Mersey Murder Mysteries Collection

Chapter 29

Izzie Drake pulled up on the street about five doors away from the home of James and Connie Doyle. An earlier visit to the address Izzie had found for Phil Oxley had proved fruitless, with no reply to their knocking at the door and ringing the doorbell, so she"d decided to try the Doyle home first and return to Oxley"s later. The two detectives exited the car, and as Drake pointed the remote at the vehicle, activating the central locking system, Nick Dodds looked up and down the street and commented on his first impressions.

“My God, Sarge, this place looks as if it"s hardly altered since the nineteen-sixties, at least from pictures I"ve seen of those days, me being a bit young to have been around then.”

“Oh, the wisdom of youth, what are you, a child of the seventies?” Drake quipped, and then, also looking at their immediate surroundings, “But yes, you"re right. Red brick terraces, back to back gardens, all we need is a bomb site at the end of the street with dirty-kneed kids in short pants kicking a ball around among the rubble and we could be in another time, Nick, for sure.”

Grafton Street, where Mickey and Ronnie Doyle had grown up and spent their early adult years had indeed retained much of the way it must have looked thirty to forty years ago. Though many owner-residents had invested their money in improving their properties, with new, uPVC double glazing, and new front doors, others, perhaps those still owned by absent landlords and rented out as cheap, low income housing, seemed to bravely carry the scars of years of at least partial neglect, with peeling paintwork on window ledges and doors, and faulty pointing in brickwork and the occasional missing roof tile. It really did represent a place out of time, a throwback to another age, and a million light years away from some of the ultra-modern apartment complexes and other new developments taking place in various, more desirable parts of the city. In place of the bomb site Drake had joked about, at the end of the street stood a nineteen-eighties built community centre and library, perhaps the local council"s attempt to help create some sense of belonging and identity among residents, most of whom had probably lived in the surrounding streets for much shorter durations than older families like the Doyles. The graffiti-covered walls of the community centre were perhaps a measure of the project"s success.

As the two officers arrived at the door to number 26, the sound of loud reggae music could be clearly heard from an upstairs bedroom of the house next door. Having heard about James Doyle from his two sons, Izzie had a feeling he might not be too enamoured of his current next-door neighbours. She nodded to Nick Dodds and the constable knocked firmly on the front door, which Drake could swear she saw shaking on its hinges as he did so. A few seconds later the door opened, just a c***k, and a voice, female and frail-sounding asked, “Yes, who"s there?”

“Mrs. Doyle?” Izzie asked.

“Yes, and who are you?” the old lady asked.

“My name is Detective Sergeant Clarissa Drake, Merseyside Police, and this is Detective Constable Dodds. We"d like to talk to you about your daughter, Marie, Mrs. Doyle.”

The door opened fully as the old woman gasped and almost fell forward into Izzie"s arms. Izzie reached out to steady the woman, not having prepared herself for such a reaction.

“Oh my, what is it? Have you found my little girl after all this time?” gasped Connie Doyle, pulling herself upright as she recovered from her initial shock.

“No, not exactly, but look, can we come in, please, Mrs. Doyle? I"m sure you don"t want to talk about this on your front doorstep?”

“Oh, sorry, of course. Please, come in. You must excuse the place. I haven"t finished the housework yet you see and…”

“Please don"t apologise, we didn"t exactly make an appointment did we?” said Izzie, feeling a little sorry for the woman, who looked as frail as she sounded.

Connie Doyle looked ill, thought Izzie, her skin having a rather dull, lifeless pallor, though the woman"s blonde hair retained much of its life and was well-styled. Mrs. Doyle cared about her appearance and probably paid regular visits to her hairdresser. Her floral patterned dress looked clean and ironed and her pale yellow cardigan was of good quality and hung unfastened on her shoulders.

“Would you like to come into the kitchen?” Connie asked the officers. “I was just making some tea when you knocked on the door.”

“That would be nice, thank you.” said Drake as she and Dodds followed Connie Doyle along the hallway and into the small but surprisingly clean and well appointed kitchen, the centerpiece of which appeared to be an old, but beautifully maintained sideboard, the wood polished to a high gloss and the brass handles on the drawers and doors gleaming like new. Izzie couldn"t help noticing a photograph subtly placed to the rear of the sideboard, quite clearly the photo of Marie she"d heard about the previous day. She"d wait a little while before asking to see it.

