They looked through the albums and laughed at the fashions of the day. Ella and Tom’s happiness was there for all the world to see …
Jill hated going home in the dark but there was nothing else for it. With the knowledge that her cottage was as secure as it could be, and a couple of police officers were keeping a watchful eye on it, she had to assume she was safe.
As she was slowing down for her driveway, she saw Tony Hutchinson out running. She was out of the car when he jogged over to her.
“I saw your car parked at Ella’s,’ he told her. ‘How’s Tom?’
‘He’s doing OK. I gather they’re still doing tests.’
‘I’ll call on Ella later, and see if there’s anything I can do.’
“I told her the same thing, but there’s nothing at the moment. She’s very independent, is Ella.’
‘Yes, she’s a capable old bird.’
‘Indeed,’ Jill agreed, wondering what Ella would make of that description.
‘Did she tell you? Yes, I suppose she did. I saw her on the Manchester train one day,’ he explained, and he looked decidedly shifty.
‘Really?’ Probably best to play dumb, Jill decided.
‘Thinking back, I’m not surprised she was suspicious enough to rush straight to the police. They said they didn’t hear it from her, but it can’t have come from anyone else.
And God knows, I’m not their favourite person at the moment. Not that they’ve got anything on me,’ he added quickly. He glossed over that in a man of the world, couldn’t care less sort of way. ‘Anyway, a young girl was trying to blackmail me. We’d had a brief, meaningless affair and she’d got herself pregnant. She claimed I was the father. In the end, it was either get a DNA test done, remortgage the house or go bankrupt. Or, of course,’ he added sarcastically, “I suppose I could have killed her.’
Jill was trying to keep her face bland and composed, but it wasn’t easy. ‘What did you do?’
‘The DNA test,’ he said. ‘And I’m pleased to say, not that I had any doubt, that it cleared me of all responsibility.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said.
“I told Liz all about it, and she was very good. She’s not a bad stick - apart from her drinking.’
‘A lot of women would drink,’ Jill couldn’t help pointing out, ‘if their men were having affairs.’
“I know, and I’ve promised her it will stop.’
Jill remembered how well he and Liz had been getting on in the pub last night. There had been none of the usual animosity flying between them.
‘I’m glad, Tony, really glad.’ She would like to see Tony and Liz, Liz especially, in a happier relationship. ‘Are you coming in?’
Max would have been horrified, but Jill knew she was safe enough with Tony. She just knew it.
‘Thanks, but no. I need to get in training. Another time, Jill.’ He was about to move on, but stopped again. ‘Those flowers …’
‘Oh, that.’ She pulled a face. ‘Sorry about that, I thought it might have been you playing a joke. Your initials on the card, you see. Anyway, the case has been solved.’
‘That’s good then. Be seeing you.’ And he jogged off into the darkness.
The work on the Truemans’ murders was just beginning for Max. He now had to prepare the case for court.
Brody’s dog was giving him as many headaches as Brody himself had. The confounded animal refused to eat properly. It was possibly eating enough to stay alive. Possibly.
When the dog had first taken a few morsels out of the bowl, Max had thought that was it. No. He’d offered her steak, chips, sausages and anything else he thought might tempt her. She simply looked at him in that accusing way she had and wandered off to another room …
Max forced his mind back to work. He’d done a little unofficial digging into Cornwall’s past, but nothing had come to light. Jill might be interested to know that he’d been adopted after his real mother had abandoned him outside a hospital, but although sad, there was nothing particularly telling about that. His adoptive father had worked on the force, as a detective with the West Midlands CID, so perhaps that had something to do with Cornwall’s determination to be the best. Other than that, there was nothing of note. He’d done OK at school, no better than that. He’d been accepted by the army, then changed his mind for some reason. More importantly, to Max at any rate, was that he’d been on duty each time Valentine had struck.
Fletch knocked at the door and came inside.
“I thought you’d gone home for the day,’ Max said.
“I was on my way when something caught my eye.
One of the traffic cops stopped a dark blue Mondeo in Preston,’ he said quickly, ‘the night that prostitute, Janie Fisher, escaped from the weirdo. It had a defective rear light. The funny thing was, the owner had filed an off-road notification.’
‘Oh?’
For a reason Max couldn’t explain, his interest was caught. The night was right, and the car fitted Janie’s vague description. Claiming a car was off the road wasn’t unusual, though. Max would like a quid for everyone who did that to avoid paying road tax.
