Hell Hath No Fury (24 page)

‘Don't touch it!' Sergeant Thomas pushed him away. ‘We don't want your fingerprints on them,' he added by way of explanation.

‘I've already handled them,' Davy told him. ‘I checked over what was in the bag before I phoned you, see.'

The sergeant looked at him quizzically, waiting for him to go on.

‘Anything left at this site is mine; that's part of the agreement I have with the council,' Davy Howells told him defensively. ‘As a rule, mind, I don't bother looking into bags that are tied up. Usually they're only a lot of rubbish, see! This was different. I took it off the woman. Then when I was tossing it up into the skip the bag split open. I spotted the pair of black tracksuit bottoms, and those trainers, and they looked new, so I thought I'd see if they fitted me. Then I saw that mark on the trainers . . .' He paused and shuddered. ‘Never could stand the sight of blood . . .'

‘So you phoned the station.'

Davy Howells nodded. ‘I did the right thing, didn't I, Sergeant?'

‘Yes, you did, Davy. You'd better come down to the station later on so that we can take your prints, and you can give us a description of the person who handed you the bag.'

Davy gave him a crafty look. ‘Does that mean there might be some kind of reward?'

Sergeant Thomas pulled on his driving gloves, picked up the plastic sack, and started to walk away. ‘Thanks for your trouble.'

‘Hold on! Don't I get a receipt or anything?'

‘What for? You said yourself it was only rubbish!'

‘I want compensation! I could have worn those clothes and the trainers.'

Sergeant Thomas grinned as he loaded the bag into the boot of his panda car. ‘Nice try, Davy, but I'm afraid it won't work. Don't forget to pop into the station,' he added as he started up his car. ‘Otherwise you might find someone calling on you with a pair of handcuffs!'

‘S
uperintendent Wilson wants us in his office right away!'

The look Detective Inspector Ruth Morgan exchanged with Detective Sergeant Paddy Hardcastle conveyed more than any words could have done. It also emphasized the camaraderie that had slowly developed between them while they had been working on the Benbury murders, and the way they had both changed their opinion of each other.

When he had first been assigned as her sergeant, Paddy had resented the fact that she had been appointed inspector over his head. He was the one with experience, whereas she had gone straight from university to police training college with no practical knowledge whatsoever. He'd soon discovered, however, that she was dedicated to the job, and though she thought differently to him, the way she reasoned things out was stimulating and kept him on his toes.

For her part, Ruth had discovered that Paddy was not just a handsome six-footer with broad shoulders and a bland expression. Beneath that bluff exterior was a brain honed by experience that complimented her own shrewd reasoning.

Their early days had been marred by their suspicion of each other. Once they had discovered that working in tandem was preferable to each of them trying to score points, they became a formidable team.

They were still not sure that Detective Superintendent Wilson realized this, however. At every meeting he called he had indicated that he was still not satisfied with the progress they were making on the Benbury Murders. Some of the victims had been fellow members of his Masonic lodge, which accounted for the keen interest he was taking in the case.

‘If it is the work of a serial killer then perhaps he thinks his name is on the hit list as well,' Paddy said with a grimace.

‘Come on.' Ruth gathered up her notes. ‘Let's get it over. Our news this morning should convince him that we are making progress at last.'

Superintendent Wilson listened impassively as Ruth gave him details of their latest piece of evidence.

‘Have each of the items been checked out by Forensic yet?'

‘Yes, sir. And the stains on the trainers are the same blood group as Dennis Jackson's.'

‘And they were found near Oswestry, you say?'

‘That's correct, sir. The caretaker of a household waste site at Llansilin notified his local police. They were in a black plastic bin bag that had been handed in by a woman after he had closed last night,' she affirmed.

‘The logo on the instep of the trainer also ties in with the print found at the scene of Brian Patterson's murder,' added Paddy.

‘Have you checked out where the trainers were bought?'

‘Not yet, sir. It's next on our list.'

