‘Yasmin Candemir. I couldn’t tell you how old she is,’ Jason said awkwardly. ‘I couldn’t see enough of her to guess. By the sound of her, thirty-something. Quietly spoken, very polite, speaks quite good English.’
‘And the third?’
‘An Irish fireball called Erienna. She let rip all right. Not shy of saying where Jadon Glover could stick his debt.’ He grinned around the room. ‘Where the sun doesn’t shine.’ There were a few rolled eyes but most of his colleagues managed a snigger.
Joanna dragged them back to the present. ‘OK, let’s take a minute to run through this. Glover parks up at around seven p.m. in Sainsbury’s. He collects the money from the six families at the back of Mill Street. So far, everything normal.’
‘Yep.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Is there anything there we should go back to?’
Paul Ruthin and Bridget shook their heads.
‘He crosses the road, passes Big Mill and goes to Wellington Place. He collects money there as usual apart from one person, Carly Johnson, who says she’ll bring the money to his office on the following day.’ She focused on Dawn. ‘Did she?’
Dawn flushed.
‘You need to ask that question,’ she said gently. Joanna continued, ‘He leaves Wellington Place at around eight thirty and moves up to Britannia Avenue.’ As she spoke she was tracing his movements with an index finger moving along the map. ‘The Murdochs at number four say they were out and missed his call. Jason, you think they might have been hiding in the property to avoid paying?’
He nodded. ‘She’s an abusive drunk,’ he said. His face was comical as he shuddered. ‘Horrible woman.’
‘Right. Apparently he doesn’t call on Marty Widnes, whose husband apparently committed suicide connected with debt. Let’s find out if the debt-collecting agency was this one or another. It would appear she’s the one who has the best reason for wanting Glover dead, except that physically Mrs Widnes wouldn’t have been capable. So next in line is Karen Stanton, who says she gave him sixty pounds. It appears that Karen is the last person who admits to having seen him, at around eight thirty p.m. At some point Jadon steps outside his routine. His next port of call is one of the two remaining streets and his last six clients, in which case he’d have taken a diagonal route through the children’s play area. We see someone cross the area but can’t be sure it’s him. All we know is, according to these clients, he never makes those last calls, either to Barngate or to Nab Hill Avenue.’ She scanned the room. ‘At least that’s what we’re told.’ Her eyes drifted across the map and she knew precisely why she had felt uneasy. Britannia Avenue curved around the back of Big Mill. It would have been all too easy for someone, on that night, to drag Jadon Glover, unseen, into this dark and hidden place. She pointed to it. ‘If he never did reach the children’s play area let’s wind back to Big Mill.’ She addressed DC Alan King. ‘You’ve searched it?’
‘Just a cursory search, Joanna. No dogs.’
‘I take it you found nothing?’
He shook his head.
‘Was it locked, hard to gain access?’
‘Absolutely not,’ King said. ‘You could just walk in – and that’s through the front door. All the windows are broken.’
‘And the rear access?’
‘No better. If anything a bit worse.’
‘But nothing there?’
Again, Alan King shook his head and waited.
‘OK,’ Joanna responded. ‘We’ll take the dogs in and do a more thorough search. But if he isn’t there we need to track back.’ She thought for a moment and reverted to the people in Britannia Avenue and PC Jason Spark. ‘So the last person who admits to seeing him alive is Karen Stanton. Tell me more about her.’
‘She’s nice. Quiet, polite, contained.’
‘And what’s her sob story?’
‘She just got behind on the mortgage when her husband left her last year.’
They were all sad stories. One after another avalanching straight into the money lenders’ greedy little laps. ‘Does she work?’
‘Yeah. Doubles up. Teaching assistant at Saint Edwards Primary School and a carer for an elderly lady early morning, before she goes to work, and in the evening when she puts her to bed. It’s a private arrangement.’
‘Children?’
‘A daughter aged ten who lives with her father and his new partner.’
Joanna looked up. ‘That must rankle.’
