by Lisa Hartley
Knight rose slowly from his chair and made his way to the front of the room. A couple of jokers on the back row nudged each other as Knight cleared his throat and took his time before beginning to speak.
‘Unfortunately, again, not much has come to light. We’ve collected all of the CCTV footage from the pubs in the area, and the streets Pollard may have walked down on his way to the place he met his death, but the officers who had been working on the film haven’t had any luck yet.’
Kendrick blew out his cheeks. ‘And that’s it?’
Knight nodded. ‘The local shop owners couldn’t help either, since Pollard died overnight and none of them were around. We’re going back later to the pubs, talking to people who may have been there drinking last night, but there’s very little to go on at the moment.’
With a shrug, Knight went back to his seat.
‘Our own Sherlock Holmes.’ a voice said softly. Bishop, seated in the front row, turned and glared over her shoulder. Innocent faces smiled back at her. Bishop shook her head, turned around. Knight didn’t help himself sometimes, she had to admit. She focused back on Kendrick.
‘DS Bishop? You and DC Sullivan went to find out Pollard’s movements last night?’
Bishop stood, then turned and faced her colleagues. She had worked with most of them for a number of years now, and knew they were generally a good bunch. In death, Craig Pollard seemed to be generating about as much sympathy as he had in life – none. Still, his life had been cut short, and he hadn’t deserved that, no matter how much trouble he had been. Bishop flipped open the cover of her notebook.
‘We spoke to Craig Pollard’s brother, Mike, who was able to tell us where the pub where Craig usually started his nights out, so we went there first. It turns out that Pollard actually spent the whole night in that same pub. The bar man we talked to was working last night and he was able to confirm that Pollard had arrived there around 9pm, drank steadily until around 12.30, then stumbled out of the door. He spoke to a few people, but not been in the company of anyone for more than a couple of minutes. He left alone.’
‘Sounds like this bar man had nothing better to do than watch customers all night.’ said Kendrick. ‘Quiet, was it?’
Bishop nodded.
‘Seems so, although Sunday nights usually are apparently. Pollard was one of the few Sunday night regulars. Friday and Saturday he’d just call in for a few drinks, then go off elsewhere, but his Sunday routine was just to sit at the bar and drink himself silly.’
‘And always by himself?’ asked Kendrick.
‘Usually. Occasionally, his brother or someone else joined him for a couple of pints, but not very often. The bar man said Pollard seemed to be in a world of his own, just interested in staring at the bottom of a glass. Pollard wouldn’t enter into conversation, even if someone spoke to him.’
‘Interesting.’ said Kendrick. ‘Worrying about something?’
‘Doesn’t sound like Pollard.’ Bishop replied, and there were nods of agreement all over the room.
‘And only on Sunday nights, from what you’ve said.’ added Knight.
Bishop nodded, then glanced down at her notebook.
‘Pollard’s brother Mike said as far as he knew, Craig had no worries, no problems. Pollard’s a complete saint according to his mum and dad too.’
Kendrick snorted. ‘Hmm, a hint of rose tinted spectacles there, I think. What did his girlfriend have to say, Jonathan?’
Knight smiled faintly.
‘She didn’t agree.’
Kendrick waved him forward again.
‘Let’s hear it, then.’
He’d gone himself with one of the uniformed officers, PC Emily Lawrence, to speak to Kelly Whitcham, expecting her to be grief stricken and tearful. The address wasn’t officially Pollard’s, but according to his family, this was where he often slept. The house was in the middle of a terrace, one of the streets on the outskirts of town where the local council had bought many of the houses and rented them to tenants. It wasn’t run down exactly, but there were better places to live. Whitcham’s house had vertical blinds and a broken upstairs window. Further down the street, two small boys bounced a football across the road to each other. Knight knocked on the door, eventually seeing movement behind the frosted glass panels. Fingers appeared, holding the metal letterbox open from the inside.
‘Who is it?’
Knight glanced at Lawrence, feeling a little silly, then squatted slightly and leant closer to the door.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Knight.’
