He nodded. ‘And then?’
She didn’t know. She supposed she should go home to her cottage and her cats.
‘Come back to our place,’ he said, making the decision for her. ‘You can feed the cats on your way over.’
‘OK.’ The relief was immense. She simply couldn’t face going home to brood alone in her cottage. ‘See you later then.’
He put a finger to her forehead and then he and Grace were heading out of the door.
They were midway down the path when the phone started to ring and, for the next hour, it didn’t stop. It was either reporters or Kelton Bridge residents who had heard the news. Jill began fielding calls, but it was going to be a full-time job.
‘Leave the answer machine to deal with it,’ she said in the end. ‘People can leave a message and you can call them back if you want to speak to them.’
‘Yes, that would be best. And Charlie will call my mobile.’
Jill hoped so. Louise needed to know that he was there for her.
There was no word from him, however, and it wasn’t until nine thirty that they heard his car pull up outside.
Louise went straight into his arms.
‘I didn’t like to call in case you were sleeping,’ he told her. ‘And stuff kept coming up at the office.’
Jill wondered if he really had been to the office.
‘I’ll call in tomorrow morning, Louise,’ she said as she was leaving.
Maybe then, Charlie would be the rock Louise needed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The following morning, there was no sign of Charlie at Louise’s house. Connie was there, however, and was bossing her sister. She was being brisk which was possibly what Louise needed and, despite the fact that her eyes were red and swollen from crying, she was determined to drag her sister back from the brink.
She was a smaller edition of Louise, but a stronger character, Jill guessed.
‘Go! Now!’ she was instructing Louise firmly. ‘I’m not speaking to you until you’ve had a shower and washed your hair. Turning into a bag lady won’t help matters. Go on, shoo!’
With a helpless shrug in Jill’s direction, Louise, who had little choice, went off to have a shower.
Three bouquets of flowers sat in the kitchen sink waiting to be arranged. Connie looked in a cupboard, grabbed a vase and put one lot of flowers in it.
‘These are nice, I suppose,’ she said, ‘but the bloody phone hasn’t stopped ringing since I arrived.’
‘Ignore it,’ Jill suggested. ‘If it’s anyone Louise wants to speak to, they can leave a message.’
Connie’s hands stilled on the flowers. ‘She keeps telling me that everyone has been marvellous. Someone hasn’t though, have they? Who could have done this, Jill?’
‘God knows.’
‘I know Nikki was difficult, a pain in the arse really, and I know she was hell-bent on self-destruction, but she didn’t deserve to die.’
‘No.’
‘As for Charlie,’ Connie snorted, ‘you’d have thought he could have hung around a bit, couldn’t you?’
‘Where is he? At his office?’
‘So he says.’
‘I expect it’s difficult for him,’ Jill said.
‘Difficult for him? Pah! It’s a damn sight more difficult for Lou.’ Connie lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Between you, me and the gatepost, I hope he never comes back. He’s a complete waste of space.’
‘Ah, you’re not a fan then. I don’t really know him so I can’t comment.’
‘You haven’t missed anything. What Lou sees in him, I can’t imagine. He’s the biggest flirt on the planet, and always flirting with young girls. He makes me sick.’
‘Young girls? How do you mean?’
‘He’s what? Forty? And he thinks he’s God gift to the female of the species. Every time he’s out, he’s chatting up girls young enough to be his daughters. I suppose he’s good-looking, in a way, but even so. Sorry, Jill, but he makes me sick.’
Jill was amazed. All she’d heard from Louise was how kind, thoughtful and considerate he was. Louise wasn’t an expert on men, though. In fact, she was a walking disaster where relationships were concerned.
‘Nikki didn’t like him, did she?’ she said.
‘She couldn’t stand him. Pervy Charlie, she used to call him. Mind, the feeling was mutual. Because she didn’t fawn all over him, he accused her of being a stuck-up cow. He didn’t like it at all.’
Pervy Charlie? PC? That must have been what Nikki had meant in her email. She had escaped Pervy Charlie for the day . . .
