Jack Be Nimble (Knight & Culverhouse Book 3) Read online

  ‘So how do they reckon she got there?’

  ‘Carried, probably, but they can’t be sure. They can only say she wasn’t dragged. Problem is it’s all paved round there, so there’s no mud or grass for indentations. To put it bluntly, he could’ve used anything from a wheelbarrow to a forklift truck and we’d have the same amount of trace evidence — bugger all.’

  ‘The van’s got to be worth looking into, though,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘Check the CCTV on the high street for vans passing in the hour before and after. See if you can get any registrations. No other neighbours heard anything?’

  ‘Nothing that they remember,’ Frank replied.

  ‘I did find something interesting, though,’ DS Steve Wing cut in. ‘I got onto Keira Quinn’s bank yesterday after she was identified, trying to track her last movements. There were no transactions since the twenty-seventh other than the usual direct debits. Nothing manual. But I looked further back while I was there and I did spot something tasty. It seems her ex-husband, a Mr A. P. Quinn, had been paying regular payments into her account for the past few years. A hundred pounds every week, in fact. But that suddenly stopped about three weeks ago.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Culverhouse said. ‘Very interesting. When we spoke to Andy Quinn he said they were divorced three years ago. And they don’t have any kids. So why would he be paying her money each week?’

  ‘Exactly what I thought,’ Steve replied. ‘That’s what I’d be asking him if I were you.’

  ‘Well I’m glad I’m not,’ Culverhouse said. ‘Either way, I think we need to have another word with Mr Quinn.’

  11

  1st September

  Their visit to Andy Quinn’s home was timed to see them arrive ten minutes after Debbie Weston, the FLO. Arriving mob-handed wouldn’t have got them off to a good start and having a trusted officer in Debbie Weston about the place was intended to put Quinn at ease.

  ‘I’m sure DC Weston has already updated you on the news from forensics and the door-to-door enquiries, Mr Quinn, but we need to double-check a few things with you and ask you some questions pertaining to operational procedure,’ Wendy said diplomatically. She’d already tactically suggested that perhaps she should take the lead in speaking to Quinn, knowing Culverhouse’s tendency for being tactless.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll do what I can to help,’ Quinn said, forcing a smile.

  ‘I’m sure you understand that we’ve had to look into Keira’s personal life quite closely in order to establish the circumstances leading to her death. As part of that, we had to go through her bank statements to see who she was financially linked to. We saw a number of payments, every week in fact, from your account to hers over a number of years. What were these for?’

  Quinn turned his head towards the window and Wendy saw his jaw clenching.

  ‘I’d been paying her some money to keep her going. I don’t exactly have much, but it was certainly more than she had. I felt some sort of obligation towards her and didn’t want to see her out on the streets. You didn’t know her like I did. She was a heavy drinker and hadn’t worked a day in her life. That’s what we argued about, a lot of the time. Despite all that I still cared for her, of course I did. So I used to give her some money out of my pay packet to make sure she wasn’t lying in a gutter somewhere.’

  ‘Why did you stop the payments?’ Wendy asked, hoping to catch Quinn in a stream of opening up.

  He made a small snorting noise. ‘Because I found out she’d been earning an income after all. A friend told me that Keira had been working as a hooker for a few months. When I asked her, she admitted it. As I saw it, not only did she have an income but she’d broken my trust. That’s when I put a stop to the payments.’

  ‘So when you told us yesterday that she didn’t work, you were lying,’ Culverhouse said.

  ‘It’s not work, is it? Not full-time, anyway. And certainly not what you could call a career option. I didn’t see much point in mentioning it. She might as well have some dignity left.’

  ‘That’s not really for you to judge,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘How did she take you stopping the payments? I mean, I can imagine she’d’ve been pretty pissed off.’

  ‘She wasn’t exactly happy, no,’ Quinn replied, brushing an invisible speck of dust from the arm of his chair. ‘She said it was her life and she’d do as she pleased. I agreed and said I’d do what I wanted with mine too. We agreed to disagree.’

  ‘Very diplomatically put,’ Culverhouse said.

  Wendy cut in before he could say any more. ‘Now we’ve got to ask, as I’m sure you imagine — do you know of anyone who would’ve wanted Keira dead?’

  Quinn looked at the floor and seemed to be genuinely trying to rack his brains. ‘No, nobody. No-one that I can think of. But then again we didn’t exactly speak to each other much since we were divorced, so I wouldn’t know anyone she’d met since.’

  ‘You didn’t speak, but you paid a hundred quid a week into her bank account,’ Culverhouse said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘I’ve already explained that,’ Quinn replied, staring Culverhouse down. ‘Is it a crime to want your ex-wife not to live on the streets?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d be quite as caring,’ Culverhouse replied.

  ‘Well that goes to show that we’re very different people, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly does. Where were you on the night of the thirtieth and morning of the thirty-first of August, Andy?’ Culverhouse liked to try and catch people off-guard in the vain hope that a suspect might slip up or at least give in to a slight, subconscious facial twitch — a ‘tell’ which would belie their words.

  ‘I was at home. And before you ask, no, I don’t have an alibi. I was at home on my own, watching TV all evening and then I went to bed.’

