Blood Axe

by Leigh Russell

  ‘We need to find out where she was, and who she was with,’ Ian said.

  If her parents couldn’t give them names and details for her friends, they would go through all the contacts and calls to and from her phone. With luck, they would find a message giving them her arrangements for the evening she was killed, and the murder would turn out to have been personal, enabling them to wind up the investigation promptly.

  ‘Let’s hope it was someone she knew,’ Ted said.

  They exchanged an anxious look.

  8

  Angela’s parents weren’t much help. Her mother cried, her stepfather blustered, and neither of them had anything useful to tell Ian.

  ‘We thought she’d come home,’ Moira wailed. ‘She came home late sometimes. But she always came home. She always came home.’

  ‘Have either of you remembered anything she said about where she went on Sunday evening?’

  Frank answered gruffly. ‘She never told us anything.’

  ‘That’s not true. She talked to me. She always talked to me.’

  ‘Much good that did,’ Frank muttered. ‘So where did she go?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Moira sobbed, ‘I don’t know.’

  Ian understood that Angela’s stepfather was in shock. It was unfortunate that he expressed his grief as anger, but his wife didn’t appear to be upset by his brusqueness. She was probably too far gone to pay him much attention, but Ian couldn’t help wondering if such aggression was commonplace, and if so, whether it raised a question about the nature of Frank’s relationship with his stepdaughter. As though to compensate for his baldness, Frank had a dark beard and heavy eyebrows. There was something unpleasantly virile about him, a kind of aggression that hinted at a capacity for violence. But Ian appreciated that could have been a response to the situation, a knee-jerk reaction to protect his distressed wife. In any case, there was no evidence to suggest he might have a violent temper. That was merely the impression he gave.

  Ian approached the question of relations between Frank and Angela with circumspection.

  ‘Would you describe Angela as difficult?’

  Frank shrugged. ‘She was a teenager.’

  ‘She wasn’t difficult,’ Moira burst out. ‘She was a happy girl. She was always happy.’

  ‘The thing is, Inspector,’ Frank interrupted his wife, ‘she wasn’t mine. Not my daughter. You could say our relationship was fraught at times, but no more than normal. She was a teenager. I’m not used to dealing with girls her age. I mean, she seemed calm enough when Moira and I started seeing each other, but that was six years ago. Kids change. If I’d known...’ He broke off, and put his arm round his wife. ‘There, there,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Don’t cry.’

  Ian hoped he wasn’t going to tell her everything would be all right, but he wasn’t that insensitive, just gauche. He patted his wife on the shoulder reassuringly. ‘There, there.’

  Ian spoke as gently as he could. This was a delicate matter.

  ‘Can you remember if Angela was wearing any jewellery when she went out? Any rings, perhaps?’

  ‘She always wore my mother’s wedding ring,’ Moira said. ‘We had it resized for her after my mother died. They were very close. Please tell me it wasn’t taken…’ She broke off, and hid her face in her hands.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Behind her hands, Moira sobbed loudly.

  ‘Try not to upset yourself,’ Frank urged her. ‘This might be a good thing. It could help to find her killer, couldn’t it, Inspector? Someone might try to sell the ring. Describe it, Moira. What was it like?’

  Moira let her hands fall to her sides and drew in a deep shuddering breath. ‘Oh you know, it was an old wedding ring. Just a plain gold band, not very wide. It wasn’t much, but it had sentimental value. She never took it off.’

  ‘Did it have any identifying features at all? Anything you might recognise?’

  ‘It was just a plain gold ring, a bit the worse for wear.’

  ‘Was she wearing any other jewellery when she went out?’

  Moira sighed. ‘She liked to wear lots of rings. They were worthless. The only one that had any value at all was the one my mother gave her. She usually had one on every finger. Even on her thumbs.’ She smiled fleetingly, remembering. ‘Only my mother’s was real gold. Mainly they were silver ones she bought herself.’

  ‘Did anyone else ever buy her a ring?’

  ‘You mean did she have a boyfriend? No, no one special.’

  ‘Not that we knew about,’ Frank added.

  ‘Oh Frank, stop that. She would have told me.’

  Frank glowered but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Could you take a look at her jewellery and see if you can tell if anything’s missing?’

  Moira nodded and went upstairs.

  ‘Do you think this was all about her trinkets?’ Frank asked while his wife was out of the room. ‘You think she was mugged and killed for a few cheap rings?’

  Ian sighed. ‘I’m afraid all I can say is that she wasn’t wearing any jewellery when she was found.’

  ‘But you could track her killer through her stolen jewellery, couldn’t you?’

  Moira returned before Ian could reply. She reported a pendant on a silver chain missing from her daughter’s jewellery box, along with one gold ring and a handful of silver ones. As far as she was aware, everything else was there.

  She described the pendant, and Ian made a note of the details.

  ‘It’s nothing much,’ she said wretchedly. ‘She didn’t have much.’

