Crooked Street

by Priscilla Masters

  Call me a suspicious copper, Joanna thought, but I wonder what this guy really did do all day. Then she exhorted herself. Tread carefully, Piercy, or you’re going to fall through thin ice. And God help you swimming around in freezing cold water without Colclough to throw you a lifebelt.

  So she had to skirt around the lie Jadon Glover had told his wife. And that was what she knew so far. She kept her voice politely curious. ‘Have you ever called in to the office to see him?’

  ‘Oh, no …’ Eve said, defensively adding, ‘because he does quite a lot of calls – out to clients, you know. To their homes. He’s not always there,’ she finished lamely.

  After the aggressive defence a sweet little confidence came next, spoken with a shrug of the slim shoulders and a sugary smile. ‘He’s not really the sort to sit in an office all day.’ Now she seemed to be apologizing, trying to get them on her side. Eyes wide open, explaining?

  Joanna’s thought was: so if he wasn’t that sort what sort was he?

  She was making mental notes of the responses and from DC Phil Scott’s intense expression she could see that he was doing the same. There was a deep line between his brows as he puzzled over the exchange.

  Joanna stopped asking questions for a moment, looked across at Eve Glover and wondered about her, about the real woman beneath the orange skin and perfect teeth and nails who was so incurious about her husband’s life outside the home. So happy to accept him at face value. Never asking questions. How much did she know; how much did she care? She’d never been to her husband’s place of work? Really? Never rung him at work? Again, really? Had rung the police when she was worried rather than wait for morning and check first with his colleagues or workplace? Didn’t appear to have his workmates’ or their partners’ numbers. Why not?

  For a loving wife Eve Glover was singularly incurious about the great big gaps in her knowledge of her husband’s life. It was all bloody odd, Joanna thought. Surely your husband’s workplace is the first place to start asking questions, particularly if his evening’s events had been connected with his job. She frowned at something else that had snagged her from the beginning. Why had her first port of call been the police? Simply the hour? Or …?

  She put the question to her. ‘Why did you ring the police rather than your husband’s place of work – or his colleagues?’

  The blue eyes flashed their warning signal again. Don’t go there.

  ‘It was the middle of the night. Besides, as I’ve just told you, Inspector,’ she said impatiently, ‘I don’t have their numbers.’

  ‘Right.’

  It was no answer.

  Put together with Jadon’s apparent deceit her curiosity was pricked. Why the subterfuge? What had Jadon been hiding from his wife? Why? And, looking at Eve Glover, what in turn was his wife hiding from him?

  She checked again. ‘Can I just run over a couple of points with you, Mrs Glover?’

  Eve turned towards her with a smile as enigmatic and unreadable as the Mona Lisa’s. Only not quite so guileless.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’ve never been to your husband’s place of work?’

  ‘No.’ The answer was flat and invited no challenge.

  Joanna was incredulous and from the wary expression in DC Scott’s eyes so was he. ‘And your husband’s work colleagues?’

  ‘I’ve met them. They came to our wedding.’ There was a defensive flicker in her eyes which Joanna couldn’t interpret. She liked them? She didn’t like them? Joanna couldn’t pick up on which.

  Considering the Glovers were an apparently devoted couple this was a curious setup. Alerting the police before checking with her husband’s workplace and colleagues struck Joanna that this was like going to hospital instead of seeing your GP. Which reminded her … She bit her tongue and proceeded.

  ‘Do you have the address of your husband’s office?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She gave them an address in Hanley. Joanna’s eyes flickered over it. This was not the address Korpanski had been contacting. It was not the address of Johnston and Pickles. She frowned. Rather than being an object of fun, a silly little distraction in an otherwise quiet day, this was turning into a full-blown case. It had all the hallmarks, anomalies and inconsistencies of something much deeper. And the questions kept on pricking her.

  Why had Eve been so convinced something awful had happened to her husband when he had simply been a few hours late home from work?

  ‘When did you last speak to your husband?’

  ‘Around six.’

  ‘He sounded all right?’

  ‘Yes. As normal. He sounded fine.’

  ‘Why did you ring him?’

