by Mel Sherratt
‘Sorry.’ Leah bit down on the inside of her lip. ‘I wish I could help more but I can’t.’
Back on the walkway after nothing else was forthcoming, Allie shook her head. ‘I don’t know if she’s hiding something or is just too drunk to remember. The place smelt like a brewery.’
‘Exactly,’ said Perry. ‘She’d obviously had a skinful last night.’
‘She was a bit shifty though, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes. I know she seemed to have a hangover but her eyes wouldn’t rest for one minute.’
‘Hmm. And a woman with dark hair is our priority now to rule out.’ Allie paused. ‘I think I’ll get uniform to take statements from them both. See if the details match. Something just doesn’t sit right with me.’
12.30 P.M.
Leah dropped the card on the coffee table and paced up and down. She’d been thinking of handing herself in until the police had brought up all that nonsense about her past. Maybe she still could? She thought about running after them, but neither officer would have believed that she had just found the money. They’d assume she had something to do with Jordan’s death.
Ten thousand pounds. She had never seen so much money in her life. She had certainly never had any more than a few hundred pounds in her savings account.
But she had stolen it.
She was in too deep: once whoever was after the money found out it was her, she would be dead too. Knowing her luck, the money had to be dodgy; she could be pissing off someone far worse than Kenny Webb.
She had to get out of the flat. If she could get out of Stoke, she could start afresh somewhere else. She could leave all her debts behind, maybe change her name and reinvent herself.
But then reality came crashing down. There was no way she could leave her mother to fend for herself, and ten thousand pounds wouldn’t be enough for them both to up and leave – even if she could persuade Mum to go away for a while.
She’d counted it again after Stella had gone. There was something compelling about seeing it all piled up. But she’d put it away sharpish when she’d heard a noise outside. Would this be what her life would be like if she didn’t give it back? Looking over her shoulder all the time? She couldn’t handle that.
She didn’t know what to do long-term but she knew she couldn’t keep the money here – it would have to go. Finally, she decided on moving it. She’d have to chance going tonight. The police wouldn’t be there forever – and although they were covering the front entrance to the building, they couldn’t keep an eye on everyone who might jump over the walkway, climb down and do a runner in the dark. And even if they did, surely they weren’t allowed to conduct random bag checks unless they had prime suspects?
Leah wondered how long it would be before the police found out that she was the mystery woman. It was her, she was sure, but she wasn’t going to admit it. She thought of all the tenants that she knew in the flats, going through them floor by floor, wondering if there was anyone else who looked similar to her living in the block.
Then she stopped. There was another woman she could think of who fitted the description too. Someone who looked like her and was more or less the same age. Someone who lived on the same floor.
Someone who could possibly be set up to look like it was her if need be.
Stella’s stuck-up friend, Sophie.
Jacob lit another cigarette as he stood watching the scene below. It was the first time he’d felt the advantage of being on the top floor. He could see everything that was going on. He watched the police working away, and he watched as Craig’s missus went back and forth to her friend Leah’s flat, with a very worried look on her face. He’d store that up to use later. Made a change to get something useful out of the flat. Usually he hated it here. The lift hardly ever worked and he’d have to haul himself and his push bike up the stairs, stinking of sweat as he reached the top.
He hated living at home with his mum and brother, too. It was too cramped sharing a bedroom with Tommy, and at eighteen they both needed their own space. As soon as his girlfriend Diane got a flat from the council, he was moving in with her. She reckoned she’d go to the top of the list now that she was pregnant. He’d only been going out with her for a few months – his mum would do her nut when she found out, especially as he already had a son with mad Malory Victor.
His mum couldn’t say much really. She’d had him and Tommy when she was eighteen. Their father had stuck around for three years until he’d pissed off with some slag from the council estate down the road. She never stopped going on about how she had been deserted by him, but everyone knew why. She used to look after herself but now she was more interested in her next drink.
Dragged up – that’s what everyone said about the Granger brothers. The police, social services, even the neighbours. It had pissed him off for years, hearing them all make out their mum was a waste of space. She wasn’t that bad. She’d been great before alcohol had become her only friend.
Having to rely on each other, fend for themselves from an early age, had made them both harden up, and with hardly any money coming in, they’d had to go out and find some from somewhere. Thieving had become their trade from an early age. If anyone wanted anything, they would ask the Granger twins to get it for them. Mum used to have a go at them about it but when she realised they could bring in enough for her to get drunk on, she’d relented. Not that she would have been able to do anything about it anyway. She’d lost control of them way before they hit puberty.
They weren’t all bad, however. Only last month, they’d been involved in a sponsored darts match down the pub to raise funds for some local kid who was dying of leukaemia. They’d raised over a grand and none of them had nicked a penny – now that was good in his eyes.
Even as young as he was, Jacob’s criminal record was a mile long – something he was more proud of than ashamed. He’d been sent to juvenile detention twice already for thieving and wasn’t afraid to do time again if it meant getting in with the big boys.
