Miller looked again at DCI Green’s file. There was no mention of any number plates in relation to the burnt-out car, and annoyingly, there were no photographs of the vehicle in its current state, either. “Nope, nothing here about that.”
“Right, well, I think I’ll go down and have a look for myself. I take it the car is still there?”
“Yes, as far as I know. I can’t see why anybody would have taken it away, it was burnt out on a patch of wasteland apparently.”
“Do us a favour, get me the details of the location. I’ve a got funny feeling about this.”
Fifteen minutes later, Saunders was on the edge of Tameside, close to where the borough borders with Stockport. It took him a few attempts to locate the route through to the waste-land. Bushes and weeds had grown all around this location which was once the entrance to a grand old Victorian cotton mill. Today, it just looked like another part of the city that had been completely forgotten about.
Saunders eventually sussed out the way to get his car through the undergrowth, building in confidence the further along the track that he drove. He could see the tracks that the stolen car had made, where it had crushed the undergrowth. Eventually, he reached the clearing, which he assumed had once been an out-building belonging to the mill. It was a flat, concrete square with three burnt-out cars marking the spot. The few remaining sections of wall were covered in graffiti, some of it very good and some of it less so. The ground was covered with hundreds of empty beer cans and cider bottles, they were scattered everywhere. It looked to Saunders as though this was a prime spot for kids to come and hang out and get pissed, as well as an ideal location for local toe-rags to burn cars out without risk of being challenged.
He parked his shiny new CID car up. The only light was coming from the loading bay floodlights on a factory on the opposite side of the canal. Saunders left his car headlights on, putting the full beam on to better illuminate the area he wanted to inspect. He got out of the car, walking straight over to the soot blackened Zafira. As he walked, he could see that the top-half of the car had practically burnt away, the heat from the blaze had completely gutted the interior and all that remained was a burnt out, stinking shell. As he got a little closer, he saw that the external damage was not as bad, particularly around the bottom third of the car. It was still possible to see the original paint colour all around the sills and around the wheel arches. This was definitely the same colour and model as the dark silver car which had been abandoned on the M60 for twenty-five minutes, with its hazard lights flashing.
Saunders crouched down at the rear of the vehicle, he was glad to see that the back bumper was still attached. It was black with soot, but it hadn’t melted and remained attached solidly to the car. There was no number plate. He took his phone out of his pocket and started to take some photographs of the flat space on the bumper where the registration plate was supposed to be. He looked on the floor, getting down on his hands and knees, and switched on the torch function to assist him with his task of looking for the screws. He couldn’t see any. He got to his feet and walked around to the front of the fire-damaged vehicle. Once again, the front bumper was relatively intact, but there was no sign of the number-plate. Saunders took some more photos and checked on the ground amongst the broken glass and debris beneath his feet but he couldn’t find any screws. One thing was for sure though. Both the front and rear number plates had been taken off this vehicle before it had been set alight. And that detail didn’t make any sense at all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Outside the Spar convenience store in Boothstown, the alarming police presence was sudden and intense. Several police cars and vans all arrived within seconds of each other, their blue lights and sirens lighting up the neighbourhood. The sudden burst of loud and visual activity had the curtains and blinds twitching at almost every window.
The police officers were all assembling around the rear of the Spar, awaiting further instruction. The only job that any of them had been given so far was to cordon off the area and prevent any members of the public from gaining access to the rear of the building. From the side wall of the Spar store, a POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape had closed the side-street which was used as the shop’s unofficial car-park. Officers were receiving lots of “aw for fucks sakes” and “you’ve got to be fucking jokings” from drivers who were appalled by the news that they had to park fifteen metres away from their usual spot.
One or two members of the community had wandered across to try and get hold of the gossip, but the police officers were cautious to reveal the true reason for their sudden and unmistakable presence in this normally quiet area. So, they tried fobbing the nosey neighbours off.
“What’s going on, officer?” asked one anxious looking woman as she approached the cordon line.
“We have received intelligence that there is going to be a half-price sale on the donuts in this store. We are not letting anybody past until we have bought them all.”
“Are you taking the piss?”
“No madam. This has come from a very reliable source.”
Finally, some ten minutes after the first patrol cars had arrived, the incident commander pulled up, a duty which had fallen to the Inspector that Rudovsky had spoken with on the phone.
Rudovsky was at the back of the shop, standing near to the door.
“Hello, I’m Inspector Johnson. Are you the DS that I spoke with?”
“Yes Sir, DS Jo Rudovsky, SCIU.”
“Okay.” The Inspector stepped past Rudovsky and crouched down by the letter-box. He seemed to take a few seconds before he lifted it and had a sniff. He closed it very quickly, within a second of the toxic scent hitting his senses.
“Mother fucker!” He said, standing up straight. His eyes were watering. “Yes, I think that’s definitely a fatality.”
Rudovsky nodded sombrely.
“I think you can leave this with us Detective Sergeant. There’s nothing you can do now.”
