‘Brenda.’
‘What do you mean, your girl?’ Geraldine asked. Bronxy puffed at her cigarette, considering the question. She didn’t answer. ‘Where does she come from?’ Geraldine pressed her.
‘Same place they all come from. I take them off the streets, put a roof over their heads. I do my bit same as you, officer. Most of my girls wouldn’t have survived the winter if I hadn’t taken them in.’
‘Why would she lie to protect Martin and Barker?’ Peterson asked when they were back in the car.
‘Just what I was wondering.’ Geraldine stared out of the window thoughtfully. The more information they unearthed, the less clear it all became.
30
Careless Talk
As long as the rain held off, Maggie did all right on a Friday. In the run up to Christmas she added to her usual stock with bags that did well as gifts. Some pretty beaded ones were proving popular. The market had been more crowded than usual in November. The stallholders reckoned they could thank the recession. Stores were advertising sales all along the High Street, more shops than usual stood empty, but the market, with its bargains and cheap products, was surviving.
Maggie and Alice worked neighbouring stalls and covered for each other on and off throughout the morning. Brenda worked erratic hours, helping out at different stalls. For a short time she had a regular pitch of her own selling birthday cards, notepads that fell apart and cheap biros. Unable to keep it together, she haunted the market place earning a few quid standing in for other stall holders when they went for a break. It was charity really. The stall holders could cover for one another. Brenda was busiest in the cold weather when the traders took refuge in the café or queued at the coffee stall to warm their hands round polystyrene cups.
Maggie met her friends for a drink every Friday. She made a point of keeping back a few quid for these outings. It wasn’t much of a social life but it made a change from sitting at home with the kids. She longed for more exciting company. Alice was nice but she was old, over sixty and not much fun. Brenda was a smack head and weird. What Maggie really wanted was to meet a man with some dosh, and that wasn’t going to happen sitting with Alice and Brenda over a drink round the corner from the market.
‘Maybe we should go for a proper evening out,’ Maggie suggested. ‘Go into town. We don’t have to stick to Friday.’ She didn’t need to stay in on Saturday nights now Chloe was ten and old enough to be left in charge of her brother.
‘We always meet on Friday,’ Brenda whined. She glanced around anxiously.
‘We always meet here Fridays,’ Alice agreed. ‘It’s a tradition.’
Maggie shrugged. ‘Whatever.’ Alice was past caring about going into town for the night life and Brenda would never dare go out for a whole evening. She was scared in case her boyfriend found out she had been for a drink when the market closed, and knocked her about for it.
Maggie and Alice agreed Brenda was pathetic.
‘Why does she stay with him? It’s obvious what’s going on. Did you see those blisters on her neck? Cigarette burns. On her neck!’
‘And her legs. She said she fell over.’
‘Yeah right. And then she walked into a door. Pull the other one.’
‘He’s going to finish her off one of these days.’
‘Like Lily,’ they agreed.
Four of them used to meet in the pub until Lily had been the victim of a fatal mugging. Her attacker was never caught. Maggie and Alice suspected Lily’s boyfriend was responsible. They used to speculate about it constantly until Brenda had moved in with Lily’s ex.
‘Best not to interfere,’ Alice had said at the time, and Maggie agreed with her.
They were reminiscing about Lily while Brenda was in the loo because Alice, who had once met Lily’s ex, had spotted him at the bus stop that morning. ‘Whistling he was, happy as Larry. Vicious bastard. It gave me quite a turn, seeing him there.’
‘We know what he did to poor Lily,’ Maggie muttered, hoping she would never meet him.
‘Sod all we can do about it,’ Alice said, not for the first time. She had been around the market for years. ‘If I’ve learned anything, it’s not to trust anyone in uniform. Start with the pigs and before you can say jack shit they’re crawling all over you. They’ll take your kids away too. You wouldn’t want to lose Chloe, would you? They don’t care.’ She took a swig of her pint. ‘Take away your licence for no reason, if they feel like it. Remember what happened to Barney and his fish stall?’
Maggie stared at Brenda staggering across to the bar and wished she could do something to help her but Alice was right. You couldn’t trust anyone.
‘Pigs,’ Maggie grumbled. She took a pull of her pint, before adding, ‘They were round this week.’
