Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

‘What happened between us twelve years ago has no bearing on this case, Jackie,’ he told her, now very definitely remembering who she was and the fun time he’d had with her and Eddie Daley a dozen years before.

‘You tell that to Eddie.’

‘Look, the past is gone-’ he started to say.

‘You!’ She pointed her cigarette-bearing, nicotine-stained first and second fingers at him. ‘You lost him his job.’

‘No, you’re wrong … Eddie lost his job for himself. He was corrupt and he could not stay a cop, Jackie. I did my job, that’s all.’

Her head jerked as though she had some sort of nervous tic, her face scowling, and her furious eyes blazed at Henry. Finally, she could look at him no longer and turned sharply away, starting to sob. ‘I loved him,’ she said jerkily. ‘I stood by him. We had a life, not much of one, but we did OK. We were good for each other and I don’t know what I’m going to do now. He was everything to me. He looked after me.’

Henry took a tentative step closer to her. ‘And I’ll catch whoever did this and that’s a promise. Doesn’t matter what he felt about me, or what you feel, I’ll do my job.’

Jackie Kippax turned slowly. ‘That’s you all over, isn’t it, Henry? No matter what, you do your job, don’t you? Eddie was your friend and yet you still did your job on him, didn’t you?’ she said bitterly.

‘Jackie, we can let this hinder us or we can bin it and solve his murder, which I’m assuming is what you want?’ He held out a hand, a gesture which said many things. Her hard features softened. Her nostrils flared and she regarded him, her eyes roving up and down him. She nodded almost imperceptibly.

‘He wouldn’t be dead if you hadn’t hounded him out. He wouldn’t have had to make a living doing shitty things.’ She took a long drag of her cigarette, dropped it, ground it out. She coughed deep from within her chest.

‘I’m not sure those things are related.’

‘Think what you want.’ She shrugged.

‘So what happened tonight, Jackie? Are you going to come in and sit down and tell us? Then maybe we can make an arrest.’

Back in the interview room, another fresh coffee in hand, they were talking. Henry was making notes as he listened and chatted, but he had also switched on the tape recorder. Angela Cranlow had joined him at the table, introducing herself by name only, omitting the rank.

‘Tell me about Eddie,’ Henry had prompted.

Jackie Kippax gave a snort and started counting on her fingers. ‘Failed cop, failed insurance agent, failed legal rep, failed solicitor’s clerk, failed private investigator … but not a failed man. He’d had bad experiences with women in the past, but he’d made bad choices. But me an’ him were made for each other and he really looked after me.’

Henry smiled sadly. He could see how much she loved him, which was good, but he wanted to get beyond the touchy-feely and get some details to start the investigation. He knew it was like playing a fish, though. It needed a bit of give and take, because if he leapt in and rode roughshod over her emotions, she would withdraw into herself.

‘How long has he been a PI?’ Angela asked.

‘Two — no, three years,’ Kippax calculated.

‘And what sort of work has he been involved in?’ she enquired.

‘Mainly divorce stuff, serving papers on people, that sorta crap.’

‘Not the kind of work to win friends with?’ Angela ventured.

‘It paid the bills, mostly.’

‘And what do you do now?’ Henry asked.

‘I clean, down at the Park Private Hospital, thirty hours a week. Steady, unspectacular, but OK.’

Henry nodded.

‘Eddie couldn’t draw his police pension for another two years, so we needed all the money we could find. He could’ve got a steady job fillin’ shelves at ASDA, I suppose, but that wasn’t his scene. He liked doin’ stuff that wasn’t a million miles away from copperin’. It was the way he was, I guess.’

‘Did he make some enemies?’ Angela asked.

‘When you find people shaggin’ people other than those they should be shaggin’, you don’t exactly make bosom buddies.’

‘What was he working on at the moment?’ Henry asked.

Kippax shrugged. ‘Coupla things … a divorce surveillance which was ongoing and he hadn’t got very far with, and something involving embezzlement down at the Class Act … you know the Class Act?’

‘I know the Class Act,’ Henry said dubiously. It was one of Blackburn’s most infamous nightclubs, one of those places that was always changing hands, but never for the better. It was run by crims for crims and the only surprise was that it was still going, hadn’t been shut down. ‘Somebody was embezzling from the Class Act?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I thought they taught embezzlement there.’

Kippax sneered at him, no time for his quips. ‘I don’t exactly know the ins and outs of it, OK, but I think the manager was diddling the owner and Eddie got called in to make some discreet inquiries, do a bit of digging.’ She sniffed and stared up at the ceiling for a moment, blinking back tears.

‘Did he find anything?’

Her eyes lowered and stared at Henry. ‘I think he did — I know he did — but he never got into real detail with me, just said the whole thing was a bit hairy.’

‘What did that mean?’

‘I think he’d been threatened by the guy he was investigating. He didn’t really say, but I think that’s what happened.’

‘Where did Eddie keep his records?’ Henry asked.

She tapped her temple. ‘In here.’

‘In his head?’ Angela asked for confirmation.

‘He hates … hated paper,’ she corrected herself, choking back a sob. ‘He was good on the computer, though, but as for records …’ She shrugged helplessly, then suddenly folded her arms. ‘Look, how much more of this is there? I’m feeling a bit gutted, y’know? I want to go home, I want to hit the bottle and I want to cry. I know you think I’m a hard bitch, and to protect me and my own, yes I am … but me and Eddie …’ Her bottom lip started to tremble. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Who’s going to look after me now?’

Henry sensed she wanted to reveal something, but she clammed up. ‘OK, I’ll arrange for you to be taken home’ — Henry knew she lived in a council flat on Fishmoor — ‘and for a family liaison officer to get in touch. We will need to come and see you again and we may have to ask you to identify Eddie formally.’

‘What?’ she almost shrieked.

Henry made a pacifying gesture with his hands. ‘Unless the coroner will accept my ID of him, and I’ll try and push that.’

‘It’s the least you can do.’

Their eyes locked again. A frisson of hatred crossed from her pupils to his.

‘I’ll do my best, Jackie … just, very, very quickly, though — tell me what happened tonight.’

She released some tension inside her with a noisy exhalation of breath. ‘Er, nowt really. Just a boring night in front of the telly. We’d had a curry for tea and we just sat and watched the box, boozing, and suddenly he said he needed to go into the office for something and wouldn’t be long. That’s the last I saw of him, until …’

‘What time did he go?’

‘Just after ten. The news had just started.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘No — just went’ — here she rubbed her thumb and first finger together, in the well-known sign indicating ‘cash’ — ‘then he said “Quid’s in” and went.’

‘Did he say what he meant by that?’ She shook her head. ‘Did he drive to the office?’

‘No — it’s just around the corner, as you know.’

‘And he didn’t come back?’