Problems with Girls (DI Sloane Book 2)

by Kelly Creighton

‘Someone on foot,’ I said. I just had a feeling in my stomach it had to do with my case.

  ‘And the boy,’ he said. ‘He was on foot, and he was shot, and unfortunately he didn’t make it.’

  The Dundonald branch was there, this was their district but I couldn’t leave until I saw for myself.

  ‘Any IDs?’

  ‘The man doesn’t have any ID on him, but the woman did have hers. She was called Mary Heaney. We presume, until we learn otherwise, that he was Mr. Heaney.’

  ‘And the boy?’

  ‘He was called Ince Ross. He went to the local secondary school. He had an appointment card in his blazer, must have got out early for an orthodontist appointment.’

  ‘So the booster seat in the back of the Punto is not his,’ I said. ‘No kid in the car?’

  ‘No.’

  Kate Stile was at the other side of the car, holding a camera in her hand.

  ‘No breakage on this window,’ she said.

  I told her Quinn had already told me. ‘A killer on foot,’ I said.

  She skimmed through the photos. ‘Shot the boy once,’ said Kate. ‘It was quite a skilled shot.’

  Kate showed me the photo of the deceased woman slumped back in her chair. She had a bullet wound in the middle of her forehead.

  ‘She must have looked at her killer straight on,’ I said.

  ‘And this guy’s in surgery at the moment,’ said Kate. ‘He was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head, neither one was a perfect shot. He would have been looking at Mrs. Heaney, the driver.’

  ‘I know him,’ I said when I saw the photo. ‘That is not her husband.’

  Chapter 31

  Justin was on life support in his own private room in ICU. I saw Lizzie’s back as we approached. She was sitting by his side staring at him.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked her and she turned around and hugged me. Maybe she thought I was someone else.

  ‘I’m so very sorry,’ said Hewitt and Lizzie reached out and hugged her too.

  ‘And on the day of Chloe’s funeral, as if I’m not hurting enough,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘What is the prognosis?’ asked Hewitt.

  ‘You mean, is he going to die?’ asked Lizzie.

  Hewitt said yes rather coldly and Lizzie took in a giant breath. ‘He’ll be alright,’ Lizzie said.

  The nurses had already told us there was a very slim chance Justin would pull through, but I understood why Lizzie wanted to believe that he would be fine.

  ‘Have you let his family know?’ I asked.

  ‘He has no family,’ she said. ‘Just me.’

  I looked closer at his face.

  ‘Have you any idea what happened?’ Lizzie asked me before I had the chance to ask her.

  ‘The other people didn’t survive,’ I told her.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Do you know why he was in that car?’

  ‘I don’t, Lizzie.’

  ‘Wasn’t she a client?’ asked Hewitt.

  Lizzie and I both looked at her.

  ‘The other victim in the car, the driver, I think I saw her out running with Justin before. Remember, DI Sloane?’

  It dawned on me, outside Rebecca Walsh’s Leathem Square townhouse.

  ‘Oh, maybe …’ I said and watched Lizzie.

  She frowned and asked, ‘Why would he be in her car?’

  ‘Maybe to chat?’ I asked.

  ‘Or maybe they drove to where they ran,’ said Hewitt.

  But this was just around the corner from where Martin Walsh’s wife lived, this was where they ran. Lizzie was jealous and I understood it. It was also not far from where Drew lived, and equally close to where Justin lived himself. Why were they in the car? It wasn’t the worst question.

  ‘Maybe Mary was giving Justin a lift home,’ I said.

  ‘Dundonald PSNI will find out. It’s their area,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘I want you on it,’ Lizzie said. ‘You, Harriet.’

  ‘She’s busy working on Chloe Taylor’s case at the moment,’ said Hewitt, pulling rank.

  Lizzie blinked away a tear. ‘Where’s Drew Taylor right now?’

  ‘Last time I saw him was at the funeral,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘He left with you, Lizzie,’ I said.

  ‘He gave me a lift,’ she said, ‘I thought he was being kind but all he did was slander Justin. And now … look.’

  She clutched Justin’s hand and squeezed it as his machine beeped slowly.

