Dead Jealous

by Helen H. Durrant

  The neighbour shrugged. “No one saw. Don’t think they’d say even if they had.” A big grin spread across her face. “Whoever it was, they done the lot of us a favour.”

  * * *

  A tent had been hastily erected to cover the body. People were craning their necks to see over the tape cordoning off an area a few metres from the entrance to Heron House. Apart from the comings and goings of the police, there wasn’t much to see.

  Calladine met Ruth at the scene.

  She raised a finger. “Sean Hopwood. A knife in the back, then pushed from up there, first floor. Uniform are having a look. You can see where the railing has come away from the brickwork.”

  Calladine looked up, then followed an imaginary line downwards to the ground. The concrete around them was littered with pieces of broken metal and brick. He picked up a piece. The old railing was crumbling with rust.

  “He landed heavily. Any number of people said they heard him smash onto the ground. There was nothing anyone could have done. Someone called an ambulance but the paramedics confirmed he’d already gone.”

  Calladine looked around. “Has anybody said anything? Anyone own up to seeing what happened?”

  “Not yet. But according to the paramedic who looked at the wound, it seems Hopwood was jumped from behind, knifed and pushed over.”

  “So some idiot finally caught up with the crook. Can’t say I’m surprised. The man was universally hated on this estate.” Calladine shook his head.

  “That doesn’t make it right, though,” Ruth reminded him. “It’s still murder, and we have to find the killer.”

  Calladine pulled a face. A thankless task. He was surprised that no one had taken a pop at Hopwood before now. “It won’t help us, the victim being Hopwood. The attacker could be anyone here, they all had a motive.” A grim-faced Calladine walked towards the tent and went inside to talk to the CSIs.

  One of them broke away from the group and took off his mask. “According to the bloke who rang it in, it happened less than an hour ago. We’ll do a sweep of the area and the deck above. His clothing might yield something, fibres and the like. Knifed in the back. That means getting up close and personal.”

  “Okay, let me have the preliminary report as soon as.” Calladine stepped out of the tent and beckoned to Ruth. “Better take a look up there. Someone might have seen or heard something. With a bit of luck they might even want to speak to us, although I won’t hold my breath. Whoever did it will have hero status before long.”

  Ruth shook her head. “As if we didn’t have enough on our plates. There’s Bernie Logan for a start. He didn’t say, but it was probably Hopwood who battered him yesterday. That gives him a motive.”

  “Also Dolly Appleton. Hopwood tried to burn her out. I’ll be speaking to her, and the rest.” Calladine sighed.

  “Did you get anything useful on the back of what Julian told you?”

  Calladine led her away from the others. “I spoke to Monika again, but she couldn’t tell me anything different from what’s in her statement.”

  Ruth looked at him. “So what did Julian tell you?”

  “Something I certainly wasn’t expecting.” He frowned. Ruth wasn’t going to like this. “Little Jessica was shot. She took a bullet to the head.”

  As he expected, Ruth was shocked. She gasped and grabbed his arm. “Sorry. For a second there I felt quite weird. First that bloody autopsy, and now this. It beggars belief, it’s so horrible. Is he sure?”

  “You know Julian. He doesn’t joke about death. But not a word to anyone else. This information is sensitive and the media would love it. We don’t want it getting out. We particularly don’t want Josie and her sister finding out yet.”

  “She’ll find out eventually, Tom. But who would do that to such a small child?”

  Calladine shook his head. “I can’t get my head around it.”

  There were tears in Ruth’s eyes. “Sorry. My emotions seem to be all over the place.”

  “It’s okay. Didn’t do me a lot of good either.” Calladine lifted his arm, but then let it drop. “Sorry. Thought you might like a hug. You being a mum of a small child and all that.”

  Ruth frowned. “Let’s not bring all that up again, please. You don’t have to hug me every time you bring bad news. I am quite tough, you know.”

  “But not lately?”

  “It’s been a hard few months.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. After a while, Calladine said, “We’re alright, the two of us, aren’t we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know. That thing that happened when we found Imogen. You don’t say much, but I sense you are wary around me now.”

