A Narrow Return

by Faith Martin

  ‘So, what case has he given us?’ Jessop asked, picking up a cherry tomato with nicotine-stained fingers and munching it thoughtfully.

  ‘Anne McRae. I’ll let you have the file when we get back – you can have Vivienne copy the relevant parts of it and get up to speed.’

  ‘Oh she’ll love that,’ Jimmy chuckled over his shandy. ‘So is it a rape case?’

  ‘No. Murder. I take it they get priority?’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘Fine. I’m going to be out in the field a bit, re-interviewing witnesses, that sort of thing. I’ll need to give Sam some good work experience, but I was hoping you might like to ride shotgun too every now and then.’

  Jimmy Jessop’s pale eyes glittered. ‘Any time, guv,’ he said happily.

  Hillary nodded. ‘Right then. Back to the cupboard – sorry, office. I’ve got to get some admin stuff sorted out – get my ID and salary sorted. But first thing tomorrow we get cracking. And until I get a car, I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind acting as chauffeur.’

  Jimmy Jessop didn’t mind that in the least.

  That night, Tom Warrington worked up a sweat in his dad’s garage. Tom had turned the workspace into a reasonable gym, complete with a boxer’s sparring bag, a rowing machine, weight-lifting apparatus and various other pieces of equipment, all designed to increase his muscles.

  His Dad approved. Although he was proud of his son, and the police uniform that he wore, he and his mother couldn’t help but worry about him. It was a bad world out there, and the news was full of coppers who got knifed and shot and beaten up by scum.

  He certainly didn’t begrudge leaving his car out in the rain so that his only child could keep fit.

  He brought a cup of tea out for him now, and stood watching him work. He danced around the boxer’s punch bag like that Muhammad Ali in his heyday. And John Warrington nodded with approval at his son’s bulging biceps and the force that went behind each thump. Just let any snivelling little drug dealer take on his Tom and he’d soon regret it all right.

  ‘Here you go, son,’ he said, putting the mug down on top of a set of rounded iron weights.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ Tom stopped sparring to walk over and take the mug, careful to unwrap the protective bandages around his knuckles before picking it up.

  ‘You heard anything about that promotion yet, son?’ John asked. ‘I’ll be glad when you’re out of uniform and off the streets.’

  Tom Warrington’s cat-green eyes narrowed just slightly in impatience. ‘I told you, Dad. It isn’t easy to break through into the detective squads any more. Cut backs and all. But my sergeant is behind me, and he says I aced the test,’ he lied, ‘so it’s just a question of waiting for some opening to come up. In the mean time, I don’t mind walking the beat.’

  ‘OK, son. Don’t stay out here too long though. You’ve got early shift tomorrow, you need to rest.’

  Tom nodded, and did in fact begin to wind down his evening workout. Not because he listened to his father, of course. But because he had other stuff to do.

  Living at home with your parents at the age of twenty-six was a bit naff, but with house prices like they were, there was no way he could afford a place of his own. And nobody wanted to share a flat with him. For all he gave the impression to his parents that he had a load of friends down at the nick, and was very much ‘one of the lads’ Tom Warrington was a bit of a loner.

  Upstairs, in his bedroom, he turned on his computer and began to google.

  He printed off page after page, and photo after photo, and pinned them up on the cork boards around his room. He kept the door to his bedroom locked at all times, of course, telling his parents that he had confidential police files in there, and had to be careful. In reality, these only existed in his fantasies.

  Now he pinned up a 6-year-old photograph taken from an old article in the Oxford Times.

  In it, Hillary Greene was receiving her medal for gallantry.

  Tom Warrington sat back in his swivel chair and slowly looked around the room. Images of Hillary Greene looked back at him. Just that afternoon he’d volunteered for a stint in the ever-unpopular admin department, where he hoped he’d be able to photocopy her personnel file. That would be a real coup.

  Until then, he was patiently and painstakingly building up his own dossier on her.