“It belongs to a Robert Murphy.’
The name meant nothing to Max.
‘He has his own building firm and lives in Kelton Bridge/ Fletch explained.
‘Ah!’ Bob Murphy. He was working on Jill’s cottage.
‘You saw him when Alice Trueman was killed, didn’t you, Fletch?’
‘Yes. He seemed an OK sort of chap. Kept apologizing, saying he couldn’t help. He’d done some work at the vicarage, last summer I think it was. He said he liked the Truemans. His business is doing well so he’s sitting pretty financially, I imagine.’
‘Then why would he say his car was off the road? And what was he doing in Preston that night? Do we know?’
‘No one’s spoken to him about that.’
Max was ready to go home, and so was Fletch.
‘Have you passed this on to Cornwall, Fletch?’
‘Dunno where he is, guv,’ Fletch said innocently.
‘Right, how about we call on Murphy on our way home?’ Max suggested.
“It won’t do any harm,’ Fletch agreed. “I expect it’s a waste of time, but it did strike me as coincidental.’
Yes, it was coincidental, and Max knew how important coincidences were in this job.
Max would have made an offer on Murphy’s house if it had been on the market. A barn conversion, it sat right on the edge of Kelton Bridge, overlooking the village and guarded by the Pennines. The upper floor was one huge picture window. The gardens were large and informal, the driveway was block paved, and low walls enclosed the building.
His white van was parked outside on the drive and the man himself came out of what looked to be a storeroom.
Max made the introductions. ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ he added.
‘Thanks.’ Murphy looked around him. ‘It’s taken years to get it in shape, but yes, I like it. It suits me.’ He wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘Sorry, you’ll freeze out here.
Come inside.’
He led the way into a farmhouse-style kitchen. It looked as if he more or less lived in that room. A desk took up one corner, and on that sat a computer and a pile of brochures and mail.
‘My office,’ he explained ruefully, pointing at the computer.
“I use an accountant but I like to keep an eye on things myself. And, of course, there are always quotes to go out, accounts to be settled.’
‘Is business good?’ Fletch asked.
“It is, yes. I’ve had to turn quite a few jobs away. I don’t like doing that, especially when it’s local people who’ve used me before, but neither do I like to keep them waiting too long. I’m thinking of taking on another labourer or two but it’s difficult finding anyone interested. I’ve just taken on an apprentice, and that’s more trouble than it’s worth.
The paperwork is unbelievable. And of course, as soon as I’ve trained him, he’ll set up in competition, I expect.’ He stopped. ‘Sorry, you won’t want to be bored with my problems. How can I help you?’
‘You probably can’t,’ Max told him, ‘but our job is a bit like yours. It would be OK without the paperwork, and it’s the paperwork that brings us here. On the evening of the twentieth of December, a Monday, your car was stopped in Preston. Is that right?’
“It is, and I still can’t believe I was so stupid. It was the Mondeo. I was planning to sell it, but I didn’t get much interest when I advertised it, so I thought I’d leave it a while and then put it in Auto Trader or something like that.
Meanwhile, as I wasn’t using it, it seemed daft to tax it.
I filled in the form to say it wasn’t being used, and forgot all about it. I climbed in the thing, forgetting it wasn’t taxed and - bingo. Your blokes got me for a duff light.’
That seemed feasible.
‘What were you doing in Preston, Mr Murphy, if you don’t mind me asking?’ Fletch said.
“I don’t mind at all. About six months ago, I was invited to tender for a hotel refurbishment in Preston. It was too big a job for me, so I didn’t bother. Here …’ He walked over to his desk and shuffled through the papers. ‘Ha, can’t find it now. I must have filed it somewhere. Anyway, I was just being nosy. I thought I’d drive out there, see how the work was coming along, and find out who’d got the contract. It was a spur of the moment thing.’
‘Who did get the contract?’ Fletch asked.
‘Mmm? P and R Projects.’ He was still hunting through papers on his desk. ‘Ah, here it is.’
Max glanced at the letter asking Murphy to tender, but he wasn’t interested.
‘What time were you in Preston?’ he asked, handing it back.
