But shit! Max wondered if his boss’s paper was delivered at breakfast time. Phil Meredith would go berserk when he saw it.
Undertaker still alive!
How in hell’s name had they got wind of that?
A leak, he answered his own question. Someone on Max’s team, someone he trusted, had talked. And if Max got hold of them, they’d be lucky to talk again. Or walk.
Hell and damnation.
Perhaps Edward Marshall was still alive and thought it was high time he received some credit for his actions. Or perhaps Marshall was dead and the real killer thought he was due some time under the spotlight.
It was no use speculating.
‘Come on, you two!’ He tossed the newspaper down on the table and grabbed his car keys. More than ever, he wished he could spend the day pottering in the garden. An hour later, Max was driving, very slowly, through a crowd of reporters gathered outside headquarters. He guessed that if he glanced up at the third floor, he would see his boss’s face glaring back at him. He didn’t look up.
* * *
As he stood no chance of getting into the building unmolested, he parked his car as close to the steps as possible, got out and waved his arms at the crowd to try and silence them. He felt like King Canute trying to stave off the waves.
‘We’ll issue a statement at 6 p.m.,’ he shouted at them. ‘Meanwhile, I’m sorry, but I can’t answer any questions.’
‘Is it The Undertaker?’
‘Should we warn women –’
‘Sorry,’ Max said pleasantly, ‘but, as I said, I can’t answer your questions at this particular time.’
With that, he lunged for the door and left them outside like a pack of baying wolves.
Frank Busby was behind the main desk. ‘They’ve been here for hours,’ he told Max.
‘Then get them bloody shifted!’ Max snapped.
‘Er, will do. Oh, and the boss wants to see you. Pronto.’
‘I bet he does.’
Max checked in his office to see if there was a ‘we’ve got him’ note waiting for him – there wasn’t, of course – and headed for the executive suite occupied by Phil Meredith.
Meredith must have been waiting, poised, because as soon as Max entered, he threw a newspaper on to the desk with as much force as he could muster. It wasn’t much. Newspapers are ineffectual when it comes to giving vent to rage. The heavy glass engraved paperweight that had pride of place on his desk would have had more effect.
‘Yes, I’ve seen it and no, I don’t know how they got hold of it.’ Max thought it was one of those occasions when stating the obvious wouldn’t go amiss.
‘Someone – someone on your bloody team has been talking to reporters!’
Meredith had just celebrated his fiftieth birthday, and there had been hopes among the staff that it might mellowhim a little. It hadn’t. His brown hair was thinning, he’d gained a little weight but was merely stocky as opposed to fat, and he’d recently changed his glasses so that now they were rimless, but he still peered over them to try and intimidate people, and he still lived for the job.
‘Not necessarily,’ Max argued. ‘When I can speak to that moron of an editor, we’ll know more.’
‘Didn’t you make it clear?’
‘Of course I did. They all know the score.’
‘Which makes it even worse. If it were some raw recruit – pah! It would still be no excuse. Find out who talked, Max.’
‘I’ll do my best, but it wasn’t necessarily someone from the force. Now, about the press –’
‘Bloody vultures!’
‘Indeed,’ Max agreed. ‘I’ve promised them a statement at six o’clock.’
‘Tell them nothing. Say you can’t imagine where such a damn fool notion came from.’ He straightened the already straight lapel on his jacket and considered this for a moment. ‘I’ll tell them, Max,’ he decided. ‘Leave it to me.’
Max had been hoping that vanity and a love of the small screen would win out. It usually did.
‘Great idea. Right, I’ll go and see what’s what.’
That had been surprisingly easy, Max thought, as he closed the office door behind him. However, the fact remained that someone had been talking to the press.
Later that morning, when the reporters had gone, Max decided he deserved to step outside for a cigarette.
DS Warne was on her way to her car.
‘Press gone then, guv?’
‘For the time being, Grace, yes.’
‘I’m on my way to see your favourite newspaper editor. Any messages for him?’
‘I’ve already told him what I think of him. Bloody moron.’