  ‘Anything good on?’ Culverhouse asked.

  ‘Not especially, no. Usual rubbish.’

  ‘Which programmes did you watch?’ Wendy asked, a little more directly than Culverhouse had.

  ‘Uh, I think there was something about Indian cookery. Yeah, I remember that one because it made me hungry and I ended up making some cheese on toast. The slice of bread is still missing from the pack if you want to check that.’

  Culverhouse gave him an icy stare. ‘And then what? Off to bed with a mug of Horlicks and a copy of the Reader’s Digest?’

  ‘If you like. I woke up in the morning, put the radio on while I was making my breakfast and that’s when I heard about the body.’

  ‘Making your breakfast at nine in the morning?’ Culverhouse asked. ‘Wouldn’t you have been at work by then?’

  ‘I had a day off,’ Quinn replied, looking at Culverhouse with a neutral look in his eyes.

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To relax. We all need to relax now and again, don’t we? Turned out not to be very relaxing at all.’

  Wendy could sense the tension growing between Quinn and Culverhouse and decided to try and diffuse it.

  ‘If you could possibly have a think for us and let us know if you think of anyone who might be able to provide an alibi, please let us know. Perhaps a neighbour who saw you outside, a friend who called — anything like that.’

  ‘I will,’ Quinn said, smiling at Wendy. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Something’s not quite right there,’ Culverhouse said when they’d left and were getting back into their car. ‘The thing with the payments is just bloody weird. And no alibi? And having a day off work? Handy, that.’

  ‘I’m not quite sure how,’ Wendy replied. ‘Surely if he’d killed her he’d want to make everything look as normal as possible to divert suspicion away from him.’

  ‘Dunno about that. We’ve both known our fair share of killers who delight in the chase, trying to get us to suspect them while just keeping any decent evidence out of reach.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Wendy asked, pulling away from the kerb.

  ‘Come on, Knight. You saw the way he looked at me. Almost goading me, boasting with his eyes.’r />
  ‘That probably had more to do with the fact that you were being less than sensitive, as usual. I’m surprised you didn’t ask him where the murder weapon was.’

  ‘Of course, I forgot we were meant to be treating murder suspects with respect. Like the respect he showed Keira Quinn when he sliced her fucking neck open.’

  ‘You don’t know that he did, guv. Doesn’t quite sound right to me that he’d risk all that for no reason. They were divorced, he wasn’t paying her money each week any more. What reason could he have for killing her?’

  Culverhouse looked out of the side window of the car and exhaled, his breath steaming up on the glass. ‘That’s what I intend to find out.’

  12

  2nd September

  Jack Culverhouse flicked through the reports that’d been left on his desk by Frank Vine. The door-to-door enquiries had thrown up nothing and speaking to Keira Quinn’s few friends and family had given them half as much.

  On closer inspection it seemed that Keira hadn’t been working as a street prostitute, but rather as a private escort. There was no trace of any records of clients at her flat, so any link between her professional life and her death would be speculative at best.

  It was a sad fact of life that prostitutes were far more likely to be murdered than most other people. With so many street prostitutes in Britain coming from migrant communities, it was likely that hundreds, if not thousands more died each year than were officially recorded.

  Culverhouse took another sip of his steaming coffee. All of the details about Keira’s life seemed to show that no-one would have a reason for wanting her dead, yet the manner of her murder showed evidence of being a very deliberate act. Unless somebody was out to deliberately target prostitutes and escorts, something didn’t quite add up.

  In his mind, the only real explanation was that Andy Quinn had to be involved somewhere along the line. On the face of things he may have had no reason to want his ex-wife dead, but the fact was they only had his word for it. Keira Quinn seemingly kept herself to herself and not many people knew much about her. It wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility for Andy Quinn to be hiding something from them.

  As Culverhouse tried to think through some possibilities, the phone on his desk began to ring. A withheld number. He picked it up.

  ‘Culverhouse?’

  The voice on the other end of the phone wasn’t one he recognised.

  ‘DCI Culverhouse? My name’s Suzanne Corrigan, I’m a reporter on the Mildenheath Gazette. I was just wondering if I might be able to ask you a couple of questions. It’s about the Keira Quinn murder. We’re running a story on it this week and I—’

  ‘I don’t recognise your name,’ Culverhouse interrupted. He made it his business to know the names of the reporters on the local newspapers. If he was perfectly honest, he found it hard to avoid them.

  ‘You probably won’t. I’m new,’ Suzanne said. ‘Now, I just wanted to clarify whether—’

  ‘The only information I release will be at press conferences or managed press releases, Ms Corrigan,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘If there’s anything we want to release to the public I’ll be sure to let you know.’

  Culverhouse was about to put the phone down when he heard something that caught his interest.

  ‘Is it true that Keira Quinn was working as an escort?’

  He raised the phone back to his ear. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Is it true?’ Suzanne Corrigan repeated.

  Culverhouse paused while he considered his response. ‘If we have any further information we’ll organise a press conference or issue a press release.’

