He
scrolled through the mobile’s address book, brought up ‘SJ Legal’ and thumbed
the dial key harder than he needed to, eliciting the jab of pain he deserved.
“Yes.
Hello. Speak.” Sharon answered the unknown number in a suitably peremptory
style.
“It’s
Rob.”
A
silence unfolded and he gave it room.
“Rob.
Hi. Sorry. I was immersed in something. You know, work stuff.”
“I’m
sorry. It can keep.”
“No.
No, it’s fine. I’m in the garden. Paperwork can wait. I’m glad you called. I
almost called you.”
“That’s
good.” This was polite, civilised. No expectations. “I just wanted to say….”
“Rob?
Sorry the connection faded for a second there.” If it had, he hadn’t heard it.
“It’s about mum. She had a visit from one of your colleagues, DC Slowey.”
“Oh,
really?”
“Yes.
Not sure what he was after. Probably all very routine. And she says he was very
polite. But he upset her somehow, made her very antsy and tearful. You know how
she is. No, of course you don’t. ”
“I’m
sorry to hear that.”
“I
know you’re on sick leave. I know I shouldn’t ask. But do you know what’s going
on? Could you find out?”
“Sharon,” he began, an unfamiliar weakness gnawing at him, urging him to tell her how much
he needed her and how that wouldn’t stop him goading and exploiting and
undermining her family to get to the truth about the murders. He cleared his
throat and steeled himself.
“Sorry, high
pollen count today. I get sniffy. No, I don’t know what Slowey was up to. But
he’s a good guy and I’m sure his visit was purely routine. I’ll ask him next
time I see him.”
“Thanks
Rob. Was there something you wanted?”
“Well,”
he mused, savouring a broken memory of loving in the afternoon, luxuriating in
the heat for once, long shafts of sunlight picking out pale, sinuating curves,
a simple and fragile necklace emphasising her nakedness, her curls spilling
across her breasts and his mouth. He banished the image with a stifled groan.
“Rob?
You still there?”
“Yep,
sorry. Long day. Drifted away.”
“Anywhere
nice?”
“Somewhere
very nice.”
“Was I
there?” Her tone had thawed, her voice deepened. He could end this now, limit
the damage.
“Of
course you were.” Or he could wade deeper and deeper until the riptide seized
him and flung him against the rocks or out to sea.
“I
shouldn’t be. But I am. Glad about that.” Was that tenderness in her voice, a
catch in the throat, an excitement so enthralling it was almost innocent?
“I owe
you an apology.” He ventured the comment believing it could tip the situation
either way, inviting himself to end it gently.
“Yes,
you do. You took your time ringing me. Let me think it was a one-night stand. A
shoulder to cry on and a body to….well….”
“You’re
right. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry
for what? Come on, say it.”
“I
need to see you again. I want more than one night.” He’d grown tired of the
shallows and cast himself out beyond the breakers.
“I
know. Do it then.” She cleared the line.
His
face flushed hot and he paced like a demented predator in a cage, euphoria
grappling with shame that was down but not out. He stepped inside and rummaged
for the notepad on which he’d write his lies for Hayley. He’d betrayed her the
second he’d decided to return to Sharon’s house and stopping himself now
wouldn’t change that. Logic could justify anything if you were creative enough.
Kelly
was a good girl. Good in the ways that mattered anyway. She’d give it to him as
often as he wanted, in any way he wanted. In one of Ali Bongo’s flats while the
rest of them were wasted or skinning up or watching telly. In his own bedroom
if his dad was too busy or pissed to ogle her and slap her arse on the way
upstairs. In the shed at his dad’s secret allotment, nicely hidden in the long
weeds behind the nice houses on Yarborough Crescent, the hidey-hole he wasn’t
supposed to tell anyone about, the place with the endless supply of weed. On
her knees in an alley if he couldn’t wait to get her indoors. She’d make the
right noises too. Like she was gagging for it. Like he’d filled her all the way
up like no other man could. Like she was scared shitless and begging for her
life if that’s what he was in the mood for.
And
she was proud to call herself his missus. Proud to teeter along on his arm
through the town, looking filthy in her stilettos. Proud to sit in the gallery
at court, tutting and whispering ‘pig’ and ‘prick’ at the cops and lawyers and
giving him a squeeze and a giggle when he walked off the stand with another
community order; or crying like her heart had been ripped out when they finally
sent him down and he did his three month stint at Glen Parva. Proud to have
pleaded and cried and blagged her mum into driving her down to visit him at
that Young Offenders’ Institute a million miles away in Leicestershire; her mum
lingering in the background with the screws, believing her sweetest and only
daughter was sacking her nasty boyfriend, as if she would, as if she had the
guts even if she wanted to. He owned her and she knew it. He owned her and she
liked it.
She’d
been fourteen when they’d started, he eighteen. Long since barred from the
premises, he’d still plied a decent trade at the school gate. She never bought
but she always chatted, sometimes sharing a roll-up, with and without the
special ingredient, sometimes offering him a swig of vodka. Eventually, her
friends drifted away. Some of them were fitter with nicer asses or perkier tits
but they thought they were a cut above with their books and exams and ponies.
