by Anita Waller
‘Been told what?’
‘I’d been told if he wanted a taxi to use a different band on the walkie talkie to order it.’ His face blanched as if he couldn’t believe he was saying the words telling of the action that had condemned Anthony Jackson to death.
‘And if you’d been inside? How would that have worked?’
‘I was told to follow him outside and make sure I was the one ordering a taxi, because I was the only one with the band number. And I was told I couldn’t go off duty until Anthony Jackson had left that club.’
‘You didn’t query any of this?’
He shrugged. ‘Nah, things like this happen regular like, because we get quite a few celebrities in the club and they usually have taxis organised. It’s not the first time I’ve had to call on a different band. Didn’t think anything of it.’
‘So here’s the killer question, Mr Hart. Who told you?’
‘I have no idea. It was a text.’
She held out her hand. ‘Phone please.’
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out an iPhone; a diagonal crack bisected the screen.
‘Is the text still on it?’
He shrugged again.
Tessa went into settings and made a note of the phone number. She handed it to Hannah. ‘Get this to the tech boys please, PC Granger, and tell them I want a log of both calls made and received, plus texts. Unless you’ve remembered, Mr Hart?’
‘Didn’t think about it, it was just a number, but that’s not new either. Celebs have their own security, just assumed it was from somebody on Jackson’s payroll.’
‘We’ll give you a receipt for this.’ She put the phone in an evidence bag and handed it to Hannah, who left the room. ‘You can have it back in a couple of days, if we don’t need it for the court case.’
‘Eh? What court case?’
‘This is a murder investigation, Mr Hart. Concentrate please, we’ve a lot to get through.’
Billy rubbed his sleeve along his forehead, the fabric absorbing the sweat.
‘So, Ms Walters came out first. How long was it before Mr Jackson joined her?’
‘Not long. I’d just finished admiring her boobs, to be honest, when he appeared, so maybe thirty seconds to a minute. I asked him if he needed a cab and he said he did. I called on the bandwidth I’d been given, and somebody said okay. Before you ask, I didn’t recognise the voice. I walked down the steps with them, the black cab came round the corner within seconds of me making that call, and he helped her in. Nice legs. Then he got in, I shut the door, and they went.’
‘Okay, big question coming up, Mr Hart. Did you recognise either the driver or the vehicle?’
‘No to the driver, but I can’t say I looked at him, ’cos she’d got a nice arse as well as cracking long legs. But the cab… Give me a minute.’
He closed his eyes, and Tessa said nothing. He appeared to be cooperating, which was more than she could have expected at the start. Hannah came back into the room, and nodded at Tessa’s eyebrows raised in query. Tessa spoke for the tape, indicating Hannah’s return, and still Billy’s eyes were closed.
‘I know what it was,’ he said slowly and opened both eyes. It was only then that Tessa realised one was blue and one was green.
‘Sorry about that, DI Marsden, I had to walk through it in my mind till I got to the bit I needed. On the door that I opened, there was a really deep scratch, about a foot long. It looked too deep for a key to have done it, more like a screwdriver. Nearside back door, it was.’
‘You’re sure?’
He nodded. ‘I am. Sorry, didn’t think about it before.’
‘Okay, Billy,’ Tessa said. ‘Thank you for your cooperation. I’m going to leave you with PC Granger and PC Irwin, and once you’ve signed your statement, you can go. Don’t go on holiday without letting us know, will you. And if you remember anything else, contact me immediately. That gorgeous girl you ogled almost died that night, and Anthony Jackson had his head blown off. Consider that, will you.’
She logged herself out of the room and switched off the recording.
‘Ray, I need a list of all taxi firms within a forty mile radius of Eyam. I want a team putting together to visit them, and I expect every black cab to be checked for a scratch on the nearside back door.’
‘Yes, boss. It paid off bringing Billy Hart in?’
‘It did. He went into a sort of trance, and when he woke up he told us about the scratch,’ she said with a smile. ‘Do you know he’s got odd eyes? One blue and one green. Quite striking really.’
