‘Outside, please,’ Thackeray insisted in a tone that left no room for argument, and Jenkins left, slamming the door behind him. Minelli shrugged eloquently.
‘Agents are powerful people,’ he said, a note of helplessness in his voice. ‘He’s very anxious about OK.’
‘Perhaps he should be, Mr Minelli,’ Thackeray said. ‘Perhaps you both should be.’
Minelli subsided into his seat behind his desk and waved the two police officers into the chairs opposite.
‘How can I help you, signori?’ he asked. ‘You know we go to London today for the big match? It is not a very good time.’
‘It’s never a very good time for murder, Mr Minelli,’ Thackeray said, his voice sounding harsh even to his own ear. ‘I want to take you back to the celebration parties at the West Royd club recently. We now have firm evidence that the girl who was murdered, and her friend, were both present at the club on several nights and had contact with at least three of your players and probably more. And by contact I mean sexual contact.’ Thackeray handed the pictures of Grace and Elena across the desk.
‘I have to ask you again, Mr Minelli, did you ever see either of these girls at the club?’ Minelli barely glanced at the pictures.
‘No,’ he said. ‘There are always a lot of people there. I haven’t seen either of those girls. I told you that already.’
‘Since we last spoke, have you heard any suggestion as to who invited them? Who brought them to the parties. Who took them away again. It must be a hot topic of discussion here in the circumstances, I should think.’
‘No,’ Minelli said. ‘As I told you before, there are always girls around the players. It goes with the job. They are young men with a lot of money to spend and they attract pretty girls like moths to a flame.’
‘Have the players ever given you any indication of where young women, young prostitutes in fact, might be found to come to their parties?’
Minelli swallowed hard. He looked pale and his hands were trembling slightly.
‘It is not something I have ever talked about with my players. Casual sex is one thing. Using girls like that is another. It is dangerous, unhealthy. I would not put up with it if I knew about it. Never.’
‘Right, let’s go back to the parties. The young men who have admitted having contact with the girls so far are Okigbo, Peters and Towers. Can you recall anyone else the players were talking to on any occasion? In the case of Peters and Towers, it would have to have been before the wife and the fiancée arrived at the Rochdale celebration, a somewhat unexpected arrival, I’m told…’
Minelli shrugged again, his eyes taking on a slightly haunted look.
‘The place was crowded that night,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of drink, a lot of excitement.’ He licked his lips and glanced away.
‘But?’ Thackeray prompted, realising that Minelli had recalled something in that jostling crowd that he had not liked.
‘Angelica invited her brother,’ Minelli said. ‘I don’t like the man.’
‘Stephen Stone? And who was he talking to?’
‘I saw him chatting to Okigbo at the Rochdale party. I thought it was odd because I had heard him before making unpleasant comments about blacks. He didn’t like them. It was obvious when you talked to him he was a racist.’
‘Have you any idea what they were talking about?’ Thackeray asked.
‘No idea at all,’ Minelli said. ‘But Dennis Jenkins might know. He was in on the conversation, I think.’
‘Did you ever talk to Angelica herself about the young men’s sexual behaviour? Did you imply to her – or her brother – that they might be in the market for girls?’
‘I told you I wouldn’t encourage that. I certainly wouldn’t discuss it with Angelica. No way. Why should I?’
‘Where is OK Okigbo now, Mr Minelli?’ Mower asked quickly. ‘It sounds as though we need to talk to him and to Mr Jenkins right away.’
If anything Minelli looked sicker than ever.
‘He went to London last night,’ he said. ‘I gave him permission to go early to see his sister, who lives somewhere down there. I was going to rest him today because he had a slight strain even if the rest of the team trained this morning. He’ll be at the team hotel tomorrow tonight.’
Thackeray let his breath out with a faint hiss.
‘That’s a pity,’ he said.
‘Inspector Thackeray,’ Minelli said urgently, leaning across his desk with his fists clenched. ‘Tell me honestly. Do you think my best player killed that girl? Do you really believe that?’