Not that Kelly was a dog. She was fit in her own way and willing, always
willing. Breaking her in had been sweet. Not legal either but sweeter for it.
That didn’t make him a nonce though; there were only three years in it and she
was all woman.
She
was almost perfect. If only she hadn’t been so needy. Wanting soppy words and
cuddling afterwards. Wanting to know what he was thinking. But she’d shut up
when she was told and he’d only had to slap her down once, when she’d kept
asking about the business, when his dad had been all over him, when it had
nearly gone down the pan because of that nonce Firth and that bent screw. He’d
said sorry, after she’d said it first for winding him up.
He
didn’t want to be like his dad, shacked up with someone he hated just to have
someone to shag him, cook for him or put up with his beatings when he’d had a
shit week or couldn’t hold his booze. He didn’t want her to be like his mum,
hiding in the kitchen, chain-smoking and whinging her life away, sometimes
losing it and pushing and pinching and screaming his dad into punching her
down. He’d slapped Kelly but it wasn’t a punch. And he’d had his reasons. And
she understood. He wasn’t his dad. He’d be better. He even thought he loved
Kelly, whatever that meant.
So
he could stand there and take whatever his dad gave him. It was just words; and
if the belt came off or the fists flew, well he’d taken worse and kept his head
up and his eyes dry.
“You
don’t bring that little whore here again. Understand me, you little shite?”
His
dad had propped himself on the spade he’d stabbed into the dry earth at his
feet. Behind him, the door to the shed gaped, spilling its secrets: the old
mattress he’d forgotten to put back the right way round, the empty tinnies, the
porn mags, the condom he’d used in her then dropped and forgotten about.
“Do
you hear me? Comprendez vouze, you numb, dumb prick?”
“All
fuckin’ right, I heard you,” he snarled back, hands stuck in pockets in a
display of insouciance that masked his skittishness.
“An’
you give me some respect, you lippy wanker. Don’t think I won’t hurt you ‘cause
I will.”
Keith
Braxton shook his head, flexed his knuckles on the spade handle, turned his
great boulder of a head with its taut, flexing jaw muscles and spat into the
cabbage patch.
“You’re
me boy and I’m trying to set you up right with this. But this is big time. And
if you fuck it up, you’ll wish you only had me to worry about when those Nottingham boys come looking for your sorry arse. Your ma will be picking bits of your
skull out of the lino for months.”
“Sorry.
Won’t happen again.” He submitted the way his dad liked it, dangling his lip,
staring at his toes, mumbling like he was too scared to squeeze the words out.
“Better.
Tell me this, boy. You got that bint under control? You tell her to keep shtum
and scare the shit out of her, does she keep shtum?”
“Course
dad. She’s a good girl.”
He
didn’t feel the need to mention that Kelly’s mum had followed her here and
kicked off big time. That was ages ago, nothing had happened since, no filth or
social workers had turned up and Kelly had said she had it under control.
“Loyal.
Wouldn’t ever grass me up.”
“You’d
better be right.” He reached behind him, grabbed another spade and threw it to
Kevin. “You and me are gonna graft today. We are gonna dig deep, bury the
merchandise and cover it over right with cabbages and spuds ‘til it looks
natural. ‘Til it looks like there’s nowt under it but dirt and worms. There’s
enough smack under that shed for me to retire. It’s going under the earth ‘til
I’m satisfied you haven’t fucked things up for all of us.”
Kevin
peeled off his polo shirt, dropped it in the dirt and stabbed at the muck with
the spade, at first trying to follow his dad stroke for stroke, then slowing,
lathered and gasping, realising that his dad had the muscle and the will and
would lead the pace. For now.
Clutching
the printout so hard his fingers almost pierced it, Slowey marched himself to
the bike shed behind the custody block to smoke the emergency cigarette he’d
begged from the gaoler. One day after his garden meeting with Harkness, four
hours into a shift elongated by reams of paperwork, one hour after a chivvying
phone call to the lab, ten minutes after receiving their email and five minutes
after the printer spat out the hard copy, he stood, smoking, simmering and
reading the news again.
The
crime scene sample he’d submitted from the beating he’d taken at the Friars’
Vaults matched the DNA profile of Kevin Braxton. This was progress but it
shouldn’t jar him this much. Perhaps, he reflected, a circuit had been closed.
A suspect who’d been just another piece on the board now had a name. He was
also linked to him viscerally, by blood and violence, and that was always
personal, no matter how it was rationalised.
Harkness
would have swooped on the miscreant with minimal thought and planning; but
shock and awe policing was not Slowey’s style, even when a personal reckoning
was owed. No, he would savour the cigarette, digest the news, map out a
response in his book, do his research, stroke his goatee a little more and slot
this piece into the jigsaw. He needn’t tell anyone for now, Harkness included.
