SALFORD MURDERS: The Private Investigator Gus Keane Trilogy

by Bud Craig

  “Not practical? For God’s sake. I’ll tell you what’s practical,” she said, getting up to leave. “Edward won’t touch my kids. If he lays one finger on them, I’ll kill him. And I’ll castrate him first.”

  The child protection conference I was about to chair would be a piece of piss in comparison I thought as Imogen left.

  CHAPTER THREE

  That afternoon in my spare room that doubled as an office I sat down to update my CV. Before I started I decided to ring Steve.

  I started in on my news almost straightaway.

  “You’ll never guess who phoned me today.”

  “John Lennon?”

  “Not far out. It was a bit like someone coming back from the dead.”

  “Go on, surprise me.”

  I paused dramatically. Pity he couldn’t appreciate it.

  “Tony Murphy,” I announced.

  A silence followed, while Steve took in the news. Eventually he thought of something to say.

  “Murphy? Never. What did that twat want after all this time?”

  Steve had a deep, authoritative voice. Even as a youngster he had sounded grown up. The man of the world cynicism he had worked on during his long police career only added to his credibility. If he said Tony was a twat, Tony was a twat.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “I’ve arranged to go for a pint with him Tuesday night.”

  “You’re actually going for a drink with that pillock,” said Steve, “I don’t know how y...”

  I tapped my foot on the floor. I’d been expecting a bit more...what? Interest? Enthusiasm? Curiosity?

  “Come on, Steve. I wanna know what happened all those years ago, don’t you?”

  “No I bloody don’t. And why’s he turning up now? What’s the point?”

  A good question, I thought.

  “I don’t know, but I aim to find out.”

  “He’ll be up to something,” said Steve.

  The voice of authority again.

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  I could picture Steve scowling morosely.

  “He was always a bit dodgy...”

  “Not Tony,” I insisted, “some of his family maybe...”

  “No maybe about it. His Dad died when he fell downstairs back in the 90s. Rumour was his wife pushed him.”

  “Yeah?”

  “No-one would have blamed her.”

  “Suppose not.”

  “His brother was killed in pub brawl in Stockport a couple of years ago,” added Steve, determined to finish off the family saga.

  Secrets of the criminal classes, just the sort of thing Steve would know.

  “Tony was never in any trouble though.”

  Why was I defending someone I hadn’t even heard from for decades?

  “Never got caught. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Just be careful, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Be careful?”

  I’d heard that expression a lot since Georgia’s birth. The grown ups in her life were constantly saying it.

  “Yeah. Just before he... went away or whatever he did,” Steve went on, “didn’t you say Vic Kennelly was after him for money.”

  I had forgotten that.

  “He’d hardly still be after him now,” I said.

  “No, but it illustrates my point about him being dodgy.”

  If you say so, Steve, I thought.

  “Whatever happened to Brenda,” he added.

  “I’ve no idea where she is, have you?”

  “No.”

  She could be anywhere, I thought. She’d probably be married now and have a different surname.

  “And what about that Debbie you were going with in those days,” he asked. “What became of her?”

  “Last time I heard anything about her, she was doing something high-powered for the European Commission.”

  “You always did get involved with ambitious women,” he said. “Talking of which, are you out with the lovely Marti tonight?

  I wished I was.

  “No, she’s working away. I’m off to watch Salford at the new stadium.”

  “Glutton for punishment, you are.”

  “You never know, we might win.”

  “Stranger things have happened. Is your Dad going with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How is the old bugger?”

  Steve had always been fond of my Dad.

  “Fine. He’ll be 90 this year.”

  Steve’s amazement echoed my own.

  “Give him my love,” he said.

  “Will do.”

  “It must be hard watching Salford these days, remembering how good they were when you played for them.”

  Hard, I asked myself? Compared with what? It had been great playing for a successful team all those years ago, being paid for having fun. But life was pretty good now, I reminded myself.

  “It’s not too bad.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “By the way, I’ve got a golf day in Didsbury the week after next. Thought I’d come over to yours first. Monday the 14th, I think it is.”

  “That sounds OK.”

  “I’ll ring you nearer the time. In the meantime, don’t get too friendly with Mr Murphy.”

  “I’ll see you,” I said before ending the call.

  My mam had always disapproved of my friendship with Tony, I recalled, because of his family. Now Steve was warning me off. Surely I was old enough to make up my own mind by now, wasn’t I?

  I thought about Steve’s reaction, wondering why he hadn’t been more eager to know about Tony. He never had been one to dwell on the past. There was something to be said for that, though what had happened all those years ago still niggled away at me.

  * * *

  Seven o’clock found me pulling up outside a block of flats in Weaste. I beeped the horn and waited. A couple of minutes later, a white haired man, tall and upright, came out and walked to the car. Not long ago my Dad would have practically marched but there had been an inevitable slowing down in recent years. Immediately he got in my Peugeot, he asked how ‘that great granddaughter of mine’ was. I would not have believed anybody could be more besotted with Georgia than me but Dad probably was.

  “I had a phone call from Tony Murphy this morning,” I said once we were underway.