‘I can’t answer that at the moment, Mr Minelli,’ Thackeray said. ‘But I certainly need to speak to your best player again. When will you all be back in Bradfield?’
‘The coach will bring everyone back immediately after the match on Tuesday evening,’ Minelli said dully. ‘I’m not expecting anything but a defeat, and it’s best to get the players home afterwards, I think. Can you wait until then, Mr Thackeray? I don’t want the team disturbed again…’ It was as close to pleading as Minelli was likely to come.
‘Do you know where Okigbo is staying tonight?’ he asked. Minelli shook his head.
‘I want you to let me know immediately if he fails to turn up tomorrow at your hotel,’ Thackeray said sharply.
‘It will be all over the papers if he fails to turn up,’ Minelli whispered.
‘And I hold you responsible for making sure he’s on the coach back to Bradfield after the match.’
Minelli nodded, his face grey with anxiety now.
‘And now,’ Thackeray said. ‘As Mr Jenkins is so conveniently here, perhaps I could borrow your office to talk to him privately.’
‘Of course,’ Minelli said, and he got up and brought Dennis Jenkins, who seemed to have been hovering outside the door, back into the room, before making his own exit with a palpable air of relief. Thackeray took Minelli’s seat behind the desk and waved the agent into the chair next to Mower.
‘Do you get hold of girls for your client Okigbo, Mr Jenkins?’ the DCI asked.
‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ Jenkins snapped, choosing to bluster where Minelli had wilted.
‘Just what it says,’ Thackeray said. ‘Your client and other players have admitted sleeping with prostitutes at the West Royd club on at least two occasions, and one of them has been murdered. I’m trying to discover how they made contact with these girls in the first place. Can you explain how it happened?’
‘No I bloody can’t,’ Jenkins said. ‘I may be OK’s agent but I’m not his pimp.’
‘Do you know who is?’ Thackeray snapped.
Jenkins gulped slightly, his colour rising.
‘No,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe you, Mr Jenkins,’ Thackeray said. ‘You were seen talking to a man we think may be implicated in this unpleasant business. Do you recall the conversation?’
‘Who saw me?’ Jenkins snapped, and when Thackeray shook his head dismissively, he came back. ‘Was it bloody Paolo? Was it Minelli? Did he say he’d seen me? That’s the last time I do him any favours.’
‘Did you have a discussion with Okigbo and another man about procuring girls?’ Thackeray persisted. Jenkins drew a deep breath between his teeth, making a whistling sound that reminded Thackeray of a deflating balloon. Eventually he nodded.
‘So what?’ he said. ‘OK said he fancied a black girl. He was sick of English girls. And this bloke said he thought he knew just the one. If he made it worth her while. And his.’
‘In other words, if he paid her to prostitute herself.’
‘He said she wouldn’t come cheap but it could be arranged. He wouldn’t be out of pocket personally. It’s not illegal,’ Jenkins said.
‘No it’s not,’ Thackeray agreed. ‘Unless she’s underage. But the offer the other man made is certainly illegal. And the girl is dead. Who is he?’
Dennis Jenkins’ gaze strayed wildly around the manager’s office as if in search of help but in the end it came
back to Thackeray’s implacable face and the hostile eyes waiting for an answer.
‘He’s not connected with the club, not anyone I’ve seen around till recently,’ Jenkins said. ‘He’s called Stone.’
Mower was watching Thackeray and guessed that only he noticed the briefest flash of triumph in his blue eyes.
‘Thank you, Mr Jenkins,’ Thackeray said quietly. ‘Perhaps you’d like to explain in your statement why neither you nor your client felt able to tell us that sooner.’
‘We didn’t want OK harassed,’ Jenkins said, as if that were explanation enough. ‘He’s an innocent, that lad. And Paolo and I are hoping to sell him on. When he’s given United a bit of a boost. Though now there’s this HIV thing, all that could go out of the bloody window. It’s true, that, is it? She was infected, the black tart?’
