Mr Draper also got to his feet. ‘Is that all?’
‘For the moment. DS Fletcher will go over everything you’ve said and then ask you to sign –’
‘Nothing I’ve said will get out, though, will it? I wouldn’t want my Lisa seeing anything.’
‘Don’t worry, she won’t.’
While Fletch dealt with Mr Draper, Max sought out Grace and asked her to look into the work done on Edward Marshall’s old residence.
‘Check that Vince Blakely was the architect involved,’ he told her, ‘and see how he came to get the job. See if it went out to tender, who was involved, anything. And get back to me pronto, OK?’
To celebrate what was turning into a very good day, Max was outside having a smoke when Fletch found him.
‘Looks like we can nail Blakely then, guv,’ Fletch said with satisfaction. ‘Does that mean Roberts can go?’
Max had forgotten he was still waiting for them.
‘No, leave him for a while.’
‘Where’s Jill today?’ Fletch asked.
‘At Chester Races, throwing money at old nags.’ And Max would like nothing better than to greet her homecoming with news of an arrest . . .
When Grace caught up with them, Max could tell from her expression that this wasn’t going to be as straightforward as he’d hoped.
‘I can’t find any link to Blakely, guv,’ she said. ‘The job was dealt with by a big firm of architects – Pullman’s.’
Max knew of them. They had offices on The Boulevard.
‘A chap called Ralph Atkins dealt with it,’ she said, ‘and there’s no mention of Blakely at all.’
‘There must be,’ Fletch said. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence. Videos sold to an architect? A year later, an architect’s wife ends up dead? Of course there’s a connection.’
‘There’s a connection,’ Max said firmly. ‘There has to be.’
For the sake of his sanity, there had to be.
Chapter Thirteen
Ralph Atkins was taking a holiday from his architect’s practice but, thankfully, he was taking it at home in Harrington.
As Fletch brought the car to a stop outside The Laurels, Max was surprised to see that Atkins’s house had a rundown look to it. It was a traditional, stone-built detached house set on a corner plot. No doubt the prime location would add thousands to its value, but it needed work. The paintwork was peeling, several ridge tiles were missing, and the garden was an overgrown mass of neglect.
Perhaps he’d only recently moved in and was intending to use this holiday to have the necessary work done on it.
The occupant, when he finally opened the door, looked even more rundown, however. He was about fifty, and was wearing brown trousers, sandals, grey socks with holes, and a pale green, creased, grubby-looking shirt that was open at the neck to reveal pale skin.
‘Ralph Atkins?’ Max asked.
‘Yes.’ He seemed to pale before them.
‘DCI Trentham and DS Fletcher, Harrington CID.’ Max showed his warrant. ‘Could we ask you a few questions, please?’
‘You’d better come in.’
They followed him into a kitchen where, on the table, a half-full bottle of vodka sat next to an almost empty glass. A newspaper was open.
‘What’s this about?’ Atkins asked.
‘We’re investigating the murder of Mrs Carol Blakely,’ Max explained, and he saw Atkins’s bloodshot eyes widen at that. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard about it?’
‘Yes, but I don’t see why you’re here.’
‘May we sit down?’ Max asked.
‘Er, yes. Sorry.’ The bottle, glass and newspaper were picked up and moved to the top of the cooker. Max and Fletch sat on oak chairs at an oak table. It was the only decent thing in the room.
‘Did you know Mrs Blakely?’ Max asked.
‘Me? Why should I?’
‘She worked in Harrington. You work in Harrington. I was just curious if you knew her.’
‘No. I know of her husband,’ Atkins admitted, ‘but not personally. I might, and I say might, recognize him if he walked in here. He’s an architect, you know.’
‘That’s right. And you never met Carol Blakely?’
‘No. I’ve told you. I don’t think I ever spoke to her husband, either. If I did, it was only in passing.’
A large tortoiseshell cat ambled into the kitchen, looked at the visitors and ambled out again. Atkins didn’t acknowledge it.
