Meadows and Beresford stood in the street, far enough away from number 17 to be invisible to anyone looking out of the window.
‘Frankie Flynn’s got form, but when the photo that’s attached to his record was taken, he had long greasy hair, a beard and a moustache. Now, he’s shaved it all off, and he looks a completely different person,’ Beresford told the sergeant. ‘That’s why we didn’t get on to him straight away.’
‘What kind of form has he got?’
‘Robbery, receiving, assault – the usual sort of stuff you’d associate with toe-rags of his ilk.’
‘Is there anything in his record to indicate he’s capable of murder?’ Meadows asked.
‘His level of violence seems to have intensified over the years, as is so often the case. The last time he was arrested, he nearly got done for GBH, but the complainant withdrew the charges, possibly as a result of intimidation. And for a man like him – a big macho shithead – being humiliated by Mary Edwards must have been almost too much to bear.’
‘If, that is, he is actually the one who she kicked in the balls,’ Meadows pointed out.
‘Well, we’re about to find out – one way or the other,’ Beresford said.
He signalled to the patrol cars (one parked at the top of the street, the other at the bottom) that they should maintain their positions and he and Meadows moved in.
Beresford knocked on the door of number 17, and the knock was answered by a big man with a shaved head, who looked very similar to the sketch the police artist had produced.
‘Mr Flynn?’ Beresford asked.
‘Piss off!’ the man replied.
Beresford produced his warrant card, but the man didn’t even bother to look at it.
‘If you don’t mind, Mr Flynn, we’d like you to come down to the station with us, to answer a few questions,’ the inspector said.
‘What if I do mind?’
Beresford sighed. ‘Then, regretfully, Mr Flynn, I’m going to have to arrest you.’
‘All right, I’ll bloody come with you,’ Flynn said, apparently bowing to the inevitable.
Beresford was fit and he was hard, and if he’d been expecting Flynn’s fist to smash into his gut, he’d probably have tensed his muscles to cushion the blow. As it was, he was completely taken in by the other man’s bluff, and didn’t realise what was going to happen until a split second before it did – by which time it was, of course, much too late.
He doubled up – gasping for air – and then collapsed onto his knees.
To both her left and right, Meadows heard the sound of car doors slamming, rapidly followed by the thunder of heavy feet running.
Then someone shouted, ‘Get clear, skip, we’ll deal with the bastard!’
There was no way that was going to happen, she decided, because Flynn had hurt Colin, and Flynn was hers.
The problem was, it looked as if Flynn might not be anybody’s. He’d obviously been struck by the enormity of what he’d done, and was gazing down at his fist as if it belonged to someone else.
Another couple of seconds, Meadows thought, and there was a real danger he might just surrender.
‘What’s the matter, Frankie?’ she taunted. ‘Have your balls dropped off – or are you just scared of me?’
Flynn took a wild swing at her. Meadows swayed slightly to the right, so that the punch whistled harmlessly past her. Hitting empty air, when he’d been expecting to make contact with muscle and bone, knocked Flynn slightly off-balance. He would have regained that balance in a second or two, but before he could, Meadows scraped the heel of her shoe – hard – down his shin.
Flynn howled with pain, and while he was thinking about how much it hurt, Meadows stepped back, then followed through on her initial attack with a high kick to his jaw.
She aimed the kick with some precision, so that instead of falling on top of Beresford, who was now spewing up his lunch, Flynn toppled over in the opposite direction.
He hit the ground on his back, and just lay there, perhaps trying to work out whether his shin hurt worse than his jaw, or if it was the other way around.
Meadows rolled him over, pulled his arms behind his back, and clicked the cuffs in place.
‘That’s two fights you’ve lost against women in just a few days,’ she cooed. ‘Shame on you, Frankie.’
She became aware that the rest of the team had formed a semi-circle around her, and were clapping enthusiastically.
She smiled. ‘Why, thank you, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
JOURNAL
Whenever I feel horny in Manhattan, I just pick up the phone and place my order in the same way I would if I wanted a pizza, and a professional, who has been thoroughly briefed on my needs, is knocking on my door within half an hour. But what do you do when the feeling creeps up on you in a foreign country – or, more specifically, in a decaying mill town on the edge of the Lancashire moors?
I had no numbers to call, and no way of finding out what those numbers might be, so I went for a walk around the edge of the Boulevard, just after darkness had fallen. There were plenty of girls there, shivering in the scanty clothes they must wear to advertise their occupation, and there were two or three of them I would really have enjoyed a romp with.
But I had a couple of misgivings.
The first was that I didn’t know how they’d react to my proposition. There are girls, I know, who are prepared to do things to the vilest old man that they wouldn’t even consider with a young(ish!) attractive woman, and I was not sure I had the nerve to run the risk of being rebuffed. In fact, the very thought of having to walk away with a torrent of abuse following in my wake was enough to bring me out in a cold sweat.
The second misgiving was that I’d begun to wonder if these girls were as clean as their American counterparts.
I know, I know! It’s arrogant – and probably bigoted – to assume that foreign whores have lower hygiene standards than American whores.
