Bones in the Nest (13 page)

Rick picked up the cappuccino and licked his lips behind Khan’s back, before taking a slurp of Sean’s coffee.

‘Right, Denton. As you know, I’ve pulled the house-to-house team off for now, but I want you to go back on the estate.’

‘Sir?’

‘I don’t want you to do anything, just be there. Hang out, and relax,’ Khan said. ‘Spend some time at your dad’s place.’

Sean nearly choked. ‘I don’t think he’ll want me, especially if I’m on the job.’

‘Not a big fan of the force is he?’ Khan said.

‘That’s an understatement, sir.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘My dad was a miner,’ Sean said, suddenly noticing a mark on the knee of his jeans. He licked his thumb to rub it off. When he looked up, Khan was waiting for more. ‘Uh, well. This was before I was born. He got his hand broken on a picket line by a member of the South Yorkshire Force, as it happens. It never healed properly and he couldn’t go back to work, and then there was no work to go back to. He’s a drinker, has been for years. End of.’

‘Did he try to stop you joining the force?’

‘He didn’t know for a long time. I haven’t had much to do with him, to be honest.’

‘I think you should stay with him for a few days. Would that be possible?’

Sean looked at Khan in horror. ‘You’re kidding? Shit. You’re not kidding.’

‘I want you to be right there, where you can overhear conversations in stairwells, or hang out in the pub, picking up gossip.’

‘Not much chance of that, sir, the pub was burnt down last year and it’s not going to be rebuilt.’

Khan took a sip of coffee. ‘Tell him you’ve changed careers. Taken up money lending.’

Sean said nothing.

‘Another thing, Denton.’

‘Sir?’

‘What have you done to upset DS Simkins? She says you didn’t turn up at Mrs Armley’s and she was somewhat inconvenienced yesterday.’

‘She was early. The old lady wouldn’t let her in. I don’t know why she didn’t wait for me.’

Khan sighed. ‘I can hazard a guess. Don’t take this the wrong way, son, but she’s not over the moon that I seconded you for the investigation. She thinks you’re too inexperienced. Don’t worry. We can use this to our advantage. If anyone asks, you’re off the case while I explore a complaint by another officer.’

‘A complaint?’

Rick had just taken a mouthful of coffee and nearly spat it across the table. ‘With respect, Sam, I don’t think Sean …’

‘Hang on, hang on, the pair of you! It’s a game Simkins is playing. But we can play too, can’t we?’

‘I suppose so,’ Sean said, although he hadn’t got a clue what this was about.

‘So?’ Khan’s eyes were fixed on him, unblinking pools of persuasion.

‘OK. I’ll stay at my dad’s, if that’s what you want me to do.’

‘Excellent.’

Sean felt sick.

Twenty minutes later, he parked his moped by the recreation ground, where he could keep an eye on it, and set off on foot to see who was around on the Chasebridge estate. The whole place felt deserted. The day had turned out muggy and heavy with clouds.

He sat on one of the swings in the little playground and watched a taxi turn the corner, down Darwin Avenue and on to Winston Grove. He recognised the rear seat passenger. Jogging down the pavement to the corner, he was just in time to see a young woman helping someone out of the rear door. As the car pulled away Saleem Asaf shuffled slowly towards the shop, his hands over his abdomen and shoulders hunched against the pain, his sister’s hand on his shoulder. Sean phoned Khan to let him know that Saleem was home, then walked back up to where he’d parked the moped. The blank windows of the Eagle Mount flats stared back at him. What was that phrase his nan used? Between a rock and a hard place.

He got on the moped and drove down the hill, turning below the school. There was a group of four men painting a wall. He pulled up and three of them stopped what they were doing and turned towards him, white paint dripping from their rollers. He could still make out the outline of a purple design on the wall, ghosting through the white. They were going to need a couple more coats to obliterate ‘MOCAT RIP’. Sean flipped up the visor on his helmet.

