by David Evans
Stocks recovered his composure somewhat, but looked puzzled. “What are you going on about?” He turned to Ormerod. “I think it’s him has been on drugs.”
“You don’t quite get it, do you?” Strong continued. “We’ve certainly got enough with our other evidence to hold onto them for forty-eight hours, maybe even seventy-two with a magistrate’s help. I think they’d be pretty pissed off after that length of time experiencing our hospitality. Then, at the end of the day, I suppose they’d know that we wouldn’t have enough to charge them. They’d see it as your word against theirs and there’d be two, maybe three of them against one of you. We’d have to let them go.” He shifted in his seat and brought his right foot up to rest on his left knee. “Now, I don’t know about you, DC Ormerod, but I’d be a bit upset if I thought that someone had caused me to be locked up unnecessarily for a few days. And we all know how upset characters like Fitzpatrick and Jubb can get … not to mention their boss, Frank Carr.”
“You wouldn’t?”
Strong resumed his normal seated position. “Well, of course I wouldn’t do anything like that on purpose, Kenny, but you know how people can easily get the wrong impression, especially if they’re not too bright like these two. I mean, you’re an intelligent man, you can see how that might happen.” He let the thought linger. He could see Stocks disseminating what he’d just been told before continuing to pile on the pressure. “You see, when this evidence came to light, I thought to myself, I could progress this investigation in one of two ways. I could pull in these two ‘Herberts’ and let them believe you’d grassed them up. Once that thought dawned on them, they’d tell me what you were up to in Williams’ flat because, let’s face it, they certainly wouldn’t feel as though they owed you anything. Or, I thought, poor old Kenny, he’s already had a good hiding, let’s see if I can do him a favour. As I said before, if you don’t want to make a complaint, well, that’s fine by me, it saves us a lot of unnecessary paperwork. But in return for helping you out, you’ve really got to help me.”
A look of realisation spread over Stocks face and Strong decided it was time to press home his advantage. “Oh, did I mention Frank Carr? We know you did work for him. So come on, tell us the real reason you broke into Williams’ flat.”
Stocks sank back into his pillows. “Okay, okay,” he said.
Over the next twenty minutes or so, they took a statement from him, detailing how he was employed by Frank Carr to retrieve ‘goods to the value of’ from defaulters of his money lending business. Fred Williams still had an outstanding debt and hadn’t made contact to make any payments for over a week. Fitzpatrick had called round to remind Williams but got no answer. Stocks broke in as he already stated, discovering Williams’ body. He reported back to Carr who was upset that he was left with a bad debt. When Williams’ body was eventually found, Stocks had had a long time to remember every detail of his visit and knew it would only be a short time before the police discovered his prints in the flat and think the worst. He decided to clear off for a while, didn’t say anything to anyone, but Carr found out where he was and sent the boys round to make sure he kept quiet about the connection with him.
“But I swear to you,” he concluded, “I never heard of that box and nobody ever mentioned it to me. Mr Carr just wanted me to recover something to pay off Williams’ debt. Honest.”
When Strong and Ormerod returned to the car and switched their mobile phones back on, they discovered all hell had broken loose back in Wakefield. CID had been called to investigate reports of a woman having been attacked in her own home, Stainmore informed Strong. She was still in A & E but the prognosis wasn’t promising. DCI Cunningham had taken charge and was treating it as a case of attempted murder.
“Do we know the victim, Kelly?” Strong asked.
“Brace yourself for this one, guv,” she said. “It’s Rosie Hudson.”
Ormerod was driving and they were joining the northern extension of the M1 from the A1 when Strong’s mobile rang. It was Souter.
“Where the hell have you been?” Strong barked. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I know, I’ve seen the results.”
Ormerod shot Strong a puzzled glance, prompting Strong to put a hand up in response.
“I’m sorry about that, Col, but I had to produce something and I did try and keep it circumspect.”
“A bit of warning would have been nice,” Strong said in low tones.
“All right, mate, point taken. Listen, can you talk?”
“Not really.”
