His Third Victim

by Helen H. Durrant

  “There are a stack of photos. It will take an age to go through them.” Matt had them all up on his computer screen and was looking at them one by one. “Some go back weeks. There are even some of Bella and Fisher. This is incredible! The man must have spent most of his free time watching her. There is even one here of Bella pulling the curtains shut.”

  “If you ask me, Dawson’s a major weirdo. D’you think she knew the extent of his obsession with her? If she’d said something to us, we might have put a stop to all this a lot sooner.”

  “Don’t presume he’s our man, Lily. Look at these.”

  Matt had scrolled on to the more recent images. “He must have taken some of these from his car, in front of the house.”

  “Not very good though, are they? That one shows Nolan leaving. It’s date-stamped the night she went missing.”

  “Doesn’t help, Lily. Nolan admitted to being there.”

  “Who is that?”

  Lily pointed to another car parked a few metres down the street. Dawson had photographed a man sitting in the driver’s seat. Matt shrugged. “He could be anyone. It’s busy round there. Lots of houses, and parking is tight.”

  “No, look! Dawson’s got him again, outside Bella’s house.”

  The image wasn’t bad. Dawson had caught the man’s face illuminated in the street light.

  Lily peered over his shoulder. “We’ve not seen him before. Late thirties or so, dark hair, smartly dressed. What d’you reckon he’s up to?”

  The next few images showed the man standing outside Bella’s front door. In the final shot, she was letting him in.

  “We need to know who this man is. But I know one thing, he isn’t Tommy Johnson. It looks to me as if someone is trying to lay a false trail.”

  “You could be right. Johnson is linked to Chalker. Our killer is trying to lay the blame on him. Chalker has been all over the papers, and I’d say the killer has seen his chance and taken it. Mind you, we should ask ourselves where that cigarette butt came from.” Lily looked back at the computer screen. “I’ll lay odds that ‘doorstep man’ there is Doug. But if he is, where’s he come from? He isn’t in any of the other photos.”

  Matt attached the image to an email and sent it off to the tech boys to enhance. He would have to make sure there weren’t any others. He looked through the photos again. There were dozens of them, some taken just days ago. A number of them had even been taken outside the prison in York. They showed Bella sitting in a car with a man. Bella was easy enough to make out, but the man was nothing but a blur. Matt kept looking. There was another. The same man, and the same car, taken on Huddersfield High Street. He looked at the date stamp — a couple of days before Chalker was all over the papers. Dawson had been thorough. Matt just wished he knew what it all meant.

  Lily looked up from her phone. “The uniform watching Dawson has just texted me. He is conscious, and we can see him. It means a bit of a drive though.”

  Matt checked the time. “You go with Beckwith. Get a full statement — that is if he remembers anything. Take a copy of this photo with you, and see if he knows the bloke. But before you do that, would you visit Riley again, and show him this one?” Matt held up the image of the man on the doorstep. “Ask him if this is Caroline Sheldon’s boyfriend, Doug.”

  “You, sir?”

  Matt grimaced. “I’ve got a date with Ronnie Chalker a bit later. Don’t want to be late.”

  * * *

  Matt had no idea why Chalker wanted to see him. He presumed it must be something to do with Bella or their son. Whatever it was, he wasn’t looking forward to it. Before being put away, Chalker had been heavily involved with organised crime. He was a cold-blooded killer. There would be an angle somewhere, it was just that Matt hadn’t worked it out yet.

  Matt spent the journey thinking through the case. Things were becoming clearer. Caroline, Anita and finally Bella had all been to court for one reason or another. He suspected that the man Bella thought was her contact on the programme was not who he purported to be. But of course, he needed to prove that. He could only hope they would get the vital final pieces in time to save her.

  Ronnie Chalker was sitting at a table. A guard stood in the corner of the room. It crossed Matt’s mind that the villain wasn’t a particularly beefy bloke. Should things get violent, the guard and he would probably have the upper hand.

  Chalker had a grin on his face. “Found her yet?”