Louise looked better when she came downstairs. She was wearing clean blue jeans and a pale lemon shirt, and her hair was still wet from her shower.
Jill stayed for a few more minutes then, reassured thatConnie was the best medicine Louise could have, she left the sisters to cope as best they could with the day.
She managed to avoid the gaggle of reporters that had gathered, and drove into Harrington. Now she came to think about it, she realized she didn’t even know Charlie’s surname. All she knew was that he owned a used car business. That and the fact that, apart from Louise, no one seemed to like him . . .
She went straight to Max’s office. He was reading through the autopsy report and, when he looked up, she was shocked to see how weary he looked.
‘How’s Louise?’ he asked.
‘Being bossed around by Connie. She’ll be OK.’
She supposed it was no wonder he looked shattered. Last night, she’d gone to bed – his bed – and had fallen asleep in minutes. When she’d woken in the early hours of the morning, he’d been sitting in the seat by the bedroom window, staring out, lost in his own thoughts. She’d lain there quietly for a few moments, wondering what she could say, and the next thing she knew, the shower had been running and, minutes later, Max had left the house.
‘What does that tell us?’ she asked, nodding at the report. ‘Anything new?’
‘Not really. It has her as being killed between ten and twelve o’clock,’ he said, ‘but I think it’s closer to twelve. She was seen in Waterfoot at a few minutes to ten and then nothing. I suppose if someone she knew came along in a car –’
‘Like Charlie?’
‘Charlie?’
‘Connie hates him,’ she explained, ‘almost as much as Nikki did. Nikki used to refer to him as Pervy Charlie, apparently. According to Connie, he was always chatting up girls young enough to be his daughters. She also said he didn’t like the way Nikki refused to fawn all over him, as she put it.’
‘Pervy Charlie? That sounds like Nikki-speak. It doesn’t make him a killer, though.’
‘No, but it does put a question mark over him. We know nothing about him, Max. Where was he when Nikki was killed?’
‘Selling used cars.’
‘Can anyone vouch for that?’
‘Yes. One of his salesmen. Apparently, one was off sick, so there was just Charlie and his sidekick, a chap called Alan.’
Which put him in the clear. Not that she’d suspected the man of murder. Not really. He and Nikki may have been at loggerheads but it had to be said that Nikki was difficult.
‘Why Nikki?’ she murmured.
‘Why Carol Blakely?’ he returned, and she sighed.
They didn’t know. What they did know was that Phil Meredith would go berserk if she didn’t come up with some sort of profile . . .
She spent the rest of the day in her office going through everything they had on Carol’s and Nikki’s murders. The connection to Edward Marshall’s victims couldn’t be ignored, so she went through those, too.
The photographs were grim and depressing, yet she spread them out across her desk.
Grace came in to ask after Louise, and that was her only interruption. For the rest of the time, Jill stared at the photos hoping for inspiration.
There was nothing. To be more accurate, there was nothing she could put her finger on. Something was bothering her, but she wasn’t s
ure what it was. Finally, when photos and reports were beginning to blur into one, she decided to call it a day. She stopped at Max’s office on her way out to see if he’d come up with anything.
‘Zilch,’ he said grimly.
Fletch burst through the door, breathless, and hitching up trousers that were constantly falling down. On first meeting him, Jill had thought he must have lost weight. Now she knew he was simply incapable of buying clothes that fitted.
‘Charlie Denning, guv,’ he said. ‘It seems he lied about being at his dealership.’
‘Go on,’ Max urged him.
‘His sidekick, Alan Graham has just phoned us. Apparently, they’ve had a bust-up. Graham’s told him where to stuff his job and walked out. It seems like he’s out for a spot of revenge, too, because he now claims that Denning asked him to tell us he was at the showroom all day.’
‘So where was he?’
‘Graham has no idea, but he says he didn’t see him at all.’
‘Right. Let’s go and have a word with him.’
Fletch looked at his watch. It was getting on for seven o’clock.
‘OK,’ Max said, ‘you go home, Fletch. I’ll go and have a word with him.’ He looked at Jill. ‘Do you want to come along for a chat with Pervy Charlie?’
