Twenty-Two
Xiu took a phone call as they were walking to the car, so Miller volunteered to drive. Heading away from the house, down the Cutlers’ private road, he cheerfully flicked the Vs at each security camera they passed, chuntering to himself while Xiu -murmured into her mobile in the passenger seat.
‘I mean, did you see those bloody things?’ Miller looked across at Xiu, without really expecting a response.
She was looking out of the window, focused entirely on her call.
‘You can move to a big house out of town and put in all the fancy facilities you want, but your ill-gotten gains mean bugger all in the end, because no amount of dosh can buy you good taste.’
Miller turned on to the public road that ran through the heart of Staining village.
Aside from dropping in to arrest one or other of the Cutlers over the years, this was a part of the world he had visited rarely and not one in which he felt entirely comfortable.
It was all a bit … up itself. Poncified, Alex used to say.
To be fair, there were a couple of places nearby that were even poncier (Poulton had a farmers’ market, for heaven’s sake) but nevertheless, it would be another ten minutes – once he’d driven past the zoo and could look up to see the Tower looming overhead – before Miller would start to feel he was on safer ground.
Admittedly, with Blackpool an ever-present fixture in the list of top ten most dangerous places in the country (way ahead of lightweight contenders like Hackney and Birmingham), safer was always going to be another relative term, but all the same.
Miller knew where he was with chippies and pawn shops and arcades.
‘I tell you something else money can’t buy you, and that’s good manners.
’ By now, he was well aware that he was talking to himself, but he never had any issue with that.
There was no chance of being interrupted, and, with very few exceptions, he was far and away his most receptive audience.
‘That was a Victoria sponge Jacqui Cutler was scoffing back there. A proper nice-looking one as well, with real strawberries mixed in with the jam. That is my favourite cake, my absolute favourite … with a chocolate éclair a close second, in case you’re interested …
but did she offer me a slice? Did she offer either of us a pigging slice?
’ He sighed angrily and smacked his hand against the steering wheel. ‘Did she hell as like.’
He glanced across at Xiu again. She had finished her call and was not looking happy.
‘Everything OK, Posh?’
‘Not particularly, no.’
‘Oh, right.’ Miller slowed for lights and turned to her. ‘I’m guessing this isn’t about the whole Victoria sponge thing.’
Jacqui had hurled the remains of her cake at the living room wall as soon as Miller and Xiu had left.
She’d stormed from the room, licking cream from her fingers and ranting about doing jobs yourself if you wanted them done properly.
Once -McDougall had finished wiping jam from the wallpaper, he went to find her.
She was sitting in the kitchen, a couple of glasses to the good, though they had seemingly done nothing to improve her mood.
McDougall raised his hands when his boss turned to glare at him. She was still holding a glass and he wasn’t convinced she was done throwing things.
‘I hadn’t got round to telling you yet,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’
‘Hadn’t got round to telling me?’
‘I’m sorry—’
Jacqui’s expression let McDougall know he should shut up, that she wasn’t remotely interested in any half-arsed apology.
She took a few deep breaths and a large mouthful of Sauvignon Blanc, which seemed to calm her a little.
‘You were just supposed to talk to him … by which I obviously mean threaten him or whatever, but basically you were just going there to find out who he worked for. Maybe get my money back if he had it.’
‘I know.’ McDougall lowered his head, the picture of regret.
‘You were there to get information, nothing else. Why do you think everyone calls you Google?’
‘Well, it’s not just that, is it? It’s mainly because it rhymes with McDougall.’
‘Are you trying to be funny with me, Malcolm?’
‘No, Jax. I wouldn’t do that.’ He took a tentative step towards her. ‘Look, he got lairy. He’d had a few drinks, I reckon … started shouting the odds, so I thought it was best to deal with it quickly.’
‘By stabbing the bloke to death?’
‘At least it shut him up—’
‘Why were you even carrying a weapon?’
‘Because you told me this Barry Cheshire bloke was ex-army, so I didn’t want to take any chances. Actually, I do remember thinking that if he was ex-army, he’d let himself go a bit.’
‘He wasn’t ex-army though, was he?’
‘No.’
‘Because he wasn’t Barry Cheshire.’
‘Well, that’s hardly my fault, is it?’ It needed saying, but McDougall took care not to sound accusatory. Taking the blame for a cock-up like this was very much part of his job description, whether he was actually to blame or not, but the facts were the facts. ‘I went to the address you gave me.’
‘Yes, because that was the address given to me.’
