And so they had.
Cath Staincliffe
* * *
Boom!
* * *
Boom! That’s the first thing anyone knows about it. This massive explosion. 20.44. We hear it at the police station three miles away. In minutes we’re on full alert, the lines are jammed with 999s and there’s rumours flying this way and that: it’s a bomb, it’s a plane gone down at the airport, it’s the Hilton Tower (that’s the big one on Deansgate – forty-seven storeys. I wouldn’t fancy that, I get dizzy in my high heels. And I can tell for a fact it’s nothing to do with the Hilton, even in the dark, I can see it from the window, lit up with coloured lights).
Anyway, my first thought is fireworks. Some muppet importing Black Panther or Red Scorpion or whatever the latest line in illegal Chinese mortars go by and his stock has gone up in flames. Before the new restrictions came in, it sounded like a war zone here, every autumn. Heavy artillery over Ladybarn, sustained bombardment in Collyhurst. Calmer since. Though there’s always some bloke willing to risk life, limb and liberty to supply dodgy stuff from late September right through till Christmas.
So, my hunch is fireworks but I’m not saying. I’m a DC, DC Lin Song to be precise, and at my level it’s best to be asked before you volunteer anything. We don’t know as yet whether there’s any loss of life. That’s our remit, see: murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault. But soon we get a location and the Boss wants a look and she gives me the nod to come with.
The site of the explosion is a detached house on the Chorlton border, near Longford Park. It’s even more detached now. Half the roof’s gone and the windows are out, there’s wooden blinds broken and tangled. The door’s ended up halfway across the street. A car in the driveway is covered in rubble and dust. It’s still windy, it’s been blowing a gale all day and every so often a gust stirs up the dust and flings it at us. Alarms from nearby properties are shrieking and howling. As well as us, there’s a fire engine, two ambulances, bomb disposal, an area car, scene-of-crimes posse, two telly news vans and assorted bystanders. As usual, there’s some lively debate between the various services. They’ve all got a different take on it: the fire officer and the bomb disposal unit want to scope the place out, declare it safe before anyone sets foot; the medics are there to save lives, they want to get in and get people out; the CSIs just want everyone to melt away instead of mucking up the evidence with foam and water and size 11 Doc Marten’s.
I’m starving. I wish I’d brought something to eat. There are little flurries of action: the firemen go in and come out, the paramedics get their gear ready to go in. And we get the wink and suit up and follow. They’ve rigged up some lamps so we can see what’s what.
There’s one victim. A bloke on the ground in what was the kitchen-cum-living room. Clothes shredded, face cut, blood on the floor. Not moving.
‘Got a pulse,’ one of the medics shouts. Then it’s all action with the oxygen and the stretcher. ‘He’s been shot,’ the guy adds, ‘bullet wound in the left shoulder.’
Now that puts a completely different picture on it. Forget Roman Candles and Silver Fountains or a secret bomb factory. Someone’s shot the guy then blown his house up. By anyone’s reckoning that’s attempted murder. We’re on.
Back at base the Boss pulls together a team for the enquiry. ‘Lin,’ she says, ‘you shadow me on this.’ Brilliant. I want the experience. There’s a ripple goes round the incident room: plenty of others would have liked the chance.
DC Barratt’s right behind me. ‘Tick, tick,’ he goes.
I blank him. Best way. He thinks I’ve got it because the higher-ups can tick two boxes with me: female and ethnic minority. I’m hoping I’ve got it because I’m keen and I’m reliable and I’ve got a whole brain.
We establish that the victim is Greg Collins, married to Susie Collins, no children. Now, Susie Collins is an actress. She’s been in loads of stuff: Cold Feet, Life on Mars, Corrie. Never had a big part. If there’s four friends, she’s the one that’s making up the numbers, buying the drinks, babysitting. We can’t find Susie Collins. Greg Collins is ex-army turned property developer. He’s got a scheme going up north of the city centre, Ancoats, near Little Italy. Luxury apartments for young professionals. It’s an old glue factory and they’ve stuck a couple of rotundas on it, filled it with blonde wood and tiles and slapped Juliet balconies outside every window. It’s handy for the football, if you follow City. But unlike most of the other refurbishments, it turns out Collins’s golden goose has got avian flu. Contractors haven’t been paid for the last two months. He’s got bridging loans and the planning department have serious concerns. His business partner, one Gavin Henderson, is not best pleased. That gives us a possible motive. A lead. The missing wife is another.