But there it is – the feeling would just not go away.
Plan B then – find a woman who not only isn’t a professional, but isn’t even a dyke (or, at least, doesn’t yet know she’s a dyke). I haven’t done that very often back home – hey, given the busy lives we all lead, who has the time for seduction – but on the few occasions I have done it, it’s been really sweet. I suppose, in a way, it must be how men feel when they’ve talked a virgin into their beds.
So I went to this pub called the Grapes. There were no women sitting alone, but I’d anticipated that, and was on the lookout for girls who looked easily detachable from their friends.
I found one – a pretty little peroxide blonde. I guessed she probably wasn’t too educated, and probably not too amusing, but she looked clean and fresh and – most important of all – very suggestible.
The other girl sitting with her was a brunette with a sulky expression, and she just had to go.
I walked over to their table and said, ‘Hi, I’m an American, all alone in a strange town. Would you mind if I sat down?’
The other girl – the brunette – said, ‘Do you mind, we’re having a private conversation here, aren’t we, Sheila?’
But my girl said, ‘Don’t talk so daft, Doris. I’m sure that …’
She looked at me for a name.
‘Marcia,’ I supplied.
‘I’m sure that Marcia’s very interesting to talk to, and I’d love to hear about what it’s like to live in America.’
As I sat down, I noticed that while Sheila’s fingernails were beautifully clean, Doris had enough dirt under hers to grow potatoes in.
‘What do you do for a living, Marcia?’ Sheila asked me.
I thought briefly about saying I worked in television, then decided it would be safer to stick to talk radio.
It was enough.
‘Just think of that!’ Sheila said, eyes wide at the thought that such fabulous creatures as I could actually exist. ‘Working on the radio! In America!’
Then, when I judged the time was right, I said, ‘Something’s just occurred to me. I think my station could use you.’
‘What do you mean?’ she gasped.
And yes, she really did gasp.
‘My station has this spot where we bring in guest interviewers from other English-speaking countries,’ I told her. ‘We’ve had Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians … they come from all over the place.’
‘Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians,’ Sheila repeated, reverentially.
‘The job only lasts for a month, because New Yorkers are notoriously fickle, and by then the novelty has started to wear off – but hey, there’s nothing wrong with a month in New York.’
‘No,’ she said, almost exploding. ‘No, there isn’t.’
‘We fly you out, and put you up at a hotel,’ I told her. ‘We’d even pay you a wage, but we’re only a small station, so it wouldn’t be much.’
‘How much is not much?’ she asked.
‘A hundred pounds a week,’ I said, figuring she’d be lucky if she took home twenty in whatever job she was holding down at the moment.
‘And do you really think I’ve got a chance?’ she asked.
‘I’m not promising anything, but I think you’ve got a very good chance.’
‘So what do I have to do?’
‘You make an audition tape, and I send it to my boss in New York.’
‘Where do I go, and when do you want me to go there?’ she asked, positively bubbling with excitement.
‘The “where” is my suite in the Royal Victoria Hotel—’
‘The Royal Victoria Hotel!’ Sheila repeated, with considerable awe.
‘Because that’s where I keep the recording equipment. As to the “when” …’ I pretended to think about it. ‘My schedule’s pretty full for the rest of my time in Whitebridge, so it would really have to be right now.’
‘We came out tonight for a good laugh, not to sit in some poxy hotel room,’ Doris said.
‘Oh, didn’t I make that clear, Doris?’ I asked, sounding surprised.
‘Make what clear?’
‘You can’t be there when we make the audition tape. I wouldn’t mind it personally, but, you see, it’s strict company policy.’
‘So what happens to me?’
‘You arrange to meet Sheila on another night.’
‘You’re not going to do it, are you?’ Doris asked Sheila.
‘It’s my big chance,’ Sheila said helplessly.
‘So you’re just going to ditch me?’
‘Only for tonight. And when I’ve got the job in New York, you can come and stay with me. That’s right, isn’t it, Marcia?’
‘That’s right,’ I agreed. ‘Once you’ve got the job, there’ll be no objection to having Doris around. We might even find a bit of work for her, too.’
But Doris was not to be bribed, and for a few seconds I thought she was going to be real trouble. I think she thought she was, too. Then she stood up and stormed out of the pub.
As Sheila and I walked back towards my hotel, I promised myself I’d be fair with her. She’d get her flight to New York and the hotel, and she could even take Doris with her. She’d even get her hundred pounds a week. The only things I’d mentioned that would be missing were the promised job – and me.
Very generous of me, n’est pas?
Well yes, in a way, but compared to some of the top hookers I’ve occasionally engaged, it was still a bargain.
Halfway between the Grapes and the Royal Victoria, Sheila began to get cold feet.
‘Doris is my best mate,’ she said. ‘I should never have treated her like that. You could see she was upset.’
‘If she really is your best mate, she’ll be fine in the morning,’ I told her, ‘because best mates don’t stand in each others’ way when there’s a chance of them getting something good.’
‘My very best mate,’ Sheila repeated.
