Tell Tale (9 page)

First thing Tuesday and Savage headed for Mannamead to interview Irina Kryukov, Ana’s Russian housemate. When she arrived at the rental property she found Layton’s blue Volvo parked on the kerb. The front door stood open and the sound of hammering echoed down from upstairs. Savage knocked anyway and halfway down the hall a door opened. A dark-haired girl of about twenty-five poked her head out. She had high cheekbones, red lips and pale skin. Russian women, Savage decided, must have different sensibilities than the average Brit. Or maybe they were just made of tougher material. It was the only explanation for Irina Kryukov choosing to remain in the house even though her fellow tenants had packed up and left.

‘More police?’ the girl said. Savage nodded and Irina shrugged and led the way through to a front room with two big Ikea sofas and a huge flatscreen television. ‘Please, sit.’

Savage sank down into one of the sofas as Irina went and stood by the television. The screen was showing a news programme but the sound was off. Still, Savage could tell from the scrolling news ticker at the bottom of the screen that the channel wasn’t British.

‘He paid for the foreign programmes,’ Irina said, taking a remote control and blipping the TV off. ‘Kevin Foster. I thought that was nice of him. But yesterday your Mr Layton showed me the cameras so now I know different. I learn many things since coming to England. Mostly about men.’

‘I’m sorry for what happened, Irina,’ Savage said. ‘I can tell you Mr Foster is facing serious charges concerning the cameras he used to spy on you and he is the number one suspect in the murder investigation.’

‘Yes.’

‘It means the investigation is now extremely high priority. We’ve got dozens of officers on the case.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re doing everything we can to get the evidence we need for a conviction, but we need your help.’

‘Yes.’

Savage stared at the girl for a moment. She spoke good English but her answers were monosyllabic, as if she didn’t understand. But she did, Savage was sure of that. There was something else.

‘Irina,’ Savage said. ‘Is something bothering you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well?’

‘My job.’ Irina moved from the TV and strode across to the second sofa. She sat, avoiding Savage’s gaze and instead looked down at her lap and examined her fingernails. ‘I’m worried that I might lose it.’

‘I’m guessing you shouldn’t be working. Am I right?’

‘Yes. My visa doesn’t allow me to.’

‘I can’t make promises for other agencies but I can assure you that the police are not interested in your immigration status or whether your employer is breaking the rules. It’s catching Ana’s killer we’re interested in.’

‘OK.’ Irina lifted her head and nodded towards the television. ‘Mr Foster is – how do you say? – a dirty old man?’

‘In police work we call them sex offenders, but yes, he is.’

‘It’s nothing. There are many Russian men the same. They have money, they think they can have girls too.’

‘And Foster wanted Ana, right?’

‘He wanted all of us. He would come round every week. Always an excuse about fixing this and that so he could have a flirt. We always had a laugh about him when he’d gone.’

‘This is good, Irina. Little details like this help us build a case. With enough pressure we can get him to admit he took Ana.’

‘No.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Mr Foster, he is not the one. He’s a sad man. He’s the type who pays for prostitutes and kids himself they enjoy it. He watches porn, he believes women are there for him.’ Irina turned and looked Savage squarely in the eye. ‘But he didn’t have anything to do with Ana’s murder. It was another man.’

‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ Savage shook her head. ‘Your job, right?’

‘Not just that. The police in Russia. In a barrel of apples you expect to find one or two bad, but not the whole lot. When they’re all rotten you stop eating apples.’

‘Thankfully, we do things differently here.’

‘You do?’ Irina shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve seen your bad cops on the news. And not just one or two.’

‘Look, Irina, I’m not a “bad cop”, OK? I’m going to do my utmost to find out who killed Ana and I promise you they’ll pay for what they’ve done.’ Savage waited for Irina to respond but the woman stayed silent and then just shrugged. ‘Now, can you tell me about this other man?’

Irina said nothing for a few seconds. Then she nodded. ‘I work in the same coffee shop as Ana. The money, it’s not good, but the tips make up for the low pay. We split the tips between whoever’s on. Me and Ana, well, we always get plenty. To be honest it’s about how we look. We bought some really nice nylons and a push-up bra each. When we work we make sure we smile and show plenty of cleavage. The men, they’re so easy, so stupid. You should see them drooling. On a good shift we can easily double or treble our basic pay.’

