Above Suspicion (37 page)

‘How old is he?’ Langton frowned, checking McDowell’s records.

‘Fifty-two.’

McDowell’s list of crimes was part petty, but his association with prostitution was what interested Langton. He had a string of girls working for him at the club and a lot of them were on the game. He had been charged with living off immoral earnings.

‘Did you ever have an address for him? Shallcotte Street?’

They had so many addresses it was like an A to Z of Manchester, but there was no record of him living in the same house as Anthony Duffy or his prostitute mother. McDowell had moved constantly from one place to another.

‘He’s now in the basement of an old house that’s been earmarked for demolition, not far from the Granada TV studios.’ The sergeant shook his head in disgust. ‘It’s a real stinkhole of a place. I’d say he just dosses down there, or passes out. The guy has a massive drink problem. The nightclub was a big success for a while; all the stars used to hang out there. Unfortunately the profits he didn’t drink away, he put up his nose. He fancied himself as a ladies’ man.’

‘What about his Mercedes?’

‘It’s been in the pound for a week. He had fifty outstanding parking fines.’

Langton nodded. ‘Right. Let’s talk to him, then.’

They were shown to an interview room and supplied with coffee. It was ten minutes before they heard the thump of footsteps and a loud voice shouting: ‘What was I supposed to fucking do? You got that bitch in the cells? I bet my bollocks you’ve fucking let her go, but I’ve been here all fucking day. I want to see my solicitor, because this isn’t fucking right!’

When the door opened, there were two uniformed officers on either side of McDowell. Even after all they had heard about him he still took Langton and Lewis by surprise. He stood glowering before them: six foot three inches tall; bedraggled shoulder-length blond hair; a receding hairline. His tie and shoelaces had been removed, so his feet slopped out of his shoes as he walked in. His blue suit had a strange fifties look, with its draped jacket and baggy trousers. His dirty, stained shirt was open at the neck. He had enormous sloping shoulders, like Robert Mitchum.

When he saw Langton and Lewis, sitting on the opposite side of the bare table, McDowell looked confused.

‘What’s this about?’

Langton stood up. ‘I am Detective Chief Inspector James Langton from the Metropolitan Police and this is Detective Sergeant Lewis.’ When Langton shook his hand, the returning squeeze felt like iron, a big shovel. He looked down at a gnarled hand with knuckles that stood out, red-raw and callused.

‘We’d like to talk to you.’

McDowell closed his eyes. ‘Oh shit, I didn’t fucking kill him, did I?’

‘Who?’

‘The cop I knocked out.’

‘I’m here on a different enquiry. Please, sit down.’

‘Not until I know what this is about.’ McDowell stood, legs apart.

‘I am leading a murder enquiry, Mr McDowell. I would like to ask you some questions.’

‘No fucking way. I want a solicitor.’

Langton sighed. ‘Very well, that can be arranged.’

McDowell sat down. He asked for a smoke; Langton passed over his packet and then lit McDowell’s cigarette. The duty sergeant went off to find a solicitor from their lists and, until he returned, they had no option but to sit and wait. McDowell dragged on his cigarette.

‘You’re not charging me with anything, are you?’ ‘We need to ask you some questions if we’re to eliminate you from our enquiry.’ ‘What time is it?’

Lewis looked at his watch. ‘It’s half past five.’ ‘I’m going to lose my fucking job over this.’ McDowell shook his head. ‘They’ve had me here for over sixteen hours. I know my rights!’ He inhaled; the smoke drifted from his nose as his watery eyes looked from Langton to Lewis.

‘Shit, this is serious, isn’t it?’

Back at the station, Anna had typed up her Brighton report and handed it to Barolli. She glanced at him. ‘At the time of the murder, was Daniels under surveillance?’

‘No, that started later.’

‘So, it’s possible Daniels could have driven to Brighton.’

‘But how would he know she was there?’

Anna shrugged. ‘Maybe he asked your Cuban friend, back on Old Compton Street. Or perhaps when she was questioned, she found out who he was and contacted him. It could have been that way round.’

‘I’ll check it out,’ he yawned and rubbed his eyes.

Anna returned to her desk and looked over the memos that had collected while she was away. She asked Jean: ‘Am I on lates tonight?’

‘Yes, with the gov and Lewis out.’

