The next few days weren’t anything like as eventful as the first. As there seemed to be more girls hanging around the lorry park and the lorry park café, Lucy made that her pitch rather than the picnic area. The café owners didn’t mind the girls coming in for a coffee or a cheese roll, but they didn’t want them touting for business inside or round the front of the building. So long as the girls were out of sight and out of mind, that was fine; as such, they mostly congregated at the rear of the caf or out across the lorry park, under the cover of the trees.
Even so, the twelve-hour shifts could be tedious. To maintain appearances, Lucy would drive away with a ‘customer’ at least three times per shift, usually for about an hour on each occasion. Most often it was with lads from the Tactical Support Group, who were almost invariably young and hunky, which to a degree raised her standing with the other girls.
But of course, there were times when she had regular johns to deal with too, and though it was easy enough sending them off with a flea in their ear when they were obvious losers driving ramshackle, rust-bucket cars, that wasn’t the case indefinitely, as she discovered on the fifth night of the undercover operation.
‘What’s up, babe … rich man’s money too good for you?’ a guy in a silver Jaguar XE said through his powered-down tinted window. ‘I’ve got plenty of it … look.’
He cruised the edge of the lorry park, one ring-bedecked hand on the steering wheel as he dug a side-stitched pigskin wallet from inside his pinstriped jacket. It was fat with notes.
‘I don’t have to get into any car I don’t want to, sir,’ Lucy told him for the second time. ‘And I don’t want to get into yours. So goodnight.’
As Lucy increased her pace along the kerb, he accelerated sufficiently to stay parallel. Older than her by about fifteen years, with longish grey hair, designer stubble and a gold crucifix glinting in the fuzzy chest-hair exposed through the open collar of his shirt, he wasn’t Lucy’s type at all, but he wasn’t exactly odious. And he was clearly loaded. The main problem of course was that he wasn’t one of hers.
‘You cheeky mare!’ he laughed harshly. ‘You’ve got some nerve, walking around out here like the princess of the night, looking like the best shag on the A580 … and you won’t even give me the time of day? Me, of all people!’
‘Goodnight, sir.’
‘I’ll tell you what, I like a challenge. So I’ll pay you double your going rate. Triple even.’
‘Goodnight, I said.’
‘Babes, I want that sweet, satin-clad arse of yours.’
‘Hey pal, fuck off!’ She spun to face the car again. ‘I’m not interested … you got it?’
‘You snotty bitch!’ he called as she changed direction, leaving him stranded. ‘I hope some weirdo fucking strangles you.’
A group of the other girls had gathered nearby and now regarded her curiously as she strode away from him. They’d taken in the flashy motor and were wondering what the problem was.
‘Don’t make me tell you what he asked me to do,’ she told them in a disgusted voice.
They didn’t look much less bemused even after that, so it was a relief half a minute later, when a Ford Focus slid up beside her and Andy Clegg wound its window down.
She leaned quickly into it. ‘Hello, sir … looking for a bit of fun?’
‘Everything alright?’ he asked quietly, clearly having observed the incident.
‘It’s fine. Here … drive us about for a while.’
At first, Lucy’s air of apparent superiority played a little bit into her hands, when, the following night, Sandy, the bottle-blonde, was finally moved to speak to her conversationally.
‘Try not to knock back all the social rejects, eh?’ Sandy said. ‘They end up coming to me.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘Call me picky, but I’ve got to like what I see before I can get into a car with them.’
‘Good job you get so many lookers then.’
‘Suppose I’m lucky on that score.’
‘Nah, you’re a doll.’ Sandy shrugged. ‘Don’t know what your story is, but you’re too good for this place.’
Tomasina, a constant, chain-smoking presence at Sandy’s shoulder, still said nothing, her face like a gaudily made-up breezeblock, though within another day, even she started to open up, snorting with laughter the next night when they were all sheltering under the café awning during a rainstorm, and Sandy said that her hair was ruined, only for Lucy to comment that she didn’t know why they bothered tarting themselves up as a recent news report had offered stats allegedly proving that the majority of internet porn browsers went in search of “granny” and “old bag” sites.
‘I’m a granny and an old bag,’ Tomasina said in a husky, smoke-damaged voice. ‘And I don’t get any more action than the rest of you. I saw that report too. If it was true, I’d be a bloody millionaire by now.’ And from that point on she and Lucy spoke regularly, as if they’d been friends for years, though there was never any substance to it. The reality was that few of these women had anything in common other than a sisterly need for companionship on the edge of the dark, dangerous world that was Punterville.
