by Bud Craig
His breathing quickened and he bit compulsively at his bottom lip.
“You can’t do that,” he said, a note of pleading in his voice.
“Worried about what Mr Prince might think?”
He sat in wretched silence.
“Or you can save me a hell of a lot of paperwork,” Sarita suggested. “I forget about you being under arrest; you help me with one or two things I’m looking into.”
I sat back in admiration. This was good stuff.
“First of all what are you doing here?”
He exchanged a furtive glance with me. That got him nowhere.
“I was looking for a friend of Mr Keane’s,” said Eric.
“Go on.”
He hesitated then found voice again.
“Feller called Tony Murphy. Maybe I went about it the wrong way.”
No maybe about it, I could have said. I kept quiet, enjoying listening to him trying to dig his way out of a hole.
“It’s a private matter,” Consett went on after a bit of thought, “there’s no need for the police to be involved.”
She raised her eyebrows, looked in my direction, then glowered at Consett.
“I’ll be the judge of what is and what isn’t a private matter. Right now I need to talk to Mr Keane here. As for you, Mr Consett, I shall want to question you tomorrow at, ooh, 10 a.m.”
Eric nodded.
“So I’ll expect you to be at home when I call.”
“At home? You...”
“Don’t worry, I’ll come the back way.”
* * *
Consett left soon after this, on his face a mixture of anxiety, relief and gratitude.
“You should do something about your security, Gus,” said Sarita.
“Security?”
“Yeah, get a chain on your front door and a spy hole.”
I looked towards the door, making a mental note to follow the Inspector’s advice.
“Good idea. Anyway, who was that feller,” I asked.
“Hired muscle,” Sarita explained. “The type who’s always being told in films he’s not paid to think.”
Having hired muscle in my own home didn’t sound too good, but I decided not to pursue it.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for your friend Mr Murphy too,” said the DI Ellerton.
Isn’t everyone, I could have asked.
“Oh, aye. What’s he done?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing that need concern you, but he was near the scene of the crime on the night Josie Finch was killed.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“One of my officers went to the Midland Hotel this morning.”
The hotel staff must be wondering what’s going on, I thought.
“They said he’d checked out.”
Why was that a problem? I’m sure Manchester Police got all his contact details from the Midland.
“Probably gone back to London,” I suggested.
I didn’t think there was any need to tell her about Tony’s shocked reaction at the mention of the police. Nor did she need to know that Tony was a client. And I was bloody sure Brenda would want to be kept out of all this.
“He’s not at his London address now.”
So what, I wondered. He could have got back by now but could equally have stopped off somewhere en route. I would have done.
“He might be on his way there. He didn’t confide his plans to me. He didn’t even tell me he was leaving the Midland.”
“Really?”
“Yes really. I didn’t know him well,” I explained. “Hardly at all when I think about it.”
I wondered what that Consett bloke had to do with anything. I had worked out from what the DI had said that there must be something suspicious about him. Did that mean the same applied to Tony? More than likely, I concluded.
“I’ve seen him twice recently,” I continued. “Last Tuesday at the pub, you know about. Last night he invited me for a drink in his suite. Other than that I haven’t seen him for getting on for forty years.”
In other words, I wanted to say, how the fuck should I know where he is or what he’s doing or what his plans are? And why should I care? She got up to leave.
“Who’s Baz Prince,” I asked.
“You don’t want to know,” she said as she went out.
I did want to know. Maybe she meant I didn’t need to know or it was best if I didn’t know. There was somebody who might tell me about Prince. I would just have time to phone him before I got back to Marti.
“Steve, I need your help,” I said moments later.
“Well, make it quick, I’m just off out.”
“What do you know about Baz Prince?”
Steve sucked his teeth.
“You’ve never got mixed up with him, have you?”
“No. I only heard his name for the first time a few minutes ago.”
I explained about Consett getting into the flat and DI Ellerton’s visit.
“So Tony Murphy has some connection with Prince?”
“It sounds like it.”
“I told you Murphy was a wrong ‘un.”
“Yeah, now tell me about this Prince character.”
“Where to start? He would tell you he’s a fine, upstanding self-employed businessman.”
I waited for Steve to give me the alternative version, fearing the worst.
“Some say he’s a criminal mastermind.”
Milk it for all it’s worth, Steve, why don’t you, I thought.
“Others say he’s a right bloody villain who has never got caught. A gangster in common parlance.”
“What sort of thing is he into?”
“Again, where to start? Money laundering, major fraud...You know I told you about those gangs that steal cars to order?”
“No.”
“You do,” he insisted, “I explained it last time I saw you.”
As if I paid any attention when Steve was wittering on about cars.
“Anyway, what about it?” I asked.
“For years we thought he was behind that.”
Bloody great, I thought.
* * *
About 4.30 that afternoon my phone rang again as I was in the middle of a game of crib with Marti.
“Gus, it’s Brenda.”
