‘When do you expect him back?’ Heck asked.
Devlin looked amused by the inanity of such a question (again false, Heck sensed). ‘How do I know? I’m not his fucking keeper. He knows he can come here anytime, but he never wants to outstay his welcome.’
‘Has he got a phone, so you can contact him?’ Jowitt wondered.
‘He hasn’t got anything.’
‘Does he ever come here late at night?’ Grinton said. ‘As in … unusually late.’
‘What sort of bullshit questions are these?’ Wayne Devlin demanded, increasingly agitated by the sounds of violent activity upstairs.
Grinton eyed him. ‘The sort that need straight answers, son … else you and your dad are going to find yourselves deeper in it than whale shit.’ He glanced back at Devlin. ‘So … any late-night calls?’
‘Sometimes,’ Devlin admitted.
‘When?’
‘I don’t keep a fucking diary.’
‘Did he ever look flustered?’ Jowitt asked.
‘When didn’t he? He’s on the lam.’
‘How about bloodstained?’ Grinton said.
At first Devlin seemed puzzled, but now, slowly – very slowly – his face lengthened. ‘You’re not … you’re not talking about this Lady Killer business?’
‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding!’ Wayne Devlin blurted, looking stunned.
‘Interesting thought, Wayne?’ Heck said to him. ‘Is that your bat out there – or Jimmy Hood’s?’
The lad’s mouth dropped open. Suddenly he was less the teen tough-guy and more an alarmed kid. ‘It’s … it’s mine, but that doesn’t mean …’
‘So if we confiscate it for forensic examination and find blood, it’s you we need to come for, not Jimmy?’
‘That won’t work, copper,’ the older Devlin said, though for the first time there was colour in his cheek – it perhaps hadn’t occurred to him that his son might end up carrying the can for something. ‘You’re not scaring us.’
Despite that, the younger Devlin did look scared. ‘You won’t find any blood on it. It’s been under my bed for months. Jimbo never touched it. Dad, tell ’em what they want to fucking know.’
‘Like I said, Jimbo’s only been here a couple of times,’ Devlin drawled. (Still playing it calm, Heck thought.) ‘Never settles down for long.’
‘And it didn’t enter your head that he might be involved in these murders?’ Grinton said.
‘Or are you just in denial?’ Jowitt asked.
‘He was a good mate …’
‘So you are in denial? Can’t see the judge being impressed by that.’
‘It may have occurred to me once or twice,’ Devlin retorted. ‘But you don’t want to believe it of a mate …’
‘Even though he’s done it before?’ Grinton said.
‘Nothing this bad.’
‘Bad enough.’
‘You should get over to his auntie’s!’ Wayne Devlin interjected.
That comment stopped them dead. They gazed at him curiously; he gazed back, flat-eyed, cheeks flaming.
‘What are you talking about?’ Heck asked.
‘He was always ranting about his Auntie Mavis …’
‘Wayne!’ the older Devlin snapped.
‘If Jimbo’s up to something dodgy, Dad, we don’t want any part in it.’
These two are good, Heck thought. These two are really good.
‘Something you want to tell us, Mr Devlin?’ Grinton asked.
Devlin averted his eyes to the floor, teeth bared. He yanked his glasses off and rubbed them vigorously on his stained vest – as though torn with indecision, as though angry at having been put in this position, but not necessarily angry at the police.
‘Wayne may be right,’ he finally said. ‘Perhaps you should get over there. Her name’s Mavis Cutler. Before you ask, I don’t know much else. She’s not his real auntie. Some old bitch who fostered Jimbo when he was a kid. Seventy-odd now, at least. I don’t know what went on – he never said, but I think she gave him a dog’s life.’
So Hood was attacking his wicked auntie every time he attacked one of these other women, Heck reasoned, remembering his basic forensic psychology. It’s a plausible explanation. Although a tad too plausible, of course.
‘And why do we need to get over there quick?’ Jowitt wondered.
Devlin hung his head properly, his shoulders sagging as if he was suddenly glad to get a weight off them. ‘When … when Jimbo first showed up a few months ago, he said he was back in Nottingham to see her. And when he said “see her”, I didn’t get the feeling it was for a family reunion if you know what I mean.’
‘So why’s it taken him this long?’ Jowitt asked.
‘He couldn’t find her at first. I think he may have gone up to Hucknall yesterday, looking. That’s where they lived when he was a kid.’
Cleverer and cleverer, Heck thought. Devlin’s using real events to make it believable.
‘Someone up there probably told him,’ Devlin added.
‘Told him what?’
‘That she lives in Matlock now. I don’t know where exactly.’
Matlock in Derbyshire. Twenty-five miles away.
‘How do you know all this?’ Grinton sounded suspicious.
Devlin shrugged. ‘He rang me today – from a payphone. Said he was leaving town tonight, and that I probably wouldn’t be seeing him again.’
‘And you still didn’t inform us?’ Jowitt’s voice was thick with disgust.
‘I’m informing you now, aren’t I?’
‘It might be too late, you stupid moron!’ Jowitt dashed out into the hall, calling the two uniforms from upstairs.
‘Look, he never specifically said he was going to do that old bird,’ Devlin protested to Grinton. ‘He might not even be going to Matlock. He might be fleeing the fucking country for all I know! This is just guesswork!’
And you can’t be prosecuted for guessing, Heck thought. You’re a cute one.
‘Don’t do anything stupid, Mr Devlin,’ Grinton said, indicating to Heck that it was time to leave. ‘Like warning Jimmy we’re coming. Any phone we find on Hood with calls traceable back to you are all we’ll need to nick you as an accomplice.’
Out in the entry passage, Jowitt was already shouting into his radio. ‘I don’t care how indisposed they are – get them to check the voters’ rolls and phone directories. Find every woman in Matlock called Mavis bloody Cutler … over and out!’ He turned to Grinton and Heck. ‘We should lock that bastard Devlin up.’
Grinton shook his head, ignoring the door to 41c as it slammed closed