will you?’

He brushed past Walter and ran towards the edge.

Jenny read the situation well. She guessed what Hector might do, and leapt into action. She ran towards him, trying to head him off, but realised she wouldn’t get there in time. She leapt full length like a rugby fullback tackling a flying winger, reaching out for the ankles, hoping to bring him down before the white line.

Hector half expected something of the kind. At the last second he hurdled Jenny’s outstretched arms and grasping fingers, kicking her hand, fracturing two digits. He was strong, incredibly strong, much stronger than he looked, and dainty feminine fingers would never stop a healthy hurtling man.

Walter and Corla watched Hector clear Jenny, and dive over the edge, missing the black netting with ease, and like an Acapulco cliff diver, he soared through the air, and disappeared.

Walter, Jenny and Corla rushed to the edge in time to see Hector plummeting earthwards, towards his end, ever faster through the chilly November air, content with his life choice of violent death.

‘Look out!’ screamed Walter to those below.

Some people looked up and saw thirteen stones of masculine human muscle and bones hurtling down towards them. Huge terrified eyes stared up at disbelieving eyes glaring down.

The former DC Hector Browne crashed into the worn tarmac with a sickening thud. The body bounced, though not by much, for that’s what it was, a dead body, where once not long ago, it had been a fine young man, and a promising police officer, who in recent days had twisted and turned into a ruthless and merciless killer. What is it they say? Even a dead cat bounces, as do mentally ill policemen. They’d seen the proof.

‘Why?’ said Jenny, holding her damaged hand to her side.

‘Rejection,’ said Walter.

‘That’s a pathetic excuse!’ scowled Corla.

‘Of course it is!’ agreed Walter. ‘But that’s the reason.’

‘He must have been an incredibly weak man,’ muttered Corla.

‘He was,’ said Walter. ‘Weak in mind, strong in body.’

He glanced across at the women. Jenny’s hand was almost twice its normal size. ‘What’s happened to Karen and Darren?’

‘Gone with the medics.’

‘And that’s where you’re going too. Come on, let’s get you some treatment.’

‘I’m glad he’s dead,’ said Corla.

She was the only one who was.

Corla sniffed the freshening wind and mumbled, ‘I feel free at last. Totally free, and I can sleep easy.’

Walter and Jenny shared a look, as they all made their way back to the stairs.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Caw! Caw! Caw! The rooks were doing what rooks do, seeing in the dawn. It was just gone 7.30am on the first day of December. There was a thick crunching frost on the grass, and it was starting to snow.

Old gravestones and headstones and different sized blackened and mossy stone crosses lined the frosty lawn, standing out at weird angles. None of Hector’s family and friends attended the garden of remembrance.

Maybe it was too early for them, maybe they were too ashamed, or perhaps they didn’t care. It was forever surprising how many people in the twenty-first century suffered unattended funerals. You could have a hundred thousand friends on social media and still be alone at the graveside.

Walter was there, as was Mrs West, and the close-knit members of the team, three of them looking like walking wounded. Darren’s neck-brace was still on, and would be for a couple of weeks. Jenny’s arm was in a sling, though it was the fingers that were damaged and mending, while Karen had downsized the plaster on her nose and cheek, as the cut slowly healed and vanished. They’d all receive bravery commendations, especially Jenny, and well deserved too.

In truth, it wasn’t a funeral at all.

There were no limousines and no service and no programme, and no favourite songs, no prayers and no happy memories of a cherished person, now departed, not even a vicar mumbling words. The Chief Constable had suggested the ashes be sprinkled over the lawned garden anonymously, and the sooner the better, and with as little fuss as possible, and that explained the time, and the place.

None of the team wanted that, no one there, hence their attendance. They stood in a short line on the path overlooking the grey frosted lawn, Walter, Darren, Karen, Jenny, and Mrs West. Walter holding before him a small urn of ashes. Feminine footsteps could be heard approaching, echoing along the path in the cold still air, and that set the rooks off again.

The humans turned to look.

Corla Revelation nodded a slight morning greeting as she approached. She looked smart too in a good quality long black coat, black hat set at a jaunty angle, and matching shiny shoes.

‘Who the hell told her the time and date?’ muttered an irritated Mrs West.

‘Not me,’ said Walter.

‘Nor me,’ said Jenny.

‘As if,’ said Karen.

Darren snorted and shook his head.

