Something Wicked (2 page)

‘Right,’ she said, rolling the R, ‘he’s just gone onto the M62. We’re about half a mile behind but there are hold-ups where it joins the M6. If we keep going on
this road and take a left at the next roundabout, we should be able to stay parallel and catch up.’

‘You sure?’

Jenny ummed for a few moments. ‘No – but if he turns off we can follow him anyway.’

Andrew glanced sideways at the tablet on Jenny’s lap, which was displaying a map. In the year and a bit he’d been a private investigator, Andrew had looked at tracking devices at
various conferences and technology fairs. All of the sales people had their own pitches about their devices being smaller and better than the others but it wasn’t until he’d hired Jenny
four months previously that he had really started using them. Jenny seemed to be a natural when it came to technology, like most people her age, he guessed. Although he got by and knew more than
most, he was no match for her.

After turning left as he’d been told, Andrew relaxed, sticking to the national speed limit as the built-up areas of Manchester shrank into the distance in his rear-view mirror.

Unexpectedly, Jenny made a lunge sideways, reaching for her rucksack in the well behind Andrew’s seat.

‘Fancy a biscuit?’ she asked.

‘What have you got?’

Jenny slopped back into her seat, rucksack now on her lap. ‘Aah, so you’re one of
those
people . . .’

‘What people?’

‘One of
them
. See, if you ask people if they want a biscuit, the normal response is “yes” or “no” – you either do or you don’t. If you’re
one of
them
, you’re already thinking too far ahead.’ She paused to put on a deeper voice which sounded nothing like Andrew’s. ‘“What if it’s a coconut
ring? I don’t like coconut. What if it’s a custard cream? They give me the runs”.’ Back to her normal voice: ‘By trying to over-analyse, you’re denying yourself
the opportunity of happiness. It’s a really bad habit – something you should think about changing.’

Andrew paused, watching the road and listening to the strains of Lionel Richie’s ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ bubbling from the speakers. They really did play some shite on local
radio.

‘Did you get that from a book?’ he asked.

Jenny squished the bag between her knees onto the floor. ‘Almost – some lad I was seeing at uni was a philosophy student. He did his dissertation about biscuits. Got a first and
everything. Anyway, the question still remains: do you want a biscuit?’

‘Er . . .’

‘Fine, I’ll let you cheat – but if you become a deeply unhappy person because of it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

With a swish of her hair, the rucksack was open again. ‘Right, I’ve got Viennese fingers, or chocolate Rich Teas?’

‘What are you having?’

Jenny flung both arms into the air, almost bumping the packets into the roof. The tablet was balanced precariously on her knees. ‘There you go again. That’s what’s called
mirroring – you don’t feel as if you can live your life for yourself, so you take your cues from others.’

‘I only asked so that you didn’t have to open both packets!’

Jenny grinned. ‘I know – I’m winding you up. And don’t even ask why I’ve got biscuits in my bag. I think I’m hypo-glycaemic, or whatever it’s called.
What’s that one where you need sugar all the time? Diabetes? Either way, life would be a lot calmer if people carried chocolate Rich Teas around with them.’

She slid a nail across the top of the Viennese fingers packet and thrust a biscuit in Andrew’s direction. He glanced briefly away from the road, clasped it between his teeth, and continued
driving. He’d certainly had worse breakfasts.

Jenny bundled everything back into her bag and picked up the tablet again. For a few minutes they sat listening to something by Phil Collins before Andrew couldn’t take it any longer and
switched the radio off.

‘I only listen for the traffic news,’ he said. Jenny didn’t reply, which only compounded the lie. Everyone secretly loved Phil Collins, but just couldn’t admit it.

Buildings turned into hedges, the urban areas into green, before Jenny spoke again. ‘He’s slowed right down by the way. We’re going to catch him in a minute or two.’

