‘How?’ Brad said.
‘I can’t lie to you, Brad,’ Larry said. ‘The bedsit where she lived. She was murdered.’
‘Mum always thought she’d come to no good.’
‘We need to go to your house. Rose, your parents?’
‘I’m going with Brad,’ Rose said. ‘He needs me.’
‘I can’t allow it, not without your parents’ permission.’
‘I’ll phone,’ the admin lady said. ‘Rose, your phone, the one that’s meant to be switched off in school hours.’
Rose put her hand in her pocket, took out the phone.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got the number,’ Larry said.
On the other end of the line, Maeve Winston listened as Larry told her the situation. The call ended.
‘Your mother will come over to Brad’s house,’ Larry said. ‘You two can come with me.’
‘We have counselling available,’ the admin lady said, wanting to be helpful.
Outside the office, Rose turned to Larry. ‘Mrs Montgomery, she’s always fussing about, but we all like her.’
The two youngsters sat in the back of Larry’s car. He had suggested that Brad sit up front, Rose in the back. It wasn’t going to be, and he hoped that they arrived at the Robinsons’ before Rose’s mother, as she could well be upset that the police were encouraging the inappropriate romance.
On arrival, Larry was pleased to see that his fears weren’t realised. Wendy’s car was parked outside the house, a uniform at the door.
***
‘Our Janice,’ Brad’s mother screamed as he entered.
Brad left Rose and went over to his mother, put his arms around her. ‘I’m still here,’ he said.
It was a touching scene, Wendy thought, as did Rose. Larry looked away, not sure what to think or how to react. He was always uncomfortable in intimate situations: an austere father, a mother who was not affectionate, although he had had a good upbringing, a decent education, a brother and sister who had not been in trouble with the law.
Rose, her first time in the house, looked around, not sure what to make of it. To her, it was an alien world, the decay, the smell of damp in the air. A cat lay curled up on the windowsill taking in what sun there was; a dog barked outside.
A knock on the door. Wendy opened it.
‘Rose?’
‘She’s here.’
‘Gladys?’
‘Mrs Robinson is fine, upset of course. To be expected under the circumstances.’
In the front room, the two women looked at each other – one who had lost a daughter, the other who had bettered herself and didn’t want to be reminded of where she had come from – rushed together and hugged, kissing each other on the cheek.
‘It’s been a long time,’ Maeve Winston said.
‘I’ve seen you sometimes, but you never waved.’
‘I couldn’t.’
No more was said by either woman. Brad sat with his mother; Rose with hers. It should have been touching, but wasn’t.
After a few minutes, Gladys Robinson spoke. ‘Jim needs to know.’
‘It’s been dealt with,’ Larry replied, not sure that it had, but he was confident that his DCI would have contacted the prison, asked someone skilled to tell the man.
‘I want to see her,’ Brad said.
‘It’s for your mother to confirm identity,’ Wendy said.
‘I still want to see her.’
It was irregular and would not be welcomed by the staff where Janice’s body was, but an exception would be made. Jim Robinson would be allowed to attend the funeral to say his goodbyes.
Wendy was sure what Maeve Winston was thinking, but she wasn’t interfering, not even when Rose left her and went over to Brad and put her arm around him, kissing him on the mouth.
‘Did Janice die because of what we saw in the cemetery?’ Brad asked. His voice was firm, a sign that he was starting to accept the situation, or a momentary need to ask questions that troubled Homicide.
‘We don’t think so,’ Larry said.
‘Which means you’re not sure,’ Maeve said. ‘Which means that Rose could be next. Have you considered that?’
‘Please, Mrs Winston. We’ve just come from Janice. We don’t think there’s a connection, and prostitution is a high-risk occupation. Each year, prostitutes die at the hands of a client.’
‘We need protection; Rose needs protection.’
‘Protection will be provided for Rose and you and your husband. Also for Brad and Mrs Robinson.’
What Larry had said was true, but the protection would be a uniform at each house, but the school would present difficulties. It was a sprawling collection of buildings; easy entry in and out.
But why kill Janice? Larry thought. What use would that be to a professional? To Larry, and no doubt to Isaac and Wendy when they sat down to discuss it, nothing seemed to make sense.
The fear was that it wasn’t professional, it was psychopathic, and the man they were looking for was a madman, a man who could act normally, even to his family and friends, but someone who could kill, had killed before, could kill again.
Chapter 8
For three days Rose stayed away from the school, although Brad returned after two. Jim Robinson, after a phone call from Isaac, and with Chief Superintendent Goddard’s assistance, had been granted a visit to the family home, a prison officer with him, and Larry present.
Larry knew Jim, and the two had shaken hands at the front door before the prisoner had been let into the house. Violence wasn’t on his criminal record, and he was an acceptable risk in that he wouldn’t disappear over the fence at the rear of the house. Besides, he had only four months left on his sentence, a reduction for good behaviour.
In the house, mother and sons, a quiet moment to reflect on the family’s loss; even Larry closing his eyes. He had seen the body at Pathology, although Brad and his mother had seen it before the pathologist had commenced his work, removing organs, cutting the body from shoulder blade down to the pubic region, a Y-shaped incision.
