Snakes and Ladders Read online

  Dale interjected. ‘She made a comment to Cleo about being terrible parents because we didn’t know where he was and what he was up to. Cleo closed the door on her. That was the last time we saw her.’

  ‘And when was this?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Nearly two weeks ago,’ Cleo replied. ‘Not the last we heard of her, though. Matthew let slip that she’d made some daft remark about them having children. I think it shook him up a bit.’

  ‘And how were things left between them?’

  ‘Fine. If you want to put it that way. Dale and I thought he might finally give her the heave-ho, but there we are.’

  ‘Do you happen to know what Jenny’s surname is?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Yes. It’s Blake.’

  Wendy made a note of the name. Both she and Jack knew where they’d be heading next.

  11

  Much like the Hulfords, the Blake family lived in a respectable area of town, in a cul-de-sac the police were barely aware existed. Although they weren’t far from town, as they stepped out of the car and onto the Blakes’ driveway, there was silence except for the birds in the trees.

  By the time Jack and Wendy got to Jenny Blake’s house, it was apparent that she already knew what’d happened to Matthew. Her face, and those of her parents, were clearly pained at what had happened, and Jenny looked more like someone who’d lost her husband of twenty years than a girl barely into adulthood whose boyfriend of only a few months had died.

  Jenny’s father led them into the living room, before offering them tea or coffee — naturally declined. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Where are my manners. I’m Clive, this is my wife Aretha. Sorry — don’t quite know where my brain is this morning.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Wendy replied with a sympathetic smile. ‘It’s understandable. We’re really sorry for your loss. All of you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jenny’s mum, Aretha, replied. ‘It’s just… a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

  Clive put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Jenny was sitting on the sofa, her face almost blank, as if the shock had set in and she was struggling to process what had happened. Wendy sat down next to her.

  ‘Jenny, do you feel comfortable having a chat with us? We just need to find out a bit more about Matthew and the sort of person he was.’

  ‘Uh. Yeah. Okay.’

  ‘Would you like to speak in private?’

  ‘I dunno. I…’

  ‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ Clive said, coming to her. ‘We can be here if you want us to be. If that’d make you more comfortable.’

  ‘We’ll try not to make it too arduous,’ Wendy said. ‘I know it’s difficult, but the more we know about Matthew, the more likely we’ll be to find out who did this to him.’

  ‘Christ. Sends a shiver down your spine, doesn’t it?’ Clive said. ‘All this talk, I mean. About him being… you know.’

  ‘Murdered, Dad. You can say it.’

  ‘I know. I know. I’m just not sure I want to.’

  Wendy cocked her head slightly and looked at Jenny. ‘What can you tell us about Matthew? What sort of person was he?’

  Jenny seemed to think about this for a few moments before speaking. ‘I wanted to save him,’ she said, finally.

  ‘Save him? From what?’

  ‘From himself. From what he was turning into.’

  Wendy flicked a look at Jack, then asked, ‘Sorry. What do you mean?’

  Jenny sighed. ‘You’ll find out anyway. You always do. Matt dealt drugs. Him and his mate Connor.’

  There was an audible gasp from Aretha, and Clive put his hand on his wife’s shoulder again to reassure her.

  ‘What sort of drugs?’ Wendy asked.

  Jenny shrugged. ‘Whatever people wanted. Mostly just weed and poppers. Tabs. He didn’t tend to get too involved in the harder stuff. Mostly because Connor said it’d be too dangerous. Too many bad people involved. All he was doing was trying to earn some money so we could get a place and settle down together.’

  ‘Okay. Now listen, we’re not here to pass judgement and we’re not investigating any drug dealing. We’ve got bigger things to focus on here, so you can be honest with us. Were you involved at all?’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘No. Never. I didn’t want him involved in all that either. I mean, it wasn’t anything major. He didn’t get into the hard stuff, and didn’t really do anything himself apart from a bit of weed every now and then.’

  ‘So it was him and Connor? What was the supply chain? Did they grow it?’

