‘Weeks ago… there I am encouraging him to keep going to the clinic to stop the drugs, warning him over and over that if he doesn’t stop I’ll have no alternative but to throw him out. She wanted to make a phone call, the cheek of her. I told her I didn’t have a phone and to get out. She asks me, all posh like, where the nearest hotel is, and I told her that if she had cash for a hotel she could bloody well leave me some money for the bed and food she had off me.’
‘A hotel?’
‘Probably lyin’, but I knew she was making money as a tom.’
‘How did you know?’ Bradfield asked.
She touched the side of her nose twice. ‘When you been around as long as I have, dear, you know these things.’
‘Do you know who her pimp was?’
Her laugh had a guttural tone to it. ‘Not personally, no, but I saw her talkin’ with a big black guy just outside the estate one day.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘No I don’t. We’ve enough of them on the estate, their kids left to run riot.’
‘Did you ever see her in a red Jaguar?’
‘Believe me if I did I’d remember that. Like I told you, she stayed at mine twice and that was a while back.’
Bradfield had heard enough and was eager to get rid of her.
‘Well, Mrs Phillips, WPC Morgan has taken notes about your complaint, but your grandson was re-arrested because he lied to us, and he has been assisting us with our enquiries.’
‘Well, now you got to assist me.’
‘As I said, WPC Morgan will process your complaint through the appropriate channels.’
‘You got no right to keep him here and I want to see him before I go.’
‘Your grandson was released last night, Mrs Phillips,’ Kath said.
‘Well, where is he then? You lot picked him up, he obviously puked because you treated him so badly, and now I dunno where he is.’
‘You can report him missing to WPC Morgan,’ Bradfield said, wishing she’d stop yapping and leave.
‘No, I just want to know where he is.’
Bradfield thought the same, wondering if Eddie Phillips had done a runner, or worse, was going to tip off Big Daddy that the police had been asking questions about him. He stood up and said he would circulate Eddie’s description on the Met radio. He didn’t say the real reason was he wanted Eddie arrested again as he’d lied about Julie Ann staying at his grandmother’s. He ushered her to the door and opened it, eager to talk to two drug squad officers who he hoped could shed some light on the dealers Julie Ann had scored from. As Kath was about to step into the corridor he leaned over and whispered to her.
‘Let her sign the complaint forms then bin them, and tell everyone I want that little shit Phillips found asap.’
Kath wasn’t happy about his instructions, but as he was her superior officer she felt obliged to do as he told her.
Bradfield shut the door behind them and sitting at his desk he sighed. He ran his hands through his hair and then lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply and letting the smoke drift up into two circles above his head. Eddie had lied yet again. Bradfield reckoned it was more than likely fear, but at the same time something really bothered him. Where was Julie Ann for those missing two weeks? Not with Eddie, it would seem, and not staying at his grandmother’s. She had to have been somewhere, and someone had to know. He began to think that all the searching for the driver of the red Jaguar was possibly a waste of time and manpower. After the first wave of excitement it felt like the investigation was flat-lining and if it continued that way the case would end up in the dead files. Bradfield needed a result, because without one it would be his career in the doldrums.
Jane was enthralled as Harker continued his lecture, even when he said that the pictures he was about to show the class may be quite distressing and he understood if anyone felt the need to look away. Jane reckoned everyone was so worked up about what was coming that no one would be able to resist the urge to look, no matter how gruesome the slides were.
‘Every crime scene is different and, like a roll of film, tells a story with a beginning, middle and an end. We all like a happy ending, but if you fail to deal with a crime scene properly, in a slow, methodical manner, you will make critical and irreversible mistakes.’
He walked over to the carousel projector and brought up the slide which he said was of the mother’s bedroom.
There were gasps round the room. A woman wearing a nightdress, dressing gown and slippers was on a wooden chair in the corner, tied up with a white sheet that was stained crimson red from her blood. Bloody footprints were all over the floor and blood splatters covered the two corner walls and ceiling area either side of the seat. Harker explained that the blood had come from the beating she had received, which had also left her face black and blue and totally unrecognizable. Brown packing tape was wrapped round her mouth and hands.