“I got there about ten o’clock that night, and would have been out of the place by ten thirty at the latest. I was on my way out of the town when your lot stopped me.’ He picked up a handful of paperwork. ‘I’m sure I’ve got the letter here somewhere. I expect there will be a time on that. Here it is.’ He shook his head at the letter in his hand. ‘Nope.
That’s the parking ticket I got in Rawtenstall. I got done for parking on double yellow lines in Rawtenstall back in November. It was throwing it down when I parked, and I thought I was clear of them. Typical. Still, never mind. I’d gone to watch United play - on the big screen, you know?
Anyway, United won 2-1 so I suppose it was worth it.’
“I remember that,’ Max said, struck by the coincidence.
“It was a cracking game, wasn’t it?’ It was played on the thirteenth of November, the night Anne Levington was murdered.
“It was,’ Murphy agreed. ‘I’ve resisted getting Sky so far, but that game tempted me. The trouble is, though, I’d never get a thing done if I had the sports channels. Far better to drive into Rawtenstall and watch it on the pub’s big screen.’
“It means you can’t have a drink, though,’ Max pointed out.
‘Ah, yes, that’s the disadvantage. I don’t drink a lot, so I’m OK. If I do have more than a pint - usually if it’s a dull game - I get a taxi home and fetch the van in the morning.
It depends on what work I’ve got on the following day.
The van’s safe enough. There’s a street camera there so if the yobs of Rawtenstall decide to nick the wheels, at least they’ll be caught on camera. That’s the theory, anyway.’
He returned the letter to his desk. ‘Sorry, I can’t find the letter about the defective rear light. At a guess, I’d say it was around twenty past ten that night. What’s this about anyway?’
‘Probably nothing,’ Max said briskly, ‘but something happened in Preston that night and we don’t have a lot to go on. At the moment, we’re trying to eliminate as many people as possible.’
‘Oh, right. Well, there’s nothing more I can tell you really. I drove in, looked at the hotel from the outside - it was too dark to see a lot - and drove home again.’
‘That’s enough, thanks.’ Max turned towards the door, then stopped. ‘You’re doing some work for a friend of mine, Jill Kennedy’
‘Ah, Lilac Cottage,’ he said. ‘Well, don’t tell her business is booming,’ he added with a smile, ‘or she’ll think I’m overcharging her.’
“I think that chap - oh, the estate agent - what’s his name?’
‘Andy Collins?’
‘That’s the one. I gather he gave her a rough estimate of what it should cost.’
‘Did he? A good job I didn’t overcharge her then. Mind, she’s lucky I could fit it in. Fortunately, Len, my roofer, is pretty quiet at the moment. Ah, I should have guessed you knew her. We were both at a bonfire party at the manor, and I remember Tony Hutchinson talking about her work with the police. She looked quite embarrassed by the attention.
Tony was calling her our celebrity, and I felt a bit of a fool because I’d never heard of her. But there, Tony likes to impress people with his vast knowledge.’
‘So I gather,’ Max said, amused. ‘OK, thanks for your time, Mr Murphy’
Max and Fletch walked back to their cars. They stopped by Max’s.
‘We might have known it was a waste of time,’ Fletch muttered.
‘Indeed. A duff rear light lands him in Preston at more or less the right time, and a parking ticket gives him an iron-clad alibi. We’ll just check on the times, and make sure he got the date right, but it looks as if he was safely in Rawtenstall getting nicked when Valentine was killing Anne Levington.’
‘You can’t win ‘em all, guv. It was worth checking. Right, I’m off home. Hey, how’s that dog of Brody’s doing?’
‘Don’t ask. I take the damn thing in out of the kindness of my heart and the sodding animal refuses point blank to eat. I’ve got Kate and the kids buying very expensive titbits to tempt it with, but nothing. Fly, on the other hand, will eat anything. It was one of my shoes yesterday’
Fletch laughed. “I bet the boys love it, though.’
‘Yeah.’
They did, and on that thought, Max got in his car and drove home.
Whenever Jill came to the Trafford Centre, which was only three or four times a year, she always spent nigh on a year’s income. It was just as well she didn’t visit the shops very often. Today, she was laden down with two pairs of shoes, a dress, a jacket, small presents for Prue’s kids, a picture for her sitting room and some new cutlery.
It was a relief to find a cafe, drop her bags on a chair, take off her coat, and wait for a cappuccino to be brought to her table. She’d have a sandwich or something more substantial as soon as her coffee had revived her.