by Helen Phifer
The others, who were all watching the exchange, laughed, glad that Stu wasn’t being totally kicked to one side and forgotten about. Brad stuck two fingers up at them all.
‘Come on, Adele, I’ll give you a grand old tour of Barrow. At least you won’t have to watch dead bodies getting cut up with me.’
Will turned to him. ‘No, but she will have to listen to your bollocks, which is probably worse. Take everything he says with a pinch of salt. He’s a bit of a storyteller – aren’t you, Brad?’
Brad shook his head. Turning, he grabbed a set of keys off the whiteboard. He walked off and Adele followed him. Will wanted some time on his own to sit down and think about what he was going to do.
__________________________
Adele had to walk fast to keep up with Brad.
‘Sorry, you don’t have to take me. I’m quite capable of collecting the CCTV myself.’
‘It’s okay, I’m bored anyway. What was it like?’
‘Crap. They always are. I hate them.’
‘You should have told Will you didn’t want to go.’
‘It’s my first day. I don’t want to wind him up.’
‘Suppose so; anyway, have you had your dinner yet? I’m starving. We can get some lunch. I know a right good greasy spoon that does cheap bacon butties.’
‘No, I haven’t eaten yet. Is there a sandwich shop on the way? I’d prefer a ham salad roll or chicken sandwich. My stomach’s still a bit off after the PM.’
‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that. There’s one next door but one to the greasy spoon. So did you find out anything of interest? Like who the killer is? Let me guess, it’s her nephew who is the sole beneficiary of her will or the man from the corner shop who had a bit of a crush on her.’
Adele looked at him to see if he was being serious, but he grinned at her and she felt her shoulders relax. He was just winding her up.
‘Ha-ha, very funny; come on, take me to get my dinner before I turn into a bear with a sore head. I don’t cope well when I’m hungry. Women my age need feeding on a regular basis.’
It was Brad’s turn to look at her and she started laughing. ‘Got ya. I’m not some pre-menstrual monster. However, I am hungry, so food first and I’ll not be too hard on you.’
They left the building by the rear exit, which led onto the car park full of an assortment of police vehicles and staff cars. Brad led them to a small Ford Focus that had seen better days. The key fob no longer worked and he had to unlock it with the key. She climbed in, brushing a pile of evidence bags and an empty cheese and onion crisp packet off the passenger seat onto the floor. This was a far cry from Will’s tidy BMW with the soft leather seats that smelt of his expensive aftershave.
‘Bit different from the boss’s ride, eh?’
Adele nodded. ‘Just a little.’
‘Did you know that Will’s loaded? He never talks about it, but his dad’s rich. He lives in some big, posh house up the lakes. Can’t understand why he comes to work at this shithole, to be honest. I know I wouldn’t if I had a rich dad; still, suppose you’d have to do something with your time and he is pretty good at his job.’
Adele hadn’t known about Will’s dad. There was no reason why she should. It was nothing to do with her and it made her feel uncomfortable to hear Brad discussing Will’s personal life so freely. It made her wonder what he’d be like down the pub after three pints. He’d probably sing like a canary, which made her decide to only tell him the bare minimum about her family life. She liked her privacy and didn’t believe in mixing work and her family together.
‘I’ve known Will a long time. We’ve never really discussed his private life.’
‘Do you know his wife, Annie, then?’
Adele shook her head.
‘You must have heard about her, though. She’s a bit of an urban legend around here. Everyone knows about her, the stuff that’s happened to her. She moved up to Windermere before I started down in Barrow.’
She shrugged, not wanting to get drawn into this conversation. She had heard all about the infamous Annie Graham and felt nothing but sorry for the horrors she’d had to endure.
‘Come on, I’m starving.’
He began to follow the marked police van, which was heading for the huge sliding gates. A loud siren filled the air as the van’s blue and red lights began to flash, making Adele jump.
‘Bloody hell, that’s loud when you’re so close up to it. I’d almost forgotten how bad it was. It’s been a long time since I was a response officer.’
Brad laughed. ‘Got to admit I almost shit myself then, and it’s not that long since I was the one driving to the IRs. I don’t miss it, though. I much prefer working in the office and going to more interesting stuff.’
The van screeched off, leaving them trailing behind it. Brad began to fill Adele in on the last six months of his life and his latest girlfriend – none of which she was remotely interested in. At least it wasn’t gossip about her new colleagues, so she pretended she was listening and nodded her head every couple of minutes.
After ten minutes Brad pulled up outside a café, which was indeed called the Greasy Spoon. Adele smiled. Next door but one was the bakery, which was much more her style. Brad jumped out and she followed. She needed something to eat now she’d got over the shock of the post-mortem. She bought a ham salad baguette, bag of crisps and bottle of water, taking them back to the car. She didn’t know how long Brad was going to be so she began to eat. She’d rather be finished before he came back with his greasy food, stinking the car out.
A battered old maroon transit van pulled up half on the kerb behind them, narrowly missing slamming into the back of the car. She stared into the rear-view mirror. If she hadn’t been so hungry and the car such a piece of shit, she’d have got out and taken their details. A tall, muscular man got out of the driver’s side and a skinny guy who looked as if he needed feeding up got out of the passenger side.
