Through a Narrow Door (8 page)

During the adverts for
Coronation Street
, she tackled the washing up and when she came back, noticed the answer phone blinking. They were probably all messages for her housemates, and she quickly skimmed over the familiar voices of Joyce’s mum and Miranda’s latest fella. Then froze as she heard Mel’s voice.

‘Hi, Janine. Just thought I’d give you a call. Now we’re not seeing so much of each other at work, I just wanted to make
sure you were doing OK.’ There was a moment’s pause, as if he was unsure of what to say next, then, ‘I wondered if you might like to get together for lunch one day, when you’re not busy. I know you’ve got a murder case on at the moment. Why don’t you give me a call sometime, when you’re free and we’ll get together. Just as friends, naturally. OK? Call me.’

He sounded anxious to ring off. No doubt he’d been having second thoughts already.

Janine turned off the machine and stared down at it. Just friends? Who was he kidding? And what was really behind this let’s-get-together offer. Feeling his lonely bed at nights was he? Well, he had nobody but himself to blame for
that
. And did he really think all he had to do was snap his fingers and she’d come running back?

Hah!

Janine stomped into the kitchen and switched on the kettle, reached for her mug and the teabags, then abruptly changed her mind, grabbed her bag, and slammed out of the house, heading for her local. Damnit, she wasn’t going to sit at home watching telly and pining for an old flame.

She just wasn’t.

The next morning, Tommy was only too pleased to spend the morning with Hillary. When he’d got in and she’d explained about the bike, he’d hit the internet, printing off pictures of various bikes, and price lists. Now, as they pulled up outside the Davies bungalow once more, he reached behind him for the papers he’d tossed on to the back seat.

‘So, the wedding’s in – what – six weeks time now?’ Hillary asked, opening the passenger-side door and stepping out. ‘Where are you going on honeymoon?’

‘St Lucia. Jean has relatives out there. They’ve offered us the use of their beach bungalow free for a couple of weeks. I don’t suppose it’s anything fancy, but with a Caribbean beach on your doorstep, who cares?’

Hillary grinned. She’d bought the couple a sofa-bed for their wedding present, since she was feeling so flush after
selling her house, and figuring it would always come in handy for a couple buying their first house. She’d chosen a neutral oatmeal colour scheme, and only hoped they liked it.

‘Let’s not bother the family just yet,’ she said now. ‘If the bike’s still in the shed, we won’t need them anyway. It looked to me as if they kept it unlocked,’ she added as they walked up the narrow, cracked concrete pavement towards the outbuildings.

The shed door was indeed open, and inside the blue bike gleamed as new-looking and impressive as she remembered it. Tommy checked it over, and whistled silently through his teeth, then quickly checked the printout. ‘Yeah, I reckon it’s this model,’ he said, pointing to a photograph of a man on an identical bike, pedalling up what looked like K2 but was probably in Scotland somewhere. ‘Twelve gears, superannuated …’ Tommy began to list the bike’s merits with the usual male appreciation of all things mechanical, but Hillary had already tuned him out, and only paid attention again when he mentioned the price tag. ‘£650 new.’

Hillary sighed. ‘I thought so. Where did he get the money for that?’ Blackmail once more seemed to be firmly in the picture. Either that or drugs.

‘Didn’t you say he had an expensive camera as well, guv?’ Tommy asked.

‘Yeah, but his dad said he and his mum saved all year for it and it was his only Christmas present from them that year. How long has this bike been in circulation?’

Tommy went back inside to check the serial number on the crossbar, then consulted his paperwork again. ‘Only came out three months ago, guv,’ he confirmed. ‘So it couldn’t have been the year before last’s Christmas present.’

So, once more she had to disturb the Davies family. But when she knocked on the door there was no answer. She walked around and looked in windows, but nobody was home.

Tommy pulled into the petrol station/garage and craned his head to look into the small shop window. ‘I reckon that’s Mrs Davies serving. Seems a bit soon to be back at work. Reckon the bosses are slave drivers?’

Hillary shrugged. ‘Possible I suppose. But according to Frank’s report, the Wilberforces seemed to be on friendly terms with them. It’s more likely Celia wanted to go back to school, and George and Marilyn decided that going in to work was better than sitting in an empty house.’

