The Lady in the Street Read online

  Andy scribbled that down.

  “Where did she work?” Helena drank some tea. Yes, you did have to love a bit of PG.

  “In the arcade. The poor thing couldn’t get a job anywhere else once she was made redundant at the biscuit factory. Still, it’s just something to tide her over, and Gladys left her a fair few bob, so she’ll be all right for the time being.”

  “Do you know whether she was having any trouble from anyone?”

  “Who, Felicity?” Jean tittered. “No, she’s a dear soul. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Helena resisted closing her eyes and muttering, “Typical!”

  “I’ll pop over to see her later, once all the police have gone.” Jean popped her cup on the table. “Why are you here? Did that woman do something?”

  Helena stood, and Andy followed suit.

  “I’ll send someone over to give you the details,” Helena said. What a coward I am. “Thank you for your time. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Helena escaped, rushing out and across the road. She told Clive to ask one of the door-to-door officers to speak to Jean, then she got in the car. Andy joined her, and they drove in silence to see Becky Jermaine, Felicity’s friend.

  Let’s see what she has to say, shall we?

  Chapter Three

  He stood in front of a fruit machine in Smaltern Amusements, beside the red money exchange booth. The old bat in there was talking to a customer through the semicircle cut-out of the plastic partition, bending over so her words carried. She ought to keep her voice down really, but she’d always been a strident bitch, her tone loud. Still, she was doing him a favour by being so gobby, so he wasn’t complaining.

  He remembered her from his childhood, when she’d had long brown hair instead of the grey effort that seemed to hover over her head as though it wasn’t even attached. She’d had one of those perms, he reckoned, as if it was something every woman did when they hit sixty. Like it was the law they had to have gran hair. Once smooth skin had given way to deep crevices that mapped out how hard her life had been. Go down that line, it signified her bastard of a husband, go down another, and it led to the story of how her kids had wreaked havoc. All the others were sentences and paragraphs of a sorry tale she enjoyed telling to anyone who’d listen.

  “No,” Mouth Almighty said. “Didn’t turn up for work, did she, so Becky went off on one, panicking, although why she did that is anyone’s guess.”

  “Think it’s anything serious?” the customer asked, a bloke of about fifty, his paunch the size of a full bag of shopping, the hair at his temples a fuzzy grey.

  “Well, Becky seemed to think so. She darted off after she rang Felicity, who didn’t answer, by the way. These young girls, all so dramatic, aren’t they?” She pursed her lips. “Anyway, Becky ended up going home—too upset, she said—so we’re two people short. I’m just waiting for that lad Glen to turn up. He’s a good kid. Never lets me down. A bit dopey, though.”

  The man nodded, sage as you like, sucking in his bottom lip. “I could work here, you know. I wouldn’t let you down either. Early retirement isn’t all I thought it would be. I’m bored, to be honest.”

  “Now there’s a thought.” She rubbed her bristly chin. “I could do with someone like you. Reliable and all that.”

  While they prattled on, he slid the last pound into the slot machine and pressed the various flashing buttons. Three lemons came up, and he banked the winnings. Then three bars, and he’d made back the money he’d laid out. Coins chugged out into the tray, and he scooped them up.

  “’Ere,” Mouth Almighty said. “I’ll have to ban you if you keep winning.” She cackled, as though what she’d said was well funny.

  It wasn’t.

  He resisted giving her the middle finger and walked out, blinking at the brightness of the day compared to the almost seedy shadows of the arcade. Gulls squawked, zooming at him from on high, the dumb bastards probably thinking he had a bag of chips on him that they could nick.

  “Fuck off,” he said, walking along the street then entering the little shop he’d loved as a kid, the one that sold sticks of rock, postcards, and stupid ornaments with Smaltern written on plaques at the bases. Who the hell bought that sort of shit?

  He swiped up a magazine and a Mars bar, then popped them on the counter. Den, the old bloke who owned the place, pointed the barcode scanner at the items. He was surprised the elderly git had moved with the times and got rid of his old-fashioned till.

