Caught in the Web by Emmy Ellis (classic english novels .TXT) 📕

out while Burgess had sat in his car getting over the sight of that thing. Witnessed Anita being taken away. What the hell had the man thought?

Burgess had been told once to put himself in a killer’s place, to think like him, but he was fucked if he could. What person with no urge to kill could ever imagine what went through a warped mind?

He knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again. Reckoned Varley wouldn’t answer if he knew what was good for him. Burgess glanced up at the windows for the second time, hoping to see a shadow of the man who lived there.

Nothing.

Unsurprised, he rapped with his knuckles once more.

“Possibly sleeping,” Shaw said.

“Hmm. Stay here. Keep trying.”

Burgess pushed the door to Letty’s open. Myriad detergent scents enveloped him, plus another he so loved—the chemical smell of dry cleaning. A blonde forty-something woman in a ratty beige cardigan and black leggings sat reading a magazine in front of a washer that swished clothing around in thick white suds behind a glass door. The greyish water turned his stomach, as did her filthy hair. A bottle of Daz wobbled about on a dryer that sounded as though it contained training shoes that thunked and smacked against the drum with each rotation.

Behind the counter, a man, good old Mr Ustav, was hanging plastic-covered garments on a rail. His hair was more pepper and salt than black these days, and his thick-as-a-caterpillar eyebrows stood out a good half inch from his forehead. Weathered skin around his eyes added to the proof that the passage of time had swept over the old bloke with a vengeance lately. Burgess hadn’t noticed the drastic changes until now.

Too busy to care?

Mr Ustav turned and flashed a pleased, creamy grin Burgess’ way, his dentures so uniform they clearly weren’t a replica of his original teeth. “Hello, Burgess. You have something for me to clean today?”

Burgess smiled back. “Not on me, no, but I do need to bring in a suit and some shirts. Next time.”

“You collecting then? I don’t remember you leaving anything behind.” Mr Ustav frowned, searching through the garments with frantic movements, his fingers knotted with arthritis.

“No, no.” Burgess rounded the counter. Stood close to Mr Ustav so his words wouldn’t be heard by the woman. He doubted they would anyway, what with the dryer making such a racket. “I need to speak to you in private.” He nodded in the woman’s direction.

“Ah, some police work, yes?” Mr Ustav asked, rheumy eyes wide.

“Yes.”

“About the poor woman found in the alley?” Mr Ustav whispered and clutched a plastic garment cover until it scrunched.

“About the poor woman, yes. Somewhere we can go?” Burgess raised his eyebrows.

“Out the back. We will be all right there.” He let the plastic cover go. “Gordon isn’t working this week. I told your officers that. I have lots of work to do without him here. He is good with the dry cleaning. Very diligent worker. The best I’ve had.”

He’s good with the killing, too.

Burgess followed Mr Ustav, the faint knocking that must be Shaw hammering on the flat door filtering through. A dry-cleaning machine took up most of the space on the right, but a kitchenette stood along the left wall, a coffee machine with an orange light on the worktop and a full carafe giving Burgess all kinds of need to drink a cup. Mr Ustav poured two then gestured to the Coffee-Mate canister and a click container of sweeteners. Burgess helped himself while Mr Ustav leant against the worktop.

“So,” Burgess said. “Tell me all about Gordon.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“He is a good boy. Like I say, very diligent.” Mr Ustav smiled indulgently. “Like my own son, except my son wants to be diligent as a doctor, not in this cleaning business. I am sad about this, but I cannot force my boy to follow in my footsteps. I did not follow in my father’s. I did not want to farm pigs. So I understand, but there is still a part of me that wishes my son will change his mind. Perhaps Gordon will want to be a manager one day and I can leave him to run this shop when I open another.”

It was a story Burgess had listened to many times—minus the part about Gordon—but today he didn’t want to hear it again, no matter how much he enjoyed Mr Ustav’s tales from the past. Mind, there were other tales from the past he wanted to know about now and he could only hope Mr Ustav’s memory served him as well on those as it did with regards to his life, son, and wife. The man had decent recall and had told Burgess a lot about the area he hadn’t known.

“Do you know if Gordon is home at the moment?” Burgess asked. He’d gone for the casual approach. No need to alarm the old man.

“I have not seen him walk past the shop window today, but I also have not heard him pacing. Gordon has been doing that a lot recently. Even in here”—he held a hand out to the cleaning machine—“I catch him pacing while he waits for this to finish. Always walking up and down, like he is troubled, but when I asked him, he said everything would be all right once he came back to work. He said he would make everything all right again and he would be happy.”

“I see. How long has he been working here?”

“Three years and four months. The flat comes with the job. As you know, I used to live up there with my family but not anymore.” He slapped himself on the forehead. Thank God it had been a gentle slap, otherwise he’d done himself a bit of damage. “Not anymore because Gordon is there. I say some irrelevant things.”

“Does he