Fear No Evil (13 page)

‘Good. Let me know if anything comes up. See you, Justin.’

Justin gave me a very small nod.

I left them to it, and made my way to Stano’s Caf. Tucked away in Chinatown, Stano’s was the stuff of legend with the emergency services. It was open 24 hours a day, catering to the thirst and hunger of fire-fighters, police, paramedics and even the odd nurse looking for a hot date after a cold shift.

A lot of things started in Stano’s – drunken one-night stands, full-blown romance, arguments, fantasy football league teams, winning Lottery syndicates, plans for retiring and running a pub in Tenerife. Something about working with death makes you want to grab even harder onto life. It was home to some of the sickest jokes you’ll ever hear, told by people who see the darker side of life every day, and cope by taking the piss out of it. You could also eat whatever you wanted – as long as it was a bacon buttie.

It was nearing lunchtime. I was hot. I was bothered. I had a hangover. It was, in fact, the perfect time for a bacon buttie. I was about to go in when my phone beeped. A text: ‘Call now. Wigwam.’ Well, that was a lot more civilised than throwing me in the back of a van, but he could still wait.

I pushed open the door and the old-fashioned bell rang. Not that they needed security here – anybody dumb enough to try and rob a cafe full of off-duty law enforcement was probably too thick to figure out how to open the till. Some passing teenager chucked a can of Coke at the window once – you’ve never seen so many men in uniform chasing one kid down the street in your life. It was like a scene off ‘The Sweeney’.

It was blissfully dark and cool inside. It smelled of fresh coffee and sweat and dead pig. Balm for the soul.

I looked around for D.I Alec Jones. He’d agreed to meet me here, and said he’d be carrying a rolled up copy of the
Times
. He was.
The
Bootle
Times
.

I nodded and walked over to join him at his table, which was topped with the very finest Formica the seventies could offer.

‘Got you a coffee,’ he said, ‘and a bacon sandwich.’

‘Wow,’ I replied, ‘will you marry me?’

‘Don’t get too excited. You’re paying. Nice to meet you, Jayne. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

‘None of it good, I hope,’ I said, sipping my coffee and getting a good look at D.I Jones. I couldn’t tell how nice his arse was, because he was sitting on it, but Wigwam was right – he was easy on the eye. Brown hair, even browner eyes, a rumpled smile. Yum.

‘So this is about Joy Middlemas,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think they’d let it rest. The parents. Can’t say that I blame them.’

That surprised me. Most police don’t react well when a client goes private. They tend to take it personally. I’d been expecting to have to charm Alec, convince him of my good intent and my genuine belief that he’d done everything he could. Which he had – it wasn’t within his remit to go searching out serial killer ghosts.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why don’t you blame them? There are things about this case that bother me, but I’d be interested to know what you think. And please, straight off, let me say it – I know you did everything right on this one.’

He nodded his thanks, his face set in a grim line. The rumpled smile was gone, and I knew D.I Jones hadn’t let this one rest either.

‘There was nothing to suggest it was anything but an accident. She’d been out the night before, got back just after midnight. I even tracked down the cabbie who brought her back, and you know what that’s like.’

I did. Like finding an invisible needle in a field full of super-sized haystacks.

‘Wasn’t worth it, in the end. He backed up what the others said – she’d had a few, but wasn’t drunk. Nice-mannered girl, he said, gave him a decent tip. Seemed a bit quiet, but he thought that might be down to boyfriend trouble. He had three daughters himself and said he could spot the signs.’

‘Did she? Have boyfriend trouble?’

‘Not that we know of. A few admirers, a few dates in her first year, and some prat who lived in the same building who seemed to think he might be in there but wasn’t. I suppose the parents told you their theory.’

‘Yes, they did. And they sent me the diary.’

‘Ah,’ he said, stirring sugar into his tea. It was his third spoonful. I think he’d stopped counting and was doing it on autopilot. ‘The diary. The only problem with that is there was no diary. Not when we looked anyway. There was no reason to take this case further – there was nothing criminal to investigate. But I had a look anyway, to make sure. Didn’t want to miss a big sign saying “I pushed her” or anything. No diary, anywhere in that room. Which is admittedly a mystery, but not proof of the existence of ghosts, is it? My beliefs are more based on what I can see and touch and ideally put in jail.’