When they got out of the car, a man appeared in the open square of the garage entrance, took one look at them and then went quickly back inside again. A moment later, George Davies appeared and walked reluctantly towards them, wiping his dirty hands on an even dirtier rag.

‘Hello,’ he said dully. ‘Now what?’

He didn’t seem angry, or upset, but merely bone tired, and Hillary wondered if he’d managed to get any sleep since she’d last seen him. ‘I’m sorry to keep bothering you Mr Davies. I was wondering what you could tell me about Billy’s bike.’

George Davies stared at her for a moment, as if she’d started speaking in a foreign language, then a slow, dull, red flush crept up his neck and on to his face.

‘What about it?’ he asked hopelessly.

‘Did you buy it for him?’

‘No. He got it for himself. Second-hand, off a boy at school, he said.’

‘The model’s brand new, Mr Davies,’ Hillary said quietly.

‘Aye, I thought it looked like it. But our Billy said this boy’s mum didn’t like him having it, said it was too dangerous, and made him sell it cheap, like.’

Even as he spoke, Hillary could tell that Davies hadn’t believed it. She didn’t either. ‘Did he mention this boy’s name?’ she asked gently.

‘No, he didn’t.’ Davies didn’t even bother trying to meet her eyes. It was as if, bit by bit, he was beginning to accept the futility of trying to guard his son’s reputation.

‘Do you know how he paid for it, Mr Davies? It would have been £650 new. This boy couldn’t have parted with it for less than £500.’ She was willing, for now, to go along with this fictitious boy. Of course, she’d have to check it out, just to make sure. That could be a job for Frank. He’d love questioning schoolboys, trying to find one who’d sold a second-hand bike.

‘Billy did odd jobs like. Worked on Saturdays with that best pal of his Lester. I dunno what it was. Paper-round maybe.’

Davies said it forlornly, but with a lingering sense of defiance, as if daring her to contradict him.

Hillary nodded. ‘I see. Well, thank you Mr Davies. I’ll let you get back to work.’

In the car Tommy said flatly, ‘He doesn’t have any idea where his boy got the money, does he?’

Hillary sighed. ‘No. And I don’t think he wants to know now, either.’

Back at HQ, Hillary noticed a yellow post-it sticker on her phone and quickly peeled it off. It smelt of fish-and-chips and had a grease stain on it, and Hillary didn’t even have to check the name at the bottom to know that the untidy scrawl belonged to Frank Ross.

‘Marty Warrender knows something he’s not spitting out. Thought you might like to have a crack at the nut. F.R.’

Hillary sighed and crumpled it up and chucked it in the bin. ‘Tommy, remind me to talk to the Warrenders some time soon, when there’s a half hour to spare. Janine, do a rundown on them for me, will you? See if there’s anything iffy there.’

‘Boss,’ Janine said flatly.

Tommy quickly pencilled the reminder in his diary as Hillary scribbled something on her own yellow post-it and slapped it on Frank’s desk. It explained about the bike, and asked Frank to find the mysterious vendor. She smiled happily as she returned back to her desk. That should make his day.

Janine began to report back on her findings, but had nothing of any use to add. Some more forensics reports had trickled in, but again, nothing that took them a step further. So far, all the fingerprints found in the shed belonged to members of the Davies family, so no surprises there.

‘If we don’t get a clear lead soon, we’re going to struggle,’ Hillary said gloomily. ‘Any luck with the Cleavers?’

‘I only spoke to him, boss, the wife was still at work. He’s a bit of a looker. Seemed a bit tense, but that’s probably just because he wasn’t used to having the plod in his living room.’

Hillary sighed and rubbed a tired hand over her forehead. She was getting a headache. Already they were into their second day, and they didn’t have even so much as a sniff of a possible suspect. Still, at this point, she supposed there was some comfort in the thought that things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Just then, the door to Danvers’s cubbyhole opened and his handsome blonde head appeared. ‘Ah, Hillary. I was hoping to catch you. Any chance of a progress report on the Davies case?’

Hillary briefly closed her eyes, then stood up, gathering the files. ‘Of course, sir,’ she said, with a nice bright smile.

