They sat in his lounge and relived the events of the evening. ‘Those articles of yours really upset someone,’ he said. ‘They may have looked like young thugs but you were targeted. They were let off their leash by Jimmy McCree.’
‘Or someone who asked him to do it.’
‘Is there anybody you haven’t fallen out with?’ he asked.
‘No one that matters.’ She drank her bottle of beer far more quickly than usual then said, ‘I’m really tired for some reason. Thanks for letting me use your spare bed.’
‘I don’t have a spare bed.’ And he was amused by the look of panic on her face. ‘Don’t worry, you can have mine. I’ll take the sofa.’
‘Have you got any blankets?’
‘Don’t need them,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine. Haven’t you ever slept on a sofa after a party?’
‘No,’ she admitted.
‘I have,’ he said, ‘loads of times.’ Though not for years, he thought. ‘Go on. Get some sleep. Things always seem better in the morning.’
‘I feel terrible, taking your bed.’
‘It’s no bother.’
They said goodnight a little stiffly and Helen went up the stairs. She sat on the double bed in Tom’s room and was about to get undressed when she heard the stairs creak and the unmistakable sound of footsteps coming up them. She instinctively froze.
There was a soft knock on the door. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Can I come in?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she repeated unsurely.
Tom opened the door and went to a chest of drawers, opened it and pulled out two T-shirts then handed one to her. ‘Thought you might need something to sleep in,’ he said, ‘and there’s clean towels in the airing cupboard.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Night-night pet.’ And he left her to it.
Helen immediately felt guilty because she had automatically assumed he was going to climb into bed with her, but she should have known Tom wasn’t like that. She felt even worse because of the slight thrill of anticipation that thought had given her.
Helen took off her clothes and pulled on Tom’s T-shirt then she climbed into the big double bed and pulled the thick duvet over her. Within minutes she was in a deep sleep but Helen was awakened an hour later by a sudden sound outside. Two cats were fighting. They screamed at one another repeatedly before going their separate ways.
Helen realised she was cold, and then thought of Tom downstairs with no blankets.
Tom was fully clothed, lying on the sofa with his coat pulled over himself, but he couldn’t sleep. He had consumed two more bottles of beer after Helen had gone to bed and now he was trying to doze off in a freezing room, but his legs were too long for the sofa. That and the injuries to his face, head and shoulder meant that no matter what position he lay in he couldn’t get comfortable.
He heard a click then and a crack of light shone under his door from the hallway onto his carpet-less floor. He sat up groggily as Helen opened the door. She was wearing his T-shirt and he had to make a conscious effort not to stare at her bare legs.
‘You’re going to freeze,’ she announced. ‘Come on, you don’t have to stay down here.’
Helen deliberately left the light off in the bedroom. She climbed into her side of the bed and turned away from him while he took off his jeans. Somehow she knew Tom would not get the wrong idea about this and he didn’t, but she was very aware of the weight on his side of the bed when he joined her and the heat from his body.
‘Thanks,’ he said quickly.
‘No problem,’ she said.
When Helen opened her eyes in the morning it took her a moment to remember where she was, then she rolled over and saw Tom Carney sleeping next to her. She tried not to think what Peter would have made of this but soon that thought was banished by the memory of the attack on them at her flat. All of sudden her jealous boyfriend seemed to be the least of Helen’s problems. She glanced at her watch on the bedside table and was surprised at how late it was. They had both been exhausted by their ordeal. She left Tom sleeping and slipped out of the bed to use the bathroom. Tom stirred and she watched him as he rolled over without waking.
Helen came out of the bathroom moments later, and when she reached the top of the landing she yelled out in alarm. A strange man was standing at the foot of the stairs, staring back up at her.
The man almost jumped out of his skin when he saw her. ‘Sorry, pet,’ he spluttered, though he looked at least as alarmed by their contact as she had been, ‘I didn’t know you were … I didn’t realise he was …’ Then he stopped and took a different approach: ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Tom as he opened the door and blinked at her.
