Stop Dead

by Leigh Russell

  Geraldine asked if Henshaw favoured any of the waitresses over the others but Ginny said he wasn’t particular.

  ‘Now George, he was a different kettle of fish altogether. He had no pretensions, not like Mr Henshaw. George was friendly, but not over-familiar, if you get my drift. I was sorry to hear about him. Of course I’m sorry to hear about what happened to them both,’ she added quickly.

  The sharply-dressed manager was glib and irritatingly self-assured. His black hair was smooth and sleek, his features perfectly proportioned, his gestures camp in spite of his sober clothes.

  ‘I suppose they’ll be closing the place down now,’ he said as soon as he sat down. ‘I’m already working on my CV. Shame, I’ve only been here for a year and just when I thought I was settled, this goes and happens. Isn’t that just typical?’

  Geraldine didn’t answer straight away but let him talk through his dissatisfaction with his situation, hoping to glean his views on the two murdered men. He answered her questions clearly and at length, but gave little away, carefully restricting himself to bland comments on his bosses.

  Geraldine asked if anyone else had been working at the restaurant on the evenings when the two owners were killed.

  ‘Ginny said something about a singer?’ she prompted him.

  ‘Oh yes, of course. We usually have performers in at the weekends, and often on a Friday as well. It adds to the customer’s experience.’

  ‘Was anyone performing here the night of the murders?’ she asked again.

  The manager frowned, thinking.

  ‘There was a girl last Friday, yes.’

  ‘What about the previous Sunday, the night Henshaw was killed?’

  ‘To be honest, with all that’s been going on, I couldn’t tell you. Patrick used to book the performers and I’m not sure if he kept any written records. If he did, they weren’t here. It was all quite informal, you know.’

  Geraldine didn’t return his guarded smile.

  ‘What can you tell me about the singer who was here last Friday?’

  ‘Not a lot, I’m afraid. I didn’t get involved. She was one of our regulars. She was alright, nothing special. We only have room for solo artists, a singer with a guitar, or sometimes they use a backing track. We have a few regulars who are good value, and the customers appreciate it. Live music is very popular these days, and we like to – here at Mireille –’

  He broke off with a sigh.

  ‘We’ll need the singer’s contact details.’

  The manager went and rummaged around behind the bar, before returning to Geraldine with a shrug. He cleared his throat.

  ‘I’ve got her name here somewhere, but – we paid her in cash.’

  He fished through the till. They both knew he was going through the motions.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said finally, his expression lightening with relief at having remembered something. ‘She told me she sings on Tuesdays in Westfield in Shepherds Bush.’

  He named a café.

  ‘I wish I could remember her name – Inga?’

  ‘Inga the singer,’ Geraldine said, smiling.

  ‘No, that wasn’t it. I’m sorry, I just can’t remember her name, but she told me she sings there regularly on Tuesdays.’

  ‘Can you describe her?’

  ‘Short, slight, dark hair, quite pretty.’

  It wasn’t much to go on.

  The questioning took most of the day. As they left the restaurant, Geraldine was troubled by a feeling that they were going nowhere with the investigation. She and Sam compared notes, adding to what they already knew about Henshaw as an urbane womaniser with an acute business brain. Geraldine had the advantage that she had spoken to Corless before he was killed. He seemed less sophisticated than his partner, blunt in his views but not unkind towards his employees and his young girlfriend. It was a testament to his cordiality that, despite falling out with his wife, he had remained on good terms with his children. But while everyone at the restaurant seemed genuinely concerned about the double murder, nothing that was said shed any light on the identity of the killer.

  CHAPTER 36

  With George out of the running, his ownership of the restaurant went to his children, both of whom had alibis for the evenings when the murders took place. Meanwhile, Amy and Guy were still suspects. It was curious that the nature of the injuries in the two murders was almost identical, although the damage the victims had sustained suggested the murders had been prompted by personal enmity. The fatal blow against Corless appeared to have been quite powerful, making Guy the most likely out of all the suspects. In addition, Amy had accused him of killing her husband, a claim Geraldine suspected was no more than the ranting of a disappointed woman. Even so, she had to follow it up so she decided to start her day by talking to Guy again.

  Her expectation that the young man would resent being recalled for further questioning was confirmed as soon as she entered the interview room. He leapt to his feet, dark eyes blazing with anger.

  ‘What the hell’s going on? I answered all your questions yesterday, I even signed a statement, what more do you want? You’ve got no right to bring me back here again.’

  Paying no attention to his outburst, Geraldine sat down and greeted him politely, thanking him for helping them with their enquiries. As she did so, the duty solicitor mumbled something to the suspect who sat down, grumbling quietly.

  ‘I only met Patrick Henshaw once, for Christ’s sake. Go on then, ask all your questions again if you must, but you won’t find out anything new.’

  He glanced sideways at the solicitor, who made no further attempt to communicate with him.

  Leaning back from the table in a deliberately casual pose, Geraldine kept her eyes fixed on the suspect as she asked if he had ever met George Corless. Guy shook his head without answering.

  ‘Mr Barrett, please answer the question.’

  ‘Who did you say?’

  ‘George Corless.’