  Chapter 32

  Dundonald branch dealt with the Ross family. We called in briefly and sat with the detective concerned, DI Lowry. He told us how he had visited the boy’s parents.

  ‘They were distraught.’

  Well, naturally.

  ‘Leah and Kelvin Ross are originally from Luton, they moved here with their four children, after the eldest got injured in a knife crime incident. They thought it would be safer here. The young boy, second youngest in the family, little Ince, needed his dental braces corrected and was out of St Pat’s school early to go to the orthodontist. He was to meet his mother at the Spar. He never got there. He wasn’t caught in the crossfire though, that we can tell, he was purposefully hit and killed with one bullet in his brain, and it wasn’t a stray. It was intended, that young boy’s death. How can you tell that to the parents? An innocent kid.’

  I looked at Ince’s photo, a cute boy with an impish smile. His face was on my mind when we went to question Drew.

  ‘Hey, are we two bad cops here?’ I asked as we pulled into Tullycarnet.

  Hewitt said, ‘No. You’re going to have to go in softer.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘He knows you, and hates you.’

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ I said.

  ‘Well, he hates us all, but he is more suspicious of me, the outsider,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Not from here, am I? I’ll be that loud Scottish bitch. You go in and bat your lashes.’

  ‘If the shoe fits,’ I said. ‘Loud and Scottish, I mean.’

  ‘Here, forgot I had this for you,’ she said.

  Hewitt put her hand in her pocket. When I looked she was giving me the finger. I had to laugh, it eased the tension, then I remembered Ince Ross’ smiling face and I hardened mine again.

  ‘You are well known to have links, and you were hurt lately,’ I said to Drew across his dining table.

  Roxy was dishing their dinner on to plates, potato waffles, burnt sausages, congealed beans. She had her back to us, her long dark hair sat on her back like a glossy saddle. She had changed from her funeral clothes into jeans and a T-shirt. Drew had not; he was still in his black suit, sans jacket and tie.

  ‘Tit for tat?’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Drew. ‘If you think that I would waste my time …’

  ‘Why do you hate Justin so much?’ I asked.

  ‘Look at Roxy’s phone and you’ll see why,’ said Drew.

  ‘Tell us.’

  ‘He was sending her sleazy messages. Okay, want to know the truth? The night before Chloe was killed I was at the bungalow. He came in like a big bollocks, asking me if I was trying it on with his bird. He was wearing next to fucken nothing. Next thing he’s friended Roxy on Facebook, hasn’t he! She accepted him because of Chloe and everything … which I’m not delighted about; then he was commenting on all her photos. She deleted them first thing in the morning before anyone saw. I’m not on there so I don’t know. And she waits for days to tell me.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Tuesday,’ said Roxanne turning to face us. Which was when I noticed her black eye.

  ‘This Tuesday?’ asked Hewitt.

  ‘How did you get that shiner?’ I asked her.

  ‘The wee man headbutted her,’ said Drew.

  ‘I was asking Roxanne,’ I said.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘He nutted me. Harrison was tired and throwing himself about when I was bringing him up to his cot for a nap. That’s all
that happened.’

  I could not trust Drew and it worried me that I felt such an attraction to him. He looked even better in that suit than I’d seen him look. And dishevelled. Post-fuck lovely. Or was it post-shooting? That would be like me, married a psycho kidnapper and rapist, now I fantasised about a possible killer and definite drug dealer.

  ‘Chloe is dead,’ he said, ‘and that fucker’s more worried about sending my missus messages about how he wants to eat her pussy, and shite like that.’

  ‘So these messages were this Tuesday,’ I said.

  ‘Any reason your wife took her time telling you?’ Hewitt asked Drew.

  ‘Knew I’d be livid. We’ve had two sick kids to deal with, a murder in the family, and I’ve been bust up.’

  ‘Livid, you say? Livid enough to shoot Mr. Nicholson?’ asked Hewitt.

  ‘What!’ Drew protested. ‘And two innocent people who didn’t send Roxy messages? Livid enough to shower them with bullets? Fuck sake, man. Wise up.’ He gave an unbelieving laugh.

  But this was no bullet shower, this was precise.

