Treads worn hollow in the middle, the ancient stone staircase climbed the centre of the building. McKenna had a sudden vision of a child’s broken body lying at its foot, the stone bloody and daubed with bits of brain and splinters of bone.
Taking Jack and McKenna into the kitchen, the builder gave them seats on upturned crates. ‘What can I do for you, then?’
Jack said, ‘We’re trying to find out about a woman who lived here around three and half years ago. She rented from the estate.’
‘Oh, yes? Probably who did the repairs and suchlike,’ the builder said. ‘The place has been empty at least three years. That’s why it’s a bit of a mess.’
‘Odd for someone to spend money on a place they’re only renting,’ McKenna said.
‘Well,’ the builder said, lighting a pipe, ‘unless she didn’t mind living in a slum, she wouldn’t’ve had much choice. A lot of properties on the estate’ve gone to rack and ruin over the years. Nobody bothered with them. And you can take my word for it, the estate wouldn’t argue with a person willing to spend a bit of their own cash.’
Another man walked into the kitchen, nodded to Jack and McKenna, and put a kettle on a Primus stove. ‘This here’s my mate, Dave. He’s deaf, so don’t expect him to talk to you.’ The builder looked at the other man, and gestured for him to make tea for all of them. McKenna wondered how it felt to be stuck in this place with only a deaf man for company. ‘Who’s bought the cottage?’ he asked.
‘Bloody English!’ the builder sneered. ‘For letting out to the tourists. That’s if,’ he smirked, ‘it doesn’t get torched by the arsonists first!’
‘Careful what you say,’ Jack warned.
The builder stared at Jack. ‘I’ll say what I think, whether you like it or not. Not from these parts, are you? Otherwise,’ he went on, ‘you’d know how folk feel about that bloody great castle up the road and the huge great rooms and the posh curtains and carpets, and furniture you couldn’t buy with a million-pound win on the pools. And,’ he added, ‘you’d know about the dirty little hovels the quarrymen lived in, cottages owned by that lot who had the castle built, cottages a man and his wife and kiddies got thrown out of on to the streets when it suited the lord of the manor, or when a man’s lungs’d rotted to pulp from the quarry dust.’ He stopped to draw breath, chewing at the pipe. ‘So don’t be surprised if we don’t want the English coming buying houses the locals should be living in, especially if they’re just going to use them for holidays. There’s too many young families round here can’t even afford one roof over their heads, never mind two!’
‘What’s to stop them getting a mortgage for one of these places?’ Jack asked.
The builder said, ‘This dump fetched about three times what a normal person could afford.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s on the estate, and the estate decides how much the properties get sold for. After all,’ he added with some bitterness, ‘they wouldn’t want any local riff-raff living here now when they’ve managed to keep them out for so long, would they?’
Dave passed tin mugs of tea around, and took his to sit at the bottom of the stairs. McKenna said to the builder, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t by any chance know who did the other building work?’
‘No, but I’ll ask around. Doesn’t that little fart from the estate office know? Expect he has trouble finding his backside to give it a wipe when he’s had a crap!’ He cackled gleefully, puffing out little belches of smoke. The cottage was cold, a chill of age and time, trapped within its walls, coming at you, McKenna thought, like fingers. The builder said, ‘Why d’you want to know, anyway?’
‘We’re trying to locate the woman who rented the house,’ Jack said.
‘Why? D’you think it was her you found in the woods the other day?’
‘We don’t know,’ McKenna said. ‘Tell me, was anything left behind, in the way of furniture or clothes or whatever?’ He watched Dave, come back into the kitchen to rinse his mug.
‘Nothing. The place was stripped.’
‘What work are you doing?’ Jack asked.
‘There’s a bit of damp to be got rid of … thorough clean-up, decorating…. The only big job is building proper sewers. The drains just go straight into the sea, so the council’s making the new owner do a decent job with a septic tank. We’d have started today but for the weather.’
Dave stared at McKenna, then tapped the builder on the shoulder, pointed to McKenna, then to somewhere beyond the kitchen walls. He made sounds in his throat, guttural and gulping, about a carpet in the parlour, taken up and put in the outhouse.
