by Neil White
Chapter Forty-Five
Joe was quiet on the way into Blackley
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
He didn’t answer at first, and I watched the streetlights paint his face in moving stripes of orange as we drove through the town centre.
‘I’m always like this when I get near a murder scene,’ he said.
I laughed. ‘I don’t believe that. You’ve been in the job too long.’
He sighed. ‘Okay, it’s Frankie.’
‘What, you think you’ve locked up an innocent man?’
Joe smiled at that. ‘He’s the town’s peeping Tom, and that’s what he’s been held on. So he’s not innocent.’
‘That’s not why you were at his house though. What happens tomorrow, when you’ve still got nothing more than your theory, where some bits fit, and some bits don’t?’
‘He goes home,’ he said. ‘Where he’s been for the twenty-two years since Nancy Gilbert died. Except this time we’ll watch him.’
I nodded and then looked back through the window at the neon of takeaways and late-night booze shops that lined the route.
‘Will this murder affect your hunt for Claude Gilbert?’ I said.
Joe looked surprised at that. ‘Why should it?’
‘A young woman has been killed. It will affect resources.’
He thought about it. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But when people are killed, the money gets found, and Nancy Gilbert is just as much a murder victim. Tonight is more urgent, I suppose.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I was told that this girl was a prostitute.’
‘Does that make a difference?’ I asked. ‘She’s still a human being.’
‘I didn’t say it was any less tragic,’ he replied, a hint of rebuke in his voice. ‘Prostitutes make easy prey, that’s all, because they put themselves into dangerous situations, and the way they make a living attracts the wrong kind of man. A prostitute murder is often the start of a spree—history has told us that much. We need to catch whoever killed her as quickly as we can, because there might be another dead woman once the sun goes down tomorrow.’
I let out a long breath. I was getting worn down by murder. I had spent most of my reporting life chasing down deaths, accidental or otherwise and, as the tiredness from the day set in, I dreamt for a moment of covering summer fêtes and town councillors cutting ribbons, where a working day meant a happy picture and a few words.
Then that familiar feeling kicked in as we got nearer the scene, that sense of intrigue tainted by tragedy. I was surprised by the inactivity though. There were no flashing lights, nothing to alert any curious onlookers, just two cars parked on a piece of waste concrete, acting as a makeshift cordon, a uniformed officer by each. Joe jumped out and showed his identification, and the two uniformed officers stepped to one side. I went to follow him but he told me to stay by the car, not wanting me to contaminate the scene. I looked around instead. There were CCTV cameras on the top of large poles, but they were pointing away from the small buzz of police activity. All I could see were the backyards of buildings, some derelict, and some small businesses still clinging to existence—a back-street garage or car alarm centre—and the scene was shrouded in the dark shadows created by the viaduct that overlooked the scene.
I saw that one of the police cars was parked so that headlights faced the body. I caught a glimpse of pale legs and dirty shoes, a flowery dress. No one deserved to die there, not in such an anonymous place. I didn’t know her, but I guessed that life had already dealt her some tough blows—it had to be that way for her to be working on the street. To snatch away any chance of a better life seemed a cruel shot too far.
I turned away and looked back along the road. I could see a small cluster of people in the distance, huddled together, watching, but not wanting to get any closer, just the occasional burst of orange from a cigarette marking them out. I glanced back towards Joe and saw that he was busy, and so I decided to walk over to the bystanders, to seek out a quote. But as I set off walking, they seemed to disappear into the shadows, like inhabitants of a different world not wanting to get caught up in mine. I turned back to the car. In that moment, I sensed how hard it must be for people like Joe to solve murders like this.
I sat back in the car with a slump, overwhelmed by sadness for a moment, at the loss of a young life just on the other side of the police cars. Someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, brought to an end on a patch of overgrown concrete underneath the arches of a worn-out brick viaduct.
Then I saw Joe straighten and look down at the body. He scratched his head and I thought I saw some confusion in his gaze.
Chapter Forty-Six
It was my turn to be quiet as we headed back. The rest of the murder squad had arrived eventually, the crime scene investigators dragged from their beds, and so Joe could leave the rest of them to it. He kept on looking at me, as if he was waiting for the questions to come. It didn’t seem like a good time to intrude into the young woman’s death, but my reluctance made me worry that I was losing my edge.
‘It was nothing unusual,’ Joe said eventually.
I looked at him. ‘It didn’t seem like that from the way you were looking at the body.’
‘It looked like a bang on the head and strangulation,’ he said.
‘That doesn’t sound normal.’
‘It depends on how you live your life,’ he said. ‘Prostitutes attract predators, and so I expected some sexual element to her body, or some kind of mutilation. There wasn’t any, as far as I could tell. This could have been anything, an unpaid drug debt, or maybe revenge for helping us out over something.’
‘Do you think that’s a possible?’
‘Criminals don’t grass, right, the unwritten law?’ he said. He gave a small laugh and shook his head. ‘That’s the biggest myth going. Sometimes those at the shitty end of life just want to talk to someone, and so things get said. That’s what most defence lawyers don’t realise when they think they’re keeping big secrets by advising no comment. Their clients have usually told us more in the car on the way in, or in the fingerprint room on the way out.’ Joe smiled. ‘They like spilling the news on the lawyers most of all. Who’s taking drugs, who’s seeing the hookers for the freebies they won’t put through the books. Maybe the dead woman said too much about the wrong person.’
