Cath Staincliffe: Hit and Run

He bobbed his head. ‘We’ll go first thing.’

He heard a little sharp exhalation – she’d been holding her breath, her turn now for relief.

‘Debbie,’ he halted, his tongue thick, the words like broken stones in his mouth. ‘I can’t… don’t, don’t want to talk,’ he managed.

‘OK.’

‘Just get through this.’ He meant the funeral.

He would come and sit at her side while they watched the registrar use a fountain pen to meticulously enter the facts of their daughter’s death. He would make sure he had cash from the ATM to pay for their copy of the certificate. He would drive with Debbie to the undertakers and choose a coffin and listen while she talked about what clothes they wanted her to be dressed in and when the viewing would be and special mementoes they wanted to put in the coffin. ‘We,’ she would say but in his silence Chris would leave it all up to her. Because none of it mattered. He would stand with her while the small coffin slid from view, shake hands with the rest of the family, the teachers, acknowledge the children’s flowers and poems. He would listen while she dictated the text for the memorial stone. Sit beside her as they were driven home. Walk the dog.

And after all that… he really didn’t know. Was there anything left between them but grief? Could he ever look her in the eye again? Forgive her as Ann-Marie had forgiven him? Forgive himself? He simply didn’t know.

At the station, Stone repeated his version of events in the formal setting of the interview room. Butchers accompanied Richard. The duty solicitor, who had been hoping for a quiet night in with a video, looked half asleep. Stone had exchanged his own clothes for overalls and had been fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA. He answered all the questions they put to him.

‘Sulikov rang you on Monday at 7.15. What exactly did he say?’ Richard asked.

‘There was a problem. One of the girls had OD’d… we needed to dispose of her. He said to pick the car up at eight near these units in Burnage.’

‘You got the car from Harper’s, didn’t you?’ Richard checked.

‘What?’ Stone frowned. ‘No. I mean it’s Harper’s car, bet he wasn’t too happy about it.’

‘But you didn’t get it from his place?’

Stone got prickly. ‘I told you, Burnage, industrial units,’ he sighed and shook his head as though they were beyond belief. He spoke slowly as if dealing with a dozy child, ‘the keys were in the ignition, dosh in the glove compartment, body in the boot.’

‘Then what?’

‘We take it to the place at the river. Get rid of the body.’

‘And after?’ Richard cocked his head.

‘Went for a drive.’

‘All night?’

‘Pretty much. Stopped off a couple of places. Don’t remember exactly.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Wasn’t exactly sober,’ Stone sneered.

‘Those your orders were they?’

He scowled. ‘Sulikov said to torch the car. Nice set of wheels, seemed a shame to do that before we’d put it through its paces.’

‘And Ann-Marie?’ Richard said quietly.

Stone’s eyes flicked away and back. ‘Jez lost control, just an accident.’

‘You saying Gleason was driving?’ Butchers asked. A nod.

‘We need a yes,’ Butchers signalled to the tape.

‘Yes,’ he hissed.

‘Funny that,’ Richard said, ‘you letting him drive, hard man like you. Thought you’d want to stay behind the wheel.’

Stone said nothing.

‘So, Rosa?’ Richard sat back surveying the man. ‘When you opened the boot what did you find?’

Stone shifted in his seat. ‘She were all wrapped up. Couldn’t even tell who it was.’

‘Was she stiff? Was she warm?’

‘For God’s sake,’ Stone squirmed.

‘Hard facts, Mr Stone. We need to know when she died, we need to know where.’

‘Don’t ask me,’ he complained.

‘We are asking you. What state was the body in?’

‘She were just – heavy,’ he managed.

Richard switched tack again. ‘Mr Sulikov, you saw him shoot Gleason?’

‘Yeah.’

‘In cold blood.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Gleason provoke him in any way?’

‘No.’

‘Can you describe the weapon?’

‘No. It was dark, hardly see a thing. There’s this loud bang and Jez went down. I legged it.’

‘You’d no idea you were walking into a trap?’

‘No. Sulikov calls, you jump.’

‘He over here much?’

‘I don’t know, first time I’ve seen him but look, I’m a bouncer, I’m a fixer. I’m not in on the board meetings or the fancy meals or the wheeling and dealing. Bloke like that, he keeps his distance; a call, that’s all it takes. He sits in his bloody Polish castle or whatever and dials a number. He’s people like me to do his dirty work, he doesn’t need to get down in the muck with the rest of us.’

‘That a plea for sympathy?’

Stone snorted and folded his arms.

When Richard rang, Janine had just sorted Tom (and the ever-present Frank) out with juice and some dried fruit and was trying to get Charlotte dressed again after changing her nappy. She put Charlotte back on the changing mat and picked up the phone.

‘Have you got Sulikov?’ she demanded, full of anticipation.

‘No. Hasn’t been back to the hotel yet.’

Janine felt the cold wash of disappointment.

‘But Stone’s version stands up,’ Richard told her. ‘Negative on the DNA, the skin sample under Rosa’s nails wasn’t his – must be Sulikov’s. Something’s a bit off, though,’ Richard’s tone changed, ‘Stone claims they picked the Mercedes up on the street, an industrial estate, in Burnage, at eight o’clock. Sulikov told them where it was.’

‘Burnage,’ something clicked in Janine’s memory. ‘Wasn’t there a sighting that didn’t fit?’

‘Yes – teenager who’d seen the car there around that time.’

‘None of this makes sense,’ she complained. She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Think about it. Sulikov hears that Rosa is going to run away, perhaps Harper lets it slip, so he decides to make an example of her and he kills her. Then there’s all the palaver with the bin bags; trying to make her unrecognisable. Hoping we’ll never find her. Then what does Sulikov do? He goes to Harper’s house, steals Harper’s car, brings it back to wherever Rosa is. He puts the body in the boot, then he drives the car to Burnage and leaves it for Stone to pick up. Why on earth do that?’

‘To teach Harper a lesson like he said?’

‘But why do it himself? Why not get Stone to do it? Stealing cars is right up his street. Sulikov would have to leave the body to go off to Harper’s to steal the car.’ She had another thought, ‘Unless she was killed at Harper’s house?’

‘They could be in it together,’ Richard suggested.

Had both men killed Rosa and then colluded in the cover up? But Harper had ratted on his boss. When they caught up with Sulikov would he blame Harper in turn? Marta had told Janine that Harper was a weak man. Had he betrayed his girlfriend to Sulikov? Rosa had gone out that Monday afternoon, maybe Harper had lured her to his house. Then left her to Sulikov. Afterwards they wanted Stone to dispose of the body but didn’t want to link it to Harper’s house.

‘I think we should get a search warrant for Harper’s house,’ Janine said.

Charlotte crooned and cycled her legs.

‘I still can’t work out why Sulikov got so involved,’ Janine continued. ‘We know he’s got a fearsome reputation. Everyone’s scared stiff of him. He’s got an empire – goons to do his every bidding. He keeps it all at arm’s length – that makes sense to anyone with half a brain. It’s the likes of Stone and Gleason who do the dirty work, take the falls.’