Kennedy 03 - Where Petals Fall (7 page)

She ran a hand across that jaw.

‘You couldn’t,’ Jill agreed, and Max heard her struggling for a sympathetic tone. ‘But who was he close to? Who would he have spoken to?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Irene Marshall snapped. ‘No one that I can think of.’

‘He drank a lot,’ Max reminded her. ‘Most people talk too much when they’re drunk.’

‘Not him,’ Irene scoffed. ‘And he certainly didn’t talk to me. He were too busy knocking me about.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Look, I had nothing to do with him then. After he put me in hospital, I never saw him again. How the ’ell should I know who he talked to?’

Max supposed she had a point.

‘We’ll talk to ex-cellmates and fellow inmates,’ Jill told her, ‘but who else could there be? Where did he drink?’

‘The Horse and Jockey in Harrington. Oh, and the Red Lion. He were barred from most of the other places.’ She thought for a moment. ‘He used to go to Sal’s, too. You know the caff on Broad Street?’

Max remembered the place. ‘It’s been closed down for a couple of years.’

‘Oh. That’s no good then. There was that Ken Barclay. You know him who has the lorries? He was supposed to have promised Eddie a job as a driver. That was before he ended up doing time, though. And I don’t know how true it were.’

‘We’ll check it out.’ Max was grateful for any lead.

She came up with a few more names, but nothing sounded promising and Max was glad when it was time to leave.

‘If you hear anything, you’ll let us know?’ he asked.

‘Too right I will. If the bastard’s still alive –’

‘We’re sure he isn’t,’ Jill said calmly.

Max wished he could sound as confident.

‘He’d better not be. I’ll want bleeding compensation from you lot if he is.’

‘Quite right,’ Max agreed as they reached fresh air. Phil Meredith would be delighted to deal with that. The thought made him smile as he got in his car.

‘Shall we find somewhere to eat?’ he asked as he knocked the car into gear and pulled away.

‘Only if it’s somewhere clean.’ Jill shuddered. ‘God, even your car feels pristine after that place!’

The backhanded compliment made him smile.

‘So what did you think?’ he asked after a while.

‘I think she’s scared he’s still alive. If she knew anything, she’d tell us. She hates him.’

‘With good reason.’

‘Yes. We’ve got a copycat on our hands, Max, I’m sure of it, but I can’t imagine Eddie Marshall talking to anyone. He was a nasty piece of work with a vicious temper but, as Irene said, he forgot it afterwards. He wasn’t the type to talk.’

‘So how would anyone know the MO? How would someone –?’ He cursed beneath his breath. ‘A copper would know. The same copper who possibly leaked this story to the press.’

‘Come on, Max, we don’t even know that it was a copper.’

No one liked the idea of someone on the force being less than a hundred per cent honest. And worse, much worse, was the idea of a policeman turning to murder. It went against nature.

‘Even if it was,’ she went on, ‘it’s not necessarily as bad as it seems. A couple of drinks in the pub, a reporter posing as an innocent member of the public – it happens.’

‘Not on my patch, it bloody well doesn’t!’

Chapter Seven

Max sat in his new swivel chair with his feet on his new desk and read through Finlay Roberts’s statement again. He didn’t like it.

He didn’t like the chair, either. It looked good, the ultimate in style and design, but it wasn’t as comfortable as his old one. He resented it, too. All he heard was budgets and bloody shoestrings when he asked for more manpower, but it seemed there was no shortage of cash for furniture. This desk of his had cost a fortune.

He turned his thoughts back to the statement. Roberts claimed he’d had two evenings out with Carol Blakely. On the first occasion, a Friday, they had visited the Ashoka Indian Restaurant in Burnley. The following Wednesday, they’d been to Mario’s Restaurant in Bacup.

Perhaps the fact that, seemingly on a whim, he rented a cottage in Kelton Bridge for three months and then got involved with a woman who was murdered soon afterwards was nothing more than coincidence. Max hated coincidences.

Roberts didn’t have an alibi. While Carol Blakely was being butchered, he was at home ‘chilling out alone’. He seemed an intelligent individual so one would expect him to make sure he concocted some sort of story if he had anything to hide.

With a sigh, Max swung his feet off the desk, gathered up the papers scattered across his desk to put them into a neat pile, and then went in search of Jill.

Fifteen minutes later, he was driving them to Preston where Tommy (Spider) Young was currently in residence.

‘What’s he in for?’ Jill asked.

‘Breaking and entering. Assault.’

‘And why Spider?’

‘You’ll know when you see him.’

Tommy Young was an ex-cellmate of Edward Marshall’s. It was six years since they’d shared that cell and Young had been released, banged up, released and banged up again since.

According to the records, though, Edward Marshall had visited Tommy once, soon after his release. Soon after he began his killing spree.

‘What’s he like?’ Jill asked as Max pulled off the motorway.

