The wrong hands, p.9
The Wrong Hands, page 9
‘Seriously?’
Cutler’s hand moved towards the dressing on his head. He touched it and winced theatrically. ‘Concussion’s properly nasty, Miller. You ever had it?’
‘Can’t say as I have.’ Miller gazed up at the enormous chandelier directly above his head. ‘Judging by the number of memory lapses you’ve suffered over the years though, you must have had it loads.’
‘I certainly haven’t forgotten how funny you are,’ Cutler said. ‘How funny you think you are.’
‘Shall I try and fill in some of the gaps for you?’ Miller leaned towards him. ‘Might help bring some of it back.’
‘Fill your boots,’ Cutler said.
‘You were there to meet a man named Dennis Draper. To hand over some money in return for a briefcase containing the proof that Draper had murdered a man named George Panaides.’
Cutler nodded and hummed. ‘Yes . . . something’s coming back to me.’
‘It’s a miracle,’ Miller said.
‘Not about being at the station or that first bloke you mentioned . . . what was his name?’
‘Dennis Draper.’
Cutler closed his eyes like he was concentrating, then shook his head. ‘No, bugger all about him, I’m afraid. Sorry. But I do remember the Panaides murder. Bad business that.’
‘What, bad as in being shot in the back of the head and having both his hands cut off? Or “bad business” because what Panaides had been up to was bad for your business?’
‘Was it?’
‘I’ll be honest with you, Wayne, I can get a bit jealous when a new detective starts work. I can be a bit tetchy about it, you know?’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘It’s ridiculous, course it is, but we’re only human, aren’t we? I can only imagine how you must feel when someone comes bowling along and has the barefaced cheek to start selling disco biscuits on your doorstep, because you’ve had dibs on that for ages! Fair dos, right?’
‘Like I said.’ Cutler sat back and laced his fingers across his designer-label belly. ‘How funny you think you are.’
Miller smiled and waved away what he’d said. ‘But you’ll be glad to know that I don’t particularly care about any of that. Well, I care a bit, obviously, because it’s murder and drug dealing and as a police officer I’m supposed to be, you know . . . anti all that. With that in mind, the person I’m really interested in is Dennis Draper.’ He raised a hand. ‘I know, you’ve never heard of him, or if you have, you’ve forgotten. But if that name should suddenly start ringing a bell and you were able to point us vaguely in Mr Draper’s direction, it would certainly earn you some brownie points.’ Miller waited. ‘To put that in a context you’ll understand, we might not try and arrest you quite so often.’
Cutler leaned forward, eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you so interested in Draper?’ He hesitated, then corrected himself. ‘This bloke Draper, I mean . . . whoever he is.’
Miller could see the cogs turning. Wayne Cutler understood very well why Serious and Organised would be keen to get their hands on Draper, as it would ultimately be a way of getting their hands on him. But he was evidently a lot less sure why a homicide detective would take such a sudden
interest.
Miller very much enjoyed being one step ahead of him; knowing something that he was now certain Cutler didn’t.
‘Well, because since the incident at the railway station, he’s gone on to murder someone else. Making quite the nuisance of himself is our Mr Draper. As it happens, the victim was one of the lads who stole that briefcase that you got whacked across the head with. Is that spooky, or what? Considering that getting whacked is what led to your unfortunate, if convenient amnesia. Never mind “rain on your wedding day” Alanis chuffing Morissette . . . that’s ironic.’ He shook his head as though this tragic and easily explicable chain of events was deeply strange. ‘Am I right, Wayne?’
Cutler said nothing.
Miller stood up and wandered across to the window. For a second he imagined that he could hear the cogs now spinning furiously in Cutler’s poisonous little brain, until he realised it was a man working with a strimmer at the bottom of the garden.
‘So, anything coming back at all, Wayne?’ He turned to look at Cutler. ‘Is that Dennis Draper-shaped bell starting to ring yet? The faintest tinkle? Is there perhaps a familiar face starting to emerge from the concussive mist? Or better yet an address and phone number?’
