SALFORD MURDERS: The Private Investigator Gus Keane Trilogy Read online

I decided to get the explanation over with in one go.

  “Listen, Sarita,” I said. “I need to explain a few things and I’d like you to listen while I do so.”

  “There’s no need to…”

  “Six months or so ago, my wife left me. Then I had a stroke.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Just listen. For several months I wasn’t in a fit state to cope with anything but the everyday basics of life. Clear so far?”

  She nodded.

  “I gradually pulled myself round. In recent weeks I have discovered the dead body of my boss. My friend has been killed. A young girl I worked with has been shot at.”

  “Quite…”

  “In the midst of all this I have become…involved with Marti. That’s as much as I can handle. Please rid yourself of the idea that I am some demon lover who shoots any of my mistresses who displeases me.”

  * * *

  Marti came round later on a flying visit before she had to go to court. I told her about Sarita’s visits.

  “She’s only doing her job,” she said, as we drank tea at the kitchen table.

  “I know, but asking me if I had a gun. What would I have a gun for?”

  She shrugged.

  “Hang on a minute,” she said after a moment’s thought. “She’s saying you’re the link between Pam and Ania?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “She says there is another link?”

  “Right.”

  I picked up my mug and looked at her as she continued.

  “Now if she wants to know if you’ve got a gun, that must be the other link?”

  “What must?”

  My brain was beginning to hurt.

  “The gun of course. She wouldn’t just be idly speculating about links between the two killings without some forensics to back it up.”

  “You’d better spell it out.”

  “They were killed by the same gun.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Hey, Gus,” I heard someone call the next morning.

  I turned from the tram stop in the direction the shout had come from. I saw a young, black man come towards me along Salford Quays. A baggy American football shirt engulfed his body. It took a few seconds to recognize him.

  “Hiya, Paul,” I said.

  “Gus, how’re you doing?”

  “Fine, how are you?”

  “I’m good, mate, know what I mean? Where you off to?”

  “Off to see my dad. He lives in Weaste.”

  “Cool.”

  Was it cool, I wondered, for me to go and see my father or for him to live in Weaste? I came to the conclusion ‘cool’ had simply become a modern equivalent to the meaningless phrases that people use to fill gaps in conversation.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” said Paul. “Got some news for you.”

  Paul stood at the stop with me, surveying passing cars. He tried to make himself heard against the traffic roaring along Trafford Road.

  “News?”

  “Yeah.”

  He dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans.

  “Remember after rugby practice the other day?”

  “Yes,” I said, though unsure what I was meant to remember.

  “When you asked me to find out if anybody saw anything that day.”

  “What day?”

  “You know,” he said, “when that guy got killed.”

  “Oh, you mean Bill Copelaw?”

  “That’s the one.”

  I hadn’t expected Paul to do anything about it. Oh, ye of little faith, I told myself. I listened more carefully.

  “Well, I might have found someone. With information, you know.”

  “Who is it?’

  “Mate of mine. Stringer. We can go and see him today if you like.”

  “This afternoon should be OK. Where?”

  “He’s doing community service in Little Hulton.”

  My heart sank.

  “Community Service? Is he reliable, this mate of yours?”

  “Yeah,” said Paul, affronted, “sound as a pound.”

  I asked myself how sound a pound was these days. ‘Not very’ was the answer I came up with.

  “He’s not been in any trouble for ages. Well, three or four months anyway.”

  My heart sank even further.

  “Why are you getting mixed up with toe rags like him?”

  “I’m not…”

  “You’ve got your future to think about.”

  “I’m not mixed up with him. I have my own mates. I’m bound to come across wasters like Stringer from time to time.”

  I nodded. I’d been too hasty. It was just that for him to slide back into his old ways would be little short of tragic. Paul went on with his explanation.

  “I just heard, like, on the grapevine that he’d seen something.”