The DI trusted him to work with minimal supervision and that meant he could
keep the knives he was juggling in the air long enough to avoid losing an eye.
So he
ignored Harkness’s next nagging call when it came, unwilling to waste breath on
half a tale, fearful that he was so excited he’d have to spill his guts.
Sometimes that man needed to be saved from himself. Sometimes the case needed
to be spared his ham-fisted zeal.
He
knew Christmas had arrived five months early when he searched the database to
update his notes on Kevin Braxton. Not only was he now linked to Slowey’s
assault as a suspect, but he had a newly recorded offence of Unlawful Sexual
Intercourse to his name. Some might see that as a complication, reflected
Slowey. To him, it was ammunition.
Sauntering
down the corridor and into the office of the Child Protection Unit, his red
notebook open and ready, Slowey settled into a swivel chair, wheeled it into
the centre of the room and waited for someone to get off the phone and ask him
why he was grinning at them.
“DC
Slowey,” said the team’s skipper, slamming his phone down and placing his
elbows on a deep stack of case files. “Have you brought us good news or are you
buttering us up for something unpleasant?”
“Oh,
you’ll like this. You’ve got an offence of USI by Kevin Braxton on one Kelly
Somerby. Done much with it yet?”
“Beyond
reading it, no. Why?”
“I
want to take it off your hands. I’m looking at this oik for burglary, assault
and maybe more. Any objection to me throwing the USI at him at the same time?”
“Bless
your heart. We should have you stuffed and mounted.”
“Nice
image. I’ve got some conditions though.”
“Go
on.”
“You
do the video interview for me. You don’t approach the suspect and you tell the
victim and her mother to say nothing to anyone about it.”
“Fair
enough. Want to be in on the witness interview?”
“Why
not? How soon can we jack it up?”
“How
quickly can you write?”
Harkness
had arrived at the prison gates with the air of a condemned man. He’d been weak
enough to spend the evening with Sharon but not brave enough to stay all night,
even if that meant returning home at something past midnight. Sharon had
accepted this with neither surprise nor disappointment bur something akin to
pity.
Hayley
had been less stoical, regarding him through bruised eyes from the sofa where
she’d been staring at rather than watching late-night television and nursing a
bottle of Rioja. She’d calmly appraised his vacant expression, his mussed hair
and his casual clothes. She’d gently reminded him of the dinner date he’d
promised her, a date that had been marked on the kitchen calendar and in both
their diaries. He’d meekly apologised and launched his barrage of fraudulent
excuses.
She’d
cut him short; asked him point blank if he was having an affair. He’d hesitated
for half a second too long; not out of honesty, more out of squeamishness about
the lie. She’d asked for her name, the classic interviewer’s gambit, making the
confession implicit if the subject in any way acknowledged that the question
itself was valid. Declaring that he wasn’t going to give his lover’s name had
told Hayley all she needed to know.
Red
wine soaking into his white t-shirt, the sting of her open palm ringing in his
left ear, he’d been told he had a fortnight to decide whether he was moving out
or buying her out of the house. He’d boozed himself into a stupor that would
pass for sleep in the spare room, trying to plot out the future, grateful for
the end of the lie, shamed by the manner of it, fading at the first twitterings
of the dawn chorus and waking with a jolt as Hayley locked the front door on
her way to work.
He’d
been grateful for the appointment at prison, for the fact that the working
world would oblige him to wear a suit, drag him out of the house and give him a
routine and a purpose beyond his own compulsions. He’d also been grateful for
Slowey’s assiduous filing system which had furnished him with a letter from the
Chief Superintendent which, with minimal tweaking, authorised his enquiries at
HMP Lincoln.
“Brian,”
he said, shaking Hoskins’ hand as the gatehouse’s inner gate slammed shut
behind him. “Thanks for doing this at such short notice.”
“What
on earth do they do to you people?” he asked, accepting the hand diffidently,
noting its rawness and Harkness’s poorly concealed wince. “You look like you’ve
slept in a hedge. After dipping your hands in acid. And your mate, Ken Slowey.
He was in a right state last time.”
“Sleep
deprivation and regular beatings. It’s the latest trendy management theory.
Incentivises your staff.”
Hoskins
laughed politely and briefly. “I’m glad we could get you in today. This lad’s
gasping to talk to you. Well, to Slowey but you turned up and you’ll do. With
Dale Murphy gone he was nagging the officers on his wing constantly. They
didn’t want the hassle so lumbered me with it.”
Hoskins
gestured to a small gravelled area in the shadow of the admin block. “Let’s
have a fag break here. So we can talk in private before we go indoors.”
“I
don’t. I mean I haven’t. Not for years.”
“Then
watch me and look like an addict.” Hoskins limped onto the gravel, propped
himself against the wall with evident relief then lit a cigarette. “This lad,
Jake Barnaby. Burglar and heroin-addict. Claims he was glad to get caught so he
could get clean in clink. Probably means it. A lot of them do. Trouble is, they
can get the junk in here if they want it badly enough.”