Kennedy 03 - Where Petals Fall (3 page)

‘Scum!’ Louise finished for her. ‘Last night, I got home at about nine thirty to find six strangers in my house. They were lounging in the chairs and across the sofa, drinking from cans and smoking God knows what. I wouldn’t mind her bringing her friends round, but these people were aggressive somehow. I felt quite threatened. Frightened to tell the truth. I went to bed shortly after ten o’clock.’

‘God, Louise, you should have kicked them out. Makesure you do next time. And if they refuse to go, call the police.’

‘I spend half my time wishing Nikki had stayed in London,’ she said flatly. ‘Then I feel guilty for wishing such a thing. When I think of her sleeping rough . . .’ She shuddered.

‘I know that.’ Louise sighed. ‘You wouldn’t believe the mess I had to clear up this morning – overflowing ashtrays, cigarette ends tossed anywhere, dozens of beer cans and I even found a used condom on the bathroom floor.’

‘You’re joking! Oh, for God’s sake, Lou. If it were me, I’d have to evict her.’

‘No, you wouldn’t, Jill. You’d love her because she’s your daughter and you’d hope and pray that the next day will be better.’

It never was, though.

‘Those people last night were all high on drugs or alcohol,’ Louise went on.

‘You need Charlie,’ Jill suggested. ‘You can’t deal with this on your own, Lou. If you both talked to her and stood firm –’

‘It’s no use. When we’ve tried to talk to her in the past, she’s just reminded us both that it’s none of Charlie’s business. She hates him.’

‘Her feelings for Charlie aren’t important. He must tell her that, by upsetting you, she’s making it his business.’

Jill knew nothing was that simple. She couldn’t wave a magic wand and give her friend the happiness she deserved.

‘Charlie offered to take us on holiday,’ Louise confided. ‘He said Paris or even New York. He thought that if we invited her somewhere that would excite her, she couldn’t turn us down. He believes that, if we could get her away from these so-called friends of hers, spend some quality time with her . . .’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘That’s an excellent idea. Think about it, Lou. It would be great. You need to show her that her life would be so much better with Charlie in it, not worse.’

‘She refuses to come with us. She’d rather go shoplifting or taking drugs with those friends of hers.’ Louise took a huge gulp of wine. ‘Every time I walk through the door, I’m relieved to see that she hasn’t walked out again. Then, within minutes, I’m wishing she had.’

‘I can understand that.’ Jill sympathized.

‘And I’ve promised to take her to the Trafford Centre on Saturday. That annoys me as well. She won’t even make an effort to find a job – says she won’t be around long enough – but she expects me to buy her clothes. And, of course, I will, because I’m too embarrassed to see her wandering about like a tramp.’

She expelled her breath on a long sigh.

‘Enough. I didn’t come here to bore you with my problems,’ she said, smiling ruefully. ‘As far as I know, my home is still standing and, for the moment, I’m grateful for that small mercy. Tell me about you. How was the party last night?’

‘Pah!’

‘What?’

‘Max got caught up with work stuff so he didn’t make it.’

‘Oh, no. God, I bet Max was really sorry to have missed it,’ Louise said, deadpan, and Jill laughed softly.

‘It was legit, but he didn’t even call to let me know. I was furious about that. It was one of those things where everyone is part of a couple so I felt the odd one out.’

‘Have you kissed and made up?’

‘We’ve made up,’ Jill said drily. ‘It’s just that Max has a habit of forgetting people exist. It’s not good enough.’

‘It’s a gender thing,’ Louise said on a sigh. ‘It’s a well-known fact that men can only concentrate on one thing at a time.’

‘Tell you what,’ Jill said, her mind still on Louise’s problems, ‘I’ll give Nikki a call if you like and see if she wantsto come shopping with me. I’m free on Saturday so I can easily take her to the Trafford Centre. It’ll give you and Charlie some space for the day.’

‘Oh, Jill, I couldn’t.’

‘Of course you could. Don’t worry, she’ll be fine with me.’

And why, Jill wondered, did that sound ominously like famous last words?

Chapter Four

Max stopped his car on Jill’s drive at six thirty that evening, and was about to ring her doorbell when she walked around the side of her cottage to meet him.

