Deep Cover

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s her,’ Louise muttered, and burst into tears.

  Recovering from her bout of weeping, Louise wiped her eyes and blew her nose vigorously as she followed Geraldine back to the waiting room.

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘We’re trying to find out. Are you aware of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your sister, or been angry with her?’

  ‘Hurt Vanessa? No, no. Are you saying she was attacked?’

  ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’

  Louise hesitated. ‘There was a bloke, but it was a while ago, and they had a huge bust-up. She was really cut up about it.’ She paused. ‘I’m not sure which of them ended it, to be honest. They were only together for a few months, but she was talking about moving in with him before it all went pear-shaped. I never really did understand why. All she would say was that he was a bastard, and she never thought he would be so brutal, and a lot more along those lines. But she was just upset and I thought it was her anger and disappointment talking. You know how you get when you break up with someone? All bitchy and vindictive.’

  The word ‘brutal’ interested Geraldine. The sight of the body seemed to have loosened Louise’s tongue, and she seemed more inclined to talk about her sister. A few more questions revealed that her ex-boyfriend was called Gerry and he lived in York.

  ‘That’s as much as I know about him,’ Louise said. ‘We only met him the once, and he seemed like a nice enough bloke, but maybe there was more to him than I realised. I never actually asked her why it all went wrong between them. She was so upset, I didn’t like to bring it up, and now–’ She broke off, overcome with emotion again.

  Geraldine made a note of Vanessa’s ex-boyfriend’s name. Having ascertained that Louise couldn’t think of anyone else who might have been involved with Vanessa, Geraldine drove her home. It didn’t take long to find the name Gerry stored on Vanessa’s mobile, or to see from her records that she had called him numerous times over a period of about three months. Then, quite abruptly, the calls had ceased a month before she died.

  ‘Well, that is interesting,’ Eileen said. ‘I think it’s time we paid this ex-boyfriend a visit.’

  35

  Gerry Harris lived in York, where he worked as a self-employed plumber. Geraldine and Matthew drove straight to his address off the Holgate Road, where he shared a house with his brother. They went there in the evening, and a swarthy thickset man with a mane of dark hair and shaggy eyebrows answered the door.

  ‘We’re looking for Gerry Harris,’ Matthew said.

  ‘Oi! Gerry!’ the man called out over his shoulder. ‘There’s someone here with a job!’

  A wiry version of the man who had opened the door appeared behind him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, stepping forward. ‘Have I done some work for you? I’m usually very good with faces.’

  He gazed from Matthew to Geraldine and back again with a faintly puzzled frown.

  ‘No, you haven’t done any work for us, and we’re not here about a plumbing job,’ Matthew said.

  ‘How do you know where I live?’ Gerry asked, glancing at his brother.

  Geraldine held out her identity card. ‘We think you might be able to help us with an enquiry.’

  Gerry frowned. ‘Oh, I see. Well,’ he looked uncertain. ‘I suppose you’d better come in then.’

  Once they were seated in the kitchen with Gerry, Matthew enquired about his relationship with Vanessa.

  ‘Vanessa? Don’t tell me she’s in trouble with the law?’ Gerry asked with a grimace. ‘That’s terrible, although I can’t say I’m completely surprised. What’s she gone and done? Robbed a bank? I wouldn’t put it past her.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘And how can I help you? I haven’t seen her in – oh, it must be about three months – so I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell you anything you don’t already know.’

  ‘Why did you split up?’ Geraldine enquired gently.

  If Gerry was taken aback by the intrusive nature of the question into something so personal, he didn’t show it.

  ‘Vanessa’s a lovely girl,’ he said. ‘A beautiful girl. I was very fond of her.’ He sighed. ‘But I couldn’t cope with her problem.’

  ‘What problem?’ Geraldine asked.

  Gerry gave another little laugh. ‘You’re right there. Take your pick. The drinking got bad, but it wasn’t that. No, it was the gambling I couldn’t take. Vanessa lost a lot of money, I mean a serious amount of money, enough to make your eyes water. And the trouble was she wouldn’t stop. I mean, we can all let things get out of control, but she refused to accept she had a problem. She went through money like water. My money. Oh, you wouldn’t think it to look at her. She looks the picture of respectability and good sense, doesn’t she? But it’s like she’s obsessed. You know, they’re right to call it an addiction. It’s a bloody outrage, all that online gambling. In the privacy of their own homes, people can get sucked in, with no one there to regulate what’s going on. Those adverts make me laugh,’ he added, with a sudden burst of irritation. ‘What is it they say? “When the fun stops, stop.” That’s a joke. To an addict it’s not “fun”, it’s a compulsion. They can’t stop. That’s the whole point. And losing money’s no fun. I hated it and I’m sure she did too. But she couldn’t stop. It’s a kind of wilful blindness.’

  ‘There is help available–’ Geraldine began.

