The Handshaker (17 page)

Millie raised her eyebrows. “Such as?”

Croft hesitated. He had not come here to talk about Sandra Lumb and he had enough worries on Trish’s safety without getting into issues of client confidentiality.

“I’m not sure I should be telling you any of this, Millie,” he hedged.

“Mr Croft – Felix – Sandra is all but dead. It’s an apparent suicide –”

“
Apparent
suicide?” Croft was appalled at Millie’s lack of concern. “There was nothing apparent about the way she threw herself over the rail.”

“All right, all right,” Millie acquiesced. “It’s suicide. I have to put together a report on the matter and if you don’t answer my questions now, you’ll have to answer them when we come to the coroner’s hearing.”

Croft fought back, bringing his own concerns to the fore. “I came here because I’ve had another note and this time it refers directly to Trish. I’m not here to speculate on what may have caused one of my clients to commit suicide.”

“I’m aware of that,” argued Millie, “but events have overtaken you.”

“Trish is in danger.”

Millie let out a sigh. “Does the note tell you where she is?”

“No.”

“Right,” Millie insisted, “so the few minutes we take to deal with Sandra Lumb’s suicide won’t make much difference, will they?”

Croft felt his brain was about to burst. What the hell did he have to do to get these people to prioritise? “Every minute is vital and you haven’t even looked at the thing yet.”

Her frustration getting the better of her as much as Croft’s was beating him, Millie handed the envelope to Begum. “Get this down to forensics. I want the full monty on it, and I want it ten minutes ago.”

“Right, guv.” Begum left with the envelope and Millie turned back to Croft.

“Happy now?”

“Thank you.”

“Right. Let’s get back to Sandra.” Millie spent a moment scanning Begum’s notes and allowing her temper to cool. When she again addressed him, she was calmer, but still severe and businesslike. “We were talking about her depression; her GP said it was down to Alf’s bullying and Damon taken into care. You also said there were other factors. Can you elucidate on that?”

Still he hesitated, seeking an excuse not to say anything. But he could not find one. He cleared his throat. “I, er, look, I shouldn’t be saying any of this without the permission of a next of kin or someone like that, but Sandra was convinced she had a terminal cancer.”

Millie suppressed her surprise, but not before Croft had noticed it flicker across her face. “And had she?”

“No,” Croft declared. “When she first mentioned it, I contacted her GP again and he told me that Sandra’s mother had died of bowel cancer some years previously and that Sandra had stomach pains, but he put it down to irritable bowel syndrome, brought on by the stress under which she lived.”

“Alf and the kid again?” Millie asked.

He nodded. “Correct. The GP ran all the standard tests, I arranged for them to be done again with my own doctor, Christopher Parsons, and he also ran an MRI scan. Everything came back negative, but Sandra wouldn’t have it. She had persuaded herself that she had cancer and was going to die a long, slow death like her mum.”

Millie toyed with the idea for a moment. “Could that have pushed her into committing suicide?”

“Impossible to say,” Croft admitted. “Really, you should be asking a psychologist or psychiatrist, but even they may be vague on it. We can’t read what’s going on in other people’s minds, you see. We can only make educated guesses. My private opinion is no, but then, in theory, she should have been able to accept the conclusions of the tests, and she did not. If we take that psychosomatic illness and add it to the stresses and strains of living with a man like Alf, her only child in foster care, then it might just have been enough.” He frowned, his memory running back over the sessions he had had with Sandra. “But my work should have countered any problems like that.”

Millie leaned back in her chair, dropping her pen on the statement form. “What was your approach?”

He gave a throwaway shrug. “Build on her self-esteem, what else? Alf’s bullying, Damon’s, er, absence, for want of a better word, the imagined illness, all conspired to convince her that she was a wretch, who deserved nothing but pain and punishment. Under hypnosis, I tried to persuade her that this was not the case. That she was a valuable human being with much to contribute to marriage, life, society in general. It’s a standard approach when dealing with low self-esteem.”

The door burst open, startling them both. Begum rushed in. For a moment, Croft detected a hint of furious anger in Millie’s features, but Begum did not give the inspector the chance to voice it. “Excuse me, Mr Croft. Boss. We need a word. In private.”

Croft looked on worriedly while they left the room. The door was closed behind them leaving him totally alone to imagine the worst.

Trish had been found hanging in some hellhole. Like the other victims, she was stripped naked, the life throttled from her.

A tumult of emotions flooded through him from fear to rage. He bordered on the panic of bereavement through murder, and fought to keep down the rising tide of grief and anger threatening to send him on a rampage of violence to avenge her death.

He took deep breaths, urged silent calm upon himself. She was not dead yet, she was not dead yet. He fought back tears, brought forth all the reserves of courage, the British stiff upper lip that had been bred and beaten into him since he was a boy.

Loxley men do not cry. Crying is a sign of weakness, and Loxley men never display weakness.
One of the mantras upon which his life had been planned. Loxley men were the bedrock, the pillars upon which the legal system, the backbone of Great Britain, rested.

The door opened again and he noticed that Millie came in alone. She was frowning, worried.

“Mr Croft –”

Her formality confirmed his worst fears. “Trish. She’s dead, isn’t she? While we were –”

“No.” Millie hastened to reassure him. “No. It’s not your girlfriend. However, I will have to ask you to remain here for a while yet. Until Superintendent Shannon gets back.”

He checked his watch. It was 9:30 already. “What do you mean until Shannon gets back? How long will he be? I have a job to go to, you know, and I have to get out there, look for Trish.”

“No, sir, not at the moment.” Millie became vague. “There have been some, er, developments out on Winridge Estate, at the Lumbs’ place. Shannon is on his way out there now, and I’ll have to ask you to wait until he returns.”

“But I’ve told you virtually all I know,” Croft protested.

