by P. F. Ford
From his position, he could see the back of the building and down one side. Sophia’s door was at the back, and Alfie’s was down the side, so he could easily watch all three doors. At that moment, Sophia’s front door opened.
Because the car park was so tiny, PC Biddeford was less than ten yards away. His mouth dropped open as a young woman emerged. He thought she had the most beautiful face he had ever seen. She was wearing a t-shirt tight enough to reveal a stunning figure, and a skirt short enough to reveal almost every inch of a fabulous pair of legs.
Woooohoooo! Stop the bus!
He watched, mesmerised, as the vision before him turned to close the door. She wiggled her way along the back of the building and turned the corner. As she did so, she clumsily dropped her bag. Then, back turned to him, she bent over and seemed to take an eternity to pick it up. PC Biddeford didn’t know where to look, but somehow he didn’t seem to be able to tear his eyes away. He was sure he could almost see what she’d had for breakfast.
The girl stood up, shook herself, and slipped the bag over her shoulder. She turned to Biddeford and gave him a smile and a wink. Then she wiggled her way along the side of the building before turning left as she reached the front, finally disappearing from view with a wave of her left hand.
Gosh! thought a furiously blushing Biddeford. Has it suddenly got hot in here, or what? He wondered just how much detail he ought to include in his notebook. He wanted to be thorough, but did it really matter what colour her knickers were?
On the other side of the building, Jelena was putting her key into the lock of the tea shop to let herself in. Normally she would have entered by the back door in the passage just inside Sophia’s door, but that would not have been nearly so much fun, nor would it have helped the plan they had hatched.
Half an hour later, Biddeford’s blood pressure had just about settled down, and his face had returned to its normal colour: an almost ghostly shade of white. It was because of his colouring that his colleagues often referred to him as ‘spook’ behind his back.
He had been thinking about the young woman he had seen earlier. He figured she must have been the niece of the Sophia woman. He didn’t condone Weir’s use of bad language, but he had to agree with his opinion. She was, as Weir had said, ‘real bloody tasty.’
But he was determined he wasn’t going to be distracted by what Weir had referred to as ‘the fanny’. He was above such things. He had a job to do. But those legs… and when she had bent over…
He was startled from his thoughts by the arrival of another car. It was a bit battered and there was an unhappy-looking bald bloke driving it. He parked right behind Biddeford’s car and just sat there. Watching in his rear-view mirror, Biddeford thought a man just sitting in a car, in a car park, was rather suspicious behaviour. The irony of the situation didn’t even begin to enter his head.
He licked his pencil again. 8.47 am. Car arrives in car park. Suspicious-looking driver appears to be sitting and waiting.
He was just wondering if he should break cover and challenge the new arrival when Sophia’s door opened again. Another gorgeous, but this time older, woman appeared. This must be Sophia Ingliss, thought Biddeford, watching as the woman propped the door open and then disappeared back inside. He grabbed his pencil again.
8.50 am. Sophia Ingliss props door open.
He wondered why she would prop her door open. Maybe to provide some ventilation.
Ten minutes more passed and nothing happened. The unhappy-looking guy was still sitting in his car, but now he had taken out a newspaper and had it propped against the steering wheel. PC Biddeford guessed, correctly as it happened, that he must be waiting for someone.
Biddeford had not even been here an hour, but already he was bored. This surveillance game was no fun at all. At this rate, he would never get to tangle with what his imagination now saw as the evil serial killer, Alfie Bowman. He pressed the button and wound his window down. And then he wound it up again. And down. And up. Then he did the same with the passenger window. Down. Up. Down. Up.
Come on, come on. When was something going to happen?
Idly he decided to try both windows at once. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down…
And then something did happen. Just as both windows reached the fully down position, a piercing scream tore into PC Biddeford’s boredom.
Holy fuck! Biddeford’s hair stood up on end. (He didn’t normally swear, but on this occasion he thought it was probably justified.) This is it. My moment of glory.