  “Two pounds and tuppence,” Den said, giving him a filthy look.

  The bastard always had stared at him that way, and he was getting sick of it.

  He paid, all but throwing the coins at him, then grabbed up his stuff and left the shop. Down the alley between Den’s and an ice cream shop, he paused, scoffing his Mars while checking whether anyone was going to appear. They didn’t, so he walked round the back of Den’s and stared at the flat above, then at the door. It wasn’t anything special, nothing that could keep him out, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t checked it before now. Fuck, he’d spent years plotting all this, so he knew it would be easy to break in. Den didn’t have an alarm. He was old-school in that regard and still believed no one would rob him, the twat.

  The lack of one would be his downfall.

  Chapter Four

  Helena knocked on Becky Jermaine’s door, and it swung open a few seconds later. Holding up her ID, Helena introduced herself and Andy.

  “Oh God, come in,” Becky said, white as anything, her makeup streaked around the eyes as though she’d been crying. Her blonde hair was sleek and straight, hanging well past her shoulders.

  Helena and Andy stepped inside, and Becky led them to the kitchen—pine cabinets, yellow walls, and a white blind with a row of daisies along the bottom. A load of washing swished around in the machine, bubbles pressing against the glass door along with what appeared to be a black sock asking to be let out.

  “Would you like a cuppa?” Becky reached for the sunshine-coloured kettle, her nails painted red.

  Callie Walker popped into Helena’s head, and she shoved the image away.

  “No, thank you.” Helena smiled. “We’ve just had one. Unless you want another, Andy?” She turned to look at him.

  He shook his head. “Not for me. Cheers for the offer, though.”

  Bloody hell, he’s mellowing.

  “Right. Well…” Becky stood by the sink, twiddling her thumbs, a diamond ring glinting on her finger. Engaged but not married?

  “Let’s have a sit down, shall we?” Helena gestured to the pine table and chairs.

  Once they were all seated, she smiled again at Becky and asked, “When you spoke to an officer earlier, you indicated a man or men were coming for Felicity. Can you elaborate on that, please?”

  Becky took a deep breath. “I probably didn’t make much sense when I spoke to him. I was that frightened when she didn’t turn up for work or answer her phone. The policeman nipped in to see me at work before he went to Felicity’s, and then I came home. Couldn’t face it with the worry, you know. But yes, after Felicity got away from them, she told me all about it but wouldn’t go to the police. She reckoned if she did, they’d find out.”

  “Okay. Do you know who ‘they’ are?” Uthway’s face loomed in Helena’s mind, and she shuddered. What was with the images bugging her today?

  “Not names, no, but they were running some sort of trafficking ring, so she said.” Becky laced her fingers on the table. “It was in the news a few months later, and Felicity kept crying about it all.”

  So did I.

  “Can I ask why you didn’t tell the police?” Helena raised her eyebrows. She shouldn’t be so hard on her, giving that sort of look, but it was done now.

  Becky squirmed. “Felicity begged me not to, and I know it was wrong, but I didn’t want to let her down. And…” She bit her lip. “God, this is going to sound awful, but Felicity told a lot of lies, so I kind of…” She covered her face with her hands and moaned.
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br />   “You didn’t quite believe her?” Helena supplied.

  Becky drew her hands down, revealing a blush. “Sorry to say it, but no, I didn’t, not until it came on telly. If I’d been held captive, you can bet I’d have gone to the police first. As soon as I got out of that house, that’s what I’d have done. You wouldn’t see me just going home and trying to forget about it.”

  People assumed all the time. They couldn’t possibly understand someone else’s experience if they hadn’t been through it themselves. They could empathise and imagine, but that was about it.

