Leigh Russell, page 6
‘I know. Forensics are re-examining it and Binita has said she wants a definite result this time, not some vague speculation about what might or might not have happened.’
The intruder had left no obvious trace. Serena assured them that nothing in the house had been disturbed, although Martin had left his phone behind. She had discovered it on the floor near the bed.
‘So we know he left home between one forty and one fifty, and drove down to the river,’ Naomi said.
What they still didn’t know for certain was whether he had gone out alone or with someone else.
‘The alarm going off suggests it wasn’t Nigel or Daisy who was with Martin on the night he died,’ Naomi said. ‘So that’s one positive to come out of this whole debacle.’
‘Unless it was one of them, and they were hoping to misdirect us,’ Geraldine replied.
It would have been a very risky strategy, gambling on the police not arriving immediately, but it was possible.
‘I haven’t met Nigel, but I suspect Daisy could be that sneaky, and we haven’t been able to confirm Serena’s alibi for that night yet,’ Geraldine said.
‘It could have been any one of the three of them,’ Naomi agreed.
‘Or someone we haven’t even considered yet.’
‘Or someone else entirely,’ Naomi echoed.
12
Later that afternoon, Geraldine was called to speak to a park keeper who had found a gun in one of the bins in Museum Gardens and had come to the police station to hand it in. He was about forty, with black hair turning grey at his temples and a thick black moustache. He was pale and seemed quite shaken as he repeated that he had found a gun in a bin in the park.
‘What if a child had found it?’ he asked several times, his voice husky with anxiety.
While Geraldine was questioning the park keeper, the gun was being dusted for fingerprints. Disappointingly there were no prints matching those of Daisy, Nigel or Serena, but it didn’t take long to discover some that matched those of a small-time criminal registered on the database. He was one of Neil’s informers, known to the police as John. Later that afternoon Neil called Geraldine to say John had been picked up and was waiting for her in an interview room. She joined Neil to face a scraggy young man with an emaciated face. He was wearing a khaki anorak that was too big for him and he looked sick, with sunken cheeks and greasy hair. Nevertheless, he seemed sober. It was difficult to judge his age; Geraldine guessed he probably wasn’t even out of his twenties.
‘Tell the inspector here exactly what you told me,’ Neil said.
The man who had been introduced as John glanced nervously from Geraldine to Neil and back again. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he mumbled after a brief hesitation. ‘I never deal with weapons. Guns aren’t my thing. You know I don’t break the law—’
‘Leave it out,’ Neil interrupted roughly. ‘You’d sell your grandmother for a hit. I know you’ve been involved with passing on illegal firearms more than once, so don’t give us any of your flannel. We’re looking into a murder, so you’d better start talking because this isn’t going away.’
John swore. ‘What you’re talking about, that was before,’ he replied, fidgeting nervously with the buttons on his jacket. ‘I don’t do that any more.’ He gazed at Geraldine earnestly for an instant before dropping his eyes. ‘I’m on the level now,’ he muttered. ‘You got nothing on me.’
‘We have evidence you’ve been handling an illegal firearm,’ Geraldine said.
‘Not me,’ he replied, with a flicker of animation. ‘You can’t prove it was me.’
‘We have a gun and it’s got your prints all over it.’
John squirmed in his seat. ‘Yeah, well, someone handed it to me,’ he said. ‘I told him I wasn’t interested. I told him no way.’
‘Told who?’
John shrugged. ‘Dunno who he was. I’m not saying another word.’
‘Do you want to be charged as an accessory to murder?’ Neil demanded with fake ferocity.
John’s face paled. ‘Murder?’ he repeated, suddenly looking frightened. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Neil said you have some information for us,’ Geraldine prompted him.
He nodded anxiously. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he repeated plaintively.
‘What wasn’t you?’ Geraldine asked.
John scowled until his eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose.
‘Did you sell a gun recently?’ Geraldine asked him.
John screwed up his eyes but said nothing.
‘Listen to me, John,’ Neil spoke more gently. ‘Your name doesn’t need to come up, not officially. You’re too valuable,’ he added with a grim smile. ‘If you cooperate, we can protect your anonymity.’ He looked at Geraldine who nodded. ‘But you’re not going to walk away from this without answering our questions. So, start talking or you’ll be charged with obstructing a murder enquiry and end up facing a long stretch inside. Is that really what you want? Or would you prefer to tell us what you know and walk out of here a free man? Those are your options. Tell us the truth or risk being banged up for a long time. Do yourself a favour and choose wisely. We’ll make it worth your while,’ he added, and John licked his lips nervously.
He dipped his head, mumbling.
‘I didn’t catch that,’ Geraldine said. She leaned forward. ‘Were you involved in passing on a firearm recently?’
‘You can speak freely,’ Neil reassured him. ‘But let’s get this over with quickly, shall we, before my patience runs out.’
‘All right, all right, yes.’
‘What does “yes” mean?’ Neil pressed him.
‘I sold a gun, yes,’ John admitted grudgingly.
‘Where did you get it?’
John shrugged and muttered that he couldn’t remember. ‘It’s not difficult to get hold of one,’ he added sullenly.