Janine checked her notebook and glanced at the tiny terraced cottage in front of her. She was parked in a narrow side street at the back end of Bicester and, according to her notes, Marty and June Warrender had bought this place nearly two months ago. It was hard to see why.

The street was lined on both sides with two-up, two-down Victorian terraced houses, with a handkerchief-sized lawn, three steep steps leading up to a front door set flush to the neighbour’s wall, and tall, now surely obsolete, chimney stacks. The whole road looked cramped and mean-spirited.

Janine shrugged and climbed out of the Mini. The front door of number 32 stood open, and she could hear the sound of hammering and sawing as she approached. She walked straight through the door and into the building’s main room, and coughed as the combined dust motes of sawdust, plaster, and old insulation tickled her nostrils.

‘Hello?’ She could hear the inane chatter of DJs coming from the back somewhere, where the wall dividing kitchen from tiny parlour was being demolished. The makings of a breakfast bar were going up in one corner. Crouching down by a newly-installed sink was the almost obligatory
butt-crack
belonging to a plumber. His jeans were riding so low, Janine wasn’t sure they’d stand up with him when he did. ‘Hello,’ she called again, and the man, still squatting, turned around. He had a red, sweating face, the very short cropped hair of somebody going bald and trying to hide the fact, and
red-rimmed eyes. He stood up slowly, revealing an open shirt and beer belly. Luckily, he didn’t part company with his trousers.

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m looking for the owner, Marty Warrender,’ Janine lied. She knew Marty was at his day job in Banbury, but she also knew, after a quick trawl through the trusty internet, that he and his wife were the proud owners of this place. Funny that neither one had mentioned it to Frank. Nor had they fallen over themselves to tell them they were leaving Aston Lea. When Hillary had given her the job of checking the Warrenders out, she’d thought it was scraping the bottom of the barrel time. Now though, she was beginning to wonder. If their vic
had
been into blackmail, the Warrenders were proving to have surprising financial resources.

‘Not here, luv. He’s a fly-by-night.’

Janine blinked. ‘Translation?’

The plumber grinned. ‘One of those geezers who buys cheap, knackered properties, gets a gang in for two weeks to blitz the place, buys some tubs of pansies to stick in the garden, gets going with a lick of paint at night, and sells on, quick as lightning. Then on to the next one. Been working for this particular bloke for the last three years or so. But I reckon the balloon’s about to burst though. First-time buyers are getting wise, and doing it for themselves – buy gaffs like this cheapish and then upgrade. Mind you, the price of houses nowadays, even these old clunkers are selling for a mint.’ He looked around the bare walls and flaking plaster and shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t believe it, would you?’

Janine, who knew all to well the price of houses in Oxfordshire, would. ‘Good boss is he?’ she probed. ‘Pays on time, no worries?’

‘No. And what business is it of yours anyway, love?’ he asked, better late than never. Janine shrugged. She didn’t show her warrant card, because she didn’t want news of their interest getting back to Warrender. At least, not yet.

‘Just being nosy. I might be in the market to buy,’ she
added. ‘Only the one bedroom upstairs I suppose?’ And when the plumber, still looking suspicious, nodded, she sighed. ‘Too small then. Thanks, love,’ she added, and turned and strolled out.

Back in the Mini, she started up the car and turned the air conditioning on to full before writing up her notes. The
heat-wave
could continue all summer long as far as she was concerned, but she didn’t like baking.

For a man who ran a dry-cleaner’s, and a wife who worked in a shop, the Warrenders were doing all right. And if they’d been in property developing for some years, as the plumber said, then they must have a bit put by. Had Billy-Boy Davies found a way to help himself to some of that loot? She was blowed if she could see how. She checked her watch and put the car into gear. Time to head back to HQ and trawl the databases. If she could follow the Warrenders trail through the Land and Property Registry, then with the help of a calculator and little imagination, she might just be able to come up with a good estimate as to their net worth. Something that she was sure Hillary Greene would want to know.

Frank stared at the school, a sneer on his rounded face. It made him look like a Winnie-the-Pooh lookalike who’d just eaten a bad load of honey. Beside him Tommy Lynch also glanced at the mass of windows and straight, box-like structures, and was instantly transported back to his own school days. He’s gone to a comprehensive very much like this one, back in Cowley. Tommy had been only an average student, he supposed, but a fine athlete, and had reasonably fond memories of those days.

