After the Fire (31 page)

And so was I. I got up and roamed around the place, restless. There were things to do – laundry, cleaning, tidying – but I couldn’t settle to any of it. Waiting for something to happen was sheer, bloody murder.

I would have welcomed an actual bloody murder.

When my phone rang, I raced across to snatch it up, excited as a gun dog running to retrieve a shot bird. ‘Kerrigan.’

‘I’ve just had a phone call from the hospital.’ No preamble: Derwent at his most abrupt. ‘Becky Bellew died this morning at six.’

My mood swung from high to low in seven words. I sat down, feeling like the worst person in the world. ‘Poor little girl.’

‘Yeah. Well, she wasn’t going to have an easy time of it, was she?’

‘No. But—’

‘I know.’ It was all he said, but I knew what he meant.

‘So what now?’

‘Well, there’s no point in trying to speak to Debbie or Carl Bellew. We won’t get near them.’

I didn’t want to anyway. Talking to grieving parents was an art in itself, but it was something no one enjoyed. You did it when you had no choice in the matter. ‘So … Louise Bellew?’

‘I’d say it’s our best chance to see her unaccompanied, wouldn’t you? They’re not going to want the other kids to be hanging around. Maybe the brother but the little girls would be a pain in the arse. They’ll leave Louise at home with the kids.’

‘Then that’s where we should go.’

‘I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.’

‘Half an hour,’ I wheedled.

‘Twenty minutes.’ He was gone.

It was easy to see from the outside why Louise Bellew had laughed at the idea of accommodating her husband’s brother and his family. The house in Eastfield Lane was modern, small and aggressively tidy. It was a neat little townhouse, all red brick and white detailing, and it was about two minutes from the Maudling Estate on foot. Neither son had ended up very far from their mother, it seemed. The entire front garden was paved and three cars sat on it, all expensive, fast saloon cars. Derwent gave a low whistle. ‘I’d have that one.’

‘The Audi?’ It was a heavy A6 S line in black. ‘Why?’

‘It would go like shit.’

‘So would the Impreza,’ I observed.

‘I think I’ve grown out of Subarus.’ He sounded sorrowful.

‘It had to happen sometime. You’re a bit old for them now.’ That made him glower at me. I hurried to change the subject. ‘What about the BMW M5? That’s a powerful car.’

‘Yeah. Look at the Audi, though.’

‘You’re drooling.’

He pulled himself together. In fact, I was glad he was talking about the cars. He’d been quiet on the way over, uncharacteristically so. He hadn’t even complained that I’d kept him waiting. He had arrived a couple of minutes ahead of time so it wasn’t technically my fault, but that had never stopped him from being grumpy about it before. I wondered about it – about whether it was Becky Bellew’s death that was upsetting him, or something else.

‘Come on.’ Derwent had a good long look at the Audi as he went past it, humming appreciatively under his breath, but he was all business by the time he knocked on the door. Standing right outside the house it was possible to hear jangling music coming from inside, and a television, and a child screaming in rage. Derwent raised his eyebrows at me meaningfully and I shuddered.

‘Hold on. Hold on. Just wait, Tanz.’ Louise pulled the door open as far as the chain would allow. She looked surprised, and then wary. ‘What is it?’

‘Police, Mrs Bellew.’ Derwent held up his ID. ‘We met before.’

‘I know who you are.’ It was the same high wispy voice I’d noticed before, unexpected given her size.
Don’t notice me. Don’t look at me.
The brothers had both chosen meek women to marry, apologetic for the mere fact of their existence. I could understand why they hadn’t wanted to find someone like their dear old mum.

Louise was watching us, wary. ‘What do you want?’

‘To have a word with you, if we might.’

‘Carl’s not here. No one’s here.’

‘You’re here,’ I said. ‘And we wanted to talk to you.’

‘I don’t know nothing.’ She was very fair and her complexion was telling me everything I needed to know: a guilty flush across her cheeks and neck, raw pink eyelids from crying. Her nails had been immaculate the last time I saw her, but now they were in a state: chipped, peeling, broken. This was a woman under considerable stress.

Just the kind of witness we could bully into cooperating. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt. She was an easy target. I knew Derwent sensed it too, but he was more than happy to exploit it.

‘Please. We could really use your help. It might be vital in helping us locate the people who did this to Becky.’

Her eyes went wide. ‘Do you know who done it?’

