by Conrad Jones
“What have you found out?”
“Weston is a previous alias. He was married, but the Major wasn’t sure if his wife killed herself or if those two young girls are his grandchildren.”
“The lying bastard,” Annie hissed. “We checked as far as we could!”
“Look, he lied to the court the last time he was charged and they hit the same brick wall that you did. His information is classified. You could not have known. The fact is that we know now.”
“Well I know now, but I still don’t believe anything that I hear about Richard Tibbs, or whatever his real name is!” Annie was furious. “I need to see this information for myself. I need to run checks to see if Captain Dunn was ever registered as married here, Guv.”
“You do?” Alec tried not to laugh at her anger. He needed her fired up.
“Something isn’t right about the whole army cover up with him,” Annie said angrily. “I’ll have him checked through every registry office in the county. There will be records of his birth, his parents, any deaths and then I’ll decide if what the army say is true. If there are any blood relations to those girls in his family, then I’ll find it.”
“Go and find him. I am almost certain that he’s our killer.”
“I’m on it.”
“Oh, and Annie,” Alec thought aloud. “Tibbs is connected to Dazik Kraznic.”
“Via Breck Road?”
“The van, the house, Mark Weston?”
“They could be accomplices in the murders.”
“That makes sense.”
“I’m setting off now, keep me posted.”
Chapter 28
Janice Nixon looked at the computer-generated images and thought back over the months and years that she had grafted on the streets. There were so many faces, that they seemed to merge into one long memory. The hours, days, months and years were speeded up like a time lapse film of her sad depraved existence. Wake up, take drugs, get dressed, sex for money, take drugs, sleep and repeat. Sometimes there was some food in there too. She couldn’t remember the last time that she ate a nice meal. A meal that looked amazing when it arrived at the table and tasted even better than it looked. Her only clear memories were when she had been frightened and there were plenty of them. She had to break the cycle before the wheels fell off completely. It was as if the drugs softened her abusive daily routine into a soup of normality. To abuse drugs, she had to allow others to abuse her. Her circle of life was not the one intended by nature. Waking up with a type of hunger which was never really satiated became mundane. There were no highs anymore, only normal and lows so deep that she couldn’t climb out without help. Drugs were her ladder to climb back to normal. She always had her first fix of the day ready for when she awoke. She would rather go to bed shaking and sweating than wake up with nothing to take. Her first hit was the most important. It allowed her to do what she needed to do to acquire the funds to feed the hunger which would stalk her through her waking hours. It never left her for a moment; a terrible itch which could never be scratched, a yearning so powerful that her body ached for it and yet when she took it, it was only mundane. The dazzling mind blowing highs that it once gave her were gone. Years of taking drugs made the week fade into a mash, so that she could function and no more than that. There was no clarity to her memories, no sounds, no smells just a mass of unpleasant sex and fuzzy faces.
The faces she looked at now were very lifelike; their eyes so alive that it was spooky. He had told her that they were images of what they thought the dead women might have looked like. There was something weird about that. The fact that they weren’t real was one thing, but the fact that they were dead gave her the creeps. She repeatedly moved the three photographs into a triangular pattern and focused on the middle image for a few minutes, before repeating the process. “How long ago was she buried?” Janice asked. “This one is a maybe.”
“The blond woman?” Stirling asked. “Our best guess is about twelve months, maybe less.”
“She could be someone who worked briefly on our patch. I can’t be sure though.” She fiddled with her wrists as she spoke. Stirling noticed faint lines criss-crossing her forearms. Tiny raised scars, barely visible at a glance. He realised that she was a self harmer. The scars that he could see were near the wrist. They were old. Harmers evolved as people close became aware of their self loathing. Stirling guessed that she would keep the new scars where people couldn’t see them. He felt the urge to roll up her sleeves and look for them. The fact that she was suffering bothered him. He felt the need to protect her. It was a dichotomy which had him baffled. His work made him tough, asbestos-like. He rarely had the emotions that an average human being would feel. Shootings, stabbings, overdoses, violent assaults and death were part of the job. Normally he dealt with, it yet here he was feeling concern for a tom. Cutting the skin and causing pain somehow released the pain within harmers. That was how he understood it anyway, although he felt like telling them to get a grip. Have a beer, have a cigarette, smoke a joint, kick the cat; do whatever it takes to unwind, but slicing your arms? Get a grip. He kept his opinions close to his chest. Expressing his theory of therapy for the mentally unwell would not get him promoted, nor would it endear her to him.
“Okay,” Stirling smiled. “Anything that you can give us will help us to identify them. If we know who they are, then we can work out where they came from and where they worked. We need to know where he took them from so that we can find him and lock him up.”
“Sick bastard,” she hissed. “Were they all like, you know,” she blushed, “like me?”
“No,” Stirling replied with a shake of his big head. “One of them was a student from down south. She was nineteen.”
“Nineteen,” Janice said. “Her poor parents.”
“They all had parents somewhere, but for whatever reason, no one knew that these girls were missing.”