Jim would not be allowed to see the body, and his four hours were soon up. He was off back to the prison, although Larry, going out on a limb and with the prison officer’s agreement, first took the three of them to a pub on the corner, gave Jim the first pint of beer he’d had in a long time.
‘Drugs,’ Jim said after he had downed his glass in one gulp. ‘That’s what it is; that’s what killed Janice.’
No mention of the mother’s live-ins, the abuse the daughter had suffered at the hands of one or two of them. Brad had told Larry some of it; the mother had vehemently denied it when questioned, but it was true, looking away as she said it.
A family always on a financial precipice, with a low level of education, and abuse wasn’t far away. His wife would say it was self-induced, although Larry knew it wasn’t that, not always. Life was tough for most people, and whereas the majority kept their heads just above the water, paddling madly under the surface to stay afloat, others weren’t able to.
The Robinsons weren’t bad people; just surviving, taking the rough with the smooth, enjoying the highs, coping with the lows.
Jim had been upset at the house, but he had been in prison, removed from the period of grieving that Brad and his mother had already endured, to the extent that Brad was almost back to his usual self and talking about Rose again. Not that her father would ever give his permission.
Isaac had visited the Winstons the day after Janice had died; the father upset that his wife had been with Rose at the Robinsons. He had every right, Isaac knew that, but a woman had been murdered, and not someone unknown, as the woman at the cemetery remained, but the daughter of someone he had known in his younger days, the sister of a young man he had given a lift to that night at the cemetery.
Pathology had confirmed that Janice Robinson was a drug addict and she had not had sexual intercourse with her murderer. The pathologist had also concluded that she had in all probability not had sex in twelve hou
rs before her death. And apart from the knife wounds, delivered with a nine-inch blade and not specific as to where they were aimed, not much more could be deduced.
After this second death, visits to the other purchasers of the sandals continued. The Hammersmith address had not helped as it had been another mother buying for her daughter, the daughter proudly wearing them. Bayswater and Paddington had both drawn blanks. The only one left was twenty miles to the south of the city.
And as Isaac Cook saw it, a dead prostitute took precedence over an unknown woman, although the tie-in of the two was both puzzling and far too circumstantial to be a coincidence.
The only solution to firm up opinions on the two women was to identify the Jane Doe, to ascribe a name to her, or there would be another murder. The latter option not desired.
Isaac visited the Robinsons, found the mother busy in the kitchen. He had been told of the condition of the place, but Gladys Robinson was there, a broom in one hand, a bucket in the other.
‘I’ve got to put on a show for the relatives. She’s dead, dead and gone, never forgotten.’
The woman seemed hard to him, as though she didn’t care, not anymore. Although it could be a pretence, given that a hard life takes the edge off any sentimentality.
‘When she lived at home,’ Isaac said, ‘you had men here.’
The woman put the broom and bucket to one side. ‘I never sold myself, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Was Janice abused?’
‘Not by me.’
‘Your lovers? Was it the reason that she was mixed up?’
Isaac wasn’t sure where he was going with the conversation, only that Larry and Wendy were busy trying to find the Jane Doe, and Homicide was quiet for once. He needed to get out and about, in the thrust of it. Visiting Gladys Robinson was as good a reason as any.
‘I caught one of them sniffing around, caught him before he did anything.’
‘The others?’
‘She was always that way inclined. Always walking around in her underwear, showing off whatever she had under there. Not much I can tell you, not like me when I was her age.’
‘You were a prostitute?’
‘Not me. I was quality, not a cheap whore who put it on display, not like Janice; meat on a plate, take what you want.’
‘Your opinion of her has changed since she died.’
‘It hasn’t. She took one of my men, an accountant he was, treated me nice, bought me flowers and chocolates every Friday on the way home from work, took me to the cinema and everything.’
‘What happened?’
‘I came home from work, cleaning houses, nothing fancy, but it paid well enough; enough to feed the kids, and Jim, he was a handful, ate like a horse.’
‘You’re getting away from what we’re talking about, Mrs Robinson. Janice?’
Isaac had seen the vodka bottle when he had come in, and even though she had been drinking steadily, judging by her occasional slurring of words, she was coherent.
‘She’s there, in bed with him, only fourteen, younger than Brad’s girlfriend. Can you imagine it, seducing my man in my house, in my bed?’
‘You blamed your daughter?’
‘Who else? Not him, a professional man, educated, treated me well.’
‘She was a child, not able to understand. If she had not resisted, which you are intimating, then she had not received the proper guidance from her parents.’
‘There was only me, not that her father would have done much. He used to look at Janice as she was developing; indecent it was, and I told him so.’
‘His reaction?’
‘He hit me. That’s when Jim, growing up fast, exercising at the gym twice a week, flattened him, sent him packing.’
Isaac had heard the story more than once. The wayward child. If it was male, then crime and joining a gang; a female, and it was prostitution, at first to feed a habit, and then because there was no way back. The family home would not have helped Janice; the drugs and the lifestyle the result of her younger life.