“Hiya, Brenda,”
A stage wait.
“I’ve seen Tony.”
That was quick, I thought. He did stop off somewhere: Sheffield. It was not really on the way, but so what?
“Great.”
“He left Manchester first thing this morning. Said he couldn’t wait to see me.”
That didn’t ring true, I thought, but maybe I was just an old cynic.
“How did you get on?”
“Fine, fine, we...”
She sounded lost for words.
“Well,” she said, starting again, “we met in my office. It was, er, quite emotional, you know.”
She had had a lot to cope with since I had contacted her. There was probably more to come.
“There were a few tears, a bit of anger on my part...”
I could hear her sniffing.
“I’ll bet,” I said.
“And... anyway, I told Tony about Adam and the adoption and everything...”
That must have taken some doing, I thought.
“I said Adam wanted to meet him.”
“What did Tony say to that?”
“Basically that he wanted time to think about it.”
What’s to think about, I would have said had Tony been in front of me now.
“He said it had all been a shock,” she went on, “it was like his life being turned upside down. He’d been used to only thinking about himself all these years.”
“What now?” I asked.
“Tony was off to a mate’s house in Leighton Buzzard. He was staying with him for a night or two.”
That wasn’t what I meant.
“And then?”<
br />
“He’s gonna ring me,” she said, “let me know what he has decided.”
* * *
Within seconds of our ending the call with mutual good wishes and promises to keep in touch, the phone rang again.
“Gus, it’s Angela.’
“Hiya.”
I was hoping it would be more work. She wouldn’t have any other reason for calling.
“Could you call in sometime. Next couple of days, say?”
I couldn’t see any reason why not. For a few seconds I thought of asking what it was about but wanted to get back to Marti. I wasn’t exactly consumed with curiosity. I went into my office and found my diary on top of the desk.
“What about Thursday morning? Ten o’clock?”
There was a pause and a riffling of pages, presumably in Angela’s diary.
“10.15?”
I wrote ‘10.15 Angela Ordsall Tower’ in the slot for Thursday 8th March.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I got to Ordsall Tower at about ten past ten the following Thursday and went straight to Angela’s office. Knocking on the door, I went in. I did a double take on seeing DI Ellerton sitting next to Angela.
“Come in, Gus, sit down,” said the boss. “You know Sarita, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Hiya.”
Sarita gave me a smile of greeting.
“I thought we needed somebody from the police side of things,” Angela went on. “It’s about the Tattersall case. I’m a bit worried the shit’s gonna hit the fan.”
“Again?”
In social work the shit was always about to hit the fan.
“Have a look at this.”
She passed up a copy of the Manchester Evening News to me. I looked at the front page headline:
Paedophile murder: was there a leak?
Did a leak of confidential information from Salford Social Services lead to the vigilante style killing of paedophile Edward Tattersall, 39?
Wondering what his age had to do with anything, I gave the rest of the article a cursory glance. Noting the complete lack of evidence for this allegation, I stopped reading.
“Amazing,” I said, “and they’re usually so nice to us.”
“I hadn’t noticed that,” smiled Sarita.
I was finding it hard to concentrate. My mind was on other things. Life had settled down in the past week or so. I hadn’t been in Ordsall Tower since then. Not too good financially, but it meant I’d been able to keep an eye on Marti. For a few days I’d slept in one of her spare rooms but moved back home when she could manage on her own. I still had no clear idea how things stood between us. Maybe I’d find out tomorrow, I thought, as I was going to be spending the weekend at her place.
“The thing is,” Angela said, “I’d like you to look into it for me.”
This sounded like paid work, so I listened harder.
“I’ll help in any way I can,” I said. “What exactly does look into mean?”
Again she picked up the pen from the desk and twiddled it in her right hand.
“Well, see if you can find out how the information got out.”
“Presumably it would have been in the media at the time of his conviction.”
She put the pen back down.
“True, but only in the Midlands and quite a few years ago. The police are concerned as well. It only takes one person to be a bit careless, leaving a report in the photocopier, taking files home, a stray bit of paper gets dropped somewhere, you know the sort of thing.”
“Yes. Where do I come in?”
“Ask around the estate. Use your contacts in the area.”
Contacts in the area? She had obviously heard I came from Ordsall. Did she realise I hadn’t lived around here for decades? Maybe she saw me as a sort of working class hero relating meaningfully to his community or some similar bollocks. Whatever was behind this request for me to intervene, it still sounded a bit vague. The words needle and haystack sprung to mind, but I wasn’t going to turn the job down.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She smiled brightly.
“Great. Nobody else needs to know you’re doing this and you’ll report directly to me. OK?”
“Fine. Where do you come in, Sarita?”
“Well, the same applies to us. We have to be as sure as we can be that we’ve respected confidentiality.”
I nodded, still a bit unclear about her role.
“While investigating Tattersall’s murder and umpteen other matters and no doubt curing all known diseases on my day off, I’m expected to find out how the information about our friend Edward might have got out.”
