Crooked Street

by Priscilla Masters

  He nodded. ‘You can open up the park again.’

  ‘That’ll please the little ghouls,’ she said, looking round.

  Cornell agreed. ‘I think they’re disappointed we haven’t found a headless corpse.’

  She was still laughing as she and Mike continued down the hill.

  ‘So,’ she said as they walked down Wellington Place, beneath the shadow of Big Mill, ‘if everyone is telling the truth, he went missing somewhere between Karen Stanton’s house in Britannia Avenue and his clients on Barngate Street.’

  Korpanski nodded and they returned to the station.

  She studied the whiteboard, trying to see a flaw in the stories, a hole in the alibis, a clue to Glover’s fate. Everyone had a reason for disliking Jadon but they all must have known his place would soon be filled. She jabbed a finger against Number 4, Britannia Avenue. ‘Who’s looking at the Murdochs’ alibi?’

  ‘One of the uniformed guys.’ Then, as the door opened, ‘Talk of the devil.’

  PC Gilbert Young was junior enough to still be excited at playing any constructive part in a major investigation. ‘They were there,’ he said, injecting drama into his statement, ‘at the pool but the swimming lesson lasts from half six to half seven and the whole family turned out for it.’

  The stories were beginning to fragment. Little lies forming bigger holes. ‘It doesn’t let them off the hook, does it? They would easily have been home before eight. Thanks.’

  PC Young gave a sheepish grin.

  DC King, a tall lanky guy with long arms, was bent over the computer digging into Glover’s past. ‘Well,’ he said, neatly flicking the keys without hesitation, ‘this is an interesting story.’ Joanna leaned over him. ‘What? Anything interesting?’

  He turned around. ‘It depends what you call anything,’ he said, turning round, ‘and interesting.’

  Joanna drew up a chair. ‘So?’

  ‘I’ve been looking into his background.’

  Her ears pricked up. ‘Go on.’

  DC King clicked a few more keys. ‘It isn’t a great story,’ he said. ‘Jadon Glover spent most of his formative years in a children’s home and then he was fostered. I contacted his social worker earlier on and his foster parents to get some background. He was the son of an alcoholic mother and an unknown father, born with foetal alcohol syndrome.’ He was reading straight from an email. ‘He spent his early years in a children’s home in Stoke. When he was seven he was fostered by a couple who were, apparently, quite religious. They obviously rammed religion down the young boy’s throat so he became hugely weird, finding all sorts of things a sin including to be in debt.’ King looked up at Joanna, who was intrigued.

  King continued. ‘According to his social services’ records he would thank the Lord for all sorts of things and at the same time despise the poor and needy. They describe him as a complex character, a mixture of his foster parents’ values and his own rather warped ones together with a possible bit of brain damage from his mother’s drinking while she was pregnant. Anyway, in spite of social services’ reservations, he stayed with the foster parents until he went to university.’ He looked up. ‘He really did study accountancy and finance at Durham but was, according to his university assessment, a solitary youth who found it hard to form relationships, and had – and here I quote – ‘rigid’ ideas about virtually everything. I spoke to the foster parents.’ He frowned. ‘I didn’t pick up on much affection there – rather they’d brought him up out of a sense of duty. They said he was unforgiving and controlling. They heard he’d got married but they weren’t invited.’ King paused, something strange catching in his voice. ‘They were very defensive, said they simply tried to bring him up in the way of the Lord. Really?’ For the first time since the investigation had begun Joanna was feeling a strange sense of sympathy for the missing man. So these were the things that had formed him. We’re all a product of upbringing, genes and pure chance – lucky or unlucky.

  ‘Umm …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sounded more of a job to them than real parenting.’

  ‘Well.’ Joanna was at a loss. ‘Not being a parent myself …’ She found it difficult to complete the sentence and hurried on uncomfortably, ‘And so the result is our missing man, Jadon Glover, whom all those characteristics fit. I think,’ she said slowly, pondering as she spoke, ‘I see him a little clearer now. A rather inhibited, contained man who appears colourless enough to merge in with his beige background and appear invisible yet impose all sorts of rules on his wife, including that she give up her job and stay at home. What else was she expected to give up, I wonder?’

