Kennedy 04 - The Broken Circle

by Shirley Wells

  ‘It wasn’t only that,’ Archie reminded Jack. ‘They reckoned the boys were dubious characters. Capable of murder. Mind, one theory was that the wife, Phoebe, did it. Now she would inherit the lot.’

  ‘Does she have an alibi, Sherlock?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Not a very good one,’ Max said. ‘Who thought she might have killed her husband?’

  ‘Can’t remember,’ Jack said, looking to Archie.

  ‘I can’t either. She might be your culprit though,’ Archie said.

  The whisky was warming, as was the fire. In fact, with the shadows from the candles dancing on the walls, it was extremely cosy.

  ‘You said it was blackmail,’ Jack reminded Max.

  ‘It’s one theory, yes. We know Johnson had blackmailed someone in the village—someone else who doesn’t have a decent alibi—’ he added, ‘and blackmail is a very dangerous occupation. Some people pay up, some have the good sense to contact the police, but others—’

  ‘Take the law into their own hands,’ Jack finished for him. ‘Ay, well, I’d fall into the latter camp. I certainly wouldn’t pay up, and it’d be a waste of time expecting you lot to sort it out. I reckon I’d have to take the law into my own hands.’

  ‘And there’s you without a decent alibi, Jack,’ Max said with mock disapproval.

  He believed Jack’s story of being in Rochdale at the time of the murder. At least, he wanted to. He supposed he must keep an open mind.

  ‘Blackmail’s a nasty, deceitful occupation,’ Archie said grimly. ‘Folk like that deserve all they get. Not,’ he added, almost wistfully, ‘that anyone would have anything on me. My life has been a very quiet, simple one.’

  ‘An honest one,’ Jack corrected him. ‘Like mine.’ He turned and looked at Max. ‘Our generation—we were more content with our lot. We left school, took jobs—usually in the pit—we married and we brought up kids. We didn’t change jobs at the drop of a hat, abandon our kids or flit from one wife to the next like your generation does.’

  ‘And that’s all very commendable,’ Max said.

  ‘It’s how we live,’ Jack said simply.

  ‘It were whatshername,’ Archie remembered, wriggling sock-covered feet on his dog’s back. ‘That young lass—what were her name, Jack? Fred and Martha’s granddaughter?’

  ‘Melanie,’ Jack said. ‘Melanie Bishop.’

  ‘Ah, that’s it. It were her who reckoned the wife had done it. She worked at the manor, cleaning and helping them unpack. I don’t know much about it, but she didn’t like the job and she didn’t like her employers.’

  ‘Oh?’ The name Melanie Bishop meant nothing to Max.

  ‘She’s living in Rochdale now,’ Jack put in. ‘Twenty she is, and living with some lad in Rochdale. She works in one of those shops there. Wilkinson’s probably. Somewhere like that anyway.’

  Max made a mental note to send someone to find her. She might, although it was doubtful, be able to tell them something of interest.

  ‘She reckoned they were all crazy,’ Archie said with amusement.

  ‘Why was that?’ Max asked.

  ‘I don’t know really,’ Archie admitted. ‘She reckoned they were always shouting at each other. Said they both had violent tempers. The wife, Phoebe, threw a vase at her husband once. Well, so she said. But you know what these kids are like. You can’t get any sense out of them.’

  Archie refilled their glasses and Max made another mental note. He must buy the old boys a bottle of Scotch each.

  They liked to play games with him, and they found him a great source of amusement, but he did like them. Both of them. He just hoped the whisky loosened their tongues a little and they gave him something of use.

  But talk moved on to cop shows on TV.

  ‘When we first had a telly,’ Jack was saying, ‘we used to watch Dixon of Dock Green. Now he were a good copper. Could catch anyone, he could.’

  Max smiled at that. He’d watched repeats of the programme. In black and white.

  ‘Then came Z-Cars,’ Archie said. ‘I always used to watch that. That were OK, although in one episode, the dog got shot. Shame that. I hate to see animals hurt on the telly. Oh, I know it’s not real or anything, but all the same.’

