“Is there anything else that would connect the women?” Fry asked. “Other than the name Haspel?”
“Something else to look into,” Mills answered, sitting at his desk with Julia’s laptop. “I’ll see if there’s anything useful on here.”
I nodded and turned to Harris. “Pull together some profiles of those names for me, any old hiding places, any old contacts we can get, let’s use them. Fry?” She looked up, ready. “Check out the name Medina and if any of those customers jump out at you, send them my way.”
She nodded and picked up a small list. “These are the ones that have caught my eye so far, sir,” she said.
I took the list from her with a grateful nod. “Let’s get stuck in then.”
Harris left us then, returning to her own desk and computer to start pooling together everything that she knew about the old gang and their patterns. After fetching a few mugs of fresh tea, Mills settled down in front of the laptop, a pair of headphones on, no doubt listening to some classical music as he was wont to do when he needed to focus. Fry got back to her job scouring through the booking list, checking into the credibility and existence of the names there as I got to work on the list she had given me.
Three of them were in our system already, two for drunk driving, one for petty theft. All three crimes were old history, and all three of them had paid their fines and served their time and since then had lived fairly unremarkable lives that did not strike me as being the sort to get involved with a drugs gang and kill the woman who brought them water and fancy French food.
I worked my way down the list, with Fry occasionally throwing me one or two more. As the hours went by, we sprawled out, empty mugs and plates cluttering up the office. Mills found nothing of interest in Julia’s laptop and returned to the notebook he’d pulled from her work locker, sifting through the pages with a fine-toothed comb. Fry reached the end of their bookings, and with the day waning on, I sent them both home.
“Are you sure, sir?” Mills asked, pulling on his coat. They were headed to the pub for a quick pint before calling it a day, and Mills lingered in the doorway. He was studying me with a frown once more on his face, and I knew why.
“I’m sure,” I told him. “Go on, enjoy yourself.” He still looked unsure, but he nodded and wandered from the room, pulling the door to behind him.
I sat in the dark, my face lit up by the computer screen. I got up to turn the lights on and grabbed some notes from my box of old files. There was one sheet in particular that I was interested in that Mills had got me thinking about.
My old suspect list from the first four murders. It had been a strange time, with the first three so close together and then Clare Manston with such a larger gap in between. It made pinning down any one suspect difficult. None of the women had known each other, had ever crossed paths. The closest we had to any of them crossing paths were Clare and Julia, at the same university twenty years apart.
I studied my old list, the edges of the paper crinkled, a ring of coffee from a mug staining the bottom of the page. The ink was fading and smudged in places, but I’d spent so long on that case, spent so long studying these names that I knew them all, anyway.
I’d not looked into any of them since then and let them all lie, knowing full well that if I had opened up the case again, Sharp would have come down on me like a ton of bricks. But I looked into them now, looking down the list of names.
Olivia’s ex-boyfriend, a young man who’d joined the army not long after she had died.
A man who had worked for the same company as Minu Singh, who’d apparently been rather persistent in his interest towards her.
Two men from Monika Borowiec’s life; the man she had once worked for before getting her new job, a strait-laced, suit-wearing man that had seemed very bitter at her departure, and her brother-in-law, a suspect that I had to be very delicate in investigating.
The only that I didn’t have a hard suspect for had been Clare Manston. There were some people in the pub the night she was killed who would have seen her leave that I had been interested in, but nobody from her personal life. I reached for her file and skimmed through, all the way back to the statements we’d taken from the customers in the pub that night. They all said the same thing. She’d been there, nice and friendly, and she’d served them drinks. They’d seen her leave, and that was it. I supposed people were often too distracted in pubs to notice much more, rather like Mills and Fry might be at this moment, even with Lena tagging along as I had heard her call from outside.
I looked down the names of the people who’d been there, finding no sign of anyone resembling a Dominic or Haspel. But there was something about this case, something about Clare Manston in particular, that I couldn’t shake. The gap between her and Monika, the theatrical way she’d been left, in the long red dress that I doubted she’d worn out there. At the time, I thought it had been his grand finish, one last elaborate hurrah before he faded into the woodwork. Now I wasn’t so sure, not about that, or any of the suspects on my list.
Fourteen
Thatcher
I wasn’t there for much longer until Sharp told me to get packing, which was good timing since I’d promised Liene that we’d talk tonight. As I packed up my things, trying to get my desk into some resemblance of order for tomorrow, my phone rang, Liene’s picture flashing up with her number. I’d taken the picture a few months ago at Christmas of her sitting by the tree showing off the new jumper Billie had made for her. I picked up the phone, already smiling.
“Hiya. I was just thinking about you,” I told her.
“Hi. I thought my ears were burning,” she replied.
“That’s when someone’s talking about you, I think.”
“Ah well, the sentiment stands. Listen, I have bad news.”
I sat back down. “Tell me.”
“I’m working late again tonight. Apparently, some of the last collections weren’t properly catalogued, and they need fixing before the new stuff comes in.”
