Bad Moon Rising (#1 - D.I. Paolo Storey Crime Series) (13 page)

Paolo recognised a WPC who was dropping papers on one of the desks. She was the girl Dave had chatted up on Gallows Heath. He was about to ask her if she had any idea where Dave was, but spotted the blush that had crept up from her neck and suffused her face. Maybe asking her about Dave wouldn’t be the most tactful thing to do.

He was glad he hadn’t when Dave walked in a few seconds later. The young WPC glared at Dave and walked out. Paolo was almost certain he heard the word bastard directed at Dave, but the WPC had spoken so softly, he couldn’t be sure.

“Dave, in my office. Now,” Paolo ordered and carried on walking, not waiting to see if Dave was behind him.

He threw his newspaper on his desk to join the mass of paperwork covering every inch of it, walked behind the desk and sat down. He waited until Dave had closed the door before speaking.

“Did I hear that WPC calling you a bastard?”

“I don’t know. Did you, sir?”

“Don’t get funny with me, Dave. That’s the girl you took out after we found the body on Gallows Heath. Rebecca, I think her name is. Why is she swearing at you?”

“No idea, sir. I didn’t hear her say anything.”

Paolo could see from the look on Dave’s face that he didn’t want to talk about whatever was going on between him and Rebecca. Paolo didn’t particularly want to know, but he agreed with Willows, you couldn’t allow your personal life to overlap with the job. It would lead to problems they could do without right now.

“Okay, must have been my imagination,” Paolo said. “But I don’t want any more opportunities for my imagination to see or hear anything else. Understood?”

Dave nodded, but kept quiet.

“Right, moving on. Tell me what you’ve found out about Azzopardi. Any business connections in Liverpool?”

“Not as far as I’ve been able to ascertain so far, sir, but he does have family in the area. His sister married a Scouser and moved up there some years back. I don’t know how close they are, but Azzopardi might have been up there visiting.”

Paolo smiled. “Good work, Dave. Get on to CC and fill her in. She and George can do some sniffing around while they’re up there. They might be able to find out if the sister’s husband is in the same line of business as her brother. If he is, what’s the betting they are on visiting terms?”

“I wouldn’t give you odds, sir. If it’s in the blood then she’s sure to be as bad as Azzopardi.”

Paolo nodded, although it didn’t always follow that just because one part of a family was as crooked as forked lightning that all the rest were. Maybe this sister wasn’t part of the criminal world, but her living in Liverpool pointed the investigation straight to Azzopardi yet again.

“Any news on the Albanian pimp?”

Dave shrugged his shoulders. “According to the girls I’ve managed to speak to, none of them have a pimp. They don’t know what one is. Don’t want to know what one is. And wouldn’t tell me even if they suddenly remembered. Only one thing I know for sure. Whoever is running those girls has them too terrified to say a word to us. Every one of them sweated buckets trying to come up with lies to cover up for the pimp who doesn’t exist. They are shit scared of him and I don’t think it’s just the normal pimp and prostitute power thing. I got the impression he, whoever he may be, has a greater hold over them than that.

“One thing they did tell me about was a priest who hangs around there most nights. It seems he’s trying to get them to turn to God instead of turning tricks. They look on him as a bit of joke, but he might be worth investigating. They call him Father Gregory.”

Paolo looked up in surprise. “Do they indeed? Hmm, I think I know who that is. Leave it with me.”

“Right, you are, sir. I’ll call CC and fill her in on the Azzopardi family connection.”

The phone rang, so he nodded to Dave to carry on. The caller display showed Lydia’s name. Heart beating just that bit faster, he flipped it open.

“Paolo here.”

“Hi. I’ve just left the school. They’ve agreed to let Katy back from tomorrow, but she has to make a public apology to Father Gregory. I’m not sure she’ll do it, Paolo. Can you come over tonight to talk to her?”

“Sure, of course I will. What time?”

“You could come for a meal, if you wanted to.”

