Cold Winter's Morning

by Alan Bexley

Shortly afterwards, Ingermann shuffled back in and fell into the chair again. He winced as he did so.

  ‘The spare set’s gone?’ Helen asked.

  He looked up at her. ‘The bitch took them. The bloody bitch took them.’

  ‘Joyce?’ she guessed. ‘But how?’

  Ingermann’s expression was like thunder. ‘Bloody bitch,’ he said again.

  ‘Come on George, explain,’ she said.

  Ingermann turned his head to look at Frank. ‘Joyce came ‘round the other evening. She was nagging about missed maintenance payments and she said she wanted a photograph of the kids I had in the bedroom. They’re leading their own lives now. I took her through and let her take it. I didn’t see her take the spare keys but they’re gone. No one else has been in.’

  ‘No chance you could have lost them?’ Frank asked.

  ‘No, the cow must have palmed them when I wasn’t looking.’

  ‘Right, George. We’ll nick her. Just leave this to us,’ Frank said.

  ‘I’m not going to tip her off.’

  Chapter 23

  Frank and Helen sat in his car.

  ‘What now?’ she asked.

  ‘We could raid her home,’ he said. ‘But she won’t have held on to the Golf’s keys. How do we get her?’

  ‘Did she drive the car or just supply it to the killer?’ Helen said.

  Frank sighed. ‘We still don’t have the motive for Vicky’s killing. Not for sure.’

  Helen swiped her phone and spoke, ‘Jade, what time did Laura Quinnan get into work the day of the murder?’

  She put the phone down. ‘She said Laura’s boss said she was in by 8:30 Wednesday morning. What’s more, she’s on CCTV window-shopping and dawdling to work. The timing pretty much rules her out as the driver.’

  ‘We’re left with either Joyce Ingermann driving the car herself or supplying it to someone else.’ he said.

  Helen fiddled with her seatbelt. ‘Do we buy her as a ruthless killer?’

  ‘The unhealthy, elderly woman could be an act. Although she could still have supplied the car to someone from the Morgan clan.’

  Helen shook her head.

  ‘It could still be them,’ Frank said.

  Joyce Ingermann fidgeted in her chair, her hands in continual motion. She was under arrest and being interviewed under caution by Frank and Helen.

  Frank watched her from his side of the table. ‘It’s a strict no smoking regime. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Would it kill you to make an exception?’ Her fist flew to her mouth as she coughed.

  Frank couldn’t help recoiling. ‘It’ll do you good to lay off ‘em for a while.’

  Joyce’s lips formed into a curse but she thought better of it.

  ‘I’ll tell you what we know,’ he said. ‘You stole your ex-husband’s car which was used to murder Vicky Crosby. We have officers searching your home and we have already seized both of your mobile phones. We need to figure out if we’re charging you with murder or conspiracy to murder. Either way you’ll go to prison for a lot of years.’

  He paused as she shook her head and looked away

  He decided to continue. ‘You were in touch with Mrs Laura Quinnan who wanted Vicky dead. I’m betting you took money from Mrs Quinnan to kill Vicky. You stole the car, waited outside Vicky’s home and ran her down. Not only ran her down but reversed over her body and drove over her a third time crushing the life out of her. What do you think a jury will make of you?’

  Joyce’s head came up. Her eyes were watery. She shook her head again.

  ‘No, what?’ Frank asked.

  ‘I didn’t drive the car.’

  ‘Then who did?’ Frank’s voice was calm but it filled the room.

  Joyce shrank away from him. ‘I can’t tell you. They’d kill me.’

  ‘They?’ Frank said. Joyce just stared. ‘The Morgans?’

  Come on, come on. Spit it out.

  Helen leant forward. ‘No one can get to you while you’re in police custody. We’ll protect you.’

  Joyce looked at her. ‘It’ll be easy for them to get me in prison.’

  Helen leaned back again.

  ‘Even if you don’t give us a name, you won’t be safe,’ Frank said. ‘You know too much. Your only chance is to tell us everything and let us round them up.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind, I want a lawyer,’ she said.

  Frank sighed. ‘Do you have a solicitor for us to call or do you want the duty solicitor?’

