The man with shiny shoes craned his neck backwards to look up into the face of the man who stood before him. For a few seconds he was speechless.
‘Can I help you?’ the man said, eventually.
‘Oh, er, yes, you may be able to.’ He waved the
phoney ID and the words came tumbling out as he struggled to regain his composure. ‘Um, I’m Detective Inspector Smith. I’m looking for William John Hardcastle. Does he live here?’
‘You found him, man. How can I help you?’
‘You? You’re William Hardcastle?’
‘The one and only. What’s the problem?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I think there’s been a mistake. The person I’m looking for is…well, he’s smaller than you. And he’s, um…’
‘White? Are you telling me that I’m not the one because I’m black?’
‘Er, yes, it looks like that.’
‘Hey man, that’s a first. That ought to go in the papers. I never heard anything like that before.’
The man with shiny shoes said, ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you,’ and turned to leave.
‘Any time, man. Any time at all,’ the black giant called after him.
He averaged 47 miles per hour on the journey home, but didn’t know because he forgot to check. He warmed up the lasagne that had been left for him but only picked at it and steered it around the plate, his appetite destroyed by disappointment. It hadn’t been like this the last time. He’d come home ravenous after the last time, and wolfed his dinner down. That was surely a sign that what he was doing was right. He felt so comfortable with it; so…justified. He went upstairs to study his files. There was still plenty of work left undone.
Angie’s ex-boyfriend struck again during the night. Angie is a hairdresser in town, on the part of the main street that is slowly being taken over by charity shops since the new mall opened. She’s a typical twenty-something-year-old Heckley girl: long frizzy two-tone hair; midriff bulging over the waistband of her low-cut Farahs; nose ring and some obscure design tattooed on the small of her back. Most of the local totty sport what is known as the Heckley face-lift. They pull their hair savagely back and secure it with rubber bands, thus achieving the dual aims of making it look reasonably tidy and ironing out most of their facial wrinkles. Angie has her work cut out persuading them to park their baby buggies outside and come in for a proper hairstyle.
When they can afford it they like to club – that’s Newspeak for getting rat-arsed over the weekend, which starts on Thursday – including Angie. Especially Angie, as she has a source of income that doesn’t involve queuing at the post office or DSS once a fortnight. Angie likes to enjoy herself. One boyfriend, she decided, wasn’t enough for a business lady on the up.
The regular boyfriend she ditched wasn’t too pleased, so he took action. One morning about a year ago, as we came to work, some of us noticed that Angie’s Unisex Salon had suddenly become Angie’s sex Salon. Angie wasn’t pleased, either, and came to us, sobbing and calling him names that
made the desk sergeant blush to his socks. We gave the ex-boyfriend a caution and reported her to the apostrophe police.
Now he’d struck for the fourth time and according to the sign painted on her window she was offering a cut and blow job for a fiver. It wasn’t funny anymore. Well, it was, but we tried to keep it serious. I wondered if his behaviour was becoming obsessive so we fetched him in.
Dave rang me, late in the day, from Lincoln, where he was trawling the records for information on the Midnight Strangler’s career.
‘We could be onto something, Charlie,’ he said. ‘The third case was a girl called Julie Bousfield that he raped and murdered. Her brother jumped up in court after sentence was passed and swore to kill Hutchinson. He’s called Brian Bousfield. The other two cases are just as bad, though. It could be family from any of them.’
‘Have you had a chance to run a PNC on him?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Fair enough. How do you fancy staying down there overnight and I’ll come down in the morning?’
‘No problem. I’ll ring Shirl and tell her. There’s a Travel Inn just off the M1. Shall I see you at the nick?’
We talked about it and decided that he’d let me know where he was staying and I’d pick him up
there, early. I rang my opposite number in Nottingham to let him know we were operating on his patch. He sounded keen to be involved and asked me to keep him informed. The murders had left some wounds in the local community that still hadn’t healed.
Later, I drove Sonia to the golf club and we went for a run. I did my one lap and she did two. The 10K race had been a crucial test for her but she’d come through it well. Not because she won, but because the knee took all the pounding that the hard road surface could give it. She’d trained on the soft, undulating ground through the woods and over the golf course, where the varying surface gives the legs a good workout without hammering any particular part of them. On the road, it’s
bam-bam
-bam
, bashing away at the same point, twice per second, for mile after mile. She’d put the knee on the rack, and it had survived.
