Trophies: a gripping detective thriller (The Wakefield Series Book 1) (34 page)

Many a brewery’s profits generated from investments contained within that shirt, Strong thought.

“It’s me, lads, John Edge. I were yer ‘keeper all t’way through school, remember?”

He knew it would have to be someone who knew them at school to use the title ‘dynamic duo,’ which was what the PE teacher always referred to them as. The look of astonishment must have been blatantly obvious on both their faces but, in mitigation, it would take a lot of imagination to picture the rotund figure before them as the skinny youth who once kept goal for their school teams nearly thirty years ago.

“I were disappointed for you, Bob,” Edge went on. “I allus thought tha’d make it. What about you, Col? Last I ‘eard you’d joined rozzers.”

“That’s right, John,” Strong said.

“You involved in that?” he asked, nodding towards the newspaper.

“I’m working on it, yes.”

“Some old tart, weren’t she? I bet you’ll find she was tryin’ to rip off a punter. Probably deserved it.”

Strong could feel his anger rising but before he could say anything in reply, Edge, oblivious to the effect his opinion had, was taking his leave.

“Any road, nice t’see you again, lads.” He was half way out the door. “Must be off. Promised I’d take missus out tonight fer a ruby.”

Strong took out a cigar, lit up, drew hard and exhaled. “That’s exactly what I mean,” he snarled at Souter. “She was an ex-prossie, so she deserved all she got.”

“Look, Colin, for what it’s worth, I totally agree. What a victim is or has been shouldn’t affect the fact that that’s what they are – a victim. I’ll try and do a follow up on a more sympathetic line. But I wasn’t responsible for tonight’s story, or the line that was taken.”

“No, but you still published that attack on the reliability of Summers’ conviction without any warning – and that pissed me off big time.”

“I know and I apologise for that, but I did try and keep it fairly non-committal.”

Strong’s anger was subsiding, although he still had one further point to make. “You people just don’t seem to realise the full implications of what you print.” He took another large gulp of his beer. “All right, now you said you’d got something for me about Carlisle.”

“Sure, but first, I’ll get another round in. You might need it.” Souter rose to his feet.

Souter gave Strong copies of the photographs Stuart had obtained for him from the Carlisle archives. He told him how the fluid samples at the scene were contaminated and that DNA analysis at this stage could not be accurately carried out. This meant they were left with the original findings that a person of blood group type B secretor had been present at the scene – not enough without other substantial evidence to secure a future conviction. Souter hadn’t told Strong everything of course, he said nothing of his conversations with Alison Hewitt. He wanted to check out the address she’d given him first. His prime objective, after all, was still to secure a story. He would tell him once he had the full picture. By the same token, he knew Strong hadn’t confided all to him either.

On his way back to his sister’s, Souter would drive past the address to check out how things looked before preparing himself for a confrontation tomorrow.

Strong also had plenty to think about on his drive home. He planned to compare the pictures Souter had provided with those of the remaining unidentified items from the case. He was fairly confident there would be a match, God knows he’d studied them enough. Souter seemed confident too. He knew similar items had been found in the case. Strong still couldn’t work out from where he was obtaining his information, despite several probing questions. Souter had just come out with the same stock answer about never revealing sources.

At last, he felt he had established a link between the Carlisle murder and events closer to home over the past few months. However, that only served to highlight the gaps that still remained. If, as he suspected, Billy Montgomery was the individual responsible for the hoax letters and tape, there was a strong suspicion that he was also the perpetrator of the murder in Carlisle. It was disappointing to learn that DNA results would not be possible from there but it was known that a person with that rare type B blood group had been present at the scene. That person was probably responsible for sending the hoax correspondence in an attempt to have that crime included in the Yorkshire Ripper’s repertoire. He knew Billy Montgomery was type B, he’d seen it in his medical notes, and he had something else up his sleeve, so to speak, should forensic evidence present itself later.

The penetrating tone of his mobile phone shocked Strong out of his thought patterns. It was Stainmore.

“Yes, Kelly. What news?”

