Joanna had had word that Kath Whalley was due out on the following Monday and she sat and thought. She wouldn’t say she was scared or nervous of the girl but she was very wary. She recognized the kind of mad evil that was at the core of the worst criminals. Kath was the wildest member of a criminal family notorious in the Staffordshire Moorlands. OK, not quite the Krays but they’d caused havoc in their day, the family business being burglary, handling stolen goods and a few other talents. But at some time some knobhead had introduced Kath, already bordering on psychopathy, to crack cocaine and it had made her even more dangerous and unpredictable. She had assaulted an old lady late at night on the streets of Leek, slashing at the terrified woman across the face – almost blinding her – all for twenty pounds, which had led to Joanna putting her away. She knew that Kath Whalley had sworn vengeance on her. She was not afraid of pain or the law. She was one of those who would always bully and survive. Joanna was prepared but she hadn’t told Matthew about her fear. Matthew was protective of her and would worry. He might hide it from her but it would show in a hundred little fussing ways: extra phone calls, him at the door if she was late home, maybe even a quiet word with Korpanski. Joanna smiled. She’d always thought of herself as a tough cookie, physically and mentally strong. There was something so sweet about Matthew fussing over her as though she was some sort of female wimp.
Besides …
There was the future to think about.
She might have assured CS Rush that she was not nervous but, knowing Kath Whalley as she did, she would have to be insane not to keep a watchful eye out for her movements. When Joanna had had her sent down almost ten years ago now Kath had sworn vengeance from her cell, from the dock and from the remand centre. The flame of hatred had burned bright. Joanna knew that she was the focus of that hatred. She had been the senior investigating officer who had largely been responsible for cleaning up Leek’s streets and ridding them of the pesky family who had been responsible for burglaries, assaults, car thefts, shoplifting and frauds. All nuisance crimes, until Kath’s vicious assault. That had changed everything. When the Whalleys had finally been sent down the town had practically cheered. And the crime rate had plummeted. But it had all come at a price.
And now they were out and Joanna knew that Kath Whalley would waste little time in returning to her previous career. She stood in the way.
She closed her eyes and pictured Kath, who was a bulky girl, heaving a meaty fist right into her face.
She stood up quickly. She couldn’t afford to let this image stick.
Back to the missing man.
2 p.m.
Supplied with Coke and crisps, a couple of Specials sat watching the CCTV videos from Sainsbury’s superstore. They were mind-numbingly boring: cars pulling up, trolleys laden with produce, children, pushchairs, baby carriers. Cars coming, cars going. People hurrying.
And then they saw the Shogun, sliding into view like a monstrous black whale, being driven carefully, pulling into a parking space. With the tinted windows it was impossible to see who was inside. Someone got out, looking around. It looked like Jadon Glover. They freeze-framed, noted the date and time. Wednesday 5 March, 7.01 p.m.
Dressed against the weather, he walked quickly away from the car, head down against driving rain. It was impossible to be absolutely certain but it would appear that, so far, this was the last known sighting of their man.
They leaned forward, mesmerized. There is always something chilling in this, a last known sighting. They watched as he strode out of the car park, away from the supermarket, until he turned left, out of their view and vanished. They looked at one another. There had seemed nothing untoward, nothing odd, furtive or hurried. According to the supermarket car park attendant this was a routine event – happened on a weekly basis. But this time he had vanished.
They watched for hours more, focusing on the Shogun, waiting to see if he returned. But he didn’t. There was no further sighting. Jadon Glover had parked his car, locked it, left it and vanished.
Last sighting 7.01 p.m., Wednesday 5 March.
They called Joanna in and watched for her reaction. She was as puzzled as they were. She watched to see if anyone was following Jadon but no. In the blustery weather, rain sheeting down, everyone seemed to be going about their business. No one appeared to be taking any notice of their missing man. No one had probably noticed the figure, dressed against the rain, hurrying away from Sainsbury’s. Everyone else was intent on getting on with their shopping and getting home.
