Hit and Run (13 page)

And now, all over the area, families would be talking about them, the Chinleys – terrible tragedy, did you hear, the poor parents, how do you deal with something like that?

‘Mum?’ Janine was switching things off downstairs when Eleanor came down sounding worried.

‘What?’

‘It’s Friday tomorrow.’

Janine groaned, ‘Domestic science.’

‘Food technology,’ Eleanor corrected her impatiently.

‘It’s a bit late now, Ellie. What are you making?’

‘Pineapple upside down cake …’

Yummy, thought Janine.

‘I’ve got the ingredients,’ she said. ‘Connie got them for me but my apron’s got all gunk on. I forgot.’

‘Gunk?’

‘I can’t wear it like that.’

‘Take another.’

‘No!’ Anguished. ‘I want the right one.’ Desperate to fit in, not to get laughed at. And when Janine thought about the aprons in the house, jokey cartoons on them, she could see her point.

Janine sighed. ‘If I hand wash it now …’

‘Can you? Oh, thank you Mum, you’re so kind.’ Eleanor effused.

‘Bring it here – and remember next time.’

‘I will, I promise.’

After she had washed and rinsed and wrung the apron out, she placed it over one of the central heating radiators in the hall to dry

Upstairs she looked in on Tom who was fast asleep and said goodnight to Michael who was still up, playing on his PS2. ‘Mum, I need some trainers.’

‘Your dad said. He can take you at the weekend.’ She looked at him: wrists and ankles sticking out of the chill-out suit he wore to sleep in. ‘You’re growing out of those,’ she told him, ‘you’d better get some new ones – in a bigger size – while you’re in town, and anything else that doesn’t fit. You’re going to be enormous.’

He grinned, ducked his head with pleasure. It was such a funny age, she thought, boyish one minute and struggling to be treated as an adult the next.

In her own room, she sorted out her clothes for the following day, not bothering about noise. If Charlotte woke now and had a feed then she might go through till morning. But the infant slumbered steadily on.

Janine’s mind was weaving around work: imagining Stone firing at his friend, Rosa bundled into the car boot, hearing Debbie Chinley weeping, wondering about Butchers’ brother. What age had he been? And was Butchers younger or older? Had Butchers witnessed the accident? She heard the front door, Connie coming in. Janine got into her bed, sighing in appreciation at the prospect of sleep. She turned off the light and drifted off within minutes. When Charlotte woke in the night, only the once thank God, Janine got up on auto-pilot, her limbs heavy her head thick with sleep. The baby went back down without much fuss and Janine crawled back to bed.

As she opened her eyes to first light the next morning, Janine felt a skinny arm brush against hers. Tom had joined her during the night. Now he smiled at her, his eyes alert. She leant over to kiss him and he squealed. ‘Watch out, you’ll squash Frank.’

Oh, for pity’s sake. ‘Tell him to shove over, then.’

‘Frank can fly,’ Tom said seriously. ‘He’s like me, ‘cept he can fly.’

Janine grunted.

‘You know in heaven,’ Tom said, ‘do you stay with your family?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, would Dad be with us?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What if you had two Dads?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘And Tina? Would she go with us?’

Relentless logic. Janine had had enough of this conversation. ‘I think the idea of heaven is that everybody’s happy and everybody gets on.’

Tom turned to her, his face suddenly taut with anxiety, his eyes huge. ‘Mummy, I don’t want to die.’

She felt her heart clutch and she reached out to hug him. ‘Oh, darling, nobody wants to die. You won’t die for a long, long, long time.’

‘How do you know?’ he demanded. He didn’t mention Ann-Marie, didn’t need to.

‘I just do,’ she insisted. ‘Nearly everybody lives to be older than Grandma and Grandpa. And you will. And heaven will have all your favourite things in and all the people you like.’

‘And Frank?’

‘And Frank,’ she agreed.

Butchers caught her before she left home to tell her that they had confirmation on the blood from the boot of the car. It was Rosa’s.

Finding each piece of the puzzle brought mixed feelings for Janine: the thrill of success, of making headway and the more melancholy acceptance of what it betrayed of the victim’s last hours.