  She looked at him. “How do you expect me to answer that one, Tom?”

  He shrugged, and cleared his throat. “We’re close. It’s like I said at the time, I’ve known you longer than any other woman in my life currently. I didn’t know my daughter, Zoe, existed until a couple of years ago. And as for my birth mother, Eve, well, you know how little I see of her.”

  “So what are you saying? That when things get tricky you have the right to fling your arms around me? Kiss me even?”

  “See, I knew it. For reasons I still don’t understand, what I did then upsets you.”

  Ruth looked into his eyes. “No, you’re wrong. It confuses things, that’s all. You’re my boss. You’re my friend too, and that’s how I’d like it to stay if it’s all the same with you. I certainly don’t want our relationship to change — in any way. Boundaries, that’s all we need.” She nodded, as if to herself. “How about I’ll try not to get emotionally needy, and you don’t grab hold of me at every opportunity? That’ll do for starters.”

  Why did that sound like a threat? Ruth was warning him off. Calladine changed the subject. “Someone will have to tell his brother, Ricky. Feel up to it? Free me up to speak to this lot.” He nodded at the flats above.

  “I’ll take Nigel with me. See what he’s made of.”

  “You can ask Ricky about his relationship with Flora too. Find out when he last saw her.” He nodded towards the place where the old car had been parked. “But first I’m going to have a word with the CSI people down there. See if they’ve found anything useful.”

  “Don’t forget it has been raining since the killing,” Ruth warned him.

  Chapter 14

  Calladine’s revelation about Jessica Wilkins had upset Ruth. During the last twenty-four hours she had considered a number of scenarios, but the thought that someone had shot the child through the head had never entered her mind.

  Nigel Hallam broke the silence. “Hopwood won’t be missed.”

  Ruth shook herself. She must keep her mind on the case in hand. “That’s not the point. He’s been murdered. Missed or not, we still have to do our job.”

  They were in Ruth’s car, heading towards the edge of town and the Hopwood home.

  “I remember Ricky from school,” said Nigel. “He was an odd one.”

  “With a brother like Sean raising him, what do you expect? Both parents were dead by the time Ricky was three years old. Odd or not, he’s as much a victim of Sean’s brutality as anyone.”

  Nigel shook his head. “He won’t take it well. He might think he’s a big man, but he’s still a kid really.”

  “He’s going to have to step up now. God knows what kind of mess Sean has left behind him. And Ricky will have to run the business on his own. That’s asking a lot from someone who’s nowhere near as tough as his brother.”

  The Hopwood home was on the outskirts of the area known as Leesworth. It consisted of several villages, and the town of Leesdon. The Hopwoods lived in the tiny village of Hopeshaw. Stone terraced houses ran the length of the main road, with one or two larger houses dotted about the surrounding hillsides. The Hopwoods lived in one of these.

  It was a huge stone pile hugging the side of a hill. Ruth pulled up in the driveway outside the front door and looked up at it. “This must have co
st a fortune.”

  “No doubt it was bought with their ill-gotten gains,” Nigel added. “The exorbitant interest charged on the few hundred poor folk borrow.”

  Ruth rang the doorbell. “Not that we can do anything about it, and that’s the problem.”

  Ricky answered the door wearing a dressing gown and drying his hair with a towel. He recognised Nigel Hallam and pulled a face. “What d’you want? I’m busy.”

  Ruth spoke gently. “Ricky, can we come in? We need to talk to you. It’s best done inside, and it’s something that won’t wait.”

  “No. Spit it out, then do one. Sean needs me on the job, so I don’t have time for tea and biscuits with you lot.”

  The softly, softly approach was getting them nowhere. Alright, thought Ruth, we tried. “Sean has been killed, Ricky. He was attacked and stabbed earlier this morning. So whether you like it or not, we do need to speak to you.”

  Ricky froze. He slowly brought the towel from his head and let it drop. His eyes went from one detective to the other. Ruth saw the disbelief on his face. He was struggling with the news.

  Finally, he shook his head. “You’re having me on. Not our Sean. Where is this s’posed to have happened?”

