As if by Magic (17 page)

Elsie seemed close to tears and Reynolds rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘We’ve had someone checking with your neighbours this morning and, unfortunately, we’ve not been able to find anyone who saw anything.’

‘I did knock on some doors before calling you,’ Elsie added.

‘How do you get on with your neighbours?’ Jessica asked, relieved her voice didn’t crack.

Elsie wiped her eyes as Harold emerged from under the table licking his lips and looking decidedly guilty. ‘Everyone’s really nice around here,’ she said. ‘We all look out for each other and we had this big street party last summer.’

‘How are your next door neighbours?’ Jessica pushed, ignoring the look Reynolds gave her.

‘There’s a young couple who have just moved in on that side,’ Elsie said pointing towards one of the walls. ‘And then there’s Brenda on the other.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Oh, she’s lovely – and she’s been through hell with that husband of hers. Left her for a younger girl, you know? And then ended up getting in trouble with the police. That
poor
woman.’

‘Do you have any idea why the animals might have been left on her garden?’

Jessica could feel Reynolds trying to get her attention, but she continued to ignore him, instead allowing herself to be distracted by Harold, who was now sitting under Elsie’s chair licking his paws.

‘Oh no, dear,’ Elsie replied. ‘I don’t know who would want to do anything like that. It was only last week she brought over a shepherd’s pie for me. She said she’d made too much. It was a lovely thing to do; I made her some cakes as a thank you. She took me to the pictures last month. It was the first time I’ve been in... I don’t know, maybe ten years? She turned up at my door and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She said I looked like I needed a night out.’

‘What did you see?’ Reynolds asked, cutting in before Jessica could push her luck any further.

‘Oh... you know; that one with the man in it. The one with the hair...’ She swirled her arm around in the air as Reynolds rose to his feet, putting a stop to any further questions Jessica might have.

‘Well at least you had a lovely time,’ he said, resting his hand on hers again as she stood to walk them to the door. Harold crept out from under the chair as Jessica rose slowly and looked at the spaghetti-like mess of untied shoelaces wrapped around her feet. She crouched to retie them, with the dog barking unhappily as she made a quick dash for the front door.

Elsie wished them goodbye, but her face said more than her words would; her downcast eyes a picture of sadness as Harold sat next to her watching Jessica, or perhaps more accurately, her shoelaces, intently.

‘What did I tell you?’ Reynolds asked harshly as they got into the car.

‘Someone had to ask. Brenda might have a feud going with the whole street.’

‘What did Brenda say to you when I was out of the room?’

‘Nothing.’

Reynolds sighed as he switched the car’s engine on, clearly not believing her. ‘Let’s hear it then.’

The windscreen wipers began swishing quickly across the screen in steady, almost hypnotic movements. ‘Brenda isn’t stupid,’ Jessica said. ‘She’s careful, methodical and plans everything. It’s why we have nothing on her – but she has a weakness: she gets angry. She’s fuming at her ex-husband and look what she did to him. If we want her to make a mistake, making her mad might be the only way.’

Reynolds didn’t reply at first, his hands gripping the steering wheel firmly without pulling. ‘You haven’t done something stupid, have you?’

Jessica didn’t return his gaze. ‘Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.’

NINETEEN

Jessica regretted the way she answered Reynolds but also resented the fact he had asked the question. Of course she hadn’t left the dead animals on Brenda’s lawn – but the fact was, whoever had done it, had got a reaction.

Her former husband Balthazar was an obvious candidate, but he was currently on remand in relation to fraud charges, the court having decided he posed a risk of absconding before the trial date. There was no way they could prove it but Brenda was the reason he was there.

As Jessica walked into Longsight Station the next morning, Reynolds told her there had been a second pizza delivery driver robbed the night before and that he was sending her and Rowlands out to talk to the victim. The initial details sounded similar to the first and finding out who had attacked the Judge’s son was a priority. The Chief Superintendent had already checked in on their progress, which was minimal.

Reynolds didn’t say it but it also kept her away from Brenda.