‘Right.’ She stood up. ‘I’d better get a bite to eat in the canteen.’

‘Be a love and file this for me, on the way.’

Anna collected the file Jean held up, but before filing it away she skimmed the report which detailed the information so far received on McDowell. As she stood by the cabinet, her reading started to slow down. She had reached the description of McDowell’s car: a cream Mercedes-Benz. She hesitated and then placed the file in order. Now she opened another drawer and flipped through the files until she found one detailing the vehicle history for Alan Daniels. Then she found what she was looking for. The place Alan Daniels had sent his Mercedes to be crushed was called Wreckers Limited.

‘I thought you were getting something to eat?’

Anna returned to her desk and picked up her notebook. ‘Jean, the driver I had this afternoon, is he from downstairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was his name?’

‘I can’t remember, off the top of my head. PC

Moira supplied it. ‘PC Gordon White.’

‘Thank you. Can you do me a favour and see if he’s still around?’

‘He was in the canteen a minute ago,’ Jean offered.

She and Moira watched Anna bang out of the incident room and exchanged bemused smiles.

PC Gordon White had just finished off a plate of steak and kidney pie when he noticed Anna advancing on him from the other end of the canteen.

‘Gordon, could you do something for me?’

‘Of course,’ he responded.

On the table in front of him, Anna laid down the photograph of a car identical to the Mercedes formerly owned by Alan Daniels.

White nodded approvingly. ‘Mercedes, drop head 280SL; lovely motor.’

‘If someone had a prang,’ Anna began earnestly, ‘not a car smash, mind, just a prang, how costly do you think it would be to repair?’

‘Depends. They’re a very heavy car and they got big bumpers,’ he said solemnly. ‘They cost. If it was just the bodywork, you could probably be looking at a couple of grand, but they don’t have spare parts for them over the counter, since it’s a seventy-one model, so you’d need to go to someone dealing in those specific parts.’ He grinned. ‘Or you could come to me.’

‘There’s a company called Wreckers Limited. A breakers’ or crusher yard.’

‘Yes, it’s up in Watford.’

‘Could you take me there?’

‘Now? I’m off duty.’

‘No, I didn’t mean … This is sort of private. Could we go in the morning, first thing? I’d just like you there when I talk to them.’

‘I’m on at three to nine tomorrow. I could meet you there, say at ten in the morning.’

‘Thank you,’ Anna said gratefully. ‘I’ll be there at ten.’

McDowell’s solicitor was wearing a neat grey suit and blouse. She looked like she was in her early twenties.

They had waited for over three-quarters of an hour from the time she was phoned for her to turn up. In that time, McDowell had started to sweat profusely. When he drank some water, his body was shaking so badly that he had to steady the cup in both of his massive hands. He was being co-operative and answering their questions; he just badly needed a drink. When first of all he was shown a photograph of Lilian Duffy, he volunteered her name straight away. He agreed that for a very brief time he had lived at the house in Shallcotte Street. Langton asked him if he knew Lilian’s son, Anthony Duffy.

‘Yeah, I knew him.’ Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead. ‘Right little sod he was, Lilian’s son.’

‘Tell me what you know about him,’ Langton said quietly.

‘It was a long time ago,’ McDowell sighed. ‘One of my girls, a really lovely kid, had upped and left me. I’d heard she’d moved into Lilian’s doss house, so I went over there. They said Lilian was out on the street. I finally found her with her dress up round her waist in an alley, her and a punter, having it away. I pull him off her. He starts throwing a few punches so I give him a slap. She starts kicking and screaming. I get her by the throat, say I want to know where my girl was. The next minute, this fucking kid is on my back, punching me head in. I don’t even think she knew it was her kid. Anyway, when I heard the ding-dong, I left her on the ground. I didn’t want to get involved with cops; this was when I was trying to start my club, right? Next I hear, she’s been taken in. She’s so out of it, she says she’s been assaulted. She didn’t even know it was me who grabbed her, she was that far gone.’

‘I need to get something straight.’ Langton rubbed his head. ‘You assaulted Lilian. Her son, Anthony Duffy, broke up the fight. But when she reported the incident, she said that it was her son that had beaten her up, not you.’

‘That’s right. They do the whole business: get a doctor in to check her out, take her statement. They pick up her kid and then she denies everything. Do you mind?’ He took one of Langton’s cigarettes.

