FORGOTTEN VICTIM an absolutely gripping crime mystery with a massive twist (Detective Rachel King Thrillers Book 4)

by HELEN H. DURRANT

  It was dark in the street. The light outside the station was out again. She walked the few metres to her car, dumped her stuff in the boot and was about to open the driver’s door when she heard a voice behind her, making her jump.

  “Like I told you the other night — your parents’ crash was no accident. You’re a detective, so investigate. He needs stopping.”

  He was right at her back, speaking into her ear. A splinter of fear ran down Rachel’s spine. She turned to tackle him, but the man was gone as fast as he’d appeared. All she saw was those striped trainers flashing down the street.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Tuesday

  Rachel woke to the aroma of bacon drifting upstairs. She lifted her head off the pillow and groaned. Normally, that smell’d make her mouth water. In fact it did today, but from nausea rather than pleasure.

  Downstairs, Jed was hard at it, making breakfast for Mia. Very new and not altogether welcome. The kitchen looked as if he’d used every utensil she owned. What was wrong with shaking some cereal into a bowl?

  “Want some?” he asked. “Start the day with a full belly, see you through to lunch without needing to snack.”

  “I don’t snack,” Rachel said.

  “You used to. Back in the day, you were always munching on something — crisps or chocolate.”

  Mia smirked. “I’m surprised you’re not humongous.”

  “Where’s Megan?”

  “At the flat. Said she’d be back at the weekend,” Mia said.

  “Get your stuff packed and then you can eat,” Rachel told her.

  “How’s the case doing?” Jed asked. “Any chance of some time off?”

  Rachel scraped back her hair and fastened it in a ponytail. “I wish! We’ll be lucky to sort this one in time for me giving birth.”

  “You should tell Kenton, warn him that you’ll be taking time off.”

  “The case first, and then I’ll deal with him,” she said.

  “Tea? Coffee? Something to eat?” Jed offered.

  Rachel liked the way he’d made himself at home. He’d dived into her life feet first and wasn’t doing badly at all. Mia was certainly happy. Jed would be a useful addition.

  “Do you know Shawcross Mill?” she asked.

  “That crumbling heap in Ancoats? Yes, why?”

  “We found a body in there. The poor bloke had been dead a while.”

  “This the case you’re working on?” he asked.

  Rachel nodded, pouring herself some juice.

  “How long’d he been dead?”

  “About three years, Jude reckons,” she said.

  “Hidden, was it? The body?”

  “Oh yes. Whoever left the poor bugger there definitely didn’t want him found,” she said.

  Jed smiled. “Interesting case. Something to get your teeth into.”

  Rachel watched him for a few moments. “Do you know something? Because if you do, tell me.”

  “I know the owner isn’t as squeaky clean as he makes out. His daughter mixes with some dubious types, a notorious drug dealer, for a start.”

  “I’d no idea you knew the Shawcross family,” she said.

  Jed shrugged. “I don’t, but I’ve heard rumours.”

  That had Rachel interested. “Care to share them?”

  “Not really. Probably a load of rubbish anyway.”

  “Go on,” she said. “Indulge me while I get some cereal.”

  “He’s the jealous type, is Shawcross, and I don’t just mean in a mild way either. Do him down, cross him in any way, and he doesn’t forget or forgive. If he can get even, he will. Ask his ex-wife. She’ll give you a better picture than I can.”

  Rachel made a mental note. A word with the woman might be worthwhile. “The mill is up for sale,” Rachel said. “What d’you reckon?”

  Jed pondered this for a minute. “Ancoats is a desirable location these days, particularly for apartments in revamped old cotton mills. I’d say it was a good investment for someone.”

  If that was the case, why hadn’t Mathew Shawcross tried to cash in on the mill before now? All that tripe he’d spouted about the family history was just that. Tripe. There had to be something else. The body, perhaps?

  “I’m going for a shower. Work could be heavy going today, so I can’t say when I’ll be back. Will you be able to cope?” she said.

