DEAD SORRY a totally addictive crime thriller with a huge twist (Calladine & Bayliss Mystery Book 11)

by Helen H. Durrant

  “No,” she snapped. “Ronan came to see me out of the blue.”

  “I don’t believe you. I think he knew you because he used to work for your husband, Ray. Ronan Leyland wasn’t your only visitor either.”

  “True, a few people came to see me — Tom, for one. He asked me about people Ray had worked with too.”

  “I’m not talking about Tom Calladine,” Greco said. “We’ve done our research, looked at the visitors’ log and the CCTV footage.” Marilyn’s face fell. “Maggie Cox visited you too, more than once. We believe she was working for Lazarov, and that she was relaying messages between the pair of you. He couldn’t visit himself because he was a wanted man, West Yorkshire’s most prolific drug dealer. So he sent the woman he was living with to see you instead. What did he want, Mrs Fallon?” Debra Weller looked genuinely confused — she obviously had no knowledge of any of this.

  “It was all his idea, Lazarov’s,” Marilyn said. “He planned to steal the Hoard and he hired me and Ronan to help him.”

  Greco dismissed that straight away. “That’s a lie. Lazarov was a drug dealer. He had no interest in the Hoard, I doubt he even knew of its existence. You were the one who instigated the visit. You sent his girlfriend a visiting order. Why?”

  “Ronan told me to.”

  Greco ignored her comment. “This is what I think happened. Lazarov had no interest in the Hoard, but he was interested in you, Mrs Fallon. You asked for the visit and dangled the prospect of getting even with Tom Calladine in front of him as a way to get him onside.”

  “Another of Ronan’s ideas. He knew Lazarov had the money and the contacts to get me out. This entire thing is down to Ronan, surely you see that. He’s the one who runs the museum where the Hoard will be kept. He’s been planning this for months.”

  “If stealing the Hoard was Sinclair’s idea, that still doesn’t explain where you come in,” Greco said.

  She said nothing.

  “I think the theft was your idea, Mrs Fallon. You used Tom Calladine as bait to lure Lazarov back to the area. You know a lot about him, including where he and his family live. What was the plan? Get Lazarov into Calladine’s house late one night and stand by while he killed the man? You used Tom as bait and you’re using Sinclair to get access to the Hoard.”

  Marilyn glared at him, tight-lipped.

  “Why did you kill Lazarov? Outlive his usefulness, did he?”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Marilyn protested. “We found him like that. When we’d left him the day before, he was fine. He must have upset someone, but it wasn’t us. All he had to do was stay put, but he couldn’t, could he? He wanted his business back, to be the top dog again.”

  “So, if that was the case, where did he go?” Greco asked.

  “I’m not sure, we didn’t follow him around. But I suspect he went into Leesdon at night, to the Hobfield. He upset someone, it’s as simple as that.”

  Greco said nothing. He could see that Debra Weller was becoming more confused as the interview proceeded. He placed a sheet of paper in front of them both. “This shows a number of bank transfers. They’re from an account owned by ‘Andrei Holdings’ to your account, Mrs Fallon. The amount is exactly what you needed to cover the legal fees for your appeal, isn’t that so?”

  Marilyn nodded.

  “This transfer here is from ‘Andrei Holdings’ to an account belonging to Maggie Cox. She was the main witness at your appeal and the go-between for you and Lazarov. Am I right?” She nodded again. “‘Andrei Holdings’ is Andrei Lazarov, Mrs Fallon. He parted with a lot of money. He had to have had a good reason for doing that.” He waited, but she remained silent. “Lazarov needed help to return to Leesworth, he was a wanted man. Walk the streets and he’d be inside within the hour. What he needed was a place to stay hidden and people to help him re-establish his business this side of the Pennines, make him untouchable once again. That was the deal, wasn’t it? You gave him Tom Calladine and a secret hideaway, and he gave you money to fight your appeal.”

  Greco glanced at Debra Weller. She had a face like thunder. From her expression, the extent to which she’d been duped had just dawned on her, and she was furious.