‘I’ve got a bottle of wine on the go. Do you want some?’

Her voice was still a bit thin and clipped, but he guessed she’d soon get over it.

‘I’d love some, but I haven’t eaten since yesterday.’ He looked towards her cottage, then realized the futility of that. Jill’s cupboards were always empty. He hadn’t nicknamed her Fast Food’s Dream for nothing. ‘Do you fancy nipping out for something?’

‘Er, yes. Let me change into something more suitable.’

Tight denim shorts and revealing T-shirt seemed more than ‘suitable’ to Max, but he wasn’t going to argue and risk accusations of chauvinism.

She nodded at the cigarette in his hand. ‘Are you still on the same pack, or did you just feel like buying another?’

‘It’s the same one.’ And he only had three left.

She gathered up a half-full bottle of wine and glasses from the garden, went off to change into jeans and a clean shirt, grabbed a sweater and locked up her cottage.

‘Been having a party?’ he asked.

‘Louise has been round.’

‘Oh? She OK?’

She shrugged by way of reply, and he guessed Louise was still having problems with that daughter of hers. Nikki was fast becoming a lost cause.

‘Before that, Ella was here,’ she went on, ‘and then Finlay Roberts, my new neighbour, joined us.’

‘Oh? What’s he like?’

‘Tall, brown curly hair, green eyes, drop dead gorgeous.’

Max wished he hadn’t asked. He unlocked his car and she got in the passenger seat.

‘He seems nice enough,’ she added as she fastened her seatbelt. ‘A bit of a rogue perhaps, but OK.’

‘Married?’ Max fired the engine and reversed out of her driveway.

‘No. Why do you ask?’

Why indeed. ‘Just making conversation.’

A satisfied smile appeared on her face. She knew damn well he’d been checking out the opposition.

He touched a button and his window slid down six inches to let out the cigarette smoke.

‘For someone who hasn’t smoked for – what? five years? – it’s good to see you haven’t lost the knack,’ she said drily.

‘I’m only smoking this one packet.’ Except he only had two left now.

‘Right. So where are we going?’

‘The nearest place that serves food,’ he told her.

The nearest place was the Deerplay on the Burnley road and, as soon as they walked inside, Max found his appetite. He hadn’t really fancied anything, in fact he’d felt too tired to eat, but he’d known he should have something before he keeled over. Now, he found he was ravenous.

‘Well?’ Jill asked while they waited for their food to be brought to their corner table.

‘You tell me. There are three possibilities.’ He held out three fingers. ‘One, Eddie Marshall wasn’t our man. Two, he’s alive and well and living in Lancashire. Or three, we have ourselves a copycat.’

‘They’re all crap.’

That’s what he thought. ‘When you come up with a fourth,’ he said, ‘I’ll be delighted to hear it.’

All conversation ceased when their roast lamb was put in front of them. It was delicious, and the red wine even better. Max only wished he wasn’t driving.

‘It’s definitely Carol – what was her name?’ Jill asked, dabbing at her mouth with a paper napkin.

‘Carol Blakely. And yes, her husband’s identified her.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘It’s difficult to tell.’ Max thought back to his brief meeting with Vince Blakely. ‘He’s either someone who keeps his feelings to himself, or he’s a cold-hearted individual. He hadn’t seen her for three weeks. He was away on business and then he took off on the spur of the moment to enjoy a golfing holiday with a couple of friends.’

‘So it wasn’t a close marriage?’

‘They weren’t inseparable, no.’ Max emptied his glass. ‘Spouses are always top of the list of suspects but – no, I can’t buy it. We have the same MO here. Either Marshall was innocent or he’s alive and well.’

‘One of the victims’ relatives could have talked.’

‘True, but even they weren’t told about the rings being tied around the waists. Those were simply handed back to the spouses.’

‘He can’t still be alive, can he, Max?’

‘I don’t know.’

Max had never been happy about Marshall’s end. It should have been a simple arrest. Instead, it had been one of the biggest cock-ups ever. He’d been in North Yorkshire before traffic cops spotted him. After a high-speed chase, they closed in on him near Whitby, almost a hundred miles away, and then watched helplessly as he drove over a cliff.