“It’s so sad really though, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Stirling asked. He was fascinated by her eyes. They were the greenest eyes that he had seen. The fact that she was a tom was more a hindrance than he cared to admit to himself but he couldn’t deny being attracted to her. In his head, he could actually see himself taking her out on a date. When he said date, he meant for a curry. Jim Stirling, knight in shining armour and true romantic. Beer and curry. He had never been tempted romantically by a witness, but Janice made him edgy.
“Being murdered like that and no one even knows your name, or reports you missing,” she said quietly. The corners of her mouth twitched to a half smile. A tongue stud glinted against the pink softness of her mouth. Stirling wondered what it would feel like to kiss her. “Makes you wonder if anyone would notice if you went missing yourself, doesn’t it?”
“I know for a fact that the landlord of the Cherry would notice me gone,” Stirling laughed. She laughed too and he liked the way the corners of her eyes wrinkled. “As would Murat from the curry house next to the pub. The loss of earnings would seriously threaten their livelihood. To be honest, I think that they would report me missing within twenty-four hours of my last visit.” Stirling grunted when he laughed. He reminded her of a gorilla; a friendly gorilla but a gorilla none the less. “I have a few beers and a curry most nights after work. What about you?”
“I have a bath and some chocolate,” she smiled sadly as she spoke.
“We all need to unwind somehow, eh?”
“Yes,” she muttered, “drugs work for me but then you’re a policeman so that’s no good is it. You should stick to your beer and curry.”
“Who would notice you gone, someone surely?”
Janice thought for a moment. Her eyes held his, smiling and mischievous. “I call my mum every Sunday morning before she goes for lunch. She meets my sister and my brother. It’s a full Nixon family day out.” Janice touched her lips with her fingers as she spoke. “My brother and sister take their partners and their children every Sunday without fail. They go to the same Toby Carvery, which my dad to
ok us to every week since as far back as I can remember.” Her expression took a sad tone as the memories replayed in her mind. “They always have the same table, week in and week out. She’s a real creature of habit. If I didn’t call she would think something was wrong. She would notice me gone, which is nice isn’t it?”
“Do you speak to your sister or brother?” Stirling was shocked that she had such a normal sounding family background. He knew that it took all sorts but something about her meant he cared. Her family didn’t sound broken beyond repair.
“Not for a long time.” Her eyes dropped to the table. She seemed to be staring the faces of the dead women. “It gets too complicated, birthdays, christenings, anniversaries. They’re always inviting me to things and I’m always declining and making excuses that nobody believes. It got so awkward that I stopped going eventually.”
“It’s not safe out there at the moment. You’re lucky that you have somewhere to go. You should go and see them,” Stirling mumbled. He felt as if his efforts to impress were clumsy. “A lot of the girls out there don’t have anyone. You never know what will happen, you might like it. It could get you off the streets.”
“While I appreciate your sentiment,” she spoke clearly, “you’re verging on being patronising.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I really need to get home.”
“I’m sorry,” Stirling said. He regretted mentioning it immediately. “It all sounded so normal, you know, the Sunday lunch and that. So far away from where those girls ended up. That could be you. I’m not patronising you, I’m concerned about your welfare. You don’t need me to tell you how many lunatics are out there. Are things that bad that they can’t be sorted?”
Janice smiled and took a breath. Her eyes fell on a silver crucifix which Stirling wore around his thick neck. His stubble was silver, flecked with black and the chain nestled where the stubble met his chest hair. She remembered wearing a crucifix that her father had given her as a child. She never took it off, but she lost it one day at school and cried for a week until he bought her a new one. “My mother tells me that I was always a difficult child. Things were said after my father died,” she explained. “Things, which can’t be forgiven or taken back. I tried it once. Playing the doting auntie to the little ones, while everyone chats about their perfect jobs and their perfect partners doesn’t work when all anyone wants to know is if I’m still taking crack and sucking cocks to pay for it. Thanks for the concern but I can look after myself.”
Her abruptness took him aback. He felt that he’d crossed a line into her private world and she’d slammed the door in his face. “Okay,” Stirling said holding up his palms to the ceiling. “I get the message. I’ll shut up. It’s none of my business. I have no right to offer advice.” He felt awkward and foolish. The only way Janice would be interested in a lump like him was if he had some money to pay for it. He cleared his throat nervously and tried to turn back to the job in hand. “Getting back to what you said earlier, do you think that you know her?”
“Maybe, but there’s something different about her,” she answered. “I like it that you care.” A smile touched her lips. The frostiness seemed to melt slightly.
Stirling was taken aback again but felt a warm feeling spreading through his veins. “I do,” he smiled. “Care that is.” He nodded and coughed nervously, not wanting to encroach and be rebuffed again. “What’s different about the image?”
“She had a turn in her left eye,” Janice said. “We used to say she had one eye looking at you and the other looking for you. Her name was Nicola. Nicola Thomas. I might have a picture of her at home. We went to a party together once before she moved on. I could give it to you if it helps. You have my address don’t you?”
