‘We have the cat. I called you because that neighbour wants to speak to you about some funny goings-on, as she put it. She didn’t call these incidents in but on seeing us here, she wondered if she should say something. She said that the noises have been haunting her but she’s been too scared to confront Kain Pickering and she thinks he kidnapped her cat. Not only that, he threatened her and told her if she didn’t butt out of his and Maura’s life, when she was alive, he’d make her wish she was dead.’
SEVEN
Gina stepped outside to find a woman standing on the path next to the cat that had slipped past her, only this time it was in a basket meowing to be let out.
‘I’m so glad Gordon came home. I’ve been missing him. I made posters and I even put a few up in the bus stops but no one called. I know Kain took him. That man is horrible. Where is the bastard?’ the woman asked in an accent that told Gina she was originally from the West Country.
‘May we come inside and speak with you?’ Gina asked, not wanting to say much more on the doorstep, especially as a few neighbours were starting to come out of their houses, wondering what was going on.
The woman gasped a few times. She pulled an inhaler from the depths of her thick cardigan pocket and began sucking on it. ‘That’s better. I shouldn’t exert myself really but when I saw Gordon, I almost ran back for the carrier. He wouldn’t come to me at first but he soon jumped in for a mouthful of treats. Scared stiff, he was.’
‘May we borrow Gordon, so he can have a check over and we can take some swabs? He was trapped in a room next door andwe have reason to believe something happened in that room and Gordon might be able to help us with our investigation.’
‘Of course.’ She furrowed her grey wiry brows and allowed one of the PCs to take Gordon. ‘You won’t hurt him, will you?’
‘No,’ Gina replied. ‘We’ll take care of him.’
The woman turned to the PC taking the basket. ‘He’s hungry and scared. Look after him or you’ll have me to deal with.’ She raised her brows.
‘I’ll personally stay with him. I have a cat, too. He’s like family. I’ll make sure Gordon is looked after.’ The PC smiled and gently took the basket.
‘And I want him back soon.’ The woman plodded along the path, swaying from side to side with each step as she led them into the house next door to Maura Pickering’s. Her oversized nightdress fell to her knees over a pair of jeggings. The woman’s house was the complete opposite to Maura’s. It was bursting with decorative items including soft toys, artificial flowers in vases and a whole gallery picture wall up the stairs – rather than just a couple of family photos. She struggled into her kitchen and fell into the carver chair at the head of the table. ‘Take a seat, both of you. I’d make you a drink, but…’ She pulled her inhaler out again and wheezed.
Jacob remained standing. ‘Would you like me to make you a drink?’
‘That would be lovely. Everything is on the worktop. Tea, milk and two sugars.’
A moment later the kettle began to boil and Jacob poured them all a drink. Gina wondered if the woman had anyone who helped her or maybe she only seemed so out-of-breath because she’d chased her cat. He brought the drinks to the table and sat.
‘Can I take your name?’ Gina asked. Jacob snatched his pen from his jacket pocket and pulled his notebook from his trouser pocket.
‘It’s Joyce Burton.’
‘How well did you know Kain Pickering?’
‘Not well but I knew enough.’ She tutted and picked her mug of tea up with shaky hands. With each breath her chest rattled. ‘Sorry about this. I had pneumonia several months ago and it’s lingered like mad. I can’t shake it. I miss Maura, we used to look out for each other and most days we’d have a coffee and a natter. I always said, if one of us bangs hard on the bedroom walls, to call an ambulance.’ She took a moment to wheeze and cough. ‘Neither of us were getting any younger and she had a bad heart.’ Joyce let out a long rattly breath. ‘I loved Maura to bits, I did. She was my best friend. We went on holidays together and on days out, until I got pneumonia. Soon after, that weasel of a son of hers came sniffing by. He lost his house; thought he could just move in with her and he isn’t a good man. She didn’t even want him to move in but she was a good mother. She couldn’t say no to him despite him being a whirlwind of chaos. He caused her no end of stress with his problems. Is all this fuss to do with him? I wouldn’t be surprised if you lot were after him for something.’
‘We’re currently investigating an incident so I can’t say much as yet.’ She couldn’t tell Joyce that they had found Kain Pickering’s body, not before speaking to his next-of-kin. ‘Did Maura have any more family members that you know of?’
‘Yes, she had a daughter, Lindy. She’s lovely. Maura loved her to bits.’
‘Do you have Lindy’s contact details?’
‘No, but I know she lives in the converted post office house on Thornberry Avenue. You can’t miss it. It has an old Royal Mail post box attached to the building. I went there with Maura on a couple of occasions.’ Gina nodded to Jacob who began to message those details to Wyre and O’Connor back at the station. The sooner they spoke to the victim’s next-of-kin, the better.
She needed to know more about what had gone on between Maura, Kain and Joyce – maybe she knew of someone who may have wanted Kain dead. ‘Can you tell me more about the relationship between Kain and Maura?’
‘You can ask Lindy all this when you speak to her. She’ll back me up on what I say. Kain treated his mother badly. Her once calm house suddenly became full of his drama. She used to get so upset with him, with his drinking, and he’d always try to get her to help him out with money. She gave him quite a lot, and even paid him twice to fit a security system on her house and he still didn’t do the work. He’d been taking her for a ride.’
‘Is that what he does for a living – security?’
Joyce nodded. ‘I don’t know if he’s on the tools anymore because he kept telling her that one of his team would do it but he has a security firm. He’s basically an alcoholic and because of that, his company has been going down the pan. I’m not even sure if he was bankrupt, you know. I think Maura mentioned something. She said if she asked him to leave, he’d have nowhere to go and what mother wants to see her son out on the streets?’
Gina started to wonder if Kain could have owed some money to a loan shark. Maybe that was a motive worth exploring. ‘You told our officer that you heard noises and they’d been haunting you.’
Joyce placed her inhaler between her lips and puffed on it again. ‘It was a particular noise. I heard a loud bang like the one Maura and I rehearsed in case we were in trouble. One huge loud bang, repeated again after a few seconds. I heard that last Friday and it freaked me out. It was daytime but I know Kain had been lying in until all hours. It was him and it was like he was taunting me that Maura was no longer there.’
In her mind, Gina pictured a panicking Kain, entangled in sheets while fighting off his attacker. He did the only thing he could think of, the same thing Maura would do to try to getthe attention of her neighbour in an emergency, only that time, Joyce thought she was being taunted. ‘What time was this?’