He rested his chin on his hands on the wall and glanced around. Along the walkway, he spotted uniformed officers now on their floor. They were only a few doors away – they’d be questioning him and Tommy soon. Behind them, he could see Martha Sterling. Jacob made a mental note to go and speak to her later. She always had her head in the window gawping out or was sitting on the walkway, as she was doing now. She might have seen something he could report back to Elliott.
He could see Philip Derricott, too: he was a decent bloke but his wife was a bit of a nutcase. Next door to him, Tracy Weston was talking to her mum: now she was a bitch if ever he knew one. She was a right slag too, sleeping with anyone if she could use them to her advantage.
Tommy came out onto the walkway.
‘See anything?’ he asked Jacob.
‘Nothing interesting enough.’ Jacob jerked his head to the right. ‘You’ve come just in time though.’
Tommy swore under his breath when he saw DC Wright walking towards them.
12.45 P.M.
Perry wasn’t sure if he was looking forward more to seeing what lies the Granger twins concocted between them or seeing if he could rattle their cages a little. If truth were known, he didn’t have much time for either of them, the trouble they caused on a regular basis – and that was just fighting between the two of them.
He’d first come across the boys when he’d still been in uniform. There had been a milk lorry doing the rounds back then and they’d been caught taking milk and bread from the back of it. Both had blamed the other so both had received a caution. The milk lorry had then been vandalised three weeks on the trot but with no evidence to link the boys, it had been up to Perry to take the wrath of the milkman for not doing his job properly and nailing the thieving little bastards.
Several times, he’d tried to speak sense to their layabout mother, to no avail. Now, nine years on, the crimes had become increasing
ly worse, although for the moment it was still petty crime, nothing too major. But for how long? They were trouble, especially that Jacob, and Perry wouldn’t put it past him to be involved here, or at least to know something.
‘All right, boys,’ Perry nodded a greeting as he approached them. ‘You heard what’s gone on downstairs, I take it?’
‘We’d be stupid not to have,’ Jacob lipped him. ‘And you know we’re not stupid.’
‘Pipe down,’ Perry chastised. ‘We need to check where you were last night and then we can get on with things. Catch the big boys at work. So . . .’ he looked from Jacob to Tommy and back. ‘Where were you both in between the hours of one a.m. and four a.m. this morning?’
‘That’s not fair!’ Jacob protested. ‘I bet you haven’t asked all the neighbours where they were. Always the same if you’re a Granger.’
Tommy nudged his brother sharply, glared at him before speaking.
‘If you weren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to lose by telling me.’ Perry raised his hands. ‘So what’s it to be? Here or at the station?’
‘You don’t have anything to arrest us on, do you?’
Perry said nothing.
‘We were in Burslem.’ Jacob let out a sigh. ‘We had a few pints in The Leopard. Then we went for a kebab and then we went for a few more drinks at a mate’s house.’
‘Mate’s name?’
No one spoke. Jacob looked down to the ground as if disinterested.
‘Mate’s name?’ Perry repeated.
‘Denton Harlow,’ said Tommy eventually.
Perry wrote the details down in his notebook, not knowing of a Denton Harlow off the top of his head.
‘What time were you back?’
‘About half one, I think?’
Jacob nodded. ‘About that, I suppose.’
‘You suppose?’
‘Yeah, well, Tommy did stop on the way home to see his girl. And then we went to his mate’s house,’ Jacob clarified.
Perry watched as their eyes flitted to each other and back to him. ‘And the girlfriend’s name?’
‘Kayleigh Smith.’
‘Address?’
He took down the details as Tommy relayed it reluctantly. ‘Anything else?’ he tried one more time but was met with a stare from Jacob and the shake of his head from Tommy.
Tommy waited for Perry to be out of hearing range. Then he grabbed Jacob’s arm, dragged him into the flat, closed the door behind them.
‘What the fuck did you say that for?’ he turned on his brother.
‘What?’
‘That I stopped off at Kayleigh’s.’
‘I was covering for you.’ Jacob shrugged. ‘They’ll probably find out you weren’t here. So, as I knew you were there . . .’
Tommy gritted his teeth as he spoke. ‘But you landed me in it by saying we went to a mate’s house as well!’
‘I wasn’t the one who gave him Denton Harlow’s name’
‘I had to say I was with someone!
‘He knew we were lying anyway.’
Tommy shook his head. Jacob didn’t give a stuff that he might have landed him in trouble again. He’d have to go and see Kayleigh, see if she would bend the truth a little.
Tommy went to speak but Jacob walked off. He grabbed his shoulder. ‘What aren’t you telling me about last night, Jay?’ He pointed a finger in his brother’s face. ‘If you’re involved in that lot downstairs, I’m not covering for you, do you hear?’
Jacob pushed him away. ‘Mind your own business.’
‘You make it my business if you’re involved.’ Tommy spat. ‘He’s been fucking murdered!’
‘Chill out, will you?’ Jacob sighed. ‘Look, just keep your mouth shut and your wits about you and it will all blow over soon.’
Tommy kicked at the wall in temper as Jacob left him there.
