by Bud Craig
“‘I’m going nowhere until…’ he said, but that was as far as he got. I got up and twisted his arm up his back and frogmarched him out.”
I laughed.
“Good for you.”
“As I propelled him through the door, he said, ‘tell Witton I’ll get him one of these days.’”
“What does he look like, this feller?”
“Tall, podgy and pale,” she said. “Unhealthy.”
As I left, I turned over what Isabella had said in my mind. After a while, I began to focus on the man Helen Witton had seen outside her house on the day Keith disappeared. Could it have been the alcoholic who was sacked a few months ago?
CHAPTER FIVE
I got to the Altrincham tram stop to go home, then thought better of it. It would make more sense to deal with everything in the Altrincham area right away so I walked straight to Lance Thorpe’s house. When I reached the semi where he lived, I saw a man matching Thorpe’s description returning from a run, sweating in his blue Altrincham Town FC track suit. When I told him what I was there for, he was happy enough to talk to me. He invited me in and sat me down in the living room.
“You say Keith’s disappeared?” he said.
“That’s right.”
“What’s it got to do with me?”
“Well,” I said, “he sacked you a while ago. You threatened him.”
“What are you saying?”
“You were seen outside his house on the day he went missing.”
“Oh, my God, it was that day, was it? Shit.”
“What were you doing there?”
He took deep breaths and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I was plucking up the courage to knock on his door. I barged into his office a few months ago and I was going to apologise for my behaviour and show him I was trying to sort myself out.”
That might be true, but I needed facts if I was to find out what happened to Keith.
“Did you see him come out of his house?”
“Yeah, he didn’t notice me so I followed him down the street, trying to psyche myself up to approach him. He got into a taxi on the corner.”
“A taxi?”
“Yeah, it looked like it was waiting for him.”
“Which taxi firm was it?”
“Timperley Taxis.”
That sounded like progress. It would be even better if I could find out where the taxi took him. I looked up Timperley Taxis on my phone. It wasn’t far away.
* * *
A five-minute walk got me to Timperley Taxis, which was tucked away down a side street. I went in a poky room where a girl of about seventeen with long, dyed black hair and thick make-up sat behind a counter. The name badge on her jumper said ‘Penny’. I took out my ID card and held it up.
“Gus Keane, GRK Investigations. I think you may be able to help me.”
“Oh, aye?”
She made no attempt to hide her indifference. Affronted at the interruption, she carried on doing her nails.
“I’m trying to find Mr Keith Witton, who travelled in one of your cabs at about three-thirty on the 5th of January.”
“We get a lot of customers.”
She continued her manicure.
“Can you check which driver picked him up and where he was going, please?”
She looked at me with scorn.
“Why would I do that?”
I took a twenty-pound note from my wallet and held it out to her.
“Because if you do, I’ll give you this.”
“OK.”
She logged onto her computer, scrolled down for a while.
“It was Bill Nicholls. The passenger was going to Manchester Airport.”
“Where can I get hold of Bill Nicholls?”
She picked up her mobile from the desk.
“I’ll call him now for another tenner.”
“Make it a fiver,” I said, holding out another note. “Tell him there’s twenty quid in it for him.”
These bribes were increasing Helen’s bill but then again you get what you pay for. Having got through and explained to the driver why she was contacting him, Penny passed the phone to me.
“Hello, Bill. This fare you picked up on the 5th, you don’t know where he was flying to, do you?”
“No, sorry, I dropped him at terminal three if that’s any help.”
“Did he have much luggage?”
“None at all. The woman waiting for him gave Mr Witton a suitcase. Gave him a kiss first.”
“He met a woman? What did she look like?”
“Worth looking at, I can tell you. Too good for him, that’s for sure. Not very tall, slim, great body on her, dark hair. And my God, the boobs!”
“How old was she?”
“About thirty, I’d say.”
“Right, thanks for your help. Give me your address and I’ll send you a twenty-pound note.”
“That’s OK, mate, leave it with Penny, she’s my daughter.”
I couldn’t believe it had been so easy. Had I solved the Witton case without trying? If he’d met a good-looking woman at an international airport, they must be flying off together. The only trouble was they could be going anywhere in the world. I called Isabella to pass on the description of the woman the taxi driver had given me. It matched Rosie Yardley to a T, she said.
* * *
On the way back home on the tram I turned my mind to Adam Jennings. I was still undecided about what to do next. I could ask Paul to follow him again and see what happened. On balance, it seemed best not to tell Jerry about the Isle of Man trip and the other name Jennings was known by. Paul hadn’t seen Adam with Erin, so we’d gain nothing by revealing what we’d found out so far.
Half an hour after I got back to the flat, Jerry Duckworth phoned.
“Gus, any progress?”
“Nothing so far, Jerry. My operative has followed Adam but he wasn’t with Erin on that occasion. We’ll keep on trying.”
“Ah, well, I’m afraid I’ll have to pull the plug on the investigation. Cash flow problem.”
“Sorry?”
