Authors: Mari Hannah
‘It’s a simple enough question,’ she said, finally. ‘One that requires an answer.’
‘No, boss.’ Dixon eyeballed her, a flash of anger creeping in. ‘I
didn’t
take possession of any items for safekeeping,
never
saw any money and
wouldn’t
have touched it if I had. I can assure you, I—’
‘Thank you,’ Daniels said. ‘You can go.’
Dixon didn’t move, despite the dismissal.
‘That’ll be all,’ Gormley said.
The constable stared at them both, then turned on his heels and left the room, not bothering to close the door behind him. They watched him walk the length of the incident room, no haste in his
step, his head held high. He didn’t look back, just let himself out through the door at the far end.
Daniels tapped her teeth with her pen. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Hard to say.’ Gormley looked at his watch. ‘Tell me to wind my neck in, but with three murders on the slate, have we got time for this?’
‘We’re making time, Hank. I gave my word to Elliot Milburn. If that means working even later than usual, then so be it. There’s something fishy going on here and I’ve got
a feeling it’s about more than a few missing pound notes.’
‘You telling me the old man’s death wasn’t coincidental?’
‘You already theorized that he set the fire—’
‘Which you rubbished, as I recall! Look, I changed my mind, OK? Everything Elliot told me about Milburn points to him being a decent old man—’
‘What if he saw who set the fire, Hank? What if he was being paid to keep his mouth shut? Elliot thinks the money was his granddad’s life savings, but we’ve only got his word
for it. It may not have been.’
‘Anything’s possible, I suppose.’
‘I entirely accept his death was from natural causes. Stanton’s clear on that score. There was no evidence whatsoever that he was mugged. Assuming for one moment that he
did
see the arsonist and was paid for his silence, maybe the stress of it all is what killed him. Maybe the arsonist took her money back.’
‘The girl with the tat you mean?’
Daniels just looked at him.
I
t had to be said, they weren’t feeling the love. Chantelle Fox had refused them entry at first, until Gormley used his own gentle powers of persuasion, pushing past her
into the house while she demanded to see his non-existent search warrant. There was a nauseating smell in the room, an odour Daniels couldn’t easily identify. It was sweet, like baby sick.
Surreptitiously, she popped a mint in her mouth to mask the stench.
Chantelle rounded on them. ‘I called the ambo, yeah. But that’s all!’ The girl’s eyes shifted back and forth between the two detectives and then she restated her
innocence. ‘There was no one near him when he went down, I swear! So it was either the copper or the medics that robbed the old bastard. Don’t try pinnin’ it on me! I might be
shite but I’m honest shite.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Gormley questioned. ‘Like father like daughter, I heard.’
His comments only served to wind her up. ‘You’ve got the cuffs on me already, haven’t you?’ The girl’s voice grated on her visitors’ ears, like chalk across a
blackboard. ‘Well you’re not putting me in the cells. No way, José! If my arsehole of a father taught me one thing it was to be sure you can get out the back when you got a knock
at the front door. Only I didn’t run, did I? Know why?’
‘Because I stuck my size ten in the door before you slammed it in our faces?’ It was a rhetorical question from Gormley. ‘We could get a warrant, if you insist.’
‘No! I didn’t run ’cause I’ve nowt to hide!’
Daniels ran her eyes over the girl. Not only did she sound like her old man but there was a physical resemblance too. The same pale complexion and gap in her front teeth. The same big mouth,
both literally and figuratively. Arthur Fox was a well-known villain, a prolific thief, philanderer, an all-round waste of space she’d locked up on numerous occasions. He died in a fatal car
accident when he was forty-nine years old. Tampering was suspected but never proved, because of the poor condition of the car, which had worn tyres and dodgy brakes. He certainly had enemies
though.
Daniels glanced at the seahorse tattoo on Chantelle’s arm.
‘Take a good look, why don’t ya?’ The girl stopped chewing the skin around her right thumb and wiped her hand on her tight-fitting dress. She checked her watch. ‘Fuck!
I’m going to miss my bus now!’
‘They run every ten minutes,’ Gormley said. ‘We’re not finished with you yet.’
