Blue Murder

by Staincliffe, Cath

  Richard gestured. Could be.

  Why else hide them? Janine thought.

  When they checked in the kitchen, the washing machine was empty. Janine peered out, there was nothing on the rotary dryer in the garden. She went through to the sisters, now waiting in the lounge.

  ‘We’d like to have a look in the garage.’

  The double garage stood to the left of the house, its side entrance a few steps from the side door that led out of the kitchen. Lesley unlocked it and led them in.

  ‘Thank you, we can lock up after if you leave the key.’

  Janine waited for Lesley to go. There was a tumble dryer in the corner but it was empty. She looked along the workbench that ran across the back of the space. Tools neatly stored, nails and screws in containers. No knife. No empty place shouting ‘here was a knife’. She shook her head at Richard.

  They took a turn round the garden. It was a fresh day, cold enough for hats and gloves but the sky was a vivid blue, setting off the bare branches and the dark skeletons of the trees. ‘No sign of fresh digging,’ Janine pointed out, thinking still about the washing Richard had seen.

  ‘Need a warrant to get a proper look.’

  ‘No chance, yet.’

  She crushed a sprig of conifer between her fingers, sniffed the pine scent. ‘You got a garden, your new place?’

  ‘Flat. Not even a window box.’

  Janine nodded towards the side of the house and they turned that way. ‘Ours isn’t bad, Pete used to do a lot. The lawn’s more of a football pitch now though, Tom practising his flying tackles.’ She was curious about Richard; beyond saying that he was single again he hadn’t volunteered anything else about his marriage break-up to her. ‘Wendy still down there?’

  ‘Yep. We sold up, she got her own place.’ His voice was neutral, no clue as to whether he was sad or glad.

  Janine nodded at the wheelie bin. Richard rolled his eyes but moved forward. Janine’s phone went off, the lousy marching drill number, Richard recoiled.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘DS Shap, boss. Paula, Dean Hendrix’s girl – claims not to know his whereabouts. Not exactly falling over backwards to help us out.’

  Janine sighed, another obstacle. ‘Thanks, Shap,’ she turned to Richard. ‘No joy from the Hendrix girl friend.’

  Richard opened the top of the bin and they peered in. Bin-liners neatly tied. ‘Take it all away.’ Janine said.

  ‘Without a warrant?’

  ‘With Mrs Tulley’s permission, though she’d be an idiot to have dumped anything in that.’ When would they get a break, some movement in the case? ‘Christ, I hope forensics have something we can get our teeth into. Or the eyewitness gives us a positive result. If we can just put one of them there.’ Richard lifted the bags from the bin and placed them beside it.

  ‘Right,’ Janine said briskly, ‘let’s see what she’s got to say about her dirty washing.’

  Emma was just leaving when they joined Lesley in the house. She needed to call home for more clothes and to sort her flat out for the following days when she would be staying at Lesley’s. Once she’d gone, Janine told Lesley, ‘we’re eager to locate some clothing that was here yesterday in the washing machine.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Sports clothing, jog-pants something like that. In yesterday morning’s wash?’

  Lesley’s brow creased in a frown, she shook her head. ‘I didn’t wash anything yesterday.’

  Janine glanced at Richard. An innocent mix-up or something more serious?

  ‘You’re sure, please think very carefully.’

  Lesley continued to shake her head. ‘I’m sure.’

  Janine stood up first, outwardly calm but thinking all the while that now they had something more to go on, now she had a place to start, a loose thread to pull on, and she couldn’t wait.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DS Shap knocked on Ferdie Gibson’s door more loudly. ‘Come on,’ he said under his breath. He thought he heard sounds inside so he waited. He glanced down the road where two elderly women were in conversation. Bundled up in woolly hats, coats and gloves.

  At last the door was pulled back and Ferdie stood there. Hair so short you could see the bumps on his skull and a smudged tattoo, some sort of moth or something on his neck.

  Shap showed him his ID. ‘Morning Ferdinand,’ he said.

  ‘Ferdie,’ the lad replied.

  ‘Whatever. Can I come in a moment?’

  Ferdie looked as though he was about to refuse.

  ‘Unless you want all the neighbours knowing your business.’ He swung his eyes to the old women.

