by Ryan Casey
“Yeah, yeah.” Brian walked away from Molfer, who continued to argue his case. “Come on, you.” Brian smiled at Cassy. “Better get this scene checked out.”
Foster Road wasn’t too far from the offices. Then again, nothing was too far from anything in the city centre. It was hardly a sprawling place. Still, the residents found plenty of fresh things to moan about. Sometimes, the lack of cycle lanes. Other times, the distance between the bus station and the train station. Lazy shits.
Other cars already perched outside the flats as men in black leather coats with cameras flashed away. Yellow tape bridged the gap between the main road and the claustrophobic alleyway.
As Brian opened the car door, he noticed the handle had gone stiff. He turned to Cassy, who smirked.
“Quit messing about, Cas.”
“What you gonna do? You shit yourself whenever you’re around Price, and he’s an old fart. What you gonna do to me?” She thumped him in the arm playfully.
“Whatever.” Brian rubbed his arm. He liked Cassy. She was a tough, smart cop, new to the game over the last few years. “A new generation of officers,” her previous employers at Bolton said. Price probably hated her for that reason, but then again, Price hated everybody. It probably didn’t help that she was a woman. Hardly ticking many boxes on Price’s “Perfect Police Officer” checklist.
The two of them got out of the car and immediately caught the eye of a nearby journalist. He rushed over with his camera like a fly towards dung, his gelled-back hair and thick-rimmed glasses hiding that punchable face underneath.
“Detective Sergeant, is there any news on the identity of the–”
Cassy pushed him away and he tripped backwards like a diving footballer. Brian kept his head down and walked towards the alleyway of flats. More journalists flocked around their fallen comrade like alarmed ants.
“Cheers for that,” Brian said, when Cassy caught up.
“I did it for me, not for you.” Cassy looked up and winked at Brian before they crossed the yellow tape and slipped through into the alleyway beside Foster Road.
The door to the house, painted in a flaking white, was wedged open, and the dim glow of a light crept out. The nearby buzz of voices echoed from the room like whispers in a museum. Brian turned to Cassy and handed her a blue, disposable forensic paper suit, which he knew would be several sizes too large for her. “Ladies first,” he said as they stood by the door.
Cassy pulled a false smile as the paper suit dangled over her neck before thumping his arm again and leading the way inside. “Tellytubbie ‘Tectives!” she said.
The first thing Brian noticed on the girl was the purple bruises around her neck. Then the plastic ties around her ankles, cutting into her paling flesh.
The “bloodies” were already at the scene, sniffing out clues and evidence like well-trained dogs. One of the men in a clear coat turned to face Brian and sighed. Jake Coolham, crime scene manager.
“What do we have?” Brian asked.
Jake slipped his glove off and grabbed a Soft Mint out of his pocket before tossing it down his throat, his flabby neck shaking as he gulped it down. Handling a dead girl, then tossing Soft Mints into his mouth. Brian tried to keep a straight face as Cassy cringed.
“Girl. Obviously.” His cheeks wobbled as he spoke.
Nice sense of humour, too.
“Probably early twenties. By the nature of the wounds, I’d say she was probably held down, forced into submission, something like that.”
Brian edged over to the side of the bed. The room was low on light and dingy, the air moist with sweat.
The girl was completely naked. Her eyes were open wider than seemed humanly possible, staring up in absolute terror at the ghost of her killer above. Around her ankles, sharp plastic ties squeezed into her flesh, piercing the skin. Bruises covered her pale, goose-pimpled body, and a blue one gripped around her neck. Fear lingered in her dead eyes–the realisation of her imminent fate glaring out between thick, stained eyeliner.
Brian put a plastic glove on and crouched down beside her. The goose pimples looked permanently engrained, crafted into her skin like a waxwork model. “Nothing at all on who she could be?”
