Something Wicked (3 page)

At the top of the stairs was a scruffy once-cream door with ‘1A’ scratched into the paint via a green-inked biro. Green ink? This had psycho written all over it.

The windows on either side had the curtains pulled, which was surely the type of thing you’d do if you were dealing crack.

Andrew glanced down towards Jenny, who shrugged in the way young people seemed to, as if language was devolving into a series of gestures. He knocked on the door gently and took a step
backwards, waiting . . .

The door opened a sliver, a beady eye appearing in the darkened gap. Andrew barely had a moment to say anything before the door opened fully. Nobody spoke, so he stepped inside, gasping at the
toxic scent of some sort of perfume combined with something else he wasn’t sure about. Probably crack. The room was awash with crimson and pink but the lights were so dim, it was like wearing
sunglasses indoors.

He turned to see a woman wearing a top cut so low that it almost touched her belly button. A valley of cleavage heaved forward threateningly as she turned and walked around him, her fragrance
practically weaponised.

‘You got an appointment, luv?’

Her accent was thick, northern and nasally, every word sounding as if it came with a threat to smash a brick over someone’s head.

‘No, I . . .’

‘So d’ya know what yer after? Aurora’s phoned in sick but Angel’s come in instead. It’s a fifty-quid house fee for half-hour.’ She nodded towards a door.
‘There’s a shower in there if you need to sort yourself out. Money upfront and then the girls are through there.’

She nodded towards a second door but Andrew had already turned for the exit: Stewart Deacon would indeed have a bit of explaining to do.

Andrew’s life had changed six months previously when he’d inadvertently ended up investigating a teenage girl’s suicide. Before then, the private
investigating had been something of a joke. Well, a lot of a joke. It was something to spend his money on, a reason to get up in the morning and leave his flat. After that case, something had
clicked and he’d decided that if he was going to do this as a job, then he’d have to do it properly. He left the old office, ditched the rubbish chairs and jammed filing cabinets, and
found himself somewhere decent to work. He kept the pot plant though – he wasn’t a complete philistine.

The new office wasn’t big but it was central for Manchester, a little off Minshull Street, close to the court and, even more crucially, a short walk to the numerous cafes, restaurants and
pubs if Andrew ever wanted to go out for lunch. Which he didn’t. The floor, walls and desks were all bright white and new, with a window that faced Piccadilly Gardens if he squinted a bit,
and spinny executive-type chairs that actually supported his back.

All in all, it wasn’t too bad.

Jenny sat behind her desk, fingers blurring across the keyboard in a frenzy of tip-tapping. She sometimes wore glasses when using the computer, making her look even more secretarial, though she
was anything but.

‘I found the website of that brothel,’ she said, not looking up. ‘It’s called Dream Girls.’

Andrew glanced up from his monitor towards her. ‘From what I saw, the only dream you’d be having in there was a nightmare.’

Jenny peered over her glasses at him but said nothing. Clearly there was a second type of dream he’d forgotten.

She continued without a breath. ‘I’ve got photos of Stewart opening the garage door when he came out, the car exiting the garage, plus the tracking details. Obviously we don’t
have anything of the inside but I do have pictures of one of the girls leaving.’ Jenny twisted her monitor around to show a woman shuffling her cleavage into place as she descended the
concrete steps. ‘Best I could get. Add that to the website with the address and it’s pretty nailed on. Unless he was there fixing the plumbing, I’m not sure what else he could
say. I wonder what his missus will think.’

In describing the situation, Jenny had underlined all of the reasons why Andrew generally turned down anything that tried to uncover someone’s infidelity. Ultimately, the wife already knew
what her husband was up to, else she wouldn’t have got an investigator involved. Meanwhile, the husband could try to find a way to wriggle out of it if he really wanted. Perhaps Stewart was
looking into buying the flat to renovate and the half-hour he spent inside was an exploratory mission looking for damp patches.

On the walls
, Andrew thought to himself, suppressing a childish grin. How old was he?

‘I’ll go first thing tomorrow,’ Andrew said. ‘I can’t face her today. If you can separate everything up for the bill—’

‘Already done.’

