Looking for Trouble (19 page)

Had Martin ever been told he was adopted? Did he know now? Had Janice reached him before death reached her? Maybe Fraser had shut her out, as he had me? She’d driven off; there’d been some trouble with the car, or something made her pull over on the motorway. The killer had struck. Any victim would do. But what if Martin had answered the door? Janice, distraught, had blurted out her story. My baby, my baby, I’m here now...Frightened, Martin had pushed her. She’d fallen...

Ray called me in to the phone. It was Nina Zaleski. ‘I just saw him, in the car.’

My guts clenched. This was it – back on the scent. He did exist. ‘Coming or going?’

‘Going. Fraser got back maybe an hour ago. I had to go collect something from the dry-cleaners, I was driving back and they went past.’ She was all excited, too.

‘You’re sure it was him?’

‘Small, young, dark hair. I’m looking at the photo now: If it ain’t him, it’s his brother.’

‘So he is still staying there,’ I said.

‘Well hidden. That boy has not been out of that house all week, not that I’ve seen. Fraser’s off to work every morning, then nothing. By the way, I asked Jack what Fraser’s company was called. I didn’t tell him why, of course. I told him we’d had some junk mail about computers and I wondered if it was the same set up? Anyway, Jack says it’s M.K. Communications or M.K.C. Now,’ she ran on, while I jotted the name down, ‘Jack and I are out to dinner tonight, so I won’t be able to keep an eye out here.’

‘Don’t worry. At least he’s still around. Now, I need to know the next time Fraser goes out. Ring me tomorrow when he leaves for work. Then I can get to see Martin on his own.’

‘Sure. Least you’ll be able to reassure his mom,’ she said.

‘Oh, yeah.’ I’d forgotten that Nina only knew an edited version of events. ‘Yeah, she’ll be, er, really pleased. Of course, I do need to actually see him myself.’

‘Okay.’ She was brisk, energised. ‘So I’ll call when he leaves for work tomorrow. He usually leaves about eight-thirty.’

I thanked her again.

‘Hey,’ she said before she hung up, ‘ain’t it just like Cagney and Lacey?’

At last. Confirmation that Martin was there, and a lead on Fraser. I was on the right track.

As soon as I got the dialling tone, I rang Harry’s. Bev answered. I felt a tinge of disappointment. He was out.

‘Down in Salford,’ she said. ‘He’s practically living there since the trouble. The Guardian Weekend want something from him and The Observer are making encouraging noises.’

We chatted about the children for a while and I agreed to call round on Saturday, anyway, with Maddie and Tom. Bev said she’d tell Harry I called.

Ray had made an assortment of salads. It was too hot to eat anything else. We ate in the garden, wafting the occasional wasp off the plates. I described to Ray the refurbishment job the Dobsons had done on my office, garden chairs and all.

‘I could make you a couple of nice chairs,’ he said, squinting into the sun.

‘For a price. Look, I can probably pick up something at a car-boot if I decide the white vinyl’s too...’

‘Frivolous?’

‘Yeah – as long as it’s wooden...’

‘No taste,’ he protested.

‘No money.’

‘Speaking of which, or whom, Clive gave me a cheque towards the rent.’

I widened my eyes. ‘How much?’

‘Ooh, you’re so mercenary.’

‘Ray! Anyway, it was materialistic, not mercenary.’

‘Two hundred,’ he said.

I groaned. It was a quarter of what was owing.

‘Better than nothing.’

‘We’re not the only ones he owes, you know. There’s this guy been ringing...’

‘Pete?’

‘Yes. It’s so embarrassing – he probably thinks we’re not passing messages on or we’re sheltering him, or something.’

Ray nodded. ‘Tom!’ His tone halted Tom in mid-swipe. The rake was inches from Maddie’s head. ‘Away, in the shed, you know you’re not to play with those.’

As the kids fought about who would put them away, I thought about Mrs Hobbs. How many times had she averted an accident, kissed Martin better, put a plaster on his knee? Protected him? The little boy she’d adopted. But when he suffered most, she couldn’t face it, too monstrous to accept. The phone bleated as I carried Maddie into the house. I put her down to answer it and she screeched hysterically. It was Diane. I said I’d ring her back.

