Snow Kills (21 page)

‘You know Donny Longbottom?’ said Andy.

Ryan looked sideways at his mother, then furtively at the detectives.

‘Look, you’re not in trouble, we just want to know if you know him,’ Andy said.

‘I sometimes hang out with him. Mum thinks he’s a bad influence, though.’

‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told him I don’t want him seeing that lad,’ Mary said, staring at her son.

‘Would you say he was a mate of yours then?’ asked Ned.

‘Guess so. He can be a bit strange but he’s a laugh too,’ he sniggered.

‘So, it’d be fair to say that you knock about with him then?’ asked Andy.

‘Yeah, sometimes.’

‘What do you mean by the word strange?’ said Ned.

Ryan screwed up his face. ‘He’s obsessed, with girls you know ...’ he stopped and looked at his mum.

‘Carry on Ryan, I’m sure you can’t shock your mum. She’s probably heard it all before,’ Ned said. He could see Mary Merryfield twisting the wedding ring around on her finger.

 ‘He thinks every girl he sees fancies him. He follows them about, looking through windows and stuff. He’s a bit of a perv – but I wouldn’t tell him that, he’s a lot bigger than me.’

‘You might not be surprised then to know that he’s recently been locked up for attacking a young girl and we’ll be speaking to him about the girl that went missing on the night we are asking you about.’

Ryan sat up straight. ‘No?’ he said his eyes wide and disbelieving.

‘What did I tell you?’ Mary Merryfield gasped, her hooded eyes moved right and up to the ceiling.

‘Were you out on Manchester Road with Longbottom on White Wednesday, Ryan?’ said Ned.

‘You came home wet through that night, didn’t you? Remember, I asked you what you had been doing?’

Ryan looked into his mother’s face but said nothing.

‘I said, you’ll get bloody pneumonia if you didn’t start wearing a decent coat instead of that damn denim jacket, remember?’ said Mrs Merryfield, before her son had chance to deny it.

‘Is that right Ryan?’ said Ned.

‘Yes,’ he said softly.

‘Were you drinking? Did you at any point bang on a car on the Manchester Road that night while in drink?’ said Andy.

Ryan sat perfectly still and made no reply.

‘Well, did you?’ said Ned.

‘I’m too young to drink,’ he said sheepishly.

‘Ryan you’re not in trouble for drinking, we’re more interested in the young girl that went missing that night and we need all the help we can get to find her. We need you to be truthful with us, so we don’t have to waste any more of our time coming back to see you again,’ said Andy.

Ryan looked down.

‘And you don’t need to protect Longbottom either, or worry about reprisals because he’s locked up, and will be for some time. Come on tell us what happened that night. Where did you meet Longbottom?’ said Andy.

‘If you know anything Ryan, tell them,’ said Mrs Merryfield sternly.

‘Okay!’ he turned, snapping at her. ‘I was with him. We were walking home from Harrowfield. We’d been building a snowman in his garden before going into town to get his medication. I was freezing.’

‘Well, whose fault was that?’ said Mrs Merryfield. Ned gave her a withering look.

‘Go on,’ said Andy.

‘He gave me a swig out of his bottle of whisky, said it would keep me warm. He told me he’d got it from Akram’s Off Licence on the precinct. He said that it were easy to nick it because it was Mr Akram’s daughter that was serving on and he reckoned she fancied him,’ he said, rolling his eyes.

‘Then what?’ said Andy.

‘We stood chatting in a shop doorway and he was going on about what he’d like to do to Akram’s daughter. Then he suggested we go on up the main road home as somebody said there’d been a crash, it was blocked, or sommat. It was snowing like hell and I just wanted to go home because I knew I’d get into bother with her,’ he said, looking in his mother’s direction. ‘I knew she’d go mad.’

‘She’s the cats mother!’ snapped Mrs Merryfield.

‘Did you go with him?’ said Andy.

‘Not far.’

‘Why?’

‘He started going down people’s paths and stuff, looking in their windows. He was trying to catch someone getting undressed, naked and that, he said. At one house he got up the drainpipe onto a porch roof because from the road you could see this woman walking about in her bedroom with what looked like a towel around her from where I was standing.’ Ryan sniggered. ‘The drainpipe came away from the wall and made a right noise, so I ran off.’

‘So you both went to try look at this half-naked woman?’ said Andy.

‘Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but yeah, I suppose we did. Sorry mum,’ he said turning towards his mum with a bowed head. ‘I think Donny frightened the woman though.’

