by Roberta Kray
‘Maybe she got talking to someone,’ Lister suggested. ‘Or maybe she was in the flat but didn’t want him there. Especially as she was on her own. If the relationship was as stormy as her mates claim, she may have felt safer talking to him in a more public place. Even at midnight, there are always people milling around on the Mansfield.’
‘Or maybe he didn’t want to go up to the flat in case he was spotted by one of the neighbours. He might have given her a call and asked her to meet him in the foyer. He could have suggested going for a drink at some club while they talked things over.’ Valerie gave a light shrug. There were a lot of maybes. ‘Have we got an address for him yet?’
‘Yeah,’ Swann said from behind. ‘Daley just called it in. 61b, Rayton Road. And we’ve got a motor registered to him too, a dark blue Audi A3.’
Valerie turned and nodded. ‘Okay, let’s get over there and see what Mr Livesey has to say for himself. That’s if he hasn’t already done a runner.’
Rayton Road was a long terrace of three-storey Victorian houses, a few of them lovingly restored into family homes but most of them shabby and dilapidated, converted long ago into multiple flats or bedsits. Livesey’s abode fell into the latter category, a building that had been subject to years of neglect, with mortar crumbling from the walls, flaking paint, rotting sills and cracked window panes.
‘There’s the Audi,’ Swann said, as he parked up beside the house. ‘We could be in luck.’
Valerie wasn’t so optimistic. She peered through the rain-spattered windscreen as the second squad car, containing a couple of uniforms, pulled in behind them. ‘Or he could have decided that it was too risky to take. If he is guilty, he wouldn’t have known when the body was going to be discovered. Taking the car would have upped the chances of him being picked up.’
Valerie’s mobile bleeped and she took it out of her pocket. A message from Harry. She opened it. It was Paige Fielding’s address and phone number. She didn’t bother replying, but instead put in a call to DC Lister back at the station. After reeling off the contact details, she said, ‘Check her out, will you? Take Franks with you and find out what she knows about Livesey, and the money Becky Hibbert had in her flat.’
‘Ready?’ Swann said when she was finished.
Valerie nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
As she got out of the car, she gazed up at the grimy windows. From Livesey’s second-floor flat there would be no access to the rear of the house unless he wanted to take his chances and jump. She walked up the short drive, followed by Swann and the two other officers. In the front yard there were a couple of overflowing wheelie bins with a heap of carrier bags at their base. Some of these had burst open, littering the concrete with empty lager cans, fag ends and sodden rotting food. Valerie stepped carefully around the mess, trying not to breathe too deeply.
There were three bells on the porch wall, containing only the numbers of the flats rather than any names. She rang the one for 61b and waited. Nothing happened. She rang again, put her ear to the door and listened. Silence. She tried the other bells, a series of long rings on each of them. There was no response. She was about to order the door to be broken down when there was a clattering noise from within. It was the sound of footsteps moving heavily down uncarpeted stairs.
A few seconds later the front door was opened by a skinny guy in his early twenties with a skull tattoo on his neck. His face, thin and gaunt, with dark purplish circles under the eyes, was adorned with a hand-rolled cigarette hanging limply out of the corner of his mouth. He had the distinctive look of the junkie. ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘What d’ya want?’
‘Police,’ Valerie said, holding up her identification. ‘DI Valerie Middleton.’
‘I ain’t done nothin’,’ the man said defensively. His eyes flickered warily from Valerie to Swann and then to the two officers behind.
‘Good,’ she said, moving forward. ‘You won’t mind us coming in, then.’
The guy stood his ground for a moment, one hand still holding on to the edge of the door, his body blocking the entrance, but then thought better of it. He stepped back into the hall and let the four of them pass.
‘Which flat is yours?’ Valerie asked.
The man hesitated again before jerking his head in the direction of the stairs. The cigarette remained firmly attached to his lip. ‘First floor.’
‘You know the guy who lives above? 61b?’
‘Seen him around,’ he said cautiously.
‘Know if he’s in?’ Swann asked.
‘No idea, man.’
