Golden Mile to Murder

by Sally Spencer

  ‘I’m making some inquiries – of a routine nature – at all the garages in the area.’

  ‘An’ what tha’ wants to know is if any bugger’s offered me a second-hand car wi’ no logbook at a knockdown price,’ the garage owner said.

  ‘Why should you assume that?’

  ‘In the old days tha’ could leave anythin’ tha’ owned out on the street, an’ be sure it’d be there when tha’ got back,’ the old man said. ‘But times have changed. There’s bin a lot o’ cars pinched from round here recently, an’ now here tha’ ist – sniffin’ around like a hound that’s got a whiff o’ the fox. Well, it dun’t tek a genius to put them two things together, dust it?’

  ‘And has anyone offered you a second-hand car with no logbook?’ Rutter asked.

  The garage owner shook his head. ‘They’d ha’ more sense. They’d know I’d be on the phone to the nearest cop shop afore they’d even had time to scratch their arses.’

  Rutter grinned. ‘Have you always been in the garage business, Mr Grimsdyke?’

  The old man took off his cloth cap and rubbed his bald head. ‘How old dust tha’ think I am, lad?’

  ‘Fifty-eight,’ Rutter said, veering on the side of the complimentary.

  ‘I’m seventy-two,’ Grimsdyke told him, ‘an’ when I were growin’ up, there wasn’t enough motor cars in Whitebridge to kepp one garage goin’, let alone the fifteen or twenty there must be now. I started out in th’ mills, like me father an’ gran’father before me. What I’ve learned about engines, I’ve picked up as I’ve gone along.’

  A new figure appeared from behind the garage – a young woman. Like Grimsdyke, she was dressed in a blue boiler suit, but in her case the curves it hugged were much more appealing.

  She saw the two men talking, and made a beeline for them, but once she’d drawn level she ignored Rutter, and spoke directly to the old man.

  ‘Does the customer have a problem, Grandad?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s not a customer,’ the old man told her. ‘He’s a bobby. From London.’

  The girl raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘From London?’ she repeated.

  ‘I used to work in London,’ Rutter explained. ‘Now I’m in the Central Lancs Police.’

  Not quite true, he reminded himself. He would be a member of the local force, but not until the next day. Any investigation he was doing now was strictly unofficial – an attempt to get one jump ahead of the game.

  He took a closer look at the girl’s face. She was around twenty, he guessed. She had dark brown hair, a button nose and Cupid’s bow mouth. There was a smear of grease on one of her cheekbones which, despite himself, he found erotic. And she was frowning as if she had found herself in a situation she would much rather have avoided.

  ‘Can you just check when Mr Metcalfe’s booked in for his oil change, Grandad?’ she asked the old man.

  ‘I know exactly when it is,’ the old man replied. ‘Half-past two this afternoon.’

  ‘You might have got the time wrong,’ the girl told him gently. ‘You do that, sometimes, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure—’

  ‘Please just check it for me,’ the girl said insistently. ‘The book’s in the office.’

  ‘A’ reet. If it’ll kepp thee happy,’ Grimsdyke agreed.

  The girl watched the old man walk to the office, waiting until he was inside before she turned to Rutter, allowing her brown eyes to flash with anger.

  ‘Have you got any identification?!’ she asked brusquely.

  Rutter produced his warrant card. The girl examined it carefully.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing bothering an old man like that?’ she demanded fiercely, when she was satisfied that he really was who he said he was.

  ‘Could I know who I’m talking to?’ Rutter countered.

  ‘Jenny Grimsdyke. The old man’s my grandfather.’

  ‘I’d gathered that. Well, Miss Grimsdyke, I’m conducting an official inquiry and—’

  ‘But why bother the old man?’ Jenny Grimsdyke repeated.

  ‘He is the owner of the garage, isn’t he?’

  ‘On paper,’ Jenny Grimsdyke admitted, ‘but half the time he’s no idea what’s going on.’

  ‘He seemed sharp enough to me.’

