“Nothing, nothing. Just check this address for us.”
Angela went back to her concentrated effort. A moment later her eyes lit again. She typed hurriedly at the keyboard, hit the return key and sat back looking at the screen, satisfaction spread across her face.
“I told you. Nothing.” She turned the monitor to face Gemma.
Gemma checked it and frowned. “You’ve spelled it wrong, Mrs Foster.” With a frown, Gemma pointed to where Angela had typed in Oakliegh. “It’s O-A-K-L-E-I-G-H.”
“I hope your secretarial work is better than that,” Joe grumbled, still reading through the leaflet.
Angela blushed. “My secretarial output is proofread several times, Mr Murray.” She typed again. This time her face lit in surprise. “Oh. That’s odd.”
Joe put down the leaflet and along with Gemma leaned closer. “What?”
“We have member living at 33 Oakleigh Grove, certainly, but it’s not Letty Hill. It’s a woman named Letitia Collina.”
“Letty is short for Letitia, and Letitia is her proper name,” Joe declared. “Dunno where she got Collina from. Can we see a picture?”
Angela clicked on the link and the screen flicked over to the member’s page, from where a photograph of Letty Hill smiled at the camera.
“That’s her,” Gemma said right away. “Mrs Foster, do you keep a track on introductions?”
“Of course. People pay for introductions, so I have to ensure they’re not sent to the same man twice.”
“Could you print off a list of all the introductions Letty took?”
Angela looked askance. “It’ll take a good few minutes.” She checked the screen. “She joined three years ago, there’s been no activity for the last year and a half. All her details are likely to be archived.”
“If you could,” Gemma urged. “We have very little to go on, and although this is a bit thin, it may just take us somewhere.”
“Thin is right,” Joe said, watching Angela as she began to interrogate the database again. “You really need to check whether any of the other victims are registered with Mrs Foster.”
“All in good time, Uncle Joe.”
He grunted and rolled a cigarette while Angela kept one beady eye on him.
He was about to warn her off, tell her that he knew he could not smoke it in her office, when a thought struck him. “Mrs Foster, how does the system work?”
“The computer system? I don’t know. I bought the software off the web.”
“Not the bloody computer system. I mean the dating system. How do you set up a meeting between two people?”
Still tapping away at the computer, Angela gave half a mind to Joe. “It’s quite simple. They ring in, or more often than not, email, asking for an introduction. I search the database looking for someone who meets at least some of their requirements, they pay me, and I send the web details along to them so they can get in touch.”
“Right, so you’ve made the introduction. Is that where your job ends?”
“Yes. At least that part of it. There have been one or two weddings come from introductions and I was invited to them.” She smiled dreamily. “It’s nice when that happens.”
“If you’d introduced me to my wife, I really would be the Valentine Strangler, but it’d be you I was strangling.”
Angela hit a key and across the room, a laser printer began to run A4 sheets through its innards.
“Really, Mr Murray, that’s not a very nice attitude.”
“She wasn’t a very nice woman,” Joe argued.
Gemma laughed. “Let’s leave Aunt Alison out of this, Joe. What were you getting at?”
“Just this. Suppose Mrs Foster introduced Letty to Mr X, say, two years ago. Suppose Letty and Mr X had a couple of dates, and took matters no further. Suppose then, Mr X got in touch with Letty last week.” Joe looked at Angela. “That would be nothing to do with you, would it?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Angela agreed. “I could have introduced them ten years ago, if they were both members, but if they came together again last week, it would be none of my business.”
“So what are you getting at, Uncle Joe?”
“You really need to check all four victims and you’ll have to go back a long way. Back to when they joined the agency, if they are members.” He waved at the laser printer. “You could have reams of paper to go through.”
Gemma shrugged. “Vickers will insist on it. Mrs Foster, what kind of dating advice do you give your members?”
“The correct advice, of course. We say to them all, when you’re meeting a man – or woman – for the first time, make sure it’s in a public place.”
“But you don’t actually arrange the meeting?” Gemma persisted.