‘Are you sure she’s a prostitute? Maybe she’s been dumped down there to throw you off the scent.’
Joe shook his head. ‘One of the other street girls found her. They knew her, had seen her working, although we don’t know much about her. They think she was called Hazel.’
I didn’t say anything because it seemed like no words could properly explain the sadness of her death, a young woman just discarded in the shadow of the viaduct.
Eventually the lights of my cottage came into view, like small fires against the darkness of the hills around, and I felt some relief that I could surround myself with ordinary life again.
We walked into the house, expecting to be met by the sounds of conversation, but instead there was silence. I looked into the living room and saw Laura nursing a hot drink. I was about to say something when she raised her finger to her lips to hush me quiet. Then she smiled.
I walked over to her, curious, and I saw Rachel Mason sprawled on her back, one arm lolling onto the floor, her head cocked to one side, fast asleep.
I raised my eyebrows and grinned. ‘Did the wine take its toll?’ I whispered.
Laura nodded, not wanting to wake her.
I looked down at Rachel. She looked peaceful, almost contented, her face losing some of that clench it had when she was awake.
I heard Joe give out a small groan as he came up behind me.
‘Have you got a bucket for my car?’ he said quietly.
‘She can stay here,’ Laura whispered. ‘I’ll just throw a blanket over her.’
‘Are you sure?’ Joe asked, although I could tell that he wasn’t prepared to force th
e issue.
Laura smiled. ‘Maybe it will make her more human.’
Joe nodded and returned the smile. He waved his car keys as a goodbye and headed for the door, before anyone had time to change their mind.
Once we were alone and things had gone quiet again, apart from the sound of Rachel’s light snores, Laura went to the kitchen so that we could talk, me following behind.
‘How long has she been like that?’ I asked.
‘An hour, maybe more. She just went, like that.’ Laura snapped her fingers. ‘She started to slur and tell me how she was jealous of me, that I had a perfect life, and then she just slumped. So I lifted her legs onto the sofa and let her sleep. How was the murder scene?’
‘Just the usual,’ I said, and as soon as the words came out, I realised what it was that made it such a tragedy: that few people would care much about the dead girl.
I shook away the thought and reached for the almost empty wine bottle. ‘You go up,’ I said. ‘I’ll just look over Claude’s story first.’
Laura gave me a kiss and then went upstairs as I turned on my laptop. I navigated to the file in which I had stored Claude’s story but, when I opened it up, I couldn’t bring myself to touch a key. I still had the image of the dead girl’s legs in my mind, and the quick-money tale of a long-lost barrister just didn’t seem important any more.
I closed the lid and went upstairs. As I walked into the bedroom, I expected to see Laura in bed, perhaps reading a glossy magazine or a book, but instead she was standing naked in front of the mirror.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, surprised. When Laura looked at me, I held up my hands in apology and added, ‘I’m not complaining.’
Laura looked down at herself.
‘I was just thinking about my age,’ she said, and she peered closer to the mirror. ‘I’ll be forty in a couple of years, and I can just feel myself changing.’ She pulled at her cheeks to smooth out the skin on her face, but then she dropped her hands and scowled. ‘When I stop smiling, the lines don’t drop away, and it’s feeling a little slacker around here,’ she said, running her hands around her stomach and hips.
‘What’s brought this on? Rachel downstairs?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said, and then she sighed. ‘I just see something of myself in her, from ten years ago maybe, young and arrogant, dressing well.’ She blushed. ‘Maybe even turning heads.’
I put my arms around her shoulders and pulled her head into my chest. ‘We’re both getting older,’ I whispered into her hair. I cupped her face in my hands and made her look up at me. ‘We’ll fall apart together,’ I said softly, ‘and we’ll love every minute of it.’
Laura nodded softly, a tender smile on her lips.
‘Take me to bed, Jack,’ she said.
Chapter Forty-Seven
I knew something was wrong as soon as I heard her.
I had been lying in bed, thinking about how I would get Claude’s story moving, when Laura gave a shout. I jumped out of bed and rushed downstairs. When she turned to look at me, I saw anger in her eyes.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, and then I followed her gaze as she turned towards the front door. It was open. ‘Why is it like that?’
‘We’ve been burgled,’ she snapped at me.
I heard a noise behind me and turned to see Rachel stumbling to her feet from the sofa, her shirt and suit creased, her hair crumpled into a frizz.
‘What’s wrong?’ she croaked, and then she groaned and clutched her forehead.
‘We’ve been burgled,’ Laura repeated. ‘And you were here all along. Why didn’t you hear anything?’
Rachel looked down at herself and then her clothes, before her eyes hit on the empty glass.
‘I must have been tired,’ Rachel said. ‘I just drifted off.’
‘You were drunk,’ I barked at her, and then I looked over to the table. The laptop was still there, but the lid was open. I was sure I had closed it before I went upstairs. Then I noticed that the papers brought by Tony were missing.
