She was interested now. Bitches. They’d do anything for money. They would even die for it.
“I can give you an hour you’ll never forget,’ she promised.
Likewise, sweetheart, he thought, suppressing the urge to laugh.
‘Get in then.’
She opened the door, threw a well-worn brown handbag in the passenger footwell and was about to get in when she suddenly changed her mind.
“I need a pee,’ she gasped, pulling a face. ‘Give me two minutes. “I’ll nip round the corner there. No one will see me.’
Before he could argue, she dashed off towards a block of flats where the walls were covered in graffiti and the doorways probably stank of urine.
‘Don’t drive off she yelled after her. ‘You’ve got my handbag.’
Bitch. Stupid fucking bitch!
He couldn’t hang around here like a sitting target.
The seconds ticked away. What was she doing?
‘Tuck! Tuck! Tuck!’ He wasn’t taking this shit. He slammed the car into first gear and drove off fast.
‘Don’t panic,’ he told himself as he drove. ‘Don’t panic’
He slowed the car and drove at a steady thirty miles per hour.
There was nothing to worry about. The silly bitch would be standing on the pavement wondering where he - and her handbag - had gone. She’d be thinking about the cash she’d missed out on. The thought made him smile.
He was still smiling when he saw the police car in his rearview mirror.
Chapter ThirtyFive
The incident room was like something from the forthcoming Burnley versus Blackburn Rovers cup-tie. Everyone was shouting at everyone else and Max swore that violence was only a breath away. He should have calmed things down, but he felt far from calm himself and was having to shout to stand even a slim chance of being heard.
‘If Hutchinson so much as looks at a double yellow,’ he shouted, “I want him hauled in. OK?’
‘But, boss, we’ve got enough to do without wasting our time on him,’ someone argued.
‘We’ve got nothing on him/ someone else complained.
‘Stop arguing,’ he yelled at them. “I don’t like the fucking creep, and that’s reason enough. You want more reasons? His gun’s been stolen, he’s already lied to us Jesus!
How much more do you want? You’re supposed to
be detectives. Now get out there and fucking detect.’
The door opened and Jill stood there, reeling slightly at the din that met her.
‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ Max snapped at her.
She went out, closing the door quietly behind her.
‘Right, you lot,’ Max went on, ‘we’ve got dead bodies turning up like Reader’s Digest prize draws, we’re getting bollocked left, right and centre from above, and the press are making us look like Miss Marple on Valium. We need a soddin’ result.’
Before they could argue any more, Max marched out of the room, gave the door a satisfactory slam, and left them to call him unspeakable things at their leisure.
He had a million things to do, including yet another bollocking from the powers that sat behind executive desks all day, but he went off to find Jill first.
When he eventually spotted her, she was outside in the car park, and he ran to catch up with her. ‘Did you want me?’
She nodded at the second floor of the building. ‘What was all that about?’
‘Tempers are running high. We’re getting nowhere with anything and frustration is beginning to show.’
“I only wanted a quick word, Max, and it’s probably nothing.’ She told him of her meeting with Ella, and Ella’s description of Tony Hutchinson’s behaviour on the train.
‘The thing is,’ she warned him, ‘it’s a bit tricky. He spotted Ella so if you go questioning him about it, he’ll know where it’s come from. She doesn’t strike me as the type to be easily scared but she admitted it made her nervous.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll tread carefully.’ She was right; it was probably nothing. All the same, it was still coming back to Hutchinson. ‘Could the woman in question have been a prostitute?’
‘That’s what I wondered,’ Jill said with a sigh. ‘The way Ella described her, she could have been. She said she wore lots of make-up, had plenty of cleavage, and was showing off her assets. Yes, she might have been.’
God, he’d nail Hutchinson for something, even if it were only driving without due care and attention.
‘I’m glad I caught you,’ he said. ‘I’m just off to see a working girl, and I wish you’d come along.’
‘Oh?’
