Cold Winter's Morning Read online

  Barbara took hold of his hand.

  Chapter 13

  PC Liz Barnham was in the station’s tiny kitchen. This tall, broad-shouldered woman was making a brew for the next shift of uniform response coppers. The tan from her recent Florida holiday still darkened her normally pale skin. Her natural brown hair was pinned up in a bun to go under her uniform bowler when she put it on. Her round face looked at him with a worried expression and then she returned her attention to the tray of mugs in front of her.

  ‘Morning,’ Frank said, as he opened a wall cupboard to fetch his coffee mug.

  ‘Water’s just this minute boiled,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and spooned instant coffee from a jar on the counter.

  ‘Pardon me for saying, Sarge, but I take sleeping pills to make sure I get a decent night’s sleep.’

  Frank stirred his coffee. ‘Am I looking rough?’

  ‘I’ve seen you look better.’

  ‘Cheers for that encouraging start to the day.’

  She lifted the tray and walked to the door and, as she passed him, he heard her say, ‘I mean it.’

  He looked through the latest updates on the computer. The trouble with having so many officers working on a case was you drowned in information. Yalina was the first to join him.

  ‘Rough night?’ she asked, as she hung up her coat.

  His expression elicited a ‘Sorry’ from her.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Thanks for caring.’

  She sat down at her desk and turned on the screen.

  Jade was next to arrive. She glanced at Frank. ‘Morning,’ she said, before settling to start work.

  Helen hurried in as if she was late. She watched Frank as she unbuttoned her coat. Once she had hung it up, she walked over to Frank’s desk. ‘That must be some hangover.’

  ‘No, just a poor night’s sleep.’

  She chewed her bottom lip. ‘You could always get pills from the doc.’ She walked to her desk.

  ‘Liz said the same thing.’

  ‘Shows it’s good advice,’ she said.

  Inspector Altman came in. ‘Morning all.’

  He sat in front of Frank’s desk. ‘Day three. I’m expecting a call from Griffin in,’ he checked his wristwatch, ‘half an hour. Anything I can tell him to start the day off well?

  ‘Yalina?’ Frank said, and she looked up from her screen. ‘We’ve got Vicky’s financial records. Did she have a lot of money on account with the building society?’

  ‘I suppose it depends on what you call “a lot”. Her savings account had £15,000 in it with an automatic transfer into her cheque book account when it needed topping up. She had a significant balance outstanding on her credit card and two store cards. The only odd feature is irregular receipts from an account in the name ‘Francis Holdings’ and a few cash deposits.’

  ‘What’s Francis Holdings?’

  ‘A trust company,’ she said. ‘The trustees are other companies.’

  ‘So, it’s a dummy trust? A front?’

  ‘It’s possible, but there might be a legitimate reason.’

  ‘Like tax evasion?’

  ‘Tax avoidance,’ she corrected him. ‘Or someone wants to make payments while keeping their identity secret. Charitable work or something.’

  ‘I don’t think charity is the case here,’ he said.

  Helen said, ‘How about blackmail? That could be a motive for them killing her.’

  Jade joined in, ‘I’m looking at the companies in the trust. Their registered addresses are accounting firms so they’re off the shelf pre-registered companies. You can get one for £200.’

  ‘You’re saying it looks dodgy?’ he asked.

  ‘I would say so,’ Jade replied.

  ‘But there wasn’t a huge amount of money. She wasn’t dealing drugs for instance?’ Frank asked.

  No one answered.

  Yalina spoke, ‘I’ve checked. The trust’s account is also with the Westchapel Building Society.’

  ‘That is interesting,’ Frank said. ‘It’s local money. Yalina, can you talk to the manager, off-the-record if necessary, and get a sense of how much money is in the trust’s account? If he’s difficult, I’ll call round to see him.’

  ‘Her,’ Yalina corrected him.

  ‘Her,’ Frank repeated.

