SALFORD MURDERS: The Private Investigator Gus Keane Trilogy Page 24

  She shook her head in bewilderment as I went on.

  “He also suggested that if this ‘murderer’ learnt that he knew about them, he would be at risk.”

  She wrote for a bit longer.

  “If you want to know my whereabouts for today,” I added, “I was at Ordsall Tower this morning, in the afternoon I was here in the flat. I left for the City of Salford stadium about seven. I got back about half ten. After that I was on my own.”

  The last case we had both been involved in had resulted in strong hints that I was a murder suspect.

  “Thank you,” she grinned. “I suppose you’re going to solve this one for me, are you?”

  I shrugged.

  “I’ll help in any way I can, Inspector. If you’d like to employ me as a consultant, that would be fine. Shall we say a hundred guineas an hour?”

  “Shall we say on your bike.”

  Worth a try, I thought, as she got back to business.

  “Was that the last time you saw him, when he came into the office?”

  “Yes.”

  More notes.

  “What about the girlfriend...”

  She looked down at her book.

  “Imogen...”

  “She came in to see me a little while after Edward. I don’t know if they’d planned it, but that’s how it happened.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Before eleven.”

  She asked me what Imogen had to say for herself.

  “She came to plead her boyfriend’s case.”

  I went through the interview with Imogen in as much detail as I could remember.

  “Anything else?”

  “Now let me see,” I muttered, pretending to be deep in thought.

  She waited, pen poised.

  “Oh, yes,” I replied, “she threatened to kill him.”

  She tutted.

  “There’s no need to take the piss.”

  “I’m serious.”

  She stared at me for several seconds.

  “She actually threatened him?”

  I picked up the teapot, topping up both our mugs.

  “You could say that,” I said.

  “What did she say exactly?”

  I pieced together the conversation in my mind before replying.

  “Something to the effect that if he laid a finger on her kids she’d kill him, making sure she’d castrated him first.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I looked round the kitchen, wondering how I got there. Waving a sheet of paper, I tried to work out what was happening. What was Debbie doing, lying slumped on the floor. No, not Debbie, it was my mam. God. I looked again. No, it was Tony.

  “Are you dead, Tony,” I asked.

  “It’s not Tony,” said Debbie, coming up behind me, “it’s your mam.”

  “Mam,” I shouted again, panic in my voice this time.

  She had fallen awkwardly and lay on her left arm, her head touching the concrete floor. Debbie spoke again.

  “Feel her pulse, Gus, she might be dead.”

  “Loves me like a rock,” sang Tony.

  “Hear that, mam,” I said, “Paul Simon. A song about the way a mother loves her son.”

  I went over to her, but it was Tony lying there. Debbie lay next to him. I searched for a pulse on my arm but I couldn’t find it. I was dead. I can’t be dead, I said to myself. “Protect our kids from paedophiles,” said the man on the floor.

  “Tattersall, what the fuck...?”

  I looked again. Tony was lying there, brushing the hair out of his eyes.

  “What were you expecting to find,” he said, grinning manically.

  I blinked and opened my mouth.

  “I wasn’t expecting to find you.”

  Then my mother spoke.

  Footsteps in the next room drowned out her words.

  “Help me, son...”

  “Can’t hear you, mam,” I said, “somebody’s coming.”

  It took a few seconds to realise (a) it was Saturday morning (b) there was someone moving about in the kitchen and (c) I had just woken up. Looking at the alarm clock I got out of bed. 9.30. Who was it? I searched for my slippers, put them on and went out of my bedroom along the short passage towards the kitchen. My mind was still on the dream I’d just had for the first time since around the time my mam died. Just after Tony went missing. That was why they were both in it. If I hadn’t woken up the dream would have taken me out of the kitchen and in again several times, getting me more and more confused. In my actual kitchen, I saw Rachel standing at the sink, filling the kettle. Her black coat and handbag were on the back of a chair.

  “Hello, Rachel,” I said. “This is a surprise.”