‘There’s a man …’ she managed.
‘Oh shit, yeah, I forgot about him.’ When Helen looked at him disbelievingly he said, ‘That’s Darren, my brother-in-law. He’s a joiner.’ And when that proved insufficient he explained, ‘He’s out of work at the moment. I hired him to finish some of the jobs on the house while I’m busy with these cases.’ He then realised the effect that seeing a strange man in the house must have had on Helen, following their ordeal the night before. ‘I’m really sorry.’
Now that Helen had calmed down, her first thought was that she had just met Tom’s sister’s husband for the first time in her underwear and one of Tom’s T-shirts.
‘Come down,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll introduce you.’
Tom went down the stairs moments later, while Helen got dressed. He found three steaming mugs of tea on the kitchen table and his brother-in-law grinning at him.
‘Thanks, Darren,’ he said. ‘Er, Helen’s just …’
‘It’s none of my business, bro,’ interrupted Darren, ‘but what happened to your face? I hope she didn’t do that.’
‘It’s a long story,’ and he was thankful Darren wasn’t the kind to insist on him recounting it, ‘but do us a favour and don’t tell sis about it; she’ll only fret.’
‘I won’t, but I saw your motor on the way in. Looks like you had an argument with a lorry.’
‘Is there any chance I could borrow your car for the day until I can get the insurance company to give me a rental?’
‘No problem. I’ll be busy straightening your kitchen cabinets and sorting these ancient floorboards. Just bring it back in one piece.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No bother. Do I have to keep quiet about your new girlfriend too?’ he asked.
‘No, but we’re not …’
‘Course you’re not,’ he said as Helen, fully dressed now, entered the room. ‘Sleep well, did you, pet?’ he asked her cheerfully.
Bradshaw was waiting for them at Helen’s apartment. ‘My landlord’s going to go crazy.’ She observed the bare wooden boards that had been hastily nailed over the broken windows.
‘He’s insured,’ Bradshaw told her, ‘but you might want to think about moving.’
She just nodded dumbly. ‘I’m only back here to collect my things.’ Though Bradshaw’s face betrayed very little, Tom guessed there wasn’t much left to collect. They followed Helen into the apartment and Bradshaw left them to it. Tom went with her into the front room. Every piece of furniture had been upended or smashed. She took one look at the scene, turned and left the room.
When she reached the bedroom, the site that greeted Helen stopped her in her tracks. The sheet and duvet had been torn from the bed and slashed with a knife, the mattress had been hacked at with a blade of some kind and its stuffing spread around the room. Helen’s clothes had been pulled from her wardrobe; dresses were torn, her coat slashed, jeans and T-shirts were thrown everywhere. Drawers had been pulled out and upended and her underwear scattered around the room. Wordlessly, Helen went to the kitchen and returned a moment later carrying a roll of black bin bags. She tore off the first bag, opened it and began to scoop the nearest debris straight into it. Tom watched her for a moment and when it became clear to him that she no longer want
ed to keep a single item from the room, he said, ‘I’ll help you.’
‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘I’ll do it,’ then she turned to face him and though she was doing a very good job of keeping it all together, Tom could see in her eyes how much this had hurt her.
‘Helen,’ he said again, ‘I’ll help.’ He took the bin bags from her, tore one from the roll and began to fill it.
Working together, it didn’t take long to clear the room, and once the black sacks were stacked outside by the bins they rejoined Bradshaw in the kitchen.
‘This wasn’t some random act,’ he told Helen. ‘I’ve spoken to my colleagues in Northumbria Police and they’ve seen this before, but never round here. It’s usually a punishment for those suspected of cooperating with the police in rougher parts of the city. Gangs like this start with burglaries and muggings, which gets them noticed by organised criminals, who use them for jobs they don’t want to be associated with. Blitzing someone’s house like this is designed to intimidate people, and it’s often combined with a beating.’ He stopped and waited for Helen to speak.