Paolo heart rate shot skywards and he almost couldn’t breathe. Don’t fuck this up, he told himself. Trying for nonchalance, he forced his voice to remain level.

“Yeah, sure, a meal would be nice.”

“Okay, if you get here at about six then you can talk to Katy while I’m busy in the kitchen. She’s less likely to fight if I’m not in the room. See you then.”

Paolo remembered Katy’s comment from the weekend.

“Lyds, before you go. Katy said something odd to me on Saturday. Are you two getting on okay? No problems?”

He heard a sound between a laugh and sigh before Lydia spoke again.

“Paolo, she’s fourteen and I’m her mother, of course we’re not getting on okay. She thinks I’m a pain and I think she’s deliberately difficult. But as far as I know we don’t have any real problems. What sort of odd comment?”

His mouth moved, but the words refused to come out. How could he tell Lydia that Katy felt her own mother would have preferred it if she’d died instead of Sarah? He couldn’t do it.

“Oh, she made some remark about believing you hated her sometimes.”

There was silence for a moment. “She throws that comment at me at least once a day, usually when I’ve told her to do something she doesn’t want to do. I don’t know why she says it, or even if she believes it, but then she’s never confided in me the way she does with you. Maybe, while you’re convincing her to make the apology to Father Gregory, you could also find out what I’m doing wrong as a mother and put that right, too. After all, you seem to be Mr Fix-it where she’s concerned.”

Paolo heard the bitterness in Lydia’s voice, but before he could say anything the phone went dead.

***

Barbara walked into the pub and swallowed back the bile when she saw Larry behind the bar. Even though she knew he would be there, she’d been hoping that something might have happened to stop him from coming down from the flat upstairs. Preferably something excruciatingly painful, but non-infectious, so that Sharon couldn’t catch it. She forced a smile onto her face and walked up to the bar.

“Hi, Leanna’s meeting me for lunch. What’s today’s special?”

Larry’s gaze rested just a fraction too long on her breasts before focussing on her face and she felt the usual urge to throw a bucket of cold water over him.

“There’s no special today. Sharon’s feeling a bit off colour, so I’ve told her to stay upstairs. The girls in the kitchen can handle all the usual stuff, though, so order whatever you fancy from the menu.”

Barbara forced another smile. “Nothing serious, I hope. Want me to run upstairs and check her over?”

Larry shook his head. “No, best not. I think she’s sleeping. I’ll tell her you and Leanna were in. You want your usual drinks? Go on over to your table and I’ll bring yours now and Leanna’s when she gets here.”

Barbara walked away from the bar trying to figure out a legitimate excuse to go up to see Sharon. She was no nearer to thinking one up when Leanna arrived five minutes later. By the time her friend had taken off her coat and sat down, Larry was at the table with her drink.

“Here you go. That’s my two favourite customers sorted. Give me a shout when you’re ready to order your meals.”

As he walked away, Leanna turned to Barbara.

“Okay, what’s going on? Why was it so important that I changed my lunch date to meet you here?”

Barbara bit her lip. “I was hoping that Sharon would be here. We need to convince her to leave Larry.”

“Where is she now? Hiding upstairs? Has he started knocking her about again?” She stopped as Barbara signalled with her hands to keep her voice down. “Am I right about Larry hitting her?” she finished on a whisper.

Barbara nodded and leaned towards Leanna. “Can you think of a way to keep x-ray vision man occupied while I sneak upstairs to talk to Sharon? I can’t tell you why, but it’s really important that I go up and talk to her.”

Leanna sat back against her chair, clearly deep in thought. Then she grinned. “I’ve just remembered one of the many, many conversations where Larry has bored me senseless. It’s payback time. I’m about to play damsel in distress.”

Barbara signalled to Larry to come over. When he’d finished writing down their food order and was about to turn away, Leanna laid a hand on his arm.

“Larry, do you know anything about cars?”

“What sort of anything? Makes, engine types, horsepower? I know a bit. Why?”

