‘Looks like Carl’s dad is back,’ Annie said. ‘Time to break the news.’
Zoe pulled the car in to the kerb outside the house. There was a superannuated-looking Volvo estate parked behind the white van. In the late afternoon, the house had lights showing in all its uncurtained downstairs windows.
The two women climbed out of the car and walked up the drive to the front door. As they approached, the door opened.
‘Police?’ The man standing on the threshold was middle-aged but looked as if he worked out frequently. He was dressed in jeans and a paint-spattered white T-shirt that was perhaps a size too small for him.
Annie nodded. ‘How did you know?’
The man shrugged. ‘You can always tell, if you know what to look for.’
Annie decided not to pursue that one. ‘Mr Francis?’
‘That’s me. Jim Francis. You’ve come about Carl, I’m guessing.’
‘You seem to be a step ahead of us, Mr Francis. I’m afraid we’re here with bad news.’
‘Of course you are, if it’s about Carl.’ He nodded, his expression weary. ‘That kind of bad news, then. I’d better speak to Kelly first. It’ll come better from me.’
‘He’s dead, Mr Francis. I’m very sorry.’
‘It’s a shock, but not a surprise. Look, do you mind waiting here for a moment? I’ll go and prepare the ground and then you can come in.’
‘If you’re sure—’
‘Trust me.’ Francis made his way back into the house, leaving the two women standing on the doorstep.
Annie exchanged a look with Zoe. ‘Not the textbook approach.’
‘I don’t know what else you could have done. It’s as if he was waiting for us.’
‘Perhaps he was.’
It was a few minutes before Francis returned. ‘Okay, you’d better come through. I’ve broken the news.’
They followed Francis through into the living room where they’d spoken to his wife previously. Kelly Francis was sitting on the sofa, sobbing. At first she seemed unaware of their entrance, then she looked up. ‘It’s true, then?’
Annie took a seat on the sofa opposite where Kelly Francis was sitting. ‘I’m very sorry.’
‘Can you tell us how?’ Jim Francis said.
‘We believe it was murder.’
Jim Francis nodded. ‘I knew it would be something like that. Or drugs,’ he added.
‘Why do you say that, Mr Francis?’
‘Because those were the kind of people he mixed with. It was only a matter of time.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. I sound heartless. I’m not. We both loved him, and it’ll hit me properly later. But I’ve had so many fights with him about this stuff. So many times I’ve had to bail him out.’ Francis was pacing up and down the room, as if trying to walk off his emotion.
‘This isn’t really the moment for me to be asking this,’ Annie said, speaking to Kelly Francis. ‘And if you’re not up to discussing it at the moment, we’ll understand. Does your husband know we spoke to you about Carl a few days ago?’ She’d have preferred to have raised this privately with Kelly Francis, but it felt as if the time for that kind of discretion had passed. Too many people had already failed to tell them the whole truth.
Kelly Francis looked up, her eyes red. ‘I told him. Eventually. I thought about not saying anything because I thought if he knew the police were looking for Carl—’ She stopped. ‘I lied to you. I told you Carl was doing well. That we were in regular contact. You seemed more interested in the other two, Darren and Jonny, so I thought you might leave Carl alone.’
‘That’s not how it works, love,’ Jim Francis said. ‘You can’t keep denying these things.’
‘Was Carl still associating with Darren and Jonny?’ Zoe asked.
‘As far as we know,’ Jim Francis said. ‘I was in contact with Carl. But only because every now and then he’d come to sponge money off me. Or ask me to get him out of some scrape or other. But he was still mixing with the same crowd. And Darren and Jonny were at the heart of that.’
‘He wouldn’t talk to me.’ Kelly Francis had begun to cry again. ‘Reckoned all I did was lecture him. He was probably right about that. Not that it ever did any good.’
‘Again, this may not be the moment,’ Annie said. ‘But is there anything you can tell us about Carl’s recent circumstances? What he was up to, who he mixed with. Mrs Francis told us he worked in a supermarket but—’
‘That wasn’t true either,’ Jim Francis interrupted. ‘He did for a while when he first moved out but they sacked him. Recurrent lateness, absence, all that. That was six months ago. I don’t know what he’s been living on since then, though I’m willing to bet it wasn’t anything kosher. He’s had the odd sub from me, but only to tide him over when he was short. Or that’s what he told me.’ Francis paused. ‘There was one thing, though.’
‘Go on.’
