Persecution

by R. C. Bridgestock

  Marsh shuffled uneasily in his chair. ‘I have a business to run, the last batch was burnt by incompetent staff. I’m here now aren’t I?’ he said angrily.

  Charley’s face showed no emotion. ‘We have a murder to investigate. I’m sure your team are sufficiently trained and efficient enough to manage without you for a short while. Even professionals can occasionally produce burnt offerings.’ The SIO inhaled deeply as she opened the dossier in front of her. ‘Let’s see if we can sort this out quickly shall we? I’m sure that would benefit us both.’ She looked up at him from the papers. ‘Firstly, tell me why you didn’t share with the officers the fact that you had seen the murdered woman previously driving her car, parking it up, and walking to where she sits outside your premises pretending to be a penniless beggar?’

  ‘I didn’t want to get involved, all right?’ said Marsh testily. ‘The woman was a cheat and a liar, and I told her so. End of.’

  He stopped, but there seemed to be more left unsaid in his eyes. The silence grew thicker.

  ‘Are you sure that is the end? We heard about your intense dislike of her.’

  A faint blush rose in his cheeks and hung there for a moment. ‘I didn’t like her, no. She was a con-artist, who had a hard heart and a smooth tongue. I saw her attach herself every day to people who had little to give, and without conscience she took what they had.’ Marsh shrugged his shoulders. ‘If that’s how she wanted to live her life, fine, but I didn’t want her to do what she did right outside my premises, where I also caught my staff giving her freebies, and encouraging her, I mean how stupid can they be?’

  Charley looked him straight in the eye. ‘Did you tell her to go?’

  He looked incredulous. ‘Of course I did,’ he said. Charley noticed his fist, resting on the table between them, tighten slightly. ‘On numerous occasions, but that bloody woman just laughed in my face. Truth be told, she also cost me dearly in more ways than one. I’ve had to reprimand my staff, which in turn has caused bad feeling. I didn’t want to, but what else could I do to stop them giving away my profits?’ There was an awkward pause. He sat back, locked his hands over his stomach and gazed down at the floor between his legs, contemplating what had been said it seemed. The air hummed with tension. When he looked up at Charley a few moments later, his speech was rushed. ‘You might as well know that I also threw a bucket of cold water over her, and before you ask, no, I’m not proud of it but she had approached my son, and his friend who appeared to be an age of her liking.’

  ‘I guess that made her move?’ said Charley, giving him a surprised look.

  Marsh shook his head. ‘No, she was as stubborn as a mule. She played to the crowd. It seemed people felt even more sorry for her, and I ended up being labelled as mean and heartless – it has lost me valuable customers, let me tell you.’

  Rodney Marsh shuffled in his chair and wincing, stretched his legs. Years of working ceaselessly on his feet had taken their toll on his knees, leaving them weak and arthritic, but Charley couldn’t help noticing that his loose-fitting, white T-shirt did nothing to conceal the size of the muscles on his shoulders and arms. There was no doubting his strength.

  ‘It might come as a surprise to you that we already know about the dousing incident,’ Charley said. She paused and frowned. ‘She must have really got under your skin for you to assault her?’

  Marsh shook his head, slowly. ‘I’d never hit a woman,’ he said meaningfully. ‘I might rant and rave, usually for good reason, but I would never, ever assault a woman.’

  ‘You don’t think that throwing water over someone is an assault?’

  Marsh grimaced. ‘Okay, but you know what I mean, I didn’t hurt her.’

  ‘Can we say then that your plan to move her from outside your premises backfired.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said looking suitably ashamed.

  ‘You’d have us believe that you just walked away afterwards?’

  ‘Yes, I couldn’t let her distract me any longer. I’d said my piece and you know the rest… I had work to do, and a business to run, just like I have today.’

  Charley sat eyeing Rodney Marsh stonily. ‘We hear that you threatened to kill her.’

  Marsh pursed his lips and pulled his legs slowly in, gazing at her fixedly. There was a pause.

