A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (8 page)

She was surprised then when a quietly spoken woman answered. She paused, deciding between wife and daughter, and then hid her pity for the woman as she spoke.

“Mrs Harrison, could I speak to the Detective Chief Superintendent please? It’s Inspector McNulty.”

Chapter Five

The room was small and still, with furniture well past its sell-by-date, and that air of peace that the elderly seemed to carry around with them. The only nods to 2012 were a huge flat-screen television and a pile of lottery tickets that poked out from behind the clock. It reminded Liam of his granny’s farmhouse – she had a huge TV as well, and when he’d asked her why, she’d just laughed and imitated a jockey. Her lottery tickets were betting slips.

The two men perched on the edge of the too-small chairs, drinking their tea from the china cups brought out only for visitors. Liam’s huge fingers couldn’t fit through the handle, so he held the cup like a pen and tried not to drip on the rug, draining the cup in one swallow. Ida topped him up again, smiling and handing him ginger cake that was the best he’d had in ages, and he said so. She beamed at him proudly.

“We used to run a tea-shop in Dundonald, but now I just bake for myself and visitors. I’ll give you a few cakes to take with you.”

She smiled at the young constable. ”So nice to see a man in uniform” casting a slightly disapproving eye over Liam’s grey suit.

“In my day, any man who wasn’t in uniform wasn’t a man at all. They were so handsome. We used to go dancing at the Floral Hall near Bellevue and have such lovely times.” She looked wistful for a moment. “So much more romantic than those disco things.”

Liam watched her as she spoke. She was one of those elfin creatures typical of the war generation. Enforced rationing and healthy walking had left them with a legacy of slimness in maturity and frailty in old age. She still wore the strange fashion mix of a generation where style was in short supply, as if she’d never quite caught up. And her thin hands bore rings that hinted at marriage and children.

“Do you have family nearby, Mrs Foster?” The constable’s loud voice broke through the musty air like a siren and she smiled at him again, as if he was her own child.

“Yes, thank the Lord. My daughter lives two streets over and I have seven grandchildren and a great granddaughter – she’s getting married in June.”

She moved suddenly, far quicker than earlier, over to a dark sideboard, and pulled a sheaf of pictures from its top drawer. Liam silently cursed the P.C. for his question, but part of him smiled at the certainty of viewing baby photos, accepting that the small kindness might mean a lot to her. Annette was rubbing off on him.

They admired her photos, and drank and ate for about thirty minutes, until finally Liam shifted the conversation to the reason they’d knocked at her door.

He outlined the murder without revealing the gruesome detail and as always, he was surprised by the pragmatism of the war generation. Nothing seemed to shock them, but then, they’d seen so many die. Or maybe age brought calmness. He thought wryly that Craig could do with some of that these days.

“So, did you see anything across the road on Wednesday – anything that stood out at all, Mrs Foster?”

“Ida.”

“Of course. Ida.”

“What time do you mean, Mr Cullen? I’m in the neighbourhood watch so I see a lot through my windows. I sit there and watch the world. See ...”

She pointed towards the net curtains and Liam peered through the room’s dim light, seeing a window-seat that he hadn’t noticed before. The perfect vantage point. He walked over and lifted the curtain. Yes! She had a clear view of the garage.

“Any time at all yesterday – were you looking out?”

“Oh yes. Now let me think, yesterday. Well, Lizzie came in after eight on her way to work. Did I tell you she has a very important job? Up at Stormont, she’s one of those civil servants.” He half-smiled and nodded her on, encouraging her to stick to the story.

“And when she left?”

“Oh yes. Well I had breakfast, then I took a cup of tea and my crossword to the window and I sat there. I was probably there until five-ish when she came back, to take me to stay with her. I always stay over with Lizzie on a Wednesday night – until Thursday evening.”

Suddenly Liam felt excited; she’d been sitting by the window all day! He’d expected an hour if they were lucky, but this was brilliant. He was even more impressed by her ability to exist without food for eight hours.

