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Lucy Waldon’s skeletal frame was encased in a drab, rather shabby silk dressing gown in varying shades of red. Her feet were bare and dirt-stained with fading fuchsia paint on her nails. She apologised for her appearance, smoothed her hand down the crumpled fabric of her gown and sat on the upright wooden chair, with its back to the wall.
Raj introduced them and smiled, but she didn’t return it. ‘You probably want to know why we’re here?’
Lucy’s pale face was tear-stained. She wasn’t crying, but she was trembling uncontrollably and her teeth were chattering. ‘Yes.’
‘We need to ask you some more questions regarding the murder of Julie Dixon.’ Raj lowered her voice. ‘I’m sorry we’ve had to come to your place of work but it is important.’
Lucy lowered her eyes and brought her hand up to her face to touch a reddish bruise on her cheekbone that reflected the colour of the blood in the skin. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s okay.’
‘The parcels that we found in Julie’s vehicle have now been forensically examined and we have a DNA profile which isn’t yours so, as a matter of routine we need to identify that person and eliminate them from the enquiry too. Tell me, who apart from you would have handled these parcels Lucy?’
Lucy shivered. Her face was pinched, her bottom lip quivered.
‘Does anyone live with you?’
Lucy’s shaking of her head was emphatic.
‘Okay. Is it possible that any visitors could have touched the parcels? You see, it’s just about tying up loose ends for us,’ said Andy.
She shook her head again, opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, then closed it again, her teeth now clenched.
‘Has anyone stayed here looking after the little one while you’re at work?’ suggested Raj.
‘If so, you see we need to swab them too.’
Lucy was still hesitant. ‘I do have the occasional visitor... Sometimes they stop over.’ Lucy’s eyes darted from Andy to Raj and back. ‘It’s not a permanent thing you understand. I don’t want you telling the Social it happens regularly.’ She bowed her head, closing her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. ‘I just don’t understand how anyone could have touched the parcels... I keep them in the cellar away from Mattie because he’d rip the paper off. Ever since it was his birthday – he thinks all parcels are for him.’ She frowned. ‘And no one else has access to the cellar but me,’ she said, in no more than a whisper.
‘Do you know the contents of the parcels Lucy?’ asked Raj.
Grant Marchant rapped at the door and opened it without being invited in, his large frame filled the doorway. Lucy gave a sudden, small, indrawn gasp of someone who’d been about to be discovered giving away a secret. ‘How long is this going to take?’ His question was directed at the two detectives.
‘How long’s a piece of string?’ said Andy.
He turned to speak to Lucy. ‘Misty’s called in sick. ‘On a downer no doubt. I need you back at work sharpish,’ he looked at his watch. ‘In fact you’re on in five,’ he said, turning on his heels and leaving them once again alone.
The office was silent. Lucy’s red-rimmed eyes were wide. She sat on her hands and rocked too and fro, grinding her teeth. ‘I’ll be home at four o’clock, but I’m working again at six. Can we finish this then?’ Periodically she bobbed her head and Raj thought it odd. ‘I’m not being awkward, honest I’m not. If I lose this job I’m fucked.’
Moments after Lucy left the office Raj and Andy could hear Grant shouting his instructions from directly outside the office door. His hurried feet stomped up the steps. A moment later there was a short, shrill cry. Both detectives were wide-eyes and curious. Andy crept to the door, opened it a crack, just enough to see what was going on, on the first landing. Grant held Lucy roughly by her forearm. ‘Whatever it is, sort it. Do you hear? I don’t want the Rozzers sniffing around here again. Understood?’ Grant hissed before forcibly pushing her away from him. ‘And remember, keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you, or you can kiss your ass goodbye.’
***
Jen had a fresh pot of coffee ready, knowing Charlie and Ronnie would be arriving shortly, the coffee addiction Dylan was notorious for apparently ran in the family. When it was time to knock down the stud wall they stopped and waited patiently for Dylan to arrive to help – not because his brothers needed his help but because of Jen’s belief that Joe’s illusive dark room was behind that wall.
‘There is insufficient room under the stairs for it to be there,’ Charlie had told Dylan.
‘I know that, you know that,’ said Dylan.
‘It’s a stud wall so there’s something behind it,’ said Kirsty.
‘Yes, a sloping space that was no good to anyone, so it was boxed in probably because the person living here kept bumping their bloody head,’ said Ronnie.
‘Whatever,’ said Dawn raising her eyebrows at her brothers. ‘Just appease them,’ she said throwing her head in Kirsty and Jen’s direction.
