There was no doubt that the house was lived in, but by whom?
Annie caught Mike’s attention by way of a nudge of her elbow, when she saw the curtains next door, twitching.
A few minutes later Lady Eugenie Toms announced herself from her doorstep. She paused for a moment, glanced up and down the street, as if looking for someone, before hurrying towards the three-feet-high wall that separated the properties. She was dressed in brown lace-up shoes, a heavy tweed skirt and a dusky-pink woollen twin-set, with a string of pearls around her neck.
‘Caught up with her at last?’ she said, crossing her arms under her ample bosom. ‘About time!’
Taken aback by the neighbour’s forthright outburst, the officers were somewhat surprised to hear that the elderly lady was talking about Cordelia Le Beau, who, she informed them, lived alone at No. 4, and had done for over a year. The detectives exchanged a look.
‘When was the last time you saw her?’ Mike asked.
‘Yesterday morning, I believe.’
‘What was she doing?’
‘How would I know? She got in her car and left.’
‘Can you describe the car for us, please.’
‘It’s dark blue. I don’t know what make, I’m not particularly interested in cars, you know.’ She paused. ‘It’s a small car.’
Annie wrote this in her notebook. It could prove to be of major importance.
‘Does she have any regular visitors to the house, or neighbours she’s friendly with?’ asked Mike.
‘She’s a bit of a hermit if truth be known. She lives alone. No, no one visits. She acts as if she likes to think herself invisible, but she’s far from that,’ she chortled. ‘She might as well have a beacon on her head with that pink hair. I presume she’s done something? That’s why you’re here?’
‘Actually, Mrs Toms, your neighbour was found dead this morning. We’re here as part of the murder investigation.’
Mrs Toms’ demeanour changed quickly. She turned pale and swayed, as though she might fall. She reached out to grab the wall to steady herself.
Annie lurched forwards grabbing her arms. ‘Are you okay?’ she gasped.
The action prompted an instant recoil. ‘I’ll have you know I was a matron. It’ll take more than news of a dead body to shake me,’ she snapped.
Detective Sergeant Mike Blake watched the colour return to Eugenie’s cheeks. ‘I understand that finding out someone you know has been murdered is still a shock,’ he said, softly. ‘Now, why don’t you take yourself inside, make a nice cup of tea and rest for a while. When you’ve had a chance to digest the news we will return and take a statement from you,’ he said, handing her a card with his contact details. ‘Can you explain what you meant just now when you said, “caught up with her at last”?’
Eugenie appeared flustered. ‘Oh, you know, it’s just a saying…’
‘Okay. If you want to speak to us beforehand, you have my number,’ he told her.
When Eugenie closed her door behind her, Mike was on the phone to Charley confirming Cordelia’s address, and the sighting of her leaving her home the previous day in a dark blue car. In return he heard from Charley that the staff working at the Medway Cafe had been interviewed. All were consistent with their description of a woman that they had seen regularly, sitting outside the premises. Apparently her purpose was begging. The staff knew the woman by the name of Cordelia, however some said this unusually fanciful name struck them as being false for a Yorkshire speaking lass.
Charley also revealed that the proprietor of the Medway Cafe had been less charitable to Cordelia than the staff, who often took her warm drinks and food. He docked staff’s wages for encouraging vermin, and several times the officers heard that he had been seen moving Cordelia on with the toecap of his size eleven boots. ‘Food attracts vermin,’ and ‘vermin need eradicating,’ he reportedly told his workers.
‘Do you want me to call a locksmith out to allow us to gain entry into number four?’ Mike asked Charley.
‘No Mike. Let’s get a uniform presence there and let them force entry, for all we know someone could be dead or injured inside, and remember that when you go inside it may be a crime scene.’ Charley said. ‘I’ll get some additional staff there so we can do the initial search as quickly as possible.’
Within minutes of the detective sergeant putting his mobile phone in his pocket, he saw two uniformed officers walking towards him and Annie, armed with a door ram which very quickly gained them access.
