As if by Magic (13 page)

First she visited the singles bar where Gordon had last been, just to walk the route herself from there to where his body had been found. It took her a little over two minutes to cut through the back alleys and skirt around the rear of a radio station’s office to reach the spot. It supported her thinking that Gordon could have easily made his way here if he wasn’t too bothered about the romantic element of any possible illicit encounter.

The last time she had seen Toxic Tony was in an alley across the road and behind the businesses. She walked in a circle out towards the crossroads where the CCTV camera was and then looped back towards the spot she had seen him last. When there was no sign of him, she headed to the flat she knew he was supposed to live in. For most people she was after, it would have been the first place to try, but then Tony was anything but like other people.

She pressed the buzzer and felt the whole unit vibrate through her hand, while a noise of almost earthquake proportions rattled through her ears. Largely because she hadn’t expected an answer, Jessica jumped as the door popped open.

Standing in the doorway was Tony, wearing same outfit he had been the last time she had seen him. He had a hat with flaps that were down over his ears and the coat that still had small pieces of fabric visible through the sides.

‘Morning Tony,’ Jessica said. ‘Are you on your way out?’

‘No.’

Jessica could have queried why he had such a thick coat on in that case but let it go. ‘Can I come in for a minute?’

‘I ain’t done nothing.’ Despite not coming from the area originally, Tony seemed to have assimilated the accent and he had the distinctive local twang as he spoke.

‘I never said you had. I just need a minute.’

‘Listen, man, you ain’t fooling me. I know all about the conspiracy. I’m not letting you in so you can plant your bugs and place your cameras.’

Arguing with him seemed futile considering she only had one question, so Jessica nodded as if she had been caught out. She pulled a print-out of the CCTV from her pocket and unfolded it before handing it to him. ‘Is that you?’ she asked, pointing to the lump in the corner.

Tony took the merest glance at the page and then looked away. ‘It weren’t me.’

‘That looks like your coat.’

He looked at the page again and frowned slightly. ‘If it were me, what might you want to know?’

‘You wouldn’t be in trouble. I just want to know what you might have seen.’

Tony rubbed his chin, thinking and then stepped out of his flat, closing the door. ‘My memory is usually better on a full stomach...’

Jessica rolled her eyes as he leaned back on the door and yawned. ‘What do you want Tony?’

‘You got any fags?’

‘I thought you wanted something to eat?’

‘I always want a smoke after I’ve had something to eat.’

Jessica sighed loudly. ‘I could just search your flat. I’m sure there are no bags of weed or anything in there...’

‘Naw, man, I know my rights.’

‘Well I’m not buying you lunch and a packet of fags.’

Tony seemed confused, rubbing his forehead and staring at the sky. ‘Lunch? What time is it?’

‘Half-eleven. I can either take you for something to eat, or I can go get a warrant to see what you’ve got up there. I really don’t mind which.’

It was a complete bluff as Jessica would have no reason to even ask for a warrant, let alone get one. Tony scratched his chin some more and tugged his hat down further over his ears before replying. ‘Let’s go.’

Without asking Jessica where to go, he headed through the maze of streets towards Deansgate before cutting on to a small side street and walking through the door of a cafe.

As she entered behind him, Jessica could smell nothing but grease, a far cry from the bacon she’d had at Percy’s house. A couple at the front looked at her as if to query what she was doing with someone who looked and smelled like he slept rough.

‘She’s paying,’ Tony said as he approached the counter and ordered a full English breakfast. Jessica took a chance by opting for a sausage sandwich.

‘I’ll have one of those too,’ Tony told the man behind the counter, before Jessica ordered them two teas and they moved to one of the tables.

Jessica again asked Tony if that was him in the photo but he just rubbed his stomach and said it would all be a bit hazy until he had eaten.

After a few minutes, the man came over with the two sandwiches and Tony’s breakfast. ‘Have you got any extra black pudding?’ Tony asked.

‘We can fry some up for you with some eggs if you’ve got the money...’

Tony looked across to Jessica, who opened her purse and handed across a five-pound note, before turning back to Tony ‘Fine, but you’re not having any more.’