“No. Good Lord, if I had to go to that trouble, the agency wouldn’t be worth it. I only make pennies out of it, you know.”
Joe picked up Gemma’s train of thought. “So in practice, they could go back to her place or his on the first date.”
“They’re adults, Mr Murray, not children. They’re free to do whatever they wish. I give them advice, but if they want to ignore that advice, it’s their choice.”
“And I know for sure that Letty was not fussy about inviting first dates back to her place.” Joe chewed his lip as he met Gemma’s eyes. “This entire line of enquiry could be running you up a gum tree.”
“Like missing spoons? We’ve nothing else to go on, Joe. We’re certain this man – we assume it’s a man – doesn’t pick his victims at random. He knows something about them in advance, and the agency’s card is the first hint of a new line of enquiry.”
Angela crossed to the printer and collected up three sheets of A4; returning to her seat, she handed them to Gemma. “Do you have the names and addresses of the other ladies?”
Gemma put the freshly printed sheets into briefcase, and took out a folder.
Over the next half hour they checked the other three victims using their names and addresses, but only one, Fiona Temple, showed on Angela’s database, and the agency had not heard from her for over five years.
“She’s been dead three years,” Joe pointed out.
“She’d been a member for four years before that,” Angela countered.
“Print us off her details, then,” Gemma ordered. “Mrs Foster, if these other two women were not with your agency, who else would they go to?”
“Plenty of sites on the web, but the really big one round here is Cassons in Leeds. They’re more expensive than me. They have big, fancy offices, just off City Square, and they offer a full matrimonial service. But I don’t think they’re any better than me. One of my male clients said he’d been with them, and they were sending him introductions for women who lived as far away as Ripon and Thirsk.”
Joe grunted. “Long way to travel for a legover.”
His remark prompted further disapproval from Angela. Striking the key to send instructions to the printer, she lectured him. “Sex is not the be all and end all of a relationship, Mr Murray. There’s companionship, too.”
“Not in Letty Hill’s case.” Before Angela could pick him up again, Joe asked, “Have you ever dated any of your male members?”
She glowered. “Mind your own bloody business.”
Joe backed off. “All right, all right, don’t tie your suspenders up. I was only asking.” Joe fished into his pocket and drew out his battered, brown leather wallet. “Here: let me leave you with one of the STAC cards.”
Angela stared suspiciously at him. “Stack?”
“STAC. S-T-A-C. It’s short for the Sanford 3rd Age Club. I’m Chairman. We charge about the same as you, but we hold weekly get-togethers at the Miner’s Arms and regular outings at attractive prices. The only stipulation is you have to be at least fifty years old.”
“I don’t quality,” Angela retorted.
Joe almost replied, ‘you could have fooled me’, but bit his tongue just in time. “We’re not rigid on it. Keep the card and if you change your mind, rin
g me, Sheila or Brenda on any of those numbers.”
Angela put the card to one side and crossed to the printer where she gathered up the sheets for Gemma.
“I think that’s all for the time being, Mrs Foster. Thank you for your help.” Gemma put the sheets away, locked up her briefcase, rose from her seat, and shook hands. “You ready, Uncle Joe?”
“Just a minute, Gemma.” Skimming through one of Angela’s leaflets, Joe gave the woman a crooked smile. “If I joined your agency, how soon would you send me the first introduction?”
She appeared shocked. “I’m sorry, Mr Murray, but I couldn’t accept you.”
“Why not? I’m single and over twenty-one.”
“You’re also a suspect in a murder inquiry.”
Gemma giggled and Joe fumed.
“I am not a suspect.”
“You’re also quite bad-tempered. I wouldn’t want any of my lady members coming back to me complaining about your irritability.”
“I am not bad-tempered,” Joe snapped.
“Yes you are. You’re losing your temper now because you can’t get your own way.”
Joe sucked in his breath and forced himself to calm down. “I am irritable, yes, but I get out of bed at five every morning, and I work like a dog. I don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘sod it, I’ll have a day off’, and I can’t laze around home until ten in the morning. Granted, I am outspoken, but that’s nothing fresh in this town.”
