Siddall looked away. Rachel could see from the expression on his face that her words had hit the mark. “It’s not that easy. I talk to you and I’m dead for sure. Whatever you might think, this could be just a warning, so leave me in peace. I’m not saying another word.”
“I hope you’re right, Andy,” Elwyn said, “about it being a warning. If it’s not, you’ve just given up any chance you had of saving yourself.”
“Don’t push it, copper! You have no idea what we’re up against.”
Rachel looked at him. What did he mean? “Then tell us, Andy. Tell us what you’re so afraid of and we’ll help you.”
“Get lost. I daren’t say anything more.”
“We’ll leave a guard on the door,” Rachel said. “That’ll keep you safe while you’re here, but once you get home, you’re on your own again.”
Siddall held up his damaged hand. “I’ve been up against it before. They didn’t win back then, either.”
“I thought that was an accident at work,” Elwyn said.
“It happened while I was working, yes, but it was no accident. Now, get out. I’ve said too much already.”
“Are you telling us someone deliberately assaulted you?” Rachel asked. “If so, I don’t understand why you remained silent about it.”
“You coppers have no idea. I’ve said all I’m going to on the matter, now go and leave me in peace.”
The two of them took the stairs in silence. Rachel was trying to make sense of what Siddall had said. “His hand, Elwyn. Not an accident, so who would do that to him, and why?”
“Siddall’s been injured twice now. To me, that smacks of someone trying to ensure he keeps quiet. I’ll lay odds he knows who killed Wellburn.”
“Siddall, Wellburn and who else?” Rachel thought for a moment. “We’ll have another word with Rita. She has to talk to us, Elwyn.”
“Don’t forget Mathew Shawcross,” Elwyn said. “We still need to speak to him about that tunnel. He might know something that can help us.”
“I wonder if he knows the people his daughter mixes with. He can’t approve of Sherwin, surely.”
“I think she was lying,” Elwyn said. “A girl like her doesn’t go around with a villain like Sherwin. She’s another one that’s terrified of telling the truth.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Rita Pearce didn’t seem surprised to see the two detectives. She nodded to a window table, indicating they should sit down while she finished serving a couple at the bar. There were at least a dozen other people at the Spinners Arms. Rachel had never seen the place so busy.
“We serve food Saturday lunchtimes,” Rita said. “It’s about the only time we do any trade. To be honest, I don’t know why we stay on. I’ve wanted to move out for a long time, but Ray won’t hear of it. He’s convinced that one day trade will go back to what it was, and we’ll be quids in again. But he’s wrong. This place, the entire area, has had it. The whole lot wants tearing down and redeveloping.”
“The pub’s not profitable, then?” Elwyn asked.
“No. We’ll do alright today, but that’s about it.”
Rachel smiled at her. “You did well, saving Andy like that, Rita. Without your help he would certainly have died. The bullet wound had severed an artery and the blood loss could have been catastrophic.”
“I was working on instinct. I’ve got no training, but I knew putting pressure on it should stem the flow. The only thing I could get my hands on was the cushion. I pressed it to the wound and lay him on top of it.”
“You arrived pretty promptly after the attack. You knew how bad he was, but you didn’t wait with him. Why, Rita?” asked Rachel.
“I was terrified that Ray would find out. He’s a vicious bastard. He’d have laid into both me and Andy if he thought we were more than friends.”
“Did you see anyone, catch sight of a car as you left? Perhaps someone in a hurry to leave the area?” Elwyn asked.
“There was one, a black Ford, an old one that looked as if it’d been souped up. You know, a spoiler on the back and fancy stripes down the sides. It sped out of the crescent at a fair lick. I’d just got off the bus when it went past me. Luckily, no one was coming the other way.”
“Did you get a registration number?” asked Elwyn.
Rita shook her head. “I’d no idea then that it was important. Look, I’ve got to get on. This lot want serving and there’s only me on.”
