Darkness, Darkness (12 page)

As she stands there, Peter Waites comes breezing in, loud-voiced and cheerful, a quick word with Edna, barely a glance in Jenny’s direction, and he’s gone again. The first of the men drifting in now, that lad, the red-headed one, at the back there, jostling with one of his mates. Pushing and shoving like kids in the playground.

Laughing.

Jenny eases the hair back from her face and when she glances up again, moments later, he’s staring in her direction, bold as brass.

Pressing her lips together, she bends her head back down to the task in hand.

She’s back in the Welfare at lunchtime, helping serve soup to those miners who are on strike, and then again that evening, the two youngest in bed. There are always jobs that want doing: trips to the cash and carry for weekly supplies; donations of food to be fetched from the central collection point at the Friends’ Meeting House in Mansfield, then bagged up into family parcels; bags of second-hand clothes to be sorted through; fund-raising materials to be made for the stall by St Peter’s Church in Nottingham. Never time enough, it seems, or hands.

There’s talk amongst the women, some uncertainty, Jenny can tell, as to how long they can carry on as they are, and Edna Johnson listens for a while, just long enough for them to feel they’ve had their say, then quietly but firmly sets them to rights. As long as they’re needed, one way or another, they’ll find the means to carry on. End of discussion.

Not for the first time, Jenny finds herself admiring Edna for her clear-sightedness, the way she always seems able to say what’s needed without fuss or bother; up on the platform at meetings, more often than not the only woman speaker amongst all those men, and the audience taking in her every word, listening. Not a little envious, Jenny wonders if, as Peter Waites had suggested, she will ever have the courage to do the same.

She’s on her way home, the street next to her own, when he comes out of the shadows just ahead of her, making her gasp.

‘Didn’t mean to startle you.’

The street light close enough to show up the red in his hair.

‘What the hell d’you think you’re doin’?’

‘Won’t be seeing you again, not after tonight. Thought you’d like to know.’

‘Seeing me? Is that what you’ve been doing?’

‘Camping out, had a barrelful o’ that. Back home, proper bed, sheets. Got mates’ll drive me, wherever we’ve got to go.’

‘Good for you.’

She makes to move around him, and he shifts his balance to block her path.

‘Reckoned, before I went, you know, that drink you promised.’

‘I promised nothing.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

He’s standing close enough now for her to see the small scar on his cheek, close by his mouth.

‘A goodbye kiss, then . . .’

When he lowers his head towards her, she swings an arm and slaps him hard across the face; pushes angrily past as, grinning, he steps aside.

‘Another time then, duck, eh?’

Quickening her pace, she strides for home, the memory of his breath still warm on her face.

THE BAND CLOSED
their first set with a tearaway version of ‘Jumpin’ at the Woodside’, the young tenor player up from London taking advantage of the tempo to show off the speed of his fingering and romp up and down the scales with such speed as to leave the listeners practically seasick.

‘Play that many notes, Charlie,’ one of the regulars said, falling in step alongside Resnick as they headed for the bar, ‘some of the bastards got to be the right ones, eh?’

Resnick nodded agreement, paid for his pint and, not feeling overly sociable, took it off to the side room, a seat in the far corner, fifteen, twenty minutes of his own company before the band regrouped.

Two days now since the funeral and for all the information they’d gathered, they were little closer to the truth of what happened. Catherine Njoroge was due to have a meeting with Martin Picard at headquarters later that week in order to outline their progress, a meeting she’d not been anticipating with any particular pleasure.

From the friends and neighbours of the Petersons that Sandford and Cresswell had so far been able to track down, it was clear a number of different people had been working with Geoff Cartwright on the Church Street extension, sometimes for as little as a morning, a day at most. Mixing cement, laying concrete. There was one period, close to Christmas itself, the nearest neighbour said, when no work seemed to be being done at all; but then, almost before you could turn around, everything seemed to have been sorted in double-quick time. When the Petersons got back from wherever – Wales, was it? Somewhere of that fashion – everything seemingly done and dusted.

From the women gathered at the funeral, there was ample testimony of the growing tension between Barry and Jenny Hardwick, arguments that had flared up in public, harsh words with Jenny most often giving as good as she got. Threats? The usual, nothing more. You wait till I get you home, that kind of nonsense. Hot air and blather. One time, all right, Jenny had been sporting a black eye, a real shiner, but when asked she’d said it had happened out on the picket line, run smack into someone’s elbow.

