‘No, I don’t think so, guv.’
‘You asked me what this was leading up to,’ Ashworth said, centring his gaze on Whitworth’s perplexed face. ‘Well, when it became apparent that I was going to be sidelined, I was determined to have a say in my successor.’
Whitworth’s jaw dropped open. ‘You want me to succeed you?’
Ashworth nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Maybe I want to wish you on Ken Savage as some sort of revenge,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘But think on it, Mike.’
‘I’d need to be reinstated first.’
‘I’m working on that.’
‘Guv, there’s something else — Josh. I know he’s a wrong way round guy, but I think you’re being unfair to him.’
‘His homosexuality has nothing to do with it, Mike. I’m not a bigot,’ Ashworth declared loudly, ‘I just don’t think he’s a good policeman.’
‘I think you’re wrong.’
‘I’m never wrong,’ Ashworth said stiffly.
‘Neither am I.’
Ashworth smiled as he recognised the trap into which he had fallen. ‘While I’m wearing the big hat you are.’
Whitworth laughed, pushing himself off the desk. ‘Right, guv, I’ll watch this Len Warren for you.’
‘Good, and I’ll get on and interview Cain.’
He watched as Whitworth swaggered to the door. ‘Mike?’
‘Yes, guv?’
‘I’d like this little discussion to have been off the record.’
‘You can count on it.’
When Whitworth emerged, he found Holly alone in the outer office.
‘Mike, whatever’s the matter — you actually look thoughtful,’ she said with mock surprise.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He perched on the edge of her desk. ‘Right, Hol, I regarded last night as a draw, so I’m demanding a rematch,’ he said light-heartedly, all deep thoughts set aside.
‘I don’t know, Mike,’ Holly replied doubtfully. ‘You said you’re not permanent.’
‘Two nights suddenly turn me into a husband?’ he grinned.
Those lovely white teeth in that attractive face sent shivers down Holly’s spine.
There were others — besides Ashworth — in Bridgetown Station who were struggling to come to terms with themselves. Holly for one. The fact that, driven by pure lust, she could be attracted to sex which offered no security, no future, offended her middle-class morality. And the fact that she seemed powerless to resist alarmed her.
‘Full treatment this time — I’ll buy you a meal,’ Whitworth promised. ‘Anything you want — burgers and fries, fish and chips. For the sort of performance you turn in, I might even stretch to a Chinese. Shall I call you?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
Whitworth jumped off the desk, patting her under the chin. ‘Right, girl. Keep your knickers up unless you want to go to the toilet.’
Laughing, and shaking her head, she watched him leave the office.
Chapter 28
Damon Cain, in interview room number one, was contemplating the consequences of his recent actions.
He sat considering the brown Formica of the tabletop, in which he had burnt a hole with his lighted cigarette. The smell of smouldering plastic brought a reprimand from the uniformed officer by the door.
‘Stop it, Damon,’ the social worker, Rolands, snapped, lightly tapping the hand holding the offending cigarette.
Cain fingered the deep scratch marks on his left cheek. Jenny Rolands wasn’t showing any sympathy, he thought moodily. Tell the police everything, had been her advice.
It wasn’t his fault — why couldn’t they see that? If the stupid old woman hadn’t struggled, she’d have been all right. They just wanted a bit of fun, a laugh.
He would blame it all on to Delvin, he had already decided that. And in court, he would tell the magistrates how much he missed his dad, how he’d like to study and really make something of himself — but his mum was never at home, which made him feel lost and unwanted.
He knew what he had done was wrong, but he only did it to draw attention to himself. It was a cry for help, really. Yes, that’s what he would say — that always went down well with all the poxy welfare people.
He would spend a couple of years in care, behave himself, and then he would be out.
Stubbing out the cigarette, he began to feel quite cheerful. After all, he had given himself up — that should go in his favour. He would say that as soon as the drugs had worn off — the drugs Delvin had made him take — he had realised he’d done a bad thing and gone straight to the police.