  In the drab living room Shap explained that they had a witness who had seen a man answering Ferdie’s description leaving the allotments where Matthew Tulley had been killed.

  ‘Well, it weren’t me,’ Ferdie replied. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near there.’

  ‘Where were you, Ferdie?’

  ‘In bed, I told them others.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said aggressively.

  ‘Sure enough to prove it.’

  ‘What d’ya mean?’ His eyes narrowed, emphasising the feral look of his features.

  ‘We want to hold an identity parade, see if this witness can pick out who he saw.’

  ‘Well, it weren’t me.’

  ‘So you’d attend the parade?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Clear your name. There’s a lot of people muttering about how you had a grudge against Matthew Tulley. You’d already gone for him with a knife before, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. And you know what he did, give me brain damage, that’s what. I can’t concentrate, I get these attacks. And he’s still teaching.’

  ‘Not now he isn’t.’

  ‘And I’ll dance on his grave but I didn’t do him.’

  ‘Prove it. Or are you scared? Got something to hide?’

  Ferdie clenched his fist. Shap could see a muscle in his jaw tighten. ‘What time?’

  ‘Two o’ clock. South Manchester nick.’

  ‘Right,’ Ferdie said, his teeth still closed together. ‘Maybe I’ll show.’

  ‘And we’ll all know what to think if you don’t,’ Shap said.

  *****

  Shap snatched the tenner from Butchers and murmured ‘You won’t see that again, mate.’ He turned to DC Chen. ‘Fancy a flutter?’ She nodded, keen to be accepted by the more established team members. Before she had chance to put her name down for one of the three runners in Shap’s book, Chief Inspector Lewis began Sunday evening’s meeting.

  Janine could sense the team were tired, getting ragged round the edges but she needed to use this chance to galvanise them. ‘We all know we’ve had our magical 24 hours without a result but that doesn’t mean we give up now. It means we work harder, we work bloody hard. Things are starting to open up.’

  She referred to the photos on board. ‘Three possible suspects. Lesley Tulley. Motive?’ She was met with shrugs and grimaces. ‘Exactly. Nada, nothing. Tulley claims the marriage was happy. No friends, barely any family. Married nine years. She can’t have children. But there are condoms in Mr Tulley’s desk.’ She paused. ‘Cherchez la femme? Could give us motive. No rumours of another woman but we’re going through his e-mail contacts. Mr Tulley’s diaries, nothing obvious though we’ve some unexplained appointments. Other evidence?’

  ‘The clothes that were in the washer,’ said Butchers. ‘Disappearing act. Lesley Tulley denies all knowledge.’

  ‘Mr Vincent,’ Butchers ventured, ‘the lad he saw running, he was wearing sports pants, the sort with stripes down the side.’

  Janine considered this. ‘The sort my boys calls go-faster stripes. Inspector?’

  ‘Possibly …’ Richard answered. ‘I only saw them briefly but they were something like that.’

  Janine drew an arrow between the note up there about the clothes and the unknown suspect seen running from the scene by Mr Vincent.

 
; ‘I don’t believe in telekinetics,’ Janine said. Butchers looked lost, an edge of panic in with his muddled expression. Janine waved her arms, mimed someone making an object move with brainwaves. ‘They have to be there still. We’re watching the place so they won’t go anywhere.’

  ‘Bins revealed nothing, nor the initial search,’ Richard told them.

  ‘Opportunity?’ Janie asked.

  Richard indicated the timeline he’d drawn up. ‘Some blanks,’ he pointed to the hour after Lesley had got her parking ticket.

  ‘Shap will be checking CCTV footage,’ Janine said.

  Shap groaned.

  ‘Ferdie Gibson,’ she turned their attention to the second suspect. ‘Unconfirmed alibi unless you believe his doting mother sat and watched him sleep.’

  A chuckle rippled through the room.

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘Revenge,’ Shap said. ‘Ferdie never forgave him for the thumping.’

  ‘Taken his time,’ Janine pointed out. ‘A year since Ferdie last had a go. Evidence?’

  ‘Eyewitness,’ Butchers said smugly, sitting back, arms crossed over his belly. Meaning Mr Vincent.