Mike wandered over and they watched the sequence through again then looked at each other. ‘Seems like,’ Mike said slowly, ‘we ought to follow up his Wednesday evening itinerary. He obviously wasn’t doing the shopping or just getting the wine for his wife. He was using the supermarket car park so … he was headed somewhere within walking distance?’
‘Seems logical.’ Joanna produced the list of Jadon’s clients, finally emailed through, asterisks marking those he visited on Wednesday evenings. She had the feeling Jadon’s colleagues had dragged their feet as long as they’d dared. ‘Have the house-to-house team come up with anything?’
‘Not so far. I wonder, Jo …’ Korpanski hesitated.
They looked at one another. ‘Work or a mistress?’ she supplied and Korpanski nodded.
‘So …’ With a sinking heart she knew she must speak to CS Rush again, keep him up to date. Another trip along the corridor.
3 p.m.
‘Piercy.’ He looked up as she entered, his face unreadable. She would have found it easier if he had displayed some emotion, even something negative – impatience, irritation. Anything but this blank, bland expression that always left her wondering: what was he really thinking?
‘Sir, I thought …’ She felt awkward. With Colclough he’d always invited her to sit down and it had seemed a natural exchange. Here she felt wrong-footed and uncomfortable. Defensive.
‘Sir,’ she began again. Their eyes met. His hard and sharp as boiled peppermints, hers stormy and resentful.
‘The missing man,’ he prompted impatiently.
‘Still missing,’ she said. ‘It’s been more than five days now. We have the car and some CCTV footage taken from Sainsbury’s car park. He parks up and walks out of the supermarket, turning left towards the town. According to the car park attendant it was a regular spot for him. He’s not been picked up on any other cameras. We have a list of his clients and are checking up with them.’
‘OK,’ he said, ‘take me through them. Describe the area.’
‘If you turn left out of Sainsbury’s car park there’s a row of shops with flats. It’s called Mill Street. Jadon Glover had six clients who lived there.’
Rush appeared preoccupied.
‘If you then cross the road there are another thirteen families he visited.’ She wasn’t sure how familiar he was with the town and its geography and felt the need to explain. ‘They’re Victorian mill workers’ cottages, terraced, not great for parking – particularly a big SUV, and his last road ends in a cul-de-sac so it would make sense to park in the supermarket car park and walk on his rounds.’
He looked up. ‘Even though the weather was foul?’
She shrugged. ‘We’re kind of used to it round here. He was wearing a mac.’
‘And the rest of the area?’
‘Includes a derelict mill, sir. Big Mill.’
He frowned, so she enlarged, ‘Six storeys high. It covers a massive area. We’ve checked that out superficially but nothing so far.’ She hesitated. ‘And there’s a child’s play area too right in the middle of the streets he would have visited.’
‘Which are?’
‘He would have started with Wellington Place then gone up to Britannia Avenue. The child’s play area is at the end of Britannia Avenue. He would probably have moved to Barngate Street, cut through a passageway and finished at Nab Hill Avenue before returning back to his car.’
‘So your plan is …?’ Eyebrows raised. Waiting.
‘Speak to his work colleagues, focus on his Wednesday evening schedule. We’ll continue with the house to house in the area, find out which he visited and do our best to pin down precisely at what point he abandoned his normal schedule. Then we’ll look at other possibilities – his connection with Johnston and Pickles.’ She paused. ‘We’ve established a connection between Mr Karl Robertson, the CEO of Johnston and Pickles, and Mrs Glover, the missing man’s wife. We’ll check out his gym, his family, his clients. Look further into his financial affairs.’ Inside, she was cringing. None of this sounded exactly inspirational. Even to herself she sounded like an uninspired plod.
Rush looked almost bored.
And she was missing Colclough even more. He would have talked around the subject, questioned her about her instincts, trusted her gut feeling, but looking at Chief Superintendent Gabriel Rush’s stony face she couldn’t see him fishing.
She dismissed herself.