At the door the officers were momentarily stopped in their tracks by the darkness within that made it difficult for them to see anything, and the poor lighting made little difference until their eyes adjusted to it. They found the interior of the quiet, cool cottage neat and tidy. No furniture appeared out of place, or disturbed. Purposefully, the pair visited every room for a visual check, to ensure that no one else was present, dead, injured or secreted before a more structured search began.
Annie was puzzled. ‘Cordelia had a nice, comfortable home. Why sit on the streets?’
Mike shrugged his shoulders. ‘I presume begging is lucrative.’
‘Perhaps in a big city, but in Huddersfield?’ Annie questioned. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘You have to realise that there is not always a satisfactory explanation for someone else’s actions, and we have to accept that there is no logical answer to our questions either.’
In the second bedroom there were unworn clothes hanging on a rail, with the price tags attached. The more expensive items had security tags firmly secured. If the contents of the room were anything to go by, Cordelia was apparently also a shoplifter. In the same room they found a plastic bucket full of coins of various denominations.
Mike tossed his head towards the bucket. ‘How much do you reckon?’
Annie considered his question. ‘A hundred quid?’
‘Try two, or three.’
‘What’re you thinking?’ said Annie as she followed Mike down the narrow open staircase into the lounge.
‘I’m thinking that if Eugenie Toms’ information is correct, and Cordelia has a car, then we need to find the documents that relate to her vehicle. The sooner we get a registered number, the sooner we can circulate it.’
Annie scanned the furniture in the dining area. Her eyes fell on a writing bureau.
Vehicle documents within told them that Cordelia’s car was a dark blue Mini Cooper, registered number AXY 750W. A quick call to the Incident Room, saw the number quickly placed on the Automatic Numberplate Recognition system, and circulated to all patrol units.
‘Owner’s body discovered in a town centre street. A murder enquiry has been established, led by Detective Inspector Charley Mann. The location of this vehicle is sought as a matter of urgency, and the Incident Room should be contacted.’ This was the text being written in the Incident Room to accompany the ‘flag’ on the ANPR system.
‘At least we know that if the vehicle passes an ANPR camera it’ll be instantly checked against database records and flagged as of interest to the operation,’ said Mike.
‘Then, they’ll be able to check historical data to see if the vehicle routinely travels a route.’
‘I wonder if the car is still in the vicinity?’
Annie shrugged her shoulders. ‘We’ll soon find out.’
By late afternoon, the house search was well underway, background enquiries were being made in the Incident Room and police officers were out gathering information and taking statements where necessary, throughout the town. Charley relied on uniform support to assist with these initial checks along the high street, utilising a house-to-house pro-forma.
Cordelia’s home was once again secured.
‘Could the murderers have the car?’ Charley spoke her thoughts to Annie when she and Mike returned to the office. ‘Any patrol coming across the vehicle will be fully aware of what had happened to the owner, so they would naturally approach with caution and act accordingly when it was discovered.
’
‘What kind of a person would stoop to such depths to con good-natured people out of their hard-earned money?’ Annie asked.
Wilkie Connor, sitting at his desk opposite Annie, was listening to the conversation. ‘The same low-life who swipe charity boxes. Why are you surprised?’
Annie screwed up her face. ‘You wouldn’t think she’d make enough money targeting shoppers and commuters in Huddersfield to maintain a house and a car though, would you? I barely make ends meet, and I have a job.’
‘Being a police officer is a vocation, not just a job, and that’s what the government rely on when they freeze pay, and increments. Perhaps she does have a regular job, and she needs to beg to boost her income to afford her lifestyle.’
‘I read something the other day that said eighty per cent of beggars are not homeless. It’s we who think that by putting something in an empty cup, we are paying for food and shelter, when the most likely beneficiaries are the nearest off-licence, drug dealer, or the mysterious people seen dropping beggars off in the city centres, and then picking them up at the end of the day. Which is so sad for the genuine people in need.’