Mrs Merryfield looked at him with tears in her unblinking eyes.

‘How’d you mean?’

‘Well when I ran I heard this scream and when he caught up with me he was laughing. He was still buttoning up his flies, so you didn’t need to be too clever to guess what he’d done.’

Andy and Ned looked briefly at each other.

‘Do you know which house it was?’

Ryan shook his head.

‘Okay, let’s put it this way, if we asked you to show us, do you think you could?’ said Ned.

‘Now?’

‘No, not just now but another time maybe?’

‘I know whereabouts it was and it was the only house with no curtains upstairs. Like I said before, Donny notices stuff like that.’

‘So go on, what happened then?’ Ned said.

‘Snow was really, really heavy. It bothered me, like I say I was cold, wet and hungry by this time. Donny was drinking, a lot.’

‘My son’s a peeping tom. How am I going to live that down,’ Mrs Merryfield said quietly as she wiped away a tear that ran down her cheek with a handkerchief from her apron pocket. Ryan looked at his mum as she blew her nose loudly.

‘Carry on, Ryan. Anything else you can remember from that night?’ said Ned.

‘There was a car at the side of the road and Donny said he knew whose it was. He banged on it and shouted something to the person inside but I didn’t see who it was, I only heard a woman’s voice. He thought it was highly amusing. Like I say, he was drunk,’ he said by a way of an explanation. ‘Then a man shouted at us. He sounded really angry and so we legged it. Donny went one way and I headed home, I’d had enough and that’s it. God’s honest truth mum, I haven’t seen him since.’

‘And that’s everything you know?’ said Andy.

‘I swear,’ he said, nodding his head.

‘You say Longbottom said he knew the person whose car he was banging on?’ Andy said.

‘He said he did, but he says he knows lots of stuff, just like...’

‘He thinks everyone fancies him,’ said Ned, nodding.

‘I don’t know whose it was. The cars were all covered in snow but it was a pink car though, I could see that much.’

‘And you don’t know who owns the car?’ Ned said.

‘No, it was a woman’s voice, that’s all I know.’

‘What about the person who shouted at you?’

‘It was a man but I didn’t stick around to see him, he sounded proper mad. Donny shouted ‘run’, and I scarpered.’

‘We’ll need a statement from you, Ryan. It may help us with the girl’s movements before she went missing.’

Mrs Merryfield nodded. ‘So the girl that’s gone missing, that’s her car you think?’

‘Yes it is,’ said Andy.

‘There won’t be a problem with you giving a statement, will there Ryan?’

‘No, mum.’

Andy and Ned were pleased. They had a statement from Ryan Merryfield. It was a few new pieces in the jigsaw puzzle. Donny Longbottom could now be put at the scene and they had no doubt the ‘flasher’ reported that night had been down to him too. Could it also have been Norris Regan who had shouted at them?

Dylan picked up his mobile.
‘It’s gonna be a late one love. One of the lads is coming back for tea, but don’t worry, I’ve warned him it’ll be fish and chips,’
he texted Jen.

Dylan’s office phone rang. Vicky walked in the office as he picked it up and she stood quietly waiting for him to finish.

‘So, Longbottom’s charged with attempted rape,’ he said, raising his eyes to look at Vicky from where he was seated. ‘I want to see the remand summary,’ he said before putting the phone down.

Dylan’s mobile phone beeped. He sat with it in his hand. ‘Longbottom expected to be going home,’ he said to Vicky, while reading the text. He closed his eyes momentarily and put the phone back down on his desk. ‘Someone else I’ve upset today,’ he said. ‘Better make that fish and chips and a big bunch of flowers.’

‘Donny Longbottom expected what?’ said Vicky.

‘He didn’t think he’d be staying in for Court.’

‘Wait ’til he knows that it’ll be recommended that he should be remanded to prison until his trial,’ she said.

‘Prison is a place he hasn’t been yet. I expect his defence team to be making an application for bail.’

Vicky sat down and took off her shoe. ‘My bloody feet are killing me,’ she said, rubbing the ball of her foot. ‘I don’t know how I ever walked the beat.’

‘You were younger and fitter then,’ he laughed.

‘Cheeky sod, I haven’t put on weight since I’ve been in CID.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ he said, absentmindedly.

‘DI Turner about, Lisa?’ he called, looking past Vicky and out into the CID office.

‘No sir.’

‘Get hold of him will you and give him my home address. I’m going to have to call at Court and speak to the solicitor, so it’d be better for him to make his own way there tonight.’