‘Hallelujah, brother,’ I said, raising my hands in the air and waving my fingers. ‘I’m with you all the way. But… there is something not right, isn’t there, Alec? With this case, and with that place. Have you read the diary since? And what did you feel, when you were there at Hart House?’

I found myself whispering the last words, and leaning forward across the table to look him in the eye. It seemed a ridiculous thing to be asking against the backdrop of hissing water boilers and mugs clinking in the dishwasher.

‘Yes. I read it. Harrowing stuff, I’ll grant you. I can see why it pushed the parents over the edge. But there’s stuff you can put in a report, and stuff you can’t. And “it felt a bit spooky” is the latter. I did what I could. When the parents came back, I tried again. Nothing. They took the diary back and told me very politely that I was a waste of space. If you can find more, I’d love to know about it.’

‘Even if it’s the kind of thing you can’t put in a report?’

He rubbed his face with his hands, like he was washing himself clean of something. He had lovely pale skin, contrasting with his chocolate drop eyes. Very Celtic.

‘Yes. Even if.’

‘There are a few things already; I don’t know if you picked up on them,’ I said, noting with disgust that my bacon buttie had gone cold.

‘Go on.’

‘Well… the shoes. On the scene photos, she was wearing one shoe, and the other had flung off to the left. High heels. Why was she wearing high heels at 8.02 in the morning? Nobody does that. And she was wearing make-up. Early, while studying, alone in her room. It doesn’t make sense.’

I was most definitely the kind of woman who fell asleep in her make-up. As I’d proved just that morning. But Joy wasn’t – she’d been raised by Rose Middlemas, for God’s sake. Rose would probably rather face a firing squad than wake up with crusty eyes, and I was sure Joy had been the same.

Alec nodded in agreement. It wasn’t news to him.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘I noticed the shoes as well. Not the make-up in all honesty, but the shoes. Again, we found nothing to indicate any foul play, and wearing high heels in the morning isn’t a crime.’

It bloody well should be, I thought. It set unrealistic standards of glamour for the rest of us.

‘And the window being open? Is that likely? I mean, I’ve seen that window, and you have to unlock it with a key—’

‘How have you seen that window?’ he asked.

‘Erm. You don’t want to know. But it can’t be open by accident is what I’m saying. I read in the file that it was a summer’s day, perhaps she was cooling off as she revised. But I don’t think so. Not at 8.02 in the morning in Liverpool. It just wouldn’t have been that hot.’

‘It wasn’t,’ he said. ‘It was less than ten degrees. I checked. But the lock hadn’t been tampered with, and there were no unidentified fingerprints. No sign of a wipe down. The only explanation was that she’d opened it, and fell out. It was an accident.’

I stared at him. He was frowning, and looked like he had more to say.

‘But you don’t believe that, do you?’ I asked.

‘No. I don’t. But I’m just PC Plod – not Nancy Drew. So maybe you can do better. If you do, let me know. And if I can help, call me. In fact,’ he said, ‘call me anyway.’

It must be the smell of bacon fat, acting as an aphrodisiac. Or that old Stano’s magic: take your pleasure now, you could be dead by tomorrow. I was about to say something extremely forward in response, along the lines of ‘let’s go back to my place and fuck like bunnies’. I had my mouth open and was trying to remember whether I had any condoms in the house, when my phone rang. I was willing to ignore it if it was just my mother again, reminding me for the hundredth time that I had to buy a present for my nephew Kieran’s eighteenth birthday.

But it wasn’t my mum, and it couldn’t be ignored. It was Corky Corcoran. A body had turned up – and it had my business card in its trouser pocket.

Chapter 15

I swore blind I didn’t know anybody by the name of Robert Carravaggio. I mean, you’d remember, wouldn’t you?

It wasn’t until Corky escorted me into the mortuary that I realised who it was. Dodgy Bobby. Cold on the slab, eyes closed down, covered with a sheet. Outside, it was bustling – one of the busiest general hospitals in Europe. Inside, apart from the banter of the technicians and a radio playing in one of the offices, it was silent. I felt a surge of sympathy and sadness well up inside me as I looked at Bobby. Nobody had ever given a fuck about the poor bloke, including me.

