Woman in Black (31 page)

Jessica had already checked with a few well-known travel operators but none of them had records going back eleven years. That meant Steven Povey was her one final link to finding out what the reason could possibly be for what was happening. Although it wasn’t quite eight in the morning, Jessica couldn’t be bothered to wait and phoned the number the officer had left for him. The man had moved out of the city a few years before and now lived in a village further north in Lancashire. He reluctantly agreed to meet Jessica later that day. Initially he wanted to put her off but she insisted it was urgent and that it had to be as soon as possible. Jessica didn’t tell Steven about the holiday photograph or talk about possible links to the other men at first but stressed it was important she was able to speak to him.

Jessica waited for Cole to arrive and told him where things were up to before going to grab either Dave or Izzy to take with her. Both constables were looking a little the worse for wear after the night before – but had clearly caught up on the news about the final two faces from the photo. Izzy looked marginally less hung-over, so Jessica left Rowlands to dig up any other information about the car crash which had killed Barry Newcombe, while the two women went to meet Steven Povey.

Jessica was a fierce defender of her car whenever colleagues wanted to give her stick about its age and the volume of the exhaust but she never trusted it to get her much further than from her flat to the station. She certainly didn’t want to risk it on the motorway and so asked Izzy if she fancied driving. The other woman’s vehicle was only a couple of years old and was definitely a lot less likely to break down. As it was, Jessica needn’t have worried, not that it gave her any comfort. There had been a major accident north of the city on the M60 ring road. A tanker carrying diesel had spilled across the carriageway and not only were large parts of the throughway closed, but traffic was backing up into the city centre.

What should have been a simple forty-five-minute journey up the motorway turned into a two-and-a-half-hour inquest into everything that was wrong with the country, the police force, their colleagues and, eventually, life in general as they sat in largely stationary traffic. After they finally got onto the M61 to take them north, the pair had pretty much come to the conclusion they were the only two sane people left on the planet.

After they left the motorway, it had taken a lot longer than Jessica would have thought to get to their destination. On the online map she’d looked at, it wasn’t a long distance to Steven Povey’s house but the single-track lanes with high-banked overhanging hedges took a while to negotiate because there wasn’t always room for two cars to pass each other and Izzy frequently had to pull over.

As they drove into the village, the scene almost seemed to spring into colour. A large bank of flowers that spelled out the name of the place welcomed them, with baskets of plants hanging from seemingly every house. The properties were all detached, with large driveways and patches of grass around them.

A sign proudly told visitors the village had won a ‘Britain In Bloom’ award for eight years running, another informing them the village’s summer fete would be taking place on the following Saturday.

It was the kind of location Jessica figured people from overseas pictured when they thought of Britain because of the television shows that had been sold abroad through the years. If it wasn’t for the smattering of satellite dishes and brand-new cars, it could almost have been as if they had travelled back in time forty or fifty years.

Although it was just a few centimetres on the map, the whole area felt a world away from the city. Ultimately Jessica knew people were prone to the same mistakes and cruelties regardless of where they lived. She wasn’t sure whether she preferred the honesty you might expect from residents on a rough estate or the apparent tranquillity you would probably get in a village like the one they were in.

There was only one main road through the village but, without a satellite navigation device, neither of them were entirely sure which of the side roads the house they were looking for was on. Izy pulled over next to where a man was sitting having a lunchtime pint on his own outside a pub. Although she had lived in the north-west of England her entire life, Jessica found his accent hard to decipher but, between the two of them, they eventually worked out where they should be going.

Back in Manchester, a lot of the buildings were a mismatch of styles as diverse estates had been put up at different times, while other properties had been renovated or built by various people working independently of each other. All of the houses in the village seemed to have been either built at the same time or at least created with an eye on the tone of the rest of the area.

