“I’m sat here wondering why you’re bothered!”
“Come on Suzanne. I’m trying to locate Graham, that’s why I’m bothered. And I know he’s not in Thailand. I’ll bet my cat on it.”
“Well, listen, as far as I’m aware, he is. Now is that all? I’ve got a hair appointment at twelve.”
“You’ve not been in here for a while, have you Suzanne?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Well I can confirm that you haven’t. You were last arrested in two thousand and seven. It makes me think that you’ve either turned over a new leaf, or you’ve just been good at not getting caught. Which is it?”
“Which is what?”
“Come on Suzanne. Stop being a silly sausage. Where’s Graham?”
“In Thailand.”
“How long has he been in Thailand?”
“Ages. About, urm, four or five weeks.”
“He hasn’t left the country.”
“Don’t know then. As far as I know, he is in Thailand. Now will that be all, Mr detective?”
“Okay. Let me put the question to you another way. Graham has not left the UK since October last year. I checked with the Borders Agency, and all UK passenger flight and sailing data. All three systems are saying that your husband is not overseas. All three systems confirm that Graham Ashworth has not checked in at a British airport or a British seaport at any time since October last year. He hasn’t crossed the channel by train either. His passport number has not been used to book any tickets or seats on any international crossings at all, since your holiday last autumn.”
“He might have gone on a jet-ski then. He’s good at driving them you know.”
Miller laughed out loud. Suzanne looked pleased with herself and laughed too.
“You’re quite funny you. Good looking, funny, flirty. Extremely bright and intelligent. I bet Graham loved the bones of you didn’t he?”
“You’re talking about him in the past tense. Has something happened? Is he dead?”
“I don’t know. That’s what you’re in here to talk about. He’s certainly not in Thailand, like you keep suggesting. So we’ve got a real dilemma here, haven’t we Suzanne?”
“They’re winding you up!” Suzanne laughed, and put her hand to her mouth again. She wasn’t taking this at all seriously, and it was beginning to concern the DCI.
“Who is winding me up?” asked Miller. He played along, managing to look vaguely amused by Suzanne’s silliness, while trying hard to disguise his frustration.
“The Border Agents. Truthfully. He’s gone abroad and I hope he never comes back! I absolutely hate the bastard.”
“I can’t see why. He’s got you off the streets, off the game. A nice big house, and you’re looking well. You don’t look like you’re using anymore?”
“He’s in Thailand.” Said Suzanne, and it sounded as though she’d snapped a little bit.
“Why did he visit Accident and Emergency on Monday the twentieth of May?” Miller had thrown an ace on the table. Suzanne Ashworth juddered visibly. It made Miller smile. There was a pause.
“Oh, er. I’d completely forgotten about that.” She said. Miller opened both of his hands, in an effort to encourage the suspect to carry on talking. Good, thought Miller. Found her button at last. Geronimo.
“He’d fallen down the stairs. Tripped up at the top and tumbled all the way down.” Suzanne looked troubled. Her cockiness had been dealt a hard blow, but Miller could see that her brain was whirring and she was working on trying to bounce back. A sense of being in control was what kept suspects animated in these interviews. The moment that the control is pulled back a little, that’s when things start happening. Miller could see that he had clearly made a dent in his antagonist’s armour.
“Okay, you win.” Miller checked his wristwatch, and exhaled quietly. “Interview suspended at six forty four am.” He leant forward and pressed the stop button on the digital recorder, and made a note of the details that flashed up on the screen.
“Officer, can you take Mrs Ashworth back to her cell please?”
“Hey! Just a minute! What about my hair appointment?” Suzanne looked genuinely pissed off. This hadn’t gone how she’d planned it.
“You’re entitled to one phone call. But they won’t be open yet. See you in a bit.”
“Well you’ll have to either charge me or release me by four pm Mr clever dick. I’ve seen twenty four hours in police custody on Channel Four. I know how this all works you know!” Suzanne had an air of arrogance about her, as she smiled sarcastically at the senior policeman, despite her frustration.