Little more than a shed with a sloping roof built on to the side of the cottage, the outhouse was once a scullery. A stone sink mouldered under the single window, the remains of a copper tub beside it. The carpet, rolled up and placed upright in the far corner, stank of must. Dave and Jack heaved it to the dirt floor, unrolling it as best they could. ‘Good bit of carpeting,’ the builder said, fingering the edge. ‘Wool, by the feel of it. Must have cost a fair bit. Somebody must’ve dropped a fag end and burnt it. There’s a big stain as well. Probably why it was left.’
He tugged at the carpet until the burnt part came into view. Nearby, a large dark stain spread through the fibres. McKenna felt a little tingle of excitement. Where discoloured, the wool felt matted and stiff under his fingers. Jack looked at the stain, then at McKenna.
‘Look,’ McKenna said to the builder, ‘leave everything as it is until we can get people here to have a good look round, Can you lock this shed?’
‘Think it’s blood, do you?’ The builder eyed the carpet. ‘Could be, I suppose. Mind you, could be anything, couldn’t it? Been there a fair while. Could just be some English arsehole spilling a glass of wine.’
‘Yes, well we won’t know that until we examine it properly.’ Jack’s irritation was obvious. ‘And in the meantime, you keep quiet.’
‘Don’t bully me!’ the builder snapped. ‘I’m quite capable of knowing when to keep my mouth shut!’
Sighing, McKenna thanked the builder and Dave, trying to soothe ruffled feathers. Glaring at Jack, the builder said to McKenna, ‘Anything we can do to help you. I’ll ask around in the pub tonight about the other builders. Where can I get hold of you?’
Taking his car slowly up the lane, avoiding as many pot-holes as possible, Jack said, ‘You realize we don’t even know what the man’s called, don’t you, sir? He could be anybody.’
‘Oh, give it a rest, Jack!’ McKenna snapped. ‘The man’s a builder. Who d’you think he is? Simeon come back looking for another bride?’
‘Who the devil’s Simeon?’
‘If you’d read Dewi’s report properly, you’d know!’
Jack sulked through tea-break, ostentatiously reading Dewi Prys’s report. McKenna, with a strong urge to shake his deputy, shut himself in his office instead with other reports and papers, to find no novelty anywhere, even Dr Roberts’ report devoid of further interest. Asking Derbyshire police to find and interview Ms Cheney, he suspected the investigation would simply move sluggishly around, for a few weeks or months, to end up where it began. Death wrought violently in these parts was usually fashioned by kith or kin: a farmer run amok with a shot-gun, made crazy by years of servitude to a harsh and barren land; young men settling age-old tribal feuds with a flash of sharp blade or the pounding of studded boots against the face and skull of the enemy. This woman’s death had the feel of coldness and deliberation, undignified by the heat of any passion, however aberrant.
Chapter 6
Driving slowly down the main road of the council estate, Dewi Prys thought the weather might at last be improving. Winter, seemingly interminable, followed an autumn cold and damp enough to eat through bone. Vicious storms, driven in off the sea, had raged week after week since New Year, tearing slates from roofs, snapping telephone and power lines like so much rotted string. On Snidey Castle Estate, the huge bulk of castle keep, pale grey in morning sunshine, rose through trees c
lothed in bright new leaves. High fluffy clouds ran before a wind freshening out at sea, piling up towards the mountains behind him. Jamie Thief, dressed in a brown leather jacket and black jeans, ran across the road in front of Dewi’s car, on his way to the local shop.
Dewi drew into the kerb, and followed, waiting outside the shop until Jamie, tall, his fair hair lifting in the wind, emerged with a copy of the Sun tucked under his arm.
‘Hiya, Jamie,’ Dewi greeted him. ‘Where’s your car?’
Jamie glanced around as if to start running in autonomic reflex. Only four months out of prison after a long stretch for aggravated burglary, Jamie wore an aura of innocence unless you looked, Dewi once told McKenna, into his eyes; eyes as grey and cold and treacherous as the sea on a stormy day.
