‘If you don’t look where we’re going, we’ll both end up in the morgue,’ Anna snapped.
‘Sorry. Got me all excited.’
They drove for a while in silence. Then Ron turned towards her once more. ‘Threaten him,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Fear makes people talk, love. You gotta make him scared: if you’re shittin’ in yer pants, you talk. I know about these things. That’s why I got out of the Pool. Bizzies there are right bastards: knee in the groin, headbutt and they put it down to trippin’ up the stairs.’
‘Will you please watch the road?’ She leaned forward.
‘Sorry. But yer should put the pressure on him, love, if he knows about this series killer. You have a go at him!’
‘Thank you, Ron, but I doubt I’d go as far as a knee in his groin.’
Anna was certain that asking Southwood for his help ‘nicely’ would not produce anything. And she was not about to headbutt him either.
The main gates to the villa were open, much to Anna’s relief. She instructed Ron to park the taxi outside the gates, not wanting Southwood tipped off that she had returned. Ron got out, eager to accompany her, but she told him to remain by the taxi and wait.
‘I gorra cosh in me glove compartment. For me own safety. You know, if I get a dodgy customer. You want it?’
‘No, thank you. Just wait.’
In the darkness she seemed small and vulnerable. He watched her straighten her jacket and head up the drive to the house.
She rang the intercom and before she could speak, Southwood’s gasp rang out.
‘You’re fucking late! Just leave it inside the door.’
When the front door was buzzed open, Anna stepped inside the house. At first the hall was dark and then it was flooded by a hideous, yellowish light. She heard Southwood’s chair buzzing towards her. Then, a disembodied voice: ‘You gonna stay an’ have a quick snifter with me, Mario?’
As the chair wheeled around the corner, Southwood’s face appeared, shocked. ‘What the fuck is this? I thought you were deliverin’ my booze.’
Anna shook her head.
‘No such luck, Barry. It’s me again. I am not leaving until you’ve told me what you know. I’m not alone, either. I’ve got a patrol car waiting at the gates.’
‘What?’
‘I can have you arrested, tonight,’ she warned.
‘Oh yeah? On what charges? Wetting me pants?’
‘On allowing your premises to be used in the making of pornographic material.’
Southwood chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Bullshit. They’re consenting adults and there’s no law against making adult movies. I know, sweetheart, I was on Vice for long enough.’
‘So you admit to allowing your premises to be used for pornographic films?’
‘YES. I gotta earn a living. So if you want to pay for what I know, then we got a deal. If you’ve come to sweet talk me, then you can piss off. There’s the door, use it.’
Southwood turned his chair and headed back towards the lounge. Anna stood watching him and, after a moment, followed. The lights, obviously on some kind of timer device, went out.
Southwood was sitting at the open french windows, lighting a cigarette. In the compartment of his chair was a half-filled bottle of Scotch. She watched him steer his chair out of the room on to the patio, as if to make sure she had left the house. She walked silently to the windows and could hear his chesty cough.
She stood partly hidden by the curtains as he moved the chair towards a makeshift ramp down the stone steps of the veranda. She edged further forward, just making out the dark shape of Ron’s taxi waiting at the gates.
As he crossed the patio near the pool, Southwood fumbled for the bottle at the side of his chair. He was so busy trying to open the bottle while at the same time looking towards the gates that his chair veered dangerously close to the side of the swimming pool. When it bumped over a ridge, the worn parapet lifted. She watched silently as he tried to move the chair backwards, the bottle smashing to the stone and then breaking.
‘Shit,’ he growled, still fumbling with the controls.
‘Need some assistance, Barry?’ she asked softly.
Southwood craned his neck to see her, squinting in the darkness. The chair whirred and buzzed, each motion moving it closer to the edge of the pool.
‘Pull me back, will ya? Me batteries need recharging,’ he snarled.
Anna moved closer, but remained directly behind him.
Again he swivelled round to try and see her more clearly, but every motion he made now inched the chair closer to the pool.
‘Jesus fucking Christ, what’re you doing?’ His voice rose in panic.
Anna remained silent as he sweated and tried again to get the chair out of the rut.
‘All right. All right. I have information. You get it, if you pull the bloody chair back. Did you hear what I said? PULL THE CHAIR BACK!’
‘I will. But you’d better start talking.’
‘What?’
‘I think you heard me.’
‘I’m gonna fall into the fucking pool,’ he shouted.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll hold on to the back of the chair, just to make sure you don’t fall. So the sooner you tell me what you know, the better.’
Southwood gripped the arms of his chair. ‘It’s maybe worth shit. For Chrissakes help me out here. I can’t fucking swim, never mind bloody walk.’
Anna now positioned herself directly behind the chair, as the big man sweated in fear.
‘OK, OK, this is what I’ve got. Just hold on to the chair. Don’t let me get any closer to the edge.’
Southwood began, sotto voce, alternating between rasping coughs and puffs on his cigarette. Twenty years ago, before he moved to London, he was a DC attached to Vice with Greater Manchester Police. A well-known prostitute called Lilian Duffy had been found dead, strangled with her own stocking. Her hands had been tied behind her back with her bra. Duffy had been raped. She was forty-five.
Anna listened. She didn’t respond when Southwood asked if it was ringing any bells.
Southwood continued with his account. Duffy had been arrested numerous times before by the Vice Squad. She had served a short prison sentence for prostitution. Southwood described her as a real hardened whore: a ‘dripper’, he said. On their files there was an assault charge filed by Duffy a year or so previously. She claimed to have been raped by a man who had picked her up and then tried to strangle her.
The Vice Squad responded only half-heartedly. Duffy, after all, was a known alcoholic and drug abuser. But she had provided a very good description of her assailant and they began to run it through records. Suddenly, she withdrew the charges, which had pissed everyone off because of the time already invested. When she was arrested for prostitution again, a female Vice Squad officer had tried to find out why she had withdrawn her charges. Duffy had stunned everyone by claiming ‘personal reasons’: the assailant attacker was her own son.
Anthony Duffy, seventeen years of age, was subsequently arrested. He denied attacking his mother. A year later, Lilian Duffy’s body was found in a wooded area, strangled, with her hands tied behind her back. The murder team, now provided with the Vice Squad’s reports, brought in Anthony Duffy for questioning. There were no DNA specialists twenty years ago and with no witness and the body in a badly decomposed condition, they had not pressed charges. Anthony Duffy had been released from custody, though the feeling in the office was that he was guilty.
Southwood waited for Anna to respond. As he turned, she could see the sweat dripping down his forehead.
‘That’s it. That’s bloody it!’ he gasped.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Why what, for Chrissakes?’