‘Wait here,’ Swann said.
Valerie skirted around a table overflowing with old junk mail and fliers and headed up the stairs. Her heels clicked against the bare wood as she ascended. The peeling walls were a dreary shade of grey and the air smelled of dry rot, stale food, cigarettes and sweat. As she approached the first floor, she put out her hand to take hold of the banister, saw how filthy it was and quickly withdrew her fingers.
On the second floor, Valerie waited by Livesey’s flat until all four of them were gathered outside. Then she knocked sharply on the door. No one answered, and there was no movement from within. She tried again.
‘Best break it down,’ Swann said.
Before one of the uniforms could commit GBH on the door, Valerie tried the handle. It turned smoothly in her hand and the door swung open. She knew then that Livesey was gone. No one would leave their flat unlocked with a junkie living downstairs.
She stepped inside and looked around. The living room was sparsely furnished with just a battered sofa, a small table, a lamp and an old TV. The patterned carpet was threadbare and pocked with cigarette burns. Yellowing nets, stained with nicotine, hung at the windows, but there were no actual curtains. A copy of the Sun was lying on the sofa. She reached down and picked it up. Yesterday’s date.
‘Swell place,’ Swann murmured.
There was a tiny kitchen off to the left and a bathroom to the right. Leaving the two PCs to have a look round these rooms, she went into the bedroom with Swann. The double bed was unmade, the duvet hanging over the edge. There was nothing inside the wardrobe but a few metal hangers and a layer of dust. A chest of drawers beside the bed had its top drawer open. That was empty too.
‘Reckon Danny boy’s done a flit,’ Swann said, stating the obvious.
Valerie closed the top drawer and opened the two underneath. She found a couple of old T-shirts and a grubby-looking towel. ‘But not in his Audi. We’d better check the local cab companies, see if any of their drivers picked him up in the early hours. Or maybe a mate helped him out, gave him a lift somewhere or the loan of a car.’
PC Bennett came in, brandishing a mobile in his right hand. ‘I found this in the kitchen, guv.’
‘Okay, bag it and bring it back to the station.’ She turned to Swann. ‘So Livesey either left in a hurry and forgot all about his phone, or he’s smart enough to know that we can trace him through it.’
‘Easy enough to pick up another one. Or maybe he already had two.’
Once they’d finished the search of the bedroom, which took them all of five minutes, Valerie and Swann went back through to the living room. ‘You know what’s odd?’ she said. ‘There’s no paperwork in this flat, no bills, no bank statements, no tenancy agreement, nothing.’
Swann gave a shrug. ‘It’s the paperless society. Everything’s done by computer these days.’
‘Really? Try telling that to the powers that be. I spend half my damn life filling out forms and reports.’ She smiled at PC Bennett. ‘You’re going to hate me for this, but I think you’d better do a search of the bins outside. I reckon Livesey cleaned this place out before he left. He must have been in a hurry, so he may have dumped something that could be useful.’
PC Bennett gazed gloomily back at her. It was a couple of weeks since the last refuse collection and he was, understandably, less than happy at the prospect of rooting through a fortnight’s worth of stinking trash ‘Okay, guv. We’ll get on to
it.’
‘And we’ll get back to the station,’ Valerie said to Swann. ‘It looks like Livesey’s in the frame. We’ll put out an alert to the airports and ferries.’
‘If he did take off in the early hours, he could be in Spain by now.’
‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘He could be bloody anywhere.’ It wasn’t good news that he’d managed to slip through their fingers, but at least they now had a viable suspect. Livesey had gone to the estate after Becky Hibbert returned home last night. Right place and probably right time. And now he was missing. Yes, he had to be their main suspect. No man did a runner unless he had something serious to run from.
32
Paige Fielding opened her second can of lager and lit another fag. She took a drag, went over to the window and gazed down on the estate. Becky’s body had been taken away hours ago, but a large crowd still remained by the entrance to Haslow House. Murder was hardly unknown on the Mansfield, but it was usually the dealers or skagheads who ended up dead, shot in the chest or knifed in the guts. A young mum who’d been strangled was something different. A young mum had novelty value.