  * * *

  Just after three o’clock that afternoon, I parked near a wooden hut on a patch of grass in Carrfield Avenue, Little Hulton. Paul and I got out of my car. As I looked at the row of council houses opposite, a vivid memory of visiting Tony Murphy here in my teenage years came into my mind. Wondering what the hell became of Tony, I examined the houses more closely. The first two were boarded up; the next two, including Tony’s old home, had white front porches and PVC doors. Someone had obviously bought them. In the old days neither boarded up houses nor private homes existed round here, I thought.

  As we entered the hut, I looked round at a group of young workers sitting in a cacophony of coughing and a blue haze of cigarette smoke.

  “Fuck me, every fucker’s got fucking pneufuckingmonia,” said a spotty youth.

  “Now, Stringer,” said Paul to the foul-mouthed one.

  The lad sat there looking lost in an ill-fitting t-shirt and jeans that had seen better days. He looked at Paul.

  “All right, mate.”

  “Brought someone to meet you. This is Gus Keane.”

  Stringer thought for a moment.

  “Not the one who played for Salford?”

  “Yeah,” said Paul.

  Stringer’s eyes lit up.

  “Fuck me. Never.”

  He stood up, raising his right hand like a witness taking the oath. He high-fived me.

  “Respect, Gus,” he said. “My granddad used to tell me about you.”

  “Granddad!”

  “Making you feel old, am I? Sorry, mate.”

  “Nice to be remembered.”

  “You’ll never be forgotten, you, Gus.”

  “How’s the community service going?”

  “Not bad,” said Stringer, “if you like weeding pavements.”

  He shrugged and scratched his hair.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, barmy, isn’t it? Clearing all the weeds, you know, bits of grass and that.”

  “Who thinks of these jobs?” I asked.

  “Fuck knows,” said Stringer.

  “There’s probably a pointless task co-ordinator in an attic somewhere,” I said.

  “I was telling Gus you’re quite a tasty inside centre,” said Paul.

  He’d need feeding up if he were to be any use, I surmised. ‘Needs a good tater pie down him,’ as my mam would have said.

  “Not bad, I suppose,” Stringer shrugged modestly. “Nowhere near as good as you, Gus. Fucking legend, you, mate.”

  I shrugged.

  “Best team Salford ever had when you played for ‘em.”

  “You still playing?” I asked.

  “No, not played for a while.”

  “Well it’s time you started again,” I said. “Here, have a look at this.”

  He accepted the leaflet I’d offered him as if it were a summons to appear in court. He read the caption, mouthing the letters one by one.

  “TRYS. What the fuck’s that?”

  “Taking Rugby to the Youth of Salford,” I said squirming with embarrassment as I did every time I spoke those words.

  “What?”

  “It’s something
to keep you out of trouble but we’ll talk about that later,” I said. “I’ve got some other stuff to ask you about. Perhaps the other lads could get back to work while we talk.”

  I sat down on the bench cut into the walls of the hut.

  “You heard him, lads,” said Stringer. “Need a bit of privacy, you know what I mean?”

  The other five in the group got up and went outside into the rain. It was as if Stringer had the voice of authority.

  “I understand you saw someone on the night Mr Copelaw was killed at Social Services,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Stringer, “He was, like, coming out of the building, you know, about the time you said. On the night in question.”

  Like a ham actor he injected added significance into the last five words. A look of pure smugness crept over his face, as if he were imagining himself on telly. He leaned against the wooden wall behind him, his arms hanging loosely by his side. He shuffled around, sliding backwards and forwards on his seat. This movement seemed to dissipate all his energy.

  “I’ll need to ask you some questions. You know what this is all about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Stringer,” I said only slightly self-consciously, “can you tell me where you saw him, what he looked like, what he was wearing and what he did?”

  Stringer was such an apt name that I couldn’t help but smile. He drank from a plastic water bottle. Thinking he may need lubrication before he could speak coherently, I waited. There was a silence and I wondered how much time would elapse before I got any useful information. There was no great urgency but I wanted all this to be over. I felt a strong need to go away with solid information that was actually of some use. Casting aside this thought I got to the point.

