‘But, boss, it’s obvious,’ Shap was outraged.
‘One fingerprint doesn’t make a case.’
‘If we’re looking at a serial offender…’ Shap said.
‘He’s done it before, he’s gone into hiding, he was at the scene. What else do we need?’ Richard said urgently.
‘Motive?’ She flung back.
‘He’s a nutter!’ Shap stood up. ‘He didn’t even know his last victim, picks a fight and bam, the guy’s opened up and juggling his guts. Hendrix is the man!’
‘He’s got a taste for it and he’ll do it again. We’ve got to stop him.’ Butchers joining in now. Agreeing with Shap. Wonders would never cease.
‘We’ve got to find him, first.’ She raised her voice. ‘Yes, we keep after him but we work just as hard on our other leads.’
They continued to protest, Shap shaking his head, Butchers flailing his arms about, Richard frowning.
‘We’ve only got two days.’ Richard said. ‘He’s good for it. Listen…’
‘No!’ They were like some Wild West posse intent on riding off into the sunset and ignoring the threat that lurked in the other direction.
‘… if we concentrate on Hendrix…’
‘Inspector!’ She cut him off, using his title to pull rank. ‘I’ll allocate actions, I decide on priorities. We do the Press, we do the ID with Ferdie Gibson and we keep watching him, we work away at Lesley Tulley and we find Dean Hendrix.’ She rode over their objections, adamant that she spoke sense and determined to direct the enquiry her way. ‘He may be top of the list but there are still three suspects up here and it isn’t over until one of them is arrested and charged. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Got it?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
News had come in that Lesley Tulley had lit a fire in her back garden the previous night.
‘What was she burning?’ Janine asked.
‘Holiday videos, if you believe that.’ Richard said.
‘She must think we’re stupid. Get samples and tell the lab to fast track them. I think Mrs Tulley might just have burnt her bridges.’
Richard took a step closer. Lowered his voice, ‘Look, last night-’
Janine moved away raising her own voice. In no mood to go into the mistakes of the night before. ‘And you’re following up on the knife too. Good.’
DS Shap rewound the film yet again and reviewed the frames showing the car entering the car park. He copied down the time from the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
‘Boss. We’ve got something here.’ They gathered round the monitor. ‘Here she is arriving,’ Shap froze the frame which showed Lesley’s car at the car park entrance. ‘Spot the difference?’
Janine looked, then smiled. Who said Dean Hendrix should be the only one they looked at. She nodded. Butchers scowled, struggling.
‘Ten twenty-seven,’ she gave him a clue reading out the time from the tape.
‘And her ticket says nine twenty-two,’ Richard said.
Another inconsistency which quickened her interest in Mrs Tulley. Burning things in the garden, missing clothes, and now a misleading parking ticket. What exactly was going on?
Dean had finally got his bottle up to ring Paula.
‘Paula. Did you get my message?’
‘Yeah.’ Not sounding happy about it. ‘Where are you?’
‘Douggie’s had this spot of trouble like, I said I’d, erm, stay for a bit, you know.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ Dean put a laugh in it.
‘Wrong, Dean!’ warning him.
‘It’s difficult.’
‘Tell me about it. I don’t need this, Dean. I want to see you.’
‘A few days…’
‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘The police want to talk to you.’
Aw, hell.
‘They came to work, they wanted to know where you were.’
‘What did you say?’
‘What could I say? I didn’t know, did I? Don’t know if he believed me, even.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Dean.’
‘What?’
‘You haven’t asked why,’ she said quickly, like she was accusing him, ‘why they wanted to see you.’
‘Why?’ said Dean, knowing it was pathetic, knowing it wouldn’t wash.
‘’S not funny, Dean. I don’t like this. I dunno what’s going on and you’re behaving like some prize dick-head. About that murder, Mr Tulley, you heard about it?’
‘On the news. I was up here, left Friday. The police, what did they say?’
She sighed. ‘They want to know if you saw anything. You’ve got to ring them. You can just say you were at Douggie’s, can’t you?’
‘No, I can’t.’
Silence. ‘Oh, God. This trouble Douggie’s in – is that what it is?’ Horror dawning in her voice.
‘No, no. Nothing like that. He owes some money. He’ll have it soon but they’ve been threatening him, that’s all.’
‘So what are you? Bodyguard? Dean, they’ll have you for breakfast.’
‘Paula!’ Outraged that she had so little faith in his ability to protect himself.
‘Think about it. What are you going to do when they come calling?’
He thought of the bag in the cellar, what he could do with that. ‘There’s a few of us,’ he lied.
‘I don’t like it, Dean.’ He said nothing. ‘You gonna ring the police?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He nodded as if she could see. ‘Cos I don’t want them coming round here giving me grief.’
‘Yep,’ still nodding, ‘I’ll do that.’
‘When you coming back?’
‘Dunno. Depends.’
‘I wanna see you, Dean.’ She paused. ‘I can come there.’
‘No.’
‘Where then?’
If he put her off she might dump him.
‘Dean?’
‘Erm. I’ll meet you in Oldham, the coach station.’
‘Oldham?’ Like it was Outer Mongolia.
He gave her directions. Paula’s driving was good but her sense of direction was crap.
‘All right. ‘Bout three then.’
Dean came off the phone smelling so bad he needed a shower. Went upstairs. All her questions ringing in his head. One of his own banging like a big bass drum:
what the hell was he going to tell Paula?
Bobby Mac, the rough-sleeper, was an irritable drunk. He’d been held at Bootle Street and that was where Richard interviewed him. It was the Duty Sergeant at Bootle Street who passed on the details to his opposite number at South Manchester. Told him about a vagrant, one Bobby Mac, no fixed abode, who’d been given bed and board after an affray in Market Street. Been rampaging around with a knife, a knife that matched the description in the bulletin that they had issued earlier that day. Long shot but you never know. The message was passed on to the murder room, both men aware that someone would want the knife sent for forensic examination and would probably want to discuss with Bobby Mac how it came into his possession.
‘Where did you get the knife, Bobby?’ Richard asked.
Bobby rubbed his hand over his mouth and over the pale bristles around it. He rocked a little in his chair.
‘The knife,’ Richard reminded him, ‘where did you get the knife?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Humour me. Did you buy it? Someone give you it? Eh?’
Bobby shook his head, an erratic movement, like he was trying to dislodge something. ‘Found it.’
‘Whereabouts?’
He shook his head again.
‘Listen,’ said Richard, ‘you were arrested for threatening people with a defensive weapon. That’s bad news. Get quite a stretch for that, Bobby. But it so happens we have a particular interest in how you came across that knife. Now, you tell us where you found it and they might take that into account when they consider your case.’
Bobby yawned then, giving the inspector a front row view of yellow-coated tongue and discoloured teeth along with a blast of fetid breath that caused Richard to sit back sharply.