“I doubt it. I’ll be charging you and you’ll be on remand before this weekend is through lass. So you can forget about getting your hair cut. It’ll be short back and sides where you’re going princess.” Miller winked, and in doing so demonstrated a much more controlled arrogance. “See you in a bit. And you might want to reconsider your position about getting some legal assistance.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Suzanne was now clearly annoyed and the hot flush that Miller had witnessed at her front door the previous day returned. But she was determined to try and keep the bravado going. She smiled sweetly as Miller held open the door and gestured the prisoner and her chaperone out into the corridor.
“Keep talking shite if you like Suzanne Ashworth, but you know it and I know it. You’re up to your expensive fake eyelashes in shit and no amount of silliness is going to amend that fact.”
“Is that so?” asked Suzanne, her tone of voice suggested that she couldn’t care less what Miller had to say.
“It is. Sorry to piss on your chips, but I spent most of last night in Bury police station, hearing the whole story from your neighbour.”
“What? Which one?” Suzanne looked scared. Finally, Miller had pierced her armour and had drawn first blood.
“That’s for me to know, and for you to find out!” Miller tapped his nose and laughed as Suzanne Ashworth was led away, looking considerably less confident.
Chapter 37
After interviewing Crossley, Miller had contacted Lancashire County Police about the canal story. Because the supposed site of the body was outside the Greater Manchester zone, Miller had to involve the neighbouring constabulary and hand this aspect of the investigation over to them. He’d requested that an officer keep guard of the location until first light, when a full search of the site could be carried out by forensic investigators and the marine investigations team.
A police officer needed to be in location as soon as possible, explained Miller. It was highly unlikely, thought Miller, but still a necessary precaution in case somebody came along to try and remove the evidence. Miller hadn’t considered that arresting Suzanne Ashworth would result in Michael Crossley wandering in and confessing to the murder. Who knows what could happen at the location.
Shortly after ten am, Lancashire officers had contacted Miller to confirm that they had discovered an item that Crossley had described exactly. The grisly find which closed the canal, the tow-path and the northbound section of the A6185 was a bloated, rotting, stinking body wrapped inside a large piece of water-soaked carpet. Complete with heavy rocks inside, the neatly folded parcel was wrapped up delicately like a giant fajita wrap, though with a much less appetising filling.
“Could one man have lifted that over the barrier?” asked Miller of his opposite number, DCI Gibson who was stood at the canal-side with the forensic scientists, twenty five miles away in Accrington.
“Nah. No chance.” Said DCI Gibson. “It’s a two-man job, at least. And there’s a lot of time and care been taken on the packing, too.”
“He said he did it there. Pulled up on the bridge, pulled the carpet out of the car, pulled the body out, placed some rocks in, rolled it all up and chucked it in.”
“Bollocks. That’s absolute bollocks. There’s been at least three, four rolls of duct tape wrapped round this to hold it altogether. It’s taken a while to pack this up so well.”
“Right, cheers. That’s good stuff.”
“And, you can’t pull up on this bridge. It’s a dual carriageway. Cars are travelling sixty, seventy miles an hour.”
“It was at dawn on a Saturday morning, apparently.”
“Fair comment. Still wasn’t done here though, no way. A panda car, taxi driver, a hospital worker, someone coming home from a night out would have passed by. It’s the main link road from the town to the motorway. Nah, it’s not plausible - even if you gave them a very fast pull-over, jump out, chuck it in and race off again window of thirty seconds before another car would have driven past. I’ll tell you now, there is no way on earth that they’ve packed that up here. It’s total bollocks.”
“You said they, two or three times. You’re absolutely convinced that it wasn’t my suspect on his own?”
“You’ll see yourself on the photos. There’s no way one person has done that. I reckon two would struggle to be honest. You might be looking for three, maybe four people.”
“Cheers. That’s brilliant. I’ve got loads of ammo to hit him with now.”
