Dead Old (10 page)

Sophia still wasn’t answering the phone and the neighbour, Simon, had been no help. Maude had called but a recorded voice said the number had not been recognised. Recalling the frantic
search for a pen and her rising panic, she wasn’t entirely surprised. She knew one thing for sure: if the situation were reversed Sophia wouldn’t sit around dithering.

If she was home by the time Maude arrived, all well and good. They’d laugh off the premature trip and make the most of the extra time together. If not, Maude would let herself in and work
out where to go from there.

7

Back at Highgate, an increasingly hostile news conference was underway in the press briefing room. Matt Snow, crime correspondent of the
Evening News,
was centre stage.
He fancied himself as leader of the pack and was clearly on the scent of a steaming trail. Separated by only a few feet, and the highly polished surface of a mahogany desk, were Bev, Byford and
news bureau chief Bernie Flowers, their nonchalant pose and air of authority slipping perceptibly. DI Shields, presumably pissed off at getting zilch on the Marty Skelton front, was even now
interviewing Jimmy Vaz over at his corner shop in Kings Heath. Which left the three Bs to take the flak. Bev shifted uneasily in her chair as the audience of bored-looking hacks sat up and
sharpened their collective wits.

“I need more than this to go on, Superintendent.” Matt Snow held his reporter’s spiral notebook ostentatiously aloft, displaying an empty page to anyone who cared to look.

Bev stifled a snort. Snow was the author of the report on Iris Collins’s ‘murder’. He’d gone a hell of a long way then without appreciable police input. She sat back,
folded her arms tightly across her chest. Snow wasn’t so much a thorn as a rose bush in the flank of the police. Everyone knew he was desperate to break into telly. No one dared tell him his
face was made for radio. As for the voice: pure Birmingham barrow boy.

Byford was struggling to stay cool. “I can’t give you what I don’t have, Mr Snow.”

It wasn’t working. Bev was close enough to count the beads of sweat on the guv’s top lip. He was in the full glare of more than a few TV lights. A bog-standard appeal for witnesses
and par-for-the-course call for help in identifying the victim wasn’t going to cut any ice with bolshie journalists after blood.

Bev checked the line-up: the Beeb, Central, local radio and three or four rags. It wasn’t a bad turnout but she’d expected more: old dears obviously weren’t as sexy as young
kids. Talking of sex, there was one face she’d not seen before, and not one you’d easily forget: imagine Catherine Zeta Jones on a tighter budget. The dark-haired lovely looked about
Bev’s age, twenty-six, twenty-seven. The comparison stopped there. The woman exuded radiance and poise. Classy was the word, Bev thought, as she watched the reporter take copious notes,
apparently oblivious of her effect on the men in the room.

Snow was showing off, obviously desperate to make an impression. Even though he had Byford in his sights, he kept glancing round to see if the new hack on the block was watching. “It
strikes me, Superintendent, you didn’t release what you did have.”

“Sorry, I don’t do riddles.” The guv reached for a glass of water. Bev wondered if anyone else had noticed the tremor in his hand.

“There’s nothing enigmatic about a gang of teenagers terrorising old women. Why didn’t you issue a warning? At least the old dears would have been on their guard.”

Bev knew Byford had agonised over it. The balance was difficult: weighing up what might or might not be a genuine threat against panicking more than half the elderly population of Birmingham.
Details of the attacks had been released as separate incidents. The media had been desperate to forge a link that the guv had consistently refused to go along with. It hadn’t stopped the
coverage getting more lurid by the day.

“Now look here.” Byford dropped his pen on the table. Bev didn’t think it was deliberate. “I’m not –”

“Our viewers are asking for answers as well. We’re getting loads of calls on this.”

Bev knew that voice. It was Marty Skelton’s mate, Richard Peck, the man from the Beeb. Both reporters got to their feet, perhaps hoping the extra height would add weight to their argument.
Peck towered over Matt Snow but the
Evening News
man was like a dog with a bag of bones. Bev wondered if he got the cheap brown suits as a job lot. She’d never seen him in anything
else. Not that she could talk. She watched as he brushed a dull blond fringe out of caramel-coloured eyes already filled with contempt.

“You didn’t issue a police warning and you tried to prevent the media issuing one.”

“Rubbish,” Byford snapped. “And since when has anything ever stopped the media speculating?”

