Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Just under an hour in a car with a Vinny, who was still regretting his life choices, was enough to have me questioning my life choices by the time we reached the Windfield Estate.
Parts of both cities, Manchester and Liverpool, were in the process of being regenerated, millions of pounds being poured in to make the places less resemble the slums of the early nineteen hundreds and the soulless estates of the sixties and seventies, when no one wanted to live near the city centres and you only did because there was nowhere else.
Now the property developers had taken over the skylines, Angel Meadow in Manchester had become the very trendy Northern Quarter, a place once described by Engels as hell on earth, wretched, dangerous and degraded, and if he ever returned for a Friday night out, he probably wouldn’t think it’d changed.
It was just more expensive.
Liverpool was the same. Full of trendy bars and overpriced restaurants, people wandering around just after midday dressed as if they’d just fallen out of a nightclub, not that anyone bothered with those anymore.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in one, unless I’d been on a job and looking for someone, flashing my warrant card instead of paying the entry fee.
Chelsea had lived in a nineteen sixties three-storey walk up block, council flats that could’ve appeared as a photo for the dictionary definition.
Flaking white paint on the upper levels added to a general sense of impending doom, the pebbledash and brick in need of some serious tender care or knocking down.
Graffiti punctuated the weather worn exterior, tags and faded murals from a youth project maybe, carried out a decade or more ago.
Communal balcony walkways ran along the front, perfect viewing spots for nosey neighbours to see and hear everything – arguments, deliveries, late-night visitors, although experience told me that the three wise monkeys would be in residence.
No, officer, I didn’t hear anything. No, I didn’t see nothing. Can’t tell you anything if I didn’t see owt, can I?
Metal security doors protected the main entrances, impotent guards given they were propped open with a bin or a pile of bricks, and rust decorated the railings; glitter that’d lost its shine.
I wondered if this had ever been a nice place to live, if it had ever been filled with the buds of excitement, of hope, or whether the despair I felt was mixed into the bricks and mortar.
Chelsea’s flat was a corner unit on the second floor, probably one of the bigger ones.
Kids’ bikes and a football were abandoned at the bottom of the stairs, discarded carelessly, untouched for some time judging by the state of them.
No one had taken them, even if that was the intention.
The stairwell smelled of piss and weed, standard scent for estates like this, the universal aroma, as if someone had installed air fresheners with that rancid scent.
Vinny followed behind me, on the phone to Lachy who was passing on some information about Chelsea’s kids.
I peered through the window, single glazed PVC with frames the colour of smokers’ teeth.
Inside the flat was a humongous TV, hung on the wall over an ornate fireplace, a faux fur black rug in front of it.
A sofa too big for the room faced the TV, what looked to be a white leather recliner was squashed in, blown up canvases of Chelsea and her two kids on the walls, posed smiles and pastel colours.
“The estate officer should be here soon.” I’d managed to get in touch with the out of hours service for the estate on the way here, in between listening to Vinny’s musings about women and how he didn’t understand them. The hold music had been a highlight of the journey.
A pigeon jumped off the railings, tumbling to the ground ungracefully, startled by the door next to Chelsea’s flat opening.
“If you’re here collecting, she’s not in.”
A woman who looked like a collaboration between one of the witches in the Roald Dahl book, and a seventies tablecloth, stood just outside the door, arms folded, looking at us as if we were about to demand she provided whatever she thought we were collecting.
Vinny threw on his charming smile without considering how it’d last gotten him into trouble. “DS Vinny Leigh, GMP, and this is DS Mia McAllister.” He flashed his ID. “We’re doing some routine enquiries. Do you recognise this person?” He flashed her the artist’s illustration,
“That’s my neighbour, Chelsea Bainbridge.”
We had a positive identification.
“When was the last time you saw your neighbour?” Vinny wasn’t pitching this right, I could tell.
She eyed him up and down, suspicion written all over her face. “Why do you want to know?”
“Routine enquiries.” Vinny gave her another smile, this one not quite so charming.
“Tuesday last week. The kids left to go on holiday with their dad, which meant I was getting some peace at last – fucking noisy bastards they are. Chelsea said she was seeing a friend in Manchester or staying with a cousin or something and asked if I could keep an eye on the house.” The woman shrugged, uncaring.