Jake shrugged. “We’re not sure yet. In fact, we’re not sure about anything. No one’s come forward about her after the vultures leaked the news. Probably just a whore, no family to give a shit, you know? Which makes it even more difficult for us. Thing is, she doesn’t seem like your typical whore. No signs of malnutrition. No obvious signs of drug abuse. Looks a little grubby, but I bet she was a looker when she was scrubbed up.”
Brian turned to Jake, took a deep breath, and moved to the other side of the room. A candle that had burned out long ago poured solid wax onto a fresh pack of unopened Durex on the bedside table.
“It’s a shame for the girl,” Jake said. “No one to spend Christmas or New Year with, now no one to look out for her. Real shame.”
“Any prints? Hairs? Anything like that?” Brian looked around the room. An empty glass, red lipstick coating the surface, gathered dust beside the bed.
“The room’s covered in ‘em,” Jake said. “As you’d expect from a filthy whorehouse like this, really.”
Brian sighed. Hundreds of men and women would have been in here at some stage. Then again, with no identity for the girl, at least hundreds would narrow it down slightly from every damn person in Preston. “Get all the prints checked. We’ll see what we can do with them.”
Jake began to dust an empty glass. “I’ll do my best, but you know what forensics is like for timing these days. Budget cuts–who needs ‘em?”
Jake was right. Since the new government had been elected, every area of the police department was being squeezed to the point of incompetence.
“You get the idiots on the streets–the idiots in the press–blaming us for everything,” Jake said, moving in to dust the bedside table. “If they want to complain, they should take it to bloody Downing Street!”
“What was she holding?” Cassy called as Brian rubbed his head and walked towards the door for some air. His headache was beginning to sear again.
“What d’you mean, ‘holding’?” Brian turned to Cassy. She crouched down by the girl’s side, looking at her fingers.
“Her nails.” Cassy frowned intently at the girl’s lifeless fingers. “They’re dug right into her hand. It’s as if she was holding on to something.”
The girl continued to stare up towards the ceiling in fear. “I dunno,” he said. “Holding on for dear life, probably. Who found the girl?”
“Well, ‘anonymous report’. You know how they are around here. Place is practically the Amsterdam of the north. No one wants to admit any involvement or anything like that. But the bloke next door was lurking about a lot…Seemed very interested in everything, more so than anybody else. Just saying, that’s all.”
Brian crept out of the doorway and leaned his arms against either side of the door. The alleyway was narrow and unkempt, the smell of damp brickwork strong in the air. There was a series of four to five black doors, before a set of stairs that lead to another row of flats. He turned to the door next to the room they were in and nodded at Cassy. “We’ll have a word with him after we’ve bagged and tagged everything for forensics.”
The alleyway that broke off Foster Road was like all inner-city alleyways; damp, run-down, and not very pleasant. After gathering everything they needed for forensics, Brian stepped across the broken glass under his feet and walked towards the corroding door of the neighbour who had been lurking around the police and the press. Brian hoped for his own sake that the Lancashire News wouldn’t pay him out for breaking the story. The last thing they needed was the incentivisation of crime.
Dry paint flaked from the door’s surface as Brian knocked. Cassy twitched and sighed beside him.
“What you getting so het up about?” Brian asked.
“This bastard sold the poor girl out to that j
ourno before contacting us. No time for lowlifes like that.”
“Ah, you’ve got a lot to learn about the world, girl.”
“Don’t patronise me.” Cassy frowned at him. “Just because you’ve got a morbid view of anything and everything doesn’t mean you have to rub it off on everybody.”
“I’m not patronising you. It’s just called life experience. Come back to me when you’ve got more of it.” He winked at her.
Cassy smiled back. “Life experience, right. How are your wife and kid again?”
Brian felt the weight of a bus hitting him. His smile completely crumbled to the ground. It was a good job the door in front of them opened, or he’d have had to dig himself a hole to fall down.
Brian cleared his throat and stepped ahead of Cassy. He didn’t want her to see his cheeks flushing.
The man at the door had short hair and a big jaw that seemed to shoot itself out of his pea head. A mole protruded from underneath his eye. It was hard to tell whether he was smiling or pulling a funny face. He waited to be spoken to.