‘We have some leads we’re pursuing.’

Behind Louise, a child wailed. She flinched.

‘Mummy …’

‘Not
now
, Tansy.’

The grizzling started low and ran up through the octaves, getting louder by the second.

Louise stared dully into the distance above our heads. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ She slammed the door and Derwent and I looked at one another: had we misjudged it that badly? Then there was a clatter as she undid the chain.

‘You’d better come in.’

She went ahead of me down the narrow hallway, tugging her sweatshirt down over shapeless jeans. The kitchen was immaculate, full of the kind of gleaming surfaces I associated with ads for cleaning products I would never buy. The two little girls were in the corner playing with a toy kitchen, squabbling over a saucepan they both wanted.

‘Lola. Tansy. Quit it now.’ Louise bent down and grabbed the saucepan, holding it above their heads. ‘I’ll take it away if you don’t shut up.’

‘No, Mummy, give it back!’

‘Please, Mummy.’

She held it for a moment, then gave it to one of the girls. I hadn’t yet worked out which one was which. They were dressed the same but one was fair and one dark.

‘Are they twins?’

‘Yeah. They’re nearly four.’

‘Twins are hard work.’

‘Yeah.’ She half-smiled, then rubbed her forehead, as if she was regretting her moment of weakness. She slid into a chair at the table. ‘Sit down.’

I took the chair nearest hers, leaving Derwent to sit at the end of the table. ‘Thanks for talking to us. I know it’s not easy. We’re obviously very sorry about Becky.’

‘It’s dreadful,’ she whispered. ‘Poor little girl. Only seven years old.’ The tears were welling in her eyes and she reached for a box of tissues, setting it on the table with a clatter.

‘She was very ill.’

‘Never had a chance.’ Louise blew her nose noisily. ‘Debbie’s going to take it hard, not that I blame her. I’d kill myself if anything happened to them two.’

The two little girls were playing more quietly, faces turned towards us. Listening.

‘That’s why we want to find whoever started the fire,’ Derwent said. ‘In case they do it again.’

Louise got up and put the used tissue in the bin, flinging herself back into the chair with more force than was strictly necessary. ‘I don’t know how I can help. I wasn’t even there.’

‘We’d just like to ask you some things about the family,’ I said. ‘General questions. It’s background information, really, but there’s no one we can ask at the moment. We don’t want to disturb Carl and Debbie.’

‘You could talk to Rocco.’

I didn’t want to talk to Rocco. ‘Where is he?’

‘I don’t know.’ She picked up her mobile phone and stared at it. ‘He hasn’t been in touch.’

I was aware of Derwent shifting in his seat beside me.
Get on with it. We might not have long.

‘One of the theories we have, Louise, is that the arson attack was aimed at your brother-in-law and his family. But obviously that would be quite a serious thing, wouldn’t it? They’d have to have upset someone a lot.’

She nodded, not looking at me.

‘So we were wondering if you could tell us if there’s anything we should know about Carl, or the family. Is there someone with a grudge against them? Someone they haven’t mentioned to us because they want to sort it out themselves?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice was practically inaudible.

‘What does Carl do for a living?’ I asked.

Her eyelids flickered. ‘I can’t remember … I don’t—’

‘You don’t remember what he said when we talked to him at the hospital?’ Derwent asked the question gently. ‘Because whatever he told us wasn’t true?’

A nod.

‘Is it drugs?’

‘What? No!’ Her mouth hung open for a moment: genuine offence. ‘They would never have anything to do with drugs. No way.’

‘We have to ask,’ I said. ‘Looking at the cars outside. Looking at the contents of the flat. It was a tower-block flat in a mainly council estate and it was kitted out like Buckingham Palace. Where was the money coming from, Louise? What paid for this house?’

‘Rocco works hard. Both the boys do.’

‘Doing what?’

She was crying again, tears sliding down the sides of her nose. She sniffed a couple of times, struggling for composure. ‘I don’t want to get in trouble.’

‘With who? With us?’

She managed a wobbly laugh. ‘No.’

‘With them?’ No answer. I pressed on. ‘We can protect you. We can hide the fact that you were our source of information. Even if what they’re doing is illegal, that’s not our concern.’
At the moment
. ‘We want to know why someone might have attacked the flat. Debbie seemed to suggest that Carl knew more than he was letting on about that.’

‘Did she?’ Her eyes went wide with surprise. ‘She said that?’