The hospital lets us see him later that night. He’s been treated for shock, a perforated eardrum, broken wrist as well as the shoulder wound. They recovered a bullet from his shoulder, likely from a small firearm, and that’s with the lab.
When we go in, he’s sat up. Bits of gauze covering the cuts on his face, saline drip. He’s bigger than he looked lying on the floor and looks younger than his forty years. No grey in his dark hair. Sky-blue eyes, like those contacts you can get. Big nose. Personality wise, I’d say he was taut: one of those blokes who holds himself in check, just this side of angry. Mind you, that could have been his reaction to someone trying to kill him. Keeping a lid on it. And the guy has got military training, that would kick in.
The Boss explains what we know and asks him to tell us what happened. I get my daybook ready to take notes.
‘Where’s Susie?’ he asks.
‘We’ve not been able to contact her,’ says the Boss. ‘She’s not answering her mobile.’
He looks away and his Adam’s apple does a lurch.
The Boss asks him again what happened. ‘I can’t remember,’ he says. I can hear the frustration tight in his voice. ‘I remember shouting, someone shouting, and that’s all.’
It’s not uncommon: amnesia after that sort of trauma. The brain trying to protect the soul. In denial. Hey – let’s forget it ever happened – that sort of thing.
‘Susie,’ he says again. ‘Where’s Susie?’
I slide a look at the Boss. She’s not giving anything away but I know she’s thinking the same as I am. He’s been hurt; his wife’s nowhere to be seen. Maybe she was the one doing the shouting. Waving a gun around. Bang, boom. Susie hightails it, leaving hubby for dead. Motive unknown. I don’t want to be there when this possibility filters through to Collins.
‘How would you describe your marriage?’ the Boss asks.
‘Good. Why?’
‘You’ve been married eight years. Most marriages have their rough patches.’
‘We’re okay. No problems.’
So where is she?
‘When did you last see your wife?’
There’s a moment’s pause and a little flare of panic in his eyes. Like he should know the answer to this. Then it comes to him. ‘This lunchtime. We ate together.’
‘And after that?’
He shakes his head, his lips pressed together. A sheen on those blue eyes. ‘Nothing after that.’
The Boss changes the subject, asks him if he can think of anyone who had reason to do this to him.
He says not.
‘You’re having problems with your business. You might have made enemies there.’
He looks at her, incredulous. ‘Killing me isn’t going to get anyone their money back.’
Might make them feel better.
‘Someone shot you, Mr Collins; it’s our job to find out who.’
‘Yeah.’ He closes his eyes.
‘Do you want a nurse?’ the Boss checks.
‘No.’ He opens his eyes. Resigning himself to more of the same.
‘The shouting,’ she says, ‘was it a man, a woman?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did anyone call at the house today?’
‘I don’t remember.’ His teeth are clenched and a muscle jumps along his jaw. I’m thinking he wants to scream but he’s holding on. Then he says it in bits so we get the message. ‘I. Don’t. Remember.’
Next stop, Daphne Hart’s place. Susie Collins’s mother. She has a neat old-fashioned terrace tucked away in Didsbury village. Size of a starter home but they cost a small fortune nowadays. Daphne’s lived there all her life. Susie grew up there. Went off to Drama School, signed up with Equity and started off doing commercials for insurance, sofas and frozen foods.
Daphne doesn’t look a well woman and even before we say anything her eyes have an edgy expression, flicking here and there. When the Boss tells her the bare facts, she shoots up from her seat, then stands ready to bolt. Sinks down again after a moment.
‘Have you seen Susie today?’
‘No,’ she says, then clears her throat. ‘Will Greg be all right?’
‘He’s not in any danger,’ the Boss says.
Not unless someone comes back to finish him off.
‘How were they getting on, Susie and Greg? Any problems?’