‘Yeah. I got the impression it did. The little girl is ten years old but that’s where she wants to be, with her dad. Not a lot you can do about it these days, Jo. The wishes of the child are paramount. Dad and new wife have plenty of money plus the added bonus of new wife having a daughter Shona’s age. The two have bonded and are, according to Karen, like sisters. She’s very bitter about it. Says the woman stole her life, her husband and her daughter. Not only did she have to borrow to cope with the mortgage but in the summer she borrowed some more.’
‘More?’
Jason Spark’s face dropped. ‘Yeah, but it didn’t work. She offered to take Shona to Disneyland, Paris but Shona said she wouldn’t go without Carys so the whole thing fell through. Quite honestly, Karen’s just given up. Since then she says she’s nearly paid it off.’
‘Really?’
Joanna took another look at Jadon Glover’s movements. Suddenly Britannia Avenue looked like a hotspot vibrating with debt and tales of woeful drama. ‘Have we had any response from the board we put up in the play area?’
It was Dawn who answered. ‘Not so far but it was such a horrible night even the dog walkers were staying inside.’
So did Jadon walk, did he run or was he taken? The question was impossible to answer with their current evidence. They needed more. There were plenty of people who had reason to dislike him but reason and dislike did not vaporise people. Would they have hated him enough to abduct and kill him? Joanna’s mind was whirring. If someone had wanted poetic justice out of this miserable anthology of sad stories they would have kidnapped Jadon and demanded enough of a ransom to pay off their own and their neighbours’ debts. But realistically, what would that achieve? There was Leroy, Jeff and Scott to take his place. Possibly even some other greedy little villain waiting in the wings for an opportunity to cash in on the business. No one could fight them all. Someone else would soon take Jadon’s place. Killing or kidnapping him wasn’t worth the risk. The debt wouldn’t disappear as Jadon had. It was there and would have to be repaid.
So if there had been no ransom demand what would be the point of abducting Glover? Where would they keep him? Joanna’s thoughts stopped in their tracks, causing a bump, bump, bump of a collision. None.
Then her mind tracked sideways. What if by focusing on the missing man’s unsavoury career choice they were making a mistake? What if the answer to this was personal rather than connected with his work?
She turned aside to voice her theory to Korpanski, who listened intently. ‘Mike, should we be looking into his personal life more? Check out his perfect wife? Remember her response to his career change?’
Korpanski nodded.
‘Some women,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘need to be able to look up to a man. You could almost see her love and respect for him slide down the scale. Maybe we should look a bit harder at his perfect marriage rather than concentrating on this morass of troubled people?’
‘It’s a thought, Jo. Probably worth a look.’
‘And we never found out about either his or his wife’s past,’ she said, concerned now by their omission.
‘True. But Jo …’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘There’re lots of threads of enquiry we can follow. We can only take one strand at a time.’
She nodded. ‘And whatever the answer to his disappearance, his last sighting was still in that area.’ Her eyes flicked towards the board. ‘So we’d better get some teams out, focus on the area between Britannia Road, Barngate Street and Nab Hill Avenue and seal off the children’s play area.’
‘You’
re going to be popular.’
At one point she would have barked back at him: I’m not in this job to be popular, Korpanski. Or, I can’t help that. These days she simply smiled, met his eyes and knew he was reflecting on the change in her.
They had both changed.
So now, decided in her direction, she addressed the assembled teams. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘We have a few lines of enquiry here which will all be followed up. As an adjunct to the enquiries connected with Jadon Glover’s work DS Korpanski and I will be looking into Jadon Glover’s private life. In the meantime, I want you to focus on a few points. I want to know a bit more about Carly Johnson’s failure to produce the money and what happened subsequently. Did she borrow it from her mother on Thursday the sixth? Did she turn up at the offices in Hanley at twelve o’clock, as promised, Dawn? If she didn’t, why not?’
Dawn nodded.