As a further indication of the strangeness of this existence, hostilities one day might be completely forgotten the next. A week and a half after the incident at the picnic area, when the black girl – whose name was Bianca – had pulled the knife, Lucy met her in the café toilets, where they were both looking to fix their make-up.
‘Evening, Keira,’ Bianca said as if they’d never been enemies. ‘Different day, same shit, eh?’
‘Yeah,’ Lucy responded, trying not to look fazed that she was now shoulder-to-shoulder with a woman who for a brief time had been a potential suspect in the case.
Lucy had filed a separate report concerning Bianca after her very first shift, because the woman carried a blade and had used it threateningly – but in due course it had been marked “No further action”. There were two main problems with Bianca as a suspect. Firstly, the knife she’d pulled was nowhere near big enough to be the murder weapon. Secondly, and more conclusively, Jill the Ripper was thought to be white whereas Bianca was black.
Not that Lucy was entirely comfortable in her presence, even if they did now stand side-by-side applying fresh lipstick.
Bianca glanced at the marker-written slogan over the top of Lucy’s mirror. ‘“Blowjob Queen of Manchester” …? That the secret of your success? Getting all these young, clean-looking lads, I mean?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘Wasn’t head-girl at school for nothing.’
Bianca chuckled. ‘I’ll bet you bloody weren’t. But it’s no surprise you can afford to turn all those ugly buggers down, when you get so many hunks as well.’
‘Gotta keep my standards up,’ Lucy said jokily, but at the same time making a mental note that if so many of the other girls had now clocked that she seemed to attract more than her fair share of punters who were young and square-jawed, it wouldn’t be long before they decided this was odd.
She rang Slater at the first opportunity to request a couple of older, scruffier specimens. Accordingly, her first customer the following evening was Des Barton, a DC from the Serious Crimes Division, who was somewhere in his late forties. Des was of West Indian descent, short, tubby and balding, the only hair left on his head growing in thin, grey tufts behind his ears. Lucy would come to learn that both he and his beaten-up old Volkswagen Beetle existed in a permanently untidy state, the car dented and scratched, while Des’s shirt and tie always looked to be in need of an iron and his shabby beige overcoat was a cliché all of its own.
He was clearly aware of this, and apologised that first time he picked her up.
‘Sorry about my dishevelled state,’ he said in a broad but cheery Moss Side accent, which he had to shout at her in order to be heard over the grumbling engine. ‘Yvonne didn’t have time to sort me out this morning.’
‘Yvonne?’ Lucy asked as they chugged down the East Lancs.
‘The wife.’
‘Your wife needs to sort you out?’
‘Yeah, but she can’t. Got six nippers, you see. The eldest’s only thirteen. Bloody bedlam in our house. Especially this weekend. She’s doing a Halloween party for the little ’uns.’
‘It never enters your head to sort yourself out?’ Lucy wondered,
‘Well, that’s what Yvonne says,’ Des replied. ‘But we’re all busy, aren’t we?’
‘Perhaps it’s you who should be sorting Yvonne out?’
‘Ooh, you’re wicked!’ He gave a squawking laugh. ‘Nah, I didn’t mean it like that. Only kidding, chuck.’ He laughed again, rather infectiously. ‘Anyway … got any leads for us?’
This made him the first of Lucy’s ‘clients’ to enquire about her progress, but of course Des was a detective, not a TSG man.
‘Not much, I’m afraid,’ she replied. But then she thought about it a little. ‘The most talkative is this girl, Tammy. I looked her up on the system. Didn’t expect to find her, only having a first name to work with … but there she was, bold as brass. Tammy Nethercot.’
‘Lots of form?’ Des asked.
‘Yeah. All petty stuff. Sad case really. But she’s the most likely to give me something.’
‘Nothing solid yet, though?’
‘Nothing yet.’
Lucy hadn’t expected to see much more of Tammy, having moved her own pitch to the lorry park, but it wasn’t long before Tammy was popping up there too. Perhaps her ‘tough girl’ act of the first night was all for show and the experience of having excrement thrown in her face had made her feel a little vulnerable out there on the edge of the dual carriageway. In the lorry park, which was still close to the road but where there were plenty more people around and lots of parked and idling vehicles, it was likely the punters would keep a lower profile. She also seemed to enjoy Lucy’s company, seeking it out whenever she could.