“She’s out of theatre, guv, and on a ventilator.”

“Well, it’s fingers crossed then.”

“If it’ll do any good. They reckon that even if she does pull through, there’ll probably be brain damage.”

“All right, Kelly, thanks. Make sure someone lets me know the minute there’s any change.”

“Sure.”

Strong’s thoughts returned to the murders. How would items missing from a Carlisle crime scene find themselves in Williams’ flat? Was Williams storing them for Montgomery? No, he couldn’t believe that. Had Williams stolen them from Montgomery? Indeed, was Montgomery’s flat the property burgled on December 6
^th
? That didn’t seem right either. Rosie would have given some indication, surely. Rosie? Could that possibly be what she wanted to tell him this morning? But then why not just tell him over the phone, or call in to the station, or even have him call round? Because she was frightened of someone finding out she was talking? Someone was watching her. The mystery man who upset her at Billy’s funeral perhaps? Someone who was connected with … with what? The burglaries? The assaults on women? The Carlisle murder even? And now, the chances of getting any information from her were growing longer by the minute. He was obviously missing something, he told himself; some vital piece of the jigsaw.

54

On his way into work next morning, Mark Hewitt, Alison’s brother, drew his car to a halt outside the telephone box on Dewsbury Road and switched off. He’d been awake half the night worrying about what he should do. He didn’t trust his sister to pass on the information she had to the police. There had been nothing in the papers about it, just that attack on the ex-prostitute. Even if Alison had told them, his reinforcing of the facts would add weight to its significance. Normally, he didn’t like reporting anything to the police, he had little confidence in their abilities to do anything for the ordinary man in the street and the idea of grassing someone up was alien to him. But this was different. This bastard had hurt his sister and he didn’t like that. She hadn’t said as much, but he knew. And if, as it seemed by the publication of the e-fit, he’d been a bastard elsewhere then he was going to do his damnedest to make sure he got what was coming to him. He was there when his sister found the piece of paper with the address on and had filed the details in the back of his mind before she threw it away. He, too, had a good memory. And so he sat in the car and considered what he was about to do. He knew the bastard’s name and he knew his address and, very soon, so would the police.

“Okay, I’ll tell him.” Kirkland replaced the receiver. He looked up for Strong, spotted him and called across the room, “Guv, front desk have a Janice Roberts downstairs asking to see you.”

“Roberts?” Strong repeated.

“Don’t know but she says it’s urgent, apparently.”

“Okay, Sam. Thanks,” he said and made for the door.

At that moment, Ormerod ended his call and attracted Strong’s attention. “Oh, guv, I’ve just had a call giving a name and address for our mystery e-fit. Caller wouldn’t leave a name, though.”

“Good. I’ll be back in a minute, Luke,” he responded, and was gone.

Strong entered the front interview room where Jim Dyer on the front desk had asked the woman to wait. She was pacing the floor nervously and turned towards him immediately, gripping an envelope tightly in her hands. He recognised her face from the photo Rosie had shown him and she was definitely the other woman who attended Billy Montgomery’s funeral two days before.

Janice Roberts bore no resemblance to her younger sister, Rosie. Strong guessed she was in her mid-fifties, her dyed dark brown hair showing some grey at the roots and she was rather overweight. Behind her glasses, the eyes were slightly puffy, betraying the emotional roller-coaster she must be riding.

“Mrs Roberts,” he offered a hand. “Please sit down. I’m so sorry about what’s happened to your sister.” He took a seat across the table from her.

“Mr Strong,” she began, “my sister spoke of you from time to time. She maintained you were one of the ‘good guys’, as she put it, someone with a bit of compassion who always treated her with respect and common courtesy. She respects you.”

Strong was slightly embarrassed at this testimonial to his character. Billy Montgomery had said something similar. Sometimes he wondered whether he would have been more successful as a policeman if he’d adopted a more belligerent attitude like some of his colleagues. Expressions of support like these and the flow of information it generally brought made him sure his attitude was the correct one.

“This came in the post this morning,” Janice said without further preamble. “It was posted yesterday.”