She hesitates, blinks rapidly a couple of times and licks her lips. Preparing to lie. The Boss steps in. ‘There were tensions in the relationship.’ Question as statement. Giving her a chance to come clean and say yes.
Daphne Hart nods, casts her eyes down at her hands. ‘Susie is seeing someone else.’
‘Who?’
‘Sammy Gupta. He’s a director. They met on Cotton Town.’
The Boss looks blank.
‘The series about the mills.’
I nod; I know what she’s on about. Costume drama it was, bit dull. They used lots of the cobbled streets we’ve still got.
‘Did Greg know?’ the Boss asks.
Daphne shakes her head.
‘Is Mr Gupta married?’
Another shake.
My stomach rumbles and we can all hear it. I smile by way of apology but it’s a million years since I’ve eaten anything and I’m going to faint soon. Then I’m thinking, if it was Susie who shot him, or the boyfriend, then where would they get a gun from? You’ve probably heard all that Gunchester stuff and yeah, we have way too many gun-related deaths, but one hundred per cent of that is down to drugs and gangs. Gangs and drugs. It’s illiterate nineteen year olds thinking respect comes out of the barrel of a gun, it’s lads with more front than sense who know they can make two grand a week doing the business or 150 quid stacking shelves. The guns come with the territory. Small firearms are not generally the weapon of choice for a TV actress or a director. They don’t tend to have them hanging around. Nearest weapon to hand for most of us is a knife. Though Collins is ex-army. Could be he’s got a gun from his time back then. Maybe Susie or Gupta had got hold of it, or Henderson.
Gavin Henderson is fresh out of the shower when we reach him. Washing away the evidence? Designer house near Wilmslow. He’s larger than life, claps his hands together a lot and laughs, breath reeking of whisky, but he’s got cold eyes. He bristles when we ask him his whereabouts. A red flush to his neck and cheeks. ‘I was at a hospitality do at the Bridgewater Hall,’ he says frostily, ‘Friend of the Halle.’
Mum and Dad are in bed when I get home. I eat three honey buns and have a big mug of hot chocolate and crawl under the duvet. Not for long enough. My mobile goes off before the alarm. There’s a development in the case. A big development. A second victim. Found floating face down in the basin near the Manchester Ship Canal.
Our second victim, Susie Collins. She’s drowned. No gunshot wounds. The identification is straightforward, her face familiar to most of us from the telly though the name would be one to fish for.
With Greg Collins shot and half blown-up, nobody is thinking wife Susie’s death is accidental. Either she jumped or she was pushed.
‘Speculate,’ the Boss invites me on the way to the hospital. I’m wondering whether to ask if we can stop for take-out, no breakfast, see, but that might look like lack of focus so I keep quiet about it and speculate instead. ‘Susie shoots Collins. Then, can’t live with it, chucks herself in the canal. Or someone gets rid of them both: shooting Collins, drowning her.’
‘We need to find the boyfriend. And verify Henderson’s alibi.’
I make a couple of calls and establish that Gavin Henderson has lied to us. There was no event at the Bridgewater Hall the previous evening.
Collins is dozing when we go to break the news. The Boss lets me do the actual explaining. It’s one of the worst parts of the job. He’s pale-skinned anyway but by the time I finish he’s translucent.
‘She couldn’t swim,’ he says, when I tell him where we found her.
That accounts for the drowning, then.
I ask Collins if the name Sammy Gupta means anything to him.
‘No – should it?’
He doesn’t need to know, not just yet. It’s a judgement call and I reckon he’s got enough to deal with for now. I ask him again if there’s been any trouble, anything to point us in the right direction. Has Henderson made any threats?
‘Don’t you think I’d tell you? There’s nothing wrong with my memory before yesterday.’ He presses his hands over his eyes. Not an easy manoeuvre with a cast on.
‘If you think of anything …’ I begin.
‘If I remember anything,’ he says bitterly.
Time to go.
Daphne Hart falls to bits when we tell her. Like her bones have gone. I’m tempted to call a doctor, get the neighbour round and let her be but she’s not having it. She’s stuff to tell us.
