Follow the Leader (3 page)

10.53 a.m.,
Friday 16 January
.

The words were few but carried huge meaning for Patrick. Life was about to become a whole lot worse come next Friday if he didn’t carry out his plan. And he couldn’t – wouldn’t – allow that to happen. He’d waited such a long time for that day to arrive.

For every memory that he had lived with for years, all the resentment it had caused, he’d stored it up for that day.

For every time Ray had come home drunk and taken his anger out on him, told him how useless he was as he’d struck him, he’d waited for that day.

For every time that Ray had filled his life with fear, his head with negativity, his thoughts with abandonment, he’d waited for that day.

He wasn’t about to let that cruel bastard back into his life. Ray would have to learn the hard way just exactly what his son had turned into while he’d been inside doing time for murder. Patrick was a fighter now. No, more than that: he was a
killer
now. As well as mentally preparing himself for this for years, he had been physically preparing himself for it too. He’d been running thirty miles each week, often in the dead of the night when his shift at work had finished, building up his stamina. He’d been lifting weights too, combinations that he hadn’t thought possible, getting stronger month by month. He might have a puny frame but it was perfect to hide behind.

Ray wouldn’t know what hit him.

Chapter Four

Holly Lane didn’t live up to the picturesque promise of its name. Roughly half a mile from where Mickey Taylor had been found, it was in a built-up area of the city, the properties dating back to just before the war. But the lane was wide, with several holly bushes dotted around the pavements.

Allie parked behind Nick’s car on the road and they walked up the spacious drive together to the Taylors’ residence.

‘Never get used to this, do you?’ Nick muttered as he rang the doorbell.

‘No.’ Allie glanced at the doorway as she waited, in awe of Mickey ending up with something as grand as this. Her feeling wasn’t disbelief, exactly, but more admiration that he had made something of himself. Mickey Taylor might have been the school heartthrob but now that she’d had a little more time to think about it, she’d remembered that he was in one of the classes where all the troublemakers, slow developers and general nuisances were put. Now she was older she understood why they had been segregated, but it still annoyed her. Putting people in boxes made for troubled lives. Children were often labelled before they’d left school – but people changed, none more so than teenagers. Allie would always prefer to form opinions of her own.

The door was answered by Mrs Clamortie, Mrs Taylor’s mum, and before being shown into the living room, Allie and Nick learned that her husband had gone to fetch Mickey’s youngest daughter from college. The interior of the house matched the outside in age. Dark woods, floorboards and panels, blood-red
Chesterfield
settees
. Noting some of the antique figurines and ornate frames dotted around, Allie assumed that either Mickey or his wife had a good eye for business.

Mrs Taylor sat on the sofa clutching a handkerchief. Tears poured down her face as she spotted them. Mrs Clamortie moved to sit down next to her daughter and they clutched each other’s hands.

Allie realised as soon as she saw her that she had indeed known Mickey’s wife at school. Kath Clamortie had been two years above her if she remembered rightly. Looks-wise, she’d hardly changed. Like Allie, Kath had kept herself trim and had razor-sharp one-length brown hair and a thick fringe. Unlike Allie, she wore the best of designer wear, and heels that Allie would kill for – she was wearing a pair of Jimmy Choos Allie had been coveting for ages. When Nick introduced her, Allie could almost hear Kath working out where she’d seen her before too.

‘We’re so sorry for your loss, Mrs Taylor,’ Nick said. ‘May we sit down?’

A slight nod of a head followed. Then she looked up.

‘You used to be Allie Baxter?’ she asked Allie.

‘I did,’ Allie replied.

‘Karen Baxter’s sister. I knew her before . . . She was a lovely person.’

Allied smiled briefly, not willing to let Karen enter her thoughts when the job in hand was so tough.

A phone rang from another room and Kath looked at her mother desperately. ‘Would you get that?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll try not to be too long.’

‘It’s hardly stopped ringing,’ Kath explained. ‘People can’t believe it so they’re ringing to check, I suppose. They mean well but
I
don’t believe it yet.’ She cleared her throat, pulled another tissue from the box beside her and dabbed at her eyes. ‘I don’t want to.’

Allie’s heart went out to her. She knew she’d be the same if anything happened to Mark.

‘Are you able to answer a few questions?’ Nick asked.

‘I – yes,’ said Kath.