“Right.”
Nobody said anything for a moment.
“You’ll be liaising closely with one another,” said Angela.
“I can share some information on a strictly informal basis,” said Sarita, “but nothing is to be written down and it should go no further.”
Angela and I exchanged a glance.
“Of course,” agreed Angela.
“We’ve discovered the pamphlets came from Tattersall’s laptop.”
My mouth dropped open. I must have had the type of facial expression that would have led to my mam saying, ‘you’ll stick like that if the wind changes’.
“Was it a complicated way of committing suicide then,” I asked.
“Doubt it,” explained Sarita. “It would have been easy enough to get into Tattersall’s flat and use his computer.”
I saw the sense of that.
“Who would have done that?”
She shrugged.
“How long have you got? Anybody who knew him and knew about his record. Residents of Deadbeat Mansions. Victims’ families. The list is endless.”
“Was there anything dodgy on his laptop,” I asked.
“It took some finding, but yes, there was. And a few memory sticks hidden under the floorboards.”
I thought back to Rachel describing how she found the body. Hadn’t she said something about tripping on a loose floorboard?
“Nobody knows we found this stuff, repeat nobody and nobody else must be told. It could compromise our investigation.”
“Understood. Looking at this in the context of the job you and I have to do,” I said, “it seems unlikely somebody from Manchester police or Salford council broke into the flat.”
“No, but they might have provided the information.”
I thought a bit more.
“True, but the stuff on these leaflets was pretty general, wasn’t it? It gives no clue as to where the information came from.”
“We’ll just have to do the best we can,” said Sarita sadly.
* * *
I left the meeting, went into the deserted social work room and sat at an empty desk. I should have been feeling cheered. I could start work on this case today and earn some money. But it didn’t feel right. For one thing, I should have been used to the idea that social workers were to blame for everything, but it still pissed me off. For another, there had now been two murders in the neighbourhood and here we were covering our backs about one of them. Was there no room for a human response? I couldn’t forget my daughter had found the body.
Still, brooding over it would not do her any good. I had better just get on with it. What contacts did I have in the area, I asked myself, and immediately thought of Paul. When my Dad and I had seen him at the rugby he’d seemed keen. Looking back, I realised that was the day it all started. Tony phoned; I met Tattersall and Josie Finch; Simon Natchow reared his ugly head. Apart from anything else it would be nice to help Paul earn a bit of extra cash. He would be the ideal man to do what I wanted and always seemed to know what was going on. I’d phone him now.
“Paul, it’s Gus,” I said a few moments later.
“Hey, Gus, all right.”
“Fine, I might have some work for you.”
“Sounds good. What is it?”
I was about to explain then thought better of it.
“Can we meet,” I r
eplied, “and I’ll tell you all about.”
“Yeah, OK.”
We decided on tomorrow lunchtime at the Albert Square Chop House. What else did I need to do to help the investigation? The conversation I had had with Arthur in the Park Hotel on the night of the quiz came back to me. First stop would be the place the obese landlord thought any investigation should start. That was two avenues to explore, I thought, feeling pleased with myself.
* * *
A few minutes later I walked through the Ordsall estate where a lot of social work clients lived. Contrary to popular prejudice I wasn’t taking my life in my hands. Nobody tried to knife or mug me, one or two people said hello with a smile on their faces. Most of the houses were well looked after. The city of Salford scored highly in the indices of social deprivation with Ordsall being one of the worst areas in that respect, but it was full of ordinary people trying to get by.
Passing through Robert Hall street, I thought about Tony Murphy. He wouldn’t recognise his old stamping ground. What would he decide about seeing his son? I thought I would have heard something by now. If one of them didn’t make contact soon, I’d give Tony or Brenda a ring. These thoughts took me to Dedby Street. A squat, three storey block had, it seemed, been stuck on the corner of the street deliberately in order to bring down the tone.
DEDBY MANSIONS said the sign on the front wall. Whoever had thought of the word mansions obviously had a sense of humour. As did the bloke who had sprayed DEADBEAT MANSIONS just below the official name. Being here now reminded me of Rachel telling me she’d discovered Edward’s body.
The building had an air of neglect, rather like the inhabitants who had made up the quiz team. A council van pulled up at the kerb and two workmen in overalls got out. I remembered hearing they were doing up Tattersall’s flat before re-letting it. Eventually all the apartments would be modernized.
Though the mansions was the scene of the crime, my first stop was the bungalow next door. Arthur had advised that and he should know, I thought, as I went along the garden path and knocked at the PVC door. I heard a chain being rattled inside.
“Yes,” coughed a man who could have been any age between forty-five and sixty.
A homemade cigarette dangled from his bottom lip. His sweatshirt was stained with some unidentifiable foodstuff; his track suit bottoms looked in danger of falling down. Incongruously, his white trainers looked pristine. I took out my wallet and showed him my ID.