It was an hour and a half later that I remembered. ‘Diane, how was it? When did you get back?’

‘Dreadful. Oh, Sal it was awful. We got back yesterday.’

‘Oh, no. So what’s, what about Ben and...’

‘It’s over,’ she said, ‘very definitely.’ She was speaking with clenched teeth.

‘Do you want me to come round?’ I prayed she’d say no. It was nearly ten.

‘No, I’m going to bed.’

‘Tomorrow?’ I offered.

‘Yeah.’

‘Your place or the pub?’

‘Here,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some duty-free. I’ll dig out my old Leonard Cohen.’

‘Oh, Diane. Oh, shit!’ I remembered the meeting with Clive. ‘Look, can we make it Saturday, or daytime tomorrow? I’m really sorry, but Ray’s set up the showdown with Clive.’

She was working Friday, away visiting her mum over the weekend. The first opportunity was going to be Monday night. We agreed on that.

In the fridge, there were still a couple of glasses of wine in the bottle that Ray had opened the previous night. I poured myself one and took it outside, along with the book by Loren D. Estleman. Detroit crime and low-life was comfortably distant from that of Manchester. Across the way, a Strimmer was screaming across someone’s lawn and someone was having fun with a high-speed drill. I drifted into my book. Next time I surfaced, the power tools had been turned off. There were a couple of minutes’ peace, then someone down the street flung wide their windows and treated the whole neighbourhood to repeat plays of their latest acquisition, with the bass turned up, ‘Let’s Talk about Sex, Baby’. Subtle. I read on, The words faded to dusk on the page. I stretched and drained my glass. All I could hear now was the spatting and caterwauling of a couple of cats, occasional traffic and a siren howling in the distance.

The sky was glowing, fiery, peach and mandarin, a single violet cloud. A sign of good weather to come. Or maybe Salford going up. Summer in the city.

Friday. Waiting for word from Nina. I paced the office. Sorted half-heartedly through my files. Time and again I ran the scene in my head. I go to the house, Martin answers the door. He’s taken aback at first, reluctant to let me in, but I win him over. I tell him I have a letter for him, but that first I need to ask a few questions. He’s happy to co-operate. He’s already been through this with the police. Janice never called here on that Sunday night. Relief. Gently, I explain that Janice was his birth mother, that it was she who employed me to find him; the letter I have is from her. I tell him I’m sorry. He nods, understanding. I leave him both Mrs Williams’ phone number and mine. Time to go. I walk away sadder, wiser. Cleansed of responsibility.

Nina didn’t ring. By the time it got to twelve-thirty, I rang her myself.

‘The car’s still there,’ she said. ‘Looks like he’s staying home today. I guess it’ll be Monday before you can be sure he’s not just gone to fetch the papers and stuff. Jack’s not flying out till Sunday night, anyhow, so I’m not going to be able to do that much till then anyway.’

I paced around a bit more. Going nowhere. I could forget taking the letter till Monday, but I needed to do something. I decided to visit the sandwich bar where Janice had worked. I just had time to fit that in before school. Make absolutely sure that Janice didn’t have friends in the Cheadle area.

I’d reached the Dobson’s front door when I heard my office phone. I raced back downstairs. This was it. Fraser had gone out; Martin was alone. I missed my footing on the last stair, trod heavily into air and wrenched my foot on its side. Shit. I took a couple of steps to the phone, singing with pain.

“S that Sal?’

I didn’t recognise her voice, young, Mancunian accent.

‘Yes, who’s that?’

‘Leanne.’

I was blank for a beat or two. Then I remembered. Leanne of the dripping, ratty hair. JB’s friend. Leanne who’d been scared to tell me what she knew. Leanne of the light fingers.

‘I thought you better know,’ she said. ‘That bloke Smiley, he’s been asking about you, wanting to know if you’ve been round here again, asking questions and all that. I’d watch it if I were you.’