Steven Povey’s house was no different and looked strikingly similar to the rest of the surrounding properties. There was a low stone wall at the front, edging onto the side road he lived on. There were tidy neatly trimmed grass areas on either side of a concrete path leading to the man’s front door. The house itself was made of grey stone with an old-fashioned authentic-looking wooden edge to the windows and door frames. The door was painted bright red, perfectly matching the shade of the rest of the trims. On the front was a heavy black metal knocker, which Jessica used. A man soon answered. He had black hair swept away from his face with a small amount of equally dark designer stubble. He was wearing a T-shirt, three-quarter-length trousers and a pair of brown sandals.

He looked nervous as they introduced themselves and he invited them in, confirming he was Steven Povey. He asked if they wanted to sit outside and led them through to his back garden. There was a black metal table already set up, with four matching chairs around it. The grass was as tidily cut as it was at the front and went back a lot further than Jessica might have guessed from looking at the front of the house.

Steven was still edgy as he sat opposite them. Aside from confirming his identity, no one had given him the full details of why they wanted to speak to him, except for the fact it related to something from the past. He was clearly trying to force a smile as he looked from Izzy to Jessica. ‘How can I help you?’

Jessica took out the photograph of the six men on holiday from an envelope. It was a copy of the original she’d taken from the Marks’ house. She had spent the last few days almost memorising the features of the unidentified duo in the photo and it had been clear to her straight away that the man in front of her was one of the two. She pointed to the image. ‘Can we confirm this is you, Mr Povey?’

He picked the photo up, staring at it. Jessica carefully watched his reaction and there was an obvious flicker of recognition. ‘It was taken a long time ago but it is me.’

‘Do you know the other five men with you?’

‘I suppose…but it’s been years since I last saw any of them. I lived next door to Barry and he knew one of the other lads.’ Steven pointed to Lewis Barnes. ‘This guy is Lewis, I went around his house a few times but I only remember that because his mum was a bit weird. I can’t really remember the names of the others. They were only sort of my friends.’

‘Where was it taken?’

‘Faliraki, I think. It was the first time I’d gone abroad without my parents.’

‘Can you remember who took the photo?’ The man shook his head, so Jessica rephrased the question. ‘What I’m asking is if there were six or seven of you who went away? Was it one of your friends behind the camera or a stranger?’

‘Oh, right. No, there were just the six of us. I don’t know who took the picture.’

‘How long ago was it taken?’

The man shook his head. ‘Maybe ten years? Eleven? I think I’d just turned eighteen.’

‘Why did you go if you didn’t really know them?’ Jessica asked.

‘It was through Barry. Someone he knew was organising a lads’ holiday and they were looking for people to go because it was cheaper if you had more. He asked me and I thought, “What the hell”. I don’t really remember all the details. It was such a long time ago.’

Jessica nodded as everything he said pretty much backed up what they already knew, or at least thought they knew. The next set of questions was where things would begin to get complicated. ‘What happened while you were away?’ she asked.

Steven shuffled in his chair. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that. You went on holiday with a group of lads you didn’t really know, so what went on?’

The man shook his head a little but Jessica wasn’t convinced by his words. ‘Well, nothing. The accommodation was awful, we ate, we drank, we came home.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Like what?’

Jessica slid the photo back across the table. She pointed to Barry Newcombe. ‘This is your friend Barry, yes? Do you know what happened to him?’

Steven looked confused. ‘He was killed in a car accident years ago.’

‘Did you know him then?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes, but that was a long time ago too. I don’t know what that has to do with anything now.’

Jessica nodded, pointing to the next face. ‘This is Edward Marks; a few weeks ago we found his severed hand in the centre of Manchester. Even if you didn’t remember the name, you may have read about it or seen it on the news. This man here is Lewis Barnes, while this is Jacob Chrisp and this is Matthew Cooper. We have found hands belonging to each of them. All four of them have been reported missing and we have no idea if they’re alive or dead. That means you’re the one person left out of these six who is definitely still alive.’

Jessica watched Steven closely. As she had revealed each person’s fate she saw his eyes widen ever so slightly. She was clearly telling him something he didn’t know. ‘Can you think of a reason why four people have gone missing, Mr Povey?’

He blinked a few times. ‘It wasn’t anything to do with me.’