She detailed four teams of PCs to continue with the house-to-house search including a more through look at the mill while she and Mike focused on Glover’s business interests, not forgetting Johnston and Pickles. Why had he used that particular business? The simple geographical proximity of a real accountancy business? Was it nothing more than a name he had picked up through his wife’s connection with the CEO? Or was there something else behind it? Was it of any significance anyway? Or was she doing her usual – barking up the wrong tree?
5 p.m.
Using the list of clients forwarded to them the teams had split into three groups and fanned out from the supermarket car park. Paul Ruthin and Bridget Anderton took the Mill Street area, two floors of sixties flats over the row of shops. A team of officers combed Big Mill for a second time and Jason Spark and Dawn Critchlow took the four streets to the right of the main road. For Jason and Dawn this entailed a steep climb up to Wellington Place then along Britannia Avenue, which rounded the back of the mill. They then cut through the children’s play area to Barngate Street, ending up in Nab Hill Avenue which was a cul-de-sac to traffic though not to pedestrians.
Apart from the empty dereliction of the mill the area was densely populated with rows of terraced houses crammed together, higgledy piggledy, cars parked either side further narrowing the streets and little room for anything much bigger than a Smart car to squeeze through.
They would start with the list of names given them by Jadon’s colleagues but house-to-house enquiries could take days. Even weeks. And great care must be taken to collate and store the facts. You never knew in such extensive enquiries when you find a nugget of information. The trouble was knowing which facts were of significance. But Jason Spark, as he trotted along the streets, was nothing if not optimistic. Even if the weather had been foul that night surely someone would have seen something? Hopefully.
Joanna and Mike, in the meantime, were back at Johnston and Pickles and Karl Robertson was no more delighted to see them the second time around than he had been on the first.
‘Look,’ he said, practically gritting his teeth, ‘I’m a very busy man. These are not easy times, you know, for accountancy firms. Businesses going bust and the government wanting more and more information, accusations of aiding money laundering and tax evasion. Eve was a good beautician and a lovely girl. I liked her. Since they married she hasn’t been working and I don’t see her anymore. I don’t even know her husband. I’ve never even met him.’
‘Do you have any idea why he used your name, in particular, to pretend that he worked here?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’ He looked slightly flustered, his top lip sweating.
‘Do you recognize any of these names? Leroy Wilson?’
He shook his head.
‘Jeff Armitage?’
Another shake of the head.
‘Scott Dooley?’
Robertson frowned. ‘Dooley?’ He appeared to think for a minute. ‘Someone called Dooley used to work here as a janitor keeping the building sorted, hiring cleaners, being on call for the burglar alarm. That sort of thing.’
‘Does he still work here?’
Robertson’s response was slow. ‘He left … a year or two ago.’
‘Was there any reason why?’
‘I believe he was setting up his own business.’
He flicked his phone. ‘Simon, come in here a minute, will you?’
The youth appeared as though by magic, standing as smartly as an officer on parade.
‘Sir?’
‘Scott Dooley.’ There was an air of bemusement in his voice. ‘When did he leave?’
‘Eighteen months ago, sir – not long after I came.’
‘You don’t know where he is now?’
‘No, sir.’
Next Joanna showed them both the picture of Jadon Glover. Robertson looked at it impassively, Simon too. Both shrugged. ‘Sorry.’
‘OK,’ Joanna said, sensing a continuation of this blind avenue. Nothing here, at least nothing they were giving away. And yet, her copper’s nose was twitching. She didn’t believe that Glover’s choice of employer had been random. But was Scott Dooley really the connection?
They made their exit.
Joanna was slowly realizing the scale of the operation when she looked again at the list of Jadon Glover’s clients, the amounts loaned and the money handed over, not just on Wednesday nights but other nights of the week as well as the days. ‘He can’t have vanished,’ she said. ‘It isn’t possible. Someone knows where he is.’ She jabbed a finger randomly on the list of Glover’s Wednesday evening clients. ‘For my money one of these people.’
Scott, Leroy and Jeff were treading the same path, looking down the same list of their colleague’s clients. ‘Let’s just run through it.’