  “No, but we will.” Matt sat down at the table opposite and put a slim file in front of him.

  “You’ll be hoping the bitch is still in one piece. But I’ll lay odds she’s dead. Couldn’t have worked out better if I’d planned it myself.”

  Matt knew the history, but he was still appalled. “Did you?”

  The grin disappeared. Chalker’s eyes narrowed as if he were trying to get the measure of him. “No, copper, I didn’t. But I’m not sorry, not one bit. Izzie deserves a lot worse. Frankly it wouldn’t bother me if she ended up dead in the cut.”

  “Izzie?”

  “Isabelle — her real name. Calling herself Bella now, by all accounts. Thinks I don’t know, thinks I know nowt.” Chalker laughed. “Well, she’s wrong. Problem is, if the bitch is dead, where will that leave our son? I’m not a fool. The boy is better off with his mum. That’s the only thing that has kept her alive these last two years.”

  Matt looked at him. “That, and you not knowing where she is.”

  “I knew exactly where she was all the time. She’s been alive because I wanted her to be. But one day, when the lad is grown up, I will get my own back.”

  “Do you know Tommy Johnson?”

  “You know very well I do. He was one of my boys before I got banged up.”

  “We have evidence that puts him at Bella’s house the night she disappeared. Do you have anything to say about that?”

  Chalker raised his hands. “Nothing to do with me. If I wanted rid of the bitch, I’d get someone who’d do the job proper.”

  This was getting them nowhere. Matt was uneasy. All he wanted was for this to be over. “Why am I here?”

  “I want a favour.”

  “Why should I help you?”

  Chalker rose slightly off his chair and leaned forward. His face was only inches away from Matt’s. His intense stare made Matt flinch. “Because I will help you in return.”

  “I don’t want anything from you.” Matt shuffled his chair back and folded his arms.

  The grin was back. “Bad leg you’ve got there. Saw the limp as you walked in.”

  “That has nothing to do with you.”

  “No, but it has a lot to do with someone I know.”

  Matt’s stomach turned over. The incident had been thoroughly investigated — not by him, he’d been too ill. An entire team had worked the case for weeks, but they’d never been able to make real headway. Whoever was responsible for his injuries and Paula’s death was still out there.

  “You see, copper, you crossed the wrong person. And that person wanted rid. You were too close to exposing something huge.”

  Matt shook his head. “We were unlucky. Small-time drug dealing, that’s all it was.”

  “No, that’s what it looked like. You were one lucky bastard to get out of that building alive. Luckier than your partner, that’s for sure.”

  Matt looked away. Was Chalker winding him up? What happened that day had been all over the news. Chalker could have got the details from anywhere.

  “What exactly do you know?”

  Chalker put up his hand. “Not until you agree to help me.”

  “What is it you want?”

  Chalker leaned forward again. “I want out of here. I want a move to Manchester — Strangeways.”

  “Why? What’s the difference?”

  “I’m not safe in here. I have enemies, and they’ve already tried to kill me once. One bastard threw me down the stairs. In Strangeways, I have mates who will look out for me.”

  “What you’re asking i
s out of the question. I don’t have the power.”

  “You know people, other coppers higher up the ladder. Speak to someone. Get it organised.”

  Matt knew he couldn’t do anything to help him. “You are asking the wrong person.”

  “Well, you ask the right ones then. What I have to tell you is worth the effort.”

  “You will have to give me more to work with. I need something to take to my superiors. Tell me what we stumbled into. Why were we targeted that day?”

  Chalker’s grin became smug. “Does the name Jack Waddell ring any bells?”

  Matt went cold. Chalker was bad enough, but Waddell was in a different league entirely. Waddell was the acknowledged head of organised crime in the north of England. The name was rarely spoken aloud, and that was because people — and that included some of his own colleagues — were terrified of him. Whoever got on the wrong side of Waddell would be lucky to get out alive. He was a villain of the old school, never got his hands dirty, which was why nothing had ever been proven against him. He made criminals such as Chalker look like small fry.