  Abruptly, she stood up. “Sorry, I can’t do this.” She turned to Marilyn. “You used me, all through the appeal and beyond. Even now you’re still treating me like a fool. I believed you, I really thought you were a broken woman.” She took hold of her things and made for the door. “Get someone else, Marilyn. I’m done with you.”

  Greco raised his eyebrows. “We’ll leave this for now. We’ll arrange another solicitor and resume later.”

  “You’re making a huge mistake,” Marilyn said. “You should go after the real villains, find out who really killed Lazarov because it wasn’t me or Ronan.”

  Greco didn’t reply. He and Ruth left the room. “Do we believe her, sir?” Ruth said. “We didn’t ask her about the freezer or what happened to the gun.”

  “All in good time, Ruth. The woman needs time to consider her position. She’s playing us. She’s good, too, I’ll give her that, but she’s guilty all right. What we have to do is find out which one is the brains behind the plan to steal the Hoard, Marilyn or Ronan Sinclair, and who pulled the trigger.”

  “Lazarov not behind the plan, then?” she asked.

  “No, Ruth. I think he helped obtain Marilyn’s release in order to get at Tom. All he wanted was his drug business back, to see it up and running again. He planned to blackmail Tom into helping him by threatening his family.”

  “Why kill Lazarov?” she asked.

  “Who knows, but don’t worry, we’ll find out.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Calladine and Rocco sat down opposite Maggie Cox and her solicitor. “First, I want to discuss your relationship with Marilyn Fallon,” Calladine began.

  “She was my friend,” Cox said.

  “How did you become friends? You didn’t live near her and Ray.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t recall how, we just did.”

  “Fortunately, I know exactly how the pair of you met up,” Calladine said. “She sent you a visiting order when she was in prison. Up until then, the two of you had been complete strangers.”

  “That’s a lie, I did know her,” Cox said.

  “Marilyn wanted to contact Andrei Lazarov. Being a wanted man, he couldn’t visit, so you went instead. What did you discuss?”

  Maggie Cox looked him in the eye. “You!” she hissed. “Lazarov was obsessed with you. He wanted to get even, make you suffer for getting in his way.”

  “And there was me the hot topic in prison circles and I never knew.” Calladine chuckled.

  “It’s no joke, Inspector. Lazarov wanted you dead. You ruined the Manchester side of his business. It was doing nicely until you interfered. He was making a fortune, which he lost thanks to you, and he wanted to get even.”

  “He was running a county lines operation and encroaching on my patch. What did he expect me to do? How did Marilyn know to send you the visiting order?”

  “Someone Lazarov knows got a message to her,” Cox said.

  “You visited, and Marilyn was only too happy to offer me up in exchange for her freedom. Nice, and there’s me giving the woman a roof over her head.”

  “She uses everyone, you should know that by now,” she said.

  “She wanted out and Lazarov wanted me, so where does Ronan Sinclair and the Leesworth Hoard feature in all this?”

  Maggie Cox shrugged. “I’ve no idea. All Lazarov wanted was his business back. He tried, too. He was well on the way to making his presence felt on that bloody estate when he disappeared.”

  “Why the Hobfield in particular?” Rocco asked.

  Cox nodded toward Calladine. “Because it would piss him off. He threatened you, didn’t he?” she said to Calladine. “Got to you through your daughter and her kid. He was planning to kill them, too. He reckoned that would finish you for good.”

  Calladine shuddered. She was right,
it would have. “You hid Lazarov,” he said, “kept him safe from the police while he organized his new life. The man you were living with, Ms Cox, was a murdering drug dealer who you knew was a palpable threat to me and my family.”

  “I daren’t say anything,” she said. “He’d have killed me.”

  “He paid you a lot of money to lie for Marilyn. You were the main witness at her appeal. It was a good act you put on. Debra Weller was royally taken in.”

  “I’d no idea what was going on,” Cox said. “What was I supposed to do? As I said, Lazarov would have killed me if I’d refused to do what he wanted.”

  “We’ll leave it for now,” Calladine said.

  “Can I go?” Cox asked.

  “No, you’ll be staying with us.”

