try for a talk for the Post, but the guy was too distraught. She said he just burst into tears, then one of the relatives did the Rottweiler and saw her off.”
“This Desmond. Has he got a job?”
“He’s got his own business too. Not as successful as Mary’s by all accounts, but he does okay. He’s a photographer. Does portraits mainly. Dead artistic, according to Mo. Specializes in unusual printing techniques and special-effects stuff. Not your weddings-and-babies type. Charges about five hundred a shot, apparently. God knows where he gets his clients. The only pictures I’ve ever seen of people in Liverpool with that kind of money are in police mug shots and wanted posters.”
“And no connection between the Hallorans and the Mortons?”
“Nothing that’s come up so far. The only thing they’ve got in common except for the way they died is that they’ve left their surviving partners a lot better off than they were before. Mo says the girls that worked for Mary Halloran reckoned she was well insured. Had to be. If anything happened to her, the business was bound to suffer a bit, because Mary was one of those who had to take charge of everything herself.”
“Maybe they did a Strangers on a Train,” Chris volunteered. “You know, I’ll do your murder, you do mine.” We both looked at her, astonished. “It was only a suggestion,” she said defensively.
“The only point in doing something like that is when the murder method’s one where having an alibi puts you in the clear. Like a shooting or a stabbing,” Alexis finally pointed out. “A delayed-action thing like this, there wouldn’t be any point.”
“Nice idea, though,” I mused. Suddenly, a huge yawn crept up on me and shook me by the scruff of my neck. “Oh God,” I groaned. “I’m going to have to go, girls. If my overdraft was as big as my sleep deficit, the bailiffs would be kicking my door down.”
I leaned over and hugged the pair of them. “You never know,” Chris said. “He might be there when you get home.”
It’s just as well Chris is such a good architect. She’d never make a living as a fortune-teller.
23
THE ANSWERING MACHINE WAS FLASHING LIKE A SEX OFFENDER.
I played back the long chain of messages against my better judgment. I’d had enough coppers on the line to staff my very own Tactical Aid Group minibus. But the one message I really wanted wasn’t there. I hated myself for letting Richard’s childish behavior get to me, but that didn’t make it any easier to escape. I ignored the rest of the messages and crashed out in my own bed. Deep down, I knew the Mafia weren’t after me. Sleeping in Richard’s bed the night before had been nothing but a self-indulgence I wasn’t about to allow myself again.
I woke up just after eight, my head muzzy with the novel experience of a proper night’s sleep. The phone was ringing already, but I had no problem ignoring it. I took a long, leisurely bath, deciding on my plans for the day. I know I’d told Delia I’d be prepared to talk to the Art Squad and the Drugs Squad, but I had other ideas now. A few hours delay wasn’t going to make a whole lot of difference to their investigation, and I was determined to press on with my inquiries into the KerrSter murders as fast as I could. The last thing I wanted was another head-to-head with Cliff Jackson, and the best way to avoid that was to get going while he was still working out what to do with Sandra Bates and Simon Morley.
After breakfast, I filled the washing machine with the first load of dirty clothes. Glancing out of the kitchen window, I noticed an unfamiliar car parked in one of the residents’ bays. I didn’t have to be Manchester’s answer to Nancy Drew to work out that an unmarked saloon with a radio aerial and two men in it was a police car. The only thing left to wonder was which squad it belonged to. I wasn’t about to pop over and ask a policeman.
I pulled the blond wig out of its bag and arranged it on my head, adding the granny glasses with the clear lenses and a pair of stilettos to give me a bit of extra height. Then I nipped through the conservatory into Richard’s house and out his front door. The two bobbies gave me a cursory glance, but they were waiting for a petite redhead from next door. That told me Delia wasn’t responsible, even indirectly, for their presence; she’d have told them about the conservatory. Which left Jack son.‘
Of course, the car was in the clear, since I was still driving Shelley’s Rover. She’d tried the previous afternoon to persuade me to swap it for Richard’s Beetle, but I played the card of professional necessity and managed to hang on to hers for the time being. I headed out of town toward Stockport and got to the Cob and Pen while the cleaners were still doing their thing. The bar stank of stale tobacco and sour beer, somehow more noticeable when the place was empty. “I’m looking for Mrs. Morton,” I told one of them.
“You from the papers?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I’m representing Kerrchem, the company who manufacture the cleanser Mr. Morton was using when he died.” Nothing like a bit of economy with the truth. Let them think I was here to talk about the compensation if they wanted.
The woman pursed her lips. “You’d better go on up, then.
It’s going to cost your lot plenty, killing Joey like that.“ She gestured toward a door marked ”Private“.
I smiled my thanks and opened the door onto a flight of stairs. The door at the top had a Yale, but when I tapped gently and turned the handle, it opened. “Hello?” I called.
From a doorway on my left, I could hear a voice say, “Hang on,” then the clatter of a phone being put down on a table. Gail Morton stuck her head through the doorway and said sharply, “Who are you? What are you doing up here?”
“The cleaners sent me up,” I said. “My name’s Kate Brannigan. I’m a private investigator working for Kerrchem.”
She frowned and cast a worried glance back through the doorway. “You’d better come through, then.” She moved back smartly into the room ahead of me and swiftly picked up the phone, swivelling so she could keep an eye on me. “I’ll call you back,” she said firmly. “There’s some private detective here from the chemical company. I’ll ring you after she’s gone… No, of course not,” she added sharply. Then, “Okay then, after one.” She replaced the phone and turned to face me, leaning against the table as if she were protecting the phone from hostile attack.
All my instincts told me that phone call was more than some routine condolence. Something was going on. Maybe it was nothing to do with anything, but my instincts have served me too well in the past to ignore them. I wanted to know just who she’d been talking to that needed to know a private eye was on the premises. “Sorry to interrupt,” I said. “Hope it wasn’t an important call.”
“You’d better sit down,” she said, ignoring the invitation I’d dangled in front of her.
The room was as much of a cliche as Gail Morton herself. Dralon three-piece suite, green-onyx-and-gilt coffee table and side tables, complete with matching ashtrays, cigarette box and table lighter. Naff lithographs in pastel shades of women who looked like they’d escaped from the pages of those true romance graphic novels. The room was dominated by a wide-screen TV, complete with satellite decoder. I chose the chair farthest away from Grail.
She moved away from the telephone table and sat down opposite me. She leaned forward to take a cigarette from the box on the table, her deep-cut blouse opening to reveal the tanned swell of her breasts. Philip Marlowe would have been entranced. Me, I felt faintly repelled. “So what have you come here for?” she asked. “Have they sent you to make me an offer?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “Kerrchem hired me to try to find out who tampered with their product.”
She gave a short bark of laughter. “Trying to crawl out from under, are they? Well, they’re not going to succeed. My lawyer says by the time we’re finished with your bosses, they’ll be lucky to have a pot to piss in.”
“I leave that sort of thing to the lawyers,” I said mildly. “They’re the only ones who can guarantee walking away rich after tragedies like this.” I thought I’d better remind her of her role as grieving widow.
“You’re not kidding,” she said, dragging deep on her cigarette. In the unkind daylight coming through the window, I could see the incipient lines round her mouth as she kissed the filter tip. It wouldn’t be long before her face matched her personality. “So what do you want to know?”
“I’ve got one or two questions you might be able to help me with. First off, can you remember who actually bought the KerrSter?”