‘I see,’ she said simply.
‘And we all know who you’ve been upsetting lately.’ Ian Bradshaw felt like an idiot. He’d hoped his word with Jimmy McCree might at least have given the man some pause for thought before he targeted Helen again but he had treated it as a challenge to rise to. Now Helen’s flat had been trashed and Bradshaw knew it was his fault, but he didn’t quite have the nerve to tell her this.
‘Come on,’ Tom said because Helen looked helpless now the mess had been cleared away, ‘let’s get out of here.’
‘Where are we going?’ she asked him.
‘To the scene of another crime.’ And when she didn’t understand he said, ‘Lonely Lane. I want to see the spot where that young woman was murdered.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lonely Lane was twenty miles from Newcastle and they used the journey time to discuss their options. Tom told Bradshaw his theory that he had been sent to London deliberately by Dean to sidetrack him and how the club owner Devine had mentioned Jimmy McCree on his way out of the building.
‘It always seems to come back to McCree, Camfield and Lynch doesn’t it?’ observed the detective. ‘Want me to have a word with Councillor Lynch?’ Bradshaw asked Helen, even though he knew the last time he’d had a word it only made things worse. He hoped a councillor, even one in a gangster’s pocket, might be made to see sense more easily.
‘Don’t waste your time, Ian,’ she said as they climbed out of the car.
‘Talk to the leader of the city council without good cause and you’ll be on traffic duty before your feet touch the ground,’ Tom assured him. ‘I don’t think there is much you can do. You have no proof that Jimmy McCree ordered the attack on Helen or that Joe Lynch or Alan Camfield influenced it. I say we keep digging into the Sandra Jarvis case until we find a link to any of them, then, when we have proof, we bring them all down.’
‘You make it sound easy,’ said Helen.
‘It won’t be,’ Tom assured her. ‘It never is.’
They walked down Lonely Lane, which was wide enough for one car to travel along, as long as it didn’t meet another one coming the other way. Here and there bushes had been trimmed back and chunks taken out of the banks of grass on the side of the road to create hollows that allowed vehicles to pull in and let oncoming cars pass. Presently they ran out of road and the land changed so that Lonely Lane became a grassy surface between farmers’ fields that had been worn down by cars and generations of dog walkers. A low barbed-wire fence separated the fields from the lane but its ancient fence posts sagged in parts and dragged the wire fencing down with them, making it an ineffective barrier to anyone who wanted to roam the nearby woods. The sky was dark and overcast now with the ominous promise of rain. The only building for miles was a single grey stone farmhouse that overlooked parts of the lane, but as they walked along it they came across numerous blind spots and sheltered bits of land, which fell away from the lane to create discreet parking spaces. No wonder this place was favoured by illicit lovers and the voyeurs who preyed on them.
There was no one here today though. Autumn was turning cold, making it a less desirable spot, and the notoriety of the Rebecca Holt killing would have put a lot of people off Lonely Lane as a romantic destination. Tom was willing to bet there were others who were less faint-hearted and still likely to come here once darkness fell.
He turned his attention back to the detective. ‘Did you take a closer look at those alibis for me?’
‘While you were swanning round the flesh pots of London? Bradshaw asked Tom. ‘I did.’
‘And?’
‘Freddie Holt was seen by a number of people that day. He visited a construction site, had a meeting with a supplier and signed some papers at his solicitors. Interestingly enough, there are a couple of gaps in his day where the only person who can account for his actions is himself.’
‘Are the timings of those gaps significant?’
‘I’d say not. If he murdered his wife in between his other appointments he is not only a very cool customer but extremely good at weaving through traffic.’ Bradshaw added, ‘You look disappointed.’
‘I figure Freddie Holt is capable of just about anything, but if he was going to buy an alibi, surely he wouldn’t leave any holes?’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘What about Annie Bell’s alibi?’
