Pop Goes the Weasel | страница 83

He had Helen’s full attention now.

‘We went to a hotel she knows. I told her I liked to watch, so I let her do her thing and then afterwards I chatted to her as I drove her home. She was cagey at first but she had obviously heard rumours about a girl killing punters. She doesn’t know anything useful, but there’s another girl who occasionally works the docks who’s been talking. Saying she’s seen the girl. Apparently there’s a warrant out on her for a couple of things, so she’s not going to be coming forward, but if I can get to her, then…’

Helen’s heart was beating faster, but she reined in her excitement.

‘Ok, follow it up. Be careful though, Tony. It could be a set-up – we’ve got no way of knowing how people will exploit this situation. But… it sounds promising.’

Helen couldn’t suppress a small smile, which was reciprocated by Tony.

‘Anyway, go home and get some sleep. You’ve earned it.’

‘Thanks, boss.’

‘How is Nicola, by the way?’

‘She’s all right. We take it one day at a time.’

Helen nodded. She respected and liked Tony for his careful, patient care of his wife. It must be hard to live a life that you never wanted, when the life you’d planned for had been so brutally snatched away from you. He was a good man and she hoped they would be ok.

Walking away from the café, Helen had a spring in her step. The course they were pursuing was fraught with danger, but Helen sensed that finally they were getting closer to their killer.

Picking up an unmarked pool car, Charlie sped out of the back entrance, anxious to get this over with. Jennifer Lees, the Family Liaison officer assigned to accompany her, would take the lead but it would be Charlie who’d have to ask the awkward questions. Normally Helen would interview the victim’s family in the first instance, but she had disappeared on undisclosed business, leaving Charlie to carry the can.

They pulled up outside a run-down terraced house in Swaythling. This was the home Gareth Hill shared with his mother – shared in the past tense as his mutilated body was currently lying on a slab in Jim Grieves’s mortuary. They couldn’t formally identify him as the third victim until his next of kin had done so, but they knew they had the right man. He had minor convictions for shoplifting, drunkenness and even one pathetic attempt at indecent exposure, so they already had his picture on file. Once the formalities were done, that file would be marked ‘Deceased’ and sent upstairs to the incident room for evaluation.