  Charley went on. ‘Look, I understand how busy you are, but what was stopping you sorting her out once you’d finished work? Is that what happened?’ Charley slanted her eyes at Marsh.

  ‘Nothing, but that isn’t what happened. I threatened her, threw the cold water over her, but nothing more.’ Marsh smiled icily.

  Charley turned her head to look at Mike Blake, and back at Marsh. ‘Surely you can see how it looks from where we’re sitting; you threatened Cordelia, assaulted her and now she’s dead. Tell me, why didn’t you tell this to the officers who initially spoke to you? You’d have saved yourself a lot of grief if you’d admitted the truth. We are, after all, investigating a murder. Did you think that we wouldn’t find out about your attitude and behaviour towards Cordelia?’ she questioned.

  Rodney Marsh shook his head. His face softened. ‘Look, like I said before. I didn’t want to get involved,’ he said quietly, looking at the detectives sitting opposite him in turn. ‘That’s God’s honest truth.’ Marsh inhaled deeply, leant back in his chair, put his large hands covered with skin calluses behind his head, and tilted his head to the ceiling.

  Charley could not help but wince at the burn scars on his arms. Before breathing out slowly through pursed lips, he looked down to reveal eyes filled with tears.

  ‘My brother was self-employed when he was the main witness to a multiple murder investigation, and warned that he would be required for court to give evidence. As it happened he’d just finished two months’ jury service when he was called up. In the end he couldn’t work for nearly four months, hanging around in court as he did for days, weeks on end. Someone else came along and took his customers. It ruined him, he had a breakdown, and he has never been the same again because he can’t provide for his family. I can’t risk losing my business. I can’t let that happen to me. My business is my life, and it relies on my being on site six days a week. Perhaps this is a wake-up call for me to train my staff to cope without me, but ours is a family business and I was waiting for my children to learn the trade in the hope that they would continue in the future.’ Marsh swallowed hard. ‘I don’t deny that I’m glad that woman won’t be sitting outside my premises anymore, but neither do I wish her dead.’

  ‘Perhaps you just didn’t mean to kill her,’ said Mike, matter-of-factly.

  Panic flashed across Marsh’s face, then he briefly closed his eyes. He took a handkerchief out and mopped his face.

  ‘I swear. Please believe me. I’m not the person you’re looking for. I’m sorry, I know now that I should have told the police officers everything at the outset. I wasn’t trying to be awkward. Cordelia Le Beau, if that is her real name, wasn’t good for business, but I also knew she wasn’t homeless, or as innocent as she purported to be. However, I could have, indeed should have, put a sign in the window telling the public what I knew, and have done with it. I didn’t, and I’ve learnt a valuable lesson.’

  The SIO studied Marsh and nodded composedly. She closed the dossier in front of her. ‘All right,’ she said briefly. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to share with us before you go, because as we continue our investigations into Cordelia’s murder, I don’t want to see you again unless I need some fresh bread.’

  ‘No,’ Marsh said quietly, shaking his head. ‘Can I go back to work now before they burn the shop down?’

  Charley nodded.

  The DS took him to obtain his DNA, shoe size and the pattern of his footwear before seeing him out.

  Half an hour had passed when Mike walked into Charley’s office and sat down opposite her. Charley looked up from the heap of paperwork she was signing. To the left of her was a pile of newspapers, files, and the morning post still waiting for her to
open it, to the right a blank computer screen. The printer was spewing out her requested data.

  ‘His story makes sense. He seemed genuine, I thought.’

  Mike screwed up his nose. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But we got confirmation of what Angelica told me. He threatened the victim.’

  His jaw set hard. ‘Yeah. He had motive, he knew the victim, knew her routine. Even though he doesn’t strike me as a killer, we can’t eliminate him.’

  ‘No,’ she sighed heavily. ‘Our suspect list will keep building until we get hard evidence.’

  ‘Plus, of course, it looks like there were two people involved.’