  ‘I had the impression that you and Lizzie didn’t like each other,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t.’

  ‘But you left together after the funeral.’

  Roxanne stared at him.

  ‘She couldn’t get Justin to answer to her,’ said Drew, ‘she needed a lift, and she doesn’t drive. That’s all, before you go trying to make anything bigger from it.’

  Roxanne stormed out.

  ‘Thanks a fucken lot,’ said Drew. ‘Did you really have to go there?’

  ‘You have a lot of friends, Drew,’ I said. ‘If you think Justin had something to do with you getting beaten up, or Chloe’s murder, then you should have told us. We would have put him behind bars. It’s our job, not yours.’

  ‘Really?’ he said sarcastically. ‘You wouldn’t know what your job is half the time. Lot of progress you’ve made finding my cousin’s killer!’

  ‘You were given the chance to speak up,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Even if, for instance, I thought Justin was responsible for Chloe, or anything else, he’s no good to me in jail, is he?’

  ‘You were planning something?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not saying that,’ stated Drew. ‘That sex chat on Facebook doesn’t annoy me. Honestly. Couldn’t give a fuck, mate.’

  ‘It seems very much like it does annoy you,’ said Hewitt.

  ‘Me and Roxy have been together since the age of fourteen, some poseur twat isn’t gonna come in and ruin anything.’

  ‘You didn’t hit her, Drew, did you?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m not dignifying that with an answer.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been Roxanne’s fault if Justin was sending messages,’ I said.

  ‘I know that,’ said Drew. ‘I trust that girl with my life, alright.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, kind of convinced. ‘Do you think Justin had something to do with Chloe’s death?’

  Drew stayed quiet for a while. ‘Nah,’ he said.

  ‘Are you just saying that?’ Hewitt asked.

  ‘Fuck sake, arrest me or go.’

  He knew there would unlikely be a conviction, not for these paramilitary activities, and nor did he want one.

  A tout Drew was not.

  He said he was with Roxanne and the kids all day too. Just as they came into the kitchen for their dinner, and Roxanne set out the plates around us and then tried to put the baby into his highchair. Harrison struggled and bucked against her. She strapped him in and sighed.

  ‘You’re going to give your mummy another black eye,’ Drew shouted at him.

  ‘I don’t like these sausages,’ said the little girl.

  Roxanne looked about ready to burst.

  We stood up and got ready to leave.

  ‘You were together all day?’ I asked Roxanne.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘except that I left the funeral after the service. An hour or so later, by midday, he was at home. He’s never out of my hair, though I wish he was, because sometimes it’s bloody claustrophobic.’ She gave him a dirty look. ‘And sorry – desperately sorry – for what happened to that boy … and that woman, and even to Justin, and I know you’re only doing your job but this is a waste of time. Eat up, kids.’ She looked at me. ‘So sorry to disappoint you. Kids, eat up before your dinner goes cold.’

  Ella cried again that she didn’t like the sausages and after we left Drew walked out behind us and disappeared up an entry in the estate.

  ‘Where are you going now?’ Roxanne called after him from the door, then she used all her strength to slam it shut.

  Chapter 33

  We had nothing on Justin in our system, but he wasn’t Belfast born and bred. He had grown up in Liverpool, and I remembered he had lived in Coleraine.

  Early evening, I got a reply from Merseyside Police. They had more details about Justin Nicholson. I took the call and watched out of the window as I listened. ‘Does he have any record?’ I asked.

  ‘He had cautions alright, I’ve a file here as thick as a loaf,’ said Sergeant Moreland from over the water, ‘before he went private as a fitness instructor Justin worked in gyms, he was a well-known name to us lads over here. He’d been fired for selling roids and counterfeit blues at the gym, so he started up his own training business.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘That’s not the best of it, Nicholson had manys a minor charge when he was a teen. I have a colleague who remembers him back then, if you’d like a word some time?’

  ‘Maybe. What was he doing back then?’

  ‘He had some problems with girls. Then it looks like he got into health and fitness and sorted himself out. Happy days, you might say, Nicholson was occupied. But the worst was yet to come.’

  ‘Go on.’ I wanted to know what problems with girls meant.