‘Pretty watertight.’ Bradshaw found the relevant section in his notebook. ‘She went shopping that day and a lot of people saw her. She was in town for hours and can account for most of the time before, during and after Rebecca Holt’s murder.’
‘How is that possible?’ wondered Helen out loud.
‘She dropped the kids at school first then parked in the old open-air car park at the edge of town before walking to the shops.’
‘Why there?’ interrupted Helen. ‘Why not the multi-storey?’
‘She told us she doesn’t like multi-storeys because she worries she’s going to scrape her car on the pillars. She prefers the old car park because she has used it for years. We know she was there because her ticket had the entry time on it,’ continued Bradshaw. ‘We also know when she left because she outstayed the expiry time by twenty minutes and had to go to the office and pay a fine. They slap a ticket on your windscreen but you can settle up with them instantly on the day instead of writing off.’
‘She doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who forgets how long she’s paid for,’ said Tom.
‘Once in town,’ Ian said, reading from his notes again, ‘she went to the dry cleaners to drop off some clothes and had the collection tickets to prove it. Then she took a dress back to a store because it didn’t fit properly. The transaction showed up on her credit card as a refund, so we know that was legit. Her next appointment was with a travel agent, where she spent half an hour talking to a woman about a package holiday and left with some brochures.’
‘Doesn’t just browse aimlessly, does she?’ remarked Tom. ‘Very organised, likes to get things done.’
‘She stopped for lunch at a café called Oscars and there was an argument.’
‘What about?’ asked Helen.
‘Her order.’ He glanced at his notebook to confirm. ‘A jacket potato. She wanted cheese and they gave her tuna.’
‘And that caused a row?’ asked Helen. ‘Couldn’t they have just exchanged it?’
‘They did offer,’ said Bradshaw, ‘but only after the waitress had told her she got what she originally asked for.’
‘And Mrs Bell didn’t take kindly to that?’
‘She made a bit of a scene, gave the waitress a right dressing-down and told off the manager, said she’d been coming there for years but the food was always cold or she got the wrong thing and she was never coming back again. There were a couple of regulars and a number of casual diners who witnessed this. We traced some of them. They recognised her photo and confirmed she
’d lost her temper with the staff.’
‘Interesting,’ said Tom. ‘Where’d she go next?’
‘A bakery, where she ordered a replacement lunch of a sausage roll and a coffee. She ate it in the place, kept the receipt.’
‘Why would you?’ asked Helen. ‘Keep the receipt, I mean. You’ve eaten your sausage roll and drunk your coffee, what use is the receipt?’
‘No use, but she probably stuffed it in her purse with her change and forgot about it. Next stop was the cinema.’
‘I’m guessing she had the ticket?’ asked Tom and Bradshaw nodded.
‘She keeps everything,’ said Helen.
‘Lucky for us.’
‘And for her,’ said Helen. ‘What did she see?’
‘Schindler’s List.’
‘Good choice,’ said Helen and Bradshaw suddenly remembered wanting to see it on video with Karen but she said it would be too depressing, so they watched Mrs Doubtfire instead.
‘A long film too,’ said Tom. ‘Did anyone ask her about it?’
Bradshaw nodded. ‘She’d seen it all right and described it well enough.’
‘And after the cinema?’
‘Back to the car park, paid her fine for overrunning, then home to see the kids, who’d been picked up from school by the au pair. She confirmed Mrs Bell returned around fifteen minutes after she left the car park.’
‘Is there any way she could have driven out of the car park and gone back in again?’ asked Helen.
He shook his head. ‘That car park isn’t automated. It’s one of the last old-fashioned ones with an attendant and she parked right by the old guy’s booth. Her car never left and he reckons she was very flustered about overrunning and having to pay the fine.’
‘Busy day,’ observed Helen. ‘She packed a lot in.’
‘And scarcely a minute of it unaccounted for,’ added Tom, ‘so, like you say, it’s absolutely watertight.’
Behind Dead Eyes Page 26
