Taunting the Dead (22 page)

A van pulled into the driveway. Oh, no, no. Not here, not now! He raced out to meet its occupant.

Phil jumped out of the driver’s seat. ‘I need to see you, Tel. I –’

Conscious of the CCTV cameras on the house recording his every move, Terry reached out and shook Phil’s hand. For the sake of appearances, he had to make it look as if Phil was only here to pay his respects rather than explain to him why he had fucked up the job. ‘Come into the house,’ he said.

Once the front door was closed, Terry rammed Phil up against the wall. ‘What the fuck went wrong?’ he yelled. ‘I give you one job and you mess up.’

‘Look, I can explain!’

‘You were supposed to have got rid of her body. I told you to contact the cleanup crew. I wanted her to disappear. I could have coped with that type of investigation. The last thing I need is the police breathing down my neck. And now? They’re going to be here every fucking minute. They’re waiting for me to screw up! I ought to shop you, you stupid –’

‘But I didn’t do –’

‘I don’t want to hear another word.’ Terry pointed his finger in Phil’s face. ‘I’ll deal with you when I’m ready.’

‘But I need you to listen to me. I –’

Terry wanted to ram his head into Phil’s but was conscious of how it could mark him, too. He could quite easily take a knife to his throat but covering up one dead body was enough. Instead, he had to be content with punching Phil hard in the stomach. Phil doubled over.

Terry flexed his fist. He waited for Phil to catch his breath before he spoke again. It was pretty clear that what he’d said had meaning.

‘Walk out of here as if there’s nothing wrong. If the police question you, you came to pay your respects.’

‘But Terry, I –’ Phil tried one more time but he got pushed out of the door.

Once he was certain that Phil had gone, Terry paced the family room. He groaned loudly, like an animal in pain, trying to keep his aggression locked inside him. Despite feeling like he wanted to kill Phil, he’d have to deal with him later. The last thing he needed to do now was lose his cool knowing that the police were coming back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

No more than twenty minutes after Phil had left Terry’s home, Allie headed back to Royal Avenue with Sam to question Terry further.

‘What’s he like, this Ryder fella that everyone goes on about?’ Sam asked, pushing her blonde fringe out of her eyes. ‘I can’t believe I’ve never come face to face with him yet.’

‘I’ll let you make your own mind up once we get there,’ said Allie, stopping to give way to oncoming traffic. ‘I don’t want to sway you in any way.’

‘But I’ve already heard he’s a charmer.’

Allie nodded. ‘Oh, he’s a charmer, all right.’

‘Now you have me intrigued. If I hadn’t been told he was a looker, I’d guess that he has two heads or something.’

‘More like two faces,’ Allie muttered.

Even without the dark clouds looming overhead, The Gables had a sense of doom shrouding it. Allie parked the car next to the Mini that she now knew belonged to Kirstie. She tried not to glance at Sam as she was introduced to Terry and they were shown through to the family room. But she couldn’t help it. She watched as the younger woman took note of Terry’s appearance and everything around her.

Clean-shaven and smelling of something divine, Terry was dressed smartly with not an edge of grief about him. But Allie knew from past experience that that might not mean anything. For all his cool and calm, she wondered how he was really feeling inside. Unbelievably, she felt her cheeks burning as she caught his eye. Damn, that wasn’t supposed to happen to her!

‘Ladies.’ Terry pointed to the dining table and sat down. They sat opposite him.

‘Kirstie is upstairs with her friend Ashleigh,’ he told them.

‘I thought she was staying
with
Ashleigh,’ Allie questioned, a little annoyed at his revelation.

‘She is, yes. I wanted her to be here for your visit. I thought you’d need to speak to her.’

‘Yes, we will.’

‘I feel like I’m in a television drama,’ Terry laughed, and then coughed awkwardly. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that as a joke. I just feel like I’m taking part in someone else’s life. That I’m watching it from my settee instead of living it.’

Allie got out her notebook. ‘We’ll briefly go through the details you told us yesterday,’ she stated. ‘You say you last spoke to Steph at eight fifteen, before she was due to go out for the night with Carole Morrison?’

‘Yes, that’s right. I was working away. I wasn’t sure if I’d be home for the night so I rang to see how she was. If I’m away we usually speak once or twice a day. It’s good to keep in touch, don’t you think?’

‘And what did you chat about?’