‘Oh, right. Police? I can’t open the door.’
‘You can’t? Why not?’
‘Because Craig kept us locked in here and I haven’t got a key, that’s why not.’
Knight frowned. ‘You mean you can’t get out?’
‘We can’t get out, you can’t get in, unless you want me to smash a window, and I’m not doing that with my kids inside.’
Knight shook his head in disbelief.
‘You can’t stay in there forever. Would you have any objection to me calling some colleagues and asking them to break the door open?’
There was a pause. Eventually, Whitcham said, ‘And how would I explain that to the landlord?’
‘We’d sort that out, don’t worry.’ Knight reassured her.
‘All right then.’
Sighing, Knight took out his phone and called the DCI. There was muttering and complaining, but Kendrick agreed to send some officers over. Knight told Kelly Whitcham what was happening, then he and PC Lawrence went to wait in the car, Knight starting the engine and turning the heater on full, blowing on his cold hands. After ten minutes or so, a marked police van drew up, and two grinning uniformed officers climbed out. Knight went over to meet them, Lawrence not far behind.
‘Afternoon, sir.’ said one, opening the back doors of the van.
‘Having a bit of trouble?’ the other asked.
‘Something like that.’ Knight agreed.
‘No problem, we’ll soon be in with this little lovely.’
The officer lifted the Big Red Key from the back of the van. It was a battering ram, constructed from steel, painted red. The officer approached the door, Knight trailing behind him.
‘Stand away from the door, Miss Whitcham.’ Knight called.
Gripping the handles on the Big Red Key with both gloved hands, the officer swung it towards the door. There was a thud, and the door was open.
‘Pah,’ the officer said, disappointed. ‘An easy one.’
Knight grinned at him. ‘Thanks very much.’
‘Anytime.’ he replied, and strode away.
Knight turned back to the open door. The girl who stood there seemed to be only in her late teens, but he knew Kelly Whitcham was twenty four. Thin, with light brown hair and tired eyes, she wore grey jogging bottoms, a light blue hooded sweatshirt and what Knight’s mother would have called bed socks. They might once have been white and fluffy, but were now grey, thin, and in need of a wash.
‘Miss Whitcham good afternoon. I’m sorry about Craig’s death.’ said Knight awkwardly.
‘I’m not.’ said Whitcham. ‘You’d better come in, now you can.’
They followed her through a short hallway, carpeted in a dingy brown, to the living room. It was almost completely empty. Two small children sat on a double mattress in front of a huge flat screen TV that was fixed to the wall above their heads. They wore pyjamas, though it was mid afternoon, clean but faded and creased. They turned as Knight and Lawrence followed their mother into the room, and looked at them with interest. A boy and a girl around three years old, the boy fair, the girl with long, tangled dark hair. They were sharing a bag of crisps, the space between them on the mattress and a second bag of crisps showed where Whitcham had been sitting when Knight knocked on the door.
‘Connor, Jessica, stand up so these people can sit down please.’
Whitcham bent over the mattress, sweeping crisp crumbs from it.
‘No, pl
ease, it’s fine, we’ll stand. Could we talk in the kitchen?’
With a strained smile, Whitcham said, ‘It’s okay, they know about Craig. His brother Mike came to tell me, shouted it through the letterbox. It was ridiculous really, didn’t feel real. What do you want to know?’
Knight hesitated.
‘All right, we’ll talk in the kitchen. I’ll warn you though, it’s not up to much.’
She led the way across the thin carpet.
The kitchen was also almost empty of furniture, except the unit that held the sink, and a kettle and microwave on a low pine table. Mismatched plates and cups were stacked on a tray that sat on the floor nearby. A cardboard box held bags of crisps, cereal bars and sachets of soup. There were a few tins of baked beans, a half empty jar of coffee, a bag of broken biscuits. Kelly Whitcham gave a bitter laugh.