Clearly he wasn’t willing to reveal his source, but Geraldine had no time to waste. Leaving any enquiry about the supplier to Neil, she turned her attention to the buyer.
‘I sold it to a woman,’ John said. He insisted he had no idea who she was.
‘Can you describe her?’
John shook his head, muttering that he hadn’t seen much.
‘What about her hair? Was she fair or dark? What about her eyes? Anything you can recall would be helpful.’
John shook his head again. ‘She was wearing a hood. I didn’t see her face or her hair. I didn’t see nothing. I didn’t look at her. People get twitchy if they see you clocking them.’
‘Did you notice her height, or her figure, or anything at all about her?’
‘She was wearing a loose coat, dark, and I didn’t see anything more than that.’
‘What about her hands? You must have seen her hands when she took the gun from you?’
‘She was wearing gloves.’ He paused. ‘They looked like a man’s gloves, too big for her.’
‘You must have some idea who she was, or how she came to find you?’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he replied, glancing around nervously, and shifting on his seat, eager to get away. ‘We didn’t exchange names and phone numbers. What would be the point? It would only put us at risk. You don’t know who to trust. If someone wants something, they just ask around, see who’s hanging out. No names.’
‘So how do I find out who sent her to find you?’
John shook his head. ‘We don’t keep records,’ he replied, with a slight sneer. ‘People just turn up, hand over the dosh, no questions asked. I’ve told you everything I know.’
‘Wait. Where did you meet this woman to hand over the gun? And when?’
John looked at her suspiciously for an instant and shook his head, unable or unwilling to respond.
‘I need to know where you met her,’ she insisted.
‘Union Terrace car park,’ he said at last, adding that he had no idea when they had met. ‘We arranged it, of course we arranged it, but I can’t give you no details. I don’t keep a record of all my comings and goings. Things just happen, innit? Go with the flow.’
‘You must have agreed a time to meet?’
Geraldine waited impatiently for John’s response. If they could nail the transaction down to a specific time, there was a chance they would be able to find the woman on a security film as she hurried to and from the car park.
John shrugged. ‘It was eleven fifteen one night,’ he said, surprising Geraldine with his precision. She wondered if he was saying the first thing that came into his head. ‘Don’t ask me what night it was.’
‘How long ago was it? Days? Weeks?’
Please give me something so we know at least where to look, she thought. If it was more than a week since John had sold the gun, any CCTV footage would probably have been wiped and might take months to recover. Even if it was still relatively accessible, it could still take weeks to trawl through all the footage from around the car park.
‘About a week ago.’ He didn’t sound very sure.
Geraldine wondered if what he was saying bore any relation to what had happened.
‘What else can you tell me about how the meeting was set up?’
But John refused to say any more. All Geraldine had learned was that the gun had been sold to an anonymous woman in a deserted car park, possibly at eleven fifteen one night. She threatened to charge the informer with supplying a murder weapon, but he clammed up and refused to give her any more information, insisting that he wasn’t a grass.
‘More than my life’s worth to get a reputation as a snitch,’ he explained so earnestly that he was probably being honest about that, at least.
He hadn’t told them much, but it was a start. At least she knew where the exchange had taken place. There was a chance the buyer might be seen on CCTV arriving at the scene, or departing. At a prompt from Neil, she thanked John for his cooperation and left her colleague to decide whether to pay him for the information he had shared, or send him off with a warning.
The gun found in a bin and the bullet from the crime scene had been sent off for forensic examination to determine whether the weapon had been used to shoot Martin. The results were disappointing.
‘Inconclusive!’ Naomi grumbled. ‘If this was a TV show, forensics would have found a flaw in the barrel of the gun that matched a scratch on the bullet and bingo. Why can’t real life be that helpful?’
‘The gun might yet help to nail the killer, if we find one of our suspect’s prints on it,’ Geraldine replied.
‘If they were stupid enough to hold it without wearing gloves,’ Ariadne muttered.
13
It was lucky that Serena had not yet come to the end of her rental agreement on her flat in York or she would have found herself homeless. It was a simple bus ride away from Martin’s property. Her flat was part of a converted house and fortunately her neighbour on the ground floor was home and let her into the building. On hearing that Serena had left her keys at the house of a friend who had gone away, her neighbour lent her a set of keys, including Serena’s own spare key. Although she was able to get back into her flat without any difficulty, she knew her problems were only just beginning.
Before she moved in with Martin, she had found her own lodgings comfortable enough, but the rented flat now seemed dingy and cramped, with space only for a bed with a lumpy mattress, and one single wardrobe. It had not taken her long to become accustomed to a spacious room and a more comfortable bed. Her old wooden wardrobe wouldn’t have space to hold all the new clothes she had bought since she had gone to live with Martin, but there would be no point in moving them, even if she could get hold of them. She was going to return to the house Martin had gifted her in his will, the house that belonged to her. But first she had to outmanoeuvre Nigel and Daisy.