“That would be really useful,” Stirling smiled. He thought that she had invited him to her house. He wasn’t sure but he thought that she had. A twinkle in her eyes confirmed it. He picked up his mobile and dialed. “Jim Stirling here,” he said. “I need you to crosscheck victim four on the system with a Nicola Thomas. And can you check with Kathy Brooks if it’s possible that the victim had a turn in her left eye, please. Thanks, let me know straight away. Thanks for that, it could be a really useful lead.”
“You’re welcome” she said, blushing.
“Listen,” he said. “Can you remember what happened to her? Where did she go?”
“I’m not certain, but if I remember rightly her and a few others went to work indoors,” she grinned. “You know, at a brothel.”
“When?”
“Maybe eighteen months or more. It’s hard for me to remember details.”
“Where did they go to work?”
“It was hush hush because it was in a quiet close. The firm who ran it only used it for their own guys to party there. I never went there but I heard it was on Breck Road.”
The significance of the address wasn’t lost on Stirling, but he tried not to look excited. “Breck Road?” he nodded. “Did you know the number?”
“No,” she thought aloud. “One hundred and something.”
“One, six, three?”
“It could have been.”
“You know, I don’t know the area well, but I think I would remember vice mentioning a brothel there,” Stirling lied. There was no mention in their searches of anything illegal going on at the property. “Are you sure it was Breck Road?”
“I’m positive, because I remember they said that it backed onto Kensington. That estate is all boarded up now but back then it was occupied.” She laughed at the memory. “Proper shithole but people lived there; the type of people who didn’t complain about cars parking in their street while the drivers climbed through a hedge to visit a brothel on the next estate.”
“That’s really helpful,” Stirling said. “Why park on the estate though?”
“There was a cut through the hedges which separated the close from the estate. I remember dealers and junkies used the snickett to move from Kensington to Anfield, without using any main roads.”
“On their mountain bikes?”
“Yes,” she laughed. “Haven’t they noticed that there are no mountains in the city, yet there are a million mountain bikes? I bet half of them are ridden by dealers!”
“You’re right.”
“I remember bumping into her and her friend once. They said the punters only used the back door, that way the neighbours didn’t have a clue what was going on.”
“Clever. We didn’t know that it was a brothel.”
“It wasn’t for long though.” Janice mused. “I heard they moved on somewhere else.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, just rumours, you know.”
“Who did she work for? Did she say?”
“Now you’re asking,” she said uncertainly. “I know the Russian mob were in cahoots there. It was their men who used it but I can’t remember the name of the guy who rented the place; Stringer or Strider, something like that.”
“Ryder possibly?”
“Possibly,” she shrugged. “I’m away with the fairies most of the time and the rest of the time I’m stoned.”
“Hey, it doesn’t matter. What you have told me so far is very helpful.”
“Good, I’m glad. I hope you catch the bastard.”
“Do you know any of the other girls who went to work there?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Do you recognise any of these women?” Stirling put the pictures of the women that they had already been identified onto the table. “Kerris Owens.”
“Kerris, Kerris, Kerris,” she repeated. “No. I don’t know her.”
“Jackie Goodall?”
She shook her head. “No. She was pretty though, wasn’t she?”
“She was.”
“Bastard.”
“We’ll catch him. Don’t worry.”
“Was it quick?”
“What?”
“When he killed them.” Her top lip trembled. “Was it quick?”
“No.”
“Bastard.”
“What about this girl?” He changed the tack. “Mary Jackson?” Janice opened her mouth to speak but remained silent. She looked hard at the photograph. A memory pricked her mind.
“Yes, I know her.” She smiled. “I do know her!”
“You do?”
“Yes, she’s hairy Mary!”
“Hairy Mary?” Stirling almost laughed. The connotations of how she acquired the nickname were endless. It was one to repeat in the pub in the future. “She was a legend. She refused to shave her bits, you know, down there.”
“Oh dear,” Stirling frowned. “Not good.”
“No!” she laughed. “It was good for her.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Blokes are all different,” she explained. “Some men like shaved and some like hairy. They get to know who their favourites are. Men travelled across the city to go with her.”
“Where did she work, Janice?”
“I remember that she worked on Jamaica Street for a while. I had never met her then but everyone knew her nickname. ‘Hairy Mary’, I can’t believe she’s dead.”
“Could she have worked at Breck Road?”
“I don’t know but she could have I suppose. I doubt it though.”
“Why?”
“She had her own clients.”
“Maybe she'd had enough on the streets?”
“Look, it’s a gamble that they take,” Janice said. “Indoors can be warmer, drier, there’s company and protection and a guaranteed customer flow.”
“But,” he smiled. “It sounds like there’s a but.”
“Some places it’s almost like a job, you know, turn up, do your work and then go home when you’ve earned enough. I tried it once. The problem is, if you are into drugs then you could be making a deal with the devil. They treat you well at first, take a small cut and sell you gear at cost. Then the price goes up and so does the percentage that they take for the punters. You have to work longer hours for the same money and pretty soon all you’re doing is working your tripe off to pay for your drugs, and the only winner is your pimp. He has ready-made addicts buying his gear and he’s making a packet from the punters.”