DARK HOUSES a gripping detective thriller full of suspense

by Helen H. Durrant

  Jed Quickenden had been at the briefing but he’d hardly heard a word. He had paid attention only to Grace. He’d been lusting after her for months, but she completely ignored him.

  “Come off it, Speedy, you don’t mean that. People will forget the Geegee business and things will settle down, you’ll see.”

  “If there’s one thing I know about the folk around here it’s that they’ve got long memories. No one is ever going to trust me again. I grew up in this town, now half of it avoids me.”

  “They don’t like me much either.” Merrick grinned.

  He knew that the younger man looked up to him for some reason. “That’s because you’re a copper, stupid,” said Quickenden, slapping the back of Merrick’s head. “They didn’t mind me because I used to be like them, a bad boy. Now I’ll be lucky to reach my next birthday.”

  “Don’t be daft. No one would dare do you any harm. Grady Gibbs wasn’t that powerful. He had his enemies too.”

  “Then there’s all the other people who were upset — the Hussains for a start. They won’t be best pleased now their lucrative little import business has been snatched away.”

  “You need to chill, get your head together. You’ve got time owing, take it. Get away somewhere hot.”

  “Greco will never allow that.”

  “Go above his head. Ask Green. Tell him how you feel.”

  “He’ll think I’ve gone soft.”

  “If you ask me, that’s exactly what’s happened,” Merrick said. They were pulling into the shopping centre car park in Oldston.

  “Don’t you go saying anything.” Speedy poked his arm. “I’ve got enough on my plate without Greco on my case.”

  “Harvey & Sons are over there.”

  “Better get this over with,” said Quickenden.

  Andrew Harvey, the owner, was a small, bald man wearing round glasses. He flitted about the office, tweaking pictures of houses and straightening piles of brochures while he talked.

  “I’ve had the owner in. Shocked he was. He saw her, you know. Said it was a sight he’d never forget. Dreadful, was how he described it.”

  “We need to know who has viewed the place — say in the last month,” Speedy said.

  “That’s easy. No one,” said Harvey. “It needs far too much work. It’s riddled with damp and needs a complete rewire. The whole street should be pulled down and rebuilt. None of the sales on that street have gone through. Once a surveyor’s had a look, the price drops like a stone. That one, number eight, needs a shedload of work and the owner won’t listen.”

  “So there’s been no one at all, not even an enquiry?” Speedy said.

  “I’ll check, but I’m fairly sure.”

  He sat at his desk and accessed a file on his computer. “Asking far too much and won’t drop. With all that work required — well.” Harvey held out his arms, palm up. “I have told Mr Rahman, but he’s adamant.”

  “Can I have the owner’s address, please?” Speedy said.

  “I shouldn’t, not really.”

  “We are police officers. We can find out by other means, but it would save us some time.”

  Harvey shrugged and sent the information to the printer. “Here you are, but you’ll be lucky to find him. He got a shock yesterday and I believe he’s gone to see relatives in Birmingham. He’s left the keys with me.”

  “Who has access to them?”

  “We keep all the vendors’ keys in the safe, Sergeant. If there’s an enquiry, then one of us takes them to do the viewing. But like I said, there’s been no one.”

  “And keys to the safe?”

  “Only me.”

  “If anyone does enquire about the house, you will let us know?” Speedy handed him his card and they left.

  “Looks like we need to knock on a few doors,” Merrick said.

  “What’s the betting that’ll be a waste of time too?”

  “Whoever did this isn’t invisible, Speedy. He’ll have made a mistake somewhere along the line. All we have to do is find it.”

  “You sound more like him every bloody day.” Speedy turned and walked back to the car.

  * * *

  “It’s a long way up,” Grace said. “Twelfth floor, and a half-hearted lift.”

  “I think I’m fit enough to make it,” Greco said sarcastically.

  “Do you still run?”

  “Try to. Apart from the exercise being good, it clears my head.”

  “Wish I could find something that cleared mine. I do the job all day and see to Holly most of the night. She’s not sleeping well at the moment. She keeps having nightmares.”