  Max wasn’t surprised by that. Archie was a gentle old soul.

  The two men reminisced about old TV programmes, and Max knew he was wasting his time. He’d get someone to talk to Melanie Bishop but, other than that, they weren’t going to be of any help whatsoever.

  All the same, he’d keep well in with them. They heard things in the village, and they saw things. It could be that they’d hear something of use. And that’s what he desperately needed. He’d had enough lectures from his boss about the lack of progress in this case.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  With her deadline upon her, Jill was hoping to finish a chapter of her book, but her computer’s battery ran down and put paid to that. She had plenty of candles and, thankfully, her gas fire was working well, so she was warm. She would have been warmer still if she could have moved closer to the fire, but three cats were sprawled in front of it and Sam, in particular, never took kindly to being evicted from a prime spot.

  She was minutes away from going to bed when Max turned up. No phone call, no warning, no nothing.

  She had to work with him, and she was professional enough to do that. What she didn’t have to do was put up with him treating her home like his own. That was yet another problem with their relationship: they were too familiar with each other.

  She hadn’t seen him since Friday, when they’d both been too shocked by McQueen’s murder and too busy trying to pacify Phil Meredith to worry about anything else. But his relationship with Barbara McQueen was still the most interesting piece of gossip at the nick.

  ‘Streuth,’ he said, pulling a face, ‘it smells like a brothel in here.’

  ‘You’d know that better than me.’

  ‘I’ll get us a drink, shall I?’ He dumped several files on her sofa and shrugged out of his jacket.

  While Jill watched, admiring his nerve if nothing else, he went to the kitchen, filled two glasses with whisky, added a generous amount of water to hers and returned to the sitting room.

  He stopped then and looked at her. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘What could possibly be wrong?’

  Even the cats, detecting her change of mood perhaps, had given up their places by the fire and wandered off.

  Max handed her a glass of whisky. ‘Come on then. Out with it. What have I done now?’

  ‘You? Why should you have done anything? God, my life doesn’t revolve around you, you know.’

  ‘So if I’ve done nothing wrong, how come I’m taking the flak?’ he asked drily.

  ‘Flak? I haven’t said a word.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed slowly, and Jill could almost hear his brain ticking over. ‘I bet a shag’s out of the question, though.’

  ‘With me? Good grief, I am honoured. I thought you had other fish to fry these days.’

  His eyes widened at that, before dark eyebrows crinkled into a frown. ‘What?’

  ‘I suppose I should admire your bravery,’ she said, sitting down and taking a big swallow of whisky. ‘Not many men would have been brave enough, or insane enough, to mess with Tom McQueen’s wife.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, understanding finally dawning. ‘So we’re back to that.’

  A slow smile broke out and Jill wanted to hit him. Bloody hard.

  ‘It’s still the talk of the nick,’ she pointed out. ‘The DCI’s love-life is always a matter for speculation and when he’s having an affair with—’

  ‘Hey, steady on. Having an affair?’

  ‘So rumour has it.’ She nodded.

  ‘Is that what they’re saying? Me and Barbara McQueen?’

  ‘They are. And why not? She shared a bed with Tom,’ Jill pointed out, ‘so she’s obviously not fussy.’

  Another infuriating smile at that.

  ‘Ah, but a c
opper’s pay wouldn’t keep Babs in visits to beauty salons. Not,’ he added quickly, ‘that I have any interest in her.’

  ‘Really? So what exactly is this past you had?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! This crackpot rumour started with Grace. She was with me when we realized we’d met.’

  ‘It must have been a memorable meeting.’

  ‘Yes, it was actually,’ he replied, nodding. ‘We were on a train coming back from London. I’d been to a funeral, and she’d been dumped by her boyfriend of the moment. I was going back to Linda, she was going to stay with an aunt. We both needed our spirits lifting.’ He raised his glass. ‘So we had a couple of drinks on the train.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then nothing. She took a taxi to her aunt’s and I drove home to Linda and the boys.’

  She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. The fact was, she did believe him. So why was everyone making such a big thing of it? And how come, if nothing happened, he could still remember it? Why did he agree that it had been memorable?

