Broken Dreams

by Nick Quantrill

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘Not best pleased. She was a good earner for him by all accounts. He was pleased to have her on his books. When we told him who we were, he mentioned there was one man who hung about with Donna on a regular basis.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Just a description.’

  Don took a note of it. ‘I’ll ask Jeremy if he’s interested in taking a look.’ He stopped writing and looked at me. ‘It’s costing us a fortune.’

  I knew Don was right, but it had gone too far now. We needed some answers. I changed the subject and told Don about last night.

  ‘I assume you’ve heard nothing from Murdoch?’

  I shook my head. I’d tried him again from Whitby but the calls had gone straight to voicemail. ‘I did get to meet with Jennifer Murdoch’s special friend, Nose. He’s an estate agent called Steve Taylor.’ I screwed up the sandwich wrapper.

  ‘Speaking of which, I’m going to have a word with him. I’ll leave you in peace.’

  The office of Taylor & Co Estate Agents was as I expected; light, airy and very sleek. I closed the door behind me and glanced around at the boards on the wall. It appeared Taylor had a substantial portfolio of property to sell around the city, including several new commercial and private properties. I noted a young couple looking at the board displaying what they referred to as ‘ideal starter homes.’ The way prices had crashed, I’d sold my house at the right time. I couldn’t complain; my money was sat in a low-interest, but safe account. It was security while I figured out what I wanted to do.

  ‘Can I help?’ I turned to look at the young woman stood next to me. She was wearing a stiff smile and the staff uniform blouse and jacket. I was glad I was self-employed. She closed her laptop down and walked across the room to me. ‘My name’s Melanie and I deal with all our commercial property.’

  I nodded, offered my hand and told her the false name I’d been supplied with by Coleman the previous day. ‘I actually met Mr Taylor at a function last night. I was hoping to speak to him if at all possible.’

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Taylor’s tied up at the moment. I’m sure I can assist you in his absence.’

  I tried not to laugh at the mental picture it conjured up. ‘He did say to ask for him personally.’

  I watched her walk back to her desk and make a call. Her eyes didn’t leave mine. I’d put her nose out of joint but it couldn’t be helped. She said he’d be with me in a minute and left me to browse the property boards.

  I was looking at a property on Sutton Fields, close to where Briggs’s premises where situated. I turned around when I heard Taylor call my name. It took a second for me to remember I was Mr Smith, but I fixed a smile on my face and turned to greet him. He shook my hand and showed me through to his office, stopping only to ask his assistant to bring us a fresh pot of coffee. His office was small but perfectly formed, with the sleek office furniture complementing his wafer-thin laptop. I guessed he was in his late thirties, but he was wearing it well. It was dangerous to judge people on appearance, but if you’d asked me to guess his profession, estate agent would have been near the top of the list.

  We exchanged pleasantries until the woman returned with coffee. He asked her to close the door on her way out.

  ‘My daughter’ he said by way of explanation. ‘Thankfully I’m divorced from her mother.’

  ‘Keeping it in the family, I see.’

  He laughed and wagged a jokey finger at me. ‘Don’t be getting any ideas.’

  I held my hands up to concede the point. ‘Never crossed my mind.’

  He leant back in his chair and smiled at me. ‘Great night, wasn’t it.’

  I shrugged, trying to play it cool. ‘We certainly enjoyed ourselves. It was our first time, so we’ll get into it, I’m sure.’

  ‘I hope so. That wife of yours is a bit special.’

  I resisted the urge to hit the man and fixed a smile back on my face. ‘She’s certainly that.’

  ‘I hope I’m afforded the opportunity to find out.’

  ‘All in good time.’

  He poured me a coffee in a Taylor & Co Estate Agents mug. ‘Nice touch.’

  ‘Thanks. We like to try.’ He put my business card on his desk. ‘I assume you’ve come for some help in finding premises?’

  I took one of my real business cards out of my wallet. ‘Not quite.’

  Taylor looked like he was going to be sick before composing himself. ‘If it’s money you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place. Besides, I’ve done nothing I’m ashamed of.’

  I didn’t say anything. The idea he was skint was interesting, as I knew he’d been throwing money about in Salford’s casino.

  ‘What do you want?’ he repeated.

  ‘Jennifer Murdoch.’

  ‘Don’t know her.’

  He turned away from me. A sure sign he was lying.

  ‘I think you do know her. I’m investigating her murder.’

  ‘I knew you weren’t all you made out to be.’ He leant forward. ‘I bet she isn’t even your wife. A woman like that wouldn’t look twice at you.’

  ‘Jennifer Murdoch.’ I took a deep breath and ignored his attempts to wind me up. ‘She was murdered.’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t know the woman.’

  ‘Cut the shit. The Murdoch’s were members of your little club.’

  Taylor shrugged and sighed. ‘I barely knew her. We aren’t there to talk.’

  ‘What about her husband?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Do you know him better?’

  ‘We’re essentially in the same line of business. It gave us something in common and yes, we’ve done some work together in the past.’