‘This a council thing? Anti-graffiti?’

‘What’s it to you?’ A stocky, bald man with a thick neck spoke without looking up and carried on painting. Sean thought he recognised him from the CUC meeting.

Sean felt naked without his uniform. ‘Just curious.’

‘We’re putting things right,’ another man said. The bright blue eyes were smiling at him. ‘All right, Sean?’

‘Terry.’

‘We don’t want no Paki kids messing up our estate,’ the thick-necked one was saying. ‘Messing with our girls.’

‘What do you know about them?’ Sean said.

‘Who?’

‘The … Asian kids you think are responsible for that?’ Sean pointed to the outline of ‘
MOCAT RIP
’.

No one spoke.

‘Not much, bro,’ Terry said, ‘except they’re not wanted round here.’ He spat neatly on the ground. As he tipped his head, Sean could see the tattoo on his neck: Made in England.

‘What d’you care anyway?’ The bald man stepped towards Sean, the roller like a weapon in front of him.

‘Gary!’ Terry growled.

‘I heard there was a lad got hurt,’ Sean ventured. ‘An Asian lad?’

‘You heard right,’ Terry said. ‘It’s got to stop. These gentlemen are here to help this community get itself back in working order.’ He held Sean’s gaze and smiled again. ‘See you later.’

Then he turned away and carried on painting the wall. The other two followed him. The one called Gary lowered his paint roller and watched Sean until he got back on the
moped. He revved the engine and took off along Winston Grove. He needed to get his sleeping bag and a few things to take back to his dad’s; he wasn’t looking forward to explaining his plan to Maureen.

At a quarter past eight that evening, Jack opened the door to Sean.

‘What d’you want?’

‘Hi, Dad, I’ve had a bit of a fall out with Nan. Is it all right if I stop over?’

The fall out bit wasn’t even a lie. Maureen said she might as well wash her hands of him if he was going to sleep at his dad’s. He couldn’t explain that it was on Khan’s instructions. He’d put on his old clothes and told her he was going to help Jack decorate.

‘Where’s me hat?’ Jack said.

‘Sorry?’

‘I said where’s me hat?’ Jack jabbed a finger at him. ‘You had it when we went to that meeting. I’ll need it if I’m to go on the march. I’ll catch my death without a hat.’

‘What march?’

‘Reclaim Chasebridge. Torchlit parade. You know. They were on about it at the CUC meeting. It’s tonight. You should come.’

Maybe that’s what Terry Starkey meant when he said ‘see you later’. Jack was still blocking his way into the flat.

‘Can I come in and put my stuff down first?’

He was trying to remember where he’d put Jack’s hat. And then it came to him. He couldn’t get off the estate quickly enough after the Clean Up Chasebridge meeting. Gav had
picked him up at the garage on the dual carriageway and driven him back into town for a drink. He had the hat on when he got in the car and then he must have taken it off and left it there.

‘Sorry, Dad. I’ll get it back for you.’

Jack stood aside and Sean took his sleeping bag and holdall into the living room. From the window he could see a group of people gathering on the grass behind the community centre. The light was fading in the dusk. A flicker caught his eye. Then another. Soon there were half a dozen flames dancing at the end of sticks; hardly a parade, more like a small gathering.

‘Looks like they’re starting, but there’s not many there.’

‘What is?’ Jack said, sitting heavily on the settee and digging his hand down the side of the cushions. ‘Ah, there they are. I thought you had them.’

‘Eh?’

‘My fags. Here they are. I was looking for them.’

Sean watched Jack shakily take one out of the packet. He’d done a bit of research about liver disease. The medical websites were hard work, he had to look up a lot of words, but the bit about toxins building up in the blood and causing the brain to deteriorate was clear enough. It made sense of the vacant look that had come over Jack’s face again.

‘Do you not want to go out, Dad?’

‘No, lad. Let’s get the telly on.’