“Yes, sir,” she agreed, “but you may be able to help with further inquiries.”

Croft began to fume. “And what about Trish? Or had you forgotten that she’s out there, missing, and the note I brought you tells us so?”

“No. I hadn’t forgotten, but it makes no difference. Mr Croft, Felix,” Millie softened her approach, “you’re from a legal background, so you must understand our position. Ms Sinclair is missing, you say the note you received this morning mentions her and that may well be, but right now I have a
tangible
crime to investigate, and Shannon will want to speak to you about it. I cannot let you leave.”

She was determined. He could see that. She looked down on him with a mixture of apology and pity.

“Felix,” she suggested, “once forensic have done with the note, I’ll arrange for you to get a copy and you can be working on it until Shannon gets back. All right?”

Croft conceded defeat. “I suppose it will have to be.”

24

Turning off Pennine Road onto Winridge Estate, with the time at just after nine, Shannon had been in a grim mood.

A 25-year man, a Scarbeck local, as far as he was concerned Winridge was aptly named. The highest and the last place in Scarbeck, a windswept plateau on the edge of town, it stood 1000 feet above sea level and its eastern limit lay just three hundred yards from the official town boundary and the start of the moors.

It was a recognised deprived area and many of the residents were jobless. For those who were employed, getting to and from their place of work during the winter months was often impossible. When Scarbeck had a light dusting of snow, Winridge was usually a foot deep.

Crime was rife on the estate and there were the usual rumours that police considered it a no-go area. They were untrue; largely the invention of Carol Russell, crime correspondent for the
Scarbeck Reporter
and
Radio Scarbeck
. On the other hand, there were standing orders at the station that no officer should answer a call to Winridge Estate alone, and for the frequent disturbances at the Winridge Inn, the social focal point of the estate, the rule was never less than half a dozen officers in the van.

It was one of several such areas in Scarbeck and warranted no particular attention, but it was a fact that some of the town’s most notorious, if small time, villains lived there, including Alf Lumb.

Turning along Sussex Crescent, noting the flurry of activity up ahead, it seemed to Shannon that for most of his career, he had been dealing with Alf Lumb. As a teenager, he had been a tearaway and bully, as an adult, he was a vicious, bad tempered thief and a bully, and it did not matter how many good hidings were meted out, many of them by police officers, Alf never changed.

The superintendent had been enjoying a full English breakfast at home when Simpson rang from the station. “Dave Thurrock and Bob Grindley are out at the Lumbs’ place, sir, and they’ve found Alf dead. Stabbed in the stomach and neck.”

“Why are you ringing me?” Shannon wanted to know. “Millie’s on early shift.”

“She’s busy, sir,” Simpson replied. “Interviewing, er, someone.”

It did occur to Shannon that Simpson was being deliberately evasive, but he did not press the matter. “Tell Thurrock to get the SOCOs out and hold the fort, make sure Millie is informed and tell her I’m on my way there.”

Alf Lumb knifed to death came as no surprise to the superintendent, and he guessed he wouldn’t have far to look for a suspect. Sandra. She had been the butt of Alf’s cruelty for many years and like any other worm, it was inevitable that one day she would turn.

The SOCOs and Scientific Support were already there when he arrived, their vehicles blocking the pavements outside number 46, while PCs Grindley and Jameson kept a small crowd of ghoulish onlookers, mainly neighbours supplemented by one or two early bird reporters, back. As Shannon climbed out of his car, a mortuary van came from the opposite direction and stopped with its nearside wheels on the pavement

Marching to the house, nodding a brief greeting to Grindley as he passed through the door, he noticed the obese frame of Carol Russell amongst the clutch of reporters. A woman turned on by murder, he thought grimly.

He found Dave Thurrock in the living room, with his feet up, smoking and flipping through TV channels. He crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray and got hurriedly to his feet as Shannon entered.

“You know the rules about smoking at a crime scene, Thurrock.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Thurrock switched off the TV.

“And you wonder why Rob Fletcher was promoted ahead of you.” Shannon gave a rueful shake of the head. “All right, what’s the score?”

“It’s not pretty, guv,” said Thurrock, leading the way to the kitchen.

“Murder never is,” the superintendent replied, following his younger subordinate.

When he entered the kitchen, the sight made Shannon feel queasy. Alf Lumb, so large in life, was a ghastly grey with two deep wounds in his gut and neck, with a large pool of blood collected around him

Pathologist, Kelvin Leeman was selecting a syringe and sample bottles from his case, a SOCO took photographs from various angles while over on the far side, other officers were dusting furniture and fittings for prints.

“Well,” said the pathologist, jabbing the needle into Alf’s dormant jugular, “no prizes for guessing how he died.” He withdrew a syringe full of blood and squirted it into the bottle, before taking another sample from the carotid artery. “At least he won’t worry about using clean needles.”

“Do you have to be so flippant, Doc?” Shannon demanded.

“Defence mechanism, old chum,” Leeman explained. “Daren’t take the job too seriously. Besides, the local authority doesn’t pay me a fraction the amount they pay consultants like McGregor, so what do you expect? Tears?” The rotund doctor grimaced. “Can I have him?”

Shannon nodded. “As soon as the SOCOs have done with him.” He signalled to Thurrock and they stepped back, away from the body, the superintendent leaning on the fridge. He purposely lowered his voice so as not to disturb the work of the pathologist and Scientific Support officers. “Who found him?”

“Me and Bob Grindley, sir,” Thurrock replied.

Shannon was puzzled. “What were you doing out here?”

“We came to tell him about Sandra, sir.”

Shannon’s frowned deepened. “What about Sandra?”

Thurrock’s usual insouciance was gone, buried under a blush. “Sorry, sir, I, er, I thought you knew.”