She grinned at that and was about to carry on to her car when she stopped.
‘That’s Darren Barlow,’ she murmured, frowning.
Max looked across at the young lad sitting astride his cycle just outside the car park.
Grace and Fletch had gone to see the Barlow boys but, despite Annie Burton’s claims, the brothers denied being anywhere near the quarry last Saturday.
Just as young Darren looked set to cycle off, Grace called out to him. ‘Hi, Darren, everything all right?’
He was clearly undecided. However, he eventually leant his bike against the wall and walked, eyes on tatty trainers, towards them.
‘Everything all right?’ Grace asked again.
Grace was a good officer, one of the best. Having six brothers of her own, she was good with boys, too.
‘No school today?’ she asked casually. ‘Or have you nipped out because it’s lunchtime?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ve done that,’ he said, grateful for the ready-made excuse. He scuffed his trainers on the tarmac. ‘Up at the quarry,’ he said at last, ‘it were me and Jake. I phoned you when we found that – body.’
‘We thought you probably did,’ Grace told him. ‘A lady saw you. She said her dog chased you.’
‘Oh.’
‘It was good that you phoned us,’ Max said.
The lad nodded.
‘Were you sick?’ Max asked him.
‘Yeah. It were horrid.’
‘It was,’ Max agreed.
Darren looked at him. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Of course you can,’ Max said. ‘Thanks for dropping by. We appreciate it.’
Darren nodded again. He was a boy of few words. Mainly, Max suspected, because his stepfather, Dave Walsh, had had too many run-ins with the law.
Max handed the lad a ten-pound note. ‘You’d better stopoff at McDonald’s on your way back to school. Missing meals isn’t good for you.’
‘Wow! Thanks, mister.’
Darren ran back to his bike and cycled off.
‘Very des res,’ Jill said.
Irene Marshall had moved to Preston before her husband was released from prison. As Max stopped the car outside her house, he guessed she’d done nothing since. And that included cleaning the windows.
It was a red-brick terraced house with a small, walled front garden that was overgrown with weeds, and dotted with wind-blown carrier bags and beer cans that had been tossed there by passers-by.
‘I bet it’s a damn sight more attractive than its occupant,’ he replied.
‘Ha! And she always spoke so highly of you.’
‘Mm. So I recall.’ He looked at the house and shuddered. ‘Come on then, let’s get it over with. When I phoned her, she said she had to go out at eleven.’
The door – dark red flaking paint – swung open as they were negotiating their way up the path.
Irene Marshall had aged a lot, probably because she chain-smoked. Even make-up that looked as if it had been applied with a bricklayer’s trowel couldn’t hide her deep wrinkles. Her hair, usually black, was mostly grey, the colour having faded, and she was wearing a short, grubby, tight denim skirt and a top that might once have been white. Her teeth had been fixed, though. She now sported a full set of nicotine-stained false teeth. She was stick-thin and Max wouldn’t have been surprised to learn sh
e was taking drugs of some description.
‘He’s alive, isn’t he?’ she greeted them, the obligatory cigarette glued between nicotine-stained fingers.
‘We don’t know that,’ Max replied. ‘Can we come inside and talk?’
‘Don’t have much choice, do I?’
Nice to see her natural charm was still intact.
They followed her down a narrow hallway where two black sacks of rubbish waited to be taken somewhere. A damp patch on the dingy brown carpet squelched as Max trod on it.
She took them to the filthiest kitchen Max had ever seen. Everything had a thick coating of grease, even the cheap wooden chair that he saw Jill inadvertently touch and then leap back as if she’d been burnt.
It was one of those houses where you wiped your feet on the way out. He wanted to be on the way out.
‘You know why we’re here,’ he said, ‘so you know that the murder of Carol Blakely was very similar to the murders we believe were carried out by your husband.’
She leaned back against the greasy cooker. ‘He’s still alive, isn’t he? Christ, what does that make me? One of them fucking bigamists?’
Max frowned. ‘You’ve remarried? I didn’t know that.’
‘Of course I haven’t. Bleeding ’ell, you don’t fall for that twice. I’ve been living with a bloke off and on, though.’