‘She did. But we didn’t get to talk to her again and now really isn’t the time to press her on it. You’re the only chance we have to work out what happened here. If your husband and brother-in-law are engaged in criminal activity of some kind, it could explain why the fire was started. It could lead us to the people responsible. We’re not trying to trap them. Our focus is on finding out who started the fire that ended Becky’s life. I know it’s hard to think that Carl and Rocco might have to bear some responsibility for what happened but that’s not why we’re asking.’

‘It’s not them.’ She gave a half-hearted shrug. ‘Well, it is them. They work for
her
.’

‘For …’ I prompted.

‘For Nina.’

‘Doing what?’ Derwent asked.

‘They’re her muscle.’ She sniffed. ‘Nina’s got her own business. She’s a loan shark.’

‘A money lender?’

‘Yeah. She has been for years. You know how it goes. You borrow twenty quid, pay back thirty by the end of the week. Borrow a hundred, pay a hundred and fifty. Only no one ever pays it back. Not all of it.’

‘Has she got a lot of customers?’ Derwent asked. ‘It takes a lot of twenties to pay for cars like the ones you’ve got outside.’

‘I don’t know how many people she’s got on her books. She has a notebook in her handbag and a lot of cash. She keeps the books in her safe with the rest of the money.’

I looked at Derwent who nodded slightly. The firefighters had located the safe but, somehow, we hadn’t got around to giving it back to Nina Bellew yet. That was looking like a good decision.

Louise sniffed again. ‘I know Carl and Rocco are out every night calling on people.’

‘Intimidating them?’ I asked. ‘Hurting them?’

Louise wriggled. ‘They’re big lads. They don’t have to hurt anyone to make people take them seriously. You know how it is. You have to make people take responsibility for what they’ve borrowed.’

And the debts mounted up and up, with no way of paying them off, as Nina Bellew sat and calculated her profits.

‘Is that why they lived on the estate?’

Louise nodded. ‘Nina likes to be among her people. That’s what she says. She likes to keep an eye on them. She’s famous in the estate. Everyone knows Nina. It’s like a joke. If you say you want something, someone will say, “Ask Nina.”’

She liked to see the people who were struggling so she could offer to help them out, I thought. She liked to get chatting to the hopeless, the helpless, the needy. She liked to see where the money was going. She liked to know who’d collected their benefits and might have some cash to spare to chip away at the mountain of debt she’d built in front of them.

‘Has she ever been arrested for illegal money lending?’

‘No. No one ever complains about her. Too scared. But she was inside before. She was arrested in the sixties.’

‘What for?’

‘Prostitution,’ Louise smirked. ‘And robbing her customers. Where do you think the money came from in the first place?’

‘I looked her up,’ Derwent said. ‘She doesn’t have a record.’

‘Oh yeah. She gave you the wrong date of birth,’ Louise said carelessly. ‘And the wrong surname. She uses that name and date of birth when anyone asks.’

‘Damn it,’ Derwent began and I quelled him with a look. We had more important things to discuss with Louise.

‘Money lending is a risky business,’ I said. ‘You don’t make friends doing that.’

‘They’ve had a bit of trouble now and then,’ Louise admitted. ‘But nothing like this.’

‘What kind of thing?’

‘Fights. Someone keyed Carl’s car once and he was livid. But mostly people stay away from them. They’re scared of Nina. She’s got no soul, that woman, and she’s got Carl and Rocco under her thumb. They’d do anything for her. Whatever she said. And she’d say anything to get her hands on money.’ She looked frightened. ‘Listen, don’t get me wrong. Rocco’s done nothing too bad. He’s not the violent one.’

‘But Carl is?’

‘Carl …’ She shivered. ‘He just doesn’t think. He does what she wants him to do. If that’s smashing someone’s face in, he does it.’

‘Has he done that? Smashed someone’s face in?’

‘It’s just an example,’ Louise whispered, shrinking a little. ‘I don’t know. Don’t ask me anything else.’

‘We’ll follow it up.’ Derwent nodded at me and we got up to go.

‘Please don’t tell them I told you about it. She’d kill me. Literally kill me.’

‘We won’t say a word,’ Derwent assured her.

‘We’ll say it was an anonymous tip-off. Very useful,’ I said. ‘Surprisingly common.’

‘As long as they don’t find out.’ Louise hugged herself, still terrified.