‘She lives in Burnley with her husband and a couple of kids and, apparently, works the streets of Preston.’
‘Uh? That’s a long way to go.’
‘It is. Her husband knows nothing about it. She’s told him she’s got an overnight job at one of the supermarkets.
She reckons selling her body pays better than stacking shelves. Anyway, on Monday night, she was about to get in a bloke’s car when she spotted what she thought was a silk scarf in his jacket pocket. His jacket was lying on the back seat. It gave her a funny feeling and she ran off.’
Jill’s eyes widened. ‘And you think it was Valentine?’
“I don’t know. Probably not/ he admitted.
‘But you’re not ‘
“I know, I know, but Cornwall reckons it’s nothing.
They’ve spoken to her and dismissed her. I want to talk to her - unofficial. I don’t know, Jill, call it a hunch.’
She nodded. ‘OK.’
‘So what exactly spooked her?’ Jill asked as Max drove them to Janie Fisher’s address.
‘Just a scarf she saw. If it was a scarf. She said it gave her a funny feeling. Oh, and she’s as mad as hell at us apparently because she ran off and left her handbag in his car.’
‘You what?’
‘Our fault, she reckons. We should make the streets safer.’
‘Ah, right.’ Jill shook her head, bemused.
Janie Fisher lived on a sprawling estate that was mainly local authority housing. Jill had seen better places to live, but she’d also seen a lot worse. In fact, the houses were almost identical to the one Jill had been brought up in.
Some of the cars parked outside the houses looked roadworthy.
Most didn’t.
They got out of the car and Max was about to open the gate to number 27 - even the house number was the same as the one from Jill’s childhood - when an angry-looking German shepherd appeared from nowhere. It was barking and snapping with teeth bared.
‘Shit!’ Jill backed away in fright.
‘OK, Lennox,’ Max muttered, ‘you win. We’ll stand here and look like a pair of prats for a minute.’
After what seemed an age, with Jill convinced her eardrums would never recover, a woman appeared at the
front door.
‘Yes?’ Her snap was as intimidating as the dog’s.
‘Janie Fisher?’ Max had to yell to make himself heard over the dog’s noise.
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector ‘
‘I’ve already seen you lot/ she cut him off, coming to the gate.
This wasn’t going to be easy, Jill realized.
‘Yes, I know, but we wanted to ask you a couple of questions.’ He looked at the dog, then looked at her.
‘Can we come in for a minute, please?’ She hesitated.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘if we piss you off, you can set the dog on us. Right?’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Tyson, get in the back,’ she said, resigned.
Tyson didn’t budge. He did quieten down though, content now to make the odd deep-throated growl, and they managed to get to the front door and then inside the hall with their limbs intact.
‘You’d better come in,’ Janie Fisher muttered, pushing open the door to the sitting room.
She looked as if she’d just got out of bed. Perhaps she had.
Long blonde hair was tied back in a blue band. She wore shapeless black leggings, a dark blue sweatshirt and worn suede slippers.
The room looked like Santa’s grotto, but it was clean and tidy. Kids’ toys had been put neatly in a corner. A huge television set dominated most of one wall. It must have cost more than the rest of the furniture put together. Paper chains criss-crossed the ceiling, a huge tree was covered in baubles and flashing lights, and Christmas cards had been stuck to the walls.
‘What do you want to know?’ Janie Fisher demanded impatiently.
Tyson had wandered off into the kitchen and Jill began to breathe more easily.
‘I’m Jill Kennedy’ Well, Max hadn’t bothered to introduce her. ‘And we’d like to hear anything you can tell us.
Anything at all - no matter how insignificant it sounds.
The man you saw might have been responsible for a number of murders.’ Janie Fisher shuddered at that. ‘The truth is,’ Jill went on, ‘we haven’t got a lot to go on. We want him caught and quick. So do you. If it was him, you’re the first person to get away alive.’
Jill waited for that to sink in.
