Dolly Richardson had lived in the Pitsmoor area of Sheffield for more than fifty years. She had seen many changes in the suburb where she’d brought up her four children, and not one of them good. Following the death of her husband in 1992, she moved out of the four-bedroom house and into a flat above a shop on Ellesmere Road. When she moved in it was charming, quaint, and a hubbub of friendly activity. Now, it was a forgotten area. Crime was rife, abandoned cars on every street, litter piled up, and people didn’t chat anymore. They went about their business with their heads down, not risking eye contact with anyone.
Dolly lived above an ethnic food store. The smells emanating from downstairs made her hungry – not that she’d ever been in. She wouldn’t know how to go about cooking with pulses and chickpeas. At eighty-three, she was too set in her ways to attempt a chana masala or dhokla. Her cupboards were filled with Fray Bentos pies and tins of mushy peas.
Taking the rubbish out to her bin, she sniffed up. That wasn’t the smell of spices, it was more like something had crawled into a hole and died.
The iron staircase tacked onto the side of the building was rusting and rickety. Dolly really shouldn’t be living there. However, in her words, I’ll only move out of here when I’m in a pine box. Holding onto the railing for dear life, she descended the wet stairs slowly, and tossed the rubbish bag into the wheelie bin belonging to the shop below.
She limped around the corner, glancing up to the flat next door. She reached the Peugeot she’d seen parked opposite the green for the past couple of days and rapped hard on the glass with her gnarled knuckles. The window lowered.
‘You’re detectives, aren’t you?’ she asked the young man behind the wheel.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Come on, love, I live in Pitsmoor. I can spot a copper a mile off and you two stand out like a sore thumb around here.’
The detectives glanced at each other.
‘If you wanted to blend in you should have worn one of those burka things. Listen, I need you to have a look at the flat next door to mine,’ she said in her deep Yorkshire accent.
‘We’re actually on duty at the moment, madam. If you have a complaint, I suggest you dial 101.’
‘And I suggest you listen to what I’ve got to say before you interrupt.’
The other detective sniggered.
‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘The flat next door to mine. I’ve seen you looking up a few times, and there’s been uniformed coppers knocking on the door day and night lately. I might be old, but I’m not daft. There’s something wrong.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I want you to find out. There’s a hell of a stink coming from it and flies buzzing around the windows. I’ll bet you a pound to a penny there’s a dead body in there.’
‘Are you serious?’ the detective in the front passenger seat asked.
‘Come and see for yourself if you don’t believe me, but if I end up with rats because you’ve not done your job properly, it’ll be South Yorkshire Police who pays for the exterminators.’
Dolly walked away.
‘Should we call it in?’ PC Walker, who was behind the wheel, asked his colleague.
‘Better take a look first,’ PC Kendal said. ‘For all we know there could just be a rotting chicken in there or something. We don’t want to be a laughingstock.’
‘Says the man who tried to arrest a priest for being drunk and disorderly,’ Walker smirked.
‘You’ll never let that drop, will you?’ Kendal said as he climbed out of the car. ‘How was I supposed to know he was having a fit?’
By the time they went around to the back of the shops, they’d caught up with Dolly. She’d reached the bottom of the iron staircase.
‘You live here?’ Kendal asked, shocked by the conditions she was living in. A burnt-out car was inches away from her flat, the brickwork blackened by the fire, litter from the shops, fly-tipping from passing motorists who used the abandoned back yards of the flats as places to throw broken toilets, bedsteads, and busted mattresses.
‘It’s a shit-hole, isn’t it? Never used to be. At one time there was a waiting list for people to move to Pitsmoor.’
‘Why don’t you move?’ Walker asked with sympathy in his voice.
‘At my age? My next move is to the cemetery, love.’
‘Are you ok living here on your own?’ Kendal asked with concern.
‘I’m fine,’ she smiled a toothy smile. ‘I keep myself to myself, don’t go out after dark and don’t open my door unless I know who’s calling. You want the next lot of stairs. You’ll not get to his flat from mine.’
Walker and Kendal walked carefully over uneven ground, striding over bags of rotting rubbish, old engine parts, and half a bath.
They gingerly walked up the stairs which creaked loudly with every step. They made it to the landing and approached the flat. Walker knocked on the door and stood back while Kendal went over to the window, cupped his hands around his eyes and looked inside.
‘Fucking hell,’ he said, stepping back.
‘What is it?’
‘You’d better call it in.’
‘Why? What have you seen?’
‘What is it, love?’ Dolly asked from the opposite landing where she stood outside her front door. ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet. I’ve got some whiskey if you want something to line your stomach.’
Before he could say anything, Kendal turned away and vomited.
‘They don’t make coppers like they did in my day,’ Dolly said, folding her arms across her ample chest. ‘Are you going to have a look or are you a vomiter as well?’
***
The call came through to DI Christian Brady. For some reason, Matilda wasn’t answering her phone. He left his wife and daughters in Endcliffe Park and phoned Scott Andrews on the way to Pitsmoor.
‘Sorry for calling you out, Scott. I didn’t fancy going in that flat with Jasper Carrott and Robert Powell as back-up,’ Christian said as Scott climbed into the car and put his seat belt on.