  “Matilda sleeps like a log, always has. Suzy says she’s the only child she knows who actually asks to go to bed.”

  “You’re very lucky.”

  “Suppose I am. I don’t realise it half the time,” he said, smiling.

  Up on the twelfth floor, Greco banged on the Westons’ door. There was no answer. Grace peered through the dirty window.

  A woman stuck her head out of the next door along. “None of them are in. He went out earlier, with the cops I think, and he hasn’t come back. She’s been gone most of the week and Jessie will be working.”

  So the news hadn’t reached the Link yet.

  “If Mrs Weston comes back, would you ask her to ring us, please?” Grace handed the woman a card.

  “Best of luck with that one, love,” said the neighbour, and went back inside.

  “What now, sir?”

  “We’d better go and talk to Frankie Farr.”

  Grace drove out to Farr Construction. The builders’ yard and offices were in a new industrial estate on the outskirts of Oldston.

  “Is Mr Farr in?” Grace showed her badge to the receptionist. “DI Greco and DC Harper from Oldston CID.”

  The woman eyed them suspiciously from behind her desk. “Is this about the car?”

  “No,” Greco said. “Why? Has something happened?”

  “It was stolen. Last night. Young Mr Farr’s pride and joy. He’s gutted.”

  “Is he here?”

  She got up and knocked on a door to one side of the reception desk. They were admitted straight away.

  “Found my car?” Farr said.

  He was tall, good-looking and dressed in a designer suit. Grace guessed he must be about her own age. He had jet black hair and was clean shaven. His nose was slightly misshapen. It must have been broken at some time. Grace wondered if it was a sporting injury or perhaps it had happened in a fight. Maybe there was something to what Megan Hunter had told them.

  “We’re here about Jessie, Mr Farr.”

  “Well, she didn’t take the thing.” He walked over to the window. “It should be parked right there. Some bastard’s going to suffer for this. That car cost me a fortune.”

  “Mr Farr, Jessie has been murdered,” Grace said. “Sometime last night, after she finished work at the Crown.”

  He spun round and stared at them. His mouth hung open, and his dark eyes narrowed almost to pinpricks. “You’re joking!”

  Greco shook his head. “Sadly not. She was murdered.”

  “That can’t be right. Who’d want to murder Jessie?”

  “Did you see her at any time yesterday?” Grace said.

  Frankie Farr took a bottle of brandy from a cupboard. He poured a generous slug into a glass, and then sat down. He looked close to tears. “I couldn’t. I had meetings all day. Last night I had to go to a family thing. My mother’s birthday, so I couldn’t pick her up.”

  “Did you usually pick her up?”

  “Whenever I could. I have a flat in that new block by the canal. Jessie liked it there, so she often stayed over. I wanted her to move in properly, but she wouldn’t leave her brother.”

  “Did you text her or phone?” Grace said.

  “We texted all the time.” He gulped down the brandy. “She said it was what got her through the day. Well, me too, if I’m honest.”

  “Did she seem upset about anything? D
id she say if anything was bothering her?” Grace said.

  “She was pissed off with the new rota at work. Megan, the landlady, wanted her to do more nights. Jessie wasn’t up for it, but that bitch was coming down hard on her. Threatened to get rid and find someone else if she didn’t agree.”

  Grace and Greco looked at each other. Megan Hunter had not mentioned this.

  “Did they argue about it?” Grace asked.

  “They had a blazing row yesterday lunchtime. Jessie sent me a text.” He took out his phone and went to the message. “See? She’s going on about how unfair it all was and how Megan was picking on her.”

  “I see. And did this continue into last night’s shift?”

  “I don’t think so. But I don’t know what they sorted because I didn’t talk or text Jess last night. I was with my family at some eatery up the hills — The Pennine Alehouse. There’s no signal there so we were out of contact all night. When I got back to my flat it was gone one in the morning. I sent her a goodnight text, but got no reply.”

