Hot Blood (Bloodwords Book 1) (22 page)

‘Does that mean it’s really business as normal
with two distinct teams?’ asked a WPC, ‘I thought that the Chief said we were
to work together.’

‘No Louise it doesn’t,’ responded Radcliffe.
‘It’s just that it is more practical if we each concentrate on specific aspects
– we don’t want to spread ourselves too thinly by trying to do everything
yet only scratching the surface if, instead, we can concentrate on the aspects
we are already familiar with and dig deeper. As the Chief said, we’ve got to communicate
so that we can work as one big team.’

‘As long as there isn’t another murder then
sir,’ offered a voice from the back. ‘Or we’ll have to work with three
Inspectors.’

‘Let’s not get bloody silly,’ responded
Radcliffe. ‘You all know what the score is here. The important thing is being
efficient, sharing information and working openly. Inspector Davies and I will
work pretty much together anyway. We’ll be in constant contact and meet
regularly so I don’t see a problem there. But we will be hampered if you lot
insist on keeping things to yourselves. There’s no place for inter force
rivalry or politics. These are serious cases and we need teamwork. Sergeant
Fraser will be the point of contact from our side, who will he communicate with
on yours Frank?’

‘That all makes sense Don,’ replied Davies.
‘Sergeant
Lescott
can be the point of contact for my
part of the team.’

‘That’s settled then,’ declared Radcliffe,
relieved that what could have been a tricky situation seemed to have gone
smoothly and he had managed to secure the high ground. Feathers had not been
ruffled on either side. But pecking order had been established.

Sergeants Kyle Fraser and Debbie
Lescott
were already exchanging mobile phone numbers.
Others in the group were starting to chatter and acquaint themselves with their
opposite numbers.

‘What about our other cases? Who do we pass
them on to while we are on this case?’ Despite the chatter, Louise Green seemed
to be the only one voicing her concerns – though no doubt the others
shared them. Did it matter who raised a question as long as it was valid? In
this case the constable’s question gave him just the opportunity he needed to
push home a few points and underline the cooperation needed throughout the
team.

‘Good point Louise,’ replied Radcliffe. ‘You
heard the boss – he wants to keep this enquiry local but we just don’t
have much spare manpower so there’s no one to pass existing cases on to. We’re
going to have to do a bit of juggling. Are you thinking about the car thefts?’

Suddenly the centre of attention, all eyes
turned to the young constable as she blushed a deep red and nodded.

‘Well they may not be as high profile as the
two deaths but we’ll still have to run them. My gut feeling is that the car
thefts enquiries won’t just be on our patch and you may find that you end up
talking to our opposite numbers in the Lancashire force. That would take some
of the pressure off – especially if
Lancs
took
the cases from us. You’ll have to use your charm there Louise,’ he said.
‘Overall we will have to make sure that our other cases don’t interfere with
the main task. Identifying Mike Johnson’s attacker and the murderer or
murderers of Peter Archer and the Pole must be our priority. I don’t think that
the Chief would be at all happy if we failed to solve those cases, even if we
did find Councillor Ashcroft’s Bentley.’

‘Excuse me Don, have you a minute? Downstairs.’

Turning towards the new voice, Radcliffe raised
his eyebrows but said nothing. Having worked with the desk sergeant for many
years, the two men had developed an affinity and an ability to communicate with
few words, achieving far more with just facial expressions and a strange sort
of verbal shorthand.

With just a slight nod to the sergeant -
nothing more was required - Radcliffe excused himself from the group and made
his way downstairs. As he left the room, the noise swelled.

……….

Radcliffe had observed many families struggling
to handle the stress of a loved one after physical attacks. The inability to
string a full sentence together without snatching a breath or breaking down in
tears, constant fidgeting, an enquiring look searching for an explanation, and
the ever present (yet often unspoken) claim that their relative was completely
blameless. They rarely were.