  Jed nodded. Rachel made her way back upstairs with a smile on her face. This was something of a baptism of fire for him — full on family life and not much respite. She almost felt sorry for him.

  * * *

  Rachel was about to drive away from the house when her mobile rang. It was Nell Hennessey, the DCI from Tameside. “You had another visit from our unknown friend last night,” she said. “You should have rung me.”

  “Look, I don’t know what this is about, but I don’t have time to deal with it right now. I’m up to my eyeballs in a complex murder case. Perhaps in a few days.” Rachel paused. “How did you know anyway?”

  “He sent me a text to say he’d seen you. We need to speak, Rachel.”

  Hadn’t the woman heard her? “It can’t be today, I’ve got interviews and statements to plough through.”

  “Rachel, this is a serious matter. Meet me for lunch — your canteen.”

  She wasn’t going to give up. “You’ll have to take your chances,” Rachel said. “But I’ll do my best.”

  “I’ll be there about one.”

  The woman was becoming a nuisance, but Rachel couldn’t help being curious. The man who’d approached her — what did he want? And why tell her that tale about her parents? Maybe she’d have to make time for Nell Hennessey. Whatever she knew, Rachel was determined to get it out of her.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Rachel gathered the team together in the incident room for a briefing. They had a board full of information and a whole stack of statements, but they were still no nearer finding who had killed Gavin Wellburn and Billy Sherwin and injured Andy Siddall. Currently, their prime suspect was Ray Pearce, but they needed proof to back it up.

  “I want Pearce’s alibis checking for both Sherwin’s murder and the attack on Siddall. Amy, I’ll leave that to you. And don’t accept any vague excuses about serving in the Spinners Arms. That pub isn’t busy and it’s almost always Rita who’s behind the bar. I want a solid timeframe for that man’s movements.”

  She looked at Jonny. “I want you to take a couple of uniforms and knock on every door in Redhill Terrace. Find out anything you can about that house, any incident on that street within the last three years. It’s only a few metres long and blocked off at one end. I suspect that anything goes on along there and everyone knows about it. Stella, have you found anything?”

  “There was an incident a while ago involving the police. DCI Lennox from Central attended. They found the body of a murder victim at that address.”

  A piece of information that could possibly open another can of worms. First thing was to ascertain if that murder was in any way related to their current investigation. “Timescale?” Rachel asked.

  “Fits with our investigation. Just short of three years ago.”

  Coincidence? Rachel thought not. This meant even more work. That case would have to be looked at, statements gone through, the works. “Dig out the case file, would you, Stella? I’ll have a look later. Jonny, while you’re on that street, find out what you can about it. The immediate neighbours are bound to know something — if the victim was local, someone they knew, for example.”

  Next, she turned to Elwyn. “You and I will go over everything we’ve got so far. We still don’t know what links these men together — apart from the mill, that is. And before you say anything, I don’t think it’s drugs.”

  Kenton came in and stood at the back of the room. He didn’t look pleased. Well, she was in no mood to take flak from him.

  “Progress?” he asked.

  “We’re getting there.”

  “You have a man in the cells. Is
he your killer? Remember what I said about the time limit for this case? You are running close to the wire and costs are rising.”

  Had they been alone, he would have had the sharp end of her tongue, but not in front of the team. Why couldn’t he wait another couple of days before throwing his weight around? They were still short of solid evidence. A little longer and they would have this wrapped up.

  “We have two historic murders, one current, and a serious wounding, all carried out using the same gun. Our investigation, including gathering the evidence that will make the CPS happy, is complicated.” Rachel took a breath. “Sir. I’ll give you a further update later today.”

  Kenton could take it or leave it. Rachel couldn’t work with him breathing down her neck.

  “My office, when you’ve finished here,” he said.

  So that’s how it was going to be. She sighed. “Okay, team, get to it.”