‘Hannah, look into the child’s accident that resulted in the blocking off of Nab Hill Avenue. Find out who paid for the funeral, who he was related to and what he was doing in that area. Look, in particular, for any connection, even if it’s tenuous, with any of our debtors or the money lenders. Jason, you and Dawn check out Frank Widnes’ suicide. See what lending agency he was indebted to. Lastly, we’ll be looking again more carefully at the CCTV footage of the child’s play area between Britannia Avenue and Barngate Street and carrying out a fingertip search.’ She paused for a moment. Because of the low index of suspicion following Jadon’s disappearance the area had not been sealed off straight away. She could only hope that would not prove to have been a miscalculation. ‘DC Phil Scott, you can enhance the images. Pay particular attention to your subject’s height and build. Are there any distinguishing marks on the person’s clothing? And then see what he’s carrying, even his gait. We may be able to get Eve Glover to take a look and see if she recognizes the subject as her husband.’
In spite of the situation she was smiling to herself as she spoke. She would have recognized Matthew’s blond hair and his long-legged, loping stride anywhere, however fuzzy the image, let alone the way he held his head and focused straight ahead, the speed of his steps and the clothes he wore. That, she decided, is familiarity, and she allowed herself a swift vision, feeling momentarily wifely smug. My husband.
She was being watched. ‘I want a team examining both Jadon and Eve’s past,’ she said. ‘Where have they sprung from? Why no family? And last of all,’ she said, ‘look into any further connection between Karl Robertson and our debt collectors.’
Korpanski eyed her. ‘You’d better clear it with you know who.’
And, reluctantly, she had to agree.
THIRTEEN
Wednesday, 12 March, 12.45 p.m.
As Colclough had said when he’d promoted her, planning a case, working out budgets, focusing on some lines of enquiry while ignoring others was all part of the job. That, Piercy, he’d said, is what you’re paid for. On the other hand, she didn’t feel any salary could compensate for this aspect of being a DI. Facing her new and antagonistic chief superintendent was an ordeal. It was the bit she dreaded most. She knocked on his door and pictured his thin mouth in the tight-lipped, ‘Come in.’
He looked up as she entered. CS Gabriel Rush was sitting behind his desk, frowning into the computer screen. But … Was it her imagination, wishful thinking or was there really the hint of a smile around his face?
Imagination. Don’t be stupid.
‘Sit down, Piercy.’
He didn’t prompt her but waited for her to offload. Briefly she outlined the conundrum that was Jadon Glover’s disappearance. She listed the anomalies and her proposed lines of enquiry then watched as he absorbed it all. He listened, making not a single facial expression until she’d finished speaking and a heavy silence had fallen between them, a silence which lasted for seconds but seemed like hours. Then he said tightly, ‘So what are your immediate plans?’
‘We’re sealing off the area, sir. Taking the dogs into Big Mill to check it more thoroughly.’ She wasn’t sure whether he’d realized the vast size of the place. ‘It’s a huge place, sir. It will take a team a couple of days to search it thoroughly and we’ll need sniffer dogs. Korpanski and I will be interviewing the last people to admit to seeing Mr Glover and I’m going to interview Mrs Glover again.’ Had it been Colclough, she would have been able to share her scepticism of the woman’s description of a perfect husband. How much had Eve really suspected that Jadon was not all he seemed? Were they one of those couples who kept secrets from each other? And now she had found out his true career what difference would it really make? But she found it hard to ruminate on this level with Rush. He didn’t invite confidences or supposition, just firm evidence – something that could be entered into a box on a computer.
He nodded sagely, seeming to think for a while, then looked up and surprised her. ‘And your gut feeling?’
She was open-mouthed. She hadn’t tagged Rush as being one of the imaginative sort. More a doer, a rule-keeper, someone nicely lacking in imagination. But then, maybe, you never could tell.
She hesitated. ‘I think,’ she said, licking dry lips, ‘someone has abducted him.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Abducted him?’
Shit. He’d just asked her that to make a fool of her.
‘Taken him, sir.’
‘So is there going to be a ransom demand?’ He was mocking her now.