Reaching for the brown sauce, much to Jessica’s approval, Tony nodded in acknowledgement.

Jessica told him the day and date she was interested in and then asked again if it was him in the photograph. Tony nodded while shovelling a forkful of baked beans into his mouth. ‘That’s my spot.’

‘Why don’t you sleep in your flat?’

‘I do sometimes. It depends.’

Jessica was going to ask “on what” but suspected the answer was how much alcohol he’d had. She took out a photo of Gordon Imrie and pushed it across the table. ‘Did you see this guy?’

Tony put down his fork and picked up his sandwich just as the plate of black pudding and eggs arrived. Jessica picked the picture up and they rearranged the table until the entire space was covered by his plates. Jessica hurriedly finished her sandwich and tried again.

Nodding, Tony jabbed towards the photo with a fork. ‘Yeah, I saw him.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘He had this green tie on, man. You don’t forget things like that.’

‘Okay and what was he doing?’

Tony moved on to his black pudding, although his sandwich was only half-finished. ‘He went off to some club somewhere at the bottom of the road.’

Jessica let him finish his mouthful before her next question. ‘Did you see him come out?’

‘I think so. He wasn’t wearing a tie by then but it looked like the same dude.’

‘Are you absolutely sure it was him?’

A dollop of egg yolk dripped from Tony’s fork on to his lap but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘I guess so.’

‘Okay,’ Jessica replied. ‘This last bit is really important. Was he with anyone when he came out.’

Perhaps not sharing her definition of the word “important”, Tony continued eating but nodded extravagantly. ‘Mmmfff’ he mumbled.

Jessica widened her eyes at him to say she wasn’t impressed until Tony finally stopped munching. ‘Who was he with?’ Jessica asked.

Tony scratched his head. ‘I’m not sure, it was pretty dark and my memory’s not so clear...’

‘This is serious,’ Jessica said firmly.

‘It’s not my fault. I can’t think clearly on an empty stomach.’

‘You’ve just had three breakfasts!’

Tony nodded. ‘How about some ciggies then?’

‘No.’

‘Beer?’

‘No.’

 Tony’s face fell childishly, before turned to stare longingly at a large chocolate cake in the chiller cabinet. ‘I’ve always had a bit of a sweet tooth...’

Jessica reached back for her purse. ‘This is the last thing, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fine, tell me the rest and you can have your cake.’

Tony picked up a scrap of fried bread and began mopping up the egg. ‘She was this older woman, but she still had it. You definitely would... well I don’t know if
you
would...’

‘What did she look like?’ Jessica asked.

‘Short brown hair, but she had a long coat on which was pulled up around her neck.’

‘If one of our artists came to talk to you, would you be able to give him a description?’

Tony shrugged. ‘It was quite dark. I just remember she had these big clip-clop heels on.’

‘Why do you remember that?’

‘Because they went off down this alley and then a bit afterwards, she came running back out again. Clip-clop, clip-clop; like a horse, y’know?’

Jessica waved towards the man behind the counter and paid for two slices of cake on the same plate and then left them in front of Tony before heading outside and calling Reynolds.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ Jessica said.

‘Where are you?’

‘In the city centre with a witness who saw Gordon with an older woman minutes before he died. I’m going to get composite down here to see if we can get a description of what she looked like.’ Jessica thought the Inspector might sound more excited but instead he was strangely low-key. ‘What’s going on?’ she added.

‘I was just about to call you,’ Reynolds replied. ‘We’ve found another body.’

FIFTEEN

Jessica followed the directions Reynolds had given her, heading out of the city centre towards Moston and turning on to a side road just after passing under the motorway. The lane was banked by overgrown hedges and had been closed off by officers that recognised Jessica and let her through.

In front of a wide metal gate in between two hedges, two police cars had parked nose-to-tail hiding the area from view, while a large translucent white sheet had been put up.

‘What are we all doing out here?’ Jessica asked as she saw Reynolds hanging around by the vehicles. It was on the border of where they would hand over jurisdiction to a neighbouring force.