As they drove on in Des’s car, Lucy thought long and hard about her new ‘friend’.
Tammy was twenty-two and still had her looks, just about. Her hair was thick and copper-red and hung past her shoulders. She also had those bright green eyes, which, when they weren’t glazed with alcohol, possessed a remarkable lustre. She might only have been five feet tall, but she had a slim waist, curved hips and a sizeable burst, which always looked good in the mini-dresses, shiny tights and high-heeled shoes she favoured. Even in late October, with the leaves spinning down from a slate-grey sky, the wind ever colder and filled with spattering rain, she affected the same get-up, her only modification as the weather deteriorated a warmer fur jacket with a zip and a big collar which came down to just under her ribcage. The overall ensemble looked great from a distance, especially when Tammy remembered to wiggle her way across the lorry park rather than drunkenly trudge.
But with Tammy the drinking was a problem that would clearly never go away. She wasn’t soused every time Lucy met her, but she always smelled of it, which was never a good sign. The kid often got loaded before she even turned out. Lucy smelled it on her breath whenever they hooked up. And if she didn’t do it before she appeared, she would definitely do it afterwards. There was never an occasion when Lucy didn’t glance into Tammy’s shoulder bag and spot a bottle of vodka, from which the girl would take regular swigs. But even without the booze, Tammy was reckless. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box anyway, but combine this with her lifestyle choice, and it was a disaster waiting to happen.
Three nights before, for example, Tammy had confided in Lucy that she was finishing early as she’d had a good day. To illustrate, she’d revealed a rubber-banded brick of tens and twenties even though she’d only serviced three clients. When Lucy had asked how she’d managed this miraculous feat, Tammy had replied that the last one had wanted to go bareback with her and so had offered double the asking-price. Tammy had then boasted that she’d held out for treble before consenting. When Lucy had called her ‘a little fool’ and told her she must never take such a risk again, Tammy had responded by telling her to ‘naff off’, before laughing drunkenly, kissing her on the cheek and saying that the john ‘was an old coot who looked dead respectable – shirt, tie, suit, driving a Jag … he’s not going to have anything bad, is he?’
‘It depends how many girls he goes bareback with, doesn’t it?’ Lucy had replied. ‘If that’s his thing and he’s got the money, it could be quite a number.’
Tammy’d told her to ‘naff off’ again and stumbled away.
The following night, Tammy had tried to withhold some money from Digby, her pimp. She’d decided she needed another bottle before she went home, so she’d concealed three twenties in the most personal place she could think of. Digby, who was about six-four and always dressed like a cowboy, even down to the heeled boots, drainpipe jeans, big-buckled belt and fancy-patterned shirt, hadn’t been fooled – and had found the missing readies by lifting her dress and cramming his hand down the front of her knickers. Right out there on the café car park. He’d then frogmarched her to a quiet corner where his own vehicle was parked, a black Land Rover with tinted windows, put her in the back, removed that big-buckled belt of his and dealt it to her bare backside at least twenty times.
Tammy had merely shrugged afterwards, sitting down at a café table opposite Lucy, but only delicately. ‘That’s Digby’s thing,’ she’d said, sniffling back what remained of her tears. ‘Fuck it, I don’t mind. There are plenty punters want the same thing …’
‘You still with us?’ Des Barton asked, interrupting Lucy’s thoughts.
‘What … oh yeah, sorry. Miles away.’
‘You were saying about this Tammy Nethercot …?’
‘Yeah.’ Lucy related the latest event in the young prostitute’s life, the one involving Digby. ‘Like I say … sad case.’
‘Aren’t they always?’
‘Don’t know what her home-life’s like. She never mentions a boyfriend.’
‘That prat, Digby, will have been her boyfriend once,’ Des said. ‘Least, that’s what he’ll have told her. That’s usually how they get them into it. I think I know who you mean when you mention him. Big goon … real name’s Carl Bretherton. Dresses like Gary Cooper.’
‘Gary who?’
‘Don’t wind me up, I’m not that much older than you.’
Lucy smiled.
‘He may dress like Gary Cooper,’ Des said again, ‘but when he opens his gob all that nasal Salford shite comes out. Used to be a bouncer. Think he spent time clamping cars too.’