Allie pulled her notebook from her coat pocket.

‘Can you tell me when you last saw Mickey, Mrs Taylor?’

‘It was about six thirty this morning. Mickey took Harry out for his usual walk. That’s our dog, Harry. He’s a spaniel.’

‘Did Mickey always go along that particular part of the canal towpath?’

‘Yes.’

‘And always at the same times?’

‘More or less. I was in the shower when he left the house today.’ Kath’s eyes brimmed with tears again. ‘We’d been
bickering
. I never got to say goodbye.’

‘Bickering?’ said Nick.

‘I wanted to redecorate the hall again and he wasn’t having it. That kind of bickering.’

‘What time did you come downstairs?’

‘It was less than half an hour later. I heard the seven o’clock news on the radio as I came into the kitchen. I saw Harry appear at the patio doors about fifteen minutes later. I let him in and assumed Mickey was messing about in the garage. It was only later that I looked and he wasn’t there.’

‘So the dog came home alone? No one brought him back?’

‘As far as I know. I just saw him and assumed that Mickey had come home too.’

‘Can you remember how much time had lapsed between you seeing Harry and checking on Mickey?’

‘Twenty minutes at the most.’ Kath looked up at them both in turn. ‘I made coffee, you see, and took one out to him. But he wasn’t in the
garage when I got there. I tried his phone but there was no answer.
That’s when I began to panic.’ Kath wiped away more tears. ‘We were going away this afternoon. Manchester for the night – Mickey has a meeting there in the morning. I was going to do a bit of shopping while
I waited for him. We were supposed to be staying at the
MalMaison
.
I . . . I need to let them know that we won’t be coming.’

‘I can do that for you, duck.’ Mrs Clamortie came back in and sat down again. ‘That was your Aunty Judith. She sends her
condolences
.’

‘Once you’d tried him on his mobile phone,’ Nick continued, ‘and there was no answer, what did you do then?’

‘I called a few people to see if they had seen him. That was when I saw the police car pull into our driveway. I ran to the door, but he wasn’t . . .’ Kath sobbed, ‘. . . he wasn’t with them.’

Allie was glad when Nick let her take a moment of comfort in her mother’s embrace before continuing. She sensed they were almost done anyway.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Taylor, just a couple more questions,’ Nick started again. ‘How long have you known Mickey?’

‘We’ve been together since high school.’

‘What was he like back then?’

‘Mickey was gorgeous.’ Kath smiled a little at the memory. ‘Mind, he thought he was God’s gift with his Goth-punk look. He told me years later that somehow he’d managed to throw it together and it came out good by accident. Luckily the girls seemed to like it.’

‘So he was popular then?’

‘Yes, he was. Back then he could have had his pick of any girl at Reginald High.’

‘Do you know if he’d been in any kind of trouble lately? Fallen out with anyone?’

Kath shook her head. ‘He nearly ended up in prison just after we married. He was only young then. Scared the hell out of him so he gradually cut all ties with his friends, started his own company and hasn’t looked back since.’

Allie wondered if there was anything to be found in Mickey’s abandoned friends, making a mental note to look into it.

‘Do you have any grandchildren, Mrs Taylor?’ she asked.

‘Yes, two boys. Three and two. My elder daughter’s – we had her when we were quite young.’

‘Has Mickey been playing games with them lately that involved spelling out words? You know, with the colourful magnetic letters that can be attached to a whiteboard?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Kath sniffed, her eyes filling with fresh tears. She looked at her mother. ‘Mickey wasn’t the best when it came to spelling. Why do you ask that?’

‘Does the letter E mean anything to you?’

Kath and her mother glanced at each other again before both shaking their heads.

‘There was a plastic letter in the back pocket of Mickey’s jeans. We need to figure out if it was placed there by whoever did this to your husband or if it was there before Mickey went out.’

‘But, what . . . I . . . I – I don’t know.’ Kath burst into tears again. ‘I don’t
know
.’

After a nod from Nick, Allie stood up, smoothing down her skirt. ‘There’ll be a family liaison officer with you shortly,’ she told them both, ‘to keep you informed as to where we are within the investigation. Once again, we’re so sorry for your loss.’

