‘You what, guv?’ Grace looked up from the computer on her desk.
‘We’ve had a call from a woman out walking her dog,’
Max told her. ‘The dog found a shotgun.’
‘Great stuff.’
‘Indeed. It was at the bottom of a bonfire that had been built for a New Year party they were having in Kelton. The party was cancelled because of the bad weather.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Alan and Fletch were near Kelton so they should have it by now.’
No sooner had he spoken than Atkinson put his head round the door. ‘That gun, guv?’
‘Yes?’ Max knew from the smile that Atkinson was failing to hide that he didn’t want to hear this. ‘It’s not a sodding toy one, is it?’
‘The dog thinks so,’ Atkinson said, grinning. ‘They can’t get it off her. Thinks it’s a stick, they reckon.’ His grin grew broader. ‘They’ve called in for back-up.’
‘Bloody hell!’
‘We’ve got a vet and the local dog warden on their way.
And a couple of uniforms are out there.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Max muttered.
‘The dog’s owner is getting hysterical. I suppose that’s understandable if the gun’s loaded. The dog could shoot itself. Or Fletch/ he added with a guffaw of laughter. ‘Now that’d be a first. Has a copper ever been shot by a dog?’
‘God knows. But if Fido’s a good shot, he can come round here for some bloody target practice.’
‘It’s Tilly, guv. A Labrador cross puppy, by all accounts.
I thought it might have been a Rottweiler at the very least, but no, it’s an Andrex puppy.’
Unable to control his mirth any longer, Atkinson left the room.
Max was glad someone was finding something to smile about. He wasn’t. As each day passed, any clues left by the killer or killers of Alice and Jonathan Trueman were being lost. They were getting nowhere.
This shotgun had been found at the bottom of a pile of wood less than a quarter of a mile from the church.
Surely to God it had to be the one used to kill Jonathan Trueman, the same gun that had been stolen from Tony Hutchinson.
As soon as that damned Andrex puppy had finished playing with it and they could confirm it was Hutchinson’s gun, he was going to lean on that man. Heavily.
It was almost two hours later when Alan and Fletch returned.
‘Woof, woof,’ someone growled.
‘Fuck off!’ Fletch snapped back, but this merely brought forth gales of laughter.
When they had Hutchinson in the interview room, Max wondered where to start. Hutchinson was already pissing him off, simply because he was delighted to be asked to help them. The cocky bastard enjoyed being the centre of attention.
“I suppose,’ Hutchinson said as soon as they’d switched on the tape and identified themselves, ‘that now you’ve found my gun, I’m chief suspect?’
‘You are. So tell me again where you were on the evening of November twenty-ninth, the night Jonathan True man was murdered.’
“I arrived at the school at 7 p.m.,’ he explained patiently.
‘And your mistress?’ Max asked. ‘Where was she? Still in the hotel room in Manchester?’
“I dropped her off at her house,’ he said, reddening slightly. ‘We didn’t think we should arrive at the school together. You know how tongues wag.’
They didn’t wag as much as Max would have liked.
‘So I dropped her off and drove straight to the school.
That would have been seven o’clock. No, it was a few minutes before that actually. I remember wanting to hear the seven o’clock news on the radio and I was planning to sit in the car until it came on. However, a lad’s mother, Mrs Tooney - I can give you her address - arrived and parked alongside me. I thought it would look rude to ignore her so I walked into the building with her.’
Mrs Tooney had already confirmed that.
‘Have you ever slept with Mrs Tooney?’
‘Have you seen her?’
Max hadn’t, but Fletch had said that given the choice of a night with Mrs Tooney or a night with a dozen rats, he’d choose the latter. Not that there would have been much difference, Fletch reckoned.
‘Perhaps she’d like you to,’ Max said with a shrug.
‘Perhaps she’d cover for you.’
‘Perhaps she would,’ Hutchinson answered, eyes narrowed, ‘but even if she did, there were plenty of other people there who spoke to me. All those present were named in the minutes and I gave you a copy of the minutes.’