  ‘What kind of work?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  I didn’t push it. It was probable they were acquainted but I’d find out more when I spoke to Murdoch.

  ‘So you were friendlier with him?’

  ‘That’s correct. I’m not denying she was an attractive woman, but she wasn’t really my cup of tea.’

  ‘Why did you socialise with her so much, then?’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘You were regulars at Rischio, the casino.’

  ‘I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but you’re totally wrong.’

  I laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’ I waited for him to continue.

  Don had taught me silence was oppressive. Someone always broke it and it wasn’t going to be me.

  He slumped back in his chair and appeared to be thinking. ‘So what if I was friendly with the woman? It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘You were having an affair with her’ I said, more a statement than a question. Taylor said nothing, so I continued. ‘If you don’t talk to me, it’ll be the police knocking on your door, not just me.’ I leant forward. ‘And I don’t give a shit about the amount of drugs you’re doing.’

  Taylor looked beaten. I hammered the point home. ‘It’s all on the casino’s CCTV and the barmen have told me all about it. Your reputation precedes you.’

  ‘I wanted her to leave her husband’ he said. ‘He had no idea what he had. She was special.’

  It seemed like I’d finally found someone who did have a good word for her. ‘How long had the affair been going on for?’

  Taylor sat back in his chair, looking like I’d relieved him of a large burden. ‘A few months. I met her through her husband, at some function or other and it went from there. The chance to join their club made it easier for us, I suppose.’

  ‘And you didn’t mind that?’

  ‘I hated it.’

  I nodded. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that situation either. ‘How were you funding your spending at the casino? You said you’ve got no money.’

  ‘Jennifer paid.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t like it, but she said she had the money.’

  ‘Where did she get it from?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Yo
u didn’t ask?’

  ‘Why would I? She had a good job, her husband is well off. I assumed she was alright for money.’

  ‘She owed a lot of money.’

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘What about her husband?’ I asked. ‘What was their marriage like?’

  ‘We never spoke about it. It was off-limits.’

  Changing the subject, I asked who bought the drugs.

  ‘She did. In the club.’

  ‘Sure?’

  He nodded. I had no idea if he was telling the truth or not.

  ‘What about Frank Salford?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Frank Salford.’ I didn’t tell him who he was.

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  He looked genuinely confused. ‘Never heard of him.’ He looked like he was on the verge of tears, the confident facade long gone. ‘Look, I didn’t kill her.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘Can I come in?’ I asked.

  Lisa Day leant on the open door. She wasn’t surprised to see me. I followed her into the house and sat down in the front-room.

  I got to the point. ‘Why did you lie to us, Lisa?’ She didn’t respond. I watched her hunt around the room for her cigarettes. Finding them, she lit one up. ‘Why did you tell Donna we were coming to see her?’

  ‘She’s my friend’ Lisa eventually said.

  ‘And you’ve always been in touch with her?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Look, I’ve not come here to have a go at you. I’m trying to do my job, which is to find her for her mother. That’s all.’

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  I looked her in the eye. ‘Yes you can. I know you can help me. All I want to do is talk to her.’

  ‘If you can’t give me an address, a phone number will do.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Could you pass my number on to her, then?’ I asked. ‘Tell her who I am and why I want to speak to her?’

  ‘Donna said she doesn’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘Have you told her that her mother’s dying?’

  She wiped her nose and nodded. ‘She knows.’

  ‘Does she want to talk to her?’

  ‘No.’

  Lisa was upset, so I went back to the beginning. ‘Why did Donna leave Hull? Was it because she was pregnant?’ She said nothing, so I continued. ‘You’ve got to help me here, Lisa, because I don’t understand it. I know her kid is the right age to tie in with her leaving. So what if she was pregnant? She was old enough to have a kid, wasn’t she? It can’t have been the end of the world?’

  ‘She had to leave’ Lisa eventually told me. ‘The pressure was too much for her.’

  I thought about Donna’s boyfriend. ‘Tim wanted her to settle down?’

  ‘He would have married her and bought them a house, but it wasn’t for Donna. She didn’t want all that.’

  ‘Does he know he’s got a daughter?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  What a mess. ‘Did her parents know?’

  ‘No. Her dad would have hit the roof.’

  ‘They didn’t see eye to eye, did they?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Surely they’d have helped with the baby?’

  ‘Her father wouldn’t have allowed it. He was quite strict on what she could do.’

  ‘Did she tell them she was pregnant?’

  ‘She wouldn’t.’

  ‘What happened after she left?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was a long time ago. What’s happened since?’

  ‘She’s moved about a bit but hasn’t really settled anywhere. I don’t really know. We don’t talk about it.’

  ‘Maybe she wants to come home?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘She can come home, you know. Nobody’s angry with her.’

  ‘I know.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘I’ve told her loads of times.’

  ‘Her father is long gone. She’s got no reason to be angry with her mother, has she?’

