For Richer, For Poorer Page 3

  Jessica took the printout from Archie as he moved onto the next news website page. ‘He burned through the lot in under three years. In the bankruptcy hearing, it came out that he didn’t even have an accountant, plus he hadn’t kept receipts. He’d simply spent it all. Somehow he avoided prison over the tax but he ended up moving into the old council house where his wife grew up.’

  ‘What about the houses?’ Jessica asked.

  Archie passed along another sheet, saying she was best reading it herself. It was a report on Teague’s bankruptcy hearing, which was mainly an account of his shambolic lifestyle. Because he hadn’t kept any receipts, the only way they knew what he’d bought was because of the bank statements, credit card details and line of people asking where their money was. He’d spent the first twenty-six years of his life weaving a path of carnage through the city because of his criminal nuisance, another three by spending money he didn’t have, and then the next twelve months stumbling from hearing to hearing about his bankruptcy. Finally, he’d ended up where he began: in a council house on a rough Manchester estate.

  Along the line, there would be hundreds of individuals whose lives he’d trampled across – but Noel had been one of the few beneficiaries. Teague had bought twenty-seven run-down former council houses at auction for a reason no one seemed to know. Given his lack of care with money, it could be seen as an indulgence or perhaps an investment but Jessica suspected it was simply a whim. She’d spent plenty of time working with – or trying to track down – people from similar estates. The one trait they all shared, for better or worse, was a sense of pride in where they came from. It was that which led to them so despising the police and authority, wearing their underclass as a badge of honour. In some ways Jessica admired that. Owning those houses would have been a way for Teague to believe he was still a man of the people, even while blowing his money on unfinished rollercoasters.

  Whatever the purpose, when the money had run out, the houses had been seized and sold at auction again, for less than he’d paid. That was how Noel had managed to use however much he’d inherited to buy the dive Jessica and her team had raided the previous evening.

  ‘We’re screwed, aren’t we?’ Jessica said, looking up.

  Izzy half-grinned. ‘Don’t bring me into this – I wasn’t even there.’

  Jessica nodded at Archie. ‘Do you fancy taking the blame?’

  ‘Sod off – it’s not my fault every DCI has it in for you.’

  Jessica laughed it off but she could tell from the way Izzy was watching her that the sergeant wasn’t taken in. Archie had a habit of hitting a little too close to the truth without knowing he’d done so. The former chief inspector, Jack Cole, had retired at the end of the previous year. Despite the fact they had risen through the ranks together, their professional relationship had ended with Jessica on compassionate leave and him not talking to her anyway. He hadn’t even said goodbye – not that Jessica blamed him after the way she’d behaved. As for Cole’s replacement, Jessica had still been off work when he’d started and things had gone downhill from there.

  Before she could reply, Jessica’s desk phone began to ring: His Highness was in court and wanted a word.

  DCI Lewis Topper was drumming a pen on his desk as he waved Jessica into his office on the upstairs floor of Longsight Police Station. Before she’d even closed the door behind her, his crisp accent rattled across the room: ‘What went wrong?’

  He’d joined from a force in Scotland – headhunted apparently – but there was a hint of Irish in his accent too. Either tone could be soft but he had the harsher elements of both, meaning he constantly sounded annoyed, like he had a mouthful of marbles.

  Topper was in his mid-forties but his trim physique, clean-shaven face and abundance of dark hair – a rarity in the balding upper ranks of the police force – made him look younger.

  ‘It was one of Martin Teague’s old houses, Sir. He’s—’

  ‘You do realise how much scrutiny we’re all under?’

  Jessica had spent a lot of time in this office over the years but it was different now. Gone were the certificates and commendations that used to live on the wall behind the desk, replaced by a whiteboard covered with perfect handwriting that listed every ongoing investigation. DCI Cole would let his officers go out and deal with things, only getting involved if there were problems; Topper wanted details of everything.

  ‘I know, Sir. We’d had reports of disturbances at the house and struggled to get anything from the land registry. We didn’t know if there were people squatting—’

  ‘Didn’t you think to check these things? You know how damaging the fall-out from the Pratley report was.’

  Jessica couldn’t fail to know – it was one of the reasons why Topper was there in the first place. After a quarter-of-a-century-old false conviction had been exposed, an official investigation into Greater Manchester Police’s structure and management had been launched. Although no one currently in a position of power had been drawn in, mud stuck, with the chief constable pensioned off and a raft of other management changes. The upshot from Jessica’s point of view was that no one was allowed to show any initiative in case they were branded as a rogue officer.

  Jessica thought Topper had paused to allow her to reply but he took a breath and continued. ‘The chief constable won’t be happy if there’s a complaint made.’

  Jessica had to stop herself from replying too quickly. In many ways it had been inevitable but the very thought that Graham Pomeroy had got the chief constable’s job made her feel slightly sick. They’d only met a handful of times, the last of which being at a press conference announcing that they’d found a man who had killed two women, yet he was a constant presence in her mind. Every day she wondered how she could come to work knowing what she knew about Pomeroy without being able to tell anyone. The only other people who knew were the pair she’d barely spoken to since returning to work: DC Rowlands and her journalist friend, Garry.