‘I never said it was.’

‘No, I know…I just…I’m sorry, do I need a solicitor?’

Jessica didn’t know if he was involved but his reaction seemed as genuine as she would expect. If he was a formal suspect, they would have taken him to the station for questioning but, at least for now, Jessica didn’t want to take things that far. She chose her words carefully. ‘If you want a solicitor, it’s entirely up to you. We can talk to you here or at a station, I don’t mind. All I’m asking you is if you know of any reason why four people you went on holiday with eleven years ago might have gone missing.’

Steven was clearly nervous. It was warm and he’d seemed edgy throughout but there was sweat on his forehead. He looked quickly from one detective to the other. ‘I’m not sure what you want me to say.’

‘It’s pretty simple,’ Jessica said. ‘I believe something happened when the six of you went away together and that is the reason why the people you were on holiday with aren’t here. From that, I can make two conclusions. The first is that you are somehow involved in what has gone on with the hands being left. The second is that you are also a target. I don’t believe you have kidnapped four people, cut off their hands and driven to Manchester to leave them for us. If you continue to insist nothing happened on that holiday, we won’t have many options other than to start looking into your background. If you want to be honest with me, we might be able to offer you some sort of protection.’

Steven listened to everything she said and then gazed away towards the back of the garden. His tone was lower as he spoke again. ‘It was such a long time ago now. I’ve got a wife, kids…’ Jessica nodded but didn’t reply. ‘Have you ever done anything stupid when you were younger?’ he added.

‘Lots of things but nothing that’s ever made anyone want to cut off my hand.’

The man said nothing but when he finally spoke, it didn’t take long for the pieces to start to fall into place.

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

Steven Povey winced as one of the other men slapped him on the shoulder. He had never really burned in the sun before but using sun cream didn’t particularly seem like the masculine thing to do when he was surrounded by a group of lads he barely knew. It had only taken a day for his shoulders and arms to turn bright red and, although the other areas of his skin had gone brown in the five days that had followed, his shoulders were still raw and beginning to peel.

The man spun around to see who had smacked him and wasn’t surprised to see it was Barry. Back in England the pair lived next door to each other and, despite an almost two-year age gap between them, their parents got on well and they started hanging around together as children. It was easy to cross into each other’s garden to kick a ball around and they had grown up together. The trouble Steven had found was that Barry was a completely different person when had been drinking. At home it didn’t create too much of a problem but, in the week they had been in Faliraki, they had drunk a lot, which meant his friend had spent a lot of time being abusive and aggressive.

That was a problem in itself for Steven but had been compounded by the fact he didn’t really know anyone else. Matthew and Lewis seemed like decent enough guys and kept their heads down in much the way he did. Ed was very quiet and they’d not seen much of him in the past couple of days but it was Barry and Jacob who seemed to be permanently drunk. Steven wasn’t enjoying spending time around either of them but it was hard to walk away considering the six of them were sharing two rooms.

Barry was standing with two empty glasses. ‘You want another one, Stevie?’

The young man hated being called ‘Stevie’, ‘Stevo’, ‘Steffie’, ‘Stig’ or any of the other nicknames which seemed to have appeared on the holiday. He often wondered why it was so hard to simply call him by his name. ‘I’ll skip this round.’

Barry looked on, disgusted. ‘Fellas?’

Of the three other young men sat around the table, only Jacob nodded. ‘Same again.’

Barry stared from one person to the next. ‘Matty? Lew? You guys in?’ The two shook their heads. ‘Lightweights,’ Barry said, stomping off towards the bar.

Steven exchanged knowing looks with Matthew and Lewis but was grateful they were sticking together in not being forced to drink. The holiday had been something of a learning curve. He had come away largely because of Barry’s promise to find him a girl. He wasn’t a virgin but it had been a while and the girls back home never seemed interested in him. Barry’s promise of ‘drunken slags who’ll shag anything’ wasn’t exactly what he had in mind but he thought there would at least be a lot of girls he’d never met before – and perhaps one among them who wouldn’t mind hanging out with him.