  ‘Just to ask him to pick up a bottle of wine on his way home. That’s all. I thought he’d be back at nine and I waited. I thought he’d ring, maybe say he’d broken down or had an extra call to do. But he didn’t. He’d said he’d be home just after nine and that was it.’

  ‘Had you cooked a meal for him?’

  There was the first hint of embarrassment. ‘Jadon’s very pernickety about food,’ she said, looking away. ‘He usually does himself an omelette or a steak or something or gets a takeaway.’

  ‘You don’t eat together?’

  Eve Glover smiled and shook her head. ‘I tend to eat earlier.’

  Nothing more than 500 calories.

  ‘Right. OK.’

  Joanna bounced Eve’s sweet smile back to her. ‘Would you like to look for the names of your husband’s colleagues and I’ll find out their numbers? We’ll take it from there.’

  Eve left the room, returning with a notebook, and slowly and methodically copied out three names. Joanna took the sheet of paper from her. Eve Glover was, it appeared, dyslexic – unless one of her husband’s colleagues had the unusual surname of Wolsin. There was someone called Stoc and another called Jitt. She looked up. Eve Glover quickly dropped her eyes, embarrassed.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, took the sheet of paper back and very carefully copied out the names again. Leroy Wilson, Jeff Armitage and Scott Dooley.

  That made more sense.

  ‘Do you have a photograph of your husband we can borrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Eve delved into a drawer in the beige-painted sideboard. Wedding picture not up, Joanna noted. Not on display then? Unlike the wedding picture of her and Matthew, taken minutes after they had been pronounced man and wife. It stood proudly framed on their dresser, their arms around each other, laughing into the camera as though they had just shed all the cares in the world. She in her midnight-blue dress, the scatter of crystals flashing in the sharp winter sun and Matthew in a grey morning suit, grinning from ear to ear. He had what he wanted and it showed. His arm had encircled her. She smiled at the memory, returned to the present, focused on the job in hand and studied the picture Eve had just handed her.

  Jadon Glover stood alone, in the centre of a patch of grass. Their garden?

  Her first impression was that he matched the image she had started to build up of him. A good-looking guy with a confident smile, around thirty years old, a bit shorter than she had expected and very slightly stocky. His features were regular. He had nice teeth and very short dark hair. If it had been his wife who had taken the photograph Joanna sensed no affection bouncing back. His smile into the lens was ironic and impatient. Impatient for the picture to be taken. Impatient with the person who was clicking the shutter. Perhaps. He was standing up straight and self-consciously in a sleeveless vest, the muscles he’d worked for at the gym bulging. He stood half sideways, showing off a toned, heavily muscled body. He was confident of his image. He liked posing. There was more than a hint of mockery in his expression. Perhaps mockery for the wife he was so successfully deceiving – or not. How much did she really know?

  Joanna studied his face closer for a moment or two, trying to gain some insight into his fate. What had happened to him? Where was he now? He looked like someone who could take care of himself. So why was he miss
ing? Surely he must have known he risked exposing the tissue of lies he had fed his gullible wife? Why build them up in the first place? Why the duplicity? At some point he was going to get found out. He couldn’t have kept up the deceit for ever.

  If a picture is worth a thousand words and this photograph was a true portrayal, she didn’t think she’d like him.

  There was something weasel-like about his narrowed eyes, something cruel in his thin lips and something calculating in the expression. He looked too sure of himself. Men like that sometimes misunderstood situations, reading them as safe when they were not. And because they were unconscious of any danger around them they lost awareness. But the picture had told her two things: this man would make enemies, and if Jadon Glover remained missing there was a good reason. She looked up to see Eve watching her.

  ‘Can I take this?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’ Eve Glover hesitated before asking what must have been filling her mind. ‘Inspector …’ She paused. ‘What do you think’s happened to him?’

  ‘Most probably,’ Joanna said slowly, ‘nothing serious. He’s just been held up, Mrs Glover. Perhaps an accident.’

  It wasn’t going to satisfy the devoted wife. And she wasn’t that stupid either. ‘But you said you’d contacted the hospital and he wasn’t there. Besides … his phone,’ she objected.