Angela remained firm. “I’m sorry, Mr Murray. I don’t like turning business away, but I have to think of my other members. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get on.”
Still smarting from her refusal, Joe tucked the leaflet in his pocket, and followed Gemma out into the cold sunshine. “Your next move?” he asked.
Gemma shrugged. “I’ll get someone in Leeds to follow up on Cassons, and I’ll pass this stuff onto the team. They can do the donkey work on them.”
“I’d better get back to work,” Joe said, lighting the cigarette he had rolled. “Don’t forget to check on that spoon business.”
“I’ll get the message to Des Kibble.”
Joe frowned. “Who?”
“Des Kibble. He’s one of the Crime Scene Investigators from Wakefield. Fingerprint specialist. Supposedly one of the best. If anyone can crack it, it’s him.” Gemma pecked him on the cheek. “I’ll see you later, Uncle Joe.”
Chapter Eight
His route back to the Lazy Luncheonette took Joe past the spread of Sanford Memorial Park, a large, open expanse of greenery offsetting the dour, former industrial landscape of the town.
He noticed a team of council employees hard at work, dragging dead wood to a mobile crusher, and amongst them, he could clearly make out the burly figure of George Robson shouting orders to the younger men in the team.
Ignoring the double yellow lines outside the park gates, Joe pulled into the kerb, and the dark Peugeot which had followed him from the town carried on past. As he climbed out, he saw Rosemary Ecclesfield pull in further along the road.
Ignoring her, he hurried into the park and across to the workers. “Hey up, George,” he shouted above the deafening roar of the machine. “How long have you been the ganger?”
George lifted his ear protectors and shouted over the cacophony. “Since they sent a team of kids here. I’m one of the few trained to work with this machine.” He waved at the crusher where the younger men fed sawn-off branches and twigs into the hopper while others stood at the far end where the shredded product emerged into large sacks, some of it as fine as sawdust. “And I don’t get any extra dosh for it, you know, but if we left it to these noddies, they’d end up jamming their arm in the bleeding thing. What’s cooking, anyway, Joe? Have plod let it all drop, yet?”
“Officially, no, unofficially, yes. I’ve just been to the Sanford Dating Agency.”
George grinned. “Angie Foster.” He smacked his lips. “Tasty. And a right little raver when you get a few Bacardis inside her.”
Joe puffed agitatedly on his cigarette. “That’s not how she tells it. Comes across as more of a right little miss prim.”
“Well, she would, wouldn’t she?” George turned on the young men, one of whom was trying to free a jam in the machinery. “Hey, you, dipstick, are you trying to lose your arm? Turn the bloody thing off while you clear out the hopper.”
“Yeah, well, I just thought—”
“If you were capable of thinking, I could nip to the Fettlers for a pint. Turn it off.” As near silence fell, George turned his attention back to Joe. “Sorry, mate. What was I saying. Oh, yeah, Angie. Hot as one of your bacon butties, Joe.”
Joe blew out another lungful of smoke. “Hot as Letty Hill?”
George laughed. “Letty? You’ve gotta be joking. My freezer is hotter than her.”
“Hotter than she was,” Joe corrected. “She’s dead, remember.”
“Yeah, well, you know what I meant. I took her out coupla times last year, when she was on the bounce from toffee-nose, Dalmer. No go, man. And if I can’t get to first base, no man can.”
“I did,” Joe argued.
“She was drunk, wasn’t she?”
“Was she hell as like dru… Look, it doesn’t matter. According to Mort Norris, Letty had been round the block more times than a number eight bus.”
“He’s been listening to Dalmer spinning the tale,” George swore. “For a so-called historian, Dalmer dreams up more fairy stories than Helmut Anderson.”
“You mean Hans Christian Anderson.”
“Whoever. Dalmer reckoned he’d had Letty and so many other women, but it wasn’t true. Teachers aren’t allowed to get it on with their pupils, are they? He’d have been struck off or summat.”
