The next segment featured an update on the hunt for soap star Craig Masters, who had gone on the run in the early hours of New Year’s Day after strangling his society girlfriend and well-known fashion model, Katie Cunningham.
Basically, the update was that there was no update, and the police appeared to be completely stumped as to where he was hiding out. There had been reported sightings in Brighton, Devon, Northumberland and even one as far afield as Aberdeen, but they had all turned out to be red herrings. “How can they be having trouble finding a bloke that famous?” Violet said, looking up from her knitting. “He must have one of the most recognisable faces in the blooming country.”
“I saw a face from the past today,” Jenna told them, shovelling food into her mouth. “Do you remember a boy I went to school with called Rodney Dawlish? Kevin used to hang out with his older brother, Jimmy.”
Her mum’s face immediately adopted a disapproving scowl. “That boy was rotten to the core. He led my poor Kevin astray, got him into all sorts of trouble.” She simmered in silence for a moment, and then her face scrunched up in concentration. “I don’t remember him having a little brother, though.”
“Well, he did,” Jenna said, “and I went to school with him. Anyway, Rodney came into the shop today. First time I’ve seen him in years.”
In a voice dripping with bitterness, she said, “No doubt he’s turned out to be just as big a waste of space as Jimmy.”
“Actually, he seemed to be a nice guy,” Jenna said, feeling obliged to leap to his defence. “He was collecting some medical supplies for a friend and he said he has a job, so he can’t be all bad.”
The next news segment took viewers to a live press conference at Whitechapel police station, where officers were appealing for witnesses in the hunt for another murderer who was on the run.
“Shush, you two. I want to listen to this,” Jenna’s dad, Alfie, told them.
Jenna pulled a face at him, and her mother rolled her eyes. He didn’t like anyone talking when the news was on, said it spoiled his enjoyment.
A craggy-faced, middle-aged detective was speaking, his face suitably serious. The caption that appeared at the bottom of the screen read: Det. Ch. Supt. George Holland.
“I want to appeal to the public for their urgent help in locating Claude Winston. We know he’s still in London, and we think he will probably be in need of medical assistance. At the time of his escape, he was taking strong antibiotics to battle a post-operative infection, but he fled the hospital without his medication. He also became involved in a physical struggle with officers who tried to detain him at the scene, and it is quite possible some of his stitches will have burst open as a result. If you work in a doctor’s surgery or chemist, and anyone has come in to obtain medical supplies in what you consider to be unusual circumstances, please get in touch with…”
Jenna’s fork stopped halfway between the plate and her mouth as her stomach suddenly constricted and her appetite vanished. “Oh no,” she said as she recalled Rodney’s visit to the chemist, the items he had purchased, and the things he had told her in conversation…
‘…Look, he hasn’t been stabbed, and he hasn’t hurt himself breaking into a shop,’ Rodney had said. ‘He had an operation in hospital last week but his stitches have popped and we need to change the dressing. That’s all…’
An operation… like a burst appendix?
And then she recalled his response after she’d enquired about his friend going back to hospital to get himself checked out?
‘…He can’t, not with the Old Bill looking for him...’
An icy chill ran down Jenna’s back and she closed her eyes, suddenly feeling very sick. Oh, I pray I’m wrong, she thought, telling herself not to jump to hasty conclusions.
“What’s the matter, dear?” her mum asked, eyeing her with concern.
“Shhh,” her father chastised, too engrossed in the story to drag his eyes away from the screen.
Jenna didn’t dare voice her fears to her mum; she had such a downer on the Dawlish family that she would interpret Jenna’s suspicions as concrete proof that Rodney was indeed every bit as bad as his brother.
“Nothing,” she whispered, so as not to invoke her father’s displeasure. “I’ve just remembered something I have to do.”
◆◆◆
While Jenna Marsh and her parents were watching the BBC news in the warmth and comfort of their home, Angela Marley was sitting on a low wall outside a detached house in Barking, shivering with cold and bracing herself against the cruel wind.
Every bone in her body seemed to ache from where she’d been thrown out of the freight elevator the previous day, and she felt that she really ought to be tucked up in her bed back at the squat, not stuck out here freezing to death.
Having left her own coat in the getaway car, Angela had been forced to borrow a tattered old Parka from Rodent, which she now wore over the skimpy nurse’s outfit.
She was acutely conscious that the slap she’d received from Garston as punishment for blurting Errol’s name out had left her face in a bit of a state; a mottled, hand-shaped, bruise covered one side of it and her bottom lip was all swollen and split, making it painful to speak. Fortunately, it was so dark that someone would have to be standing right next to her in order to notice.
Where the hell is the old perv? she asked herself, gritting her teeth to stop them from chattering. Standing up, she tried slapping her scrawny arms around her body to generate some heat, but it didn’t help in the slightest, and after a few seconds she gave it up and sat down again.
She was