  “Tell him about the baby,” Elwyn whispered as she passed. “It will defuse the situation if things get awkward.”

  “If he gets awkward I’m likely to slap him one! We’re working flat out here, Elwyn, and he damn well knows it. That little show was pure old-style Kenton. That man likes to throw his weight around, show everyone who’s boss. Well he won’t get away with it, not with me.”

  “Take a breath and have a coffee or something. Don’t go in there all guns blazing, that’s not the way to deal with him.”

  Good advice, and well worth listening to, but not today. “I’m off coffee, as you know.” With an apologetic smile to Elwyn, Rachel made for Kenton’s office.

  * * *

  “For the sake of the station’s budget, I need this case sorted urgently, Rachel,” Kenton began without any preliminaries. “No doubt you feel aggrieved by my insistence, but you have no idea of the pressure I’m under from them upstairs.”

  Kenton was at his desk, a spreadsheet open on his computer screen. Rachel sat down opposite him. “Not my problem, Mark. I catch villains, killers, and they have a habit of upsetting police budgets.”

  “Okay, I take your point, but I repeat, the body found in that mill should have been handed over to the cold case team. If you’d taken my advice, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

  “We have one new killing and one serious wounding related to that original case, so I was right. Gavin Wellburn’s murder is irrefutably relevant to the past week’s shootings of both Billy Sherwin and Andy Siddall.”

  “Motive?”

  “We’ve been looking at drug dealing, but now I’m not so sure. Sherwin was a dealer, a major player in the area, but not the others. They weren’t even users. However, the one thing that does link them all is that mill.”

  “I read in the reports about the tunnel. That is interesting. A lot of work was done to make it useable, that has to be important. I take it you are exploring why an exit was built in the cellar of that house and what its purpose was?”

  Rachel nodded. “Of course, but so far we can find no reason for it. One of my team is questioning the residents of that street today. With luck he may turn up something. Part of the delay is down to having to wait while the tunnel was rendered safe. As it was, it was a health and safety nightmare.”

  Rachel waited for his reply. Surely he had to see sense given everything she’d told him. She just hoped he didn’t ask how much longer, because until they had answers to key questions, she’d no idea.

  He nodded. “Okay, given what you’ve got, carry on with the good work. I’ll need another update later today.”

  Rachel nodded — she’d got what she wanted. Kenton had a job to do but he also understood what those on the ground were up against. When he’d been a detective at Salford, Kenton had had an excellent clear-up rate, so he must appreciate what that took. Maybe she could keep him onside after all.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Taking two uniformed officers with him, Jonny went to Redhill Terrace. They visited every house, knocked on every door and spoke to all the residents. He decided to concentrate on the immediate neighbours himself, reckoning that they were the best bet.

  Arthur and Elsie Michaels lived at number forty-seven. Arthur answered the door and Jonny introduced himself. “Would you mind answering some questions about the house next door?” he asked.

  The elderly man’s eyes lit up, and he immediately invited Jonny in. “Me and the wife are pleased to help if we can. Come on through. I always suspected that incident was a long way from being resolved. Mind you, these days it’s as quiet as the grave round ’ere. I should know, been ’ere nigh on forty years. And there’s not much goes on that gets past me and the wife, I can tell you. She’s in t’ kitchen, come and sit down and she’ll make you a cuppa. We don’t get many visitors. Kids are grown up and live away and grandkids don’t bother much.”

  Jonny wondered if this was a good idea after all. Probably the man was just desperate to talk to someone, and interviewing him could be a huge waste of time. Still, he had to try, find out what he knew. He followed Arthur through to the sitting room.

  The rooms were small and the furniture old-fashioned. Everything had seen better days, and some of the items were obviously several decades old. But the battered sofa was comfortable, and the open fire was warm and welcoming.

  Arthur called through to the kitchen. “Elsie! Come and meet this young man. Always up to her elbows in the sink that one. It’s washday today. She likes her routine, bless her.”