‘Were you arrested over the incident?’

‘Fuck, no. By then I knew to stay well clear of that bunch of whores. It was one of her drippers told me.’

‘Can you recall the next time you saw Anthony Duffy?’

His brow puckered, as he sucked the cigarette he held with his shaking hand.

‘Not sure. He used to just turn up. He’d be about sixteen, I guess. The time I remember, he kicked down the back door, yelling for her. He needed a passport. He’d got some school trip he wanted to go on and he’d had to come round for his birth certificate. He’s ranting and raving, really uptight about wanting his fucking birth certificate and she’s screaming that she doesn’t know where it is. And he hits her. Then she whacks him back. And I sort of broke them up. I remember, she started chucking stuff out of drawers and he was beside himself, crying at one point. Then she finds it. And she just throws it at him.’

McDowell started gulping at his beaker of water.

‘Then her kid looks at the birth certificate and asks why it’s blank for who was his father. She could be a real mean bitch.’

‘Go on, Mr McDowell,’ Langton said patiently.

‘She just laughed. Said she had no fucking idea; told him he could put in any name he could think of. And he, Anthony, her kid, stood there with this scrap of paper, crying. Because all the boys at school would know he didn’t have a father.’

He described how Lilian had snatched the birth certificate back and written on the document which she threw back at him. The boy had read the name out loud. Burt Reynolds. ‘I guess he was her favourite film star. When he read what she had written, I’ve never seen such …’ McDowell frowned. ‘He had these big eyes and they went like chips of ice.’

Langton asked McDowell if he had murdered Lilian Duffy. He blinked a few times, surprised, and shook his head.

One by one, Langton placed on to the table the photographs of the victims. When he saw Barbara Whittle, McDowell immediately identified her as one of the women in Shallcotte Street. He also admitted knowing victims three and four, Sandra Donaldson and Kathleen Keegan. Kathleen, he volunteered, had a number of kids but they had all been taken away by Social Services.

‘Kathleen was a terrible woman; sold her own kids to sickos. You know, for the paedophiles. I think she even messed around with Anthony.’

‘What was that?’ Langton leaned closer.

‘I heard she had used him, too, when he was a little kid. He was a very pretty little boy. Keegan would have used her own grandmother for money.’

When the picture of Mary Murphy was presented, McDowell easily identified her. He told them she had stayed at Shallcotte Street until it was demolished and then moved on. But when Langton showed him the photograph of Beryl Villiers there was a different reaction. He started to sob uncontrollably. He fell to a sitting position on the floor, his hands covering his head, moaning that Beryl was his little girl; the only one he had ever loved. Lewis and Langton had found another piece of the jigsaw. McDowell had been the man Beryl had run away from Leicester to be with. He had met her at the health spa where he had been the manager.

Although they tried to proceed with the questioning, McDowell lost control. Not only was he sobbing and shaking, but as he cried, spittle formed in globules at the sides of his mouth. A doctor was called in, who said he was going through the DTs and would be unable to talk coherently for some time. Now the duty sergeant brought up the fact that McDowell was due to be released. It was doubtful they would get an extension to hold him for any longer. If they took him before the magistrate court first thing in the morning asking to remand him in custody, the most they would get would be three days.

‘But he had a bag of tabs on him as well,’ Langton snapped.

‘Which is why we reckon the magistrates won’t grant him bail.’

‘Do what you can. We’ll be back in the morning to requestion him.’

By the time they left the station, exhausted, it was already half past seven in the evening. They still did not know if McDowell had been in London or travelled to the United States. They doubted it, but he was nevertheless in the frame and they had a search warrant for McDowell’s basement and a warrant for his Mercedes to be towed from the pound and examined for evidence.

Two uniformed officers from the Greater Manchester Police accompanied them to search McDowell’s flat. The steps leading down to it were littered with used food cartons, syringes and beer cans. The stink of urine was overpowering. They used wire clippers to open up the padlocks and gain entry to the dark, squalid flat. The carpet was wet under the feet, as a toilet was overflowing.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Lewis murmured. The old electricity box had been rewired, illegally; it was connected to the street-lights. The kitchen was full of empty vodka bottles. There was a loaf of stale bread on the counter and mice droppings everywhere.