Feeling so good now, he almost laughed out loud. When the filth came in to interview him, he’d just take the piss. What could they do?
Then the door opened.
Oh, Christ, it’s the old geezer who always looks uptight, and that skinny bird. What’s the matter with the old fart? Why’s he looking at me like that?
Now the bird’s mumbling some crap into the tape recorder, and the old bloke’s sitting down. Right, let’s go.
Ashworth came straight to the point. ‘I’m not going to mess about — you can tell me what happened, or I can wait for the Forensic report, and then I’ll tell you.’
Cain sniggered.
‘Tell them,’ Rolands commanded sharply.
Cain looked Ashworth in the eye and smiled. ‘I can’t remember nothing. I’d snorted some coke Delvin had given me. It’s the first time I’ve had any, ’cause I don’t do drugs, see.’
‘So you don’t remember stabbing the old lady?’
‘I didn’t stab nobody.’
‘Oh, you remember you didn’t stab anybody, but you don’t remember anything else.’
‘No, you’re trying to trick me.’
Cain watched Ashworth’s finger pointing towards him. ‘You’re in a lot of trouble son, and you’re not helping yourself with this attitude.’
The boy considered his position. He would have to tell them, so why not put himself in the best possible light?
‘Well, I snorted some coke, right? Then Delvin said, why don’t we go and see this old woman he knew. He’d been doing errands for her and taking her dog out, things like that. I didn’t know he meant to have her, honest. Then, while she was making us a cup of tea he said to me, do you want it with the old girl? I thought he was joking, but when she came back he tripped her over. The dog bit him on the leg and he lost his cool. He got the piece of rope the old girl used as a lead and tied the dog up on the light.’
Cain paused, and stared at Ashworth’s tightly clenched fists on the tabletop, the cold anger in his eyes.
‘Go on,’ Ashworth said, his voice sounding strained and choked.
Cain shrugged. ‘Well, we got the old girl’s clothes off, and she lay still while I was having her, just looked up at the dog dangling on the rope, she did. But then when it was Delvin’s turn, she went ape shit — scratched me . . .’ He touched the marks on his face. ‘. . . and I couldn’t keep her still. Delvin freaked out ’cause he couldn’t get it in, and he grabbed the knife off me and just started stabbing her. I got frightened and ran off.’
He saw Ashworth and Holly exchange a look. ‘And did you rape the woman on the Cherry Tree Estate?’ Holly asked.
‘Yeah,’ Cain admitted quietly.
‘Good, you’re helping us now,’ she said. ‘Do you know where Delvin Bennett is?’
Cain noticed that Holly’s tone was more sympathetic now that he was cooperating, and decided that this would be a good road to stay on. Surely if he told them all they wanted to know, they’d go easy with him.
Very quickly, Cain said, ‘Yeah, he’s gone to his sister’s in Northampton.’
‘One more question,’ Ashworth snapped. ‘Bennett’s accused one of our officers of assaulting him while he was at Clifton House — is that true?’
‘No, Delvin got one of the bigger kids to hit him, then blamed it on King Shit, ’cause he was bugging us, like, and Delvin wanted him off the st
reet.’
‘Right.’ Ashworth stood up. ‘Charge him, Holly, and get him out of here.’
* * *
For the umpteenth time, Len Warren peeped around the lounge curtains.
He was still there.
Warren could hear his own breathing, could feel the rhythmic beating of his heart as he stood in the darkened room.
He tried to reassure himself. The man could not be from the police, surely? He looked dirty, unkempt even, standing there in the drizzling rain, leaning against his car. And the car — that didn’t look like a police vehicle. Dark blue, apart from the driver’s door and one wing which seemed to be a dull grey colour.
He was parked on double yellow lines, though — only the police could get away with that . . . and he was watching the flat. It wasn’t imagination; several times he had grinned as he stared straight at this window.