“I’ve got no money to pay you. I lost a packet on a treble at Sedgefield. You win some, you lose some.”
“OK, fine, thanks for letting me know.”
That solved the dilemma nicely. Now I’d never find out more about Adam’s double life. Pity, it was certainly intriguing.
* * *
That night I sat in the flat thinking over what I had discovered. Had Keith wanted to disappear all along? If so, why hadn’t he told Helen? I logged onto the Manchester Airport website and checked which flights would be leaving around the time he got to terminal three. There were a lot. Too many.
About five past ten I switched on the news on BBC 1. The lead story was about the collapse of a construction firm called Ancarner. Fiona Bruce was in the middle of a recital of the facts: they’d been awarded hundreds of government contracts, ‘cooked the books’ and left billions in unpaid bills. Meanwhile they had paid massive bonuses for directors and huge dividends to shareholders even though they had no cash. What’s new, I asked myself.
On the local news there was a report from outside Ancarner’s plush Manchester office. The only people of any interest were the half dozen men pacing up and down, holding hastily prepared placards saying: PAY UP ANCARNER. The BBC reporter interviewed one of the protestors, a bloke of about my age.
“We’re just a few of the suppliers who have been waiting for months to be paid by Ancarner. They’ve tried every trick in the book to delay making payment for work done. Now we’re left with no money, while they walk away with millions. It’s bloody criminal.”
Bloody criminal was right. It was also depressingly familiar. I reached for the remote control and switched the TV off.
* * *
Two days later, suited and booted once more, I left home at half eight to walk to Ordsall Tower. I followed the familiar route through Salford Quays, crossing Trafford Road at the lights, and passing th
e council estate where I was born. I went into the open plan office and sat at the first desk I came to that happened to be free. As I took my coat off, I noticed how down at heel the place was looking. It could do with a coat of paint but finding spare cash for that was well-nigh impossible. A young woman with masses of dark hair walked past me, a couple of manila files under her arm.
“Hiya, Hannah,” I said, “how’s the baby?”
“On its way.”
She patted her bump, which had grown considerably since I’d last been in the office.
“How long to go now?”
“Three months. I go on maternity leave at the end of the month.”
“Good. I’m sure Paul will look after you.”
“He’d better.”
“Right, have you got some reports for me?”
“Yeah, they’re in your pigeonhole. By the way, Karen said she’d like to see you before the conference if you’ve got a minute.”
* * *
I didn’t manage to see Karen before my meeting and finally caught up with her just after twelve. We talked about all the jobs she had lined up for me: a conference she wanted me to chair next week; some training for foster carers on safeguarding; a talk Salford University wanted me to give to their social work students. At least I’d have plenty of work lined up for a while. Then, looking at her watch, Karen said she’d have to dash as she was meeting her dad for lunch.
“Why don’t you join us?” she asked.
“Well…”
I didn’t want to barge in on a family occasion.
“Come on, he’ll be thrilled to meet you.”
“Thrilled?”
“Yes, I must have told you, he’s a massive rugby league fan, has a season ticket for Salford.”
“I’m glad somebody still does.”
* * *
Ten minutes later we went into Tony and Dino’s, one of those American/Italian places, marred by the headache-inducing noise of the coffee machine. A grey-haired man in a green fleece was sitting on his own at a table. He waved to Karen, who smiled and walked over to him.
“Hi, Dad,” she said. “I thought you might like to meet one of my colleagues. Gus Keane, meet my dad, Wes Yaxley.”
“Gus Keane,” he enthused, “a pleasure to meet you. I used to watch you in the seventies. Those were the days.”
We shook hands. I thought of the time just after I’d signed for Salford when we were the best team in the country. As Karen and I sat down, I realised I’d seen Wes before.
“Were you on telly the other night, talking about Ancarner?”
“Did you see his fifteen minutes of fame?” said Karen.
Wes corrected her.
“Fifteen seconds, more like.”
“However long it was,” I said, “you spoke very well, it needed saying.”
“Thanks. I run a plumbing firm, well-established, you know. When I got on with Ancarner I thought I was quids in. I got the contract for a new school in Cumbria. The trouble was we never got paid.”
“Scandalous.”
“You said it, Gus. I would have had to start letting people go if I hadn’t got some work on a new housing estate in Bury.”
Things like this needed to be fought, but I always wondered if it would do any good.
“Like you said, Wes, the guys responsible will pocket millions while people like you pay the price.”
“Bastards. There’s a bloke who lives four doors from me, looks like one of the Ancarner top brass. Every time I lay eyes on him, I could bloody kill him.”
There’d be a few people expressing similar sentiments, hopefully better directed. Karen tried to calm things down.
“It’s not his fault, poor guy. Anyway, Dad, don’t get worked up, think of your blood pressure.”
Wes obviously had the same condition as me. If we weren't careful, we’d start droning on about our medication.
“Apart from which,” Karen went on, “I only have an hour for my lunch and I’m bloody starving. Let’s order.”
* * *
“I can’t believe it,” said Helen Witton later that day.
