‘We don’t like each other, Danny, so cut the small-talk bollocks. We need to talk.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘In person.’
‘You’re not going to try to appeal to my better nature by telling me DS Connolly is an outstanding detective and one slip is going to ruin an illustrious career, are you?’
‘Danny, you don’t have a better nature. You’re the very definition of a parasite. No, I have a much better story for you.’
‘Unless it’s photographic evidence of Theresa May snorting coke through a rolled up fifty Euro note, I doubt I’ll be interested.’
‘Trust me, Danny, you’re going to be very interested in this one.’
Matilda felt physically sick as she arranged a time and a place to sit down and have coffee with the devil himself.
Chapter 45
Dolly Richardson had lived in the Pitsmoor area of Sheffield for more than fifty years. She had seen many changes in the suburb where she’d brought up her four children, and not one of them good. Following the death of her husband in 1992, she moved out of the four-bedroom house and into a flat above a shop on Ellesmere Road. When she moved in it was charming, quaint, and a hubbub of friendly activity. Now, it was a forgotten area. Crime was rife, abandoned cars on every street, litter piled up, and people didn’t chat anymore. They went about their business with their heads down, not risking eye contact with anyone.
Dolly lived above an ethnic food store. The smells emanating from downstairs made her hungry – not that she’d ever been in. She wouldn’t know how to go about cooking with pulses and chickpeas. At eighty-three, she was too set in her ways to attempt a chana masala or dhokla. Her cupboards were filled with Fray Bentos pies and tins of mushy peas.
Taking the rubbish out to her bin, she sniffed up. That wasn’t the smell of spices, it was more like something had crawled into a hole and died.
The iron staircase tacked onto the side of the building was rusting and rickety. Dolly really shouldn’t be living there. However, in her words, I’ll only move out of here when I’m in a pine box. Holding onto the railing for dear life, she descended the wet stairs slowly, and tossed the rubbish bag into the wheelie bin belonging to the shop below.
She limped around the corner, glancing up to the flat next door. She reached the Peugeot she’d seen parked opposite the green for the past couple of days and rapped hard on the glass with her gnarled knuckles. The window lowered.
‘You’re detectives, aren’t you?’ she asked the young man behind the wheel.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Come on, love, I live in Pitsmoor. I can spot a copper a mile off and you two stand out like a sore thumb around here.’
The detectives glanced at each other.
‘If you wanted to blend in you should have worn one of those burka things. Listen, I need you to have a look at the flat next door to mine,’ she said in her deep Yorkshire accent.
‘We’re actually on duty at the moment, madam. If you have a complaint, I suggest you dial 101.’
‘And I suggest you listen to what I’ve got to say before you interrupt.’
The other detective sniggered.
‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘The flat next door to mine. I’ve seen you looking up a few times, and there’s been uniformed coppers knocking on the door day and night lately. I might be old, but I’m not daft. There’s something wrong.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I want you to find out. There’s a hell of a stink coming from it and flies buzzing around the windows. I’ll bet you a pound to a penny there’s a dead body in there.’
‘Are you serious?’ the detective in the front passenger seat asked.
‘Come and see for yourself if you don’t believe me, but if I end up with rats because you’ve not done your job properly, it’ll be South Yorkshire Police who pays for the exterminators.’
Dolly walked away.
‘Should we call it in?’ PC Walker, who was behind the wheel, asked his colleague.
‘Better take a look first,’ PC Kendal said. ‘For all we know there could just be a rotting chicken in there or something. We don’t want to be a laughingstock.’
‘Says the man who tried to arrest a priest for being drunk and disorderly,’ Walker smirked.
‘You’ll never let that drop, will you?’ Kendal said as he climbed out of the car. ‘How was I supposed to know he was having a fit?’
By the time they went around to the back of the shops, they’d caught up with Dolly. She’d reached the bottom of the iron staircase.
‘You live here?’ Kendal asked, shocked by the conditions she was living in. A burnt-out car was inches away from her flat, the brickwork blackened by the fire, litter from the shops, fly-tipping from passing motorists who used the abandoned back yards of the flats as places to throw broken toilets, bedsteads, and busted mattresses.
‘It’s a shit-hole, isn’t it? Never used to be. At one time there was a waiting list for people to move to Pitsmoor.’
‘Why don’t you move?’ Walker asked with sympathy in his voice.
‘At my age? My next move is to the cemetery, love.’
‘Are you ok living here on your own?’ Kendal asked with concern.
‘I’m fine,’ she smiled a toothy smile. ‘I keep myself to myself, don’t go out after dark and don’t open my door unless I know who’s calling. You want the next lot of stairs. You’ll not get to his flat from mine.’
Walker and Kendal walked carefully over uneven ground, striding over bags of rotting rubbish, old engine parts, and half a bath.
They gingerly walked up the stairs which creaked loudly with every step. They made it to the landing and approached the flat. Walker knocked on the door and stood back while Kendal went over to the window, cupped his hands around his eyes and looked inside.
‘Fucking hell,’ he said, stepping back.
‘What is it?’
‘You’d better call it in.’
‘Why? What have you seen?’
‘What is it, love?’ Dolly asked from the opposite landing where she stood outside her front door. ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet. I’ve got some whiskey if you want something to line your stomach.’
Before he could say anything, Kendal turned away and vomited.
‘They don’t make coppers like they did in my day,’ Dolly said, folding her arms across her ample chest. ‘Are you going to have a look or are you a vomiter as well?’
***
The call came through to DI Christian Brady. For some reason, Matilda wasn’t answering her phone. He left his wife and daughters in Endcliffe Park and phoned Scott Andrews on the way to Pitsmoor.
‘Sorry for calling you out, Scott. I didn’t fancy going in that flat with Jasper Carrott and Robert Powell as back-up,’ Christian said as Scott climbed into the car and put his seat belt on.
‘Who?’
Christian looked at the face of innocence. ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ he said, suddenly realising he was getting old.
Walker and Kendal were waiting at the bottom of the iron staircase when Christian pulled up. They both had a mug of tea in their hands. An elderly woman stood next to them, walking stick in hand, hunched over.