‘Security guard?’ Ryder asked. ‘Maybe he was downstairs while the victim was upstairs, and didn’t hear him.’
Shari shrugged. That seemed like a weak presumption, and she was pleased that Ryder seemed off his game.
‘Whatever,’ Abbott interjected, ‘we need to find out who this bloke is as priority. Andy, liaise with the Neighbourhood Team. Get a thorough CCTV trawl of the area – there must be more than one camera that caught this guy. And I want house to house in all the surrounding apartment buildings.’
Andy withheld a groan which Shari noticed. Ben wouldn’t have been that tactful.
‘I’d say that’s murder,’ Abbott told them. ‘It’s no bloody accident. Shari, find out who the security company for the building is and who was the last person officially inside there.’
Five
It seemed like a dead end at first. The security company, Steel Dog Security, looked after the building but they never sent a security guard round to check on it because it was all alarmed and there had never been a problem.
Shari asked them when the last time the alarm went off and the woman on the phone told her it hadn’t been activated for nine months. Shari told her that CID had been in an out of the building for the last two days, but the woman confirmed that the alarm had not been triggered.
‘Then your alarm is broke,’ Shari told her, and hung up. Gravy Davy and his two female friends had probably found a way to disable the alarm over time, or perhaps the alarm was just a big con.
Shari sat at her computer, tired and hungry. It was midday and Andy was out at the scene looking for more CCTV and coordinating the house to house. She missed Ben a bit, he was funny, and she worried about his drinking. This made her remember the conversation she had had with Ryder about Ben, outside the scene of that building fire earlier in the week.
She felt time ticking idly by without progress. If this had been a simple accident then fine, but it was almost certainly murder, and her attempt to get ahead of the game seemed to be waning. DS Ryder sat at his computer with intense concentration on his face. What would his line of thinking be? What was he working on?
Shari decided to go with her gut instinct. Something told her that the first building fire and the man being burned alive the following day were both linked. She felt like telling Ryder to see what he thought, but decided not to. Things were simpler in the police if you just investigated things separately.
The building that had burnt almost to the ground was owned by a company called Green Shoots Development and, surprisingly, so was the workshop on Cotton Street. A quick internet search of the company revealed a slick website. The owner was a man called Malcolm Swan and the website was focussed on what it called the “New Ancoats Project”. The company owned six buildings in the area altogether, all of them empty and old, but all wonderfully placed and ripe for redevelopment.
The New Ancoats Project re-envisioned the neighbourhood as a young, trendy place full of trees, coffee shops and state-of-the-art apartments. Shari looked through the plans. The first building, the larger one with the handsome exterior facade, was going to be demolished, the website said, and a twelve story apartment building built in its place. Shops on the ground floor would sit beneath sixty luxury apartments. The plans looked awful, like they had been designed by a kid with lego blocks, with bits sticking out here and there, and each floor a different pastel colour. It looked like a cake that had been eaten and vomited back up.
The workshop was to be demolished too to make way for another set of apartments, this time only thirty. The design was a bit more reserved, except for a glass front which was supposed to reflect the sky, or something.
The rest of the companies holdings in the half a square mile were also earmarked for development, some as gross as the first. But then Shari spotted the date at the bottom of the webpage. “Last updated June 2009.”
She dug some more. Green Shoots Development had gained planning permission from the council for its plans, but according to the news, had failed to find investors for even the smallest project. The plans were flawed, it said, and the demand for apartments was being satisfied with much bigger projects on their doorsteps. The “New Ancoats Project” had been met with some public outcry at the attempted modernisation of this heritage area, and subsequently had been abandoned. Green Shoots seemed to now work exclusively on developments on the other side of the city.
Shari decided to tell Ryder, who initially looked to be baffled by her.
‘Both buildings are owned by the same man,’ she explained. ‘Both were supposed to be developed but failed to get investment. I’d like to speak to this guy and see what he says. I think it’s strange that there’s been arson at both.’