‘A year ago, you worked on a conversion in Paradise Way, I believe,’ Max said.
‘Yes,’ he answered slowly.
He had something to hide, Max was sure of it. His answers were too long in coming. They were carefully thought out.
‘Old flats were being converted to highly sought-after office accommodation,’ he added. ‘Yes, I remember the job.’
‘And do you also remember any of the men working on the project? The builders?’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘One of them says you bought some video tapes from him,’ Max said.
‘Um, oh, yes, I remember now.’ He took a grubby red handkerchief from his trouser pocket and rubbed it around his nose. ‘I wouldn’t recognize him if he walked in here,either. Yes, he found some tapes in the back of one of the chimney breasts, I seem to recall.’
‘And they were of interest to you?’
‘Not really, no.’
Max felt as if he were knitting fog.
‘So why did you buy them from the builder?’
Atkins thought for a few moments. ‘I drink too much and I gamble heavily,’ he said at last. ‘Everyone has their vices and those are mine. Sadly, they’re expensive vices. I thought I might find a buyer for the videos, that’s all. I slipped the brickie a couple of quid –’
‘A couple of hundred?’ Fletch put in.
‘Was it as much as that? I really can’t remember. Anyway, when I had a good look at them, I realized they weren’t what I thought they were.’
‘And what did you think they were?’ Max asked.
‘The brickie reckoned they were porn. I assumed he was right, and that they were amateur stuff.’
‘And were they?’
‘It was certainly amateurish. The bit I saw with – with the builder – had a woman, um, urinating. Lot’s of blokes get turned on by that. But these –’ He cleared his throat. ‘These were, um, a bit brutal, I seem to recall. As I said, I can’t really remember. They certainly weren’t anything I could sell. They were – specialist.’
‘Specialist? In what way?’
‘Well, they showed women being – threatened.’
‘So you didn’t sell them?’
‘No. I realized my mistake, called myself all sorts of a fool, and got rid of them.’
‘What I can’t understand,’ Max said carefully, ‘is that you didn’t think of the former occupant of the premises. As I recall, the newspapers were very interested in the work going on at the old home of Edward Marshall – The Undertaker.’
‘Edward –’ He cleared his throat. ‘Ah, yes, now you come to mention it, I do remember that. But no, at the time it didn’t cross my mind. It was just a job.’
‘Really? So how did you dispose of the tapes?’
‘I really can’t remember. I imagine I either threw them in my bin here or chucked them in the bins at the back of the office. Probably there. The office had a couple of huge bins and they were emptied regularly. These at home are only emptied once a fortnight now.’
Max didn’t believe him. ‘Can you think back and try to remember?’
The effort required was obviously too great without sustenance. Atkins stood up, topped up his glass, and sat down again. He took a long, deep swallow of neat vodka. Max could do with a drink himself.
‘I honestly don’t remember,’ he said. ‘Is it important?’
‘It could be, yes.’
‘In what way?’
‘We believe,’ Max said as if he were addressing a halfwit, ‘that they bel
onged to the previous occupant of the flat, Edward Marshall.’
‘Oh, I see. I’m sorry, but I didn’t think. I didn’t make the connection.’
He was lying. Atkins knew damn well that those tapes had shown the murder of Marshall’s four victims. Max would stake his life on that.
‘Tell me what you remember about the tapes,’ he said. ‘Anything at all. The content, the people featured, the labels on them – anything.’
‘Handwritten labels,’ he said. ‘I do remember that. It made me think they’d be poor quality copies. I’d seen a few seconds when the brickie was watching them, and they looked OK, but you can never be sure. But no, they were OK. Amateurish, as I said, but not bad.’
‘Were they colour or black and white?’ Fletch put in.
‘Colour,’ he answered as if he were speaking to a five-year-old.
The more they questioned him, the more he drank. And the more he drank, the less he could remember. Not that he was admitting to remembering much to start with.
‘What a strange bloke,’ Fletch said when they were outside and walking back to the car.