‘We’re wasting our time,’ Frank said. ‘And I’m blowed if I’m buggering about, questioning snotty-nosed little kids. I’m off to the office, see if I can persuade the headmaster’s secretary to put out an announcement on the loudspeaker asking the boy who sold Billy Davies his bike to report in.’

Tommy said nothing.

‘And if that ever happens, I’m a bloody flying squirrel. It’s a waste of time. That boy was up to no good. Gotta be drugs.’

Tommy sighed. ‘I imagine that’s why the guv’s asked me to poke around and see if I can’t nail down some proof.’

Frank snorted. ‘Best of British, mate. If my job’s a
no-hoper
, yours is a dead duck. Get a schoolkid to admit to buying drugs off a dead classmate? You might as well save your breath and come down the boozer with me.’

Tommy watched Frank march off into the nearest building, glad to get shot of him at last. In his hand he had a list of classes and break times, and decided to hang around until lunch break. Frank was right about one thing – there’d be no point going from class to class and asking for information from a group of twenty kids. Nobody was going to speak up in front of their peers. But if he could get a feel for the users and likely lads, he might be able to get one or two on their own during a break and persuade some information out of them.

Yeah. Right.

The secretary didn’t like Frank Ross, and didn’t like his suggestion of a public announcement, but the Head, anxious to be seen co-operating with the police, gave his permission. And so, at just gone 12.15 p.m., the secretary’s voice was piped into every classroom, and echoed hollowly in every corridor, asking for the boy who’d sold William Davies his mountain bike to report to his or her teacher. After a muffled silence, in which another male voice could clearly be heard whispering, the Head’s PA then added that if anybody had any information at all about William Davies’s bike, they were to report to the Head’s office.

Apart from a lot of speculative looks between themselves, and a few frowns of surprise from the teachers, the announcement might as well have been made on the moon, for all the difference it made.

Frank waited until all of 12.30, then left. Unlike Hillary Greene, he had been inside The Fox pub before. There
weren’t many pubs in Oxfordshire that he didn’t know. And it wasn’t until he’d ordered his first pint that he realized he should have talked to Heather Soames, Billy’s girlfriend. If anyone had known where the bike had come from, she would. She might be only fifteen, same age as the vic, but in Frank’s opinion, women of any age quickly learned about finances. And especially all about their boyfriend’s finances.

Cursing, he used his mobile to phone the Head’s office again, but the secretary quickly confirmed that Heather Soames was not at school that day.

Her sister had brought in a sick note for her.

Frank shrugged. He’d try her again tomorrow. Couldn’t go chasing after the poor girl if she was sick, could he? Might get had up for harassment or failing to show proper political correctness.

Instead, he went to the bar and ordered another pint. He always made it a point to know where traffic were patrolling with their little breathalyzer kits, and none of them were due around here today.

Tommy heard the bell ring for lunchtime, and smiled as the doors began to open and children poured out. Some headed for the dining room, and the horror that was school dinners, others headed for the playing fields to eat packed lunches. Several headed off to the surrounding suburbs to eat lunch at home.

And one boy got on a very new, very fancy-looking mountain bike and pedalled away. Tommy watched him, his ginger head glowing in the fierce sunshine, and reached for his mobile.

Back at HQ, Hillary was still at her desk. She’d been debating accepting Paul Danvers’s offer of joining him in the canteen after he’d listened, po-faced, to her report on the Davies case. Now, with the jangling of the phone, she rather hoped that she might be getting an excuse to beg off his offer of treating her to the special. Which today, being a Thursday, would be the vegetable lasagne.

‘DI Greene.’

‘Guv, Tommy. Can you tell me if Lester Miller is a carrot top?’

‘Yep, complete with freckles and the creepiest pale eyes you’ve ever seen. Why? Have any of the kids fingered him as a dealer?’ she asked quickly.

‘No guv, nothing like that. But I’ve just seen him pedal off on a bike that’s almost a twin to the one Billy Davies has. Had.’