Slumped in a chair, the woman in front of him
displayed all of those symptoms. She sniffed constantly, pulled at a tissue
tearing it into shreds, and bit on her bottom lip with an expression of
defiance – yet tinged with some sort of query.

The last time he had seen her was at her
husband’s bedside. Smart, attractive, though at the time clearly worried, she
had equally clearly made an effort to look good in case her husband had
regained consciousness. Now, wearing no makeup, her hair unkempt and her
clothes awry, she bore no resemblance to that earlier image. Apart from her
husband’s condition, which worryingly wasn’t improving, there seemed to be more
concerning her.

Radcliffe drew out a chair at the opposite side
of the table. His drooping jowls and bushy eyebrows giving him a hound dog appearance
combined with a relaxed voice had often been likened to television narrators,
creating a friendly uncle sort of confidence.

‘I didn’t expect to see you Mrs Johnson,’ he
said in his slow measured delivery. ‘How is your husband? And how are you bearing
up?’

‘I’m on my way to see him now. But I’ve had a
few shocks and although I was going to . . . ‘

Gulping for a breath she started to sob.
Radcliffe said nothing, allowing her time to compose herself.

‘Like I said, I was going to throw it away,
it’s so disgusting, but then I thought that it might help you catch whoever
attacked Mike.’

‘What is it Mrs Johnson? What did you nearly
throw away?’

Slowly she raised her head and looked at him.
Her features were distorted and flushed and he sensed that there was more
behind her visit than just the passing on of information. She had delayed her
hospital visit to come and seek him out personally, so whatever it was couldn’t
be discussed over the phone. And in place of the volatile anger that had
followed the first attack, here was a broken woman almost pleading with him for
help and support. Behind her bloodshot eyes and sad expression he knew that
there was a second agenda. He’d seen it before. It could be guilt, it could be
embarrassment, or it could be any one of many things, but there was definitely
more to the woman facing him than appeared.

‘In your own time Joan,’ he soothed. ‘Just take
your time and I’ll wait. I’m here to help.’

Slowly she reached down, lifted her handbag,
pulled out an envelope and wordlessly pushed it across the table. With an
outstretched finger he rotated it by a corner and with the tip of a pen lifted
the flap. Inside was a sheet of paper. Using a folded tissue to cover his
fingers he pulled out the paper and unfolded it. There was no need to reach
into his jacket for his reading glasses. The letter was really only a short
note. Just six lines written in big letters with a felt marker on a crumpled A4
sheet. Short and to the point, its grammar and punctuation indicated a not
particularly high education, but the meaning was patently implicit.

Raising his eyebrows questioningly he looked at
her. She didn’t have the telepathic ability of the desk clerk but an implied
question was clear. A tear rolled down her cheek. Then another. Unable to hold
his gaze any longer she looked down at the handkerchief in her hand and sobbed.
Radcliffe reread the letter.

‘When did this arrive Mrs Johnson?’

Though the hanky was sodden, she dabbed her
eyes then looked up appealingly.

‘I don’t know,’ she stuttered. ‘It was in the
mail I opened yesterday.’

‘And have you any idea at all who sent it?’

‘No.’

‘Have you shown it to anyone else? Has anybody
touched it apart from you?’

‘No.’

‘That’s good. The forensics people might be
able to get something from it for us. I’ll send it over as soon as we’re
finished here.’

Her expression was one of the saddest he had
seen. Her eyes were rimmed with red, bags under them beginning to get puffy,
though her general complexion was pale and drawn. He could see that she didn’t
want her personal crisis being thrown open to all and sundry. ‘If you must.’
There it was again, the pleading look.

  
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. We need all the help we can if we are going to
catch the culprit. Perhaps the envelope will give us a lead. Who’s at the shop
now Mrs Johnson?’

‘Nobody, it’s closed. Mike has a part time
assistant but she doesn’t come in during the school holidays. I went and opened
up yesterday,’ then pointing to the paper on the table added, ‘and that’s when
I found this.’