  “Not everyone thinks straight in those sorts of situations,” Helena said gently. “We all process things differently, and we think about what we’d do, but when the reality of it is right in front of you, many people do the opposite of what they thought they would.” She knew that. She’d sat in that grimy corner in the storage container and had given up the fight, too scared to do much else. Her training had deserted her after she’d been abused, not to mention the fact they’d injected her with something that had sent her groggy.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean… I just thought…” A tear slipped down Becky’s cheek, and she swiped it away with the back of her hand. “This isn’t coming out right. Let me start again. I believed her but at the same time I didn’t. She hasn’t ever made anything up like that before, so part of me wanted to support her, I still do. I was worried that by me going to the police it might make things worse. You know, they’d really come back. Is that what’s happened? Have they taken her away again?”

  “No, they haven’t taken her away.” Helena swallowed. “Where did she say she was when they had her?”

  “Some house in Lime Street.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shit.”

  Helena shook her head. “No need to fret. They’re not there anymore.” Lime Street was where Helena had been spying on them and that fucking great hulk of a bloke had dragged her away to the storage container. “None of them are around at the moment, so nothing to worry about there.” I bloody hope. “However, someone did pay Felicity a visit last night, so I’d like to know whether there’s anyone else you can think of who would be ‘after’ her.”

  “Someone else?” Becky squeaked. “Is she all right?”

  “Try to think,” Helena evaded. “If she told a lot of lies in the past, maybe someone is upset with her and they’ve been holding a grudge. What sort of lies were they?”

  Becky flapped her hand in front of her face as if those lies loomed in front of her and she wanted to bat them away. “Oh, just stupid things. Like she had a boyfriend when she didn’t—she was fifteen at the time, so looking back on it, I’m putting it down to her just being a young girl who wanted to fit in with everyone else. She lied about her exam results, said she was moving abroad, all sorts of things really. There was always a white one somewhere, but she’s nice, so I didn’t pull her up on it. I felt sorry for her, being brought up by her gran and not having a mum and dad.”

  “So would that have upset anyone, the white lies?”

  “Not that I can see. I mean, we all fib at some point, don’t we? They didn’t do any harm. So no, I don’t think anyone else apart from those men would come for her.”

  “It’s a pretty serious situation we have here, and I want you to think carefully. Do you know of a woman who would want to harm Felicity?”

  Becky’s mouth sagged open. “What? No! She rarely talks to anyone we knew as kids. She’s just got me now, oh, and Jean over the road. Since she escaped from Lime Street, she’s been pretty vacant. You know, seems lost inside her head. She jumps at everything. Then when the Walkers got murdered… She convinced herself they’d been killed for escaping as well. Once it came out it was someone else who’d done it, she calmed down.”

  Helena could cry. That poor woman must have been a nervous wreck. Helena had had counselling, and she’d barely managed to cope at first, so God knew what Felicity had been going through with only one friend to tell.

  “Do you have anyone who can come and sit with you for a bit?” Helena asked. Shit, it was time for breaking the news, and she didn’t want to leave Becky alone afterwards.

  “What for?” Becky frowned and cocked her head.

  “Do you?”

  “My mum lives next door to the left. Let me just go and get her.” She made to rise.

  “No, no. Andy will do that.” Helena smiled.

  Andy left the house. Becky settled back down and stared behind Helena.

  “Something horrible has happened, hasn’t it,” Becky said.

  “I’m afraid so.” Helena took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you, but Felicity was murdered last night.”

  “What?” It came out as a screech. Becky shot up out of her chair and slapped her palms on the table, leaning on them. “What…what happened?” She went white again, and tears welled up. Her eyes held a frightened glint, as though she had the urge to run out of there, as if that would make this all go away.

  But you can’t run from your troubles. They live in your head.

  “Please, have a seat again.” Helena blew out a breath while the woman sat. “It’s all very upsetting, I know. Someone broke in and killed her. I won’t give you the details, but we need to find who did this as quickly as possible. Are you sure you don’t know of any woman who might have wanted to do this?”

  Becky wiped her face. “A woman?”

  While Becky hadn’t broken down yet, Helena guessed the shock would set in soon, so she’d grab the chance to press her a little more, cruel as that may seem.

