[DC Laura McGanity 05 ]Cold Kill

by Neil White

  ‘I reckon it’s more than that,’ Joe replied. ‘Don wants to catch the killer himself, and we can both guess what will happen to him if he does. Hoyle knows that too, and so he’s making himself visible, giving himself alibis, so that if Don is arrested for the murder of his daughter’s killer, Hoyle doesn’t get dragged into it.’

  Laura looked out of the window and thought about the email from earlier. Where was he? Was he watching her now? She turned to look at the cars following them, but the road was empty. She slumped back into her seat and said, ‘Why have you kept it a secret about Rachel?’

  Joe stayed silent for a moment, and then replied, ‘Not secret, private, because it’s my private life. I don’t want to be work gossip.’

  ‘But your secrecy makes it seem like you’re ashamed. Rachel is a pretty woman.’

  ‘I’m not ashamed,’ he said. ‘And I’m not sure we’re an item either. We just sort of keep each other company when we need it.’

  ‘So it’s about the sex.’

  Joe gave a small shrug.

  ‘I think Rachel feels more strongly about it than you do,’ Laura said.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  Laura smiled. ‘I’ve seen how she reacts to me whenever I’m with you. She sees me as a threat.’

  ‘And are you a threat?’

  Laura blushed. ‘I’m getting married soon.’

  ‘Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I like Jack, and you and me, well, we’re good colleagues.’

  Laura looked out of her window. The car suddenly seemed suffocating, the silence uncomfortable. She brought the conversation back to the case.

  ‘Would it bother you if Don got to the killer first?’ she said.

  Joe didn’t answer straight away. ‘Depends if they get it right,’ he said eventually. ‘The problem is that we’ll never know, because they’ll get rid of the body. All we’ll know is that the gaps between the murders will get longer, and eventually we’ll wind up the investigation, never quite knowing if the right man was caught.’

  ‘Is that worse than watching him walk out on a technicality, or a bad jury?’ Laura said. ‘Remember, Ian Huntley was only convicted eleven to one. It only takes three loose cannons to throw a trial. Or maybe he’ll get a walkout after twenty years, free to enjoy his final years, ones that Deborah or Jane will never see?’

  ‘I know how you feel, but if you work in the system, you’ve got to work with the system. It’s not about justice, it never has been. It’s about keeping a lid on everything.’

  Laura gave up the argument. She closed her eyes for a moment, the long hours catching up with her, but as soon as she did, she thought she’d seen something. No, not something. Someone.

  Her eyes shot open and she looked back along the pavement. She could only see T-shirts and bags, people on phones. Then she saw it again, a shock of grey hair and a slow shuffle, just a glimpse through the crowd.

  ‘Go back around,’ she said.

  ‘Go back where?’

  ‘Round the block. I’ve just seen someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ida Grix,’ she said.

  Joe looked surprised. ‘Why would she be here now, forty miles from home?’

  ‘Perhaps looking for Shane, because she recognised something in our faces that told her that her doubts were coming true, that Shane hadn’t died in London.’

  Joe turned quickly into a side street and doubled back to the main street, crawling along slowly as Laura scanned the crowd again until she saw the same hair.

  ‘There,’ she pointed. Joe looked.

  ‘What, going into that shop?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Pull over.’

  Joe scraped his tyres against the kerb as he brought the car to a halt, and Laura jumped out and trotted down to where she had seen Ida walk into a department store. It was a long way down the street though, and by the time she got down there, Laura couldn’t see her. The shop doors opened automatically and Laura rushed in, looking around quickly, but it seemed like most of the shop was a mass of tight grey curls bobbing between the perfume counters. She remembered that there were too many exits to the shop to be able to know where Ida had gone, if it had been her.

  Laura turned away, frustrated and trudged back to Joe’s car. When she got there, Joe had his elbow out of the car window, his eyebrows raised in query.

  ‘No joy,’ Laura said.

  ‘How sure were you?’ he said.