  Shap rolled his eyes.

  ‘Saw a lad running away on Saturday morning. The description fits Ferdie.’ Richard summarised.

  ‘Ferdie’s got his invite for the line-up,’ Shap said.

  ‘Ferdie’s mate Colin; he was well stressed when questioned.’ Butchers added.

  ‘Our weakest link. Might want another bite at Colin,’ Janine said. ‘And now a third suspect, Dean Hendrix, missing from home, previous form, same M.O. Last victim survived – just.’ She held up a hand in warning. ‘I don’t want us to assume this is a series, not yet. We need to work away at all three candidates. Tomorrow, Press Conference at eleven plus forensics should be back before that.’

  There was a muted cheer.

  ‘Meanwhile, we keep doing what we do best: gathering evidence, checking statements. I want every house ticked off, every resident accounted for. We go over what we’ve got and we keep looking.’

  She paused, looking over the faces of the team. Shap, one leg going, dying for a fag already; Butchers, plumped up like a hen with his lead on Ferdie; Chen, not giving much away but intent, learning fast; Richard, the two of them working well together, mutual respect and a similar approach to the case. ‘I’m sure there’s a bet on already,’ she said. Shap grinned and Butchers squirmed in his seat. ‘I don’t need to know about that. But don’t let it affect your judgement.’ She pointed to the wall. ‘That knife is out there somewhere, the clothes worn by the killer are out there, the person who owns that trainer,’ she tapped the enhanced print with her hand. ‘The one who left dabs on the tap. Matthew Tulley’s murderer is out there. Find them,’ she looked from detective to detective. ‘The first 24 hours were crucial, the next are doubly so. Don’t let me down.’

  *****

  Emma had taken a key, so the knocking couldn’t be her. The police weren’t coming back, not till tomorrow. Lesley held the newspaper rigid in her fingers, pressed her feet tight to the floor, bit her teeth together. It was him. Coming after her. She remained frozen long after the knocking had stopped and the caller retraced their steps. The only movement an occasional blink and the tiny pulse which flickered fast in her throat.

  *****

  Butchers and Shap came out of the meeting quarrelling. ‘We see the CCTV stuff now, then we can go back there,’ insisted Shap, ‘get it done sooner.’

  ‘Look,’ said Butchers, ‘you heard the boss, loud and clear, every resident accounted for. She couldn’t make it plainer, could she? Nothing about me doing the CCTV. And I’ve Mr Simon to see. Split up.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘We’re not joined at the sodding hip, are we?’ Butchers retorted, though he couldn’t have said why he felt so irritable. Apart from the fact that Shap was a smart-arse, who he’d not have chosen to work with. Who hadn’t even had the grace to acknowledge that Butchers finding a witness had been a substantial break.

  ‘The store will close in fifteen minutes, will customers please make their way to the checkouts.’

  Janine was shattered, she could feel every bone in her feet and she had a dull ache in her lower back. She waited at the checkout with a trolley piled high. The man ahead paid and Janine began to unload her groceries.

  Her phone sounded loud and brash, she was beginning to think that even The Birdie Song was better than this regimental tosh.

  ‘Mr Simon, the guy who was first on the scene, boss. Wears slip-ons, never trainers.’ Butchers told her.

  ‘OK. When we’ve got the make confirmed, we’ll have a look at Ferdie and friend. And Dean Hendrix when we find him.’

  ‘Should I check the other gardeners?’

  What did he mean? Loading items with one hand, phone in the other. ‘Butchers, they’ll have been covered in house-to-house.’ Surely? Silence. ‘You established no one used Tulley’s tap? No one had set foot on the plot?’ She couldn’t believe she was having to ask this.

  ‘Not, erm … exactly. We asked if they’d seen owt suspicious you know but not exactly whether they’d used Mr Tulley’s tap …’

  ‘Oh, bloody brilliant. So the dab and the footprints might be down to some Flowerpot Man filling his watering can. Good of you to share that with me, Butchers. Get back to all the allotment holders, now, and see exactly if anyone took water from Tulley’s tap and when.’

  The checkout girl and the customers in the queues either side, stared at her, eyes bright with interest. Janine slid the large milk cartons onto the conveyer belt.

