Starve Crow was about the ugliest, most repulsive name for an abode he’d ever met. Now … Roaming Hills or Moorland View. Something on those lines. Nothing too twee – no DunRoamin’ or silly jokes Llareggub. But definitely not Starve Crow with its inference of witchcraft. And yet – as he scanned the empty landscape, listening out for a sound – one could almost believe in witchcraft out here.
He pulled his wellies on, glanced at his watch. The couple were late. Maybe, in spite of his instructions, they couldn’t find it.
4.10 p.m.
Joanna was holding a briefing, pooling everyone’s observations. Up on the board was a map of the surrounding area. She looked at it trying to divine where their killer was and where Jadon Glover’s body could be. Or was it possible that he was the killer, stalking and then murdering his mate? Without a body she was aware that she could discount no theory, however improbable it might be.
But surely she could discount this one?
The boys had firmly said their perpetrator was a woman. Could Jadon Glover have been mistaken for a woman?
She wasn’t convinced.
Looking at the pictures of the dense tangle of streets on the southern edge of Leek she believed their killer was in there and, she guessed, one of the people on Daylight’s list of clients. So what was so hard about this?
The lack of a body – that was what was making this case difficult. But now she had Jeff’s.
She emphasized this point as hard as she could and then wondered. Could she be wrong? Was it possible that it was someone outside their current list of victims? Either someone who had broken free of the doorstep lenders’ stranglehold like Karen Stanton or someone who had watched another’s suffering?
But she had to suggest one route or another. ‘Focus on this area and on these people,’ she said, sketching out a circle and a list behind her without looking like a TV weather girl, she knew the names and the area so well. She stopped for a minute, frowning, turning now to the map of the wider area. Jadon Glover’s body was somewhere out there. Was this really such a straightforward case? Or was the reason they had made such a mistake in Glover’s disappearance because they had underestimated it? Thought it simple when it was, in fact, complicated? And where did Eve and her sad little son fit into all this?
She addressed the officers. ‘We still haven’t accounted for Jadon Glover’s disappearance,’ she said. ‘Think body but keep an open mind, please.’
She was glad that the two small boys had both said that their perpetrator was a woman. Surely it narrowed the field?
Watching the officers file out, she tried Eve Glover again. Not surprisingly Eve sounded flustered and upset.
‘Could I come and talk to you this evening?’
‘All right. All right. I’m usually home by six-ish. I don’t suppose …?’
There was no need for her to finish the sentence. ‘No. I’m sorry. We haven’t made any progress on your husband’s case.’
She put the phone down, unsure whether Eve Glover knew anything about her husband’s colleague being found murdered. Interesting. It always helped to assess your suspect’s reaction when it was you who dropped the bombshell of bad news.
PC Dawn Critchlow was outside Number 3 Britannia Avenue, frowning, trying to recall why the name was so familiar and why it rang a muffled bell until Karen Stanton opened the door to her knock. ‘Hi there,’ she said. Then Dawn remembered. Karen had been the teaching assistant to the second two of her four children. Karen recognized her at once and seemed unsurprised at the visit. ‘Oh, hi there, Dawn,’ she said. ‘Nice to see you. I suppose you’ve come about …?’
‘Yeah.’ Dawn explained her mission. Karen was at once friendly and cooperative. ‘Come in, come in,’ she said. ‘What a weird business, Jadon running off like that.’
Dawn interrupted. ‘Is that what you think happened?’
‘It’s the general feeling. His wife …’ Karen’s voice tailed off. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this but …’
‘Do you know Eve Glover?’
‘Not well but I do know her a bit.’ She didn’t explain how.
Dawn put a hand on her arm. ‘If you want the streets to be safe then you need to help us all you can.’
Karen lowered her eyes and then Dawn remembered what it was that had triggered her memory. During the briefing it had been mentioned that Karen was a carer for a lady who had had a stroke. Nothing more than that but for some reason she wanted to know more.
‘You double up on jobs now?’