  Charley nodded. ‘That reminds me, have we narrowed down the patterns from the assailant’s footwear on Cordelia’s body to a specific brand, or a type of shoe?’ For a minute or two she lost herself in speculations.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘Chase forensics, would you? Fingers crossed the tread is unique to a brand.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Make sure we’re checking the footwear of everyone brought into the station, even those in relation to other cases. There’s a chance our killer will be drawn to the investigation, wanting to be in the middle of things. It wouldn’t be unheard of for the killer to come into the precinct under some false pretence.’

  Mike nodded and got to his feet. ‘Will do, boss, leave it with me.’

  Charley turned to her computer, waiting in anticipation as she worked, for a call from officers viewing the CCTV they had secured, hoping for the words, ‘Boss, come look at this…’

  Suddenly Charley’s printer came to a halt, and for a moment all was silent. She lifted the documents from the printer and scanned the pages. It was the information she had requested about the postman.

  ‘Dennis Mugglestone,’ she read, ‘who thought he recognised the deceased.’

  Charley felt impatiently around for a piece of paper and pen. Surely that must have been an assumption on his part. She was sure the victim’s pink hair wasn’t visible until the stone was removed. There was no way he could have seen her face. And her clothes were all but removed…

  She wondered if they had got his footwear impressions from the shoes he was wearing at the time, as she scoured the page for the information. If both the postman and the baker did not fit the shoe prints, she could put them aside for now. Obviously, there was the possibility that someone came across the body and stood on it post-mortem and didn’t contact the police.

  The burning question that continued to go around and around inside Charley’s mind was the motive; just precisely what was the motive? Was there one? Did someone hate Cordelia enough to obliterate her skull? Or was it a random act of extreme violence?

  Charley sat at her desk reminding herself to remain open-minded until evidence identified the true facts of what had occurred. She was still waiting on DNA from a vaginal exam to see if they could identify the killer, so she added the question for an update to her list.

  According to the footwear impressions page, the size of the footprints found on Cordelia’s body, were size six and ten. It was definitely feasible that one could be a woman, and the other a man. Permutations swirled around her head and would continue to do so until she had answers.

  Her list of unanswered questions was getting longer, and more urgent.

  Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted.

  ‘Boss, good news. We have a trace on the anonymous phone call,’ DC Annie Glover announced, stepping into Charley’s office.

  ‘Really?’ Charley smiled widely. ‘That is good news. Arrange for someone to go and see who it is as a priority, and do the necessary, will you?’

  Chapter 13

  Leaving Charley at her desk reviewing the information they had so far, and considering the agenda for the next strategy meeting, DCs Annie Glover and Ricky-Lee Lewis set off to speak to the woman who made the abusive call to the Incident Room, who they now knew resided at 24, Alma Crescent, which happened to be in the middle of the notorious Byron Estate, one of the town’s most deprived areas, built on the site of an old tram depot. Ricky-Lee said very little during the journey, but instead concentrated on the route he was taking through the maze to locate the house. Byron Estate had an unenviable reputation for gang violence, drug abuse and disorder, and Annie shuddered as she remembered the last time she had been here. She had spent a short time in uniform, after she had transferred from the south, and had been involved in an incident when two hundred youths had clashed with police following a drugs raid.

  ‘This place,’ she muttered, seeing the desolate landscape unfolding like the backdrop to a dystopian sci-fi film, with overflowing dog-shit bins and boarded-up houses. They passed a bus stop, a phone box and a pub, all covered from top to bottom in graffiti. They stood against the bleak scenery of semi-detached homes, and a cold grey sky. In the vicinity of where he knew Alma Crescent to be, Ricky-Lee navigated the car with due care and attention, a narrow road led to a cul-de-sac where cars parked bumper to bumper. Finally, he located No. 24. Immediately the CID car stopped it attracted several bike-riding youths, who began to circle it like wasps around a jam jar.

  Doors locked, the pair appraised the mood and intention of the circling bike-riders, and although appearing idle, their eyes were constantly scanning the street both ways.

  Ricky Lee nodded towards No. 24. ‘What score would you give it for kerbside appeal?’ he asked in a drawl.

  ‘Zero. Sod’s law that’s the place we’re looking for,’ Annie said mournfully.