  ‘I know, I know. I tried to stop her. I did my best to be sympathetic, listen to her, you know. And when that didn’t make a blind bit of difference, I encouraged her to join a support group, Gamblers Anonymous they call themselves. But she flatly refused to admit she needed help. She thought she could control her habit. It got to the point that if I even mentioned helping her, she would fly into a rage. “If you loved me you’d support me,” she used to say. It was as plain as the nose on your face she was addicted, yet she insisted she could stop whenever she wanted. She never accepted she had a problem. She kept telling me she would stop, but there was always going to be one last throw of the dice, one last game before she packed it in. If I heard that once, I must have heard it a thousand times. I’m telling you, she cost me a packet. I loaned her two grand which I’ll never see again, but that wasn’t enough. She was on at me all the time to bail her out.’ He raised his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘I mean, I do all right, but I’m not made of money. Eventually I had to say enough was enough. I told her if she couldn’t stop throwing money away, my money, we were through. I wasn’t going to give her another penny. We fell out over it, and that was the last I saw of her.’

  ‘And you haven’t heard from her for three months?’

  ‘I couldn’t give you an exact date, but that sounds about right, yes. She accused me of caring more about my money than her. Honestly, I wanted both, but she was bankrupting me. Once all my money had gone, I suspect she would have dumped me anyway,’ he added sadly. ‘If she’d made an effort, I would have been there for her. Honestly, I would. I wanted to help her. But she wouldn’t even try to stop. There are people who can help gambling addicts like Vanessa, but she just didn’t want to know. You have to understand it was an impossible situation. I had to end it. So, what’s she done to get herself in trouble with the law?’

  ‘I’m afraid Vanessa’s been murdered.’

  ‘Murdered? You mean she’s dead? Vanessa’s dead?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Gerry looked genuinely distressed by the news.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Geraldine said. ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm her?’

  Gerry shook his head. ‘I didn’t actually know her for very long. We were together for less than six months, and I never met any of her friends. I met her sister once, but that was it. I don’t think she had many friends. People probably got fed up with her borrowing money and never paying it b
ack, but that’s just supposition.’

  There was nothing more Gerry could – or would – tell them and they left soon after. A little research confirmed Gerry had transferred sums of money totalling more than two thousand pounds to Vanessa’s account, in the three months when he had been seeing her.

  ‘I wonder if Vanessa owed someone else money, someone who wasn’t as patient or as understanding as Gerry,’ Eileen said thoughtfully.

  There was no new activity in Vanessa’s bank account to support such a theory, but they couldn’t rule it out. Vanessa’s sister told them Gerry was the last man Vanessa had been in a serious relationship with, but she might not have known everything her sister did. Certainly Gerry did not seem to be the vicious character Louise had made him out to be. The investigating team had gone from a possible suspect with no clear motive, to an obvious motive with no suspect.

  ‘We need to find out who else Vanessa was associating with before she died,’ Eileen said.

  ‘Yes, let’s just find out who she was with when she was attacked and killed,’ Ariadne muttered to Geraldine. ‘That would help. Why didn’t we think of that before?’

  36

  There was some discussion at the police station concerning Vanessa’s ex-boyfriend, Gerry, and more focusing on her sister, Louise. Some of the officers found it strange that Louise had no idea whether her sister was seeing other men. Others were surprised that anyone would find that hard to believe.

  ‘I get on very well with both my sisters,’ Susan said, ‘but I have no idea what they’re getting up to most of the time, particularly my younger sister. Although, to be fair, I have a pretty good idea and, to be honest, I’d rather not know.’

  ‘But Louise knew all about Gerry,’ Ariadne pointed out.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Geraldine said. ‘Gerry told us he was seeing Vanessa for about three months, and in all that time he only met Louise once.’

  Back at home that evening, Geraldine reviewed everything they knew so far about Vanessa. It wasn’t much. She wondered why Louise hadn’t mentioned her sister’s gambling problem. It was quite likely she hadn’t known about it. Geraldine resolved to speak to Louise again the next morning. For now, she was determined to relax and unwind. Too tired to cook, she opened a can of beans and put a couple of slices of sourdough bread in the toaster. Deciding against wine, she brewed a pot of Earl Grey tea and sat down in front of the television. Her simple meal reminded her how Ian used to cook for her. She wondered what he was doing, and whether he was grilling himself a steak, or making do with something far humbler, as she was. He might even be cooking for someone else, although she doubted it. He wasn’t the kind of man who would flit straight into another relationship after a break up. Knowing Ian, he was more likely to be thinking about her.

  For the first time since Ian had left York, she genuinely regretted having sent him away. Somehow she had believed they would get back together before long. For the first time it struck her that she didn’t know if he would ever return. The possibility that she might really never see him again hit her like a blow to the stomach and she felt physically sick. They had been friends for so long before finally becoming lovers, life without him was unthinkable. She wanted to feel angry with him for abandoning her, but she knew she had only herself to blame. With renewed energy she threw herself into the investigation, rereading everything she could find about Vanessa. She didn’t discover anything new, but it helped to take her mind off her own troubles.

  She drove to Louise’s house early the following morning, hoping to catch her at home, and Louise answered the door in a white towelling dressing gown.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, starting forward and asking a series of questions. ‘Is it over? Can we have the body? Do you know who did it?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid we’ve not concluded our investigation, and we can’t release the body just yet. We don’t yet know what happened to her. I would like to ask you a few more questions.’

