‘Oh, yeah.’
‘You heard anything?’ Janet said.
‘People talking about it.’ She shrugged.
‘Saying what?’ Janet said.
‘That he must have crossed someone, to be shot like that.’
‘He ever come in here?’ Rachel said.
‘Don’t think so. There’s some say it could be suicide.’
Janet stared at her. ‘He shot himself,’ she said, ‘twice?’
‘Exactly,’ the woman laughed. ‘That’s what I said but they won’t have it. Mental.’
Back at the station, Rachel and Janet viewed the tape. The CCTV was split screen, recording feeds from one camera outside the pub and three inside, covering the snug, the taproom, and one in the general bar area which also caught the corridor to the toilets.
The twins appeared outside the pub at eight twenty-five.
‘Behold,’ said Janet, her heart skipping a beat. The pub was busy, a game of pool in progress in the taproom, a large family group in the snug, a row of drinkers in the general bar. They could see the woman they’d met serving alongside a man, presumably the manager.
The twins spoke to each other and one of them pulled out his phone (Janet guessed it must be Neil), thumbs working over the keys, then nodded to his brother and went into the pub. Cameras picked him up at the end of the general bar area where one of the drinkers, phone in hand, turned and moved away from the bar, pocketing the phone as he walked to the gents. Neil Perry followed him.
‘Sex?’ said Rachel. ‘Drugs?’
‘I’ve seen that guy before.’ Janet frowned.
‘Give us a clue?’
‘Wait.’ Janet watched the film. Neil Perry emerged and left the pub, making a small fist, a gesture of celebration, as he reached his brother. The pair walked off camera.
Seconds later, the other man came out of the toilets and resumed his place at the bar, took up his paper and finished his drink. Then left. Speaking to no one.
‘I know that face,’ Janet said again.
‘Show Pete,’ Rachel suggested, ‘he worked on Coldhurst for a bit, didn’t he?’
Pete watched the footage, closed his eyes in thought, and then said, ‘Tandy. Gary… no, Greg. Bit of a fixer in his time.’
‘I know the name,’ Rachel said, ‘spoke to a lad called that on Thursday.’
‘So what was he fixing for Dick and Dom then?’ Janet said.
Pete opened the database and typed in the name.
The man’s face appeared, and his charge sheet. ‘Out on licence,’ Pete said. ‘Just served five for possession of firearms, intent to supply.’
‘That’s where they got the gun,’ Janet said. ‘Brilliant. So where is it now?’
‘Maybe he’s got it back,’ Rachel chipped in, her eyes glinting. ‘What’s the address?’
‘Manton Road,’ Pete said.