Sean flicked the curtain shut and switched on the TV.

‘Do you want anything to eat?’

‘No,’ Jack dragged on his cigarette. ‘I’m not hungry.’

They sat in silence watching a reality show, in which a
bunch of teenage kids got drunk in a holiday resort. Khan had made a mistake sending him back here. He wasn’t going to learn anything except what an arse people made of themselves in front of the cameras. The show ended and another one began, only this time it was set in a supermarket and the cameras were following a team recruited from an old people’s home, posing as mystery shoppers.

He thought Jack was asleep, but he lifted a thin arm and rested his hand on Sean’s shoulder. It felt like he might be about to squeeze him, but then Sean’s phone started to ring and the arm dropped back.

‘Hello?’ Sean said.

‘It’s all kicking off at the shops on Winston Grove. There’s a right crowd, with flaming torches. People are throwing stuff.’

‘Nan?’ He moved away from his dad to the window. ‘Are the police there? Have you rung 999?’

‘I expect they’ve been told, there’s alarms going off. Bloody hell!’

‘Nan? Where are you?’

‘Something’s happening at the newsagent’s. It’s on fire.’

‘Get out of there, Nan. Go home.’

The IT class is late starting.

‘I understand you have staffing issues – don’t we all,’ Kath from the council says to Darren, ‘but I’m only paid until nine, so we really need to get going.’

He shrugs and ambles over to plug one of the laptops in at the wall. Taheera hasn’t been back into work and people are saying she’s off sick. Chloe keeps her mouth shut. The class has dwindled to her and Emma. There are soaps on the telly and anyway, the others say they know all this stuff.

Chloe’s heart is racing. She digs her hands deep into her pockets and clenches her jaw to keep her excitement from bubbling over. She has so many things to look up. Kath starts them on bus timetables, which suits Chloe fine, because she’s learnt something new in the last few days and it’s genius. She can have two windows open at once, one hidden and one showing.

‘Windows,’ she says to herself. ‘Get me! I’m using all the lingo now.’

Emma’s sitting opposite her tonight and shoots her a look. Chloe realises she’s spoken her thoughts out loud. She’s glad Emma can’t see her screen. She hasn’t dared put her old self into a search yet because there’s always someone watching, and even now, there’s one more thing she wants to look up before she lets herself take that risk and find out what’s been said about her. She waits until Kath is leaning over to help Emma and launches her second window, rapidly typing in a name. There are more answers in the list than she’s expecting, but as she scrolls down, a sharp stab of recognition causes her to catch her breath.

‘Everything all right?’ Kath says.

Back on the bus timetables, Chloe pretends to care about the Sunday service until Emma demands Kath’s attention again. That’s something she’s noticed about Emma, she’s never happier than when people are fussing around her. Chloe, on the other hand, is quite happy to be left to her own devices. She opens her search results and clicks. There it is. The report of a conviction for armed robbery. He’ll have been away almost as long as her. No mention of his family. The picture is old, but she’s sure it’s him, looking straight down the lens of the mugshot camera, straight at Chloe, like he can see her soul.

Kath is talking about recipes. She reads out the name of a site where they can type in cooking ingredients and it will tell them how to cook them. Some chance, Chloe thinks. In Meredith House all the meals are cooked for them, not that she ever gets back in time to eat any of it. She decides to humour Kath, and chooses random vegetables and meat, as her stomach twists and gurgles. She invents stews and pies
and even a pasta dish that she’ll probably never make, but she still has more searches to do.

Chloe types in ‘Chasebridge, Doncaster’. Her fingers hover, she daren’t click ‘enter’, not yet. She wonders if she’ll find herself at the top of the list or whether she’ll be hidden further back. She dreads the words she saw in the paper, but she needs to know. Kath comes round to her side of the table and Chloe quickly goes back to the food site. Kath shows her how to add or remove ingredients from her list, tells her about the shopping list function, which links to an online delivery page. Emma catches Chloe eye and pulls a face. They’re both in agreement that Kath is from another planet: Planet Polenta.