  Lisa looked away and shook her head, but I wasn’t convinced. I knew her father dominated the household but she had no reason I knew of to harbour any bitterness towards her mother. It didn’t make sense. I could understand her parents feeling disappointed she was having a child so young. It was natural for them to want a better life for their children. ‘There’s more to this, isn’t there, Lisa? Something you’re not telling me. It might not have been ideal, but she was old enough to have a child if she wanted. I stood up.

  ‘Why did her father really disown her?’

  She composed herself and nodded. ‘Jimmy’ she eventually said to me.

  ‘Jimmy?’

  ‘Donna’s brother.’

  The only brother I knew of was Gary, and we’d already spoken to him.

  ‘He died. Drugs.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Years ago. Me and Donna were only kids ourselves. We didn’t really understand what was happening.’

  It was starting to make some sense. I finally felt like I was beginning to get a grip on the Platt family.

  ‘You won’t tell Donna's mum about this, will you?’ she asked me.

  I looked around the bar and found Derek sat in the same corner we’d shared on my previous visit. I’d struck lucky, though I suspected this was where he spent a lot of his time. Walking towards him, I paid no attention this time to the Hull FC photographs. I saw him, sat with a man, draining the last of his drink. I gave the man a five pound note and told him I needed a private word with Derek. Reluctantly, he disappeared to the bar and didn’t come back.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Jimmy?’ I asked him.

  Derek looked shocked and took his time before asking me how I knew about his nephew’s death.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Matters to me.’

  ‘It’s my job to find things out. I’m asking you to save your sister the bother.’ I repeated the question. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Jimmy?’

  ‘Because it’s none of your business.’

  ‘Wrong, Derek. If you want me to find to Donna, I need to know everything about her life, and I’d say her brother dying was pretty important.’

  He looked up. ‘Why don’t you buy us a drink, toast his memory.’

  I wasn’t in the mood for messing around. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Drugs, Joe. The drugs killed him.’

  ‘Overdose?’

  Derek nodded. ‘June 1986. He was eighteen years old. That’s all; eighteen years old. It’s no age to die.’

  I agreed. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Jimmy wasn’t a bad lad really. He never got the opportunities. Truth to be told, he wasn’t too good at school, no shame in it, some people just aren’t. He was always in trouble, disrupting the class and then it became fighting and bullying. He was thrown out at fifteen without sitting any exams.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Nothing. There wasn’t much doing for the likes of Jimmy. At least in my day you could go to sea and you had a chance of making some sort of life for yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘Jimmy never stood a chance.’

  ‘How did he get into the drugs?’

  ‘Started hanging around with the wrong crowd. Simple as that. He had far too much time on his hands and he started bothering people. His gang would hang around the shops, causing trouble and then the drugs started. First off it was smoking stuff in his bedroom and then it got out of control. It didn’t take long for him to move into some cesspit or other with his friends and before we knew it, it was heroin.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘He wasn’t the first youngster we knew to get into it. We knew the signs when we saw them.’

  ‘How did Ron and Maria react?’

  ‘How do you think? It destroyed them to watch him slowly kill himself, but there was nothing they could for him.’

  ‘What did they try?’

  ‘They didn’t know what
to do for the best. Neither did I, to tell you the truth. They tried stopping his money, giving him money, keeping him locked in the house, but none of it worked.’

  ‘Wasn’t there people they could ask for help, professionals?’

  ‘Not really in those days. Nobody wanted to know people like Jimmy back then. He was an embarrassment.’

  ‘Did he try to clean up?’

  ‘No. Not at all. I think the thing was, he liked it. He had nothing else to live for, so he learnt to enjoy what he had. Like we all do, I suppose.’

  ‘But he didn’t make it.’

  Derek shook his head. ‘He died in what you’d call a squat, a few streets away from his proper home. He overdosed and his so called friends didn’t even tell anyone for nearly two days. It was only when Maria went looking for him, they did something about it.’

  ‘Did Maria see him?’

  ‘No. She knew what’d happened but it was Ron and me who went into the place and found him.’

  I felt terrible for dredging up the bad memories, but I had to continue. ‘How did Donna react?’

  ‘She was still a kid, so I don’t think she really understood what had happened to her brother.’

  ‘What about Gary?’

  ‘He’s a bit older than Donna, so he understood it all a bit better. He used to worship Jimmy and it broke his heart to see him acting like he was. I think he learnt from what happened to his brother, especially as he got older, but he was always angry with his dad for not doing more. It was unfair, but how do you tell a teenager that? Ron could never do well enough in his eyes. You could say Ron lost both his sons at that point.’

  I understood why he’d retreated further into himself as time passed. ‘How about Donna? I assume it changed his relationship with her?’

  ‘I suppose it explains why he behaved like he did with her.’

  He was probably right. I had nothing more to ask, so I stood up, ready to leave but turned back to him. ‘You went to the casino because you know Salford?’

  ‘I can’t just sit here, doing nothing. I’m not scared of Frank Salford. I’ve known him for years. He’s always thought he could rule by fear, but he’s not frightening me off. I didn’t like Donna singing in his clubs and if he knows anything that might help us find her, I want him to tell me.’