  “You are saying that Waddell was behind what happened that day? That it was him who had my partner killed?”

  “I’m saying nothing. Get me moved, and we’ll talk proper. But know this, copper. It isn’t just Waddell you’ll be getting the lowdown on. He has friends in high places. One of them in particular is a high-ranking policeman. That’s another reason the investigation into what happened that day went nowhere.”

  Chalker was taking a risk in talking so candidly to him, a policeman, and with a guard in earshot. Matt nodded towards the guard. “What about him?”

  “He’s okay. Knows to keep his mouth shut.”

  “I could report back to my super. Tell him what you’ve just told me.”

  “I’d deny it. And Stan there would back me up. He’d swear blind that all we talked about was Izzie and the boy.”

  This interview needed a change of direction. Matt flicked absently through the file. Inside were some questions he’d intended to ask about Bella and a photo of ‘doorstep man.’ He took the image out and showed it to Chalker. “Do you know this man?”

  “Why?”

  “Just answer the question. Have you ever seen him before?”

  Chalker shrugged. “Might have. Like I said, get me moved and I’ll talk to you.”

  “It is imperative that we find him.” Matt thought furiously. It was no good appealing to Chalker on behalf of Bella, better if he tried Oliver. “This is the man who took your son. He wasn’t kind. He didn’t take care of him. He made Oliver ill. He would have killed him too, if we hadn’t found the boy in time. Surely you want him caught and dealt with?”

  Matt watched Chalker wrestle with this.

  “Bloke’s an idiot. He used to write to me, asking all sorts of rubbish stuff. Wanted to know about me and Izzie before I got banged up.”

  “Did you write back?”

  “What d’you think? Course I didn’t.”

  “Have you ever met him?”

  “He’s some sort of clerk at the solicitors who took my case. He was with my solicitor a couple of times during the trial.”

  “Do you know anything else about him? His name? Where he lives? Was it on the letters?”

  Chalker shook his head. “Nope. He didn’t want a reply in writing. He wanted a visiting order. If I agreed, I was to arrange things through my solicitor.”

  “Who was your solicitor?”

  “I used a firm in Halifax. Bradfield and Nolan.”

  Matt stared at Chalker. This was a link he hadn’t reckoned with. But what did it mean? “Which partner dealt with you?”

  “Bradfield. Wasn’t the other one’s area.”

  “Did you keep any of the letters?”

  “No, I binned them. I’ve no interest in writing to some weirdo. What d’you think I am?”

  “What name did he use when he wrote to you?”

  “Signed the letters as ‘Doug.’”

  Chapter 36

  Matt went back to his car and sat for a while, breathing heavily.

  His phone rang. It was Lily. “Dawson swears blind it wasn’t him, sir. He reckons he’s simply been watching Bella, trying to protect her from whoever. He saw ‘doorstep man’ that night, but he doesn’t know him. He did a runner because he was scared. He knew what it looked like. He knew we’d go after him first.”

  “Chalker told me that ‘doorstep man’ is ‘Doug.’”

  Lily was silent for a minute. “How does a man like Chalker know that? He’s banged up, for goodness sake! But he’s right. I had a word with Riley, and he confirmed that the man in the photo — Doug, or ‘doorstep man’ — was Caroline’s boyfriend.”

  “He wrote to Chalker in prison, asking about Bella. Chalker told me that Doug was a solicitor’s clerk at Bradfield and Nolan in Halifax.”

  “That’s Nolan’s firm. This just gets better! Does this mean that Nolan knows ‘doorstep man?’ Are they in this together?”

  “I have no idea, Lily. Is there any news on Nolan?”

  “Nothing yet. He didn’t return home last night. We had an officer on duty outside. If you ask me, he’s got scared and run.”

  “I’m not so sure, Lily. Take Beckwith and a photo, and get round to their office in Halifax. We need a name and an address for ‘doorstep man.’”

  “Didn’t Chalker help with that?”

