Cut Short (7 page)

  'She nice girl.'

  'Did you know her?' the DS asked slowly. 'Her name's Angela, Angie.'

  'Nice girl,' she grinned at him.

  'Come on,' Black urged his companion. 'What's she going to tell us? That Drew liked chop suey?'

  'Ah, chop suey, very good. You want order?' The Chinese girl nodded emphatically, and her ponytail bobbed up and down.

  Their next stop was a newsagent's. The young man behind the counter peered short-sightedly at Johnny Drew's picture and nodded, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

  'Think he lives upstairs somewhere. Drives a flash car. Is that the guy?'

  'Have you seen Angela Waters in here?'

  'Who?'

  'His girlfriend.'

  'Sorry, mate. Didn't know he had one. I don't know the geezer. Just seen him around. She gone missing then? I can put a note in the window if you like. No charge seeing as it's police business.'

  'No. Thank you, but no.'

  A rundown pub on the corner was their last stop. The sergeant raised his eyebrows at the grimy exterior, but cheered up when they went inside. A gas fire with fake coals flickered a welcome in one corner and a warm smell of baking hit them as they reached the bar. A blackboard inside advertised 'Pie and Chips' as the special.

  'What sort of pie is it?' Black asked. 'That smell's making me peckish.' He ordered pie and chips twice. Carter showed his ID at the bar and asked about Johnny Drew.

  'Johnny Drew? Johnny Drew?' the barman mused aloud. The DI showed him a picture, which he recognised straight away. 'Yeah, I know the guy. Comes in here a lot. You with the drug squad then?'

  Carter raised his eyebrows slightly and shook his head. 'We just want to ask a few questions about him, that's all. Did his girlfriend, Angela Waters, come in here with him?'

  The barman's eyes opened wide. 'Angela Waters?' he repeated. 'That the girl was killed in the park?'

  Carter leaned forward across the bar. 'Where did you hear that?' he asked softly.

  All at once the barman was cagey. 'Couldn't say,' he answered, scratching his head. 'Just talk. I hear all sorts, standing here. Tell you what though,' he went on, suddenly inclined to be helpful, 'you might ask old Brian Burrows. He lives next door to Johnny Drew.' He nodded at a man sitting hunched at a corner table by himself. 'He knows most of what's going on round here. Don't believe all his stories though.' He laughed. 'Give him half a chance and he'll be telling you how he won the war single-handed. Won't say which war, mind.'

  'Give us two halves and whatever the old guy's drinking,' Carter said. He carried two glasses over to the old man who glared up at him suspiciously from under bushy grey eyebrows. Carter sat on the only free chair at the table. Black pulled another one over.

  'Here, what you after?' Brian Burrows asked. Bowed shoulders rose inside his filthy jacket and his head swivelled on his scraggy neck, looking from Carter to Black and back again. The detectives showed him their warrant cards and Black explained the reason for their attention as Carter put a drink in front of the old man. He listened, cupping arthritic fingers round the pint.

  'Ah them next door,' he said, nodding his head. 'I been wondering when you lot would come round.'

  'You know about Angela Waters?'

  The old man tapped the side of his nose with one gnarled finger. 'Enough. I hear them, see. Always raising his voice, he is. And his fists. Oh yes, I hear him knocking her about. He might be small but he's vicious. Give her a black eye once. She said she fell over but I never believed it.' He shook his head knowingly and took a pull at his pint. 'Before that it was a broken arm. Accident prone, they said. Hmph.' He turned to face Carter. 'It's high time you lot did something about it. Noise pollution, that's what it is, all that yelling and screaming. No thought for the neighbours, and the walls as thin as paper. Gone and complained about him, has she? About time too. I would've been down to say something myself, only he's a right nasty one, that Johnny Drew. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him. She should leave him. Young girl like that.' He shook his head. 'You ought to lock him up. Do us all a favour. Give us a bit of peace and quiet.'

  The food arrived and Carter waited until the barman had gone. Black cut hungrily into his pie as the DI resumed. 'Mr …?'