  Joanna countered quickly, ‘And you said that he was sometimes a bit careless. Left it out of charge. Maybe broken or stolen.’ She tried to make light of it. ‘You know how unreliable mobile phones can be, Mrs Glover – signals going down and batteries going flat, particularly when we’re relying on them.’

  Dissatisfied, Eve Glover gave a deep, heartfelt sigh.

  Joanna felt some sympathy for her but at the same time the woman irritated her for her blind acceptance of her husband’s porous stories. ‘We’ll run some checks,’ she said again. ‘And be in touch.’

  Eve Glover didn’t answer but narrowed her eyes as though evaluating Joanna’s forced ‘jollity’.

  Joanna stood up. ‘Well, I’d better get back,’ she said. ‘Here’s my number. If anything happens let me know.’

  Eve Glover smiled and responded politely if automatically. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Will you be here or at work?’

  ‘I don’t work,’ Eve said, again with a hint of that irritating smugness. ‘I used to have a beauty parlour and hairdressing salon but I gave them up when we married. Jadon didn’t want me to work. He likes having me at home.’

  ‘Oh.’ Again it was a strange insight into an unusual twenty-first-century marriage. Joanna stood up, shook Eve Glover’s hand, promised to keep in touch and asked that she do the same. And they left.

  Joanna quizzed DC Scott on the way back to the station. She wanted to see how much he’d picked up on the interview.

  ‘So what did you think, Phil?’

  ‘I think it’s an odd setup,’ he said, ‘but some blokes do like to keep their mates and their work life separate from their private life, don’t they?’

  ‘Korpanski’s been in touch with Johnston and Pickles,’ she said. ‘They deny that our Mr Glover even works there. And the business addresses are different, Phil. Near enough but not the same. So if Jadon Glover didn’t work at Johnston and Pickles, where do you think he might have worked? Why would he lie to his wife?’ She wanted to challenge the detective, see how much he could work out for himself.

  ‘Some guys just do lie,’ Scott said, smiling a little sheepishly. ‘Pretend they’re brain surgeons when they just dig the road.’

  She smiled too. Matthew had never had to pretend anything. She’d known from the start what his job was.

  ‘So where would you go from here, Phil?’

  He responded cheerfully. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘OK. What about we have a look at the list of Glover’s work associates? We have a Leroy Wilson, Jeff Armitage and Scott Dooley. We’ll have a go at their numbers when we get back to the station. OK?’ She decided to set DC Scott a further challenge. ‘What do you think’s happened to Mr Glover, Phil?’

  He shrugged. ‘Done a runner, I think.’

  ‘OK – think that one through. What do you do now as an investigating officer?’

  He gave her a swift, uncomfortable glance. ‘Look into his life, friends – bank account, gym membership, car, stuff like that.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. They’d turned into the station car park. ‘So get on with it. Work with DS Korpanski.’

  Back in the office she could speak freely to Mike. ‘Weird,’ she said. ‘Glover’s wife doesn’t ring his work colleagues or his place of work. And you say he doesn’t even work at Johnston and Pickles?’

  ‘Not according to the CEO.’ He grinned at her. ‘And you’d think he would know.’

  She laughed. ‘So what have you found out so far?’

  ‘The car hasn’t turned up yet. He’s not short of funds. No criminal record. Nothing really.’ He looked at her.

  ‘Bank cards? Has he been withdrawing money?’

  ‘Not in the last twenty-four hours and his mobile records show that his last call was received at about six yesterday evening. Looks like he was on the outskirts of Leek.’

  ‘That fits in with his wife’s account that she rang him to ask him to pick up a bottle of wine.’

  ‘I’m guessing that’s why she was so angry when he was late. Never a good idea to keep a lady waiting for her vino.’

  ‘Is that a dig at me, Korpanski?’

  ‘Perish the thought.’ But Korpanski looked interested. ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Just your sort or any man’s. Very glammed up.’

  Korpanski raised his eyebrows but made no further comment.

  She reached for the phone. ‘So let’s try his buddies.’