  ‘Although there is an alternative,’ Yalina said. ‘The account is interest-bearing so the amount of interest paid is automatically notified to HMRC as taxable income. If we know the interest rate paid and the total of interest in a year, we can make an estimate of the balance on the account.’

  ‘Right. In that case I’ll leave you to speak to the manager, and do the calculation,’ he said.

  Frank brushed his hair with his hand and got up from his desk. Helen had rearranged the whiteboard on Frank’s instructions. On the left six images were arranged in two rows of three. Above them she had written ‘The Morgans.’ The first row was Gina - the mother, Ed - the oldest son, and Neil - the youngest son. The second row, Cassie - the daughter, Leonard Kowalski - Loki - and an outline with a question mark in it.

  Frank had everyone’s attention including Altman.

  ‘I’m becoming convinced that the Morgans are responsible for the murder of Vicky Crosby. So, I’m looking at their alibis for the relevant time. We need to check them all out. The outline represents a paid assassin. We have yet to speak to Neil, Gina and Cassie, although I suspect mother and daughter will alibi one another. Ed and Loki, I have spoken to and both claim to have been at home in bed with their respective girlfriends.’

  ‘We could check the location of their mobiles at the time,’ Yalina suggested.

  ‘That had occurred to me and I see two problems with the idea. One, we’re locating the phone and not the person. They may have deliberately left the phone at home while they committed the crime or given the phone to another member of the family to leave a false trail. Two, it’s quite common to have more than one mobile phone so we could never be sure we’re tracking the right one. Let’s leave that on the back-burner for now.’

  Yalina said, ‘I can take a close look at the landlines.’

  ‘Better,’ Frank said. ‘Check the home phone line calls between 5:30 am and 9:30 am. Make a list of the calls. See how you get on. Helen and I are off to meet the lovely Cassie and Gina. Jade, I’d like you to write up this process and keep us on track. I want this all sorted before we go home tonight. Anything you would like to add, inspector?’

  Altman said, ‘Let’s see what this exercise throws up. Let’s hope we don’t have to consider Mr X - the mystery hit man.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s a quarter past nine, let’s reconvene at two.’ He returned to his office.

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ Jade said to Frank. ‘The ASDA robber from the other day has been identified from fingerprints on the knife. His name is Luke Radcliffe. No fixed abode. Known junkie who’s been brought in a few times but not lately. I’ve passed on his details to uniform. They’ll keep an eye out for him and check the local squats.’

  The cold drizzle blew in through the open sides of the multi-storey car park. Frank and Helen sat in the car looking out.

  ‘This is the first meeting I’ve had in a car park. It’s like one of those spy movies,’ Helen said.

  ‘It’s what she wanted,’ Frank said. He checked his watch. ‘Any time now.’

  ‘But she’s a building society manager,’ Helen continued. ‘Why the cloak and dagger?’

  ‘I’ll find out. Remember you stay in the car,’ Frank said.

  ‘Spoilsport.’

  It was so gloomy in the multi-storey car park that the strip lights were on although it was the middle of the morning.

  ‘Could do with the heater on,’ she said.

  ‘You should have worn your coat.’

  Helen was wearing a dark jacket with a scarf. She wrapped her arms around herself and shook.

  A woman bundled up in a high-collared, padded coat walked towards the car, stoppe
d and raised a hand.

  ‘Now, there’s a proper coat,’ he said, as he unclipped his seat belt and opened the driver’s door to get out.

  ‘Shut the door,’ Helen whispered.

  He approached the woman and said, ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Grey from CID.’ He held out a hand and they shook.

  ‘Over here,’ she said.

  She led him to a parking space in the shadow of a stairway. They stood side by side looking out at the ranks of parked cars.

  ‘What is it you want to tell me?’ he asked.

  ‘I know all this is rather melodramatic,’ she said. ‘But I’m concerned for my safety after what happened to poor Vicky.’

  ‘You’ve got my attention.’

  ‘It’s about the Francis Holdings Trust account. It contains tens of millions of pounds.’

  ‘That’s what our sources have told us,’ he said.