There, he’s seen me again. He’s touched his forehead in a gesture of salute, and he’s smiling. God, he looks an evil bastard.
Warren hurriedly moved away from the window. The ticking of the clock sounded loud in the stillness of the room. Knowing that he was being watched unnerved him, lent a claustrophobic atmosphere to the flat.
Entering the kitchen, he stumbled into a chair. Cursing, he righted himself as it crashed on to the tiled floor. As the flats backed on to unlit playing fields, the kitchen was in almost total darkness.
The cardboard box was still on the table. A dark shape in the gloom. Touching the lid created a strange feeling inside him, a mixture of pleasure, fear, and fulfilment. Within it lay the payment that went some way towards compensating him for the injustice he had suffered over the years at the hands of Edwards and Paine.
But he had to get it out; conceal it where the police would not find it. If he could, they would never be able to prove anything, whatever they suspected.
Cautiously he made his way back to the lounge and peered, once more, around the curtain. The road was black, shiny. The wind was gathering light drizzle and smattering it against the glass.
The car and its driver had gone.
Warren felt relief tempered with suspicion. This could merely be a ploy to lull him into a feeling of false security.
Aided by the light from a street lamp he consulted his wristwatch. He would wait an hour; that would make it seven thirty. If the watching man had not reappeared by then, he would do something about disposing of the cardboard box, and its contents.
* * *
Holly leant closer to the Mini’s windscreen; the rubber of its wipers had perished, and even on high speed they were failing to cope with the light rain.
The road ahead, the tail lights of vehicles in front, appeared through a thin hazy film.
Her earlier worry, that this relationship with Mike Whitworth — if that was what it could be called — was motivated by a part of her anatomy somewhat closer to the ground than her heart, had faded; pulled away by the fact that he had not said when he would call, only that he would. This had given way to a fear, prompted by her own feelings of insecurity, that he would not contact her.
She turned into the small drive at her house, almost colliding with the garden gate because of her impaired vision, and, making full use of her large vocabulary of expletives, she parked the car.
That feeling of depression, which attached itself to her whenever she came home, embraced her once more as she hurried to the front door. During the day her attitude towards Emily had changed. Although her basic requirements — her own space, her own life — had not altered, her approach had; rather than use confrontation, she would try conciliation. She would assure Emily that her future was secure, would explain her own needs, while at the same time making her realise that she need not see them as a threat.
She stepped into the hall, relieved that the house felt oven hot. At least Emily had not decided to play the martyr.
Television sounds were blaring from the lounge. Holly popped her head round the door; the light was off and she could just make out Emily sitting in the armchair, eyes fixed on the flickering screen.
‘Hello, mum. I’ll make us a cup of tea and bring it in,’ she announced cheerfully.
Emily did not reply, did not even look in Holly’s direction.
Oh dear, Holly thought as she wandered to the kitchen, it’s going to be the silent, wounded act, is it?
Should she ring Mike, or would that seem too forward? She laughed at that thought as she poured the tea. Too forward indeed. If her rather hazy recollections were correct, Mike was far too aware of her requirements, and the fervour with which she pursued them, for her to play the shrinking violet now.
She paused by the telephone in the hall, an impish grin playing on her lips. No, better make peace first — that would be delicate enough without Emily overhearing her talking on the telephone to a man.
Taking great care not to spill the tea, she opened the lounge door. ‘Tea, mum.’
Still Emily made no reply.
Holly stared at her mother-in-law’s profile. Look at her, she thought, sitting in the dark, staring at the television and refusing to speak. Dealing with a troublesome child could not be more difficult.
She waited diplomatically until the couple in the quiz show had answered the final question to win the holiday of a lifetime, then she said, ‘Right, mum, I’ll pull the curtains and put the light on, because I want to talk to you.’