  “Tony who?”

  I reminded him who Tony was and after a bit of patient explanation, my Dad began to remember.

  “Ferret faced lad, only the size of two penn’orth of copper.”

  “That’s him.”

  He tutted. I wondered if that were to be the standard response.

  “Right bloody gomaloo and all, he was.”

  That was Tony put in his place.

  “Come to think of it,” he went on, “Wally Brignall thought he saw young Murphy in Jersey one time.”

  That was news to me.

  “Did he? You never said.”

  He shrugged.

  “It was that summer you went to France, I think. You were away about three weeks. By the time you got back, it must have slipped my mind.”

  I looked in the rear view mirror before signalling to turn left.

  “When was this?”

  My Dad thought for a while.

  “Ooh, years ago. Late eighties, I reckon. Wally said Tony was doing all right for himself.”

  That didn’t surprise me. My dad continued his tale of what happened on Wally’s Channel Island holiday.

  “At least he thought it was Tony, he never actually spoke to him.”

  So it might not have been Tony. Then again...

  “But we all know what Jersey means, don’t we, Gus?”

  “Bergerac?”

  He chuckled as I had a sudden vision of the nineteen eighties detective series set in Jersey.

  “Not Bergerac, you daft bugger. Money. Tax evasion or avoidance or whatever they call it.”

  It made sense somehow. Do you sincerely want to be rich, somebody had asked during the Thatcher era. I�
�d always thought Tony would have responded with a resounding yes.

  “Our Theresa phoned the other night,” Dad said we’d talked enough about Tony.

  My sister had for years insisted on being called Terri, but the message had never got through to her father.

  “She’ll be a bit warmer than us.”

  “Oh, aye, forty degrees in Sydney this week.”

  I’d rather be cold, I thought. We talked a bit about Terri. Even that reminded me of the year Tony left. Terri had flown from Australia for my mam’s funeral accompanied by a very fanciable friend, Felicity. It was only as she was about to go back she told us she was gay and she and Felicity were in love. My dad, once he had cottoned onto what she meant, just took it in his stride, saying, ‘I knew that, love’. Meanwhile, I saw my fantasies about an older woman go up in smoke.

  Half an hour later, I pulled into the car park of the City of Salford Stadium, the new home of Salford City Reds. It was a big improvement on the Willows but much less convenient. The old ground had been a couple of streets from my dad’s place. We got out and went to get a ticket from the machine. Searching in my pocket for change, I heard someone call my name. Turning round I saw a young, black man approach.

  “Paul,” I said, “good to see you.”

  “You too, mate. I’ve not seen you for yonks.”

  “Do you know my dad, Harry?” I asked.

  Introductions made, I put the ticket on my windscreen and we walked to the ground. A few people recognised me, saying ‘All right, Gus,’ or nodding. Very occasionally I’d get asked for my autograph. These strangers knew things about me because I’d been a professional rugby league player. They were aware, for instance, that my dad had named me after his hero, Gus Risman, who played for the Reds in the thirties. I still hadn’t made my mind up how I felt about being called Gus Risman Keane.

  “Will we get our first victory at the new stadium,” asked Paul as we approached the turnstile.

  “We can only hope,” I replied.

  “Definitely,” said my Dad.

  I huddled up in my anorak. Watching rugby league was getting harder as I got older, with the cold, the rarity of Salford victories and the discomfort of the seats. I was more worried about Dad but he always insisted he was OK.

  “Are you still doing your investigations, Gus,” said Paul.

  “I’ve not done any for a while,” I answered. “There might be some more work in the pipeline.”

  “If you need any help, you know where to look,” he hinted.

  “Certainly do.”

  I thought back to the time I had set up GRK Investigations with Marti’s encouragement and become a private eye. My first case had come from Marti and I’d enlisted Paul’s help as an assistant. He’d done a good job then and had made himself useful in a couple of cases since. I remembered what he was like when I first met him. He’d been referred to TRYS, a rugby charity I’d been involved with since I’d signed for Salford. He had got into trouble with the law and was well on the way down the slippery slope. Through his interest in rugby league, we had gradually convinced him there was an alternative. Now he was an upstanding citizen and did some voluntary work for TRYS.

  “You’ll be finishing your apprenticeship soon, won’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah, a couple of months. Got a permanent job lined up.”

  Those words gave me a little glow of pleasure, but soon we got caught up in one of the best matches I’d ever seen. The cares of everyday life were a distant memory as the game ebbed and flowed. I forgot about Tony, Steve and pretty well everything else. After Salford took an early lead, Hull bounced back and led 16-10 at half time. Fighting hard, the Reds equalised before Hull took the lead again. Daniel Holdsworth clinched the match for Salford with a last second penalty. So the Reds got their first win at the new ground and we went home happy.

  * * *

  I was lost in a dream about Debbie Oldham, where all my fantasies were happening at once, when I heard banging on the door. My head full of distracting images of a girl I hadn’t seen since the 1970s, I got up and put on my battered Marks and Spencer’s slippers. A glance at the alarm clock told me I had only been asleep half an hour or so.