‘OK. We’ll check it later then. There’s no
stamp or postmark so it must have been hand delivered. Where did you find it?
Had it just been pushed under the door?’

‘There was a big pile of mail behind the door
and I just scooped it up. As well as letters there were a couple of newspapers,
some circulars and a few cards and from well-wishers. This was among them.’

‘Hardly from a well wisher Mrs Johnson. Do you
recognise the handwriting? Your husband claimed that your brother attacked him
the first time so could this be his writing?’

‘No, of course not. Peter is dead anyway so it
couldn’t be him could it?’

‘I’m sorry Mrs Johnson, really I am. But I am
going to have to ask you some questions. I want to catch your husband’s
attacker just as much as you do and I’m very grateful that you brought this in
because it suggests a completely different possibility, but on its own it
doesn’t tell us much. Now, if you don’t know who this is from, do you know to
what it relates?’

‘Really Inspector,’ she gave another sniff,
dabbed her cheeks with a tissue, then looked him in the eye. ‘I would have
thought that it was bloody obvious. Whoever attacked Mike sent that to tell him
that he’s going to be attacked again. It doesn’t need a genius now does it?
He’s been attacked twice, he’s in hospital, and you lot haven’t done shit.’
Defiantly she clenched her hands together and rested them on the table, her elbows
on the arms of her chair.

‘I’m sorry Mrs Johnson. That’s not what I
meant. The letter is quite brief and there are no details but there’s an inference
to a debt. Do you know what that debt is? Do you know who it is owed to?’

‘No.’

‘Well the art shop seems to be doing very well,
you’ve got a lovely house out at
Crosshill
, and
you’ve both got nice cars, so we should be able to track it down. One debt
should stick out like a sore thumb, so don’t worry Mrs Johnson, we’ll get the
culprit.’

She sank visibly in her chair, her head dropped
down onto her hands, clenched on the table, and as a flood of tears pooled
around them her shoulders shook. She sobbed. Radcliffe reached for the phone
and by the time the woman constable had arrived with a cup of hot tea a few
minutes later, Joan Johnson had regained her composure. She had told Radcliffe
about the letters she had opened from the bank manager, the shop landlord,
suppliers and others, all demanding money. She hadn’t known anything about it
but it seemed that Mike was actually deep in debt.

Consoling her as best he could, Radcliffe
pointed out that that didn’t necessarily make it harder to find the culprit.
Bank managers and other professional people didn’t go around writing scrawled
threatening letters or sending in the heavies to work somebody over, so
whatever the debt was, it would stand apart from banks and suppliers.

‘OK Joan, now try to think back. When you
opened the door at the shop, was this letter on the top of the pile, at the
bottom, or somewhere in between? Did you open it first or later? Think
carefully please, it could be important.’

Joan put her cup down on its saucer but held on
to its handle. She had only drunk a few mouthfuls but just holding the cup or
going through the motions of lifting it to her lips was comforting. She paused,
looked at Radcliffe thoughtfully, then said that she had opened the letter
last, but if she remembered correctly, and she wasn’t taking particular notice
at the time he should understand, the letter had been at the top of the pile.
Actually, after she had scooped everything up she had sorted it into piles,
thrown what appeared to be junk mail into the waste bin without opening it and
then gone through what remained pile by pile. Yes, she was sure that the letter
had been near the top, there had just been three or four envelopes on top of
the Champion newspaper and all the rest had been underneath.

‘That’s great Joan. You are doing well. We need
to make sure that nobody goes in to the shop before we do so that nothing is
disturbed. Can I ask my sergeant to go with you? Or perhaps you would trust us
with a key since the shop is not actually open?’

Joan reached again into her handbag. Pulling
out a bunch of keys she placed them on the table next to the letter but said
nothing. The phone rang. Radcliffe listened but did not reply. Turning to face
her, in as gentle a manner as possible he apologised for having to leave for
just a few minutes, but that DC Louise Green would remain with her until his
return. Rising from his chair he quietly left the troubled Joan Johnson with a
rather confused constable.