Superintendent Jackson scowled. ‘And what about the two people in the photograph. Any sightings?'

‘No, sir. The trouble is those photographs are almost twenty years old. Both the man and the woman will have changed since then and—'

‘Someone should recognize them. Friends from those days.' He turned to Paddy. ‘Didn't you say the man, Simon Gould, had gone into the car business?'

‘That was what Mr Perks, the history teacher from Benbury Secondary School, thought. Gould was a racing driver for a time. Then he met with a very bad accident and—'

‘Have you contacted all the petrol companies to see if any of them supply a garage run by a chap of that name?' interrupted the inspector impatiently.

‘It's being done now, sir,' Ruth told him. ‘As soon as we get a lead we'll investigate further.'

‘When you do, I want one of you visit the garage yourself, interview the fellow, find out what he knows. Understand?'

‘Of course, sir.'

‘It's more than likely that he's our man.'

‘Sir?' Ruth looked puzzled.

‘Have you forgotten everything you learned at training college about serial killers, Inspector?'

‘No! Of course not, but—'

‘Then surely you can see that he has a motive. A man who had a promising future until he met with an accident; a man so badly scarred that he's retreated from all his friends to start a new life. A man who probably sustained head injuries that have changed his entire personality and who now has a grudge against life, especially against his boyhood contemporaries who have all done well for themselves.'

‘There was also a girl in that school group,' Ruth said stubbornly.

‘Yes! What was her name?'

‘Maureen Flynn.'

‘Have you anything else on her?'

‘She was the only girl at Benbury Secondary School who passed her A-levels that year. She and her family left Benbury soon afterwards.'

‘Find her. She may be in grave danger if this fellow Gould is our man!'

‘Or she might be the killer,' Ruth observed, then bit her lip as she saw the look of anger mingled with surprise on the superintendent's face.

His eyes were hooded as he stared hard at her. ‘You mean you're looking for a woman?'

‘The trainer imprint was quite a small size. More likely to belong to a woman than a man.'

‘And the black jeans?'

She hesitated. ‘Unisex. They could have been worn by a man or a woman.'

‘And why would a woman want to kill four men who had been at school with her?'

Ruth shook her head. ‘I don't know.'

‘And what do you think, Sergeant? Do you think it might have been a woman?'

Paddy felt uncomfortable. There was a sneer in the superintendent's voice, and he suspected that Wilson intended him to ridicule Ruth's theory. Desperately, he tried to think of some way of supporting his colleague. ‘The men were all stabbed,' he hazarded. ‘Statistics show that a man is more likely to shoot his victim.'

‘So you both think this woman suddenly decides to kill all the men she was at school with almost twenty years ago?'

‘It's possible . . .'

‘Why?' The thunder of the superintendent's voice silenced Paddy. ‘Come on. If that is what you think, why do you think it?'

Paddy looked flummoxed. He shot a glance at Ruth, a silent plea for help, but before she could intervene, Superintendent Wilson stood up, indicating that the interview was at an end.

‘I want Simon Gould and Maureen Flynn found without delay,' he barked. ‘Fetch both of them in for questioning. Do you understand? Oh, and one more thing,' he stated as they were about to leave his office. ‘Don't forget to find out where those trainers were bought!'

Tracing the shops which stocked the trainers proved surprisingly easy. They were a special consignment that had been imported from Korea, and the logo was an exclusive trademark.

The importers supplied a small chain of shops called Quicksale and were able to provide a list of all their shops which had taken a delivery of the trainers. None of them were in Benbury.

‘The nearest seems to be in Dutton, about fifty miles away,' mused Paddy. ‘Shall I go and check it out?'

‘No, I will. You try and locate this fellow Gould,' Ruth told him.

They still had some of the trainers in stock at Dutton, and the manager confirmed that usually they were purchased by women customers.

‘They're not broad enough for most boys or young men,' he explained.

They'd sold about a dozen pairs in varying sizes. Two of the pairs sold could possibly have provided the imprint found at the scene of Brian Patterson's murder.