  She was silent for a moment as she absorbed King’s information.

  Something about Eve Glover was disturbing her. That plea made so quickly straight to the police when her perfect husband failed to return home. That sense of panic. Did she know something relevant?

  ‘Oh.’ She stood up in sudden frustration. ‘Is nothing in this case simple? Is anyone what they seem?’ She was conscious of the sticky web of debt and credit that bound these people as if with rope.

  Colclough used to say to her that murders (excepting stranger murders and even then some of those) stemmed from three lines meeting. Time, place and the ever-critical reaction between victim and killer. ‘Straight lines cross. Objects collide. The catalyst is incident plus opportunity against this background of disharmony. And always there is an element of chance. Understand?’

  She hadn’t. Not really, but had nodded anyway.

  Perhaps understanding, Colclough had tried to clarify. ‘Perhaps something is said which lights the fuse. The situation is already there, the dry tinder combustible material, but it needs the right setting, at the right time, on the right day. Then all the factors combine to cause an almighty explosion.’

  And then she did understand – almost. She could picture a situation mulching away like worms in soil. Biological changes causing heat and a chemical reaction.

  The question was where did his wife, her past, his work, her work, his background, his character, fit into all this? What had been the catalyst for his disappearance? What was the reagent? Something even more powerful than debt?

  And they still did not know what it had resulted in. Hot-blooded murder? Cold-blooded murder? Had Jadon simply taken the money and run away? Or was, even now, a letter being written demanding money for his release? And would Eve pay to have her perfect husband back?

  Questions. Still questions. No answers. And now she had run out of ideas.

  While she was thinking, Alan King’s long fingers continued to dance over the keyboard checking the PNC for current information on the missing man. Still nothing on his bank account and his mobile phone was dead.

  ‘I think,’ Joanna said, needing to move, ‘I’ll have a nosey round his gym.’

  Korpanski stood up. ‘OK, Jo. Gyms are my home ground. Want me to come?’

  ‘No. Thanks, Mike, but I’ll be fine on my own. You stay here. Hold the fort and keep an eye on things.’

  ‘You just want to eye up all those well-muscled guys without a witness,’ he said, handing her her coat, laughing and sitting down again.

  7.30 p.m.

  The gym was typical – the ground floor of another converted mill, a large board outside boasting weight loss, weight gain, muscle building, body building, rampant success with women, boosted sex drive, everlasting health, cures for high blood pressure, heart disease, lethargy, mood swings and so on. In fact, Pecs promised everything but everlasting life.

  Inside it smelt of sweat. The front desk was manned by a woman in a Barbie-pink tracksuit and bouncing blonde ponytail, well-muscled herself, flanked by two powerfully built men. According to the badge pinned to her tracksuit uniform, her name was Sharon. Sharon made no attempt at friendliness but looked Joanna up and down coldly, probably dismissing her fitness level, and glanced up at the larger of her two bodyguards.

  Joanna felt affronted. Bugger it. She was into sport, cycling, hik
ing, swimming. Just not into piling on pounds of muscle that would turn to fat the minute she let the regime slip. And the last thing she wanted was a boost to her sex drive. She smothered the memory, flashed her ID and explained the reason for her visit. It didn’t melt the atmosphere. Sharon gave her a sulky look and said she didn’t see how they could help.

  ‘Did he have any friends here?’

  ‘Not really.’ The big guy shoved his way forward, answering for her. ‘Blokes don’t come here to make friends,’ he said, truculence oozing out of every pore. ‘They come here to work out. See?’

  She turned her attention to him. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Al Gillingham,’ he said, his voice stroppy and confrontational. ‘Prop-ri-e-tor.’

  She ignored the threat, simply extending her hand, which he took in his big bear’s paw. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Gillingham.’

  He grunted.

  Joanna tried again. ‘Did Jadon have a regular night?’

  ‘Mostly Mondays and Thursdays.’ He seemed to ponder over this. ‘He’d be in at least those two nights a week, sometimes more, working out, running mainly …’ He wafted a hand. ‘On those machines over there.’

