Cath Staincliffe - Ruthless

‘Why?’ Gill said.

‘No booze on the ward?’ Rachel said.

Lee laughed, ‘In one.’

Gill felt a ripple of embarrassment, coughed and adjusted her notes while she recovered her composure. ‘We have any timeline for his last day?’

‘Near enough,’ Mitch said. ‘Sightings on Wednesday at eleven am and one-thirty pm walking round the estate. Latest sighting was four pm when he buys two tins of cheap lager from the Big Booze Bonanza. He was a regular there.’

‘Get that charted up and cross-referenced with any sightings we’ve got of the Perry twins,’ Gill said, ‘find any overlap.’

‘Already made a start,’ Mitch said. ‘Problem is people are a lot less forthcoming about seeing the Perry brothers, widely regarded as hard cases, sort of people who would break your face if you looked at them the wrong way. We do have them in the precinct mid-afternoon and on Low Bank Road which leads to the Old Chapel at twenty past seven.’

‘Reliable witness, that last one?’ Gill said.

‘Yes,’ Mitch said, ‘local councillor. Martin Bleaklow. Runs the car repair place further down Shuttling Way. Keen to improve the area.’

‘And those sightings fit with the one we already have from the resident, Mr Hicks, and from Rachel,’ Gill said.

‘Were they carrying anything?’ Rachel asked.

‘Possibly,’ Mitch said. ‘Bleaklow thought one of them was carrying a bag.’

‘With a can of petrol in it, bet you,’ Kevin said, smiling.

‘Excellent,’ said Gill. ‘So, bring me Greg Tandy, then let’s find out how the Perrys explain their clothes being awash with Shell FuelSave unleaded.’

Rachel tried Janet before she and Mitch left but it went to voicemail. Janet was probably driving in, couldn’t answer the phone, well – wouldn’t answer the phone – conscientious to a tee. The result of having a schoolteacher for a mother, Rachel reckoned, instead of a… the word slapper came to mind. Rachel felt a tinge of guilt. Sharon wasn’t exactly a slapper, or a slag or a tart, all names her dad threw about once Sharon had gone off and left them. Likes a good time, that’s all. Was that fair? Rachel was sick of thinking about it.

Greg Tandy’s address on Manton Road was a couple of minutes from the Manorclough precinct. To get there they took a turning just after the warehouse on Shuttling Way, fire engines at work there.

‘It’s not still burning?’ Rachel said to Mitch.

‘Probably be there as a precaution. You can get secondaries, somewhere cinders smoulder then they get going again. Could be an insurance job, the developer went bust last year. No one’s going to take it on in this climate.’

‘What was he developing?’ Rachel said.

‘Luxury housing,’ Mitch said.

Rachel snorted. ‘On Manorclough? They’d need bloody high fences, watchtowers and sub-machine guns to keep the lowlifes out.’

‘Concierge, gated. Even so, the demand’s not there. Places sitting empty in Manchester, aren’t there?’

‘Left after the bridge,’ Rachel said. ‘You don’t think it’s the Perrys, then, the warehouse?’

Mitch shrugged. ‘No idea. Maybe someone wants us to think that. Opportunistic.’

She could imagine them doing it though. Revved up after the murder and burning the chapel, wanting to see a bigger, fiercer fire. In the back of her mind a note of caution sounded – they hadn’t got proof yet that the Perrys had shot Richard Kavanagh. They were still only suspects. ‘Listen to your instincts but follow the evidence,’ that’s what the boss always said.

Tandy’s house was the end terrace, there was room to park close by. The place was in reasonable repair, clean net curtains at the windows, UPVC windows and doors, unlike those at some of the neighbours’ who still had wooden frames with peeling paint.

Mitch’s press of the doorbell produced a swift response. A woman with curly red hair, freckled complexion, smoker’s lips and crow’s feet answered. She’d a jacket on, bag in hand, as if she’d just got in or was about to leave.

‘Yes?’

‘Mrs Gloria Tandy?’ Mitch said.

‘Yes?’

‘DC Ian Mitchell and this is DC Rachel Bailey, Manchester Metropolitan Police. Is your husband in?’

Rachel caught the look, disappointment followed by resignation dulling her eyes. A slow blink. ‘No,’ she said.

‘When are you expecting him back?’

The woman took a breath, her nostrils flaring. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Where’s he gone?’

‘Don’t know.’

A brick wall, thought Rachel. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Or any good for that matter.

‘We’re anxious to speak to him as soon as possible,’ Mitch said.

‘Course you are,’ she said sarcastically.

‘Perhaps you have a mobile phone number we can reach him on?’ Mitch was unruffled.

She moved abruptly, opened her bag and pulled out her phone, reeled off a number which Rachel entered into her own handset. The phone number which she had given them was not the same as the one that Neil Perry had used to call Greg Tandy. Tandy probably used a separate phone for anything illicit. Many criminals did, often throwaways, unregistered, dumped as soon as they’d served their purpose.

‘If your husband does come in before we manage to contact him, please ask him to get in touch.’ Mitch handed her his card; she took it without reading it.

‘You’re probably wondering what all this is about,’ Rachel said, because the woman hadn’t asked, hadn’t shown the slightest curiosity or made the usual gabby demands and defences that they heard so many times when talking to suspects’ families.

‘I’m not interested,’ she said bitterly. ‘Whatever it is, it’s between you and him.’ Not quite wifely solidarity.

There was a sound upstairs, footfall, and Rachel glanced quickly at Mitch.

‘Someone upstairs?’ Mitch said.

There was no shock or guilt in Mrs Tandy’s face as she said, ‘Our lad.’

Connor, Rachel remembered. The kid she had chased on Thursday, the gobby one with the bike. Knowing the kid was Tandy’s son made sense of his attitude when Rachel had first confronted him. The kid would’ve grown up with his father in and out of prison, mistrusting authority, with a bloody great chip on his shoulder about the police. Rachel was the law, the filth, the dibble, five-oh.

‘Perhaps we could see him?’ Mitch said.

Gloria Tandy waited a moment and Rachel could almost smell the resentment. She wasn’t obliged to comply. All these families knew their legal rights, forwards, backwards and upside down. But Mrs Tandy, rather than telling them to fuck off, cooperated, called, ‘Connor, come here a minute.’

Movement and then the boy, bare-chested, in bare feet, jeans hanging low, boxers visible, trotted downstairs. The scrape on his arm and the cut on his cheek scabbed over.

‘What?’

‘We’re looking for your dad,’ said Mitch.

‘Not here,’ the boy said.

‘You know where he is?’ Rachel asked.

A shrug, ‘No.’

He didn’t give a toss, Rachel thought, then she saw the bravado of his gaze slip momentarily and she realized he was unnerved, scared. She decided to push him.

‘I’ll ask you again, Connor, do you know where your dad is?’

‘No,’ he said hotly, ‘I told you.’

His mother intervened. ‘He doesn’t. I don’t. That’s the truth.’

Something off-key, Rachel thought. What? Do they really know where he is?

Mitch obviously picked up on the atmosphere too. ‘You won’t have any objection to me checking that Mr Tandy isn’t in the house?’

‘You calling us liars?’ Connor said.

‘Connor,’ his mother said sharply, ‘leave it! Go ahead,’ she said to Mitch.