“Well, sorry Sir, I was just hopeful to get a look at the scene. We’re about to interview the suspect we believe to be responsible for what’s happened here. I was hoping to find something…”
“Is this connected with the guy we brought in today, from Swinton?” asked the Inspector. He knew all about it, he’d managed the Tactical Aid support.
“Yes Sir, Billy Nolan. The lady who lives here is his ex.”
“I see. Okay, well, I’m not prepared to let anybody in there just now apart from my Pathologist and my Forensics officers. You may as well go back and get on with your interview regardless. The details of our findings from this location will be sent to DCI Miller later on.”
“But, Sir…”
“I’m sorry DS Rudovsky. That’s my final decision. Stand down.”
“Sir.” Rudovsky nodded and walked away calmly, but she was fuming. It wasn’t as if she particularly wanted to go into that flat, and see, and smell the horrors which lay within. But it would have been useful for when she was sitting down with Billy Nolan.
“Fucks sake!” said Rudovsky as she got into her car. Kenyon and Grant were waiting inside, out of the cold.
“What’s up?”
“The Inspector has just fired me off. Told me to fucking stand down!”
“Stand down? God I’ve not heard that for yonks! What a dick.” Kenyon sounded pissed off on Rudovsky’s behalf.
“Right, anyway, fuck him. We’ll just have to do the interview about Graham Hartley. There’s plenty to talk about anyway. We’ll have to talk to him about Lindsey tomorrow.” Rudovsky pushed her key into the ignition and started the engine, putting the fan on full blast to de-steam the windows.
“Who’s doing that?”
“What?”
“The interview with Nolan.”
“Well, it’s Bill’s arrest. So, I was going to go in with him.”
Kenyon didn’t say anything and Grant remained silent on the back-seat.
“Why? Do you want to do it?” asked Rudovsky after seve
ral seconds.
“Well, normally, it’d be me and you, wouldn’t it? The dream team! The deadly duo! The…”
“Get on with it Pete, fucks sake.”
“Well, we know how to play off each other, where to set the traps and that.”
“Yes, I know that Peter. But it’s Bill’s job this. He’s worked really hard for it. I can’t take him off it now. It wouldn’t be right.”
“I know. I’m telling you to stand down! I’ll go in with Bill, try and find out what this Billy Nolan character is all about, get him used to me and Chapman, and then you can go in and pull him apart tomorrow.”
Rudovsky smiled. “Now that is a very great idea! I like that. Absolute magic!” She started wiping at the windscreen with her sleeve, in a bid to speed up the de-steaming process. “They’ve got video-monitoring at Swinton nick, haven’t they?”
“Think so. They’ll have at least one interview room with video-link. Why?”
“I think I’ll spectate the first interview. Don’t tell Bill I’m watching though, you know how nervous he gets about stuff like that.”
“What, technology?” asked Grant.
“Yes. Well, he’s from the generation before ours isn’t he?” Said Kenyon.
“Hey, credit where its due please. We wouldn’t be sat here now, with Lindsey Nolan’s rotting flesh still raw in our nostrils if it wasn’t for his very capable use of technology. Give him a break, eh?” Rudovsky put the car in gear, eased the clutch up slightly and the three detectives were soon on the move, away from this major crime scene and headed for Swinton police station.
“Never thought I’d see the day though.” Kenyon didn’t want to let it lie.
“What?” asked Rudovsky, annoyed by a patch of steam that wasn’t budging.
“You sticking up for Bill. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just seems weird.”
“Well, I’m a big girl now Pete. DS in the best CID department in the city. I’ve had to accept my own failings with regards to my relationship with Bill. We’ve put our past differences aside, and it’s working out well. Like I say, he’s nailed this case, so as I always say, there’s nothing positive about being negative.”
“Jo! When have you ever said that?” Kenyon was laughing at Rudovsky’s blatant bullshit.
“I say it all the time, thank you very much!” The DS had a sly smirk on her face, it was illuminated by the oncoming headlights.
“Bollocks! Helen, back me up here. Have you ever heard Jo say that phrase before?” Kenyon was straining round to see the DC who was sat on the back seat.
“Never!” said Grant, with an unmistakable smile in her voice.
“I say it all the time!”
“You lie! Gonna start calling you Roxanne Pallett.”
“Right, anyway, enough of your jibber-jabber Pete. I need a bit of quiet time, need to think about stuff.”
“How do we know if that’s even true?”
“Shut up now, or you’re walking back.”
*****
Rudovsky was sitting in an adjacent room to interview room 5 at Swinton police station. This room had four video monitors on a desk, along with a small bank of controls which she could use to alter the volume and zoom in on Billy Nolan’s face during the interview.
Chapman and Kenyon were sitting in the interview room, waiting for the prisoner to be brought down from his cell. Chapman seemed nervous. He’d worked bloody hard to get this result, and he was terrified of screwing anything up now, at this critical stage. Kenyon sensed the tension and decided to try and lighten the mood, just for his own sake. He knew that Rudovsky was listening in to everything that was being said from her vantage point next door.
“Tell you what, Bill, what I noticed today when I was with Jo.”
“What’s that?” asked Chapman, without looking up from his interview plan.
