Beast of Burden (20 page)

DONKIN

Normally the last place I wanted to go was the bastard Trafford Centre. Swear to God, that was the kind of place that'd send anyone loopy if they were of a mind. Part of me reckoned if I ever did enough bad stuff in my time to be sent to Hell, it'd look something like that place. Maybe a degree or two colder, seeing as they always kept the heating ramped right the fuck up.

But work was work.

I swung off Junction 9, headed right for the car parks. But because this was the Trafford Centre on a Saturday fucking morning, the place was heaving. Took us a good fifteen minutes of aimless driving before I found a space close enough to the shopping centre and not flanked by arseholes. I parked the car between a Corsa and a Ka, couple of bleeding heart liberal motors, and their owners easily scared if need be. Nobody would dare scratch us up there.

As I walked out into the main mall, I was reminded why I hated this bastard place so much. Not even double digits into November — not even fucking bonfire night yet — and they already had their Christmas decs up. More than that, over the railing I could see a Santa's Grotto laid out on the ground floor. A sign outside that said it cost nine quid to see Santa and get a present. Ya fucker, it made us sick. Wouldn't have minded so much if the grotto looked like a fucking grotto, but I'd seen bus shelters look more festive. I supposed it didn't matter. Wasn't like I was going to take Shannon down there. Not that I would've. My experience was, you didn't want to know which itinerant swine they got in to play Santa. Fucking gypsies looking for a Christmas job, and none of them police-checked like they were supposed to be.

Went up to one of those big mall maps, took us about five seconds to find the Currys on it. Took about an hour to find it in real life. By the time I got there, I was knackered and ready to twat the first person who gave us any grief. Which, considering my new leaf and everything, was a bit unfortunate. Even more unfortunate as I was bombarded by these arseholes who'd had their peripheral fucking vision removed. I pushed my way across the concourse, got myself a couple of swear words into the bargain, but they were gone by the time I'd managed to turn.

I kept a tight face as I went into Currys. Looked around for Kevin Ross. Been that long, and I only really knew him in passing, so I didn't think I'd recognise him right off the bat. Didn't matter, though — all I had to do was look for a bloke with the word KEVIN on his tit.

“Help you, sir?”

Now there was someone I did recognise. Kyle. Supposedly the manager, though he couldn't have been much older than the wank I had the other night. I showed him my ID. “We talked earlier.”

He blinked, tried to smile. Obviously didn't place us.

“Kevin Ross?” I said.

Kyle opened his gob wide in an O, rolled his narrow shoulders, trying to add another couple of inches to his height. It didn't work. “I didn't know that was you. Was there something in particular you wanted to talk to him about?”

“I'd need to talk with him about that.”

“You can tell me.”

“It's confidential.”

Pulled this face like, did I not know who I was talking to? “I'm his manager. If he's done anything—”

“You're fuckin' joking us.” I wondered how much of a fucking loser you had to be in order to have a manager that was like half your age. Then I remembered DCI Ali, and rethought the situation. “Alright, if you're his manager, then you can point him out to us.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Here,” I said. “Three choices. Point him out, fetch the lad, or I'll go looking for him. Up to you.”

Kyle looked behind him at the back of the shop, a door marked STAFF ONLY, and I saw this quick pull on his face that made us think he'd been through this before.

“Back there, is he?”

Kyle nodded.

“Anyone else been around here I should know about?”

“No, officer.”

“Detective. You saw the fuckin' ID.”

“Sorry.
Detective
. Nobody's been talking to him. Just, if you could try to remember that we're running a business out front.”

Which meant, try not to batter him so hard he makes a lot of noise and scares off the punters. I grinned at Kyle, put a finger on my lips, then went for the back office. Rolled my head, then kicked open the door. It bounced off the inside wall. I could hear Kyle start to say something as I strode into the staff room.

Ross was in the corner, sat reading some film magazine with his legs propped up on a plastic chair. He was already staring at us when I came in. The other bloke in there, black fella with the wide eyes on him like he thought I was there for him. He didn't know what to do; I was blocking the only exit to the room. I clocked his name tag — KWAME — and made a quick mental note. Probably a fucking illegal, so it never hurt to remember the name and the face.

