Pop Goes the Weasel

94

Helen cursed herself bitterly. It was so obvious to her now how she and the rest of the team had been played. Sending Charlie back to base to gather the necessary evidence, Helen headed straight to the safe house, flanked by a pair of uniformed officers. Up until now Melissa had been treated like royalty – Helen wondered how she’d react to being bundled into the back of a squad car with a pair of cuffs on.

At first it seemed as if there was no one at home. Helen knocked on the door furiously – had Melissa somehow found out and done a runner? The officers outside insisted she hadn’t left the building, but you could never be sure. Eventually, however, an eye appeared at the spyhole and then Melissa’s throaty voice could be heard, asking accusingly who it was and what they wanted. She was surprised to find it was Helen. She was even more surprised – and aggrieved – to find herself in the interrogation room of Southampton Central half an hour later with the questions raining down on her.

‘Why did you do it, Melissa?’

‘Do what? What am I s’posed to have done?’

She spat the question back at Helen as if offended by the very implication of any wrongdoing. She really was in a vile mood.

‘Why did you kill Anton Gardiner?’

‘Do me a favour.’

‘Did he hurt you? Did you need money?’

‘I never touched him.’

Helen stared at her. Reaching to her right, she pulled a sheet of paper from her file.

‘We’ve just received the full analysis of the blood found on Anton Gardiner’s body. As you’d expect, he had a lot of his own blood on him – not surprising, given the level of violence visited on him. But there was another source of blood. There were traces of it beneath Anton’s fingernails and even on two of his teeth, it appears he scratched and bit his attacker as he tried to defend himself.’

Helen let that land, then continued:

It’s your blood, Melissa.’

‘Like fuck it is.’

‘I should say at this point that it would be advisable for you to have a lawyer present -’

‘I don’t need a lawyer. Who’s been spreading lies about me?’

‘We’ve got a match, Melissa. We ran the blood DNA analysis through the Police National Computer and your name came up.’

Melissa glared, admitting nothing. Helen continued, pulling more sheets from her file:

‘Three years ago you were involved in an altercation with another sex worker – Abigail Stevens. An argument over a client. She accused you of ABH, you did the same and, as is normal in these cases, both of you were asked for a DNA sample, which was taken via a mouth swab. It’s standard practice to keep those on the national database for ten years.’

Helen let this sink in before continuing:

‘Now maybe you thought we’d got rid of it, perhaps you’d forgotten you’d ever even given it, but the fact remains it’s your blood.’

Melissa was about to interrupt, but Helen steamrollered over her.

‘You killed Anton Gardiner and buried him at the old cinema. Then you heard the derelict building was coming up for sale. This gave you a bit of a problem, so when the chance came to palm your murder off on someone else you took it. Anton was never one of Angel’s victims, he was yours.’

‘You better have proof or you’ll regret this.’

‘One of my officers carried out a search this morning of an address in Bitterne Park. Last known sighting of Anton put him near a basement flat he rented on Castle Road. The place had been torn apart, turned upside down, and there were historic traces of congealed blood in the bedroom. Lots of it. Yours and Anton’s? We should have the analysis of those back shortly.’

Melissa scowled. But Helen had seen her reaction to the mention of Castle Road and knew she had her on the run now.

‘Anton didn’t like to put down roots, did he? He was a man who liked to move around, cultivate an air of mystery. And there was a rumour that where he went, his cash went too. He didn’t believe in banks, did he? And he always slept with a knife on his pillow. Now maybe you put two and two together or perhaps you heard the rumour. Either way you needed the money, didn’t you?’

‘You’re talking out of your fat arse.’

‘You had been evicted from your bedsit for non-payment of rent and had large drug debts. You needed money. And Anton’s stash fitted the bill perfectly. How much did he have?’

Melissa was about to respond, but swallowed it just in time. Clearly not enough, Helen thought, if the stash ever existed. Had she tortured and murdered her pimp for nothing?

There was a long, long pause, before Melissa finally replied:

‘No comment.’

‘I’m going to suggest we break now. During this interval you will have a chance to call a lawyer, which I strongly recommend you do. When we come back I’m going to caution you, then formally arrest you on suspicion of murder, GBH, wrongful imprisonment, theft and perverting the course of justice. Not to mention wasting police time. How does that sound?’

Finally, Helen’s anger peeped through and Melissa was onto it in a shot. She was up on her feet, jabbing her finger at Helen across the table.

‘Get Bridges.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Get Tony Bridges. He’ll sort this out.’

‘What do you -’

‘Get him. NOW!’

As Helen walked back to the incident room, a dozen different scenarios spun round her mind, each one worse than the last. What did Melissa mean? What had Tony done? And why was she so confident he could straighten this out for her?