‘You think she’s got a pimp she’s working for?’
‘Maybe it’s a social thing… perhaps she’s just lonely?’
‘It’s no good guessing. What we need now is to gain every bit of intelligence there is about Cordelia Le Beau, and promptly,’ said Charley.
Chapter 9
In a private interview room at Peel Street police station, nineteen-year-old Angelica D’Souza sat, ashen-faced and tearful, waiting anxiously to speak to the person in charge of the Cordelia Le Beau murder enquiry. She had told Martie, who was working at the enquiry desk that she was a single parent who worked at the Medway and that she insisted on confidentiality. He immediately seated her in an interview room then requested Charley’s attendance. The reason she gave for wanting confidentiality was that she was in fear of losing her job if it became known that she had spoken to the police.
The trembling started in Angelica’s feet and spread through her body. Dipping her head slightly she saw how tightly clenched her hands were in her lap, and found that no matter how much she tried she could not stop them from shaking. She knew that the tissue Martie had kindly given her so that she could wipe her tears was entwined in her fingers, and crumpled beyond recognition, but she did not dare to loosen her grip.
As soon as Charley walked into the room, she noticed that Angelica D’Souza was chewing her lip nervously. Anxiety flashed swiftly across the young woman’s face, immediately followed by a flush of relief in her cheeks as she saw that it was a woman who had entered the room. As Charley walked towards her, Angelica managed a weak, albeit awkward smile. Charley smiled back. Her smile was reassuring to Angelica as were her words, when she sat down opposite her and immediately thanked her for coming to the police station to see her. Charley informed Angelica that she was the person in charge of the murder, whom the young lady had specifically asked to speak to. She then assured her that anything she told her would be in strict confidence.
‘What I’ve come to tell you might help, or there again it might be nothing, so I apologise in advance if I am wasting your time, but I felt compelled to come.’
‘Go on,’ said Charley, patiently.
‘The reason I’m here…’ Angelica swallowed hard. She paused, distracted. ‘Anyone can end up on the streets can’t they?’
Charley nodded in agreement. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Through no fault of his own, my uncle ended up homeless,’ she said through trembling lips.
‘Sadly, it happens all too often,’ said Charley sympathetically.
‘You see, I read tea leaves, and the day that Cordelia died she asked me to read her tea leaves.’ Angelica’s eyes filled with tears. ‘All I could see was flowers. Lots of flowers. I thought it might be her birthday. I told her that she was going to get flowers…’
Charley put a hand over the young woman’s across the desk. ‘Take your time.’
‘Over the past few weeks I have seen my manager, Mr Marsh, giving Cordelia a hard time. He shouts at her, swears at her, calls her horrible names, threatens her and I’ve even seen him throw a bucket of cold water at her.’
‘What sort of words did he use to threaten her?’
Angelica looked up at the ceiling, squinting her red-rimmed eyes at the bright lights. Charley could see that it pained her to talk about it. ‘He… he threatened to kill her.’
‘Do you think he meant it?’
Angelica looked surprised at her question. ‘I don’t know. He gets angry very easily, and he specifically warned us not to encourage her, but…’
‘What did he mean by encourage her, do you think?’ Charley interrupted the young woman.
‘Giving her warm drinks and food.’ Angelica looked downcast. ‘He docked my wages last week for the price of the mug of tea, and a warm sausage roll, but it was freezing cold, her lips were blue, and we were going to throw them away as we were closing up,’ she told Charley, with feeling. ‘She loves our old-fashioned tea, made with tea leaves.’
Charley frowned. ‘Why do you think that he would let Cordelia get under his skin?’
‘He says that she’s not homeless. He says he’s seen her driving a car, and that she has the nerve to park it nearby. He says she is a whore.’ Angelica fell silent for a moment, with a pensive look on her face. ‘I don’t know what to believe. Why would she sit on the pavement begging, in all weathers, and sell her body for sex, unless she was desperate?’