  ‘No. They had a guy. I never knew his name. Someone who wanted to lie low. Matt and Connor were his in-between guys. They’d buy off him and sell it on. He sold it to them for a bit less than normal because they kept him anonymous, and sold it on for a bit more than normal so they didn’t get all the cheap skagheads who’d cause trouble.’

  Clive uttered a whispered ‘Jesus Christ’.

  ‘And you don’t know who this man is?’ Wendy asked her.

  ‘No, I swear down. He wouldn’t even tell me. That was the whole point. It was all kept under wraps.’

  ‘Okay. And did Matthew and Connor ever do anything to upset this man, do you think?’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘No. No chance. He was the one making them money. Without his stuff, they wouldn’t have had anything. There’s no way either of them was going to start growing at home, and no-one else would supply to them at that price. But seriously, that’s all I know. I wanted to get him out of it. I could see which way it was going to go. No-one ever comes out of this in a good way. I just wanted him to pack it all in and get a normal job. He wanted that, too. He was about to pack it all in.’

  ‘Is that seriously all you know?’ Jack asked, his tone of voice indicating that he didn’t entirely believe her.

  ‘Yeah it is. I wanted to keep out of it. I don’t want anything to do with drugs, do I? I’ve never even tried puff. It’s not my scene. Trust me, the only one who knows anything is Connor. He’s the one you want to be talking to.’

  12

  Jack and Wendy left the Blakes’ house feeling as if they knew far more about Matthew Hulford, and at the same time much less. One thing was for certain: they had a lead and a direction. It seemed likely to both of them that drugs would be involved somewhere along the line as the reason behind Matthew’s murder, but they were still a long way from having any conclusive focus.

  Even a vague indication of a drugs background wouldn’t lead them directly to their killer. There was a lot more that would need to be done to even identify a solid motive, let alone a suspect. However, if Connor French was not only Matthew’s closest friend but also his fellow drug dealer, it seemed likely that he would at least be able to shed some light on both motives and suspects.

  Jack and Wendy hadn’t been particularly surprised at the revelation that a seemingly model child had been caught up in something far more sinister. It was a story they’d seen numerous times over the years, and which they knew they’d see again. Too many parents saw their children through younger eyes, viewing them as incapable of harbouring dark secrets or keeping things from them. The truth, however, was quite different. Too few adults looked back with complete honesty at how they were at that age, and almost all were stunned to discover that their children were capable of far more than they realised.

  Their first impression of Connor French on arriving at his house wasn’t that of a hardened drug dealer. It was — at best — a fragile kid who briefly took the wrong path. Connor was in floods of desperate tears as Jack and Wendy walked through into the kitchen, where the young lad was perched on a stool at the breakfast bar, head in his arms.

  ‘We’ve been trying to get him to eat and drink,’ Connor’s father said, having closed the door and followed them in. ‘We couldn’t get him to leave his bedroom for the first hour.’

  They watched as Connor’s mum comforted him, her own face a picture of desperation and brokenness as she realised — perhaps for the
first time — that there was nothing she could do to fix this or make her son feel better.

  ‘Connor, it’s the police,’ his dad said. ‘They want to ask a few questions about Matt.’

  Connor’s sobs gradually slowed to the point where he was able to give himself a couple of seconds to speak between breaths. He looked at them through scarlet eyes, his cheeks red raw, hair dampening at the roots. ‘You need to find the fucker who did this,’ he said.

  ‘Connor. Language,’ his mum replied, trying to make the rebuke sound as gentle and reassuring as possible.

  ‘That’s certainly our intention,’ Jack said. ‘But in order to do that we need to find out as much information as possible. Even little things can make a big difference, whether they seem like it at the time or not.’

  ‘Do you feel up to talking to us?’ Wendy asked. ‘The sooner we’re able to get some more information, the quicker we can find the person who did this.’

  Connor looked up at her and nodded.

