Janine read carefully through the statements. It wasn’t as bad as she feared, apparently Butchers’ years of experience in taking down factual information had served him well. The initial statements were quite bald, perhaps because, as Butchers had said and Janine could imagine, the Staffords were surprisingly uncooperative. Now she knew it wasn’t so much that they had an agenda, a reason to mislead the police but more that father and son were too bound up in their own misery to engage. Of course those initial statements were made at a time when everyone was imagining that the dead child was Sammy Wray.
It was hard now to pull apart the two cases, as if the details resisted being untangled. It made any analysis more complicated.
Janine froze, the skin on the back of her neck prickled and she took a quick breath. Woken by the builders. Wasn’t that a contradiction? She rifled through the statements. Yes. There. She found the other reference.
She picked up the pages and went to the door of her office. Called out to the team. ‘Statements from Ken Stafford – second statement, quote: “Saturday, back from the night shift, just got off to sleep when the builders start up.” Luke Stafford tells us his dad complained about it.’ She pulled out the other page. ‘The initial door-to-door testimony from Ken Stafford, and I quote, “Don’t see them for days, then they’d turn up at the crack of dawn”. Join the dots. If they are so bloody lazy then why do they suddenly pitch up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning? Lazy builders on the job before daylight. It’s the builders we should be talking to. The bloody builders!’
Chapter 22
‘Breeley and McEvoy,’ Janine said, ‘pull together everything we have so far, every whisper, every mention we have of them and do background checks. I’ll give you half an hour then we’ll see what it tells us.’
When they re-assembled Janine got the ball rolling. ‘Both men have been working on the site for six weeks. Owner’s abroad?’
‘That’s right,’ said Lisa, ‘we spoke to him to verify that. And he’s hired them before and had no complaints.’
‘OK, starting with Joe Breeley,’ Janine said. ‘Breeley has an alibi for the early hours of Saturday morning from his wife. If it is him – his wife is covering. Breeley has an alibi, but Donny McEvoy doesn’t. McEvoy lives alone, no family.’
‘That make it any more likely?’ Richard said.
‘No-one keeping tabs on him,’ Janine said.
‘Has its advantages,’ Richard muttered. Although he was contributing, he kept giving her dirty looks and his manner was decidedly frosty. To do with last night, she assumed.
‘Breeley was fixing the car when we first went round,’ Richard said, ‘their car broke down, on the Friday afternoon, the eighteenth of April. AA were called out. Mandy was driving. So if that was out of action, if it was Breeley, he’d have used his van to move the body to the site.’
‘From?’ said Janine. Shrugs and shakes of the head. If only they knew. She thought about her visit to the Breeleys, had there been anything off-key?
‘Breeley had been on the sick,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Richard agreed, ‘that’s what he said at first then he changed his story, said that the weather was slowing work down at the house so he hadn’t been in.’
‘Bit odd,’ Janine said, ‘young family to feed, and he’s a steady reputation, wouldn’t you want to be bringing in the money?’
‘Might be paid for the job. Do the hours as and when,’ said Butchers. ‘Common enough in the building trade.’
‘Yes, he said as much,’ she remembered. ‘Anything else on Breeley?’
No-one spoke. ‘ OK then, Donny McEvoy.’
Shap said, ‘McEvoy was already at Kendal Avenue when Breeley turned up for work on that Saturday. Plus McEvoy was there when the body was recovered, he didn’t actually find the body but…’
‘He’s shown a very public interest in the case,’ Janine said. That type of close involvement was a feature of killers on occasion, a combination of fascination they had with the awful deed they’d committed, a need to be at the centre of attention but also a useful way they could keep tabs on what the police were doing. ‘Is he just after his fifteen minutes or is there more to it? He’s been eager to talk to us so far…’
She looked at Shap who nodded.
‘Right see if he’s happy for us to take a look round his place.’
‘The murder scene?’ Lisa asked.
‘Worth a look,’ Janine said, ‘anything to suggest the victim was there. Or at the other site where McEvoy’s been working? Find out if he’s access there out of hours. We ask both men in turn about that early morning visit on Saturday nineteenth. Given the fact that McEvoy has no alibi and he’s been rubber-necking I think we have grounds to bring him in and talk to him here. Shake him up a bit. Let’s get cracking.’
As the meeting broke up she was aware of the tension between herself and Richard. She could have ignored it but she didn’t want it to fester. ‘Richard?’ she said, ‘A word?’
She moved with him to her office, made sure to shut the door, hoping for privacy.
‘Is this about last night?’ Janine said.
‘What?’ he said.
‘This: the glacial tone, the moody stare? Did I pop your balloon?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You were a right cow to Millie. You could barely say her name, ‘Millie,’ he mimicked Janine. ‘Patronising her, sticking your nose in. Maybe you don’t remember? That was just before you made a complete prat of yourself with the boss. What is your problem with Millie? Is she some sort of threat?’ Richard was livid, hands on hips, his eyes burning.
‘I work with her, I don’t have to like her,’ Janine said. ‘Have you seen today’s papers?’ They were making much of the confusion of the cases, pointing the finger at the police.
‘You’re blaming Millie for the coverage?’ he said, incredulously. ‘She’s doing her best in a very difficult situation. You know what that’s like, to be up against it. You’ve been there.’
He was right. She had been there, got the DVD. She was being a cow because she was pissed off with Pete. Pete and bloody Tina. And Millie, with her poise and her brains, her youthful beauty and her claim on Richard, had been a handy target. She missed her mate Richard, she missed the buzz there used to be between them, the easy company, the patter and the unspoken support. She winced as she recalled bawling out Richard over talking to Millie about the case and then omitting to inform Millie about Felicity Wray’s arrest. Petty behaviour. She wasn’t being straight with him. Janine swallowed. She did not want to be like this, act like this. As if she was no longer in control.
‘It’s just,’ she said, ‘I’m just-’ she looked away, down the corridor.
‘What?’ he said irritably.
‘Tina’s having a baby,’ she blurted it out. ‘Pete always told me he didn’t want any more children. That was something we had. He didn’t even have the bottle to tell me himself,’ she said sadly, ‘I had to hear it from the kids. I hate the whole idea of it.’
‘But you and Pete, it’s finished, right?’ he said, some confusion in his eyes.
She sighed. ‘I’ve told him I want a divorce.’
He was still puzzled. He didn’t get it, he really didn’t get it. ‘Well, what d’you expect,’ he said, ‘you can’t have it both ways.’
Janine was stung. Before she’d formulated a response Richard had walked out. Well, that went well, she told herself. She felt like crying but contented herself with kicking her desk, which brought tears to her eyes.
She was startled by a knock on the door. Christ! Couldn’t she have five minutes peace? She sniffed hard, sat down. ‘Yes?’ she said.
Millie opened the door. ‘I’d a voicemail from Richard, I thought he was here. Sorry to bother you,’ she said formally, making to leave again.