‘This and that, but nothing in particular. She said she’d had a busy day; stressed out, she said she was. I remember laughing it off. Steph’s always stressed, according to Steph. She said that she’d fallen out with Kirstie and that she’d stormed off afterwards.’

‘Did she say what the argument was about?’

Terry shook his head. ‘No, but they were always having words. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I have two women in the house. One is a teenager. Most of the time the other acts as if she still is one. There are always lots of hormones and tantrums.’

‘And you left Derby at…’ Allie let him fill in the gap so that she could double check it with her notes.

‘Eight thirty.’

After confirming this, she nodded. ‘And did you come straight back to Stoke yesterday morning?’

‘Yes, although I stopped for petrol while I was on the A50.’

‘Why were you in Derby?’

‘I’m overseeing business. I’m developing an apartment block near the canal side. While I was over there, I caught up with a few associates over dinner.’ Allie wrote down the names again as he reeled them off. ‘It’s always too late to drive home afterwards so I book in a hotel. The Bartley Hotel,’ he added, pointedly glancing down at Allie’s notepad before smiling again.

‘Around what time did you get to your room?’ Allie tried not to look at her colleague but was desperate to see her reaction.

‘I’d say about eleven thirty,’ said Terry.

‘Were you alone?’

‘Yes, I was alone.’ Terry raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘I am a married man, Sergeant Shenton.’

‘I meant did you have a witness to that effect, Mr Ryder. If you had, we could have eliminated you from the enquiry for now.’

‘What do you mean, for now?’ All of a sudden, Terry’s voice hardened.

Allie let a silence invade the room before ignoring the question and moving on.

‘Have you any idea who would want to kill your wife, Mr Ryder? Does she have any enemies, anyone she’s upset lately?’

‘She was always upsetting people but I doubt anyone would have been angry enough to kill her, Sergeant,’ Terry remarked.

‘Does she have many friends?’

‘Only the one. Carole Morrison.’

Allie nodded. ‘Yes, we spoke to her yesterday.’

‘Did she mention that the two of them fell out last week?’

‘When?’

‘It was earlier in the week. Wednesday.’

Allie recalled the two of them on Tuesday night at the charity event. They’d been a bit tetchy with one another but nothing had turned nasty. Maybe they fell out quite often, as some friends did. Still, she made a note of it.

‘And there isn’t anyone else you can think of?’

‘No.’

‘Did she get on with your daughter? You mentioned they’d had an argument.’

‘Yes, they got on as far as daughters and mothers do get on at that age.’

‘Meaning?’

Terry sighed. ‘I think you should ask her that yourself. You did want to see her?’ Terry smiled again as his charm returned.

‘May I go up to her?’

‘Yes, go ahead.’

Sam went to stand up but Allie placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘There’s no need. I’ll see her on my own.’ Leaving her with Terry, Allie was at the door before he spoke again.

‘Did you like the flowers, Detective?’

She turned towards him with a frown. It matched the expression on Sam’s face. Damn the man for bringing them up now, and how disrespectful.

‘I hardly think they were appropriate then, Mr Ryder,’ she told him curtly, ‘and I certainly don’t think they’re appropriate now.’

Kirstie and Ashleigh lay on top of Kirstie’s double bed. They’d seen the detective from yesterday arrive and were waiting for her to summon Kirstie. Jessie J was playing in the background. Kirstie was twiddling her hair around her index finger, her leg over her knee waggling in time to the beat. Ashleigh lay on her side turned towards her, hands underneath her chin.

‘Who do you think did it, Kirst?’

Kirstie sighed. ‘I don’t know. I bet she had loads of enemies. I hardly ever saw a good side to her.’

‘She wasn’t all bad.’

‘You didn’t have to live with her.’

‘I know, but as mums go, she gave you a fair bit of freedom.’

‘You reckon?’ Kirstie disagreed. ‘She’d ground me at any opportunity. And she wanted me to stop seeing Lee. There was no way I was doing that.’

‘I thought it was your dad who doesn’t want you hooking up with Lee. Why doesn’t he like him?’

‘It’s something to do with the families. He’s told me over his dead body will he allow me to be involved with a Kennedy. He says he’s bad blood and not good enough. But he seems to forget that he came from the Marshall Estate and look how he turned out. Didn’t do him any harm. I mean, look at this place.’

‘So it has nothing to do with your mum, then?

‘Course it has. I bet it was her who put him up to it. She could never see me getting more attention than her.’

