Harbour Street

Chapter Twenty

Joe Ashworth found Vera still standing outside the flat in Percy Street when he arrived, as if she’d been fixed there since calling in the murder, waiting for him to arrive. He knew that she’d be upset. Something about Dee Robson had moved her. She could be as callous as hell, but occasionally she connected with a witness and, when that happened, she would move heaven and earth to help them. The objects of her pity were usually loners, clumsy, despised. And fat, Joe thought, grinning to himself despite the situation. Much like Vera herself.

‘What do you think happened?’ It was cold. A draught blew up the stairwell. He knew that the last thing she’d want would be sympathy.

‘She must have been killed not long after we came to see her.’ Vera was standing with her hands in her pockets. There wasn’t much room there and his elbow brushed against her arm.

‘A customer?’

‘She was dressed for work, but still wearing her knickers. No evidence that sex had taken place.’

He could tell that she’d already thought this through. ‘It could still have been a punter,’ he said. ‘We know that she wasn’t much good at risk assessment. She went off with that guy Jason, without knowing where he lived.’

‘The link with Margaret Krukowski is just a coincidence, do you think?’ Vera gave a sharp little smile. ‘That’s some elephant-sized coincidence.’

‘What then?’ He was losing patience. If Vera Stanhope had a theory, why didn’t she just tell him? Why play games?

‘Dee Robson knew something about Margaret’s killer,’ Vera said. ‘But she didn’t know that she knew. Otherwise she’d have told us when we saw her yesterday.’ There was a pause. ‘Or maybe she was smarter than anyone thought.’

‘Blackmail?’ Sometimes he knew the way her mind was working. ‘She kept the information secret so that she could make money from it.’

She gave a slow clap. ‘Well done, that boy.’

‘You think that she’d have been capable of that?’ He couldn’t see it. He didn’t think Dee had been bright enough to make the connections, and he’d been convinced by her performance the day before.

‘She was desperate,’ Vera said. ‘An alcoholic, living like this – there’d be an incentive to get money any way she could. Maybe Margaret said something to her when they last met. Something so obvious that you wouldn’t have had to be Einstein to work out who’d killed her.’

There were footsteps on the stairs and Billy Wainwright appeared. He looked grey and ill.

‘You okay, Billy?’ Joe disapproved of Billy’s lifestyle choices – the string of young lovers seemed undignified for someone of his position – but couldn’t help liking him.

‘A bit of a hangover. Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.’ He was already in the scene suit and was putting on a mask, so the words were muffled.

‘I thought you were so busy with the crime scene in the Metro there’d be no time for partying.’ Vera’s words were sharp.

‘All work and no play…’ Joe could tell by his voice that he was grinning. ‘You could do with a bit of play yourself, Vera.’

‘Just go in there and do your work, Billy. Tell me who killed these women. Find some fibres or spit or fingerprints, and link the two investigations. That would be a good start.’

He realized that she was serious, gave a mock salute and went into the house. Outside came the sound of sirens. ‘The cavalry,’ Vera said.

Joe couldn’t face standing here for much longer, watching Vera tear herself apart with guilt, but bottling it all up inside. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Knock on some doors, Joe. Start in the flats and then move down the street. Dee would have been an object of interest. There might even have been a campaign to get her shifted. She was hardly a model tenant. Let’s hope there’s a busybody somewhere who’s made a note of the comings and goings. I’ve sent Hol back to the station to coordinate calls from the public.’ When he paused she continued angrily. ‘If it’s not beneath your dignity as a sergeant, sometime today would be good.’

He put up his hands, a gesture of surrender, and walked away. When she called him back he thought she was going to apologize for being so sharp. But she handed him a greasy carrier bag. ‘Get rid of these, will you? Fish and chips. They’ll be cold by now.’

He started at the ground floor and worked up. Two flats on each floor, six lots of tenants. Mid-afternoon and the week before Christmas he expected most people to be out, but he was 50 per cent lucky. The first door he knocked on had a handrail outside and a ramp to the front step. A tiny elderly woman with a walking frame opened the door. She had shining white hair permed into tight curls. He showed his warrant card.

She stepped aside and let him in, sat him in front of the gas fire and chatted while she made tea. She couldn’t have been happier to see him if he’d been Santa. ‘It gets a bit lonely,’ she said. No self-pity. ‘Though I get out to the over-sixties on Thursdays, and that’s always a laugh. Our Christmas party tomorrow.’

‘I’m here to ask some questions.’ He sat with the tea and a plate balanced awkwardly on the arm of the chair. She’d insisted on him getting the Battenberg out of the cake tin.

‘About that woman who was killed on the Metro?’ She poked her head forward, eager for information. ‘The one with the foreign name. I remember her when she was a lass. Always a bit full of herself and stirring up the lads. Ricky Butt had his eye on her at one time, and Val threatened to bar her from the Coble.’

‘Ricky Butt?’ The woman obviously wanted to chat and she reminded Joe of his nan.

‘Oh, this won’t have anything to do with him.’ The woman shook her head. ‘Val was the landlady of the pub for years, but she’s long gone, and he left Mardle when he was still a boy.’ She smiled. ‘Sorry, pet, you’re not interested in me wittering on. How can I help?’

‘There’s been another incident,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ Eyes wide with curiosity.

‘Dee Robson. She lives on the top floor. Do you know her?’

‘Oh, that one! Peggy Jamieson lives next door, and her life’s a misery. Banging up and down the stairs at all hours. Men knocking. She told the police and the council, but nothing happened.’ She paused. ‘Not Dee’s fault, mind.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘I knew her mam and she was a bit daft too, like. Though not as bad as Dee.’ A thoughtful pause. ‘They used to lock up people like that in asylums.’