  For a moment or two the pair sat in silence. The scene before her reminded Annie of a collection of paintings that she hadn’t thought of for a number of years. Meanwhile Ricky-Lee was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, whilst humming to a popular tune on the radio.

  As quickly as the bike riders had appeared, they disappeared, dispersing in different directions.

  Certain that the bikers had gone, Ricky-Lee turned to look at Annie questioningly. It wasn’t like her to be quiet for so long. She broke the silence. ‘I was just thinking… don’t laugh… it’s a bit like a painting out here.’

  Ricky-Lee scoffed in surprise as he looked around the street. ‘Right.’

  ‘Not a pretty painting, obviously. I studied George Shaw at A Level, and he focused on the postwar Tile Hill housing estate. He said that exploring the neglected suburban surroundings of his childhood made him feel that “something out of the ordinary could happen at any time there, away from the supervision of adults”.’ Her voice quivered. ‘It feels a bit like that here, don’t you think?’

  The car’s mirrors gave Ricky-Lee a complete view of the street both ways.

  ‘A bit, yeah, and I should know, being brought up in the inner-city.’

  He reached into the back of the car for his suit jacket, looked into the rearview mirror, adjusted his tie and smoothed back his neatly cut hair. Unlike Annie, appearance was always at the forefront of the DC Lee’s mind. Older than Annie by three years, with a failed long-term relationship behind him, his fake tan and the care he took with his appearance gave others the impression that he was self-centred, and this made him an easy target for his colleagues’ teasing. But Annie couldn’t imagine him without a tan.

  Ricky-Lee dipped his head, made a face at her when he realised she was looking at him, and looked straight past her at the house. A huge leafless tree dominated the modest, overgrown front garden, which resembled a fly-tipping site rather than a cultivated plot.

  The woman who lived at this address had had a few brushes with the law – drunken behaviour, theft, public nuisance – but there were no outstanding warrants for her arrest. It showed him that she had previous form, but presently she wasn’t ‘wanted’.

  ‘Ready,’ he asked Annie?

  The detective nodded.

  ‘Mind where you step. The piles of dog shit look like the size of mole hills,’ he said in a protective way.

  All of a sudden Annie felt glad that his gambling addiction that he’d developed du
ring an undercover job seven years previously, and that had reared its ugly head three years ago, after which he lost his fiancée Beth and he’d decided to relocate to the north, hadn’t managed to destroy his life. In fact instead, working at Peel Street, Charley had managed to get him the professional support he needed.

  When Annie opened the car door, she was taken by the blue-grey tones that gave the house ahead of her a brooding quality. The closed curtains and sparseness of the setting created a scene from which all signs of domestic life were absent. Truth to tell, if Annie had had a choice, she would have given No. 24 a wide berth.

  No sooner had they stepped onto the pavement when a fierce barking could be heard from inside the premises.

  Annie rolled her eyes and groaned. ‘Looks like we’ve got a welcoming committee. That’s all we need.’ Slowing her pace, she stepped behind Ricky-Lee. ‘I’ll be right behind you,’ she said, tongue-in-cheek. ‘You can be sure of that.’

  Annie followed him through the broken rusty gate that leaned precariously against a pile of bricks, and up the long, flagged path with deliberate, unhurried steps. Ricky-Lee’s eyes were focused on the door ahead, whilst Annie cast hers to the right, and to the left, and lastly behind her. Looking out for anyone who might have decided to follow them, and try to give them a nasty surprise. Finally, Ricky-Lee climbed the two steps to the door.

  His knock was hard and determined against the wood edging the broken glass panel, held together with duct tape. They both became silent, watching and listening. The response was instant, and not surprising.

  ‘Fuck off!’ shouted a female voice from within, over the sound of the excited dog’s barking. ‘I’m not interested in anything you’re flogging!’

  Annie looked up at Ricky-Lee but passed no comment.

  ‘It’s the police,’ Ricky Lee shouted back. ‘We’d like a word.’

  ‘You can fuck off as well!’ came the instant reply.