‘Last time I spoke to him was probably four or five weeks ago. He seemed pretty chipper. Reckoned he and some mates had got this big opportunity. One of the things about Carl was that he couldn’t resist shooting his mouth off. He’d told me a while before that they’d been doing some good business with some local outfit. Now, he was telling me they’d found a way to cream off some of the profits for themselves. He wouldn’t tell me the details, but it all sounded deeply dodgy to me. I told him not to be so fucking stupid. He just laughed and said that it wasn’t as if the people they were ripping off would be going to the police.’
It was the third time Annie had heard mention of a big opportunity in relation to the dead men. ‘What do you think he meant by that?’
‘I took it to mean that he was already up to his ears in something criminal and now he was trying to do some double-dealing. I told him that, if these were the kind of people who wouldn’t go to the police, they’d have their own ways of dealing with anyone who crossed them…’ He tailed off.
‘Was that why you weren’t surprised to see us today?’
‘Maybe. I didn’t want to tell Kelly, but I had a really bad feeling about it. Carl was trouble, but he was just a naive kid really. He never really seemed to understand what he was getting involved with.’
‘Do you know what kind of thing he was involved with?’
‘They were dealing drugs at school. I mean, the hard stuff. They were small fry, being exploited, but they never realised. But from hints that Carl dropped, I think they were gradually sucked into some pretty nasty stuff. Loan sharking, protection stuff. There’s plenty of potential victims round these parts, believe me. And there’s plenty prepared to prey on them.’ He shook his head. ‘Mind you, people like Carl, kids with no prospects who get exploited, are as much victims as any of them in my view.’
Annie wanted to point out that not all disadvantaged youths turn to crime, but she knew this wasn’t the moment. And she recognised too that Francis had a point. Whatever his own flaws, Carl had simply been chewed up and spat out. He wasn’t the real villain. ‘You don’t know anything else about who Carl might have been working for? This local outfit you mentioned?’
Jim Francis frowned. ‘I’m trying to think. This was a few months back. He was sounding pleased with himself then, too, because they’d been taken on for this work. It was all supposed to be deeply hush-hush, so of course he couldn’t stop himself blabbing about it. To be honest, it sounded a bit weird to me. A bit cultish. Some outfit that was supposed to be helping youngsters who were struggling or in trouble. Carl even reckoned they were prepared to provide him with accommodation.’
‘Accommodation?’ Annie glanced at Zoe.
‘That was what sounded the alarm bells. I didn’t really know what to say to him. If I’d tried to tell him not to get involved, that would have just made him do the opposite. And for all I knew, it was genuine. So I just told him to be careful and not to let himself be taken advantage of.’
‘He didn’t say anything more about it subsequently?’
‘Not really. When I asked him about it, he said it was all fine but he wouldn’t say anything more. To be honest, I thought that just meant it hadn’t worked out for whatever reason. Either they’d sacked him, or it hadn’t been what he’d expected.’
Annie nodded. ‘I’m sorry. We’ve pressed you far too much in the circumstances. You’ve been extremely helpful.’
‘Have I?’ Francis looked mildly surprised. ‘Look, I may come across as a callous bugger, but I’m not really. I loved Carl and, like I say, this will hit me later, I’m sure. I just feel a bit numb at the moment. But I’ll do anything I can to help you catch the bastards who killed him.’
‘Thank you. We’ll need to talk to you and Mrs Francis more formally later, but that can wait. You’ve given us plenty of useful information for that.’ She turned to Kelly Francis. ‘I’m sorry we’ve had to put you through this. And I’m so sorry about your loss.’
‘We lost him years ago,’ Kelly Francis said. ‘That’s the awful thing. That’s the really awful thing.’
Annie waited till they were back in the car before saying to Zoe, ‘Accommodation.’
‘Which brings us back to Werneth Holdings,’ Zoe said. ‘Who seem to have been remarkably generous with our three victims.’
‘I think a visit to this Robin Kennedy has just leapt to the top of our priority list. Werneth seems to be the only clear link we have between the three victims, and it sounds as if their involvement might have been something a bit more than bar work. Still, that’s for tomorrow. I’d better get you back to Gary.’
‘That reminds me. Someone texted while we were in there. Gary’s about the only person who sends me texts these days. Hang on…’ She pulled out the phone and thumbed through to the message. ‘Bugger. He’s got held up at work. Reckons we’ll probably be back before he is. You think Sheena’s going to be okay?’
‘What could happen to her?’ Annie said. ‘Nobody else even knows she’s there.’