  Seeing Louise’s disappointment, Geraldine reiterated her condolences.

  ‘I have a sister,’ she added. ‘We don’t get on all the time, but if I were in your situation, and it was my sister who had been murdered, I’d want to do everything in my power to help the police find out who did it and bring him to justice.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t want to see him arrested and locked up?’ Louise burst out angrily.

  ‘Help us find him, then. Please. We want to find out who did this and put him behind bars before he attacks anyone else.’

  Louise sighed and hung her head. ‘You’d better come in then.’

  When they were standing in the hall, Louise stared levelly at Geraldine without inviting her further into the house.

  ‘Go on, then, what do you want to know?’

  ‘Your sister didn’t have a job, did she?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘What did she live on? She had rent to pay. How did she pay her bills?’

  ‘We each receive a modest annuity from our parents’ estate. They died in a car accident twenty-five years ago,’ Louise added, by way of explanation.

  ‘I’m sorry. That must have been terrible, losing both your parents at the same time like that.’

  Louise nodded. ‘For a while afterwards, Vanessa and I were inseparable. She was only sixteen and it hit her hard. What am I saying? It hit both of us really hard. You never really recover from something like that.’

  ‘Was that when she started gambling?’

  Louise’s astonishment appeared genuine. ‘Gambling? What do you mean? Vanessa didn’t gamble.’

  ‘Gerry told us Vanessa was addicted to gambling.’

  ‘Nonsense. I would have known.’ Louise hesitated, as though she had just remembered something.

  ‘Please, Louise, no one wants to sit in judgement over Vanessa. We simply want to find out who killed her. Is there anything more you can tell us about her? ’

  ‘My sister didn’t gamble,’ Louise repeated doggedly, but she no longer sounded sure.

  ‘Did you ever lend her any money?’

  Louise fidgeted with the belt of her robe.

  ‘Well, yes. From time to time. I didn’t mind. We were sisters. We always had each other’s backs.’

  ‘And did she pay you back?’

  ‘It didn’t matter,’ Louise muttered, lowering her eyes to stare at the floor.

  ‘Did she borrow money from anyone else?’

  Louise shook her head helplessly. ‘How should I know? Presumably Gerry lent her money or you wouldn’t be here asking me about it.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s been helpful.’

  If Vanessa had been addicted to gambling, either she had been in denial about her problem, or else she had been too ashamed to admit to it.

  ‘Was she killed by someone she had borrowed money from?’ Louise asked, indignation briefly eclipsing her grief.

  ‘It’s possible. Can you think of anyone who might have lent her money and then become angry when she didn’t pay her debt?’

  ‘Apart from me, you mean?’ Louise said, with a fleeting grin. Her face fell when Geraldine didn’t return her smile. ‘That was a joke,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I never asked her to pay me back. I didn’t mind giving her money. It wasn’t much, just a little to help her out every now and again. Hardly anything, really. She always seemed to be strapped for cash.’ She frowned. ‘She was repeatedly short for the rent, or she needed a new pair of shoes. There was always a reason why she needed a loan, never very much, and never repaid. I knew whenever I lent her money, I’d never see it again, but she was my sister. What else could I have done when she needed money? But I never knew she was gambling her money away. Gambling my money away, I should say. That’s why she never had any money, isn’t it? I never imagined…’ She sighed. ‘You think you know someone but it turns out in the end you never really knew them at all.’
>
  With a pang, Geraldine wondered what Ian was doing and when he was planning to return. Returning to the police station, she caught up with the latest developments. The team was buzzing with the news that a trace of male DNA found on Vanessa matched the DNA found on Pansy. Geraldine learned that a frozen globule from a mist of human breath had been detected on Vanessa’s freezing cold face. They were unable to identify the owner of the DNA, but they now had evidence to show the same man had been present at both killings. This was turning into a more serious case than they had first suspected. The new evidence suggested that Vanessa’s death had not resulted from a chance mugging that had gone wrong, but from an attack by a man who had already killed, and might do so again.

  37

  Jenny told Ian that she often caught sight of Frank parked outside her apartment. Frank stalking Jenny gave Ian a germ of an idea for how to undermine Tod’s trust in his bodyguard. But that was for the future. Right now, Ian had a more immediate problem to deal with. He needed to make his way from Jenny’s apartment to the park without being spotted. Jenny lent him a black beanie hat, a grey scarf, and an old coat. Baggy on her, it just about fitted Ian. Any man leaving Jenny’s block was likely to attract Frank’s attention and, despite his crude camouflage, Ian would almost certainly be recognised. He could do nothing to disguise his height or his build from someone looking out for him. He hung about in the entrance hall until a thin middle-aged Asian woman came scurrying down the stairs.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Ian accosted her.

  ‘What? What?’ the woman replied, backing away with an expression of alarm. ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ Ian said gently. He considered disclosing his real identity but decided against it. Instead he said, ‘I don’t know London at all. I’m here visiting my sister, and she’s run out of milk. I’m not surprised, to be honest. It’s typical of her.’

  The woman looked at him suspiciously, but she didn’t move away and he carried on.