A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [97]
Part of this was because the police were still questioning anyone with a known grudge against the Muckles. Frank had been carried off to the police station and questioned again for four hours. Stan had been kept even longer. Neither man had revealed what had been said, and that had been further cause for gossip. It appeared, too, that the police were still trying to establish the identity of the card players who had been at Alfie’s on the Friday night before the murder.
As Detective Inspector Roper had stated that Angela was killed on Saturday morning, long after the card players had left, Fifi couldn’t see why they had any importance in the investigation. But she supposed the police had to speak to everyone to try to establish Alfie and Molly’s mood the previous evening.
Fifi and Dan had gone along to the pub last week in an effort to cheer themselves up. But it only made them feel worse, for instead of jollity, all they found was that a great many of the regulars had turned into bar-room lawyers, arguing about whether Alfie would hang or get life imprisonment. There were also those who boasted that they had inside information about the case.
One of these men, Johnny Milkins, a hard case with a big scaffolding company, claimed to have friends in the police force, and he said that the police were not entirely convinced that Alfie or even Molly had killed Angela. Everyone pooh-poohed that, of course; they didn’t even believe Johnny had friends in the force. But Fifi knew he must have, for something he’d said could only have come from one of the officers who attended the scene of the crime.
Johnny’s actual words were, ‘A bloke that’s twisted enough to fuck his own seven-year-old wouldn’t bother getting a clean sheet to cover her. Someone else did that, after they smothered her.’
The facts about the sexual abuse had filtered out very quickly after the event. It was this which had sent everyone into a spin of savage hatred and disgust. But the sheet had never been mentioned.
Fifi had mentally trawled over every last detail of what she saw that day in number 11. The clean sheet was the one thing which didn’t fit in. Every bed in that house was like a filthy rat’s nest, so why would Alfie even think to search out a clean sheet to cover the child? Fifi had considered that it could have been done in a moment of remorse at what he’d done. Or maybe it was just an attempt to conceal Angela should any of his family open the door. But whatever the reason was, it was uncharacteristic behaviour.
Fifi began to fear that if Angela hadn’t been killed by one of her parents, that meant the real killer was still at large. He could be walking around amongst them, drinking in the pub, using the corner shop. Any child in the neighbourhood could be his next victim!
She did her best to suppress this vague fear as it did appear to be entirely groundless, but the more she analysed things Johnny Milkins had said, the more anxious she became.
Johnny certainly seemed to know a great deal about the police investigation. He claimed that in Alfie’s statement he’d said he was so drunk at the card game the night before that he went to bed early, leaving the other men, whom he refused to name, still playing. As the other players often dossed down at his house, Alfie insisted that it was quite possible for one of them to have gone up to the top-floor bedroom and got into bed with the child.
Alfie also said that he’d told Angela the day before that she wouldn’t be going to the seaside with the rest of the family because she’d been naughty. When he heard her crying the following morning he ignored her, and never even looked in her bedroom before leaving the house.
Several people in Dale Street had confirmed that Alfie had four or five men in for the card game the night before. There were also people who had heard some of them leave around two-thirty, but agreed it was possible that one or two of them could have remained in Alfie’s house. It was possible, too, that they might still have been there after Alfie and his family left for the day. Apparently