Showed Kwame my ID. “Take it outside, mate.”

He did as he was told. Ross put down his magazine.

“Aw, fuck,” he said. “It's me you want to talk to, is it?”

Waited until Kwame was well out of the room, then I closed the door. “Kevin Ross, is it?”

He looked like he wanted to shift his feet from the chair, like he was suddenly uncomfortable, but I'd already got too close to him. If he moved, he'd have to do it slowly in case I took a sudden movement to mean resisting arrest. The lad had been through all this before, knew the tune. Knew that when someone kicked in the door and called you by your court name, you had to take things easy or else have your arse handed to you.

“Detective Sergeant Donkin,” I said, holding up the ID. “Need to ask you a few questions, Kevin.”

His arse got busy gobbling his skivvies. “What's this about?”

I reached forward, took the magazine from his lap, dumped it on the bench next to him. Then I tapped my ID wallet against his knees. That gave him the permission he needed to move his legs off the chair so's I could sit down. I grabbed the seat, pulled it in close and backwards, so I was riding it with the hard plastic bit in front of us. A bit of protection, just in case, and I was so close there was no way around us. I looked at Ross for a long time, one of those big stares that make them feel like I'm staring right into their brains.

“So,” I said. “Rossie.”

Rossie kept it shut. But the sound of his old name made him swallow. I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out a piece of paper with Mo's address written on it. I'd written it earlier, and now I held it up to Rossie like it was valuable evidence.

“You know this address?” I said.

He started to shake his head.

“Don't fuckin' lie to us already, mate.”

“I don't know it.”

“You didn't look at it.”

He made a show of reading the address. “I don't know it.”

I smiled. What the fuck. I tried, didn't I?

I reached out quick, grabbed Rossie's face with my free hand and squeezed his cheeks up so he looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid. He couldn't deny anything now I had his jaw pinched. He struggled a little bit. Not too much. Didn't want the situation to escalate. In the end, and because I didn't want to laugh at the stupid face he was pulling, I had to let go. He turned away from us, rubbed his cheeks.

“You know the address,” I said.

“Yeah, alright.” Wondering what that meant.

“So who lives there?”

Narrowed his eyes when he said, “It's Mo, isn't it? What the fuck's he done?”

“Died,” I said.

The look on Rossie's face told us he didn't know about it. But it wasn't necessarily news to him, either.

“So your involvement in this now looks suspicious, son.”

He shook his head. “I didn't have nowt to do with it.”

“You've been to his last known, though.”

“No.”

“Aw, Kevin, we were doing so well.”

“Alright, but only like fuckin'
once
or something.”

“That's all it took.”

“I didn't do nowt, man. I didn't touch him.”

“Touch him?”

Rossie closed his eyes and his mouth at the same time. I saw the muscles working in his jaw. He repeated himself like he was already self-editing. “I didn't do nowt.”

“You know someone
touched
him, though, right? I mean, I only said he died.”

“No.”

I pointed at him. “You said
you
never touched him.”

“Figure of fuckin' speech.”

“And you know where he lived. So let's just say for sake of fuckin' argument that we found Mo Tiernan beaten to death at that address. How would you join the dots, son?”

“I … didn't know that.”

“That he was dead or that we found him?”

“Either one, man.” Rossie stared at us. “I'm not involved. You know I'm not involved, this is a fuckin' put-up job. I'm straight now, you ask anyone. Got a girlfriend, got a kid, the last thing I'm—”

“But you were hanging round a shithole like Sutpen Court.”

“Here, Mo was living there for a while, alright? You want to talk to someone about this, you talk to fuckin' Baz.”

“I don't want a word with Baz, Kevin.”

“I didn't fuckin'
do
it.”

“Here, keep it down. Your man Kyle out there, he's this close to handing you your P45. He hears you kicking off in the break room, upsetting the fuckin' customers and talking back to a copper, he's going to think you're not as stable as you've been letting on.”

Rossie fell into a sulk. “I got a girlfriend—”

“You'll be lucky to keep your right hand in a minute, son.”

“I got a flat. I got a mortgage. It's different for me now. I didn't want Mo dead. Couldn't give a fuck. He's not in my life.”

“Because he's dead.”