‘Suppose there’s a kind of thread there,’ Lucy observed. ‘First he bullies drunks, then he bullies motorists, now he bullies hookers.’
‘Way it is, isn’t it?’
She shook her head. ‘I really wanted to do something, Des. I mean, I know we have to be careful … but the way he was marching her across that car park to belt her on the arse … I so wanted to do something.’
‘Be thankful you didn’t … or all our arses’d be on the line now.’
‘Thing is … Tammy’s been around a bit. I know she’s only a kid, but I get the feeling she’s been on the game quite a while. She’s gradually slipping me more and more titbits. Who works for who, which pimps are the worst, which punters to avoid.’
‘But she’s never once mentioned Jill the Ripper?’
‘Only to say “that lass is doing a job for us”.’
Des threw her a look as he drove. ‘She didn’t …?’
‘No, she didn’t mean anything. All the ones I’ve spoken to … they’re indifferent to it really. It’s like it’s just more of the same violence they see and hear about all the time. They get brutalised themselves often enough.’
‘It’s bigger news than that surely? It’s all over the papers and telly.’
‘Well, Tammy doesn’t read the papers. I don’t know whether she watches TV. She drinks that much she probably can’t focus on the screen.’
‘Perhaps it’s time you cultivated a new contact?’
Lucy considered this viewpoint. There was more than a modicum of sense in it. In all probability she’d already got what she realistically could from Tammy. Why should the girl open up any more than she already had? They were friends of convenience, nothing more. It might be that in due course they’d come to mean more to each other, but how long would that take? Weeks? Months? Even the most pessimistic analysts attached to Operation Clearway expected they’d have a suspect in custody before then.
Lucy glanced from the car window. The normal process whenever she got picked up by whoever it happened to be was to head as far away from the Boothstown lorry park as they could so that she wouldn’t get spotted by any of the other girls or punters, and to keep driving, staying on the move for at least an hour so that by the time she’d returned it appeared that she’d given her client a full service. They’d already pulled off the dual carriageway and had switched roads several times while they’d been chatting. It was pure coincidence that a lay-by now appeared on their left, with a static fish-and-chip caravan at the eastern end and large sections of the rest of it, particularly around a stile in the middle of its rear hedgerow, barricaded off by stands of fluttering incident-tape.
‘Hey,’ Lucy said. ‘Isn’t this …?’
‘Yep,’ Des replied as they cruised past. ‘Where that Ronnie Ford got murdered.’
She was surprised to see no police personnel on the site, not even a uniform to stand guard. ‘CSIs finished with it now?’
‘Probably,’ he said. ‘They were here two weeks.’
‘Stop, will you?’
‘Why?’
‘Humour me, Des … stop the car.’
Shrugging, he steered his Beetle into the lay-by, pulling it to a halt at the western end. Lucy buttoned her plastic mac over her saucy gear, before climbing out. It was now just after five-thirty in the evening, and dusk had fallen properly. But she could still see the desolate autumnal fields to the north, only dotted here and there with farm outbuildings. Whatever lay south was screened by the hedgerow, but she already knew that extensive woodland lay somewhere over there. She pivoted around, scanning each direction to its horizon.
‘Not much out here, is there?’ she said.
‘Well … there’s a chippie van.’ Des sounded pleased. He slammed the driver’s door, and dug into his coat pocket to see what change he had. ‘Seems a shame not to sample his wares while we’re here.’
‘You not had any tea?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘There you go.’ She closed the passenger door. ‘What could be more convenient?’
Des locked up and they walked along the lay-by.
‘You eating too?’ he asked.
‘No, but I’ll have a chat with him.’ She brushed her hair with her fingers to try and straighten it. She was aware of her overly heavy make-up, but there was nothing they could do about that. ‘I don’t look too tarty, do I?’
‘You look gorgeous.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘He’s a chippie man. He won’t care as long as your money’s good.’
They skirted past the taped-off section in front of the stile. Beyond it, thanks to the twilight, only a vague glimpse was possible of the farm field across which Ronnie Ford had traipsed to his death.
‘Just out of interest,’ Des said, ‘if you’re thinking of asking if he saw anything, I wouldn’t bother. He’s been interviewed half a dozen times already.’
‘I wonder if anyone asked him the right questions though.’
‘Eh?’