  They all went straight through to answerphone. Joanna left messages on all three, sat back and looked at her sergeant.

  ‘So where’s his car?’

  Korpanski shrugged. ‘We’ve nothing on it so far. Come on, Jo,’ he said gruffly. ‘It could be anywhere. He could be anywhere. Not even in the country.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got no reason to detain him. Being home a bit late is hardly a case for Interpol.’

  She looked at her sergeant, mischief in her eyes, stared at the screen for a moment, then: ‘Mi-ike.’

  He knew that wheedling tone.

  ‘I know we can find out stuff from the PNC,’ she said, ‘but I feel far too fidgety to just sit in front of a computer all afternoon.’

  His response was guarded. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Why don’t we go to Johnston and Pickles? See what they’ve got to say. We’ve got an address. They’re just round the corner from each other. We can go into his real office and kill two birds with one stone. Come on, Mike, let’s go.’

  Korpanski, similarly happier active than sitting at a desk, was already on his feet. They commandeered a car and tried to convince themselves this was work and they weren’t simply playing hooky.

  FIVE

  Thursday, 6 March, 12.10 p.m.

  They were halfway to Hanley when her mobile phone rang, caller ID one of the three numbers on her list. ‘Leroy,’ Joanna mouthed when she read the contact. ‘Hello, Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy here. Mr Wilson?’

  Leroy grunted. ‘What’s this about?’ The voice was suspicious. Wilson was already on his guard.

  Joanna wasn’t going to tell him straight away. She grinned at Korpanski, inverted her outstretched hand, pressed her thumb and forefinger together and wiggled them as though she was a puppeteer. Thinking: I’ve got you dangling on a string. ‘We understand you work with a Mr Jadon Glover?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He sounded guarded.

  ‘Where exactly do you work?’

  ‘We’ve got our own business.’ He sounded Afro-Caribbean with a hint of Birmingham.

  ‘Together with Scott Dooley and a Mr Jeff …?’

  ‘Armitage,’ he supplied reluctantly.

  ‘Yes. Jeff Armi
tage.’

  Mike was watching her.

  At last Leroy showed some concern. ‘Look, what is all this about?’

  Joanna ignored the question. ‘What exactly is the nature of your business, Mr Wilson?’

  ‘Financial advice,’ he supplied. Then added quickly, ‘Mainly to do with debt.’

  ‘Associated with Johnston and Pickles, the Hanley firm?’

  ‘Sort of,’ he said.

  She knew that heavy, groaning sigh. She was going to have to drag it out of him. ‘How sort of?’

  He wasn’t going to tell her. Instead, he got stroppy. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘what is all this about? Why are you harassing me?’

  Joanna almost groaned. Not the old harassment card – per-lease.

  ‘Mr Glover, your fellow financial advisor …’ she knew the sarcasm in her voice would elude him but pressed it in anyway, ‘didn’t quite make it home last night; neither has he turned up this morning. His wife is naturally anxious.’

  Leroy’s response wasn’t quite what she’d expected. He didn’t even affect concern but gave a loud, sceptical guffaw. ‘He’s a big boy,’ he said. ‘He can look after himself.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we? Do you have any idea where he might be?’

  ‘Not a clue.’ He wasn’t simply unconcerned – he was bored.

  ‘If he doesn’t turn up soon we’ll be in touch again, Mr Wilson.’

  ‘Yeah. Right.’ And he ended the call.

  ‘Well, Mike,’ she said, ‘we’d better just wait and see what happens.’

  Mike was focusing on manoeuvring his way through the traffic.

  ‘I’ll ring Mrs Glover again,’ she said after a few minutes. ‘See if Jadon’s reappeared.’

  But this time there was no answer from her phone either – not her landline or mobile. If her husband was still missing she wasn’t exactly waiting in for him. Or did this mean that he had turned up? Joanna gave Mike a swift, puzzled glance. He simply shrugged, grinned and focused on his driving. She tried Jeff and Scott’s numbers again. No answer from either of them.

  In fact, the three buddies were having a discussion in their offices in Hanley.

  Leroy was scowling. ‘So what the fuck’s going on, man?’