“All right, just give me a yes or no. I presume you’re investigating this attack on Rosie Hudson?”
“Not sure. Why?”
“She was your mate Billy Montgomery’s bird, wasn’t she?”
“So I believe.”
“Any connection with your murder case, then?”
“Too early to say. But, my turn, did you find out what I asked you last week?”
“I think I might have something interesting for you.”
“Where are you now?”
“At the office.”
“Well don’t disappear. I’ll talk to you later.”
“See you, Col.”
During the rest of the drive down the M1, Strong received two more calls, one from Cunningham and one more from Stainmore. Cunningham wanted him to return to Wood Street and brief him on what he knew of the victim, as he called her, her relationship with Billy Montgomery and how significant they had been in the Williams’ inquiry. Stainmore was at Pinderfields where Rosie had been found to have an intra-cranial bleed caused by the impact to the back of her head. They were trying to stabilise her prior to operating to relieve the pressure but the medical staff were pessimistic. It seemed she had a pre-existing weakness. Much as he disliked hospitals, and he’d spent enough time in them over the past week, he felt he had to visit Rosie himself. He told Ormerod to drive him there first, Cunningham could wait.
Stainmore met Strong by the department entrance and brought him up to date with Rosie’s medical condition. She had just been taken up to theatre. Her sister was waiting anxiously in the relative’s room. He asked Stainmore to stay with her and see if she could shed any light on why Rosie had been attacked. In the meantime, he had to return to Wood Street and see the Enforcer.
Cunningham was leaning against a desk in the incident room discussing some notes with Malcolm Atkinson when Strong and Ormerod turned up.
“Gentlemen,” Cunningham addressed the pair. “Before you acquaint yourselves with today’s developments, how was our friend Mr Stocks?”
Strong related what they’d learned from their visit to Scarborough.
“Okay, we’ll come back to that later,” Cunningham said, handing him the notes he had been discussing with Atkinson when they had arrived. “In the meantime, witness statement from Olive Swithenbank, next door neighbour who discovered the victim.”
Strong began to read the text.
“Nothing much of interest,” Cunningham considered. “But it would appear the attacker scarpered out the window to the rear when the old dear disturbed him. Kirkland and Darby are out with uniform conducting door-to-door to see if anyone saw him leave through the back gardens. One thing though, forensics got some fibres from the window stay where he’d obviously snagged his clothes on the way out. I’ve asked them to rush that through.”
“It’d be interesting if we get a match with the fibres from the back of Williams’ jacket,” Strong put forward.
“It would, wouldn’t it? Anyway, I’d like a word in my office, Colin,” Cunningham said, and strode off.
Strong closed the door and sat opposite the DCI once again.
“I’ve spoken to Jim Matheson …” Cunningham began awkwardly. “and he’s agreed to let things lie for now.” He held up a hand. “I said we would need time to investigate these attacks fully.”
“Appreciate th
at,” Strong replied in a conciliatory tone.
“So far, nothing has come up during Carr’s questioning about those photos. They’re still talking to him about the drugs. His lad, Barry, seems to have gone to ground. They’re still trying to track him down. But he’s happy for one of our team to speak to him about Williams and Stocks again.”
“Okay, I’ll arrange that.”
“What I want to know though,” Cunningham went on, “is how do Montgomery and Rosemary Hudson fit in with Williams?”
Over the course of the next half hour, Strong and Cunningham discussed the connections between Fred Williams, known burglar, working in partnership with Jake Hinchcliffe, and Billy Montgomery, known for handling stolen goods. Items from the spate of burglaries had been found at both men’s addresses. Strong also outlined what Hinchcliffe’s mother had told him about one further excursion by her son and Williams on December 6th. There had been no reports of any likely incident throughout West Yorkshire on that night, leading Strong to suspect that one possible reason could be that whoever the victim was might have had something stolen he’d rather not have the police know about.
“The bloody trophy case, you mean,” Cunningham said, resignedly.