“Okay, no problem, but my advice is simple, tell your Manchester crooks to stay off our patch! We take a pride in our county and we don’t want your lot thinking they can come and dump their unwanted bodies here!” Gibson had a sarcastic slant on his voice, and Miller recognised that it was a bit of teasing banter, more than a direct instruction.
“Okay, I’ll send the word around.” Miller laughed at Gibson’s chuckle. “Thanks DCI Gibson. I really appreciate your help with all this.”
“I bet you do, you’ve not had to come and smell this fucking body, have you not?”
*****
Miller looked through his phone book. Scrolling through until he read SAUNDERS and pressed the call icon, even though he knew that his number two wasn’t in work today.
“Hi Keith, how’s it going?”
“Oh, hi Sir. How lovely to hear from you on a Saturday.” Saunders tone was sarcastic.
“Are you not on duty?” Miller’s tone was insincere.
“No. Why, what’s up?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter – I didn’t realise that you weren’t in. Who is?”
“It doesn’t matter. Go on, what’s up?”
“Oh, I just need somebody picking up. It’s this case I was telling you about the other day. The missing neighbour.”
“Oh aye?” Saunders was interested, Miller could tell by the sound of his voice.
“Yeah, we’ve got a body. I just want the neighbour from over the road bringing in. She’s called Rachel Birdsworth. Lives at number sixteen Fir Trees Grove, Haughton Park.
“Right, I’ll go and pick her up then. I’m just at the Trafford Centre, I’m after some new jeans.”
“Well go and get this Rachel, arrest her on suspicion of murder, and drop her off at Bury police station, then you can go back, can’t you?”
“Sir.”
*****
Suzanne Ashworth was in a much grumpier, much more focused mood as she was returned to the interview room. That playfulness, the flirting and general mocking of Miller seemed to be completely forgotten. It was as though a different person had walked in. The five extra hours in the cell, mulling over Miller’s bombshell announcement had clearly helped her slip into a much more serious frame of mind.
“Hello again,” smiled Miller. He looked absolutely shattered, thought Suzanne.
“Hi,” she said, her eyes were looking down at the table-top now. That effervescent confidence was all but gone. Miller read the signs, and he was led to the conclusion that Suzanne knew that she was busted. But he was to find that his instinct was wrong this time.
“So, do you have anything further to add to our rather silly chat earlier?” asked Miller.
“I don’t know. I am screwed whatever happens, aren’t I?” Suzanne had her eyes fixed on the grey table top. She ran her fingers through her hair, which was starting to show the first signs of grease coming through at the roots.
The comment intrigued Miller. This wasn’t the straight forward reply that he’d anticipated.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s try and pick it up where we left off. Is that okay?” asked Miller. He was being kind, gentle. He seemed to have forgiven her cocky, daft behaviour earlier.
Suzanne shrugged, and remained focused on the table top.
“Where is Graham?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why was he sacked from his job?”
“Drinking.”
“What do you mean?”
“He developed a bit of a drink problem. He’d start sending e-mails to colleagues when he was pissed. Threatening e-mails. He threatened some councillors on an e-mail. He got a warning for it, then, a few weeks later, he wrote to the Chief Constable, threatening to go to the papers about how he’d been treated when he’d been arrested. At the same time, the guy who owns the Haughton Park development wrote to the council and demanded that he gets a bollocking for behaving like a twat. It was the last straw and the council sacked him. Well, they made it sound a bit better than that, he took early retirement, with immediate effect.”
“With full pension and redundancy package?”
“Yep. That’s how it works. You know the score.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t know. A month, six weeks ago.”
“When did you last hear from him?”
“On Friday the third of June.”
“That’s very specific.”
“I was severely beaten up by him on that date. I know nothing about this, I want to add, right?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I was pissed. Totally, totally pissed. Apparently, I was beaten unconscious by my husband. But what I’m trying to say is, I have absolutely no memory of this incident. I know that it probably did happen, because I was covered in bangs and bruises the next day. And in the days leading up to it, he’d been hitting me here and there, taking out his frustration on me.”
