One Bad Turn (20 page)

The front room was silent as Coupland walked back into it. Derek was showing Ashcroft something on his phone. Ashcroft, nodding politely, looked relieved to see him standing in the doorway. ‘Holiday snaps,’ the DC widened his eyes. Coupland stepped into Derek’s line of vision, ‘Can you tell me what happened yesterday?’

The widower reared his head in Coupland’s direction, ‘You mean apart from my wife being murdered?’

‘I mean the part where you saw fit to punch a hole in your spare room wall.’

‘How do you know it was me?’ he challenged.

Coupland’s gaze fell to the swollen knuckles on his right hand.

‘I thought he’d got that during the run in with his son,’ Ashcroft muttered, wrong footed, ‘I suspect that’s what he hoped you’d think, our timing couldn’t have been better this morning, arriving just as you two were practically laying into each other…’ Coupland perched on the arm of the settee, ‘now tell me what happened.’

A sour look passed across Derek’s face but it was fleeting. ‘She’d been all perky the night before. Seemed to be enjoying my company, hadn’t snapped at me or pulled me up for something I had or hadn’t done.’ Coupland could see how that would seem like a good thing. He nodded for Derek to continue. ‘Even so, she still went to her room early as usual. I followed her upstairs, hung around outside the bedroom door to see if she was on the phone to someone but she wasn’t, though I could hear her tapping onto her laptop. The next morning I slipped into her room while she was making herself some breakfast - she doesn’t like me hovering about her, prefers if we eat at separate times…’ and this was a man who thought they were on the verge of a reconciliation, Coupland thought, not unkindly, ‘…and had a snoop at her emails. There she was,’ his face clouded once more, ‘emailing some guy about meeting up that night. She came back to her room and went mad because she’d caught me prying “in her personal business” as she called it - but can you blame me? She practically suggested I’d driven her to it with my irritating ways and I’m afraid I saw red and…’

‘Put your fist through the wall.’ Coupland finished for him.

‘I regretted it straight away,’ Derek added, ‘she left then, shouting “Don’t bother waiting up,” It was the last thing she said to me.’

‘What did you do after she left?’

Derek’s eyes fell onto the laptop nestled under Coupland’s arm. ‘I tried to see if I could find out who it was that had scuppered my chances of getting back into her good books.’

‘And?’

‘Funnily enough it wasn’t someone she’d met on a dating site, it was a parent from school.’

Coupland regarded him sharply, ‘What makes you say that?’

A shrug, ‘I dunno, I got the impression their paths crossed through her job, going by the messages they exchanged. He could be a teacher I suppose, but then they wouldn’t need to email each other if he was at the same school, would they? It’s not like she went out much, so I can’t see how else they’d have been introduced... Anyway, however they met it looked as though they were finally going on a date.’ Coupland furrowed his brow. ‘She was wearing her good jacket,’ Derek explained, ‘and I noticed her slip her makeup bag into her briefcase.’ Good job he hadn’t seen the knickers in her handbag then, Christ knows what state her room would have been in. Coupland caught Ashcroft’s eye, the look the DC gave him told him he’d been thinking the same thing. ‘So why did you tell me you didn’t know what she was doing after she’d finished work?’

‘Who’d want to admit their wife was going off to meet another man? I didn’t want to admit it to myself never mind you lot.’

Coupland studied him pointedly. ‘When did you decide to repair the wall, Derek?’ Derek looked away, shoved his hands deep into his pockets to stop him wrestling with his conscience. A sigh. ‘I decided straight away to fix it, if Raph had caught sight of it he’d have gone berserk, tried to get her to move out properly.’ Coupland’s mouth formed a thin line. ‘I’ll put it another way, Derek, shall I? When exactly did you repair the wall upstairs?’

‘You know when!’ Derek spat, glaring at Coupland as the detective turned his hands over to show white marks on his fingertips. ‘You mean the wet paint on my hands?’ Coupland said, ‘I want to hear you say it, Derek, and I want you to explain why.’ Derek’s voice sounded choked, as though he’d swallowed razor blades or had a bad bout of tonsillitis. ‘After the two cops had left this morning…before
she
came,’ he indicated the FLO standing outside the kitchen’s back door, puffing on a cigarette while checking messages on her phone, ‘I went upstairs. I wanted to be close to Kathleen, to be surrounded by her things. Only the first thing I clapped eyes on was the damage I’d caused the day before and realised how it would look. I thought it was better to repair it before someone got the wrong idea.’