‘Who?’
‘The filth. Came to see me.’ Alice and Brenda stared at her.
Alice’s lined face grew tense. ‘What did they want? Don’t tell me that arsehole Geoffrey’s been at it again? You ought to make a formal complaint. Bastard’s been after your pitch for years.’
Maggie shook her head. ‘It wasn’t about my pitch.’
‘What then?’
‘They were asking about a bag.’
‘A bag? They knocked on your door for a bag?’ Alice was indignant. ‘You should’ve told them go to the market like everyone else. Bloody cheek. Think they own the place.’
‘They didn’t come round to buy a bag,’ Maggie laughed. ‘They wanted to know about some bloke. They reckon he bought a bag off me last week. One of those canvas bags. A khaki one.’
Brenda spilt her drink all over her jeans and swore. ‘What did you tell them?’ she asked. Her fingers wriggled in her lap like worms.
Maggie shrugged. ‘I told them I couldn’t remember any bloke buying a bag from me.’ She stared at Brenda. ‘You all right, Bren? You look awful. Perhaps you’d better get off home and change out of those wet jeans before you catch a chill up your minge.’ Alice sniggered. Brenda nodded uncertainly before clambering to her feet. The other two women watched her stumble to the door. ‘What’s got into her?’ Maggie asked. ‘She looks like shit.’
Alice scowled at Brenda’s retreating back, narrow shoulders hunched beneath her dry blonde hair. ‘She’s beginning to really piss me off,’ she said as the pub door swung shut. ‘She keeps telling us she’s all right, but if you ask me she’s getting worse.’
Maggie nodded. ‘She looks like the walking dead. Off her face more often than not.’
‘She’s going to end up like Lily if she’s not careful.’
Maggie went up to the bar for another round. Two drinks were cheaper than three. She would stay on for a bit, what the hell.
‘Tell you what,’ Alice said when Maggie returned. ‘I reckon it was me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Sold a khaki bag to a bloke last Friday, while I was minding the stall for you. And I’ll tell you how I remember. He came back this week, when you were off seeing Geoffrey. That’s when I saw him again. I remembered his funny eyes.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Yeah. So why did they want to know?’
‘How would I know? They didn’t exactly take me into their confidence. Who was he anyway?’
‘Seen him around, but I don’t know his name. Don’t know and don’t care.’ She grinned at Maggie and lifted her glass. ‘Cheers.’
31
Disappointment
It was late by the time they returned to the station. Geraldine was dismayed to see Sophie Cliff sitting on a chair in the entrance lobby. She was staring straight ahead, fingers interlaced round a polystyrene cup of coffee. With a shrug at Peterson, Geraldine ushered her into an interview room.
‘You need to go home, Mrs Cliff.’
‘It was him, wasn’t it?’
‘Mrs Cliff - Sophie - Mr Barker has an alibi. We’ve checked it out and he has a witness. It couldn’t have been him, the man you saw in your headlights on Friday night.’ Sophie Cliff watched Ger
aldine’s mouth, as though lip reading. ‘We’ve checked it out very carefully,’ Geraldine repeated gently. She spoke slowly. ‘Mr Barker has witnesses who can vouch for his being with them throughout Friday evening, until the early hours of Saturday morning.’ She paused. Silence. Sophie sat quite still. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Cliff, but I’m afraid you must’ve been mistaken. It wasn’t Mr Barker you saw on Friday night. Mrs Cliff?’ Geraldine had dealt with families of victims of violent death before, people for whom the case never closed. A spasm of pity threatened her composure but it crossed her mind that Sophie Cliff could have been responsible for her husband’s murder. She was certainly unstable. Geraldine had encountered less likely murderers.
‘Alibi?’ Sophie Cliff repeated, as though she didn’t recognise the word. Patiently Geraldine went over it again. Suddenly Sophie Cliff leaned forward in her chair. She was shaking. The cup she was clutching tipped precariously. She didn’t respond as a trickle of coffee dribbled into her lap. Geraldine reached forward and took the cup from her grasp. ‘You mustn’t believe them,’ Sophie Cliff hissed. ‘They’re lying. I saw him.’
‘Mrs Cliff, we have witnesses who claim Raymond Barker was with them on Friday night at the time you thought you saw him outside your house. We have no case against him. He was somewhere else at the time.’