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

Although he was only a year older, Wayne Marsh was about as different to Jonah Lieberman as Jessica could had imagined. He was probably the exact type of person the judge wanted his son to be mixing with in order to experience more of life.

They both worked in the same shop and had similar driving duties, but, whereas Jonah had a father who could afford to pay for anything, Wayne lived in a bedsit with his girlfriend and three-month old son. As he invited them into his flat, Jessica struggled to see how there was room for anyone other than just him. Everything appeared to be in one room, with a patch of carpet pinned to the tiled floor with thick masking tape the only way of knowing you were in the living-room part, as opposed to the kitchen. A baby’s crib was in the centre of the kitchen area, with a sink on one side and a cooker on the other. Wayne folded a double bed back into the sofa before offering it to Jessica and Rowlands.

He was wearing an ill-fitting pair of jeans and an equally large jumper with a thick silver chain around his neck.

Wayne told them his girlfriend had taken their daughter for a walk and then rolled up his sleeve to show them injuries on his arms just like Jonah’s, while there was a welt across his stomach too. He had been attacked just a few streets away from Jonah, while he was driving a car.

‘How did they stop you?’ Jessica asked.

Wayne’s accent was broad and local but he spoke without nerves. ‘There was this guy in the road waving his arms around. I stopped because I assumed he was in trouble but the minute I slowed, there was this second guy opening my door.’

‘Did you see where he came from?’

Wayne shook his head. ‘There are alleys and bushes all along that road, it could have been anywhere.’

He went on to tell them that he had been dragged out of the car and had his money snatched before the attackers ran off. His descriptions were as vague and unhelpful as Jonah’s had been, other than the added detail that the person in the road had been wearing a baseball cap.

‘How much money did you have on you?’ Jessica asked.

‘Over a hundred quid. I’d done a few jobs back to back.’

‘Did the attackers have any weapons?’

‘One of them had a bat. The other one held back a bit but he did kick me a few times.’

‘Did any of them say anything to you?’

Jessica was thinking of Jonah telling them the attacker had said it was for his Dad but Wayne shook his head. ‘Only that I should stay down.’

‘What happened to the car keys?’ Jessica asked.

Wayne appeared confused by the question. ‘I don’t know...’

‘You drove back to the shop after the attack though, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So did you have the keys in your hand? Were they still in the ignition?’

Wayne’s skin was pale and covered in acne scars. He scratched at one of the marks as he replied. ‘I suppose they were still in the car. I don’t remember properly.’

Jessica nodded and waited for Rowlands to finish writing. ‘I gather you work with someone called Jonah Lieberman. Did you hear about what happened to him the other evening?’

‘Of course, everyone at the shop has been on edge.’

‘How well do you know Jonah?’

Wayne shrugged. ‘Okay. He’s a bit different, with his Dad and everything, but we get on fine.’

‘Are you friends?’

The question appeared to stump Wayne. He screwed up his face and made a few noises of confusion. ‘I suppose so – although we’ve never done anything together away from the shop. I guess we’re friends at work.’

‘Do you have each other’s phone numbers?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you have much contact when you’re not in the shop?’

Wayne puffed his lips out. ‘I guess so, usually only about swapping shifts though.’

‘Have you seen Jonah since his attack?’ Jessica asked.

‘No, he’s not been back to work. I was only working last night because I was covering one of his shifts.’

The news took Jessica slightly by surprise. ‘Jonah was supposed to be working last night?’

‘Yes, five until midnight. It’s his usual day. We alternate quite a lot, except on Saturdays and some Fridays when we’re both in.’

‘What are they going to do at the shop if you’re both off?’

‘I’m back tonight,’ Wayne said matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve got a baby to look after.’

 Jessica wanted to ask him if he was up to it, but it seemed invasive, especially considering he was clearly focused on his young family. Instead she said they would stay in touch if there was anything to report.

The Scene of Crime team had already finished clearing up the site and found very little. There were muddy footprints around the alleyway they assumed the attacker came from but it was a common cut-through and they could be anyone’s. There were houses at either end of the road but it was directly outside a primary school and no-one who had seen the attack.

