Nameless Kill (12 page)

“A thousand to one,” Jeeves said, his red face beaming. “But we found a stray print. One lucky stray print on her temple. Complete accident of mine‌—‌I was still scanning the hair for the semen‌—‌but it does indeed belong to Wayne Jenkins.

A weight lifted off Brian’s shoulders. Prints. Semen. A winning combination. And Wayne Jenkins, the kind of scumbag shit who he definitely wouldn’t put a murder like this past.

“Do you have a recent address on Wayne Jenkins?” Brian asked.

Marlow, his arms still crossed and making his pot belly stick out, nodded just once without smiling. “Plungington. Black Bull Lane. Upstairs flat next door to the Spar.”

Brian turned to Brad just as Brad turned to him. Brad stared at him with his wide, bloodshot eyes, a slight shaky smile twitching at the sides of his mouth.

“Sounds like we have another trip to make,” Brian said.

“Knew you loved my driving really.”

Chapter Nineteen

Wayne Jenkins’s house wasn’t in one of the nicest parts of Preston, but then again, scrotes’ houses never were.

Brian and Brad walked down the chewing-gum peppered pavement and towards the row of large, red-brick terraced houses just beside the 24-hour Spar shop on the corner of Black Bull Lane. Across the street, Brian saw kids as young as nine cycling past on their BMXs, crossing the busy roundabout and causing a backlog of traffic. Their hoods were pulled up over their heads. Silly little shits. Some people sympathised with these kids. Said they were children of poverty.

Brian figured it’d probably be better for everyone if they took a slip off their bikes and into the road. Not to get seriously hurt, but just to give them a wake up call. Deep-end learning, that sort of thing.

“This Wayne fella then. What’s he like?” Brad asked, staring across the road at the Plungington Pub, where the sound of shouting and glasses clinking against one another made Brian remember the times he’d had the displeasure of going in there for a pint. If you could leave that place without a black-eye, then well done. You must be the person dishing out the black eyes.

“What do you reckon he’s like?” Brian asked, as they walked past the Spar and approached the set-back terraced houses. “Convicted serial rapist. Smile that makes you want to shove a boot in his mouth.”

“But do you think he could be our guy?”

Brian reached for the rusty black front gate outside of the first terraced house next to the Spar. “Anyone could be our guy as long as we don’t know who our girl is.”

The pair of them walked over the cracked concrete tiles of Wayne Jenkins’s pathway, Brian almost tripping over one of them. They got to the black front door, which didn’t look like it had seen a lick of paint in years, flaking and ageing. There were two doorbell buttons next to the door. They both had handwriting scrawled beside them, the lower floor reading “Wilson” and the upper one, “Jenkins.” Brian pressed the upper one. Heard the sound of ringing from up the stairs.

“Let me warn you,” Brian said, turning around and looking at Brad. “If this guy’s anything like I remember, you’ll get a strong whiff of weed very soon.”

Brad shrugged. Stared out at the road. “Used to it,” he said.

Brian wanted to say
Is that so?
and press the matter a little further.

But then he heard the creaking of the front door, and smelled an immediate bitter stench of marijuana.

He turned around. Wayne Jenkins was standing right there. He looked just like he remembered eight years ago‌—‌short dark hair, a fucking huge melon-head with big ears, and a detestable grin that seemed to be etched on his face no matter the mood. He was wearing an oversized white shirt with a G-Star logo on the front, with grey jogging bottoms tucked into his white socks.

“Mr. Jenkins,” Brian said, holding his breath as the tang of marijuana drifted out from the dark hallway.

“I remember you. You were that cop who arrested me them years back. Fuck d’you want?”

“Charming as ever,” Brian said, turning to Brad and smiling. He looked back at Wayne. “Wondered if we could come inside and have a little chat, Wayne? Nothing too formal. Just a catchup. We got on back in the day, right? We got somewhere when we sat down and had informal conversations.”

Wayne’s dark brown eyes narrowed. He kept that smile on his face though. “The fuck would I let you into my ‘ouse? Not done owt wrong. Not for years.”

“So the weed stench is nothing to do with you?” Brad added. He raised his bushy brown eyebrows at Wayne and shrugged. “Just saying.”

Wayne’s cheeks turned a shade of red. He stuck one of his hands in his big jogging bottom pockets. “Yeah, well. Not smellin’ much like you’re all clean yourself.”