  ‘Right, what your sources won’t say is the money belongs to the Morgan family. Hence my need for secrecy.’

  ‘Very interesting. I won’t lecture you but I’m sure you’re aware of your legal obligations as far as the proceeds of crime and anti-money laundering are concerned.’

  ‘The proper police departments know of the funds,’ she said. ‘But I was betting they wouldn’t automatically share that information with your investigation.’

  ‘A correct assumption.’

  ‘What no one knows except me, and one other employee, is that Vicky was skimming small amounts of money from the Trust’s fund for her own use. I’m worried she was killed because the Morgans found out. She covered her tracks well, but a routine check following her death has thrown up anomalies. She used a fellow employee’s login to try and cover her tracks. The fool had written his password on a Post-it Note and stuck it to the bottom of a drawer in his desk. On the immediate records the trick worked but when I checked the more detailed audit trail, there was a mismatch between the login and the screen used. I think she hoped smallish irregular amounts would go unnoticed. I found this out only yesterday.’

  ‘Thank you, this information is useful.’

  ‘I liked Vicky. She had her flaws but none of us are perfect. I’m telling you this off the record and won’t testify in court. Just wanted to point you in the right direction.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  They shook hands and Frank watched her walk away before returning to his car. He shut the car door.

  ‘Hurry up and get the heater going,’ Helen said.

  Frank started the engine. Helen rubbed her hands together and held them out towards the air vent from which hot air was now flowing. She reached over and turned the fan up to a higher speed.

  ‘Enough, it’s like a sauna in here,’ Frank said.

  ‘Just trying to defrost myself. What did she say?’

  Frank told her.

  ‘So now we have our motive,’ she said.

  ‘It seems likely. All roads lead back to the Morgans’ door.’

  Chapter 14

  Gina Morgan answered her front door and was irritated to find Frank and Helen there. She sighed.

  ‘What do you two want?’

  ‘First,’ Frank said. ‘We’d like to come in out of the cold.’

  ‘Do you have a warrant?’

  ‘We don’t want to carry out a search,’ he said. ‘Just have a chat.’

  ‘I always worry when a policeman says he wants to chat with me.’

  ‘What have you got to worry about?’

  She tutted and shook her head as she stood aside to let Helen and Frank into her home. She glared at them as they passed close to her, trying to intimidate. Helen paused at the open door to the front room.

  ‘Yes, go in,’ Gina said.

  Helen went in through the doorway but Frank stopped at the threshold and turned to Gina, ‘Where’s Cassie?’

  ‘She’s upstairs in her room with her latest boyfriend. They’re supposed to be playing computer games.’ The intimation being their activity might be more carnal.

  ‘Cassie,’ she yelled close to Frank’s ear. ‘Get your arse down here, now!’

  Cassie looked down over the bannisters at the back of the house. Frank could only see her head and shoulders but he thought she was naked. She stared at Frank and then turned her attention to her mother. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Sergeant Grey and his sidekick want to talk to us.’

  ‘God!’ She pulled back out of sight and a door slammed.

  There was a quiet conversation behind the closed bedroom door. It sounded like Cassie said, ‘The filth are here’ to someone who didn’t reply. Not out loud, anyway.

  Helen was sitting on the sofa and Frank went to sit beside her. Gina had slumped in one of two easy chairs and lit a cigarette. ‘She won’t be long,’ she said.

  Two minutes later Cassie appeared wearing jeans and an enormous turtleneck. She took the other easy chair. She hooked one leg over the arm. Her boyfriend was a black teenage lad who looked like he used steroids. He had a pair of headphones around his neck from which a wire went into his jeans pocket. His face was flushed. Raised blood pressure? He sat on the floor beside Cassie’s chair.

  ‘It’s simple. We’re collecting alibis for Wednesday morning. I need to know where you both were at 7:30 am.’

  ‘Here, of course,’ the mother said. ‘You don’t think she would be out of her pit at that time of the morning, particularly with lover boy here keeping her entertained.’

  The boyfriend grinned.

