Sam and Charlotte were walking towards the babysitter’s house, hoping to find out exactly what had gone on with Henry Mason that was so bad that Claire had walked out. They’d called the FLO, who’d got Molly’s address from Claire.
‘We go back to the station after this visit,’ Sam said. ‘We’ve followed a trail but we can’t keep away from the squad all day.’
‘Agreed,’ Charlotte said. ‘I just hope this might give us something to go back with.’
That was always the hope. The first day of a murder investigation was always like this: poking around lives, hoping for the quick answer. Most often, things slowed down until the forensic hits started to arrive and versions of events given by the guilty at the start of the case began to unravel.
The address was a small terrace on the other side of Oldham, one in a long line of gleaming redbrick houses broken only by the regular pattern of a door and one window. Cars blocked both pavements and speed bumps did their bit to slow traffic down, but the steep slope made it a magnet for young men trying to recreate car chase scenes. Parking was hard to find, so Sam had left his car a few streets away.
Charlotte knocked softly on the door. It was answered straight away by a woman in her early thirties, in black jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, her mousy hair tied loosely.
Sam identified himself and asked, ‘Molly Benson?’
‘No, I’m not Molly. What do you want with her?’
‘We need to speak with her.’
‘Is it about Henry Mason?’ Before Sam could say anything, she said, ‘People were talking about it on Facebook. I can’t believe it. I really can’t.’
‘Is Molly in?’
The woman thought for a moment but then stepped aside.
The door opened straight into the living room, where a leather sofa was pushed against the rear wall. The back room held a dining table, visible through the open door, with the stairs going from a small door in the corner of the room.
‘She’s only just come in,’ she said. ‘I’m her mum, Hazel.’ She went to the stairs and shouted up, ‘Molly! Someone to see you.’ As footsteps sounded through the ceiling, Hazel said, ‘I’m not going to say I’m sorry about Henry, because I didn’t like him, but I’m sorry for Claire and the boys. I work with her. She’s my manager. She’s a nice woman.’
As Molly arrived in the living room, panting, Sam and Charlotte exchanged glances. Molly was a child. She was still wearing her school uniform of black trousers and white shirt, although the shirt wasn’t tucked into her trousers and the top button was undone.
‘It’s the police,’ Hazel said. ‘About Mr Mason.’
Molly’s eyes widened and she went to sit down. She looked up at her mother, who sat on a chair opposite. Charlotte sat down next to Molly as Sam leaned against a wall.
‘How old are you, Molly?’ Charlotte said.
‘Fourteen,’ Molly said, her voice quiet and nervous.
She was a young-looking fourteen, Sam thought. If something had gone on with Henry Mason, he couldn’t have made a mistake about her age.
‘Have you heard about Mr Mason?’ Charlotte said.
‘He’s been killed,. Mum said.’
‘That’s right. So we need to find out what we can about him, to work out why someone would do this.’
Molly fidgeted but didn’t respond.
‘What did you think of Mr Mason?’
Molly looked at her mother, who nodded for her to continue.
‘I used to think he was all right, because he was funny. When I babysat for him, he’d drive me home and tell me jokes. But then, well, that thing happened.’
‘What happened?’
Molly blushed. ‘We weren’t going to tell the police.’
‘It’s all right, it’s different now,’ her mother said.
‘It happened the last time he drove me home,’ Molly said. ‘He seemed different. Like, way more intense. He was telling me how pretty I was, and how he liked seeing me so grown up now. And he started asking me about boyfriends and things.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘There was nothing to tell. I tried to laugh it off but he kept on. Then he stopped.’
‘What do you mean, stopped?’ Charlotte said.
‘I hadn’t realised but we’d gone a longer way home and we were down this quiet street. He turned off the engine and got real intense, like way more than before. He stroked my leg and I didn’t know what to do. I clamped them together, but he carried on. Then…’ She looked at her mother again. ‘Then he got his thing out.’ Molly’s blush deepened. ‘He tried to make me touch it but I wouldn’t. So he did it himself. Once he’d, you know, finished, he zipped himself up and set off driving. He didn’t say anything after that, until we got here. Then he said I shouldn’t say anything because he’d get into trouble, and it wouldn’t be fair on his boys.’