Exhausted by grief at her loss, and anger at Martin’s horrible children, she flung herself down on her narrow bed and wept. She wouldn’t put it past Nigel and Daisy to have thrown out all her possessions by the time she moved back in, but they were only things. Once she came into her inheritance, the house and everything in it would be hers. Anything missing could soon be replaced. It was only a matter of time and she could be patient. Even so, it was a pity. She gazed sadly at the few possessions she had brought with her from her recent home: the jewellery and clothes she had been wearing when Daisy had refused her entry to Martin’s house. Whatever clothes she had left behind in the flat when she moved in with Martin looked shabby and old, but they still fitted her. They would have to do until the will was read and she came into her legal inheritance. Imagining Daisy’s fury on hearing the terms of the will cheered her up, and she stopped crying.
In the meantime, she faced an immediate problem. She was broke. There was nothing else for it. She would have to find a job to tide her over. She thought it might help if she could dress fairly smartly for job interviews, so she decided to return to the house – her house – and insist they at least allow her to collect some of her clothes. This time she would be firm if Daisy tried to slam the door in her face again.
She told herself it was anger, not fear that made her hand shake as she reached for the bell.
‘What do you want?’ Daisy demanded, once again opening the door on the chain. ‘Haven’t you had enough? Just go away and stop pestering us. You’re never going to get your hands on anything of my father’s, you vulture. We knew all along you were only after him for his money. Now get lost before I call the police.’
‘The police?’ Serena replied, making it clear she was surprised by Daisy’s words. ‘Is that supposed to be a threat?’ She laughed, and was afraid her laughter sounded fake.
‘Yes, the police,’ Daisy snapped. ‘You think you can get away with pestering us but I’m warning you, don’t ever come back here again, or you’ll be sorry, I promise you. We’ll have you arrested for harassment.’
Daisy shut the door without another word, her face red with anger. Daisy and Nigel had claimed the property for themselves and had changed the locks on all the doors to ensure no one could break in. Serena understood it had been done to keep her out. She suspected the valuable jewellery Martin had given her would very soon be sold or otherwise disposed of. She had no hope of retrieving any of it. But after the will was read, she had every expectation that things would be very different, starting with the removal of Daisy and Nigel from Martin’s house, by force if necessary. If possible, she would sue them for the cost of the belongings they had stolen from her.
In the meantime, it was hard not to give way to despair. She had lost her job as well as her home, and without Martin her life was empty. But her immediate and most pressing concern remained money. Back at her old flat, she phoned the estate agents where she had worked before she met Martin, and her call was answered by a woman she had never met.
‘I’m Serena Baxter,’ she began and paused, because the girl gave no sign she had recognised the name.
‘Are you looking to buy or rent?’ the woman replied, confirming Serena’s impression that she had been completely forgotten in her recent work place.
‘Oh no, I’m not looking for somewhere to live,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s not that. I – It’s just that I used to work at Magenta Properties.’
‘That must have been before my time,’ the woman on the phone replied. ‘I can’t say I remember your name. Who did you say you were again?’
‘My name’s Serena Baxter. I left Magenta Properties about a year ago to work somewhere else, but that didn’t work out so I’m looking for a job, and wondered if there might be a vacancy there?’
‘I’m sorry. We’re not looking to recruit anyone at present,’ the woman replied, a trifle frostily. ‘If you’d like to send us your name and contact details, I can send you an application form.’ With that, she hung up.
The woman’s dismissal stung, making Serena feel as though she had been presumptuous in her request. Refusing to give in to grief and despair, she resolved to go out and do something, anything. She washed her face and carefully applied her make-up before rummaging through the contents of her small wooden wardrobe. It didn’t take very long. Most of her clothes were in the house in Friars Terrace. Having selected the smartest of her old trouser suits, she set out. The rebuff on the phone was not going to deter her. Making an appearance in person would hopefully produce a different result. She arrived at the estate agents in Foss Lane and was greeted by a young woman whose hair was tinged with bright pink. She was wearing a pink and purple T-shirt next to which Serena’s self-consciously professional outfit seemed frumpy and middle-aged. Ignoring her qualms, Serena introduced herself and explained the purpose of her visit. Before she had finished speaking, the girl with pink hair broke into a grin and told Serena that she was the second person to turn up asking for a job that day. Someone else had called only an hour or so earlier, making the exact same request.
Noting with satisfaction that the girl’s front teeth were crooked, Serena explained she had made the call.
The girl laughed, but she seemed uneasy. ‘That was you as well, was it? Goodness, you’re keen, phoning and coming here like this.’
‘That’s because I used to work here and I thought there might be a vacancy for me, seeing as I know how things work here. I need something to do,’ she added, embarrassed at sounding so pathetic in front of a stranger. ‘The point is, I really need a job.’
‘Yes, I remember that’s what you said on the phone. But I did tell you there are no vacancies here. I look after the lettings, and Ronny deals with sales. The boss isn’t looking for anyone else. I can keep your name on file in case anything crops up, if you like, but I don’t think anything’s likely to come up in the near future. You’d be better off looking elsewhere. Why don’t you try an employment agency? There must be tons of places recruiting at the moment. I mean, there always are.’