  She would sometimes call round and let herself in, but I was seeing her tonight so couldn’t help wondering why she was here now.

  “‘morning, Dad,” she replied. “I was in the area and thought I’d drop in. Tea?”

  “Please. I’ll just go to the loo.”

  When I got back, having been through the same routine as I had when Sarita had arrived, I was dressed once more in jeans and Scillonian t-shirt. Rachel had put the kettle on the hob and was sitting at the table, where I joined her.

  “Everything all right?”

  She looked up at me before answering my question. Rachel had inherited my dark hair and blue eyes, but in every other respect she looked like her mother. This had become more pronounced as she’d got older. Her slim build, the way she held herself, her walk were almost identical. Looking like Louise was no bad thing, I thought.

  “Yeah, well...”

  She shrugged.

  “You’re not ill, are you?”

  She shook her head. I wondered about Georgia.

  “Nor is anybody else,” she said as if reading my mind. “It’s just that I had a bit of a shock yesterday.”

  “Shock?”

  Hearing the kettle whistle she got up to make the tea.

  “I became the second member of our family to find a dead body,” she said as she filled the teapot.

  “What?”

  I went over to her and gave her a hug.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it.”

  “We had a gig last night,” she said once we were at the table with our tea.

  “Right.”

  “It was short notice, some bloke’s 60th, he’d been let down by the band he had booked. We said we’d do it, but we needed a stand-in for Marti on keyboards.”

  I poured the tea as she talked.

  “We managed to get this bloke, Edward. We’d used him once before, he was good.”

  She paused for a moment to drink her tea. This gave me a chance to chip in.

  “Before you go on, Rachel, I know what you’re going to tell me.”

  Her eyes opened wide. She put her mug down.

  “How come?”

  I told her about DI Ellerton’s visit and my dealings with Tattersall. She sighed and picked up her tea again.

  “It was a Sergeant somebody I spoke to...Snow, I think her name was. Once she’d interviewed me she said I could go. I’ve got to provide a formal statement at the police station at half ten this morning.”

  I assumed Sarita had arrived on the scene after Rachel had been sent home. Even had she been there, the name Rachel Bertrand would have meant nothing to her.

  “How are you feeling now,” I asked.

  Another shrug.

  “I’ll survive. It’s all still a bit unreal, you know. He lived in a really grotty block of flats called Dedby Mansions – somebody has spray painted Deadbeat Mansions on the wall.”

  “I know it.”

  “I got no answer when I knocked on the door, then I noticed it was ajar.”

  This was reminding me all too vividly of the time I found Bill Copelaw’s body in his office.

  “I went in and there he was in the living room with his throat cut, covered in blood. I went towards him and nearly tripped over
a loose floorboard...”

  She shook her head as if to rid herself of the image in her mind.

  “Rachel, it’s OK, you don’t have to...”

  “No, I want to talk about it.”

  I nodded.

  “Anyway, I soon realised I mustn’t touch anything. It was pretty obvious he was dead. So I rang the police and waited.”

  “Bugger.”

  “Quite. We had to do the gig without keyboards. Normally Olivia and I would handle the vocals in place of Marti, but I didn’t get there till half way through.”

  It seemed Rachel had had enough of talking about dead bodies.

  “Olivia played a blinder apparently.”

  Well, I thought, that’s something.

  “Oh, by the way, did you know Danny’s bringing his new girlfriend to lunch tomorrow?”

  Wonders will never cease, I thought, looking forward to seeing my son. What did this departure from the norm mean? I might find out tomorrow.

  * * *

  “So you actually, like, found him?” asked Danny in his youth-speaky way.

  It was lunchtime the next day. I’d woken up that morning in Rachel’s spare room. Looking out of the window, I had seen a deep frost. Since then it hadn’t got much above freezing. That made the family Sunday lunch that much more cosy. It was partly an early birthday party for me. I’d been handed cards and presents with strict instructions not to open them until the actual day.