  ‘Alright,’ Wendy said. ‘Do you want to go somewhere private, perhaps? We can go wherever you feel more comfortable.’ For her, it was key that Connor was able to speak openly and honestly, and she realised he might not be keen on revealing he was a bit-part drug dealer in front of his parents.

  Connor swallowed. ‘Yeah. Maybe,’ he said.

  His parents seemed to pick up on the subtext and made gestures to leave.

  ‘We’ll just be through here if you need us Connor, okay?’ his mum said, before they both left the room and headed through the hallway and into the lounge.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Wendy asked him.

  Connor shrugged. ‘How’m I meant to feel?’

  ‘I’ll be honest, I don’t know. I can imagine it came as quite a shock.’

  ‘Yeah. You can say that again.’

  ‘Matthew was with you last night, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah. For a bit.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘Playing games at mine. We used to do it quite a lot.’

  Jack and Wendy could see the moment painted on Connor’s face when he realised he wouldn’t see his friend again.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Wendy said. ‘I know this must be hard for you. But we need to get a solid picture of what happened. What time did Matthew get to yours?’

  ‘Uh, about six, I think?’

  ‘And when did he leave?’

  ‘He usually goes home about ten-ish. I didn’t look at the clock.’

  ‘And how does he get home?’

  ‘He walks it. It’s less than five minutes.’

  ‘What game were you playing?’ Jack asked.

  Connor shrugged. ‘All sorts. FIFA. Watch Dogs. Far Cry. Depends how we feel.’

  ‘And you played all three last night?’

  Connor shrugged again. ‘Dunno. Don’t really remember.’

  Jack looked away and gently nodded. ‘Alright. Well maybe we can jog your memory. Maybe you weren’t playing any of those games. Maybe it wasn’t any game at all. Maybe — just maybe — you were out wandering the streets, pushing drugs.’ He looked back at Connor and saw a flicker of something cross his face.

  ‘Well no,’ Connor replied.

  ‘Oh right. Had a night off last night, did you? Listen, Connor. We ain’t stupid. It’s literally our job to find things out. And if what you tell us doesn’t tally with what we’ve already found out, things tend not to go too well.’

  The silence in the kitchen seemed to last forever, Connor holding his breath and his tongue for as long as he could. ‘Alright,’ he said eventually, the weight visibly lifting from his young shoulders. ‘It’s just a bit of puff. Nothing heavy. Never enough to get done for intent to supply.’

  ‘Intent’s got nothing to do with quantity, Connor. Look the word up in the dictionary. But listen, we ain’t here to nick you for drugs. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. We need to find out who killed Matt and why. Forgive me for sounding like a silly old duffer here, but I genuinely can’t remember the last time I investigated the death of a drug dealer that wasn’t drug-related somehow. Who’s your supplier?’

  Connor let out an almost offended laugh, and looked at Jack and Wendy as if they’d just asked him how big his penis was. ‘No offence, but I ain’t telling you that.’

  Jack smiled. ‘Trust me, I’m a long way past being offended. About thirty years past it. Nothing you say needs to go further than this room, you know.’

  ‘Oh yeah, right. ‘Cos you’re not gonna run out of here and go speak to him next, are you.’

  ‘Bloke, is it?’

  Connor swallowed. ‘He’s got nothing to do with it. You’ll just have to take my word for that.’

  ‘What, like I had to take your word you were sitting in your bedroom playing Tetris?’

  ‘He’s got no reason to want Matt hurt. Total opposite, if anything. We keep the supply line silent, he doesn’t get the hassle. We’re doing him a favour. Last thing he wants is you lot sniffing round, so there’s no way in hell he’d do something like this.’

  ‘What if it’s a test? For you, I mean,’ Wendy said, reading a message that’d just come through on her phone.

  ‘It ain’t like that. We’ve proven ourselves enough. Trust me. Me and Matt never wanted to get into anything heavy. He respects that. At the same time, he knows he ain’t gonna get the big guns round looking for him over a bit of puff. Matt was my best mate. We’d been best mates ever since we were kids. Trust me, if I had any idea who’d done this to him, I’d tell you. You think I’m going to keep it to myself if I knew who could’ve killed my best mate?’

  Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘The way things have gone so far, nothing would surprise me.’

  ‘Connor, did Matt have a mobile phone?’ Wendy asked, deliberately changing the subject.

  ‘Well yeah, obviously.’

  ‘Did he bring it with him last night?’

  ‘Yeah. He left it here, actually.’

  ‘He left it?’

  ‘Yeah. Not on purpose, obviously. I found it a little while after he went home.’

  ‘Did you keep it switched on?’ Wendy asked, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Nah, it’d run out of battery by the time I found it. I thought I’d walk over first thing and give it back.’

  ‘Why didn’t you charge it for him?’

  ‘’Cos it’s an iPhone and I’ve only got a Samsung charger.’

  ‘Can we see it?’ Wendy asked.

  Connor shrugged. ‘Yeah. Alright. I’ll go get it.’

  She watched as Connor walked down the hallway and jogged up the stairs. ‘That was Ryan,’ she whispered to Jack. ‘She texted me to say Matt’s phone geolocation shows he was here last night. It goes off the grid about half-past ten and hasn’t been seen since. Tallies with it running out of charge.’

  Jack nodded. ‘Alright. But still, what kid of his age forgets his phone, only lives a couple of minutes’ walk away and still doesn’t come straight back for it?’

  Wendy shrugged. ‘Maybe he didn’t realise until he got home. You saw what his parents were like. I imagine they’re the sort of people to tell him he can manage a few hours without his phone.’

  ‘Either that or he met his killer on the way.’

  Wendy raised her eyebrows and nodded. A moment later, they heard Connor coming back down the stairs. He put the phone down on the side.

  ‘We’re going to need to bag this and take it with us,’ Wendy said, half expecting Connor to protest. Instead, he just shrugged.

  ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘You won’t be able to get anything off it, though.’

  13

  As the sun started to set on a long day, Jack felt his eyes stinging with tiredness.

  ‘Right,’ he said, addressing his team. ‘I’ve had enough for one day. We’ve made good progress, but we’ve still got a long way to go. Steve, can you organise for surveillance to be put on Connor French, please. The boy’s running scared. Whether he thinks he’s next or not, I don’t kno
w, but I’m pretty certain he’s going to make contact with someone at some point. We haven’t got the budget for a physical tail, but let’s get his phone and social media monitored. See who he’s talking to. Live intercepts if we can.’

  Steve nodded and wrote down a few notes. In an age where concerns over privacy and personal data were rising at the same rate as a desire for tougher law enforcement, it was impossible to balance the two. Quite often, the same people who complained about the police not being able to catch enough criminals were the same ones who waxed lyrical about personal privacy and being able to lock down their entire lives from prying eyes. Unfortunately, the two didn’t quite go together.

  ‘We’ve got Matt Hulford’s mobile phone bagged and sent off to Milton House for analysis, with my apologies to Detective Sergeant Knight for giving her boyfriend overtime. On the plus side, the corner shop are doing an offer on double-A batteries. For now, if there’s any contact whatsoever with Matt’s parents, we’re keeping the drugs thing on the down low. I’ll go over and speak to them in the morning about that. It’s not something I fancy much after the day I’ve had, and I’m pretty sure they’d feel the same.’

  ‘What if someone tells them in the meantime?’ DS Ryan Mackenzie asked.

  ‘They won’t. Connor and Jenny are under strict instruction. And anyway, if they find out before, they find out before. Let’s face it, anyone could’ve told them at any point up until now, and until we’ve got more certainty that drugs have got anything to do with his death, it’s best we sleep on it first. That’s not the sort of shitshow we want to be directing at the moment. I’ll go over and see them in the morning.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Steve asked.

  Jack shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Don’t reckon there’s a whole lot more we can do right now. Might be worth giving the social media team a nudge, though. Probably not going to be all that helpful to have people blabbing all over the local groups about drugs links. That’s the last thing the family are going to need right now. Won’t be helpful for us, either.’