Kim let the endearment pass and continued anyway. ‘He would have been in his mid-fifties, dark hair, a bit on the heavy side.’
Jean began to shake her head and handed a clutch of pound coins without speaking to a gangly lad who appeared to her right. She placed the note in a separate zip pocket on her pouch.
Bryant stepped forwards. ‘May have been named Alan, Charlie, Edward, Geoffrey, Ivor, Jack, Lester … ’
Kim stole a glance at her colleague as Jean frowned. ‘Hang on a minute,’ she said. ‘Did you say Ivor?’
Bryant nodded. It wasn’t a common name around these parts.
‘We used to have a bloke named Ivor come in here a lot. Used to sit and play the OXO machines for hours. Anything he won he put straight back in.’ Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘He bought a raffle ticket for whisky every week. Not for the other stuff but always for the bottle of Bell’s. Won it a fair few times as well,’ she said, nodding. ‘He hasn’t been in for years though. We assumed he got banged up for something.’
‘Why would you think that?’ Kim asked, frowning. She wasn’t sure that was the immediate conclusion with the loss of every customer.
‘Oh, no reason,’ she said, colouring, but Kim didn’t believe her.
‘That’s not true,’ Kim said. ‘Please, Jean, anything you can tell us would be greatly appreciated. We really need to find out more about this man.’
She hesitated and then sighed. ‘Hang on, I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said before walking away.
‘Jesus, guv, Woody was right when he said you can make something out of nothing,’ Bryant said, once Jean was out of earshot.
‘You weren’t too bad yourself,’ she observed. ‘I can’t believe you managed to memorise all those names.’
‘I assume you don’t keep me around for my good looks, although—’
‘This is Rita,’ Jean said, presenting a woman of similar size to herself but with a shock of deep red hair. She too wore a blue overall and a money belt.
‘Do you remember that bloke you had a bit of trouble with, Ivor the whisky bloke?’
Rita nodded and looked suspiciously at her and Bryant.
‘It’s all right, tell ’em, they’re police,’ Jean urged.
Rita looked doubtful but Jean nudged her. ‘Go on, it might be connected.’
Kim’s interest was piqued.
‘He was a big guy – overweight I mean. Not tall. A bit creepy, but you just get used to that in here. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some lovely folks that come in here and—’
‘But Ivor…’ Kim said, steering her back.
‘Well, we get kids in here now and again,’ she said, looking at Jean. ‘We do everything to stop ’em, but they ignore the signs on the door, and we get ’em out as quick as we see ’em, eh, Jean?’
Kim wasn’t interested in a bit of underage gambling on fruit machines.
‘I understand, it must be difficult,’ Kim said. ‘Now about Ivor?’
‘A while back, must be a couple of years now, I had a group of girls in and I hadn’t spotted ’em until one of ’em came over and said that Ivor had touched her mate.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Well, I couldn’t call the police… she didn’t want to make a complaint and, well, she shouldn’t have been here in the first place.’
So neither the girl or this woman had wanted to get into any trouble.
‘What about Ivor?’
‘I told him to get out and not to come back,’ she said, nodding, convinced that she’d taken the correct course of action.
‘And did he come back?’ Kim asked.
She shook her head. ‘Nah, and I never saw his mate again either.’
Kim’s heartbeat quickened. If Ivor was their man Bob, then his friend could be their first lead.
Forty-Eight
‘Okay, Stace, get me everything you can for the guy on the list named Ivor. It’s a bit thin, but there’s a chance this could be our guy.’
‘On it, boss,’ Stacey replied.
‘And while you’re at it, he had a mate named Larry something. Don’t know if he might also be listed with any of the clinics. They may have met there, and if we can find him he may be able to help.’
‘Got it,’ Stacey said before Kim ended the call.
‘What do you make of Rita’s story?’ Bryant asked as he drove towards Stourbridge. On the other side lay Stourton and the home of Jemima Lowe’s ex head teacher.
Kim shrugged in response. ‘Could have been a harmless misunderstanding and I’ve got Stacey barking up the completely wrong tree… but right now it’s the only tree we’ve got and for a guy with no form of identity I think every move forwards is going to be a leap of faith.’
‘I still don’t see why that particular tree has ended up in our forest to be honest,’ Bryant said.
Kim was saved from answering by the ringing of her phone. There was no need for him to know it had come from Tracy.
‘Stone,’ she said.
‘Inspector, it’s Doctor Singh, from Russell’s Hall. We spoke—’
‘Of course, Doctor Singh,’ she acknowledged.
‘I’m calling about Isobel…’
Kim braced herself for the news that she’d been dreading.
‘I’m ringing to tell you that Isobel has woken up.’
Kim ended the call and told Bryant to turn the car around.
Finally they had a witness.
Forty-Nine
Dawson didn’t bother to remove his jacket from the car. Both the mid-morning heat and the absence of his boss dictated it would not grace his back today.
He parked on the gravel patch between the crime-scene Transit van and Harry’s low loader, which was used for transporting the ground-penetrating radar equipment. He suspected that Harry would be finished today providing he found no more nasty surprises, but the techies would be around for a few more days at least.
He tapped on the door before entering, even though they had opened the gate.
He walked into the back of Jameel, who turned and nodded in his direction. Dawson could hear The Shadows playing softly in the background.
This was one strange kid.
‘Yo, man,’ he said and turned back to his computer.
Dawson walked behind him and paused when he saw Catherine at the meeting table with a collection of graphs and charts spread out before her.
‘You’re here,’ he said stupidly.
She almost smiled. ‘Yes, I appear to be.’
‘But how did you get in?’ he asked.
He had been forced to wait a good few minutes while the officers at the cordon had cleared the press to let him through. The arrival of forensics tended to do that. As soon as the techies turned up, the press knew there was something to find and they had been steadily growing in number since the previous evening.
The boss had filled them in on Catherine’s history, and he hadn’t expected to see her back at work.
This time she did smile. ‘Under a picnic blanket in the back of the professor’s car.’
‘You told him?’ Dawson asked. The boss had also been clear that they were not to say a word.
She nodded. ‘A lot of what DI Stone said made sense. It’s better if I work,’ she said.
Dawson could understand that. Recently he’d been badly beaten while carrying out an investigation into the death of a gang member, but the following day he’d been right back at his desk.
‘She’s a strange one, isn’t she, your boss?’ Catherine asked, surprising him. It was the first time she’d spoken to him unless answering a direct question.
He felt himself bristle. ‘How so?’
‘There’s a bit more to her than meets the eye. She’s not the most likeable—’
‘Yeah, you don’t know her,’ Dawson said, crossing his arms.
‘… I was going to say on first impressions, but there’s a lot going on underneath. I wasn’t insulting her. She was very helpful to me yesterday,’ Catherine said, gathering up her papers. ‘Jameel, I’m going down to check on Elvis,’ she said abruptly before brushing past Dawson and heading out the door.
The young man didn’t turn or acknowledge her words in any way but mumbled something once the door closed behind her.
‘Sorry?’ Dawson said, taking a step back towards the office area of the Portakabin.
‘Something in my throat,’ Jameel said and then coughed for effect.
Dawson wasn’t fooled.