‘If things had been different, we could have been calling here to tell your kids that their mum was dead,’ she pointed out. ‘Not the Christmas present you’d want for them, I’m sure.’
She waited for that to sink in, too, and watched her mull over it.
‘We believe,’ Max explained, ‘that our man lures prostitutes into his car, drives them off to some deserted spot and strangles them. We know nothing else about him. So anything you can tell us will be a step forward.’
‘If it was him,’ Janie Fisher pointed out. “I feel a bit daft about it now. It was probably nothing. The thing was, a couple of us had been talking about this killer, even having a laugh about it, and we’d spooked ourselves. Daft really.
But when I saw that bleeding scarf ‘
‘What sort of scarf was it?’ Jill asked.
Janie Fisher sat down and, without waiting to be invited, Max and Jill followed her example.
Jill could see she was shaken and doing her best to remember everything.
‘It was a dark maroon scarf. Looked like silk to me. Of course, it might have been a flashy handkerchief or something.’
‘Did he look the type to have silk handkerchiefs?’ Jill asked.
Janie Fisher shook her head.
‘And the scarf or handkerchief, whatever it was, was in his jacket pocket? Right?’ Max asked.
‘Yes, his jacket was lying on the back seat of the car. A brown corduroy casual jacket.’ She thought for a moment.
‘He was wearing a shirt, brushed cotton probably. It was a pale colour - yellow perhaps. And he was wearing a baseball cap that kept his face in shadow. I don’t know, it was dark and I could only go by the car’s interior light.’
‘Tell us about the man himself. What did he look like?’
Jill asked.
“I don’t know because I couldn’t see much. He was big, though. Big shoulders.’
Jill knew the description wouldn’t be too reliable. If people were frightened, the person responsible was always described as being big, powerful and threatening.
‘What about the car?’ Max asked. ‘You said it was a big car, either dark blue or black. Is that right?’
‘Yes, but it was dark and, to be honest, with Christmas round the corner, I was more interested in the cash he showed me. Must have had at least a grand in his wallet.
But as soon as I saw that scarf, I lost my nerve and scarpered. Lost my bleedin’ handbag, too.’
‘This car, though, was it a big saloon or an estate?’
“I don’t know. It might have been the same as yours.’
Jill and Max both turned to look out at his car, reassuring themselves that it was still there. They didn’t have a good view, though; the wheels could easily be missing.
‘He had big hands,’ Janie said vaguely.
‘Big hands?’ Jill queried. ‘What sort of hands? Did they look soft and well cared for? Or were they work roughened? Do you think he worked at a desk or something more manual?’
“I don’t know.’
‘What about the inside of the car?’ Max asked. ‘What was that like?’
‘Dark upholstery. That coat lying on the back seat.’ She sighed. “I can’t remember anything else.’
‘Could he have had grey hair?’ Max asked. ‘Tall, early fifties, grey hair, fit-looking?’
Jill scowled at him. He’d just described Tony
Hutchinson.
“I didn’t see his hair. It was under that baseball cap,’
she explained. ‘He was younger than that, though. He sounded younger anyway.’
‘Any sort of accent?’ Jill put in.
‘Nothing I noticed.’
‘OK, humour me, will you?’ Max asked, giving her one of his coaxing smiles. ‘Tell us again exactly what happened, where you were, and where you went afterwards.’
‘Are you lot fucking thick or what?’
Gritting her teeth, Janie told them exactly what had happened from start to finish. They’d hoped her story might have changed, or that something else might have come to mind, but she told them nothing they didn’t already know.
“I found my mate quickly which was just as well because I had to borrow the taxi fare off her. She lives in Burnley, too. We both work out in Preston.’
‘And your husband thinks you have a job in a supermarket?’
Jill asked.
‘Yes, and I don’t want him knowing any different. OK?’
‘Of course.’ Max got to his feet. ‘Thanks for that. We’ll be off now. One more thing, though. Will you come out to my car and see if you can spot any differences?’