‘Do you think the attackers thought it was Jonah at first?’ Rowlands asked, as Jessica pulled the car away.

Jessica shook her head. ‘I doubt it; he can’t drive a car. I suppose they could have been waiting for a driver to rob and then taken their chance but why didn’t they nick the car? Even if they just drove it around the corner to get away and then dumped it? The keys were left there.’

‘Perhaps they didn’t want to leave fingerprints? This way they got to run off. They’re probably just kids.’

‘I suppose... but wouldn’t kids just get the money and run off? According to Wayne and Jonah, the attackers hung around to hit them a bit more.’

Rowlands made a low humming noise. ‘What about local gangs?’

‘Oh, there are enough of them,’ Jessica replied as the steady drumbeat of rain began to land on the roof. ‘We’ve had the beat coppers out talking to them. You get the usual stream of denials but it sounds like they’re telling the truth. There were a dozen of them hanging around outside a row of shops because we had calls about it. They’ll be on CCTV there too. According to Jack, we’ve also got a couple of lads on the inside and they’ve heard nothing either.’

‘But the attackers knew who Jonah Lieberman was and where he worked.’

‘Apparently.’

‘What about the shop owners?’

‘They’ve been pretty good actually. They’re going to send two people out on all deliveries from now on, plus they’re calling all phone numbers back immediately after taking orders to check if it’s genuine. Without shutting down, there’s not much else they can do.’

‘It could be someone on the inside tipping off somebody about routes. Maybe someone who has it in for Jonah and Wayne?’

‘We’re looking into that but it’s mainly a family business; father, brother, son. There are a couple of others who work there but it looks unlikely. It’s a strange level of crime. If you wanted to do something serious, you’d have them beaten up properly. If it was just to steal a few quid, you’d rob them and then be off. It doesn’t seem like one or the other.’

‘What are you thinking then?’

‘My preference would be to send you in undercover; get you in one of those uniforms, have you kneading dough, talking to the public and generally doing anything that would make you miserable...’

Rowlands didn’t seem quite so amused. ‘There is no way I’m doing that.’

‘Shirker; where’s your commitment to the job? Anyway, I don’t think that’s going to go down well with anyone else and, given the mood Jack and Jase are in, they’d probably send me in instead. I guess we just wait and see if anyone comes forward or if our street team comes back with anything.’

‘I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interests to have you preparing food,’ Rowlands replied and, for once, Jessica couldn’t disagree.

She spent much of the rest of the day checking statements and looking into the background of anyone vaguely associated with the shop. It was menial work that produced no results but it kept her out of the rain and out of Reynolds’ way.

Jessica’s journey home was the usual mix of traffic lights, drivers who didn’t know where they were going, and a combination of windscreen wipers with a window heater that didn’t like to work in tandem. Her battered old car really wasn’t built for days such as this, which she knew meant it wasn’t really cut out for Manchester. Still, Jessica’s Dad had bought it for her and she was attached to it.

She rented a flat on the middle floor of a three-storey converted townhouse just south of the city in Didsbury in a district she knew was a bit too posh for her. The array of almost-new vehicles parked around the flats made hers stick out like the stain on the area it probably was –a constant source of self-amusement.

Jessica climbed the stairs to her flat, inserting the key and opening the door but, as soon as she closed the door behind her, she knew something wasn’t right. The hallway was as clear as it should be but there was a sense of something in the air that was hard to identify.

‘Hello?’ Jessica called out, even though she lived alone. She crossed to the kitchen and flicked the light switch on. It was the tidiest room in the flat because she spent so little time in there; the toaster and microwave providing most of her meals. Everything seemed to be as she had left it, with an empty wine bottle poking out of the bin and a paper bag containing the remnants of a takeaway from the weekend on the table.

Jessica walked back into the hallway and headed for the living room. Immediately she saw the television on the stand and anything else that might be of worth apparently untouched. But Jessica knew something wasn’t right. The edges of the room may be messy, but they were her mess. There was a pile of magazines on the table that were now neatly stacked, although she had only been flicking through them the night before and knew she would never have left them so pristine.