‘I’ve never felt the need to stare into Billy Hart’s eyes. He once stopped me going into Steel, said I was drunk.’
‘And were you?’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘But nothing.’ Tessa laughed. ‘The man was doing his job. We’re having his phone checked. I don’t expect it to be of any use, because I think the phone the text was sent from will prove to be a throwaway one. We’ve still to check it but I’m not holding my breath. I think this scratch could be the clue we’ve been looking for. And I also think this cab is kept specifically for when somebody needs a vehicle that blends into the background and nobody takes any notice of it. I’m positive it’s not used as an ordinary cab, picking up customers. But it’s got to be garaged somewhere, and where better than with a fleet of black cabs. Let’s go find the damn thing.’
29
Brian looked up, fear etched on his face, as the office door slammed opened and crashed into the wall behind it. The last time someone had entered his office in that manner, they’d been holding a gun. It had taken some persuasive talk to make the young lad put it down, but when he had laid it on the desk he had burst into tears. The lad’s dad had been found dead, and he had been told Brian King was behind it. That young man now worked for the company.
This time the entrant was Terry Vincent, trying manfully to balance a huge box, and failing miserably at stopping the door from crashing inwards.
‘Sorry, Brian,’ he panted, ‘but there’s news, and I didn’t want to leave this in the motor.’
‘What news, and what’s in the bloody box? It’s not even eight o’clock yet, for Christ’s sake, and you’re already bringing me trouble.’ He was covering his fear with words.
Terry opened one of the box flaps, and took out a bag of white powder.
‘Shit, Terry, not in this bloody office,’ Brian groaned. ‘Take it downstairs and get Ginger to book it in and secure it. Where’s it from?’
‘Jackson’s place. Without him there, it’s falling apart. He ran it on his own, and now there’s nobody taking charge, so my contact said. I turned up and bought this for £500. Bargain, I reckon.’ Terry’s Yorkshire accent grew stronger as he shared his news and good fortune with his colleague.
‘News? You said there’s news. What about?’
‘Oh, yeah. Some fuckin’ jogger found that grave we buried George and Paddy in. I tell you, Bri, it’s allus a bloody jogger or a dog walker that finds bodies. Anyway, the police have blocked roads off, and they’re digging ’em up as we speak.’
Brian had turned a shade of grey that didn’t suit him at all.
‘You said they’d never re-surface,’ he finally managed to say.
‘I know.’
‘Tell me there’s nothing on them that could lead anybody to here.’
‘Nah, we’ll be fine.’
‘Terry, we’d better be fine. I don’t doubt Leon’s heard about this by now–’
The door crashed open for the second time, and Leon Rowe strode in.
‘What the fuck!’ he roared. ‘Have you heard? It’s all over the local news.’
Brian nodded. ‘Two minutes ago.’
Leon turned to face Terry. ‘If that bloody DI turns up asking questions of me again, I’ll sell you down the river, Terry. Now get out of my sight.’
Terry picked up the huge box of drugs, and edged out of the door. Brian stared at Leon; he’d never seen him so angry. He was normally coo
l and calculating even under extreme pressure, but this was something else.
‘For fuck’s sake, Brian, I could do without this. I’ve enough on my plate at home without this little issue. The police are going to turn up here, or at the shop, because they’ll track down who they worked for.’
‘Leon, go home. Leave this with me. As far as the police are concerned, we’re a respectable business. They can look at what they want, check what books they need to see, they’ll find nothing. We can even say Paddy and George worked for us, officially on the books, and I can show proof of that. It’s the other books that tell the full story. The police’ll not see them. I’ll tell them they just upped and left as far as we were concerned. Now go, and stay away. Stick to the shop, I’ll manage here, and when they’ve been and gone I’ll let you know. Trust me, everything is in order.’
‘George’s wife knew he worked here. She thinks he’s run off with somebody else. She’ll tell them he worked for Rowe’s Pharmaceuticals.’