  ‘I don’t think there’ll be a complaint, Sir,’ Jessica eventually replied. ‘He was going to frame the warrant.’

  She suddenly remembered how she’d told Noel they wouldn’t even have to pay for his front door because of the stolen road sign. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He probably would complain now.

  ‘What exactly happened?’

  ‘We had some dodgy intelligence, I—’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like there was any intelligence at all – certainly not from you.’

  ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  Topper tutted, half-peering around to look at his board, where there were a disconcerting number of things on the ‘unsolved’ side. ‘This isn’t the only issue that’s come up in the past couple of months.’

  ‘We’ve had an unlucky run, Sir. I know the timing isn’t great . . .’

  Topper continued to peer at his board, rubbing his chin. ‘I wonder if it’s more than that.’

  ‘Sir?’

  He turned to face her, eyes narrowing like a parent questioning a naughty child. ‘I read up about all of the senior officers when I started here. You have a stellar past and a record no one can quibble with but I can’t help but wonder if your performance has started to dip since—’

  ‘It hasn’t.’

  ‘You didn’t have to come back. Certainly, not so quickly.’

  Jessica held his gaze, not wanting to back down but unwilling to talk about it either. She’d spoken to everyone they wanted her to, done everything they said. If she wanted to return to work then it was her decision. In too many ways this was more of a home than her house was. That had too many memories attached; here she could immerse herself in the work.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I know you’ve been through a lot recently what with the car . . . accident . . . but I need all my officers to be in a good frame of mind.’

  ‘I’m fine!’

  Too forceful. With Cole, Jessica could raise her voice but Topper wasn’t one to allow any questioning of the way he worked. He bega
n tapping his pen again, biting his bottom lip.

  ‘If that’s the case then you need to start showing it.’ He pointed to the whiteboard. ‘Something needs to be done about this lot.’

  Jessica managed to calm her tone again. ‘I know, Sir.’

  Topper was still biting his lip when his desk phone rang. He picked it up, listened, wrote something on the pad in front of him, and then turned to Jessica: ‘Now’s your chance: there’s been another burglary.’

  4

  The site of the third burglary was similar to those of the first two: an expensive house, slightly set back from the road towards the end of a street lined with similar properties. Jessica knew they were intelligent choices – not mansions because the security would be too tight, but houses big enough to ensure there would be money and possessions inside. This area of south Manchester was far enough outside the M60 ring road to avoid the noise, yet close enough to ensure its residents weren’t cut off. The area was occupied by those who didn’t want to live on a Manchester housing estate but who weren’t quite sufficiently rich to move across the county border into Cheshire.

  Ian and Harriet Blackledge’s house ticked all of those boxes: clean red-brick walls, two cars on the driveway, a double garage, five or six bedrooms, vast swathes of green on one side, and a similar house twenty metres down the road.

  Harriet was in her mid-thirties, only a little younger than Jessica. She sat at the dining table, eyelids heavy, struggling to make eye contact. Small flecks of dark roots peeped out from her bright blonde hair, with her skin pale except for a smattering of red blotches around her left cheek.

  ‘I understand your children have been taken elsewhere,’ Jessica said.

  Harriet nodded. ‘Ian’s parents came and took them. Your woman said it was okay.’

  ‘Did they see the robbers?’

  A weary shake of the head: ‘They slept through it all. Tom thought it was all a bit of a game when the police officers came around this morning. He’s too young to understand.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I’d put the kids to bed and come downstairs. I was in the living room with Ian when there was a bang from the kitchen. Suddenly there were men in here with masks and gloves. One of them had a gun.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Around eight. I don’t know exactly.’

  Harriet told Jessica how the robbers had smashed their mobile phones, cut the landline and disabled the panic system. She wasn’t emotional, more stunned; her wide eyes fixed on the table as she spoke steadily, as if recalling something she’d seen on television. The details were similar to those of the first two robberies, although the second house hadn’t had a panic system. It seemed it was something the invaders assumed, rather than them having any precise knowledge. That had thrown the police’s initial theories that the robbers could have an inside link to security companies.

  ‘Was there anything distinguishing about any of the men?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Not really – only one of them spoke. He was slightly taller than the other three but they were all dressed the same.’

  ‘What was his voice like?’

  ‘Just kind of . . . normal.’

  ‘Did he sound British? Northern?’

  ‘A bit local, but not over the top. He only spoke when he had to.’

  That was the same as in the other incidents: aside from the main person being white with dark eyes and with a local-ish accent that could have been Mancunian, or simply northern, they had little to go on. The woman whose house had been robbed in the first incident claimed one of the balaclava-wearing men ‘grunted like a European’ but when asked what that meant, her only response was: ‘Well, that’s what they sound like, isn’t it? These Polish, coming over here . . .’

  It wasn’t exactly something that would stand up in court.

  Jessica glanced over Harriet’s shoulder to the clock on the wall. ‘You said the robbers broke in at eight o’clock last night – but you didn’t call us for twelve hours.’