“Mr…?”
“Ad,” the man spat. “What you doing? I’ve already had police around fucking asking me que–”
“Mr. Ad,” Cassy said, slicing through the man’s rant. “We just want to clear up a few things so we can work it out in our own heads, okay?”
Ad shuffled his feet and squeezed his hands together before tilting his head backwards. “Come in, then.”
His flat was a carbon copy of the girl’s, only more poorly decorated, which was hard considering the girl’s room wasn’t decorated at all. Empty picture frames were scattered around at random. Specks of tobacco and whatever else coated every surface. A dull hint of cannabis and sweat lurked in the air.
“Take a fucking seat.” Ad fell back onto his bed.
Brian looked down at the seat, covered with something slimy. Cassy returned a disgusted gaze. “It’s okay.” Brian smiled out of politeness. “We’re only here for a few minutes.”
Ad waved his hand in their direction as if to say, “Suit yourselves.”
“First things first, Ad, we know you called the Lancashire News,” Brian lied. “We’ve got evidence that links the location of the call to somewhere around here. There’s no point lying about that anymore.”
Ad held his mouth open then sighed. He’d fallen for Brian’s bait. “Times are tough. We’ve gotta find a way to make a quick buck, y’know? But I was gonna ring the police, too. I swear I was gonna.”
Singing like a bird already. Good start. “Okay, Ad. What happened last night, from the beginning?”
Ad leaned forward, polishing his voice as if he were telling a story to a classroom. “Well, it was about half-twelve, one-ish. I remember that, ‘cause I was watching the fucking ‘Football League Show’. Waited fucking ages for the Bolton highlights, and they went and showed them last again. Lost as well, so that pissed me off.
“Anyway, Barnsley are on–fucking Barnsley–and I hear this banging next door, and I think nothing of it, ‘cause there’s always fucking banging going on here…you get me?” His eyes glimmered for a moment before thinking better of the implications of his rhetorical question. A sort of naivety washed across his face. He must’ve known damn well the police were aware that Foster Road was one of the largest areas for prostitution, but clearly didn’t want to say anything in case it involved him.
“And what was so startling that you decided to go ‘round and take a look?” Cassy asked. She moved a tray of moulding cigarettes out of the way so she could lean against the small wooden coffee table, putting her sleeve down to stop her flesh touching any surface.
Ad stared at Brian as if Cassy wasn’t even there. “There was a load of fucking around going on, I could hear that. Bloke talking a lot afterwards. Didn’t hear what he said, but he was speaking loud, and then I heard a car go. Dunno what it was, but I went out in the morning and the door was open a bit, and I found her in there, as she is.”
Brian rubbed his eyebrows. “The police said the door was closed when they arrived. That’s technically tampering with evidence, Ad.”
Ad waved his hand in their direction again, his face going red. “I don’t know anything about fucking tampering with evidence. I just rang my old mate from the Lancashire News, and he came in the morning. Maybe he shut it, I dunno.”
McDone glanced at Cassy. She knew what that look meant. They’d keep an eye on Ad; grill him with more questions, especially without a lead. He was the best they had right now.
“Have you seen the girl before, Ad?” McDone asked, leaning forward.
Ad shook his head, his eyes scanning the room. “There’s lots of girls come here. Lots of ‘em. Lose track, y’know? But I ain’t seen her, which is weird. Must be a new girl. That’s normal enough.”
Brian kept his voice calm. “And if I were to speak to somebody and find out whether she is a ‘new girl’, then who would that be?”
Ad’s eyes held contact with Brian’s for a moment. He opened his mouth and shut it again. “I just keep myself to myself, y’know?”
“Of course you do, Ad. Of course. We might have a few more questions for you over the coming hours and days, though, you have to understand that. Until then, if you were to remember who this ‘employer’ is, then that would be a great help, okay?”
“No need.”