The ‘waiting’ for Dylan day after day afforded the family time at the former Dylan home. Together Dylan’s siblings, their children and Jen and Maisy had peeled yellow stained wallpaper from the upstairs walls, exposing the wet, crumbling plaster behind it for the two older men to repair. They’d rubbed the paint curls from the ceiling, and the children, not to be left out, had collectively, eyes closed lifted their cupped hands and tried to suppress their giggles whilst catching the paint shower before it fell on the hard wooden floors – sweeping up afterwards with dustpan and brush.
‘I wouldn’t cover these floorboards again Jen, they’re the real deal,’ said Ronnie going down on his haunches to run his fingertips over the plank ends that had been nailed directly to floor joists. ‘Pre 1898, before the end matcher was invented.’
Now adrenaline pumped through Jen’s veins at the anticipation of the night ahead. The plan that Dawn would pick up the kids from school, Kirsty would collect fish and chips on her way home from work and once Dylan arrived home the knocking down of the wall would commence. She had put so much emphasis on the discovery of the illusive dark room that it now seemed irrelevant, what had happened since buying this house had given them so much more. She looked at the space the knocking down of the wall would reveal and she knew that, it wasn’t anything like the size of a room, she also knew they were going along with the idea to please her, and she loved them for it.
Whilst laying the dining table in preparation for the family meal – such as it was to be, Jen was conscious of how warn and shabby the room looked. The carpet threadbare in places, and with most of their good furniture in store it looked like a mismatch of clutter to be relinquished to a skip when the renovations were complete. The warmth of the sun that shone brightly through the south-facing window made her tug at the sun-bleached edge of the curtain as she passed. She stopped in her tracks and watched the dust particles sifting sideways about the room. Her hand turned the curtain to reveal the tatty linings. ‘There’s no point replacing them until the building work is finished and kitchen replaced,’ she thought. The unkempt foliage that had spread to the windowsill and its suckers clinging to the bottom panes now acted like a sail to the wind. Parasitic vines, thick ivy stems and woody roots had overtaken the lawn, which might be beneficial to the wildlife but not good for the weight they put on the ailing trees in close proximity to the house. ‘Maybe they’ll have to come down,’ she thought dipping her head to see the top of the Ash.
Maisy had been quietly playing in the lounge. It had been a good idea of Dylan’s to put all her toys in the empty room with the hideous patterned carpet, and the just as hideous patterned wallpaper. Jen could hear her daughter excitedly talking, and laughing, and assumed it was Max she was playing with as he had hardly left her side since they had moved in. All of a sudden Jen heard Maisy's screech of delight then a high pitch stuttering bark that she knew meant Max thought whatever they were doing was as important as him wanting her to throw him a ball, or chasing another dog, so she hastily ran to check on them. She pushed the door open as far as it would go, stopped and stood with her mouth open wide, torn between the urge to laugh, or cry.
‘Maisy, what on earth...?’ Jen said, stopping instantly she saw the writing on the lower part of the wall that she had stripped of its paper. Max ran at Jen falling at her feet in a play bow but she ignored him, and as if in slow motion she walked the few steps to touch the pencilled drawing of the detailed Queensbury Railway Line. Stick men and a lady with a pram at the station, the pale yellow, single, Brelland to Harrowfield Town ticket No. 3259 and the signature Jack Dylan, age nine.
***
‘We talked earlier Lucy about the two packages that were found in Julie Dixon’s vehicle and the man’s DNA sample that Forensic had discovered,’ said Andy sitting down in the old armchair at Lucy’s home.
Lucy traversed the kitchen, putting away the shopping, dumping breakfast pots in the sink, emptying the washing machine. Finally she carried the faded washing up bowl full to the top with wet off-white, grey white, yellow white clothes, and plopped it on the end of the kitchen table in between her and Raj.
‘I haven’t had time to wash for two weeks,’ she said pulling clothes out one by one to hang on the empty clothes airer she pulled alongside her.
‘Like we said, we are not saying for a minute that the parcels, or the man whose DNA they have discovered has anything to do with Julie’s murder. What we are saying is that they were in the back of her car when it was dragged from Ogden Water and we need to identify the persons whose DNA is on them to tie up our loose ends. So, back to the question we asked you earlier. Can you think of any male who may have touched the parcels whilst they were here, accidentally or otherwise?’ Raj said.
Eventually, Lucy sat, head-down relentlessly picking at her fingernail until the dirt was gone and trickles of blood leeched out from under the nail bed. She looked over at Raj and put her finger in her mouth, sucking it for a moment like a baby. ‘Honest to God, there has been no one here,’ she said sulkily. ‘My cretin of a brother would put anyone off coming round here.’