  ‘I have my own,’ she said, and cleared her throat.

  Frank was staring at the proliferation of handwritten notes on the white board.

  Altman was standing beside him. ‘You’re making progress. Not before time.’

  ‘Murder enquiries usually take time.’ Frank said.

  ‘What’s your next move? I need to give Griffin an update.’

  ‘We’ve got to finish the interview with Joyce Ingermann.’

  ‘Will she give you the killer?’

  ‘She’s in fear of her life. It’s going to be tough prising that name from her.’

  Altman scanned the board. ‘Keep me informed,’ he said and closed the door to his office.

  Helen got up from her desk to stand beside Frank. He looked down at her. ‘Something in particular puzzling you?’

  ‘I don’t know why Loki gave himself up when George Ingermann insists he was attacked by someone else,’ Helen said.

  ‘Ed got him to take the fall so there must be a connection between the loan shark and the Morgans. Damn. We didn’t get the name of the loan shark.’

  Helen shrugged. ‘It didn’t seem important at the time.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jade said. They both turned towards her. ‘I’ve been checking on Gabriel Lansky. The word is that he’s pally with Ed Morgan since he came back to Westchapel. Get this, he has a new line of business. Not drugs any more, he’s into money lending.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Frank said. ‘What a tangled web.’

  ‘Ed got Loki to take the fall for his new besty,’ Helen said. ‘Mind you, he couldn’t have been happy about it.’

  Joyce Ingermann’s solicitor was a dark-skinned middle-aged woman with bangles that rattled against the tabletop. She leaned across the corner of the table so she could look her client in the face while writing on her pad.

  Frank noticed that she had supplied Joyce with a packet of nicotine patches. Joyce was clutching them in her hand.

  ‘We want to know who drove the car,’ Frank said.

  Joyce looked at her solicitor who had stopped writing, and now gave a slight nod.

  ‘I can’t tell you who ran down Vicky Crosby,’ Joyce said. She coughed into her hand. ‘But I can tell you who collected the car from me. I didn’t know what the car was to be used for.’

  Frank and Helen waited without commenting.

  ‘Gabriel Lansky.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Frank said. ‘Why did he want George’s car?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ she said. ‘It was my choice. Me taking a jab at George. He had pissed me off. He’s behind with the maintenance.’

  ‘Why did he ask you to find a car?’ Frank asked.

  Joyce sighed. ‘I’ve been nicking them on and off for years. It’s easy money. Started when I was a kid. Knew how to hot-wire a car before I was out of my teens. Your lot have never caught me. These days it’s even easier. No one pegs me as a car thief. If I’m spotted near a car, I just call out a cat’s name and march off. The car’s owner just sees a potty old cat woman.’

  Helen rested a hand on the table and Frank looked at her.

  ‘You said you didn’t know what the car was to be used for but we know you were in touch with Mrs Quinnan using your burner phone. Explain that.’

  Joyce was ready with her answer. ‘You call it a burner phone but it’s just a replacement phone. I thought I’d lost my original phone but I found it again. I ended up with two phones. As for Laura, we got to know one another after meeting at the hypnotherapists
and chatted afterwards. It was perfectly innocent.’

  ‘You purchased the phone using a false name and address,’ Helen said.

  ‘When I bought the first one, I realised they sold my details on. I got bombarded with advertising texts and emails. When I got the second one, I gave them the false name to avoid it happening all over again.’

  Frank looked across at the solicitor. He wondered how much of this testimony had come from her fertile mind. ‘All very plausible,’ he said. ‘The trouble is that I’ll question Laura Quinnan right after we’ve finished with you. She doesn’t strike me as the sort who’ll stand up to robust interrogation. I reckon she’ll drop you in it.’

  Joyce looked at Frank and he could see a slight tremor but she said nothing.

  ‘I think my client has told you all that she can,’ the solicitor said. ‘You can charge her with taking the car, that’s all.’

  Joyce looked at her and nodded.

  Frank said, ‘You will be released on bail pending further investigation.’