  ‘Did he chat to anyone?’

  Al shook his head. ‘He was a loner, Inspector. A loner.’ He beetled his eyebrows together and reflected only to repeat his previous opinion. ‘A loner.’

  She took a quick look at the membership details but saw nothing there that suggested Pecs was anything more than a playground for the big boys.

  She left.

  In their offices in Hanley, Leroy, Scott and Jeff were having an argument.

  Scott was speaking. ‘One of us has got to pick up the tab. We can’t let them off. We’ve missed a week as it is.’

  Jeff scratched the corner of his mouth. He was getting a cold sore; a sure sign of anxiety. ‘Yeah, but we don’t know what’s happened to him. What if one of them … took him?’

  Leroy pressed home the point. ‘He hasn’t vanished into thin air, Scott. He’s gone somewhere.’

  ‘Yeah, but there’s no money missing apart from that night’s takings. That’s hundreds, man. Not thousands. It wouldn’t keep our boy for a week with his extravagant tastes.’

  ‘As far as we know,’ Jeff put in.

  ‘Listen,’ Scott said. ‘I’ve been through those books with a toothcomb. Whatever else Jadon was up to he’s been straight as far as the money goes.’

  ‘Well, one of us has to go collecting.’

  Reluctantly Jeff Armitage stood up. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll start next week.’

  Come on then, send him into the ring. A change of personnel won’t make any difference to me.

  SIXTEEN

  Monday, 17 March, 10 a.m.

  The hunt for Jadon Glover had gone eerily quiet. With no leads they were struggling to focus their enquiries.

  Joanna had had a few tricky interviews with a distraught Eve, trying to explain why exactly the search for her husband had been scaled down. She didn’t tell her that they were still asking questions, watching people, observing. They might have scaled down the obvious but covert investigations were ongoing. Digging into backgrounds. She hadn’t confronted Eve with Jadon’s life story, keeping it up her sleeve. When she related it she wanted to use it to maximum effect.

  It came to a head on a visit she made on the Monday morning to Disraeli Place.

  Eve was angry. ‘But he’s still missing,’ she protested. ‘Are you just going to let things go?’

  ‘I understand,’ Joanna soothed, and the fact was she could sympathize with her. Had this been Matthew she would have been both distraught and puzzled. Her life would have been wrecked. But she had to live in the real world with the budget of a stretched police service and they had absolutely no leads – no suggestion that Glover had come to harm. He had simply vanished as though he had dropped beneath the surface of an oily black pool. They had nothing, simply a void. An empty space where his life had been. A man hurrying through the rain was their last possible sighting. Even that wasn’t certain.

  Yes, it was suspicious. Yes, it was odd but there was no suggestion of foul play anywhere. No one had seen a fight. No one had witnessed a row or a quarrel. There had been no ransom demand. There was no indication of violence anywhere. She’d tried to convey this to Eve. ‘We have no reason to suspect that something bad has happened to him.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Some of Eve’s petulant temper rose to the surface. ‘It’s bloody obvious something’s happened to him or he would have come home.’ Her tone had changed to patronizing. ‘So,’ she said mockingly, ‘if nothing’s happened to him, Inspector, where is he?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ Joanna was close to exasperation. ‘We have no leads. People do disappear. We don’t always know why. We don’t always find them. We have no evidence that anything sinister has happened to him. Believe me,’ she said in a surge of sympathy, ‘if we’d found anything, anything at all that raised our suspicions that harm had come to Jadon, we would be pursuing it. Believe me.’

  And then it was not Eve’s anger but her selfishness that appeared. ‘And I’m supposed to do what exactly in the meantime with no income coming in?’

  That was more tricky. What did one do as far as money, life plan and mortgage when one’s husband had vanished into thin air? Again, Joanna had absolutely no idea.

  Then, surprisingly, Eve showed another side to her character – even more selfish, hard-hearted, calculating. ‘Can I have him declared dead then? At least I’ll get some bloody life insurance.’