Holly turned on the light and carried on talking as the curtains swished across the window. ‘I’m sorry I was rude this morning, mum, but I was late for work.’ She closed the gap in the curtains and went to fetch the tea from a small table beside the door. ‘Let’s make it up, shall we? We’ve both got to live under the same roof, so we might as well try to get along.’
The hot tea burnt her fingers as she picked up the mugs. ‘If you like, you can have a television in your own room. One way or another we’ll pay the heating bill, and that way—’
She had turned around, stopping in mid-sentence. Emily’s gaze was still fixed on the television screen, her eyes wide and staring.
‘Mum?’ Panic surfaced in Holly’s voice. She put the mugs back on the table, her trembling hands causing some of the tea to spill over on to the highly polished surface.
Holly knew Emily was dead before she touched the rapidly cooling flesh of that pinched face which, even in death, had retained its vindictive expression.
‘No, God,’ Holly said in a dull voice, without expression, ‘no, I can’t take any more — please.’
Then she went to telephone Mike Whitworth.
* * *
Emily’s death undoubtedly delayed the uncovering of Len Warren’s guilty secret. If Whitworth had not been dashing across town to offer help and comfort to Holly, he would have been watching the man.
Warren welcomed the dark cloudy night as he rummaged around in his garden shed for a spade. The wooden construction smelt strongly of mildew and earth.
The cardboard box, now wrapped in a large polythene sheet, stood just outside the rickety door. He kept glancing back at it, not wanting to let it out of his sight.
At last his fumbling hands closed around the required tool: a very large, almost new, spade.
He went behind the shed and — as best he could in the darkness — marked out an area on the lawn, cut around its edge, and rolled back the turf.
He spread a polythene sheet upon the grass and began to shovel earth on to it as he dug.
Chapter 29
Ashworth climbed slowly from the Sierra; his weariness was born not of physical fatigue, but of a tiredness of mind.
He was missing Sarah.
Their brief separation had brought with it a fear that what had taken place in the back of his car had erected a solid barrier between them, dismantling a relationship which had been thirty years in the building.
Even if what Gwen had described as ‘a bit of fun’ was not discovered by Sarah, then the memory of it would haunt him, forever attempting to entice him back for more
. Anyway, the law of averages suggested that, sooner or later, discovery would be inevitable.
He stared in astonishment at the kidney-shaped swimming pool, and wondered how anyone possessing such an abysmal lack of taste could have accumulated so much wealth. Walking around the edge of the pool, he headed for the front door of the villa.
Dennis Paine opened it in answer to his knock. He was dressed in a plum-coloured smoking jacket and light grey slacks.
‘Ashworth.’ He sounded surprised.
‘Mr Paine. I just thought I’d call to give you an update, and to thank you and your sister for your letter.’
‘Yes, yes, come in, old chap.’ Paine, apparently in good spirits, stood aside for Ashworth to enter. As he passed, Ashworth was aware of whisky fumes on the man’s breath; undoubtedly, these went a long way towards explaining his jovial mood.
‘I see you like Continental architecture,’ Ashworth observed.
‘Love it. None finer,’ Paine confirmed. ‘Into the lounge, Ashworth. Yes, I spent a lot of time in Spain, before the blasted liberals took it over.’
Ashworth assumed that anyone who was less than a cast-iron dictator would be accused by Paine of having liberal tendencies.
‘Do you like the Continent?’ Paine asked as they entered the lounge.
Ashworth almost winced as he took in the room. ‘I’ve a very open mind about it.’
‘Sit down, please,’ Paine said cordially, seating himself in an armchair.
Ashworth noted Paine’s glass of scotch and soda, the fat Havana cigar burning in the ashtray by his side. ‘Thank you,’ he said, perching on the edge of the sofa. ‘I really did appreciate the letter. We get such a lot of flak—’
‘Forget it,’ Paine said, trimming ash from the cigar on the edge of the ashtray. ‘I just hope it in some way makes up for my rudeness in the past.’
THE PRICE OF MURDER a totally gripping British crime mystery Page 23