M. Arlidge - Pop Goes the Weasel

‘We worked the same places. Empress Road, Portswood, St Mary’s. But her favourite was by the old cinema in Upton Street. You could usually find her there.’

Helen carried on quizzing her for a few moments longer, but already she had what she needed. All the places the girl had mentioned were in the north of the city, which fitted her theory. But more than that it was the mention of the old cinema that had set Helen’s heart beating. Tony had filled her in on his latest debrief with Melissa, which had also pinpointed the cinema as one of Anton’s haunts. It seemed too much of a coincidence to be ignored. Was this where Anton and Lyra had come to blows? Had he been killed there? Would she still be haunting this lonely and desolate spot?

Helen called it in immediately, ordering a plain-clothes CID officer to secure the old cinema swiftly and quietly, so that a SOC team could slip in and do their work. Simultaneously a surveillance team would set up camp on the street. Already Helen was impatient for results. Something in her waters told Helen that the old cinema would prove crucial in cracking this case. Maybe they were finally getting close to Lyra. Maybe their phantom was about to become flesh.

The car slipped quietly along the street, shadowing her. Charlie had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she hadn’t noticed it at first. But there was no doubt that she was being followed. The car was keeping its distance but also keeping pace – did they want to know where she was going or were they just waiting for the right moment to pounce?

Suddenly the car sped up, roaring past her before mounting the pavement and coming to an abrupt halt. Now the door swung open. Charlie’s hand immediately reached for her baton.

‘Have you missed me?’

Sandra McEwan, aka Lady Macbeth. An unwelcome reminder of past mistakes.

‘I’ll take that as a “yes”. Sometimes it’s so hard to put your feelings into words, isn’t it? Oh, excuse the amateur dramatics,’ McEwan continued, nodding to the car slewed across the pavement. ‘Sometimes the boy gets overexcited.’

‘Get it off the pavement now and be on your way.’

‘By all means,’ McEwan replied, nodding at her lover to move the car. ‘Though I was rather hoping you’d come with us.’

‘Dogging’s not really my thing, Sandra. We’ll have to take a rain check.’

‘Very funny, Constable. Or is it Sergeant these days?’

Charlie said nothing, refusing to give her the satisfaction.

‘Either way, I would have thought you’d be interested in meeting the lowlife who killed Alexia Louszko.’

As she spoke, she opened the back door of the car and gestured to the empty interior.

‘I’ll happily give you a ride, if you can spare the time?’

Charlie acquiesced and before long they were speeding out of the city. Charlie had no fears for her own safety – Sandra McEwan was too smart to target coppers and she certainly wouldn’t abduct them on a busy street full of witnesses – but nevertheless Charlie wondered what game they were playing. She questioned Sandra en route, but her enquiries were met with stony silence. Clearly they were going to have to play it Sandra’s way today.

The car rattle-bumped to a stop on a desolate patch of wasteland overlooking Southampton Water. It had been bought by a foreign property company, but they had run into planning trouble and two years on the ground remained unbroken. It had since become a mecca for fly-tippers and was now liberally decorated with building waste, burnt-out cars and chemical drums.

Sandra opened the door and gestured Charlie out. Irritated, Charlie acquiesced.

‘Where is he then?’

‘Over there.’

Sandra pointed to a burnt-out Vauxhall not fifty yards away.

‘Shall we?’

Charlie hurried towards the vehicle. She now knew exactly what she would find and wanted to get it over with. Sure enough, nestled in the boot of the car was the brutalized body of a young man – one of the Campbells’ thugs no doubt.

‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ Sandra said, without an ounce of pity in her voice. ‘Some kids found him like this and told me. My first thought was to call the police.’

‘I’m sure.’

The man was lying in exactly the same position as Alexia had been when she was found. His face had been caved in and his hands and feet removed in identical fashion too. This was tit-for-tat killing, a message to the Campbells that their aggression would be met head on. An eye for an eye.

‘Your SOC team will find a hammer in his inside coat pocket. Word on the street is that it’s the hammer that killed Alexia. I’m sure your forensics will confirm that for you. Sad to see a man like that, but then perhaps there’s a natural justice in it, eh?’

Charlie snorted and shook her head in disbelief. She had no doubt that McEwan would have been present when the man was tortured and killed, conducting operations with gleeful malice.

‘I’d say that was case closed, wouldn’t you?’

Smiling, she headed back to her car, leaving Charlie alone with a faceless corpse for company and a very bitter taste in her mouth.

Helen was on her way back to Southampton Central when she got the call. She could feel her phone buzzing and swerved her bike into a bus lane in order to answer it. She had expected it to be Charlie with an update. For a moment she even thought it might be news of a positive sighting of Lyra. But it was Robert.

She had been summoned back to Southampton Central by Harwood, but she didn’t hesitate now, speeding round the ring road, then north towards Aldershot. Harwood could wait. In less than hour, she was walking through the atrium of Wellington Avenue police station. She had met a good handful of the CID officers based here at various Hampshire Police conferences and one of them – DI Amanda Hopkins – greeted her now.

‘He’s holed up in interview room one. We offered him a brief or to call his mum but… well, he won’t speak to anyone but you.’

It was said in a friendly manner but was an appeal for information.

‘I’m a friend of the family.’

‘The Stonehills?’

‘Yup,’ Helen lied. ‘What sort of state is he in?’

‘Shaken up. A few superficial injuries but he’s basically ok. I’ve got the other two in cells. We’ve already interviewed them – they are all blaming each other, so…’

‘I’ll see what I can get out of him. Thanks, Amanda.’

Robert was slumped on a plastic chair. He looked in a bad way – as if he had slightly imploded – with numerous scratches on his face. His right arm was in a sling. He stirred on seeing Helen, sitting up straight.

‘I got this for you,’ Helen said, placing a can of Pepsi on the table. ‘Shall I open it?’

He nodded, so Helen obliged. Grabbing it with his good hand, Robert drank it down in one go. His hand shook as he did so.

‘So are you going to tell me what happened?’

He nodded, but said nothing.

‘I can try and help you,’ Helen continued, ‘but I need to know -’

‘They jumped me.’

‘Who?’

‘Davey. And Mark.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I wouldn’t run with them any more.’

‘You told them you weren’t interested.’

‘They said I was yellow. They thought I was going to grass on them.’

‘Were you?’

‘No. I just wanted out.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I told them to do without me. That I wanted to be left alone. They weren’t happy. They left, but then they came back. Threatening me. Telling me they’d cut me.’