Although she was too far away to be able to hear anything, she could imagine the buzz running through the crowd. She could see it in their body language, in the way they huddled together, gawping and whispering. Old Bill was still in evidence too, searching the surrounding area and bagging all the crap that was lying around. The place had never looked so tidy.
The key turned in the front door, and seconds later Micky came into the flat. He dropped the holdall he was carrying and stood by the entrance to the kitchen with his hands on his hips. ‘Have they gone, then?’
Paige raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘No, hun, they’re the bloody invisible cops. What do you think?’
‘Okay, no need to go off on one. What are you doing?’
‘What does it look like?’
‘Like you’re staring out of the window.’
‘Ain’t you a bleedin’ genius.’ She took a swig of lager and ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip. ‘Have you seen that lot? They can’t get enough of it. None of them gave a toss about her when she was alive, but now … now she’s … they’re all acting like it’s the worst fuckin’ thing that’s ever happened to them.’
‘So what’s your problem? You couldn’t stand the stupid cow. She’s out of the picture now, so you can stop stressing about it.’
Paige turned her head and glared at him. ‘She may have been a pain in the arse, but I didn’t want her dead.’
‘Well, it don’t really matter what you wanted, babe. She’s brown bread and that’s the end of it. So what did the filth say?’
She gave a shrug. Micky had cleared off, taking his dodgy gear with him, as soon as he’d heard the law were coming round. The only people he hated more than Old Bill were Arsenal supporters. ‘They asked me about Dan, and about the cash Becky had at the flat.’
‘And?’
‘And I told ’em what I said I would – that Dan was the nasty type and used to knock her about and that I hadn’t got a clue where the notes had come from.’ She walked over to the table, ground out the cigarette in the ashtray and immediately lit another one. ‘They reckon she may have been on the game. I didn’t say yes or no. I claimed there’d been some rumours but I didn’t know for sure. And I told them that if Dan had heard about it he’d have done his fuckin’ nut. He may have done sod all for his kids, but he wouldn’t stand for their mother being a brass.’
‘Well done, babe,’ Micky said, advancing into the kitchen and wrapping his arms round her. ‘You did good.’
‘No thanks to you.’ As his hands strayed on to her breasts, she pushed him away roughly. ‘Get yer fuckin’ mitts off me!’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘I’m not in the mood, okay? I’ve got things to do.’
‘Like?’
‘Like meeting Kirsten five minutes ago.’ She picked up her coat from the back of the chair. ‘I’ve got to split. She’s shitting herself about all this.’
‘Well, make sure you get something decent this time. Don’t let the bitch screw you over.’
Paige gave him a hard look. ‘No one ever screws me over, hun.’
‘All I mean is that you have to take advantage of the situation. She’s loaded and she ain’t in a position to argue. You’ve gotta grab your chances when you can.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
His face took on a sulky expression. ‘Yeah, well, I was just saying.’
Paige raised her eyes to the ceiling and headed for the door. Micky had his uses, but brain power wasn’t one of them. If they gave out prizes for stating the obvious, he’d be a gold medal winner every time. ‘See you later. And don’t turn this place into a pigsty while I’m gone.’
Outside, she strode along the walkway to the corner, where she took the steps instead of waiting for the lift. There was a thin drizzle falling, and as she jogged down the four flights, she pulled up the hood of her parka. She glared briefly at the crowd over at Haslow House before making her way to the main path and out of the gates.
Striding briskly along the high street, Paige went over what she was going to say in her head. She had Kirsten over a barrel and she knew it. She grinned. Kirsten Roberts – she could never think of her as Cope – was a stuck-up cow who reckoned she was better than everyone else because she was on TV. Jesus, it wasn’t as if she could even act. The only reason she was in that lousy soap was because she had long blonde hair and a half-decent pair of tits. And even the tits weren’t her own.