‘Oh, I get it. I don’t stand a hope in hell, do I? Your lot always close ranks when someone gets caught with their fingers in the till . . .’ Chantelle picked up a thick black
patent-leather belt from a side table. Clipping it round her waist, she slipped on shoes to match, a woeful attempt at the ‘wow’ factor. The five-inch heels gave the impression that
she’d have to work really hard to avoid toppling over. Keen to hit the party city, she looked in the mirror, checking her appearance, teasing out dull, lifeless hair which she covered in a
foul-smelling spray until every last strand was glued to the next. Then she turned to face them. ‘It’s my word against his, right? Yeah, that’ll work. Tell you what, you bring the
thieving git here and I’ll get the truth out of him.’
Daniels tried not to get angry: bent coppers were scum as far as she was concerned. They gave decent officers a bad name and turned the public against them. If Dixon had done wrong, she’d
take great pleasure in stripping him of his pristine uniform and putting him before a court of law. No ifs, buts or maybes – he’d get what was coming to him.
‘You listening to me?’ Chantelle carped. ‘I’m not having it, OK? So you can fuck off and find yourselves another patsy. Anyway, do I look like I’ve got
money?’
Daniels scanned the room. Despite the odious smell, which she still couldn’t identify, it was a tidy house filled with bright-coloured fabrics and no clutter. Ikea influence, she thought.
Apart from the carpet, which was old and worn, everything in the living room looked new, perhaps a little too new. The furniture seemed odd and it took her a moment to figure out why. There was a
definite symmetry to it all, as if it had been deliberately staged. Cushions plumped up on a sofa that had never been sat on. Celebrity magazines scattered across a coffee table artificially, as if
a tape measure had been used to align them just so –
Hello, OK, Grazia
and
Look
among them.
‘You are some nosy cow!’ Chantelle bellowed, lifting a sparkly bag off the floor. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I won a few quid on the lottery,
that’s all.’
Daniels and Gormley exchanged a look, mention of the lottery worrying them both.
‘How much is a few quid?’ Gormley said.
‘Two-fifty, not that it’s any business of yours.’
‘Thousand?’ Daniels asked.
‘Yeah, right!’ Chantelle cracked up. ‘Call yourselves coppers? People round here would kill for less.’
Gormley glared at her. ‘That’s an unfortunate choice of words.’
‘Didn’t mean nothin’ by it,’ the girl said. ‘Hey! What you accusing me of now?’
‘Calm down, Chantelle.’ Daniels tucked her hair behind her ear, logging the girl’s anxiety. She would hardly have mentioned the lottery if she’d had anything to do with
Ivy’s death. She might be from a long line of wasters but the one thing she wasn’t was stupid. ‘I take it you meant two
hundred
and fifty?’
Cocking a sneer at Gormley, Chantelle nodded.
‘Any proof?’ he pushed.
‘You never give up, do you?’ Chantelle applied her lippy in the mirror, glowering at Gormley’s reflection as she did so. Then she swung round to face him. ‘Ask at the
Paki shop, the one on the corner . . .’ She thumbed to the right. ‘It’s their biggest win this year. I’m a bit of a celeb round here, as it happens. Now if you don’t
mind, sling your hook!’
Daniels walked into the hallway, her eyes seizing on a dark baseball cap hanging on a peg near the door. It had no motif and was similar to the one worn by the shy man or woman Maxwell had drawn
her attention to, the one buying petrol from a garage nearby. She turned towards Chantelle, sizing her up, wondering if she could have been that figure.
‘Where d’you buy your petrol?’ she asked.
‘There’s only one place you buy petrol round here. Down the road at the Shell garage.’
Shell, eh?
Daniels opened the front door. ‘Cheers. We might need to see you again.’
‘Not if I see you first.’
Daniels smiled and stepped outside.
Gormley followed her out, flinching as the door slammed behind them. ‘That was a lowballer,’ he said.
‘Just thought I’d throw it in . . .’ Daniels looked across the street where crime-scene tape flapped in the breeze outside Maggie Reid’s house, the windows all boarded up
to keep the local kids out. Then she glanced at Chantelle’s front door. ‘She’s hiding something, Hank. I don’t know what it is, but I can spot a liar when I see one. That
mark there . . .’ She pointed at a black smudge on the wall. ‘That’s where I got the cigarette butt I sent off for forensic testing.’
‘You think she’s the arsonist?’
Daniels’ expression was impenetrable. ‘I think we need that result.’
D
C Lisa Carmichael knocked at the door and waited. There was music coming from inside the flat, Snow Patrol: ‘Chasing Cars’
.