Ryder raised one eyebrow. ‘Strange or suspicious?’
‘Suspicious.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then by all means pursue this line of enquiry.’
‘Okay, Sarge.’
Ryder suddenly seemed to be taken by an idea. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Malcolm Swan lived in what could only be described as a mansion just outside Alderley Edge in deepest Cheshire. It took the two detectives half an hour to get to the large village from the city centre and another fifteen minutes to locate the property itself. Eventually they found it, a large new build, five bedroom house, hidden off the main road by a high garden wall and immense wrought-iron gates.
On the driveway were two cars, one a high-performance sports car, the other a red 4x4 the size of small tank. The garden looked like a work in progress but amongst all the building materials Shari noted that Swan had made sure a huge opulent stone fountain hadn’t been overlooked. The sight of the luxury monstrosity reminded her of Irene and Doll sleeping beneath bridges.
‘It’s about the fire,’ Shari told him. He had been surprised to see them at his door, despite the fact he had just let them in through the electronic gates. But he welcomed both into his beautiful, lavish living room and beckoned them to a seat by the fire.
‘You just caught me,’ he said. ‘I’ve just dropped the wife off at the garden centre. She likes to go around Christmas time.’
‘Doesn’t she have a car or two?’ Ryder asked, bluntly.
Swan chuckled nervously. ‘It’s in the garage at the moment. Besides, I had other errands.’
‘We won’t be too long,’ Shari said.
‘You didn’t have to come all this way,’ Swan said, easing himself down into a chair opposite. ‘I could have met you at a police station. I’m always in the city for this and that.’
‘We wanted to catch you off guard,’ Ryder said, stony-faced, provoking a defensive titter from Shari. This time Swan didn’t seem to know whether to laugh or not, but eventually he did.
Swan was younger looking than his age, which was fifty one. He was healthy, tall, slightly balding but well groomed. He dressed in a short sleeved shirt covered by a thick wool jumper. Ryder looked him up and down several times throughout the first few minutes of them meeting. As usual, he was looking for flaws, and found them soon enough. Swan had plucked eyebrows, and soft, manicured hands. He dressed like a man trying to look innocent. Sure, the house was nice, but Ryder found it ghastly and over-decorated. The house seemed to have been invaded by glass partitions and surfaces, while a contemptible aura of faux-antique decor had apparently already colonised the place.
‘I take it you know about the fire,’ Ryder asked.
‘Of course,’ Malcolm said, shaking his head. ‘Bloody terrible. I had big plans for that building.’
‘It looks like it might survive,’ Ryder told him.
‘Yes,’ he replied, a little unenthusiastic.
‘I read about the New Ancoats Project,’ Shari told him.
Swan sighed. ‘Well we’ve put it on hold. Salford is booming at the moment so we’ve channelled all our resources into the projects we’ve got there.’
‘You own an old workshop on Cotton Street too?’
Their host looked out of the window as i
f the answer was over there, trying to recollect. ‘Ah yes! Just around the corner. Yes, yes. That’s one of mine. Oh gosh! That’s not gone too now has it?’
‘No,’ Ryder said, ‘but a man died the other night on the street outside. We have footage of him coming out of the building.’
‘Security guard?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Have you not identified the body?’
‘Not yet,’ Shari interjected. ‘We can’t be sure but there’s some suggestion it was a homeless male using the building to shelter from the snow.’
‘Squatter?’ Swan said, almost spitting the word. ‘I’ve had enough of them.’ but then he caught hold of himself and shook his head. ‘Still... damn shame.’
Shari and Ryder walked back along the gravel driveway to their car. Malcolm Swan waved them off until they had gone and the gates had closed.
‘Lies,’ Ryder said immediately. ‘He’s full of them.’