‘But if he’s still alive,’ he murmured, ‘why would he wait so long before killing again? And if he was innocent, if we got the wrong man, why did he run for it?’

‘We got the right man,’ she said, but she didn’t sound as certain as she had before. ‘Even if we didn’t, why would the real killer wait so long before striking again?’

Max had no idea.

‘Will you come in tomorrow?’ he asked.

She must have known he would ask, but she hesitated. ‘Half a dozen of us are supposed to be having a day at the races,’ she explained. ‘I’ve even got a VIP ticket. I suppose I can pass that on to any one of a number of people, though. The others won’t miss me. Yes, I’ll come in. I might have made a mistake where Rodney Hill was concerned. . . .’

Her voice tailed off. No matter what anyone said, she still blamed herself for Hill’s hanging himself. Max had told her over and over that they’d acted on hard evidence, but she believed, correctly he supposed, that they wouldn’t have found that evidence if it hadn’t been for her profile. He wished she’d get over it.

‘I was spot-on with Eddie Marshall,’ she went on at last. ‘He was our man, Max, I’m sure of it. Sod it, I’m not having some sick bastard trying to prove me wrong. Either Marshall is still alive or we’ve got a copycat.’

Could Marshall have survived that dive into the sea? On the other hand, if he was alive and well, why wait until now? And how the hell could a copycat know the MO of the previous murders?

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘What does Meredith have to say about it?’ she asked, and he could see amusement in her expression. They both knew that Max’s boss would be on the verge of a coronary if he thought they’d got it wrong with Marshall.

‘It’s difficult to tell. I had to disturb him at a dinner with every local dignitary you can name last night and I updated him this morning just as he and the Chief Constable were teeing off.’

Jill grinned at that. ‘You’re popular then.’

‘No change there.’

Max wasn’t popular with his superiors because of his refusal to do the job by the rules, but they had to accept that he got results. Usually.

‘I need to make a move,’ he said.

As tempting as it was to linger, Max needed to see if his sons still recognized him. Fortunately, they accepted hiserratic working hours. They were good kids, the best, and he was lucky to have them. All the same, he needed to spend a little time with them.

‘Do you want a lift in tomorrow?’ he asked as they walked across the Deerplay’s car park.

‘No, thanks. I’ve got a couple of things to do on the way in. I’ll be there early, though. I want to know what’s going on as much as you do.’

Max knew that. He only wished this hadn’t come up now, just when Jill was due to return to work. If by any chance they
had
made a mistake with Marshall, it would rob her of the little self-confidence she’d managed to claw back.

Away from the quarry itself, all that moved in the fading twilight were a few sheep.

He was breathing hard by the time he reached the top. That was due to either lack of sleep or being out of condition – or the fact that his lungs were unaccustomed to cigarettes.

He took the last one from its packet and lit it. It was five years since he’d quit so he could take them or leave them. Inhaling deeply he decided that, right now, he’d rather take them.

Despite feeling more at home in a town, he had to admit that the view over the valley was stunning. Below was a row of terraced houses and a few isolated farms, and, further down still, nestled Bacup and Stacksteads. He could see the church, the fire station, Britannia Mill’s old chimney, the new housing estate on the hill and the one between Rochdale Road and New Line. The number of trees in the area surprised him, as did the size of the cemetery.

His gaze fixed on Kelton Manor standing slap-bang in the centre of Kelton Bridge. Even from this distance, he could make out the huge sign that told passers-by that it was offered for sale by auction. Yesterday morning, when life had seemed to be ticking along quietly, he’d made the most of Jill’s trip to Liverpool by having a look round it. Jill loved the place, and he could see why. Huge, old and full of character, it managed to maintain a homely atmosphere.

Jill still had a few reservations about him, he knew that, but, apart from a few wobbles, they were getting there. Hopefully, the day she moved back in with him wasn’t too far off.

The manor was in a poor state of repair so was expected to fetch a relatively low price at auction. He had no mortgage on his own house so, as long as he quit smoking, drinking and eating, he could just about afford it.