‘Who?’
Christian looked at the face of innocence. ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ he said, suddenly realising he was getting old.
Walker and Kendal were waiting at the bottom of the iron staircase when Christian pulled up. They both had a mug of tea in their hands. An elderly woman stood next to them, walking stick in hand, hunched over.
‘Ingratiating yourself with the locals, I see,’ Christian said.
‘Dolly, here, alerted us to Sebastian’s flat,’ Walker said.
‘Dolly, is it? You really are getting to know the neighbours. Lead the way.’
Walker handed his empty mug to Kendal and set off with Christian in tow. Scott followed behind.
‘Bloody hell, they’re getting younger,’ Dolly said as she saw Scott. ‘What is this, bring-your-child-to-work day?’
Christian took more offense at that remark than Scott did.
When they reached the flat, they all looked at the window next to the front door and saw the number of flies buzzing around on the inside. Christian took out a pair of gloves from his back pocket and began to put them on. Scott did the same.
‘I think we can safely say that there could possibly be a life in danger in that flat, so I’m legally allowed to break down this door to investigate,’ Christian said. He took a step back, lifted his right leg up and slammed it hard into the door. It buckled but didn’t open.
The door was a cheap, dirty white uPVC one with a small round double-glazed frosted window near the top. It took two more kicks before the door flew open and slammed against the wall behind. All three were hit by the smell of decomposition. Walker quickly turned away while Christian searched in his pocket for something to cover his mouth with. He found a creased handkerchief he kept on him for such an eventuality. Scott wasn’t quite as prepared and pulled down the sleeve on his sweater to cover his hand and use as a mask.
Walker stayed outside while the DI and DC entered the dark property. The first door on the left, next to the front door, was closed. Looking down, Christian could see flies buzzing in and out of the gap where the threadbare carpet was. He looked at Scott whose face was screwed up against the smell.
He placed a hand on the handle and braced himself. Slowly, he pushed it down and opened the door.
It was dark in the bathroom, but there was no mistaking that a naked man in the tub full of bloody water was dead and had been for some time.
***
Less than an hour later, Adele Kean and Lucy Dauman were carefully lifting Sebastian Page out of the bloody bath and onto the opened up body bag on the floor. He was a tall man, and despite being slim, he was heavy – a dead weight – and the small room left very little space for manoeuvre.
Christian watched from the doorway. He looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot.
‘Adele, have you heard from Matilda lately?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I’ve called her a couple of times and her phone is going straight to voicemail.’
‘Maybe she’s out with her new man,’ Lucy said with a grin.
‘Hmm,’ Christian said, not convinced.
‘Christian, come and have a look at this,’ Scott called from the somewhere else in the flat.
The living room was dark and cluttered. The three-piece suite was old, the furniture second-hand and dated. A large mass-produced bookcase at the back of the room was bursting with DVDs and Blu-rays. The only new thing in the whole room was the widescreen television which was too big for the room.
‘Any chance of opening the curtains or putting a light on?’ Christian asked.
Scott flicked a switch on the wall. An energy saving light bulb slowly came to life. It was of such low wattage that it didn’t make much difference.
Christian rolled his eyes. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘I’ve found this. It’s not sealed down.’ Scott handed him an envelope with the word ‘Mum’ handwritten on the front.
‘Where?’
‘On top of the fireplace.’
Both detectives were wearing gloves, so the risk of disturbing evidence was at a minimum. Christian turned over the cheap envelope and removed a single sheet of A5 paper folded in half. He opened it, skimmed it, and sighed.
‘A suicide note,’ he said.
Mum,
I’m sorry. I’m not as strong as you think I am. I know you’ve taken a huge risk in helping me cover everything up and I thank you and love you for it but, at the end of the day, I’ve killed someone, and that fact won’t ever go away.
Some people will say I’m taking the coward’s way out. Maybe I am, but I don’t care anymore.
Tell the police it was all me. Don’t let them drag you down with me. I’m dead now. They can’t do anything to me.
I’m sorry for what you’ll have to go through and if you’re the one who finds my body, I’m so sorry and I hope you’ll forgive me.
Thank you for everything you did and for trusting me by giving me the job at Mary Croft. You are a wonderful mum and I love you.
Seb.
‘Oh my God,’ Scott said, reading it after Christian. ‘The poor bloke.’
‘I know.’
‘It doesn’t say if Calvin killed Keeley Armitage or not.’
‘No,’ Christian mused. He went over to the window and pulled open the curtains. He looked out over the depressing view of a forgotten Sheffield: abandoned buildings, closed-down factories left to be targeted by vandals and graffiti artists. ‘Read that last bit again for me, Scott.’
‘Thank you for everything you did and for trusting me by giving me the job at Mary Croft. You are a wonderful mum and I love you.’ Scott read.
‘Doesn’t that sound odd to you?’
‘No. She helped him get a job. There’s nothing wrong with using a parent’s connections.’
‘That’s not what he says. He says thank you for giving me the job, not getting me the job.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘His mother gave him the job because she was in a position to do so. And who does the employing at Mary Croft Primary School?’
‘I don’t know, the head teacher presumably.’
‘Exactly. Sheila Croft. Making her Sebastian’s mother.’