‘I’ll be honest,’ one of the women said, ‘if he had given her a backhander once or twice, it wouldn’t have been ’cause she hadn’t earned it. Goaded him sometimes, something rotten. Like she were saying, go on then, hit me if you dare. Felt right sorry for him, Barry, though I shouldna’, scabbin’ like he was.’

‘Barry had let her have one, she’d’ve give him one back, an’ all,’ another said. ‘Remember that lad? Ginger-haired bloke, set his cap at her. She walloped him once, by all accounts. Right proud of it, he were, too. Braggin’ about it all over. Daft young bugger.’

Ginger-haired bloke – Danny Ireland – they knew his name, bits and pieces of past history, but not a great deal else. So far all attempts to track him down had failed. There’d been an address in Doncaster, a woman he’d lived with for a spell in Leeds, a child he might or might not have fathered in Goole. A spell working on the oil rigs, out of Aberdeen. Someone who might or might not have been him, applying for a job with P&O Ferries sailing from Hull to Rotterdam. Since which time, he didn’t seem to have filed a tax return, applied for benefit, appeared on a voters’ register: died.

The sound of the trumpet playing a few warning notes in the far room told Resnick it was time for the second set. He was just draining his glass, when the man slipped into the seat alongside him. Fifties, narrow face, spectacles, thinning hair combed sideways in a Bobby Charlton; raincoat that had seen better days.

‘Detective Inspector Resnick?’

‘Not any more.’

‘The Jenny Hardwick murder, though, Bledwell Vale, you are involved?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Little bird told me I might find you here.’ He held out his hand. ‘Trevor Fleetwood. Let me get you a drink. I’ll not keep you away from the music for long.’

‘Just a half, then.’

Resnick watched him go. Fleetwood, Fleetwood, he knew the name from somewhere, but where? Over the hum of conversation, the burble of the fruit machine by the side wall, he could just make out the opening strains of ‘Moten Swing’.

‘We did meet once before,’ Fleetwood said, back from the bar. ‘Operation Enigma. The bodies in the canal. Ninety-six?’

‘Seven.’

‘Of course.’

‘Got it now. You were writing a book . . .’

‘
Death by Water
. I sent you a copy.’

‘I remember.’

‘What did you think?’

No answer.

‘I know, coals to Newcastle. You probably only glanced at it anyway. But this time I thought I might help you.’

‘Go on.’

‘Michael Swann, ring any bells?’

‘Not immediately.’

‘The M6 Murderer?’

‘Another book?’

‘More of a sequel.’

Interest piqued, Resnick supped his bitter and waited for Fleetwood to continue.

‘Nineteen eighty-nine, Kim Bucknall, sexually assaulted, murdered, body found in a derelict building close to junction forty-three of the M6, just outside Carlisle. Three years later, ninety-two, Patricia Albright, raped, murdered, her body left on waste ground near Fullwood, north of Preston, buried beneath old timber, tarpaulin, rubble. Then ninety-four, Lisa Plackett, raped, anally and vaginally, her body pushed down a storm drain near exit twenty-one on the edge of Warrington. Michael Swann was convicted of all three murders in nineteen ninety-seven. Five years later, he’d have been sent down for thirty years minimum. As it was, he was sentenced to life, given a tariff of twenty-five years. A possibility of parole after twenty. Just three years from now. Not that I’d rate his chances too high.’

‘And you’re suggesting, what? A connection?’

‘Jenny Hardwick, how was she killed?’

Resnick held his gaze, made no answer.

Fleetwood essayed a smile. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, blow or blows to the head with a heavy object. The same or similar to all three cases for which Swann was found guilty, and in each of which he took advantage of whatever the surroundings to conceal the body.’

‘Timings aside,’ Resnick said, ‘and Jenny was killed a whole five years before the first of those murders, Swann’s territory, the M6 like you say, it’s a long way from North Notts. The other side of the country.’

Fleetwood took an envelope from his pocket.

‘Take a look at this.’

It was a press photograph, in colour, fuzzy at the edges, the details clear enough to bring Resnick up short. Shoulder-length dark hair, just a few shades off black, sharp features, blue-grey eyes: it could have been Jenny Hardwick’s younger sister.