We were surrounded by the familiar tea pot and cups as I told her what I had discovered. She nibbled at her bottom lip, dabbed her eyes with a tissue, nervously scanning the room as if looking for another explanation.
“But he would never have gone off without a word. It’s completely out of character.”
Out of character – that was an interesting phrase. It was used by people who assumed everybody behaved consistently all the time. As if.
“As for that Rosie Yardley,” she went on, “she’s no better than she ought to be – as my mother, God rest her soul, used to say.”
“Mine too. I’m just wondering, Helen, what you want me to do now.”
“I don’t know, Gus. I… I suppose I could… oh.”
She wrung her hands, her bottom lip wobbling like a toddler’s.
“For the time being, Gus, there’s no need for you to do anything.”
“Fine.”
I wasn’t going to get any more work from Helen, that was for sure.
“Thanks for everything,” she said. “What you found out wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but you did a good job. Let me know what I owe you and I’ll write you a cheque.”
* * *
“Hi, Gus,” said the woman at my door the following Monday morning.
“Sarita, come in.”
The chief inspector was dressed in a dark suit, with her hair up. She must mean business. We sat at the kitchen table where she dumped the briefcase-cum-handbag she always carried.
“Just like old times,” I said.
“Yes.”
She took out a pen and notebook from her case. I worked out she must be in her early forties now. I wouldn’t say she’d aged much in the time I had known her, but subtle changes reflected the passage of time: tiny wrinkles round the eyes and frown lines across her forehead. Her Scottish accent now mingled with Mancunian.
“Do you know somebody called Adam Jennings?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t say I know him. I met him at Steve Yarnitzky’s sixtieth.”
“Well, the gardener found him dead at home the day before yesterday.”
“Bloody hell. As you’re here, I take it…”
“Yeah, he was murdered.”
“Well, that’s terrible but I’m not sure what you want from me, Sarita.”
“I just want to ask you a few questions.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Do you remember Jennings and Duckworth having a fight at Steve’s party?” asked the chief inspector.
“Steve reminded me of it when he phoned the other day.”
“What do you remember about it?”
“I only saw the same as you, Sarita.”
“You were right near the action. Did you hear what Jennings and Duckworth said?”
The simple answer would have been ‘yes’, but I couldn’t see the chief inspector being satisfied with that.
“Jerry said something about, what was it now? He said he was going to get Adam, told him to watch his back or something. It all sounded a bit childish to me.”
She wrote something down in her book and waited. When I said no more, she pressed me.
“Anything else come to mind?”
“Later on, Jerry said Jennings was shagging his wife.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“So, Jennings was having an affair with Mrs Duckworth?”
“That’s what Jerry said. I know nowt about it.”
There was a pause while Sarita turned over this new information in her mind.
“Anything else?”
From the moment Sarita told me Jennings was dead, I’d been agonising about whether to tell her about Jerry having Adam followed. I made up my mind – I didn’t have much choice and told her about Paul following Adam to the airport and everything he’d said in his report.
“Let me get this straight, Gus. Ada
m Jennings went to the Isle of Man for reasons unknown with a guy who knows him as Peter? And he checked into the Airport Hotel as Mr Goodall?”
“That’s right.”
It still sounded crazy. She shook her head in disbelief.
“Why is it things get complicated when you’re around?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t getting into that.
“You seem to forget,” I said, “I’ve had very little to do with this. It wasn’t me who followed Mr Jennings. And it definitely wasn’t my idea to have him followed. It was one of your police colleagues.”
“He’s just retired, actually.”
“I know.”
That made it less complicated for Sarita. Jerry was bound to be a suspect and investigating a serving officer would have been difficult to say the least. Colette, Jennings’ partner, had been in the police too and she must be a suspect, mustn’t she? Fortunately, it wasn’t my problem.
“Does Jerry know about the Isle of Man trip?”
“No, he’s pulled the plug on the investigation. He ran out of money. Reading between the lines I’d say he has a gambling problem.”
“Right.”
“I probably wouldn’t have told him about the Isle of Man thing anyway. It’s not relevant to the reason for the investigation and I didn’t want Jerry confronting Adam Jennings about it and blowing Paul’s cover. All my client was interested in was whether Adam met Erin. He didn’t need to know anything else we might unearth.”
“Well, he needs to know now, doesn’t he, Gus?”
As she left, I knew she’d come back before long. She usually did. Before she got out of the door, she hesitated.
“I’ve just realised who Peter Goodall is. He’s the CEO of Ancarner. And do you know where he lives?”
“No.”
“Three guesses.”
“The Isle of Man?”
“Got it in one. More bloody complications.”
CHAPTER SIX
As Sarita closed the door behind her, I realised that as far as private investigations were concerned, I had run out of cases. I still had my work for children’s services so all was not lost. There, I would be thrown into a world where everybody acted out of character.
As I went to the kitchen to put the kettle on, I mulled over what had happened since Steve’s birthday party. Too much, I thought, and that was before I worked out what was going on between Louise and me. It wouldn’t bother me if things calmed down for a while.