The sound of the voice sank to the bottom of Brian’s stomach like a rock. He turned around and saw DI Price leaning against the door, arms folded. Brian waited for him to speak. He cocked his head and gestured for Brian to leave the room with him. Brian followed him outside, nodding at Ad, who looked on with curiosity.
“Family of a girl gone missing just came in to the station.” Price reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph.
He noticed her smile first. Then her eyes. Those green eyes, beautiful and warm.
“Nicola Watson. Twenty-two years old. Didn’t come home last night. That your girl?” Price asked.
Brian sighed. “That’s her. I’d better be the one to, y’know–”
“You’re good at that stuff, Brian,” Price said. “See you back at the station.”
Brian poked his head into Ad’s room again. Cassy, still crouched against Ad’s coffee table, frowned at him. “Come on, Detective,” Brian said. “Ad–thanks for your cooperation. We’ll be in touch.”
Cassy followed Brian out of the door as Ad muttered to himself.
“We’ll keep an eye on Ad, but right now we need to head back to the station,” Brian said.
“And why would I head back to the station?”
Brian sighed. He hated this part. “The girl’s called Nicola Watson. She’s twenty-two. We’re off to tell her parents.”
As they passed the flat, he took a final glance at Nicola Watson’s terrified, bloodshot eyes and walked towards the police car.
Chapter Three
The long walk towards the public interview rooms felt like twice the distance when it was to deliver bad news. Telling parents their daughter had been murdered was the worst sort of news.
Brian stood outside the room where Mr. and Mrs. Watson sat. He could just about see them through the blinds. Mr. Watson was a big man, a grizzly bear with ginger hair and a distant, glassy gaze. Mrs. Watson, with bleached-blonde hair and a fake tan, held her husband’s hand in the middle of the table. Neither of them spoke.
A hand fell onto Brian’s shoulder. He turned ‘round to see Cassy, her eyes sympathetic and understanding. “You sure you want to do this alone?”
Brian took a deep breath and nodded. He brushed the front of his shirt. “Someone’s got to do it. You get back down to Foster with some DCs. I’ll be with you in no time. Make sure the family liaison officer’s fully briefed and at the ready.”
“Brian, I–I didn’t mean to insult you when I said about your wife.”
“It’s okay.” Brian smiled to reassure her. He needed to toughen himself up. Three months off on the sic
k at the end of last year had turned him into a wuss. “The alcoholic detective with marital problems. I’m a walking, talking cliché!”
She laughed and stuck her middle finger up before disappearing past the other interview rooms and into the buzz of the main office.
She believed him. People were so used to seeing alcoholic detectives in fiction and on television that they took it as truth. He just had to keep playing up to that image–drinking when he needed to drink, smelling of booze when he needed to smell of booze. He just had to keep up the image and hope nobody asked to see his arms.
Brian took another deep breath and grabbed the cold metal handle of the wooden door. Just go in there and get it over with. He pulled the handle. The eyes of the desperate, searching mother and father stared up at him.
He didn’t even have to say anything to them. He could tell by the way that they looked back at him, they already knew.
The interview room was completely silent for a few moments. Brian let the Watsons take their time to get their head around things. Not that a few minutes made much difference, but it’d be downright rude to start blabbering on and asking about their dead daughter immediately. He did note a few things, though. Firstly, they didn’t seem like parents of a prostitute. Quite well-kept. Expensive clothing–nothing too scrotey. Unless Nicola had run away from home a while ago or something and made a bit of cash on the side. But that didn’t make sense. They’d reported her missing right away. They’d come to the police station.
“Mr. and Mrs. Watson, I understand this is a really difficult time for you both, but I just need to ask you a couple of questions, what with the nature of–”
“Who did it?” Mr. Watson barked. “Have you got anyone?”
Brian leaned forward towards them as Mrs. Watson snivelled into her hands.
“It’s…I understand your frustrations, but it’s too early in the investigation to start pursuing any solid leads. That’s where I was hoping you could help me. Tell me a little. Talk to me about Nicola.”
