Bad Blood (8 page)

She stood in the centre of the bare room, thinking how Owers’ life was being taken apart. He’d probably killed Simza Ellis so he deserved all that was coming to him, but it looked as if he had been living a bleak, empty existence for years. He may have gained some perverse pleasure from his paedophilia, but was the pleasure so great it was worth sacrificing everything for?

She went back into the living room again. The blanket covering the sofa had gone, however the Freemans catalogue remained. The catalogue no longer lay open but sat placed on one arm of the sofa, as if someone had forgotten to pack it away in one of the boxes. Savage went over, picked it up and began to flick through the first few pages. As she perused the dresses she looked at the models – teens and early twenties most of them – and thought about herself at a younger age. Back then, when she’d first got together with Pete, she remembered he’d often teased her about her scruffy attire, but then conceded he preferred her without clothes anyway.

Savage smiled to herself at the memory and then shook her head. For too long her life had been on autopilot, her relationship with Pete the same. Passion had been fuelled by distance, love by his absence. Now he was back for good they’d have to work on things, make an effort. She wondered if that might include needing a change of wardrobe.

She moved on through the various sections, but nothing grabbed her. Then she reached the children’s clothes, spotting the page which had been open the first time she had seen the catalogue. She flicked on, and a few pages later the catalogue opened at a slip of paper wedged deep in the seam. At the top of the page two girls dressed in vests and knickers stood against a pastel background. Savage removed the paper. Nothing on either side. She looked back at the catalogue. Near the seam there was a hollow space, a recess cut away, inside which was the distinctive shape of a USB memory stick.

After handing Layton the catalogue with the cut-out and the USB stick, Savage left the property, strolled down Durnford Street and then up to Admiralty Street, looking to see where the inquiry teams had got to. At St George’s Primary the shrieks of children floated out from the playground at the rear. They were out of view, safe from the prying eyes of a pervert like Owers, but a minor inconvenience like that wouldn’t stop someone like him. He’d find a way. The question was, had he gone down to the Lizard in Cornwall for just that reason?

Up the street she could see two members of the inquiry team talking to Enders. Enders waved and then jogged towards her, a wide grin on his face. He reached her, breathless, words pouring out. Savage told him to calm down. Take it slowly. Enders explained the two officers he’d been talking to had scored big time.

‘We’ve got a reliable sighting of Mr Owers. He was seen scuttling up the cut at the back of Admiralty Street early Sunday evening, something about a confrontation with two other men. Then a white van drives off at speed.’

‘Have we got anything else on the van?’

‘Of course.’ The grin widened and Enders nodded over at a small sign attached to a nearby lamp post. ‘Neighbourhood Watch. The van was double-parked near the school and somebody snapped a pic with their phone. We’ve got the index.’

‘And?’

‘Registered owner is a Stuart Chaffe. Turns out he has form. Major. Went down for assaulting a police officer after being stopped on the motorway during a drugs bust. The assault was a knifing. Sliced the officer open and pulled the man’s guts out with his bare hands. Chaffe spent five years in Broadmoor before being moved to an ordinary prison to complete his sentence. He was only released last year after an eighteen-year stretch inside.’

‘Sounds like he could be old enough to be our mystery man, the one who impersonated Mr Evershed. Do we have an address?’

‘Southway, ma’am. Kinnaird Crescent. Since he’s only just out of the nick he’ll have a probation officer. Shall I try to make contact and get some sort of lowdown before we head out there?’

Savage thought back to an incident a couple of years ago. In a similar situation she’d gone by the book and had a quiet word with somebody on the offender management side of things. When she’d turned up at the suspect’s house – a youth wanted for attacking a mum-to-be with a hammer – the door had been opened by a local solicitor, the lad already briefed to keep his mouth shut.

‘No,’ Savage said. ‘Better if our visit comes as a complete surprise to Mr Chaffe, don’t you think?’