‘Did he mention what sort of car he had seen her driving?’
Angelica shook her head. ‘Sorry, if he did, I don’t remember.’
‘Did he say where he’d seen her park the car? It would help us to locate it.’
Again she shook her head, more slowly this time. ‘Sorry no, but he might have told the officers who spoke to him at the shop earlier.’
‘What do you think about Cordelia, and her begging outside the bakery?’ asked Charley.
‘I guess, probably because of my uncle being homeless, that I identified with her as someone in need, and I tried to help in the way I know others helped my uncle, which helped him stay alive. I felt sorry for her, at least, I did…’
‘Does that mean your feelings might have changed, why?’
‘At first I felt guilty looking at her closely, because of what Mr Marsh said. However, what I did notice was that she didn’t look as if she had been sleeping rough.’
‘In what way?’
‘Her nails were clean. Her skin was moisturised, her hair looked healthy; cut, coloured, neater than mine. Her clothes were crumpled but not dirty. Her condition was not in the least like some of the homeless people I have seen around the town.’
‘What did you do about Mr Marsh’s behaviour towards her?’
‘I feel ashamed and angry with myself now telling you this but, I really need my job, so, rather than antagonise him further, I kept my head down, worked hard and tried my best to avoid Cordelia.’
‘Is there anything else that you can think of which may help us with our enquiries?’
‘No that’s it.’ For a second, the fear Charley had seen previously in the young woman’s eyes reappeared. ‘Please reassure me Mr Marsh won’t get to know I’ve spoken to you? Whatever Cordelia was up to, she didn’t deserve to die. I hope what I’ve told you helps in some small way to catch her killer.’
Charley shifted in her chair and stood. Angelica followed her lead. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Marsh will not be told you’ve been to see us. Thank you for coming in to share the information. Only time will tell if it is useful or not, but I think perhaps it is,’ Charley said kindly.
Back in the Incident Room, Charley wanted to know what Mr Rodney Marsh, the manager of Medway Bakery, had disclosed to the officers initially interviewing him about what he had seen, and, more importantly, what he had done to Cordelia.
Twenty minutes later she was reading his statement
in which he had not mentioned that he had seen Cordelia Le Beau driving a car, or that he had seen her parking up near the bakery.
Neither had he disclosed having any heated arguments with her, warning his staff not to encourage her, or docking their wages for giving her food and warm drinks.
‘Had he something to hide?’ wondered Charley.
‘Mike,’ she called to her deputy from her office door in the room being temporarily set up as an Incident Room. ‘It’s time for us to clear the ground beneath our feet where Mr Marsh is concerned.’
Chapter 10
Cordelia Le Beau wasn’t the first, and neither would she be the last person to beg on the streets.
Begging was a recordable offence under Section 3 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, carrying with it a sizeable fine.
Charley had learnt a lot about begging on her secondment to London, where to try to tackle the increasing begging epidemic, anti-social behaviour orders were used to ban beggars from parts of the capital, and police handed out fines to people persistently asking passers-by for money. However, it didn’t appear to have much impact on the serial offenders, or deter the illegal street beggars, some of whom were whole families, from flying into Britain, begging on the streets for a few days, then flying home.
The statistics that Charley had asked for revealed that, in Huddersfield, there were sixteen known beggars on their radar, and four fines had been handed out by the police the previous month, but it appeared that at that time the police had been criticised for targeting those in genuine need.
Studies proclaimed that more than 85 per cent of beggars ended up on the streets to raise cash to fund a drug or alcohol addiction.
Charley paused from her reading to scribble on her notepad: Is there any evidence of drug or alcohol addiction/abuse in relation to Cordelia?
There is no ‘type’ of beggar. Beggars were men, women, young people and old, living on the streets, in temporary housing, in hotels, accommodation for the homeless, or social housing, who may or may not be benefitting from social allowances, may be looking for work or excluded from the jobs market.
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