‘That’s fine. He did. What he did outside of work is nothing to do with us, and he clearly got in with some bad people. Maybe it’s worth a suggestion that we were investigating them ourselves because we suspected them of removing stock. Go home so that I can calm down. At the moment it’s obvious we’re stressed, and I don’t want them to see me like that.’
Leon stared at him, then nodded. ‘I’ll head back to the shop. Let me know after they’ve gone, and what Marsden’s plans are next. I just know it’ll be her who starts connecting dots on this.’
He held out his hand, and Brian clasped it. ‘Thanks, Brian, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Make sure we’re clean, and she’ll have to go away.’
Kat inserted the key into the lock. The door swung open easily and the old-fashioned bell above the door pinged. She hurried to the back of the shop and entered the code given to them by the estate agent.
‘So far so good,’ she said with a laugh, her voice throaty. It felt marginally better, and she blessed Neil for letting her have the tablets without a prescription. ‘That could have been embarrassing if I’d got the code wrong.’
Doris and Mouse were already walking around, inspecting the amenities in the shop which were proving to be a little sparse.
‘We’ll need to get everything out and start from scratch,’ Mouse said. ‘You okay with a paintbrush, Kat?’
‘I paint a lovely Picasso.’ Kat laughed. ‘For walls I tend to get a decorator in. I think we just get shopfitters, if it proves to be what we want. We’ll need this front area for Nan, so that’s going to need a swish new reception desk, and then the whole of the back area can have a stud wall erected, splitting it into two offices for Mouse and me. We’ll get a couple of good desks – first impressions count and we need to impress clients. Maybe get two decent ones from the antique quarter. By then, of course, and according to Nan, I’ll be able to do more than switch on my laptop.’
‘You mean you’ll be able to switch it off as well?’ Mouse grinned. ‘Kat, I think this is perfect.’ She opened a small door and wrinkled her nose. ‘It needs a new toilet and handbasin in here.’
The light in the shop space was tinged to a luminous grey quality by the whitewash that had been painted all over the front window courtesy of the previous incumbents.
Kat walked across and rubbed a little bit of it to give a clear six inch square of glass. ‘We’ll be able to wave at Leon and Neil,’ she said. ‘The pharmacy is straight across from here.’
‘Headache tablets and throat sweets on tap then. This really is perfect. We’ll have to take down the hoarding covering those two back windows, or we’ll have no natural light in our offices, but we can make them secure. Security in here will be a priority, we could potentially have some files that could do damage in the wrong hands.’
‘Nan? You haven’t spoken.’
‘I’m still trying to decide what colour chair I want.’
‘You think this meets our needs?’
‘Totally. It’s much larger than I expected, and I think you’ll both be surprised by how much space you get even splitting that back area into two. However, the real crunch is that flat upstairs. If that’s no good for Mouse, then the shop is irrelevant. And I also think that although the property is up for sale or let, we should try for an initial six-month rental, followed by an option to purchase outright after that rental period. I think there’ll be no problem getting business – I’ve already got the advertising schedule worked out – but after six months we’ll know whether or not it’s right for you two.’
‘My god, she’s a wise old bird, this nan of mine,’ Mouse said, and kissed the much smaller woman on her head. ‘Shall we go and look at the flat then?’
They exited the shop, locking it behind them, and then unlocked a red door at the side. They climbed the stairs and all three paused at the top.
‘Wow.’ Mouse spun around. ‘This is fab.’
It was a huge room, an open-plan kitchen diner and lounge, with three doors leading off the main room.
The bathroom had been newly refurbished and, apart from a layer of dust, was immaculate. Both bedrooms were doubles and both had built-in wardrobes. They were of similar size, and the smile on Mouse’s faced increased exponentially.
‘I would have wanted this place even without the shop,’ she said. ‘Whoever lived here looked after it.’
‘Hello?’ A man’s voice floated up from the bottom of the stairs.
‘We’re up here, Mr Smythe,’ Kat called.
The estate agent joined them. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be with you earlier, but I’m free now. What do you think?’