Paige weaved her way through the shoppers, occasionally pausing to gaze into a window. At Ruby’s, the jeweller’s, she let her gaze linger for a while on the gold chains, the rings and the watches. If she played her cards right, she could have anything she wanted. It was just a matter of applying the right amount of pressure at the right time. And Kirsten, especially at the moment, wasn’t in a position to refuse.
Paige saw her as soon as she pushed open the door. The café was busy, but her old school friend had found a free table to the right of the counter. Kirsten looked pale and strained and was stirring a cup of coffee distractedly. She was dressed head to foot in black, which might have been a nod to their recent bereavement but was more likely just a fashion statement.
As Paige approached, Kirsten raised her eyes and frowned. ‘God, what have you been doing? I’ve been here for ages.’
‘You know what I’ve been doing. Had to go down the cop shop, didn’t I? I told you that when I called.’ Paige sat down and put her elbows on the table. She’d decided that this version of events sounded more serious than a couple of plods calling round to the flat for a ten-minute chat. ‘Bastards kept me waiting for ages and then gave me the real third degree. I thought they were never gonna let me go.’ She was laying it on thick, making sure that Kirsten understood the enormity of the favour she’d just done her. ‘Kept going on and on about that bloody cash they found. They reckon it’s connected to the murder.’
Kirsten face, already pale, went ashen. She dropped the spoon into the saucer with a clatter. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘Don’t worry, love. I didn’t say it was you that gave it to her. The last thing you need is the filth knocking on your door. It’d be all over the tabloids the next day. Not the kind of publicity you want, huh?’
Kirsten worried on her lower lip. She picked up her cup and then put it down again. Her right hand fluttered up to her face. ‘Where did you say it came from?’
‘I didn’t, did I? Said I didn’t know nothin’ about it. They seem to have the idea she might have been on the game, so if no one tells them any different … Course, I’ll be in the bloody shit if they ever find out I lied to them. Perverting the course of justice, that is. They’ll probably put me in the slammer.’
Kirsten’s voice went up a pitch. ‘They won’t find out. Why should they?’ She looked anxiously round the surrounding tables in case anyone was listening. �
��Why should they?’ she asked again.
Paige gave a shrug. ‘No reason,’ she said slyly. ‘But I’ve put my neck on the line for you. I reckon I deserve something in return.’
‘Like what?’
She smiled back smugly. ‘Five grand should do it. I reckon that’s fair. Yeah, five grand and we’ll call it quits.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Kirsten hissed. ‘Where am I supposed to find that kind of money? You and that fat cow have already had two K off me. Why should I give you any more?’
‘That dead fat cow,’ Paige reminded her. She stared at Kirsten’s designer clothes, at the Gucci bag lying on the table, and made a quick mental assessment of what they must be worth. Jesus, a few grand was nothing to Kirsten. ‘You owe me big time and you know it. I’ve covered your lying little arse for you. And if my memory suddenly comes back, I might just recall why you really gave her that cash.’
Kirsten glared at her, her teeth bared. ‘So I’ll tell them I lent it to her, that she was in debt, that I was doing her a favour.’
Paige leaned forward so that her face was only inches away. ‘Yeah, right. You just bunged a grand to some woman you haven’t seen for fuck knows how long. They’re really gonna believe that. Especially when I tell them a much more interesting story.’
‘You can’t do that,’ Kirsten said defiantly. ‘If you do, you’ll have to admit that you lied to them in the first place.’
‘So? Maybe I’m willing to take that chance.’ Paige smirked. ‘Or maybe I could get in touch with that reporter and tell her what she really wants to know.’
Kirsten pulled in a breath and her eyes blazed momentarily. Then, as if she knew she was defeated, the light suddenly went out of them.
‘Think about it,’ Paige said, rising to her feet. ‘But don’t take too long. I’m not the patient sort.’
33
It was five thirty by the time Jess got back to Station Road. First she called in at Mackenzie, Lind to present Lorna with a large bouquet of flowers and thank her profusely for what she’d done. ‘You’re an angel. I don’t know how I’d have managed without your help. All those clothes and everything. It was so kind.’ She rooted in her pockets and took out some of the money she’d withdrawn from the bank. ‘How much do I owe you?’