DS Simkins wasn’t in the car when they got back to it. Gav set off in the direction of the low-rises to catch up with his new partner and Sean carried on to the tower blocks. In the entrance hall of Eagle Mount Two, Lizzie Morrison was crouching down, running a UV light over the floor of the lift.
‘Hi!’ Sean said, trying to sound casual. ‘You got more to do here?’
‘Something’s bothering me, so I thought I’d do another sweep. How about you?’
‘On the way up to see Mrs Armley.’
‘Do us a favour, Sean. While you’re there, see if you can get her mop. There might be blood traces on it. This lift was definitely cleaned recently, but I’m picking up a faint pattern. Blood’s almost impossible to shift completely, even with Mrs Armley’s arsenal of household chemicals.’
‘OK.’ Sean turned towards the stairwell. He was trying to puzzle something out in his head, which didn’t add up. He came back to where Lizzie was working.
‘Why did she stop cleaning the footprints at the door to the stairwell, if she took the trouble to clean the lift? Surely you would clean the worst bits first.’
‘Go on.’ Lizzie straightened up.
‘Well, she made out that she stopped when she saw the body, but that doesn’t make sense. The cleaning ends on the landing, just inside the door. I’m beginning to think she never saw the body. She said “it”, not “he”.’
‘But she must have seen it. She called it in.’
‘I think she said there’d been a fight. We thought she meant it had just happened, but it was hours before. I wouldn’t mind knowing exactly what she did say.’ He selected a number from his contacts. ‘Hi, Sandy … um, it’s Sean. If you get this, can you call me back?’
‘Friends in high places?’ Lizzie said.
‘Friend in the call room. Anyway, she’s not picking up, maybe she’s finished for the day.’
‘Some people have social lives. Apparently.’ Lizzie puffed a cloud of white powder over the lift’s control buttons and gently brushed the excess off. ‘Not our Mrs Armley, though. It looks like she’s been very busy. Not much left to go on here, but we need to get this lift back in use. The natives are getting restless.’
Sean looked at his watch.
‘Are you waiting for someone?’ Lizzie asked, without looking up.
‘That DS from the Sheffield squad. Simkins.’
‘The grumpy-looking one? She was here five minutes ago. She completely ignored me, so …’
‘Shit. Why didn’t she wait for me?’
Sean took the stairs two at a time and arrived out of breath at Mrs Armley’s door. Bernadette Armley undid what sounded like five different locks, before she opened the door on the chain. He held out his badge.
‘Hello, it’s the police.’ He decided not to bother with the ‘acting detective constable’ bit. ‘I was here yesterday.’
She slid the chain off and opened the door.
‘Someone knocked before,’ Mrs Armley said, ‘but I didn’t let her in. She said she was police, but it could have been a ruse, don’t you think? Like that lot I had in last year who said they were the gas board and took my watch and my rings from by the bed.’
She stood back and he went in. Mrs Armley relocked the door and padded in fur-lined slippers to join him by the window, which overlooked the heart of the estate. Apart from the faint rush of her nylon housecoat, she moved without a sound. Neither of them spoke while Sean listened to the outside world, deadened by double-glazing. He hoped he wasn’t in trouble, but he was sure it wasn’t his mistake. DS Dawn Simkins had come without him on purpose.
He could see where the cordon had been reduced to a triangle of tape, the apex tied to the lamp post. A police crime incident van was parked on the access road and beyond it the playground was empty. Two boys were kicking a football back and forth on the patch of rough grass. A small dog ran out through the tattered hedgerow that hid the bins behind the community centre. It circled hysterically, barked at the boys and disappeared, summoned by someone out of sight.
Sean looked down at the low-rise blocks, which cupped one side of an oval along Darwin Road. He glanced across the rec, the community centre and the primary school, to Attlee Avenue, curving around the other side. The ground sloped down until the rooftops of The Groves filled the view and above them, in the distance, Sean could see the Frenchgate Shopping Centre and the tower of Doncaster Minster. The view would be even better higher up, but the interesting thing from this angle was that he could see the road and even the path up to the flats. Only the side door to the stairs was out of view.
‘Tell me again, where did the young man run from?’
She pointed towards the school. ‘He cut across there. And I said: “there’s someone up to no good.” That’s what I said. “There’s someone on the run.” Lost sight of him after that.’
He couldn’t have vanished, and yet nobody on Attlee Avenue had noticed him. Someone casually sauntering past with a cigarette didn’t tally with a young man being chased.
‘And you’re sure you didn’t see anyone else?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Did he stop? Or did he carry on running?’
She peered out and shook her head.
‘Did you keep looking? Or did you look away for a few seconds? It’s important.’
‘Like I said, I lost sight of him.’
‘Was anyone following him or chasing him?’
‘I can’t remember.’ She turned away from the window and sat down on the settee. She was so tiny and frail looking. She patted the seat next to her. ‘I’m forgetting my manners, son. Sit yourself down. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No thanks, I’ll get one later at my nan’s.’
‘Who’s that then?’
‘You probably don’t know her.’ He recalled DCI Khan’s sharp look yesterday when he nearly gave away that he was local. ‘You said you saw the boy running, but did you see anything else before that? Anything unusual?’
She shook her head. ‘I was watching telly. Corrie and then that thing with the feller off Bergerac. I usually close the curtains early, even in the summer. I don’t like the dark creeping up on me.’
‘I see.’
‘It’ll be dark soon, I said, I’ll close the curtains.’
‘You saw the young man and closed the curtains?’
‘Yes.’
He was trying to picture it, but it wasn’t helping. He hoped it might make more sense to DCI Khan. He got up to go, pausing by the glass-fronted cabinet to look at the framed school photographs.
‘Would you mind if I borrowed your mop?’
‘My mop?’
‘Just to get it checked over by forensics.’
‘Well, I suppose so.’ She went through into the kitchen and on to the small concrete balcony, where Sean could see the mop standing in a bucket. She squeezed the water out of it and gave it a shake.
‘Try not to let it drip on you trousers, son, it’s got a bit of bleach in the water.’
He said goodbye and carried the mop, at arm’s length, down the stairs.
Lizzie was waiting for him in the foyer by the main front door.
‘Let me see if I’ve got a big enough bag for that,’ she said. ‘Might have to be two.’
‘Don’t hold your breath, she’s had it in a bucket of bleach.’
‘Blood is thicker than bleach, Sean.’
He returned her smile and looked away fast; it wasn’t fair that she could still look so good, when he didn’t stand a chance.
‘I’ll see you around,’ he said and headed for the door.
‘Yeah, see you.’ She was already focusing on her work again, her voice muted inside the lift.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Doncaster
Sean sat up in bed and scooped his clothes off the floor. His phone started to ring on his bedside cabinet at the very moment he was shoving his head into his T-shirt. He got one arm into a sleeve hole and grabbed blindly, but as his fingers brushed the screen, the phone clattered to the floor. The neck of this T-shirt had always been too tight and he was still trying to force his head through, upside down over the side of the bed, when he heard Khan’s voice.