by Ken McCoy
‘Paid for by who?’
‘Him – he paid usin’ one o’ them cards.’
‘Boswell paid by card for a prostitute?’
‘Just for the room. We don’t supply tarts. As far as the law knows we’re a respectable hotel.’
Sep could have told her the law knew exactly what sort of a place it was, but that would give him away as a copper.
‘So you’ve no idea what she looked like?’
‘Sep Black, yer say. I’ve told all this ter them coppers what came. No, I’ve no bloody idea what she looked like. We get all sorts o’ bleedin’ trollops come ter this place. It’s not my idea ter run it as a knockin’ shop, it’s me grandson’s place. I just sit here all day and watch telly when I’m not bookin’ folk in and out. I’m what yer might call a fucker booker.’
She turned her back to him and laughed at her own joke. Sep didn’t. He could see a TV over her shoulder. She was watching the Jeremy Kyle Show. He leaned through the hatch and tapped her on the back. ‘Could I see the room Mr Boswell was in – is it vacant?’
She turned round. ‘What?’
‘Mr Boswell’s room, is it vacant? I’d like to take a look at it.’
‘It’s twenny pound a night – twenny-five if yer want bed and breakfast, but I wouldn’t recommend it – it’s shite.’
Sep took out a twenty and gave it to her, saying, ‘I just want to look in it for a few minutes, not to stay overnight. There’s another one of those for you if you can give me any proper information about who was in the room with Mr Boswell.’
‘Yer norra a copper, are yer?’
‘No,’ lied Sep.
‘I thought not. Coppers don’t go round handin’ out twenny quid notes.’
The old woman took the money and looked up at him over the top of her glasses, which meant she probably couldn’t make him out at all.
‘Another twenny, yer say?’
‘Yes, but only for proper information. I don’t want you making stuff up just to get the twenty. I’ll know if you’re making stuff up.’
‘Will yer now? Some sort of fuckin’ mind reader are yer?’
‘Try me,’ he challenged.
She closed her eyes as if in deep thought. ‘Well, she weren’t a tarty sort like we usually get here. In fact, she weren’t from round here at all. She talked a bit posh but I reckon she had a bit of Scouse in her.’
‘Posh Scouse, eh? That should narrow it down a lot.’
‘Eh, don’t be so fuckin’ cheeky. I’m from Liverpool meself.’
Sep was trying to detect the Liverpool accent from her voice but it was too hoarse.
‘My apologies.’
‘No need to apologize, lad,’ she said. ‘But there’s some nice spots around Liverpool what she might have come from. North Liverpool I’d say. Maybe even Formby. It’s nice up in Formby.’
‘How old would you say?’
‘Well, I thought she’d be fairly young with her bein’ on the game, but maybe I were wrong. I don’t think she were all that old. I know she had dark hair, I could see that – and I can tell yer what scent she had on. It were that Chanel stuff. I know that cos one o’ the tarts ended up wi’ some on what a punter had bought her. I think he must have wanted ter shag someone what smelled nice.’
‘This Mr Boswell and the woman, had either of them been here before?’
‘Well, I’d never seen ’em an’ I’m the only one bookin’ people in and out. I work from ten till six. Anyone wants to book in before or after can go bollocks. All our reg’lars know the rules.’ She pointed to a notice on the wall that said, I only take bookings between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
‘Anything else you noticed?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘and I never mentioned this to them coppers cos I thought it had nowt ter do with owt. A feller came in just after her and followed her up. Straight in, straight up without stoppin’ here.’
‘And you thought this had nothing to do with the murder?’
‘Why should it? There’s blokes comin’ in and out all the bleedin’ time in here. Half the time I don’t know who’s who. I’m ninety-three, yer know.’
‘Do you know if he went to the same room as her?’
‘I don’t know, but I do know he wasn’t a reg’lar. Big bloke, heavy-footed when he went up the stairs, like a bleedin’ elephant … and yeah, he did go to her room cos I could hear him go in, real noisy bugger, now I come ter think of it. That room’s right above here.’