‘Then there’s nothing to worry about,’ Max assured her. ‘So can I take it that Eddie hasn’t been in touch with you?’
‘Course he hasn’t. Just as well. If he came back from the bloody grave, I’d bleedin’ top myself. And how would he find me? Eh?’
‘If he was alive,’ Max said, ‘who might he contact?’
‘Dunno.’ She thought for a moment. ‘He were short on friends. Not bloody surprising when you think of his temper.’ She inhaled deeply on her cigarette. ‘He can’t be alive. I’d have heard about it.’
For all that, she didn’t look convinced. She looked terrified that he might walk through the door at any moment.
‘We’re sure he isn’t,’ Jill said smoothly, ‘but the murder of Carol Blakely was too similar to ignore a connection. We can only imagine that Eddie talked to someone. Perhaps he bragged about the murders.’
She shrugged at that.
‘You had lots of fights with him,’ Jill went on. ‘How did he behave afterwards?’
‘As if sweet FA had bleedin’ happened,’ she replied scathingly. ‘He’d say sorry, if I were lucky, and then forget it. A fat lot of help that were to me. I couldn’t forget it, could I? Not with a busted jaw.’
She ran a hand across that jaw.
‘You couldn’t,’ Jill agreed, and Max heard her struggling for a sympathetic tone. ‘But who was he close to? Who would he have spoken to?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Irene Marshall snapped. ‘No one that I can think of.’
‘He drank a lot,’ Max reminded her. ‘Most people talk too much when they’re drunk.’
‘Not him,’ Irene scoffed. ‘And he certainly didn’t talk to me. He were too busy knocking me about.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Look, I had nothing to do with him then. After he put me in hospital, I never saw him again. How the ’ell should I know who he talked to?’
Max supposed she had a point.
‘We’ll talk to ex-cellmates and fellow inmates,’ Jill told her, ‘but who else could there be? Where did he drink?’
‘The Horse and Jockey in Harrington. Oh, and the Red Lion. He were barred from most of the other places.’ She thought for a moment. ‘He used to go to Sal’s, too. You know the caff on Broad Street?’
Max remembered the place. ‘It’s been closed down for a couple of years.’
‘Oh. That’s no good then. There was that Ken Barclay. You know him who has the lorries? He was supposed to have promised Eddie a job as a driver. That was before he ended up doing time, though. And I don’t know how true it were.’
‘We’ll check it out.’ Max was grateful for any lead.
She came up with a few more names, but nothing sounded promising and Max was glad when it was time to leave.
‘If you hear anything, you’ll let us know?’ he asked.
‘Too right I will. If the bastard’s still alive –’
‘We’re sure he isn’t,’ Jill said calmly.
Max wished he could sound as confident.
‘He’d better not be. I’ll want bleeding compensation from you lot if he is.’
‘Quite right,’ Max agreed as they reached fresh air. Phil Meredith would be delighted to deal with that. The thought made him smile as he got in his car.
‘Shall we find somewhere to eat?’ he asked as he knocked the car into gear and pulled away.
‘Only if it’s somewhere clean.’ Jill shuddered. ‘God, even your car feels pristine after that place!’
The backhanded compliment made him smile.
‘So what did you think?’ he asked after a while.
‘I think she’s scared he’s still alive. If she knew anything, she’d tell us. She hates him.’
‘With good reason.’
‘Yes. We’ve got a copycat on our hands, Max, I’m sure of it, but I can’t imagine Eddie Marshall talking to anyone. He was a nasty piece of work with a vicious temper but, as Irene said, he forgot it afterwards. He wasn’t the type to talk.’
‘So how would anyone know the MO? How would someone –?’ He cursed beneath his breath. ‘A copper would know. The same copper who possibly leaked this story to the press.’
‘Come on, Max, we don’t even know that it was a copper.’
No one liked the idea of someone on the force being less than a hundred per cent honest. And worse, much worse, was the idea of a policeman turning to murder. It went against nature.