  ‘So you caught him on a good day.’ Jenny Grimsdyke’s aggressive expression melted away, and was replaced by one which could almost be called pleading. ‘Listen, would you like to know how things really are round here?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘The business is struggling to keep its head above water. I’m putting in fifteen-hour days just to meet the bills. It would be better all round if Grandad retired and gave me a chance to get on with my own life.’

  ‘But I take it he doesn’t want to do that?’

  Jenny Grimsdyke snorted. ‘He built the business up from nothing. He had a few good years in the fifties – but now it’s nothing again. Only he won’t accept that. He loves the place. So I keep it running for him for him as best I can.’ A trace of her earlier anger returned to her eyes. ‘And I don’t want him bothered. Do you understand that? If you need any help in your “official inquiries”, then come to me – because I’m the only one around here who really knows what’s going on.’

  ‘All right,’ Rutter agreed. ‘In that case, I’ll ask you same question I asked your grandfather. Have you been offered any second-hand cars at under their market value?’

  Jenny Grimsdyke threw back her head and laughed out loud. ‘Look at this place!’ she said. ‘Do you think we’ve got the spare cash to buy any car, even a beaten-up old crock?’

  ‘So I take it the answer’s no.’

  ‘If I was trying to sell a stolen car, this is the last place I’d bring it,’ Jenny Grimsdyke replied.

  She had a point, Rutter thought.

  ‘Thank you for your help, Miss Grimsdyke,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ll be bothering you again.’

  He turned and walked back to his car. He was just climbing behind the wheel when the old man emerged from the office.

  ‘I was reet a’ along,’ Grimsdyke called to his granddaughter. ‘Mr Metcalfe’s service is booked in for two-thirty.’ He turned his attention to Rutter. ‘Ist thee off, lad?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  The old man favoured him with a smile. ‘Well, come again,’ he said. ‘Only next time tha’ might be wise to bring an interpreter wi’ thee.’

  Fifteen

  Fleetwood, where the hit-and-run accident had so recently occurred, was in many ways a poor relation to Blackpool – a resort which had both sands and sea, yet had never quite caught on. Some people did spend their holidays there, it was true. And there were always day-trippers who came to see what lay at the very end of the tramline. But any dreams the town might once have had of being a mecca of entertainment had long since dimmed, and now its main claim to fame lay in being the home of Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges.

  Bounded as it was by the Irish Sea to the west and north, and the River Wyre to the east, Fleetwood stuck out like a raised thumb on the fist of the Fylde Peninsula, and the corner of Blakiston Street and Walmsley Street – which was where Monika Paniatowski was standing at that moment – could probably best be described as in the right-hand tip of that thumb’s jagged nail.

  ‘The old lady was actually on the zebra crossing when she was knocked down, was she?’ Monika asked.

  ‘Right slap-bang in the middle of it,’ the man next to her confirmed.

  Monika looked first to her left and then to her right. The road was as straight as an arrow in both directions.

  ‘Can you give me some more details?’ she asked.

  Detective Sergeant Colin Howarth nodded. He was a youngish man, perhaps no more than a year or two older than Paniatowski herself, but unlike the white-haired Sergeant Collins, who still took his job seriously, Howarth had an air about him which suggested he was already mentally coasting towards retirement.

  ‘The vehicle involved in th
e accident was travelling south,’ the local sergeant said.

  ‘How can you be sure of that?’

  ‘The victim took the impact of the crash on her right side. We know what point she started out from and where she was going to, so unless she’d turned back on her own tracks – which she had no reason to do at that time of night – she was crossing from this side of the road to the other when the vehicle hit her, which must mean that the car was coming from over there,’ he pointed up the road, ‘and heading out of Fleetwood.’

  ‘What else have you got?’

  ‘From the extent of her injuries, we know that the vehicle hit the poor old biddy at considerable speed – possibly as high as sixty miles an hour. She was thrown right up into the air, as you’d imagine.’

  ‘Must have done her a lot of damage.’

  ‘It killed her!’

  Paniatowski sighed. ‘What I mean is, the injuries which led to her death must have been quite horrific.’

  ‘Broke at least a couple of dozen bones, I think.’

  You think? Paniatowski repeated to herself. You think. You should bloody know!