“Have you any idea why my car would start making funny noises?”

“What sort of noises?” he asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

Leanna put on such a soulful look that Barbara had difficulty holding back a giggle.

“It starts okay, but after a while the engine seems to shudder and then there’s a sound like metal on metal. It’s in the car park if you want to listen to it.”

Larry looked around as he stood up. “It’s quiet in here for the minute, so Gareth should be all right on his own for a bit. I’ll just shout your order through to the kitchen and then I’ll be with you,” he said.

As he walked away Barbara finally let out her pent up laughter. “You might as well have batted your eyelashes and be done with it. Tell me, though, how did you know he’d fall for it?”

Leanna grinned. “I told you, he’s bored me senseless a number of times. One of them was on the subject of being able to be your own car mechanic. Apparently he thinks no one should be allowed behind the wheel of a car unless they can do their own oil change, whip out an engine with one hand and God knows what else. He spent over an hour telling me about the inner workings of his car one lunch time when you were supposed to meet me here but got held up and couldn’t make it. I nearly hunted you down and slaughtered you that day.”

Barbara smiled. “Lucky I escaped. By that I mean lucky I escaped the car lecture. Hush now, he’s on his way over.”

Leanna stood up, grabbed her car keys and headed Larry off. “I’m so glad you know about cars, Larry.”

“No problem. I can’t spend too long though; it’ll get busy soon and Gareth won’t be able to deal with a rush on his own.”

Barbara waited until they’d gone outside and then headed for the door marked private. Once inside, she ran up the stairs and tapped on the door at the top. As she did so it opened slightly.

“Sharon?” she called out. “Sharon, it’s me, Barbara. Is it okay if I come in?”

She could hear the faint sound of someone sobbing, so pushed the door fully open. Standing just inside the small hallway, she called out again, but Sharon didn’t answer. Barbara could no longer hear the sobbing, so wasn’t sure which room to look in first. She decided to try the lounge and walked into the main room of the flat, stopping dead on the threshold. It looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. The tall standard lamp was lying across the sofa. One of the dining chairs was on its side. Another was pushed back from the table where plates and cutlery had been left in place. From the amount of food on the plates, the meal had clearly been interrupted – and not for any good reason. A red stain spread down the wall behind the overturned chair and glass littered the carpet.

Fearful of the state she might find Sharon in, she called out for her again. No one answered, but the sobbing started up again. Following the sound of weeping, she came to the bedroom. The door was wide open and Barbara found Sharon lying on the bed, fully dressed, but with her face turned away from the doorway. Here too someone had been throwing more than just their weight around. The stool, missing one leg, was across the other side of the room from the dressing table. Laundry littered the floor, as if spilled from the overturned linen basket.

Barbara stepped into the room. “Sharon, what the hell happened? Can I help?”

Sharon continued to cry softly, but didn’t turn her head, so Barbara stepped over the debris and walked around the bed. As she saw Sharon’s face a gasp caught in her throat. Hardly any of her friend’s face was the normal colour, the rest was decorated with deep marks in multiple shades of blue and purple. Both eyes were swollen, one was almost shut. A clump of hair was missing from one side of her head, the bleeding area on her scalp showed it had been torn out.

Barbara dropped to her knees and took Sharon’s hand in hers. “Bloody hell, Sharon, what did he do to you?” she asked, even though in her own mind she knew it was a stupid question. It was obvious what Larry had done, the real question was why.

“Barbara,” Sharon whispered, taking her hand from Barbara’s. It was clearly an effort for her to speak. “I had an accident. It looks worse than it really is,” she said. “Please go away.”

“Honey, I’m sorry, I don’t believe you. I’ve seen the state of this place – not to mention the state of you. You never got these bruises from any kind of accident. Larry did this to you, didn’t he?”

Tears continued to flow, but Sharon made a slight negative movement with her hand. “No. He never touched me. Why are you up here, Barbara? Did Larry say you could come up?”

“No, he’s outside with Leanna, looking at her car.”