‘Mm.’
Fletch was fastening his seatbelt. ‘Did you believe him then?’ he asked, nodding back at Atkins’s house.
‘Nope. Did you?’
‘I didn’t. No.’
Max stared back at the house from the passenger seat. The tortoiseshell cat was sitting in the window staring back at him.
‘I want to know every move Atkins made during the last year,’ Max said. ‘He’s hiding something, I’m sure of it.’
‘Guv?’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you forgotten something?’
‘What?’
Fletch grinned at him. ‘Parents’ evening.’
‘Oh, hell.’ Max glanced at the clock on the dash. ‘It’s OK, there’s still time.’ Just. ‘Drop me off at the school, will you, Fletch?’
Chapter Fourteen
Ralph watched the policemen leave. What were their names? He couldn’t remember. He’d been so shocked, so caught on the hop, that he couldn’t remember a word he’d said, either. Breathing a short-lived sigh of relief as their car drove away, he returned to the kitchen and his bottle. He took a deep slug from it and slumped down at the table.
‘Tomorrow,’ he vowed, staring at the near-empty bottle, ‘that’s it. No more drink! No more. Teetotal, for me. No drinking, no gambling and no trouble.’
Calming down slightly, he remembered that he had nothing to fear from the police. He’d found some videos and passed them on. That was all. That wasn’t a crime.
He took another slug from the bottle.
His hands were shaking and, for once, he couldn’t attribute it to the alcohol. He might have nothing to fear, but those coppers had scared the shit out of him.
But he hadn’t done anything wrong. Nothing wrong. He kept repeating that. Nothing wrong.
The stupid thing was, he’d been expecting them. Ever since he’d seen that headline in the local paper – Undertaker still alive – he’d lived in dread of the coppers coming to his door. He’d known that stupid brickie would talk.
The fact that they were working on Paradise Way had made headlines in the local paper at the time. To sell copies, reporters had even suggested that, as it was the last home of the notorious Undertaker, they might find dead bodies under the floorboards.
That brickie must have been the only bloke on the planet who hadn’t realized what the videos were. But to be fair, not that Ralph felt in a fair mood, they could have been amateur porn, just as the brickie, and even Ralph at first, had assumed. He’d watched them for as long as five minutes before he’d understood what they’d stumbled across. Ralph had thought he’d found gold.
‘Deluded, drunken fool,’ he scoffed.
At the time, it had all seemed so easy. He’d known a man who was noted for two things; finding buyers for anything and everything, and not caring a jot for the law. He’d known of him, at least. Katherine had spoken of him so often Ralph had felt as if he’d known the man personally.
Katherine hadn’t seen him or had contact with him for more than twenty years, but it had been easy enough to track him down.
As Katherine had been so ill at the time, he hadn’t wanted to worry her with details. Instead, he’d told her that he’d found an old piece of silver that he wanted him to sell . . .
So he’d arranged a meeting.
Funny, thinking back, that Ralph hadn’t taken to him at all. Over the years, Katherine had spoken of the man’s exploits with great affection. ‘No police record, of course,’ she’d assured him. ‘He works on the right side of the law.’
Ralph had taken an instant dislike to him.
He hadn’t liked handing over those video tapes to someone he now thought of as a stranger, either.
‘It’ll take a while, but I’ll get a good price for you. Forty per cent for me, you said?’
‘I said twenty,’ Ralph retorted. However, knowing that left to his own devices he wouldn’t have had a clue where to even start looking for a buyer, he’d relented. ‘OK. Forty per cent. If the price is right.’
‘I’ll start putting out a few feelers,’ he’d said.
That was twelve months ago.
‘It’s very delicate material,’ Ralph had been told.
Of course it was bloody delicate. That’s why Ralph had sought him out in the first place.
‘I can’t put them on Ebay, can I?’ he’d been told six months ago.
‘Have patience,’ the month after that.
Then, Ralph had seen the headline in the local paper – Undertaker still alive – and he had known.