  He put the phone down before Suzanne Corrigan could say any more. His relationship with the press and media outlets had always been conflicted. There were times when he was annoyed at their constant intrusion into investigations, but then there were also times when they truly came in useful, such as bringing Andy Quinn to their attention so quickly. Right now, though, he was more upset that a local journalist could be about to publish information which would harm their investigation.

  He put down his mug of coffee and stepped out of his office to address the incident room.

  ‘Did anyone by any chance happen to accidentally tell a fucking reporter that Keira Quinn was a hooker?’

  His question was met with silence, save for a couple of small chuckles from officers who found Culverhouse’s flair for language amusing.

  ‘Right,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘I’ll take that as a no. Which means one of you fuckers is lying to me, because I fail to see how a desk monkey at the Gazette could’ve found that out so quickly seeing as it took them six years to work out their editor was a paedo.’ A previous editor of the Mildenheath Gazette, Denis Rowe, had been uncovered as a predatory paedophile a few years earlier — a scandal which almost sunk the newspaper. ‘Knight, if you could peel your face away from that computer screen and come and see me in my office, I’ve got a few things I need to update you on.’

  ‘Uh yeah, no problem, guv,’ Wendy replied, looking up from her computer. ‘But I just need to finish this. Can I have five minutes?’

  Culverhouse grunted. ‘You can have ten. I’m going for a shit.’

  13

  4th September

  Culverhouse had been thinking about calling Helen for a number of days. Ever since she’d left his house a few nights back, in fact. It seemed incongruous to him that her having disappeared from his life for so long should just be explained away with a couple of hours of vague excuses and bickering. He was used to getting explanations out of people and gaining a full oversight of situations, and his marriage was going to be no different.

  He didn’t want to be the one to go running to her — that would look too desperate — but at the same time he was well aware that if he didn’t call her then she wouldn’t be in any great rush to be the one to initiate contact. Her actions over the past few years had proved that.

  Cautiously, he pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket, unlocked it and tapped in the number Helen had written down and handed to him. There was a few seconds of silence before the phone finally started ringing. Helen picked up after only two rings.

  ‘It’s me,’ Culverhouse said, not sure what else to say. He’d been thinking about this for days but still hadn’t come any closer to knowing which words to use.

  ‘Hi,’ Helen replied, characteristically vague and non-committal.

  ‘I just wanted to try and smooth things over a bit. After the other night.’

  ‘Jack Culverhouse the peacemaker. Well I never.’

  Helen’s barbed reply didn’t surprise him, but it still hurt.

  ‘Like you said, people change. And in case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got a child together. I think it’s probably best we at least try to be civil, don’t you?’ Culverhouse could feel the anger rising inside him as he tried to suppress it. Getting worked up wouldn’t do him any favours. It rarely did, but this time he knew he had too much to lose. All Helen would have to do is ditch the mobile phone and she’d be uncontactable again — possibly forever.

  Although he was desperate to see his daughter and was never one to worry about breaking the rules, Culverhouse had always stopped short of using police resources to find his wife. Technically speaking, what Helen had done was parental child abduction, but it was far more complicated than that. At the time, he didn’t even know for sure that she’d left the country.

  Jack knew he was not without his foibles, to say the least. Deep down, he’d always known that Emily was probably far better off in another country with Helen than she was forced to live with both parents, her father barely ever at home and coming under growing stress at work.

  As much as he wanted Emily back and could’ve pulled rank to have her found, something deep and primal was telling him that it wouldn’t have been the best thing for his daughter. Jack Culverhouse wasn’t usually the first person to be self-deprecating, but he knew he wasn’t going to be winning any Fa
ther of the Year awards.

  Over the years, this had manifested itself into immense guilt. The more time that passed without him having gone out and searched for Emily, or at least having made a couple of phone calls to verify that she was safe, the more he berated himself over it and the less legitimate a claim he felt he had. The passing of time was not something he could do anything about.

  ‘I’m willing to be civil, Jack, but I’m not willing to be emotionally abused,’ Helen’s voice said as Culverhouse held the phone to his ear. ‘I deserve better than that. Emily deserves better than that.’

  He couldn’t disagree with that. ‘I know. Look, this hasn’t exactly been an easy situation for any of us, has it? You turning up out of the blue took me by surprise. Things haven’t been easy lately, but I honestly was pleased to see you.’ Not for the first time, he wished he’d thought before he spoke.

  ‘Really?’ came the only word from Helen.

  ‘Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know what had happened to you. We’re still married, Helen. That means something.’

  ‘Why did you never try to find me, Jack?’ Helen said after a few moments’ silence.

  He tried not to get too defensive. ‘The burden wasn’t really on me. It wasn’t a game of hide and seek. I see this sort of thing happening all the time in my job and the battles can go on for years. The only people who lose out are the kids. I didn’t want that for Emily. I guess I thought that things would work themselves out eventually. And they have. Sort of.’

  ‘You’re such a man. You know, you could’ve had Interpol find us and arrest us if you’d really wanted to.’

  ‘I know that,’ he replied. ‘And like I said, I can’t imagine that would’ve been the best thing for Emily. I was left to choose between two shitty choices, neither of which I wanted. I had to choose what was best for everyone else rather than thinking selfishly and doing what was best for me.’