Tainted: A DI Colin Strong Investigation (The Wakefield Series Book 4)

by David Evans

  “Did he pay for it? It is tradition that the bride’s father …”

  “No.” Barrett jumped in sharply then appeared to think better of it. “Sorry. I mean … he probably had some input but Veronica, that’s Felicity’s mum, she wanted to make a big contribution. Felicity didn’t want to take anything from him but he put some money behind the bar. Truth be told, he probably did fund a large part of it through Veronica. But we’d saved and paid for most of it.”

  “So it would be fair to say Felicity didn’t get on with her step-dad?”

  “She didn’t really like him. I think she blamed him for her mother’s death.”

  “How did Veronica die?”

  “She had a brain tumour. She’d been diagnosed about five years before she died. I’m just so glad she made it to the wedding. That meant a lot to Felicity. And Veronica, obviously. God knows what she’d say if she knew we’ve hit problems.”

  Strong gave a nod to Ormerod. “Okay, Mr Barrett. We might need to speak to you again. In the meantime, if you do hear from Felicity, let me know.” Strong handed him a business card.

  Barrett took it. “Sure,” he said.

  At the door, Strong hesitated. “Oh, one other thing, when did you last see George Brannigan?”

  The man’s mouth opened and closed like a fish before he answered, “Er … it must have been last year sometime.”

  “Thanks. We’ll be in touch.”

  * * *

  Susan walked in to the convenience store on Dewsbury Road and spotted Mavis Skinner behind the tills scanning some groceries for an elderly woman. Keeping an eye on the situation, she walked around the aisles as if browsing for something.

  At last, Mavis had packed the woman’s shopping for her and loaded the bags into her shopping trolley. She let out a big sigh as the woman left the shop.

  Susan approached. “Hello, Mavis. Remember me?” she asked.

  “Oh, you’re that journalist woman who gave me a lift home with that other man.”

  “That’s right. I just wondered if you could tell me anything about Mark. I gather he lived locally until quite recently.”

  “He was a nice lad.” Mavis became defensive. “I’m not going to say anything that would let you slag him off.”

  “I’m not expecting you to. I just wanted a bit of background, give him some empathy.”

  “Big words lady,” she retorted. “I’d known Mark all his life. He was a lovely lad, nice family too. He didn’t deserve what happened.”

  “So something like this to happen to someone like Mark is a huge surprise?” Susan saw Mavis’s glowering expression. “Look, I do honestly want to put a good gloss on this,” she continued. “Anything that gives the public sympathy towards him will help encourage people to come forward to the police with information that could catch whoever did this terrible thing.”

  Mavis appeared to soften and her eyes glistened. “I can see him now, before he went to school, walking along, holding his mum’s hand.” She looked straight at Susan. “He was such a lovely looking child; dark curly hair and those big blue eyes.”

  “What can you tell me about the family?”

  Between serving several customers, Mavis gave a potted history of the Thompson family; the father leaving the mother for another woman, her sympathy for the family and how Mark had grown into ‘a fine young man’ as she put it. She also mentioned his siblings, Becky, about four years younger and Edward, at fourteen, who she reckoned would probably be most affected by the loss of his brother.

  “So you couldn’t think of any reason why someone would want to harm him?” Susan concluded.

  Mavis produced a paper tissue from the sleeve of the cardigan she was wearing beneath her overall. “I know he’d been in a bit of trouble growing up,” she said then dabbed her eyes. “But that was when Mr Thompson left. He was a lovely lad. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to …” She left her sentence unfinished.

  “I’m sorry,” Susan said. “I don’t mean to cause upset. Thanks.” She leaned over the counter and touched her arm.