  “Thank you, Mr Farr,” Greco said. “Here’s my card. If anything happens, anyone contacts you or you remember something then call me.” He paused. “Another thing. The press will most likely be in touch. My advice is to say nothing. They will pester you. They’ll be saying things, most of which won’t be true. Keep well away. They just want a story. They are not interested in catching Jessie’s killer, only in having good copy to put in the papers.”

  Farr nodded. He was pouring more brandy as they left the room.

  “I don’t think he’s taken it in, not really,” Grace said. “He looked devastated.”

  “He didn’t ask though, did he?”

  “Ask what?”

  “How she died. What was done to her. But he was very keen to tell us about the argument Jessie had with Megan at the pub. Check that one out. See what Megan has to say.”

  * * *

  Craig Merrick had been knocking at the house next to where the murder had taken place. He caught up with Speedy, who was further along the road.

  “No one in.”

  “Nobody along here is going to tell us anything,” Speedy said. He banged on a door further down the street. “Tight-lipped so and sos, the bloody lot of them.”

  A middle-aged woman answered. She had her hair in curlers. “We’re investigating the murder that took place up the street,” Merrick said, flashing his badge. “Did you see or hear anything unusual last night?”

  “I heard nowt, love. Too busy watching the box. My husband’s deaf so we have it turned up loud. I heard the police cars though, early on this morning.”

  “Did you know the people who used to live there?” Speedy asked.

  “Old Mrs Baxter. She lived there most of her life. She’s in a care home now I think — if she’s still alive.”

  “Did she sell to Mr Rahman?”

  “No, he’s always owned it. He owns a lot of them along here. Mrs Baxter rented from him.”

  “Have the press been round at all?” Merrick asked.

  “Camped out on that corner all morning. Asked all sorts of questions. Don’t think they got owt though. No one knows owt, you see.”

  “Thanks.” Merrick handed her a card. “If you think of anything else, give us a ring.”

  Speedy was already off, back down the street. “There is someone in. I just saw the curtains twitch.” He banged on the neighbouring door again, and eventually a man answered.

  “I’ve nothing more to say. I told you people everything this morning.”

  “What people, Mr . . . ?”

  “Ernest Talbot. You lot. You were all over the street earlier. Cameras, the lot.”

  “Not us, Mr Talbot. We’re the police,” Speedy said. “We’re DC Merrick and DS Quickenden from Oldston CID.”

  “What did you tell the papers?” Merrick said.

  “Look, I’m on short time at work and they said they’d pay for anything I could give them. I’d be stupid not to, wouldn’t I?”

  “Did you go in there last night?”

  “No. Rahman wouldn’t let me. He said it was dreadful what had happened to that poor girl. He said I didn’t want that picture in my head.”

  “He did you a favour.” Speedy spoke with feeling. Whenever he closed his eyes, the image came back to him. “So if you didn’t go in, how come you were so helpful to the press?”

  Ernest Talbot shrugged. “Rahman let one or two details slip. And I’ve got an imagination, haven’t I? Anyway, they don’t care what they write.”

  Speedy took out his notebook. “What did you actually see?”

  “Nowt. I was in bed.”

  “Did you hear anything?” This was painful.

  “A scream — I think. It’s what woke me up. I live on my own, well, me and the cat. Bloodcurdling it was. You know, the kind of thing you get in horror films. I woke up and listened for a bit but it went quiet. Then I heard something else, talking it sounded like, coming from Rahman’s place. There shouldn’t have been anyone there. It’s up for sale and empty. I took a look out the window and saw the smoke. That chimney needs a bloody good sweep. The smoke was all over the street.”

  “So you rang Mr Rahman?”

  “Yes, I did. Two in the morning or not, he needed to know. I thought he had squatters.”

  “Don’t say another word to the press, or anyone else,” Speedy said. “I want you to come into the station tomorrow and give a formal statement. Have a think, and write down anything you remember about last night. Anything at all.”