‘You do keep a record of each sale?' Ruth asked, hopefully.

‘Not the name of the customer, I'm afraid.' He shrugged. ‘All they want is a receipt to check against their credit card statement . . .'

‘But you do have a record of their credit card number?'

He frowned, as if unable to see where her question was leading.

‘If you have the customer's credit card number then the credit card company will have a record of the customer's name,' she pointed out. ‘Can you turn them up for me?'

Ten minutes later she had the good news . . . and the bad. One pair of trainers had been bought by credit card, but that transaction had only taken place the previous day. The other pair had been bought a few days before Patterson's murder, but the customer had paid in cash.

‘Can we ask the assistant who made the sale if she remembers anything about the customer?' Ruth pressed.

‘We can ask her.'

The assistant was a smart, pleasant-faced girl in her early twenties. ‘Yes, I remember the sale,' she told them brightly. ‘They were bought by a slim dark woman in her mid-thirties. I thought it rather odd that someone as smartly dressed as she was should be buying trainers. Then I thought that perhaps she went jogging to keep fit.'

Ruth smiled. ‘That is most helpful. Do you always remember your customers in such detail?'

The girl shook her head. ‘No! I remember this customer because I was working as a holiday relief at our Endover shop a couple of days later, and she came in there and bought another pair of identical trainers!'

‘You served her?'

‘No. The girl who did passed the same comment though – that she didn't look the sort of person to buy trainers . . . Not cheap ones, anyway.'

‘So, how well can you describe her?'

‘Well, like I said, she was slim and wearing a suit. Nothing flashy; bit drab, in fact.

‘Anything else?'

‘Not much make-up. She was pleasant but quite ordinary looking, really.'

‘And her voice?'

The girl shrugged. ‘She didn't speak. Except to say “thank you” when I handed over her change.'

‘She must have told you what size trainer she wanted.'

‘No.' The girl shook her head. ‘All our stock there is laid out so that customers can make their own selection. They are left to browse and try the shoes on. When they find what they want they bring them over to the counter and pay for them.'

‘You don't talk to them . . .? Try to sell them something else?'

She shrugged. ‘That's usually a waste of time. Most of them resent it if you suggest they even look at anything else. They know what they want before they come in. If we've got it they buy it, and if we haven't they go to another shop.'

Sergeant Hardcastle had almost come to the conclusion that they had been misinformed about Simon Gould being in the motor trade. None of the larger petrol companies had anyone of that name on their books.

‘We have no tenant or manager of that name. He probably has his own garage and trades under a company name,' he was told over and over again.

‘Have you tried Swansea? If he does MOTs then he might be on their records,' suggested Ruth. ‘I still think it's a waste of time chasing after him,' she added.

She had already told Paddy how successful she'd been in tracing the trainers. He'd agreed with her that buying two pairs within as many days was highly suspicious. It had been a long shot, but since the first pair of trainers had been bought in Dutton, Ruth had gone through the local electoral list to see if there was a Maureen Flynn living in the town. And it had paid off. A Maureen Flynn lived at Twenty-Five Windermere Mews.

‘We'll go and have a word with her,' stated Ruth. ‘If she's the person we're looking for there mightn't be any need to trace Simon Gould.'

They were on the outskirts of Dutton before Paddy asked the question that had been troubling him for the past hour.

‘Why are you so certain that the killer is a woman? Apart from the theory I put forward to the inspector's office that men don't usually stab their victims, that is.'

She was silent for such a long time that he shot a sideways glance to see if she had heard his question.

‘Intuition.'

He took another swift glance to see if she was laughing at him, but her face was patterned by the changing light and the shadows from the trees that lined the road they were driving along.

‘I don't understand.'

‘It was that photograph that set me thinking. The only girl in that year who had proved that she was as good as the boys. And then she completely disappears! No one in Benbury seems to know what happened to her afterwards . . . not even her teachers or the boys she had been at school with and who were in the photograph with her.'