Jenny stood, stepping around the corner of her desk and stretching a file out to Andrew. He took the cardboard wallet and opened the cover, skimming through the pages. It was the usual –
mainly hours billed, as if he was a solicitor, but with a few expenses here and there. It would be easy enough to overcharge people – especially when you got a result – but Jenny knew
Andrew’s policy about doing things properly.

That was the other reason he did his best to turn down anything involving warring partners. It was bad enough having to tell someone their other half was getting up to no good behind their back,
let alone adding: ‘Oh, and by the way, you owe me some money. Cash or card?’

He’d taken the case really hoping there was more to it than a simple husband-after-a-bit-on-the-side but the work was beginning to become tedious again. After the suicide investigation, he
thought he might be able to do some good by picking up cases that the police didn’t have either the time or resources for. Instead, it was small-time pieces of due diligence, tracing people
with debts, or varying amounts of surveillance. Nothing extraordinary or particularly interesting – especially considering Jenny was so good at taking the smaller things away from him.
Paperwork: done. Typing, accounts: sorted. Reports: no problem. She didn’t even complain, which in many ways made her the perfect employee – except that Andrew had never quite been able
to figure out why she wanted to work with him. He had the sense she could go away and make a success of anything she tried, yet here she was, day after day, doing menial things, all for the promise
that, now and then, she’d get to do silly things like dress up and jump in front of cars to plant trackers.

The laser printer in the corner hummed to life with a guff of energy, pleased to finally be doing something, before it started shooting sheets of paper into the out-tray.

Jenny crossed the room, palm outstretched as if she was about to shake hands with the printer. At the last moment, she clasped the pages and returned to her desk with a twinkle of a smile.

Andrew’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. A tall silhouette was visible through the frosted glass, blocking the light from the corridor outside.

‘Come in,’ Andrew called, standing as a man dripped his way into the office. Jenny was instantly on her feet, full of smiles and ‘hello’s, taking the man’s sodden
coat and spreading it out over the radiator.

The man was similar to Andrew in build: not big, not small – but he was at least twenty years older, somewhere in his mid-fifties, with greying dark hair that was thinning at the front. He
was wearing a suit but the trousers were drenched as if he’d been swimming with his clothes on. In many ways, going outside in Manchester without an umbrella was exactly like that. He was
hooking a leather satchel over his shoulder.

‘It’s chucking it down out there,’ the man said as Jenny fussed around him. ‘If you know of anyone named Noah, make sure he’s not building a boat.’

He smiled wearily, not expecting – or getting – a laugh. It was a dad gag handed down through the ages, barely funny in the first place and certainly not now.

The man shook Andrew’s hand, introducing himself as Richard Carr, before Jenny headed off to the corner and clicked on the kettle. Andrew had never asked her to do any of those sorts of
things but she just did. She grabbed a mop from the other corner and began swishing away the thin trail of water from the door to Richard’s chair.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, brushing the remains of his hair away from his face. ‘I couldn’t find anywhere to park, then they’re doing roadworks on my usual spot off
Deansgate. I ended up walking for about a mile.’

As Jenny distracted him by asking about tea or coffee, Andrew took a moment to properly stare at the man. There were wisps of stubble around his mouth that he’d missed shaving and his hair
looked a little longer than it was meant to be, as if he’d had the same style for thirty years but forgotten to get it cut recently. There was something familiar about him too. Andrew had
definitely seen him before and the name rang a bell.

Jenny asked Richard for his milk and sugar requirements and then hurried away again. If social networks were crying out for one thing, it was surely an option to add your tea preference.

Name

Date of birth

Single/married/in a relationship/it’s complicated

A splash of milk, no sugar, leave the teabag in

Richard squashed himself into the chair and peered up, catching Andrew’s gaze and holding it. ‘You’re Mr Hunter, I presume.’

‘Yes.’

‘I looked on your website and it said you search for missing people . . . ?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’ve got a . . . complicated one for you.’ Richard glanced towards the floor and swallowed. ‘My son disappeared on his eighteenth birthday nine months ago.’