‘Oh, I’d love to!’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As Max drove them out to Victoria Street, he silently questioned the wisdom of having Jill with him. This case was too personal now. She might not have known Nikki well, but Louise was her friend and she was suffering on her behalf. At a guess, he’d say she was suffering more than she was letting on, too.
‘Has anything interesting about Terry Yates come to light?’ she asked him.
He shouldn’t have been surprised by the question. She might be feeling wretched, but her mind would still be on the job.
‘Not really. He and his wife – ex-wife – used to live in Kelton Bridge. Did you know that?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, before they split up. Then they sold up, divided the proceeds and bought places in Harrington.’
‘Whereabouts in Kelton?’ she asked curiously.
‘Haver Road. Newish houses, aren’t they?’
‘They were built about fifteen years ago. It’s only a small development, about fifteen homes, I think. Big houses, though. Four or five bedrooms, en-suites, double garages.’
‘No wonder Yates is bitter.’
‘Hm. I’ll ask around.’
Max drove on to the forecourt at Denning’s used car lot where the man himself was showing a couple the benefits of a Vauxhall Vectra. He was all smiles, like something from a toothpaste ad, but Max saw the smile slip when he recognized his visitors.
‘Dodgy Motors R Us,’ Max murmured.
‘They look OK,’ Jill pointed out. ‘All fairly new.’
‘He looks the type who’d rip off his own grandmother.’
Smiling, Jill shook her head at that. ‘You can’t know that just because he sells used cars.’
‘True.’
Max supposed Charlie was a good-looking bloke in a smooth salesman sort of way. But come the winter, Max would bet his life he’d be wearing the regulation used car salesman’s uniform of sheepskin jacket.
They got out of the car and had a walk round the forecourt.
‘I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes,’ Charlie called out to them.
‘No rush,’ Max assured him.
Max reckoned he could do this job. Done properly – legally – it must be a doddle. No stress, regular hours and enough money to live on.
The couple went away to ‘think about’ the Vectra and Charlie, still smiling, crossed the forecourt to them.
‘Hello, there, what can I do for you?’ His smile faltered, but only slightly. ‘Is Louise OK?’
‘Haven’t you seen her?’ Jill asked.
‘Sadly not. I’m having a right time of it, I can tell you. I’ve got Gerry off sick – some sort of gastro-flu, he reckons – and now Alan has walked out on me. Just like that. Can you believe it? At a time like this, too. Mind you, he’d only been here three weeks and he’s no great loss. He couldn’t sell ice to Eskimos.’
‘Few people could,’ Max put in, and Charlie, not having a clue what was meant by that, just smiled and agreed.
‘So what can I do for you?’ he asked.
‘We’d like a word, if you don’t mind. Can we go inside?’ Max asked.
‘Of course.’
He led the way into the smart but small showroom. Inside were two cars, both Fords, a modern desk and three chairs, a computer and a coffee machine.
‘Can I get you a coffee?’ he asked pleasantly.
‘Please,’ Jill said, and Max nodded. Why not? Machine coffee was better than no coffee.
‘It might improve my temper,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘I’m in a bad mood,’ Max explained as Charlie put coins in the machine and waited for sludge to fall into three plastic cups. ‘In fact, I’m totally pissed off. It gets me like that when people lie to me.’
Charlie didn’t take the hint. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
They sat on two chairs on one side of the desk, and he took the one opposite. Three plastic cups of pale brown coffee were between them.
‘When I asked you where you were on Monday,’ Max began, ‘you thought you’d been here all day. Even Alan, your assistant, thought you had. I don’t suppose your memory’s improved since I last asked you, has it?’
‘What?’ He gave a hearty laugh. ‘I’m not a suspect, am I?’
‘We have to eliminate those who were close to Nikki,’ Max told him. ‘So? Has your memory improved?’
He had the grace to look shamefaced as he glanced at Jill and then back at Max.
‘OK, I wasn’t here,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit, um, delicate.’