“Didn’t you leave the window at all in that time? For more tea, or whatever?” He hesitated to mention the word ‘toilet’ to a lady of that generation; he’d said it to his Granny once and could still remember the resulting sore ear.

“Oh no, I had a flask with me.” Then she looked at him as if she’d suddenly realised something.

“Now I remember. I stayed there until Countdown started on Channel 4 Plus one, at 4.25. I always watch it with some tea and toast. That’s when I sat back down there.” She indicated the P.C.’s chair, smiling, satisfied that she’d been accurate. Both men stared, impressed that she knew about the Plus One channels, Liam had only found out they existed a few months ago!

“Lizzie came round at five with Gina and Roy, her youngest, she brought in fish and chips. A lovely piece of cod from the corner of the Belmont Road. Then the children did their homework while we chatted, and we left at about 6.30. I watched ‘Midsomer Murders’ over at hers.”

Liam was almost afraid to ask the next question, the possibility that she might have seen something almost too good to be true. But he needn’t have worried about framing his questions to tease information out of her, because she suddenly reached up to the mantelpiece grabbing at a worn red notebook, and opening it at the second last page. She looked at it intently for a moment, and then started to read.

“At 10.10am the postman walked into the garage and put some letters through the shop door. He’s my postman - Mr McGimpsey - such a nice man; I always give him something at Christmas. Then at 11.40am a boy on a bicycle rode around the forecourt a few times, doing those dangerous one-wheel things.” She pursed her lips disapprovingly.

“Wheelies?”

She nodded and pushed her large glasses further up the bridge of her nose, without taking her eyes of the page. “Yes, I think they’re called something like that, Roy does them in the park and his mother shouts. I recognised the boy; his father owns the grocery shop.”

She squinted hard at the page and Liam’s heart sank again at her eyesight, but what she said next removed all his doubts.

“At 12.37pm a young man walked onto the forecourt and over to the cars that were parked at the back.”

She jerked her head up at them accusingly.” They’ve all gone today. Have they been stolen?”

“No, don’t worry, we’ve just taken them to our compound to stop them being vandalised.” Satisfied with Liam’s explanation she moved on.

“He walked around a few times and looked at a couple of them very closely. He didn’t look like a criminal, but I’ve written a description of him anyway.”

She tapped the page emphatically, “Six foot, about thirty, wearing a suit. Balding dark hair and overweight. He looked like a spiv – we used to have lots of those during the war.”

The two men laughed aloud and she smiled, pleased that they appreciated her work. Ida continued.

“At 1.45pm a young woman walked up and down the street a few times. She looked very shifty so I paid special attention to her. She was in her 20s somewhere, very thin and pale looking, you know that pale that says you’re not healthy? And she had on those jeans things – I hate those. Doesn’t anyone dress like a lady nowadays? My Lizzie does, she’s always nicely turned out.”

Liam leaned forward encouragingly, desperate not to be drawn into a fashion diatribe, and he noticed her eyes again. They were huge and the palest blue that he’d even seen, almost translucent, as if you could see behind them. Ida looked thrilled by his keen interest, continuing eagerly.

“She was small and she had her hood up, but you could still see she had dark hair. Not black but dark brown, down to about here.” She indicated her shoulders.

“The ends were sticking out; it looked like she hadn’t put a comb through it for weeks.” She pursed her lips again, sniffing disapprovingly. “Her jacket was very rough looking; dark green like the ones the trainers wear at racecourses, but the hood was grey.”

She was describing a green Barbour jacket and a grey hoody, Liam was sure of it. The constable leaned forward, desperate to assist, but Liam shook his head slightly, motioning him not to lead her. She was going to be a valuable witness.

“Then she walked onto the forecourt, and cheeky as you like just walked on into the shop, and the owner definitely wasn’t in there.”

“Was the door open?”

