Scarred for Life (26 page)

Jessica ignored him, skim-reading the company’s official website. ‘It’s just a normal building company with the usual “phone-this-number-if-you-want-us-to-rip-you-off” spiel. There’s no address but there is a list of made-up awards. What type of people give out awards to building companies? “The winner of this year’s best brick award goes to . . .”’

‘They’re out a bit late, aren’t they?’

‘They probably disappeared for lunch and got carried away.’

‘I suppose they could be returning it to the depot?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s a Friday night. Some places have a fleet of vans that they leave in a central place for the weekend. It’s still late to be out and about but it’s only likely to be the company’s owner working this late if it’s a one-man operation.’

‘How do you know so much about builders?’

‘Not building; my dad was a plumber. He used to have to drop a van off every Friday night at his boss’s house and then pick it up again on Monday morning.’

‘Does that mean you could’ve been a plumber?’

‘I suppose.’

‘What happened? You turned up on time for the first day of training and they failed you on the spot?’

Dave burst out laughing but kept an eye on the road and followed the van around a corner, following a sign for Chadderton and the M62.

Jessica’s phone burst to life, with Archie’s name flashing up. As soon as Jessica pressed the button to answer, the DC’s voice screeched through. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Important business.’

‘I’ve got a giant bag of chips here.’

‘So what are you complaining about? There’s a van of underdressed constables who’ll treat you like a conquering hero if you share with them.’

There was a pause as Archie digested her words before responding. ‘Good point.’

The line went dead, with Jessica staring at the blank screen before repocketing it. ‘He sounds happy.’

Dave continued to focus on the road, easing off the accelerator so that he didn’t get too close to the van. ‘Lucky sod.’

Just as Jessica thought the van was about to join the motorway, it took a turn, heading onto a country road with no street lights. Dave dropped back further, steering carefully along the tight turns as the rows of houses were replaced by trees and high bushes. They drove in silence, both unfamiliar with the area. After five more minutes, the van’s brake lights glinted brightly in the dark as it slowed to a near halt. Dave had no option other than to keep driving past the address but Jessica managed a solid glance at the sprawling mansion set back from the road before it was gone. She continued to watch through the rear window as the van pulled off the road onto the driveway. Dave slowed and performed an impressive one-handed U-turn and then turned the headlights off as he eased the car back the way they had come, parking under the shadow of a tree on the opposite side of the road from the house.

The only light came from the faint glimmer of the moon trying to fight its way through the clouds and the glow from within the house. Jessica got out of the car, stepping into a muddy puddle and flinching as it squelched through her socks. She hauled her foot out of the sludge and crept across the road, sticking to the shadows until she was standing next to the gatepost.

Dave slotted in behind her. ‘What are we doing?’

‘Shhh. I don’t know yet.’

The driver of the van had already climbed out and was using a remote control to raise the door of a wide garage on the right-hand side of the grounds. His feet crunched distractingly across the gravel as Jessica took in the scene.

The house was enormous – three storeys high and twenty windows wide. At the front were a fountain and a turning circle. Jessica couldn’t look at properties this large without thinking of a different mansion . . . a different time. She blinked the drowning feeling away, pinching the webbing between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, forcing herself to focus. This was a different house.

Dave must have noticed because he placed his hand in the small of Jessica’s back and leant in closely. His voice was barely a whisper. ‘You okay?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

She meant it.

There were no clues as to whether the house had a number or a name. Jessica could see neither in the grim light. From inside the garage, bright white lights illuminated three other vans parked side by side, exactly as Dave had predicted. Each of them had the three-pronged curved logo in the corner with ‘BUNCE ’N’ BUILDERS’ and the contact details; the only difference was in the level of muck that was attached to the back doors. Parked next to the garage was an old Vauxhall that looked utterly out of place set against the splendour of the rest of the property.

After easing the van in front-first, the driver stepped back out, watching as the door hummed into place. Jessica could see only a silhouette of someone short with broad shoulders and heavy-looking boots. He stood for a few moments staring up at the house and then shrugged, walking briskly towards the front door, tossing the keys from one hand to the other and back again. Somehow, Jessica knew that it wasn’t his house and she wasn’t surprised to see him pushing the keys through the letterbox and then striding back towards the Vauxhall.