‘Tell me about Tim and Maeve Winston.’ Isaac changed the subject.
‘We went to school together. Maeve lived next door to me, not here, somewhere better.’
‘What was she like?’
‘She liked to read books, not that I could understand why. The teacher we had that last year, he said I’d end up as a cashier at the supermarket if I were lucky.’
‘I thought they were meant to encourage you.’
‘He was. What he had wanted to say was that I’d end up flat on my back for every hard-luck case who had the money, tart that I was.’
‘Tim?’
‘He was as bad as Brad, always wanting to get his leg across.’
‘You?’
‘I was one of them, but Maeve, she was studious, not totally innocent, but innocent enough. Why is it that men want women like me when they’re younger, and then women such as Maeve when they get older?’
‘You said it. When they get older, their brain rules their groin, not the other way around. Brad’s got his head screwed on.’
‘Rose, pretty, I’ll grant you that, but what do you know about her? No virgin, not her, been around the traps a few times.’
Isaac had been willing to give the woman a chance, but it was clear that she was not a fit parent, in that she had failed her daughter, and would Brad if given a chance. Social services needed to be informed and to check out the woman, if they weren’t doing so already.
‘Brad and Rose, any problem for you?’
‘No, why should it be? He’s still young. Why should I care?’
‘Because you’re his mother. Whether you agree or not, it’s still for you to be concerned, to guide if necessary.’
Isaac could see that he was getting nowhere, and that wasn’t the reason to be in the house.
‘Was Maeve told that her future was in the supermarket?’
‘Teacher’s pet, not her. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she…’
‘Stop, sit down and start making sense. If Janice was killed because Brad saw the murderer of the other woman, then it’s not only Rose who’s a possible target, so is your son.’
‘I wouldn’t like that.’
‘We’re in agreement on one thing,’ Isaac said. He sat down opposite the woman. ‘Now, let’s get this straight. Janice was selling herself, not getting a lot of business from what we can see.’
‘Too much of it about these days. Why pay?’
Isaac did not offer a comment, not sure what to say. He’d had his fair share in his day, he knew that, and not once had he resorted to a woman whose phone number was on the internet or, in the past, on a card inside a telephone box.
‘When you weren’t drinking, which isn’t often judging by that bottle of vodka, did you ever see Janice? An honest answer, please.’
‘I kept a watch on her from time to time, not that I could have spoken to her, broke my heart she did.’
‘Don’t give me that sob story. You didn’t care, not much, and you knew that men were abusing her, probably took money off them as well.’
‘My own daughter…’
‘Answer my question.’
‘Okay, I knew she was in that bedsit, and she was doing it tough. She looked old when I saw her dead.’
‘Did you see men entering the premises.’
‘She wasn’t the only one on the game in there.’
‘We know that, and we’ve interviewed one of the women, not that she’s there now, too scared, worried that it will be her next.’
‘I never saw more than three men, but it was on the way home from seeing a friend, and I’d sometimes watch from the end of the road.’
‘Tell me about the men?’
‘You said there was another one in there selling herself.’
‘Process of elimination.’
‘Tim Winston used to visit her.’
‘You’ve not mentioned that before. Why?’
‘Why what? Why I d
idn’t mention it, or why he visited her?’
‘Both; start with the first.’
‘Tim was always that way inclined. When he was younger, whoever he could get, two a night, cheating on each with the other.’
‘But he married Maeve.’
‘Tim was bright, smarter than all of us, a man destined for better, and he knew it. And Maeve, she wanted to improve herself. A matched pair the two of them, but she could be a cold fish, saving herself for marriage. Tim, he would have liked that, but he hasn’t changed, not if he was seeing Janice.’
‘Could he have killed her?’
‘I don’t think he’d be that stupid, and why? He had it made. The loyal housewife at home; my daughter, whenever he paid the money.’
‘Your daughter? A substitute for you?’
‘He would have seen the humour in it. As long as Maeve didn’t know, it wouldn’t have worried him, and she’d have him on short rations. Sometimes, we used to tease her that she fancied women more than men.’
‘Did she?’
‘Just childish nonsense. She was more sensible than us.’
‘Tim?’
‘What does it matter? It’s what men do. They can’t help themselves, can they?’
‘Your daughter? Tim Winston or the men you had here?’
‘They’re all the same. No doubt you were in your day.’
Isaac chose not to answer.
‘One final question. Winston’s with your daughter, then overly protective of his. What do you think of that?’
‘He was doing his duty. It would have helped if Janice’s father had done his.’
‘Did he touch her?’
‘Not him, barely able to get it up.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘In hell, I hope.’
‘And Rose?’
‘If Brad wants her, that’s fine by me, not that he’ll stick by her.’
‘We’ve marked him as a decent young man, good moral values. Where do you think he got them from?’
‘Not from me; not from his father, and certainly not from Janice or Jim. We’re not good people,’ Gladys Robinson said. ‘Not evil, but none of us is like Maeve or Tim Winston and their precious daughter.’
DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2 Page 128