Adele didn’t know if it was the fact that they’d nearly rear-ended her without so much as an apology or her copper’s instinct kicking in, but there was something shifty about them. She made up her mind to get the registration when they drove off and check them out; she could run a PNC check and get the driver’s details. She couldn’t see the reg because it was almost parked up the arse of the Focus.
Brad eventually came out carrying a grease-spotted paper bag and a can of Coke. He got into the car and began munching on his huge bun. Adele looked in the mirror to see the two guys coming out of the bakery. They got back into the van and began reversing. Taking a pen from her pocket she wrote the reg down on the palm of her hand.
‘Do you know either of those two?’
Brad looked in the rear-view mirror then shook his head. ‘Why?’
‘Just wondered. I wasn’t too keen on the way the driver almost rear-ended us.’
He laughed. ‘Adele, looking at this car makes me want to rear-end it and I’m driving it, not to mention every criminal in the area knows this is an unmarked police car. Whatever you do, don’t take it personally; some people just hate the police and what we stand for in general. Some of the crooks from around here can even reel off the number plates to you for all the plain cars. With brains like that it amazes me how they’re not bankers instead of thieves.’
‘Same thing, isn’t it? Well, almost.’ She smiled and carried on eating her lunch. She’d check it out when she got back to the station. Call it her internal radar, but something wasn’t right with the occupants of that van. She and Brad ate the rest of their lunch in silence, wiping their hands on some tissues Adele pulled out of her handbag and shared between them.
‘Right, where to first?’
She began to list the shops she needed to visit in the area of the house where the body had been found. If she was going to be able to switch off when she went home tonight, she needed to focus and stop thinking about Pauline Cook as a person, which was pretty hard to do. Instead she needed to concentrate on the cold, hard facts. It
took a bit of getting used to, but once she got into that mindset she found it highly productive. It was the getting into that was the difficult part, when every time she closed her eyes she saw a vision of Pauline’s cold, dead body on the steel table in the mortuary.
Chapter Nine
When Wally and Stevie had arrived back at the rundown auction house there had been an auction in mid flow. Unable to unload the van straight away, Stevie had gone to the toilet and Wally had gone inside to watch. Jacko was holding up the contents of the box of circus stuff they’d found in the last house and Wally had watched with interest. If he’d had enough money he would have bought it all himself.
There were a couple of people bidding on it: a woman in her forties and a grey-haired man with a camera around his neck. The woman shook her head at twenty pounds, but the man nodded. Jacko had hit the gavel on the stand. ‘Sold.’ The man had looked happy with his purchase and Wally hadn’t realised that he’d been staring at him until he’d turned around and smiled. Wally nodded then turned to go and empty the van. He wasn’t a people person. He never had been. As he was lifting a box out he turned and saw the guy standing right next to him.
‘Excuse me, sorry to bother you. Do you do the house clearances?’
Wally nodded.
‘Well, I just bought the box of circus stuff and was wondering if you remembered what was in it?’
He stared at the man, wondering what he was talking about.
‘Sorry, let me explain myself better. I saw the advert in the paper for the auction and knew I had to come and see it for myself. It’s been such a long time since I saw this stuff. It used to belong to a friend of mine.’
Wally felt his stomach begin to churn.
‘There was a black and white clown costume that matched the black ruffle and wig. Did you see it when you cleared the house? You see, it’s sentimental and I’d really like to find it.’
‘I didn’t see any costume, mister. Just the stuff in the box; that’s it.’
Wally turned away, trying not to betray the panic that was threatening to take over. Could the man tell he was lying? How can he know you’re lying, Walter? You need to stop being so paranoid all the time. You are your own worst enemy.
‘Oh, that’s a shame. Never mind. Sorry to have bothered you.’
The man tucked the box under his arm and walked away. Wally felt a hand slap the back of his head.
‘Come on, you goon, don’t you go upsetting the customers. Let’s get this van emptied and we can go home.’
Stevie jumped into the back of the van and began to throw the boxes at him, which Wally carried inside the hall and stacked.
As Stevie pulled up outside Wally’s flat he nodded at him. Walter looked back at his dump of a flat and wondered if he really wanted to go back inside on his own.
‘Look, thanks for today. You didn’t have to buy my breakfast and I appreciate it. Things have been a bit tough lately.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sick of looking at you. Go spend your wages; get yourself some new clothes, Wally, and feed yourself. Go buy some food. I’ll let you know if Jacko has any work on next week.’
He nodded. ‘I will.’
Stevie drove off and Wally lifted a hand to wave at him. He turned and walked back to the communal front door. As he opened it the strong smell of spices and curry powder hit his nostrils once more – only this time his stomach didn’t groan. He’d eaten more today than he had in the past three.
All day his mind kept having flashbacks to last night. He didn’t think Stevie would have been so kind to him if he’d known what he’d done. No one would ever believe that it was him; he didn’t look like your stereotypical killer. Then again, neither had Ted Bundy, and look at how many women he’d killed; but he’d done it for sexual gratification and that wasn’t why Wally had done it. If he wanted to whack off he could do it with the latest copy of Penthouse – not over some middle-aged woman’s dead body.