The bees were gorging themselves on the new blossom, long shadows stretched across the fairways and the golfers were out in force. We stick to the edges of the course and they don’t mind the distraction, most of them giving us a friendly wave. At least, we assume it’s friendly, although they are often brandishing a number three iron at the time. Heckley is hardly St Andrews, and most of the members are just recreational golfers, not fanatics. I towelled the sweat on Sonia’s neck and shoulders for a few moments then handed her the towel.
‘Your name was in the
Daily Express
this morning,’ I told her.
‘Really!’ she said, looking up from changing her trainers. ‘What did it say?’
‘It said, “Women: S Thornton”.’
She gave one of her little giggles. ‘Gosh, fame at last.’
‘It’s a start,’ I said. Our press man had done his bit, and the local paper, the
Heckley Gazette
, was promising quite a spread about the race, but I didn’t tell her that. I nodded over towards the golf clubhouse. ‘Don’t forget that we’re coming here on Saturday.’
‘Is it this week?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will Sparky and all your detectives be there?’
‘No, just me and the boss, and don’t let Sparky hear you call him Sparky.’
‘Right. I’d better start looking for a dress.’
As we buckled our seatbelts I said, ‘How about a pint of lager shandy on the way home?’
‘Mmm, that sounds nice,’ she agreed. I put the car in gear and reversed out from the line of cars at the dog-walkers’ end of the car park. All the regulars were there, and at least one stranger, but it didn’t register. When I’m with Sonia my powers of observation desert me, like the swallows heading south to warmer climes, leaving the chill behind.
Brian Bousfield lived near a village about twelve miles east of Lincoln, in what I would call a mobile home and an estate agent would refer to as a park home. They are like wooden chalets as seen in the Alps, and their only mobility is when they are initially installed. After that the pair of dinky-sized wheels are redundant, so I reluctantly agreed that park home was a better description. Bousfield’s only form was for drunk and disorderly and handling stolen goods, namely half a ton of roofing lead intended for the village church after ten years of fundraising by the dwindling congregation. That’s virtually a clean sheet in my book. He wasn’t in the phone book, so we were cold-calling.
‘Like ’em?’ Dave asked as we turned off the lane and passed through a gate into what an ornate sign told us was Wolds View Park. I’d torn myself away from my brick-and-mortar home ridiculously early and diced with the businessmen and reps in the fast lane of the M1 so I could snatch a quick coffee and toast with Dave before the day’s work started.
We were in an estate of the wooden houses, linked by narrow Tarmac paths just wide enough for one vehicle. Almost every house had a car parked alongside it but there was no sign that any children lived here. No bikes left out overnight, no football lying in the grass, no basketball net. Little borders had been cultivated around most of the homes, and were alive with coloured flowers that I didn’t know the names of, and roses growing up
trellising, which I did. You can learn a lot about people by studying the cars they drive. We saw elderly Volvos and newer Daewoos and Skodas, all clean and shiny. These people were careful with their money and had bypassed the daily rat race that most of us compete in, whether we believe it or not. The sun was shining, it was eight-thirty in the morning and there was a dreamy feel to the place.
‘It’s a different world,’ I said. ‘An alternative society. Where do they keep all their old lawnmowers and stepladders and stuff?’
‘Go left,’ Dave told me. ‘They don’t. You have to be ruthless, living in one of these. That’s it, number eight.’
There was no strip of cultivation round this one, but it was tidy. No doubt there were rules about keeping the grass short and not allowing rubbish to gather. The curtains were closed and a ten-year-old BMW, sans tax disc, stood in the shadow of the chalet, three house bricks supporting the front nearside brake disc. A slightly newer Rover 75 was at the sunny side.
‘It looks as if our man isn’t an early riser,’ Dave said as I parked nose-to-nose with the Bee Emm.
There were two steps up to his door. I reached forward without mounting them and tapped quietly, not wanting to wake the rest of the community. The third time I tapped much harder and we heard stirrings from inside.