  Neither Moira nor Frank had any idea who Angela had gone out with on the night she died, although Moira mentioned a school friend called Zoe. Angela’s phone was more useful. Having tasked a constable with looking into Frank Carter’s history, Ian set to work studying the list of calls Angela had made and received before she died. He didn’t have to go back very far. There were only two telephone calls, both incoming, both from her home address. She hadn’t answered either call. He contacted her parents straight away and asked to speak to Moira.

  ‘Did you phone Angela on her last evening? At half past ten and again at eleven?’

  Moira was vague. ‘I don’t know, I may have done. I usually did call her when she was out, when it was getting late, just to remind her she should be getting home. She never answered her phone. Not to me, at any rate.’ She gave a faintly hysterical laugh.

  ‘Could your husband have called her?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He never did.’

  Frank confirmed that he hadn’t called Angela on the evening she was killed. Ian didn’t rule out the possibility that Frank was lying to his wife and to the police. The history of texts on Angela’s phone was even more revealing. Several messages had been written on the day she was killed, the last one sent only two hours before her death. It was just one word, the name of a pub in Micklegate that was popular with young people. Now they knew where Angela might have been drinking that night, Ian set up immediate surveillance of all CCTV cameras in the area, hoping to trace the victim’s journey from Micklegate to Cambridge Street where she was killed. With luck they might be able to catch a clear shot of her killer.

  ‘Go back just over two hours to begin with,’ he told the sergeant heading up the team of Visual Images Identifications and Detections Officers.

  Watching CCTV was a skilled job, requiring an ability to remain alert for long periods of time. Solving the case might depend on someone spotting one fleeting frame in a blurred film. It could be missed in the blink of an eye.

  ‘You might need to go back earlier to find her arriving at the pub. We need to know the time she got there, and see if you can capture images of any companions arriving with her. And then we need to know exactly where she went when she left, and who she left with, and if she met anyone…’

  The sergeant nodded
impatiently. He didn’t need Ian to tell him what was required, and why.

  ‘OK,’ Ian said, catching his colleague’s expression, ‘you know what to do.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Ian turned to his next task, going through the list of people with whom Angela had recently been in contact. Nearly twenty texts had been sent and received on the day she died. Most were to the friend Moira had mentioned, Zoe Drayton. Ian studied their exchange. It began with a message from Angela, sent at half past two in the afternoon.

  ‘Sassy wot u doin’

  ‘fa’

  ‘wot you doin later’

  ‘later???’

  ‘later’

  ‘wot’

  ‘wots going on’

  ‘wot’

  ‘WOT U DOIN LATER - TELL ME’

  ‘wot u doin’

  ‘wot you doin’

  The messages stopped for a few hours. Soon after five o’clock they started up again. This time Zoe initiated the exchange.

  ‘wot you doin’

  ‘nothin’

  ‘mgate’

  ‘OK mgate’

  ‘OK’

  ‘c u’

  There was nothing more until at nine fifteen when Angela contacted a boy she called Gary. Her text said: ‘mgate’

  Ten minutes later she sent him a second text, with a third one soon after. All contained an identical message: ‘mgate’

  That was the last time she had used her phone. Gary hadn’t replied, perhaps because he had answered her summons in person. Ian decided to go and see him, before speaking to Zoe.

  9

  Barely eighteen, Gary Farr was gangly and ungainly, his face blighted with acne. It was hard to believe any girl would be interested in him. He sat on the sofa in his parents’ front room, shoulders hunched, hands between his knees, looking thoroughly dejected. Angela was too good-looking to have any problem finding a boyfriend, yet she had texted him three times in ten minutes, wanting him to join her at a pub in Micklegate. It didn’t take a genius to work out the reason for the summons. Gary might be unattractive, but at eighteen he would be served alcohol in any bar.

  In response to Ian’s demand, Gary held out his ID. Seeing the boy’s hand trembling, Ian set out to intimidate him in the hope that fear would loosen his tongue.

  ‘When did you last buy alcohol for your underage friends? There’s no point trying to deny what you did. I know all about it.’

  Gary bit his lip. He was too scared to answer.

  ‘Gary, you could be in very serious trouble over this, but there’s no need for it to go any further. No one else knows about it yet. All you have to do is give me some information, and we’ll say no more about it.’

  The boy mumbled something about all his friends being at least eighteen. He sounded close to tears. The boy was more frightened than Ian had realised. There was no point in terrifying him into incoherence.

  ‘Gary, I’m investigating a murder. So believe me, I’m not in the slightest bit interested in whether or not you bought alcohol for your sixteen-year-old friends. You must know it’s against the law for an adult to buy alcohol on behalf of someone under 18. And you must have known your friends were underage. I’m prepared to overlook it and you’ll hear no more about it. That’s a promise. But I can only let you off if you cooperate with me. Otherwise, you’ll have to answer for your actions as best you can, and you’ll be on your own. Once I report what you did, there’ll be no going back. You’ll be prosecuted…’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t know…’

  ‘Will you help me?’