  Frank sat facing Altman. ‘Although Joyce Ingermann tried to throw doubt our way, it looks likely that Gabriel Lansky was driving the car that killed Vicky but we don’t have motive. Neither can we link him to the car. We need to work on his alibi.’

  ‘Are you going to lift him?’

  ‘Not for the moment. But I’ll track him down and rattle his cage. I need to build a case before I pull him in. I don’t want the clock to run out and have to release him. If that happens and he gets out on bail, he’ll disappear and we’ll never find him. He’s a devious bastard.’

  ‘OK, Frank. But go carefully. You can’t afford to let him slip through your fingers.’

  ‘What do we have on Lansky?’ Frank asked Jade.

  ‘Not as much as I’d like,’ she said. ‘He’s driving around in a 10-year-old Jaguar X-Type. We don’t have a reg. He’s been seen at Oswell Point knocking on doors. It’s common knowledge that he’s a loan shark. None of our usual sources have confirmed a connection to the Morgans. No address either. He’s been drinking in the Elektra and the Flying Monk. That’s about it. I’ve asked everyone to watch out for the car and PNC any likely candidates. It’s only a matter of time until he’s spotted then we’ll get him on the ANPR system.’

  ‘Good work.’

  ‘One other thing, we heard back from Technical. They’ve finished with George Ingermann’s laptop. Nothing relating to the Morgans on it, no incriminating emails just lots to adult sites in his favourites and history.’

  He sat in front of Helen’s desk. ‘You realise we still don’t have a motive for Vicky’s killing?’

  She raised her eyebrows and blew out her cheeks. ‘Suppose Joyce Ingermann knew that Vicky was the target. Maybe Lansky told her. Who knows? She saw the chance to make some money on the side and took a fee from Laura Quinnan. Money for nothing.’

  Frank pursed his lips. ‘Could well be.’

  ‘Frank!’

  Jade had yelled and that was out of character. He swung around on the swivel chair to face her. She was looking at her screen.

  ‘We’ve got an ANPR alert,’ she said.

  Chapter 24

  ‘It’s Joyce Ingermann’s car,’ Jade said. ‘She’s pinged the camera on the London Road heading out of town.’

  ‘Shit, she’s running,’ Frank said as he ran for his coat. Joyce’s car had been registered as a matter of routine. ‘What’s she driving?’

  ‘Red Mazda 6.’

  Helen jumped in to Frank’s car, slamming the door behind her. He roared out of the station car park and edged forward to force his way into the line of traffic on Arundel Road. He switched on the siren and then the blue flashing lights in the radiator and dashboard. A van stopped to let them out.

  Frank reached the London Road junction and headed north, driving through a red traffic light. Helen had now got her breath back. She picked up the radio microphone and called the control room to make sure that all cars had been alerted. Jade had got there first.

  The London Road traffic was frustratingly slow. Helen’s phone rang. She took the call and listened. She took the phone from her ear and said, ‘We’ve got another ping. The camera a few hundred yards in front of us. She’s definitely heading out of Westchapel. I’ve got the reg.’

  They flew up London Road, travelling North. They left behind the houses of Westchapel and sped through the Sussex countryside. ‘She’s heading for the A21,’ Frank said.

  ‘Towards London?’ Helen said.

  ‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘But there are plenty of roads branching off. Get on to the office and ask if there are relatives she could be heading for.’

  Helen phoned the office and spoke to Jade. ‘Nothing doing,’ she said. ‘All the family we have on record are in Westchapel.’

  ‘Her priority at this stage may just be to get away,’ Frank said. ‘She may not have a destination in mind.’

  ‘ANPR will pick her up while on the A21 but if she has any sense, she’ll get off onto the minor roads,’ Helen said.

  Frank had his foot hard down and overtook at every opportunity. There was an anxious moment when they nearly met the oncoming traffic but tucked back into their lane at the last minute.

  ‘She spun us a line,’ Helen said. ‘She’s a clever cow.’

  ‘Knew she had to run before we caught up with Lansky and blew her story out of the water,’ he said.

  ‘Ed and Joyce have a working relationship that goes back years. She admitted stealing cars, perhaps there’s more. She must be our killer. In fact, we will need to go back over any unsolved murder cases in case she has killed anyone else for him.’