‘The other day I was looking at some of the bumph I got sent when we started this thing,’ Lucy said. ‘These murders are all very organised, aren’t they? For the most part, well-planned?’
‘We think so, yeah.’
‘And Jill the Ripper brought Ronnie Ford here, rather than it being the other way round?’
‘That’s the theory.’
‘So how did she know about it?’
‘This lay-by?
‘And that wood? How did she know there’d be a quiet, hidden spot a hundred yards past the stile?’
‘Maybe she lives round here.’
Lucy expanded her arms. ‘No one lives round here, Des.’
‘So … what’re you saying?’
‘She must’ve scoped the place out beforehand. Look … he picks her up at Atherton, which is quite a few miles away. They drive all the way here together, and suddenly she gets him to park up. This happened after seven in the evening. Which is long after this chippie van closes, yeah?’
The fish-and-chip caravan – which was logoed Mark’s Eats: fish, chips, burgers, pies – was still fifty yards ahead, but they were approaching it fast.
‘Again, that’s the theory,’ Des replied. ‘The vendor had certainly gone home before it happened.’
‘Which is further evidence that Jill knew about this place in advance.’
‘Not necessarily. It could be that she got lucky in the timing. The murders of Crumper and Hall were very opportunistic.’
‘I don’t think this one was,’ Lucy said. ‘At the very least, she must’ve known what time the chippie van would close.’
‘Or she just saw that it was closed when they happened to drive past.’
‘Okay … well she must’ve known that the footpath on the other side of the stile would lead into a wood, not to a housing estate or a farmyard or something, where there were likely to be witnesses around.’
‘Okay, but I’m still not sure what point you’re actually trying to make …’
‘That she’d already been here on a recce!’ Lucy said, exasperated. ‘The next question is who’s to say the chippie van was closed when she did that?’
Des seemed bemused. ‘Lucy, me and you are not part of the investigation team. You’re aware of that?’
‘We’re still coppers.’
‘Hang on a minute …’
They’d now almost reached the caravan. A large male figure in a white apron, his sleeves rolled back on meaty forearms, stood behind its serving-hatch.
‘Just leave it to me,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m only asking him a couple of questions.’
The guy behind the hatch leaned on his elbows to watch as they trekked the last twenty yards. He was somewhere in early middle age, his mop of black hair greying at the edges and combed over in a 1970s-style side-parting. Up close, there was something of the bulldog about him, his unshaved face etched with a truculent frown. He wore blue, semi-translucent gloves, while his white apron was strangely pristine.
‘Evening,’ Lucy said.
‘Evening.’ The guy’s tone was almost weary.
‘You Mark?’ she enquired.
The question seemed to weary him even more. ‘It’s a company name, love.’ He straightened up. ‘But while we’re asking, who are you?… as if I didn’t know already.’
Des flipped open a leather wallet to show his warrant card.
The chippie man nodded. ‘Don’t tell me … I’ve got to close up again?’
‘Sorry … what?’ Lucy said.
‘I’ve lost weeks of business thanks to you lot,’ he grumbled. ‘They wouldn’t let me anywhere near the place till they’d finished checking every square inch of ground. And now, even though they’ve gone … half the bloody lay-by’s still taped off. So not only isn’t there much room for customers, how many of them are seriously likely to show up here if they still think the coppers are hanging around?’
‘You are sitting next to a murder scene,’ Des pointed out, distracted by a chalkboard menu hanging at the side of the hatch.
‘And how is that my fault?’ the chippie man wondered.
‘I’m not saying it’s your fault,’ Des replied. ‘I’m just trying to explain.’
‘I’ve had it explained. About fifteen thousand times, so don’t waste your breath …’
‘Whoa!’ Lucy interjected. ‘I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot here.’
‘What do you want exactly?’ the chippie man asked. ‘And if it doesn’t come with chips, I won’t be impressed.’
‘Well … I’ll have two battered sausages, large chips and gravy,’ Des said.
‘Oh …’ The chippie man looked surprised. ‘Why didn’t you say that in the first place?’ He moved to comply, shovelling a mountain of chips onto a Styrofoam tray.
‘We want some information too,’ Lucy said.
‘You don’t think I’ve been asked a raft of questions already?’ He didn’t glance up as he used tongs to add the sausages, and ladled on the gravy. ‘I’ll say it again … and for the last time. I close at six o’clock in the evening. I wasn’t even here when this bad thing happened.’