“What was the frustration about?”
“Getting sacked. He was livid. Thought it was everybody’s fault but his. God, he was infuriating – he would go on and on and on. I wanted to wrap a wok around his head, I really did.”
“Tell me about the night you were beaten up. The last time you saw him.”
“I’d been drinking, a lot. I was seriously planning on leaving him. But I can’t remember anything of that night. Not a thing. Honestly.”
“But how do you know that it was your husband if you have no recollection of anything?”
“Because he did it regularly. He’s a wife beater. He can’t have a fight with another bloke, he has to beat his pretty little wife up to feel strong.”
“And that had been going on for a while?” asked Miller, wearing a sympathetic frown as he listened.
“It had been going on from before we were together.”
“Is that how you met?” asked Miller, “when you were on the game?”
Suzanne nodded. She took a few seconds to answer. “He was aggressive, he liked to pull hair and punch, liked to bite the girls. None of them wanted to know. He had a reputation…”
“And you used to put up with it?” asked Miller.
“He couldn’t find any other girls that would take him. They’d all tell him to fuck off, they called him a creep. His nick-name was noodle-dick. I felt a bit sorry for him, he was such a loser. I told him, I said, if he wants to be nasty, he has to pay more. He agreed, just said “how much?” so I said “three hundred,” just off the top of my head like. He smiled and said it’s a deal. He’d pick me up, check us in at some Holiday Inn or whatever and then start pushing me about. He liked to role-play that he was raping me. He’d get pretty violent to be honest, but I told him, he can’t bruise my face, or I’ll get him shot in the knees. He respected that. Anyway, as time went on, I was his once, twice sometimes three times a week girl.”
“At three hundred quid a time?” asked Miller
, whistling a tune to show how surprised he was at the cost.
“He’s loaded. I mean, properly loaded. His parents were loaded. It’s how it all works in that world isn’t it? They’re born into cash, then their rich dad sorts out a job through his rich mates, and they’re on big money from the start. It’s all kept in the same little pot, isn’t it?”
“And you had no problem with him beating you up?” Miller never ceased to be amazed by the stuff prostitutes would put up with.
“It’s no worse than what my dad used to do to me.” Suzanne was staring at her hands on the table-top. She thought they looked naked without her rings.
“So how did you end up becoming Graham’s wife, if you knew that he was an abusive man who slept with prostitutes?” asked Miller, forgetting his professional obligations for a moment, and becoming more wrapped up in the human-interest angle.
“He asked me to stop being a prostitute. It was obvious that he was in love with me. He said that he would employ me himself, and that I’d get paid two grand a week. He said if I agreed to it, he’d pay my pimp off and he’d send me to rehab and get me off my habit.”
Miller looked genuinely astonished at what Suzanne told him. “What was your habit?” he asked.
“Smack, and booze, and the occasional binge on pills. I was a fucking wreck. He saved my life, he really did.” Suzanne looked at Miller. She was biting on her bottom lip in between talking.
“So you went to rehab?”
“Yeah, Penrith. Near Carlisle. I was in there for nearly six months. Not cheap. He spent a trolley full of money on that. He visited me twice a week. He’d bring the most crazy bouquets of flowers, a bottle of perfume, new pyjamas and stuff. He treated me like a Goddess, he’d arrange with the staff to take me out for meals and things. He looked after me so well. After I’d been discharged from my rehab, he put me up in a flat in Manchester. He got me these boobs, these teeth. Honestly, I was treated like a WAG for a while. But he pretty quickly got obsessed. He was paranoid that I was going back on the street, worried none stop that I was using again. He rented a flat on the street opposite mine, and he just sat in there watching me, keeping tabs on me. I kept pleading with him to relax but he just couldn’t.”
Neighbours From Hell : DCI Miller 2: The gripping Manchester thriller with a killer twist Page 29