‘And what idea would that be?’

‘That maybe I’d hurt her, or at least…that I wasn’t the doting husband I made out to be.’

Coupland sighed. Kathleen was going out on a date. Whether she’d met this fella online or through the school where she worked it didn’t really matter. The soon to be ex-husband had confessed to throwing his weight around in a fit of jealousy on the day she was killed. ‘We’re going to have to take you in,’ Coupland shouted for the FLO to get rid of her fag and join them in the living room. ‘Get onto control,’ he ordered sharply, making a point of looking at her collar number. Blotches of red spread along her cheeks as she reached for her radio. Coupland turned back to Derek as the widower gripped onto the sofa’s headrest to steady himself. He felt some sympathy for the man, ‘It’s standard procedure,’ he explained, ‘the sooner we get you eliminated as a suspect the better, but in the light of what you’ve just told me…’

The custody suite at Salford Precinct was half empty. Derek was processed at the desk and led to a cell where he sat motionless on the dark grey mattress. Coupland watched him for a moment on the CCTV monitor which jumped after a few minutes to different occupants in the neighbouring cells. He turned away from the screen towards the custody sergeant. ‘I’ll get one of Quinlan’s team to question him. He isn’t a person of interest but we need to go through the motions, make sure we don’t miss anything in case some bloody lawyer later down the line claims this was a case of domestic abuse.’ The custody sergeant nodded. He’d not long come on shift, a good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast behind him had made him biddable, certainly more so than the other day. He took a swig from a coffee mug and made a note on the custody record.

While Ashcroft went in search of DS Quinlan to update him Coupland slipped outside for a puff on his vape stick. He’d read somewhere the idea was to keep to his smoking routine so he didn’t feel the change from cigarettes so acutely. He wasn’t convinced, his lungs waited for the hit of nicotine that was refusing to come. Ashcroft ambled towards him, licking his finger and thumb. ‘Someone’s brought cakes in,’ he explained, ‘don’t worry,’ he added, clocking the look on Coupland’s face, ‘I’ve put one in your desk drawer,’ Coupland nodded in gratitude, ‘We’ll make a good detective of you yet,’ he grinned.

‘What did you make of the pair of them?’ Ashcroft inclined his head in the direction of the custody block. ‘What? The arctic freeze between father and son? It happens,’ Coupland rolled his shoulders, ‘most likely they’ve both got a point, just too pig headed to realise.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of disrespecting my old man,’ Ashcroft shook his head as he said this, the way someone would who’d only known a happy childhood. Coupland had spoken out of turn just the once, grabbed hold of the fist reigning down on him, told his old man if he raised his hand to him again he would kill him. For both their sakes he’d moved out that night. Lynn had paved the way towards a ceasefire, a barest acknowledgement that each other existed. Not every family got it right all the time, he’d seen enough over the years to know that. But Christ, he shuddered at the thought that an unsuitable boyfriend could come between him and Amy.

Coupland barely recognised anyone in the incident room. Quinlan’s team had bagged the desks that had been brought through, some were busy on phones following up actions they’d been allocated earlier, others were typing up reports and cross referencing data from HOLMES. Quinlan’s voice grated in the hallway long before he appeared, carrying two coffees, his tongue poking out through his lips as he tried not to spill them. ‘You shouldn’t have,’ Coupland helped himself to one as Quinlan placed them on a table in front of the incident board.

‘I didn’t,’ he shrugged, mouthing an apology to a DC already seated there. ‘Don’t mind me,’ the detective said, getting to his feet, ‘time I was back out there anyway.’ Coupland pushed the coffee towards the man guiltily, only to feel worse when he waved it away. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked, by way of compensation. The DC pulled a face that implied frustration. ‘There doesn’t appear to be anything linking these women. We’ve checked out jobs, social circles, hobbies, even schools.’ The man was wiry, with a lined face that’d give Mick Jagger a run for his money. There were dark circles under his eyes but the night shift did that, and a weariness about his mouth that made it turn down at the corners. Nicotine stained fingers suggested a smoking habit Coupland could only aspire to. He looked a grafter though, one of those men who didn’t make a big deal of it, could be trusted to get on with the job in hand. ‘Maybe it’s not about the women,’ offered Coupland, ‘maybe they are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Quinlan blew across the top of his coffee, ‘But there’s usually a trigger,’ he said, ‘the way they look, the way they speak, the job they do, or simply the access he’s been given to them - how does he meet them? He could be a cab driver, client, shop assistant…’

‘I can look into that, boss,’ the DC piped up; ‘I’ve drawn a blank on just about everything else I’ve looked at.’ Quinlan nodded, patting the DC on the back as he headed towards the door.