  * * *

  Back in the main office, Calladine and Ruth discussed their respective interviews. “Maggie Cox is a right piece of work,” Calladine said. “She knew Lazarov wanted to kill Zoe and the infant and did nothing about it.”

  Ruth handed him a mug of coffee. “It didn’t work though, did it? You got them safely out of the way. Marilyn’s having a meltdown. Now that Debra Weller knows the truth, she’s done one, so it’s the duty solicitor for Marilyn.”

  “Marilyn and Cox are one thing, but we mustn’t forget Sinclair’s part in all this,” he said.

  “He’s been brought in too,” Ruth said. “He’s in interview room three.”

  “Good. I need to decide who really is the brains behind all this. Not Lazarov, for a start. It seems all he was interested in was restoring his drug-dealing business and getting back at me.”

  “Greco and I are having another go at Marilyn shortly.”

  “Okay, I’ll take Sinclair. When you speak to Marilyn, find out where she and Sinclair met. I think it’s important.”

  “I had a word with his wife, sir,” Alice said. “She actually doesn’t know much about him. Whirlwind romance, she said. Got married within three months of meeting. She said things started to go downhill shortly after the wedding. She knew marrying him was a mistake and wanted out. When he got the museum job and stopped going home it was a relief. By that time she was already suspicious that he’d been lying to her about any number of things. That’s when she hired Ms Lake.”

  “Thanks, Alice.” Calladine went into his office and closed the door behind him. He needed to speak to Zoe, make sure everything was okay.

  She answered almost straight away. “Dad. You all right?”

  “Yes, love. I was calling to find out about you. It’ll all be over soon, and then you can come home. How’s Maisie doing?”

  “She’s fine, enjoying being fussed over by the lot of us. She seems to have taken to Amanda — she’s got a knack with babies.”

  “There’s been no problems? Odd visits? Phone calls?”

  “Nothing at all. This call from you is the only one we’ve had. You need to chill, Dad. This place is so out of the way, it’s perfectly safe.”

  “I’ll come and get you at the first opportunity,” he said. “See you soon.”

  He missed them. The thought of what might have happened if Lazarov’s plans had worked out terrified him. The teddy bear, the liquid thrown into the pram, they were leading up to something too dreadful to contemplate. He went back to join the others.

  “Right, let’s get this wrapped up. I want an end to it, and I want the ringleader,” he said with a nod at Ruth.

  “Before you disappear, Julian’s been on,” Ruth said. “He’d like a word.”

  Calladine disappeared back into his office and rang him. He hoped this wasn’t about Zoe. He could only hold off telling him the truth for so long.

  “The mud on the floor in Becca O’Brien’s flat,” Julian began.

  Wrong case, but Julian sounded keen. “What about it?”

  “We’ve been over that floor thoroughly. There was the bloody print near the wall, which you know about, but the only other one of any use was a muddy print by the door. It was big, made by someone wearing heavy shoes with distinctive soles.”

  “Does it match up with anything you got from Higgs?”

  “No, bigger feet, so not Higgs. The print matches up with the shoes Lazarov was wearing when you found him.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, Tom. That print was made by Lazarov. He was in that flat the night O’Brien was killed.”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Greco and Ruth resumed their interview with Marilyn, while Calladine and Rocco went to question Sinclair. The news about Lazarov had Calladine thinking. Why visit Becca? Neither Jade nor Johnno had seen any mud on the floor, or left any behind, so Becca must have already been dead when Lazarov went in. He pushed it to the back of his mind for the time being. Sorting this little lot came first. He’d deal with Becca’s murder once that was done.

  “How did you meet Marilyn Fallon?” Calladine asked Sinclair.

  “I knew her from before,” he said.

  “Before what? Before she was locked up for killing her husband?” Calladine said.

  “That’s a bit harsh considering the result of the appeal.”

  “It is true, though, regardless of how you wrap it up,” Calladine said. “Marilyn did kill Ray, and in cold blood, too. So, come on, when did you meet?”

  “I can’t remember, it was a while ago.”

  “Okay. When did you change your name from Leyland?” Calladine said.

  He looked surprised. Surely, he must have realized they’d find out.