Finally, Kath moves away and Chloe reopens her hidden search for Chasebridge. At the top of the list is the
BBC Look North
site, updated eight minutes ago. She clicks. The picture is astonishing and there’s a video too. She mutes the sound as her screen fills with flames.

Orange and red filled the evening sky, throwing everything else into shadow. People were rushing towards the source of the fire. Teenagers mostly, but Sean saw a man with a child holding his hand and another with a toddler on his shoulders. The small group he’d seen from his dad’s window had swollen to a crowd. As he ran down the hill, he heard the high quiver of a burglar alarm reaching him in waves. There were people shouting and sirens getting closer. An enormous bang punctured the air and a thick column of black smoke rose ahead of him. Then he was on Winston Grove and saw Khan getting out of a car.

‘Sir!’

Khan looked at him and took a moment to focus. Sean was out of breath and probably looked like shit. He had Jack’s coat covering his T-shirt and his painting jeans underneath. He felt for his badge and was comforted to find it still in his trouser pocket.

‘Nice outfit,’ Khan said.

He wore beige cotton trousers and a buttoned-down shirt under a bomber jacket, all of which screamed plain-clothes policeman. He nodded to Sean. ‘Come on, you can fill me in as we go.’

Ahead of them, a police van was already parked across the road and a young female officer was trying to wave people to safety behind it. Another officer was attaching incident tape to the side of the library building. Sean spotted Gavin and Carly positioned outside the old people’s flats. He looked for his nan, but he couldn’t see her. Opposite the shops, the fire engine crew was pumping water into the broken window of AK News, while beyond it a parked car was burning. Sean saw the outline of three men. Gary and the other two, who’d been painting over the graffiti, were pushing people back, allowing a second fire engine to get near the burning car. He couldn’t see Terry Starkey.

‘Let’s get a bit closer,’ Khan said.

They made their way through the crowd of onlookers. People stepped aside without Khan needing to show his badge. They reached the cordon and a female officer let them step inside. The windows of the newsagent’s shop had shattered. Shards of glass were spread across the pavement, glinting with the reflection of flames. Sean could feel the heat from thirty metres away. Torrents of water were being pumped in by the firefighters and clouds of smoke and steam rolled into the street. The fire hadn’t spread to the neighbouring buildings yet. Sean hoped they’d be able to save the library. Maureen would be lost without her Romance Readers’ Book Group.

‘Tell me about the burning property,’ Khan said. ‘Anything significant?’

‘AK News. It’s the Asafs’ shop. Saleem’s father and uncle own it. I assume the uncle is Mohammad’s dad.’

‘So someone’s targeting the whole family now. Have they got any known enemies locally?’

‘Not that I know of. But I understand there was a meeting, a community thing, and a torchlit march.’ He heard his own words as if someone else had spoken them. He’d made out he wasn’t actually there.

‘What was the meeting for?’

‘Something to do with a clean-up campaign, but I think it was just an excuse, sir, to stir up trouble. A bit extremist, if you know what I mean.’

‘You knew about this and you didn’t think to mention it?’ Khan’s tone was quiet but cold. ‘The purpose of gathering intelligence, Denton, is to pass it on.’

The burglar alarm stopped and the sound of rushing water and steam filled the silence. Khan walked away from him without speaking and repositioned himself by the police van, surveying the scene. Sean stood for a moment, wondering what to do. He turned away from the crowd and followed the police tape down the side of the library, where it was knotted round a drainpipe. He ducked underneath and looked up the narrow track, along the wall of the library building, to the service road behind the parade. It was dark here, and much cooler away from the fire.

