Before leaving he checked the house was locked and secure. It would not be used again.
‘Let’s assume that JJ and Carrie were at the flat,’ Henry said. He was sitting on a low wall some distance away from the block, Rik Dean next to him. Both were sitting on their hands like little lads. They were going through the hypothesis stage of the enquiry, that stage when there were few facts available to them beyond a scene of crime as yet unexamined, and two bodies, neither of which had been post-mortemed. ‘So they have a barney, JJ kills her and then, in remorse leaps to his own death from the window. . and just by accident, the flat catches fire from a discarded fag.’
They pondered this for a while before turning to each other and going, ‘Naaah!’ simultaneously.
‘I’ve known JJ for a long time and he’s really nothing more than a sad old junkie who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s been knocking around with Carrie for donkey’s years. They doted on each other in a sort of hippyfied way. I know that anyone is capable of murder, but I can’t see him whacking her, but I could be wrong. It just doesn’t seem to fit.’
‘Unless someone else did it and pushed him out of the window,’ Rik Dean suggested.
‘I like that. It’s something we must bear in mind. Let’s see how the PMs pan out tonight, but in the meantime let’s be making some enquiries into JJ’s current lifestyle. See what he’s been up to recently.’
The next stage of the mission found the three men arriving at a large garage premises on the periphery of an industrial estate on the outskirts of Bispham, just north of Blackpool. The doors were already wide open and the van was driven in.
Here, they de-bussed with all their gear and transferred it to another vehicle which was waiting for them in the garage. It was a Golf GTi, stolen a couple of weeks earlier from south Manchester, given a new paint job and a set of number plates referring to a clean GTi owned by some poor soul in Derbyshire. Just enough work had been done on it to keep any inquisitive cop at bay for a few minutes at least. It had been stolen for a particular purpose and after today would be delivered to a scrap yard in Rossendale to be crushed into a square no bigger than a cardboard box.
Crazy slid into the driver’s seat. He was the wheelman and wanted to get comfortable. He was wearing his latex gloves, pulled tight over his fingers, as were the other two. This would ensure that no prints belonging to them would be found in the car should the police somehow get to it before it became a cube of crushed metal. None of the men had been in physical contact with the car before today.
The garage owner, who ran a profitable sideline ‘ringing’ stolen cars, gave Crazy the thumbs up and said, ‘It’s a beast, this motor. It won’t let you down.’
Crazy nodded.
‘Better fuckin’ not,’ murmured Marty loud enough for the man to hear. He got into the back seat.
Ray retreated to the far end of the garage, out of hearing, his mobile pressed to his ear. He had a brusque conversation, which ended as he slid his phone into his overall pocket and looked across at the others.
‘It’s still on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. . we need to meet Pete.’
With a curt nod to the garage owner, Crazy reversed the GTi out of the premises and turned back towards Blackpool. Ray and Marty slid low in their seats, keeping their chins to their chests.
All three were now beginning to feel the tension.
Henry was in no particular hurry to move Carrie’s body, but he did allow JJ’s corpse to be moved once it had been photographed, videoed, and given a once-over by scientific support and the pathologist. The paramedics kindly offered to remove it to the mortuary and Henry ensured that a police constable accompanied them in order to provide continuity of evidence.
He let the experts do what they had to do in the flat after he had assessed the scene himself. He was not a hundred per cent convinced there would be much for the SIO team here, other than to lend a guiding hand. If the facts seemed to point to JJ having killed Carrie and then topped himself, it would be pretty much a paper exercise which could be handled locally.
‘You were close by when you got the call,’ Rik Dean commented to Henry, more by way of small talk than anything else.
‘Mm,’ said Henry. He told Dean why he had been so close and as he told him, something somersaulted into his memory. ‘You were involved in that investigation, weren’t you?’
‘Yeah, just took a few statements, that’s all.’
Henry frowned. ‘Did you interview Jacqueline, alias Jack, Burrows. . you did, didn’t you?’ Henry now clearly recalled seeing Dean’s name at the bottom of one of the statement forms in the file.
‘Yeah, yeah, I did.’ Rik looked a tad uncomfortable for a passing moment.
‘What did you think of her?’
‘Er. . who?’ he asked dumbly.
‘Jack Burrows,’ said Henry, almost spelling the name out.
‘Oh. Okay, I guess.’
‘Did she tell the truth?’
‘Er, I think so.’
Henry eyed Dean thoughtfully, not remotely happy with the response he was getting from the officer. He wanted something meaty, tangible, but all he was getting was the impression that Rik Dean did not want to discuss Jack Burrows. It puzzled and intrigued Henry at the same time.
They were standing on the walkway outside Carrie’s flat, leaning on the balustrade overlooking the car park below. Out of the earlier chaos had emerged some sort of order. The fire service was now withdrawing having drenched the flat and probably destroyed any evidence the fire had not. The entrance to the crime scene was now being controlled by a uniformed PC, who was keeping tabs on everyone coming and going, providing people with overshoes and paper overalls, but mainly ensuring that as few people as possible entered the scene in the first place.
Scenes of crime and scientific support officers were beavering away at the remains of the flat; someone from the forensic science lab was en route, so things were pretty much bottled up. Door to door enquiries had started in a limited way, to be expanded later when staffing allowed. Once Carrie’s body was moved, they would soon have the result of the post-mortem.
Henry checked his watch. It was 4 p.m. already. He had missed his surprise lunch with Kate, but as it had been a surprise, she did not know any different, so there was nothing lost there.
A car drew on to the car park below. Henry half thought he recognized it.
‘It’s the DI,’ Dean said.
The driver’s door opened and the detective inspector climbed out and looked up towards Henry and Dean, acknowledging them with a little wave.
Dean waved back. Henry, however, found he could not move. He was in deep shock.
‘First day back at work,’ the DI said to Henry. They were walking slowly along the concrete walkway outside Carrie’s flat, shoulder to shoulder, touching occasionally. ‘I wasn’t going to turn out to this because I knew you were here and I was busy with other things. . but then I couldn’t resist,’ she admitted ruefully.
Jane Roscoe let her shoulders rise and fall in a gesture of submission.
‘I didn’t even have a clue you were coming back. I thought you were having a long career break, especially after all you went through.’ Henry fell quiet for a few seconds as he thought about the fairly recent past. ‘And you were trying for a child, weren’t you?’ Henry was quite nervous being so near Roscoe. His voice wavered slightly.
‘Yeah, we were, but it never seemed to happen. I suppose it helps if you have sex.’
‘Usually part of the equation.’
‘Well it started off like having sex to order. . can you imagine that?’
‘Bliss.’ Henry laughed.
‘Not in our house,’ she said seriously. ‘But apart from that, I got bored being at home, doing the wifey thing. It just didn’t seem natural, so I asked to come back and luckily my job was still open, so. . here I am! Large as life and twice as dangerous.’ They reached the end of the landing and stopped walking. Roscoe took a deep breath, which she then exhaled unsteadily. ‘Things aren’t right between me and Tom, which doesn’t help.’ She had a sad expression on her face.