Dead Wrong - [34]

I took the next side street, intending to go round the block and back to the main road. Some of the houses had been converted into shops. A grocer’s and off-licence on one corner, Betty’s Hair Salon on another. I passed a small row of shops further on – chip shop, bookies, video shop and at the end of the row A.J. Henson’s Knives for Crafts, Sport and Leisure.

I stopped the car and sat there for a few moments. Let my theory filter down like a marble on some complicated run, clunk, clunk, clunk.

Inside the shop, everything was displayed in shiny lock-up cases or chained up on the wall in amongst hunting memorabilia. Dusty stuffed birds perched on plinths and fish that could have been carved out of wood but were probably pickled in lacquer, hung stiff and dull from the ceiling. In pride of place above the counter hung a huge tiger’s head, mouth bared, teeth exposed. I felt a wave of nausea for the mentality that continued to display the trophy while the tiger itself faced extinction. I thought of Maddie’s awkward questions when we watched wildlife programmes. ‘But why do they kill them, Mummy? That’s so mean.’

Why? Because some people enjoy hunting down animals, because some people are starving, because…

The tiger was incongruous too in this backwater of north Manchester. These beasts had never prowled round Collyhurst or roared from the hills in Heaton Park.

The buzzer that had sounded when I went into the shop brought a man out from the back. He was small and bespectacled, with black greasy hair and bland, casual clothes.

He smiled. ‘Can I help?’

Sometimes it’s best to tell the truth. I showed him one of my cards. ‘I’m a private investigator. I’m working on a case involving people in the area. I’m afraid I can’t go into details, but I’m interested in any records you have of knife sales over the Christmas and New Year period.’

He pulled a face. ‘We don’t have any sort of stock breakdown like that.’

I tried another tack.

‘Do you remember selling a knife to an elderly woman, early in the New Year? She was probably well-dressed, and had a Southern accent.’

He pursed his lips, shook his head. My theory teetered like a tower of blocks. Shit. I turned to go. ‘Is there anyone else works here?’

He drew a breath. He didn’t like my persistence but it was laziness rather than obstruction.

He put his head through the door behind the counter. ‘Carla?’

Carla emerged – young, plump, apple-cheeked with a set of rings and studs in her nostrils. There was a tension between the two of them which made me slightly embarrassed. Had I interrupted something? It would more than explain his reluctance to indulge me in my search and prolong my stay.

I described Mrs Deason as best I could to Carla. Did she remember her buying a knife?

‘Oh, yeah,’ she didn’t hesitate. ‘she had the name written down and everything. A late Christmas present for her nephew, she said.’

‘You’ve a good memory,’ I complimented her.

‘Well,’ she demurred, ‘she stuck out a bit really. We get mainly lads in or anglers, you know.’

‘How did she pay?’

‘Cash, I think.’

‘Can you remember when it was?’

‘First day back after the holiday. Would have been the second of January.’ She glanced at Mr Henson for confirmation.

He nodded. ‘I was at the suppliers,’ he chipped in. ‘Carla was on her own for the morning.’

Mrs Deason had made her purchase just in the nick of time. The police had called on her that very same afternoon, to check on Joey’s knife.

‘I reckon she was the only person came in,’ said Carla. ‘That’s another reason I remember – it was dead as a graveyard.’

‘No one’s ever got any money after Christmas,’ he observed.

I took down the details of the knife that Mrs Deason had bought and Mr Henson showed me a model. It was bigger than I remembered, with a broad, slightly curved blade and a horn handle.

I felt a little eddy of giddiness as I imagined the damage it could do. Thought of it slicing through Ahktar’s jacket. One cut, one move, one moment – that was all it had taken.

Chapter Sixteen

I contained my sense of excitement until I was back in the car and then I clenched my fists in triumph. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ Things were finally moving.

I considered all the way home how I would break the news to Mrs Deason. And should I? Was it more or less likely that Joey would agree to see me if I revealed that I knew about the knife? It implicated him full square for Ahktar’s murder. I reasoned that if he had done it, then he was on the run and wouldn’t agree to meet me whatever I said. I remembered Emma’s view, he’d want the publicity, but there were other ways of getting that. He’d run till they trapped him, then enact some final glorious gesture; Bonnie and Clyde, Sid Vicious. Or maybe a guilty conscience would overcome him once the trial got under way, and he’d come riding back and into court with testimony to prevent the wrong man being convicted.

Emma could have got it wrong. The instinct for self preservation’s strong, and maybe Joey would just sit it out and watch while Luke Wallace was tried.

Past experience had taught me that once the wheels of the criminal justice system are set in motion, it can be very difficult to call a halt, even with startling new evidence. My information about the knives might not convince people to drop the case against