‘So, just one of those things, then,’ McDougall said. ‘Nothing we can do about it. It’s unfortunate, but—’
‘It’s very bloody unfortunate,’ Jacqui said. ‘For whoever that poor sod was who you knifed to death and maybe for us too, if we’re unlucky.’ She reached for the bottle, but McDougall got there first. She sat back to let him pour her another glass. ‘What did you do afterwards?’
‘Well, I was heading inside, to see if I could lay my hands on the money you wanted.’
Jacqui nodded as she drank, apparently pleased to hear that he had at least been trying to make amends for all the unnecessary stabbing.
‘Then a dog started yapping somewhere inside the house, so I legged it.’
‘Let’s hope you weren’t picked up on any cameras.’
‘Even if I was, I was wearing a bally,’ McDougall said. ‘I was careful, Jax, honest. We’ll be OK.’
‘Not that careful,’ Jacqui said. ‘Where’s the Audi?’
‘In one of our lock-ups behind the station.’
‘Right. So get down there sharpish and torch the bloody thing.’
‘I’m on it.’ McDougall moved quickly towards the door, then stopped when he heard Jacqui sigh heavily. He turned and saw that she was on the verge of tears, as if the worry was already starting to eat her up. ‘Hey … it’ll be all right, boss. I promise you, the polis have got nothing—’
She shook her head, upset by something altogether different. ‘Did you hear what Miller said about my leopards, Googs?’
‘Yeah, I heard.’ McDougall moved back towards her. ‘I knew you’d be upset. Actually, there was a wee bit of cream spattered on one of them, you know … when you threw the cake? I cleaned it off though, so no harm done.’
‘He’s a what d’you call it, a … philistine,’ Jacqui said. ‘He’s stupid, that’s all there is to it.’
‘Aye, right.’ McDougall watched his boss pour the last of the wine into her glass and turned back towards the doorway.
He was keen to get over to that lock-up and deal with the car, on top of which he was rather more concerned about the visit from the police than he was letting on.
Because aside from being bang on about those butt-ugly ceramic leopards, DS Declan Miller was anything but stupid.
‘Do you want to come with me to the King’s Head tomorrow night?’
Miller looked at her. ‘Blimey, Posh, this is all a bit sudden—’
‘No, Miller, this is not the time for jokes. This is very much not the time.’
‘OK, tell me,’ Miller said.
The phone call had been from a friend of Xiu’s; a DC working at the Sexual Offences Unit.
She told Xiu that a young woman had been seriously assaulted two weeks ago, though she had only come forward to report the attack the previous day.
The officer thought that Xiu would be more than usually intere-sted, because the victim had spent the evening upstairs at the King’s Head.
At one of the pub’s weekly heavy metal nights.
‘Ah,’ Miller said. ‘Got it.’
Xiu stared, daring him to say something he shouldn’t, but Miller knew better.
This was a night out that Xiu regularly enjoyed herself and it wasn’t just because she liked the music.
It was somewhere she went to drink and dance, but also specifically to select sexual partners, of whichever gender took her fancy on the night.
She continued to do so, despite Miller’s concerns which, she had told him on several occasions, were misplaced and deeply patronising; that twitch around her right eye working overtime.
‘I would have been there myself that night,’ Xiu said. ‘I stayed at home because I had a migraine.’
‘You thinking that it might have been you?’
‘It’s statistically unlikely.’
‘Possible though, assuming he was also at the pub.’
‘The victim thinks he followed her from there after the gig.’
‘Makes sense,’ Miller said. ‘He watches her all night, clocks it if she’s drinking, meaning that maybe she’s not quite as wary later on as she might be.
He could have followed her before, so he knows what her route home is, which way she walks to the bus stop or whatever.
’ He waited, wondering if Xiu was starting to at least consider the possibility that those concerns of his might not be quite as misplaced as she’d thought.
‘Anyway, I think we should go,’ she said. ‘Are you up for it?’
‘Why?’
‘Because, as of now, he thinks he’s got away with it, so there’s a strong chance he might try it again. As you say, it might be somewhere he goes regularly. So, we go along, too, just as -punters. We have a drink, a bit of a dance—’
‘A bit of a what?’
Xiu reddened slightly, aware that she had perhaps got a little carried away. ‘Fine, so maybe we just mingle … and keep our eyes open for anyone we don’t like the look of.’
‘OK, count me in,’ Miller said. ‘But I need to warn you that it’s a heavy metal night and the place will be chocka with boozed-up headbangers.’
‘Yeah, obviously,’ Xiu said. ‘So what?’
‘So I’m not going to like the look of anyone.’