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‘I know some stuff happened when he was a kid, with that other kid getting killed and stuff, but he never talked about it to me. I’ve only known him a couple of years.’
‘And how did you meet?’ Bryant asked.
‘I put a card in the newsagent’s window for a flatmate after my last one got hitched. Josh answered the ad. Looked decent enough.’
Just another thing like walking home alone that guys didn’t really have to consider too deeply. Women seeking housemates didn’t have the luxury of assuming someone looked okay.
‘Did he ever strike you as strange?’ Kim asked.
‘We don’t vibe like that. We ain’t mates. We share a flat cos we can’t afford the rent on our own. We might meet in the kitchen sometimes and pass the time of day for a few minutes, but that’s about it.’
‘You said he didn’t like to talk about the past, but you knew him well enough to ask.’
‘Nah, not me. I couldn’t care less as long as he coughs up his rent money. It was an old girlfriend of mine. She was at school with him, remembered them both. She asked him about it.’ He paused. ‘Actually, he did get a bit huffy about it.’
‘Oh yeah, why’s that?’ Bryant asked.
‘Cos, Tilly – that’s my ex-girlfriend,’ he explained, even though it wasn’t a hard story to follow, ‘she started going on about the fact they were always together and that Josh used to follow the other one around a bit. Called him a lap dog or something. Asked just how close they were.’
So far, Tilly sounded like an annoying piece of work.
‘He took the huff and went to his room.’
Yeah, she’d probably have done the same.
She turned away from the bedroom. She had no cause to enter. Josh Adams wasn’t a suspect in any active investigation or considered to be in danger. He had simply taken off, and she wasn’t allowed to invade his privacy just because she thought he was lying.
Convinced there was nothing else of any use coming from the flatmate, she offered her card and headed out the door.
‘Okay, I’m in,’ Bryant said as they made their way down the stairs.
‘In what?’
‘Following up on this. Definitely something weird with this Josh kid, and Brad’s mother deserves answers.’
‘Even though she doesn’t want us asking him difficult questions,’ Kim observed. ‘So what now, Bryant? We have nothing to offer Woody. He’s not gonna commit a team to the woods because Josh Adams has taken himself on a mini break. We needed more than that,’ she said as they reached the car.
‘Well, let’s quit waiting around for something to find us and let’s go take a look at those woods for ourselves.’
She smiled as she got in the car.
She did enjoy it when Bryant finally came round to her way of thinking.
SIXTY-SIX
‘Gotta hand it to her, she is pretty damn good,’ Bryant acknowledged as he drove towards Tettenhall. They had been on the way to the woods when they’d received a call from the detective constable.
He was right. It had taken Stacey less than an hour to find out the stooge’s name was Neil Dobson. He was twenty-two and lived two miles out of Wolverhampton.
Due to him accessing the rear corridors at the theatre, Stacey had known he would have needed ID, and the manager had confirmed that she had seen his driving licence as proof of identification. Although the manager had been unable to offer his address due to data protection, she’d given hints that he didn’t live very far away. With Stacey’s almost intimate knowledge of the electoral register, she’d pinned him down to an address within fifteen minutes.
‘Looking a bit tired, I thought,’ Kim said, recalling the constable’s slightly bloodshot eyes.
‘Newly married, honeymoon phase. Probably up all night…’
‘Okay, Bryant. More info than I needed,’ she said, shaking her head in despair.
‘Hey, have you ever heard of Tettenhall Dick?’