She jabbed an arthritic finger at the ceiling. Sep leaned through the hatch and looked up, as though there might be something to see apart from a cracked ceiling that needed a good dusting and a coat of paint.
‘So, when Mr Boswell went upstairs there were two other people in the room. The Chanel woman and the bloke with heavy feet.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Here’s the other twenty. If you think of anything else while I’m up there I’ll give you another twenty, but don’t make stuff up, mind.’
‘I know – yer, a bleedin’ mind reader,’ she cackled. ‘Here’s the key. It’s number seven.’
Upstairs, Sep turned the key and pushed the door open. He was guessing this was probably the last thing James Boswell had done. He was also guessing that the heavy-footed man was in some way attached to the Scouse woman. Husband, boyfriend, hired heavy, hired hitman, who knows? Not Sep Black, not yet anyway.
The room was cleaner than it had been for some time. The fingerprint dusting had been polished off and the rug on the floor on which James Boswell died had been replaced with a slightly newer one. He was just three steps into the room and he was standing on it.
It was a wretched room and not just because it was a murder scene. Sep switched on the lone bulb that dangled by a dirty flex from the ceiling and was rewarded with forty watts of miserable light. The curtains were worn and dirty and thin; the woodchip wallpaper, long ago painted in magnolia was now grubby and decorated with illiterate obscenities; the double bed looked worn and stained enough to repel all but the most desperate of fornicators; and there was a dank and unpleasant odour about the place; an odour of unwashed bodies and vomit. Now it was a murder scene and Sep felt sorry for James Boswell whose life had come to an end in this abominable room. No man should have to end his life in such a place. It struck Sep that twenty pounds a night was at least a hundred pounds too much.
He looked around at the door he’d just come through and guessed the assailant had been behind it with his blunt instrument at the ready. Thud! One blow to the head, down goes James. The police report, which had mentioned three blows – thud … thud … thud! James would have been most likely on the floor to take the second two blows, the ones that killed him. Blows delivered by a heavy-footed man, probably a strong man, certainly a ruthless man. Was he a paid hitman or an angry lover? Or was James’s death as much of a shock to the woman as it was to James? Might she be the main witness he was looking for? A woman who hadn’t been expecting her lover to be killed. A woman who might be of great help, who could point Sep in the right direction. If she were James’s lover, it wouldn’t please Sandra, who wanted him to prove otherwise, but all he could do was find out the truth, whether or not it was what she wanted to know.
He went to the window and slid it open to let in some fresh air. Then he stood in the middle of the room and did a 360-degree turn to see if anything out of the ordinary struck him. If everything was still as it was when James Boswell was murdered, then there was nothing that stood out. He didn’t expect anything but it was always useful to visit the scene of a murder in case a visual memory was required at some time during his investigation. He took out his mobile phone, turned on its video recorder and repeated the circle three times, different views each time – high, medium and low level, videoing everything in the room. He played it back to check he’d missed nothing, stuck the phone back in his pocket and asked himself what he knew that DCI Wood didn’t know.
He knew that James had not been killed and r
obbed by a common prostitute. His wallet was still in his pocket so robbery – the obvious line of enquiry for DCI Wood to have taken – had been immediately discounted. No wonder they’d come to a dead end so quickly. James had been killed because someone wanted him dead and that someone was either a jealous husband or lover, or for some other reason. The most likely other reason being the story James was following up on. This was the motive Sep was hoping for.
He smiled to himself. This was an enquiry that should keep him clear of St James’s Hospital A&E ward, for a change; an enquiry that just required brain and not brawn. Proper detective work. It might not turn out like that, but Sep was an eternal optimist. He had one last thought. On his way out he stopped at the reception hatch and spoke to the old woman.
‘I can’t think of nowt else ter tell yer,’ she said. ‘Bit of a shit’ole, isn’t it?’