‘You can see why I’m thin.’ she said. ‘Whatever you’ve been told about Craig, you can see what sort of person he was from this house. We’ve no furniture, but we’ve got a top of the range TV. The kids have a couple of second hand outfits each and some pyjamas, and everything of Craig’s is designer. I have to do our washing in the sink, try to clean the carpets with a dustpan and brush and feed us with a microwave, a kettle, and whatever food Craig’s managed to remember to bring from the corner shop. You’re lucky you’re here when the electricity’s on.’ Her voice broke, and she put her hands to her face, turning away from them. She spoke from behind her hands, her voice choked with tears.
‘If you’re expecting me to be heartbroken because Craig’s gone, you’re in for a disappointment.’
She told them how Pollard had controlled everything, keeping all of the money, even the family allowance that she wanted to spend on the children, bringing home a minimum of food, and discouraging her from seeing friends or family.
‘My mum lives miles away, I’ve no money for a bus, no mobile to ring her. Craig let me use his phone to text her now and again, so she knew we were okay, but he always read the message before he sent it. I had to keep making excuses when she replied and asked to come around. I don’t know anyone round here to ask them for help, my friends are all at home.’
Knight gently asked if Pollard was violent, but she said no, never, not to her or the children. He didn’t bother with them much at all really, she said, though he had come home with a football and a teddy one day around Christmas. She didn’t know what Pollard did with the money. She’d met Craig around three years earlier, becoming pregnant soon after. She’d lived with her mum for a couple of years after the birth of the twins with Craig just as an occasional visitor, until he’d persuaded her that they should live together as a family. He’d brought her to this house in a borrowed van. Smiling sadly, she said it had a full kitchen then. Seemingly, Pollard had sold the kitchen units and anything else he could, including the downstairs interior doors and the shed that had been in the back garden. She couldn’t tell them much about Pollard’s friends or family, as she’d never met any of them; Pollard’s brother had come to the door a few times, but he’d not been inside the house. Craig had taken the children to meet his parents a couple of times; again, they’d never visited.
‘It’s like he was ashamed of this place,’ she said. ‘Not surprising really, I’m not proud of it myself. Not really what I planned when I stayed on to do my A levels.’
Knight took out his own mobile.
‘Do you know your mum’s number?’ he asked. When Whitcham nodded, he handed her the phone and left the room as she pressed the keys, thanking him. Lawrence raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. They went back into the living room, where the children were still watching cartoons. The girl stood and walked over to them.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked Knight, looking up at him, hands on hips.
‘My name’s Jonathan.’ he replied. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Jessica. His name’s Connor. We’re three. Do you know my daddy?’
Knight shook his head.
‘My mum says he can’t come to see us again. He never played with us anyway.’ Jessica continued. ‘My mum plays shops and I spy. And we play outside, when Daddy lets us.’
Whitcham came through from the kitchen.
‘Mum’s on her way round,’ she said, wiping her face with her hands. ‘We’ll be going back with her – lucky there’s not much to pack I suppose.’
Knight smiled awkwardly. Whitcham had to be at least considered as a suspect, but he couldn’t believe she was responsible for Pollard’s death. They took her mother’s name and address and left the house. Outside, the boys were still playing with the football in the road.
Kendrick shook his head.
‘Was she just going to stay there forever then? So he left them with no furniture, no clothes, no … did they even have beds?’
‘I didn’t go upstairs. The mattress in the living room was probably the bed as well.’
‘Sounds as if she was looking after the children as best she could though?’ Bishop put in.
Knight nodded. He knew they’d have to see Kelly Whitcham again, and social services could step in if necessary. It seemed to him that all Whitcham needed was control over her own life. Kendrick strode back to the front of the room. ‘Right. We won’t have full forensic reports for a while. The weapon used to kill Pollard hasn’t been found, despite a thorough search of the area surrounding the crime scene by SOC and by our own dashing boys and girls in blue.’ He waved a hand towards his audience. ‘We’ve asked for Pollard’s mobile phone records; the phone wasn’t found on his body, so his killer probably has it. That might mean they were worried about being incriminated by something on the phone, or it might mean nothing. Same goes for his wallet. I think that’s about it for tonight. I’ll see you all in the morning.’