  “I’m afraid this is no joke, Ricky,” Ruth replied. “He was found on the Hobfield.”

  “What happened? Who would dare? I’ve been telling him for ages to reel it in.” He squinted at them, and his expression shifted from shock to suspicion.

  Ruth shook her head. “We can’t do this on the doorstep. We need to come in. We have to ask you a few questions, Ricky.”

  Woodenly, he moved aside.

  The hallway was wide and long, the ceiling low with a thick oak beam running the length of it. Ricky led them into a sitting room. That too had a low, wood-beamed ceiling, and two tall leaded windows. Apart from a few pieces of antique stuff, the furniture was modern and colourful.

  “What happened? Which of them scroats did for him?”

  Ruth looked at him. “Sean was found this morning on the ground outside Heron House. He was stabbed and then fell or was pushed from the first floor. Whoever did that meant business. It was no half-hearted attempt.”

  “Stabbed? Fell? It doesn’t make sense. No one would have the balls . . . Are you sure?”

  “Yes. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Ruth lowered her voice. “This was murder, Ricky, and we need to catch whoever did it.”

  He looked at them, his eyes wide. “I warned the stupid bastard! The way he treated people. Sooner or later it was bound to get him into trouble.”

  Ruth moved a step towards him. “We are going to need your help, Ricky. We need to know everything about Sean’s life. Who he’d upset, if there had been any threats. You know the stuff.”

  Ricky slammed his fist against the wall, and howled in pain. “No one liked Sean. Everyone on that damned estate wanted his blood. I knew he’d go too far one day.”

  Ruth nodded. “We do know about Sean’s reputation. We know that he intimidated clients when they couldn’t repay the loans they’d taken on. Had anyone threatened him recently? Did Sean go out this morning to see anyone in particular?”

  “No, just the usual round. He was chasing up the non-payers. That happens on a weekly basis. I do the normal round, and Sean goes out to see the punters who avoided me. They need a sharp word, putting straight. Sean is better at that. We’re a business, not a charity.”

  “Had Sean upset anyone who might retaliate?” Nigel asked.

  Ricky didn’t answer straight away. He was pacing up and down. “Sean just had to walk into a room to upset folk. People didn’t like him. But I didn’t think anyone would have the balls to do something about it.”

  Ruth took out her notebook. “This was murder, so someone did. In order to find out who that was, we need you to tell us one or two things. We need a list of your clients, particularly those who live in Heron House. We need to know who was behind on the repayments, who owed the firm the most.”

  “I was collecting at Heron House yesterday. There were lots of people who didn’t pay, who wouldn’t even answer the door. Sean went back last night to have a word with one or two of them, but he got nowhere.”

  Nigel moved closer to the pacing Ricky. “Did he have a ‘word’ with Bernie Logan? He was taken to A & E badly beaten.”

  “I don’t know,” was the sullen reply. “But Bernie was on the list. Sean was sick of him.”

  “What about Dolly Appleton? Someone tried to set fire to her flat last night,” said Nigel.

  Ricky flushed. He began to shout. “Now that he can’t stick up for himself, you’re trying to pin everything on Sean! That’s the game, isn’t it? You lot must think I’m daft.”

  Ruth sighed. “Okay, Ricky. Calm down. Where were you this morning?”

  “Here. I’ve just got out of bed. You can’t seriously think I’d harm my own brother?” He walked over to a computer sitting on a desk against the wall.

  Ruth shrugged. “We have to ask. That’s quite a bruise you’ve got on your cheek.”

  “Bumped into a door, didn’t I?”

  Ruth suspected it was more likely the lad had fallen foul of Sean’s temper. She didn’t push it.

  Ricky handed Ruth a data stick. “Here. This do you? A list of everyone who currently has a loan with us. It’s all there: names, addresses, amounts outstanding, the lot.”

  Ruth took the stick. “Thank you. It will be very helpful. Now, on a different subject, we’ve been told that you were seeing Flora Appleton.”

  Ricky shrugged. “Nothing serious. We had a drink from time to time, that’s all.”

  Ruth raised her eyebrows. “You bought tickets to a music festival for the pair of you.”