Jessica grabbed Dave’s hand and pulled him away from the gatepost, back across the road. ‘Quick,’ she muttered, waiting for him to unlock the car. Behind them an engine growled to life, headlamps raging bright across the road, illuminating the side of the car and the hedges beyond.

Dave fumbled with the key fob, panicking as he plipped the doors open. ‘Shite, he’s going to see us.’

He started to head for the driver’s side, but before he could move any further, Jessica already had the rear door open and shoved him inside. She launched herself after him, tugging the door closed with her foot. The lights from the Vauxhall dipped down and then up as it bumped over a grate at the front of the property, giving the driver an almost perfect view through their car window. Jessica put the palm of her hand over Dave’s mouth and then leant forward, kissing the back of her hand and staring into Dave’s eyes. He was so surprised that Jessica could see the red veins blistering out from the whites as the car lights hung on them for a few seconds before the vehicle turned and headed off along the road.

Jessica used the back of the front seat to heave herself up. ‘What?’ she said, scraping her hair out of her face.

‘Was that really necessary?’

‘I didn’t want him to think we were watching the house.’

‘So you’d rather he thought we were dogging?’

‘You wish – I only had a second to think.’

‘And your first thought was to make him think we were copping off by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere?’

‘Well, I didn’t hear you coming up with anything; you were too busy panicking.’

Jessica opened the door and climbed out, straightening her clothes. Dave followed sheepishly, brushing his hair forward with his hand.

‘What’s up with you?’ Jessica asked.

‘Nothing – apart from the elbow I got in the ribs.’

‘Stop complaining and get a move on. If we’re lucky there might be some chips left.’

‘What are you going to do about the logo?’

‘I don’t know yet – but if you can haul your arse out of bed tomorrow morning, then I know a cracking place we can get breakfast.’

32

The rest of the night’s operation had gone exactly as Jessica had expected: lots of moaning, no results and, perhaps more importantly, a closed chippy, no leftover chips and no one wanting to take the blame for eating the battered sausage. Jessica had no idea why anyone had thought their attacker would be prowling the area night after night after getting away with it twice, but that was far from the only thing going on at the station which she didn’t have a grasp upon.

At a little after two in the morning, Jessica called a halt and they headed back to the station tired and cold. Jessica sent a text message to Garry Ashford, caught up on some of the paperwork that seemed to be breeding on her desk, and then snatched a few hours’ sleep at home before attacking her alarm for doing what it was meant to and heading to the supermarket cafe.

Garry Ashford was already sitting at their usual table, empty mug stained by milk froth in front of him next to a well-scraped plate showing hints of baked bean juice. The relative calm of the weekday crowd had been replaced by weekend chaos, with children running in all directions shrieking as if possessed, pushchairs blocking every spare piece of floor where there might have once been space to walk, and plates, cups and cutlery stacked on every table. Meanwhile, frantic, suicidal-looking members of staff tried to take orders, clean the tables, and not break their ankles on the various toys that had been dropped around their feet.

Jessica swayed around a double pram, stepped over a plastic keyboard, trod on a soft giraffe, almost kicked a lad who dashed across in front of her seemingly from nowhere, and finally fell into the chair next to Garry.

‘We need a new meeting place,’ she said as a baby started wailing just behind them.

Garry looked her up and down. ‘You look like you’ve been sleeping in a bush.’

Jessica rubbed her eyes but didn’t have the energy to stop herself yawning. ‘I’m on lates, so spent most of the night in the passenger seat of a car.’ She nodded over Garry’s shoulder, to where Dave Rowlands was trying to extricate himself from the attention of two under-sevens, who were blocking the way into the cafe, demanding a toll. A boy had his hand out as Dave panicked, wondering whether he should give the kid a pound, or simply barge his way past.

Garry picked up his empty mug, clearly disappointed. ‘How does it feel that one of your constables is in the process of being mugged by a primary school child?’