The relatively small amount of blood indicated that Rosa had already been dead when she had been placed there – her heart no longer pumping. Janine mentally ticked off what they knew so far: Rosa Milicz’s battered corpse had been carried in the boot of the stolen car, she had been put in the river at the dye works, Gleason had been there and most likely Stone. The men had stolen the car from Harper, Stone’s boss, and later they had accidentally killed Ann-Marie. After being questioned and released, someone, in all probability Stone, had shot Gleason. There was still a long way to go but they were moving in the right direction.

She rang Richard and shared the news. ‘I’ve postponed the briefing. I’m going to pay a call on Harper,’ she told him. ‘He must have known Rosa was here illegally. I want to see what he has to say for himself. Do you want to meet me there?’

‘Will do.’

Harper was still in his dressing gown when he let them in, his hair damp from the shower.

‘Your car, Mr Harper, we’ve run some further tests. We’ve found traces of blood in the boot.’

He blanched at the news and looked from one to another. ‘Blood? Oh, God. Are you sure?’

Janine nodded. ‘We’ve matched it – it’s Rosa’s.’

‘Oh, God.’ He paused. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘I don’t like it either,’ she said coldly.

Harper looked wary. With one hand he clasped the collar of his robe.

‘Your car is stolen by your bouncer, it’s used to transport the dead body of a dancer from your club … just exactly what is it you are not telling us?’

‘Nothing.’ His outrage was plausible.

‘You haven’t got a clue?’ Richard asked him.

‘No, honestly, I …’

‘Not an inkling?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t buy it,’ Janine said sharply.

He met her gaze, the eyelid on his lazy eye flickering for a moment. He gave a little snort.

‘Rosa was here illegally,’ she pressed on.

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘No?’

‘No. I’d never have taken her on.’

‘Really? I got the impression that you weren’t all that bothered about record keeping, documents and the like.’

‘That’s different – something like this, we could get closed down, couldn’t we?’

‘When did you last see Rosa?’

‘We’ve been over all this,’ he exploded. ‘Why can’t you people just accept that I don’t know anything about it. I’m sorry she’s dead but I’ve no idea who killed her. I’d no idea she was illegal. End of story.’

‘You didn’t answer my question, Mr Harper,’ Janine said flatly, ‘when did you last see her?’

He pivoted away and back, sighing. He pinched the bridge of his thin nose as if garnering patience. ‘Sunday, at work.’ He dropped his hand and made eye contact with her, trying to stare her out. She looked away first, deliberately – not prepared to play his little game. ‘We’ll need to talk to you again,’ she said, ‘I’m sure.’

As he showed them out he spoke to Richard. ‘I was thinking, the car insurance, will I have to explain all this?’

Richard gave a harsh laugh. Janine glared at him. Was the man for real? Neither of them dignified his query with an answer.

Outside, Richard said, ‘Bring him in to get him talking?’

‘On what grounds? We’ve verified the taxi, the casino, the report of the stolen car.’ She sighed. The fact that Stone had taken Harper’s car still niggled her – it seemed so reckless. Why take that one rather than a stranger’s? Fouling his own backyard.

‘What if Harper was mixed up in it and Rosa was killed before his car got nicked?’ Richard suggested.

She swivelled her eyes, ‘Then why report the car stolen, why not keep schtum?’

‘OK, scotch that. Besides,’ he admitted, ‘we can tie Gleason and Stone to the car and to the dumping of the body.’

‘We’ll run background checks on Harper – see if that throws up anything. I trust my instincts …’ She opened the passenger door.

Richard raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.

‘… and my instincts say he’s involved.’ She settled back into the seat. She looked at Richard as he got behind the wheel. ‘All we need to do is find out how.’

‘Piece of cake,’ he laughed.

‘Well, it might not be easy,’ she granted, ‘but all things are possible and we’re not going to let Mr Harper so much as draw a breath without looking into it.’

Lee Stone’s known family (ex-foster mother, two sisters and a half brother) had been visited – none of them had seen or heard from him.

‘No, love. He never kept in touch,’ said his foster mother. ‘Shock seeing him on the telly like that. And you reckon he shot this other bloke?’

‘Haven’t seen him for years,’ his half-brother said when the officers talked to him in the pub he ran. ‘We’re not exactly close. In fact the last time I saw him he tried to flog us a dodgy motor. I told him I wasn’t interested. And I’m still not.’