He’d have to think about that tomorrow. Right now, he had a murder investigation on his hands.

How would someone get a body to this spot? It was a hell of a climb and there was no vehicular access to most of the area. And why? What was so significant about the quarry? Probably nothing, he thought with a sigh.

It would be interesting to know how Carol Blakely’s husband gained financially from his wife’s death. He’d also like to know how quickly another woman was moved into the marital bed. Very quickly, he suspected.

He made a mental note to see if there had been anything about her in the local rag recently. That, they had decided, was how Marshall had chosen his victims.

Marshall, despite a history of mental illness, had held down a job at the castings factory in Harrington until, one day, he’d beaten his wife to within an inch of her life. He’d been physically abusing her for years, insisting that, until she had his children, she wasn’t a complete woman. It was when he discovered she was taking the contraceptive pill that he lost it. She ended up in hospital with a broken jaw, shattered cheekbone, cracked ribs and a broken arm. Heended up in court. After spending six months banged up, he came out and went on a killing spree.

Could they have got it wrong? Could Edward Marshall have been innocent?

No. He was getting as paranoid as Jill.

He sat on a huge stone and, while he gazed at the view, he concentrated on Carol Blakely’s last movements.

It was all a bit sketchy so far but, according to witnesses, she’d worked until seven on Friday evening in her florist’s shop in Harrington and then driven home alone. A neighbour saw her drive into the garage. Her car keys had been left on the table in the kitchen and an empty cup suggested that she’d had a coffee before going upstairs to change. A neighbour who lived opposite had waved to her as she’d left the house just before 8 p.m., but she hadn’t spotted him. According to him, she’d been wearing grey leggings and a dark blue T-shirt. He had assumed that she was going out jogging, something she did regularly.

From there, she had vanished into thin air. It seemed that her neighbour was the last person to see her alive. Other than her killer, of course.

Max heard what he thought was a scream and he jumped to his feet. He ran downhill towards the sound and, as he rounded the corner, he saw a woman looking into a deep hollow. She was yelling at the top of her lungs.

She saw Max and screamed at him. ‘He’s killing it! Killing it!’

Heart in mouth, Max raced to the edge of the hollow. When he could see what was happening, he realized that a dog, one that belonged to the woman if the leash in her hand was anything to go by, was standing over a lifeless lamb. A black mongrel with a lot of labrador in it, it wasn’t killing the lamb. It was merely nuzzling it with his nose.

‘He wouldn’t come when I called him,’ the woman wailed hysterically. ‘He just kept on chasing it. Now it’s dead. What will I do?’

‘Wait here!’

Max half ran and half skidded down the slope towards the animals. The dog came bounding up to him, tail wagging. The lamb lay motionless.

‘Right, Fido, let’s get you out of the way.’

He grabbed the dog’s collar and began dragging it up the bank towards its owner. Halfway up, he turned around and was just in time to see the lamb spring to its feet and race off at lightning speed.

‘It’s alive! Look!’ the woman cried.

‘Yes,’ Max agreed, breathless again. ‘It must have been exhausted.’ It wasn’t the only one.

It was calling for its mother and the ewe was calling for her lamb – and both were heading in opposite directions. Max wished he’d gone straight home.

Ten minutes later, after Max had done a sheepdog impression and sent the lamb in the right direction, the family was reunited. And Max was knackered.

‘Thank you,’ the woman said tearfully. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t happened along.’

She looked as if she would have settled for a nervous breakdown if he hadn’t happened along. She was late forties or early fifties, Max guessed, and her hair kept blowing into her face so that she was continually shaking her head to keep it back. Her hands were shaking, too.

‘If I were you,’ Max said, ‘I’d keep him on a lead up here. There are a lot of sheep around and, if a farmer catches him chasing them, your dog could be shot.’

‘Oh, don’t! He does chase them,’ she admitted. ‘In fact, he chases anything. Yesterday, it was two young hooligans racing down here on cycles. One of them stopped and threw a big stone at Benji. It frightened him, and he came racing back to me. Horrid boy, wasn’t he, Benji?’ she cooed, stroking the dog’s ears. ‘And they were both going too fast,’ she went on.