SALFORD MURDERS: The Private Investigator Gus Keane Trilogy

by Bud Craig

  “Probably,” agreed Steve.

  He looked into the beer in his glass.

  “Although it does throw a different light on the murder,” he added.

  Now what, I thought.

  “Whether she is Michelle Adams or not, she looks like Michelle Adams.”

  I still didn’t get it; my brain was beginning to hurt. Steve explained further.

  “Somebody else might have recognised her,” said Steve. “And, thinking she was an accessory to child murder, sought revenge?”

  “Shit.”

  I thought of people being attacked by vigilantes, who hadn’t bothered to make sure they’d got the right person. I tried to work out how this might have affected Josie.

  “It still leaves a lot of unanswered questions,” I said. “If she was instantly recognizable as Michelle Adams why hadn’t somebody had a go before now?”

  I thought about the photograph of Josie that her brother had given me. An inkling of an idea crept into my mind. I took out my mobile, found Larry’s number and dialled.

  “Larry, it’s Gus, have you got time to talk?”

  “Sure.”

  I took a second to work out what to say.

  “Has Josie changed her appearance recently?”

  “Depends what you mean. She had her hair cut short before she went to Tenerife, said it would be cooler.”

  That fitted with what I’d been thinking.

  “In the photo you gave me she wasn’t wearing glasses.”

  “No, she usually wore contact lenses, but she had trouble with them while she was away. Went back to glasses.”

  I had one more question.

  “When did she get back from Tenerife?”

  “The week before she died, can’t remember exactly. What’s all this about?”

  Was there an explanation for all this? It might be a complete red herring. Then again, it might not.

  “I can’t explain now, Larry. It’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be in touch.”

  I told Steve what Larry had said.

  “So she’s only looked like Adams for a short time,” he asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  Steve took his phone out of his jacket and began to dial.

  “I’ll give Sarita a ring.”

  Do you have to, Steve, I wondered? Question expecting the answer yes. I recalled the time at his home in Dolgellau when he had called DI Ellerton after describing her as his protégée.

  “Sarita,” he said, “Steve Yarnitzky here.”

  He smirked as he listened.

  “Of course you haven’t got time to chat,” he said, “a busy working mum like you, but I may be able to help you with your inquiries.”

  Another pause followed while Sarita spoke.

  “Interfere with you? I can’t think what you mean, Sarita...”

  He looked over at me and winked.

  “I’m in the Park Hotel with my old friend, Gus Keane. He sends his love by the way...”

  I tried to signal to Steve that I wanted to be kept out of this conversation. He covered the phone with his hand.

  “She sends her love too, wonders why a nice bloke like you knocks about with someone like me.”

  Steve went back to his call, which, in my estimation, seemed to be going on forever.

  “We’ve been looking at some photos of Josie Finch, the lass who got killed...have you noticed she’s the image of Michelle Adams?”

  He tutted.

  “Michelle Adams, the Jack Hinton case in Norfolk...that’s the one.”

  He adopted a serious expression, nodding at intervals.

  “That’s fine then,” he said, “just thought I’d mention it...I’ll let you get on. Cheers, Sarita.”

  He ended the call.

  “She thanked me for my call and said she would take my information into account.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The next day I knocked on the door of a council house a few minutes’ walk from Ordsall Tower.

  “Hello, Imogen,” I said, “sorry to bother you. It’s Gus Keane from...”

  She frowned, looking me up and down as if finding me wanting in every way possible. She put her white-gloved hands on her hips.

  “I know who you are. What do you want?”

  I clutched my briefcase, wishing I could get out of the strong wind.

  “Angela Bromwich, the manager, asked me to call. Just to see how you are and check one or two things.”

  Her sigh came up from her furry carpet slippers.

  “I suppose you’d better come in.”

  I followed her into the living room. Cosy, I would have called it. Neat and tidy too, but not excessively so. Tattersall had probably thought a man could feel at home here. Somewhat superior to Deadbeat Mansions anyway. Not that he had been motivated by anything other than true love. Imogen invited me to sit down and offered tea or coffee.

  “No, I’m fine thanks,” I said.

  I took out a notebook from my briefcase, as we sat opposite one another on matching armchairs. On the small table to my right was a library book called Setting Up Your Own Business, a closed laptop and Topsy and Tim’s Monday Book. Topsy and Tim, I thought, happy days, as my mind took me straight back to Danny and Rachel’s childhood. I almost forgot what I was going to say for a moment.

  “I was just wondering how things were since Edward died,” I said.

  She glared at me.

  “What do you think? Some stupid sod couldn’t mind his own business and now my boyfriend’s dead.”

  “So you think whoever killed Edward saw one of those leaflets about his offences?”

  “Suppose so.”

  “Who do you think produced the leaflets?”

  She shrugged.

  “Had you confided in anyone?”

  “Confided?”

  “About Edward?”

  Her face registered scorn.

  “Huh. Who would I confide in? What am I supposed to say? ‘Oh, by the way, you know Edward? He’s been to prison for child abuse’.”