  “No. He wants me to do something for him before he’ll say anything more.”

  * * *

  “You have been asleep, Bella.”

  “Where is this place?”

  “You must not ask questions. It will be better for you if you accept that you are with me now, and I will look after you.”

  “I can look after myself. You have no right to do this.”

  Bella was no longer in the cold, dark room. She was lying on a sofa in a warm sitting room. A large antique grandfather clock stood in the corner, ticking away the seconds. The sound was driving her crazy.

  He stood up and came towards her. “I have every right. You and I, we were meant to be together. I knew that the first time I set eyes on you, Bella. Don’t you feel it too?”

  He was mad, that was the only explanation. Bella was trying to recall what the police had told her. He was ruthless. He had killed others, not just Alan. Alan and Agnes had both been shot in the head. Bella was terrified. She was shaking badly and she thought she might vomit. She had to do something, try and keep him sweet until help arrived. She began to cry. “I don’t feel well. My head aches. I banged it when I was tied up.” She sat up, brushed her blonde hair off her face and tried a small smile. “Could I have a drink and some painkillers, please?”

  “I will get you something.”

  He disappeared into an adjoining room. Bella looked around. The room was large, dominated by a huge fireplace. There were lacquered art nouveau cabinets, full of vases and figurines. All expensive stuff. This was evidently a man with money to spend on his individual taste. There were two doors leading off. The one he’d used probably led to a kitchen. But there was another, possibly leading out into a hallway. There was one window, but the blinds were pulled shut.

  He was back with a glass of water and a couple of pills. “Take these.”

  Bella turned them over in her fingers to check that they were paracetamol.

  “Take them. You will feel better.”

  She dabbed at her eyes. “Why have you brought me here?”

  “Because we are meant to be together. You don’t have to worry, Bella. You are quite safe with me.”

  Bella seriously doubted that. She had to escape, but knew it would be useless to try and fight. She needed to take a different approach. She must use every ounce of her self-control and stay calm, though what she really wanted to do was lash out and scream. “I’m worried about Olly. He will miss me. It will make him ill again.”

  “Your son is being well cared for. If you behave, I will bring you news of him. It’s
up to you, Bella, whether he stays fit and healthy. Do as I say, and all will be well. Don’t let me down.” He smiled. “I don’t like hurting children.”

  Bella’s blue eyes widened. Those words filled her with dread. He meant what he said. In all her dealings with this man, Bella had never had reason to doubt his integrity. She’d taken everything he’d told her, all he’d done for her, at face value. Had he meant any of it? Was he even who he said he was?

  “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am, Bella.”

  “No, who are you really? You aren’t who I thought you were, you aren’t—”

  “Don’t! You will not use that name. From now on, you will call me ‘Darling’ at all times. Do you understand?”

  Chapter 37

  The moment the super entered the station, Matt made a beeline for him. “Can I have a word, Talbot?”

  “That’s a pensive look on your face. Chalker scared you half to death, did he?” Dyson clapped Matt on the back and led the way into his office. “What did he want? Say anything about that leak to the papers?”

  “Not exactly. He wants my help.” Matt closed the office door and sat down opposite Dyson. “He wants a move to Strangeways. He is offering certain information in return.”

  Dyson laughed. “That’ll never happen. He’s got too many cronies in that place. Within weeks, he’d be running the entire hellhole. Anyway, what could Chalker offer for a swap like that?”

  “He told me he has information about that day. About who killed Paula and injured me.”

  “What can he know about that? Chalker was inside at the time. Besides, that was investigated. We did everything we could, but we came up against brick walls all the way. You know that.” Talbot Dyson frowned.

  “Yes, but why was that, Talbot? Why did you get nothing? If it was just a simple matter of dealing, finding the culprit should have been a doddle. Have you ever thought about that?”

  “Course, I have. What happened was down to some backstreet drug dealer, out of his depth. Didn’t want to get caught and went too far. He will have been an unknown. Went to ground, said nowt about it to anyone.”