‘A whining, grovelling con. Yes, Mr Trentham, no, Mr Trentham, three bags full, Mr Trentham. He’s due out in a couple of months, but I expect they’ll have the good sense to keep his bed warm.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Fifty-two.’

‘About the same age as Marshall then,’ she calculated.

‘He’s a couple of months older.’

After passing the Tickled Trout Hotel, Max carried on to the roundabout and on to New Hall Lane. He turned right and saw the prison next to the County Regimental Museum. Fortunately, he was able to park nearby and, surprisingly, formalities at the prison were quickly dealt with.

Before long, a smiling Tommy Young was sitting opposite them.

‘Chief Inspector Trentham,’ he said. ‘A pleasure, I’m sure.’

His tattoo, a huge spider’s web covering his neck, was incongruous with the polite smiles.

‘If only it were mutual, Tommy.’

The prisoner was looking questioningly at Jill.

‘Jill Kennedy,’ Max introduced her.

‘Ah, yes, the psychologist. It’s an honour to meet you, my dear. I read about you when poor Eddie met his Maker.’ He beamed at Max. ‘And that’s why you’re here, to speak to me about Eddie. You think he’s still alive.’ Still smiling, he tapped the side of his nose. ‘I do read the newspapers, you know.’

But not the big words, Max assumed.

‘You shouldn’t believe all you read, Tommy,’ he said.

‘Tell us about Eddie,’ Jill suggested. ‘You shared a cell, we know that. We also know that he visited you once after his release. You must have grown quite close.’

‘Not at all.’ Tommy’s hands, the fingernails neatly trimmed, rested on the table in front of him. ‘It’s true what you say, of course, but he was a difficult man to know. A very angry man. Private, too.’

‘Angry about what?’ Max asked.

‘Life in general. He thought the world was against him. He didn’t believe he should be locked up for showing his wife who was boss.’

‘You were kindred spirits then,’ Max said drily.

‘No, no.’ Young chuckled. ‘I’m a reformed character now, Chief Inspector. You’ll have no more trouble from me, I can assure you.’

‘Are you trying to tell me you’ll be sticking to the straight and narrow, Tommy? That takes some believing.’

‘It’s true.’ He leaned back in his chair, his smile gentle and relaxed. ‘As soon as I’m free, when I’ve repaid my debt to society, I’m going to theological college.’

Max groaned. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve found God.’

‘He found me,’ Tommy corrected him. ‘I was lost, now I’m found.’

Max groaned again.

‘What did you talk about?’ Jill asked briskly. ‘You and Eddie Marshall,’ she put in quickly, ‘not you and God.’

‘We didn’t talk about much at all. He shouted at the injustice of it all and I agreed with everything he said. He had a vile temper so I wasn’t going to argue with him.’

‘Did he mention his wife?’ she asked.

‘Mention her? He talked about little else. He reckoned it was wrong him being banged up, and he was going to show her that he wasn’t a man to be pissed about. I just used to let him hold forth. As I said, I wasn’t going to argue with him.’

‘Who else did he talk to?’ Max asked.

‘No one that I can think of. Eddie didn’t talk as such. He’d pace the cell and shout and curse. It was more the ravings of a nutter than talk.’

‘If there was so little conversation between the two of you,’ Jill said, ‘how come he visited you after he was released?’

‘At the time, I couldn’t understand that myself,’ Tommy said thoughtfully. ‘He was even worse then, too. I thought he was probably on drugs. He had a bright-eyed look. Seemed wilder and more out of control, if you know what I mean. I always said he was mad.’ He gave Jill a bold stare. ‘He saw enough of you shrinks, but you all reckoned he was sane. I didn’t.’

‘He must have said something to you,’ Jill insisted.

‘He said he was going to do for them all, I remember that.’

‘Them all?’ Jill queried.

‘At the time, I’d no idea who he meant by that. Later, I realized he meant those women. Well, he must have, mustn’t he?’

‘What else did he say?’

‘I wanted him to leave. “Calm down, forget revenge and get on with your life,” I told him. We had a bit of an argument. As he was only visiting, I felt safer, as if I could say what I liked to him. I told him he wasn’t man enough to do half the things he claimed he would, and he went ballistic. “I’ve done one,” he said, “and I’ll do the rest of ’em.” I told him to stop being so dramatic, but he swore he had proof. Said it was all on film. I tell you, he was mad. I was glad when he left. And no,’ he added with a smile, ‘before you ask, I never heard from him again, thank God.’

‘On film?’ Max said. ‘Are you sure he said he’d already done one and that it was on film?’

‘Oh, yes. He’d bought one of those camcorders. Secondhand, he said it was, but a bargain. Everyone wanted digital, that’s why he got it so cheap.’

Bingo. The bastard must have filmed the murders. If Jill was right and they did have a copycat on their hands, that person must have got hold of the film.

‘What did he say about it? Think, Tommy! Did he mention the make, say where he’d got it from, anything like that?’