Andrew kept going, trusting Jenny’s judgement. Quite why he had such faith in someone he’d only known for a few months he wasn’t sure. There was something fascinating about her
confidence that bordered on recklessness. It was the complete opposite to his own nature and sometimes Andrew found himself simply watching her. There was nothing romantic or sinister but
he’d seen her talk people around to her own way of thinking without even trying. It was as if she did everything without getting out of first gear, as if life itself was something she could
bend to her own will. Even though she was naturally pretty, he didn’t think her appearance was part of it, she just had something about her that other people didn’t – certainly
something that
he
didn’t. Andrew could blend into a crowd and go unseen: a normal guy with a normal face, sandy-gingery hair, not too fat, not too thin, not tall, not short . . . just
there.
It was the way he’d always been and, in many ways, made him perfect for poking his nose into other people’s business. Unless they knew to look for him, people could walk
straight past, gaze into his eyes, and continue as if there’d been nobody there.

Jenny was the antithesis. No one would forget her in a hurry – unless she was in unflattering clothes with a baseball cap covering half of her face. She was like a human chameleon, able to
become whatever she needed to be.

‘He’s turned onto the M57,’ Jenny said.

‘Where does that go?’

‘Huyton, Kirkby, Knowsley. You need to go right here.’

Andrew checked his mirror and flicked the indicator. ‘When I tried following him last week, I was coming from the other way and lost him in Huyton.’

‘What do you think he’s getting up to there?’

‘Hopefully, that’s what we’ll find out. Probably the usual.’

‘You think he has a woman on the go?’

‘I imagine that’s what his wife is paying us to find out.’

Jenny paused and, for once, Andrew knew what she was going to say next. ‘When I first started, you said that you didn’t do adultery cases.’

‘Strictly speaking, we don’t know what it is. His wife said her husband kept sneaking away from the house and office and that she didn’t know where he went. He could be
creeping out to go to Alton Towers for all we know.’

Another pause.

‘He’s going the wrong way for that.’

‘I know.’

‘Still, that’d be a great reason to escape the house. Your wife thinks you’re having an affair but really you’re going on the rollercoasters in full suit and tie.’
Jenny returned her attention to the tablet. ‘You never did say why you don’t do adultery cases . . .’

Fish, fish, fish.

Andrew sighed inwardly, a sort of non-sigh that wasn’t for anyone’s benefit, including his own. ‘They’re just very boring. Someone’s sleeping with someone else.
Take a picture, bug a room, bribe a hotel worker. Anyone can do that.’

Jenny didn’t look up from the tablet but continued fishing. ‘Good money, though . . .’

‘I’m sure it is . . .’

Andrew didn’t give her the answer for that particular piece of angling. She was intelligent enough to notice that the money coming in barely matched what he was paying her, combined with
the rent on the office. Still, she was so used to getting her own way that he figured she could keep guessing about that particular enigma, at least for now. One day, she would no doubt talk him
into telling her the truth about where his money came from, probably by making him think it was his idea to tell her all along.

‘He’s got a nice car,’ Jenny went on.

‘That’s what I couldn’t figure out when I tried following him the last time. He just disappeared. One minute there was this brand-new grey thing in front of me, then he turned
off the road and he was gone.’

‘Stewart Deacon . . .’ Jenny rolled the man’s name around her mouth. ‘Stew-art. How much do you think he’s worth?’

‘It’s hard to know from his credit report and it’s difficult to figure out who owns what in regards to his companies. His wife isn’t named as a director of any of them,
which should tell you one thing.’

Jenny made an umming sound, although it might have been a yawn. ‘Not a bad business really. Buy houses dead cheap because no one wants them, pay someone to do them up, sell them on for
more.’

‘People have been doing that for years – it’s picking houses in the right area. There’s no point in buying a house in the middle of some sink estate – you could
turn it into a palace but no one’s going to want to live there.’

‘True.’

Andrew kept driving, waiting until Jenny cut in again as they passed the sign for Huyton. ‘Okay, you need to ease off,’ she said.

A small rank of shops and thirty-mile-an-hour signs were signalling the end of the countryside and the beginnings of the town. Eight or nine cars ahead, Andrew could see the sleek grey Audi
waiting at another set of traffic lights.

Green for go and the car turned right onto a housing estate, with Andrew telepathically encouraging the drivers ahead to put their sodding feet down and narrowly making the turn before the
lights flickered back to red.

‘This is where I lost him last week,’ Andrew said.