Kendrick turned on his heel and clumped out of the room. The noise level rose sharply again as the assembled officers got to their feet, eager to get home. Bishop remained seated for a moment, rubbing her aching temples with her fingertips, then stood and joined the crowd pushing to leave the room. She moved forward, stumbling a little as her foot caught the heel of the person in front of her.
‘I’m sorry.’ she said automatically.
The woman she’d stepped on bent to adjust her shoe, straightened up and turned with a smile. Bishop gazed for a second into dancing blue eyes before the woman said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She disappeared into the crowd.
Knight was waiting for Bishop in the corridor, standing apart from the stream of officers now jostling their way towards the exit doors.
‘Not much to go on so far.’ he said ‘Are you okay? About the photo, I mean?’ he clarified quickly. She smiled.
‘Yes thanks, sir. I’ll admit, it shook me up at first, but I’m fine, honestly. What do you think about it? The DCI didn’t make much of it in there.’ She nodded towards the room they had just left.
‘I don’t really know what to think.’ Knight admitted. ‘It might mean nothing, just a joke or a mistake, the wrong photo printed and Pollard shoved in his pocked meaning to put it in the bin later.’
Bishop frowned. ‘But why would you take a photo of a police station in the first place? It’s not as if it’s some sort of historical building, or even a pretty one – it’s horrible, just loads of bricks, concrete and glass.’
‘True, and it’s not as if it was taken on a night out, a load of drunken mates posing in the street. This was taken during the day and when we were working – you’re proof of that.’
‘It’s just strange, like the DCI said.’
‘I think we’ll just leave the photo out of the investigation for now, though the usual tests for fingerprints and so on will be run on the original.’
‘Do you think there’s more to it than Pollard chatting up some bloke’s girlfriend, and the bloke smacking Pollard one later then? The DCI didn’t seem to think so.’
Knight thought, but didn’t say, that Kendrick didn’t want to consider the possibility just yet, that it potenti
ally made the situation much more complicated.
5
Knight sat back on his sofa with a plate that had contained fish, chips and mushy peas on his lap. He didn’t think he had many vices, but fish and chips were one of them. He closed his eyes, relaxing for possibly the first time since Craig Pollard’s body had been found. It was a strange case. Initially, it had seemed fairly straightforward, but the lack of leads and witnesses, not to mention the absence of the weapon used to kill Pollard bothered Knight. Then there was the photograph. He closed his eyes, wondering what it could mean then started, almost losing the plate from his lap as his mobile phone began to ring. He snatched it up from the cushion beside him. The display told him the caller was Catherine Bishop.
‘Sir? Are you there?’
Bishop sounded strange, panicked almost.
‘Catherine?’
‘I’m sorry to call you but I’ve got a problem, I think it’s related to the Pollard case.’
‘What do you mean? I thought you were on your way home?’
‘I am at home. The thing is, I think someone else has been here too, well I know they have. They’ve posted me a photo.’
‘A photo? Of what?’
‘It’s me in my living room, taken through the window, and another picture that I haven’t completely figured out yet.’
Knight got to his feet, hurriedly setting the plate on the floor.
‘What’s your address?’
Fifteen minutes later, Knight stood in Catherine Bishop’s kitchen. She lived in a semi detached house on a new estate. At the back of the property, patio doors led into a small garden; that was the window the photo had been taken through. The picture lay on the pine table, DS Bishop clearly visible, relaxing on her sofa with a paperback novel.
‘It must have been a Sunday morning.’ said Bishop. ‘I don’t normally lie around in my pyjamas like that.’
‘And you live alone?’ asked Knight.
‘Yeah, for the last six months, since my partner moved out. Although,’ she gave Knight a sideways glance ‘she wouldn’t have been much use with a face at the window anyway, she’d have been terrified.’