‘I want to know if you saw anything any other days?’ she said. ‘For example, was there anyone …?’
He shook his head as he pushed the tray of food across the counter. ‘I’ve seen no one except people who were buying chips.’
Lucy looked sceptical. ‘You’re seriously saying the only people who ever stop here are coming to buy food?’
‘Not just that.’ The chippie man mopped up with a paper towel. ‘People park to make phone calls, to check road maps. Lorry drivers stop here for a kip.’
‘How many of this general crowd are women?’ Des asked, taking a plastic fork from a receptacle on the counter.
‘Plenty,’ the chippie man replied.
‘What about on the days leading up to the murder?’ Lucy asked.
‘Like I say, plenty.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘What about women who parked here and then climbed over that stile back there? I’m sure there can’t have been too many of those?’
The chippie man shrugged. ‘More than you might think. Quite a few ladies come here to jog. I assume it’s to jog – they’ve usually got running gear on. They park up, first thing in the morning or around lunchtime, climb over the stile and away they go. There’s probably a track through the woods. But as I say, I’ve told your lot this already.’
Lucy pondered. Undoubtedly, this was a fly in the ointment of her theory. But if this place was a regular haunt for female joggers, that might also have provided cover for their suspect.
‘Do they go jogging alone or in groups?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes alone.’
‘Any of these lady joggers particularly catch your eye?’ Des asked, chomping his way through a batter-encrusted sausage. ‘Outstanding assets, that sort of thing. Sexy.’
The chippie man regarded him with distaste. ‘I don’t have time to give every lass who comes here the eyeball. I have a business to run.’
Inwardly, Lucy had cringed at Des’s question, though it was probably in line with the other questions that detectives in the team – male detectives mainly – were likely to have asked. With no e-fit of the suspect’s facial features, and no certainty that her blonde hair was real, all attempts to identify her had inevitably focused on her buxom shape and ‘lady of the night’ apparel, and while no one expected the murderess to wander the streets during daytime dressed the way she did when out on the midnight prowl, given that a lot of modern running gear was rather snazzy, all figure-hugging Lycra and so forth, it was perhaps understandable that Des might think this way. Though that was a bloke all over. If the suspect had been here during daytime, even if she was a genuine statuesque stunner, Lucy knew that she’d have been able to dress herself down very subtly if she’d wanted to, to literally turn herself into such a plain Jane that no one would notice her.
There was one other detail though, which perhaps none of her fellow detectives had thought of yet.
‘This one would only have been gone ten minutes or so,’ Lucy said.
Both men looked quizzically round at her.
‘I’m quite serious,’ she added.
A keen jogger herself, Lucy was well aware that any fitness session lasting less than half an hour was unlikely to be much use; most fitness types trained for a minimum of forty minutes at a time. But it wouldn’t take anything like that long to make a quick reconnoitre of these woods.
The chippie man still looked puzzled.
‘Okay, how long do these lady joggers usually go for?’ Lucy asked. ‘I mean you must notice from time to time. They park up here, they climb over the stile and they’re away … and then, at some point, they’re back and their cars are gone again. How long does that normally take?’
‘I’ve just told you, love … I barely notice these women. And now you’re asking if I put a stopwatch on them when they’re running? Seriously?’
‘Fair enough.’ Lucy tried not to sigh. Perhaps it had been a dumb question after all. She indicated to Des that they were done. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘Wait a minute, whoa … you’ve just made me think.’
Lucy turned back to the hatch.
The chippie man’s eyes glazed as he recollected something. ‘Now you mention it, there was one girl who struck me … and this would have been in the right timeframe too.’
‘Yeah?’
‘The reason I remember her is she had quite a decent motor,’ he said. ‘Little sporty thing. Not sure what make or model, but it looked expensive. I remember thinking I wouldn’t have liked to leave that here. I mean, there were people around … but you know, you hear about these high-end car thefts. Anyway, she had the jogging gear on. I assumed she’d be gone a good hour or so, like they usually are. But then she was back within ten minutes and drove off. Made me wonder if she’d got cold feet about leaving the car.’
‘What did she look like?’ Lucy asked.
‘Blonde.’
‘Blonde?’
‘Yeah. Longish hair, because it was tied in a bun. Wearing a trackie top and shorts. The usual thing.’