Cutler turned slowly to look at Miller. ‘I wish I could help you.’
‘Yeah, course you do,’ Miller said.
‘I wish I could help you with a lot of things.’
Miller waited, something tightening in his stomach because he sensed what was coming.
‘Look, I know you’re still cut up about your wife and why wouldn’t you be? I know how that feels, having lost someone close myself recently, and if I could do something to help catch the person responsible for Alex’s death . . . if I could do anything, I would.’
‘I don’t want to hear you saying her name.’ Miller stared and waited until Cutler could see that he was staring. ‘Please don’t do it again.’
‘I swear I would, though.’
‘Right.’ Miller turned away and looked around the room, making a swift yet comprehensive inventory of the things he could use to inflict a lot more damage to Wayne Cutler’s skull than a briefcase.
‘I know you think I had something to do with it,’ Cutler said. ‘I’m not stupid.’
The poker, just a few feet away, next to the gas fire; the fake-leatherbound encyclopaedia that Miller guessed had never been opened; the plug-ugly glass paperweight he guessed was meant to be a teardrop but looked more like a giant sperm.
‘Just because her and I had some cat and mouse thing going on or whatever, because her lot were investigating me . . . but you’re barking up the wrong tree, Miller.’
The crystal decanter; the ceramic leopard on the side table; the side table . . .
‘It would really be something though, don’t you reckon? If I was the one that actually helped you nail your wife’s murderer.’ Cutler was grinning, bright-eyed. ‘Now that really would be ironic.’
EIGHTEEN
Jacqui Cutler was seething.
From her bedroom window she watched that weird copper walking back towards his silly scooter and found herself hoping that, for once, he’d got the better of her husband. That he’d be back with a few of his mates and maybe even an arrest warrant.
Bloody hell, she’d never thought that before.
She almost laughed.
Hand on heart, she couldn’t say that she’d been anything like happy for a good while, but she’d forgotten what happy was even like when Adrian had been killed. Admittedly, in the end it turned out that he hadn’t died because of anything Wayne had done, but the fact that they’d all presumed it had been to do with the business was enough. It was proof that things had got to change. She wasn’t going to let anything happen to the only son she had left, that was for sure.
Then . . .
Now she was seething like she’d never seethed before.
Then . . . there was the incident with the Creme Egg.
For more years than Jacqui cared to remember, she’d been by her old man’s side. Through thick and bloody thin. She’d watched him being carted away by coppers on a regular basis and seen him come home covered in blood that wasn’t his. She’d heard things whispered on the phone that she’d never be able to forget and had she ever complained? Had she ever once suggested that maybe she’d be happier and a bit more fulfilled doing an Open University degree or going to antique fairs or joining a book club? No, obviously not, because those things were stupid and she’d hate them, but it was the principle of the thing that counted.
She’d been the good and faithful wife, hadn’t she? She’d said nothing and looked the other way and done all her crying in private. She’d raised three kids as good as single-handed only to watch the two boys go the same way as their father. She’d cooked and cleaned for the lot of them and entertained all their dodgy friends without a word.
Well, enough was sodding well enough.
The other morning in the hospital had put the tin lid on it.
She was sorry Wayne had been hurt, of course she was, even if she’d seen him in much worse states over the years. Hadn’t she rushed up to that hospital? Hadn’t she come straight back home to pick up anything she could think of that would make him a bit more comfortable? His favourite squashy pillow and a nice bit of chocolate?
And what had she got for her trouble?
OK, so he hadn’t been in the best mood ever because of the whole concussion thing and feeling sick, and his head was obviously giving him serious gip, but none of that could excuse what he’d done.
Jacqui Cutler was nothing if not a woman of the world. She could appreciate the sound business reasons why such and such a bloke might need to have his legs broken. She could see that sledgehammers and battery acid were the only language that some people understood. She could even sympathise with the personal slight that had left Wayne with no other option than to chuck that tax inspector off a multi-storey car park, but there had to be a line in the sand.