  “Right. Remember, what he looked like, what he was wearing, where you saw him and what he did. OK fire away.”

  Stringer took another long drink from his bottle. The water seemed to set his teeth on edge.

  “Well not very tall. About average.”

  That sounded about right.

  “He was wearing a leather jacket, I do know that. Pricy, I’d say, know what I mean? He came out of the door and stood at the top of the steps, not for long though. Outside the Welfare like.”

  “Right, anything else.”

  “A dark jacket, I’d say, could have been black and he didn’t have a hat on.”

  “No hat. I see. Go on.”

  “Seemed in a bit of a hurry, know what I mean? Just looked round, dead quick, and then rushed down the steps.”

  “Rushed down the steps, right. What did he do then?”

  “Just walked away fast as he could. Didn’t run though.”

  “What made you notice him?”

  “Dunno really. There was no one else around, it was dead quiet. It’d be, what, half five, quarter to six.”

  This was important. It meant leather jacket man did exist. He must have been in the building at the time Bill had died. The only trouble was would Stringer’s evidence hold up in court, always assuming he could be persuaded to go to court in the first place. Finding leather jacket man would be a better idea. Who the hell was he though?

  “How old was he,” I asked, remembering another vital question.

  Stringer took another drink. By now his bottle was nearly empty.

  “Ooh, old.”

  Old? I somehow hadn’t pictured an old man.

  “How old?”

  I would pin him down yet.

  “Well, pretty old like,” said Stringer, thinking hard, “Oo, at least thirty-five if not more.”

  * * *

  The large sheet of paper, pure white like my t-shirt, lay before me on the kitchen table. It was time to take stock of Copelaw’s murder. I’d finally decided to try and pull all the strands of it together. Exactly seven weeks since he was killed, Gus, about bloody time. It would also take my mind off Rachel’s baby, who was due any day now.

  Even if he hadn’t killed Bill, Askey was still a murderer. So he’d still be in prison no matter what. If I turned up information that pinned Bill’s death on someone else, I wouldn’t feel bad about Askey being at large.

  Now, concentrating like a schoolboy, even sticking my tongue out, I wrote quickly and methodically with a felt-tip pen. The red letters stood out as clear and sharp as my mind tried unsuccessfully to be. Come on, Gus, have one last go to see if you can crack the case, I told myself. I could be missing something, you never knew. Would it be worth it? I asked myself. Sod that, Gus; remember you’re being paid by the hour.

  I wrote the words WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE HOW WHY one beneath the other down the left hand side. Drinking tea and biting a chunk out of a chocolate digestive, I looked through my notes again. Some things were not in dispute. I wrote against four of the headings:

  WHAT - Copelaw killed;

  WHEN - Friday 31st March between 5.30 and 6.30 in the evening;

  WHERE - Children’s Services Office, Ordsall Tower;

  HOW - Bopped on the head with a statue/football trophy.

  So far so good. Just who and why remained unanswered. Oh, was that all? How could I ever have thought it was difficult? Wanting something different from my previous work, I was now doing exactly what I had done before. Using the same skills. Keeping a diary, writing reports, making lists, thinking methodically and logically. It was just like a proper job. But then, why shouldn’t it be? Another why question, there had been a lot of those lately. Before I could wonder why I was sitting here with a red felt-tip like a child at play I asked myself why I didn’t get on with the task I had set myself. I began to write again, this time in blue.

  WHO: Karen, Don, Cal, Jean, Gary, Liam

  I stopped and looked at the list of names. WHO and WHY went together, didn’t they? I picked up a green pen.

  WHY:

  MONEY: Karen, maybe Jean

  JEALOUSY: Karen, Jean, Gary

  AMBITION: Don

  REVENGE/ANGER: Cal, Jean, Liam

  It was getting a bit Shakespearean. Macbeth was ambitious – I remembered that from ‘A’ level. Othello was jealous. Who was greedy or revengeful? No, pass. My knowledge of Shakespeare was not exactly encyclopaedic. If I were a proper private eye, I’d find the answer in the works of the bard, a quotation from the metaphysical poets or something equally erudite.