He continued driving straight ahead, but the grey car was nowhere to be seen, even though there were no turn-offs.

‘Pull over,’ Jenny said, lifting the tablet. ‘We’re sort of on top of him.’

Andrew parked on the road and switched off the engine. Ahead, the road stretched away in a straight line, rows of houses flanking both sides with neat gardens, low walls and lines of satellite
dishes. He twisted to get a better view through the back window, taking in the junction and the shops.

‘He’s behind us,’ Jenny said, opening her door.

Andrew climbed out, rounding the car until he was on the pavement next to her. Jenny angled the tablet towards him and he blinked his way into the map, trying to figure out how the
two-dimensional lines were a representation of where he actually was. The red dot which signalled their car was motionless, with a blue one showing the Audi half-overlapping.

Jenny began pointing towards the shops a moment before Andrew worked out where they were in relation to the map. She took a few steps forward, Andrew at her side.

Running around the shops was a smattering of cracked paving slabs masquerading as a car park. Andrew and Jenny walked to the main road, still watching the unmoving blue dot on the map as they
realised they’d apparently gone past the Audi without seeing it. Andrew gazed back towards his own vehicle on the empty road – they must have passed the car they were following, even
though they definitely hadn’t.

In front, fluorescent bulbs from inside the row of shops blazed out onto the pavement, lighting up the overcast day. There was a Spar at the end, advertising six cans of shoddy lager for the
price of four and two-for-one on ginger nuts. Jenny’s old boyfriend with the first-class degree in philosophy would surely have something to say about that. Next to the Spar was a
hairdresser’s, with a sign declaring that you could be ‘cut and blown’ for a tenner: a bargain, with or without the cutting. After that was the customary pizza shop, betting hole
and a florist. Nothing advertising car vanishing, which would have made their lives a little easier.

Jenny began walking back in the direction they’d come, tablet thrust in front of her.

‘He’s got to be here somewhere . . .’ She stopped on the pavement at the end of the row of shops and turned in a full circle. ‘His car is right here.’

Along the back of the shops, disjointed mounds of gravel had been piled to either side. Wide wheelie bins were shoved into alcoves, with overgrown trees drooping ominously and casting a deep
shadow across the space. Andrew took in the scene, wondering what he was missing. He began walking along the alley, feet scrunching across the grit. It was only when he passed the back door of the
florist that he realised what they hadn’t been able to see. From the pavement, it looked like one long alley but it was an optical illusion because a garage door at the end was painted the
same colour as the wall beyond. He doubted it was deliberate because both the wall and garage were so ramshackle, but it was certainly clever, even if it was inadvertent. Either way, it
wasn’t the sort of place you’d usually leave an almost new car. It was unlikely to be a portal to Alton Towers, either.

Andrew continued along the path, Jenny just behind him until they reached the garage.

‘Is he in there?’ Andrew asked.

‘His car is.’

On the left-hand side of the garage, a concrete set of steps curled their way up to a flat above the Spar. Unless he was
in
the garage, which Andrew doubted, this was the only place
Stewart Deacon could have gone.

Andrew turned to Jenny, who was putting the tablet into her backpack. ‘Want to go up?’ he asked.

‘Paper, scissors, stone?’

‘Fine.’

They each held out their left palms, tapping their right fists into them.

One, two, three: rock.

Shite.

Rock was a total waste of time, like choosing heads in a coin toss. Tails never fails and only a cock chooses rock. He should have just ordered her to do it and yet the moment she’d said
‘paper, scissors, stone’, he’d agreed without even thinking. Like a siren luring him onto the rocks – which was probably why he’d been subliminally pressured into
going for rock in the first place. What did rock defeat anyway? Well, scissors – but who went for scissors? Only a psycho whose first thought was to come up with something sharp.

Andrew edged his way up the stairs, fearing the worst. Who lived above a Spar? It was probably a crack den. Stewart Deacon had pretended to make his money through property, all the time dealing
crack instead. It dawned on Andrew that he had no idea what a crack den looked like. Would he knock politely, walk in and find a bunch of old dears drinking tea, only to discover it was tea laced
with crack?