Great choice. She had the
album herself and liked it a lot. The door was opened by a thin wiry man, mid twenties, dressed casually in combats and a faded T-shirt. His hair was wet and he smelled of good aftershave.
‘David Hedley?’ Carmichael showed ID.
The man nodded. ‘This about the accident?’
‘Yes, I need to ask you a few questions, if it’s convenient.’
‘OK.’ Hedley opened the door a little wider but not quite wide enough for her to squeeze through. ‘If it’s not a daft question, what’s a murder detective got to do
with a car crash?’
Carmichael was impressed. Not many folks bothered to look closely at police identification, despite repeated warnings in the press to do so. They just saw the shiny badge and assumed it was
genuine. Most had never heard of the offence of impersonating a police officer.
She pointed into the flat. ‘Can we talk inside?’
Hedley took a step backwards, allowing her in this time, killing his iPod as he followed her into the living room. Carmichael was immediately drawn to the window. She walked towards it and
looked down at the A1 trunk road. It was busy in both directions, cars nose to tail on the northbound carriageway, the route to the best beaches in the country in the opinion of anyone who’d
ever seen the Northumberland coast. Mile after mile of golden, empty sand, the county’s – possibly even the country’s – best-kept secret.
Carmichael wished she was joining them.
On both sides of the road were POLICE ACCIDENT signs, asking witnesses to come forward. More or less routine after a fatal. On the grass verge, there were some wilted bouquets, and on the
southern carriageway someone had placed a makeshift cross. It was sticking out of the ground, waiting to impale the next poor motorcyclist unlucky enough to come off their bike there.
Did people ever stop to think?
‘I told the accident investigators everything I could remember,’ Hedley said as he came and stood alongside her, sighing loudly, staring down at the traffic below. ‘What is it
you want to know?’
Carmichael hesitated long enough to put him on edge. ‘Your statement—’
He glanced sideways. ‘What about it?’
‘You were first to arrive at the scene. Is that right?’
Hedley nodded, his left eye twitching.
‘How long did it take for the emergency services to arrive?’
Staring off into the distance, a sad expression crossed Hedley’s face as he searched for an answer, reliving a memory she suspected he’d rather forget. It took him some time to
speak. ‘Five minutes maybe. Felt like hours . . .’ When he looked back at her, his eyes were misted up. ‘It was mayhem on both sides of the road. I didn’t know what to
do.’
‘I understand,’ Carmichael said gently.
‘Do you? I don’t think so. It’s different for you. You’ve had training and stuff.’ He dropped his gaze, fighting to hide his feelings. ‘I felt so helpless. I
don’t suppose I’ll ever repeat the experience, but I’ve signed up for a first-aid course in case. I never want to feel like that again.’
Carmichael allowed him a moment to compose himself.
‘What do you do for a living, Mr Hedley?’ she said eventually.
Hedley pulled himself out of his trance. ‘I work for the local authority Parks Department. Boring administration, but someone has to do it. That’s why I took up astronomy.’ He
pointed to a large telescope aimed at the sky through the picture window. ‘There’s nowt new on the box these days and it’s a fascinating subject. Keeps
me
occupied,
anyway. Means getting up in the middle of the night but I don’t mind that. I’ve always been a light sleeper and this recent heat-wave hasn’t helped. There was nowt to see
Wednesday night . . .’ He lifted his eyes to the sky. ‘Up there, I mean. I was on my way back to bed when I heard a loud bang. Now I can’t sleep at all.’
‘Isn’t it too light here to get a good look at the stars?’ Carmichael asked.
Hedley suddenly perked up, pleased that his visitor was taking an interest. ‘Are you an enthusiast, yourself?’
Carmichael shook her head. ‘Not personally, but I do know a little about it.’
‘Figures . . .’ For the first time since Carmichael arrived, Hedley managed a smile. ‘The subject bores the pants off most people. When I talk about it to colleagues at work I
can see their eyes glazing over. Doesn’t bother me though. They don’t know what they’re missing.’
Carmichael smiled back. ‘I have an uncle who’s really into it. Has been for years. He lives in the sticks, near Kielder.’
‘Lucky man.’ Hedley paused. ‘Did you know it’s the darkest place in Europe? There’s an observatory up there, open to the public. You should check it out. It’s
absolutely magic. Unfortunately I don’t have the means to move and commute fifty miles a day to indulge my hobby. Who does these days?’