  ‘Sure enough to jog down the street to try and catch up with her.’

  ‘That’s good enough for me. I’m supposed to be looking after you though, so get in.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Same as before,’ Joe said. ‘We go to David Hoyle’s house and speak to Angel.’

  As Joe set off again, Laura scanned the street once more, because she knew that if Ida had travelled to Blackley, she was looking for her son. And Laura also knew that they had to find him before Ida did, because the memory of Doctor Barker told her that Ida might not survive the reunion.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Emma’s gate didn’t offer much security, Jack thought. Old wood, painted green, and it wobbled as he pushed at it. The security guards had followed him as soon as he drove onto the estate, and now they were hovering at the end of the street, watching.

  The house looked dirty from the outside, with cobwebs around the window frames and the remains of eggs on the ground. He knocked on the door, and after a few seconds, Emma answered.

  Now that he could see her in daylight, he saw that life had been rough on her. She was tall, but looked too thin, with prominent veins in her forearms, and her face was just skin tightly wrapped around bones, the paleness of her complexion broken only by the dark circles under her eyes.

  ‘I’m Jack Garrett,’ he said.

  She squinted, the light outside too bright for her. The smell of booze drifted over the threshold. She looked him up and down and then walked back into the house, leaving the door open as an invitation to follow. There was a weave to her walk, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw an open bottle of cider on the floor by the chair.

  Emma caught Jack looking, so she said, ‘It’s just a small drink when it’s a nice day.’

  As he checked out the living room, it seemed that there hadn’t been too many nice days for a while. The carpet was threadbare and the house smelled of damp dogs, the floor and chairs thick with dark hairs. As he looked towards the open back door, past the paintwork scuffed by pawmarks, he saw two scruffy brown mongrels lying on the ground in a paved yard that was peppered with dog shit. There was the thump of loud music coming from the house next door.

  ‘How do you cope with that coming through the walls?’ Jack said, trying to be friendly.

  Emma glanced towards her neighbour’s house. ‘You get used to to it,’ she said, and then looked back towards Jack. ‘That’s not why you’re here.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jack said. ‘Tell me what you know.’

  She seemed to flush and then shook her head. ‘It’s personal,’ she said. ‘Will it definitely go in the paper?’

  ‘I’m a reporter. Do you want people to know about it?’

  Emma looked at Jack, and then shook her head.

  ‘Can I call you Emma,’ he said, and when she nodded, he continued, ‘people have been killed, Emma. Don’s daughter has been killed. Mike Corley’s too. If you know something about this, you might save someone else’s life.’

  Her hands shook slightly. ‘Poor girls,’ she said.

  ‘Did you know them?’

  Emma looked at him, her eyes ringed red now, a tremble to her chin. ‘It’s beginning to feel like I did.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to quote you.’

  Emma thought about that for a few seconds. ‘You’ve got nice eyes,’ she said. ‘You can tell what a man is like by his eyes.’ She gestured towards a sofa. ‘Sit down please.’

  Jack tried not to look at where he was sitting, knowing that
a coat of dog hairs was about to attach itself to his back. ‘So you know Don Roberts, and Mike Corley?’

  Emma’s hand went to the glass of cider on the floor. She took a drink, her hand shaking, and as she sat the glass in her lap, a tear ran down her cheek. ‘There is a connection, and I suppose I’m it,’ she said.

  ‘How do you know them both?’

  Emma’s eyelids fluttered with nerves, and then she slumped back in her chair and used a grubby palm to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

  ‘It was thirty-five years ago,’ she said, and then looked down at herself. ‘Look at me now. A mess, I know that, but it wasn’t always like this. Nineteen seventy-six. I still remember the year.’ She poured some more cider into the glass and took a long drink. ‘Mike Corley and Don Roberts. They used to work in a club in town.’

  ‘What, together?’

  She nodded. ‘Not for long though.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’

  Emma’s hand started to shake again, and Jack had to lean forward quickly to stop her from dropping the glass.

  ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Tell me about the club.’

  Emma looked down when she spoke, her lank hair falling over her face. ‘It was a disco club,’ she said. ‘Manero’s. I used to go there. Don worked the door. Mike was a barman. They were just boys really.’ She shrugged. ‘Disco music. The owner was just trying to cash in, but the club was rubbish. It wasn’t only about having a turntable and speakers, and Manero’s was just another cellar bar with a sound system.’

  ‘I remember it,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t remember it as Manero’s, but I know that it seemed to change its name every few years. What was it? The New Lounge, and then Mountbattens.’

  Emma’s mood lightened. ‘And Golden Gloves, then Roots, and Kiss. Every time the trade went quiet, they just re-upholstered the seats and changed the name.’

  ‘I remember it when it was Kiss,’ he said. ‘I went there a few times. A bit dingy, if I recall.’

  ‘But it was all Blackley had at the time, and I wanted to go,’ she said. ‘All my friends were into punk, but punk didn’t do it for me. I wanted to dance, so I’d practise in my room. I started to go to Manero’s because it was the only place where I could hear the music I liked and dance.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Fifteen, but I looked older. I was tall, and had grown up early, if you know what I mean. And the club couldn’t afford to turn me away, even if I didn’t buy more than a couple of Cokes. It was licensing, you see. They had to stay open during the week, and so I used to sneak out on school nights, when it was quiet and they weren’t bothered about asking your age. One of my friends used to come with me at first, but her parents found out and stopped her. But I carried on going.’

  ‘So did you know Don and Mike before you started going to Manero’s?’ Jack said.

  Emma shook her head. ‘Don was only young, but he was mouthy and a fighter. He had long hair back then, and a moustache, and he thought he was some real catch.’ She laughed, but it was bitter, not nostalgic. ‘The problem was that I fell for him.’

  ‘Did you ever go out with him?’

  Tears trickled onto her cheek again.

  ‘I wanted to, but I was under age. I don’t know when he found out my age, whether it was before or after it happened.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Emma looked down at her lap, and then around her room, as if she was suddenly seeing how her life had ended up, so different from the promise she’d had as a young girl just wanting to dance to disco music.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said. ‘It was so long ago.’

  Jack leaned forward. ‘It matters now. You called me, remember, and so you must think about it, even now.’

  The tears were coming in floods now. ‘I think about it all the time.’

  ‘So tell me,’ he said. ‘Don’s daughter has been killed, and Mike’s. What you know might be important.’ She nodded and wiped away her tears. ‘Tell me about Don.’

  ‘It wasn’t just Don. It was Mike as well.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Okay, this is what happened. I was in there one night, just dancing, enjoying myself, but it was quiet. It was always quiet, but that night there were only two other people in there. Mike worked on the bar, just a student, and I think that night my drinks got spiked, because I only ever drank Coke.’ She looked towards her glass. ‘Times change, I suppose, but I didn’t go out then to get drunk. I went out to dance. That night was different though. I felt a buzz, like I was queen of the club or something, really pumped, getting into the music, but then later on I felt dizzy, and then ill. I was sick in the toilets.’ She looked up at the ceiling, biting her lip, but she couldn’t stop the tears from falling. ‘I can remember Don carrying me. He was strong. He took me upstairs, to the owner’s office. I thought he was just looking after me, but,’ and she shrugged, ‘it became more than that.’ Emma looked at Jack, her eyes wide, appealing for understanding. ‘You know what it’s like when you’re really out of it. You know what’s going on but you can’t stop it, because all you want to do is lie down and be left alone.’

  Jack could tell which way her story was going, and he felt a growl of anger. He could see the hurt in her eyes, even after all these years. ‘That doesn’t mean you wanted it to happen,’ he said.