As Richard looked up again, the penny dropped for Andrew. ‘Your son’s Nicholas Carr.’

Richard nodded. ‘I take it you saw everything in the papers at the time. It was a big deal . . .’ He tailed off. ‘. . . not so much now.’

Andrew tried to force his brain to remember the details. They were in his mind somewhere, probably buried under irrelevant information such as who played Bones in the original ‘Star
Trek’. If only he could get rid of all the junk and keep everything important for his life and job, he’d be a much better person. There had been posters around the city, broadcasts on
the news, front pages of newspapers. Everything always moved on though – somebody went missing, they were a big story for a day or two, and then they either reappeared or they didn’t.
Nobody ever went back to check.

Richard paused as Jenny returned with the tea, placing it on the desk in front of him. He twisted the cup around on the saucer with a ceramic squeak, making it neat before taking a sip.
‘According to the police, Nicholas is dead. It’s been nine months, so there’s every chance he is. They found three fingers from his right hand in Alkrington Wood a few days after
he disappeared. They checked cameras, spoke to his friends – all that type of stuff – but we’ve heard nothing from him since. At first they thought his body was buried with the
rest of his fingers in Alkrington but they dug a whole patch of it up and didn’t find anything.’

The cloud that had been fogging Andrew’s memories finally started to evaporate. ‘You’re a councillor, aren’t you?’

The man nodded without looking up. ‘District council. It’s been awkward these past few months. You’re supposed to be at these votes and rallies but, well . . .’

Richard tailed off again, Adam’s apple bobbing as he reached for his tea. Jenny placed a box of tissues in front of him and he glanced towards her, eyes hanging on for a fraction of a
second too long. There wasn’t anything particularly out of the ordinary in it; many men, and women for that matter, found themselves noticing her, but Andrew always felt uncomfortable, like a
father dropping off his daughter at her first school disco.

Whatever anyone thought, he hadn’t hired her based on looks. After choosing his new office and deciding to act more professionally, Andrew realised he needed an assistant. He’d gone
through an agency to advertise the position and they’d sent half-a-dozen graduates his way.

Andrew’s own degree was in criminology, a social science more based on the reasons for crime as opposed to crime-solving itself. Of the graduates he’d approved for interview, three
of them had qualifications in computer-based science, one in electronics, one in psychology and one, bizarrely, in radio journalism. He wasn’t as interested in the pieces of paper they held
as the individuals themselves.

Jenny was an information technology graduate but barely talked about that in her interview. If anything, the reason he’d hired her was because she didn’t have desperation seeping
from her every pore. She hadn’t said it out loud but her body language had screamed it: ‘Give me a job, or not – see if I care. I’ll get by.’ It had ended with her
almost interviewing him, making suggestions about how the office could be better organised and asking how long he’d been doing the job. He felt guilty for hiring her over the other
candidates: people who actually wanted the job and thought about their answers in the interview. Instead he’d chosen a young woman who’d shrugged her way through it. He’d been
right though – she was perfect.

Andrew waited until Richard had put down his teacup. ‘If the police are still involved, I can’t insert myself into their investigation.’

Richard waved his hand. ‘There is no investigation. They held the inquest, which declared an open verdict – but that’s no closure for me and my wife. For them, it’s over
but we have to go on wondering. If he’s dead, where’s the body? If he’s alive, where is he and why hasn’t he come home? How did three of his fingers end up in those
woods?’

Andrew squirmed in his seat. ‘I’ll be completely honest here, Mr Carr—’

‘Richard.’

‘Sorry, Richard. I’m not exactly sure what you think I can do that a police investigation couldn’t.’

Richard ran his hands through his hair and breathed out loudly. Behind him, Jenny tapped gently away at her keyboard. ‘I suppose somebody doing something is better than a bunch of people
doing nothing.’

He reached into his satchel and handed over a small photograph. A teenager, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, was lying on a patch of grass giving the thumbs-up to the camera. He had dark blond hair
similar in colour to Andrew’s, tousled in a just-got-out-of-bed look that so many young people seemed to have. Were people really that attractive first thing in the morning? From
Andrew’s experience, it was all yawns and trying to remember which day it was.