‘A farmer called in about a body that had been found this morning. There was the usual umming and arring over who does what but we were ready to pass it on. Then we heard how the victim died.’

‘Go on.’

‘One single stab wound to the heart. No blood here, so he was killed elsewhere and then dumped. A mark on his neck too.’

‘Do we know who he is?’

‘His driving licence says Nicholas Peterson, just under seventy years old...’

‘Seventy?’

‘Yes. He lived alone out Pendlebury way in a detached bungalow. We’ve got people there now but the boys say he could have been dead for a few days before being dumped.’

‘Why was he left here?’

‘Have a look.’

Jessica skirted around the side of the sheet to see two Scene of Crime officers cataloguing the patch of land around where the body had been left. What she didn’t expect to see was an enormous mound of rubbish. Without looking any closer, she could see the remains of a smashed bookcase, an upside-down sofa, an old trailer, a couple of tyres, piles of stripped, hardened wallpaper, books, broken dining chairs and all sorts of other things.

She walked back towards Reynolds, who was putting his phone back in his pocket.

‘Fly-tipped?’

‘We guess so. Whether the body was left at the same time, we don’t know. He wasn’t buried under the rubbish, more left to the side so it was always going to be discovered as some point – but it did gain whoever left it a little time because so many people would have driven past and largely ignored it because they thought it was just a pile of junk.’

‘So who’s Nicholas Peterson?’

‘We’re on him now. All we can find is that he used to manage a theatre in the centre of Manchester and was, apparently, something of a character twenty or thirty years ago. He never married and doesn’t seem to have any kids. It sounds like he simply retired to his bungalow a few years ago and that was that. Uniform are going to door-to-door with his neighbours to see if we can get a time for when he disappeared. He’s not been reported missing, though, so perhaps no-one’s noticed.’

As they were talking, one of the Scene of Crime team stepped around the sheet and handed Jessica a ripped sheet of paper that had been sealed in an evidence bag. It was part of a phone bill with a full name and address in the top corner. Jessica looked at it herself and then handed it to Reynolds.

‘Do you know where it is?’ Reynolds asked.

‘More or less.’

‘Let’s get going then... oh, and I do have one other thing for you.’

‘What?’

‘Your big cat man. The wildlife people went around yesterday morning.’

‘And...’

‘They aren’t completely sure about the paw print but they did find a couple more just beyond his farm past the trees. The exact phrasing was “inconclusive”.’

‘Pfft’, Jessica huffed. ‘And they’re experts? I could have written that.’

‘Quite.’

After a short pause as they walked towards her car, Jessica added: ‘But there really could be a panther roaming free out there?’

Reynolds shrugged. ‘I guess so...’

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The owner of the phone bill had recently moved into and renovated a house in Salford and was horrified at not only finding out the contents of the cleared property were currently lying in a lay-by on the opposite side of the city – but also that he was now involved in a murder investigation by default.

It took him less than ten seconds to give the name of the person he had used to dispose of everything and, luckily for him, he also had a signed cash receipt with the company’s name on. Despite an annoying habit of saying, “You do believe me, don’t ’cha?” at the end of every sentence, Reynolds and Jessica told him that, aside from having to give a formal statement, it was unlikely any further action would be taken against him.

“Tip-Top Clearing” was registered to a residential address also in Salford but the only way Reynolds and Jessica could get hold of its owner was by calling the mobile number on the receipt. The early protestations of “I’m on a job” and “I don’t think I can get away”, along with every sentence being punctuated by the word “mate”, quickly turned to cooperation when Reynolds told him they were investigating a serious offence and were sitting outside his house waiting for a search warrant to be granted. The warrant part wasn’t true quite yet but it took less than five minutes until a large open-backed white van turned up. High blue metal mesh encased the rear compartment and Jessica could see it was already piled with an armchair and a battered bookcase, among other things.

The man parked on his driveway, then strolled towards their car looking anxious as Jessica and Reynolds climbed out. His hands were rough and covered in grease, although he wiped them on his overalls before offering his hand for them each to shake. His shaggy black hair was barely any cleaner and he clearly hadn’t had a shave for a few days.