‘Seems a decent guy,’ Coupland observed.

‘Whitehead? Salt of the earth, fifteen hours straight but he won’t knock off until he finds a lead. He’s like a hungry dog searching for a scrap.’

‘Thought he’d have bypassed you by now then, what with you being a lazy bastard.’

Quinlan’s laugh was genuine, he was known for not liking to get his hands dirty, was more than happy keeping a professional distance. ‘Since when was it about ability?’ he smiled, ‘C’mon, you should know better than that. Whitehead’s thoroughness has got up noses in the past, not enough to ostracise him, but I daresay the powers that be think it’s better to keep him out of harm’s way.’ You can’t get anyone’s backs up if you don’t have any clout.

‘Who’ve you sent to question Derek Williams?’

‘DC named Baxter, ten years plus on the clock, he knows what he’s doing.’ He saw the look on Coupland’s face, ‘No one on my team’ll let you down, it’s in all our interests to get this bastard off the streets.’ Coupland nodded, though it pained him to think Quinlan was talking sense for once.

Sometimes during an investigation it was possible for a case to develop mission creep; his role was to keep the team focused on the critical lines of enquiry. This investigation needed him to take off his blinkers and view the case from a number of different dimensions, gather evidence from an ever increasing range of sources until something clicked. He just wished that click would come sooner rather than later. Ashcroft spoke next, ‘What about potential links through their partners? You know, sports clubs, gym memberships, bars. Maybe they frequent the same casino, have run up a few debts at the local bookies…’

‘So someone decides to wipe out their partners because they’re owed a few bob?’ Quinlan pulled a face, ‘That’s not how you go about getting a debt repaid.’

‘I know, but someone has done just that, and even if the motive turns out not to be money, that doesn’t mean any other reason is more deserved.’ Ashcroft had a point. ‘We push on in every direction,’ Coupland reminded them, ‘at the moment we don’t have the luxury of being choosy.’ He turned to Quinlan, ‘Just make sure you’re sending out guys like Whitehead and Baxter, we haven’t got the manpower to keep going back if someone less experienced misses something.’ Quinlan’s eye flickered at the slight but he was professional enough to know that now wasn’t the time to take offence at ill-chosen words; he took out his note pad and wrote down actions he would allocate as each detective returned.

Coupland’s desk phone rang and he signalled for a passing DC to answer it. ‘Chief Superintendent Curtis wants to see you.’ The DC called over. The Super’s meeting at HQ hadn’t lasted long then. Coupland clenched his teeth, along with other body parts, as he made his way to Curtis’s office. The door had been left open; Coupland grazed it briefly with his knuckles as he entered the room. Mallender had been summoned too by the look of it, he was already seated; both he and Curtis were staring at a flat screen TV watching news coverage of the aerial view of Bude Hill Primary School playground where Kathleen Williams’ body had been found. The camera focussed on the tent erected in the middle of the playground, the red ticker tape along the bottom of the screen reported the breaking news that a third woman’s body had been found in Salford in the space of a week, before the image on screen moved to footage of the press appeal put out only four days earlier for information relating to the murders of Sharon Mathers and Maria Wellbeck. The main image was of Curtis although Coupland could be seen clear as day in the background. If there was one thing he hated more than looking at photographs of himself it was looking at his moving image on screen, and this footage did nothing to change that view. It was the standing still that got to him. He might not make it onto the Jamaican sprint team any time soon but he was fit for his build, always ready on the balls of his feet to tear after someone if he had to, or move out of the way sharpish when needed. Everything about his demeanour yelled
Fight or Flight
. Although he’d been nothing more than part of the back drop in the appeal, his expression was easy enough to read. The pursing of his lips when the Super was asked a question, the widening of his eyes when he answered it. Coupland would never rise above the rank of sergeant, a badge of honour he wore with pride. Sometimes he found it hard to hide his disdain for those who flaunted their ambition. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d been told to keep his poker face on when in the presence of the press. His gaze flickered away from the screen and back to the senior officers seated before him. He placed his hands behind his back, waited for a bollocking that didn’t come.