“Anyway, anyway,” Brian said, trying to avoid Brad and Wayne getting into a war of words before they even got to the main point of the matter. “Why don’t you just let us in, Wayne? You could be a big help. A real help to us. Just a few casual questions‌—‌”

“Like I say,” Wayne said, more of a stern tone to his voice. “I done nowt wrong. So you got a warrant to be here?”

Brian shrugged. He could feel himself tingling inside, tingling like he always did when he had someone right where he wanted them. But he feigned a shrug. Feigned a sigh. “Ah, DS Richards,” he said to Brad. “He wants a warrant. Mighty shame, in’t it?”

“Real shame,” Brad said, staring right at Wayne, eyes narrowed, lines on his face more prominent than ever.

Wayne started to close his door. Ever so slowly, but he was starting to do it.

Brian waited. Waited one second. Waited another. Then…

“Of course, we could always get a warrant for your arrest. Get you down to the station and talk about that weed you’ve no doubt got stocked up in your room. And then we can press the real matter. The real reason we’re here. But we don’t want to do that do we, Brad?”

Brad smiled. Smile a wide, toothy smile. “Course not.”

Wayne’s face turned a new shade of red, more purple now. He actually looked like he was on the verge of exploding.

“You could just let us in,” Brian said. “Let us in. Nice informal chat. Won’t take too long. We’d hate to have to‌—‌”

“Jus’ get the fuck in,” Wayne said, opening the doorway even further, the vein on his temple protruding so much that Brian wanted to grab a bloody drawing pin and pop it. “Get in and tell me why the fuck yer ‘ere before I change my mind.”

Brian smiled. He took a deep breath of the traffic fume-filled air before walking in through Wayne’s porchway.

For the first time in the entire investigation, he actually felt like he was getting somewhere.

And the sharp twinge down his left arm didn’t worry him for more than a few seconds. Not at all.

Chapter Twenty

Wayne Jenkins’s living room was pretty much as Brian expected from years of experience dealing with shitheads like him‌—‌an absolute bomb site to say the least.

The floor was covered with various used food cartons, the relics of ready-meals long ago cooked. There was a strong smell of marijuana mixed with sweat in the air. Again, just as Brian had expected. He had no real intention of pulling Wayne up for the weed possession, but that was the downside to weed, or the benefit in Brian’s case: it made you twitchy. Paranoid.

And it made you do silly things like invite police officers into your home when your spunk and fingerprints were all over a dead girl.

Wayne clambered through the used food cartons, automatically standing over the evidently pirated DVDs‌—‌RoboCop, Man of Steel, none of them with glossy covers. He reached the brown leather chair at the opposite side of the messy room and he plonked himself down in a large indentation in the centre. He held out a hand towards the sofa next to it, also filled with indentations and little white stains. “Sit, if you want,” Wayne said.

Brian didn’t move a muscle. Neither did Brad. The pair of them stood there, the sea of junk between them and Wayne in this gloomy, stuffy lounge area. Wayne sat on the chair resting his cheek on his fist. He looked up at Brian and Brad, eyelids narrowing and twitching. “So what the fuck you want?”

Brian looked at Brad, who was scanning the room like he’d never seen a place so grim in his life. Then, he cleared his throat into his hand, doing his best to get rid of the strong weed and sweat tang lingering on his tongue. He needed a good strong brew to get rid of that. “Been staying out of trouble these days, Wayne?”

Wayne frowned even more. He rubbed a hand against his grey jogging bottoms and started fiddling with the movement stick on the black Xbox controller to the side of him. “Well, yeah. Don’t wanna go back in, y’know? Through wi’ that shite.”

“Wise,” Brian said, nodding and holding a neutral smile.

“Yeah. Wise.” Wayne stared back at him with those creepy brown eyes. Brown eyes that had been witness to so many disgusting crimes against women. Brown eyes that needed a good blackening.

“So it’s just the weed?” Brian kept his eyes on Wayne, but he could tell that Brad was still craning his neck around, trying to take in every little insignificant detail like he always seemed to do.

“Fuck, what is this?” Wayne said, plucking the movement stick on the Xbox controller and shuffling to the edge of the leather chair. “Like, why the fuck would you be ‘ere? What you sayin’ I’ve done? Cause you’re wrong. Whatever you think I done, you’re dead off.”

“What about women, Wayne?” Brad asked. Brian looked and realised Brad too was looking directly at Wayne. Obviously taken in what he needed to take in. Set the scene in his head.