  “Yes,” said Rachel, picking up a glass of red wine.

  She had explained how she had come to discover the late Mr Tattersall in Dedby Mansions. Georgia was having a nap so it was safe to talk about dead people. We were in the dining room of Rachel’s four bedroom house in Worsley, not far from where she and her brother had been brought up. Did Rachel’s recent move to a bigger house mean more grandchildren might be on the way? It would be another milestone in my ever changing life, I thought.

  “Dad’s involved in it,” added Rachel.

  “What,” said Danny, now in the middle of a mouthful of Merlot, almost spilling a drop on his denim shirt.

  Rachel, her husband Kevin and I all knew what she was talking about. Only Danny and his girlfriend Natalie, who was meeting us for the first time, hadn’t a clue what Rachel was referring to. I glanced over to Natalie to gauge her reaction. She sat impassive in her check shirt. No sign of alarm but I was willing to bet she was wondering what she had got herself into. Danny asked the expected follow up question.

  “Go on then, what’s it all about?”

  “Well, did you see the local news last night,” said Rachel, “about a convicted paedophile being killed?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” said Danny.

  “I saw it,” said Natalie, her right hand brushing back her short, red hair. “Somewhere in Salford, wasn’t it?”

  She’d arrived with Danny about half eleven and had impressed me as quietly confident, with a ready smile and a natural manner. She had made a hit with Georgia from the word go, so Rachel was impressed. Danny had got a job in an IT firm in Macclesfield about six months previously after spending a few years in Brighton post university. I gathered that Natalie and Danny had met on a walk organized by Macclesfield Ramblers. She lived in Bollington, a canal-side village and was Customer Services Manager at Chataway Phones. She’d talked about being fed up with her job and wanting to do something more worthwhile, whatever that meant.

  “Have you had dealings with this guy then, Gus,” she asked, turning to me.

  Natalie was an outdoor type, I would have said. The old-fashioned expression fresh faced came to mind. She was about 5 foot 6. Danny was even taller than me but Natalie didn’t seem to mind him towering over her. Fair like his mother, he bore no resemblance to anybody else in the family.

  “Yeah, and I had the police round on Friday night,” I said, going on to explain about DI Ellerton’s visit.

  “At the time I had no idea about Rachel finding him.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” said Rachel. “I’d only ever met him once, about a month ago, but I’d never have imagined he was, you know, dodgy.”

  “It’s impossible to tell,” I said.

  “I know it sounds stupid but what makes it worse somehow is that he was such a good musician,” Rachel went on.

  That made a sort of sense, I supposed.

  “Mind you,” Rachel went on, “he knew he was good. He kept on about having played in a top jazz group in the Midlands. Said he had to leave Birmingham when his marriage broke up.”

  She took another mouthful of wine.

  “‘Of course I’m classically trained’ he kept telling us. As if he were slumming it by associating with us. I was half expecting the Halle orchestra to ring up in the middle of a set.”

  Rachel was on a roll now, maybe trying to cheer herself up.

  “Oh, Edward, we can’t cope without you any more.”

  I thought of Tattersall using his talent to abuse his victims. Rachel looked thoughtful for a moment then got back to Tattersall.

  “I remember he went on about knowing something that would cause a great scandal.”

  “What was that,” asked Danny.

  Rachel shrugged.

  “I don’t remember the details and he was pretty vague anyway. I assumed he was just trying to sound important.”

  Which would have been completely in character.

  “What did the police ask you,” I said.

  “All sorts, how long had I known him, did I know about his offences, could I think of anyone who might want to harm him?” she said. “I couldn’t help them really.”

  Very few people could, I thought. Kevin had been quiet so far. Now, smiling as usual he chipped in.

  “Just tell me one thing, Gus,” he said.

  My Perpignan born son in law, whose name was pronounced in the French way, had been concentrating on his roast beef until now. His accent was a bit more Salford by now, but still mingled with French and Irish from his parents. Apart from his excessive cheerfulness, he was very likeable and a good father. What more could I ask?