Yes, they’d seen the minutes.
‘The minutes typed by your mistress,’ Max pointed out.
‘The minutes typed by my secretary,’ Hutchinson corrected him.
‘What time did the meeting finish?’ Max asked.
‘Eight thirty-two according to the minutes/ Hutchinson said crisply. ‘As soon as it closed, we had tea and biscuits.
A few left straight after the meeting, but I was there until the bitter end.’
‘And you drove straight home?’
‘No, I gave Pam Struthers a lift home. That only took me about ten minutes out of my way’
‘So you gave your mistress a lift ‘
‘She was with me in her secretarial role.’
‘What time did you get home?’
‘Just after nine thirty’
Jonathan Trueman had been killed when Hutchinson was at his meeting conveniently surrounded by witnesses.
Max had begged and nagged, insisted everything was double-checked, but the pathologist was adamant that death couldn’t have occurred any later. Besides, Max had been there not long after nine thirty.
Whether Max liked it or not, and he didn’t, Hutchinson had watertight alibis for the afternoon Alice Trueman’s throat had been cut, and the night Jonathan Trueman had been shot in the legs before being killed at point blank range with a 12-bore shotgun.
“I had a chat with your wife,’ Max remarked.
‘So she told me. Fine. I have nothing to hide.’
“I came across a scrapbook you’ve been keeping,’ Max said casually. ‘You’re very interested in murder, aren’t you?’
‘So are you. That doesn’t make either of us killers.’
‘All I want is a safer place for my kids to grow up. I’d be delighted if no more murders were committed.’
‘I’m interested in anything that happens locally/ Hutchinson said, ‘and this serial killer makes a good story’
‘What are your views?’
Hutchinson frowned. ‘On what?’
‘This killer. The victims. The police involvement.
Anything.’
‘Well, the killer’s obviously a complete maniac. That’s obvious, isn’t it? The victims are prostitutes and that’s always been a dangerous job. The police, I’m prepared to believe, know a lot more about it than Joe Public is being told.’
Max let his last comment go. If Joe Public believed that, at least they were getting something right.
‘Is that it?’ he asked, feigning disappointment. ‘You’re fascinated - your word, I believe - by forensic psychology.
Don’t you have any theories?’
‘Ah, but I don’t have the background info you have.’
‘Do you like prostitutes?’
Hutchinson laughed. He was a cocky one. “I neither like nor dislike them. I don’t know any personally. I’m sure they’re like every other group. Some good, and some bad.’
“I suppose you’re right. Let’s get back to this gun of yours. Have you any idea at all as to who might have stolen it?’
‘None. There’s been no sign of a breakin, as you know.’
‘You don’t seem too concerned about it,’ Max commented.
‘If my home had been broken into, I’d be
extremely upset.’
‘I’m sure you know how many burglaries - unsolved burglaries - take place these days, even in a place like Kelton/ Hutchinson replied smoothly. “I c
onsider myself lucky in that (a) neither my wife nor I were home at the time to come face to face with the culprit and (b) nothing else was taken.’
‘You said that only you and your wife have keys?’
‘Of course. Who else would have one?’ He raised his eyebrows at the stupidity of the question.
‘Who knows? My mother-in-law has a key to my house.
So does a neighbour.’
‘No one has a key to ours.’
‘Except Molly Turnbull, your cleaner.’
Hutchinson looked surprised. ‘Does she have one?’
‘According to your wife, there’s a key left under a tub on the patio for her.’
‘There doesn’t seem much point because Liz is always there when she arrives but - well, if Liz says there’s a key left there, then obviously there is. Damn silly thing to do, though. I’ll have words with Liz about that.’
‘Good idea,’ Max said. ‘So does anyone else have access to your home?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Your mistress perhaps?’
Hutchinson smirked. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Max rose, signalled to Fletch to keep at him in the hope that he’d get somewhere, and left the room.
