Cath Staincliffe - Hit and Run

Tom turned to her, his face suddenly taut with anxiety, his eyes huge. ‘Mummy, I don’t want to die.’

She felt her heart clutch and she reached out to hug him. ‘Oh, darling, nobody wants to die. You won’t die for a long, long, long time.’

‘How do you know?’ he demanded. He didn’t mention Ann-Marie, didn’t need to.

‘I just do,’ she insisted. ‘Nearly everybody lives to be older than Grandma and Grandpa. And you will. And heaven will have all your favourite things in and all the people you like.’

‘And Frank?’

‘And Frank,’ she agreed.

Butchers caught her before she left home to tell her that they had confirmation on the blood from the boot of the car. It was Rosa’s.

Finding each piece of the puzzle brought mixed feelings for Janine: the thrill of success, of making headway and the more melancholy acceptance of what it betrayed of the victim’s last hours.

The relatively small amount of blood indicated that Rosa had already been dead when she had been placed there – her heart no longer pumping. Janine mentally ticked off what they knew so far: Rosa Milicz’s battered corpse had been carried in the boot of the stolen car, she had been put in the river at the dye works, Gleason had been there and most likely Stone. The men had stolen the car from Harper, Stone’s boss, and later they had accidentally killed Ann-Marie. After being questioned and released, someone, in all probability Stone, had shot Gleason. There was still a long way to go but they were moving in the right direction.

She rang Richard and shared the news. ‘I’ve postponed the briefing. I’m going to pay a call on Harper,’ she told him. ‘He must have known Rosa was here illegally. I want to see what he has to say for himself. Do you want to meet me there?’

‘Will do.’

Harper was still in his dressing gown when he let them in, his hair damp from the shower.

‘Your car, Mr Harper, we’ve run some further tests. We’ve found traces of blood in the boot.’

He blanched at the news and looked from one to another. ‘Blood? Oh, God. Are you sure?’

Janine nodded. ‘We’ve matched it – it’s Rosa’s.’

‘Oh, God.’ He paused. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘I don’t like it either,’ she said coldly.

Harper looked wary. With one hand he clasped the collar of his robe.

‘Your car is stolen by your bouncer, it’s used to transport the dead body of a dancer from your club… just exactly what is it you are not telling us?’

‘Nothing.’ His outrage was plausible.

‘You haven’t got a clue?’ Richard asked him.

‘No, honestly, I…’

‘Not an inkling?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t buy it,’ Janine said sharply.

He met her gaze, the eyelid on his lazy eye flickering for a moment. He gave a little snort.

‘Rosa was here illegally,’ she pressed on.

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘No?’

‘No. I’d never have taken her on.’

‘Really? I got the impression that you weren’t all that bothered about record keeping, documents and the like.’

‘That’s different – something like this, we could get closed down, couldn’t we?’

‘When did you last see Rosa?’

‘We’ve been over all this,’ he exploded. ‘Why can’t you people just accept that I don’t know anything about it. I’m sorry she’s dead but I’ve no idea who killed her. I’d no idea she was illegal. End of story.’

‘You didn’t answer my question, Mr Harper,’ Janine said flatly, ‘when did you last see her?’

He pivoted away and back, sighing. He pinched the bridge of his thin nose as if garnering patience. ‘Sunday, at work.’ He dropped his hand and made eye contact with her, trying to stare her out. She looked away first, deliberately – not prepared to play his little game. ‘We’ll need to talk to you again,’ she said, ‘I’m sure.’

As he showed them out he spoke to Richard. ‘I was thinking, the car insurance, will I have to explain all this?’

Richard gave a harsh laugh. Janine glared at him. Was the man for real? Neither of them dignified his query with an answer.

Outside, Richard said, ‘Bring him in to get him talking?’

‘On what grounds? We’ve verified the taxi, the casino, the report of the stolen car.’ She sighed. The fact that Stone had taken Harper’s car still niggled her – it seemed so reckless. Why take that one rather than a stranger’s? Fouling his own backyard.

‘What if Harper was mixed up in it and Rosa was killed before his car got nicked?’ Richard suggested.

She swivelled her eyes, ‘Then why report the car stolen, why not keep schtum?’

‘OK, scotch that. Besides,’ he admitted, ‘we can tie Gleason and Stone to the car and to the dumping of the body.’

‘We’ll run background checks on Harper – see if that throws up anything. I trust my instincts…’ She opened the passenger door.

Richard raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.

‘… and my instincts say he’s involved.’ She settled back into the seat. She looked at Richard as he got behind the wheel. ‘All we need to do is find out how.’

‘Piece of cake,’ he laughed.

‘Well, it might not be easy,’ she granted, ‘but all things are possible and we’re not going to let Mr Harper so much as draw a breath without looking into it.’

Lee Stone’s known family (ex-foster mother, two sisters and a half brother) had been visited – none of them had seen or heard from him.

‘No, love. He never kept in touch,’ said his foster mother. ‘Shock seeing him on the telly like that. And you reckon he shot this other bloke?’

‘Haven’t seen him for years,’ his half-brother said when the officers talked to him in the pub he ran. ‘We’re not exactly close. In fact the last time I saw him he tried to flog us a dodgy motor. I told him I wasn’t interested. And I’m still not.’

‘If he does get in touch you’ll let us know?’

‘My pleasure.’

‘Might do.’ Stone’s younger sister offered when asked the same question at the launderette where she worked. ‘Would there be any money in it? A reward like?’ She was twenty and heavily overweight, her eyes darkened with kohl, her hair straw-like, high gloss on her lips. Her tongue worried at a cold sore at the corner of her mouth.

‘Not at this stage.’

She grunted. ‘He’s a bit handy with his fists, our Lee. I wouldn’t want to make an enemy of him. If he knew I’d put you onto him…’ She shuddered.

‘We wouldn’t divulge any names.’

‘He might guess though. I know it’s not right if he’s ‘owt to do with that shooting…’ she wrinkled her nose, shrugged, ‘but it might never happen.’

The elder sister, contacted at a call centre in Hyde, was more succinct. ‘Fuck off, he’s my brother, and I’m no grass.’

Discreet enquiries were made at The King’s Head and The Willows as well as the Pool Hall on the main road. No one had seen hide nor hair of the man. And no one had a good word to say about him.

Butchers took an hour, an early lunch. He drove down through Rusholme, stopped on the curry mile for a beef biryani take-away and ate it in the car. From there he made his way through Withington and west towards Chorlton.

It was years since he’d been down here. He parked on a side road and walked up to the gates, feeling a lurch of anxiety: the place looked different and he couldn’t remember which way to go. After a while he got his bearings, walking through the huge, flamboyant graves with their biers and angels and elaborate carvings to the more modern sections behind.

He found the place. The lettering on the grey, mottled marble had originally been painted in gold. A lot of it had faded though the carved dedication still ran clear.