  ‘And then there was the cut on her back,’ Howarth added.

  ‘What cut on her back?’

  ‘It was about two inches long and a quarter of an inch wide.’

  ‘And what caused it?’

  ‘The pathologist is still working on that.’

  Getting information out of Howarth was like pulling teeth, Paniatowski thought.

  ‘Any forensic evidence?’ she asked.

  Howarth shrugged. ‘A few paint scrapings. A bit of glass.’

  ‘And have you learned anything from them?’

  ‘The boffins in Whitebridge are working on it, but they haven’t been able to identify them yet. And even if when they can, I don’t see what good it will do. Say the paint comes from a Vauxhall Victor. Do you have any idea how many Victors there are in Lancashire alone?’

  ‘What about witnesses?’ Paniatowski said – almost snapped.

  ‘There were none that we could find. It was gone midnight, you see. The pubs had all been closed for well over an hour, and everybody who’d been out drinking had gone home to bed.’

  ‘Except for the victim and the driver,’ Paniatowski pointed out.

  ‘Yes, except for them.’

  ‘What was she doing out so late at night?’

  ‘Her daughter and son-in-law had been attending some sort of company dinner in Preston. She was babysitting her grandchildren. The son-in-law offered to drive her back home, but she said it wasn’t far, and she’d be perfectly all right walking. And so she would have been, if some nutter hadn’t ploughed into her.’

  ‘You think he’d been drinking?’

  ‘Seems likely, doesn’t it? It’s hard to see how he could have missed seeing her on the crossing if he’d been sober.’

  Paniatowski opened her handbag and took out her cigarettes. ‘Do you have any real leads?’

  ‘None,’ Sergeant Howarth admitted. ‘We’ve conducted a door-to-door inquiry that’s taken in half the population of Fleetwood, and I’ve had my lads ring up every garage within a twenty-mile radius to check if anybody’s tried to book in a car that had some unexplained damage. And it all got us absolutely nowhere.’

  ‘But you are still investigating it?’

  ‘Of course we are,’ Howarth replied, without much conviction. ‘But like I said, unless a surprise witness suddenly comes forward – or the driver suffers a bout of remorse and gives himself up – I can’t see us getting a result on this one.’

  ‘Was that Inspector Davies’ opinion, too?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think Mr Davies cared much about the case one way or the other.’

  ‘And why was that, do you suppose?’

  ‘I think he had other things on his mind.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’ve absolutely no idea,’ Howarth said – and Paniatowski was sure that he was lying.

  Monika flicked her lighter open and lit a cigarette. ‘Thank you for your help, Sergeant,’ she said.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘You’ve told me all you know, haven’t you?’

  ‘Well . . . yes.’

  ‘Then there doesn’t seem much point in taking up any more of your valuable time.’

  ‘I’ll drive you back to the station,’ Howarth said, gesturing towards his car.

  ‘If it’s all the same to you, I think I’d like to spend a bit more time in Fleetwood,’ Paniatowski told him.

  ‘Any . . . er . . . particular reason for that?’

  ‘No. No particular reason,’ Paniatowski lied.

  ‘I’ll see. Well, if you’d like to tell me what time you’d like picking up again –’

  ‘I’ll take the tram back,’ Paniatowski said firmly.

  ‘There’s no need—’

  ‘I know there isn’t,’ Paniatowski agreed, ‘but I still fancy a tram ride.’

  The café just behind the Winter Gardens was a favourite haunt of tram drivers and policemen. When Sergeant Hanson arrived, his team had already assembled and were sipping strong tea out of white enamel mugs.

  ‘What happened with Sergeant Paniatowski this morning?’ Hanson said, as he spooned a heaped teaspoon of sugar into his mug.

  ‘What do you mean, Sarge? What happened to her?’ DC Stone asked.

  Hanson took a sip of the tea. God, it was so strong you could build bricks out of it. ‘When I went to get her a cuppa, she seemed fine, but she when she passed me as I was coming back from the canteen, she looked as if she’d just heard her mother had died,’ Hanson said. ‘Now why was that?’

  ‘Told you we’d got to her,’ Brock said to Stone in an undertone.