  Joanna was shocked by how quickly the loving wife was turning into a calculating, hard-nosed bitch. She looked at her. Who was this woman?

  ‘No,’ she said firmly and without compromise. ‘There is absolutely no suggestion that your husband is dead. I might say we’ve scaled down operations but we will still be pursuing any leads. We haven’t written him off, you know.’ She wanted to add and neither should you, but she didn’t dare. Even the police force had to play at being politically correct these days.

  Eve’s face seemed to collapse in on itself, crumple like discarded newspaper. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  Joanna was dying to make a snide suggestion but she’d lose her job. Why not apply for a pay day loan, Mrs Glover?

  ‘We’ll keep you informed,’ she said coldly. ‘As I said, just because we’ve scaled down operations doesn’t mean that we’ve forgotten about your husband. We’ll be continuing with background investigations. If anything new crops up we’ll be reopening the case, I promise you.’ Not least, she thought, because you and I know there is more dirt in this story than meets the eye.

  Eve’s response was an evil stare. Then, admittedly with dignity, she saw Joanna out, turned back into the house and closed the door quite firmly.

  Joanna drove back to the station in a pensive mood. Sometimes non-cases could be trickier than obvious cases. Give me a bloody body on the library carpet any day, she thought, rather than this unsatisfactory case.

  She had spoken the truth. She and Mike and a scaled-down team would still be digging away at Glover’s details but in the meantime she had plenty of other things to occupy her mind. The entire Leek force had their antennae wafting in the direction of the Whalleys. The insurance companies were digging into Bill the Basher’s set up accidents and fraudulent claims and had requested any video evidence the police might have. Mike was looking into this. And Joanna’s personal life was far from lacking in drama. She and Matthew had looked around Briarswood again. It was a fine, beautiful place, with lovely grounds and an air of space and elegance, and they were on the verge of putting in an offer. But Joanna felt sad. She felt she would be turning her back on the happiest period of her life. She would have been happy in Waterfall Cottage for ever. It was her perfect home in a perfect village, surrounded by the empty great vastness that was the moorland but Matthew had other ideas and ambitions. When they’d looked into a small bedroom next to the master suite she could s
ee him mentally painting the room in blue with a frieze of little trains chuffing around the walls or else, second best, sugary pink teddy bears. He’d even put his arm around her when they’d stood in the doorway, his green eyes soft as moss, his lips grazing her cheeks. ‘What do you think, Jo?’ It was at times like that she wished she could wave a magic wand and give Matthew everything he wanted.

  She’d nodded, bending her head so he couldn’t read her face. But she couldn’t quite summon up enough enthusiasm for either the house or the situation and she read disappointment in his eyes.

  I’m sorry, she thought. I am so sorry, and felt she would never live up to his expectations. She would always let him down one way or another.

  She was letting him down by not being a different sort of person with different priorities and aspirations. However, they did put an offer in on the house and had put Waterfall Cottage on the market. Rory Forrester, the estate agent who’d come round to value the cottage, had been very upbeat about its value as he roamed around, measuring and photographing interior and exterior. ‘You have no idea how these rural places are being snapped up, Mrs Levin,’ he’d said. ‘Some for second homes but plenty of people relocating from London and the South East who want to escape the rat race. They don’t come on the market very often. Most stay in the families,’ he grinned, ‘for generations. We can afford to be very optimistic about the price.’ The valuation was a nice surprise but her heart still broke when she saw the For Sale sign being erected. Some things you could do. Others you had no control over. She couldn’t change herself, alter her own aspirations.

  Combined with these developments at home there were frequent phone calls from Matthew’s parents – chiefly his dad – about various properties coming on the market locally and the imminent sale of their own large house. It felt like all change. Matthew’s parents seemed to know when their son was in so they timed their phone calls accordingly and didn’t usually spend much time talking to her. No one was building bridges here. They’d always blamed her for the breakup of Matthew and Jane’s marriage. They’d stayed in touch with their ex-daughter-in-law and still considered Joanna a usurper even though Jane had married again and presented her husband with twin boys, a fact that Matthew had found a bitter pill, while his parents exchanged as few words with her as was minimally polite.