Maurice Stanway, LLB, was stone grey and feeling bilious.
‘ If she dies, and it’s made to look like a coincidence, then I’ll be very happy indeed. Have I made my point?’
Henry’s office: Danny replaced the phone. ‘Nothing further from the forensic team.’ She relayed the news grimly to Henry and FB.
Henry tapped his bottom teeth with his thumbnail. It was 6.30 p.m. ‘No supporting evidence,’ he said bitterly. ‘This is shit.’
‘ There’s not even any point in going for a Super’s extension,’ Danny said. ‘An extra twelve hours only gives us until tomorrow morning. They’ll be spending eight of those asleep.’
‘ Charge him,’ FB said. ‘Put him before court in the morning and get a three-day lie-down so we can get into his ribs about the other murder in Darwen.’
‘ Based on what?’ Henry enquired. ‘A witness in the States who’s done a runner? And not only that, we don’t know one hundred per cent that it is a murder. The post mortem was inconclusive.’
‘ He has to be questioned about it at the very least. And we need chats with him about all the stuff in his house. I think we’ve stumbled onto something very big here.’
‘ What about Spencer?’
‘ He’s going nowhere. Charge him with murder too, get a three-day lie-down and let’s have a nice long chat with him about the two mispers we found in his place — and Grace’s allegations about him sexually assaulting her.’
Henry and Danny nodded. Henry crossed to the computer in his office and logged into the custody system.
He started to prepare a murder charge.
‘ Do you wish to make any reply to the charge?’ Danny asked Gilbert. ‘If so, you may like to write it in the space here on the form, or I’ll gladly write it for you.’
‘ Only that you’ll all regret your mistake, but I don’t wish to have that recorded, so no — no reply.’
Danny turned to Spencer. They had been jointly charged. He shook his head, said nothing.
Danny completed the charge forms and handed the defendants their copies. They immediately gave them to Stanway who stuffed them into his briefcase. Danny thought he looked decidedly agitated. His hands were shaking as he closed the case. He appeared near to collapse.
‘ Are you okay, Mr Stanway?’ she asked with concern. ‘You look peaky.’
‘ I’m fine, thanks,’ he said tightly. ‘I’ll see you all at court in the morning.’ He turned to leave, only to find he had not locked his case properly. It flipped open, scattering the contents across the floor, papers, pens, forms, everywhere.
Danny helped him collect them together. She was unaware that the last piece of paper she handed to him only had one bit of information on it. A telephone number given to Stanway by Ollie Spencer.
The number of a killer.
Stanway waited in the dark in his car in one corner of a deserted coach park near to Blackpool football club’s increasingly dilapidated ground. The beat of his heart seemed to be taking place in his throat.
A movement in the shadows made him gasp.
He peered through the windscreen into the darkness. A man was standing there. How he had got to that position, Stanway did not know. On his hands and knees perhaps.
There was the flare of a match, briefly illuminating a face, the features of which were difficult to make out. The match died, the end of a cigarette burned.
Another match was struck, flared, tossed to one side.
Two matches. The agreed signal.
‘ Oh God,’ muttered Stanway. He opened his car door and had to lift his numb legs out of the footwell and onto the ground with his hands. He was sure he would fall over as soon as he put any weight on them. But they held him up. Only just, but they worked.
Stanway teetered across to the man in the shadows, stopping about six feet away from him. The end of the cigarette glowed as he took a drag. Stanway smelled booze and body odour as well as the smoke.
‘ Got the money?’
‘ Half now, half when it’s done.’
‘ That wasn’t the arrangement.’
‘ Oh yes it was.’ Stanway tried to sound assertive.
A hand appeared. Stanway fumbled in his pocket and slapped an envelope into the waiting palm.
‘ Do I need to count it?’
‘ It’s all there.’
‘ It better be.’
‘ The job needs to be done soon. Tonight if possible. Are you sure you can do it?’
The man sniggered. ‘Piece of piss. Where is she?’
Stanway told him.
‘ Tomorrow night, back here, same time,’ the man said. ‘Make sure you come alone again and with the rest of the money. If you don’t, I’ll come for you, Mr Stanway.’
The man moved into deeper shadow. Stanway saw the butt of the cigarette drop to the ground, heard the scrunch of a heel, then there was no sound. The man had gone.
Danny worked for two hours on the preparation of the remand file for Gilbert and Spencer. She wanted it to be exactly right and continually read and re-read it until she saw double and her head throbbed.
Finally she completed the front sheet, copied the file and pinned it all together.
She walked wearily to Henry’s office where he was still transcribing one of the interviews from tape to paper. A tedious task, usually carried out by a trained civvie. Unfortunately they didn’t work after five and urgent files don’t wait until the morning. He removed the headphones when Danny came in.
‘ Done,’ she said, and dropped the files onto his desk.
‘ Excellent.’
‘ Now I’m going to have a word with Grace, which I should have done yesterday.’
‘ Don’t spend too much time with her tonight, Danny. Just a quick hello, how are you, we’re still with you, then get yourself to bed. It’s been another long day.’
‘ Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she said, leaving the office, giving Henry a tired wave over her shoulder. ‘See ya in the morning.’
She nipped into the CID office, commandeered the keys for one of the cars and five minutes later was heading north out of Blackpool.
St Jude’s was a former primary school, saved from certain demolition about twenty years before when an overflow problem at various juvenile detention centres and children’s homes saved it from the bulldozer. Little money had ever been spent on it and much of its refurbishment was merely cosmetic.
Danny parked in front of the building and went to the huge double doors. She rang the bell and heard it echoing somewhere inside. Footsteps drew nearer and the door was opened by a very formidable-looking woman. Danny knew this to be the matron, named, appropriately enough, Miss Steele.
Danny flashed her badge and introduced herself, already having phoned ahead in advance to warn of her arrival.
‘ She’s in room number four.’ Miss Steele answered Danny’s query and gave her directions.
‘ Is there just yourself on duty?’
‘ Aye, me and nine kids. Want me to take you down to her room?’
‘ I’ll find my own way, thanks. I’ll see you on the way out. Only be about ten minutes.’
‘ I’ll be in the office, just here.’ She pointed to a slightly open door.
Danny thanked her and walked down the corridor. She passed a common room, which she glanced into. Several young girls were lounging around, watching TV. Danny walked on, turned right down a hallway, off which were the private rooms. Grace’s room was the last on the right.
As she walked she felt a distinct chill from a draught blowing thinly down the corridor. At the far end she could see a fire door which was open, banging in the breeze. Danny thought it was unusual, but nothing more than that. She decided she would tell Miss Steele on the way out.
She stopped at Grace’s door and tapped. ‘Grace, it’s me, Danny Furness,’ she cooed. ‘I’ve come to see you.’ Her fingers wrapped around the handle, Danny pushed the door open.
Inside the room, the man sub-contracted by Maurice Stanway looked up. He had not quite finished the job and he forced the pillow down with all his weight onto Grace’s face and at the moment the door opened, she ceased squirming.