Hillary slowly leaned back in her chair. ‘That’s interesting. But not necessarily incriminating. Kids who are joined at the hip often imitate each other.’ She paused, thinking it over. ‘Tommy, forget about the school for a minute, and get on the blower to Miller’s father and find out if he bought his son a bike recently. You say you saw him pedalling away from the school?’

‘Yes, Guv. Lunch break, I reckon.’

Hillary nodded. Middleton Stoney was only a short
three-mile
journey on mostly flat roads from Bicester Comprehensive. Perhaps he was going home for lunch. But more likely, like his friend Billy, Lester liked to play hooky every now and then.

‘OK, Tommy, I’m going to drive to Middleton Stoney, see if I can shake loose some information from him. When you’ve finished chatting with the father, I want you to check in with Melanie Parker over at Juvie. When I mentioned Billy Davies’s name to her, it didn’t ring a bell, but perhaps Lester Miller’s will. She’s got her pulse on the kiddies’ drugs scene around here and offered to liaise with us if we needed it. She’s even got a snout at the school, so now’s a good time to take her up on the offer to make use of him. Until we can rule drugs in or out of this case once and for all, we’re just spinning our wheels.’

‘Guv,’ Tommy said, and hung up.

Janine parked her Mini beneath a resplendent copper beech tree, not far from St Mary’s Church in downtown Oxford, and checked the address.

The offices of the ‘Elite Public Relations Company’ was housed in one of those splendid Gothic monstrosities that looked so cute on tourist-board brochures. As Janine climbed out of the car, a gaggle of camera-festooned Japanese tourists, led by a guide, washed around her,
chattering
like escapees from Babel. ‘Next, we’re going to go up The Broad, and see if Trinity College has its doors open. Trinity is situated almost next door to Blackwell, the famous book shop, so if anybody wants to do some reading …’ the chatter of the guide drifted off into a sleepy early-afternoon waft of heat as the troop moved away.

Janine walked across a short expanse of gravel and checked out the bell pushes on the door. ‘Elite’ shared the Gothic hall with a couple of private interior design companies, a very upscale dentist, and several varieties of accountants (but not turf).

Janine pressed the buzzer for Elite and was exhorted by an invisible Sloane Ranger to, ‘Come on up to the second floor. We’re behind the turquoise door.’

Janine stepped into a cool, black-and-red tiled hall with stark white walls. She could smell some kind of furniture wax and a floral air conditioner. Several of the windows lining the massive main staircase had pieces of stained-glass in them, that gave the building the air of a part-time church. Elite must certainly do well for itself if even the more obscure Oxford branch could afford digs in this place.

As she climbed the stairs, and easily spotted the turquoise door, Janine decided to treat herself to a pub lunch after the interview, for a change. It was hot, and she could do with a glass of something cold.

‘Hello, can I help you?’ The Sloane Ranger turned out to be someone who’d obviously modelled herself on Joanna Lumley, despite having neither the looks nor the figure for it. Stick-thin, and with obviously dyed short blonde hair tortured into a Purdey cut, she was wearing enough mascara to choke a duck. And she had to be sixty if she was a day. Janine smiled at the receptionist and flashed her
warrant card. The old girl looked at it and her jaw dropped open.

Janine got the impression she’d never seen one before.

‘Oh my,’ she said helplessly.

Janine smiled. ‘I have an appointment to see Jenny Cleaver,’ she said flatly. She’d already phoned to make sure Cleaver wouldn’t be in the London office and had spoken to her secretary, who’d confirmed that she’d be available that lunchtime.

‘Oh, yes, of course. That poor boy. I read about it in the papers, and I remembered that Jenny lived in Aston Lea. Please, go right on through. Second door on the left,’ she pointed to one of three doors, housing, it was supposed, the executive officers.

Janine imagined that there was very little that escaped the receptionist’s attention. She had the air of one of those women who made it a point to know everything. Janine tapped on the door indicated, and without waiting for a summons, opened it and walked in.

If Lester Miller was surprised to see Hillary Greene show up on his home territory so soon after seeing her at the school, he didn’t show it.

He simply stood back, a sandwich in one hand, and waved her in. ‘Come on in,’ he said, and took a bite out of what looked suspiciously like a tomato ketchup special. Some of the red gloop splurged out over his hand, and he licked it off as Hillary stepped past him.