Karen smiled and nodded. ‘It isn’t much of a job,’ she said. ‘I enjoy it too much. I look after a lady who lives in Mill Street.’ Then as Dawn made no comment, simply watched her, she added, ‘She had a stroke a year and a bit ago.’ A pause. ‘I just help her get up, have a bit of a chat and put her to bed.’
‘What time?’
‘Half eight or so.’
And then, inspiration. ‘Is her name Astrid Jenkins?’
‘Yes.’ Karen’s smile was so warm and friendly Dawn almost didn’t want to continue. But when Karen had nodded she had read guilt in her face. She’d been caught out. One to save for the evening briefing.
Joanna was alone in the station, enjoying the silence, the time to think. To evaluate. What did they know?
Jadon – vanished off the face of the earth. His colleague now murdered. She left her seat to study the map of closely-knit streets, to its right the list of names of the people who owed money to Daylight. Then, not a debtor but connected, there was Mrs Eve Glover and the tragic consequence of her husband’s refusal to include her son in their marital home. And there was the tenuous connection with Robertson. Hang on a minute, she thought. She’d bet a dollar that he’d financed the entire operation of Daylight and was creaming off his little cut. No wonder he was doing so well when accountants across the city were rapidly losing their status because many people these days filed their tax returns out online.
Perhaps it was time to make contact again with the two remaining partners in Daylight and squeeze this little bit of juice out of them.
Wherever that might lead.
5 p.m.
At Starve Crow Cottage the couple from London had just turned up. Forrester knew they were wrong for the place the minute they climbed out of the car, wincing at the chilly wind, the man stepping straight into the mud with handmade Italian brown leather ‘country’ brogues. They stood for a while, the woman struggling to find the right words. ‘Gosh,’ she hit on finally. ‘So this is it.’ She looked around, almost in despair at the vast landscape.
For once, even Forrester couldn’t find his spiel as they both turned towards the cottage, which on this lovely spring day managed to look even more of a wreck. ‘Maybe,’ said the woman, who was dressed in a pair of loose-fitting trousers and an expensive-looking camel coat which she was wrapping round her as though it would protect her from all this fresh air, ‘this isn’t such a good idea?’
Her partner put his arm around her. ‘We’ll start again,’ he said. ‘Knock it down and rebuild.’ He gave an embarrassed grin at Forrester. ‘Rename.’
Forrester cleared his throat. ‘There are, umm, restrictions on any rebuilding.’ He said hopefully, ‘National Park?’
They both stared at him and he wondered where to begin. His job was to sell Starve Crow Cottage. By hook or by crook, but not to them.
The look on the woman’s face as they toured the inside was a picture. A mixture of disgust and a desire to show her partner – husband? – how much of a pioneering spirit she had.
It was almost funny.
5.10 p.m.
Joanna picked up the phone and dialled Scott Dooley’s mobile number, introduced herself and gave him the news about Jeff.
He was shell-shocked. Apparently no one had told him; neither had he switched on the news, picked up a paper or caught up online. At first he was audibly nervous, his voice high pitched and wavering, but as he absorbed the news his attitude changed and he became aggressive, alm
ost predictably, towards her. ‘And you still haven’t found Jay, have you? You don’t even bloody well know what happened to him.’
Joanna didn’t want to admit it but it was true. ‘Not so far.’
So then he changed again to become scornful. ‘So you think you and your bunch of monkeys will have any more luck sorting out who killed Jeff?’
There was only one way to deal with this attitude. Ignore it. Float over it. But it stung. ‘Is there anything you think might help us find out what happened to your colleagues?’
‘So you think it’s the same person?’
Now she could afford to be scornful. And rude. ‘Well, it’s a bit of a bloody coincidence, don’t you think? One of your mates murdered, the other disappeared off the face of the earth?’
His silence was eloquent. She could almost watch the cogs of his thought processes cranking round.
Was Jadon the killer? Is he some sort of psycho killer stalking us? Am I going to be next? Or Leroy?
She let him stew for a bit. Let him have the agony of not knowing.
Then he found his stride and blustered. ‘I can’t believe you’re making such a pig’s ear of this. Jeff was killed right under your bloody noses.’