  So far, he’d liked all that he’d found out about her. Except for the husband, of course. Finding out all about that bent, no-good tosser had been like discovering an ugly worm in an otherwise perfect apple. His memory niggled away at Tom, making him doubt her, and he hated that.

  He so didn’t want to doubt her. This time he wanted perfection. He couldn’t bear another disappointment, like all the others.

  And she was so close to being perfect. Choosing an older woman had been a really clever move on his part.

  She was beautiful.

  Experienced.

  Clever.

  Accomplished. When he’d found out about her degree in English Literature from Oxford it had made him almost glow with pride.

  Not only was she all that, but she was like a celebrity back at HQ. Everyone was talking about her return.

  She only had the one thing blotting her otherwise perfect image.

  A bad marriage. No, worse than bad – a catastrophic marriage.

  It was a pity that Ronnie Greene was already dead, Tom thought, his green eyes glittering with frustration.

  He’d rather have liked to have been able to kill him himself.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jimmy Jessop pulled off the main Oxford to Banbury road when he saw the signpost for Thrupp up ahead and found himself on a narrow lane, leading to what seemed to him to be little more than a cluster of cottages. Although he’d lived in Kidlington itself for several years now, he’d never had reason to visit the tiny satellite community, based on the Oxford canal.

  It looked pretty and peaceful, almost out of time with the modern world just a few moments away and he understood at once why someone, faced with the stresses and pressures of a demanding job, would want to live here.

  He parked on the grass verge, allowing room for cars to pass, and wandered down to the canal. On an overcast March morning, it looked grey-green and uninviting, although some rushes were starting to spring verdantly at the edges, promising beauty to come and a curious moorhen drifted by, eyeing him warily.

  Most of the narrowboats that were moored along the towpath for as far as he could see were either brightly coloured or boasted traditional ‘canal art’ – painted panels of crudely cheerful scenes, mostly floral, in vibrant reds, greens, blues and yellows. But one narrowboat, moored further down, was a different proposition, being painted predominantly in a soft blue-grey, with a black-painted roof and attractive white and gold trim. As he approached it, he could see that the side panels on this boat had simple, well-executed paintings that all depicted herons. A quick glance at the name on the pointed end confirmed that this was indeed the ‘Mollern’, his new guv’nor’s boat.

  He stood beside it, not sure what to do next. A total landlubber, he was not sure of the protocol. Did he shout, ‘Ahoy there’ like someone from a pirate movie? Jimmy didn’t much see himself as Johnny Depp. On the other hand, he didn’t fancy stepping onto the boat at all without permission. And the wide hinged door allowing entrance looked to be made of metal, and he didn’t fancy rapping his knuckles on it.

  Instead he bent down a bit, and said loudly into the nearest window, ‘Morning, ma’am.’

  A movement at one of the curtains caught his eye, and Hillary’s face briefly appeared, then withdrew. A moment later she climbed out of the back, and slipped the padlock around the door. She was dressed in a pencil-line black skirt with a matching black jacket and an apricot coloured blouse. She looked both smart and professional but also competent and comfortable. She smiled a welcome, and stepped neatly off the boat and onto the gravelled towpath.

  As they walked to his car, Jimmy brought her up to date on
what he’d discovered about the original inquiry’s main suspect so far.

  ‘Debbie Gregg, now aged sixty-two, and divorced,’ Jimmy recited from memory, although her dossier was locked up in the boot of his car, and could be consulted before they started the interview if need be. ‘Her husband, Shane Gregg died in an RTA three years after the divorce – no suspicious circs – and she’s remained unmarried since. She moved from the former family home to a place in Brackley. Nothing known against her since.’

  In other words, Hillary mused, she had no criminal record, and hadn’t done anything to bring herself to the attention of the police since her sister’s murder.

  ‘She have a sheet before the killing?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘No, guv.’

  They reached the car and Jimmy retrieved the dossier and gave it to her before getting behind the wheel. As he’d half-expected, she spent the travel time to the Northamptonshire market town where Debbie Gregg now lived reading everything that Squire’s team had been able to get on her.

