Page 47 of Maybe Tomorrow

‘What now?’ he bellowed.

DC Chris Tyler pushed the door open and remained in the doorway. ‘Sir, I was just reading through Tania’s statement.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘One of the prostitutes who regularly works Canal Street. Thething is, she says Anthony liked to watch her and had been doing it over the last few months. But the night Alice was killed, there was a massive storm. We don’t know if the women were out working that night. What if they weren’t? What if Anthony just went to the coastline to watch the waves?’

‘You’re not helping, Chris.’

‘I’m just saying that, if they weren’t working that night, Anthony might have not been anywhere near Canal Street, which means he wasn’t anywhere near the woods where Alice was killed. It feels quite circumstantial.’

Bishop closed his eyes tight and chewed on his bottom lip. ‘Hark at the new boy.’ Bishop didn’t like the word ‘circumstantial’. It was a problem that needed solving. ‘Give me that statement, Chris.’

Chris handed it over. He glanced it up and down, saw Tania’s address and contact details at the top of the page.

‘Chris, I want you and Osborne to have another go at Anthony. Eddie, go and have a chat with some more of these hookers on Canal Street. Show them Anthony’s photo. Ask them if they know him, if they’ve seen him hanging around playing with himself, and get dates.’

‘Will do,’ Eddie said, making his way out of the door.

‘Eddie, when I say ask them, I mean talk to them. I don’t want to hear about you putting your dick where it doesn’t belong during working hours.’

‘As if I would,’ he said with a hint of a smile.

Bishop picked up Tania’s statement from the table, folded it into fours and put it in his inside pocket.

‘Are you still here?’ he asked Chris.

‘Just leaving, sir,’ Chris said, a look of discomfort on his face.

DC Chris Tyler and DS Stephen Osborne walked down the corridor to the interview room. They passed Freya in the corridor. She was about to open her mouth to ask something, but Chris made eye contact and shook his head quickly, instructing her not to say anything.

As they walked by, he turned back to look at her and gave her a broken smile. ‘Freya, can you do me a favour?’

‘Sure.’

He looked back and waited until Osborne had disappeared around the corner.

Chris lowered his voice. ‘Go and see Anthony’s mum. Ask her where he was on the night of the murder. He’s told us he was down by the beach, watching the waves. But what time did he get home? Knock on a few of the neighbours’ doors as well. Ask them what he’s like and also if they saw him on the night of the storm.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. Try and stop Osborne and Bishop doing something they might live to regret.’

ChapterNineteen

Henry Bishop pulled up in his Astra on Carver Lane on the seafront and stepped out into the cold afternoon air. He buttoned his coat up, threw down the remains of the cigarette he’d been smoking and crunched it into the ground with his size elevens. He looked around him and took in the quiet street before knocking on the dirty green door.

‘It’s open,’ a call came from within.

Bishop chuckled to himself, opened the door and stepped into the ground floor flat.

It was dark and dingy and there was an underlying smell of sweat, desperation, and sex. There were two doors leading off a tiny hallway. One was ajar and led to a small, untidy kitchen, the second led into the living room-cum-bedroom. He kicked open the door, saw the curtains were drawn, the room in complete darkness, and fumbled on the wall for the light switch. He flicked it on, and the room lit up in a brilliant yellow from the exposed bulb in the middle of the room.

Tania Dove was on the bed, naked, a sheet playfully placed just below her navel. She squinted in the light and looked up.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she said, grabbed the dirty sheet and covered her modesty. ‘What do you want?’ Her accent was pure northern. She sat up in bed and reached across to the bedside cabinet for a cigarette. Tania was aged somewhere in her mid-thirties, and she was painfully thin, her eyes bulging, her teeth yellowed and crooked. Her hair was greasy and lank, and her skin was dry and covered in bruises where clients had grabbed her too hard. Bishop could perfectly understand why she kept herself in the dark.

‘Nice to see you too, Tania,’ Bishop said, walking around the room, taking in the décor. There was an old chest of drawers along the back wall covered in make-up and framed photos. He picked one up and studied the little boy in the picture. ‘Seen much of your Billy lately?’