He leapt from the car, but where had the scream come from? He swung round, all his senses at the ready. It had to be close by.
Another scream. This time, he knew exactly where it had come from. He sprinted for Sophia’s door and hurtled inside. The stunning young woman from earlier was standing by another doorway, screaming her head off and pointing inside.
‘In there,’ she cried. ‘Is horrible.’
Biddeford sprinted to the rescue through the open door and found himself in a small kitchen. Had the killer struck again? Sophia Ingliss was standing anxiously outside yet another door.
‘Don’t panic,’ called Biddeford, summoning all the authority he could muster. ‘You’re safe now I’m here. What’s the problem?’
Shaking like a leaf, Sophia pointed to the door. ‘In the office,’ she said. ‘It’s awful.’
Charging at the door, Biddeford shouldered his way inside. ‘Police!’ he yelled. ‘Stay where you are. You’re under arrest.’
He went for his truncheon, but he was in plain clothes. Shit! He was completely unarmed. He looked around for a weapon. There was nothing. Then he realised there was no one to arrest either. He spun around. No one. Anywhere.
Sophia and Jelena were watching him from the doorway.
‘Where is he?’ asked Biddeford.
‘Under desk,’ said Jelena.
Biddeford crouched down, ready for action, but there was no one under the desk. Still crouching on the floor, he turned back to the two women.
‘Big spider,’ explained Jelena, her eyes wide. ‘Is very big. Aunt Sophia hate spider. Me too.’
Sophia nodded her agreement, apparently so frightened she had temporarily lost the power of speech.
‘A spider? You called me in here for a spider?’ said an exasperated Biddeford, his moment of glory fading before his very eyes.
‘Not call.’ Jelena smiled sweetly. ‘I scream, you come. No one ask you come.’
Biddeford felt the ‘f’ word forming in his mouth but managed to stifle it. Detective Constable Weir’s influence was obviously long-lasting. He took a deep breath and calmed himself.
What can you do? Women. Frightened of a spider? Really!
He looked under the desk and spotted a tiny spider. He carefully picked it up and started to make his way back outside.
‘You very brave,’ said Jelena, giving him the benefit of her full-power smile. ‘Can make you coffee? Or tea?’
She was in tease mode now, and Sophia gave her a nudge in the ribs.
‘Jelena, you will embarrass the young man.’ Then, turning to Biddeford, Sophia smiled sweetly. ‘Thank you so much for you help, officer.’
‘You’re welcome, ladies,’ said Biddeford, sounding far more gallant than he felt.
PC Biddeford climbed back into his car. Hmmpphh! So much for his big moment. All that screaming and charging around for a piddly little spider. And that older woman seemed to know he was a policeman. She had called him ‘officer’. Perhaps Weir was right and he didn’t blend in. Maybe there was more to this surveillance lark than he thought. Focus, that’s what he needed to do, focus.
He noticed that the car that had been parked behind him and its suspicious, newspaper-reading driver, had gone. He found his pencil and notebook.
9.08 am. Suspicious vehicle left car park.
Chapter Twelve
We had taken a gamble on Nugent being at his snooker club, even though it was before ten in the morning. Luckily for us, he was, and on h
is own too. It was way too early for beers, really, but as he’d poured them himself, and we didn’t want to appear rude, we’d accepted them anyway.
But things weren’t going too well. To be honest, it was my fault. Having been dragged off in handcuffs by the police yesterday and then named as murder suspect number one, tact wasn’t at the top of my list of priorities, but just coming out and accusing Nugent of attacking both Marie and DB probably hadn’t been the best approach. I’d wound him up big-time.
‘Now let’s get something straight’ said Nugent, outraged. ‘I do not beat up little old men, nor do I hurt women. I certainly don’t bloody well murder them. Got it?’
Then he obviously thought of something and turned to me. ‘You should bloody know all this,’ he said. ‘If you recall, I had you duffed up because you had been beating up your own wife.’
