‘Sir,’ she said on seeing Henry.
‘Hi, Alex — is Ms Kippax in there?’
‘Yes … very, very distraught.’
‘I can imagine. You got all you need from her?’
‘Yeah — all her clothing — she’s got a change, swabs, DNA, you name it. She’s been very compliant even though she’s so upset.’
‘Think she did it, from what she’s said?’
‘No.’ She shook her head without hesitation. ‘Not for me to say, but no.’
‘Does she know who did it?’
‘I think she has a pretty good idea.’
‘Thanks for that.’
‘Good luck boss. Ma’am.’ The CSI moved away, nodding at Cranlow.
‘You coming in?’ Henry asked the deputy.
‘If it won’t cramp your style.’
‘If only I had a style,’ he sighed and opened the door.
Jackie Kippax was seated at the table, her head hanging downwards. A young female constable sat opposite, with her outstretched hands holding Kippax’s for support. The officer looked at Henry, a haggard, emotional expression on her inexperienced face. It looked as though having to deal with Kippax had all but drained her.
Henry acknowledged her with a wan ‘well done’ smile. With a gesture of his hand he indicated she could leave. The officer flooded with relief and almost ran from the room, but Henry caught her before she could scarper and gave her his best little boy look (designed, he hoped, to get just what he wanted) and whispered, ‘Three coffees, white, with some sachets of sugar. Can you manage that?’ then released her.
He eased himself into the vacant chair, still warm. Cranlow seated herself on a chair in the corner of the room.
Jackie Kippax did not move, her head hanging loosely down. Her breathing was laboured.
‘Jackie,’ Henry said softly. ‘Jackie.’
She did not respond.
‘Jackie, we need to talk. I know it’s tough, but we need to have a chat, urgently.’ He reached across and touched her hand. ‘Jackie, it’s me, Henry Christie.’
The words, together with the touch, acted like a charged cattle prod. Kippax’s head shot up, eyes wide. She sat bolt upright and looked at Henry as though he was the devil. Their eyes clashed — hers on fire with rage, her face twisted with anger.
‘That’s all I fucking need,’ she snarled. ‘You! A cunt like you!’
‘I hated you with a vengeance and now you’re the one investigating his murder.’ Kippax and Henry were standing outside the police station on the paved area by the front entrance. A cigarette dangled from the fingers of her right hand, a coffee in the other. ‘Can’t no one else do it?’
Henry shook his head as he took a mouthful of his coffee.
Angela Cranlow stood several feet away, lounging against the station wall, sipping her coffee, listening to the dialogue, watching the interaction with interest.
‘What happened between us twelve years ago has no bearing on this case, Jackie,’ he told her, now very definitely remembering who she was and the fun time he’d had with her and Eddie Daley a dozen years before.
‘You tell that to Eddie.’
‘Look, the past is gone-’ he started to say.
‘You!’ She pointed her cigarette-bearing, nicotine-stained first and second fingers at him. ‘You lost him his job.’
‘No, you’re wrong … Eddie lost his job for himself. He was corrupt and he could not stay a cop, Jackie. I did my job, that’s all.’
Her head jerked as though she had some sort of nervous tic, her face scowling, and her furious eyes blazed at Henry. Finally, she could look at him no longer and turned sharply away, starting to sob. ‘I loved him,’ she said jerkily. ‘I stood by him. We had a life, not much of one, but we did OK. We were good for each other and I don’t know what I’m going to do now. He was everything to me. He looked after me.’
Henry took a tentative step closer to her. ‘And I’ll catch whoever did this and that’s a promise. Doesn’t matter what he felt about me, or what you feel, I’ll do my job.’
Jackie Kippax turned slowly. ‘That’s you all over, isn’t it, Henry? No matter what, you do your job, don’t you? Eddie was your friend and yet you still did your job on him, didn’t you?’ she said bitterly.
‘Jackie, we can let this hinder us or we can bin it and solve his murder, which I’m assuming is what you want?’ He held out a hand, a gesture which said many things. Her hard features softened. Her nostrils flared and she regarded him, her eyes roving up and down him. She nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘He wouldn’t be dead if you hadn’t hounded him out. He wouldn’t have had to make a living doing shitty things.’ She took a long drag of her cigarette, dropped it, ground it out. She coughed deep from within her chest.
‘I’m not sure those things are related.’
‘Think what you want.’ She shrugged.
‘So what happened tonight, Jackie? Are you going to come in and sit down and tell us? Then maybe we can make an arrest.’
Back in the interview room, another fresh coffee in hand, they were talking. Henry was making notes as he listened and chatted, but he had also switched on the tape recorder. Angela Cranlow had joined him at the table, introducing herself by name only, omitting the rank.
‘Tell me about Eddie,’ Henry had prompted.
Jackie Kippax gave a snort and started counting on her fingers. ‘Failed cop, failed insurance agent, failed legal rep, failed solicitor’s clerk, failed private investigator … but not a failed man. He’d had bad experiences with women in the past, but he’d made bad choices. But me an’ him were made for each other and he really looked after me.’
Henry smiled sadly. He could see how much she loved him, which was good, but he wanted to get beyond the touchy-feely and get some details to start the investigation. He knew it was like playing a fish, though. It needed a bit of give and take, because if he leapt in and rode roughshod over her emotions, she would withdraw into herself.
‘How long has he been a PI?’ Angela asked.
‘Two — no, three years,’ Kippax calculated.
‘And what sort of work has he been involved in?’ she enquired.
‘Mainly divorce stuff, serving papers on people, that sorta crap.’
‘Not the kind of work to win friends with?’ Angela ventured.
‘It paid the bills, mostly.’
‘And what do you do now?’ Henry asked.
‘I clean, down at the Park Private Hospital, thirty hours a week. Steady, unspectacular, but OK.’
Henry nodded.
‘Eddie couldn’t draw his police pension for another two years, so we needed all the money we could find. He could’ve got a steady job fillin’ shelves at ASDA, I suppose, but that wasn’t his scene. He liked doin’ stuff that wasn’t a million miles away from copperin’. It was the way he was, I guess.’
‘Did he make some enemies?’ Angela asked.
‘When you find people shaggin’ people other than those they should be shaggin’, you don’t exactly make bosom buddies.’
‘What was he working on at the moment?’ Henry asked.
Kippax shrugged. ‘Coupla things … a divorce surveillance which was ongoing and he hadn’t got very far with, and something involving embezzlement down at the Class Act … you know the Class Act?’
‘I know the Class Act,’ Henry said dubiously. It was one of Blackburn’s most infamous nightclubs, one of those places that was always changing hands, but never for the better. It was run by crims for crims and the only surprise was that it was still going, hadn’t been shut down. ‘Somebody was embezzling from the Class Act?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I thought they taught embezzlement there.’
Kippax sneered at him, no time for his quips. ‘I don’t exactly know the ins and outs of it, OK, but I think the manager was diddling the owner and Eddie got called in to make some discreet inquiries, do a bit of digging.’ She sniffed and stared up at the ceiling for a moment, blinking back tears.
‘Did he find anything?’
Her eyes lowered and stared at Henry. ‘I think he did — I know he did — but he never got into real detail with me, just said the whole thing was a bit hairy.’