He frowned hard at us, like he didn't know if he was playing this right. Or wondering what the fuck he thought
I
was playing at. Because he was catching on to that idea that I was trying to fit him up for Mo's death.

“Wait a second—”

“I'm just joking,” I sat straight on the chair, smiling at him. “Reckon I can smoke in here?”

“We have to go outside.”

“Fuckin' pansy rules, eh?” I pulled out a pre-made, lit it up. Blew smoke and waited for the alarms and sprinklers to go off. After about thirty seconds of nothing happening, I nodded at Rossie. “Tell you, you
do
know something about this, Kevin. Might not know anything about, say, the circumstances of the lad's death, but you could know something important about his
life
.” I blew smoke at him. “You get me?”

“I don't know what you want to hear.”

“Well, let's try this for first up: who'd want to kill Mo Tiernan?”

He shrugged. “Take your pick.”

“I already did.” I stared at him, waggled one finger at him. “Came up with you.”

“Then talk to Baz. He's still involved.”

“Where?”

“The Harvester.”

“The one on Gibson?”

He nodded. I took a drag. Fucking hell. I thought they'd pulled that shitheap down ten years ago.

“Right,” I said. “Anyone else spring to mind?”

Rossie looked at the film magazine. The front cover had some skinny bloke with a gun in his hand, looked bigger than him. “You talked to Innes?”

“You think he has something to do with it?”

“Wouldn't put it past him. If he's the one told you to come to me, then he's trying to pin it on someone, isn't he?”

“You spoke to him recently?”

“Not in fuckin' ages,” he said, looking up at us now. “Fact, the last time I remember seeing him, he was beating the shit out of Mo. Threatened to kill him if he ever clapped eyes on him again.”

“Fuck off,” I said.

“Pub full of witnesses.”

“What happened?”

Rossie blinked hard. Like,
who the fuck are you if you don't already know this
?

“What, you don't want to tell us?” Getting wound up now. Not one of my fucking grasses thought to tell us this whenever it happened, and I hated getting old news. “Because we don't have to carry this on here, y'know. You can even get yourself a fuckin' brief.”

“We burned it.”

“Back up. I need specifics. Who burned what?”

“Me. Baz. Mo. Mostly Baz. Burned the club.” And then, quickly: “But it was Mo's idea, man. Had this thing about the poof who owned it on account of the poof broke his finger ages ago. And you know Mo could hold a grudge forever.”

“Right, and Innes and the poof are close.”

“You ask me, they're more than that.”

“How so?”

“Seen that poof, he
moons
over Innes. And you should've seen Innes when he started in on Mo.”

I watched Rossie. When I heard stuff like this, stuff that sounded too good to be true, most of the time it
was
too good to be true. But if it held up …

“And that's just the last time I saw him,” said Rossie. “There's all that shite with Mo's sister an' all.”

“What, he fucked Mo's sister?”

Rossie laughed so hard, I moved without thinking and back-handed the cunt across the face. He snapped to one side, breathed out like he had something hot in his mouth.

I backed off, straightened up, and waited for the red to fade from his cheek.

“Don't fuck us about,” I told him. “Now, what about Mo's sister?”

“He went to Newcastle,” said Rossie. “To get her back.”

Far as I knew, Innes went to Newcastle to avoid a fucking murder collar. Because I was tagging him on this stab case I was working. That was what I thought at the time, anyway. I pulled the rollie from my mouth, dropped it on the floor and stepped. Dug around in my pocket until I found my old notepad, moved my chin at Rossie.

“Right, Kevin. Looks like I've been out of the fuckin' loop, doesn't it? So why don't you fill us in about what happened in Newcastle then, eh?”

“I should really be back on the floor by now.”

Rossie looked at the exit. I caught his eye.

“Here, don't worry about your manager, son, worry about me.” I flipped to a clean page. “Now, don't fuck about, start at the beginning, and I'll chip in if I have any questions.”

DONKIN

As Rossie talked, it turned out that I had
plenty
of questions. At one point, that twat manager came in to check up on him. I think he saw the mark on Rossie's face, because he gave us this sickly smile, and then made his excuses. Once he'd gone, I nodded at Rossie to continue.