  What did I know about? What would be my chosen specialist subject on Mastermind? I’d read the Jeeves and Wooster stories of PG Wodehouse over and over again for more than forty years. And I ought to be an expert on Rugby League. Maybe Gus Risman’s autobiography, started on the train to Barmouth and finished on the way back, would offer enlightenment. There was a lot to choose from. If Steve were here he would use his extensive knowledge of the works of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Come to think of it wasn’t there a Creedence song called Sinister Purpose? Steve would be able to tell me which album it was from. Would any of this rubbish be of any use to you, Gus? Question expecting the answer no, as we used to say in Latin lessons.

  Impatiently I looked again at the names. My eyes lighted on the middle one. Gary, had he had a sinister purpose? If he had known about his wife’s affair at the time – a possibility at least – he would have had a motive for killing Bill. He had said he didn’t know who Karen had had the affair with but he could have been lying. He may have suspected Karen was pregnant even if he didn’t know for sure. Karen getting pregnant to another man when he was not capable of fathering a child would have been twisting the knife.

  Did Gary have an alibi for the time of the murder? It would be interesting to know. He had picked Karen up after work. Gary, though, had approached me after Karen had told him about the affair. If he had known the affair was with Copelaw would he have come to me? Or had that been a double bluff? Come on, Gus, you’re straying into the realms of fantasy now. How was I going to prove any of this even if it were true? I wasn’t.

  Copelaw had humiliated his wife, Jean. The spouse was always the prime suspect. What had she told me on that walk in Wo
rsley? That crack about wanting to pin the blame on Karen, was that a way to deflect suspicion from herself? Had she finally got sick of Copelaw’s affairs, his incurable womanising?

  Even Cal had got some money out of Copelaw’s death. She had also left home and never come back. She could hardly have gone further and still stayed in England. She’d hardly spoken to her father for years. Did she have a motive? A lot would say yes. Jean and Bill had been arguing about someone on the afternoon of the murder. ‘Keep her out of this,’ Jean had said. Had she been referring to their daughter? She’d been waiting outside in the car. Was it an accident that she made one of her rare visits to her mother on the day her father was murdered? Why shouldn’t it have been? And in any case, if she were going to snap and lash out at him, why now? Still, murder was often a family affair.

  Karen had to be a suspect. Had she told me everything? This was a woman who was determined to get what she wanted. The motive was there. Not just the money; there was no way of knowing whether Bill was really going to move in with her. Suppose he had dumped her when he knew she was pregnant? I wouldn’t have put it past him. What time had Karen really left the office on the night of the murder? Had she come back? She had seemed genuinely gutted about Bill’s death, but tears could be a sign of guilt. I thought of all the clients, male and female, who could turn on the waterworks without even trying. I reminded myself that this was not a pre-meditated crime. Whoever had done it had reacted on the spur of the moment and wouldn’t necessarily have known if Copelaw were dead.

  What would Jeeves do? In my favourite story, The Great Sermon Handicap, Bertie Wooster had had a plan to make a small fortune by betting on the vicar who preached the longest sermon. It had been foiled by the favourite falling ill and someone they hadn’t even considered won the race. I was back to that feeling I was missing something.

  I thought about the way Gus Risman’s autobiography dealt with the opposition he had to face when he went from Rugby Union to League. He said ‘many people refuse the right of any man to capitalise on his talents’. Was that how Don felt? Putting aside for a moment the fact that he didn’t have much talent in the first place, Don thought he’d been treated badly. Copelaw had refused to recommend him for promotion, so Copelaw dying gave him a better chance of achieving his ambition. Had he been so obsessed with his own worth he had lost his temper that night and killed his boss? Was it really a motive? A job in Bolton slightly more senior than the one he already had? People have been killed for 50 pence, but even so. Don would have had to have anger boiling up for ages about more than just his career to have let it affect him like that.