“We believe Andy knows who attacked him, but he won’t say. What’s your take on it, Rita?” Rachel asked her. “Who is he afraid of? Billy Sherwin, perhaps?”
Rita looked mildly amused. “Is that what you think?”
“We don’t know what to think, but we do know Sherwin is selling drugs out of that mill across the road, and that people are so afraid of the man that they’re prepared to lie for him, even his girlfriend Millie Shawcross.”
“Get on the wrong side of him and Sherwin’s a nasty bugger. He’s responsible for putting several people in hospital. But you’re wrong about the Shawcross girl. She’s not involved with Sherwin. She’s going out with a lad called Damon Brooke, has been for a while. And it wasn’t Sherwin had a go at Andy either.”
“Even if they’re not involved, Sherwin and Millie have friends in common.”
Rita shook her head. “I doubt it. She’s a Shawcross. They’re worlds apart. You must have it wrong.”
* * *
But Millie Shawcross had told them to their faces that Sherwin was a friend. Why would she lie for him if that weren’t so? Rachel was losing patience. No one involved with any aspect of this case would tell her the truth.
“Another word with Millie? Or do we speak to her father?” Elwyn asked once they were back in the car.
“I’m trying to work out why she’d tell us a blatant lie. The only thing that makes any sense is that Sherwin has some sort of hold over her.”
“Or over the boyfriend. I’ll speak to Stella, get her to find out about this Damon Brooke. He could be an addict. If he is, and Sherwin is his dealer, that’s hold enough.”
Elwyn finished his call to Stella just as Rachel’s mobile rang. It was Amy. She put her on speaker.
“I’m in Ardwick, ma’am. We got called out to a shooting. It’s Billy Sherwin. He’s been murdered.”
Rachel wondered what Sherwin was doing at Ardwick. “Check if he’s been living there,” she said. Millie had mentioned he’d been staying with friends, she remembered.
After weighing everything up, Rachel decided that drugs were at the bottom of what was going on, Sherwin was surely at the head of the operation. He was the main man everyone was terrified of crossing. But was she right? He’d just been shot, so who had been brave enough to take him on?
“That sorts out where we’re going next. Someone’s put paid to Sherwin’s reign of terror their own way.”
* * *
While Elwyn drove, Rachel tried to make sense of it. Sherwin had to have enemies, he was a dealer, but why would they kill him now? And was his murder in any way connected to what had happened to Siddall?
The entire fourth floor of the tower block had been cordoned off and forensics had started their search for evidence. They had their work cut out — the ground was littered with rubbish. Trying to sort out what was relevant would be difficult.
“Bullet to the chest, straight through the heart. Quick and effective,” Colin Butterfield told them when they arrived.
Putting on the gloves and overshoes handed to them, Rachel and Elwyn went inside the flat. The place was a mess. The only furniture was a battered sofa covered in bits of food, and a table littered with empty lager cans. Sherwin was lying face down on a mat, a pool of blood spreading out from beneath his body.
“Who called it in?” Rachel asked.
“A neighbour. He was killed within the last hour,” Jude said. “There’s no sign of a break-in, so perhaps he knew his killer. He put up a fight, too, he’s got grazed knuckles. There’s every possibility that I’ll g
et DNA from the wounds.”
“Thanks, Jude. Meanwhile, we’ll get uniform to go door to door. Given that he was shot, someone must have heard something.”
Jude smiled wryly. “Round here? Don’t count on it. People close their ears and turn a blind eye. Besides, there are precious few tenants left. This block is scheduled for demolition. In the meantime, it’s being used to house some of Manchester’s rough sleepers. People who don’t usually like talking to us.”
Among the homeless using this place there’d be any number of users — that’d be why Sherwin was here. He’d have a constant flow of customers and their cash.
“We had him in custody, Jude. He gave us an alibi that held up, so we had no choice but to let him go just a few hours ago.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Rachel. He was clever. He knew all the angles and wielded a lot of power. He was a dealer big-time, there’s a small fortune in crack cocaine in those bags on the table over there, and a whole lot of cash in that drawer.”