They had stayed around half an hour altogether, and Swan had kept his cards close to his chest regarding his plans for the buildings in Ancoats. On the other hand, he was very hospitable and even offered the two detectives a glass of Bollinger champagne, which Shari had turned down on the grounds that she (a) didn’t drink, (b) was currently on duty, and (c) thought it was inappropriate in light of their current investigation. Ryder, however, had accepted a glass, which was poured out and placed carefully next to him.
‘It’s six hundred pounds a bottle,’ Swan had told him proudly.
Ryder smiled falsely but he never even touched the glass. By the time they stood to leave not a drop had been sipped from it, Shari noticed.
‘Lies?’ Shari asked him now, as their car zipped merrily along the country roads of snow-covered Cheshire.
‘He was acting, Ansari,’ Ryder told her. ‘You have to learn to spot it. Body language always betrays the spoken language without the liar even knowing it.’
Shari nodded. ‘He seemed relaxed to me.’
‘He was pretending to be relaxed,’ Ryder said, almost impatiently. ‘An anxious man pretending to be relaxed gives himself away. He’d have been more believable if he’d have just sat there trembling.’
‘But what has he got to lie about?’
Ryder tapped the side of her head. ‘That’s what you’ve got to figure out.’
Shari shook her head at his teasing, but then asked, ‘why didn’t you drink the champagne, by the way?’
Ryder grinned for the first time all day but said nothing.
Six
Green Shoots Development had been looking for investors for years, a contact at the Planning Department told Shari. Big money kept pulling out last minute, eyeing more profitable projects elsewhere. Consequently, Malcolm Swan had almost gone broke – his assets now losing him money with each passing month.
‘Those six buildings are all for sale, by the way,’ the contact told her. ‘They’re like albatrosses around his neck.’
Albatrosses – Shari liked that word. She went over to Ryder and Andy after the phone call.
‘They’re albatrosses,’ she told them, with a certainty that sounded convincing, ‘those buildings Swan owns in Ancoats. They cost him a fortune to maintain and he can’t afford to do anything with them.’
‘Do I sense motive?’ Andy asked.
Ryder could only sneer. ‘Motive for what? We’re investigating a murder here.’
‘But if the fires are linked,’ Shari said, hoping that DI Abbott wouldn’t hear her, ‘then Gravy Davy might have been caught up in it innocently.’
‘Gravy Davy?’ Ryder asked her quizzically.
‘He might have even come across an arsonist setting up,’ Shari continued, enthused by her idea. ‘The arsonist might be the murderer.’
Andy scratched his head. ‘So are we completely ruling out that neither the building fire nor the dead body are accidents?’
‘I’m just following a hunch,’ Shari told him. ‘At this point we’ve got hundreds of possibilities to narrow down.’
DS Ryder smiled and patted Andy on the shoulder. ‘The young padawan is right, old boy. She’s gone off the beaten track, following her nose. Let her sniff around in the undergrowth before you go reining her back in.’
Shari blushed.
‘A good detective always leaves plenty of room for their gut instinct,’ Ryder said. ‘Just look at DI Abbott.’
Andy chuckled at the joke.
‘Let me follow this lead, sarge,’ Shari urged her superior. ‘I know there’s something to this fraud-arson thing.’
‘You think Swan is having the buildings burnt down so he can claim insurance and sell the land?’ Ryder asked her.
‘It would explain the first fire, which the fire inspectors told us was almost certainly no electrical fault. And it would explain why the security alarm at the second building was disabled.’
Ryder thought about it for a minute and then smiled. ‘I like your thinking kiddo. You have my blessing to sniff around Malcolm Swan all you want. But in the meantime, we really need to find out who the victim is.’
The three changed their shifts to an evening the next day, by which time the DNA hit had come back from the lab. Shari was glad she hadn’t had to go view the body again. Andy had gone to see the post-mortem while she and Ryder were in Cheshire. There was nothing overtly suspicious about the death – no detectable intoxicants, no lacerations, no broken bones – although the extreme burning that had taken place made any such investigation incredibly difficult.