‘What car, Dewi?’
‘Oh, some posh new vehicle you’ve been seen in,’ Dewi said. ‘Where is it?’
Jamie grinned, exhaling breath as if in relief. ‘Oh, that!’ He smiled brilliantly. ‘You want to get yourselves some new snitches. Not mine, Dewi, old mate.’
‘Whose is it, then?’
Jamie tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger, still grinning. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out. A kind person lent it to me. For services rendered, you might say.’
He began to walk away. Dewi caught his arm. ‘Don’t get too clever, Jamie,’ he warned. ‘You might find Mr McKenna wanting chapter and verse on this kind person.’
‘Why?’ The smile disappeared, leaving menace crawling the pale features. God alone knew what evils Jamie might eventually put his hands to, Dewi thought. Time-served already in juvenile custody and prison, Jamie began his criminal career, people said, literally the moment he learned to walk.
‘Well,’ Dewi said. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out, isn’t it? See you around, Jamie.’
‘Something might turn up from the cottage, sir,’ Jack offered. ‘And Derbyshire police might have some information.’
‘They haven’t. They called back last night. The person living at that address bought the house three years ago from a bloke by the name of’ – McKenna rummaged under piles of folders and retrieved a notebook – ‘Robert Allsopp, and has no idea where Mr Allsopp might be now. Anyway, I’ve asked them to find him via building societies, solicitors and whatnot. Somebody must have a forwarding address.’
‘Could’ve been living with Ms Cheney.’
‘That occurred to me, too,’ McKenna said. ‘I was also struck by the time factor. Everything seems to have happened around three and a half years ago.’
‘Well,’ Jack hesitated. ‘I – er – daresay a lot of things happened around then. I mean, they don’t necessarily have to have anything to do with our body.’
‘You can be really pedantic at times.’ McKenna scowled. ‘Did you know that?’ He lit a cigarette, exhaling smoke through his nostrils. ‘I want you to go and have a chat with Special Branch this afternoon.’
‘Do I have to? I had a bellyful of that lot during the royal visit.’
‘They might know something about this woman.’
‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘And if they do, they won’t tell us.’
‘You know we have to ask. If we don’t, and Eifion Roberts is right about a terrorist connection, we’ll be in the shit.’
‘Amazing how the smooth progress of a police investigation might depend on the say-so of a bunch of spies, isn’t it?’ Jack remarked.
McKenna straightened the papers on his desk. ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’
‘And what am I supposed to say?’
‘Oh, use your brains!’ McKenna snapped. ‘Just find out if they know anything useful.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Jack considered. ‘Whose brilliant idea was this, then?’
McKenna glared at his deputy. ‘Mine,’ he said. ‘I thought it up all by myself.’
‘You surprise me. I thought it might be an order from on high.’
‘You should really have gone yourself, Michael.’ Superintendent Griffiths lounged in McKenna’s office. ‘Jack doesn’t have the experience to deal with Special Branch.’
‘Do him good to get some, then, won’t it?’ McKenna said. ‘Look good on his service record when he comes up for promotion.’
‘Don’t you like Jack?’
McKenna shrugged. ‘He’s all right … gets on my nerves sometimes.’
‘Usually, you either hate somebody, or like them so much you’re blind to any faults. Like with young Dewi.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Owen,’ McKenna said.
The superintendent rubbed his finger along the edge of McKenna’s desk. ‘How are things at home?’ he asked quietly.
‘I don’t want to discuss Denise.’
‘I’m not one to pry into things which aren’t my concern, Michael, but I don’t want it said your personal life is interfering with your job.’
‘It won’t.’
‘We’ve got enough on our plate without that sort of thing.’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, the usual,’ Griffiths said. ‘Complaints about this, that and the other…. Poor performance, poor clear-up rates, and a sodding awful public image. And,’ he added bitterly, ‘instructions from the top to put it all right.’
‘I see.’ McKenna lit a cigarette. ‘And how d’you propose to do that?’