  Geraldine showed him a head shot of the dead man taken a year or two before his death.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  ‘No. Why? Should I?’

  ‘Look carefully, Mr Barrett.’

  He glanced at the photograph without registering any interest.

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  As previously, Geraldine believed he was telling the truth, but she persevered.

  ‘This is George Corless,’ she said. ‘He was Patrick Henshaw’s business partner.’

  ‘I know. He’s the one who gets the restaurant now. Where’s the justice in that? Amy was married to him for nearly twenty years.’

  ‘Almost as long as you’ve been alive,’ Geraldine pointed out.

  Scowling, Guy mumbled something about that being none of her business. Geraldine sat forward, suddenly brisk.

  ‘What is my business is that Patrick Henshaw’s business partner is now dead.’

  Guy didn’t enquire what had happened to him. He was interested only in the disposal of the restaurant.

  ‘I mean, it’s worth a few bob, isn’t it?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘And with Mr Henshaw’s business partner out of the way, I suppose it’ll be Amy’s now? The restaurant, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s all hers now, right?’

  He was alert now, his eyes alight with excitement.

  ‘The restaurant is left to George Corless’s two children, in equal measures,’ Geraldine told him.

  ‘You mean she gets nothing? After all that time. Bloody hell. Well, I’m glad she’s shot of him at any rate.’

  He failed to suppress a satisfied grin and rubbed his hands together then suddenly looked abashed, as though he had just remembered where he was.

  ‘I’m sorry he’s dead, this George bloke, but I didn’t know him. I never met him. I just want to get the hell out of here and get back to Amy.’

  ‘You might find she’s not so keen to see you.’

  Guy frowned at her.

  ‘What
’s that supposed to mean? We’re together, me and Amy. In everything.’

  Geraldine shook her head and heaved an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘I’m not sure Amy sees things in quite the same way,’ she said gently, doing her best to sound sympathetic. She felt a twinge of guilt for deliberately provoking the young man, but pressed ahead, reminding herself he could be a vicious psychopath.

  Guy half rose to his feet, his face dark with anger, fists clenched. At his side the solicitor muttered urgently and he sat down again.

  ‘You don’t know what she’s thinking,’ he said, glaring at Geraldine. ‘I was with her before she had all that money to her name, and I’m with her now. She’s not going to dump me now. She’s going to need me more than ever. She always wanted –’

  ‘I’m afraid she may already have done it,’ Geraldine interrupted him.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Amy Henshaw made a statement yesterday accusing you of murdering her husband.’

  Geraldine nodded at Sam who flicked through her notebook and read aloud.

  ‘He did it because he thought he could get hold of my money by marrying me… Do you think he was planning to do away with me too?… Go on then, arrest him. What are you waiting for?… Poor Patrick. Guy did that to him.’

  Guy stared. The flush slowly disappeared from his face as his anger faded into bewilderment.

  ‘I – I don’t believe a word of it,’ he stammered at last.

  He turned to the solicitor.

  ‘They’re lying. All of them. Playing games, trying to mess with my head. Amy never said that. She couldn’t have done. She’d never betray me like that.’

  He turned back to Sam.

  ‘It’s vile, what you’re doing, trying to trip me up with your filthy lies, but it won’t work, I’m telling you, it won’t work!’

  He was shouting now, out of control, with spittle beading at the corners of his lips, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

  ‘Do you often lose your temper?’ Geraldine asked softly.

  Guy shut his mouth and folded his arms across his chest, glowering. Geraldine waited.

  ‘Is it true?’ he asked at last. ‘What she read out?’

  He jerked his head in Sam’s direction.

  ‘Is that really what Amy said?’

  ‘We could play you the tape.’

  Guy thumped his fist so suddenly on the table that Geraldine jumped, startled. Even the solicitor looked taken aback. Only Sam’s composure didn’t falter.

  ‘It was her,’ he said, speaking very slowly as though working out a puzzle as he went along. ‘Don’t you get it? She did it, she killed him, to get her hands on the money. She had me set up all along. Why else would she lead me on and then drop me in it like that? She can’t –’ his broad shoulders shook as he heaved an enormous sigh, ‘she can’t have given a toss about me all along, or she’d never have done it, accuse me of killing her husband like that. And if she didn’t love me, she must have been leading me on so I’d carry the can for her when she got rid of him.’

  ‘And George Corless?’

  ‘If she killed her husband for his money, I suppose she killed him for the same reason.’

  Guy’s theory made as much sense as Amy’s. Some love affair, Geraldine thought, as she mused over how quickly they had switched from giving one another an alibi to accusing each other of committing an evil double murder.

  CHAPTER 37

  Sam wasn’t surprised when Geraldine admitted to feeling under the weather. She looked exhausted. For once she readily accepted Sam’s offer to go to Westfield shopping centre to track down the girl who had been singing at Mireille the night Corless was killed.

  ‘Are you sure you can trust me to go by myself?’ Sam asked, with a grin.

  She had warned Geraldine in the past of her reputation for refusing to delegate tasks. They both knew the singer was unlikely to add to their knowledge of what had happened the night of the murder. Nevertheless, Sam was gratified that Geraldine trusted her enough to allow her to work alone. Any witness might provide vital information, however far removed from the action they were.