‘But why would...?’ I heard the click and the dialling tone. The little swine. Had it been a warning or a threat? Had Leanne rung me out of the goodness of her heart or was she working for Smiley? Why did she have to hang up on me? Sod Leanne. She wasn’t going to get away with it. I wanted to know exactly what Smiley had said; when, where, the lot.

I got to my feet, ready to drive into town, and gasped with the pain. My skin went clammy. I sat back down and examined my ankle. It was swollen already. There was a large, white lump beneath my ankle bone. The skin around it was puffed up. Well and truly sprained. Brilliant. I wouldn’t be driving anywhere.

Feeling slightly foolish, I crawled up the stairs and hopped along the road and round the corner home. Digger jumped up to greet me. I shoved him down. ‘Get out of the way, you stupid, bloody dog.’ He slunk off. I found a crepe bandage in the drawer where the odd things live. I drenched some lint with witch hazel and wrapped the bandage round, drenched that too.

I couldn’t collect the kids.

Ray was at college but I had a number to leave messages. I used it. If Ray could get Tom on his way home, then I could ask Denise over the road to pick up Maddie when she went for her own daughter. I limped over there. The pain made me feel sick. She apologised; Jade was at home poorly, they wouldn’t be going to the school.

Maybe Clive could do it. I’d never asked before. It was only a twenty minute job. Was he in or out? I rang the front doorbell several times but he didn’t appear. Well, Ray would just have to get both of them.

I lowered myself onto the sofa and sat with my feet up. I wanted to sleep. I could feel the weariness lapping up my spine, dissolving my bones. My head jerked. I lurched awake. It was nearly three and no word from Ray. I phoned a taxi, seething. The cost, the hassle, the injustice. I collected both children and got them home.

Maddie raced to answer the phone. I remembered Leanne’s call and shouted out to stop her, but she was already reciting the number.

‘It’s Chris,’ she said.

I hopped into the hall. ‘Hello.’

‘Bruce Sharrocks,’ she said. ‘He’s one of the principal officers involved in residential care. Bit of an innovator, well-liked, done a lot of work in the field himself, not just a bureaucrat. Workaholic. He set up the Dandelion Trust practically single-handed. That’s about it.’

I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t that. I felt deflated. It didn’t make the connection between Sharrocks and Fraser Mackinlay any clearer.

‘Is he gay?’

‘What?’

‘Do you know if he’s gay?’

‘Why the hell do you need to know that?’

I felt crass and my ears got hot. ‘Well...it’s just that I saw him with this missing teenager I was tracing. I’ve heard the boy’s been working as a rent boy.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she said. ‘And if Sharrocks is gay, he’s bound to use boys, isn’t he?’

My heart sank. Chris was a lesbian herself and quick to spot oppressive behaviour. I’d blundered again.

‘No. But it might be relevant,’ I protested.

‘People say that a lot,’ she countered. ‘They usually mean they want information that’s none of their business. What if he is gay? That make it easier to see him as a potential criminal? After all, that’s often how we’re seen, isn’t it? Deviants, perverts.’

‘Oh, come on Chris...’

‘Sal, I don’t like it. You’re asking for personal information, sensitive stuff. I’ve no idea how you’re going to use it.’

Maybe she was right. Did I really need to know? Search me. In investigative work, it’s only later that you can see what’s relevant and what’s not. There was an uncomfortable silence. As it stretched out, I tried to think about what I’d said and what I’d been accused of. I was the first to speak. ‘I’m sorry.’ It was pretty lame but it was all I could come up with in the circumstances. I wasn’t clear enough in my own mind whether I was making unfair assumptions, pigeon-holing people. There could well be some truth in Chris’s view of how I’d been leaping to conclusions.

‘Yeah, well. I’d prefer it if you didn’t ask me about people at work again. It puts me in a terrible position.’

‘Okay. See you soon.’ I rang off.

I had a hot little stone of shame in my belly, souring my saliva. Guilt. Neither use nor ornament. But maybe I could learn from my mistakes.

I rang up and ordered pizzas to be delivered. No way was I going to cook. We’d just finished eating when Ray arrived.

‘Sal’s broke her leg,’ Tom announced.

‘She can’t even walk,’ added Maddie. Ray raised his eyebrows at me.