“It would fit, sir,” Strong replied. “And you did suggest yourself that it may have come from another burglary. So, now we’re left with the situation that all three men are no longer alive to question and Rosie Hudson, Montgomery’s partner is in a serious condition.”
“There were no signs of a forced entry this morning,” Cunningham offered. “Which suggests she knew her visitor.”
Strong then recounted his telephone call with Rosie earlier that morning and how she failed to turn up as arranged. He felt frustrated that he didn’t follow that up but he had to visit Stocks in Scarborough.
“What was it you said to me yesterday, twenty-twenty hindsight is fantastic,” Cunningham said. “In any event, at least we’ve got something positive from your interview and, at long last, something for us to build on against that little shit, Carr, regardless of any Drugs Squad investigation.”
Their meeting drew to a close with Cunningham arranging a briefing for the team next morning at eight.
53
Souter answered his mobile on the third ring.
“Right, we need to talk!” Strong said, as he made his way down Wood Street.
“Fancy a pint?”
“It’ll take more than a pint,” Strong warned.
“What about the Black Rock in half-an-hour?”
“No. Too full of the wrong types.”
“CID, you mean. So where do you suggest?”
“How about The Eagle on Flanshaw Lane?”
“Okay, thirty minutes.”
Strong ended the call as he approached the newspaper vendor who seemed to have been a permanent fixture on the street corner for as long as he could remember.
“Keeping you busy, Mr Strong?” the old man asked.
“Crime, it’s a growth industry, Stan,” Strong quipped.
“Ah, well, there’s only one answer … nationalisation … it’d never pay then.”
Strong smiled politely as he paid for a copy of the evening paper. Someone must have fed him that line years ago and he’d flogged it to death ever since. He walked away and opened up the front page then stopped in his tracks. The lead item was, as he thought it would be, the attack on Rosie Hudson but he was angry, though not surprised, at the numerous references to her dubious past life. He folded it back up, slid it into his coat pocket and returned to the station to collect his car.
Strong didn’t have time to pay for his pint before Souter entered The Eagle. He ordered another John Smith’s for Souter and the pair took their drinks to a table near the window. Strong made a point of slapping the evening paper down on the table alongside their pints, headlines clearly visible.
Souter countered the unspoken criticism. “Not my story, Col.”
“I don’t give a shit. It’s damaging. We rely on information flowing from the public to help us solve cases like this. When they find out the victim’s line of work, even though it was well in the past, like Rosie, they can’t be bothered. They’ll say she asked for it.” Strong paused to take the first welcome mouthfuls from his pint.
A voice interrupted his enjoyment, calling out to the pair of them, “Well, fuck me, if it in’t dynamic duo!”
Strong looked up to see a broad grin splitting the round, bald, bespectacled head of the last of three men in the process of leaving the pub. “Bob, Colin, you ‘an’t changed a bit,” he continued. “Not like me, eh?” With that, he slapped both hands onto the large expanse of stomach trying to burst free from the constraints of a white tee shirt.
Many a brewery’s profits generated from investments contained within that shirt, Strong thought.
“It’s me, lads, John Edge. I were yer ‘keeper all t’way through school, remember?”
He knew it would have to be someone who knew them at school to use the title ‘dynamic duo,’ which was what the PE teacher always referred to them as. The look of astonishment must have been blatantly obvious on both their faces but, in mitigation, it would take a lot of imagination to picture the rotund figure before them as the skinny youth who once kept goal for their school teams nearly thirty years ago.
“I were disappointed for you, Bob,” Edge went on. “I allus thought tha’d make it. What about you, Col? Last I ‘eard you’d joined rozzers.”
“That’s right, John,” Strong said.
“You involved in that?” he asked, nodding towards the newspaper.
“I’m working on it, yes.”
“Some old tart, weren’t she? I bet you’ll find she was tryin’ to rip off a punter. Probably deserved it.”
Strong could feel his anger rising but before he could say anything in reply, Edge, oblivious to the effect his opinion had, was taking his leave.