  ‘You’re alibiing one another?’ Helen asked with her notebook at the ready.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Gina replied.

  Helen made a note. She looked across at the boyfriend. ‘And you were in Cassie’s room?’

  ‘Yes.’ His grin expanded. ‘Playing doctors and nurses.’

  Helen stared at him coldly and made a note. ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Gomershall, Gary Gomershall.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘I live here.’

  ‘Last address then.’

  ‘23 Langton Road. That’s my parent’s address.’

  ‘That’s what your entry on the Electoral Register says?’ asked Helen.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘And you can confirm that both Cassie and Gina were here Wednesday morning?’

  ‘Yeah, ‘course.’

  ‘Did you make any phone calls that morning up to, say, eight o’clock?’ Frank asked.

  The two women looked at each other.

  ‘It’s a bit early in the day,’ Gina said. ‘I don’t think I did.’

  ‘I wasn’t awake,’ Cassie said. ‘Too exhausted from the previous night’s exertions,’ she said and high-fived Gary.

  Helen’s phoned bleeped, and she checked it.

  ‘Anyone call at the house?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ Gina thought. ‘Yes, we had an Amazon parcel arrive about eight. You can check that.’

  ‘Did you speak to the neighbours?’

  Gina shook her head. ‘Not before eight.’

  ‘OK,’ Frank said. ‘That’ll do for now.’

  Gina saw them to the front door. As Frank followed Helen out the door, Gina said, ‘If I’d known I’d need an alibi, I’d have arranged something better.’

  The door slammed closed.

  ‘I just got a text from Jade. Ingermann’s awake and talking,’ Helen said.

  Helen was busy on her phone while Frank coped with the busy town centre traffic on the way to St Margaret’s Hospital. She had been talking to Jade and getting her to do more research on the alibis presented by Cassie and Gina. They planned checking with each neighbour to get further confirmation that the two women were at home at the crucial time. Neither neighbour had been at home when Frank and she had rung their doorbells. They would catch them by phone at their employment or later when they got home.

  Frank pulled a ticket from the machine in the hospital’s car park. The high fees bugged him. He stuffed the slip of stiff paper into a
slot in his wallet and waited until Helen had finished her latest call. They headed for the big glass doors again.

  ‘If I had a pound for every time I’ve walked through these doors,’ he said to Helen.

  ‘What bothers me with hospitals,’ she said, ‘is the reminder of your mortality. I try and push thoughts about illness to the back of my mind, but you come here and it’s right in your face. Then there are the fun posters that remind you how prevalent the most horrendous conditions are, and suggest you look out for signs.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Particularly if they’re illustrated.’

  ‘Oh, don’t,’ she said. ‘You bring back images I’d rather forget.’

  As they approached the reception area he said, ‘I didn’t think you were the squeamish type.’

  ‘I’m not made of stone,’ she said. ‘Something else you should know, I gave up smoking years ago.’

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but what I’m saying is that if I bought cigarettes these days, I’d ditch the packet. Those photographs they print on them are so gross.’

  They had reached the front of the queue. ‘We’re here to visit George Ingermann. Can you tell us which ward he’s on?’

  The receptionist consulted the computer. ‘He’s on Johnson Ward, third floor.’

  Helen summoned the lift, and they waited.

  ‘How about blood?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never noticed you being squeamish about blood.’

  She screwed up her face. ‘It depends. I’ve seen stuff that I really wish I hadn’t. If it’s just seeping from a wound, I can apply a pad, but I tried to help at a road accident and the victim, a woman . . . Well, blood was pumping out of her leg. It was sort of fountaining in the air. Now that was gross.’

  Helen noticed they were getting odd looks from the woman who had joined them to wait for the lift, but she carried on regardless. ‘My blood, now that’s a different story. I cut myself chopping something in the kitchen and when I put the finger under a running tap, I could feel myself going cold. I wasn’t far off fainting.’

  ‘Like a Victorian woman,’ he said.

  She chuckled. ‘I had to give myself a talking to. Get my emotions under control.’