Ralph opened another bottle of vodka. What the hell?
An hour later, practically incoherent with rage, he tapped out a number on his phone.
‘Yes?’
‘You idiot,’ Ralph slurred. ‘I knew it was you. As soon as I saw the headline in the paper – as soon as I knew the coppers thought he was still alive – I knew what you’d done. You stupid fucking idiot!’
‘Still drinking then, Ralph?’
‘You won’t get away with it. The coppers have been to see me today. The brickie who found the videos talked. I knew he would. You won’t get away with it!’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ Ralph snapped. ‘What do you think I am, stupid?’
‘Let’s hope not, Ralph, for your sake.’
‘I said nothing,’ he insisted, ‘but they’ll be back. You can bet your life on that.’
‘I fear you’re right, Ralph.’
The connection went dead.
‘Fucking stupid idiot,’ Ralph fumed, reaching for his glass.
Chapter Fifteen
‘You’ll never guess what!’
Jill had to smile. The majority of calls from her mother started with those words. Guessing the call would be a long one, she carried the phone outside, hoping the signal would be good enough to allow her to sit outside and enjoy the late evening sunshine.
‘Then I won’t even try,’ she replied.
‘All hell’s broken loose,’ her mum went on. ‘You know the Archers from number eighteen?’
She did. It was so many years since she’d left River View estate that she’d forgotten most of the residents, but the Archers were one of the more memorable families and, over the years, she had heard all about them.
‘Both ginger-haired? Five or six kids, all ginger, except a boy called . . .’ She racked her brains but couldn’t remember the lad’s name.
‘Lennox,’ her mum supplied. ‘Lennox, I ask you. What sort of name’s that?’
‘Quite a popular one.’
‘If you say so. Anyway, Lennox was in a car accident at the weekend – only seventeen he is, and drives like a lunatic. He’s passed his test, so he’s legal, which is more than can be said for most round here, but even so.’
‘Is he all right?’ Jill asked, swatting at a fly with her ha
nd.
‘He’s out of danger, apparently. Now, I don’t know how it happened, something to do with a blood test, I imagine, but it turns out that Trevor, that’s the dad, isn’t the lad’s real dad at all.’
‘That explains the dark hair then,’ Jill remarked with amusement.
‘It does. Anyway, there was an almighty bust-up. Trevor got drunk and laid into Maria – they were out in the road shouting and throwing things at each other. Jim Courtney dragged Trevor away and took him off down the pub. So while he was there, Maria cut up his clothes and threw them out of the bedroom window. All his fishing stuff was smashed and thrown out. You should have seen their front lawn. It was like a bomb site. Then, when Trevor gets home, he can’t get in, can he? She’s barricaded herself in. In the end, he smashed a window and got in.’
Jill had spent the first eighteen years of her life on the estate and could picture the scene all too easily.
‘But that’s not the best of it,’ her mum went on, enjoying every moment of this. ‘It turns out that Lennox’s dad is none other than Fred Appleby. Can you believe that?’
‘Who’s Fred Appleby?’
‘Oh, Jill.’ Despair crept into her mother’s voice. ‘Chap with dark curly hair who used to run the pub.’
‘Ah, got him. Permed hair, we used to reckon.’
‘That’s him. Married four times and a kid from each marriage. Mind, he’s worth a few bob now.’
Jill let her run on with the gossip from the estate and tried to be interested. If not exactly interesting, the happenings on River View usually provided good entertainment.
‘I’d better go,’ her mum said at last. ‘I had another go at our Prue’s cheesecake recipe this morning and it’s a disaster. I want to try and rescue it.’
‘Really?’ Jill had to smile.
‘I’ve used exactly the same ingredients as Prue, I’ve even used the same dish – a disaster. Why is it that two people can use exactly the same ingredients, the same utensils, do exactly the same things and end up with completely different results?’
‘It’s no good asking me, Mum. You know what my culinary skills are like.’
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