‘HIV positive and pregnant, assaulted and drowned,’ Thackeray said angrily. ‘Which is why I’ll be wanting to talk to your “innocent” again just as soon as he’s back in Bradfield.’ At that moment his mobile rang and when he glanced at the caller display he came within an ace of switching off, but then he shrugged and got up to leave the room.
‘Take Mr Jenkins’ statement, Sergeant,’ he said as he closed the door on the other two men. The outer office was empty and he took the call.
‘Laura?’ But the voice at the other end, hurried and outraged, did not offer the response he had been expecting.
‘Jenna Heywood has been in an accident on the M1,’ Laura said. ‘She’s unconscious in hospital. She told me she was being harassed, stalked even, and I’m wondering if it really was an accident. Ted Grant will be crawling all over the story. It’s a major blow to the club and her plans for it. But I thought you ought to know what she told me last week. I think you may want to investigate.’
Thackeray took a deep breath before replying, with a hundred things flashing through his mind that he both wanted and did not want to share with Laura, but knowing that this was neither the time nor the place.
‘I’ll ask Kevin Mower to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Where are you? At home?’
‘At the office,’ Laura said. ‘Tony Holloway was at work and rang me when he heard. We’ll work on the story together for now.’
‘I’ll get Kevin to get back to you,’ Thackeray said, and disconnected.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Laura drove sedately down the M1 to Sheffield that Sunday morning, feeling slightly bewildered by the catastrophe that suddenly seemed to have overtaken her life. She was on the way to visit Jenna Heywood in hospital where she was confined with multiple injuries, Laura had been told when she phoned earlier, conscious but apparently lucky to be alive. Laura was driven by a genuine sympathy for a women she had come to like, but also by an intense curiosity to discover, if she could, whether her accident on the motorway could have been a part of the campaign of harassment Jenna had said she had been experiencing for weeks.
Laura found it almost impossible to believe that the affairs of United could possibly be a motive for attempted murder, if that was what it was. But when she had called the hospital that morning, the nurse had passed on a message from her still groggy patient to the effect that she would like to see her as soon as possible. So after a sleepless night, Laura had reluctantly set off through the clinging mist and patches of bright sunshine that were flitting across newly greened South Yorkshire with her brain too sluggish to make much sense of what had been going on.
Kevin Mower, she thought with irritation, had not been much help the previous evening either. The Sergeant had picked her up from the office and they had gone to The Lamb for a drink and a sandwich after Laura’s unsatisfactory phone call to Thackeray had been passed on to him.
‘What’s all this about, then?’ he had asked, handing her a vodka and tonic and settling down with his own pint. According to the hospital in Sheffield, Jenna at that stage was still unconscious in intensive care and Laura could only assume that her life was hanging in the balance, although the nurse did not spell that out. In the circumstances, she felt no compunction about sharing what Jenna had told her with the police, recalling that she had been very clear that she intended to hang on to the evidence of harassment in case she ever made a complaint. If there was a time to complain about how Jenna Heywood had been treated it was now, Laura decided angrily and told Mower exactly what Jenna had told her.
‘You’ll find a dog turd in her fridge,’ she said with distaste.
‘Lovely,’ Mower said.
‘Well, wrapped up,’ she added with a faint smile. ‘If it’d been me, I’d have been terrified by all this, but Jenna seemed to be taking it in her stride.’
‘She should have come to us straight away. Did she have any idea who was behind this campaign?’ Mower had asked.
‘Disgruntled fans upset by a having a woman in charge? Greedy directors whose plans she’s thwarting by trying to make the club a success? Male chauvinist football pigs of one kind or another? She was guessing. She had no idea.’
‘Not the beautiful game any more then,’ Mower said.
‘Was it ever?’
‘D’you think she knew anything at all about this girl Elena who was at the club parties?’ Mower asked. ‘The young friend you kept very quiet about.’
‘When she talked about all this I’d no idea that there was any connection between Elena and the club,’ Laura said, defensively. ‘I realise now Jenna might have known something about what was going on, but I never asked her and she never mentioned it. You’ll have to follow that up yourselves.’