‘I wonder if they’ll find out who it was soon. Most murders get solved in the first forty-eight hours.’

‘You’ve been watching too much telly, girl.’

‘
According
to the telly,’ Ashleigh shrugged a shoulder, ‘they say it’s usually someone she knows.’

Kirstie looked at her as if she had two heads. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting it was me!’

‘Don’t be mental. I didn’t mean you! I was thinking more of someone that your dad knows.’

‘Or mixes with?’

Ashleigh nodded.

‘It had crossed my mind.’

‘What will the police ask you?’

‘They’ll want to know who’s been here lately. Where we were when it happened. What mum’s been up to, things like that, I suppose. Listen, Ash. You need to say that I was with you on Friday night.’

‘What?’ Ashleigh raised her head slightly from the pillow. ‘Oh, no fucking way.’

‘But if you say I was with you, then they won’t know I stayed with Lee. My dad will go mad if he finds out.’

‘I can’t lie to the police!’

‘I’d do the same for you.’ Kirstie tried for the guilt trip.

‘I wouldn’t ask you to,’ Ashleigh replied sharply.

‘Please,’ Kirstie begged. ‘It’s shit enough living here at the moment without me and dad falling out. Please!’

Ashleigh relented. ‘Okay. But that’s all I’m saying. Don’t ask me to lie about anything else.’

‘I won’t.’

Ashleigh shuddered involuntarily. ‘I can’t believe your mum’s dead, Kirst. I mean, it’s too weird. What are you going to do without her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kirstie replied truthfully. ‘But things are going to be different from now on, aren’t they?’

‘You’ll have to be strong for your dad.’

‘Are you mad?’ Kirstie snapped. ‘Do you really think my dad gives a shit that she’s dead? He’s probably glad to see the back of her.’

‘Is that true, Kirstie?’

The girls looked up to see Allie standing in the doorway.

‘Can I come in?’ she asked, when no one spoke.

Kirstie nodded but wouldn’t meet her eye. Ashleigh sat wide-eyed, her skin reddening. Allie knew better than to ask Kirstie the same question as before. She was bound to deny what she’d said or try to cover up the insinuation. Instead she tried to side with them, show them she was not the enemy.

‘How are you holding up?’ she asked gently. It was a stupid question, really, but what else could she start with? She stepped a little further into the room and closed the door. The pink curtains and rug, stripy pink and white wallpaper and shocking pink duvet cover surprised her. Apart from the
Playboy
logo on the bed, the room was totally different than the image Kirstie liked to give out. It showed a glimpse of her vulnerable side.

‘I’ve been talking to your dad,’ Allie said.

‘Questioning him, more like.’ Kirstie sat up and folded her arms.

‘Yes, I was actually. It’s part of the investigation. I need –’

‘It isn’t him, you know. They used to argue all the time but my dad would never do that to my mum. And besides, he wasn’t here. So you’re barking up the wrong tree. You should be out there trying to track down the real murdering bastard, not sitting in here drinking coffee.’

Allie ignored the jibes but couldn’t help wondering why Kirstie was so tenacious about putting her point forward, especially after what she had just said. She moved a little nearer and took a chance sitting on the end of the bed. When she wasn’t told to get off, she started her questioning.

‘Where were you on Friday night?’

‘I was at Ashleigh’s flat, wasn’t I, Ash?’

Ashleigh nodded slightly.

Allie took out her notebook and wrote this down. ‘Your address, Ashleigh?’

‘Why would you want to know that?’ snapped Kirstie.

‘Routine. I need to check this out.’

‘I live off Ivy Road, in those new build flats. 27 Bramble Gardens.’

‘And you were there from what time?’

‘About half eight, Ash?’ Kirstie looked at her pointedly. Ashleigh nodded. ‘And I left about nine in the morning.’

‘And you stayed in all night?’

‘Not all night. We went to The Victoria on the Square.’

‘Just to The Victoria on the Square?’

‘Yes, we had a drink first and we went out – about ten, Ash?’

Ashleigh nodded again. Still she wouldn’t meet Allie’s eye.

‘What time did you get in?’

‘How the hell should I know?’ said Kirstie. ‘We were bladdered.’

Despite wanting to slap Kirstie’s legs and tell her to be a good girl, Allie noted down her hostility. Grief could make people act irrationally but she wondered if there was any grief to be had. Kirstie seemed only to feel sorry for herself. Someone should teach her some manners.