‘Height?’ Des asked.
‘Hard to say.’
‘Tallish?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Any distinguishing features, tattoos or what-have-you?’
The chippie man snorted. ‘Gimme a break, mate. I wasn’t standing right next to her.’
‘Anything else you remember about the motor she was driving?’ Lucy asked.
He gave it some thought. ‘Only that it was sporty. And red … bright red.’
‘This was definitely a few days before the murder?’
‘About that, yeah. One lunchtime, between twelve-noon and two.’
‘You seem sure about that at least.’
‘That’s when I get busiest, and there was a queue of fellas standing here at the time.’
Lucy tried to process the intel. It was intriguing for sure, but it was still far too vague.
‘It would obviously be useful to us,’ she said, ‘if you could try and pin down the date on which this happened. Bearing in mind that Ronald Ford died on October 6th.’
The chippie man blew out a long breath. ‘I can’t be any more specific except that it was about a week before then. I reckon you’re looking at the last day of September-ish. But you’ve got to take a couple of days either side to be absolutely sure.’
‘Would you recognise this woman again if we showed you a photo?’ Des asked.
‘Probably not.’
‘What about the car?’ Lucy said.
He mused. ‘Don’t think so.’
‘Okay.’ She stepped away. ‘You’ll be here if we need to come back and get a statement?’
‘I’m here every day, Monday to Saturday.’
‘Thanks. That’s quite useful.’
‘And those were belting.’ Des nodded to his empty Styrofoam tray, before tossing it into a plastic bin next to the caravan. ‘Cheers.’
‘They were also three-pound-fifty,’ the chippie man replied.
‘Oh yeah …’ Des gave a sheepish grin. ‘Sorry.’
‘So what do you think?’ Lucy wondered as they walked back.
Des unlocked the Beetle, and they climbed inside.
‘I think it’s interesting,’ he said. ‘But it’s the longest of all long shots. You realise that?’
‘But it is interesting?’
‘Just remember, Lucy … this isn’t in our remit. And when you go and write it up for the brass, they’ll inform you of that in no uncertain terms.’
‘You’ve got a dab of gravy on your tie.’
‘Shit.’ He scrubbed at the offending mark with a clutch of tissues, which only served to smear it lengthways. ‘Glad you saw that before Yvonne did.’
‘Doesn’t like you making a mess, does she not?’ Yet again, Lucy eyed the vehicle’s cluttered interior.
‘Doesn’t like me eating crap food.’ He switched the engine on, and drove them to the lay-by exit, where he halted to allow for a gap in the traffic.
‘Where does this road lead from here?’ Lucy asked.
‘Right takes us back the way we came, ultimately towards Tyldesley. Left takes us towards Abram.’
She pondered. ‘I wonder which way she headed?’
‘Well there are only two options,’ he pointed out rather unnecessarily.
‘Let’s try left.’
‘Shouldn’t we be getting back?’
‘Humour me again, Des. One last time.’
‘Lucy, you’re not a detective.’
‘You are.’
‘Yeah, but I’m attached to you lot.’ He looked frustrated. ‘Here I was, anticipating some nice, easy work.’
‘This is nice and easy.’
Despite his moaning, they headed left and within five minutes had come to a roundabout with a large pub called the Rake and Harrow on the far side of it. As they waited at the broken white line, Lucy spotted traffic cameras in various locations around the circuit.
‘This’ll be easy work for you too,’ she said. ‘Pulling the footage from those cameras for between twelve-noon and two o’clock in the afternoon on all the days between and including September 27th and October 3rd.’
‘Looking out for red sports cars, you mean?’
‘Yeah.’ She glanced round at him. ‘Of which there won’t be a great many, will there? Even by the law of averages.’
Des contemplated this as he navigated the roundabout and headed back the way they’d come. ‘You know … that’s not a bad shout, even if it is a million-to-one. That was a good question, about how long she was gone for. Clearly no one else had asked him that.’
‘Seemed like an obvious question to me.’
‘How long were you in CID?’
‘A week,’ she said.
‘Well, they either taught you a lot very quickly, or you’ve got a natural aptitude for it.’
‘So you think this is a lead?’
‘Could be. We’ll have to push it upstairs though.’
‘Fine, whatever it takes. So long as you let them know it came from me.’
He laughed. ‘I’m not going to tell them I went off the grid to do it.’