No, he was doing it for the right reasons; because the suit had told him to. It was talking to him. Not directly; he wasn’t completely crazy. But it was telling what he had to do and he couldn’t argue with it because it was right. He wondered what his community psychiatric nurse would say if he told him the suit was controlling him. He’d probably section him and he didn’t want to go back to the hospital. He couldn’t watch his horror films in there.
As he went into his dingy flat he could hear the couple in the flat above him arguing through the muffled beat of the music from the flat opposite. He wondered why they even bothered being together. They argued all the time. They would fight, throw things around and slam doors until one of them left. The other would chase them and drag them back, where they’d cry and beg each other’s forgiveness until the next time, which by Walter’s reckoning was usually every two days. Lately they were getting louder, which meant the music from next door got louder as they tried to drown out the sound of the fighting.
Some day he would grow a pair of balls and march up there to tell them to fuck off and pack it in. What would they do if he knocked on the door wearing his suit? Today, however, wasn’t that day. Instead he shut and bolted his door, then walked into his bedroom and turned his knackered old CD player on. He turned it up until his music drowned out the sound of next door’s and he couldn’t hear the words of the arguing couple above him. He threw himself onto his bed. They’d worked pretty hard today and he needed some sleep. Not that he’d get much in this shithole. Still, he lay on his side and closed his eyes, pulling one of his pillows over his head to try and muffle some of the racket.
When he woke up it was dark and quiet, ever so quiet. The music had stopped; so had the couple upstairs. He lay there savouring the peace and quiet until he heard sirens in the distance. His stomach began to churn. What if they were coming for him? What if they knew what he’d done? He pushed himself up on his elbows. The sirens got louder and he got off the bed to peer out of the window through the yellow, stained net curtain. A police van screeched into the street and he felt his legs turn to jelly. They knew; they bloody well knew. It was all over before he’d even got the chance to begin.
Dropping the curtain he stepped away from the window. Thank God he had no lights on so they wouldn’t be able to see inside. Panicking, he looked around for a hiding place. He could hide in the bathroom. They’d need a warrant to come inside, wouldn’t they? The van came to a halt outside the front of the house and Wally felt every morsel of food he’d eaten earlier on lying heavy in his stomach. His hands were shaking and he was beginning to sweat.
The van doors opened and two big coppers jumped out, slamming them shut. The noise was so loud he thought they were coming straight in for him and he jumped onto the bed, pulling his duvet over him. The front door slammed open and he waited for them to put his door in with the big red metal battering ram any second. Only they didn’t. The heavy footsteps ran straight past his door to the stairs and up to the second floor. The relief that washed over him was like a tidal wave. Someone must have reported the arguing couple; it was about time really. He could hear the voices of the coppers as they hammered on the door above him.
‘Open the door! Police.’
There was nothing but silence from the flat above him and he was tempted to stick his head out of the front door and shout at them they were too fucking late, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Thinking they would leave because there was no one in he turned on his side to go back to sleep. Another van screeched to a halt behind the first and more coppers ran into the communal area.
Wally began to snigger under his duvet. How many fucking coppers does it take to knock on a door? An almighty crack made him jump up. It was closely followed by another three and the sound of splintering wood. Shit, they’re actually breaking down the door. Hope they haven’t got the wrong flat. Would it surprise you if they had? he said to no one and shook his head. Actually, it wouldn’t. It had been in the paper the other year about them putting the wrong door through on a d
rugs raid, all brawn and no brains.
The door gave and suddenly there was the sound of footsteps racing around above his head. More sirens entered the street and he climbed out of bed. Surely not? An ambulance pulled up this time and he wondered what the hell had gone on upstairs and how he’d missed it. He watched as two paramedics carrying huge bags ran past his window and came through the front door. He was dying to go outside and ask someone what had happened, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want them to know who he was or why he was asking.
He listened to the sound of the voices above him shouting. There was one guy who must have taken charge because he was shouting out orders at the others. Crap, what the fuck had happened? As he was staring out of the window he saw the woman from the flat above hovering around by the ambulance. There was some shouting as the loud copper came running down the stairs and out of the front door towards her. She lifted up her hand and Wally watched in horror. Clasped in it was a huge butcher’s knife. A red dot appeared on her chest. Oh my God, they’re going to taser the bitch.
More shouting and the woman who was standing waving the knife around fell to the floor, twitching as the barbs from the taser were fired straight into her. Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on? Wally felt as if he was watching some American television show, not staring out of his grimy flat window on a quiet street in Barrow town centre. All chaos broke loose then. There were police everywhere and another ambulance entered the street.
Wally felt his legs give way as he sat back down on his bed. Bollocks, they would come knocking and want his name. What if they could sense he was trouble and then arrested him, just in case he’d done something wrong? Some coppers had a nose for this kind of stuff. He lay down, pulled the duvet back across himself and decided he’d ignore the door if they knocked. That way he wouldn’t have to talk to any of the nosy bastards and he wouldn’t give himself away.