  It seemed obvious a woman in Imogen’s position would keep quiet about it, but many didn’t. They took on the role of persecuted victim, bullied by uncaring social workers, and tried to gather a support group around them.

  “You don’t remember hearing anyone say anything, drop any hints?”

  Again she shook her head. She clenched her hands tight.

  “Do you need any help at all?”

  I knew she had refused help after the meeting we’d had in the office, but she may have thought again. She shook her head, rubbing her bottom lip against the top one.

  “No, that Karen offered me counselling, but that would mean going over it all again, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes. It’s your choice of course.”

  Which was best, I asked myself? Talking about it until it wasn’t such a weight or trying to forget it and getting on with your life? I thought of the counselling I had had a couple of years ago. It worked for me but what did that mean to anybody else?

  She stopped in mid-stream as though struggling for the right words.

  “At least there won’t be anybody coming round checking on the kids now. I just want to be left in peace.”

  Don’t we all at times? There seemed little point in pursuing the offer of help.

  “Look, Gus,” she said with an air of finality, “if I need any help I’ll get in touch, OK? I know you’re only doing your job, but having social services on your back isn’t a lot of fun.”

  No, not fun, I thought.

  * * *

  In Angela Bromwich’s office in Ordsall Tower a few minutes later, I told her about my interview with Imogen and what Ian at Deadbeat Mansions said.

  “So, no sign of any leak,” asked Angela.

  “No, I’ll keep digging though.”

  It struck me how different she looked in her dark, formal clothes, than she had at the quiz. This led me to consider again Josie’s change of appearance. Would that turn out to be important
or not?

  “I did want to talk to you about a couple of other things, Angela,” I said after a slight hesitation.

  “Oh, yes?”

  I knew asking about Tony may cause embarrassment, so I decided in my cowardly way to deal with Josie first.

  “The first concerns Josie Finch.”

  I explained about Larry’s request for me to investigate his sister’s killing.

  “My, you are in demand.”

  “I suppose I am,” I said. “I should say the family are convinced Simon Natchow did it and want me to prove it.”

  Looking at my notebook, I scanned the main points I wanted to cover.

  “If you could go through what you remember of what happened that night.”

  She placed her hands flat on her desk and concentrated.

  “Well, as you probably know, I had a bit to drink that night,” she said, “so I’m not sure how reliable my memory will be.”

  I waited, confident she would get going soon. She did.

  “Well, I remember Natchow coming up to our table. I found him a bit scary. He seemed...I don’t know, a bit paranoid. As if people were out to get him...and he was out to get them.”

  That sounded like Natchow all right.

  “What about later? You know, when we were all leaving.”

  She looked questioningly at me.

  “What are you trying to find out?”

  I tried to get my thoughts in order.

  “Josie seems to have been killed in the few minutes from the people in our quiz team leaving and her brother arriving to pick her up.”

  She thought in silence for a moment.

  “Yes, I suppose she must have been. Now then, let me think, I walked into the car park at the back with Tony...”

  She stopped as if giving herself time to get her account right.

  “Yes, we were waiting for a taxi. It would only have been a minute or so before it arrived.”

  What happened in that minute or so and the time it took to drive away could be important?

  “Did you notice anything while you were waiting?”

  “Only one another,” she said, the hint of a blush on her cheek and an ‘aren’t I daring’ twinkle in her eye.

  “Just as the cab got there, Tony went back in for his cigarettes and lighter, I remember. When he came back we left.”

  I plodded on, not expecting anything to come from all this.

  “Did you see anything as you left the car park?”

  She shook her head.

  “Sorry, Gus, I’d like to help, I really would. Nothing springs to mind.”

  I sighed.

  “Did you see Natchow or Josie?”

  Another head shake.

  “No.”

  I had been writing in my book and now stopped.

  “What did you think of Josie,” I asked, having got as far as I could with purely factual questions.

  “I don’t know that I thought anything about her. Why do you ask?”

  What could I say to that? I’m clutching at straws? My mate, Steve think she could be somebody else.

  “Well, you and she had a bit of an altercation in the office.”

  Sighing, she frowned before she responded.

  “Yeah, she caught me at a bad time.”

  I decided to follow this up.

  “You didn’t seem too pleased to see her at the quiz.”

  She shrugged.

  “I was surprised she was there. And now I think about it I did find her irritating.”

  “Irritating?”

  “Yes. Along with so many other things in my life. She seemed to think her bloody accounts were the most important thing in the world.”

  She sighed in exasperation.

  “She wouldn’t leave me alone. I had better things to worry about, quite frankly. I’m on the point of burn out; I’m drinking too much; my home life’s a mess since Frank got made redundant and...”

  She stopped and slumped back in her seat.

  “Sorry, Gus, you don’t want to hear this.”

  She placed her hands on her thighs and let her shoulders relax.

  “So there was nothing wrong with the accounts,” I asked.

  She stared at me, fury on her face.