  “It could be something as slight as a small argument,” she said.

  Becky shook her head. “Seriously? A tiff from years ago could result in…in this? Who the fuck goes around killing people because they’ve been upset?”

  “I’m afraid some people carry things inside them for years, and this sort of occurrence is the result. It isn’t logical, I realise that. You can’t imagine someone doing this because you wouldn’t do it, but there are those who think this is acceptable behaviour.”

  “How can murder be acceptable?” Becky shook her head, like it would shuffle all her no doubt racing thoughts into some sort of order so they made sense.

  “Do you remember anything that could help us?” Helena asked softly.

  “No. My head’s so full. I can’t think…”

  Helena understood that. She’d felt the same on many occasions. She was about to offer some comfort, but Andy came back in with a woman of about sixty. Upon seeing her, Becky blarted, and the lady rushed to her daughter, gathering her into her arms.

  Helena moved close to Andy and whispered, “Did you tell the mum?”

  He nodded.

  They stood there for a while, heads bent, Helena feeling all kinds of awkward, then Becky stopped sobbing and looked their way, blinking, zoned out.

  “If you think of anything…” Helena reached into her pocket for a card and handed it over to the mother—Becky was in no fit state to take it. “Ring me. We’ll leave you be for now, and once again, I’m sorry to have brought you this news. Thank you for your help.”

  They left the house, and in the car, Helena shook. Talking about Uthway and his men had left a sour taste in her mouth. She remembered the smell of his breath, his body odour, and how he’d touched her in places he had no right to, ‘road testing’ her body to see if she was good enough to be sold.

  Andy got in and rummaged in the glove box for a sweet. He gave it to her.

  “Thanks,” she said, unwrapping it. She did like a Werther’s.

  “The taste will give you something else to think about,” he said.

  Fuck. Why had she ever thought he was a know-it-all dickhead who only had himself in mind?

  She blinked, started the car, and sucked on the sweet. Driving off, she pushed all the thoughts out of her head that wanted to crowd it, and headed for the station. She needed to brief Ol and Phil on everything, plus get any info off them. So far, though, it was looking likely that
once again they didn’t have much to go on. Just the lady in the street and another who told too many lies and had ended up dead, possibly for that very reason.

  The sight of Felicity in her bed flashed in front of her, and she almost swerved into the kerb. “Fuck me!”

  “You all right?” Andy asked.

  “Yeah.” Was it only a short while ago she’d laughed her arse off at him landing on his backside at the gym? It was times like these when she thought she’d never find anything funny ever again. Who the hell had wanted Felicity dead? What on earth had she done to anger someone so much? And why was the blood scant on the floor?

  “It’s already doing your head in, isn’t it?” Andy asked.

  “How can you tell?” She pulled into the station car park.

  “Because you’re crunching on that bloody sweet like a maniac.”

  She swallowed the bits and cut the engine. “Sorry if the noise was annoying. Didn’t realise I was doing it.” She hated loud eaters, and she’d just become one.

  “Not a problem.”

  They entered the station, and Louise waved them over to the front desk.

  “Tom rang and asked me to pass on the message that the diary is with Olivia and Phil.” Louise jerked her head, beckoning them closer. “And I had a weird phone call.”

  “Oh right. How so?” Helena asked.

  “They said they’d normally ring Talk Today, but ‘seeing as the bitch I usually talk to is dead, you’ll have to do.’ That’s what they said. I thought that a bit odd, to be honest.”

  “I don’t,” Helena said. “Felicity Greaves worked for Talk Today. We’ll be nipping there once we’ve had a team chat. What did they want?”

  “Oh, they said they wanted to make friends. I said I wasn’t in the habit of doing that with strangers on the other end of the phone, and they asked if I’d like to have a coffee so we weren’t strangers anymore. I said no. That was it.”

  “Thanks for letting me know. Phone number from whoever rang?”

  “Yep, and it’s a pay-as-you-go. I gave Olivia the info, and she said she’d look into it.”