“Any road, nice t’see you again, lads.” He was half way out the door. “Must be off. Promised I’d take missus out tonight fer a ruby.”
Strong took out a cigar, lit up, drew hard and exhaled. “That’s exactly what I mean,” he snarled at Souter. “She was an ex-prossie, so she deserved all she got.”
“Look, Colin, for what it’s worth, I totally agree. What a victim is or has been shouldn’t affect the fact that that’s what they are – a victim. I’ll try and do a follow up on a more sympathetic line. But I wasn’t responsible for tonight’s story, or the line that was taken.”
“No, but you still published that attack on the reliability of Summers’ conviction without any warning – and that pissed me off big time.”
“I know and I apologise for that, but I did try and keep it fairly non-committal.”
Strong’s anger was subsiding, although he still had one further point to make. “You people just don’t seem to realise the full implications of what you print.” He took another large gulp of his beer. “All right, now you said you’d got something for me about Carlisle.”
“Sure, but first, I’ll get another round in. You might need it.” Souter rose to his feet.
Souter gave Strong copies of the photographs Stuart had obtained for him from the Carlisle archives. He told him how the fluid samples at the scene were contaminated and that DNA analysis at this stage could not be accurately carried out. This meant they were left with the original findings that a person of blood group type B secretor had been present at the scene – not enough without other substantial evidence to secure a future conviction. Souter hadn’t told Strong everything of course, he said nothing of his conversations with Alison Hewitt. He wanted to check out the address she’d given him first. His prime objective, after all, was still to secure a story. He would tell him once he had the full picture. By the same token, he knew Strong hadn’t confided all to him either.
On his way back to his sister’s, Souter would drive past the address to check out how things looked before preparing himse
lf for a confrontation tomorrow.
Strong also had plenty to think about on his drive home. He planned to compare the pictures Souter had provided with those of the remaining unidentified items from the case. He was fairly confident there would be a match, God knows he’d studied them enough. Souter seemed confident too. He knew similar items had been found in the case. Strong still couldn’t work out from where he was obtaining his information, despite several probing questions. Souter had just come out with the same stock answer about never revealing sources.
At last, he felt he had established a link between the Carlisle murder and events closer to home over the past few months. However, that only served to highlight the gaps that still remained. If, as he suspected, Billy Montgomery was the individual responsible for the hoax letters and tape, there was a strong suspicion that he was also the perpetrator of the murder in Carlisle. It was disappointing to learn that DNA results would not be possible from there but it was known that a person with that rare type B blood group had been present at the scene. That person was probably responsible for sending the hoax correspondence in an attempt to have that crime included in the Yorkshire Ripper’s repertoire. He knew Billy Montgomery was type B, he’d seen it in his medical notes, and he had something else up his sleeve, so to speak, should forensic evidence present itself later.
The penetrating tone of his mobile phone shocked Strong out of his thought patterns. It was Stainmore.
“Yes, Kelly. What news?”
“She’s out of theatre, guv, and on a ventilator.”
“Well, it’s fingers crossed then.”
“If it’ll do any good. They reckon that even if she does pull through, there’ll probably be brain damage.”
“All right, Kelly, thanks. Make sure someone lets me know the minute there’s any change.”
“Sure.”
Strong’s thoughts returned to the murders. How would items missing from a Carlisle crime scene find themselves in Williams’ flat? Was Williams storing them for Montgomery? No, he couldn’t believe that. Had Williams stolen them from Montgomery? Indeed, was Montgomery’s flat the property burgled on December 6th? That didn’t seem right either. Rosie would have given some indication, surely. Rosie? Could that possibly be what she wanted to tell him this morning? But then why not just tell him over the phone, or call in to the station, or even have him call round? Because she was frightened of someone finding out she was talking? Someone was watching her. The mystery man who upset her at Billy’s funeral perhaps? Someone who was connected with … with what? The burglaries? The assaults on women? The Carlisle murder even? And now, the chances of getting any information from her were growing longer by the minute. He was obviously missing something, he told himself; some vital piece of the jigsaw.