  “What are you getting at? You’ve heard the rumours, haven’t you?”

  I looked away momentarily.

  “Well, there was...”

  She breathed out audibly through her mouth.

  “My God, this is intolerable. If people around here paid as much attention to their work as they do to tittle tattle, we’d all be better off.”

  Play it cool, Gus, I said to myself.

  “That doesn’t really answer the question,” I said.

  “OK. There is nothing wrong with the accounts. Judson Mainwaring sent somebody to replace Josie and everything’s been signed off.”

  She drummed her fingers on her desk. Time to move on, I thought.

  “I’ve got just one more question about Josie,” I said.

  She sighed, then grinned at me.

  “You’re a cheeky sod.”

  “I know,” I replied, grinning back.

  “When you first met Josie did you recognise her?”

  She looked genuinely baffled.

  “No, should I have?”

  “You didn’t think she looked familiar?”

  “No, sorry.”

  I left it at that.

  “The other case I’m involved in concerns Tony Murphy,” I said.

  “Tony? That’s another thing. I’m sorry the poor girl got killed, really I am, but it has meant the Manchester police knowing my intimate business. I didn’t tell them the truth at first, but somebody must have grassed me up.”

  As long as she didn’t know it was me, I thought.

  “Anyway, Tony’s PA came to see me on Monday. She seems to think Tony’s missing.”

  “Missing? He can’t be.”

  Oh, yes, he can, I said to myself, you don’t know him like I do. I explained what Yarla had told me.

  “Oh, my God, but...”

  She stopped abruptly.

  “I’ll ask the obvious question,” I said. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  Having decided to try and piece together his movements in the time since I’d last seen him, I made a start.

  “What happened after you left the Park Hotel that night?”

  “I think you can work that out for yourself, can’t you,” she said, the faint blush threatening to make a comeback.

  “I suppose what I’m getting at,” I said, “is where did you go, when did you last see him and do you remember anything that might give a clue as to his whereabouts?”

  I paused for breath.

  “Mmm,” she said. “Well, the first bit’s easy. We went to the Midland Hotel. The last time I saw Tony was in the early hours of the morning when I sneaked out without waking him.”

  “How did you get back home?”

  That wasn’t really relevant, just curiosity.

  “Taxi.”

  An expensive business, these affairs.

  “Right. Did Tony say anything about where he was going next?”

  She sat back, obviously bored with my questions.

  “Gus, we didn’t do a lot of talking. That wasn’t the idea. Oh, I know it sounds sordid, but a girl’s got to have some fun.”

  “Angela, think,” I instructed, irritated by her vagueness and her asides about her dalliance with Tony. “Tony must have said something about his plans.”

  She made an effort to look as if she were considering what I had said.

  “Well, he was the kind of guy who tries to impress all the time, you know,” she said.

  I looked at her, willing her to go on. I was already beginning to form my own impressions of what Tony Murphy was like. What I wanted was to find him.

  “He said something about having business to sort out, but he invested it with a kind of mystery. So I had n
o idea what it was or where he’d be doing it.”

  I jotted down notes.

  “He mentioned an old flame he might look up. Even that was meant to be a big deal. To hear him talk, this Barbara or whatever she was called had been pining for him since she was a slip of a girl.”

  That sounded like Tony. I assumed she meant Brenda, but there could have been a Barbara as well.

  “Anything else?”

  She shrugged.

  “He was stopping off on the way back to London to see a mate.”

  Brenda had told me that.

  “So you can’t say specifically where he was going?”

  And of course she couldn’t.

  On my way home, I wondered about Tony and his possible connection to my other two cases. Things had started to happen once Tony came back into my life. Was that coincidence? It was difficult to see how it could be anything else, but maybe I should think about it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  That afternoon found me approaching Dedby Mansions again. I went in at the front entrance and into a damp, chilly foyer. My footsteps echoed as I climbed to the first floor. At flat 13 I knocked on the door and waited. The door creaked open.

  “Hello, Simon,” I said.

  He peered at me as though trying to identify a laboratory sample. It took a while for him to recognise me.

  “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

  He tensed as he said the words like a bouncer in a club ready to turn away anyone not suitably dressed.

  “It’s confidential,” I replied. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to discuss your private affairs out here.”

  Scowling, he held the door open. That approach always worked.

  “You’d better come in.”

  It was only a step into Natchow’s living room. I breathed in a mixture of stale sweat, booze and tobacco. As the room’s windows were rarely opened the fug had lingered. The place was cleaned even more rarely. Simon moved an out of date copy of the Radio Times and a Daily Mail from a battered chair. It had the same level of taste and comfort as Ian Jamieson’s place.

  “Sit down.”

  I sat while he lowered himself onto a green settee that sagged in the middle. This too held a pile of papers as well as a crust of burnt toast.

  “Right, what is it?”

  In answer I took my wallet from my trouser pocket and handed Simon a card for GRK Investigations.

  “What the bloody hell’s this?”

  “I’m a private investigator,” I said.