  The woman was tiny, with short curly hair and twinkly blue eyes. In her frilly apron, she reminded Jonny of the archetypal granny you see in kid’s storybooks.

  “This is a detective,” her husband said. “He’s asking about the house next door and the folk who lived there, that type of thing.”

  “You want to know about that poor bloke who was murdered, you mean? I thought that was all done with a while ago.”

  “Tell me about that, Mrs Michaels.”

  “We heard them arguing. Going at it for ages, they were. They were shouting and throwing things about, and then we heard the shot.” She looked at her husband. “We didn’t know what to do. Arthur wanted to go round but I stopped him and we rang the police instead.”

  “You did the right thing. You could have got hurt yourself.”

  “Next thing, we’ve got armed police hammering at the door. I wouldn’t have minded but they were too late.” She looked at her husband. “We heard that second shot and we just knew, didn’t we, Arthur?”

  Jonny had only glimpsed the details on the system. He wanted to know more. “Can you tell me exactly what happened?” he asked them. “Did you see the victim go into the house?”

  “No, but the kids around here did. They were playing out in the street, and they remembered him because he gave them a mouthful about keeping away from his car.”

  “What about the killer?” asked Jonny.

  “It’s still unsolved,” Arthur said. “The killer is the mystery. No one saw him go into that house or leave, for that matter. Take a look across the road.” Arthur pointed to the top of the wall opposite. “There’s a camera up there, focused on the street. The police got nothing from it. One of your lot said the killer must have got in through the back, but there was no evidence of that either. We had forensics people all over the back yards for days.” Arthur laughed. “Have you seen the back of these houses? No way out at all. A high wall and then more houses. It is well nigh impossible to scale something that high. Anyway, even if the killer had tried, he’d have been seen by the neighbours. One thing we do have round here, lad, is twitchy curtains.”

  “Do you know who the victim was?” Jonny asked

  “Gordon Swan, the bookie. He owned half a dozen betting shops around Manchester and four in Salford.”

  “And he was killed next door?” Jonny said incredulously. Why hadn’t one of team heard of this? Back then this area came under a different station, his own team at East Manchester were no doubt up to their ears in something of their own.

  He’d
heard of Swan, knew his reputation. The man had been a hard-hearted, and extremely successful businessman who’d run a tight ship. Jonny could see no reason for him to be in this tiny corner of Ancoats, never mind get shot here.

  “Had he ever lived around here? Did he know the place?” Jonny asked.

  “Shouldn’t think so. There were nothing in the press. His PA told the papers that he had a lot of money on him, but it was never found,” Arthur said.

  “Do you know how much money?”

  “In the papers it said in excess of half a million,” Arthur said. “He was an oddball, was Swan, didn’t trust people or banks much. He collected the takings from his shops once a week. That day, his PA reckoned he’d bagged up a fortune.”

  Jonny scribbled all this down in his notebook. If any of this wasn’t in the original murder file, it would need urgent investigation.

  “Anything else happen next door?” Jonny asked. “Do you recall anyone who’s lived there in the last three years?”

  “There was the one that made all the noise,” Elsie said. “I remember him, alright. Foul-mouthed he was. It got so bad I gave over speaking to him. It’s an unlucky house, that one, there’s been nothing but trouble there for years. Thankfully it’s empty now, so there’s no more noise or strange goings-on.”

  “Strange goings-on? Can you tell me what you mean, exactly?” asked Jonny.

  “That foul-mouthed bugger was there at all times of the day and night. I’ve no idea what he was doing but the banging got on my nerves,” Elsie said. “The walls aren’t that thick, so we heard everything. He barely stopped. Arthur here asked him what he was doing and just got a mouthful for his trouble,” Elsie said.

  “He was converting the cellar into a gym, he told me,” Arthur said.

  “Was he here at the same time as Swan, the man that died?” asked Jonny.

  “No, he was long gone by then.”

  “If I show you some photos, do you think you’d recognise him?”