‘Hello, Corla,’ said Walter, as she joined them. ‘How did you know the time and place?’

‘Really, Walter. Do you still doubt my powers and gifts?’

‘You mean, you saw the time and place in your mind?’

‘I’m here, aren’t I? What more proof do you need?’

She smiled up at Walter and took her place beside him.

Mrs West had no time for such nonsense.

She said, ‘Top brass have suggested no service and no prayers for the deceased for the shame he brought on the Force. I suggest a minute’s silence for contemplation and reflection. After that, Walter, if you would be so kind as to do the honours.’

‘Ma’am,’ he said, flicking his wrist and checking his overlarge watch, as the second hand set off.

The minute took an age.

It began to snow harder, large dainty flakes drifting from the dark grey sky, blanketing the lawn, whitening everything in seconds, settling on shoulders like giant dandruff. The rooks started up again. Caw! Caw! Maybe in protest at the heavier snow, or the mixed bunch of people below, out earlier than usual, on their garden of remembrance.

And then it was over, and Walter stepped a pace forward onto the whitened grass and removed the top from the casket, and turned and handed the lid to Darren. Walter glanced at each of them in turn. Mrs West nodded him on, eager to be finished and out of there. Walter turned back to the front and shook ashes from the urn. A dollop fell before them onto the snow. He shook again. A larger amount spilt out, just as a squall came through and picked up the tiny grey cloud, and dispersed it across the frosty and lightly dusted lawn. Another shake, and the casket was empty. Hector Browne had vanished.

They stared down at the strange smudge in the snow, the last sign that Detective Constable Hector Browne had ever existed. By noon, the winter sun would be strong enough to burn off the frost and snow, and the smudge would slip into the cold, dank turf, and vanish.

‘Okay,’ said Mrs West, tapping her gloved hands. ‘That’s everything, best foot forward,’ and she stepped out, Karen beside her, making small talk, heading back toward the cars. Darren and Jenny exchanged glances and fell in behind. Corla linked Walter’s arm and said, ‘Hope you don’t mind escorting me.’

‘Of course not. Why did you come?’

‘I read in the press of all the good things he did. I guess I felt a little guilty.’

‘About what?’

‘About saying I was glad he was dead. I no longer think and feel that, just sad and sorry he did the things he did.’

‘We all feel that way, but never forget this; he murdered two women in cold blood, that’s the important thing to remember. They and their families is where the sympathy should lie.’

‘And he’d have murdered me too if he could.’

Walter nodded and muttered, ‘Quite possibly.’

Corla shivered and said, ‘There’s something else I wanted to mention.’

‘Oh?’

‘I hope you don’t think this an inappropriate moment.’

‘Go on.’

‘Do I still qualify for the reward?’

‘Ah, maybe not the right time to discuss that.’

‘Yes, you’re right, of course. Will you ring me sometime, let me know what you think?’

Walter nodded and said, ‘Sure, I’ll ring you,’ and he glanced back over his shoulder at the smudge in the snow. The rooks were there, looking busy, pecking and investigating, maybe sensing a juicy breakfast. They’d be disappointed. The smudge was dissipating. Hector Browne had departed.

Back at the cars, Mrs West, Karen and Darren jumped into the first one, as Walter offered Corla a lift back into town.

She smiled and nodded and said, ‘That would be great.’

‘I’ll drive,’ he said, glancing at Jenny’s sling.

‘Thanks, Guv,’ she said, easing into the back, and the cars rolled away. Hector Browne’s life was over, though he would always be remembered, but for the wrong reasons.

––––––––

A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER, Walter checked out the reward thing. As far as he was concerned he would have been happy for Corla to receive something, for she did set them on the way to closing the case. But the man who put up the cash, one Gareth Williams, solicitor of the parish, pointed out there had been no successful prosecution, and he didn’t deem it appropriate any payment be made. Knowing the man, Walter wasn’t surprised, and it fell to him to break the news.

He picked up the phone and prodded in Corla’s number.

‘Can’t say as I am surprised,’ she said, before adding, ‘I can put curses on people, you know.’

‘Not on me, I hope.’

‘No, Walter, not on you. Never.’

‘While I’m here, there is one other matter.’

‘Yes?’ she said, unable to keep a note of expectancy from her voice.

‘I can’t turn my eyes away from illegal broadcasting emanating from Portobello Towers.’

‘That’s nothing to do with me.’