“Ah don’t ‘ave a woman at the mo,” Wayne said. His eyes diverted to the brown carpet. “No time for ‘um.”

“So no sexual partners? No hookers? Fuckbuddies? Nothing like that?” Brian asked. He coughed again. The stench of the weed came in waves. Little melon-headed fucker must’ve just lit up before they’d arrived.

Wayne looked at Brian. His eyes twitched to Brad, then back at Brian again. He rubbed the palms of his big hands together. “Why you ask?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Brian said, forcing a larger smile. “Because you have a history of sexual violence against women‌—‌”

“Like I fuckin’ say,” Wayne said, storming up to his feet and peering over at Brian, the vein on his temple throbbing again. “I’m fuckin’ done with that. All in the past. Fresh start, innit.”

Brian’s arms buzzed, the joy of withholding the key information from Wayne getting too intense. He stuck a finger down his collar, which was tight and making him even warmer by the second in this muggy, dim room. Hell knew how he was going to get along in bloody Malaga. “Fresh start.” He held his hands up and looked around the room theatrically. Looked at the shadeless lamp. The black, dust-covered CRT television.

“Yeah. And if you can’t accept that, then you can shoot cos I dunno what‌—‌”

“If you’ve made a fresh start, then why are your bodily fluids and prints all over the corpse of a dead girl we found?” Brad asked.

There was a silence in the room after this. Wayne stared at Brad. Instead of going purple like he had before, the colour drifted from his yellowish cheeks. He went pale. The bulging vein on his temple sunk away, and all that was left was a quiet, terrified looking scrote backed into a corner by his own stubbornness.

“Damn it, DS Richards,” Brian said, mockingly. “We really didn’t want to bring that up, did we?”

Brad looked at Brian quizzically at first, then nodded. “Ah. No. No we didn’t.”

“So, Wayne,” Brian said, turning back to Wayne, who stood completely still at the opposite side of the room, but for his finger and thumb tapping against one another. “The question’s in the open now. Might as well answer it. What did you have to do with the homicide victim on Avenham Park, and who was she?”

Wayne was static. That grin that Brian was so used to seeing had been completely wiped away. Brian felt a joy inside. This was such a good moment that even the weed and sweat was starting to smell quite nice. Even the mugginess of the room was turning into warmth. Warmth, like he’d feel in four days in Malaga.

“The dead girl,” Brian said, stepping closer to Wayne, not caring whether he cracked one of his new DVDs or not. “The one in the news? Found around Avenham Park? Who is‌—‌”

“Don’t ‘ave a fuckin’ clue.”

Brian stopped. He looked back at Brad and shook his head. “See, that’s not true. It can’t be true. Because your sperm, Wayne. Y’know, that clear stuff that comes out of the tip of your dick? The stuff you put inside those women you held down eight years back? That stuff that makes babies‌—‌”

“Fuck off,” Wayne said, a flicker of hot spit peppering Brian’s face. “No right comin’ ‘ere accusin’ me of‌—‌”

“Accusing you of what?” Brad asked. He too was walking across Wayne’s lounge now, crunching the DVD cases and food cartons underneath his feet. “What is it we’re accusing you of?”

Wayne’s face turned red again. He scratched at the back of his neck. Brian could smell the perspiration coming off him. The perspiration they always reeked of when they were guilty or working their peanut-sized brains to find an excuse. “You should fuckin’ leave. I ain’t sayin’ nowt without‌—‌I ain’t sayin’ nowt here. Only at the station. With‌—‌with a solicitor or what.”

Brian’s heart pounded. He could sense himself getting so close to an answer from Wayne. The way Wayne wasn’t looking him in the eye anymore. The way his face had drained of all colour when they’d mentioned the dead girl at Avenham Park, then got gradually red again with the realisation of what was about to happen to him.

“So you’ll take a little trip to the station with us, will you? Tell us what you know?”

Wayne’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His cheeks were shaking. He struggled to take in a deep breath, letting it out again with a rancid-smelling puff, then he looked right at Brian in the eyes.

There was something else in Wayne’s eyes now, as Brian stood just a couple of feet away from him. They were bloodshot. The edges of his mouth were twitching. He had that look. That look people always did when they were about to try something‌—‌

Before Brian could act on his thoughts, he felt a huge thump in the right hand side of his chest, and then the next thing he knew he was on his back looking up at the shadeless light above his head.