‘Even if it was,’ she went on, ‘it’s not necessarily as bad as it seems. A couple of drinks in the pub, a reporter posing as an innocent member of the public – it happens.’
‘Not on my patch, it bloody well doesn’t!’
Chapter Seven
Max sat in his new swivel chair with his feet on his new desk and read through Finlay Roberts’s statement again. He didn’t like it.
He didn’t like the chair, either. It looked good, the ultimate in style and design, but it wasn’t as comfortable as his old one. He resented it, too. All he heard was budgets and bloody shoestrings when he asked for more manpower, but it seemed there was no shortage of cash for furniture. This desk of his had cost a fortune.
He turned his thoughts back to the statement. Roberts claimed he’d had two evenings out with Carol Blakely. On the first occasion, a Friday, they had visited the Ashoka Indian Restaurant in Burnley. The following Wednesday, they’d been to Mario’s Restaurant in Bacup.
Perhaps the fact that, seemingly on a whim, he rented a cottage in Kelton Bridge for three months and then got involved with a woman who was murdered soon afterwards was nothing more than coincidence. Max hated coincidences.
Roberts didn’t have an alibi. While Carol Blakely was being butchered, he was at home ‘chilling out alone’. He seemed an intelligent individual so one would expect him to make sure he concocted some sort of story if he had anything to hide.
With a sigh, Max swung his feet off the desk, gathered up the papers scattered across his desk to put them into a neat pile, and then went in search of Jill.
Fifteen minutes later, he was driving them to Preston where Tommy (Spider) Young was currently in residence.
‘What’s he in for?’ Jill asked.
‘Breaking and entering. Assault.’
‘And why Spider?’
‘You’ll know when you see him.’
Tommy Young was an ex-cellmate of Edward Marshall’s. It was six years since they’d shared that cell and Young had been released, banged up, released and banged up again since.
According to the records, though, Edward Marshall had visited Tommy once, soon after his release. Soon after he began his killing spree.
‘What’s he like?’
Jill asked as Max pulled off the motorway.
‘A whining, grovelling con. Yes, Mr Trentham, no, Mr Trentham, three bags full, Mr Trentham. He’s due out in a couple of months, but I expect they’ll have the good sense to keep his bed warm.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Fifty-two.’
‘About the same age as Marshall then,’ she calculated.
‘He’s a couple of months older.’
After passing the Tickled Trout Hotel, Max carried on to the roundabout and on to New Hall Lane. He turned right and saw the prison next to the County Regimental Museum. Fortunately, he was able to park nearby and, surprisingly, formalities at the prison were quickly dealt with.
Before long, a smiling Tommy Young was sitting opposite them.
‘Chief Inspector Trentham,’ he said. ‘A pleasure, I’m sure.’
His tattoo, a huge spider’s web covering his neck, was incongruous with the polite smiles.
‘If only it were mutual, Tommy.’
The prisoner was looking questioningly at Jill.
‘Jill Kennedy,’ Max introduced her.
‘Ah, yes, the psychologist. It’s an honour to meet you, my dear. I read about you when poor Eddie met his Maker.’ He beamed at Max. ‘And that’s why you’re here, to speak to me about Eddie. You think he’s still alive.’ Still smiling, he tapped the side of his nose. ‘I do read the newspapers, you know.’
But not the big words, Max assumed.
‘You shouldn’t believe all you read, Tommy,’ he said.
‘Tell us about Eddie,’ Jill suggested. ‘You shared a cell, we know that. We also know that he visited you once after his release. You must have grown quite close.’
‘Not at all.’ Tommy’s hands, the fingernails neatly trimmed, rested on the table in front of him. ‘It’s true what you say, of course, but he was a difficult man to know. A very angry man. Private, too.’
‘Angry about what?’ Max asked.
‘Life in general. He thought the world was against him. He didn’t believe he should be locked up for showing his wife who was boss.’
‘You were kindred spirits then,’ Max said drily.
‘No, no.’ Young chuckled. ‘I’m a reformed character now, Chief Inspector. You’ll have no more trouble from me, I can assure you.’
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