Kinnaird Crescent lay on the northern edge of the city in the maze of Drives, Closes, Walks and Gardens which made up the district of Southway. Stuart Chaffe lived in a block of flats on the north side of the crescent, one of a number of five-storey blocks dotted every fifty metres or so. The road traversed a slope and the flats had been built on the lower side, meaning the ground floor – which consisted of garages – and the first floor lay below street level. Each block had a concrete bridge which led across to the entrance door. Net curtains adorned the lower windows of the flats, hiding away whatever grimness lay within. Depressing, Savage thought, as Enders drove along the crescent, past block after block of identical buildings.

Halfway along they came to the correct block. They parked up and strolled across the strange little bridge to the glass-fronted lobby area, where a list of names ran down a column of bell-pushes to the right of the locked door. ‘Chaffe’ had been scribbled in pencil alongside the number ‘324’. Three presses of the bell later, the third with Enders keeping his finger held down for a good thirty seconds, and a lanky figure shuffled down into the foyer from a stairwell to the right. Stuart Chaffe wore ill-fitting jeans and a denim jacket, his wrists and ankles protruding from the sleeves and the bottom of the trousers, as if he was a kid growing too fast for his parents to keep him in clothes. In his early forties, he appeared older, with greying hair and bloodshot eyes, his skin bearing an unhealthy pallor, as if he had returned from a long sea voyage where fruit and vegetables were in short supply. He gazed through the glass before leaning against the wall next to a bare noticeboard.

‘If you are from the good Lord Jehovah you can fuck off.’ Chaffe rubbed his eyes and yawned.

‘I have heard my boss called many things, Mr Chaffe,’ Savage said, ‘but God isn’t one of them.’

‘Pigs then? These days only pigs and religious folk dress like you two twats.’

‘Let us in, Stuart,’ Enders said, pressing his warrant card up to the glass. ‘We want a word. Or two.’

‘I was right then. All that time inside and I’ve still got a good sense of smell for crap.’ Chaffe made no move to open the door, instead he straightened and gestured around the hall. ‘Talk away. No one around to hear, just a few deaf old coots. The rest are out at work.’

‘And you, Stuart?’ Savage said. ‘Have you got a job?’

‘The name’s Stuey, not Stuart, and “Had” is the word. Gutting chickens in a factory wasn’t my idea of fun. Not after having spent the last eighteen years in a battery farm myself. Jacked it. You should have seen my proby’s face when I said I’d had enough, you’d have thought I’d knocked one out over her.’

‘Let’s talk about this inside, Stuart. You can make us a nice cup of tea and we can ask you a few questions.’

‘Tea? You’re joking, right? Believe me, sweetheart, when you’ve done a stretch like I have the last thing you are going to be drinking on the outside is tea. So, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go back and fix myself something a little stronger before you guys bore me back to sleep.’

Chaffe turned and began to move towards the stairs. Enders grabbed the door handle and rattled the door, the noise echoing around the bare hallway.

‘You own a white van,’ Savage said. ‘Were you out and about in it on Sunday evening? Maybe around the Stonehouse area?’

‘So what if I was? Got to make a living somehow.’

‘Do you have any friends who live over that way, Stuart? On the gross side, the type who like to play with kiddies?’

‘Hey?’

‘A man known as Franklin Owers. You’ll likely as not have seen his picture in the
Herald
. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of him, have you?’

Chaffe stood for a moment, a smirk creeping across his lips. Then he turned and walked across the hallway, his beanpole-like frame disappearing as he went down the stairs.

‘Ma’am?’ Enders had stepped back from the door and pointed to a white plate on the outside wall of the flat. ‘Says numbers two ninety-four to three twenty-four. Which means Chaffe’s flat is on the top floor, and if you remember he came
down
the steps.’

‘Shit.’ Savage moved back onto the bridge and peered over. A row of windows marked the first floor flats and then, below, the grass slope led down to rendered wall with a couple of smaller windows and some pipes. Somewhere out the back of the flats an engine coughed into life, followed by a squeal of tyres.

Enders was already running for their car, key fob in an outstretched hand. A white transit van came from behind the flats, shooting up the access road and sweeping round and up to join Kinnaird Crescent proper. The vehicle skidded into the road, turning sharp left and roared back towards where Enders was crossing over. He dashed across, diving for the pavement as the van sped past, Chaffe leaning forwards in the front seat, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. Enders picked himself up as Savage arrivedat the car and jumped in the passenger side. Enders was in the car and starting the engine as Savage reached for the radio.