‘Look, I can’t officially admit to someone else delivering those parcels. It’s more than my life’s worth.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Grant put a good word in with the top man to get me the job of distributing goods from an Internet site. It pays more money than the pole dancing – a lot more,’ she scoffed. ‘He also gave my brother a job to keep him off the streets, and from under my ruddy feet.’
‘Do you know what’s in the parcels Lucy?’ said Andy.
‘I guess lots of different things.’ She frowned. ‘I never gave it a thought. They come in all shapes and sizes.’
‘We aren’t interested in whether you deliver the parcels or not,’ said Raj. ‘Trust me, we aren’t going to tell on you for getting someone else to deliver them.’
Lucy sighed deeply. She looked at the detectives with slitted eyes. ‘Okay, if you’re not going to grass me up, Reggie has been taking the parcels round to Julie’s for me whilst he’s been here. I mean, he’s just dropped them off, like I do, nothing else.’
‘How old is Reggie, Lucy?’
‘Don’t worry, he’s old enough to drive. The boss paid for him to have driving lessons and he passed first time, six weeks later.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘God knows how. He must have given the examiner a back hander.’
‘Does Reggie work at the club regular?’
‘Pff! I wish. He’s idle; always has been. Surprised he’s still working for Marchant actually – Grant usually wants his pound of flesh, and more besides but he seems to have taken to our kid for some unknown reason. They’re thick as thieves.’
‘What does he do?’
Lucy shrugged her shoulders. ‘Dunno really; I know he’s a pain in the arse.’ The detectives remained silent and she appeared to reconsider the questions. ‘They bought him a uniform and he does a bit of chauffeuring... He thinks he is somebody in them big, posh cars.’
‘Is he still living, with you?’
‘Not since this morning he isn’t,’ she bent down plucked her purse from her handbag, opened it and tossed it across the table. ‘He’s taken everything I have bar a few coins. Thieving little bastard. What do they say? Leopards never change their spots?’
‘Any idea where he might have gone?’ Andy said, with urgency in his voice.
‘That’s what I’d like to know. Apparently he took Mum’s car without asking, and she hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him since.’
‘Do you have a recent picture of Reggie?’ said Raj.
‘There’s plenty on Facebook,’ she said flicking through her phone.
‘What’s your mum’s name and address? We’ll need to visit her.’
‘Ellen Hartley and she’s at 14, Windsor Gardens.’
‘Is Hartley Reggie’s surname?’
‘Yeah, Waldon was my married name.’
‘Your brother didn’t by any chance leave any of his stuff here did he, suggesting he might return?’ sad Raj.
Lucy plucked a carrier bag off the floor. ‘Yeah, his dirty washing. I was just about to throw it but if you’re going to me mam’s...’
‘We can take that for you?’ said Andy reaching out and grabbing the bag.
She looked bemused. ‘Okay, if you're that keen.’
‘It’s no trouble.’ Andy smiled at Lucy. ‘We’ll need a quick statement from you, for continuity.’
Lucy looked up at the clock. ‘Will it take long?’
***
‘Bit of luck that. We’ll get his DNA from the clothing, and more...’ said Raj, opening the boot of car and tossing the plastic bag inside.
Andy sat behind the wheel. Put the keys in the ignition, checked his rear-view mirror, indicated and pulled out into the traffic. ‘And his picture’s on Facebook. Much as I hate social media I can’t deny that’s a gift,’ he said, as he slowed the car down in front of the school gates, waved on by the lollipop man covered head to toe in a fluorescent suit. The car rolled slowly forward in the traffic.
‘I think Winsor Gardens is the first right, after the school,’ she said, pointing in the direction of the estate. There was a click followed by the soft tick-tock of the indicator. Suddenly, Andy turned the steering wheel and the car left the queue of traffic but the driver of the white Land Rover Discovery heading towards them in the opposite direction showed no such consideration and came to a halt right beside the roadworks blocking their intended path. The nearside door opened and a child jumped out. The driver leant across the front seat to shout something to the lollipop man, who walked over to the car. They exchanged a few words. Andy wound down his window. Other drivers honked their horns, shouted at the driver and flashed their lights, but the driver paid no heed. To add to the chaos a bus stopped behind the Land Rover and all of a sudden the school gates opened and flooded the street with its passengers.
‘Doesn’t anyone walk these days?’ Andy said, looking around him, his fingers tapping rhythmically, on the steering wheel.
‘And would you believe that out of all these people not more than a handful have come forward offering help on the Patti Heinz enquiry.’