Now it was my turn to be outraged. ‘But I wasn’t beating anyone up, you dickhead, and you know that.’
‘My point,’ said Nugent, waving away my protests, ‘is that we wouldn’t have duffed up a wife-beater if we did it ourselves would we? I mean, what do you take me for? That would be double standards.’
Not for the first time in Nugent’s company, Pete nearly choked on his beer. Nugent turned a different outrage on him.
‘Have you got lumps in your beer, or what?’
‘Honestly, you couldn’t make it up,’ said Pete, coughing and spluttering.
‘What?’ said Nugent, offended.
‘You!’ said Pete. ‘The biggest crook for miles around, offended because we might be accusing you of double standards. Isn’t that what your business is all about.’
Nugent looked distastefully at Pete. ‘D’you know, Granddad, I think I preferred it when you were scared to come in here and you just sat there shaking.’
Pete just grinned at him. There was definitely something about him lately. He seemed to be standing taller, much more confident than he had been for a long while. Spending time with Daphne was obviously doing him a power of good.
‘This name calling is all very well,’ I said. ‘But we have a serious situation here.’
‘We?’ said Nugent loftily. ‘I don’t see how “we” have a problem. You’re the one with the problem, not me!’
He grinned happily at me. ‘You’re the murder suspect.’ He sat back looking satisfied with himself.
‘I hate to spoil your fun,’ I said, sighing, ‘but it’s not quite so simple. You see, I didn’t do it.’
‘Well, of course, you’re gonna say you didn’t do it,’ said Nugent. ‘No self-respecting murderer is going to admit it, now are they?’
It had been designed to annoy me, and it scored a direct hit, but before I could reply he jumped in again.
‘Alright, calm down. I didn’t say you did it, did I? And anyway, you’re the one who came barging in here making stupid accusations.’
That was fair comment, and one I couldn’t argue with. I had done exactly that.
‘The thing is,’ I reasoned, ‘we’re all suspects.’
The smile was gone from Nugent’s face in an instant. ‘I don’t see how I’m a suspect-,’ he started.
‘Oh, but you are, though,’ said Pete. ‘Like Alfie said, we all are. I’m the wronged ex-husband, Alfie’s the guy beaten up because of Marie’s wild accusations, and you’re the guy whose wife might find out about your affair with Marie.’
‘Oh, yeah. I hadn’t thought about that,’ said Nugent, gloomily. ‘Fuck!’
‘Yes indeed. What you said,’ agreed Pete, clearly enjoying Nugent’s discomfort.
‘But it wasn’t any of us,’ said Nugent, looking from me to Pete and back again. ‘Was it?’
‘Of course it wasn’t,’ I said, ‘but that moron Nash is in charge of the investigation, and I’m sure he’d love to stitch me up if he could.’
‘I still don’t see what that’s got to do with me,’ said Nugent.
‘Well, it just so happens, then, that I know something you don’t.’ I smiled.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘According to a source, and trust me, he’s reliable, a certain Detective Inspector Nash has just come back from suspension and is out to prove he’s not bent.’
‘But he is bent!’ stormed Nugent.
‘The investigation couldn’t find evidence to support that.’
‘Well, of course they couldn’t. I made sure of that.’
‘He’s after me, and he’s after you,’ I warned him.
‘He’s not clever enough to catch me,’ he said confidently.
‘Can you guarantee that?’
‘You can’t guarantee anything one hundred percent, can you?’
He considered the situation for a moment, then he seemed to make up his mind.
‘Gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘it seems we have a problem. I suggest we put our heads together to solve it.’
And so we made our way through all the facts we knew, with Nugent adding his thoughts where he believed necessary. But the problem with the Nugents of this world is they tend to have something of a one-track solution to everything. Eventually Pete could take it no more.
‘You can’t just go around getting information by beating people up,’ he said.
Nugent gave him a pitying look. ‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘I do it all the time. Well, not me personally, but you know what I mean.’