They had parked facing the direction they had come so Enders floored the accelerator and spun the wheel. The back end of the car slid round but not quite enough to prevent him from having to engage reverse gear and back up. Then they were going forwards again, Savage spotting the van disappearing over a rise a couple of hundred metres away. The crescent curled up to the right, meeting the larger Clittaford Road at a mini-roundabout. Chaffe went left, screeching across the roundabout and clipping a car parked a short distance up the road. Enders had the headlights on and the grille-mounted blue strobe flashed in response to the warble of the siren. A motorcyclist came from the right and Enders had to thump the horn to prevent the rider from venturing into their path.

‘Idiot!’

Savage had control on the radio and swore when the dispatcher said the nearest unit was at the Crownhill station. It would be at least a couple of minutes before back up would arrive.

Clittaford Road had speed bumps for the first quarter of a mile, but Enders took them at full pelt, the car’s suspension bottoming with a jar each time they hit one. Another mini- roundabout marked the end of the residential area and the start of an industrial complex on the right, a number of vast warehouses standing like sad monoliths. The road continued to bend to the right, looping in a great circle until houses once again appeared on the left and the road came to the much busier Southway Drive where a queue of cars waited at a red light.

Up ahead, Chaffe swung over to the wrong side of the carriageway and steamed by the queue, hanging a right and speeding onto the main road. Enders followed and they joined the road just in time to see Chaffe slow down and take a sneaky left up a side street.

‘Got him,’ Enders said, flooring the accelerator once again. They shot along the main road and Enders took the left turn at speed, careering round and bumping the curb. Out of the corner of her eye Savage spotted a sign: two figures holding hands – one taller than the other – inside a red triangle.

‘No!’ she screamed.

The dad in the middle of the road grabbed his three-year-old and leapt for the pavement, but an older child stood rigid with fright. Enders wrenched the wheel and stamped on the brake pedal. The ABS juddered as the car began to turn and then the whole of the vehicle was sliding sideways, the back end swinging round so when they stopped they were pointing back the way they had come.

Savage looked over her shoulder but couldn’t see the child. She jumped out and ran to the rear of the car. The girl knelt on the ground crying, pointing down into the road where a little black cat lay squashed under a wheel, a mass of polystyrene beads escaping from the soft toy’s stomach.

By the time they had waited for a Traffic unit to arrive so the incident could be logged and assessed – the attending officers taking photographs and measuring the marks on the road as well as interviewing the available witnesses – the day was fast disappearing.

When Savage had seen the little girl standing there she had been transported back through the years to when her daughter Clarissa – Samantha’s twin – had been killed in a hit and run up on Dartmoor. The accident had been al-together different, of course: Clarissa had been on her bike and the driver hadn’t been a skilled officer who had completed several pursuit courses but a maniac handling his car with no respect for other road users. The investigation had been much more involved too, but despite numerous leads the driver had never been traced, Clarissa’s death – or murder, as Savage saw it – unattributed and unavenged.

Savage took the wheel for the short drive back to Crownhill and as they drove away from the scene, Enders stared down at his lap. She knew Enders understood about Clarissa and he also had young children of his own.

‘It’s OK, Patrick. She didn’t have a mark on her. The only thing damaged is your pride.’

‘Inches, ma’am, inches.’ Enders shook his head. ‘I should have made a judgement of the risk. Time of day, the weather, danger to other road users, the seriousness of the offence the suspect we were pursuing may have committed …’

‘Textbook rubbish. Impossible for us to do if we were to have any chance of catching up with Chaffe. Anyway, I think murder is serious enough for a high-speed pursuit, and Chaffe is mixed up in this somehow.’

‘You think Chaffe is a paedophile like Owers? Maybe involved in killing Simza Ellis?’

‘No idea. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think the fact he’s done eighteen years makes him a reformed character. He doesn’t exactly look like a complete innocent either, does he? And if he is, then why on earth did he do a runner?’

The call had come from a policeman in Plymouth. Unexpected.