‘All right. All right. I have information. You get it, if you pull the bloody chair back. Did you hear what I said? PULL THE CHAIR BACK!’
‘I will. But you’d better start talking.’
‘What?’
‘I think you heard me.’
‘I’m gonna fall into the fucking pool,’ he shouted.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll hold on to the back of the chair, just to make sure you don’t fall. So the sooner you tell me what you know, the better.’
Southwood gripped the arms of his chair. ‘It’s maybe worth shit. For Chrissakes help me out here. I can’t fucking swim, never mind bloody walk.’
Anna now positioned herself directly behind the chair, as the big man sweated in fear.
‘OK, OK, this is what I’ve got. Just hold on to the chair. Don’t let me get any closer to the edge.’
Southwood began, sotto voce, alternating between rasping coughs and puffs on his cigarette. Twenty years ago, before he moved to London, he was a DC attached to Vice with Greater Manchester Police. A well-known prostitute called Lilian Duffy had been found dead, strangled with her own stocking. Her hands had been tied behind her back with her bra. Duffy had been raped. She was forty-five.
Anna listened. She didn’t respond when Southwood asked if it was ringing any bells.
Southwood continued with his account. Duffy had been arrested numerous times before by the Vice Squad. She had served a short prison sentence for prostitution. Southwood described her as a real hardened whore: a ‘dripper’, he said. On their files there was an assault charge filed by Duffy a year or so previously. She claimed to have been raped by a man who had picked her up and then tried to strangle her.
The Vice Squad responded only half-heartedly. Duffy, after all, was a known alcoholic and drug abuser. But she had provided a very good description of her assailant and they began to run it through records. Suddenly, she withdrew the charges, which had pissed everyone off because of the time already invested. When she was arrested for prostitution again, a female Vice Squad officer had tried to find out why she had withdrawn her charges. Duffy had stunned everyone by claiming ‘personal reasons’: the assailant attacker was her own son.
Anthony Duffy, seventeen years of age, was subsequently arrested. He denied attacking his mother. A year later, Lilian Duffy’s body was found in a wooded area, strangled, with her hands tied behind her back. The murder team, now provided with the Vice Squad’s reports, brought in Anthony Duffy for questioning. There were no DNA specialists twenty years ago and with no witness and the body in a badly decomposed condition, they had not pressed charges. Anthony Duffy had been released from custody, though the feeling in the office was that he was guilty.
Southwood waited for Anna to respond. As he turned, she could see the sweat dripping down his forehead.
‘That’s it. That’s bloody it!’ he gasped.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Why what, for Chrissakes?’
‘Why did you feel that Anthony Duffy was the killer?’
Southwood wiped his face with the cuff of his shirt.
‘Just a gut feeling. He was a real odd kid, very calm. He had been brought up in foster homes, but around fifteen he traced his mother. She was living with this Jamaican pimp. Had a whole string of girls living in a shit hole in Swinton, on the outskirts of Manchester.’
‘So, was he well brought up? Had he been abused?’
Southwood was shaking. ‘Nah. Good education … very intelligent. Come on, now, wheel me back inside. I gotta have a drink.’
Anna had to really jerk the chair hard to free it from the rut. Southwood yelped with fear, sure she was going to tip him into the pool, but she managed to ease the chair round. He fumbled with the controls, but the battery was now very low. She had to push him back up the ramp. He weighed at least twenty stone, but at last she got him back into his drawing room.
Anna went behind the bar and poured him a glass of water. He almost snatched the glass from her and gulped it down.
‘Gimme some of that vodka. I’m out of Scotch. That’s why I let you in. I thought you was Mario, the guy that delivers for me. And can you plug in the battery recharger? It’s by the coffee table.’
Anna switched on a lamp and found the recharger. She then fixed him a drink as he watched her with angry, watery eyes. She calmly took out her notebook and, leaning against the bar, made notes of everything he had told her. Southwood remained silent, drinking thirstily, before holding up his glass for a refill.
‘I’ll check all this out,’ she said, pouring more vodka. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Nah, that’s it. Like I said: it might mean fuck-all. There was just something about him.’ He hesitated. ‘Made you feel uneasy. I think it was his eyes. He’d got these big, wide-apart eyes.’
‘Anthony Duffy,’ Anna said, softly.
‘Yeah, he was a really handsome boy. Christ knows where he is now. That was twenty years ago.’ Southwood looked pitiful: hunched in his chair, clutching his glass. ‘It’s all I have, swear on my dead mother’s grave. That’s it.’
Anna put her notebook away. ‘We’ll check it out. Thank you.’ She started to walk to the door.
‘Why don’t you stay and have a drink with me?’
She glanced at him and shook her head. The big, foul-mouthed man looked vulnerable. Though he was obviously lonely, she couldn’t stand to be in his presence a moment longer.
‘No. Thank you.’
By the time Anna left the villa a crate of Scotch had been deposited on the doorstep by the front door. Southwood called after her from his chair. ‘Good night,’ she said, and walking outside, closed the door behind her. They had a possible suspect. Anthony Duffy. She’d finally got what she came for.
Ron jumped out of the waiting taxi and opened the passenger door.
‘You all right?’ he said. ‘I was getting worried.’
‘I’m fine. Just find me somewhere quiet where the food is good and cheap, and has some decent sangria to go with it. And then I need to find a hotel.’
‘On our way,’ he said as the taxi swerved down the hill, away from the decaying villa and its equally decaying, drunken occupant.
‘Did you get the information you wanted?’ Ron asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, repeating the name ‘Anthony Duffy’ to herself. It might prove to be unconnected. But if it didn’t, they had, at long last, a suspect.
Langton kept staring at the memo. ‘Anthony Duffy?’ He looked at Lewis. ‘What’s this about?’
‘Travis sent a text message to Moira. Here’s the printout.’
‘This is it?’
‘Yeah, that’s all she said. And that she should be back this morning.’
‘So what’s with this Anthony Duffy?’
Lewis scratched his head. ‘We don’t have any record of him; he’s not on any files. I guess we have to wait until we get the details from Travis.’
Langton pursed his lips in anger; he returned to his office.