“Her arse is getting fat! Sweet baby Jesus! I thought I was walking behind Jabba the Hut! I think somebody should have a chat with her. She’s been at the sausage rolls from Greggs again I think. By the fucking tray load!” Kenyon looked up at the camera and smirked.
“Haven’t noticed, Pete.”
“God, have you not? She’s going to have to get a sign fitted on her back soon. Wide load.”
“I bet you wouldn’t say that to her face,” said Chapman nonchalantly, he was more interested in checking over his paperwork than listening to Kenyon’s random waffle.
“Nah. Probably not. I’ll leave that job for you.”
“Pete, shut the fuck up please mate. I’ve read the same line three times here.”
“Sorry.”
Rudovsky was holding a V sign up at the video monitor, but stopped when she heard a knock at the interview room door through the sound system. The door opened and Billy Nolan was led into the interview, dressed in a grey police-issue jogging suit.
Suddenly, Rudovsky stiffened up and grabbed her pen, ready to observe and take notes.
“I’ll be just outside.” Said the custody officer who had brought Nolan from his cell.
“No solicitor?” asked Chapman of the officer, who shook his head. That was good news.
“Okay, thank you officer.” Said Kenyon.
Nolan sat down on the seat facing Chapman and Kenyon. He was a big lad and he had an attitude about him. He looked like the kind of bloke who could handle himself, and he displayed the confidence to back it up.
“So, William…”
“Call me Billy.”
“Is that your preferred name?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well, lets just get the formalities out of the way, using your birth name, and then we’ll call you Billy. Alright?” Chapman appeared confident, which pleased Rudovsky in the room next door.
After a few minutes of legal talk about Billy’s rights and the procedure of the interview, Kenyon started the tape recorder and all three people waited for the long beep sound to finish.
“Okay, the time is nineteen-forty-eight, present in the interview room is William David Nolan of 11 Worsley Road, Swinton in the city of Salford, DC Peter Kenyon and DC Bill Chapman. William Nolan has declined the offer of legal representation. Is that right William?”
“Yeah, but like I say, I’m called Billy.”
“Okay Billy. Well, I’d like to start by asking you where you were between six pm and eight pm on Wednesday the first of November?”
Nolan didn’t look remotely phased by the question. “What year?”
“This year, Billy. Three weeks ago.”
Nolan shrugged. “No idea mate.”
“Well, just to remind you, it was the night that there was a very vicious murder, not far from your home, on Eccles Field. Do you remember that?”
“No idea mate. There’s always summat happening round here.”
“This murder has been front page news ever since, its been covered on TV and radio news.”
“Yeah, well, I might have heard summat about it.”
“Do you know anything about the man who was attacked?”
“Nah. Why would I?”
“Well, we have information that suggests that he was a friend of your wife’s.”
“Like I say mate, I don’t know anything about him.”
“Did your wife say anything about him? Perhaps he was a colleague from work?”
“Don’t know. She lives her life, I live mine.”
“But, well, I’m just thinking, it must have come up in conversation, that her friend had been murdered.”
“Nah, she’s not said anything to me about it.”
“Does she have a lot of male friends?”
Nolan was leaning back on his chair as though he didn’t have a care in the world. His body language was relaxed and he looked more like a bored employee in a health and safety meeting.
“Not sure what you’re getting at mate. If you are asking me if Lindsey was a little slag who puts it about with any bloke she meets, then yeah. She’s been Rogered more times than your police radio
probably has.”
There was a silence. Both Kenyon and Chapman had picked up on the comment about Lindsey, used in the past tense. Nolan had said that she was a little slag. Not is. That was a big moment, and Rudovsky had picked up on it from the next room, too.
“You said that Lindsey was a little slag. Can you tell us what you meant by that comment?”
Nolan’s relaxed body-language didn’t alter as he answered. “Well, I think you know what I meant. She likes to put herself about, you know.”
“You said she was a slag. Does this mean that she’s not a slag now?”
“Listen mate, don’t try and get clever. You know what I meant. You know exactly what she’s like.”
“Do you think that Lindsey was having a sexual relationship with the man that was murdered on the first of November?”
“Well how would I know?”
“You’re separated, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did this relationship commence after your marriage had ended, or during?”
The idea behind these questions was to try and stress Billy Nolan out and make him volatile. But it wasn’t working. He appeared to be completely relaxed.
“No idea mate. I don’t even know if she knew this fucking Graham bloke. It’s you that said it.”
Another silence hung heavily in the air. Nobody had mentioned Graham Hartley’s name. Nobody until Billy Nolan just had. Rudovsky had instructed Kenyon and Chapman to keep Hartley’s name out of it, as though he was just an unidentified body. That decision had just paid a big dividend, Billy Nolan had named a man who’d been murdered, in an incident that he had previously stated that he knew nothing about. That was two fuck ups in two minutes, and Chapman was feeling extremely pleased with how things were going.
“Going back to the evening of the first of November. Can you tell us what you were doing that night?”
Billy Nolan didn’t move an inch as he replied, “no idea mate.”
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