‘That’s an insult to shit’oles,’ said Sep. ‘But there is something you might help me with. When this woman left, did she leave with the heavy-footed man?’
‘D’yer know, she bloody did! I forgot about that. Mind you, no bugger asked me.’
‘After Mr Boswell went up how long before they came down?’
‘Bloody hell, yer asking me some right stuff now. It’s bloody ages ago all this. After he went up, eh? Let me think … they came in first, then him as was done in came in a few minutes later and went up … then they came down and he didn’t – well, of course he didn’t. Then I went up and knocked on t’door.’
‘So how long after Mr Boswell went up did the other two come down?’
‘If yer’d gimme a bloody chance that’s what I’m tryin’ ter remember! It weren’t long at all as it happens. In fact, it were only a couple o’ minutes before her and that first feller came down. I did wonder meself what she were up to, which is why I went up and knocked on t’door.’
‘So, Mr Boswell is now in the room on his own and the other two are leaving together. Did they seem all right with each other? I mean, did she seem scared or anything?’
She scratched her head as she thought back. ‘No, not that I remember. No, they left together in a bit of a rush. Hey, and I make no bloody wonder after what they’d done! I put me glasses on and looked through t’winder. I can be a proper nosey bugger at times. They were in a car and she were drivin’. She got in and, er … that’s right she got in and he lit a ciggy and had a smoke before he got in. I remember because he only took a couple o’ drags then threw it away. Waste of a bloody ciggy, if you ask me.’
‘So she could have driven straight off and left him there if she’d been scared of him?’
‘I suppose she could, yeah. I don’t suppose he’d have been so suited.’
‘So they more or less came together and left together?’ mused Sep. This could eliminate the jealous lover theory. He took another twenty from his wallet and gave it to her, along with a card containing his personal mobile phone number and nothing else. A card that would be frowned upon by the police, but a card he often found handy.
‘And when you knocked on his door, what then?’
‘Nothin’. I mean I didn’t know he were dead. Why would I think he were dead?’
‘Did you look in the room?’
‘No, I didn’t. He might have been undressed for all I know. Yer don’t just go bargin’ in people’s room – ’specially not in a place like this.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you do. So who found the body?’
‘That were me grandson, our Paul. He came the next mornin’. I told him the room was let for a night and he went up ter check it’s been left in a decent state.’
‘You just said it was a shit’ole.’
‘I know, but what can you expect for twenny a night? We might be a knockin’ shop but we do have standards. We’re very popular, yer know. We do very good business.’
‘Yeah, I can imagine. So Paul found Mr Boswell’s body?’
‘He did.’
‘Did you go up to look at it?’
‘I did as a matter of fact – only a quick look. It were a right mess, blood all over t’rug.’
‘And you rang the police?’
‘No, that were our Paul.’
‘If you think of anything else would you ring me on the number on that card?’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know. What sort of car was it?’
‘I don’t know cars.’
‘What colour?’
‘Sort of grey … silver, mebbe. Yeah, shiny grey. Is that worth another twenty?’
‘It’ll be worth forty if you ring me with more good stuff.’
‘Right, I’ll give it a right good think, shall I?’
‘You do that. What’s your name, by the way?’
‘Agnes, although most people call me Aggie.’
‘You look more like an Agnes to me. Thank you, Agnes.’
FIVE
‘He was set up,’ Sep told her, ‘it was a planned murder.’
They were in his car, driving away.
‘How do you know?’
‘The woman had a male accomplice. They came together and left together in a grey car. That’s a lot of planning and trouble just to rob a man of what he might have in his wallet. For all they knew he might have been skint.’
‘They didn’t take his wallet. He only had twenty-five quid in it.’
‘So, your husband was lured there to be killed and for no other reason. It’s a knocking shop all right, no question, but James wasn’t a knocking shop customer and she wasn’t a prostitute. For a start, he hadn’t been there before, nor had the woman. It was just a rendezvous, probably chosen by her to make the police think he was killed by a prostitute.’