He’d already been identified by his sister, and the cause of death was no mystery – he’d been found with the needle in his arm, lying in the broken lift at Thelwall Towers, by a couple of local kids. I could probably even guess which ones. Maybe that’d put them off their life of crime.

I went with Corky to a nearby coffee shop. I hated the place. It was always full of sad people – hospital visitors, families who’d been told the cancer was terminal, even the occasional escapee from the ward, wheeling a drip stand behind them.

For once, Corky was interviewing me in his official capacity. All suspicious deaths are referred initially to the Coroner. The criminal cases will be adjourned to Crown Court, the straightforward deaths finished off with a full inquest. Corky’s job was to oversee the whole process, gathering forensic and medical evidence, talking to witnesses, liaising with the family.

As he sat opposite me, dunking his tea bag in his mug, I was reminded of why he was so good at his job. If you didn’t know otherwise, you’d swear he was a funeral director, not a police officer. He looked perfectly average, medium build, sandy brown hair, sandy brown eyes. But he had a deep, calm voice that made you feel safe, like he had the answers to all your questions. If only.

My hands were shaking, and I clutched the mug to steady them. I had a feeling that events were racing ahead of me, and I never liked that. Plus this was about my seventeenth cup of coffee of the day and I had caffeine running through my veins instead of blood.

‘It looks clear-cut enough, Jayne, but CID will want to talk to you.’

‘Who’s dealing with it?’

‘Your favourite and mine – Jack Moran.’

‘Oh fuck.’

Jack Moran was a universally loathed middle-aged sergeant from Ball Street. On my first day, he changed the signs round on the loos so I walked in on my DCI taking a piss in the urinals. He was also renowned for scooping ‘freebies’ – from anyone who offered. That included the local greasy spoon at breakfast time and the equally local ladies of the night. I always thought there was more there, but investigating a fellow officer was a sure-fire way to a job as a security guard at Aldi, so I ignored it. As did everybody else.

My parting gift to Jack Moran had been a set of bruised balls when he tried to grope me at my own leaving do. This was going to go swimmingly.

‘Bobby wasn’t a user,’ I said, firmly. ‘Booze, yeah, fags, millions, but not smack. I know the signs. Bet there weren’t any track marks, were there? And what did his sister say?’

‘There were track marks, Jayne – old ones, from years ago, though. And his sister said he used to have a habit, but he’d been straight for over a decade. If you class a crate of Special Brew and sixty Lambert and Butler a day as straight. We’ve not done the PM yet obviously, but I’m guessing the overdose just got him there a bit quicker.’

I said nothing. I was remembering that strange feeling I’d had in his flat, that he wasn’t long for this world. And how he’d agreed. I just hoped he wasn’t burning in the hellfire he’d been shown at Hart House. I know I’d slagged him off to Dan the day before, but let’s face it, he was harmless. There were far more malevolent men still walking the earth.

‘The sister hadn’t seen him for almost two years, apart from a couple of strange late night phone calls asking if “she was all right”. She said he sounded worried, anxious. Maybe he’d finally had enough of his shitty little life and went out in style. Besides, there’s a witness.’

‘Who? And a witness to what?’

Corky stared at me, obviously weighing up what he should and shouldn’t let slip. This was an active investigation, not a favour to a friend.

‘Come on Corky – you know I could find out anyway. And I’ll pay the usual fee.’

He smiled, and his whole average face lit up into something much nicer.

‘I’m not sure my fridge can handle any more bottles of Lambrusco, McCartney. Okay – it was some scrote called Jason Quillian. Minor league dealer, operates around Thelwall, although business is down since that shiny new estate opened. Says he sold a bag to Bobby that night.’

‘Why would he offer that kind of information?’

‘Because he was caught with several more bags about an hour later, and he thought it might help him. Jack Moran did the usual and promised to let him go if he’d testify.’

He wouldn’t let him go, of course. Unless he couldn’t be arsed with the paperwork for a tiny case that might not even make it out of Magistrates’ Court, then Jason Quillian Esq may be shown the door.

‘Tell me about Quillian,’ I said. ‘Trustworthy sort, is he?’

‘Oh yes. You could trust him to sell his own grandmother to white slavers for an extra five bob in his pocket. You know the type – looks like a pit bull cloning experiment. Dumb as a box of rocks about everything except his own survival.’