She paused for a moment, thinking, “It must have been, she didn’t use a key, she just pushed it open. She was in there for about ten minutes.”

She consulted her notebook. “Yes here it is. She went in at 1.50pm and then she came back out at 2pm on the dot.” Liam could have hugged her for her accuracy.

“Which way did she go then Mrs Foster?”

“Ida”

“Sorry, Ida”

She smiled at him forgivingly. “She walked out the door and turned to her right, towards the cars, and then she stopped and looked at one of them. I thought she was going to steal it, so I kept a very close eye on her.”

The hairs on the back of Liam’s neck stood up suddenly. “Which car?” Knowing the answer even before she spoke.

“A red one. A small, fat car. That’s what I call them anyway.”

She smiled and looked up at him, hopeful that he’d laugh at her joke. And he did, so loudly and for so long that it verged on hysteria. He’d spoken to the killer; he’d actually spoken to the killer - the red car confirmed it.

It was the woman who’d called Ian McCandless’ mobile, Monica Gibson. That wouldn’t be her real name of course, but at least they had a number, and even if it was false, it might give them something.

Ida was still talking and Liam was pulled out of his self-congratulation by her next few words.

“Then she went round the corner and disappeared.”

“Did you see her later?”

“I can’t be sure. I saw the man who owned the garage driving up in his navy car at 2.11pm. He walked right into the shop. But then my phone went. It was my sister Jane in Sydney and we were chatting for ages, so I stopped watching. When I looked again, it was 3.15 and all your cars were there. Did I miss anything important?”

Only a murder, Ida.

Liam bit back his disappointment. It had been too much to hope that she’d actually witnessed the murder. They’d already been spoiled, and now she’d confirmed time of death as well.

“No, you’ve been brilliant, Ida, really brilliant.” She beamed at him, and he felt sure that his next words would bring an even bigger smile to her face.

“You’ve given us very valuable information, so would you work with our sketch artist to produce likenesses of the people you saw yesterday? Especially yesterday afternoon.”

“Can I really? Are they all murderers?”

“No, I’m sure they’re not all.” He fervently hoped that one of them was. “But one of them might be.” Ida looked as if she might burst. “And the rest we’d like to rule out, with your help.”

He paused for effect. “Would you be free if I sent a patrol car to collect you, in the morning? Say about ten?”

She nodded vigorously, immediately lifting the phone to tell her daughter, and they said their farewells, leaving her chatting happily. Then Liam called Craig, to give him the biggest break they’d caught yet.

Shaftesbury Square, Belfast

The taxi driver dropped Jessie at the strip of bars and clubs that made up the rough end of Belfast’s ‘Golden mile’. What started with drinking and fighting at the Shaftesbury Square end, finished one mile further up in Malone, with multi-million pound houses and shops selling Armani and Chanel. The size of the city prevented the spectrum of life being widely separated anywhere.

She paid the driver and got out onto the pavement, looking up at the Square’s neon lights. She caught the admiring glances of the burly, t-shirted men queuing outside The Ark, a popular nightspot for the under forties, their attention guaranteed by her blonde mini-skirted stereotype.

They ran their eyes across her breasts and thighs, mentally salivating, and she had a sudden image of wolves licking their lips, like something in a Roadrunner cartoon. Men were so predictable; Pavlov should have just forgotten the dogs and taken a blonde to inner city Britain. But their predictability would be very useful soon, and she had nothing to lose. Protecting her virtue was redundant now. Her body was her weapon tonight, no matter how defective it was.

She looked up at the red lights and suddenly a searing pain cut through the bone behind her eyes, sucking out her breath. She staggered backwards, a fortuitous lamppost halting her fall, her hearing suddenly dulled by chords of high-pitched ringing. Droplets of cold sweat trickled down between her small, high breasts and she fought the urge to vomit, closing her eyes quickly. She was half-deaf to the calls of “Hey Blondie!” that passed for foreplay to the men walking past.