‘They rowed,’ she says, ‘Susie and Greg, yesterday tea-time. Susie rang me in a right state. He’d remortgaged the house without telling her. He was chucking everything they had at bad debts. He’d forged her signature. She was livid.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us this yesterday?’
‘I thought…’ she hesitates, gives a big gulp, ‘…she was so angry, I thought maybe she’d done it. It sounds daft now, but I thought she’d done it and run off. But she’s dead—’ That starts her crying again.
‘Where would she get a gun?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did Susie ever mention Gavin Henderson?’
‘Yes. He was taking Greg to court over the business.’
If Henderson has got himself a brief, it doesn’t make sense to go round playing Terminator. And why kill Susie?
Plenty of unanswered questions but one ran round the incident room like a rash: any word from forensics? We don’t have a lab tucked away in the basement. These days it’s all done by the Forensic Science Service. We send them our evidence; they test it and return results. Everything from footwear impressions to DNA testing. They bill us, too. So we have to be picky about what items are likely to be most productive. We’re working to a budget. Nothing back yet. There’s still a team working at the house and we cough up for some divers to see what else might be in the water: Susie’s handbag, for example, or her phone.
We’ve already ordered records from her mobile network and put in a request for CCTV footage between the Collins’ house and the canal.
The Boss wants to see the canal basin so we go out there. It’s misty, the sky is a bleary grey and it’s freezing. Closer to the canal, we pass the turn-off for Sargasso Wharf. There are big banners slung from the lampposts advertising Food Glorious Food, a Son Et Lumiere with feasting and fireworks. Yesterday’s date. Some big bash that’s part of the annual Food and Drink Festival. My mouth waters. Sargasso Wharf is ringed with apartment blocks – they’d have a bird’s eye view of the festivities.
Further along, where we turn off, you can see what the area was like before. Old sheds and rusting scrap and oil drums. This is where Susie was found. The water looks cold and greasy. The divers are busy and the support team on the side are in ski-jackets and hats with earflaps. I can smell wood smoke. My phone goes. Another bit of information to chuck in the mix: the last call from Susie Collins’ mobile was m
ade at 18.40 hours. A few minutes after she’d spoken to her mother. We identify the number. It belongs to Sammy Gupta.
‘Boss,’ I call over to her, ‘we got something.’
Then there’s an echo. A call from the steel grey water. ‘We got something.’ And there’s a wetsuit, arm raised with a gun in its hand. Manchester Excalibur.
Fingerprints are basically grease. The weapon’s been in the water twenty-four hours but there’s a chance. Unless whoever used it wiped it clean. The gun’s sent off to the lab. The divers send out for an Indian to celebrate. My stomach growls. We head off. The divers will carry on until it gets dark. 6.30 this time of year.
‘Bottom line,’ the Boss says as we drive back, ‘what have we got?’
I line up the bits of evidence in my head. Shuffle them into some sort of order. Tick them off. ‘Greg Collins’s finances are in meltdown and his wife is having an affair. When she finds out he’s remortgaged their home without her consent they get into an argument. She rings her mother, then her boyfriend. Two hours later, an explosion destroys their home. Greg Collins survives it. He has a gunshot wound. His wife is found drowned at the canal basin and we recover a gun from the water. Boyfriend is still missing. Business partner, Henderson, is lying to us.’
Did Susie shoot Collins then jump, I’m thinking. How did she get to the canal? Where did she get the gun? How did she rig up the explosion? Or was it Gupta?
‘Who benefits?’ the Boss asks.
‘Search me. Though maybe Henderson gets his debts settled with the Collins’s life insurance.’ We’re not far from a pizza place and I wonder if the Boss is hungry but I don’t get a chance to ask – it’s the divers again. And this time they’ve got more than a gun.
I wish I had my thermals on while we wait for them to get the winch in place. The basin’s deep here and down among the mattresses and shopping trolleys and 150 years worth of industrial gunk is a three-year-old VW Concept – to me and you that’s a sports car – complete with driver. Sammy Gupta. Did the tragic lovers drown themselves rather than face the music? Then how come she wasn’t in the car with him? The Boss sees me turning blue, either that or she hears my belly rumbling again, and sends me out for chips and lattes. Oh, yes!
Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories Page 5