‘When did you tell your parents?’
‘When Claire asked me to babysit again a few weeks later. I started crying, because my parents wanted me to babysit so that they could go out too, and it seemed like I was spoiling their night. I had to tell them.’
Sam looked across at Hazel, who was sitting forward, her jaw set. ‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘What did you do?’ Sam said to Hazel.
‘I called Claire and had it out with her,’ she said. ‘It would make it hard at work but no one touches Molly like that or does what he did.’
Molly looked up. ‘Mr Mason’s murder, is it anything to do with what happened to me?’
Sam thought about that and guessed at the anger inside the house when they’d found out.
Hazel must have guessed at his thoughts, because she said, ‘My husband works at Dewhursts. He’s been on the night shift at the factory all week. I know you’ll want to check. He’s either there or in bed.’
‘And you?’
‘Here, watching television.’
Sam scribbled down details of the programmes she watched, to check the listings. He knew it would come to nothing, though. Henry Mason’s murder seemed to have some planning to it, the meeting in a park, so Hazel wouldn’t get her alibi wrong. All she had to do was record the programmes and watch them when she got in. Who would ever know?
‘Will I have to go to court?’ Molly said.
‘I hope not, but you’ve helped,’ Sam said.
‘Have I?’
‘Yes, very much.’
Sam and Charlotte said their farewells, Sam leaving his business card behind. Once they were back in the car, Charlotte said, ‘That changes things. Henry Mason liked them young. Very young. His world is starting to look a bit murkier.’
‘Could that be our motive? An angry father? Molly might not be the first person he tried it on with.’
‘And Molly’s father?’
‘We’ll call Dewhursts from the station. Right now, it’s time to report back. Let’s see how everyone else has done.’
Joe was waiting at the end of the alleyway that led to Mother Mac’s. It gave him enough of a view in case Melissa Proctor turned the other way but with a busy street to lose himself in if she came directly towards him. He didn’t mind waiting. He’d been waiting ever since his eighteenth birthday. A few hours in a dirty back street would be no hardship.
More than an hour passed before he heard the door go at Mother Mac’s. Joe peered along the alleyway, wondering if it would be one of the daytime boozers, and was relieved to see that it was Melissa. She was heading his way, looking down, sorting out the contents of a small handbag.
He slunk back behind a long-defunct doorway, now just a backdrop of fly-posters advertising upcoming gigs. He wanted her to reach the main street before she saw him. If she saw him too soon, she’d retreat into the sanctuary of the pub.
As she came onto the street, Melissa was looking through her purse for money and didn’t glance towards Joe. He stepped out of the doorway, ready to follow. Her purse went back into her handbag as a black cab rumbled along the street, the yellow light shining. Her arm went into the air.
The cab pulled into the kerb to pick her up. As she opened the door to climb into the back, Joe came up quickly behind her and followed her in.
Melissa sat in the seat with a jolt, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘You?’ she said. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
‘I need to talk,’ Joe said.
A voice from the front said, ‘Everything all right back there?’
‘You know where I work, you kept my card,’ Joe said. ‘You know you’ll be safe.’
Melissa frowned, her lips pursed, before she said, ‘This ride is on you.’ She leaned forward and said, ‘Ancoats, Blake Mill.’
Joe settled back in the seat as the taxi set off.
Melissa’s arms were folded. ‘This had better be good. Do lawyers normally chase down people like this?’
‘No, not normally,’ he admitted. ‘This isn’t a normal situation.’
Melissa stayed silent as the cab turned into the streets that would take them towards Ancoats. Joe let her stay that way, because for as long as he wasn’t saying anything, he wasn’t upsetting her.
Eventually, Melissa said, ‘So are you helping him, or working against him?’