I could hear the annoyance and fatigue in her voice, though I felt a little relieved that we wouldn’t have to have that talk after all tonight.
“Don’t worry about it,” I assured her. “Are you able to get out, or shall I bring you some food?”
“Would you really?” she asked, her voice lifting. “I’d love you forever.”
I chuckled. “Tell the others to put their order in, and I’ll go pick it up.”
“You’re a saint,” she said. “And it’s just myself, Lois and Ben anyway.”
I heard her leave her office, her shoes clicking along the floor of the museum as she tracked down her colleagues. I sat on the other end, twiddling my pen in my hand, thankful for something to do this evening and waited as she got their orders. I’d be heading to the Chinese place around the corner to grab their food which was no skin off my nose. I was always partial to a dumpling. She repeated the order to me, and I jotted it down.
“Alright. I’ll see you in twenty or so.”
“Thanks, Max. See you then.”
I hung up, put the order through and grabbed my things. As I walked past the box, which was under strict orders from Sharp to stay put, I hesitated, then reached out and grabbed the page on the top, folding it up and slipping it into my pocket. I wasn’t about to spend the evening at home twiddling my thumbs. I turned off the lights in the office and walked out, nodding to the night shift team that had settled around their desks as I passed, jogging down the stairs outside into the cold evening.
It was growing dark already. The streetlights all turned on down the main road. I jumped into the car and peeled away, listening to the radio as I headed to the restaurant, grabbed the food, and rounded the corner to the museum. It was all closed up now, the front doors dark and locked, so I walked round to the side door where the staff parked and knocked on the metal door.
It was scraped open a moment later by Lois, who beamed at me or the food I was carrying and let me inside.
“Alright,
Max?”
“Hi, Lois. How’re things?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes, leading me down the corridor. “Looks like someone let a chimp do some of the cataloguing, but otherwise, it’s alright. What about you? Liene says you’ve got a big case on your plate.”
“Sadly,” I sighed. “I’d take chimps over homicide any day.”
Lois chuckled, pushing open a door into the staff room. Liene and Ben were both in there, fuelling up with coffee, and Liene beamed as we walked in, jumping to her feet. I handed Lois the bag as Liene walked over, reaching up to hug me. I held her close for a second before kissing her and stepping back.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
She grimaced. “It’ll be a long night, but we can’t spare the time tomorrow,” she huffed. She looked tired, her hair stuffed back in a loose knot that was already falling out, faint shadows under her eyes.
“Don’t stay too late,” I told her.
“We won’t. Ben will have to be back anyway unless he wants his babysitter to charge him triple.”
Ben scowled at that. “She would and all. Starving students.”
I chuckled. “When’s Ellen back?” I asked.
“A few weeks,” he said, perking up. His wife was in the air force, and she’d been stationed somewhere hot and sandy for a few months now.
“So, if we get this all done,” Liene added. “You can actually spend some time with her.” She turned back to me. “Sorry to ditch you again.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve stuff I can get on with, anyway.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Anything stupid?”
I just smiled and kissed her forehead. “Enjoy the food. See you later.”
“That’s not a comfort, Max!” she called after me. But I was already gone, retracing the steps back towards the side door and out into the carpark.
I climbed into the car and turned the engine on, then sat there for a while, looking at the headlights lighting up the brick wall of the old building. I debated going home, debating heading out to the coaching house or to Elsie’s, maybe giving Billie a call and seeing if she wanted to grab something to eat.
But another thought was scratching at the back of my head, one that I hadn’t been able to shake. I pulled the sheet of paper from my pocket and unfolded it, looking down at my old suspect list. Before I’d left the station, I had looked into them to find out which ones were still around. Only two of them were: the man who’d worked with Minu and Monika’s brother-in-law… or her old brother-in-law that was, after her death, he and her sister had split. The others were gone now. The army chap was stationed up in Scotland, Monika’s old boss was down in London, and there was nobody around Clare who I wanted to look into.
It was Monika’s brother-in-law that caught my attention. I’d had a bad opinion of him twenty years ago, and it hadn’t improved over time. He was at the same address still, a flat out towards the east of the city. It wasn’t far from here. Without thinking too much about it, I put the car into gear and left the museum, heading out towards the suburban houses and flats that were nestled around the city.
There was a large green space by the flats, with a woodland area to the back. Monika hadn’t been found too far from here, despite the fact that she lived on the other side of the city. I parked on the side of the road, looking out towards the block of flats where he lived. He was in the system for possession of weed, nothing major, but it was enough for me to feel as though my interest was warranted. I turned the headlights off, slipping down my chair as the door to the flats opened, and a man walked out, carrying a bin bag over to the bins outside. As he walked under the outside light, I paused.