‘We’re used to delicate,’ Jill told him, and Max could hear her barely controlled anger. ‘A good friend of mine has lost her daughter. It doesn’t get much more delicate than that.’
‘No, no of course.’ Charlie, duly contrite, took a breath. ‘The thing was, I was with a woman.’
‘Who?’ Max asked.
‘That’s just it, I don’t know. As I said, it’s a bit delicate. I mean, with Jill being a friend of Louise. It’s just – well, to tell you the truth, the sex with Louise hasn’t been great. She’s a lovely woman, but well – so, I –’
‘You had sex with someone else.’ Jill finished for him.
‘Yes.’
‘Does this woman have a name?’ she asked. ‘Or did you just pick her up off the street?’
He stared back at Jill with no hint of embarrassment. No hint of anything.
‘Yes. I picked her up off the street,’ he said. ‘That’s why I don’t know her name. She told me it was Roxanne, but they all say that, don’t they?’
‘Do they?’ Jill asked. ‘I really wouldn’t know.’
‘What did she look like?’ Max asked.
‘Like they all do,’ he replied, and Max knew a longing to hit him.
‘Come on,’ Jill goaded him. ‘Some are short, some are tall. Some are old, some not even fourteen. Some are redheads, and some are blonde.’
‘Blonde, I think,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘Young. Not that young, though,’ he added hastily.
‘You’re an experienced man with the ladies, right?’ Jill pressed on.
‘Well, I like to –’
‘And the sex with Louise wasn’t great,’ she went on, cutting him off. ‘Now, I don’t imagine for a minute that you’re a come in thirty seconds flat sort of bloke. You must have been banging away at her for – what? – an hour?’
‘Maybe,’ he said, clearly surprised to find Jill talking of such matters so easily.
‘Long enough to see what she looked like then,’ Jill said. ‘So try again!’
‘Blonde,’ he said. ‘Yes, definitely blonde. About twenty. Maybe a couple of years older.’
; ‘Why didn’t Nikki like you?’ Jill asked, changing the subject.
‘Oh, you know what kids are. She was jealous. Jealous of her mum. She hadn’t got a boyfriend and her mum had.’
‘Fancy you, did she?’
‘Probably. Look, I never asked her.’
‘Fancy her, did you?’
‘Of course not. She was Louise’s daughter, for God’s sake.’
‘I’ve heard you like them young.’
‘Who told you that?’ he demanded, but Jill merely shrugged it off.
‘Is it true?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So why,’ Jill asked patiently, ‘would someone say you enjoyed flirting with young girls if it wasn’t true? It seems an odd thing to invent, don’t you think?’
The sudden smile had Max really longing to hit him. He shuddered to think how Jill was feeling. This was the man she had assumed would help her friend cope with the death of her daughter. Now, if Jill had her way, he’d never see Louise again.
An involuntary shudder ran down Max’s spine. Every time he thought of Louise, he couldn’t begin to imagine how she was going to cope. If he lost Ben or Harry, he simply didn’t know what he would do. He couldn’t bear to think about it . . .
‘I bet I know who’s said that,’ Charlie said, still grinning. ‘The lovely Connie.’
‘Why would she say that?’ Jill asked him. ‘Oh, don’t tell me. She’s jealous, right? She’s jealous because you’re going out with her sister instead of her.’
‘Well, yeah –’
‘You’re – how did someone put it? – God’s gift to the female of the species, and we’re all angry, twisted and jealous because you’re not shagging us. Well, get real, Charlie. None of us are jealous. Nikki wasn’t, Connie wasn’t, I’m not – we’re just grateful we haven’t fallen for your crap.’
He flushed at that.
‘Nikki called you Pervy Charlie,’ she pushed on. ‘Why?’
‘Who knows how her mind worked?’
‘Pervy? Some kind of pervert, are you, Charlie? You like them young, don’t you? Nikki’s age or younger? Why’s that, eh? It makes me think you’re crap at sex –’
Max decided it was high time he took over.
‘This woman you were with,’ he put in quickly, ‘where exactly did you see her?’
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