  Susan left the shop, her thoughts drifting to one of the main reasons she wanted to take up journalism in the first place; the robbery at the petrol station where she’d had a part-time job. The two scumbags who threatened her, one of them jumping the counter, after money and cigarettes. She’d been scared to death and moving out of the way to let them take what they wanted – she didn’t get paid enough to be a hero. Fortunately, the CCTV footage was good enough to get useful images and they were soon caught. But that was also her first encounter with the press. The reporting was creative to say the least. But it brought home to Susan that she didn’t want to spend a lifetime in dead-end jobs and had thought she could do a much better job of things with accurate reporting, and so she set out on the path she was now following, a degree in Broadcast Journalism.

  “Here, are you involved in the investigation?” a voice asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  Susan looked down to see a youth of around twelve, sitting astride a bike dressed in an anorak and a baseball cap turned back to front. “You were here on Saturday, weren’t you?” she replied.

  “You’re not police though,” the lad said.

  “Have you got some information about what happened to Mark?”

  “Might have.” He sniffed and rubbed the sleeve of his coat under his nose.

  Susan smiled at him. “Well if you might have something to say, I might be involved in the investigation.”

  “He was my friend,” the boy said before pedalling away.

  “Hey! Wait …” but he’d disappeared around the corner.

  Back inside the store, Mavis was placing cigarette packets on the display behind her. She turned round and looked surprised that Susan had returned. “I thought you’d gone,” she said.

  “I had, but I was approached by a young kid, maybe twelve years-old, riding a bike too small for him and a baseball cap on back to front.”

  “That’ll be Danny King. Got a lot off and seems to be growing up too quick. What about him?”

  “He reckoned he was a friend of Mark.”

  Mavis raised her eyebrows. “Well he’s lived next door to them all his life.”

  Susan gave that information a moment’s thought. “Thanks again,” she said and left the store.

  46

  “You think Monk suspects?” DCS Flynn asked.

  “I don’t think so, sir,” Strong answered, “But he knows something’s not right.”

  The two were seated in Flynn’s office, Strong treated to the rare offer of a freshly made coffee from the DCS’s coffee machine that stood on the unit in the corner.

  Flynn stood up, walked over and gazed out of the window towards the Town Hall on the other side of the street. Light drizzle had fallen for most of the day and he looked down on the people walking past, shoulders hunched, hoods up, no doubt feeling miserable.

  Strong sipped his coffee and waited until his boss spoke again.

  Finally, Flynn turned and faced him. “He’s obviously a bright lad, I’ll give him that,” he said. “His mother hasn’t told him. Do you think she will?”

  “I don’t think she’s much choice. It needs to come from her, and when it does, it’s anybody’s guess how he’ll react,” Strong said. “She was devastated when we told her why we’d checked the DNA. Obviously, we didn’t tell her what sort of crime we were investigating, but she knows it’s serious.”

  “What about this taxi driver? Anything we can use to try and track him down?”

  Strong finished his drink. “Well, he hasn’t committed any crime since the introduction of obligatory DNA sampling for convicted criminals in 1994. Who knows, he may even be dead.”

  Flynn nodded slowly. “Do we need to follow things up with Mrs Monk? Let her know that Gary’s been to see you?”

  “I’ll give it some thought – talk it over with Kelly too.”

  Flynn was silent for a few seconds then resumed his seat. “What progress to report on
the Weaver and Thompson cases, then Colin?”

  “I’d have thought the DCI would have kept you up to speed,” Strong responded, referring to Hemingford who seemed to have been noticeably absent for the past few days.

  “Rupert is becoming more involved with Manchester. Technically, he’s only got another week to go before he’s officially seconded then transferred at the end of March.” Flynn lifted his cup to his lips. “Have you thought about what I said the other day?”

  Strong watched him drain his coffee before responding. “Nothing’s changed,” he said.

  Flynn was stony faced. “So where are we with the Weaver case?”

  Strong took a breath before telling the DCS that he’d now spoken to the woman who Weaver met that night and, as he suspected, Weaver was conducting an affair with someone from his office.

  “And is she a suspect?”

  Strong shook his head. “No, not at the moment. She’s a witness but she didn’t see a lot with the murky conditions. The thing is …” He hesitated.