Ashworth couldn’t tell if she approved or disapproved of the notion.

‘Dee’s dead,’ Ashworth said. ‘We think she died in her flat yesterday. Did you hear or see anything unusual?’

The woman shook her head regretfully. ‘I was out all day yesterday. My daughter took me back to hers for my dinner.’

He stayed for a few more minutes and had another slice of cake. Vera wasn’t the only one with compassion.

The next inhabited flat was on the second floor. A woman in her early thirties with a toddler clinging to her legs. She didn’t ask him in.

‘I’ve already talked to you lot about the woman that was stabbed on the Metro.’

‘Did you know Margaret Krukowski?’

‘Nah, but when they showed me her picture I realized I’d bumped into her on the stairs a couple of times. She was on her way to the flat upstairs. I told them that.’ The toddler began to grizzle.

‘Perhaps we could go in and talk about it,’ Joe said. ‘We don’t want the bairn to get cold.’

The flat was exactly the same in layout as Dee’s, but there was carpet on the floor and it was furnished. In the living room there was a box of brightly coloured plastic toys. The television was on. CBeebies. The woman was called Jodie and she didn’t like cops.

‘You’re here on your own with the bairn?’

‘Only since you put my man inside.’

Here, then, he was unlikely to be offered tea and cake. ‘Dee Robson…’

‘What about her?’ Jodie was very thin, with a ratty face and narrow eyes.

‘She’s a neighbour.’

‘The social set her up in that flat upstairs. All the old biddies in the block want her out.’ She put the child on the floor and he pulled a train from the toy box.

‘And you?’

She shrugged. ‘Live and let live.’

‘You weren’t worried that she was attracting unsuitable men into the flats?’

The woman gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘Have you met her? How many men do you think she attracts? Those too drunk to get up the stairs. She hangs out in the Coble because the locals feel sorry for her and buy her drinks. She might have done a bit of business a few years ago, but now she’s just a laughing stock.’

‘Are you in the same line yourself?’

She laughed again. ‘I’m a reformed character. Check my record.’

‘Dee’s dead,’ he said. ‘We think she was killed sometime yesterday afternoon.’

‘Poor cow.’ She scooped the child into her arms and held him tight, kissing his hair. ‘She was as mad as a snake, but she didn’t deserve that.’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘I haven’t seen her for a few days, but I heard her yesterday. Her flat’s above mine and the ceiling’s like cardboard. Usually there wasn’t much noise. The telly, but I have it on most of the time anyway.’ She sat on the sofa with the child still in her arms and watched the children’s presenter pretending to be a lion.

‘But yesterday you heard something,’ he said. ‘People shouting? A row?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. Music. Could have been on the telly, but very loud. I’d put Alfie down for a nap and I was worried she’d wake him up. I banged on the ceiling with a broom handle and it stopped. She must have gone out then, because I heard her on the steps outside.’

‘But you didn’t see her?’

Jodie looked horrified. ‘Oh my God, you think it was the killer going past the door?’

‘It’s possible,’ Ashworth said. ‘What time was it?’

She shook her head as if time didn’t mean anything to her. ‘I didn’t see anything. I mean, I didn’t look out of the window.’

He left her sitting with her son on the sofa and staring at the television.

Peggy Jamieson was expecting him and knew who he was. Her friend on the ground floor must have phoned her, and anyway by now the neighbouring flat was swarming with people and the blue-and-white tape was across the corridor, blocking her way to the stairs. Ashworth bobbed underneath it, nodded to the PC who was standing guard, and knocked on the door. There was no sign of Vera. Peggy opened the door and immediately started talking. She was short and round, and the stairs must be a trial to her.

‘They never should have put that woman to live there. She couldn’t look after herself.’

Her flat was spotless and it glistened. There was a view from the living-room window over the top of the Coble and to the harbour. Behind the pub a man carried a crate of empties into the yard. Joe let her talk for a while.

‘How long has Dee Robson been there?’

‘About six weeks. But long enough for me to know it wasn’t going to work out. Staggering back drunk at all hours. Men. And I could see when she opened the door that it was an absolute pigsty in there.’ The state of the flat seemed to bother her more than Dee’s habits.

‘How many men?’

‘Well, I didn’t see that many. But I’m not always in. And I’m not as nebby as some.’

Joe thought Dee’s reputation had arrived at Percy Street before her, and that Jodie’s assessment of her ability to attract customers was probably accurate. He wondered about Jason, who’d taken Dee on the Metro on the day of Margaret’s death. Had he been very drunk? Very desperate? Certainly he’d dumped her as soon as he’d sobered up. Joe smiled at Peggy. ‘Were you here yesterday?’

‘Aye, all day.’

‘Did Dee have any visitors?’

‘You were in there,’ Peggy said sharply. ‘You and a fat woman. I saw you from the window.’

‘We could have been going to any of the flats.’ Joe thought this was just the sort of witness Vera had been hoping for.

‘You could,’ she said, ‘but you didn’t.’

‘And after us?’

She shook her head. ‘Then it was Countdown. I don’t like it so much since the old presenter died, but I still watch every day.’

‘Did you hear anything?’

‘No.’ He could tell she wished that she could help. ‘There’s the stairwell between the flats and my hearing’s not as good as it used to be. Just as well. The things that used to go on in there.’

He stood up. He wished Peggy had said that she was sorry Dee was dead. Even Jodie had expressed some sympathy. Then he thought that Dee had caused the elderly woman nothing but nuisance and he was getting as soft as Vera.