‘OK.’ Savage wasn’t sure where this was going, wasn’t sure if she approved. ‘So what’s this got to do with Ana going missing?’

‘There’re quite a few regulars, guys who come every lunchtime, or after work. They like to flirt and to be honest so do we. They’re funny, make us laugh.’

‘There’s more though, isn’t there?’

‘Yes.’ Irina bit her lip, and then sucked in a gulp of air. Savage could see moisture in the girl’s eyes. ‘There’s this one man, I first saw him a couple of months ago. He’s weird, creepy. Fat, disgusting. He has a hot chocolate, sometimes something to eat. And the way he watches us, it’s unsettling. He looks at our legs, our breasts.’

He would, Savage thought. They all would.

‘The thing is, his tips are very generous. A couple of quid when he’s just had a drink. If he’s had a snack sometimes he’ll leave a five-pound note. I guess that’s why we put up with him leering.’

‘And how long has this been going on for? The tips?’

‘A month or so, maybe a bit longer. He started coming in, how do you say in English? Regular, like clockwork? Eleven o’clock on the dot. At first it wasn’t so bad, just the leering, but when the messages started I didn’t like it.’

‘Messages?’

‘They were creepy.’ Irina stood and went across to the mantelpiece. She lifted a small ornament and removed something from beneath it. A paper napkin. ‘This is one he left a few weeks ago. I kept it because I was going to show the owner of the cafe. In the end I didn’t. The job. I need it, you understand? I don’t want to make trouble.’

Irina passed the napkin to Savage. Scrawled across the surface was some writing beneath a crude heart shape. Savage flattened it out to read the writing.

I’m watching you and I love you.

Savage stifled a smile. Was this so bad? She looked across at Irina. The girl was beautiful, a heartbreaker. Add in a sexy outfit to the girl’s Slavic looks and it was understandable how a man could fall in love with her.

‘And you’re saying Ana got these letters too?’

‘Yes. In fact to start with the messages were always left for Ana. Later he began to send notes to both of us. It made me sick.’

‘Irina,’ Savage said, passing the napkin back across the table. ‘I don’t want to sound unsympathetic, but this isn’t enough to make me suspect this man of anything. If you know where we can find him then perhaps I can send someone to question him. Have a word about the notes. Perhaps he knows something about your friend, but I doubt he’s her killer.’

‘He is!’ Irina snatched the napkin back and returned it to the mantelpiece. ‘You aren’t listening to me, there’s more. A few weeks ago I saw him outside here hanging around, in the dirty old coat he wears, carrying a plastic bag. He was walking up and down the street, eyeing the house.’

‘Why didn’t you report this when Ana went missing?’ Savage shook her head. ‘Let me guess, you didn’t trust the police, right?’

Irina nodded. She pulled something out from her pocket. Another napkin. ‘He left this for me on Sunday. With a ten-pound tip. It’s disgusting.’

She passed the napkin across and Savage took it. There was the same heart and the same scrawl of pencil, but this time the message was different.

I love you and I want to fuck you and then I want to eat you
.

Savage read the message again. She looked up at Irina. The girl’s hands had gone to her face and she was crying. Between the sobs she mumbled Ana’s name again. Then she looked up at Savage, the eyes cold, the stare like a blast of winter wind from the Russian steppes.

‘Is that enough?’ Irina said. ‘Is that
fucking
enough?’

Morning. Another day for Chubber and another cafe. Another
three
cafes. Two hot chocolates and some breakfast. Cheese on a weird type of bread. Cia … cia … cia … Foreign, but tasted nice. He thinks of the waitresses. They’re foreign too, and finger-licking-good. Chubber rises from his seat. He likes cafes, but that’s quite enough for today. He walks across town towards the multi-storey where he’s left his car.

‘Chubber’s got to checker, check, check,’ he says as he looks around. ‘Best not be followed by the munchkins.’

He pauses at a shop window. Notes the reflections passing by. Mere ghosts shimmering over a display of pine furniture. Ghosts worry him, scare him. They really exist, he’s sure of it. Ghouls too. Zombies, wraiths, spectres, apparitions. Chubber touches the glass. Cold, these ghosts. But not following.

Checker check check again, Chubber?