  “Go on.”

  “The woman involved links back to what we spoke of earlier.”

  Flynn looked puzzled.

  “She’s Charlotte, Claire Hobson’s younger sister.”

  “Good God. Do the rest of the team know?”

  “I’ve only told Kelly. She took Charlotte’s official statement.”

  Flynn nodded and Strong summed up the rest of the progress, or lack of it, on the investigation; the description given of the two men seen approaching the toilets around the time of the attack; the unidentified fingerprints on the disturbed cistern cover in the next cubicle. “But basically, we’ve stalled, sir,” he concluded.

  Flynn rubbed his face with both hands. “And the Thompson case?”

  Strong outlined where the investigation was on that; the missing cousin, Felicity being the one person they were desperate to speak to. Other than that, no witnesses have come forward and no CCTV footage, apart from the lead they were pursuing to identify the two men who used Thompson’s credit card on Sunday.

  “Not used since?”

  “No. We’ve got it flagged with the bank but, since then, no other activity.”

  “And nobody recognises them from the cameras?”

  “No. It’s not the best quality and they were aware – at least while they were in the shop.”

  * * *

  Sammy appeared through the pub door, Charlotte Watkins at her shoulder. There was no hesitation from Sammy as she spotted Souter and Susan sitting at a corner table away from the general hubbub. But Charlotte looked nervously round the gathered throng of after-work drinkers before following her colleague.

  Souter saw them, stood and approached the pair. “Thanks for agreeing to this,” he said to Charlotte before introducing himself and offering them both a drink.

  Settled around the table, Charlotte faced Souter with Susan and Sammy flanking her. “So what do you want to know?” she asked, sipping her tonic water. ‘I don’t want Steven to smell alcohol on my breath,’ she’d told Sammy by way of explanation.

  Souter gave a brief outline of what he had learned so far, repeating what Susan had told her of the purpose of their article. They’d both visited her parents and he gave his impressions of how differently he felt her mother and father were dealing with what had happened twenty years before. He also said he’d spoken to her brother, Martin, by phone. When he’d finished Charlotte was silent for a few seconds.

  “Your mum said you were close to Claire,” Susan began gently. “Perhaps you could tell us about her?”

  Charlotte smiled for the first time since she’d arrived. “She was lovely. We were almost like twins. Despite her being nearly two years older than me, she and I got on so well.” The smile fell from her face. “I missed her terribly. I still do.” She looked to Susan. “I find myself, even now, talking to her about things that have happened …” She turned to Sammy. “Things I’ve done; things I shouldn’t have. And asking her opinion.”

  Sammy gave Charlotte’s hand a brief squeeze.

  When Susan looked to Souter, his expression indicated she should carry on; he was happy the girls were encouraging Charlotte to talk, better than he probably could. He was happy just taking notes.

  “And when you realised what had happened to Claire,” Susan went on, “how did you feel?”

  Tears began to well in Charlotte’s eyes. “I cried and cried. It seemed like days, weeks, but … I was devastated. My best friend as well as my sister … and I’d never see her again; never talk to her, share laughs, exchange views on who was hot and who was not.” She dabbed her eyes with a paper tissue. “She loved Paul Weller. She had posters of The Jam on her wall.” She looked down at the table briefly before looking up again. “After … you know, I used to make a point of watching them whenever they were on Top of the Pops, just for her. Even now, when I hear one of their records on the radio, it nearly brings me to tears, I can’t help thinking about her.” She broke off and gave a little laugh. “Silly, isn’t it?”

  “Not at all,” Susan said.

  The two girls managed to encourage Charlotte to open up about what effects the loss had had on her at the time, especially when she realised what Claire had suffered before she died. They gently led her through how she thinks it has affected her since. Finally, they opened up the conversation, Sammy and Susan revealing a bit about themselves and the obstacles they had had to overcome in their lives. A few laughs were shared along with some concerns.