Ellen Hartley’s council house was nestled in between other like-for-like semis. It had an overgrown garden and a hedge that spilled out onto the driveway. The house had long since lost its freshness, the walls were grey and the stones a slush white. Andy parked next to the black, rusty gate. He slammed the door with purpose, and as he strode to the pavement where Raj was alighting the vehicle he looked up towards the red tiled roof and horizontal casement windows. Mrs Hartley could be seen on the top step, leaning on the back door jamb chain smoking and flicking ash into a chipped saucer.
‘Our Lucy rang me, she said you were coming,’ she said as they approached. She turned and put one foot over the threshold as if she intended to go inside the house. ‘Kettles just boiled – fancy a cuppa?’ Ellen looked pale and tired. When she smiled her front teeth were flecked with tobacco. She ran her hand through her short black, dyed hair, putting the saucer next to the kettle, and stubbed her half smoked cigarette out with a degree of brute force. She looked at Raj questioningly. Her daughter had her chestnut-coloured eyes.
‘That would be lovely thanks, one with half a sugar and Andy takes two,’ Raj said. Andy stood for a moment outside taking in the scene at the back; an overgrown garden, divided symbolically, with strands of wire stretched from concrete posts. The boundary at the end of the garden was partly walled, partly open to the open fields beyond.
The two women acknowledged the detective sergeant joining them in the lounge a few moments later. Ellen rolled a cigarette from dried tobacco in an old rust spotted tin that sat on the threadbare arm of the comfy old chair she was sat in. She licked the cigarette paper, looked critically at the roll-up she’d prepared, popped one end into her mouth, flicked her lighter, inhaled too quickly, and coughed – a thin, smoker’s cough. ‘I hope he’s not in bother, he’s not a bad lad really,’ she said, her cough now being a persistent ppf. Raj’s eyes flew to Reggie’s picture she had noted on the corner of the sideboard. ‘Bad Lad, Bad Lad,’ the frame read. Ellen followed her gaze and sighed. ‘He's easily led, alas has been, but he’s never been in trouble with the police.’
Raj flicked her shoulder-length hair, her large brown eyes found Andy’s, and she knew he was thinking the same thing.
‘I don’t know if Lucy has explained why we need to speak to you, but we are working on the murder investigation of a young woman called Julie Dixon.’
Ellen’s cigarette bobbed up and down with the movement of her lips. Unnoticed, a long section of grey ash fell onto her lap and when she suddenly sat up, it rolled onto the carpet. She rubbed it in with her slippered foot.
‘Julie Dixon was helping Lucy deliver parcels. You did know Lucy delivered parcels?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘Aye, Julie Dixon, poor lass, I remember her when she was younger. She used to come here on a Friday night before her and our Lucy went out on the town.’
‘So, Reggie knew Julie?’
Ellen nodded her head. ‘Yes, he got on with her better than he did our Lucy, until she took up with that Alan man.’ She screwed up her nose. She lowered her voice. ‘I think they had a bit of a thing going on but he alas denied it.’
‘When we found Julie’s vehicle there were some parcels in the back that hadn’t been delivered. As a matter of routine the packages were checked, and it is our job to trace everyone who has had contact with them.’
‘I don’t understand why you should want to see our Reggie?’ Ellen’s eye caught the sight of ash on her trousers and she licked her finger and rubbed it in.
‘Lucy has told us that Reggie took them to Julie’s house on her behalf.’
Ellen’s heavily plucked eyebrows moved down and knitted together in a frown. ‘I see.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘I don’t. I never know where he is these days.’ Ellen shook her head. ‘I doubt if he does either. His brain is pickled with that stuff he takes.’
‘You mean drugs?’
‘Aye, I mean drugs. What’s this Darknet and Bitcoin, that’s all I hear him talk about on the phone to his pals.’
Andy knowingly raised his eyebrows at Raj, who smiled at Ellen, who had no intention of waiting for a reply before continuing. ‘He came back from our Lucy’s this morning before I got up, ranting and raving he was. When I got downstairs he’d emptied my purse, and cleared off with my car. That’ll teach me to stay sober enough to remember to take my handbag upstairs with me when I go to bed.’ Ellen gave a little chortle before waving a flaying arm. ‘Ah, he’s insured and all that, so don’t worry. He’ll be back when the money runs out. He usually is.’
‘Can you tell us the make, model and registration number of your car? Just in case we come across it?’ Raj asked.
‘It’s a turquoise Fiat CHW 431W.’
‘Does Reggie have a mobile phone by any chance?’ Andy asked.
‘Says it was stolen and he can’t afford a new one but I’m not daft. I know he’s just saying that so that I don’t go on at him to give me his number and if I haven’t got his number then I can’t get hold of him. I’ve heard him talking to people when he’s in his room – he’s devious that one.’