‘I think what Pete’s trying to say,’ I joined in, ‘is that maybe we need to employ a little subtlety. Sending out an army might just show our hand, don’t you think?’
Nugent looked bemused. Subtlety evidently wasn’t something he was familiar with.
‘Well,’ he said, huffily, ‘it’s always worked for me before. But, as you’re the one with the biggest problem here, I’ll give you the opportunity to come up with a ‘subtle’ plan, if that’s the way you want to go.’
We spent another hour batting ideas around about whom, or what, I was up against. In the end, we concluded we didn’t really have a clue. If you excluded the three of us from the equation, the remaining suspects were my ex-wife Gloria or Nasty Nash. I had been married to Gloria for a long time, and while she was capable of being extremely vindictive and had a savage tongue, I was quite sure she was no killer.
Nasty Nash was a different kettle of fish altogether. I could easily imagine him seeing the murder as an opportunity to stitch me up, but somehow I didn’t think he would go so far as to actually carry out the murder in the first place.
We had to face it, we were going nowhere fast. I suggested the best thing would be to call a halt to our meeting. We were just saying goodbye when Nugent put forward one of the most interesting ideas anyone had come up with so far.
‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I never did find out who paid me to duff you up.’
‘You almost manage to make it sound like a bit of innocent fun,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t “duffed up”! I suffered a serious assault at the hands of three thugs armed with baseball bats.’
‘And you’re never going to let me forget it, are you?’
For the first time since it had happened he actually looked genuinely sorry, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. It was quite satisfying to see him looking uncomfortable so I gave him my best evil grin.
‘Possibly never,’ I said. ‘And definitely not yet.’
I left him with that thought, but as we walked back to Pete’s car, the seed that Nugent had just planted in my head was beginning to take root.
I had Pete stop so I could get some food on the way home, and when we got back to the car park behind the flats, we parked next to the police surveillance car. It wasn’t difficult to spot. It was the only one with a bored-looking police officer inside. And anyway, the only other cars there were mine and Sophia’s.
The man’s face was a real picture as I climbed from the car with my shopping. His mouth fell open as he looked from me to Pete and back again. Awareness dawned on his face. I gave Pete a wave as he drove off, and then ma
de my way to my door. I unlocked the door, and gave the officer a thumbs-up. As I turned to go inside, I noticed him fumbling around on the seat next to him and smiled I saw him start scribbling furiously in a little notebook.
Chapter Thirteen
Ever since Slater had witnessed DI Nash’s abortive attempt to persuade Alfie Bowman to confess to murder, he had been waiting for a chance to slip off unnoticed. Just an hour or so would give him enough time to get up to the hospital, where he wanted to speak to one or two nurses in the A&E department.
There was something Nash had said about an incident involving Alfie that needed checking out because, according to the police record, no such event had officially taken place. Yet Nash was now suggesting this was Alfie’s motive for murder. Something was beginning to smell, and Slater wanted to know what exactly that smell was.
He was no longer quite sure which shift he was supposed to be working. Right now it seemed as if he was doing all of them at once. But at least Nash was out of the way for a few hours today, and with any luck that might extend to the whole day.
That meant he could get to see some of the information that Nash appeared to be keeping from him, like the actual, official cause of death, and Alfie Bowman’s phone records. And when he had done that, he intended to invent an excuse to disappear for a while so he could pay a visit to the hospital.
But first there was a pile of paperwork that required his attention…
Slater was a great believer in cultivating friendships in a variety of places, because you just never knew when you might need a little help. He certainly didn’t begrudge the beers he had supplied over the last year or two to Ian Becks in forensics, and they were genuine mates, but this was the first time he was going to use that friendship for his benefit.
When the time came to ask if he could see the reports Nash seemed to be keeping from him, he hadn’t been sure what excuse he should give. Normally those reports would have come to him first, so if Nash had bypassed him, did that mean forensics had been instructed to keep him out of the loop? If that was the case, his request would surely be denied.
