Strangers (14 page)

‘Evening,’ Lucy said.

‘Evening.’ The guy’s tone was almost weary.

‘You Mark?’ she enquired.

The question seemed to weary him even more. ‘It’s a company name, love.’ He straightened up. ‘But while we’re asking, who are
you
?… as if I didn’t know already.’

Des flipped open a leather wallet to show his warrant card.

The chippie man nodded. ‘Don’t tell me … I’ve got to close up again?’

‘Sorry … what?’ Lucy said.

‘I’ve lost weeks of business thanks to you lot,’ he grumbled. ‘They wouldn’t let me anywhere near the place till they’d finished checking every square inch of ground. And now, even though they’ve gone … half the bloody lay-by’s still taped off. So not only isn’t there much room for customers, how many of them are seriously likely to show up here if they still think the coppers are hanging around?’

‘You
are
sitting next to a murder scene,’ Des pointed out, distracted by a chalkboard menu hanging at the side of the hatch.

‘And how is that my fault?’ the chippie man wondered.

‘I’m not saying it’s your fault,’ Des replied. ‘I’m just trying to explain.’

‘I’ve had it explained. About fifteen thousand times, so don’t waste your breath …’

‘Whoa!’ Lucy interjected. ‘I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot here.’

‘What do you want exactly?’ the chippie man asked. ‘And if it doesn’t come with chips, I won’t be impressed.’

‘Well … I’ll have two battered sausages, large chips and gravy,’ Des said.

‘Oh …’ The chippie man looked surprised. ‘Why didn’t you say that in the first place?’ He moved to comply, shovelling a mountain of chips onto a Styrofoam tray.

‘We want some information too,’ Lucy said.

‘You don’t think I’ve been asked a raft of questions already?’ He didn’t glance up as he used tongs to add the sausages, and ladled on the gravy. ‘I’ll say it again … and for the last time. I close at six o’clock in the evening. I wasn’t even here when this bad thing happened.’

‘I want to know if you saw anything any other days?’ she said. ‘For example, was there anyone …?’

He shook his head as he pushed the tray of food across the counter. ‘I’ve seen no one except people who were buying chips.’

Lucy looked sceptical. ‘You’re seriously saying the
only
people who ever stop here are coming to buy food?’

‘Not
just
that.’ The chippie man mopped up with a paper towel. ‘People park to make phone calls, to check road maps. Lorry drivers stop here for a kip.’

‘How many of this general crowd are women?’ Des asked, taking a plastic fork from a receptacle on the counter.

‘Plenty,’ the chippie man replied.

‘What about on the days leading up to the murder?’ Lucy asked.

‘Like I say, plenty.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘What about women who parked here and then climbed over that stile back there? I’m sure there can’t have been too many of those?’

The chippie man shrugged. ‘More than you might think. Quite a few ladies come here to jog. I
assume
it’s to jog – they’ve usually got running gear on. They park up, first thing in the morning or around lunchtime, climb over the stile and away they go. There’s probably a track through the woods. But as I say, I’ve told your lot this already.’

Lucy pondered. Undoubtedly, this was a fly in the ointment of her theory. But if this place was a regular haunt for female joggers, that might also have provided cover for their suspect.

‘Do they go jogging alone or in groups?’ she asked.

‘Sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes alone.’

‘Any of these lady joggers particularly catch your eye?’ Des asked, chomping his way through a batter-encrusted sausage. ‘Outstanding assets, that sort of thing. Sexy.’

The chippie man regarded him with distaste. ‘I don’t have time to give every lass who comes here the eyeball. I have a business to run.’

Inwardly, Lucy had cringed at Des’s question, though it was probably in line with the other questions that detectives in the team – male detectives mainly – were likely to have asked. With no e-fit of the suspect’s facial features, and no certainty that her blonde hair was real, all attempts to identify her had inevitably focused on her buxom shape and ‘lady of the night’ apparel, and while no one expected the murderess to wander the streets during daytime dressed the way she did when out on the midnight prowl, given that a lot of modern running gear was rather snazzy, all figure-hugging Lycra and so forth, it was perhaps understandable that Des might think this way. Though that was a bloke all over. If the suspect
had
been here during daytime, even if she was a genuine statuesque stunner, Lucy knew that she’d have been able to dress herself down very subtly if she’d wanted to, to literally turn herself into such a plain Jane that no one would notice her.