‘I’m not mistaken. He’s lying. Don’t believe him.’ Her eyes glistened with tears.
‘We have witnesses, Mrs Cliff.’
‘They’re lying. I saw him.’
‘You saw a figure for an instant, in the dark.’
‘I saw him. They’re lying.’ Her voice rose to a hoarse shriek.
Geraldine considered. Sophie Cliff might have identified her intruder correctly, but her evidence was flimsy. She would be an unreliable witness. Raymond Barker had witnesses prepared to swear in court that he had been in the Blue Lagoon on Friday night. A prosecution wouldn’t reach court. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Cliff. My hands are tied.’ Their eyes met just long enough for Geraldine to feel a faint unease before Sophie Cliff dropped her gaze. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Cliff.’ Geraldine led Sophie Cliff out to the entrance lobby, where she slumped down on the bench. ‘Where are you going now? Do you have somewhere to go? We could arrange –’
‘I’ll go to my parents.’
Geraldine watched Sophie Cliff leave the station. She glanced around the deserted lobby and exchanged a few words with the desk sergeant before returning to her desk to research the woman known as Bronxy.
The Blue Lagoon had opened in the nineteen sixties, one of the first clubs to appear in the neighbourhood. At that time, Eastglade had been a residential area with a small shopping centre. Within six weeks, a petition calling for the club to be closed down was presented to the Council. A copy had found its way on to the police file:
We, the undersigned, call on Harchester Council to close the brothel called The Blue Lagoon, which has recently opened in a residential district of East Harchester, in the vicinity of local schools and shops.
In 2004 the ownership had passed from Mr Derek Brooks to Mrs Susan Brooks. A list of employees included several girls with exotic names: Lulu, Renee, Foxy, Tallulah. There was no mention of anyone called Brenda. Geraldine read about Eastglade’s development into the centre of tawdry night life in Harchester. A filthy kebab shop had been unsuccessfully prosecuted, unlicensed cabs prowled the streets and there were unsubstantiated allegations of child prostitution. It made for unsavoury reading. But she found nothing to undermine Barker’s alibi.
By early evening Geraldine was home and lonely. She had bought a flat when her partner, Mark, had walked out on their relationship after six years. Geraldine was pleased with the security of owning her own home but a new flat, however smart, couldn’t fill her hours of solitude. She went out to her car and called Craig. He didn’t answer his landline. His mobile went straight to voicemail. On an impulse, she drove to the small town where he lived. She hoped he would be pleased to see her.
‘Sorry to turn up like this,’ she imagined the conversation. ‘I felt like company tonight.’
‘That’s great.’ She pictured Craig’s face lighting up in a smile that crinkled the little lines around his eyes. ‘I was just about to call you.’ Then he would kiss her and pull her into the bedroom. Afterwards they would curl up on the sofa, limbs entwined, and share a bottle of soft red wine. Geraldine smiled at the image she had conjured up.
She parked opposite his building and sat for a while, touching up her make up. She couldn’t see his car. She checked her face in the mirror one last time before setting off but Craig didn’t answer the door. She thought she might as well wait for him to come home, now she was there. He might be back soon. She waited about twenty minutes and was on the point of leaving when Craig’s car drew up.
She glanced in the mirror and paused, lip gloss in hand, as Craig emerged, followed by a tall slim woman in a long dark coat. Craig half turned and waited for the woman. She slipped her arm through his. They were laughing. Geraldine slouched in her seat and stared at their disappearing figures. Her face was burning. She hoped Craig wouldn’t look round and recognise her car, but he was too engrossed in his companion to glance back. Geraldine bit her lip. ‘That’s that, then,’ she said aloud. One less problem to worry about. The woman might be his sister, or a work colleague. But she saw the intimacy between the two figures as they walked, arm in arm, along the path and out of sight. Craig didn’t look back as Geraldine’s engine growled into life and she pulled away from the kerb. Tears of disappointment slid down her face and dripped off her chin. Her nose began to run. She was surprised that she felt so distraught. Vexed, she wiped her face with the back of her hand, telling herself she didn’t care. She had been on her own before. And right now she had more important things to worry about, with two unsolved murders on her caseload.