As Connie busied herself boiling the kettle and brewing the tea, Drake and Dodds used their eyes to take in every aspect of the room. The kitchen table and chairs were, like the sideboard, definitely from a previous age, but again superbly looked after. By contrast, all the major appliances, washing machine, gas cooker, fridge freezer and microwave oven all looked quite new. Drake quickly noticed that the fireplace which would once have burned brightly with a welcoming coal fire now contained a "living flame" gas fire, eminently practical but somehow an indictment on modernisation in Drake"s mind.

Tea made, and the three of them seated at the kitchen table, Drake asked Connie, “Is your husband at home, Mrs. Doyle? We"d like to speak to both of you at the same time, if possible.”

“Oh, sorry, yes of course, silly me,” said Connie with an almost girlish giggle that Drake found particularly engaging. “He"s in the garden. Seems he"s always in the garden nowadays, so he is. The Holy Virgin herself must know what he does out there, all day. It"s no bigger than a postage stamp.”

Connie"s accent betrayed her Irish upbringing, now intermingled with a liberal dose of the local Scouse dialect. Izzie thought it quite endearing.

Rising from her seat at the table, Connie walked to the back door, opened it and called to the unseen James Doyle. “Jimmy Doyle, get yerself in here this minute. There"s two bobbies here wanting to have a wee word with you.”

Drake smiled to herself. It had been a long time since she"d heard anyone refer to her as a "bobby", a term of endearment for a policeman that, like Connie Doyle, belonged to a happier, previous age. A few seconds passed before the back door opened and James, (Jimmy) Doyle walked in, only as far as the large Hessian door mat that awaited anyone entering the house, where he stood and removed a pair of mud-stained brown boots, turned round and placed them outside the door on the doorstep, turned again and closed the door. Only now did the large man with thinning grey hair bother to look at and acknowledge the two police officers who sat drinking tea in his kitchen.

“I know why youse are here,” said Doyle, looking at Dodds. “Your lot did f**k all about finding Marie thirty three years ago, so what chance d"you think you have now? I don"t know why those i***t sons of mine had to go running to the police just because a few bones got dug up.”

Izzie felt an instant dislike for Doyle. She"d already heard him described as a religious bigot, and a possible racist. Now, his immediate direction of his words to Nick Dodds indicated an in-built sexism too. A woman couldn"t possibly be in charge, could she?

“I"m Detective Sergeant Drake, Mr. Doyle, and this is Detective Constable Dodds. Those "few bones" you mention happen to be the mortal remains of Brendan Kane, your daughter"s boyfriend at the time of her disappearance. I"d have thought you might show a little concern that he"s been found dead after all this time, particularly as his death may bear a strong connection to what happened to Marie all those years ago.”

“Hmm, sergeant eh?” Doyle pronounced the word with a heavy hint of sarcasm. “Well, in the first place, I"ll shed no tears for the man who took my daughter away from me and secondly, why should you finding his bones have anything to do with my Marie?”

“Mr. Doyle,” Izzie replied, “You can"t seriously think it was a pure coincidence that Marie and Brendan disappeared at the same time? They"d made plans to run away and start a new life together, as you well know.”

“Aye, thanks to my sons helping her to deceive her poor Mam and Dad.”

Nick Dodds stepped in with a question of his own before Izzie could speak again, part of a strategy they"d agreed on earlier.

“And why do you think they did that, Mr. Doyle? I presume you felt they should have shown loyalty to you and told you their secret long before the couple disappeared.”

“So they should have,” Doyle snapped back at Dodds.

“Could it have had anything to do with your dislike of Brendan Kane?” Dodds pressed his point home.

“I"d no particular liking or dislike of the man.”

“But you didn"t like a protestant, a "proddie" being so romantically involved with your daughter, did you?”

“Bah,” Doyle mumbled. “All he wanted was to get in her knickers and have his way with her, turn her into his tart.”

Connie Doyle now exploded at her husband. Frail or not, Connie possessed a temper worthy of her Irish roots.

“James Doyle, how can you say that about your own daughter? Marie was a good girl, you know she was. And Phil Oxley told us a long time ago that they truly loved and cared for each other.”

“Oxley? Another scally like his pal, Kane, if you ask me. I heard he helped them plan it all,”

“He helped his friends, Mr. Doyle. Isn"t that what friends do?”

Izzie Drake now came back into the conversation as Doyle blustered and hesitated.

“You didn"t seem to have any objections to your sons and daughter being involved in the pop group though, did you?”

“Look, Sergeant, playing music together is one thing, marrying someone outside your faith is different to my mind, okay?”