  Chapter 5

  “I know it’s late, but can we feedback on what we’ve got so far?” Greco said. He’d seen Grace eyeing the office clock and understood that she needed to get away. “All Grace and I got was a bit of a mismatch in the stories of the landlady of the Crown and Frankie Farr. We’ll check it out tomorrow. What about you, Speedy? What did you and Merrick glean from the residents of Arnold Street?”

  “Ernest Talbot, the neighbour, is a tricky one. He’s already spoken to the press and reckons he told them a lot of rubbish, but he could be lying. But he did alert Rahman, and he says he heard a scream.”

  “Is that it? No one see a car? A stranger? Anything odd? Did anyone even see Jessie on that street? Do we even know what she was doing there?”

  “She was going to see Ethel Ridley, my mother!” A woman spoke from the doorway. Her voice was angry.

  They all turned towards the door.

  “Mavis Weston.” Grace grimaced.

  The woman looked at each of them, finally settling on Greco. “Have you found him yet? That murdering bastard needs stringing up too. He needs to get a taste of what he dishes out.”

  The comment bothered Greco. She’d made a direct reference to how Jessie had been found. What exactly did she know and, more to the point, who had told her?

  “Mrs Weston, we are investigating, but its early days,” he said.

  “Not good enough. You need to up your game, copper. He’s a bad ’un. He needs catching and dealing with. If you don’t do it, I know some who will.”

  Her face was full of hate. Her eyes went from one team member to another.

  “We are putting every resource into this,” he said.

  “That man murdered my girl. He wasn’t kind. He didn’t just bash her over the head and have done with it,” she said.

  Her eyes were blazing. She was barely keeping it together. Someone had told her. The press?

  “Who have you been talking to, Mrs Weston?”

  “I have every right to know how my daughter died,” she said. “I know things because I keep my ears open. Shame you lot don’t do the same.”

  Her eyes were everywhere, all over the team — and the room. At last they found the incident board. She gave a strangled cry. “They said . . . but I didn’t believe it. What did that monster do to my girl?”

  Greco stood in her path to prevent her from going any closer. “Come with me,” he said. “We’ll go somewhere and talk. Craig, arrange some
tea, would you?”

  He took her along the corridor to an empty office. It had a leather sofa against the wall. He gestured for her to sit down. “We have been trying to find you. We needed to get Jessie identified quickly so that the investigation can get off the ground.”

  “So that you can cut her to pieces, you mean. I know what goes on.” She took a breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. “You shouldn’t have asked Mark. He can’t hack it. He comes across as gobby, but he’s a sensitive lad.”

  Mavis Weston was weeping openly now, a hankie clutched to her face. Greco felt sorry for the woman. She’d just lost her daughter in dreadful circumstances. It was enough to make the toughest person crumble.

  “I want to see her,” she said finally.

  “That can be arranged. Let me have a word with the doctors first.”

  “The heartless sods have butchered her, haven’t they? Cut her to pieces and sewed her back together all wrong.”

  “It really isn’t like that,” he said. “But there are certain things that have to be done, evidence that has to be gathered . . . Are you up to answering some questions?”

  She looked at him. Every battle she’d ever fought was etched into her face. Mavis Weston was a tough woman. She was dressed in jeans and a shirt. They were nothing special, cheap market-bought clothing. Her hair was a patchwork of different colours, as if she couldn’t make up her mind which one she preferred. But the truth was there, in the inch or so of grey at the roots.

  “What d’you want to know, copper?”

  “When did you last see Jessie?”

  “Over a week ago. The Saturday before last. I’ve been to my sister’s in Barnsley. Me and Jessie, we spoke on the phone and she texted me, but not much, not like usual. We’d had words. I wanted her to stay at home and take care of Jonno but she didn’t want to. She was spending more and more time with that lad of hers, Frankie Farr. Jonno’s no good on his own. He can’t cope.”

  “You said she was going to your mother’s last night. Where does she live?”

  “She’s in the care home by the park. Arnold Street is a short cut, that’s why Jessie would go that way. God knows why she had to visit at that time of night though. You’ll have to ask at the home. If that bitch that runs the pub had let her go on time she might even be alive now. Treated our Jess like a bloody slave she did.”