  The centre was buzzing with people chattering, loaded with carrier bags, as Sam made her way past a row of shop fronts and up an escalator to the café. Stepping inside the beige interior, she saw a grand piano on a raised platform along one wall. Behind it a cream curtain hung from ceiling to floor, forming an elegant backdrop to the performance space where a girl was perched on a stool, playing the piano and crooning softly into a microphone. Her dark hair accentuated the pallor of her skin. She was slim, with thin lips and glittery make-up on her eyes whose colour was impossible to determine from several yards away. Sam stood by the door for a few moments, listening to the singing float across the room in sporadic bursts. Low notes were indistinguishable from the general chatter above which high notes hovered with a haunting quality. A few young women were sitting at a table nearby, drinking cocktails. Their easy laughter drowned out the sad music. Sam caught a few words of the lament: ‘sad… lonely… lost.’ They seemed to suit the girl’s mournful expression. For some reason, the melancholy lyrics reminded Sam of Geraldine.

  Conscious of her responsibility, Sam crossed the room to sit on a high stool at the bar where she ordered a soft drink, so she could engage the barman in conversation.

  ‘I see you’ve got a singer in,’ she said as the young man set her glass down on the gleaming beige top.

  One of the benefits of her cropped spiky white blonde hair was that people rarely spotted she was a police officer. She didn’t mind the public stereotyping her profession. It worked in her favour.

  ‘Yes, that’s Ingrid. She’s here most weeks,’ the barman replied readily, leaning his elbows on the gleaming bar to chat. ‘We get some great bands in at the weekends, if you’re interested. There should be a few flyers on the tables, or you can always check the website to see what’s going on. We’re the only café that has live music every night of the week at Westfield.’

  Ingrid came to the end of a song and slipped off her stool. Most of the customers paid no attention. Only one elderly man seated beside the stage applauded feebly, nodding his head with a toothless grin. Taped music began to play loudly. Sam stepped across to intercept the singer as she stepped off the podium.

  ‘Nice,’ Sam said vaguely. ‘Do you write your own songs?’

  ‘Some of them,’ the singer paused, before adding, ‘I’m glad you liked it.’

  Now she had the singer’s attention, Sam introduced herself. The girl’s expression didn’t alter on hearing she was talking to a police officer.

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  Sam suggested they step outside for a moment.

  ‘Well – I’m on a break but I need to get back soon.’

  ‘This won’t take long. And I’d prefer not to have to shout.’

  They found a bench in the shopping centre and sat down.

  ‘How well did you know Patrick Henshaw?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Patrick Henshaw. He owned the restaurant Mireille. You sang there recently.’

  The singer’s face remained impassive. She looked bored.

  ‘I never met him.’

  Her gaze drifted past Sam to stare vacantly past her shoulder, as though she was watching for someone. Close up Sam saw that her eyes were green, and her dark hair had a reddish sheen that was probably dye.

  ‘You sang at Mireille recently.’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t know the owner. I dealt with the manager. His name’s Jed. You can ask him. I was there. It was a crap gig. You wouldn’t think it, would you?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s such a posh place.’

  She turned to Sam with a sudden awakening of interest.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘What can you tell me about Patrick Henshaw?’

  ‘Nothing. I told you, I never met him. Jed paid me.’

  ‘Did you speak to a
nyone else there?’

  ‘I can’t remember. There was a fat chef who shouted a lot, and that’s all I know.’

  ‘Who did he shout at? Was there an argument?’

  The girl stared blankly at her.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can you remember anything he said?’

  ‘It was just a load of yelling in the kitchen – zis is no good, zat is no good, that kind of thing. I didn’t hear much. I think he fancied himself as a sort of Gordon Ramsay. But the food was crap.’

  She pulled a face, screwing up her long nose.

  ‘I’ve no idea why anyone would pay so much to eat there. Anyway, I’ve got to do another set.’

  She turned away.

  ‘If you think of anything that might help us, here’s my card. You can give me a ring.’

  ‘Help you with what?’

  Sam hesitated. There was no reason why Ingrid should have heard about Patrick Henshaw’s death, especially as she had never met him. Briefly, she explained the reason for her questions.

  ‘Murdered?’ the singer repeated. ‘Bloody hell. And you’re trying to find out who did it, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bloody hell, murdered,’ Ingrid repeated. ‘That’s awful. Look, I’d like to help you, but I never met the guy and I wouldn’t have a clue who his enemies were. Isn’t it usually the wife?’

  With a casual shrug she turned away.

  Sam felt a flicker of envy. She wished she could turn away from the image of Patrick Henshaw on the slab at the morgue so easily. Much as she loved her job, and could never imagine doing anything else, it was hard. Every time she heard the phrase, ‘I’d like to help you –’ she experienced the same stabbing disappointment. Finding murderers mattered, yet other people shrugged off her questioning without a second thought. Ingrid probably wouldn’t even keep her card. Wretchedly Sam watched the singer disappear back into the café. Before she went down into the station she dashed off a quick email to Geraldine.