“Faith, Mr. Doyle? I thought Protestants and Catholics were all of the Christian faith, or is that wrong?”

Doyle again fell silent, not wanting to be drawn by Drake"s line of questioning. Izzie instead turned to Connie Doyle.

“Is that a photo of Marie on your sideboard, Mrs. Doyle? May I see it?”

Connie proudly walked across to the sideboard, picked up the framed photo and passed it to Izzie.

“She was a very pretty girl, wasn"t she, Sergeant?” Connie said, proudly.

“She certainly was,” Izzie replied.

“Do you think she"s dead?” Connie asked suddenly, with tears beginning to form in her eyes.

“I"m being honest when I say I just don"t know, Mrs. Doyle. Until a couple of days ago we knew nothing about Marie or her involvement with the case. We were focused on identifying the remains that have turned out to be those of Brendan Kane and thanks to your sons, we"ve been able to confirm that identification and we now know about Marie so we"ll be treating the whole affair as one case. Trust me; we"ll do all we can to discover what happened to your daughter.”

Connie pulled a small lady"s hanky from the sleeve of her cardigan and dabbed at her eyes, as she placed a hand on Izzie"s arm and sniffed, “thank you.”

Izzie"s eyes caught sight of another object on the sideboard, previously hidden by the photograph. Connie saw her looking and picked up the small, yellow plastic, nineteen sixties transistor radio.

“It was Marie"s,” she said. “She used to take it almost everywhere with her. She loved music, Sergeant. That"s how she got involved with Brendan and the group in the first place. She had a driving licence and used to help out by driving them to and from their performances sometimes. Mr. Oxley, Phil"s dad would lend them his van until his business went bust.”

Connie turned a dial on the side of the radio and Izzie was surprised to hear the sounds of Radio One coming from the tiny speaker.

“I make sure it always has new batteries in it, you know, just in case Marie ever…”

Connie let her words hang and Izzie nodded and took the old lady"s hand in her own. Words failed her for a few seconds, but eventually she looked across the room at Nick Dodds, who nodded back at her and she brought the interview to an end.

“Thank you both for your time. We wanted you to know that we"re seriously looking into Marie"s case and would appreciate you getting in touch with us if you can think of anything that might help us with our inquiries.”

Passing a card bearing her phone number at the station to Connie, she turned to Jimmy Doyle.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Doyle. We"ll be in touch.”

“Yeah, sometime never, I"ll bet,” Doyle replied.

“Manners, Jimmy, please,” Connie pleaded, but Doyle simply stood his ground and maintained a silent pose, by the back door.

Connie saw the two detectives to the front door and just before they took their leave of her, said,

“Please don"t think too badly of my husband, Sergeant. He"s getting on in years and he"s very set in his ways. He talks tough, but he"s never got over Marie leaving as she did. He"s not half as bad as he sounds.”

“Yes, well, thanks, Mrs. Doyle. Like I said, we"ll be in touch.”

As the front door closed behind them, the pair walked briskly to their car and were soon motoring back in the direction of the last known address of Phil Oxley, Nick Dodds at the wheel.

“Any thoughts, Nick?” she asked the constable as the streets of the city sped past the car windows.

“Nice old lady, bitter and twisted old man,” Nick Dodds replied without hesitation.

“My thoughts exactly,” Izzie concurred.

“Why the hell does someone stay with a bloke like him for all those years?”

“That"s an easy one to answer, Nick,” she replied. “First of all, they"re from a generation where husbands and wives stuck together through thick and thin, the "for better and for worse" bit of the marriage vows, I suppose, but, more importantly to them at any rate, is the fact that they"re obviously staunch Roman Catholics, and for them, divorce is one massive taboo, a great big no-no.”

“But couldn"t she just have left him, gone somewhere else and lived on her own, without getting a divorce?”

“And gone where, Nick? She probably couldn"t have managed financially or emotionally without her family around her. A case of "better the devil you know," I think. But, do you think either of them knows more than they"re telling us about Marie"s disappearance?”

“I doubt the mother knows anything, and though he seems a right old bastard to me, I can"t see her father doing anything to hurt his own kids, especially if, as you say, the whole concept of family means so much to them.”

“I tend to agree. We"ll see what the boss thinks when we meet up later.”

“Yeah,” said Dodds. “I wonder if this Oxley chap can tell us anything new, once we get hold of him?”

“We"ll soon find out,” Drake replied as Nick turned into Phil Oxley"s street for the second time that day.