  'Burrows. Brian Burrows.' He watched the sergeant eating. 'You going to eat that or what?' he asked suddenly, indicating the DI's untouched plate. Carter sighed. He slid the plate across the table to the old man who tucked in eagerly. 'Do a nice pie here,' he said, his mouth full.

  'Mr Burrows. I'm afraid Angela Waters is dead.'

  'Dead? How did that happen then?' The DI gave a brief explanation and the old man nodded his head, still eating. 'Was him, mark my words. He'll tell you was an accident but he done it. It's as plain as anything.' Carter thanked Mr Burrows for his help and asked him if he would make a statement. The old man hesitated. A forkful of pie hovered in the air. 'All depends,' he said, casting a shrewd glance at Carter.

  'On what, Mr Burrows?'

  'On who would be moving in next door if he went down. I could be out the frying pan into the fire, couldn't I? Can't blame me for wanting to feel safe in my own home. I'm entitled, after all I done.' He nodded solemnly and shovelled another forkful of pie into his mouth.

PART 2

'Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.'

Pablo Picasso

13

Home

Carter caught up with Geraldine as she was about to leave and she agreed to join him for a drink before setting off home. Several of the team were already in the pub across the road from the police station. Merton was at the bar with Kathryn Gordon, who was buying a round. Peterson and Sarah Mellor were with them. Geraldine recalled hearing that the DCI had a reputation for 'drinking with the lads.' Here in the pub she looked comfortable and ebullient, a different person to the dour officer running the investigation. Her eyes smiled above cheeks that seemed less drawn. Even her hair, slightly unkempt, framed her face more softly. Everyone appeared relaxed apart from Merton, who always looked gloomy. He stood beside the DCI, tall and skinny, with an absurd potbelly. Geraldine joined the group. They were discussing the case in subdued tones.

  'We'll certainly keep the pressure on the boyfriend,' the DCI was saying.

  'Geraldine, let's catch up,' Carter suggested. He steered her over to a corner of the bar and smiled easily at her, his tone avuncular. 'We haven't had a chance for a proper talk. How've you been?' Meeting his sympathetic gaze, she was tempted to answer honestly and tell him how isolated she felt in her tidy flat. Carter was a good listener who had offered her consistent support as her mentor.

  'I'm fine,' she replied.

  'And how's that lawyer of yours? Mark, is it?'

  'Not mine any more.' She looked down, vexed that she still found it difficult to talk about the break up.

  Carter knew her too well – or perhaps not well enough – to let it go at that. 'Difficult break up?' he asked gently and she nodded. Geraldine stared at her glass, unable to meet his gaze. For a panicky instant, she was afraid her self control might slip, but she gulped at her drink and the moment passed.

  'He walked out,' she confided and was surprised at how easily the words formed on her lips. She could have been talking about the weather. 'He met someone else,' she added and understood with a rush of emotion that it wasn't easy after all. 'He said—' She took a deep breath. 'He said I was married to my work.' She forced a laugh. 'How's your family?'

  Carter nodded to acknowledge the change of subject and supped his pint, smacking his lips in satisfaction. 'Jenny's finished university now,' he said. He took another pull at his pint and stared at the pitted surface of the wooden bar as though trying to decipher a message in the scratches. 'She's nearly twenty-two.' The spectre of Angela Waters hovered between them. The DCI's laughter interrupted Carter's reverie and he raised his head. 'Kathryn Gordon's a bloody good detective,' he said. Geraldine nodded but before she could reply, a shadow fell across them.

  'Cosy,' Merton commented, glancing from Carter to Geraldine.

  Carter gave him a nod. 'Mine's a pint, you miserable sod.'

  'Actually, I was just leaving,' Geraldine said.

  'You haven't finished your drink,' Merton said. He made it sound like an accusation.

  Geraldine shrugged and moved along to rejoin the group gathered around the DCI. Reaching her colleagues, she half turned and caught sight of Carter talking to Merton before her attention was caught by the discussion at the bar.

  'He's the most likely,' Peterson was saying in an undertone and she guessed they were still talking about John Drew. Several other officers nodded their agreement. John Drew was automatically a suspect. Geraldine wondered aloud if a man accustomed to hitting out in anger would approach a girl from behind and strangle her.