There was one other detail though, which perhaps none of her fellow detectives had thought of yet.

‘This one would only have been gone ten minutes or so,’ Lucy said.

Both men looked quizzically round at her.

‘I’m quite serious,’ she added.

A keen jogger herself, Lucy was well aware that any fitness session lasting less than half an hour was unlikely to be much use; most fitness types trained for a minimum of forty minutes at a time. But it wouldn’t take anything like that long to make a quick reconnoitre of these woods.

The chippie man still looked puzzled.

‘Okay, how long do these lady joggers usually go for?’ Lucy asked. ‘I mean you must notice from time to time. They park up here, they climb over the stile and they’re away … and then, at some point, they’re back and their cars are gone again. How long does that normally take?’

‘I’ve just told you, love … I barely notice these women. And now you’re asking if I put a stopwatch on them when they’re running? Seriously?’

‘Fair enough.’ Lucy tried not to sigh. Perhaps it had been a dumb question after all. She indicated to Des that they were done. ‘Thanks for your help.’

‘Wait a minute, whoa … you’ve just made me think.’

Lucy turned back to the hatch.

The chippie man’s eyes glazed as he recollected something. ‘Now you mention it, there was
one
girl who struck me … and this would have been in the right timeframe too.’

‘Yeah?’

‘The reason I remember her is she had quite a decent motor,’ he said. ‘Little sporty thing. Not sure what make or model, but it looked expensive. I remember thinking I wouldn’t have liked to leave that here. I mean, there were people around … but you know, you hear about these high-end car thefts. Anyway, she had the jogging gear on. I assumed she’d be gone a good hour or so, like they usually are. But then she was back within ten minutes and drove off. Made me wonder if she’d got cold feet about leaving the car.’

‘What did she look like?’ Lucy asked.

‘Blonde.’

‘Blonde?’

‘Yeah. Longish hair, because it was tied in a bun. Wearing a trackie top and shorts. The usual thing.’

‘Height?’ Des asked.

‘Hard to say.’

‘Tallish?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Any distinguishing features, tattoos or what-have-you?’

The chippie man snorted. ‘Gimme a break, mate. I wasn’t standing right next to her.’

‘Anything else you remember about the motor she was driving?’ Lucy asked.

He gave it some thought. ‘Only that it was sporty. And red … bright red.’

‘This was definitely a few days before the murder?’

‘About that, yeah. One lunchtime, between twelve-noon and two.’

‘You seem sure about that at least.’

‘That’s when I get busiest, and there was a queue of fellas standing here at the time.’

Lucy tried to process the intel. It was intriguing for sure, but it was still far too vague.

‘It would obviously be useful to us,’ she said, ‘if you could try and pin down the date on which this happened. Bearing in mind that Ronald Ford died on October 6
^th
.’

The chippie man blew out a long breath. ‘I can’t be any more specific except that it was about a week before then. I reckon you’re looking at the last day of September-ish. But you’ve got to take a couple of days either side to be absolutely sure.’

‘Would you recognise this woman again if we showed you a photo?’ Des asked.

‘Probably not.’

‘What about the car?’ Lucy said.

He mused. ‘Don’t think so.’

‘Okay.’ She stepped away. ‘You’ll be here if we need to come back and get a statement?’

‘I’m here every day, Monday to Saturday.’

‘Thanks. That’s quite useful.’

‘And those were belting.’ Des nodded to his empty Styrofoam tray, before tossing it into a plastic bin next to the caravan. ‘Cheers.’

‘They were also three-pound-fifty,’ the chippie man replied.

‘Oh yeah …’ Des gave a sheepish grin. ‘Sorry.’

‘So what do you think?’ Lucy wondered as they walked back.

Des unlocked the Beetle, and they climbed inside.

‘I think it’s interesting,’ he said. ‘But it’s the longest of all long shots. You realise that?’

‘But it
is
interesting?’

‘Just remember, Lucy … this isn’t in our remit. And when you go and write it up for the brass, they’ll inform you of that in no uncertain terms.’

‘You’ve got a dab of gravy on your tie.’