‘This is beautiful. Apart from a flick around with a duster, it’s been well looked after.’
‘That’s because nobody has lived in it.’ Carl Smythe smiled. ‘When the previous owners gave up the tenancy, the flat was refurbished with a view to selling it as part of the whole property. The shop was left alone because there’s no point refurbishing that as, for example, a bakery, if whoever buys it wants it for a fish and chip shop. So we concentrated on the flat. It’s newly rewired and plumbed, new bathroom suite, the wardrobes are new – there was nothing in the bedrooms before. This large living area was initially a very tiny kitchen with a sizeable living/dining area, but we knocked down a wall and made it open plan.’
Mouse was even more impressed. ‘I love it.’
‘You’ve been in the shop?’
‘Yes, we’ve already built walls in there.’ Doris laughed. ‘The whole thing is perfect. How would the owners feel about an initial six months’ rental with an option to purchase after six months?’
‘The owner is my father. I’ll talk to him, but I know he’s keen to sell as soon as possible. He doesn’t want to die and leave issues for my brother and me that need to be dealt with. He’s a bit old fashioned.’
‘Okay, leave it,’ Doris said. ‘We’ll work with the initial purchase plan, and get back to you by tomorrow, after we’ve discussed everything fully.’
‘Then I’ll leave you for now. Can you drop the keys at the office please. Take as long as you need, and don’t forget to set the alarm as you go out.’ He smiled at the three women and left them to walk around.
They returned to the shop and Doris took out a notepad. ‘We need a list,’ she said. ‘I like lists.’
Kat looked through the square cleaned section of the window and saw that Leon’s car was still at the pharmacy.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘It’s time I spoke to Leon. I’ll be back in half an hour or so, possibly divorced, but I’ll be back. Then we’ll return the keys and go for a coffee and a talk in the tea rooms. That sound good?’
They nodded, and she walked across the road to the pharmacy.
‘What?’ Leon felt angry that Kat’s plans had reached the point of getting premises without his knowing anything about them. He was trying desperately to keep that anger hidden.
‘We’re a good team. We’ve done a lot of tracking with Mouse’s attacker, and w
e have the capabilities. I believe this is what I’ve been looking for, and I also believe this is why I was meant to meet Mouse. And Nan. It won’t take anything from my church work; I’ve made that very clear to both of them. As you know, God has always come first with me, and always will.’
‘And what about the baby we’ve talked about? Where will that fit into your plans?’
‘It will. I need a couple more years of you, and then we’ll have our baby. I can become a silent partner, doing deskbound work when I get too big to move, and we’ll manage. Doing this as a job, Leon, doesn’t mean I don’t love you, you know. You’re my world, but my world needs a little bit of readjustment right now, and I know this is it.’
‘Come on then.’ He picked up his coat. ‘Let’s go and have a look at this shop. I know a bit more about this subject than you do, and I have contacts for you for fittings. But it needs to be right in the first place. If it’s too small, you can’t make it bigger. Shops are what they are, in the main.’
He led her out of the back door of the pharmacy, and she couldn’t help glancing back to where she had first seen Mouse.
Leon held the door open for Kat to enter before him. He smiled as he glanced up and saw the old-fashioned bell that tinkled as he had pushed open the door.
‘Don’t lose that,’ he said. ‘It’s lovely. Ours is electronic across the road, soulless.’
He glanced around, taking everything in. ‘It’s big enough,’ he finally conceded.
‘We thought splitting this back area into two with a sound-proofed stud wall which would give us an office each for Kat and Mouse,’ Doris explained. ‘We don’t expect cases to be about solving murders – this has been a steep learning curve finding out who killed Anthony and attacked Mouse – it will be more about following random husbands for evidence of adultery, chasing down missing persons, that sort of thing. Our list for our advertising campaign is quite comprehensive, and all above board.’
‘Can we just take a step back there.’ Leon smiled at the older woman. ‘Finding out who killed Anthony and attacked Mouse?’