‘He probably did, but it didn’t mean nothing to me. All I can remember is him saying he’d make a copy of the video and send it to me. As if I was interested in anything that sicko did. Mad he was. Stark, staring mad!’

A video. That had to be it.

‘What about letters or phone calls when he was inside?’ Max asked. ‘Did he write to anyone? Speak to anyone?’

‘His brother wrote to him once, I remember. I saw the letter. Not that he showed it to me, but it was hanging around and I couldn’t help reading it. It was full of sympathy for Eddie’s predicament. Whether his brother had genuine feelings for him, I don’t know. Eddie never mentioned it, but he did keep the letter.’

‘What about interests?’ Jill asked. ‘Was he into stamp collecting, coin collecting, antiques – anything like that?’

‘Not that I knew of, but it wouldn’t surprise me.’

‘Oh?’

‘He always reckoned life was better in days gone by.’ He grinned. ‘He blamed most things wrong in our society on giving votes to women. Very old-fashioned in his outlook. He hated women. Oh, except his grandmother. She was a saint, by all accounts. His own mother was one of eleven children, I recall . . .’

Max’s thoughts were still on that camcorder, and Tommy couldn’t tell them much else.

‘I’ll see you in court then, Tommy,’ Max said as they were leaving.

‘You’ll see me in church,’ Tommy retorted, the smile still in place. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll pray for you.’

They were soon out of the prison and striding towards Max’s car.

‘A bloody camcorder,’ Jill burst out. ‘It makes sense. Eddie Marshall thought he was doing society a favour and he would have wanted society’s gratitude. He had to have proof that he was the man responsible. The bodies were laid out for the cameras all right. Our cameras
and
his. The sick bastard was his own audience.’

‘It seems like it. Would he film the body, or would he film the murders?’

‘Oh, he’d film the lot. Everything would be caught on camera. He was proud of what he was doing. Bastard.’

‘So if he can just trace this film –’

‘Which will be as easy as tracing this killer . . .’

They were soon out of Preston, but traffic on the M6 was moving slowly.

‘Carol Blakely’s killer,’ Jill mused. ‘OK, he probably wasn’t filming himself but he was trying to make us think Eddie Marshall was still alive. Fair enough. With the film in his possession, that probably makes sense. After all, if we’re busy digging into Eddie Marshall’s past, it takes the heat off him. Yet why was Carol Blakely his victim? This isn’t someone like Marshall who wants revenge on career women. Carol was chosen for a reason.’

‘Indeed. Which has her husband top of my list of suspects.’

‘You have a list? Wow. It must be one of hell of a short list.’

It was. Vince Blakely was top and Finlay Roberts, for a reason Max couldn’t fathom, was second – or bottom.

‘Vince Blakely wanted a divorce,’ Max said. ‘They both wanted a divorce, but
he
wanted a financial settlement. He didn’t know she’d changed her will and left everything to Ruth Asimacopoulos.’

‘Who did know?’

‘No one. Ruth said Carol never discussed financial matters, that money meant very little to her.’

‘So even her best friend didn’t know.’

‘No.’ Max took his gaze from the road briefly and smiled. ‘If she had, I’d have three suspects on my list.’

‘And if she hadn’t been in Costa Wherever at the time,’ Jill put in drily.

Max lit a cigarette and wound down the window to release the smoke.

‘So, Vince Blakely kills his wife,’ Jill said, speaking louder to make herself heard above the traffic noise, ‘and expects to live happily ever after on the proceeds?’

‘Yes, but there’s a flaw there. He was on a golfing holiday when she was killed.’

‘Only in Scotland. It’s easy enough to drive or fly down from Scotland and then get back.’

It was possible. They needed to check with the hotel again and see if he was unaccounted for on Friday night or Saturday morning.

The traffic was still moving slowly, but Max was in no hurry. He often found that when he was concentrating on his driving, his subconscious was working away on more important issues.

It was another hot, sticky day and, with the air conditioning on, it was more comfortable inside the car than out.

‘I need a coffee,’ Jill said, breaking a long silence.

‘Blackburn Services is about five miles away.’

‘And a muffin,’ she added.

‘Anything else?’

‘This whole Undertaker thing –’ she said, ignoring that. ‘Someone’s trying to piss us about. Because we’re concentrating on Eddie Marshall, we’re missing stuff closer to home.’

‘But if we’re right,’ Max said, ‘and there was a video, how the hell would someone get hold of that without knowing Marshall?’

‘True.’ She sighed. ‘I need that coffee. I’ll think better then.’

‘We’ll have a coffee,’ Max said, ‘and then we’ll get Vince Blakely brought in. It’s about time we had a long, serious chat with him.’

‘He’ll want a lawyer there, just to keep everything right and proper. Smug bastard.’

‘You’re right. Scrap that. We’ll have an informal chat with him at his place.’