  ‘What was that?’ Hanson demanded.

  Brock shrugged. ‘Some women just don’t have a sense of humour.’

  ‘Much as I love riddles, there are times when I’d prefer a straight answer,’ Hanson said, with an impatient edge creeping into his voice. ‘So I’ll ask you again – what happened?’

  ‘She . . . we . . .’ DC Eliot mumbled.

  ‘Spit it out, lad,’ Hanson ordered.

  ‘I put somethin’ in her desk drawer,’ Brock admitted, slightly sheepishly.

  ‘Did you, indeed? And what was it, exactly?’

  Brock shrugged again. ‘A nodder.’

  ‘A nodder! You put a contraceptive in her desk?’

  ‘It was only a bit of fun.’

  Hanson laid his mug down on the table. ‘Outside, Brock,’ he said.

  ‘You what, Sarge?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  The sergeant stood up and walked to the door. Brock hesitated for a second, followed him.

  ‘There’s three ways I can handle this,’ Hanson said, once they were out on the street. ‘Can you guess what they are?’

  ‘No,’ Brock said sulkily.

  ‘The first is that I can go along with the rest of you, and treat what you did to Sergeant Paniatowski as nothing more than a joke. But I have a problem with that, because I’m a sergeant too.’ He paused. ‘The second alternative is to report the incident to Chief Inspector Turner.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that, would you, Sarge?’ Brock asked, slightly panicked.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Hanson admitted, ‘but only because I don’t believe in shopping any of my lads, even if he is a toe-rag like you. So I’m left with the third alternative, aren’t I?’

  ‘And what’s that?’ Brock asked, some of his cockiness returning.

  ‘We forget rank for a few minutes, find a nice quiet spot somewhere, and settle this man-to-man.’

  ‘You’d fight for her?’ Brock asked.

  ‘No,’ Hanson told him. ‘I’d fight for her right to get the respect her stripes have earned her.’

  ‘I could take you, you know,’ Brock said menacingly.

  ‘Maybe you could,’ Han
son agreed. ‘I don’t think so myself, but maybe you could. Anyway, it shouldn’t take us long to find out, should it?’

  Brock shook his head. ‘I don’t want any trouble with you, Sarge.’

  ‘Then you’d better make sure that you don’t make any more trouble for Sergeant Paniatowski,’ Hanson told him. ‘Am I making myself clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hanson slapped Brock on the shoulder. ‘Good lad,’ he said. ‘Now let’s get back inside and I’ll buy you another cuppa.’

  As a detective, Sergeant Howarth would have made a good hat-stand, Monika Paniatowski thought as she walked down Victoria Street, Fleetwood, towards the waterfront. He had instigated door-to-door inquiries and rung all the repair garages because that was what the police manual said he should do in cases like this. What he hadn’t done, while following the generalised theory, was to pay any attention of the specifics of this particular case – especially the ones involving geography.

  She ran these geographical factors quickly through her mind. A driver who knocked down his victim in London might live a hundred miles away from the city and merely have been travelling through it on the way to somewhere else. But that couldn’t have happened in Fleetwood, because there was nothing beyond the north edge of town but the sea. All of which led her to conclude that the driver hadn’t been in the relatively small area bounded by the sea and the river as a result of chance, but had had some definite purpose. And what purpose could he have had, so late at night?

  She had reached the river, and gazed across the slightly choppy water at the Knott End Golf Course. Most of the senior officers back in Whitebridge seemed to spend half their time playing golf – either that or rolling up their trouser legs at meetings of their Masonic Lodge. Those were the ways to get on in the police force, but she couldn’t see herself doing the former, and was barred by her sex from the latter. So it looked as if any significant promotions she won would have to be through talent and sheer bloody-mindedness – and she was blessed with an abundance of both.

  Monika turned left on to Queen’s Terrace. Ahead of her stood the lighthouse – a solid, slightly ornate Victorian structure which could as easily have been a part of the town hall complex as a beacon to guide shipping. Beyond that she could see Fleetwood Pier, which was nothing more than a stunted relative of the three much longer piers which could be found, just a short tram ride away, in Blackpool.