He looked at her and detected a faint smile and he knew it was a smile of relief. He’d pretty much confirmed that her James hadn’t been killed by a prostitute he was visiting.
‘I imagine that’s something you wanted to hear,’ he said.
‘It helps.’
‘I can only assume it was a story he was working on and this mystery woman was involved in it. She found out about him chasing the story and decided to have someone shut him up.’
‘How come you’ve found all this out in no time at all and the police found nothing.’
‘The senior officer on the case isn’t the sharpest tool in the box. He and I had many differences. Especially before I moved over to the Cold Case mob.’
‘Is he the one who got you suspended?’
‘No, that feller’s doing serious time in prison.’
‘You’re not a man to cross swords with, are you, Mr Black?’
‘That doesn’t mean I can be careless. If Wood finds out I’m working on it for you, he won’t be too pleased. He’ll no doubt find out eventually, but rather later than sooner. He can’t obstruct me in my enquiries without getting himself into trouble. My job is to bring the killer in with enough evidence to nail him. Woody will hate it, but I do get a certain kick out of that.’
‘I imagine you do.’
Sep sniffed the air and detected Chanel No 5. He recognized it because it was Winnie’s favourite perfume. Pricey, but very popular, it would seem.
‘She wore Chanel Number Five, like you,’ he said.
‘Really? It was James’s favourite, mine too when I could afford it. I hope that doesn’t put me in your frame.’
‘Not at all.’
‘So, what’s next?’ she said.
‘What’s next is we find out what we’ve got on file.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘There’ll be a police file on the case that I wouldn’t mind taking a look at.’
‘What about James’s computer?’
‘If this was a story worth killing for I suspect James might well have information hidden away on his computer behind a password or something.’
‘Well, you’re welcome to take a look at his computer. Are you an expert?’
‘Me? No way. But it’s not what you know it’s who you know. We might need
you to help with the password. It’s usually a word or name familiar to the user. We live in an IT age where most things can be hacked, even if you don’t know the passwords. I also know someone who’s an expert hacker.’
‘I bet he’s young.’
‘It’s not a he it’s a she and you’ve met her.’
‘What? Winnie?’
He grinned and nodded.
‘No! You’ve got to be kidding!’
‘Hey, I didn’t believe it when she told me, but she’s grown up with computers since she was a girl. They had one in a children’s home she lived in. In fact, she stole it when she ran away with another girl. To a girl like her, who’d had a real rough time growing up, it was the best thing ever and when the Internet came out it opened up a whole world to her. Winnie O’Toole’s a genuine genius on a computer.’
‘So why doesn’t she work in IT instead of running a second-hand dress shop?’
‘No formal qualifications. She’s doing an Open University degree in computer science, although she thinks she’s years ahead of what she’s being taught. So do her tutors for that matter.’
‘A prodigy, eh?’
‘Apparently so. She’s helped me out on one or two cases, although I claim all the kudos myself.’
‘Of course. Why waste a bit of kudos on someone who doesn’t need it?’
‘It’s all part of the mystery I surround myself with when I solve impossible cases. Mostly I just use ingenious lies when questioning suspects. It’s how I got to be a DI, apparently.’
‘Well, we’d better get Winnie over to the computer straight away.’
‘I think first I need to take a look in the police system to see what the officers originally investigating the case came up with. Did James have any particular publication in mind who might buy his story?’
‘Not really. He had contacts in the Mail and the Telegraph, although he did most of his work for press agencies. They took fifteen per cent off him but they hawked it around and got much better deals than he ever did … and better money.’
‘Any particular agency?’
‘There’s one called Tyke News he worked with a lot. I think he’d have taken it there with it being a local story. They’d have sold it to the Yorkshire Post and then to the nationals, maybe even television and radio if it’s a big enough story.’
