Uniform had completed some preliminary door-to-door enquiries, and from the little information they had gathered, Angie and Ratcliffe had concluded that the Porter family were not neighbourly types. Of those people interviewed who were aware of their existence, most described them as eccentric, standoffish and weird.
The only real contact any of the neighbours had with them was on the odd occasion when someone had plucked up enough courage to complain about the run-down state of the house and the untamed jungle that may have at one time been a garden. All had been given short shrift and had not tried again. Consequently, the only person who might have any useful information on the family regarding the time that Roy Baxter had been a part of it was Delia Jones. An ornery old bird who was busy giving both he and Angie some seriously dirty looks.
Scowling at him she said, ‘What do you want to talk to me for? I didn’t bloody kill him, though if I had Charlie wouldn’t have had to pay for something he didn’t do. If you ask me, Roy Baxter got everything he deserved.’
Angie stepped in, going for the ‘woman’s touch’, Ratcliffe guessed. It wouldn’t work – nothing did with Delia’s type.
‘How did you and your son know Mr Baxter?’ she asked.
‘I would have thought you already knew that. I was their cleaner and Charlie worked for Roy. He was a builder; he gave Charlie work, and only did it to piss Valerie off. She wasn’t keen on Charlie.’
‘Why not?’ Ratcliffe asked.
Delia laughed and shook her head. ‘Valerie Porter didn’t like anyone much.’
Ratcliffe didn’t buy it. He looked at Angie and by his guess, neither did she. ‘What do you mean?’
Delia shifted in her seat. ‘She was a bitter woman, a dried-up old stick who liked to make other people miserable when she could. She was always the same, even when she was a kid: a nasty, spiteful bitch who thought she was a cut above everyone else. Put it this way, it takes more than a posh house and a good name to shift a reputation like hers.’
‘She must have liked you – she gave you a job,’ Angie said.
‘Huh! She gave me the job because I was the only person stupid enough to do it for the lousy money she paid. Liking didn’t come in to it. Besides, she enjoyed the fact that someone she knew worked for her, made her feel important,’ Delia said bitterly, obviously still suffering the indignity of her lot.
‘Why stay if she was so unpleasant, paid so little?’ Angie wanted to know.
Delia looked her up and down, obviously taking in the smart suit and the air of self-assurance.
‘I don’t suppose a woman like you would know what it’s like to be left on your own to bring up a kid. I left school at fourteen, got married when I was seventeen, had Charlie when I was twenty, and was widowed at twenty-two. I had no money, and a roof to pay for. Wasn’t quite so easy to go to the social, cap in hand, then. I had to work and I had to go somewhere I could take Charlie with me. Needs must, Constable.’
She paused and pointed a fat finger at Angie. ‘You should be glad the world has changed. If it hadn’t you wouldn’t be sitting there in your nice suit calling the shots. You would have been chained to the sink with a load of snotty-nosed kids around your ankles too, just like all the other women I knew back then, so don’t judge me, lady. I wasn’t too proud to earn my own living even if it was cleaning up someone else’s muck. At least I wasn’t raking through it like you lot do!’
Angie was taken aback by the level of venom in Delia’s tone, but Ratcliffe was unfazed by the attack. He liked to think of himself as thick-skinned, like a suit-wearing rhino – give her time and Angie would be the same. She had potential. He wouldn’t have given her the time of day if she didn’t. He’d spent his career hearing bullshit from the likes of Delia Jones and he could take it. He had a decent brain on him. Wasn’t exactly a people person but got the job done through determination and stoic patience.
Ignoring Delia’s defensiveness, he ploughed in. ‘You may have read that there was a second body found, a baby. Can you tell us anything about that?’ he said, not looking at Delia but studying her crowded mantelpiece instead. A photograph had caught his attention. A pretty, dark-eyed girl smiled out at him from the confines of a cheap silver frame. She looked familiar.
Delia saw where his gaze fell. ‘Well, you’re not going to get an answer by looking up there, are you? Sit down for God’s sake. You take up too much space,’ she said irritably, watching with grim amusement as he perched his big frame on the edge of another fat chair. ‘I don’t know anything about a baby, but I wouldn’t put anything past that family. They liked their secrets,’ she added enigmatically.
‘What secrets?’ Angie wanted to know.
‘Well if I knew that, they wouldn’t be secrets would they?’ Delia countered with a satisfied smile. ‘Look, I walked out of there the day Patsy died, and I never looked back. I don’t know anything about what you found there and I’ve had no contact with any of them since. I can’t help you.’
Ratcliffe glanced back up at the photo. ‘What about Rachel? Did you have contact with her?’
Delia shrugged. ‘For a while. Couldn’t help her family could she? Anyway, I haven’t seen her for getting on for twenty years. She moved away, cut herself off. Didn’t even go to the funeral.’
‘Did you go to the funeral?’ Angie asked.
Delia pursed her lips. ‘I did. Wanted to make sure the old cow really was dead.’
Ignoring this comment, Ratcliffe pressed on, ‘Why didn’t Rachel go? It was her mother after all.’
Delia looked away from him. Her eyes flicked rapidly from side to side before she answered, ‘They fell out. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know, but I think it was over money. Valerie’s sister-in-law died; left the lot to Rachel, which was when she buggered off to London. Rachel lives in Lila’s old flat now as far as I know. Look, they were a weird lot. Stella wouldn’t say boo to a goose, Frances was so far up her own backside she thought her shit didn’t stink, and Valerie wasn’t much better. She made Maggie Thatcher look like a pussycat. I just worked there. A long time ago.’
Ratcliffe sighed. This was going nowhere. ‘Is there anyone else you can think of who might have known the family?’
Delia shrugged again. ‘Not likely – they weren’t exactly the kind that had friends. And before you ask, no, I don’t know where Stella is.’
***
Ratcliffe had called it quits. They were getting nowhere fast with Delia Jones but they both knew that she was holding back. He could see her now, staring at them through her net curtains as they climbed into the car. Angie rammed the key into the ignition and said, ‘Well, she was like a breath of rotten air eh? What now, boss?’
He gazed out of the windscreen, looking at nothing in particular, while she waited for him to answer. She had fast-tracked through the force on a degree programme that meant quick promotion and instant status, but if he was honest, she was a bit out of her depth sometimes, especially around blokes like him. Older male coppers intimidated her. The only way she had learnt to deal with it was to refine a cool, detached persona that she hoped others saw as enigmatic and intelligent and pepper it with the odd bit of edgy humour.
The truth was, she was confused and often struggled to find a way forward, especially in cases like these. Everything she had learned in college flew out of the window when she was faced with someone like Delia Jones. The theory was there, she knew