  Maybe the phone call with Steve had led to the dream. I must thank him. But not whoever had broken into it, I thought, as I opened the door in my pyjamas. A woman of Asian background, carrying a kind of handbag cum briefcase, stood ready to knock again.

  “DI Ellerton,” I said. “Where’s the fire?”

  She followed me in. She was casually dressed – jeans, anorak, trainers – and her long, dark hair was loose, all of which suggested she’d been called in on her day off.

  “Any chance of a cup of tea, Gus,” she said in a Scottish accent.

  So it was first name terms today, was it? The previous time I’d had dealings with her, sometimes I’d been Mr Keane, sometimes Gus. Depended on her mood, I supposed.

  “Certainly,” I said, “when I’ve got some clothes on.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just go into the kitchen and sit down.”

  In the bathroom I washed my face, wondering what she wanted. Despite her friendly manner I knew this wasn’t a social call. All our previous dealings had been official, mostly to do with the death of Bill Copelaw, my boss at the time. I ran my wet hands through my hair, but still looked as if I had just got out of bed.

  Going back into my bedroom, I had a terrible feeling that it would take me ages to get back to sleep once the inspector had finished with me. I looked for clean clothes, asking myself why whatever Sarita wanted couldn’t have waited. And why she hadn’t phoned first. Dressed in jeans and an Isles of Scilly t-shirt, which I had a feeling had originally belonged to my ex-wife, Louise, I went back into the kitchen.

  “Right, tea,” I said.

  “You’re a life saver,” she said, “I was just looking forward to a nice, quiet night in when I got the call.”

  What call was that, I asked myself? I put the kettle on and got a white sliced loaf out of the freezer.

  “Marti tells me you make a smashing cup of tea. And you’re a great cook.”

  Does she now, I muttered to myself.

  “I suppose you want toast?”

  “Please. You know, you’ll make someone a lovely wife.”

  I put bread in the toaster while I tried to remember whether that joke had been funny the first time I’d heard it. We chatted about our families for a bit. By the time Sarita had waxed lyrical about her little boy and I’d got into doting grandfather mode for a bit, the tea and toast were ready. Only when tea had been poured and we were tucking into toast did the Inspector get down to business.

  “Do you know a man called Edward Tattersall,’ she said.

  “Not personally. I’ve come into contact with him professionally.”

  She took a sheet of paper out of her bag and unfolded it.

  “Have you seen these before,” she asked as she handed it to me.

  It was a flyer, with a picture of Tattersall on one side. On the other it said:

  Protect Our Kids From Paedophiles

  Edward Tattersall is a convicted sex criminal. He has abused kids in Birmingham.

  Now he is free to abuse Salford children.

  Tell Tattersall he is not welcome here. If he stays it will be at his own risk.

  I looked at Sarita.

  “Bloody hell,” I said. “To answer your question, I haven’t seen them before. Who’s responsible for them?”

  She shrugged.

  “That’s what we want to find out.”

  I sensed she was holding something back.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  She crunched a bit of toast.

  “Tattersall’s dead body was found in his flat at half six this evening.”

  “I take it as you’re here, he was murdered?”

  “We’re treating his death as suspicious.”

  Reassuring to know she was falling back
on an old cliché, I thought.

  “He had a gig with some band or other and another member went to pick him up. She got no answer to her knock, saw the door was open and went in.”

  Those words took me back to the day I’d found a dead body.

  “The woman who found him had two shocks...”

  “Yeah?”

  Sarita took another bite of toast and a mouthful of tea, then went on.

  “First the dead body, then the news that Tattersall was a sex abuser. She had no idea apparently.”

  Well, she wouldn’t, I thought.

  “What do you want from me,” I asked.

  She got a pen and notepad from her bag.

  “Well, what dealings have you had with him?”

  While she scribbled rapidly in her pad I told her about Tattersall’s relationship with Imogen Attwell.

  “Because she has kids, we were planning to have a conference on them next...Tuesday, I think it is.”

  “Right. Have you actually met him?”

  I thought back to the meeting in the interview room, realising he’d only had hours to live.

  “He came to see me at Ordsall Tower today, mid-morning it would have been.”

  “Anybody else there?”

  I sipped more tea.

  “Just Tattersall’s solicitor, Yvonne Sigson.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Yvonne? She doesn’t usually deal with that sort of thing.”

  “Marti’s away in London.”

  “That explains it. What did Mr Tattersall have to say for himself?”

  “Oh, you know, we were infringing his human rights...”

  “You’re kidding?”

  I sighed.

  “I wish I was. Fellers like him are an insult to all the victims of human rights abuse around the world.”

  And to the kids he abused, I thought.

  “He did say one strange thing though,’ I added after a moment’s thought.

  She perked up at this.

  “Oh?”

  “He alleged that a murderer worked at Children’s Services.”

  She pulled a face that spoke of confusion.

  “Who might that be?”

  I swallowed more toast.

  “He refused to say. Very mysterious he was. He hinted that he would report the facts to the media if we didn’t let him live with Imogen and her kids.”