Some days, you’d kill for an original response. Still, I was just grateful not to have the door slammed in my face. I smiled, nodded and ploughed on. ‘I need you help,’ I said. ‘How well do you know Mr Sheridan next door?’
The woman gasped. ‘He’s never murdered her, has he? I know it were sudden, like, and God knows they’ve had their ups and downs, but I can’t believe he killed her!’
I closed my eyes momentarily. ‘It’s nothing like that. As far as I’m aware, there’s nothing at all suspicious about Mrs Sheridan’s death. Look, can I come in for a minute? This is a bit difficult to explain.’
She looked dubious. ‘How do I know you’re who you say you are?’
I spread my hands in a shrug. ‘Do I look the dangerous type? Believe me, I’m trying to prevent a crime, not take part in one. Mr Sheridan is about to be robbed unless you can help me here.’
She gasped again, her hand flying to her mouth this time. ‘It’s just like the telly,’ she said, ushering me into a narrow hallway where there was barely room for both of us and the mountain bike that hung on one wall. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded avidly.
‘A particularly nasty team of crooks are conning bereaved families out of hundreds of pounds,’ I said, dressing it up in the tabloid style she clearly relished. ‘They catch them at a weak moment and persuade them to part with cash for cut-price gravestones. Now, I’m very close to completing a watertight case against them, so I don’t want to alert them to the fact that their cover’s blown. But I can’t just sit idly by while poor Mr Sheridan gets ripped off.’
‘So you want me to go and tell him there’s a crook in his living room?’ she asked eagerly.
‘Not exactly, no. I want you to pop round in a neighbourly sort of way, just to see he’s all right, and do what you can to prevent him parting with any money. Say things like, “If this is a respectable firm, they won’t mind you sleeping on this and talking it over with your funeral director.” Don’t let on you’re at all suspicious, just that you’re a cautious sort of person. And that Angela wouldn’t have wanted him to rush into anything without consulting other members of the family. You get the idea?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve got you. You can count on me.’ I didn’t have a lot of choice, so I just smiled. ‘I’ll get round there right away. I was going to pop round anyway to see how Tony was doing. We got on really well, me and Angela. She was older than me, of course, but we played tenpin bowls in the same team every Wednesday. I couldn’t get over it when I heard. Burst appendix. You never know the hour or the day, do you? You leave this to me, Kate,’ she added, glancing at my card again.
We walked down the path together, me heading back to my car and her next door. As we parted, she promised to call me on my mobile to let me know what happened. I was on pins as I sat watching the Sheridans’ house. My new sidekick was definitely a bit of a loose cannon, but I couldn’t think of anything else I could have done that would have been effective without warning off Allen’s partner in crime, particularly since they’d be on their guard after the earlier debacle at Richard’s house. About half an hour passed, then the front door opened and my target emerged. Judging by the way she threw her briefcase into the car, she wasn’t in the best of moods. I’d had my phone switched off all day to avoid communicating with the office, but I turned it back on as I pulled out behind the woman.
She was back inside the block of flats by the time my new confederate called. ‘Hiya,’ she greeted me. ‘I think it went off all right. I don’t think she was suspicious, just brassed off because I was sitting there being dead neg about the whole thing. I just kept saying to Tony he shouldn’t make any decision without the kids being there, and that was all the support he needed, really. She realized she wasn’t getting anywhere and I wasn’t shifting, so she just took herself off.’
‘You did really well. Do you know what she was calling herself?’ I asked when I could get a word in.
‘She had these business cards. Greenhalgh and Edwards. Tony showed me after she’d gone. Sarah Sargent, it says her name is. Will you need us to go to court?’ she asked, the phone line crackling with excitement.
‘Possibly,’ I hedged. ‘I really appreciate your help. If the police need your evidence to support a case, I’ll let them know where to find you.’
‘Great! Hey, I think your job’s dead exciting, you know. Any time you need a hand again, just call me, OK?’
‘OK,’ I said. Anything to get out from under. But she insisted on giving me her name and phone number before I could finally disengage. I wondered how glamorous she’d find the job when she had to do a fifteen-hour surveillance in a freezing van in the dead of winter with a plastic bucket to pee in and no guarantee that she’d get the pictures she needed to avoid having to do the whole thing all over again the next day.
I started my engine. I didn’t think the con merchants would be having another go tonight. But I still had miles to go before I could sleep. A little burglary, perhaps, and then a visit to clubland for a nightcap. Given that I wasn’t dressed for either pursuit, it seemed like a good excuse to head for home. Maybe I could even squeeze in a couple of hours kip before I had to go about my nocturnal business.
Never mind mice and men. Every time I make a plan these days it seems to go more off track than a blindfolded unicyclist. I hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps towards my bungalow when I heard another car door open and I saw a figure move in my direction through the dusk. I automatically moved into position, ready for fight or flight, arms hanging at my side, shoulder bag clutched firmly, ready to swing it in a tight arc, all my weight on the balls of my feet, ready to kick, pivot or run. I waited for the figure to approach, tensed for battle.
It was just as well I’m the kind who looks before she leaps into action. I don’t think Detective Constable Linda Shaw would have been too impressed with a flying kick to the abdomen. ‘DC Shaw?’ I said, surprised and baffled as she stepped into a pool of sodium orange.
‘Ms Brannigan,’ she acknowledged, looking more than a little sheepish. ‘I wonder if we might have a word?’ Looming up in the gloom behind her, I noticed a burly bloke with more than a passing resemblance to Mike Tyson. I sincerely hoped we weren’t going to get into the ‘nice cop, nasty cop’ routine. I had a funny feeling I wouldn’t come off best.
‘Sure, come on in and have a brew,’ I said.
She cleared her throat. ‘Actually, we’d prefer it if you came down to the station,’ she said, her embarrassment growing by the sentence.
Now I was completely bewildered. The one and only time I’d met Linda Shaw, she’d been one of Detective Inspector Cliff Jackson’s gophers on a murder case I’d been hired to investigate. There was a bit of history between me and Jackson that meant every time our paths crossed, we both ended up with sore heads, but Linda Shaw had acted as the perfect buffer zone, keeping the pair of us far enough apart to ensure that the job got done without another murder being added to the case’s tally. I’d liked her, not least because she was her own woman, seemingly determined not to let Jackson’s abrasive bull-headedness rub off on her. What I couldn’t work out was why she was trying to drag me off to a police station for questioning. For once, I wasn’t doing anything that involved tap-dancing over a policeman’s toes. That might change once I got properly stuck in to the investigation of Alexis’s murdered doctor, but even if it did, the detectives I’d be irritating were forty miles away on the other side of the Pennines. ‘Why?’ I asked mildly.
‘We’ve got some questions we’d like to ask you.’ By now, Linda wasn’t even pretending to meet my eye. She was pointedly staring somewhere over my left shoulder.