  Gary nodded his head fervently. ‘I do want to help, I do,’ he babbled nervously. ‘What’s it about? What’s happened? Who’s been murdered? What’s it got to do with me?’

  Ian watched him closely. ‘I’m investigating the murder of Angela Jones.’

  The boy’s acne showed bright against his sudden pallor.

  ‘Angela?’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘Angela’s dead?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe it. Angela?’

  ‘Gary, you need to answer my question. When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘On Sunday night. We were out together. It wasn’t just us,’ he added quickly, ‘it was all of us; that is, a group of us, we went out, just for a drink.’

  ‘Tell me everything you can remember about Sunday evening, every detail, however unimportant it might seem. What happened?’

  Gary frowned. ‘Nothing happened. We went for a drink, that’s all.’

  Bit by bit, Ian winkled information from the scared boy. Angela had texted him on Sunday evening to let him know she was in a pub along Micklegate with some friends. With a little pressure, Gary gave Ian all the names. The list included Zoe. Gary couldn’t remember her second name. Ian told him.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Zoe Drayton.’

  Gary glanced anxiously at Ian. It did no harm to let him believe Ian knew more than he did. If Gary thought Ian knew about Angela’s friends, he would be less likely to lie about them. The boy’s account of the evening sounded plausible, and innocent enough. He admitted Angela had summoned him so he could buy her and Zoe a drink, insisting this was the first time he had done it. Ian didn’t believe that for a moment. It was pretty obvious when the boy was lying. His face flushed pink, and his eyes darted around frantically.

  ‘It wasn’t just one drink, was it? Don’t lie to me, Gary.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘They had a pint of cider each, and then I told them that was enough. They were getting too loud, and people were starting to look at us. I didn’t want to get in trouble for getting them drunk. I was doing them a favour, and they never thanked me for it. Not once. Like I was some sort of – I don’t know – like a bloody waiter or something.’

  Noting a flash of anger in the boy’s voice, Ian darted in with a question.

  ‘Which one did you fancy? Oh come on, Gary, no young man buys drinks all night for two girls unless he’s after getting his leg over.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that. We were just friends.’

  ‘You don’t really expect me to believe that?’

  ‘But it’s true! And I didn’t buy the drinks. I mean, I did, I went up to the bar, but they gave me the money.’

  Ian remembered a comment he had heard in the forensic tent. It had troubled him at the time.

  ‘What did you do with the change?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s a simple question. They can’t have given you the exact money for what they had. What did you do with the change?’

  ‘I gave it to them with their drinks. You don’t think I’d want to rip my friends off, do you?’

  ‘Did you give Angela any change?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did she give you change or a note to begin with?’

  Gary screwed up his face, thinking.

  ‘This is important, Gary.’

  ‘She gave me a note.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He nodded.

  ‘How much was it? Five? Ten?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ten. Yes, it was a tenner. She waved it around like she was made of money.’

  ‘Just to be clear, you bought Angela a pint of cider on Sunday evening with her ten-quid note and you gave her the change?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was the change all in coins?’

  ‘No. There was a fiver and the rest in change. I remember because I gave the fiver to Zoe by mistake, and she’d given me a fiver in the first place.’ He blushed at the memory.

  ‘Did Angela buy anything else? Any more drinks?’

  ‘No.’ He b
lushed again.

  ‘How about crisps or nuts? Anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So it was just the one pint she drank?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So when she left the pub, Angela had drunk a pint of cider, and she had a fiver and a few quid’s worth of change in her purse?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

  He shrugged and muttered crossly about not being a bloody accountant. Ian watched him. Gary didn’t appear to be lying. Angela had been found with no coins in her purse, only a five pound note. Somewhere between leaving the pub and being discovered, dead, she had lost her change but not her five pound note. It was a bit odd. He wondered if she had given her change away to someone begging on the street. Ian needed to know about any contact she had made with another person that evening.

  ‘Are you sure you gave Angela and her friends any change they were due?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. I told you. I always gave them their change.’

  ‘So this wasn’t the first time you’d bought alcohol for Angela and Zoe?’

  Recovered from his fear, and his shock, Gary had gathered his wits and refused to answer. ‘I won’t say anything else until I have a lawyer.’

  Ian smiled. ‘You’re not under arrest, Gary. You’re not even really under suspicion. Not yet, at any rate. Should you be?’

  10

  If anything, Zoe was even more jittery than Gary had been when Ian turned up at her home asking to speak to her. He went round there after school, careful to take a sympathetic young female colleague with him. Realistically, Angela’s friend might be more likely to confide in Detective Constable Naomi Arthur than in him. Mrs Drayton wanted to be present while her daughter was speaking to the police, but Ian wasn’t convinced Zoe would be honest about her visit to the pub in front of her mother. He was right. As soon as he explained that he wanted to speak to her about her whereabouts on Sunday evening, she turned to her mother.

  ‘Just go, mum. It’s fine, really. You don’t need to be here.’