The curtain behind the window in the door was
snatched to one side and we had our first view of Mr Bousfield. I was grateful he hadn’t made a death threat against me.
‘Handsome chap,’ Dave mumbled out of the side of his mouth.
‘What do you want?’ Bousfield demanded.
I held my warrant card against the glass without saying anything. He knew the score and opened the door.
‘What’s it about?’ he asked.
‘A word,’ I told him. ‘Either in the comfort of your home or at Lincoln nick.’
He was wearing a singlet that showed off his biceps and tattoos, and Adidas shell suit bottoms. Probably the clothes he’d slept in. At any given point in time more men are wearing Adidas bottoms than any other garment available. Adidas bottoms are the chicken tikka masala of
haute couture
. ‘You’d better come in then,’ he said.
That’s when I learned what the tenants, or this tenant, did with their surplus belongings: they let them pile up. We were admitted into a corridor bounded by mountains of cardboard boxes, bulging bin liners and assorted items whose shapes didn’t lend them to being contained. I had a vague impression of an exercise machine and a motorcycle frame as we edged our way through the kitchen area into the living space. A sleeping bag, flung open like a peeled banana, told us that this doubled as his bedroom. A television bracketed on
the wall was showing a cartoon. Bousfield picked up the remote and killed the picture. He bundled the sleeping bag and told us to take a seat.
‘Is it about the car?’ he asked.
I was trying to identify the smells, to separate the cocktail into recognisable components. Body odour was the main carrier, with a hint of pot, a good slug of tobacco smoke and something else that burnt the back of my nose. It reminded me of the paint shop at the local garage where I once had a Jaguar resprayed. God, that was a long time ago. Cellulose thinners, something like that.
‘No, it’s not about the car,’ Dave told him. ‘We were wondering where you were on the night of Sunday, ninth of May. That’s three Sundays ago.’
He didn’t have to think about it for long, as he was a man of habits and his habits were modest. They exclusively involved consuming lager in the company of a few like-minded friends. When it came to supplying addresses for them he had difficulties, because most of them were involved with fairgrounds and moved around, but he readily suggested that the pub landlord would confirm his alibi. Sunday night was Country and Western night, and he never missed it.
‘So what’s it all about?’ he asked, not unreasonably.
‘There was a murder in Heckley that night,’ Dave told him. ‘A man called Alfred Armitage. Your name came up.’
‘My name? Why should my name come up?’
‘It just did. Does Alfred Armitage mean anything to you?’
‘No. Never heard of him.’
But he bit his lip as he made the denial, and started to scratch at a pretend Celtic design on his bicep.
I said, ‘We know about your sister Julie, Mr Bousfield. It was a long time ago.’
He turned his gaze to me. His face was tanned through working outdoors and his eyes were surprisingly pale blue. ‘Julie?’ he repeated. ‘What’s she got to do with it?’
‘It never really leaves you, does it, something like that?’ I said. ‘Do you still think about her?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Every day.’
‘I’ve seen the photographs,’ I told him. ‘She was an attractive girl. It must have wrecked your family.’
Something through the window appeared to catch his eye, but he was just remembering her, gathering his thoughts. A big patch of sunlight fell on his lap and bulging stomach, illuminating the tattoos on his forearms and sending flashes of light glancing off the half-pound of wrought gold around his wrist. He came back, saying, ‘Julie was special. She could have made something with her life. Not like me. Not like Dad. Dad was an arsehole, but he loved Julie. She was the apple of his eye. It killed him, too, when she was murdered.
He didn’t live to see the trial.’
‘Do you have a job?’ I asked. I wasn’t interested, but I needed him talking.
‘Not really,’ he confessed. ‘A bit of this and that. Casual work on the farms, fruit picking, mushrooms, anything. I sometimes go down to Skeggy to work the fairground. Stuff like that. Nothing regular. I do paint jobs for the Angels, now and again.’
‘Hell’s Angels?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. I do airbrush designs on their bikes when I can get it. They pay well.’
That’s what the smell was. Our man was an artist. I’d seen the sort of thing he did and it amazed me. Dave shuffled in his seat and crossed his legs. He was thinking the same as me.