  ‘You want to get out more, Max, if you call that memorable.’ She was striving to be calm and reasonable, but it was difficult.

  ‘It was memorable because it made me realize how much I hated my marriage. Barbara was fun. Not that much fun,’ he added hastily. ‘But fun. I was going home to Linda and I was dreading it. If it hadn’t been for the kids, I’d have done a runner that night.’

  ‘Was this before or after you knew me?’ She had to know.

  ‘Before. About two weeks before.’

  Terrific. So, having decided his marriage was in ruins, he would have been on the lookout for anyone available and Jill had been available.

  If she kept at this conversation, she’d make herself angrier and more depressed than she already was. She had to forget it for the time being. But—

  ‘How come you’re so keen to renew the acquaintance?’ she asked, wishing she could, just for once, keep her mouth shut.

  ‘I’m not,’ he replied easily. ‘What I wanted was to get closer to McQueen. Inside his house—’

  ‘What? Are you mad? You were almost suspended before Bradley Johnson was killed. If Meredith had found out—’

  ‘There was no reason why he should. Anyway, it’s irrelevant now that Tom’s dead. I have all the access I need.’

  ‘What is it with you?’ she asked curiously. ‘Why do you refuse to do anything by the book?’

  ‘Because it doesn’t get results, Jill. You know that as well as I do. Look round the nick and what do you see? Disillusioned officers. Well, except Grace maybe. If we go by the book, there’s no way we’ll get a conviction.’

  ‘So you decided to take the law into your own hands,’ she said. ‘Great.’

  ‘And now you sound like Meredith.’

  Jill didn’t really want to think about it. Just how far would he go to secure a conviction?

  Sod him.

  ‘You haven’t asked me how Styal was,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘or how my chat with Peter Lawrence went.’

  ‘No need to. Grace told me all about it.’

  ‘And did she tell you that I’m beginning to think that Daisy is still alive?’

  ‘She did.’ The expression on his face told her what he thought about that idea. ‘No way,’ he said confidently.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jill. No one, not even someone as mad as Claire Lawrence, would volunteer to get themselves locked up in Styal.’

  ‘Claire’s as sane as you or me,’ she said calmly.

  ‘So why would she do such a thing? Why would she claim to murder her own daughter?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s scared of someone. I don’t know, Max, but I think Daisy’s still alive. And let’s face it, without Daisy’s body, there’s not a lot of evidence.’

  ‘Claire walked into the nick clutching a pillow and an empty bottle,’ Max reminded her. ‘There were traces of Daisy’s saliva, and hair, on the pillow.’

  ‘So? That doesn’t mean she’s dead.’

  ‘We searched every inch of Harrington,’ he pointed out. ‘It was the biggest search I’ve ever been involved in.’

  ‘I know. I still think Daisy is alive.’ She wasn’t one hundred per cent sure, though. ‘That’s the theory I’m working on anyway.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘So?’ she asked, nodding at the pile of files he’d dropped. ‘What are those for?’

  He looked tempted to continue their conversation, but changed his mind.

  ‘Bradley Johnson,’ he said. ‘We don’t have a clue. Not a bloody clue. I want you to look through those and see if you can come up with anything.’

  ‘Oh, great. Working by candlelight.’

  At the mention of candles, he wrinkled his nose. ‘They really do smell awful.’

  He nodded at the files. ‘I’ve told you most of it, I think,’ he said, sitting beside her. ‘And you’ve seen the photos. Any ideas?’

  ‘None that I haven’t told you,’ she said. ‘My opinion? Bradley was blackmailing someone. He was expecting to meet someone in the wood—’

  ‘The wood or the pub?’

  ‘The wood,’ she said. ‘It would be away from prying eyes. The victim—and by that I mean the person he was blackmailing—would have suggested the wood so it will be someone who knows it well. It will have been premeditated.’

  ‘What about suspects?’ Max asked. ‘What about his wife, Phoebe?’