  Calladine consulted the notes Greco had given him. “You have a record — petty theft mostly, but you did do a stint in prison.”

  “So, I was a naughty boy. I’ve grown up since then and I’ve changed.”

  “You were in prison with Ray, Marilyn’s husband,” Calladine said. “It’s written here in my notes, so I’m thinking that’s when you first met her, on one of her visits.”

  “Could have been. Can’t remember,” Sinclair said.

  “Marilyn got Lazarov to fund her appeal, and in return the pair of you found him a place to hide in Leesdon — near me. But things didn’t work out, did they? The villain got ambitious, started going out nights.”

  “He wanted his business back,” Sinclair admitted. “Marilyn didn’t want that, not yet anyway.”

  “Who killed those lads on the Hobfield?” Calladine said.

  Sinclair shrunk back in the chair. “What lads? It wasn’t me. I can assure you. I’ve never killed anyone, murder’s not my style.” His hands were shaking.

  “Okay, if not you, then who? They were executed, Ronan, strapped to chairs and shot between the eyes.”

  Sinclair winced. “It was Lazarov. A warning to any others who felt like grabbing a share of the turf. He wanted rid of the competition. Those lads took no notice, so they became a lesson for anyone else who had the same idea.”

  Those lads had had a loose association with Johnno Higgs. He’d been damn lucky to survive. Odd that, he was well known. “How did Marilyn react to the shootings?”

  “She went berserk. Said he had to go.”

  “Did she kill him?”

  “I don’t know,” Sinclair replied, lowering his gaze. “All Marilyn really wanted was the Hoard, just enough of it to ensure she’d never want for anything again. She had a buyer, too — some bloke in the Far East. She’d done all the groundwork. It could have succeeded, if it hadn’t been for Lazarov. Right from the start, Marilyn said he was a liability and a threat to our plans.”

  “Once he was out of the way, Marilyn had everything in place, didn’t she?” Calladine said. “The curator of the local museum eating out of her hand, no more Lazarov, and me running round in circles chasing my tail. I’d say Marilyn makes a damn good villain. Mind you, she had a good teacher.”

  “As I said, I don’t know if she did kill him,” Sinclair said. “And if she did, I can’t think when. We’ve been together most of the time since she got out.”

  “I know. Were you aware that your new wife is ha
ving you watched? She wants a divorce. How would Marilyn react to being named on the petition? I reckon it’s you she’ll be gunning for next.”

  “We found him dead on the floor of that workshop up at the house,” Sinclair said.

  “When?”

  “Remember when I spoke to you on the street after you left Kitty’s? I was taking those boxes into the museum. It was earlier that day. We went up that morning to check on him and found him lying on the floor. At first, Marilyn thought he was sleeping but he was dead all right, shot in the head.”

  Something occurred to Calladine, but he needed a quick word with Natasha before he acted on it. She’d given him an estimate for the time of Lazarov’s death, but he wondered if she could narrow it down. He left the interview room and went to ring her.

  He was in luck. Natasha had done more tests. “There’s still a margin of error, Tom,” she said. “You found him on the Friday morning at about eleven. I’d say he was shot on the Wednesday night.”

  Yes, Calladine realized, the timeline checked out. Certainly, there was no possibility of an earlier time of death because he’d spoken to Lazarov that Wednesday — on his way back from dropping Zoe at the safe house.

  “Thanks, Natasha, that helps.”

  That was the night the lads had been shot, Calladine realized. Had Lazarov shot them and Marilyn lost it? Was that it? Something Kitty had said struck him. He took his mobile and rang her. “You told me that there was a night Marilyn stayed over with Sinclair,” he began.

  “She stayed over a few times before she moved in with you,” she said.

  Calladine wondered why that hadn’t been picked up — the woman was on parole. “The night they made a noise, had people over and you found them the next morning. When was that?”

  “It was a Wednesday night. They made such a din that I went round on Thursday morning to make sure they were okay. I ended up feeding them coffee. Mind you, they recovered pretty fast. I went round about seven thirty with the coffee, and an hour later I saw them go off together in his car.”