PART 3
‘It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe,
that lures him to evil ways.’
Siddharta
32
Update
When the DCI summoned all the officers involved in the investigation to a briefing on Saturday morning, most of them weren’t pleased.
‘It’s Saturday,’ Peterson muttered as they gathered in the Incident Room. He glanced at his watch.
‘At least you can claim overtime,’ Bennett grumbled. Geraldine pulled a face. As an inspector she was no longer eligible to claim overtime for additional hours worked.
‘It’s gone nine,’ Polly complained to the room in general after they had been waiting ten minutes. A few voices chimed in. Geraldine wasn’t too bothered. She had nothing to do that weekend.
‘My daughter’s coming round,’ Bennett said looking wretchedly at the door. There was no sign of the DCI.
They were all feeling irritated by the time James Ryder finally turned up. It was past ten but he didn’t apologise for keeping them waiting. Geraldine assumed he had been reporting to the Superintendent about the investigation. He was looking particularly well turned out in an expensive looking three piece suit. Even his shirt collar looked starched, in contrast to the rest of the team who all looked like they could do with a lie in at the end of a frenetic week. Geraldine felt sweaty and crumpled. Beside her, Peterson was tightening the knot on his tie, his shirt was wrinkled and his good looking face had lost its characteristic exuberance.
The atmosphere in the room was tense as though the DCI was no longer leading the team, but inspecting them. Glancing round, Geraldine saw her own tension reflected in other faces. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on what the DCI was saying. Ryder himself seemed edgy. Geraldine guessed he had been given a bollocking of some sort. He had only been on the case for four days, but the pressure for results was never far beneath the surface, from the Super, the press and anyone who had been involved with the victims.
‘Right, I was tied up most of yesterday, as you know,’ he opened the meeting. ‘I’d rather have been here, I can tell you. So bring me up to speed. What’s be
en happening in my absence? Have we cracked it?’ He spoke with forced enthusiasm. ‘Any progress?’ He sighed. He was going through the motions. He ran his hand through his light brown hair which flopped forward over his forehead, his elegant guise wrecked with that one movement. ‘I take it we’re no further on then?’ The atmosphere changed. He was back on the team.
Geraldine broke the silence by telling him about Deborah Mainwaring’s intruder. ‘She picked him out at once, sir. She was sure it was him.’
Ryder waved his hand dismissively. ‘Let’s stick to the burglaries, shall we?’ he said. ‘I’m not concerned about some minor trespass – it’s not even a break-in. The woman left her front door wide open, for Christ’s sake. Is there anything to link this to the case?’ Geraldine bristled but was mollified by Ryder’s reaction when he learned that Sophie Cliff had identified Barker as the man she had seen in her headlights on Friday night. They discussed Sophie Cliff’s statement in some detail.
‘She’s hardly in a stable condition,’ someone pointed out.
‘Is she on any medication?’ Ryder asked.
‘No.’
‘Bloody well ought to be,’ the sergeant who had been on the desk said. He described Sophie Cliff’s reaction after she had been told that Barker had an alibi. ‘If you ask me, the woman’s cracking up.’
‘She’s in shock,’ Geraldine protested. ‘She’s just lost her husband in an arson attack. And they’d not been married for long,’ she added, as though that made a difference.
‘Whatever the reason, I wouldn’t want to have to rely on her as a witness in court,’ the sergeant replied.
‘Still, she picked him out,’ Ryder mused. ‘It’s an odd coincidence.’
‘He might’ve reminded her of the person she saw,’ someone suggested.
‘If she really saw anyone,’ another voice added. ‘Perhaps she’s trying to shift the blame, to make herself feel better.’
‘She might’ve been mistaken, but she was genuinely convinced it was him, sir,’ Geraldine said. ‘And what’s interesting is that her description matched Barker before she saw him here. She must’ve seen him, or someone very like him, before she came into the station. She gave a detailed description of this man she saw on the street outside her house.’ She flicked through her note book and read out Sophie Cliff’s description of the face in the headlights. ‘I think he was tall. He was all arms and legs when he ran. And he had huge eyes, no not huge, but protruding, like marbles. He was pale and his hair looked like straw, like a scarecrow.’
Road Closed Page 14
