IMPOSTURE: Hunters become the hunted in this gripping murder mystery Ray Clark (lightest ebook reader TXT) 📖

different directions. Millie Johnson never noticed anything when she passed Short Street, but saw him stagger around the corner when she was window-shopping. So what she said ties in with what everyone else is saying, but she couldn’t add anything new.”

“Have we interviewed Stella Dent?”

“Yes,” replied Benson. “She confirmed what Millie Johnson had said about meeting up but saw nothing.”

Usual frustrating stuff, thought Gardener. Something major happens and, even when there are a number of people milling around, no one sees anything.

“Patrick, please tell me you have something positive?”

Edwards resembled a rabbit caught in the headlights. He had a cup of tea in one hand and a half-eaten sausage roll in the other; the remainder was currently in his mouth.

“Does your mother not feed you, son?” asked Reilly.

“You’re a fine one to talk,” replied Rawson. “You’re like a human trash can.”

“There’s too much waste in this country,” said Reilly. “I’m doing my bit to help.”

“What?” replied Thornton. “By storing it all in your stomach?”

Edwards had finished chewing and came to Reilly’s rescue. “Got a registration, sir: LA20 PUR.”

“Who owns it?”

“You’re not going to like this. It’s on a long-term loan to an Alfie Price.”

Gardener rolled his eyes; here we go again. “Was it rented locally?”

“Yes, in Leeds.”

“And you’ve visited the lease company, checked it out, seen all the paperwork?”

“Yes, but it was all done via computer and the photo ID was no one I recognised. It certainly wasn’t any of them up on the board there.”

“Did you get an address?”

“Yes. Apparently it’s registered to a guest staying at The Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate but when I called them they’d never heard of the man. There were no records to backup the fact that he either was – or is – staying there. Apparently he told Hertz that he lived in London but he was up here on business for six months, so that’s how long he needed the vehicle.”

Gardener sighed, almost laughing. These guys were unreal.

“What about the London address?”

“A block of flats,” replied Patrick. “I’ve checked the electoral roll against the paperwork. The address is real but the person isn’t.”

“Surely there’s a paperwork trail,” said Sharp. “What about the guy who does live there, has he received anything yet?”

“Still on it,” said Patrick.

“Stick with it, Patrick, but don’t waste a lot of time on it. I’m pretty sure it’s not going anywhere.” Gardener had to admit it was a clever connection. “Where did the vehicle go from Butts Court, do we know?”

“Yes. As Mr Reilly suggested–”

“Mr Reilly, now, is it?” laughed Colin Sharp.

“Hold your horses, son,” said Reilly. “This wee young man will go far, he has respect.”

“Respect my arse, he just doesn’t know you as well as we do,” added Rawson.

“Okay, lads,” said Gardener, “go easy on him, he has provided the snacks.” He waved his arm in Patrick’s direction for him to continue.

Reilly smiled, raised his fingers to his eyes and then pointed at Rawson.

“It continued up Short Street, right onto Upper Basinghall Street and then left onto The Headrow.”

“Which we suspected. Have we registered it with ANPR?”

“Yes, sir. Already done. I’m hoping to check the pings and all the CCTV cameras in the morning.”

“That’s something positive, we might strike lucky. But it still doesn’t tell us who is behind it all. So far we have one dead body in the shape of Michael Foreman. With the others all still missing it could literally be any one of them.”

“But we do have mention of somewhere new,” said Sharp. “Harrogate.”

“Good point,” said Gardener, noting it down on the whiteboards. “We need to monitor this and see if Harrogate comes up anywhere else in conversation.”

“As for who’s behind it, they’ve all got motive,” said Reilly. “They’re all involved in the death of David and Ann Marie Hunter. It must have been a pretty stressful time for them all. Wouldn’t take much for one of them to crack.”

“You’d have thought they’d stayed tight after something like that,” added Benson.

“They obviously have,” said Reilly, “but maybe time and stress have shown up the cracks. All that money, people get greedy. Maybe one of them has decided he wants it all for himself.”

“Or wants a bigger share than any of the others,” said Rawson.

“Or one of them has been siphoning a bit off without the others knowing,” offered Benson.

“And now they’ve found out,” said Gardener.

“Or it could be someone else,” added Gates.

“We’ve all been talking about the possibility of it being one of the two men,” said Gardener. “There are women involved.”

“Ah, yes,” said Anderson, “we can’t rule out Zoe Harrison.”

“I wasn’t thinking specifically about her,” replied Gardener, “James Henshaw was married. His wife may well have had enough of his double life.”

“What possible reason?” asked Longstaff. “She’s still got the house, and presumably a fair amount of money. Maybe that’s all she needs.”

“Perhaps she’s not actually bothered about her husband,” said Gates, “especially after what he’s done.”

Gardener nodded. “It could be any number of reasons but at the moment we just don’t know enough. We still have a lot of blanks to fill in. Returning to the DPA team, have they all been out of the country and now they’re back, or have they been here all along? Is it possible that someone else put all the pieces together a lot earlier than we have and held them hostage somewhere, and now he or she is releasing them one by one?”

Gardener’s questions were halted by a knock on the door. Desk sergeant Dave Williams dropped in holding a piece of A4 paper. “This just came in, sir. A man called Jonathan Drake called in to register a complaint. He was attacked on Butts Court, shortly before ten thirty this morning