She frowned, puzzled.
‘You reckon he might have been driving a blue Ford Mondeo like mine. If I sit in it, and we pretend I’m him, it might jog your memory’
‘Sure.’ She wanted to be rid of them.
They got as far as the hall and then the dog was there, breathing on Jill’s hand and growling menacingly.
‘It’s OK, Lennox/ Max said. ‘We’re leaving now.’
‘What did you call him?’ Janie asked.
‘Ah, sorry, he’s Tyson, isn’t he? He looks more like a Lennox to me.’
Janie Fisher looked at him as if he were mad. Jill knew how she felt.
‘You’re sure you can’t remember even one letter or number from the registration plate?’ Jill asked as they walked outside.
“I didn’t even look at it.’
Max flicked the remote to unlock the car. At least the wheels were still attached.
‘OK, I’ll sit inside,’ he said. ‘This chap wound the window down to talk to you, right?’
‘Yeah.’
Max sat inside the car, started the engine and hit the button for the window.
Janie peered inside. ‘His car was cleaner and tidier.’
Jill also peered in and saw the passenger footwell. There were at least four empty plastic cups. The rest of the car was no better. Pens and loose change were scattered around, CDs were waiting to be put back in cases, and there was more dog hair than Tyson could boast. Jill hadn’t thought anything of it when he’d driven her out here, but it was a mess.
‘Other than that/ Janie said, ‘it might have been a car like this.’
‘What about the man himself?’ Max pushed on. ‘What was the difference between him and me?’
‘You’re better looking.’ For the first time, Jill saw a hint of a smile on her face.
‘Why, thank you/ Max said, taken aback.
‘Mind you, he was probably better looking in daylight.
You do smell better, though.’ She frowned. ‘There was a funny smell to his car. It was a mixture of dampness, something musty, and orange air freshener. Yeah, his car smelt damp.’
‘Damp?’ Jill queried.
‘Yeah.’ Janie straightened up. ‘Sorry, that’s all I can tell you.�
��
‘OK, Janie. Thanks for that. If we need to talk to you ‘
‘Don’t come at the weekend or in the evenings,’ she warned. “I don’t want my old man knowing about it.’
‘Don’t worry. But if you think of anything else, anything at all, give me a call, OK?’ Max took a card from his pocket.
‘That number will get straight through to me.’
She took the card from him.
‘And be careful,’ he warned as he pushed opened the car door for Jill.
Jill suspected Max was relieved to be driving out of the estate with a full set of wheels.
“I reckon you were well in there,’ she quipped. ‘With a bit of luck, you’d probably get a discount.’
‘Oh, very droll. So what did you think?’
“I think,’ Jill said carefully, ‘that Janie Fisher’s one lucky lady’
He looked at her as he slowed for a corner.
“I think she’s the first witness,’ Jill said.
‘You really think it was Valentine?’
‘Yes, I do. Who else would carry around a grand in cash?
With that sort of loose change, you don’t have to waste your time kerb-crawling. Now, why in hell’s name would his car smell damp?’ she murmured, puzzled. ‘Because it’s not used often,’ she answered her own question. ‘It spends most of its time locked away in a garage - a damp garage.
So he has two cars.’
‘You’d better mention all this to your mate Cornwall,’
Max told her.
‘Oh, great. And how do I explain how I came to be out here with you?’
He laughed. ‘You’ll think of something.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
With Christmas and the New Year celebrations over, the office was returning to normal, and Max wasn’t sorry about that. He preferred normal.
Christmas was great for the kids, but there was nothing else to recommend it. Max hated the waste. Instead of buying presents no one wanted, he wished people would donate the money to charity. It would be far simpler. It would cut down on the number of burglaries, too.
But Christmas was over, thank God.
“I sometimes think,’ he said to no one in particular, ‘that if people in this country stopped owning dogs, we’d never solve a crime.’
Kennedy 01 - Into the Shadows Page 19