  “Are you going to be investigating this murder?”

  I choked back a laugh. Kevin had been inordinately interested in the truth behind the death of Bill Copelaw. He had seemed to think I had only got involved in order to impress him.

  “I shouldn’t think so, Kev,” I answered. “The police usually manage without me. Hard to believe, I know.”

  It seemed to me the police wouldn’t need a lot of assistance with this one.

  “Danny’s told me about the other murders you’ve solved, Gus,” said Natalie. “I’m impressed.”

  I shrugged modestly.

  “Thanks. In the case of Mr Tattersall, though, it looks like somebody found out about his past crimes and let a lot of people know.”

  Danny said what everyone was thinking.

  “And somebody thought they’d like to bring back the death penalty.”

  There was a brief silence before Rachel spoke again.

  “We don’t always talk about murder, you know, Natalie.”

  “No,” added Danny, “sometimes we go for hours without mentioning suspicious death.”

  He drank some more wine.

  “Strange, isn’t it, Rachel, to think only a couple of years ago our family was so boringly conventional.”

  His sister smiled at him.

  “Yes, Mam and Dad were still together, then she went off to London with the most boring man in England.”

  Natalie looked from Rachel to Danny and back again, looking bemused, while I tried not to think about Brad, Louise’s new husband.

  “That’s no way to talk about Mr Smart-Casual,” put in Danny.

  “Dad got himself a bachelor flat,” said Rachel to Natalie, “a girlfriend and set himself up as a private eye.”

  Many a true word spoken in jest, I thought. I knew how hard they had found it to get used to their parents splitting up.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The foll
owing day I left the flat about noon. Marti had texted from court, suggesting lunch. The day had started well – I’d always loved not working on Monday – and looked set to get better. I’d gone through my usual routine: a brisk walk around Salford Quays for 45 minutes, shower and breakfast. Since I’d had a stroke I stuck to the exercise regime religiously.

  Outside it was an average February day, overcast but dry and not as cold as yesterday. As I walked out into Salford Quays, pedestrians rushed past me. Why was everybody in a hurry, I wondered? A couple of youths gave me a ‘Who you looking at?’ stare. I arrived at the tramlines just as the tram to town pulled in. The sleek, turquoise doors opened and I got on. I always thought the trams gave the city a continental air. I could imagine myself in Prague or Berlin, a spy in the Cold War era. Using the orange handrails to help me along, I found a seat at the back.

  Minutes later I got off in Manchester city centre and walked to New Bridge Street to a futuristic building dominating its surroundings. Its concrete, steel and glass climbed to the heavens. Approaching the front entrance, I saw the lion and unicorn crest and read Manchester Civil Justice Centre. I could hear the sound of conversation and footsteps inside. Then the automatic door slid smoothly open. A beautiful black woman came out first, carrying a handbag and briefcase, followed by a group of maybe half a dozen people. She took a deep breath, as though relieved to be out of there.

  “Marti,” I called.

  Walking towards me, she smiled and waved.

  “Hello,” she said, hugging me and kissing me on the cheek.

  “Hello to you,” I replied.

  It seemed ages since we’d got together, in more ways than one. One of the penalties of going out with one of Greater Manchester’s busiest solicitors, I thought. Why did I know so many dynamic women?

  “Do you fancy The Temple for lunch?” she asked.

  “Fine, yeah.”

  I noticed lines of strain on Marti’s face. I kept telling her she worked too hard, but would she listen? Rhetorical question. As always, though, she was totally gorgeous. She wore a formal dark blue suit, cut a bit like a man’s – though she did not look in the least like a man. A light grey silk blouse completed the look. I had no real interest in fashion but clothes were one of the things that made me look twice at a woman. I’d liked Marti from the first day I’d met her two years ago. There was also, I must admit, an element of lust in my initial response. Enough to cover a country the size of Wales perhaps. As I looked at her now there was no sign of it going away.