As if by Magic (9 page)

‘Has anyone ever really hurt you?’

Jessica gulped, thinking of the brutal way she had broken up with a boyfriend not too long ago
. She realised most of the hurt throughout her life had been self-inflicted through her own rash decisions. ‘Not really,’ she replied honestly.

‘You’re lucky. I devoted my life to that man and then, as soon as some blonde tart with perky tits popped up, it was thank you and goodnight.’ Brenda’s tone was angry but she hadn’t raised her voice. Instead it felt targeted and raw.

‘What did you do?’ Jessica asked softly.

The woman smiled but thinly and without feeling. ‘What do you think I did?’

‘I think you knew all along that your former husband had claimed insurance money for items that didn’t exist. And when you found out he was going to get re-married, you thought you would do something about it. The easy thing would have been to come to us but what better way to expose what he had done than by creating one final trick. So you had someone create some cheap versions of the items that never existed anyway, and then you arranged for them to be left around the city where you knew someone would find them. Perhaps this was the first time you tried – or maybe there were other attempts that no-one saw. Either way, as a final grand trick, it was pretty successful.’

‘A grand trick indeed,’ Brenda said after a short pause.

‘We tested the bracelet and broach that were recovered,’ Jessica added. ‘We know they’re gold and silver-plated. Nice and cheap but enough to get your ex-husband panicking that he would either have to hand them over to the insurance company, who would know they were fake and perhaps expose the entire fraud, or he would have to pay back money he didn’t have.’

‘And you think a lowly assistant could be capable of such a grand scheme?’

‘All you needed to do was persuade, or pay, someone to leave those boxes around the city. Maybe you knew that person would then pay somebody else?’

‘Interesting,’ Brenda said, rolling the word around her mouth. ‘But I’m not entirely sure why you’re here. Has there been some sort of crime committed?’

Jessica looked at Dave, then back to Brenda. ‘Perhaps surprisingly, no there hasn’t. Well, maybe littering in regards to the boxes, but there are only two people whose names we can connect to the fraud and we have both of them in custody.’

Brenda thought for a moment, running her tongue around the inside of her mouth and uncrossing her legs. ‘Funny that. It sounds like the perfect sort of trick where you put all the preparation in, then you practice over and over until everything is just perfect. Then, when it comes off, everyone goes, “Wow, that was good”.’

Jessica and Dave both stood. She had known the whole time there was little they could do to show Brenda was behind anything that had happened over the past few days. Even if they could, it wasn’t as if they could charge her with anything. Perhaps Balthazar got what he deserved? Jessica couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for everyone involved. He had committed the crime driven by a need to somehow maintain the lifestyle that had been bought by past glories. Geoffrey was trying to keep his father’s business afloat, while Ashleigh – for all her fakery – had shown nothing to say she was only with the older man for the money. Brenda was full of bitterness, while poor old Tony had even been used by giving him the money he needed to spend on more booze.

No-one came out of it with any credit.

‘Anything you’d like to say?’ Jessica asked as she and Dave crossed the threshold to leave.

Brenda stood holding the door, her lip curled slightly as she thought, before it cracked into a wide smile.

Her response was short but said everything it needed to: ‘Ta-da.’

PART TWO

TEN

‘You’ve got a monk on, haven’t you?’

Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel tried to stay calm, knowing Detective Constable David Rowlands was trying to wind her up.

‘I do not have a monk on,’ she insisted. ‘I was merely querying why we have been sent out to visit some remote nutter who thinks he’s seen a bloody cheetah.’

‘I thought it was a panther?’

Jessica wriggled to get comfortable in the passenger seat of the constable’s car as he lurched forward from a set of traffic lights. ‘What’s the difference?’

‘A cheetah’s spotty, a panther’s black.’

‘Either way, we know this mentalist is only attention seeking. He’s probably seen a squirrel or something and got excited.’

Rowlands leaned forward and turned the car’s radio up slightly. ‘I don’t think you can confuse a squirrel and a panther. Besides, we both know why we’re on the DCI’s naughty step – because you made us both miss that training weekend.’

‘That wasn’t my fault – I got us out of a weekend playing pin the tail on the donkey and having hugging parties.’