Snow jabbed a stubby finger. “I’m only sorry we didn’t push harder. It’s obvious elderly women in this city are at risk. I tried to warn them. I wish I’d done
more.”

Perhaps he was waiting for a round of applause. No. He wanted a wider audience for the corollary. “How do you feel about it, Superintendent? The police are supposed to protect the
vulnerable in our society. Do you regret letting them down?”

Bev flinched. That one was below the belt.
Come on, guv.

Byford leaned forward, hands pressed on the desk. “I deal with evidence, not emotion, Mr Snow.”

You wouldn’t think so looking at his face, nor the imprint left by his moist palms on the wood. She wondered if she should pass him a note with the gist of the Marlow interview.
She’d not had time to brief him since the hasty summons back to base. A couple of E-fits wouldn’t get him out of the hole but they might prevent further digging. She scribbled a few
words but Snow was still on the attack.

“Try telling that to the victims and their families, Superintendent.”

She should probably hang fire but the guv looked in desperate need of a break. She cleared her throat. “We should be in a position to release new information before the end of the
day.” The confident tone even surprised Bev. It worked briefly. The pack sniffed a new scent. “We can’t say any more at the moment but it could be a significant
development.” Sweat was pooling and cooling in the small of her back. She glanced at the guv. His face was a blank. Not surprising, really.

Snow scratched his ear, head cocked to one side. “What sort of ‘significant development’ are we talking about?”

Bev swallowed hard. “It’s too early to say but you’ll get a release soon as.”

Peck sat down but Snow held his ground. “’Scuse me if I don’t hold my breath.”

A print journalist used the standoff to throw in a query about the daffodils. There was nothing new to report. The guv glossed over it. Radio WM asked for a one-to-one which seemed to signal the
session was winding down. Chairs were scraped back and pens pocketed. Bev blew out her cheeks. Thank God it was over.

Byford gathered a few papers. “Thanks, ladies and –”

No one had told Snow. “How many more old women are going to die before the killers are caught?”

Byford’s hands stilled momentarily. “We’re doing everything in our power to arrest those responsible but there’s still no firm evidence the Cable Street murder is linked
to the other attacks. We don’t even have proof that the first three assaults were carried out by the same assailants.”

Bev noticed Snow cast another glance in the direction of the lovely Miss Jones. The reporter had her head down, writing furiously. “Even now,” the reporter carped, “after three
assaults and two deaths, you still can’t admit it, can you?”

Byford jammed his hands in his pockets. Bev heard a jangle of keys. “I’m not ruling it out. There’s always the possibility.”

“I put it to you again,” said Snow. “How many more deaths will there be before you admit you’re wrong?”

She opened her mouth to remonstrate but Byford silenced her with a hand. No one was going to grace that with a response.

“I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. It’s vital we establish the identity of the woman whose body was found yesterday. No one who fits the description has been
reported missing. Maybe she lives alone? Has an elderly neighbour failed to return? If anyone can help –”

Snow had heard it all before. “What about a warning?”

“An old woman’s been murdered. The killer or killers are still at large. I don’t think it needs spelling out.”

“I do. And tonight we’ll be asking our readers what they think.” Snow stowed his notebook in the back pocket of his trousers, the journalistic equivalent of a V-sign.
“We’ll be asking them if they feel safe on the streets. Asking them what they think of the police operation. I wonder if they’ll share your confidence in the way you’re
running this inquiry.”

Trial by redtop; it wouldn’t be a first. Byford shrugged. “I’ll look forward to that, Mr Snow.”

Whatever riposte Snow may have fired was lost in the sound of a door slamming against the back wall.

One way to make an entrance, thought Bev. Everyone turned and watched as DI Shields strode to the front, headed straight for the guv. She knelt in close, whispered in his ear. Byford nodded a
couple of times, jotted down a few words. Byford’s face didn’t change, though his voice had a softer edge when he addressed the gathering again.

“As a result of information received, there are a number of significant developments you need to know. We’re anxious to trace anyone who was in the vicinity of Princes Rise at around
5.30 on Sunday evening. A woman we believe to be the victim was seen entering the shop on the corner there with Keats Road. We particularly want to speak to a middle-aged man wearing an England
football shirt and blue mud-stained jeans. A key witness is working on a detailed description of a youth also seen in the area at the relevant time. We’ll have an E-fit for you in a few
hours.”

