‘Charlie won’t leave this kind of mark. There’ll be a handful of old builders and some of Mum’s friends to have a sherry with her at the wake afterwards. Then, nothing. He won’t be remembered nearly forty years from now.’
Maggie took Jack’s hand, and pressed it to make him stop. She almost felt sick.
‘Listen to yourself! This man — this terrible, horrible man — is no one to be proud of. Charlie, or “Dad” as you used to call him, will be dearly missed by good, hard-working people — whether there’s ten or ten thousand of them. Jack, please, this isn’t you!’
‘This is me!’ he snapped, making Maggie jump.
He was desperate to explain how he felt, but he didn’t understand it himself. He repeated something Eddie had said to him.
‘ “People can see strength and that gets you respect.” It was never the job, or moving to London that was wrong, Mags — it was me. I’m not planning on changing sides, but I am going to start being the man I’m meant to be. I will be heard. And Ridley will start treating me with the respect I deserve.’
Chapter 32
It was almost forty-eight hours since Kurts, Wassan and Marchant had been escorted back to London and, just as Ridley had predicted, they’d all been ‘no comment’ the entire time. Kurts could be charged with perverting the course of justice, because Barry had been hiding in his flat — but they still needed to prove he knew Barry was there. Wassan was just hours away from being released. And Marchant was waiting for his lift back to Essex, after his good deed of playing chauffeur to his brother had finally exonerated him from any involvement in the train robbery.
Jack was head-down, checking numerous family statements supporting the fact that Marchant had never left the hospital at any point during his sister-in-law’s 27-hour labour. It wasn’t his aim to undermine Ridley or make him feel stupid; all Jack wanted was to be taken seriously.
Ridley sat at his desk, door open, and looked through the army service records of every man and woman who’d ever crossed paths with either Barry Cooper or Mike Withey. There were so many possibilities, but, as the hours ticked by, his gut got louder and louder. He was on the wrong track. He looked up to see Jack in the doorway.
‘Rashid Wassan’s solicitor’s saying we either charge him or let him go, sir.’
‘Release him,’ Ridley said. He had no option.
When Jack returned to the squad room, Ridley was standing by the evidence board. He’d added the photos of Marchant and Wassan to the discarded evidence pile, so that only Mike Withey, Barry Cooper and Thomas Kurts remained on the board, in pride of place, staring him dead in the eyes and challenging him to solve a 24-year-old train robbery and a brand new murder.
‘Once you eliminate the impossible...’ Ridley muttered. He sifted through the discarded evidence, picked up the photo of Dolly Rawlins and stuck it next to Mike Withey before completing the quotation. ‘Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
He let out a long sigh. He beckoned to Jack. The two men stood side by side, hands in pockets, looking at the women from The Grange. Laura and Anik could hardly believe what they were seeing.
‘Can we justify search warrants?’ Ridley asked.
‘We wouldn’t find anything, sir,’ Jack said, with an absolute certainty that made Ridley turn to look at him. ‘They’re smarter than that. Always have been. They hid in plain sight, then and now. They looked like a bunch of women opening a kids’ home, so that’s all we saw.’
Jack tapped the photo of Dolly Rawlins as he started to speak, and he swept a hand to include all of the other photos as he continued.
‘Dolly Rawlins, the grief-stricken wife of a criminal mastermind driven to murder because of marital betrayal. Ester Freeman, a two-bit madam running her own brothel. Connie Stephens, a dumb prostitute. Julia Lawson, a drug-addled ex-doctor who turned to dealing to survive. Gloria Radford, the downtrodden wife of a gunrunning husband. Angela Dunn, nobody of consequence. And Mike Withey, burnt-out drunk. Individually, they’re easy to ignore — but together...’ Ridley and Jack looked at all seven photos, side by side. ‘Leader, second in command, horsewoman, gun expert, seductress, inside man, and a babysitter to keep Kathleen’s kids out of harm’s way. Ester’s insane decision to shoot Dolly was something no one could have predicted and it was what pushed them into this waiting game. They had to wait for Ester to get out or she’d have grassed them all up. They had to wait for the local pub landlord to stop making cash on the side by traipsing hundreds of tourists through what quickly became a notorious murder scene. And they had to wait for Norma to die. When the coast was finally clear, Mike made the mistake of asking Barry to help burn down Rose Cottage. The only time two blokes were left to do a job, and they fucked it up!’
‘Sounds like you admire these women, Jack.’
‘I do, sir. They watched us underestimate them back in 1995 and they watched us do it again now. Me, sir. They watched me underestimate them.’
Ridley removed the photos of Dolly Rawlins, Gloria Radford and Mike Withey — leaving Ester, Julia, Connie and Angela.
‘So, who’s the mastermind now?’
‘Not Ester. They don’t like her, don’t trust her and, anyway, she was out of the loop for too long. Not Connie — she’s not capable. Julia or Angela. They’re both smart and organised enough to juggle families and jobs. Angela’s my guess — she was Dolly’s protégée and she still puts flowers on Dolly’s grave.’
Ridley stood, arms folded, legs apart, temples pulsing as the tension flickered through his facial muscles. He nodded.
‘Let’s bring her in.’
The drive to Angela’s flat in West London was short and silent. Ridley was driving faster than normal, which was an indication of how annoyed he was. From the car park beneath Angela’s third floor window, they looked up to see the flat in darkness. It seemed that Angela, Rob and the kids had gone. Within minutes, Ridley was requesting search warrants and co-ordinating simultaneous entries into Ester’s home on the Isle of Wight, Julia’s care home in Chester and Connie’s B & B in Taunton. Ridley wanted to be the one to search Angela’s flat; if she was the ringleader, as Jack suspected, then she’d be the one with all the answers.
The Chester police arrived in force, expecting to have to herd unwanted children into the back of a police van just to stop them from scattering like rats, but what they actually found was an English lesson in mid-flow. Julia’s two helpers, who she ‘trusted with her life’, kept the children entertained while the police searched the three adjoining houses. The female helper escorted the police while the male helper, Daniel, continued the class as though nothing untoward was happening at all.
Daniel spoke as if he was reading a quote from a textbook.
‘The police burst in through the door, all red-faced and sweaty. Burst.’
A sea of tiny hands shot into the air and Daniel pointed to a young Asian lad, who was dressed in clothes at least three sizes too big for him.
‘Verb!’ the boy shouted with pride.
‘Brilliant!’
Daniel caught a glimpse of the overweight PC in the corner of the room scowling at the children, as though they were not worth the effort Daniel was putting in.