‘David Mullgraw,’ Andy said, tapping the email on his computer screen with his pen. ‘DNA hit... Death by burning... It says the burns all over his body indicate he was subject to intense, prolonged heat.’
‘Duh,’ Shari said, mockingly. ‘He was burnt alive wasn’t he?’
‘It says there is bruising around the throat, and some residue of rope fibres sealed in the flesh underneath the chin,’ Andy said, pulling a disgusted face.
‘Great!’ Shari moaned. ‘So now we’re adding in the possibility of strangulation or hanging.’
Andy tapped the email again. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger! I’m only reading the report to you.’
‘Sorry,’ she replied, embarrassed. ‘I just wish it was more straightforward.’
‘Anyway,’ Andy said, opening a different window on the computer, ‘I’ve found the poor bugger on the system. David Mullgraw. Got a record as long as your arm: shoplifting, theft, robbery, possession, assault... Did six months a few years ago for several offences, including threats with a bladed article.’
Shari stooped over next to Andy and peered at his screen. She looked at the mug-shot of David Mullgraw, the latest in a long list in his collection. It was strange to see his face for the first time. ‘Last known address?’
‘Chippenham Road,’ Andy read. ‘That’s Miles Platting, about a five minute walk from Ancoats. Says his sister still lives there.’
‘Then let’s go.’
It was after six o’clock when they set off. Miles Platting lay just behind Ancoats around the Rochdale and Ashton Canals as they ventured away from the city on their own courses. Estates of poor council houses survived the economic upturn that had brought recent wealth and prosperity to its older neighbour, though new monolithic apartment blocks were beginning to stretch like tentacles closer and closer to them.
Chippenham Road was home to a pebble-dashed tower block fourteen storeys high, relics of the 1970s and typical of many English urban areas. There were thirteen such tower blocks within view of this one alone, all spread in clusters throughout the urban area to the east.
The lift to the thirteenth floor, where David Mullgraw’s sister had a flat, was broken. Ansari and Albrighton took the stairs reluctantly. The stairwell smelled of urine and was sticky in some places. Halfway up they came across a little girl sat playing with a toy car on the steps. She was dressed in a teddy bear onesie and grinned at Shari as she went past her. Her teeth were bright and evenly spaced, though her cheeks w
ere a little smudged with dirt.
‘Will you play with me?’ she asked.
Shari stopped and smiled. ‘I’m sorry - I can’t. But you really shouldn’t play with strangers, especially grown-ups. Some people can be very naughty and might try to hurt you.’
A scowling middle-aged woman answered the door. ‘Yes?’
Albrighton introduced them and asked if she was Mullgraw’s sister. The woman narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s he done?’
‘Can we come in and have a chat?’
‘No!’ she shouted at him. ‘He isn’t here, he doesn’t live here anymore. I kicked him out last year.’
‘Mrs Mullgraw,’ Shari urged her, ‘we have some news regarding David.’
‘So tell me here, on the doorstep!’
Shari looked at Andy, who took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that he’s passed away. We have some information about the circumstances surrounding his death that might be better said in private...’
The woman blinked, processed the information, and then shrugged. ‘I’m not bothered. I don’t care how he died. I haven’t seen him since last year.’
She slammed the door shut. Andy continued to bang on, hoping to get more information, but she didn’t open it again.
Back on the stairwell, the disappointed detectives descended past the girl again. She frowned. ‘Are you looking for Gravy?’
Shari glanced at Andy and back at the girl. ‘Do you know Gravy?’
The girl nodded enthusiastically. ‘He used to live here and people are always looking for him. My mummy says they want to hurt him. He always gives me kisses and cuddles, but I’m not supposed to tell people.’
Shari sat down on the step beside her. ‘Does he still visit here?’
‘Once a week,’ the girl reported, as accurately as she could. ‘He brings me sweets and tells me not to tell my mummy.’
The Fire In the Snow Page 3