  Emma took a drink of cider, and the shake to her hand was stronger than before. When she had taken a few large sips, she put the glass down on the floor and carried on talking. ‘Don undressed me. I tried to fight it at first, but he was too strong, and then I was naked on the floor. There was a couch in there. The room smelled of dope, and I could guess what usually went on. Don lifted me onto the couch. I remember kicking and pushing him, but he just laughed. He pawed me and groped me and did things that no one else had ever done to me, and I was trying to get him off me, crying, but I couldn’t. He made me do things to him, but I didn’t want to. I was only fifteen and didn’t know what to do, but he made me do it anyway. I gagged on him, and then Mike came in.’ She shook her head. ‘I should have fought more, shouted louder. Perhaps it looked like I didn’t mind, or I wanted it, but I didn’t. And Mike, well, he just joined in. Someone turned off the light, and I was face down, held down. Then I felt a pain, down there, and I knew that one of them was having sex with me. Then the other one. They both had sex with me, and I couldn’t stop them.’

  ‘You were raped,’ Jack said.

  Emma nodded slowly. ‘What could I do?’ she said. ‘I was fifteen, drunk in a nightclub, having sex with two men.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ Jack said. ‘You were raped, Emma.’

  ‘But I couldn’t go home and tell anyone about it, could I? I knew what they would have thought. Things were different then. I was a drunk, silly little girl, out of my depth.’

  ‘No, you were a child, being abused by two adults.’

  ‘That’s what Simon said.’ When Jack looked confused, she added, ‘He’s a friend. I tell him things.’

  ‘How do you know him?’

  ‘He’s a policeman. He came round one day, to see if I was getting any trouble from the local kids.’

  Jack felt a creeping sense of unease. ‘And you’re sure he’s a policeman? What’s his second name?’

  ‘I’ve seen him in his uniform, although a lot of the time he works in plainclothes,’ she said. ‘Simon Abbott. He was here this morning. He went to the shop for me.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘Not too much,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t tell me much about himself. He just seems to like sitting with me. We watch television together, or he asks me about my life, as if he’s really interested. We even talk about Don Roberts sometimes, because of his bully boys around here. Simon told me not to pay him, because we should stand up to people like him, that I shouldn’t give in a second time.’

  ‘Is Simon the only person you’ve ever told?’

  Emma nodded.

  ‘And is that all he is, a friend?’
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  Jack saw the first trace of a smile, but it was slow coming.

  ‘I’m too old for him. I mean, look at me,’ she said. ‘Anyway, he’s a policeman, and so he understands these things.’ She waved her hand. ‘Don and Mike would have got away with it even if I’d told someone. They knew afterwards that I was a virgin. There was blood, and I was hurting, but they just put some money in my hand and put me in a taxi.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone else at the time?’

  Emma shook her head.

  Jack drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa. Emma was the connection, the emails had told him that, but now he was hearing the story first-hand, he struggled to rein in his impatience. ‘Are you sure you’ve told no one?’

  Emma shook her head, and then she said. ‘No one. Not even when I was pregnant.’

  Jack was surprised at that. ‘Pregnant? Which one made you pregnant?’

  She shrugged again. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you have the baby?’

  She nodded, slowly and tearfully. ‘Don told me to get rid of it, not to tell anyone, but I couldn’t do it. I was fifteen. How would I know what to do?’

  ‘And what did Mike say?’

  ‘I don’t think he knew what to say. He was just scared.’

  ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘I didn’t tell them until it was too late, and when I did, I told them that it was a boy at a party, and I wouldn’t tell them his name to keep him out of trouble. They sent me away to have the baby, so that no one would know, and I gave him up, just like that,’ and she clicked her fingers.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Jack said.

  ‘I tracked him down once, because he was given to a family friend, a couple who wanted more children. They adopted him, and my parents made me sign the papers. They said it was best that way, even gave me money, but how could it be right if he wasn’t with his mother? I tried to find him, and I did, I went to their house, but they wouldn’t let me see him. They told me they would have my parents arrested if I went there again, for making me sell my baby. And so I stayed away. I gave up my baby a second time.’