‘Shit.’ He scrubbed at the offending mark with a clutch of tissues, which only served to smear it lengthways. ‘Glad you saw that before Yvonne did.’

‘Doesn’t like you making a mess, does she not?’ Yet again, Lucy eyed the vehicle’s cluttered interior.

‘Doesn’t like me eating crap food.’ He switched the engine on, and drove them to the lay-by exit, where he halted to allow for a gap in the traffic.

‘Where does this road lead from here?’ Lucy asked.

‘Right takes us back the way we came, ultimately towards Tyldesley. Left takes us towards Abram.’

She pondered. ‘I wonder which way she headed?’

‘Well there are only two options,’ he pointed out rather unnecessarily.

‘Let’s try left.’

‘Shouldn’t we be getting back?’

‘Humour me again, Des. One last time.’

‘Lucy, you’re not a detective.’

‘
You
are.’

‘Yeah, but I’m attached to you lot.’ He looked frustrated. ‘Here I was, anticipating some nice, easy work.’

‘This
is
nice and easy.’

Despite his moaning, they headed left and within five minutes had come to a roundabout with a large pub called the
Rake and Harrow on the far side of it. As they waited at the broken white line, Lucy spotted traffic cameras in various locations around the circuit.

‘This’ll be easy work for you too,’ she said. ‘Pulling the footage from those cameras for between twelve-noon and two o’clock in the afternoon on all the days between and including September 27
^th
and October 3
^rd
.’

‘Looking out for red sports cars, you mean?’

‘Yeah.’ She glanced round at him. ‘Of which there won’t be a great many, will there? Even by the law of averages.’

Des contemplated this as he navigated the roundabout and headed back the way they’d come. ‘You know … that’s not a bad shout, even if it is a million-to-one. That was a good question, about how long she was gone for. Clearly no one else had asked him that.’

‘Seemed like an obvious question to me.’

‘How long were you in CID?’

‘A week,’ she said.

‘Well, they either taught you a lot very quickly, or you’ve got a natural aptitude for it.’

‘So you think this is a lead?’

‘Could be. We’ll have to push it upstairs though.’

‘Fine, whatever it takes. So long as you let them know it came from me.’

He laughed. ‘I’m not going to tell them
I
went off the grid to do it.’

Chapter 10

It was nearly seven o’clock when they got back to the café car park. Des pulled up to the left of the building, alongside the bins. The only other vehicle round there was a scruffy high-sided van, a mucky brown in colour. It was idling rather than parked, its engine pumping plumes of exhaust in the frigid autumn air. By the glinting pinpoint of red behind its steering wheel – a cigarette no doubt – the driver was still inside.

There was something vaguely suspicious about that. The two cops knew it by instinct, but then all sorts of non-too-wholesome things went on around here, and at present they were otherwise engaged. Lucy drew down the passenger seat sun visor, wiped the blurry sheen off its mirror and attended to her make-up. Not that it had been messed up while she was out driving, but it was important to make it look as if it had.

‘Getting a coffee,’ Des said, opening his door. ‘Want one?’

‘Yeah, but I’d better not.’ She carefully rouged her lips. ‘I don’t know too many prozzies who get treated to a brew when business is concluded.’

‘Okay, I’ll not be a mo.’ He slipped out and left her to it.

As Lucy tarted herself up, she kept half an eye on the idling van. It could be here to pick up a girl, to buy or sell drugs – even to rob the café. But none of that really mattered. There was only one target on their agenda at present.

And then she heard the sound of someone crying out in pain and confusion.

At first she thought it might be coming from the van, but then she realised that it was actually somewhere to the rear of her. She adjusted the sun-visor, initially seeing nothing but the brick wall of the café and the egg yolk-yellow glow of the sodium street lights along the East Lancs. She adjusted it again, and this time spotted a pair of figures approaching Des’s Beetle from behind, though coming at it diagonally as if from across the lorry park. Fleetingly, the figures were only visible in silhouette, but by her diminutive size and buxom shape one of them was recognisable as Tammy. The other one was lean, tall and quite clearly male. Moreover, he had a grip on Tammy’s left arm and was dragging her forcefully alongside him.

Is this the awful Digby again?
, Lucy wondered, a sinking feeling inside her.