‘There’s not much we can do until – unless – she wakes up,’ Mower had said sombrely, glancing at his watch. ‘I checked with traffic down there, and they’re looking for witnesses to the accident. Someone on the motorway must have seen what happened but no one’s come forward. So far they’re treating it as a routine RTA. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest anything else. She seems to have lost control and run off the road.’
‘She’s used to doing long distances in a fast car,’ Laura said, exasperated by the routine nature of the police response. ‘She can hardly be called a novice driver. And if she dies, does that mean there may never be any evidence?’
‘There may not,’ Mower agreed.
‘But the fact she’d been threatened? That must carry some weight, surely?’
‘Maybe,’ Mower conceded. ‘But we’ll have to wait and see if she says anything herself or for any suggestion that it wasn’t a genuine accident. Then we’ll take it from there.’
Laura had drained her glass, discontented with that strategy but knowing that she would not be able to shift it.
‘Thanks for the drink,’ she said, getting to her feet and pulling her coat on. ‘I’m going up to see my grandmother. She’s distraught because this girl Elena has disappeared again. I think, like everyone else, she blames me.’
‘The boss doesn’t seem very happy,’ Mower said carefully.
‘Neither of us is very happy,’ Laura said dismissively. ‘I made a stupid mistake and if this inquiry goes pear-shaped next week he’s going to be even less happy because that’s all about another stupid mistake I made. But just at the moment I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it.’ Laura’s tone was firm, but Mower could see from the strain on her face that she was close to breaking point.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Do you know if Val Ridley is coming up for the inquiry?’ Laura asked, abruptly changing the subject, but Mower shrugged.
‘I did manage to speak to her,’ he said. ‘But she wouldn’t say one way or the other. If you’re going to see Joyce, could I come with you? I’ve got another photograph, one your grandmother didn’t see when she came in to go through the mug shots. It’s important she has a look at it.’
‘I’m sure she won’t mind,’ Laura said. ‘I’m parked across the road. Why don’t you follow me up there.’
But Mower’s had been a wasted trip and he soon left, looking grim. Joyce had seemed
tired when the two of them arrived, and she had glanced at Mower’s photograph of Stephen Stone without any flicker of recognition. When the Sergeant had gone, Joyce sank into her chair close to the desultory flames of the gas fire and shut her eyes for a moment.
‘There’s no news of the girls, then?’ she said.
Laura had shaken her head. ‘If anything happens to them I’ll never forgive myself,’ she said quietly.
‘And will your man forgive you?’ her grandmother asked.
‘I doubt it.’
Nearing her journey’s end on the M1 the next morning, the sun suddenly dazzled Laura and she pulled the visor down and shook herself slightly as she felt her concentration slip. Was that what had happened to Jenna only ten miles or so further south on the same motorway? she wondered, as she realised she was approaching Sheffield, and took the turning for the city centre. The accident, if that’s what it was, could have been as simple as a blinding flash of sunlight.
Within fifteen minutes she was standing at the foot of a high hospital bed where Jenna Heywood was still attached to numerous monitors but with her eyes wide open and bright, looking pale but remarkably unscathed after her narrow escape.
‘How are you feeling?’ Laura asked.
‘The bruises are out of sight,’ Jenna said, not sounding quite as breezy as she looked. ‘I’ve got a broken leg, six broken ribs and a lot of internal bruising, and this bash on the head.’ She fingered her hair gingerly and winced. ‘It didn’t break the skin – or the skull. Just knocked me out cold. I was lucky. The seat belt and the air-bag saved me from worse. They tell me my precious Beamer is a write-off. Someone must be seriously disappointed, though.’
Laura moved to the bedside chair and sat down, feeling breathless herself.
‘You mean it wasn’t an accident?’
‘Oh no,’ Jenna said. ‘That was no accident. Some bastards deliberately ran me off the road.’
‘Did you see them?’ Laura asked, but Jenna shook her head bleakly.
‘I got an impression of the cars, not who was in them,’ she said. ‘My memory’s a bit hazy on the details but I’m sure it was deliberate and there were two cars involved, I think.’
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