I decided it was time to take emergency measures, and seeing a pub called the Rising Sun just ahead of us, I said, ‘Let’s go in there and talk about what’s best to do.’
By the time Sheila had downed a couple of strong gin and tonics, her doubts were starting to melt away, and I was just about to suggest we go back to my hotel when the man burst in, saw us together, and blew his stack.
‘What are you doing here, Sheila?’ he screamed.
‘I’m talking to my friend,’ Sheila replied weakly.
‘It’s Doris who’s your friend, not this thing,’ he told her.
It was immediately clear to me what had happened – that bitch Doris had followed us, and then had gone running to Sheila’s husband. It was also clear that somebody needed to defuse the situation, and I decided that somebody had better be me.
So I stood up – to reason with him – but before I could say a word, the bastard hit me.
I dealt with him quickly and efficiently – as I’d been taught to – and left the pub. It had been a complete waste of an evening, I thought, and what I’d been planning to have Sheila do to me, I was now going to have to do to myself (which is not half as much fun).
What I didn’t anticipate was that there would be any fall-out from the incident. But fall-out is what there has been. I’ve spotted the man near my hotel twice – and if I’ve spotted him twice, chances are that he’s been there at other times, too. On the second of those occasions, it was dark, and I’d come out for a breath of fresh air. I was walking along the street when he suddenly appeared out of the shadows, on the other side of the road. I don’t know what he was planning to do or say, but if a policeman – wearing one of those ridiculous pointy helmets – hadn’t turned the corner at that moment, I’m sure he would have done or said something.
I’m a fool.
I bring down trouble on myself.
I’m my own worst enemy.
EIGHT
Apart from the twenty-six half-days a year when he sat on the bench, handing down custodial sentences of up to six months and fines of up to five thousand pounds, Brian Chubb worked as a chartered surveyor. He liked to think of himself as a fair man who, once he assumed the mantle of magistrate, carefully weighed up the evidence before reaching his decision. And generally speaking, he was fair – as long as he was dealing with men.
It was women who were the problem.
He liked women, but he also liked them to know their place, which – roughly speaking – was either at home or out on the arm of their partners. His own wife, Maureen, had been perfectly satisfactory in this respect, until early one morning – and quite unexpectedly – she had packed her bags and run away with a door-to-door insurance salesman called Derek.
The woman standing before him now clearly did not know her place, otherwise, she would never have sought to become a chief inspector. Women did have a role in the police force, Chubb thought – they were much better at breaking bad news than their male counterparts were, for example – but it was quite wrong that they should have the power to order grown men around.
‘So what can I do for you, Miss Paniatowski?’ he asked, hoping that his expression showed the disapproval he was not allowed to put into words.
‘I’d like you to issue a search warrant for 33 Hope Terrace, the home of Mr George Clegg, sir,’ Paniatowski replied.
Chubb frowned.
‘Is Mr Clegg a known criminal?’ he asked.
‘No sir, he’s—’
‘In that case, have you asked the gentleman in question’s permission to search his house, and been refused?’
‘No sir, we can’t—’
‘Why haven’t you asked his permission? Do you think there’s some reason he’s likely to refuse?’
‘He’s not in a position to either agree or refuse. He’s in a coma in Whitebridge General.’
‘You should have mentioned that earlier, then we would
have wasted less time,’ Chubb said, with some irritation. ‘Do you expect to find evidence of the crime you are currently investigating in 33 Hope Terrace?’
‘Not exactly, sir, no. But we are hoping to find information relating to the crime.’
‘What kind of information?’
‘We won’t know until we find it.’
‘That seems rather vague.’
‘Then let me explain, sir. Before he collapsed, Mr Clegg rang the inquiry line and said he knew who killed Melissa Evans, and—’
‘Melissa Evans? I thought the woman who was murdered in the Royal Victoria was called Mary Edwards.’
‘So did we, sir, but it has recently emerged that Mary Edwards was not, in fact, her real name.’
‘I must say, this investigation of yours does seem rather shambolic,’ Chubb said.
‘The point is that we believe that George Clegg does know the killer’s name, and that we will find something in his house which will tell us how he knows that name.’
‘It sounds to me more a case of woman’s intuition than anything with a solid factual basis, Miss Paniatowski,’ Chubb said, ‘and you can’t run a police force on woman’s intuition.’
‘With respect, sir—’ Paniatowski began.
‘If you have more tangible evidence, then by all means resubmit your application,’ Chubb told her, ‘but as things stand, I am certainly not going to sanction the invasion of a law-abiding citizen’s home on a mere whim.’
‘How did it go?’ Meadows asked, as her boss climbed into the passenger seat of the Mini Cooper.
‘Not well,’ Paniatowski told her. ‘I was an idiot. I wanted to move quickly, so I took it to Chubb. What I should have done was waited until someone else became available.’
‘When someone else does become available, you could always try again,’ Meadows suggested.
‘No point,’ Paniatowski told her. ‘Most of the others belong to the same funny handshake and bare bollock brigade, and even those who don’t would never go against a ruling made by a “brother magistrate”. Oh, if I could only meet that bastard Chubb down a back alley one dark night …’
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