Yes. Always need to be sure. Don’t like surprises. Especially not when the surprise is the man with antlers on his head.

Told you, Chubber, didn’t he? Told you what to do.

Yes. Said he needed Chubber’s help. To keep an eye on someone. At first. And when he’d finished helping with the first girl there was another one.

But Antler Man said be discreet, didn’t he? Watch from a distance. Don’t talk to them. If he ever found out what you’d been up to with the notes …

He won’t. And there’s no harm in being friendly.

But say he did find out, Chubber …

He can’t.

But just supposing … then there’d be harm, wouldn’t there?

Oh yes, Chubber thinks. Antler Man would be cross and he’d start talking about the devil and damnation and the fires of h … h … h …

Don’t think about it, Chubber, don’t!

Chubber opens and shuts his mouth. Sucks in air. Tries to focus on something else. He lurches along the street and then ducks into the car park. His car’s on the third floor, a little white Micra car derived van. Rust patches at the bottom of the doors, filler on the nearside rear quarter, the wing mirror gone that side too. But Chubber doesn’t care about the state of his car any more than he cares about the state of himself.

Chubber gets in and drives off.

Not far home. A few minutes and Chubber is there. It’s a little terrace house, door opening from the road straight into the living room.

Chubber steps round the shopping trolley with the bent wheel. He negotiates his way past a stack of carrier bags bound with string. He clambers over the pile of food packaging at the foot of the stairs.

‘Bit smelly,’ he says, as he spies some green residue creeping over an empty pizza box. ‘Must remember to put the rubbish out.’

But there’s no time to clear up. Never any time. Chubber is busy busy busy.

Time again, Chubber. The clock ticking. Tocking. Mocking.

The stairs run up the side of the living room to two small bedrooms and a bathroom.

Up we go Chubber. Up, up, up!

Into the bathroom to wash his hands. Wash wash wash. Then into the back bedroom to unpack his things. Lay them on the bed. Lovely. Been to that kitchen shop in town. The fancy one with the fancy stuff and the fancy staff at the checkout. Uniforms. Black and white with frills. Like waitresses. Pretty maids all in a row. But no time for lusting or thrusting because he’s got shopping to do. Yes, they’ve got them. Hanging on the wall in plastic sheaths. Shiny. Expensive. But Chubber doesn’t care about the money. Oh no, no, no. Chubber’s got to have the best for this job.

Chubber looks out the back window. There’s a yard, tiny, nothing but paving slabs. A bicycle leans against an old concrete shed. A clanky manky bicycle but the wheels go round. Gets him where he wants to go if he doesn’t need to carry anything heavy.

Heavy heavy heavy. Difficult to move. Sort of thing you need to heft over your shoulder.

Oh my, my Chubber! Naughty Chubber!

In the shed are other things too. Chains and ropes for hanging up stuff, sacks for storing things in, crates for moving things which are a bit slippy sluppy yucky mucky.

But not mucky here. There are neighbours. Fences. Neighbours and fences and a lot of peering over. Chubber needs a place quiet. Quiet and peaceful and a long long way from anywhere. Because when you do the things Chubber does, oh yes indeed you do not want neighbours.

You don’t, Chubber?

No, Chubber doesn’t.

Collier had chosen the one person who wouldn’t moan about doing the research on the coach parties up at Widecombe-in-the-Moor: Jane Calter. She was certainly a grafter, Savage thought, as she went over to see what progress Calter was making. The DC was a keen runner and Savage reckoned the training gave her discipline. For a marathon or half marathon you had to prepare, put in the miles, do the legwork and stick to your schedule. Only the legwork in this case took place using the tip of your finger.

Calter explained that she’d managed to track down a coach company who’d had a coach in Widecombe-in-the-Moor on the day Foster claimed to have dropped Ana at the village. The coach had stopped for two hours so the passengers could explore and have lunch. The good news was the company had a passenger list.

‘Nathans, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘Hebden Bridge. Really helpful. There were fifty-one people all told, and they sent me an email with the names and addresses. I reckon if Ana was in Widecombe at lunchtime then it’s likely one of the party would have seen her.’

‘We’ll need help from West Yorkshire Police then.’

‘Already in hand. Most of the people come from the town so it shouldn’t be too hard to speak to at least a few of them today. I’ve sent a picture of Ana up to Hebden Bridge.’