‘If he does get in touch you’ll let us know?’

‘My pleasure.’

‘Might do.’ Stone’s younger sister offered when asked the same question at the launderette where she worked. ‘Would there be any money in it? A reward like?’ She was twenty and heavily overweight, her eyes darkened with kohl, her hair straw-like, high gloss on her lips. Her tongue worried at a cold sore at the corner of her mouth.

‘Not at this stage.’

She grunted. ‘He’s a bit handy with his fists, our Lee. I wouldn’t want to make an enemy of him. If he knew I’d put you onto him …’ She shuddered.

‘We wouldn’t divulge any names.’

‘He might guess though. I know it’s not right if he’s ‘owt to do with that shooting …’ she wrinkled her nose, shrugged, ‘but it might never happen.’

The elder sister, contacted at a call centre in Hyde, was more succinct. ‘Fuck off, he’s my brother, and I’m no grass.’

Discreet enquiries were made at The King’s Head and The Willows as well as the Pool Hall on the main road. No one had seen hide nor hair of the man. And no one had a good word to say about him.

Butchers took an hour, an early lunch. He drove down through Rusholme, stopped on the curry mile for a beef biryani take-away and ate it in the car. From there he made his way through Withington and west towards Chorlton.

It was years since he’d been down here. He parked on a side road and walked up to the gates, feeling a lurch of anxiety: the place looked different and he couldn’t remember which way to go. After a while he got his bearings, walking through the huge, flamboyant graves with their biers and angels and elaborate carvings to the more modern sections behind.

He found the place. The lettering on the grey, mottled marble had originally been painted in gold. A lot of it had faded though the carved dedication still ran clear.

ANDREW COLIN BUTCHERS

1 MAY 1974 – 22 JUNE 1983

BELOVED SON AND BROTHER

REST IN PEACE

He gave a heavy sigh, felt the old sensation of grief lodge in his chest. Never done with it. He had been fifteen when Andy had gone, Andy just nine. He had been drenched in guilt and impotent rage. Why hadn’t he been kinder to his brother, why had it been him and not Ian? The last memory he had was lodged like a splinter in his heart; telling Andy not to touch his tapes again or he’d bloody batter him, the flash of resentment on the lad’s face. And Ian had driven himself half mad with blame. If he hadn’t yelled at Andy he might have gone out to play later. Five minutes – it would have saved him. Ian had worked away at the guilt, poking at the wound, helping it to fester and sting.

He had never said anything to his parents. Couldn’t. They had folded, collapsing in on themselves, behaving like zombies: blank, empty, hollowed out.

As that first Christmas had approached he’d found himself drowning. He barely slept, he stayed off school. He had stomach-ache and terrible migraines. There was no point to anything anymore.

One afternoon he bought a bottle of rum at the corner shop. He took it up into the little wood near the railway cutting. The trains went through every half hour. He drank the rum in big gulps, burning him as it went down.

It was cold and the light was fading as he finished the bottle. He checked his watch and scrambled clumsily down the bank. It was thick with brambles which cut painful gouges in his legs and his hands and arms.

He stood at the side of the tracks, feet unsteady on the large lumps of gravel. It was nearly dark and there was no lighting along this section of the track.

He strained to hear the train coming but the rails and the overhead wires were silent. He caught the sound of scrabbling from the bank opposite. Some creature moving about: cat or squirrel or hedgehog.

He waited but no train came. He couldn’t see to read his watch anymore. His eyes felt hot and his head spun. He felt the sudden clench in his guts, a wash of saliva flood his mouth and then the rush of vomit. He doubled over and was sick all over his shoes. Over and over until there was just a sour, watery foam.

Left with a raging thirst and a devastating headache he climbed back up the bank, lashing back at the thorns that lacerated him.

When he stumbled into the house, reeking and bleeding and insolent his mother flew at him. Her harsh words were the first sign of passion since Andy’s death.

His father, arriving back from work and told of his behaviour, had instructed him to pull himself together, sort himself out and get a bloody job if he was done with school. He then made Ian clean his own shoes and put his clothes in the washing machine.

After he had had a bath his mother had wiped the gashes on his limbs with TCP. It had been agony.

He applied for the police force the following week. Not with any noble intention: it was a job, and they said you got accommodation at a good rate too.