He grabbed a coffee and sat down in front of the camera to see Fletch asking Hutchinson about Chloe Barratt, the woman Ella Gardner had seen him with on the train.
‘Why did you arrange to meet her that particular day?’
Fletch asked.
Hutchinson rolled his eyes, then laughed with feigned exasperation. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?
I didn’t arrange to meet her. We both happened to be travelling on the same train.’
That’s exactly what Chloe Barratt had said, and Max didn’t believe either of them. Something was going on, and Max would love to know exactly what. Ella Gardner had said he hadn’t been pleased to be spotted, and she swore he’d handed over an envelope.
‘An ex-pupil of yours, I gather/ Fletch said.
‘Until the age of eleven, yes. She left secondary school at sixteen to become a hairdresser. That’s five years ago now.’
‘Does your wife dress up in a school uniform for you?’
Fletch’s question took Hutchinson completely by surprise.
It had a similar effect on Max. ‘Of course not. What do you think I am, for God’s sake?’
Fletch, wisely Max thought, chose not to answer that.
‘But you did have an affair with Chloe Barratt?’
‘We had a fling a couple of years ago,’ Hutchinson told him. ‘She was nineteen then and I imagine she’d outgrown her uniform.’
‘A fling. An affair. It’s the same thing, isn’t it?’
‘If you like.’
Max turned away from the screen and went back to his office.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jill didn’t know why she had agreed to this day out with Max and the boys. Kate had been persuasive, no doubt about that.
‘It’ll do you good,’ Kate had said, ‘and it’ll do Harry and Ben good.’
‘Max said he wants to pick my brain,’ Jill had pointed out, ‘so we’ll only be talking shop.’
‘Even that might do Max good. He’s struggling with this case.’
Jill knew that. Until he could forget Valentine for more than ten minutes at a stretch, he would struggle with every case they gave him. He couldn’t accept that there were dozens of equally capable people working on Valentine’s case and that he was senior investigating officer on the Truemans’ case.
‘Have a good walk on the beach,’ Kate had said. ‘Enjoy the fresh air and enjoy being with the boys for a day. Hang it all, Max will even buy you lunch …’
So here she was, walking along the beach near Southport, with Max at her side. Harry and Ben were racing around with the dog. Fly hadn’t seen the sea before and was barking like something demented every time a wave appeared.
January was always a flat month, the weather usually too bad to venture far, and Jill had to admit that it was bliss to feel the sun on her face, and the wind whipping at her hair. It was cold, but exhilarating. Besides, she had never wanted to distance herself from Harry and Ben. She would see them at Christmas and around their birthdays, and keep up a contact in between.
‘You’re miles away,’ Max remarked.
“I was just thinking what a refreshing change it made not to be staring at a VDU.’ She looked at him. ‘What will you do when this is all over? I don’t mean the Truemans’ case, I mean when Valentine is behind bars.’
‘I’ll persuade you to marry me, and retire,’ he said immediately. ‘I’ll buy a beach bar in Spain. Shergar can fix the drinks, Lord Lucan can take care of the cellar, Elvis can cook the steaks.’
She smiled at the picture he painted. ‘Yes, Max, but what will you really do?’
‘I’ll persuade you to marry me, retire, buy a beach bar in Spain ‘
Her loud, impatient sigh cut him short.
‘Why did Jonathan Trueman kill his wife?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘You think he did?’
Max bent to pick up a pebble. He turned it over in his hand, then threw it at the sea, watching as it bounced and skimmed across the waves.
“I think that’s the most likely explanation, yes.’
So did Jill. It was the only sensible explanation.
‘He got there early,’ Max said, ‘they had a row, and he killed her. Assuming he found her in bed, or in the bath with someone else, do you think he might have lost it and killed her?’
‘No. He was too calm and exact a character for losing control like that,’ Jill replied. ‘He loved her, though, no doubt about that. He worshipped the ground she walked on. If he did kill her, it was because she was leaving him for someone else.’ She thought for a moment.