“The only thing in there that anyone would bleeding nick is that telly. No idea how she could afford that when she couldn’t buy those kids new shoes, poor things.
They’ll come back from their dad’s all dressed in nice new clothes and then Chelsea won’t let them wear them. Bleeding screw lose."
"How long have you lived here, Mrs - ” I started to try to tease more information from her, making use of the time while the estate manager’s Sunday minion turned up.
“Kinsella. Doreen Kinsella. Lived here since nineteen ninety-two. Place isn’t what it was, but that’s what they all say.” She gave a polite cough. “What’s happened to her then? Two detective sergeants don’t come round on a Sunday morning from Manchester for nothing. She dead or what?”
“We’re currently following a number of leads that involve Chelsea. You mentioned someone collecting something from her – did she owe money?” Police, a bit like politicians, became experts at evading questions.
Mrs Kinsella scoffed. “Did she owe money? Did she owe money? Don’t we all?
But I’d say Chelsea owed a bit more than most. Loan snakes, or whatever you call them.
I’ve never got mixed up in any of that, myself.
I make sure I have enough to keep clean, be well fed and give to the church.
That’s always enough for me. And maybe a trip once a year to Whitby. ”
“Which church do you attend, Mrs Kinsella?”
She glared at Vinny. She’d sensibly taken a disliking to him. “St Cuthbert’s and I’ll be attending the ten o’clock mass this morning, like any good catholic will be doing.”
“Do you know any details about loan sharks? Any names or ways we can get in touch with them?” He was really pushing it now.
“I do not! I don’t get mixed up in such things. I stay completely out of it. Nothing to do with me.” She backed into her home, the windowsill littered with photographs, probably of family.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cup of tea, is there?” I gave her my most appealing expression. I wanted to see who was in those photos.
She frowned at me and sighed loudly, irritated. “I suppose so. He can wait out here, mind.”
Vinny cast me a look that suggested we’d be talking about this later, although he knew as well as I did, that there was more chance of her giving something away to me than him, if she had anything to give away.
I followed her into the house and into the lounge, immaculately tidy and full of frills on furniture that were probably back in fashion by now. On the windowsill were the photographs, Mrs Kinsella from years before; at her own wedding, holding a baby, photos of toddlers – two boys.
I picked one up and studied it. “These your sons?”
She nodded brusquely. “Brendan and Declan. Good boys, the pair of them. They want me to move to a house somewhere that’s not here, but I’ve lived here since I got married. How do you have your tea?”
“Milk, no sugar, thank you.”
She returned a few minutes later, handing me a Liverpool FC mug containing a brew that was a decent colour. I waved at Vinny through the window.
“What do your boys do now?”
She looked ruffled, her shoulders tense. “They work in finance.”
Did they indeed.
“Did they know Chelsea?”
“Of course they knew Chelsea. She was my neighbour. She helped me out sometimes with picking up my prescription from the chemist, or getting me a pint of milk.” She picked up a set of rosary beads from the mantlepiece. “She was okay. I hope nothing bad’s happened to her.”
I sipped my tea, saying nothing. By the end of the day, Mrs Kinsella would know her neighbour was dead, and the noisy children wouldn’t be coming back.
I suspected she’d pray for Chelsea’s soul at church and light a candle for her, and I had every suspicion that her sons would be wondering how they were going to be paid back for whatever they’d loaned their mother’s neighbour.
Vinny was outside Chelsea’s flat, deep in conversation with a tired looking woman holding a bunch of keys.
“Finally. How long does it take you to drink a cup of tea?” He sent another glare my way.
“Not long. I’m DS Mia McAllister.” I focused on the woman. “Thank you for coming over to let us in.”
She tried to smile but it didn’t work. “I’m Laura Kinsey. You spoke to my manager on the phone. If I let you in, can you make sure you close up behind you? You don’t need a key. It’s just I need to get back to my kids.”
“No problem. Can we take a number in case we need to get in touch with you again?” There was a minute chance this was the murder scene, although I highly doubted it.
We did have an updated timeline though. More than we had before.