‘It is my business, if it helps me find a murderer.’ Lottie paused for effect. ‘Tell me, why did James Brown contact you after Susan Sullivan was murdered?’
‘Are you deaf? I’ve already told you I didn’t speak with him.’
‘The call lasted thirty-seven seconds,’ Lottie persisted. ‘You can say a lot in thirty-seven seconds.’
‘I did not speak with the man,’ Rickard said, his voice slow and determined, his veneers flashing.
‘Maybe it went to your voicemail. Did you check?’
‘I did not speak with him,’ he said, a snarl curving his mouth upwards.
‘How much did St Angela’s cost you?’ Lottie changed tack.
‘That’s definitely none of your business,’ Rickard said, unfolding his arms and thumping his desk.
Lottie smiled. Shaking the tree was working.
‘Mr Rickard, I’ve discovered you purchased St Angela’s for no more than half its market value.’ Bea Walsh had supplied Lottie with this news. ‘That information might interest the financial gurus in the Vatican. I hear they’re hard up for funds. What do you think?’
‘I think you’re out of your depth, Inspector. It’s of no concern to anyone how much I paid for that property.’ His nostrils flared like an enraged bull. ‘I don’t see how this has anything to do with your investigations.’ His face was getting redder by the second.
‘I beg to differ,’ Lottie said, calmly. ‘With the burden of expense this parish is carrying, I think the media will be very interested in your little deal.’
‘You better discuss it with Bishop Connor then.’
‘I intend to.’
Lottie felt like she was in a schoolyard sparring match. Rickard was adept at wheeling and dealing, and playing his cards close to his chest. She preferred to go straight to the suit of hearts.
‘I think you bought St Angela’s with strings attached,’ she said.
‘Think what you like.’
‘So who was at that meeting at your house yesterday morning?’
‘I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Do you deny there was a meeting?’
‘I don’t have to confirm or deny any such thing.’ He opened and banged a drawer once again.
‘Were you ever in St Angela’s?’
‘I own the damn place. Of course I’ve been in it.’
‘I mean as a child, a young lad. Were you ever in it back, oh I don’t know . . . in the seventies?’
‘What?’ Rickard puffed out his cheeks, heightening the colour from red to purple sweeping up his jaws, and threw his hands upwards.
‘Were you?’ Lottie noticed damp patches seeping from his armpits. The room was beginning to hum with the smell of his sweat.
‘No. I never set foot inside St Angela’s until I became interested in acquiring the property.’
‘Mmm.’ Lottie wasn’t convinced. But she’d no way of proving it, not at the moment anyway.
‘You can mmm all you like,’ he mimicked.
Lottie smiled her sweetest smile and asked, ‘On another matter, do you know your son is dabbling in drugs?’ She wasn’t about to let him away scot-free.
‘What Jason does or doesn’t do has nothing to do with you.’
‘On the contrary it has everything to do with me, because Mr Rickard, much as it galls me, he happens to be in a relationship with my daughter.’
She watched Rickard intently. His mouth opened to fire a reply, but he stopped as if realising what she had said. The first sign of uncertainty crept into the lines around his tired eyes and his lips slackened. He got up and walked to the window. She had wrong-footed him, at last.
‘Your daughter?’
‘Yes. My daughter Katie.’
Rickard turned round to face her, the wintery sun behind him silhouetting his rounded belly now slack without his waistcoat to hold it in. Distant traffic sounds reverberated from the street below.
‘What my son gets up to or gets up his nose has no bearing on anything. And hear this loud and clear, Inspector Parker, I had nothing to do with those murders. If you continue to harass me I will report you.’
You and everyone else, Lottie thought. She had heard enough from Tom Rickard. She stood up too.
‘I hope you’re not challenging my professionalism. Because, I can assure you, Mr Rickard, I will get to the bottom of this in an honest and transparent way. I don’t operate the way you run your business.’
‘And you are implying . . . what exactly?’
‘You know exactly what I’m implying. Brown envelopes, backhanders, whispered promises in council corridors. Think what you like about me, but I warn you, do not underestimate me.’
Lottie turned on her heel, snatched up her jacket from the back of the chair and left him staring out the window of his modern office, listening to the mid-morning traffic far beneath his feet.
She almost skipped to the lift. She felt good. No, not good. Great.
Rushing through the crowded reception back at the station, she bumped into Boyd. He took her arm, turned and steered her back out the door.
‘What’s up?’ Lottie asked, trying to maintain her balance.
‘Corrigan. He’s had a call from Tom Rickard. Something to do with you threatening his family.’
‘That’s a load of bollocks,’ she said, wrestling her arm free. She spun Boyd round to face her. ‘Total bullshit.’
‘Maybe. But a little time out of Corrigan’s line of fire mightn’t be a bad thing right now.’
He gripped her arm. She relented and walked with him to the car.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, fastening her seat belt.
‘The soup kitchen.’
‘Is that a new restaurant?’ she asked, dryly.
Boyd reversed the car. ‘You know right well it’s where Susan Sullivan did her charity work.’
Lottie calmed down and Boyd switched on the radio. Some rapper blared and she thought of Sean.
‘Am I a bad mother?’
‘No, you’re not. Why?’
‘Since Adam died, I can’t manage my home life. I’ve thrown myself into my job. I abandon my kids to their own devices. God knows what Chloe and Sean get up to all day. And Katie’s going out with a millionaire’s junkie son. I think I’m losing control, Boyd.’
‘It could be worse,’ he said.
‘How so?’
‘Katie could be going out with a junkie without the millions.’
Fifty-One
Mellow Grove, a local authority estate of two hundred and ten grim houses, was a short drive through town.
Boyd parked the car outside number 202, an end, pebble-dashed affair, with a small flat-roofed extension to the side. A young boy, no more than five years old, with dirty blond hair sticking out from under a peaked Manchester United cap, walked up to the front bumper and eyed the two detectives.
‘Who you looking for, Mister?’ he asked.
‘Mind your own business,’ said Boyd, pushing open the rusted gate.
‘Fuck off, you long lank of misery,’ the boy shouted.
Lottie and Boyd turned, looked at him, then at each other and laughed.
A lime-green, 1992 Fiat Punto, was parked outside the wall. Two black cats and a German shepherd sat guard on the step.