“Not robbery, then. Whoever did this wasn’t interested in the drugs or the cash. That could narrow it down.”
“To what?” asked Elwyn.
“Retribution,” Rachel said. “Someone who thought he was too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Rachel and Elwyn headed back to Heaton Norris for another chat with Millie Shawcross. Sherwin was dead, so there was no need for her to hold back on the truth any more. They found the young woman in a state, she had obviously been crying.
“It’s Damon,” she said. “He’s been hurt.”
“Damon Brooke, your boyfriend?” asked Elwyn. “You didn’t mention him earlier when we were here. And I don’t think you were being entirely truthful when you gave Billy Sherwin that alibi.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, alright! But I had no choice. I’m a bloody fool. I walk away from one control freak straight into the arms of another. Sherwin’s and me are over but he’s a force you can’t ignore. He tells you to do something, you do it. If I hadn’t said those things, given him the alibi, he’d have hurt Damon.”
“Where is Damon?” Rachel asked.
She nodded to the sitting room. “He arrived half an hour ago. He won’t say what happened, or who attacked him, but he’s got a cut face and a black eye.”
Rachel wondered if he’d been to the flat where they found Sherwin. Had the pair argued, and Brooke shot him? Before going to talk to Brooke, she went into the hallway and rang Stella.
“Do you have anything on Brooke yet?” Rachel queried.
“He’s been arrested twice for possession. Last month he tried rehab, but only stuck it out for a day.”
“An addict, then. Thanks, Stella.”
But if Brooke had gone to Sherwin to buy drugs, why not take what was on the table?
“Where have you been, Damon?” Rachel asked him. “Who did this to you?”
His face was bruised. He’d taken quite a pasting. Whoever had hit him hadn’t held back.
“I don’t know who it was. I was attacked out in the street,” Damon said.
“Was it in Ardwick?” asked Rachel
Damon shook his head. “I’ve never been near the place.”
“What did he look like, this person who attacked you?” asked Elwyn.
“He was some bloke dressed in black, tall, and wearing a balaclava over his head and face.”
That was how Siddall had described the man who’d attacked him.
“You’re lying, Damon. You were in Ardwick to buy drugs off Sherwin.”
“No! I said, I’ve never been there.”
“That’s a lie,” Rachel said. “He was your dealer. The forensics crew are there now. What’s the betting they find your prints all over Billy Sherwin’s flat? Why not save us all a lot of trouble and tell the truth?”
Millie nudged him. “Tell them, Damon. They’ll just find out anyway, and then it’ll be worse.”
“Okay. I knocked at Sherwin’s door and this bloke came crashing out. He didn’t say a word, just thumped me in the face and knocked me over. Then he dragged me to the staircase and shoved me, and I fell down half a dozen steps or so. I called out but he was gone in seconds. When I got my breath back, I went inside to find out what had happened and found Sherwin dead.”
“Did you touch anything, try to help him?”
“No. I didn’t know what to do. I ran out and knocked on the flat next door. She rang you lot.”
Rachel looked at Millie. “What you told us earlier. Am I to take it that the whole lot was a pack of lies?”
“Sherwin said he’d do Damon serious harm if I didn’t give him an alibi. He said he could make things awkward for my dad, too.”
That was an odd thing to say. This case was complex enough, but so far Mathew Shawcross hadn’t been mentioned. “Awkward in what way, Millie? What could Sherwin possibly have over your dad?”
“He didn’t say, just that he knew things that my dad wouldn’t want to get out.”
“We’ve looked at Sherwin’s history. We know he was a dealer but can find no trace of the money he must have made.”
“It’s in a bank account in another name,” Millie said. “Sherwin had several of them, so nothing could be traced back to him.”
“Do you know any of the names he used?”
“There’s a notebook somewhere in that flat. The details are all in there.”
“You’ve been very foolish, Millie,” Elwyn said. “You should have told us the truth from the start. Is there anything else that you’re keeping from us?”