She couldn’t argue with him but she could use his anger. Angry people are often careless in what they say.
He continued with his rant. ‘And you haven’t tracked Jay down. He must be somewhere.’ His anger was turning into paranoia. ‘How safe are we, Inspector, with you and your bunch of morons meant to be guarding us?’
Whew. Morons? It was an expression of disgust.
‘I’ll be honest with you, Scott,’ she said calmly. ‘It seems that someone is targeting you and your’ – meaningful pause as she chose the right word – ‘outfit. Maybe they think that the interest rates you’re charging are a little’ – another pause – ‘excessive?’
Now he was defensive. ‘Who else would lend that bunch of saddoes money?’ he asked scornfully. ‘They haven’t exactly got a good credit rating. The banks are not going to be queuing up to chuck good money after bad. It’s our money so our charges, little lady, or nothing.’
‘And don’t you just capitalize on that,’ she said.
‘Sweetheart.’
She winced.
‘Inspector, love, you don’t exactly gain a huge fan base doing this little service to the community. We know that.’
‘It was a woman,’ she said suddenly and knew from the silence on the other end that this had hit home.
‘A woman?’ Shock.
‘That’s right.’
And then Scott recovered. ‘It doesn’t exactly narrow the field.’ But now his voice was humble.
‘Slightly built.’
He was back to furious now. ‘I’ve got one dead mate and another gone off the face of the earth, probably dumped somewhere down a hole or out on those fucking moors. I don’t exactly feel safe right now and I don’t think Leroy’s taking out life insurance either. And all you’ve got is a slightly built woman. A real help; only excludes the real fatties. And blokes. Whose side are you on?’
‘I’m on the side of justice,’ she said calmly. ‘I want to find out what’s happened just as much as you do. And I have a duty to protect both you and your colleague as well as the general public. If you think of anything that might help us discover who it is that’s responsible for Jeff’s murder perhaps you’ll get back in touch with me?’
‘Ah, yes.’ At last he had found humility and some curiosity. ‘How did he die?’
‘He was stabbed. Five times. The last one pierced his heart.’
From somewhere he dredged up one last attempt at humour. ‘Didn’t know he had one.’
Even she couldn’t help but smile at that.
‘Find Jadon,’ Scott said, finally practically spitting the words down the phone. ‘Please?’
When the conversation had ended Joanna sat, thinking. The phrase was resonating through her head. Find Jadon.
I wish, she thought and dialled Leroy Wilson’s mobile number. She could tell from the ringing tone that he was abroad and from the lazy way he responded to her introduction which soon changed to a sound as taut as a violin’s ‘E’ string when she spilt her news. ‘What?’ It was more of a squawk than a question.
She repeated her information and asked where he was. ‘Spain, love. And getting the next plane back.’ The words held a threat. He obviously had no time to waste on arguments or recriminations. She asked if he would come and see her on his return and got a tight, ‘If you insist.’
She put the phone down, sat back and looked at the list of characters on the whiteboard, mentally walking through the list of facts they already had.
Back to the beginning. For some reason she thought it was all about area, about the cramped terraced houses, tiny yards out the back, no room for cars, doors opening out on to the street. Nothing private. Except from this very populated part of town Jadon Glover had, somehow, vanished. In her mind she walked through the streets, seeing it all, even the bunch of flowers left at the scene of the child’s fatal accident which had led to the closing off of Nab Hill Avenue. The dire financial circumstances of the clients or, more truthfully, victims of Daylight.
Park the car and walk along the pavement to Mill Street and the six families, each one of whom has an alibi. Cross the road, watched by the huge, derelict mill, such an obvious choice for both murder and concealment of the body. But no. Holmes and Watson had found nothing there and the sniffer dogs were adept at scenting out any corpse. They had not even picked up the scent of blood in the five floors of empty, cavernous building. So …
Wellington Place. She pictured the cramped row of terraced houses then returned to the wet night, Jadon Glover collecting the money while people sat in their homes and waited, twenty pound notes in their hands, ready to hand over. She sensed their injustice, their anger, hatred and fury as they gave him their hard-earned cash, knowing they were providing him and his associates with their greedy living.