  ‘She’d have motive perhaps,’ Jill said. ‘I don’t think their marriage was all it’s cracked up to be. And the affairs, she won’t have been thrilled about those.’ But she didn’t want to think of handsome, charming, two-timing bastards. Not, she reminded herself grimly, that Max could be described as handsome. Attractive in a weathered, worldweary sort of way perhaps, but not handsome. Two-timing bastard, yes.

  ‘But if she was going to kill him, she’d do it at home,’ she went on, concentrating on the job in hand. ‘It would be easy enough to hide a few valuables, trash a few things and claim he’d disturbed a burglar. And I doubt she’s been in the wood more than once in her life.’

  ‘Maybe. How about the sons then?’ Max asked.

  ‘They weren’t anywhere near, were they?’

  ‘Not as far as we know,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘Joan Murphy then?’

  Jill had considered Joan, dismissed her, then considered her again.

  ‘Since when has she been a suspect?’

  ‘Since she closed her shop on the day Johnson was murdered.’

  That was news to Jill.

  ‘She claims she needed two days, the Wednesday and her usual Thursday, to change the window display and check on her stock.’

  ‘Then it’s possible, I suppose,’ she said. ‘He humiliated her in the worst possible way. She thought it was love whereas, in reality, he was just laughing at her and conning her out of her money. Worse, he was conning her out of the money that her much-loved father had worked hard for. Yes, she’s a possible.’

  Jill had learned from bitter experience that she couldn’t allow personal feelings to colour her judgement. Just because she’d found Joan friendly didn’t mean she wasn’t a killer. Jill hadn’t known Joan was having an affair or being blackmailed by Johnson, or that she’d been abandoned by her own husband, so she couldn’t be expected to know if she was a killer or not. All the same, the idea didn’t sit comfortably.

  ‘Hannah Brooks?’ Max suggested.

  ‘Hannah? No.’ She was firm on that. ‘She’s too clever and too ambitious for that. She has her sights set high, Number 10, I shouldn’t wonder. The last thing she’d do is murder someone.’

  ‘Surely, that depends if he had something really damning on her that would put an end to her dreams. And she was out walking on the afternoon that he was killed,’ Max reminded her. ‘Then she was rushed into hospital the following day. Doesn’t that strike you as one hell of a coincidence?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t thi
nk she’s your killer.’

  ‘How about Tom McQueen or one of his henchmen?’ Max asked. ‘If he killed Khalil and Johnson found out—maybe Johnson’s plans to blackmail him backfired.’

  She expelled her breath on a sigh. ‘I don’t think Johnson’s murder was professional enough for McQueen. This was premeditated, yes, but your man—or woman—is someone who didn’t give a damn if they were caught or not.’

  ‘So who else do we have?’ Max murmured. ‘People with dogs—yes, I know, but all the same. Olive Prendergast has an alibi, Archie Weston has one and so does Jack Taylor. Well, Jack possibly has one. He showed me a receipt to prove that he was in Rochdale at the time in question, but he could have found that anywhere. I’m supposed to take his word for it,’ he finished drily.

  They were still discussing the case at one thirty that morning when the electricity was finally restored.

  Max was on his feet, blowing out candles.

  ‘Look at the time,’ he said in amazement.

  She was well aware of the time. Just as she was well aware that he’d been drinking and shouldn’t drive home. She guessed what was coming.

  ‘What time are you coming over to our place next week?’ he asked, taking her completely by surprise.

  ‘Next week?’

  ‘Christmas Day,’ he clarified that. ‘Do you want me to collect you or will you get a taxi?’

  She didn’t believe she was hearing this.

  ‘I’m spending Christmas Day with my parents,’ she told him with a calmness she wasn’t feeling. How dare he assume she was waiting for him to click his fingers all the damn time?

  ‘What? But you always spend it with us.’

  ‘Then it must be time for a change.’

  ‘But I’ve told Harry and Ben you’ll be there.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have asked—sorry, told—me first.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jill. How the hell will you spend a whole day with your parents? It’s miles to drive so you won’t be able to have a drink, and you’ll have to endure your mum cooing over Prue’s kids while she goes on about her poor unmarried daughter. You’ll go mad.’