  ‘Yes, boss. Should I take prints for elimination, boss?’

  ‘No, Butchers, you shouldn’t. You’ll only need to do that if someone says they used the tap, won’t you. Christ!’ If Butchers had been present she’d have been tempted to deck him. She slammed the ice cream down and began to unload several large pineapples.

  ‘You favour one of the other gardeners for this, Butchers?’ she said sarcastically. ‘Know something we don’t?’

  ‘No, boss.’

  ‘Sure? No one getting a bit carried away with his fish, blood and bone mixture?’

  ‘No boss.’

  ‘Fine,’ she hurled the tins of beans down. ‘Because I have got a dead man on my desk, Butchers, and I’d like him off it before the maggots start to hatch!’ She pressed end call.

  The checkout girl was gawping at her.

  Janine shook her head, leant closer. ‘Just can’t get the staff,’ she said confidentially.

  The girl smiled uncertainly.

  *****

  She asked Pete how Michael had been while the other two climbed into her car.

  ‘Not seen much of him He went round to his mates after lunch. I told him to be back at yours for eight.’

  ‘He won’t report it.’

  Pete shrugged. ‘Not much point.’

  ‘Pete!’ They’d always been pretty much in agreement about the kids, the moral lessons to teach them, the rights and wrongs. Was it Tina’s influence? Or just another form of needling that he’d discovered? Something to confuse the fact that he was the guilty one.

  He turned and began walking away. ‘You thinking about him, Janine – or how you look at work?’

  ‘Piss off!’ she flung after him.

  *****

  It was on the box, they watched it at Colin’s place. Ferdie called it the caravan. Ignored Colin who told him it wasn’t a caravan – it was a static. Should have kept his trap shut. Something else Ferdie could wind him up with.

  ‘Fame!’ Ferdie shouted after and started clapping. He nodded his head at the whisky Colin had opened.

  ‘Refill.’

  Colin passed him the bottle. He’d had enough of the stuff last night, puked his guts up till there was nothing left. Ferdie – he could drink bleach and he’d not bother.

  Colin lit another cigarette. Wondered how long Ferdie planned on staying. Need a cool head for the next day. Remembering, Colin felt his
bowels loosen. He wasn’t cut out for all this. Doin’ his head in.

  *****

  DI Mayne had spoken to Shap about the CCTV tapes that had been collected from the car park. There was only the one camera but it covered the entrance, which was where their interest lay.

  Richard told Shap to study the tape between nine and eleven for Lesley Tulley’s car. ‘Fast search if you like but don’t miss a thing, see if she doubled back. ‘Course,’ he went on, ‘she could have got a cab in-between times and leave us none the wiser.’

  ‘Don’t,’ DCI Lewis had groaned, overhearing.

  Shap had been scanning the film for half-an-hour, and his eyes were going. He needed a fag an’ all and it was past knocking off time. Rumour was The Lemon wasn’t granting much overtime to the enquiry and Shap didn’t do the job for the good of his soul. He saw a silver car, right sort of shape and paused the tape but it was the wrong registration, earlier model too.

  Time to call it a day.

  *****

  Janine had just lugged in the last two bags of shopping when Michael made his entrance. Staggering in with a silly grin on his face.

  ‘Michael?’

  The grin dissolved and he looked pale then, clenched his mouth tight. ‘Feel ill.’ His speech was slurred. He giggled.

  ‘You’re drunk! What have you been drinking?’

  ‘Vodka – and cider.’

  ‘Upstairs,’ she pointed.

  Tom jumped into the room and rolled across the floor. He peered up at his big brother. Frowned. ‘What’s wrong with Michael?’

  ‘Now!’ Janine told Michael.

  He set off, his footsteps heavy and uneven.

  Janine sighed. Praying he wouldn’t throw up all over the carpets, or his duvet. The washing threatened to overwhelm her as it was. What if he’s got alcoholic poisoning, needs his stomach pumping? Her heartbeat increased. Stop it! Bad enough without anticipating worse.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Eleanor wandered in. ‘Mum, did you get the present?’

  Janine held up a box of hair decorations from the supermarket. ‘Thanks, Mum. Have we got any wrapping paper?’