“No. All this has happened because Damon needs that filthy stuff, and Sherwin played on that. He threatened to tell my dad and stop Damon’s supply if I refused to help him.”
“What d’you think he had on your dad, Millie?”
“It was probably all talk. Sherwin lied all the time. You never knew whether he was telling the truth or not.”
Nonetheless, Rachel would give it some consideration. Mathew Shawcross had a strong motive for harming Sherwin — he was using his daughter, involving her in his dirty business.
“How long had Sherwin been dealing at the mill?” Rachel asked them.
“No more than a couple of years,” Millie said.
* * *
After two PCs took Millie and her boyfriend to the station so they could give their statements, Rachel turned to Elwyn. “We’ll have to speak to Shawcross,” she said. “About his daughter, but also that tunnel.”
Elwyn grimaced. “We won’t be popular, having just hauled his daughter in.”
“It’s hardly that. Millie is just giving us her side of things. Granted, she lied about Sherwin, but she was under duress. It’s Brooke that bothers me. He did have a motive for killing Sherwin. We need to trace his movements in the time leading up to the shooting.”
Elwyn was checking his phone. “It’s getting late and you haven’t eaten all day.”
“Keeping tabs on me, eh?” She smiled. “We’ll go back to the station and then get off home.”
“Wonder if your new neighbour’s taken up residence yet.”
The idea made her feel sick. “Oh, please! I’m not ready for him yet. I’m still hoping to find a way to put him off.”
“It’s Sunday tomorrow. Work as usual, is it?”
“Both Jonny and Amy were supposed to be off this weekend. I feel like an ogre dragging them into work.”
“Leave it optional. Perhaps they can do half a day each. But you can count on me, I’ll be there, slogging away. It might be an idea for you to have a lie-in, get some proper rest.”
He was trying to be kind, but how could she take time off? Come Monday morning, Kenton would be at her office door, and she still didn’t have a killer for Gavin Wellburn.
Chapter Thirty-four
Sunday
Rachel slept late. She hadn’t meant to, but she was exhausted. And she woke up feeling nauseous. She groaned. She’d hoped the morning sickness wouldn’t strike this
time. When she’d been pregnant with the other two it had gone on for weeks. With Megan it had laid her so low she’d been unable to work.
She grabbed her mobile from the bedside table. “Elwyn,” she said. “I can’t make it today. I’m not skiving, honestly, I’m not so good.”
“Don’t worry, Rachel, I understand,” Elwyn said.
But would the others? “Amy and Jonny? They won’t understand.”
“I’ll sort them. They’re both in and hard at it.”
That made Rachel feel even worse. “Whatever you tell them, Elwyn, make it sound good. They’ll think I’m using my rank, having the day off while they’re working and I’m not. I feel such a wimp.”
“I’ll tell them something convincing — looking at forensic evidence at the labs, checking statements, don’t worry. By the way, Brooke has an alibi. He was in the entrance to the block helping an elderly woman up the stairs with her shopping. They were together when they heard the shot.”
“Not him, then.” She sighed. “That would have been far too easy.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Rachel. Enjoy your day.”
Rachel pulled on a dressing gown and went downstairs to be met by Megan.
“Heavy night, Mum? You certainly look as if you had a good time.”
“No, love, far more mundane than that. It’s something I ate.”
“That bloke’s next door talking to Dad. You kept that secret, didn’t you? He’s an old flame of yours, I hear. Very handy that’s going to be, having him as a neighbour.”
Rachel shook her head. Megan couldn’t be more wrong, but she didn’t have the energy to explain.
“I’m off to Sophie’s. We’re going to work out stuff for when I move in. She’s asked for next month’s rent up front. What d’you think?”
“What did you expect? Paying your way is part of the deal.”
FORGOTTEN VICTIM an absolutely gripping crime mystery with a massive twist (Detective Rachel King Thrillers Book 4) Page 12