  When they finally pulled up outside a small semi-detached council house on a large estate, Hillary repressed a small sigh of satisfaction. So, the hunt was on. There was no denying it – she’d missed all of this: The comradeship she was beginning to build up with Jimmy; the sense of purpose to be gained in bringing some kind of closure, if not justice, to that most feared of all human sins – homicide, talking to witnesses, ferreting out the truth, putting the pieces together, and seeing if she could get a clear picture of what had actually happened the day that Anne McRae had lost her life.

  It felt damned good to be back!

  She climbed out and glanced around. The estate was neat and tidy, with a few middle-range cars parked in the driveways, and most of the gardens were colourful and well tended. It wasn’t exactly luxury living, but it was hardly a high-rise in a slum either.

  ‘She didn’t do too badly for herself, considering,’ Hillary said thoughtfully. She knew only too well how a close brush with murder could tarnish and destroy lives for years afterwards. The family of murder victims never got over it, and even those who were suspected of being the instigator of a crime could feel the effects rippling down through the years. Jobs that were never offered when their past came to light; offended neighbours who made their feelings all too clear. A lot of people so tainted took to drink, or became bitter and antisocial. And a good proportion of them ended up addicted to drugs, or out on the street. Or walking them, looking for punters.

  It would be interesting to see how Debbie Gregg had fared.

  ‘Somebody’s in at any rate, guv,’ Jimmy said, motioning towards the house. ‘I just saw the curtains move.’

  Hillary nodded, and they walked up to the gate. Jimmy lifted the latch and let her go through first. The courtesy was automatic for him, and Hillary accepted it as automatically. She rang the doorbell and waited. A moment later, it was opened cautiously a bare inch or so and a woman looked out at them from around the door chain.

  ‘Yes?’

  Hillary held up her ID card. Once it would have been a full police badge, with the words Detective Inspector on it. Now it was a white laminated card, with her picture and some sort of red-motif that identified her as a civilian consultant with the Thames Valley Police Service.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Gregg is it? I’m Hillary Greene. I’m working with the Thames Valley Police. We’re looking again into your sister’s case, and I wondered if we could have a word? This is my colleague, James Jessop.’

  The door closed in their faces, and for a moment, Hillary wondered if it was going to open again. And if it didn’t, she’d have no other recourse but to turn around and go somewhere else. She now had no authority to demand entrance, nor did she have the authority to take someone in for questioning. Or even arrest them. For that, she’d need Steven Crayle.

  Then came the slither of the chain and the door opened reluctantly.

  Hillary wasn’t surprised that the woman was so security conscious. Her sister had been brutally killed in the safety of her own home, and whether or not this woman was responsible for it, the knowledge that no one was safe, anywhere, anytime, would have been a lesson well learned.

  ‘It’s been so long since I had any of you lot on my doorstep,’ Debbie Gregg said, standing aside to let them pass.

  She was about Hillary’s height, but three stones heavier, with the sort of curly blonde hair that spoke of perms and a cheap colouring agent. She wore full make-up but only a turquoise jogging outfit that had never been used for its original purpose. On her feet were those feathery kind of heel-less mules that Hillary had always thought were designed to trip you up, rather than keep your feet warm.

  ‘Better come into the living room then, I suppose,’ Debbie said, ushering them into a small but comfortable room. A football magazine under a plain wooden coffee table told Hillary that she was probably living with a man, as did a pair of distinctly masculine slippers she spotted, resting under a recliner chair that faced a large wide-screen plasma TV.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Debbie made no offer to make them tea, but once they were both seated, side-by-side on a dark brown leather settee, took a chair opposite them. She gazed at them steadily out of pale, rather bulging blue eyes. ‘So, what do you want then?’

  Hillary smiled. The victim’s sister was obviously somebody who liked to come straight to the point.

  ‘Well, Mrs Gregg, as you may or may not be aware, all unsolved cases are never officially closed, especially serious ones, like your sister’s. Every now and then, what with the technical advances being made and so on, the police service periodically re-evaluates certain cases.’