Joe almost laughed. ‘Both. Your brother is my client, but I need to know more about him, good or bad.’
‘Not much good, plenty of bad,’ Melissa snapped.
‘Explain?’
Melissa went silent again. The converted mills and apartment buildings were getting closer, the short journey to Ancoats nearly over.
‘Melissa?’
‘You don’t know much about him, I can tell,’ she said.
‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘Are you single?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Take me for a drink tonight and I’ll tell you all about dear sweet Mark.’
‘A drink?’ Joe said, confused.
‘Yes. Not too tricky to understand, is it?’
The taxi made a right turn and the driver said, ‘Here okay?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Melissa said, and then to Joe, ‘Collect me here at seven. I’ll tell you all you need to know.’
‘But how do you know I haven’t got plans?’
‘If you’ll loiter down alleyways for me, you’ll break plans.’ Her look softened and a smile crept across her face. ‘Perhaps I’m just after some intelligent company.’
With that, Melissa climbed out of the cab and walked towards an apartment building, seven storeys of a converted mill looking towards the murky brown water of the Rochdale Canal.
‘Where to now?’ the driver said.
‘Castlefield,’ Joe said, and then sat back in his seat. He’d just been asked on a date by Mark Proctor’s sister. How the hell had he been dragged into that?
A thin blue carpet lined the corridor to the Incident Room and most of the doors from it opened into empty rooms, where old notices fluttered against walls that bore the scars of yellowing sticky tape.
The station had once been the heart of the small town on the edge of the city, until Manchester swallowed it up and someone decided that the community no longer needed a heart. It housed one of the Major Incident Teams because it meant the team could grow or shrink, depending on the case. Sam liked the sense of history, although it did feel as though the building was slowly crumbling around them, from the clanking radiators to the flickering strip lights. It was too cold in winter and too hot in summer, but Sam had grown to see it as his home as far as his job was concerned.
As Sam and Charlotte walked into the Incident Room, everyone looked round. There were more people than usual; it looked like a second murder had helped Brabham pull in some new recruits. It was warm, though, too many people squeezed into a room that had been heated up by the sun for most of the day. It smelled of stale cigarettes and sweat and dried-out coffee cups.
Brabham was at a desk in the corner, so he could see everything that was going on. As they walked over, he said, ‘Glad you could join us.’ He looked at Charlotte when he said it, and she blushed. ‘What have you got?’
Sam spoke up. ‘Henry Mason seemed like an ordinary guy but he had a few secrets. All the trappings of a good life – nice house, nice family – but I’m guessing it wasn’t exciting enough for him. He tried it on with the fourteen-year-old babysitter and his wife left him.’
‘When?’
‘It happened a couple of months ago, but his wife only found out two week’s ago.’
‘That’s two areas for suspicion,’ Brabham said. ‘His wife and the babysitter’s family.’
‘I’m not sure there’s much in either.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Claire Mason was angry that we were in the house and didn’t know who we were,’ Sam said. ‘If she’d been involved, I reckon she would have been there playing happy families. And she was protective towards her sons, keeping her husband’s behaviour quiet to protect them. I can see how she might have left Henry, but kill him? No, I’m not convinced.’
‘What about the babysitter? Who are her parents?’
Charlotte spoke up. ‘Hazel and Paul Benson from Oldham. We didn’t see Paul, he was at work, just started his shift at Dewhursts. Hazel works for Mason’s wife.’
The detective closest to them tapped on his keyboard. ‘Auburn Terrace in Werneth?’
‘Yes, that’s him.’
More taps on the keyboard. ‘He’s got some form for violence. No domestic warning markers, and they go back a few years, but he’s been handy with his fists.’
‘Working-class guy from Oldham who got in a few scraps when he was younger, most likely,’ Charlotte said.
‘But still worth a look,’ Brabham said. ‘Call Dewhursts, check when he was there. Did you ask about Keith Welsby?’
