me a rental?’
‘No problem. I’ll be busy straightening your kitchen cabinets and sorting these ancient floorboards. Just bring it back in one piece.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No bother. Do I have to keep quiet about your new girlfriend too?’ he asked.
‘No, but we’re not …’
‘Course you’re not,’ he said as Helen, fully dressed now, entered the room. ‘Sleep well, did you, pet?’ he asked her cheerfully.
Bradshaw was waiting for them at Helen’s apartment. ‘My landlord’s going to go crazy.’ She observed the bare wooden boards that had been hastily nailed over the broken windows.
‘He’s insured,’ Bradshaw told her, ‘but you might want to think about moving.’
She just nodded dumbly. ‘I’m only back here to collect my things.’ Though Bradshaw’s face betrayed very little, Tom guessed there wasn’t much left to collect. They followed Helen into the apartment and Bradshaw left them to it. Tom went with her into the front room. Every piece of furniture had been upended or smashed. She took one look at the scene, turned and left the room.
When she reached the bedroom, the site that greeted Helen stopped her in her tracks. The sheet and duvet had been torn from the bed and slashed with a knife, the mattress had been hacked at with a blade of some kind and its stuffing spread around the room. Helen’s clothes had been pulled from her wardrobe; dresses were torn, her coat slashed, jeans and T-shirts were thrown everywhere. Drawers had been pulled out and upended and her underwear scattered around the room. Wordlessly, Helen went to the kitchen and returned a moment later carrying a roll of black bin bags. She tore off the first bag, opened it and began to scoop the nearest debris straight into it. Tom watched her for a moment and when it became clear to him that she no longer wanted to keep a single item from the room, he said, ‘I’ll help you.’
‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘I’ll do it,’ then she turned to face him and though she was doing a very good job of keeping it all together, Tom could see in her eyes how much this had hurt her.
‘Helen,’ he said again, ‘I’ll help.’ He took the bin bags from her, tore one from the roll and began to fill it.
Working together, it didn’t take long to clear the room, and once the black sacks were stacked outside by the bins they rejoined Bradshaw in the kitchen.
‘This wasn’t some random act,’ he told Helen. ‘I’ve spoken to my colleagues in Northumbria Police and they’ve seen this before, but never round here. It’s usually a punishment for those suspected of cooperating with the police in rougher parts of the city. Gangs like this start with burglaries and muggings, which gets them noticed by organised criminals, who use them for jobs they don’t want to be associated with. Blitzing someone’s house like this is designed to intimidate people, and it’s often combined with a beating.’ He stopped and waited for Helen to speak.
‘I see,’ she said simply.
‘And we all know who you’ve been upsetting lately.’ Ian Bradshaw felt like an idiot. He’d hoped his word with Jimmy McCree might at least have given the man some pause for thought before he targeted Helen again but he had treated it as a challenge to rise to. Now Helen’s flat had been trashed and Bradshaw knew it was his fault, but he didn’t quite have the nerve to tell her this.
‘Come on,’ Tom said because Helen looked helpless now the mess had been cleared away, ‘let’s get out of here.’
‘Where are we going?’ she asked him.
‘To the scene of another crime.’ And when she didn’t understand he said, ‘Lonely Lane. I want to see the spot where that young woman was murdered.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lonely Lane was twenty miles from Newcastle and they used the journey time to discuss their options. Tom told Bradshaw his theory that he had been sent to London deliberately by Dean to sidetrack him and how the club owner Devine had mentioned Jimmy McCree on his way out of the building.
‘It always seems to come back to McCree, Camfield and Lynch doesn’t it?’ observed the detective. ‘Want me to have a word with Councillor Lynch?’ Bradshaw asked Helen, even though he knew the last time he’d had a word it only made things worse. He hoped a councillor, even one in a gangster’s pocket, might be made to see sense more easily.
‘Don’t waste your time, Ian,’ she said as they climbed out of the car.
‘Talk