‘Maybe not, but pass on some well-meant advice. I am bound to forward what I know to the appropriate authorities.’

‘You’ll never stop them, not completely.’

‘That’s as maybe, but they can expect high-powered visitors, and soon.’

‘Thanks for the tip. Anything else you want to ask me?’

‘Not right now.’

‘Fair enough. Stay in touch, Walter.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I will,’ and set the phone down.

––––––––

AT LUNCHTIME HE LEFT the office and jumped a cab for Easton Road. The same yellow Cayton was parked outside number 56. He made his way upstairs and rang the bell to 3A. Mary Warner opened up with a smile. It was pastel green day. She looked kind of cute.

‘Hello again,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I was passing, and I thought you might like to know our enquiries about the other matter have been completed.’

‘Derek’s in the clear, is he?’

‘Of course he is, he was never really involved.’

‘I know that, Mr Darriteau. I read the papers and watch TV.’

‘Yes, I’m sure, I just thought you’d like to know.’

Mary grinned and said, ‘Would you like a coffee?’

‘Another time, maybe. It looks like you were on the way out.’

‘I was, just nipping into town.’

‘Any chance you could offer an overworked policeman a lift?’

‘I might.’

‘Good,’ he said, suddenly lost for words.

‘Such a terrible business.’

‘Yes, appalling.’

‘It must have been frightful for you, one of your own colleagues involved like that, such a shock, I imagine.’

‘It was, I haven’t quite come to terms with it.’

Mary bobbed her head and said, ‘I’ll get my things, raincoat and stuff.’

‘Sure,’ he said, kicking his heels on the cold landing outside. He didn’t have to wait long. A minute later she joined him, locked the flat door, and in another minute they were downstairs, and she was beeping the cute Cayton open, and they both climbed in.

On the quick trip to town he blurted, ‘Do you like music?’

‘I love music. Why?’

‘There’s a choral concert on at the Cathedral, Mozart, I think it is, 8pm tomorrow. I was wondering if you’d like to go.’

‘I’d love to go.’

‘Great! I’ll call for you, 7.30, if that’s okay?’

‘That’s fine. It’s a date.’

‘Just one thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘Can we go in your car?’

‘Of course,’ and she laughed and said, ‘you’re not banned, are you, from driving?’

Walter guffawed.

‘Course not. It’s just I’m a car-less person at present.’

‘Not a problem, I adore driving.’

––––––––

SHE DROPPED HIM IN town, and he hurried back to the office to see Mrs West, to take up her offer of free tickets, before she gave them to someone else.

––––––––

DAVID BAKER ARRIVED at Karen’s apartment at 8pm. She’d pulled out all the stops and had bought expensive wine, organic steaks, and avocado, and had gone to the trouble of making her own unique version of Baked Alaska.

Earlier, she’d found a quiet hour and a half to have her fine blonde hair washed and styled and lightly trimmed, and back at the flat she’d slipped into that little black dress again, and looked stunning.

Maybe tonight I’ll find out how much he likes me, she pondered, unable to keep an expectant and excited grin from invading her fair face. The bell rang from downstairs. She jumped to it and sprang the door open, and a minute later he entered her flat, and by heaven he looked good. Tall, dark and handsome, and he looked fitter too, as if he had been secretly working out, as if he was trying to impress her, and how cool was that? Try harder. Her earlier suggestion came back into her mind. Maybe he was, trying harder, it sure looked that way.

He was carrying a large bouquet of red roses.

‘For me?’ she said, reaching out for them.

‘I guess,’ he said, as she took them and set them to one side, for they both had more important things in mind. He reached out, tugged her to him, and kissed her expectant lips, a mere brushing welcoming kiss that morphed into a hard, heavy, and passionate one. She hadn’t been kissed like that since the days of Rodney, and maybe David Baker was an even better kisser than Rodders; and that was a pleasant surprise.

She let him kiss her again, as if to check it was as wonderful as she’d imagined, and it was, and how brilliant it was to relax, and lose oneself without worry or fear.

This time she could rest easy in knowing she wasn’t in the arms of a dangerous man, while kissing, and being kissed by a killer. Probably.

––––––––

The End

David’s Notes

Thank you for buying and reading my compilation and I hope you enjoyed it. We have come to the end of this four-book package. You did well to finish it! When you have a spare minute I’d appreciate a brief review of this Box Set on any of the main book sales websites. That would be very kind of you. A single paragraph would suffice, and it does help me.