1.00 P.M.
Flynn’s nightclub was at the bottom of Hanley City Centre and, thanks to the hard work of the Johnson brothers, it had done well over the last two years. It had been completely refurbished before re-opening, now boasting two floors of sophistication with a further private members-only area upstairs. Known as Freddie’s before, it had been cleaned out of riff-raff since then, too, if the reduced number of call-outs were anything to go by.
‘Wonder what we’ll find in here,’ said Perry as he knocked on one of four front doors across the entrance.
‘Oh, I bet there’ll be a murder weapon or two. It has a killer atmosphere apparently.’
Perry groaned at Allie’s lame joke.
The door was opened by someone they both recognised. At forty-seven, Steve Burgess could pass for late thirties easily with his whitened teeth, tall physique and full head of dark brown hair, although it was greying at the roots. Allie would say one thing about the criminal fraternity – the men were mostly lean, exuding power and magnetism by keeping themselves in good shape. To her, it showed hard work, commitment and a healthy ego. Although, she laughed inwardly as she thought of Craig Elliott, there were always exceptions to the rules. He was more of a bulldog than an offspring of the breed itself.
Steve showed them through the entrance and into the nightclub. The vast open area seemed eerie in its silence as they followed him across the empty dance floor. Booths fitted with low lighting were set around the edge; there was a stage at the far end where a DJ or live entertainment would be set up. Despite her joking earlier, Allie knew that the club did have a reputation for a good night out.
‘Do you work for Mr Johnson or Ms Ryder?’ Allie asked Steve Burgess.
‘I don’t work for either,’ Steve glared at her. ‘I keep an eye on things. They’re both young and inexperienced. I’m a father figure to look up to – someone in the business who knows the business.’ They came to a door and he pressed down the handle. ‘Of course they are the glamour couple who run and own the club but it’s me who does all the legwork. I dread to think how long it would have been before their egos ruined the business. And I know Mr Ryder wouldn’t have been at all happy with that.’
Allie struggled to control her reaction to Ryder’s name, aware of Burgess’s intense stare.
‘You were the one who arrested Terry, weren’t you?’ he pushed.
‘I don’t see how that has any relevance to what we’re doing now,’ she replied curtly.
Steve shrugged and opened the door with a wry smile. ‘He still speaks about the one that got away.’
Allie couldn’t look at Perry. She refused to be drawn into Steve’s game.
Down a long corridor at the back of the building, they were shown into a small office.
‘Here it is.’ Steve opened the drawer of a desk, took out several discs and handed them to Allie. ‘Last night’s security footage.’
‘I need a list of all the staff who were working. Their addresses, too.’ Allie switched into investigation mode. ‘Were you here last night, Mr Burgess? I believe there was a party?’
‘Yes, my wife’s. We celebrated in the members-only area.’
‘What time did it finish?’
‘I left around half past two – most people had gone around one a.m. There were a few stragglers around still saying goodbye until then.’
‘How many were in the room?’
‘Over a hundred, I should say.’
‘Were you witness to the fracas between Kirstie Ryder and Jordan Johnson?’
‘We all were.’ Steve sat down at the desk. ‘Jordan was sitting at the bar with a few of us when she stormed in, making a fool of herself as usual.’
‘Does this happen on a regular basis?’
‘Afraid so. Kirstie hated Jordan spending too much time here. She was always accusing him of having an affair with some woman or other.’
Allie frowned. ‘Was there ever any truth in her accusations?’
Steve shrugged his shoulders. ‘I think there might have been someone. I wasn’t interested in finding out. It was none of my business.’
‘So what happened after she’d started shouting?’
‘She wanted him to go home with her and when he wouldn’t, she started lashing out at him. It took three of the lads to drag her off him. They went downstairs with her to try and calm her down but she stormed off, so I heard.’
‘And how did Jordan react to that? It must have been embarrassing?’
‘He laughed it off but I could see he was annoyed. He left shortly afterwards. I think Ryan left at the same time.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead. Such a shock.’
‘Can you recall what time they left?’ Perry asked.
‘It was just after midnight, I reckon. The recording will confirm times, I’m sure.’
‘Do you have any idea who would have wanted to kill Jordan?’ said Allie.
‘Half the men in Stoke wanted to have a go at him, no doubt. He made this club very popular by getting rid of some of the layabouts and dealers who were running it down in the first place. Before Jordan came along, Freddie’s, as you know, was a dump, full of parasites. I have to give credit to the lad and his brother – they certainly turned it around. Jordan made a fair few enemies because he stopped people’s livelihoods, I suppose, but I’m not sure how many of them would be up to murdering him.’
‘Do you have any names for us to check out? Anyone who would have been at the party, for instance?’
‘Not off the top of my head, no. I’ll be sure to let you know if I think of anyone.’ He pointed to his computer. ‘I’ll get that list sorted out for you, shall I?’
Afterwards, Allie and Perry called in at a sandwich shop on Piccadilly.
‘I don’t like Burgess,’ said Perry as they joined the small queue in front of the counter. ‘Something about him, not sure what.’