Bev heard a few moans about deadlines and news desks but Byford stilled the buzz with a hand. He was saving the best until last.

“One more thing. We now know the identity of the murder victim. We can confirm she’s a Birmingham woman in her late seventies. We’ll be releasing her name as soon as relatives
have been informed.”

Bev’s Byford impersonation was rubbish. Oz got it in one.

“Sarge.” His lips were pursed. “We’ve got an ID, I don’t see the problem.”

Shields had ordered them back to Kings Heath to mop up the Cable Street house-to-house calls they’d failed to complete earlier. Not that they needed a bucket. People were either at work or
so keen to crack
Countdown
they barely opened the door. Bev shrugged. Oz was right. But twice now, Shields had muscled in on interviews that Bev felt should have been hers. It still rankled.
Not content with stealing Bev’s thunder, she’d then pissed on her parade.

“Go on, say it. It’s pathetic.” She glanced at Oz out of the corner of her eye.

“You want it straight?”

“Sure.”

“It’s pathetic.”

He wasn’t even looking at her. She hoisted her shoulder bag higher, shoved her hands in her pockets.

“Look, Sarge. We’ve got a job to do and it doesn’t help if you’re at each other’s throats. Maybe you need to back off a bit.”

“When I want your advice I’ll ask for it.”

Oz shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Numbers 15, 19, 27 and 30 were as much help as a paper raincoat. The proverbial three monkeys had seen, heard and said more. The silences between the door-knocking were stretching. Bev was no
good at the tight-lipped stuff.

“Fancy going out tonight?” Apart from the odd drink and a curry, they’d barely seen each other outside work since she’d moved back to her mum’s. Maybe they needed a
bit of duvet time. She hated feeling like a nun. God knew what the enforced celibacy was doing to Oz.

“Sorry, I’ve made arrangements.”

“No sweat.” There was no rancour in her voice but she had to turn her head. She’d reached the stage where she’d decided to open up with Oz. Maybe she was making too much
of it but that felt like a rejection.

The seven o’clock news bulletin on Radio WM led with the old woman’s ID: Veronica Amery, aged seventy-eight. Bev heard it in the motor on the way home, a bottle of
Pinot Grigio on the passenger seat and a wet umbrella on the floor. The sudden downpour back in Cable Street had said it all: the door-to-doors had been a washout.

She was about to switch off the engine when she heard a voice she knew: female and fruity, as in ripe plums. DI Danny Shields was appealing for relatives of the dead woman to come forward. Bev
frowned. Who’d made the ID, then? Presumably Jimmy Vaz. Not that it mattered. The next stage was more important: piecing together the victim’s life. As jigsaws go, a name was just one
of the corners.

Bev was flat out on the sofa watching some flaky celebrity of whom she’d never heard eat insects and animal parts she’d never imagined. Maybe she should try
something similar; it was one way to lose weight. The top button of her trousers was already undone and she was contemplating easing down the zip an inch. It was her mum’s fault. Comfort
food? It wasn’t doing anything for Bev’s peace of mind.

Her mum and Sadie had nipped out to a neighbour’s for their monthly dose of culture. The Crime Lovers’ Book Club had been meeting for nearly two years now. Forget Austen and Amis:
this was Morse and Miss Marple, with the occasional dash of mean streets. Bev smiled at the thought of the half-dozen or so genteel women gathered over the road discussing the finer points of
murder and mutilation. Sadie was always on at Bev to join, but the way Bev saw it she barely had time to read books, let alone talk bollocks about them afterwards.

She heard the key in the door and the sort of raucous giggling that usually followed a book club night. Bev suspected the group only met to get tiddly and swap gossip.

“Hello, love.” Emmy popped her head round the door. “Fancy a cup of something?”

Bev joined the other Morriss women in the kitchen. The room was warm and cosy, lots of polished pine and pink gingham. The soft lighting meant Emmy wasn’t in action at the Aga. All three
perched on stools at the breakfast bar, enjoying a little time together. Bev skimmed the blurb on the back of the book chosen for next month’s read, listened with a smile as her mum and gran
talked her through the night’s highlights. Their eyes sparkled as they finished each other’s sentences or interrupted with a vital point. They were like a couple of kids. By the time
they’d finished, Bev felt she’d been there anyway.