There were no excuses for throwing a Creme Egg at someone.
It was scary, even thinking about . . . making a change, but she’d been thinking about very little else since having the chocolatey treat she’d hand delivered out of the goodness of her heart thrown back, quite literally, in her face.
It was the Creme Egg that broke the camel’s back.
She’d miss the money, obviously. She’d miss all the nice things that the business had bought for them, but she was increasingly starting to realise that she might not have to. Because while she’d been keeping her mouth shut, Jacqui’s ears had been very much open. She’d listened in on phone calls and conversations Wayne had believed were private and if he thought she didn’t have the password to his mobile and computer, he was even dafter than she thought he was.
She knew where the bodies were buried.
She knew because she actually had the precise locations written down, on top of which she had the GPS co-ordinates for several others that had been dissolved, dumped or dismembered—
She turned from the window and walked towards the door because Wayne was shouting from downstairs, demanding lunch.
‘Coming, sweetheart . . . ’
Jacqui was actually feeling quite peckish herself. She decided that she’d probably just have a sandwich or a bit of salad, but one of these days, when she was feeling just a bit braver, she thought she might nip into town and treat herself to a Bardsley Burger.
Miller had just put his high-vis jacket and crash helmet on when he heard his phone start to ring, so had to quickly take the helmet off again.
‘I’ve got a bit of news,’ Bob Perks said.
‘Can it just be the funny bit?’
‘What?’
‘You know, the funny little story they always have at the end of the news to stop us all killing ourselves.’ Miller turned back to look at Cutler’s house and saw Jacqui Cutler stepping away from an upstairs window. ‘Five minutes of war, a few violent deaths, a smattering of famine, and now . . . a monkey on the back of a tandem!’
‘The hands,’ Perks said.
‘Right . . . ’
‘The ones in the briefcase.’
‘Yes, they’re the ones I presumed you were talking about.’
‘They don’t belong to George Panaides . . . or rather, they didn’t.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Miller said.
‘Bloody hell is bang on,’ Perks said.
It was certainly news, but being used to a forensic service that usually moved slower than a sloth in a sack race, Miller was as astonished by the speed with which a DNA result had come back as he was by the result itself. He told Perks as much.
‘We didn’t actually have to go down the DNA route,’ Perks said. ‘I just spoke to the SIO on the Panaides murder. I told him why I was calling and, when he’d finished laughing, he politely informed me that the late Mr Panaides wasn’t actually missing any hands.’
‘Not even one?’
‘When he was buried a week or so ago, he was perfectly intact.’
‘Well, I’m not sure the back of his head would have been all there,’ Miller said, ‘but I’m splitting hairs.’
‘So . . . ’
‘What about the rings?’
‘Yes, his widow has confirmed that the rings were his. My guess is that Draper took them from the body after he’d killed Panaides and then put them on another pair of hands.’
‘Whose?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Perks said. Though never quite as perky as his name suggested, the DCI sounded shattered and utterly cheesed off; as if he was on the verge of tears, or early retirement.
‘OK, let’s park that one,’ Miller said. ‘How about why?’
‘I’ve got a working theory.’ Perks said it like what he actually had was terminal piles. ‘Panaides’s hands were the proof that Cutler demanded specifically, but for whatever reason, Draper didn’t have time to remove them at the scene. Maybe he was interrupted or something.’
‘Maybe he’d forgotten to bring a saw,’ Miller said. ‘It’s easily done.’
‘So he snatches the rings, then finds someone else to kill—’
‘Making sure he’s got his saw with him this time.’
‘Now he’s got a usable pair of hands to put the rings on.’
‘I tell you what,’ Miller said. ‘The more I hear about this bloke, the less I like him.’