  “So? Doesn’t mean owt. She kept mithering. I got the tickets to shut her up. I never intended going.”

  Ruth smiled. “Okay. We’ll talk about Flora another time.”

  Ricky looked at her, almost pleading. “What have you done with him? Where do I go if I want to see him?”

  “He is at a place called the Duggan Centre,” Ruth explained. “There will have to be a post-mortem and forensic tests done. If you want to see him, I can arrange for a uniformed officer to take you. Perhaps you’d like to tell people first, family for instance. Get someone to go with you.”

  He looked at Ruth for a few seconds, then shook his head. “There is no one.”

  * * *

  Calladine stood on the first-floor deck with one of the scenes-of-crime officers.

  The CSI gave the rail a shake. “It’s made of metal, but it isn’t in the best condition, is it? The whole lot is badly rusted. It wouldn’t have taken much for it to give way like it did. These are old blocks. They’ve needed urgent repair for years. But what’s the betting the council will bleat on about having no money?”

  “So someone could have come up behind Hopwood, stabbed him, then a bit of a shove and down he went?”

  The CSI nodded. “Sounds plausible. Hopefully the pathologist will get some answers. I must say, there is a lot of debris down there on the ground.”

  This was all speculation. Calladine needed the forensics results before he started concocting theories. He looked along the deck. The place was empty. The council had promised to fix it quickly, but in the meantime it was a death trap. He’d ring them, see if they’d at least cordon it off.

  Uniform had already started on the door-to-door enquiries. Calladine didn’t believe that Hopwood could have been knifed without anyone seeing. He checked his watch. Time to have a wander round. First, he’d take the lift up to the twelfth floor, check up on Josie Wilkins. The sight of uniformed officers would have got her spooked. Truth was, if a policeman came knocking most round here wouldn’t even answer the door.

  But Josie Wilkins wasn’t hiding away. She was standing on the deck outside her flat, looking down at what was happening on the ground below.

  She caught sight of Calladine. “I heard the noise. Arguing and screaming. Dreadful it was. I
’d no idea what had happened. I heard the thud when he hit the concrete.” She shuddered. “I didn’t look over. I guessed someone must have gone over the side.”

  He looked at her. “Are you okay? You look very pale.”

  “I’ve just heard some poor bastard get a kicking. Of course I’m not okay.” Josie wrapped her arms around herself.

  “It was worse than that, I’m afraid,” Calladine said. “We’ll go inside and I’ll make us a cup of tea.”

  She inhaled deeply and led the way into her flat. “It’s been an awful week so far. First Jess, and now this.”

  “Did you see any of what happened? Hear anything? Do you have any idea who the man was arguing with?”

  She shook her head. “No. You can’t see the lower decks from up here. But I heard the shouting.”

  Josie was deathly pale and still shaking from the shock. She didn’t appear to know that it was Hopwood who’d been killed. He went into the small kitchen and switched the kettle on. “Tea bags do you?”

  “All I use, love,” she shouted back.

  He popped his head around the door. “Are you up to talking, Josie? Can you tell me exactly what you heard?”

  Josie buried her face in a cushion and began to weep. “I’m sick of it round ’ere. If I had the money, I’d disappear. Go somewhere nice, near the sea, and never come back!”

  Calladine reappeared with two cups of tea. “Drink that. Might have a bit more sugar than you’re used to, but it’ll do you good.”

  She wiped her eyes and sniffed. “I heard blokes arguing. I didn’t take much notice at first. Folk are always at it round ’ere. One of them told the other bloke to get lost. ‘Yer’ll get nowt more,’ he said.”

  “What happened then?”

  “More shouting, then a scream.” Josie’s voice trembled. “I was scared. They were several floors down but they were really screaming at each other. I didn’t want them to see me so I came inside, and listened from the window. Then I heard one of them shriek and I came out again. Wish I hadn’t, but I did. I’ll never forget the noise he made.” She paused to blow her nose. “Who was it?”

  Josie would find out soon enough. It was all over the estate. “Sean Hopwood,” he said simply. “He’s dead.”