He took the envelope and pulled out a second envelope from within, along with a covering note addressed to Janice. The note merely asked her to deliver the enclosed envelope when she thought it appropriate. The second envelope was addressed to Detective Inspector Colin Strong, Wood Street Police Station. Intrigued he took a key from his pocket and slit the top. Inside was the following hand-written letter.

‘Dear Mr Strong,

If you are reading this then something bad has happened to me. If that’s the case, I want you to know the truth. I have not said anything before now because of Billy. He swore me to keep quiet but as he’s gone now, I don’t see the point any more.

We all have pasts we’re not proud of. You know about mine as much as anyone. But you were always fair with me and I think you deserve to know. Billy had a past too. Again, you probably know as much about that as I do. However, since we’d been together these last four years, I saw a vulnerable Billy. He wasn’t ever a violent man, despite what you might have thought – if anything, he was a victim.

I’m sorry I lied to you about Billy’s family when you called round. I suspect you knew I was but I did it out of loyalty to Billy. The thing is, he has a son, Alan. He has a daughter too but she emigrated to Australia years ago.’

Shit, he thought, that’s it. How bloody stupid. Alan, Billy’s son. The words of Mary Burns repeated in his head,
“Never heard o’ him for years. Left home as soon as he could.”
And when asked if she had any idea where he was now, she’d responded,
“Not a clue.”

Janice saw the change of expression on his face. “Is something wrong?”

“Sorry, no. It’s just … I’ve realised something,” he answered, continuing to read the letter.

‘Ever since Billy and his wife split up way back, Alan’s been following him around. Every time Billy came out of prison and moved to somewhere new to make a fresh start, Alan would find him. He felt Billy owed him for abandoning him back in Glasgow. He was jealous. He’d done his best to split up every relationship Billy had ever formed since leaving Glasgow, with some success. He tried to come between us too but we were stronger than that. We’d been honest with each other from the off. Billy knew all about me and I knew all about Billy. But Alan was more than jealous, he was a bully too, and violent with it.

Around the beginning of December, Alan called round to see his dad. I was always on edge whenever he appeared. Alan had been burgled a few days before. They’d taken the TV, video, music centre and CD's. But there was something else that bothered him. I got the
impression that another, more important item had gone too. They didn’t talk in front of me but I could hear their raised voices from the hallway. I heard Alan say, “Well, they’ll start digging into your past again, if they ever find it.” And a little later, Billy said something like, “You shouldn’t have kept them in the first place.” I didn’t think too much of it at the time. I didn’t even know if they’d still been talking about the burglary. But it began to make sense, once I knew about recent events.

No sense in denying Billy used to dabble in a bit of buying and selling those types of things, so he offered Alan the pick of what he’d got stored at the flat to replace his TV and other stuff. When Alan saw his own TV and video, he went mad. I heard a struggle and dashed into the hallway. Alan had Billy by the throat up against the wall. I thought he was going to murder him. I shouted to Alan to leave Billy alone, he was a sick man, but he just came out with a torrent of abuse towards me. Billy told Alan to leave me alone and that he would tell him where he got his stuff from. I think you can guess by now that he told Alan that Fred Williams had asked Billy to fence the stuff. Williams had done about five or six jobs and Billy had made a few bob out of them. Billy only gave Alan a rough idea where Williams lived, saying he didn’t know exactly where. I suppose he was just trying to buy some time so he could warn Williams. After threatening Billy and me to keep our mouths shut, Alan carried his property out to his car and left.

Unfortunately, after that incident, Billy went through a bad patch with his cancer and wasn’t able to get in touch with Williams like he’d intended. Later, when he improved for a spell, no one knew where Williams was and Billy assumed he’d found out that Alan was after him and had decided to lie low for a bit. It wasn’t until we heard the news the other week that we realised the real reason nobody could find him.

I hope this is useful to you, Mr Strong and I hope Alan is made to pay for what he’s done. He didn’t even maintain respect at his father’s funeral, threatening me again to keep quiet.