  'It's all violence, gov,' Peterson replied. Geraldine said she thought Drew would have been more likely to pummel Angela to death, or shove her down the stairs.

  'More his style,' she concluded.

  'There aren't any stairs in their flat,' Peterson pointed out. 'He's the most likely suspect. If you ask me,' he added quietly, glancing around the assembled officers, 'we ought to be pulling him in.'

  'We've got no proof,' the DCI pointed out.

  'How much proof do you need? He was violent. She never reported him, but you saw the previous injuries, ma'am. It must've been him. Why else would she have kept it to herself? That sort of abuse doesn't end with a picnic in the park.' Peterson made no attempt to conceal his impatience. 'I think we should bring him in.'

  'It doesn't matter what we think,' Kathryn Gordon replied, 'or even what we know. Without evidence, our hands are tied. Any case will be thrown out before we even get started.'

  'But the PM shows severe physical abuse over a period of time, ma'am. We can't ignore that. Surely that's our evidence, ma'am. It's staring us in the face.'

  'You may be right, but this is all speculation. Any defence counsel would ride a coach and horses through it. Whatever we think, we're not the jury. And even if we establish he was violent, that doesn't prove he killed her. We need more than that. We need incontrovertible proof.'

  A group of men came into the pub. The officers fell silent and drifted away to gather in small clusters round corner tables where they continued their discussion in low tones, leaning across their pints to hear each other speak.

  'One for the road, gov?' Peterson asked. Geraldine shook her head. The pub felt stuffy and she was tired. It was a relief to step outside into the cool of the evening. She took a few deep breaths, trying to relax, but as she drove along dark streets the image of a white corpse kept flitting into her mind, and she was filled with anger. Angela Waters' killer might have been in the pub that evening, laughing with his mates. The DCI was rigorous and demanding, which was encouraging. Carter had worked with her before and he said she was a fine detective. But they still had nothing to go on.

  By the time she reached the gate to her block, Geraldine felt completely washed out. She pressed the button on her remote control and watched the gates whirr open. She drove slowly along the cul de sac where each of the front doors opened on to a small entrance hall to two flats. Geraldine had bought a ground floor flat, the one before last in the row. Access to her garage was at the end of the cul de sac, round the back of the flats. An unofficial one-way system was in operation. Everyone drove up the close to reach their garage, driving out past the garages to the gate. There was a mirror image of the arrangement on the other side of the close; a total of twenty flats. Apart from the electronic entry gates there was no way in to the complex. The far end of the close was inaccessible without climbing over a high perimeter fence. It was a secluded and secure place to live, exactly what Geraldine wanted.

  She cruised up the close, thinking about the discussion at the bar that evening, and approached the corner at the end. An untrained eye might have overlooked a motionless silhouette lurking in the shadow of the fence. Not yet familiar with her surroundings, she almost missed the figure as she drove past. She shook her head and carried on round the corner, locked her garage firmly and hurried through the back entrance to the building. The narrow passageway inside was eerily silent and she felt nervous, relieved to lock her front door behind her.

  Geraldine only realised how exhausted she was when she kicked off her shoes and sat down. Too tired to mess about in the kitchen, she grabbed a hunk of bread and cheese and settled down with a stack of paperwork: reports to read, statements to study, files to scan through. In addition, she wanted to know all about the area where the murder had taken place.

  Woolsmarsh was a town of contrasts. On the East side a neglected estate festered. Built in the sixties to house employees of a local ready-mix concrete plant, using raw materials from the gravel quarries South West of Canterbury, when the plant had closed down a generation later, those who hadn't moved from the area to find work had gravitated to the Chartwell Estate where prostitution and drug trafficking rapidly became endemic. To the West a very different picture emerged. Bordering an exclusive golf club, the only estates in the West were those belonging to wealthy individual households.

  It was late when Geraldine finally undressed and fell into bed. She was worn out but slept fitfully, disturbed by images of Angela Waters. When she woke up she realised that the face of the body on the mortuary table in her dream had been her own.