‘A burglar doesn’t take papers and leave a laptop behind,’ I said. ‘Whoever was in here was after information.’
‘Assuming that someone has been in,’ Laura said, looking at Rachel.
Rachel understood the dig. ‘Are you saying I’ve got something to do with it?’
‘Why not?’ I said, my voice angry. ‘You want the information, you sleep on the sofa, and then the information disappears. Very convenient.’
Rachel winced and held her head as she swayed. ‘I’ve been asleep all night,’ Rachel said, and stumbled towards the stairs, heading for the bathroom.
Laura waited for her to go and then she picked up her phone and called the police. I listened as she gave her details, mentioned that she was a police officer, and then she turned to me. ‘Is there anything else missing?’
I looked around the rest of the room, expecting to see a gap under the television, where the games console was, but it was still there.
I shook my head. ‘Just my papers,’ I said. ‘Everything I had been working on.’
Laura looked at me, and then ended her call. ‘Are you sure you didn’t put them away somewhere?’
I shook my head.
‘What’s going on with this story, Jack?’
‘I don’t know,’ was my only reply. I was starting to wonder whether I was making enemies I couldn’t fight.
Then Laura looked past me, and I saw her face soften. I turned around. It was Bobby.
‘What’s happened, Mummy?’ he asked, his voice still sleepy. ‘Why are you shouting?’
I saw Laura’s face lose some of its anger. ‘Nothing,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s nothing,’ and then she went to him and took him back upstairs.
I sat at the table, where I had been sitting the night before, and realised that I hadn’t closed the curtains. There had been a clear view from the outside. Although our position at the top of the hill didn’t make us immune from the usual urban problems, an opportunistic burglar wouldn’t waste time with copies of old newspaper articles. No, it was for some other reason, and that reason had to be connected with the Gilbert case.
And then I realised something else: if it wasn’t Rachel, then whoever had done it must have been watching me all along.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Laura could tell how busy the station would be from the state of the car park. Cars were parked along the grass verges on the road that ran past the building and so Laura had to leave hers in the car park of a nearby DIY store. As she walked in, she could hear the buzz of conversation coming from the atrium. There were clusters of officers in dark blue jump suits eating and talking—the search teams who would spend the morning on their hands and knees, combing the scene for leftovers from the murder. A cigarette butt, a broken piece of jewellery, maybe a dropped receipt. The women in the canteen bustled around as the queue for the breakfast sandwiches snaked along a wall.
As Laura walked into the briefing room, it was quieter than normal, most people having been recruited into the grunt work on the murder case. Her sergeant saw her and beckoned her over. When Laura got close, the sergeant pointed at Thomas, who was watching the hubbub through the glass wall. ‘It’s his first murder and so he’s getting twitchy,’ the sergeant whispered. ‘I’ve spoken to the crime scene manager, and she’s okay for you two to preserve the scene and keep the local interest away. You know what it’ll be like, well-wishers with flowers. Keep them back and let the search team deal with everything, but let Thomas see how a murder scene works.’
Laura nodded. ‘No problems, but can you give me ten minutes?’ she said. ‘I just need to speak to someone.’
Her sergeant checked her watch and then said, ‘Frankie Cass?’
‘Why do you say that?’ Laura said.
‘He was asking to see you before. If you go down to the cells, make it quick.’
Laura was confused as she left the briefing room. Why would Frankie Cass ask for her? How did he know anythin
g about her? Frankie would have to wait a few minutes though. She had somewhere else to go first.
Laura weaved her way through the atrium to get to the floor above. When she arrived at the burglary team’s office, no one looked up. She was just another woman in a uniform, so she rapped hard on the door frame, in no mood to be ignored.
They were all men, young and cocky, dressed in jeans and polo shirts. The one nearest to her, small and thin, with a dark crewcut and a neck ravaged by a shaving rash, raised his eyebrows. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I was burgled this morning,’ she said. ‘Crime Scenes are coming out later, but I want to know whether you know of anyone targeting rural properties.’
He looked around the room, just to check if anyone had any ideas, then he shook his head. ‘Forget Crime Scenes today. They’ll be with the murder all day.’ When Laura turned away, frustrated, he shouted after her, ‘And we haven’t heard of anyone targeting rural houses. Not small-fry anyway.’ When Laura turned back, he added, ‘No offence. The rural houses that get done over tend to be the big ones, targeted by the big guns from Manchester or Liverpool, looking for the safe stuffed with jewels. You know how it is with the rest. They live near the burglar, just because it means they don’t have to walk as far with the stuff. Did they take your car?’
Laura shook her head.
‘Was anything taken?’
‘Just some papers my partner was working on.’
He held his hands out in apology. ‘Then it doesn’t sound like you were burgled. Most houses that get burgled now get done for the car keys. Everything else is either too cheap for the risk or too heavy to carry—but your car?’ And he laughed. ‘Even gets them home.’
‘Okay, thanks for your help,’ Laura said sarcastically.
As she walked along the landing, she realised why there was the lack of interest. An unsolved crime looks bad, and so it’s easier to say that it isn’t a crime at all.
