Free Golden Mile to Murder by Sally Spencer Page A

investigation progressed so far?’ he asked Sergeant Hanson.
    â€˜Hardly at all,’ the local sergeant admitted. ‘We’ve questioned people who might have been on the prom at the time of the murder, but everybody claims to have seen nothing. We’ve sent Mr Davies’ clothes up to Whitebridge for forensic examination, and we’re still waiting for the results. We should have the autopsy reports sometime in the morning.’
    â€˜No facts, then,’ Woodend said. ‘Does anybody have any theories?’
    â€˜The general belief around the station is that Mr Davies was killed by someone he was investigating. Either that or by somebody he’d locked away in the past and who was still harbouring a grudge.’
    â€˜Let’s talk about his case load,’ Woodend suggested. ‘He was workin’ on three investigations at the time of his death, wasn’t he?’
    â€˜That’s right, sir. A car-theft ring, the Poulton-le-Fylde cat burglaries and the hit-and-run in Fleetwood. But in the first two of those, he was merely the supervising officer. The men actually conducting the cases were both sergeants.’
    â€˜Were you one of them?’ Woodend asked.
    Hanson shook his head. ‘No sir. I worked with Mr Davies a lot in the past, and I probably would have been on one of the teams if I’d been here when they were set up – but I’ve only just come back off leave.’
    Woodend closed his eyes for a second, as if he were absorbing all this new information. ‘What strikes you about the
type
of cases Mr Davies was involved in?’ he asked, when he’d opened them again.
    â€˜That they were a pretty mixed bag?’ Hanson suggested.
    â€˜Yes, they were – but you’re missin’ the point.’ Woodend turned his attention to the woman sitting at the very end of the table. ‘Do you have any suggestions, Sergeant?’
    â€˜They were the sorts of crimes which could have been committed in any medium-sized town, sir,’ Monika Paniatowski said.
    â€˜Exactly!’ Woodend agreed. ‘But this isn’t just
any
medium-sized town. In fact, it isn’t one town at all. There are two Blackpools. There’s the one that runs from the promenade to no more than six or seven streets back – the Blackpool that the holidaymakers know an’ love. An’ there’s the other one, where Inspector Davies – an’ probably most of you lot – live. Different places – different sorts of crime. An’ the crimes Mr Davies was investigatin’ belong to your part of town. Holidaymakers have nothin’ to do with car theft, because they arrive by coach or train. And they’re not likely to have their televisions nicked from them in Blackpool, because they haven’t brought them with them. We’re talkin’
resident
crime here.’
    â€˜True,’ Hanson agreed, ‘but I don’t see why—’
    â€˜So if he’d been topped in one of the areas where he was conductin’ his investigations, your theory that he was killed by some criminal who was scared of bein’ collared by him might make sense. But – for God’s sake – he was killed on the Golden Mile.’
    â€˜I don’t see the difficulty there, sir,’ Hanson said. ‘Maybe the killer had been following Mr Davies for some time, and the first chance he got to strike was when the DI went under the Central Pier.’
    â€˜An’ just what business did he have goin’ under the Central Pier in the first place?’ Woodend demanded.
    â€˜Maybe he just wanted to look at the sea, sir,’ the baby-faced DC Eliot suggested.
    â€˜You mean he might have felt a sudden impulse to breathe in the air – blow the cobwebs away?’
    â€˜Something like that, sir.’
    â€˜That theory might hold water if it was a one-off,’ Woodend conceded. ‘But you do know that Mr Davies has