  ‘Justin Nicholson was arrested for public indecency.’

  ‘That’s strange.’

  ‘Strange indeed, he was only a schoolboy when a woman looked out of her net curtains, middle of the day, tea and Countdown and there was Nicholson and the current squeeze having intercourse up against a lamppost in her little suburban cul-de-sac. In school uniform.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘A crowd of kids around them all laughing, meanwhile this woman who phoned it in was nearly having a canary.’

  ‘It’s not the kind of thing you see every day, to be fair.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he was sixteen then, so was the girl in question, so nothing underage. But that just set the tone. He was cautioned eight times for lewd conduct. Nicholson has a thing for the great outdoors, and doesn’t have the wit to wait for the sun to set.’

  Detective Amy Campbell came into the room, she gestured that she wanted a word with me.

  ‘Is that everything?’ I asked Sarge Moreland.

  ‘It’ll get you started at least. If I find anything else, you know the rest …’

  ‘You’ll drop me a line?’

  ‘I will. Hey, what’s the weather like over there anyway?’

  ‘I think it’s the same here as what you’re getting.’

  ‘Don’t get sunburnt then,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll try not to.’

  ‘I do love that Northern Irish accent.’

  ‘You don’t sound like you’re from Liverpool,’ I said.

  ‘I’m from Runcorn. Heard of it?’

  ‘I have. Look, Sergeant, I have to head on.’

  ‘No problem, Detective. Maybe I’ll get over there, I fancy coming to Belfast, doing one of those Game of Thrones tours. Maybe if I’m over you can show me where’s good to get a drink.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Plenty of places to choose from. I’ll have to go, my chief is calling me.’

  Campbell shrugged.

  ‘Ah, okay, Harriet, lovely to chat with you.’

  ‘And thank you for all your help.’

  ‘You are more than welcome.’

  I gritte
d my teeth and got off the line.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ asked Campbell.

  ‘A sarge in Liverpool, in relation to Justin Nicholson. I think he liked the accent.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ said Amy Campbell. ‘You’ll have to google him, chum, see if he’s a looker or not.’

  ‘Sorry, did you want me?’

  ‘Aye, not as much as he did, from the sounds of it. But just to tell you, we have someone in custody for the robbery in the pharmacy. I really don’t think it was related to the stabbing of Chloe Taylor.’

  ‘No? I didn’t think so either.’

  ‘This fella, he’s fucked, really. Has a lot of addiction issues. I’ll find out more and let you know, see where he was during the time of Chloe Taylor’s murder. My gut is telling me a big no, but it has been wrong before.’

  ‘At least your gut is working, and there’s an arrest for the robbery. We’ll crack them all.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Campbell, ‘we’ll smash them all. Eventually …’

  *

  ‘Why were Justin and Mary Heaney in the car together?’ Sarge Simon asked.

  ‘Mary’s widower Craig says he has no idea who Justin is,’ I told Fergus Simon what I’d just heard from Dundonald. ‘She went by Molly, not Mary.’

  ‘Justin Nicholson is a P.T., he was training her,’ said Hewitt, looking at the photo of Molly. ‘Harriet, that is definitely the woman we saw him out run with when we were at that townhouse near the Ice Bowl.’

  She meant Rebecca Walsh’s place.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it could be.’ I wasn’t certain. The context was so different and that day I hadn’t been looking at Justin’s client much.

  ‘Where did Molly live?’ asked Simon.

  ‘In Comber with her husband and three-year-old son.’

  ‘That is a stretch,’ he said. ‘Would she have been on her way to work, a halfway point?’

  ‘Molly works from home,’ I said. ‘The widower was adamant she was not having an affair.’

  ‘Isn’t the point of an affair,’ said Hewitt, ‘to keep it secret? Especially from your spouse?’

  I told Hewitt what I’d learned from my phone call to Merseyside Police. She listened, then said, ‘There’s got to be more. I’ll phone him and see.’

  I handed over Sarge Moreland’s number and while she left a message for him, I googled him. He was nice looking, but older, and I thought, if he flirts with her – does the, I like your Scottish accent routine on Fleur – I am going to be so pissed off.