That was him! Nigel Levin. The last twenty years hadn’t been all that kind to him. His hair, what was left of it, had turned a strange dull straw-like colour, a scraggly beard lining his face. He was bundled in a big jumper, his stomach poking out beneath it, and he walked the same way he used to. Strutting almost, arrogant and uncaring. He threw his bin bag away and turned around, walking back to the flats. He paused on the path, and I ducked down as he turned and scanned the area. I wondered if he’d remember me. I looked much different back then too. Less of a scowl, according to Lena. More bright-eyed and fresh-faced like Mills was. I think I had my own beard back then too, or at least, as much of a beard as I was capable of growing at the time, which wasn’t much.
I stayed down as his watery, mean eyes looked around the street, then he turned and walked back to the flat. As the door closed behind him, I climbed out of the car and walked along the street, flipping my coat collar up around my neck. My coat had survived the years. Thankfully, I wasn’t sure what I would do without it.
The flats hadn’t changed from when I’d been here back then. The building was an old house that had been renovated sometime in the eighties, a few flats on each floor. Nigel and his wife, Monika’s sister, had lived on the third floor. I wasn’t sure where she was now, but she hadn’t stuck around after her sister’s murder went unsolved. I’d never forgotten the look on her face when we told her.
If memory served me well, they all had designated parking spots, and I walked round to the side of the building where a few of them were. I imagined he would have changed his car since then, but since the numbers of the flats were on the spots themselves, I’d be able to find his.
3B. It was a new car, decidedly less sporty and shiny as the last one had been. I wondered if his ex-wife had won that in the divorce. I dug my torch from my pocket and flicked it on, angling the light down towards the tyres. My own car had come back from the moors caked in the stuff, leaving trails through the station car park. I shone the light down towards the wheels, looking them over. There was the usual muck and dirt but no real mud.
I walked around, checking out the bumper to see if any splatters had survived there, but no luck. It had the usual grub of a well-used car, not bizarrely dirty nor oddly clean. I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. It had been a baseless hunch to begin with, not one that was particularly founded in anything. But I’d checked, at least.
I turned the torch off and returned it to my pocket, turning back towards the main road. As I walked through the carpark, reaching the small lane that reached the street, a shadow moved and blocked my way, the light of a cigarette burning brushing his hand and face.
“Detective Sergeant Thatcher,” Nigel Levin drawled, looking at me.
“It’s Detective Chief Inspector Thatcher now, Mr Levin,” I informed him, slipping my hands causally into my pockets.
“Oh, is it? My, my. Did you deserve that promotion?” he asked, flicking ash from his cigarette. “After our Monika got killed? Never found the man did you? And he killed again. And they made you Inspector all the same.”
“They made me Inspector about six years later, but I understand the grievance. Not every case can be solved, sadly.”
“No,” he muttered, dropping the cigarette and putting it out with his shoe, then folded his arms and studied me. “What brings you here then?”
“Just checking on something,” I answered.
“Checking on what?”
“That’s not really any of your concern, Mr Levin. Police business.”
“Checking cars in the dark?”
“Sometimes. I had something to check, and now I’ve done it, so I’ll be out of your way.”
“Checking on me?” he asked, stepping further into my path as I made to move. “I’ve not forgotten, detective. Not forgotten the way you looked at me.”
“How did I look at you, Mr Levin?”
“Like I was a suspect,” he spat. “Like I killed our Monika. A right poisonous look and all, even my wife started to doubt me. My own wife! She left me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No, you’re not. It’s your own fault. You still suspect me, don’t you?”
“She knew you,” I answered with a bored shrug. “You had no alibi.”
He scoffed. “I was home.”
“
A home that is no more than ten minutes from where she was killed. With nobody to vouch for you.”
Mr Levin scowled, anger in his eyes. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Another girl got killed, and you think it’s the same chap. You think it’s me?”
“It’s my job to cover every possibility.”
Another scoff. “Sure, it is. I never knew the girl, though. You have to realise that.”
I sighed, nodded, and thought about the other piece of paper, the one that Fry had dropped on my desk before she left.
“You did meet her, though,” I said. “You ate at the restaurant she worked at. L’agneau.”
He blinked. “It’s across the street from my work,” he said. “Who was she then? The waitress?”
I said nothing, just looked at him coolly until he shook his head and grumbled, turning away.
“Never knew the others,” he said.
“No,” I shrugged. “Which is why I came to check on a hunch, and I came alone. And now, I’ll be leaving you be, Mr Levin.”
“She liked to eat there,” he muttered.
“Who?”
“Dorota.” His wife, Monika’s sister. “She said French food was classy. I go for the memories.”
I nodded. “That makes sense, Mr Levin. Did you see her there? The waitress?”
“A few times,” he shrugged. “Just a waitress though, they’re ten-a-penny, aren’t they?”
“Did you ever see a large table of men there? A big group?”
“At the booth table? Once or twice. I always seem to leave before them, and I eat late.”
“What did you make of them?”
He shrugged. “Businessmen, from the looks of it. Why?”
“You’re a customer at the restaurant. We’re interested in knowing what you make of the place where she worked.”
“And this is how you conduct investigations these days? Sneaking around in the dead of night?”
“It’s half six.”
“Looking into people whose lives you’ve already ruined?”
Vicious Cycle (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 9) Page 12