  It was just after six when Charlotte, realising how long she’d been with them, said goodbye and left, hoping her husband wouldn’t ask too many questions as to why she would be late home.

  “Poor woman,” Sammy said. “No wonder she’s made some poor choices recently.”

  Susan looked quizzically at her friend.

  “You know, her fling with Marcus Weaver,” Sammy explained.

  Susan shook her head. “You’re not trying to tell me that because she’d been traumatised over her sister’s murder twenty years ago, she couldn’t see the harm in her, a married woman, having it off with a married man?

  “Well … if you put it like that …”

  “So where are we with pulling all this together, Bob?” Susan asked.

  “I think we’ve spoken to the important people on this, so we have some good responses to work with on the traumatic effects of Claire’s murder,” Souter responded. “I can work something up about that and follow on with some form of appeal after reminding the public about the case.”

  “Without upsetting the Hobsons, of course,” Susan added.

  “Of course.” Souter noticed Sammy giving Susan a nudge. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

  Susan looked to Sammy, a sheepish expression on her face.

  “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  “Okay,” she said. “The truth is I think we’ve uncovered some new evidence already.”

  “Have you been …?”

  “Using our initiative, yes,” Susan interrupted then proceeded to tell Souter all about their meeting with Kenny Green.

  “So, you’re saying this tunic button discovery was never reported at the time?” he said once she’d finished.

  “Not according to Kenny. His mate Paul held on to it because he collected army memorabilia,” Susan explained.

  “And I can’t find any trace of a Paul Nichols since he was released from Doncaster Young Offenders in 1990,” Sammy added.

  Souter was quiet for a second or two. “This could be great,” he finally said. “We uncover important information during the course of our enquiries.” He looked intently at Sammy. “We’ll have to find this Nichols character. We need to get confirmation of this story.”

  “But I’ve told you, Bob, I can find no trace of him. It’s as though he’s dropped off the radar altogether.”

  “We’ll have to take this to Colin,” Susan said. “He’ll know how to find him – especially with him having a record.”

&nbs
p; “No, let’s not be too hasty with this.”

  Susan leaned across the table. “You kept things from Colin last year, when it might have made a difference,” she said, referring to the tragic events at Lofthouse Colliery which resulted in Kelly Stainmore being shot. He knew Colin still felt he had some responsibility for what happened.

  “Susan’s right,” Sammy joined in.

  “Look …” Souter’s mobile interrupted him. He looked at the screen and the Leeds number displayed before answering. “Hello.”

  The ground felt as it were moving beneath his chair as he listened to the midwife from the hospital relay the message that he should come in as soon as possible. She wouldn’t give any details over the phone but Souter knew it wasn’t good.

  “I’m on my way,” he said and ended the call. “Got to go, I’ll see you two later.”

  He was on his feet when Susan asked what he wanted her to do about the Hobson story.

  “I don’t really care right now,” he said, halfway to the door. “Other priorities,” he shouted over his shoulder and was gone.

  * * *

  Strong looked around the CID room on his way out of the station. Kelly Stainmore was still at her desk, eyes on her computer screen.

  “Nothing better to do, Kelly?” he commented, approaching.

  She looked up. “Just thought I’d have another look through this CCTV footage from last Sunday and these jokers who used Mark Thompson’s card.”

  “Nothing from uniform? No one has a clue who they are?”

  “Not so far, guv.”

  Strong sat on the edge of an adjacent desk and watched as she fast-forwarded some images. After a moment, he spoke again. “I had Gary Monk in to see me this afternoon.”

  Stainmore swung round in her chair. “Does he know?”

  “No, it doesn’t seem like it, but he is suspicious.”

  “She needs to tell him.”

  “I know. I’ve just been filling the DCS in on it. It’s only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down for Gary.”

  “You seem to have developed a good relationship with Mrs Monk,” Stainmore said. “I think it might be an idea to call her and tell her Gary’s been in to see you.”