Leroy answered. ‘Six in Mill Street. Across the road, four in Wellington Place, three in Britannia Avenue, three in Barngate Street and another three in Nab Hill Avenue.’ He looked at Jeff, who appeared to be the figures man. ‘How many’s that?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘So one of these nineteen must know something.’
It was ironic that the police and Jadon’s colleagues were walking in each other’s footsteps. Almost on each other’s toes.
‘He visited the same clients every Wednesday?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So,’ Scott said, a hint of cruelty now in his voice, ‘that’s where we start looking.’
The other two didn’t argue. When Scott Dooley was in this sort of mood no one ever did.
6 p.m.
Having left Johnston and Pickles, Joanna and Mike hadn’t travelled far. ‘Well,’ she said, looking mischievously at Mike, ‘just look where we find ourselves.’
As they pulled up outside the offices she put a warning hand on his arm. ‘Go easy, Mike,’ she said. ‘We’ll learn more about their business if we tread very gently, act just a bit dumb. OK?’
‘OK.’ He grinned. ‘Shouldn’t be hard.’
They found Jadon’s three colleagues having their pow wow, which ceased immediately they opened the door.
They looked at the three of them: Scott, big, beefy and bright; Leroy, patently the bad boy of the business who looked like trouble; and Jeff, sneaky as a weasel. Yes, they had needed Jadon as a smooth front line operator to deal with the customers and give their business credence.
Joanna perched on the corner of a desk and crossed her legs. ‘Tell me,’ she said encouragingly, ‘how it worked after you left Johnston and Pickles.’
Scott regarded her with dark eyes pouched in fat. He hadn’t even twitched when she’d mentioned his previous employer.
‘It’s just to do with debt,’ he said, speaking reluctantly, the words dragging out. ‘I realized when I worked at Robinson’s place that people in debt are desperate.’
Korpanski butted in, his voice harsh and, in spite of Joanna’s warning, truculent. ‘So you prey on them.’
‘I don’t put it like that.’ Now it was Leroy who was taking the lead, defending their business
.
‘So how do you put it?’
Scott took over then, his voice cold and careful. ‘More like,’ he grinned, ‘giving them a helping hand. These are people going through hard times. Get it?’
‘How do they learn about you?’ Joanna was genuinely curious.
‘Website, word of mouth. Usual ways.’ Scott was nonchalant but his eyes were watchful. He was no fool. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘what’s this got to do with Jadon going AWOL?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ Joanna said.
There was an awkward silence, no one wanting to risk the next sentence.
‘So tell me,’ Joanna continued, ‘you don’t seem bothered by the fact that your mate, your colleague, your business partner, has gone missing?’
The three of them looked at one another, almost sheepish. Leroy’s big shoulders shrugged for them all. ‘He’s a big boy. He can look after himself.’
‘Sure about that?’
Scott put his pasty face near to hers as though sharing a confidence and they were the best of friends. ‘We’re more bothered by the fact that he’ll have been working all day as well as the evening and he’d have had close on a thousand quid on him in cash and now he’s missing.’ His expression was ugly, his meaty arms, well decorated with tattoos, tensing across the desk. ‘That’s money that rightly belongs to all of us.’ He looked around his mates. ‘Shared equally,’ he emphasized. ‘Get it?’
Joanna stood up, folded her arms and challenged them. ‘So what do you think’s happened to him? Where do you think he is? You really think he’s done a runner, abandoned home, colleagues, a good living, his wife, all for a thousand nicker? I don’t think so.’
The three guys looked foolishly at one another. Joanna couldn’t work out whether any one of them had an answer. She waited. Then she ran out of patience.
‘Come on,’ she prompted. ‘You must have discussed it. He hasn’t been seen since Wednesday evening when he was collecting money. It’s getting on for a week now. Where do you think he is?’
Again, no answer. They all looked steadfastly at the floor. Leroy’s eyes flickered up to her, across to Korpanski then quickly back to the floor. Scott’s jaw was clenched so tight she could hear his teeth grinding. And Jeff Armitage was frowning, his lips no more than a thin, bloodless scar.
Crooked Street Page 9