‘Yes,’ Sam said. ‘Claire Mason hadn’t heard of him, but we’ve dropped off Mason’s computers at headquarters. They might reveal something.’
‘We need to link Mason and Welsby,’ Brabham said. ‘That’s our focus. Have you got any ideas?’
‘Their ordinariness,’ Sam said. ‘Welsby was a teacher. Unassuming. Quiet. Unremarkable, even. Yet both he and Mason died loitering in quiet places at night.’
‘Perhaps their ordinariness is their cover?’ Brabham said. ‘They might have dodgy connections we don’t know about.’
‘Mason’s house didn’t seem like something from the criminal underworld, though,’ Sam said. ‘There were some debts, house clean and ordered, but nothing too extravagant. You know what the high-flying criminals’ houses are like: they can’t put the money in the bank so they spend it. Jacuzzi bathrooms, cars that are too good for the neighbourhood, grand ornaments. Mason’s house was just – what’s the word? – aspirational.’
‘Were his debts greater than he would let on?’ Brabham said. ‘Loan sharks?’
‘Loan sharks don’t kill,’ Charlotte said. ‘They threaten and frighten, and perhaps maim, but murder? No.’
‘That depends on the level of debt. They could also go after Mrs Mason for it.’
‘But what about Keith Welsby?’ Sam said. ‘Mason’s bloody fingerprint was on the knife. And it fits with it being Mason.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The knife used to kill Keith Welsby was left at the scene, a fingerprint on it. Our theory was always that the killer panicked and threw it away, aiming for the canal, because it was caught in a bush overhanging the towpath. Who’d panic more than someone unused to crime? We just need to work out why Mason would murder a private, unassuming teacher.’
‘Private can mean secretive too,’ Brabham said. ‘Just because he stayed quiet at work doesn’t mean that he wasn’t hiding a nastier side. Was Welsby after Mason and Mason got the better of him, and last night was about payback?’
Sam shook his head. ‘Everything we found out about Keith Welsby suggested that he was a likeable teacher who led an ordinary life. We found nothing at his house. This is something different.’
‘Explain.’
‘I don’t know, just a gut feeling. For reasons we can’t yet fathom, a car salesman is implicated in the murder of a teacher he didn’t know. At least that’s the theory. Because of that, the car salesman himself was murdered. There is some kind of circle here but I don’t think it’s complete yet.’
‘Not a circle,’ Brabham said. ‘They topple into each other, like a chain.’ His eyes brightened. ‘No, like dominoes.’
‘But there are only two deaths. Hardly dominoes, sir.’
‘But that’s how they run, isn’t it? For now, you keep on the family. Go through Mason’s Facebook page, and Welsby’s. Look for a connected friend. Speak to every friend and see if they know the other. You’ve got an evening of breaking bad news so share it out amongst you. If someone doesn’t seem keen on talking to you, chase it.’
‘Perhaps Mason found Welsby already dead and panicked,’ Sam said. ‘That’s the other scenario that could fit. He’s where he shouldn’t be, because he’s seeing someone else, so he doesn’t ring it in. He might have been the witness to that murder, and his murder is just to eliminate witnesses.’
‘There’s something in that,’ Brabham said. ‘It doesn’t really matter whether he committed that murder. We just know there’s a connection. If we can find that, everything else should follow.’
Sam went to his usual desk, Charlotte with him.
He pulled out the bank statements taken from Henry Mason’s house. Claire had agreed to him taking them, but he could have got them anyway. Claire’s permission just saved him some time. ‘I’ll go through these, to look out for a pattern, like regular large cash withdrawals or debits to debt companies.’
‘I’ll do the Facebook stuff,’ Charlotte said, and then, ‘What do you think about Brabham’s notion, this domino thing?’
‘It’s meaningless,’ Sam said. ‘There are two murders. That’s not a domino effect.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said.
As they both set about their duties, Sam smiled to himself. This was his favourite part of any investigation: the trawl. The information was here somewhere. It was just a case of finding it.