There was a muted groan from the Sheffield United supporters in the room. Terri laughed, feeling more at ease. ‘It’s why I didn’t bother mentioning that bit in my earlier report. I knew we’d got people from the dark side in here, so thought it best to leave that as part of the written report.’ She glanced around the room. ‘Up the Owls,’ she said, and sat down. This time only the Owls supporters clapped.
Adele handed out the written reports and everybody read through them. For a few minutes, peace reigned.
Tom cleared his throat and everyone looked up. ‘Okay, let’s have Ben Craig in to look at the CCTV, see if there’s anything that strikes a chord with him. It’s a longshot, I know, but we can but hope. There are six employees, plus a couple who stand in occasionally from other shops in the chain, so today I want all of these interviewing, concentrating on their relationships, good or bad, with our two deceased ladies. Holly and I are going to the security division of Sanderson’s to look at back CCTVs of this branch, on the off-chance something shows up that’s out of kilter.’ Tom turned to the whiteboard and pinned up a list. ‘This is who is allocated to visit who, sort yourselves out and reports by tomorrow morning unless you couldn’t find your interviewee. Let’s remember it’s holiday season, we’re not going to find everybody in, waiting for us to call. Thank you, folks, excellent work so far.’
Holly followed him to his office. ‘What time we going, boss?’
‘I told them we’d be there for around eleven. You got something you need to do first?’
‘Yep. Get us some decent coffee. It’s going to be a long day if we’re staring at screens for most of it.’
She closed the door as she went out and he smiled. One more day and he was taking her out. Please God, he thought, let the case break on Sunday, not Saturday.
Frank Sharpe had set them up with a screen to themselves, showed them how to operate the set-up, and left them to it.
‘Any questions about anything, shout out. Any one of us can help, we want to catch this bastard as much as you do.’
Holly took out her notebook to make notes. Three days prior to the attack, they saw a man come in, reach across the counter and clearly threaten the cashier. He was loud, verbally abusing her and she tried to calm him down, unsuccessfully.
Tom paused it and turned to Frank. ‘Can you tell us who the cashier is?’
‘I can.’ Frank entered the details into his own computer. ‘Samantha Holgate. She was single manning that day.’
‘Really.’ Tom’s tone was dry, and Frank recognised the one word for what it was; disagreement with their policy.
‘She dealt with him?’
Frank laughed. ‘Sorry about that. I shouldn’t laugh and she shouldn’t have handled it the way she did, but we’ve banned him from all our shops. Run it through, and you’ll see what I mean.’
Tom pressed to restart it. Samantha was still trying to calm down the man. He made a grab for her hair and she stood, picked up her full cup of coffee and threw it at his face. He screamed, the word ‘bitch’ was heard, and he ran from the shop.
Immediately the cashier picked up the phone and rang her security.
‘She reported it?’
‘She did. She told us straight away, as you’ve seen, because the coffee was freshly made and boiling hot. She doesn’t take milk. She thought it might have scalded him. I told her not to worry. We’d got it all on tape and if anything came of it, we could prove what he had done to make her act in the way she did. I didn’t mention this to you because he’s clearly too fat to be the killer who did for our ladies.’
‘Get me all the details will you, Frank? We need to speak to this man. You have his address?’
‘I do. He held one of our bonus cards, and they have to register their name and address to get one. I’ll make sure you have it before you leave. His name’s Charlie Linwood, long-time customer, but not anymore.’
Holly and Tom returned to their scrutiny of the recordings, but saw nothing else to give them cause for concern. Eventually they agreed enough was enough. They had recognised Graham and Kenny, but nobody else had made them see any connection with the masked killer.
The detectives returned to Sheffield, knowing they would be tracking down the overweight individual who thought it was okay to threaten somebody simply doing her job. Holly was quite looking forward to facing the obnoxious Charlie Linwood.
10
Tina Jackson answered the door and stood, immobile. She waited.
She felt the tremble start inside and she knew they’d found out about her and Graham. And because bloody Charlie wouldn’t go out with his face in such a mess from the burns, he was in the kitchen and would hear every word they said. Then her face would be in as big a mess as his, but it would be caused by his fists.
Still she waited.
‘Is Charlie Linwood in, please?’
Tina allowed a brief flare of hope.
‘Charlie? Yeah.’
Tom and Holly held out their warrant cards, and Tina pushed the door back against the wall. ‘Straight through,’ she said and the flare of hope grew into a flame.
Charlie glared at them. He had bandages around his forehead, and new skin showing on his nose and cheeks. He looked a mess.
‘That’s not looking good, Charlie. Does it hurt?’
‘It fucking does.’
‘Good. We’ve seen the CCTV, Charlie. What had the staff member done to upset you so much? Were you in a bad mood? Like attacking women, do you?’ Holly glanced at Tina. She made no comment.
‘The silly bitch wouldn’t take my bet.’
‘Why not. You wanted to pay with toytown money?’
‘No.’
‘Why wouldn’t she take your bet then, Charlie?’ Holly was curious.
‘Horses had already set off.’
‘And you can’t place a bet once the race has started… I see. So you thought she should risk her job to accommodate you? How much did you try to put on?’
It was a somewhat muffled ‘Tenner’ that came from his mouth.
‘Tenner? Christ, Charlie! You acted like a big girl’s blouse for a tenner? And now you look like getting arrested for assault…’
‘Whoa!’ Charlie finally moved. ‘What the fuck am I being arrested for?’
‘You reached forward to attack a Sanderson’s employee, who was simply doing her job.’
‘She chucked a cup of boiling water on me!’ he roared.
Tom was trying hard not to laugh, full of admiration for the way Holly was handling the man.
‘Self-defence,’ Holly said quietly.
‘But…’ The blustering began.
‘But nothing. So, Charlie, as you can see you’re in some trouble here. First of all you can’t go in any Sanderson’s betting shops, ever, for the rest of your life. Secondly, you attacked an employee, and we have it on CCTV, and thirdly we believe you paid somebody to go into that same shop three days later to teach that young lady a lesson she wouldn’t forget, not knowing she wasn’t on duty that day. But two other ladies were on duty, and they were–’