She looked at the floor and cursed it for not swallowing her up. ‘It’s possible, sir. This is, surely, all about money?’
‘What you mean is he is screwing these people to the ground. Cheating them, he and his … cronies. This is a villainous man. He’s got enemies, Piercy. Enemies.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But I agree with you. This is about money so kidnapping and a ransom demand would seem likely. So you look closely and find the crime scene. If he was abducted he was probably grabbed from somewhere. Speak to the wife again. Make sure she hasn’t been approached and is keeping quiet out of a misguided sense of protection.’ He shook his head in mock despair. ‘You know how sometimes relatives are told that something will happen to their loved one if they tell the police?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’ve told me how devoted his wife appeared. Check up on her finances, make sure there are no large withdrawals from her or rather their account.’
She nodded.
‘And remember, if there is no ransom demand in the next few days it’s equally possible he’s either done a runner or been killed.’ He hesitated. ‘For revenge or …’ Even Rush was running out of ideas, but he continued his advice with, ‘I take it he isn’t the sort to just vanish, do a runner, go on the streets?’
‘I’ve seen no indication that that’s what’s happened, sir. I can’t see any reason why he would. He appears to have had a comfortable, stable home life. His wife is distraught.’ She paused. ‘I’ve arranged to meet with the media tomorrow and appeal for help from the general public.’ Anticipating his disapproval, she finished lamely, ‘Just in case someone did see anything.’
She’d misjudged him. He smiled – he definitely smiled. ‘Rather you than me, Piercy, though I expect they’d rather have your pretty face in front of them than mine.’
She was thrown by the comment. Confused, she stood up and found his uncomfortable eyes on her as though he had X-ray vision. He stared at her for what felt like minutes but was again probably just a second or three, then made an odd noise at the back of his throat – part cough, part chortle.
‘Oh, and by the way,’ she said, speaking from the doorway, ‘you were right about the car. Sainsbury’s car park.’
His smile widened, then, ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Off you go.’
She shot off.
They had to wait for the sniffer dogs to arrive from the kennels in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Appropriately if unimaginatively named Holmes and Watson, they were a pair of German shepherd dogs trained to follow a trail and find people dead or alive.
The delay gave Joanna the perfect excuse to visit Eve again.
2 p.m.
Back at 8 Disraeli Place
There was something very strange about Eve on this third visit. She was icily calm, controlled and something else. Calculating. She’d changed. No longer the devoted wife but furtive, looking as though she realized she’d been taken advantage of.
What Joanna couldn’t work out was the backstory. When she made her request Eve climbed the stairs and returned with a slightly soiled shirt, white with a faint blue check, a rim of faded brown around the inside of the collar. ‘Will this do?’
Joanna looked carefully at her face as she handed it over. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s fine.’
What was going on there? But Eve Glover was good at keeping secrets.
‘Do you think we could also have a toothbrush, a hairbrush?’
‘Of course,’ Eve said, still icily controlled. ‘DNA, I suppose.’ Joanna stared after her. The words had seemed almost casual. And it wasn’t just in her manner.
Today Eve was dressed in a clinging black dress, smart high heels and all her make-up was in place.
‘Excuse me asking,’ Joanna said, bemused, ‘but are you going to work?’
‘A friend’s asked me to help out,’ Eve said with dignity. ‘Afternoons, early evenings. I start at two thirty.’
‘Right.’ Joanna bagged up the samples. ‘Umm, Eve,’ she said, ‘I need to ask you something and I need an honest answer.’
Eve sat down, knees tidily together, ankles crossed, hands resting on her lap, her face all attention. It was a classic pose. There was nothing natural about it. Her eyes were wary.
Joanna paused before she spoke, trying to get a handle on this woman, but she failed. The sheet of ice calm was too thick to penetrate. More than ever she was curious and noticed that although she’d left a pause and Eve Glover was due at work soon, she didn’t prompt her.
So Joanna dropped the stone into the pond. ‘Has anyone been in contact with you about Jadon?’
Slowly Eve shook her head, bemused.
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