‘Hugging parties?’

 ‘Yeah, I saw this television thing about it once. They have them in America; it is supposed to reduce your tension levels.’

‘Well, seeing as you’ve got such a monk on, maybe that’s what you need?’

‘I do not have a monk on!’

‘Then why are you shouting?’

Jessica lowered her tone and spoke slowly. ‘Because you keep saying I have a monk on when I don’t.’

‘It sounds like it.’

Jessica stopped speaking in an effort not to give her colleague any further ammunition, watching out of the window as a car did an illegal U-turn and started heading back along Stockport Road towards the centre of Manchester.

‘What are you listening to?’ Jessica asked, sceptically. ‘It sounds like a bunch of kids have been let loose with dustbin lids and a chainsaw.’

‘It’s called music.’

‘Seriously?’

‘We’re not all over the hill, Jess. Some of us are down with the kids.’

Jessica pressed her thumb and forefinger to her temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. ‘I can just picture you at an under-eighteens’ disco, flapping your arms around like a demented duck.’

‘All right, grandma. When was the last time you went out on a proper night out that wasn’t work-related?’

Through the haze of wine from the night before and Detective Chief Inspector Jack Cole’s wicked insistence that she personally visit the “big cat man”, Jessica tried to remember. The only things that popped into her head were evenings with her friend Caroline when she had been at university. Recently, there had been pub visits, mainly with colleagues, and nights in with wine and curry.

‘I was out last month, actually,’ Jessica lied.

‘Where did you go?’

‘Town.’

‘Who with?’

‘You’re a bit nosey aren’t you? I do things outside of work, y’know. What is this station anyway? I want to add it to my list of things I’ll ban if I ever become Prime Minister.’

‘It’s Magic AM. People would never vote for you anyway – you’ve always got a monk on.’

Jessica bit her bottom lip and tried to think of a few ways to get her own back. Spreading rumours around their Longsight Station that Dave had been born with both male and female sexual organs and that his parents had only decided to raise him as a boy at the age of thirteen had gone down hilariously a few months ago.

Rowlands pulled off the main road, heading towards a golf club roughly halfway between Denton and Stockport. He cut through a housing estate Jessica didn’t recognise until they reached a country lane with overhanging trees that encircled the back of the club. As he got to the place where the road dropped under the motorway, he pulled over to the side.

‘Did you see it?’

‘What?’

‘There’s supposed to be some farm thing around here but I didn’t see a sign.’

‘It’s a sign of age – first your hairline starts receding, you’ve got that, then it’s your sight.’

‘I didn’t hear you shouting up to say you’d seen it.’

‘That’s because I wasn’t looking.’

In truth, Jessica hadn’t spotted anything either. Rowlands turned the car around and started driving back the way they had come from until he reached an intersection where a dirt road stretched into the distance.

‘Do you reckon it’s down there?’ he asked, lifting himself out of the driver’s seat trying to get a better view, before setting off along it anyway, throwing up splatters of mud behind them.

‘Why even bother asking me?’ Jessica muttered.

‘This is a bit out in the sticks, isn’t it?’ Rowlands replied, ignoring her.

‘I told you. Nuttersville – we’re practically in Stockport and this guy reckons he’s seen a panther.’

The car lurched into a pot hole and out again as Jessica was thrown forward in the seat. ‘In fairness,’ Dave replied with a smirk, ‘I’ve seen a few beasts out and about in Stockport on a Saturday night.’

Jessica sighed. ‘... And that’s why you’re single.’

As Rowlands was about to reply, the track narrowed, forcing the car to take another violent dip, before it bounced back on to the main mix of stone and mud. The constable carefully negotiated a tight bend before it flattened out to reveal a dilapidated barn and house that appeared as if from nowhere, shielded by overhanging trees.

‘This is how every horror movie begins,’ Jessica said. ‘Some lunatic living in a house in the middle of nowhere down some dodgy back lane.’

Rowlands grunted as he gripped the steering wheel to manoeuvre around another pothole, before edging through the gates that had a sign hanging over the top proudly displaying the name of the farm they were looking for. How anyone could know it was there, Jessica had no idea. The car skidded to a halt, leaving Jessica feeling slightly sick due to the way she had been thrown all ways along the track.