‘Whoever did this needs to rot in a cell,’ Mrs Clamortie said as she held on to her daughter again. ‘They shouldn’t be allowed to get away –’

‘Mum!’ The door opened and a teenage girl with a shock of red hair and wearing school uniform burst into the room. ‘Mum,’ she sobbed.

Mrs Clamortie stood up quickly. ‘Molly.’

Molly pushed past her to her mum. ‘Tell me it’s not true.’ Molly turned to Allie then. ‘Tell me!’

With Mrs Taylor stumbling over her words, Allie took over. Years of experience in similar situations still never prepared her for the anguished cry of grief when it came.

Leaving the house with Nick shortly after, Allie held in her own tears as they walked away.

‘Sometimes I hate my job,’ she told him. ‘That poor girl. So young to lose a father, and in such tragic circumstances.’

‘This is why we do this job.’ Nick shoved his hands into his coat pockets. ‘So we can get bastards who tear families apart.’

‘I hope we can clear this up quickly, even just to give them peace.’

‘Let’s concentrate on getting back whatever information we can ASAP. Someone must have seen something down there on the canal side. And we need a press release sorted while house-to-house is being carried out.’

As they got into separate cars to make their way back to the station, Allie looked at the house one more time. Getting justice – that’s why she did her job. Justice for a wife, a daughter, a sister. And she would do her best to see that happened.

‘So what was he really like?’ Allie asked as she and Perry drove along Potteries Way towards Burslem later that afternoon.

‘Huh?’ Perry glanced at her with a frown before indicating to change lanes.

‘Mickey Taylor. Did you know him well? Were you one of his crowd? What did you get up to? Did the lay-dees like him too?’

Perry sniggered. ‘You have such a nose for gossip.’

‘It’s my job!’

‘No, it isn’t. Besides, there’s nothing to tell. I knew him until I left school – haven’t seen him much at all since. I know his wife if it’s the same Kath that he was knocking off at school. He got her pregnant just before we left. And I know of his factory now I’ve Googled it, and that’s all really.’

‘Some detective you are,’ Allie tutted. She leaned forward to switch up the heater. ‘Well, this factory – legit, is it?’

‘It seems so. The website says he’s been in business for twenty years – won loads of awards. He’s done okay for himself
considering
.’

‘Considering?’

‘To be honest, I thought he’d be locked up by now. His wife must have had some hold on him. I can just about remember her. She was good-looking but nothing special.’

Perry drove towards the centre of Burslem and, a few minutes later,
turned off Moorland Road and on to a small industrial site. There were
seventeen units on the map by the entrance; they were after number
five. Taylor Made Pottery Factory was the middle unit of a block of nine.

Perry squeezed his car into a space opposite the frontage. They approached the door to the reception area with caution over
slippery
tarmac. As they drew nearer, a woman rushed towards them from inside the building. Allie pressed her warrant card up against the glass and they were let in.

‘I couldn’t believe it when Derek told us what had happened,’ the woman said, shaking a head of blonde-grey curls.

‘Did you know him well, Mrs . . . ?’ asked Allie.

‘Campbell – Doris Campbell. Yes, I’ve been here since the business started. Mickey was like a son to me, his brother too. Martin is in a terrible state.’ She burst into tears.

Once she’d composed herself, they followed her through the office and down a narrow corridor. Allie glanced at the certificates on the wall – Outstanding Business Award 2008, The Sentinel
Business
Awards runner-up for small businesses, certificates of training courses taken. An award for pottery design of the year 2013.

‘He was well liked, then?’

Doris turned to them slightly, a fond smile on her face. ‘Yes, he had such a warm personality, and always the joker. Never unkindly, mind. He’s going to be missed by so many people.’

The door at the end of the corridor led them into a large warehouse, its silence immediate. Allie tried to imagine how it would be normally: machinery whirring, kilns firing, bells on machines ringing, drowning out any chances of hearing a radio piped through in the background.

Today a group of people with heavy hearts sat around. Four women and three men huddled around a coffee machine. Two men stood over by a window deep in conversation. A larger group were sitting around three settees laid out at the far end of the room, next to a row of kitchen units and a drinks machine.

‘We stopped production as soon as we heard,’ a voice behind them said.

They turned to see a man with the aging features of Mickey Taylor, the same shock of auburn hair. His cheeks were red, eyes swollen. A younger man stood behind him: Allie assumed that this was Mickey’s brother, of whom Doris had spoken so fondly.