‘I’m surprised it’s taken this long. Twelve’s the new sixteen – they’re shooting up in the school toilets and impregnating each other, so seven’s the new twelve. They’re probably part of some international smuggling gang.’

Dave was saved by the children’s mother finally noticing her little shites weren’t peacefully sitting next to her. She limped across the cafe wearing light grey leggings that were so tight they were almost grafted to her skin, then grabbed her boys by the arms, dragging them away as Dave apologetically ran the gauntlet of the rest of the cafe. He finally took a seat next to Jessica and Garry, putting his elbows on the table and resting his chin on his hands. His hair was flat and unstyled, eyelids drooping heavily.

Garry puffed out a breath. ‘You look worse than she does.’

‘It’s too early.’

‘It’s almost midday.’

‘I didn’t get to bed until six and I’m working again tonight.’

Garry held his empty mug up. ‘This is a real day out, isn’t it?’

Jessica couldn’t stop yawning but took the not-so-subtle hint and stumbled her way across to the counter, ordering three cappuccinos, four espressos, two full English breakfasts, a caramel shortcake slice, a chocolate éclair and a scone. Her digestive system was going to hate her for it but after a pair of the espressos and half the breakfast, she was feeling almost human. Even Dave had perked up after working his way through his half of the food and his two espressos. Garry had wolfed down his scone in less time than it had taken Jessica to realise that there was a baby on the table next to them eyeballing her.

When they were finished, Dave shoved the empty plates to one side and wearily took a handful of printouts from his bag. Jessica placed the envelope that had been put through her door in the centre of the table, showing Garry the note inside: ‘You’ve got the wrong man’, and explaining that it could only relate to Holden Wyatt. Then she showed him the logo, saying that Damon Potter had been looking into getting a tattoo of it on the day he died, and that they’d spotted it on a builder’s van the night before.

Garry took it all in his stride, saying the logo seemed familiar but he didn’t know what it was, before taking a photo of it on his phone.

Knowing she was under scrutiny at the station, Jessica had to be careful about the type of searches she ran but Garry and Dave had done the work between them.

Dave was skim-reading the top sheet of paper on his pile, before catching Jessica’s eye. ‘You know you said last night that you didn’t know why the website belonged to just a normal building company? That isn’t quite true. Bunce ’N’ Builders was only set up in the last two years and is owned by a guy named Freddy Bunce – except that he’s also involved with at least three other building companies in the area. Triple-A Builders and One-Stop Builders are in the name of his wife, with him as a director, and FB Builders seems to be entirely owned by him.’

Dave fanned the pages out so that Jessica could see what he’d found.

‘Is that some sort of tax thing?’ she asked.

‘Probably, but there’s also a branding thing when you look at the four individual websites. The Bunce ’N’ Builders name seems to be more down-to-earth. They advertise saying there’s no job too small and I think it’s mainly subcontractors. That’s not what’s interesting, though.’

Dave nodded at Garry, who had his own pile of papers. ‘Freddy Bunce is a name that’s vaguely known in news circles,’ he said, passing Jessica a printout of an article. She read the top few paragraphs and then snorted in surprise.

‘I suppose that explains why he’s got such a big house.’

‘Exactly,’ Garry replied. ‘Nine months ago he was given a contract by the council to build a new housing estate for them. No one would reveal the exact amount but we know from freedom of information requests that the council have put in a seven-figure sum; then there’s private financing and central government funding too. In all, it’s going to be eight figures comfortably. That comes on the back of him building up the original company – FB Builders – from scratch. He was a self-made millionaire before this new money.’

‘Do either of you actually know anything about him?’

Garry and Dave were both blank. ‘I found his name in Companies House but that’s it,’ Dave said. ‘That’s when I called Gaz.’

Garry nodded. ‘Apart from the obvious use of his name in the company’s name, there’s hardly anything about him to be found. The council made a big thing of their social housing push and so they had to use the builder’s name on the press release but I couldn’t find anything about him at all. That’s not necessarily a surprise – there are all sorts of people with money around here who you wouldn’t know the name of unless they made a big deal of it.’