  ‘I did try to explain to the officers who got here first. There’s some sort of timer on the safe – you’d have to ask my husband about it. He told them it couldn’t be opened until after six in the morning.’

  ‘So what happened overnight?’

  Harriet coughed a half-laugh, half-sob, not quite believing it herself. ‘We all waited in the living room. The man who spoke had us put the TV on and we sat around watching late-night talk shows. Then they got bored, so they pointed at a few films on the rack. We ended up sitting around watching movies through the night. They even had me fetch them crisps.’

  ‘Did they—?’

  ‘No – the man told me to tip everything into a big bowl and they ate out of that. Then he went into the kitchen with me and watched me wash it up. I don’t think they touched it but one of your people took it away just in case.’

  The way Harriet described it made the previous night’s events sound like the strangest house party ever: four masked men, two scared householders and a pair of kids sleeping peacefully upstairs.

  ‘What happened in the morning?’

  Harriet finally glanced up at Jessica, yawning, apologising, and then looking back at the table. She ran a hand through her hair. ‘It felt as if I was watching myself. I was alert because I was thinking of the kids upstairs, hoping they didn’t wake up, but my body was exhausted. I can’t even remember the last time I stayed up through the night.’

  ‘What were the robbers like?’

  ‘Tired, I suppose. One of them was lying on our sofa, another on the floor – but the one who spoke was watching the whole time. We were in the corner and weren’t allowed to move unless someone was with us. I had to go to the toilet at three in the morning and one of them . . .’

  For the first time, Harriet showed a sense of emotion, choking back the start of a sentence before composing herself.

  ‘Did he do anything?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘He just watched from the doorway but y’know . . .’

  ‘What happened with the safe?’

  ‘As soon as it was six o’clock, the main guy was on his feet, telling Ian it was time. You’d have to ask Ian what happened then – he doesn’t even let me know the code. He took the guy with the gun and one other upstairs, leaving the other two down here with me. When they came back down, they had a rucksack taken from our spare room.’

  ‘What did they take?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Ian – I don’t know. I didn’t see inside the bag. As soon as they got downstairs, they were all on their feet and left through the back again. The guy told us there would be someone watching the house and that, if we left, they’d come back and hurt the kids. We waited until it was light and then Ian ran next door to call you.’

  Jessica went over a few of the other points, at first thinking they had a lead because the robbers knew the children’s names, but then being shot down by an irate Harriet pointing out that her husband had included them as part of a family profile on his ‘stupid’ company’s website.

  After talking to Harriet, Jessica was given a tour by a rather more annoyed Ian Blackledge.

  ‘Why aren’t there more police here? . . . Why didn’t you anticipate something like this after the first two? . . . What are you doing to find them? . . . What do my taxes pay for?’

  Jessica wondered what made people think it was a good idea to ingratiate themselves with the police by banging on about how you paid their wages.

  Not once did Ian mention his wife or children, instead asking how quickly the police report would come through so he could contact the insurance company. By the time they got to the couple’s bedroom, Jessica had already had enough of him.

  The bedroom itself was huge, featuring a bed as wide as it was long with a tall mirror-fronted walk-in wardrobe at the foot. On one side, an open door led into an en suite bathroom, with a gaping hole in the wall opposite where a safe door hung open. Covering it had been a painting that was connected to
the wall by a hinge in a scene that lived up to every cliché ever imagined about where a safe could be hidden.

  ‘What happened when you were brought up here?’ Jessica asked, peering into the safe but not touching anything. Traces of fingerprint powder were sprinkled across the metal, with a blinking light above a keypad on the front panel.

  ‘The man with the gun told me to open it.’

  ‘And did you?’

  Ian sat on the bed, his bulk making it sag at the bottom. As he spoke he flapped his hands around. ‘I got it wrong the first time – I think my fingers must’ve been a bit shaky – but yes.’

  ‘What did they take?’

  ‘Everything!’

  Jessica waited for further explanation but for a man who had apparently built a business, Ian Blackledge seemed a bit slow. Eventually she had to ask: ‘What exactly did they take?’

  ‘Oh . . . well, there was diamond jewellery, plus I always keep a degree of cash around the house just in case.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Around fifteen thousand.’

  ‘You keep fifteen thousand pounds in cash at home?’

  Ian shrugged as if it was the most natural thing. ‘You never know when you might need petty cash for a business.’

  In all, totalling the cash and jewellery, he claimed the robbers had taken more than two hundred thousand pounds. If true, it was the robbers’ biggest haul yet, almost doubling the total amount taken – most of which seemed to be in jewellery. In the first two cases, the victims had been photographed at various functions showing off quite how much the jewels cost. Given the number of times Ian had mentioned how much one of the stolen necklaces was worth, it seemed likely he’d paraded Harriet around wearing it at some point or another. With that and giving his children’s names out on his website, he’d not quite asked for it but he certainly hadn’t helped himself. Jessica never ceased to be amazed by how stupid people were when it came to giving out private information.

  She went through the same questions with Ian, even though he’d already given a statement, but he had less to say about the actual robbery than his wife did, somehow managing to spend the night not noticing anything about the people who had broken into his house.