“I also didn’t know Dalmer was a historian,” Joe said, ignoring most of George’s comment. “I thought he taught English.”
“Did he? I thought he had this sideline in history.”
“Antiques, you donk.”
“Well I knew it was summat old. Mort Norris knows him better than me.” At the sound of the machinery starting up again, George put his ear protectors back on and raised his voice above the cacophony. “Take it from me, Joe, Letty Hill was one of the original vestment virgins.” He pointed at Joe’s car. “And you’d better get a move on. Vinny Gillespie’s over there, ready to give you a ticket.”
Joe looked back at the park entrance where PC Gillespie could be seen walking round the parked car. With a gasped, “Thanks, George,” Joe ran for the gates. “Vinny. Wait, Vinny. I’m here.”
“Oh it’s you, Mr Murray,” Gillespie said as Joe arrived. “You know you really shouldn’t be parked here.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Joe apologised. “I’m sorry, kid. I was following up a lead on the Letty Hill business.”
Gillespie features darkened. “Oh, yeah. I was sorry to hear about that; you getting pulled in, like. It’s this mob from Wakefield, you know. They don’t know the people round here, so they’re just treading on everyone’s toes…” He looked worried. “You won’t, er, you know, tell anyone I said that, will you?”
“Course not, Vinny.” Joe eyed his car. “Long as you can look the other way while I get back in my car and drive off.”
Gillespie grunted. “You wanna watch it, Mr Murray. I should book you, but I’ll let it go. Not everyone’s like me, though.”
“Sure, kid.” Joe hurried to the driver’s seat, fumbling the key in the lock. “Call in at the Lazy Luncheonette, sometime. We’ll sort you out some tea or something.”
Up ahead, he saw smoke come from the Peugeot’s exhaust as Rosemary Ecclesfield also drove away.
Joe started the engine and drove away, half his mind relieved at having just missed a parking ticket, the other half ruminating on the information George had just given him.
“It’s like I speak to three different people and I get three different Lettys,” he said to his companions as he got back to the Lazy Luncheonette just before the lunchtime rush began.
“Nothing so strange about that, Joe,” Sheila replied. “Look at yourself. If you asked the dray men, they’d probably say you were grumpy but amiable.”
Never one to resist temptation, Brenda commented, “Whereas we’d just say you were a miserable old bugger.”
“Bog off.”
Joe checked his large metal teapot, sniffed it suspiciously, and tossed the teabags into the waste bin. Moving into the kitchen, squeezing past Lee’s wife, Cheryl, he put the pot on the drainer for washing, and took down the replacements, which he swilled under the cold water.
As he stepped from the kitchen, back into the counter area, the café door trilled, opened and Rosemary Ecclesfield stepped in.
“Mr Murray—”
“Get out.”
If Rosemary was taken aback by his bluntness, she soon recovered. “Fine way to treat customers.”
“You’re not a customer. You’re a reporter, and you’re not welcome. Now get out before I throw you out.”
She did not move. “I want—”
“You write in English, so presumably you can understand it when it’s spoken. For the last time, get out.”
“Joe—”
He cut Sheila off as abruptly as he had done Rosemary. “What is so complicated about get out? It’s two simple words, and they mean turn round, go back to the gutter you crawled out of.”
“You’re making a big mistake, Murray.”
“Joe, for God’s sake, what is wrong with you?” Brenda asked.
He pointed a shaking finger at Rosemary. “This… harridan has been following me all weekend. She was on the market this morning, she was at the Memorial Park when I spoke to George.” He aimed his finger through the window at Broadbent’s the other side of the dual carriageway. “She’s been parked over there since that stupid TV broadcast on Friday. She’s a muck-raker from the Gazette. Well, get this straight, lady: I have nothing to say to you, so clear off before I chase you off.”
Rosemary’s fiery eyes glowered. “You’ll regret this.”
With a roar, brandishing his metal teapot, Joe ran from behind the counter and rushed at her. She turned and beat a hasty retreat, leaving the café, and running away along the pavement.
My Deadly Valentine Page 9