As always, any mistakes in this book are mine and mine alone. My friends and I work hard to eradicate the little blighters, but occasionally beasties and bugs slip through. I hope they didn’t detract from your enjoyment too much. We kill them when we can!

If you’d like to read more of Walter Darriteau and the team you can do that today. Check out “The Legal & the Illicit”, “The Death Broker”, “Five Dead Rooks”, “The Missing Man”, “Old Cold Bones” and “Falling” all available to buy for a modest sum!

Next year, there will be an all-new Walter Darriteau murder/mystery book released, God willing, and he’s very excited about that, as am I, so look out for that. Please check out my website www.davidcarterbooks.co.uk for the latest news and reviews on that and other things too. You can contact me via the website on any matter if you’d like to do that and it would be great to hear from you.

Thank you for supporting independent writers and publishers. I appreciate it.  Without you, we wouldn’t exist.

Have a great day, don’t have nightmares, and whatever you do, make sure you have plenty of fun!

––––––––

David Carter. 

*****

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It would be great to hook up with you.

––––––––

© Copyright David Carter 2019

“The Bookshop by the Moscow River”

A Tale of Fears & Dreams

––––––––

Tells the story of Nicolai Azarenko. He’s a time-served wheel-tapper working on the Russian railways in the early 1950s, though he’s desperate to change his employ.

But moving jobs in the Soviet Union is not an easy thing to do, and Nicolai has a reputation. He’s the man who receives crazy visions and dreams and he’s not shy in telling others about them. But making waves in Stalinist Russia is never an advisable thing to do.

“The Bookshop by the Moscow River” is part political thriller, part love story, and part social comment of living and working under authoritarian rule.

It’s a roller coaster of a ride where the reader can’t help but root for the good people, all the while knowing that not all of them will make it through.

If you are looking for something different to read

you might be interested in this new story.

“The Bookshop by the Moscow River” is released in late January 2022 and is available now to order.

It is released in Ebook and paperback,

the ISBN for the paperback being: 979-849999-0261

Order your copy today.

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Did you love The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 (Walter Darriteau Box Set I - Ebook Edition)? Then you should read The Inspector Walter Darriteau Cases - Books 5-8 (Walter Darriteau Box Set 2 - Kindle Edition) by David Carter!

The full description for the Walter Darriteau Box Sets 2 is in preparation.

Read more at David Carter’s site.

About the Author

David Carter lives in the south of England and has written more than 20 books including a series of murder/mysteries featuring his detective Inspector Walter Darriteau based in Chester, Merseyside, Liverpool, and North Wales.

If you’re interested in this genre look out for The Murder Diaries - Seven Times Over, The Sound of Sirens, The Twelfth Apostle and Kissing a Killer, aIl featuring Walter Darriteau.

David has also written a male equivalent chicklit novel dubbed “manlit” by some. The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene features a character who doesn’t treat women well and it comes back to haunt him.

Margaret Henderson Smith, a seasoned writer in her own right, wrote about Gringo Greene:

In its easy style it simply bounces along, every page sheer entertainment, compulsively turned, but at the same time I found myself grateful for the sheer length of this chunky, fun-filled book because I never wanted to reach the end. I feel sure readers will be hankering after a sequel, or a prequel as Carter puts it and I hope the author will oblige.

From the start, the reader readily engages with the characters, the context, the setting, the story. With its low-key running plot gradually stepping up as the story progresses, Carter has the balance just right for he allows no distraction from each of Gringo’s lover’s own tales. This has got to be one of the most fascinating books I've ever read, for Carter has the knack of placing the reader in the thick of it. One is hardly aware one is reading, the experience of interacting with the characters is strangely powerful, and I read this with the ease of watching a film. I congratulate the author on this work for it takes a very clever author to be able to hold the reader’s fascination continuously in this way. He has created a superb male `slick-lit’ character in Gringo Greene and the work has much to commend it. Within its genre, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read and it goes without saying I highly recommend it.

David’s aim is to release one full-length novel every year, though two would be nice! There’s a much-requested sequel to Gringo Greene in the offing, time permitting. Read more on David’s books and see lots of reviews at: www.davidcarterbooks.co.uk

And you can get in touch and follow David on Twitter @TheBookBloke.

Read more at David Carter’s site.