And as they paid off this loan other crises would present themselves. They were already up to their ears in financial trouble. Strapped for cash. She might not like Dooley’s sour words but he was right. No bank would have lent them money. They would have lost jobs, cars; their lives would have grown harder and harder. People like Paul Ginster and Christine, Carly Johnson and Stuart Madeley.
Her mind turned to Britannia Avenue, the Murdochs’ drunken and defiant state. Out or rather hiding that night, they simply hadn’t wanted to pay. Probably spent the money on more booze or fags. Karen Stanton, alone, it seemed, in breaking away from the money lenders. Marty Widnes and the one indication that possibly Jadon Glover had had a conscience?
Mentally she crossed the children’s play area, hearing the crunch of the bark beneath her feet, feeling the chill of the slide, watching the empty swings bob to and fro.
And then there were the three women from Barngate Street, the two little boys and their mother and grandmother, Sarah Gough with her troubled son. But in her mind what she saw now were the flowers – the little boy who had run out on the road, the motorist who had failed to see him and the tragic consequences, the flowers still laid on the pavement and the council doing what they could by blocking the top of Nab Hill Avenue off to traffic, making it into a cul-de-sac. Joanna grimaced. Kind of a reflection of the lives caught in Daylight’s sticky web. And yet …
6 p.m.
Starve Crow Cottage
It wasn’t until they’d both asked delicately about the amenities that everything fell apart. Rory Forrester led them up the garden path, trying to work out how best to present it, dreaming up estate agent speak for this, a drop into a hole in the ground. He was just opening his mouth to say basically, there are no amenities, when the woman screamed.
‘It’s a hand!’
Joanna was still mentally at Nab Hill Avenue. She sat up straight. She was wrong in that judgement. Charlotte Parker, Erienna Delaney and Yasmin Candemir were not victims. They
were survivors. Bonded sisters. They did not seem ready to be crushed underfoot by Daylight. They almost seemed to be laughing, hands on hips, mocking them as they slugged down their celebratory wine. Not drowning but waving.
And then into the melting pot she chucked the outsiders, Eve Glover and Karl Robertson. If she was right it was Robertson who had financed the entire project. So, in a way, Glover had worked for him. Not outsiders then, but on the periphery. What had Johnston and Pickles to do with it?
Her instincts, if not screaming, were whispering innuendoes in her ear.
One of them. It is one of them. Their murderer’s name was here, on the board.
Wandering quietly and softly through events and their geography had helped to clarify her picture.
Hannah Beardmore popped her head round the door. ‘I’ve just seen the boys,’ she said. When she related the bit about the perpetrator dropping something metallic, Joanna sat up. ‘Get up there,’ she said, ‘and share that little titbit of information with the SOCOs. Tell them to look out for a coin, a button, an earring, a key. Anything.’
‘Happy to.’
She sat back in her seat, wondering if this seemingly small nugget of information might lead them at last to an answer or if it was another blind alley. The door opened. Korpanski was back, filling the small office with his bulky presence. He grinned at her and rested a friendly hand on her shoulder. ‘Solved it yet, Jo?’
She smiled up at him, fond of the burly policeman with his impressive physical presence. ‘Not yet, Mike,’ she said. Then, ‘Can I run something past you?’
‘Go for it,’ he said, dropping heavily down into his chair, making it squeak and slide in protest.
‘We’ve been assuming it’s one of the debtors?’
‘It seems logical,’ he said cautiously.
‘But there are difficulties with that theory.’
‘Such as?’
‘Let’s go back to that night. If Jadon was murdered on the street someone would have seen something? The doors open right out on to the pavement.’
‘It was a filthy night, Jo.’
‘And if he had been stabbed too – and we know that in general killers tend to favour the same murder method. I mean, the assault on Jeff Armitage didn’t look like our perp’s first stabbing, did it? She hit vital organs. Right out there. Shows a bit of confidence, don’t you think?’
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