  Frank fell silent as he concentrated on driving. They were on a straight section of road and the approaching traffic was a long way off. Frank took the opportunity to pull out into the opposing lane and accelerated hard.

  ‘I can see a red Mazda,’ she said.

  He spotted the Mazda and aimed to get alongside it, but as they approached, Helen spoke, ‘It’s not the right reg.’

  He sped up and pulled into a tight gap in the line of cars. The driver behind him sounded his horn and flashed the lights. Frank glanced up at the rear-view mirror. Then he noticed that Helen had put a bracing arm out on the dashboard. He would temper his recklessness. ‘Of course, there are plenty of red Mazda 6s around.’

  Helen’s phone rang. She listened and then said, ‘She’s been caught on camera near to the turn for Cripps Corner.’

  ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘How did she manage to get so far ahead? Have we got the message out to all mobile units?’

  ‘Jade had done it before we’d left the station car park. We may get lucky and a patrol will stop her,’ she said. ‘And another thing, Jade’s been digging. Turns out Joyce and Ed Morgan were schoolfriends.’

  Frank shook his head and chewed his bottom lip. They came around a gradual curve onto another long straight. He floored the pedal, and they roared up the wrong side of the road. Helen had pressed herself back into the seat.

  ‘Take it easy, Frank. I want to go home tonight.’

  ‘I took the advanced driving course,’ he said.

  ‘When?’

  He considered for a moment before he answered. ‘Might have been a while back.’

  He was forced to pull back in as they met more oncoming traffic.

  Another call to Helen’s phone. ‘The Mazda’s been spotted by a patrol car. They’re in pursuit. She’s turned off the main road and taken the Brightling Road just past the George Inn. Do you know it?’

  ‘I do.’

  A few minutes later they took a left and joined the A21.

  ‘Slow down a bit. They know we’re in pursuit,’ Helen said. ‘They’ll hold on to her until we get there.’

  Frank tried to relax, but the road was quiet and it tempted him to get a move on.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Helen said. ‘She hinted at her deceptive ways during the interview. What if she’s used the hypnosis therapy to keep control of her smoki
ng? It could all be part of her harmless old lady persona.’

  ‘I don’t know. She certainly hasn’t been cured of the addiction.’

  Further north they reached the inn and turned off onto the minor road which twisted out into the Sussex countryside.

  ‘There they are,’ she said.

  The flashing blue and red lights of a stationery patrol car appeared in the distance. He eased off the accelerator. ‘Thank God.’

  But the crew were out of the patrol car and there was no sign of the Mazda. The front wheels of the car were in a ditch. Frank squeezed past. The front of the car was crumpled, and one light smashed.

  Helen turned to take a second look. ‘I’m guessing the driver lost control and a drainage ditch brought them up short.’

  ‘They don’t seem to be hurt. I’ll press on,’ he said. Once more he set off at a fast pace.

  The rutted road caused the car to bounce on its springs. Brightling Road was unmarked and narrow. High hedges on both sides of the car raced past in a blur.

  The hedges disappeared to be replaced by scattered trees either side.

  Then there it was, the Mazda 6. Joyce had pulled it off the road and parked alongside a gate leading into a field. She was out and examining the damage to the side of her car. She spotted Frank’s car and rushed to get back into hers. It lurched away from the muddy patch and raced off down the road again.

  ‘Right,’ Frank said. He closed the distance between the cars but kept a gap between them. A piece of trim fell from her car and rattled underneath Frank’s vehicle.

  ‘Careful,’ Helen urged.

  Joyce’s car slithered round a muddy corner and Frank followed close behind. A puddle covered the road and the Mazda’s wheels threw dirty water over the bonnet of the Focus. It splattered up Frank’s windscreen, and he flicked on the wipers to clear his vision. As they smeared the grey film, Frank felt his car sliding wide on the bend. The wheels lost traction.

  There was nothing Frank could do except to stamp on the brake pedal. He shouted, ‘Watch out’ to Helen, and braced himself for the shuddering, screeching impact that followed. The car had careered off the road and scraped along a hedge until it met a stout gate post.