‘Donna Crowder,’ Fleetwood said. ‘Nineteen. Her body was discovered less than an hour’s drive away from where Jenny Hardwick lay buried. Beaten about the head. Half-buried beneath bushes and brambles. Foxes found her before anyone else. No one’s ever been charged with her murder.’

‘And this was when?’

‘Eighty-seven.’

‘And you think it was Michael Swann that killed her?’

‘I think he killed both of them, first Jenny, then Donna three years later. Then the others. I just need you to help me prove it.’

RESNICK HAD MADE
no promises to Trevor Fleetwood, other than a rather vague agreement to stay in touch. Before leaving the pub that evening, he had contacted Catherine Njoroge and arranged to meet her in Nottingham the following morning. Lee Rosy’s in Hockley, opposite the Broadway Cinema.

Catherine listened without interrupting, sipped her tea.

‘You think there’s anything to it?’

‘I think he’d like there to be.’

‘So he can get another book out of it.’

‘That and the publicity, yes.’

‘I looked up his website last night, after you phoned me. All pretty unsavoury. Book jacket illustrations, mostly suggesting gore and mayhem. Knives, knotted rope, naked breasts, women screaming. Truly horrible. I made a note of some of the titles, here . . .’ She unlocked her mobile phone, tapped Notes. ‘
In the Ripper’s Footsteps
.
Evil Intent
.
Death by Water. Famous Murder Trials of the Last Century
.’

‘
Death by Water
,’ Resnick said, ‘about the canal murders. Operation Enigma. That’s when I met him before. Getting on twenty years ago now.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘The book?’ Resnick shrugged. ‘Sensationalist, of course. Pretty much what you’d expect. But otherwise . . . yes, it was accurate enough. He’d done his research, you could tell that.’

‘There’s a book here,’ Catherine said, glancing back down at her mobile. ‘
Born to Kill
. Interviews with convicted murderers. One of them’s Michael Swann. I downloaded it on to my Kindle. The chapter on Swann’s one of the shortest. A rehash mostly of the murders. Some stuff about Swann’s upbringing, childhood, but nothing out of the ordinary. Difficult to get any sense of what he’s really like.’

‘There’s no suggestion he might have had other victims?’

‘No. Fleetwood asks him, asks him outright, and, of course, Swann denies it.’

‘Does he mention Donna Crowder? Fleetwood, I mean?’

‘In the interview? No.’

A young couple came in, students, spoke quietly to the man behind the counter and went to a table by the side wall, laptops out of their bags and open almost before they’d sat down.

‘Nobody’s made this suggestion before?’ Catherine asked. ‘In the Crowder case, for instance. Considered Swann as a likely suspect?’

‘Not as far as I can know.’

Catherine arched her neck and smoothed her hair, worn loose today, away from her face with a brush of her hand. ‘If this gets opened up, Charlie, it’s a whole new territory. Two murders, possible links to a serial killer. There’ll be no way of keeping that toned down. Not once the media get wind of it.’

Resnick nodded. ‘What Fleetwood’s banking on, I suppose. And certainly not what Picard and Hastings had in mind. Though as long as it drew attention away from the strike, they might even be pleased.’

‘Something big, you could see Picard muscling in, wanting a bit of the limelight for himself.’

Resnick shrugged. ‘Investigation that size, might not be such a bad thing.’

‘Uh-uh. I want this, Charlie. It’s my case, my investigation.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘So let’s proceed, but gently, okay? Keep it close to home.’

‘Okay.’

‘Maybe you could take a look at the Donna Crowder inquiry, see how closely Fleetwood’s theories tie in to the facts.’

‘And Swann?’

‘Let’s leave Swann for now. Talk to him later, if we have to.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Mary Connor, I promised I’d meet her. Let her know what’s happening in the investigation as much as anything. She’s been staying up at her father’s place in Chesterfield since the rest of her family went back.’

She was on her feet, bag on her shoulder. ‘You never know, it might give me the excuse for another word with Barry, too.’

Resnick nodded down towards his cup, the slice of apple and cinnamon cake alongside. ‘I’ll stay here, finish this.’

Catherine smiled, touched him briefly on the shoulder as she moved past.