‘Will do,’ she called back.

Vicky looked at him with a furrowed brow. ‘Oh, I’ve invited him round for tea. The others have gone back today and he was on his own. I felt bad I hadn’t even had a drink with them.’

‘And how does Jen feel about that? Ah, get it, the big bunch of flowers...’

‘Ah, she’ll be fine.’

Vicky shrugged. ‘She’s a better woman that me, coping with a teething child and entertaining your bloody cronies.’

‘That’s why I married her and not you Vicky,’ he said with a grin. ‘It’ll be right. He’s from down there isn’t he? They’ll have lots to talk about when she gets over herself. She’ll be pleased... she just doesn’t know it yet.’

‘Changing the subject, I’ll tell you what,’ Vicky said, quickly. ‘They don’t miss much in Merton village where I’ve just come from. I’ve been to a W.I. meeting at the Church Hall up Manchester Road today and those who knew Mrs Regan and her son from old, said they’ve been known as a strange pair for as long as any of them can remember. He used to push his mother about in a wheelchair and they’d swap their wigs years back. They say, he thinks they don’t know it’s him that dresses as his mum but they just accept him as he is.’

‘So, he’s known as being strange, nothing else?’ he said, chewing his lip.

‘Well they said that they hadn’t seen him as her, oh God you know what I mean, about for a while... but then no one goes out much up there in winter if they don’t have to. I’ve wrote it all up in my pocket book and got all their details, but since I had to go on my own I’ve got no statements as yet.’

There was a knock at the door. A uniformed Sergeant stood, in his shirt sleeves, with his hand resting on the door handle.

‘Can I have a quick word in private?’ said the Custody Sergeant.

Dylan looked bemused. ‘Of course, Sergeant Maude, come in,’ he said.

‘I’ll make a drink boss,’ Vicky said, hopping to the door as she tried to put her boot back on. She squeezed past the Sergeant, who was built like a tank. Maude stepped into the office with a twinkle in his eye and shut the door behind her.

‘Take a seat,’ Dylan said, ’What can I do for you?’ he asked him.

‘It’s more what I’ve done for you sir,’ he said, tapping the side of his red, bulbous nose. His voice was deep and deliberate with an impressive rasp. ‘This Longbottom, what a weirdo. I’ve just been down to his cell doing a bit of interviewing, off the record like. I thought I’d have a go at him about the Misper; Harwood girl for you. I made him shit himself,’ he laughed. ‘Uniform said you lot were gonna have a little chat with him later but you don’t need to now, I got the cough.’

Dylan could feel anger bubbling to the surface. His fingers held his pencil just that little too tight and it snapped. His arms were rigid but he allowed the officer to continue.

‘I had him in tears, nearly crushed his balls. A wrestler would have been proud of that testicular claw,’ he snorted. ‘He admitted the indecent assault. Yeah, just before one of them bloody civilian gaolers came down the corridor to see what all the fuss was about. I had to look sharpish and get out, but not before I told him we knew he was also a murderer. And do you know, reckons he’s a hard knock, he just curled up in a ball and cried like a little baby. Soft bastard kids these days, should be made to do national service,’ he sneered.

Dylan stood up, slapping both hands down on his desk and gave an almighty roar that rattled the office window, ‘You fucking idiot!’ he shouted.

PS Maude jumped in the chair and Dylan’s voice dropped to nothing more than a whisper.

‘Not only have you broken every rule in the book, you twat, you have assaulted him for no good reason. I’ve heard it said before, but it’s right you shouldn’t even be in this job, let alone be a supervisor. You’ll go back and record on the detention sheet what you have just told me, now. Do I make myself clear? And I want a duty statement from you. Mark my words, you’ll be dealt with for assault. Now get out of my office.’

‘But I thought …’ he said.

Dylan picked up the phone but held it to his heaving chest. He stopped. ‘That’s just it though isn’t it? You didn’t fucking think. You egoistic prick, you just wanted to get an admission, which is fucking worthless to me. You’ve crossed the line once too often, Maude – and this time, it’s big time.’ He dialled a number on his landline. ‘Discipline and Complaints please,’ he said, giving Sergeant Maude a glare that could have cut steel.

Vicky stopped at the door, tray of drinks in hand. She took a step back and rested it on Lisa’s desk. ‘If I were going to pick a fight with someone, Lisa, I might choose somebody smaller than Maude,’ she said under her breath.