‘No one believes she would have looked twice at anyone else.’
‘Except Jim Brody,’ Jill pointed out. ‘Molly Turnbull thought she had a soft spot for him.’
“I think that might have been Molly’s over-active imagination.
Brody’s adamant he was just the gardener. Along with everyone else in the world, he reckons Alice Trueman was one of the nicest people ever born, but he swears they only talked about gardening. Added to which, he’s got a cast iron alibi for both occasions. When Alice Trueman was murdered, he was at the hospital having a couple of stitches and a tetanus jab. He was there for hours so he hadn’t spent the morning in bed with Alice.’
‘That’s some alibi.’
‘It is. He’d been sawing up logs for Ella Gardner. She drove him to the hospital and that all checks out.’
‘What about the night Jonathan Trueman was killed?’
‘He was visiting his brother in London. He even went to great lengths to get the used rail ticket out of the dustbin to show us.’
Jim Brody hadn’t struck Jill as a criminal, and certainly not a killer. She didn’t know him well, but they’d had a chat earlier in the week when they’d both been in The Weaver’s Retreat talking to Andy Collins. He seemed a likeable, friendly chap. According to everyone she’d spoken to, he was an asset to Kelton Bridge. He’d lived in the village for several years, he mowed the grass in the churchyard for nothing, and arranged an annual collection for the RNLI.
‘What about Tony Hutchinson’s gun?’ she murmured.
‘That’s odd, isn’t it?’
‘Very,’ Max said grimly. “I wouldn’t trust that bloke as far as I could chuck an elephant. There was no sign of a breakin, and he hadn’t even noticed it was missing.
According to Molly Turnbull, and Liz Hutchinson has confirmed this, she left a key for Molly underneath a patio tub if she was going out. It’s feasible that someone knew that.’
‘Or found it. Where’s the first place you’d look for a key?’
‘Quite.’
Seagulls circled overhead, dipping and diving on the air currents.
Jill had always enjoyed this, walking with Max
and bouncing ideas back and forth. When they’d been together, though, their ideas had seemed sharper, their minds quicker. Now, they both seemed dull and tired. Or was that her imagination?
‘It’s Alice’s past that intrigues me,’ Jill remarked. ‘How does that check out? Any former lovers who might have come back into her life? Anyone she left? Someone she left for Jonathan? They’d been married for some time before Michael was born so it wasn’t as if she felt she had to marry him. There has to have been some sort of regret there, though. No matter how much she loved Jonathan, and I’m prepared to believe she did love him, she must have longed for her former life.’
‘We’re checking it out, but she could have been as happy as Larry with Jonathan Trueman. Just because that life wouldn’t appeal to us, it doesn’t follow that Alice hated it.’
“I know, but I can’t see it. If someone more romantic, fun and exciting came back into her life for any reason, I think she might have been tempted. Oh, she wouldn’t have done anything drastic perhaps, but she might have met up with an old friend for coffee, maybe an evening out.’
‘You think Jonathan was the jealous type?’
‘Yes. He lived in fear of losing her to someone else,’ Jill said. ‘Living that way for almost twenty-five years would take its toll on anyone.’
They walked on. The boys, oblivious to their presence, were kicking a football for the dog to chase. Jill wondered if they would remember this day in years to come. There was nothing memorable about the day, yet they were happy and carefree …
‘Everything takes so long,’ Max complained. ‘Imagine the time it’s taking to try and track Alice’s movements over the last year or so. And then imagine trying to contact everyone she’s ever known.’
‘It’s always the same, Max. You know that. That’s the job. You plod away until something turns up. And something always does turn up.’
‘Not always.’
‘Yes, always. Even if it takes thirty years or more.’
Max groaned at the thought of that, and Jill had to smile.
It was true, though. Something always turned up.
Always. The killer or killers of Jonathan and Alice True man would be found, and so would Valentine. She was confident of that.
Kennedy 01 - Into the Shadows Page 20