‘I thought you might have some ideas.’
‘Me?’ McKenna looked amused.
‘You’re the one with the university degree. Education’s supposed to teach you how to deal with problems.’
McKenna grinned. ‘Some problems, Owen, are beyond solving.’
The superintendent sighed. ‘You might be right,’ he said. ‘I blame it on the miners’ strike. That’s when the rot set in. We should never’ve got involved. That wasn’t police business, and somebody should’ve had the guts to tell the government to get somebody else to do their dirty work. And then, of course,’ he went on, ‘the bad apples you get in any police force saw what they could get away with at the pit heads, and others’ve just followed suit. I reckon policing’s taken on a different colour since then.’
After lunch, McKenna returned to Gallows Cottage, finding it no less desolate in bright sunshine than under dismal cloud and rain. The builder, knee deep in the beginnings of the drainage trench, waved, and scrambled out.
‘Your lot are tearing the cottage apart, so we’re making ourselves useful out here.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘Nice day, for a change, isn’t it?’
‘It is indeed.’ McKenna smiled at him. ‘What’s your name? I forgot to ask yesterday.’
‘Wil Jones. You can call me Wil. You Irish, are you?’
‘A long way back,’ McKenna said.
‘I’m from the noble Jones family of Wales.’ Wil grinned. ‘I’ve been asking around, but nobody seems to know who worked here before.’
Inside the cottage, three forensic specialists foraged for information, white overalls rustling and crackling in the still air. ‘This is a bit of a waste of time, Mr McKenna,’ their senior said. ‘If there was anything here to find, dust and damp’s got at it.’
‘What about the carpet?’
The man scuffed his feet on the tiled floor. ‘I’ve done a patch test on the stain, but it definitely isn’t blood. We’re taking the carpet away to have a proper look, but it’ll probably be a waste of time.’
‘You sure?’ McKenna asked. ‘Yes, of course you are…. What is it?’
‘Dunno … could be anything. Probably red wine, by the feel of it.’
McKenna called on Mary Ann before returning to Bangor. Having afternoon tea, she offered him a drink and a wedge of fresh cream cake. ‘Beti got me the cake in town this morning. A body needs a little treat now and then.’
‘D’you know Jamie Wright?’ McKenna asked.
‘Jamie Thief?’ she frowned. ‘Everybody knows him! The little bugger robbed Mair’s electric meter when he was barely out of nappies. He used to come to the school here, ’til Social Se
rvices put him in care. Didn’t stop him thieving, did they?’
‘Have you seen him around the village recently?’
‘Well, not recent. He’s careful where he shows his face these days. Why?’
‘Somebody told us he’s driving a fancy new car,’ McKenna said, wiping cream off his fingers. ‘Jamie reckons someone lent it to him. I just wondered if you might know who.’
‘What kind of car is it?’
‘Dunno, Mary Ann, and Jamie isn’t volunteering any information.’
‘I’ll ask Beti. I don’t get out much except when my son comes of a Sunday with his car. My legs, you know.’ She smiled. ‘And old age. Beti might know something. Not much gets past her, for all she can’t see straight.’
McKenna sent Dewi to search for the buckle missing from the belt around the dead woman’s wrists. ‘You’ve got about five hours of daylight left’
‘Couldn’t somebody else go, sir?’ Dewi ventured. ‘I’ve not finished ringing the builders in Yellow Pages.’
‘They’ll keep. You’re to look for a buckle to fit a three and a half inch wide belt. Probably something fancy and expensive. And bring back anything else that looks interesting.’
Already formless, the investigation lacked any focus, and until the woman was identified, much expensive police time would be frittered away. Checking on the search of the estate ledgers, McKenna found only that Ms Cheney had paid six months’ rent in advance on Gallows Cottage: £1820. £70 a week for what must have been little more than a derelict hovel. He looked at the little notation beside the record for some moments before realizing it indicated a cash payment, unusual for such a large sum.
‘No, Chief Inspector.’ Mr Prosser was adamant. ‘I did not take up references. I didn’t ask for any.’
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