  ‘And Anne’s is one of them. Yeah, I get it. But that card you showed me said you was a consultant. Not a proper copper then?’

  So, she’d actually read the card and thought about what it said, and what it meant, Hillary realized instantly. Not many people did that. It meant that Debbie, for all her outward appearance, was a shrewd and cautious operator.

  She’d have to bear that in mind.

  ‘I used to be a full DI before I took early retirement. And James here was a sergeant.’

  Debbie nodded. ‘I get it. They can’t spare the full-time coppers, who’ve got enough on their plate trying to solve crimes that happened yesterday. So they’ve put the old war-horses onto it. Makes sense I suppose.’

  ‘I can assure you, Mrs Gregg, that both myself and my team will do our best by your sister,’ Hillary said quietly. And meant it. If the other woman took that as a threat, it certainly didn’t register on her plump, pleasant face.

  Debbie smiled grimly. ‘By that, you mean that you’re going to try and fit me up for it every bit as hard as that other bastard did. Squires.’

  Hillary shook her head. ‘Nobody “fits up” anybody, Mrs Gregg, I can assure you. That’s only in fiction and on the telly.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she snorted. ‘You’re not going to convince me that that bloke DI Squires didn’t do his best to get me had up for our Anne’s murder. I bet it’s all written down in his notes somewhere. I could tell what he was thinking, you know, he didn’t make no secret of it. And I’m not stupid. He kept bringing me in for questioning, pestering the life out of me, even though I kept telling him and telling him I didn’t do it. He kept on and on at the neighbours and our friends, until even they began to have a go at me for it. As if it was my fault!’

  Her voice, which had been rising steadily in volume, suddenly fell off, as she paused to take a deep breath.

  Hillary said nothing, waiting for the tirade to continue. A lot of truth came out in anger, and she was more than ready to be the butt of Debbie’s bile if it meant she let slip anything interesting.

  Or incriminating.

  But the silence lengthened, and the older woman took a few deep breaths, obviously making the effort to regain control of herself. And succeeded.

  ‘I can’t tell you anything that I didn’t tell Squires at the time,’ she finally said, her voice almo
st defeated now. ‘I don’t know who killed her. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Shane. I wasn’t there that day she died, and no prodding and poking about now is going to prove otherwise. So go ahead, and do your worst.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘Tell me about her,’ she said softly, making the older woman blink in surprise. If she was expecting a hard-headed interview as she had probably endured many times before, she was in for a surprise.

  Hillary had her own approach for belligerent-cum-wary witnesses like this.

  ‘D’yah what?’

  ‘Your sister Anne. What was she like?’

  Debbie shrugged. ‘She was my sister,’ she said simply. ‘There were four of us at home then. Don the oldest – he’s dead now. Then me, then Mark, and then Anne. She was the baby of the bunch.’

  ‘Ah. And spoilt to bits, I bet,’ Hillary said knowingly.

  ‘’Course she was. Apple of Dad’s eye. And she was so pretty, Mum used to love dressing her up in dresses and doing her hair in ribbons and whatnot. Funny, because when she got older….’ Debbie rolled her eyes. ‘Went punk she did.’ And she giggled. It sounded strangely girlish coming from a woman in her sixth decade.

  ‘She had the best of everything then?’ Hillary persisted, keeping her firmly on track.

  Debbie’s blue eyes shot back to Hillary’s face with a knowing gleam. ‘You trying to get me to say that I resented her, like? That I was always jealous of her and so secretly wanted to do her in? Just like that bastard Squires said.’

  ‘No, not at all. You can be exasperated with someone and still love and care for them,’ Hillary said soothingly. ‘That’s what families are all about, isn’t it? Or at least, mine is.’

  Debbie took another hard, long breath, then nodded grudgingly. ‘True enough, I suppose.’

  ‘Tell me about her marriage. To Melvin, isn’t it? Were they happy together?’ Hillary kept any trace of a challenge out of her voice, and the other woman started to relax.