‘We’ll run DNA tests on the hands now, obviously.’ Perks let out a long sigh. ‘On the off chance we get a match.’
Miller climbed onto his moped. He glanced back at the house again, and this time he saw Cutler watching him from his front room. ‘Well, that’s one more very good reason to catch Dennis Draper,’ he said. ‘Like we don’t have enough.’
NINETEEN
Miller had arranged to meet Xiu for lunch in the pub across the road from the station. The menu in the Black Swan (known locally as the Deadly Duck) was more likely to earn its chef a lawsuit for food poisoning than a Michelin star, but he and the landlady (to whom the chef was married) had been friends with Miller for a long time. They had always preferred Alex to Miller, but Miller was fine with that, because nearly everyone had.
The landlady – who was called Janet and was not nearly as fearsome as she pretended to be – came over to take Miller and Xiu’s order.
‘I’ll have the incinerated cottage pie from your ever-popular “fresh from the freezer” range please, Janet,’ Miller said. ‘With a couple of slices of gravy and some of your delicious bullet peas.’
‘Stick it up your arse, Miller.’
‘That certainly couldn’t make it taste any worse. Oh, and I’ll have a glass of tap water an’ all. With a twist of lemon.’
Janet turned to Xiu and winked. ‘What about you, love?’
‘I was thinking about a salad.’
Miller snorted and Janet clicked her pen against her teeth.
‘OK . . . ’ Xiu picked up the menu again. ‘What are the rissoles like?’
‘Blimey, that is a bold move,’ Miller said.
‘Rissoles, right.’ Janet scribbled it down without waiting for confirmation. ‘I can chuck a bit of coleslaw on as well if you want.’
‘Perfect,’ Xiu said.
Once Janet had stalked away towards the kitchen, Miller told Xiu about the phone call from Bob Perks. If she was shocked, she appeared to get over it surprisingly quickly.
‘It doesn’t really change anything,’ she said. ‘Not materially—’
‘Tell that to the poor bugger those hands belonged to.’
She scowled at him. ‘I was going to say . . . other than confirming just how dangerous the man we’re after is.’
Miller nodded. ‘Oh yeah, he’s definitely at the high end of the psycho scumbag spectrum. Which is why I’m hoping that your morning spent trawling through CCTV footage has been a raging success that will get this case wrapped up quickly and see one or other of us promoted immediately to Chief Constable.’
‘Well . . . ’
‘Actually, you can have the promotion, Posh. I’m happier working the streets, you know? Getting my hands dirty.’ Despite the doubt he’d heard in Xiu’s voice, watching her remove a laptop from her bag gave Miller cause for cautious optimism.
She clicked and scrolled. ‘I don’t think promotion is on the cards.’
Miller said ‘Shame’, because it sounded as if she really meant it.
‘I got something, though.’ There was more clicking and scrolling. ‘The CCTV at the station was worse than useless. Only one working camera, but even that was no help. When the two lads first come into the station, the one we’re after – the one that isn’t Andrew Bagnall – keeps his head down, which makes sense when you think about what he and Bagnall were there to do.’
‘A pair of determined desperados.’
‘Well, not really,’ Xiu said. ‘Later on, after they’ve snatched the case, they’re running away, so we just get blurry images, no detail at all. Basically, we’ve still got no idea what he even looks like.’
‘Something, you said.’
‘Yes, better luck at the hospital.’ She clicked one last time, then turned the laptop so that Miller could see the screen. ‘Here’s our psycho scumbag.’
Miller looked at a clear, close-up image of Dennis Draper, which would have served him quite nicely as a publicity shot had there been any sort of glossy hitmen’s directory. He wasn’t looking happy, but Miller didn’t suppose a man like that smiled very much, on top of which he’d just sliced open his penis, which was likely to put a crimp in anyone’s morning. Get his old feller stitched up, have a spot of lunch or whatever, then toddle off to murder Andrew Bagnall before the anaesthetic had worn off. Probably just an average day.