Steadying herself on the top of the vehicle as she climbed out, Jessica’s feelings of being in a horror movie weren’t dented by the state of the house. The outsides would once have been white but was now a mix of brown and grey. The guttering was hanging diagonally across one of the top windows.

As Dave slammed the door on his side, the front door of the house opened and a man began limping towards them waving his arms erratically. Aside from his wellington boots and rolled-up jeans, all Jessica could see was a large bush of shaggy grey hair, with a prickly beard to match.

‘Are you the police?’ he asked, his strong accent almost indecipherable.

Jessica reached for her identification. ‘Yes, are you Percy Short?’

‘Aye, I’m Short, yes.’

Jessica could feel Rowlands trying to suppress a childish snigger, although the man didn’t appear to notice.

‘Do you want to come in?’

Jessica and Rowlands followed Percy into his clutter of a house. At least half-a-dozen pairs of muddy wellies littered the hallway, while there were at least the same number of coats, all varying shades of dark green, dropped on the floor. Jessica stepped over a snaking mess of extension leads that criss-crossed the passage before entering the kitchen.

The room was as grubby as the outside of the house, with a vaguely cream-coloured dining table now mottled with brown specks of something Jessica didn’t know placed in the centre. All of that was eclipsed by the unmistakeable smell of bacon as a haze of smoke wafted across the kitchen.

‘You want some?’ Percy asked, nodding towards a pair of free chairs around the table, and then picking up the sizzling frying pan from the stove.

Jessica had never accepted food in someone’s house while out interviewing but she was finding it hard not to salivate as the aroma filtered through her, despite the state of the house.

‘Um... okay,’ she replied, shrugging towards Rowlands as he raised his eyebrows at her while Percy faced the frying pan.

‘What about you?’ the man added sharply, with a nod towards Rowlands.

‘Yeah, why not.’

‘Bread’s there,’ Percy added, pointing towards a brown wooden barrel on the opposite counter. Inside, Jessica found a large, still-warm loaf that was already sliced into thick wedges. She picked up three plates, put the bread on each of them, and then watched as Percy scooped chunky slices of bacon on to each. He plonked them down on the table, along with bottles of red and brown sauce, three mugs, a bottle of milk, and a metal teapot.

As she squeezed a large dollop of brown sauce on to the soft bread, Jessica knew it was going to be the best breakfast she’d had in years.

She handed the bottle to Dave but he shook his head and begun eating the sandwich dry. Percy poured them all some tea and begun eating himself.

‘So, Mr Short,’ Jessica said in between mouthfuls. ‘I gather you’ve had a bit of a shock?’

She could feel Rowlands’ eyes staring at her, pointing out the hypocrisy of changing her “nutter” opinion entirely because of free food.

Percy nodded. ‘Aye, there was this giant black cat thing skulking around in my yard out where you parked. I was in my doorway and we were watching each other. It had one paw raised like it had been caught out and then it turned and ran straight through the trees towards the golf course.’

Jessica took another bite of the sandwich, using her finger to mop up the brown sauce from her chin. ‘Can you describe the creature?’

‘Aye, it was big and black.’

‘Right...’ She turned to Rowlands. ‘Can you write that down?’

Putting his food down, the constable took out a notepad and began writing.

‘Have you ever seen anything like that before?’

‘Aye, on television.’

‘Right...’ Jessica could hear Rowlands’ pen scraping away and wondered what he could possibly be writing, other than “big and black”. ‘You haven’t actually seen anything like that around here before though, have you?’

‘No, not until last night.’

‘And how big would you say it was?’

The man held out his hands until they were as far apart as he could stretch. ‘About yay big.’

‘“Yay big”,’ Rowlands repeated quietly, in time to the scratches of his pen. Jessica kicked him under the table.

‘What I’m going to suggest,’ Jessica said, trying to keep up the politeness, ‘is that, when we’re finished here, we go outside and you can talk us through the way that it went. We’ll have a look for tracks and, obviously if we see anything, we’ll make a few calls.’