At first he didn’t see the figure leaning against the wall, about twenty metres ahead of him, until it stood up straight and slipped away into the darkness. Sean quickened his pace and heard the footsteps ahead of him speed up too, until they were both running. Sean turned the corner but there
was nobody on the service road. It was a dead end. Either the figure had entered the back of one of the other shops, or he’d scaled a six-foot wall, topped with the jagged lines of high-security razor wire.

Sean approached cautiously. The back doors of the library were covered with security shutters. The newsagent’s was the same. If anyone was in the shop when the fire started, he prayed they’d got out. The bookies looked similarly shuttered, which only left the last building in the block, the Health Centre. He spotted an open hopper window above a frosted pane of glass. It must be a toilet. If anyone had got in there, they must have tiny, narrow hips. He watched the window and instinctively felt for his radio, but he didn’t have one, only his phone.

He tried to concentrate on what was happening in front of him. He was sure the person who’d run away must have got into the back of the Health Centre. He kept it in his sights and backed down the alley, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he didn’t back into the wall, or anyone else who might be skulking in the dark. When he got to the corner, he stopped. He had a feeling he was being watched. He called Khan’s number. It rang and rang; the noise of the fire must have been drowning it out.

Khan finally picked up.

‘Sir, I’m behind the shops. I’ve got a potential suspect who I think has got into the back of the Health Centre.’

‘Description?’

‘Male, about 5’5, 5’6, I think.’

‘IC?’

‘I wouldn’t like to say, sir.’

‘Don’t worry. You won’t offend me.’

‘I’m not. Worried, I mean. But I didn’t get much of a look. It’s dark back here. I think he’s young from the way he moved. Fifteen, sixteen?’

‘Saleem?’

‘Could be.’

He could hear footsteps in the side alley before he’d even put his phone back in his pocket. A female uniformed officer and DCI Khan were coming towards him. He ran ahead to make sure nothing had changed around the Health Centre window.

‘Did you look inside?’ Khan said as they reached him.

Sean shook his head. The female officer had her torch out and was shining it at the window frame.

‘There’s blood here,’ she said, ‘but the glass is intact.’

‘Good work, Denton. Now, make yourself useful and see if you can find a number for a keyholder for this place. They’re bound to have a security contract with someone.’

Sean scanned the back of the building for a sign or a plaque. There was a CCTV camera but it was too high up to read the writing.

‘I’ll have a look round the front. Back in a minute.’

He looked towards the dead end of the service road, but it was surrounded by the same brick walls, topped with razor wire. He’d have to go the long way round, past the burning shop front and the audience of onlookers.

On the street, the riot police had arrived. They were parked beyond the second fire engine, crouched inside their van like bees waiting to swarm and sting. They hadn’t been stirred up to attack yet; their presence was a warning to a
section of the crowd who looked like they might fancy a fight.

‘All right, mate.’

Someone jostled Sean’s arm. It was Terry Starkey. The moving crowd pushed them closer together until Terry put his arm round Sean’s shoulder. Sean felt his grip and looked in vain towards the Health Centre. There were over a hundred people between him and the information he needed to get a keyholder. He could see that the front of the building was completely shuttered up, so the suspect must still be inside. Maybe Khan and the officer had given up waiting and kicked the window in by now.

‘Here, look, it’s the TV,’ Terry shouted and swung round with Sean still in his grip, right into the path of a cameraman. ‘This’ll make you famous.’

At that moment, a woman in a red coat pushed a microphone in front of them.

When Sean got to his nan’s house, a PCSO jacket was hanging over a chair in the kitchen. Carly was in the living room, a smut of soot still smeared across her cheek, sharing the settee with Maureen.

‘All right, Nan,’ Sean said. ‘See you’ve made yourself at home, Carly.’

‘Sorry, mate, have I pinched your spot?’ She made no effort to move.

‘No, but you’ve pinched one of my beers.’

‘No fighting. They’re my beers to hand out as I please and Carly was kind enough to see me home.’ Maureen looked up from the television. ‘There’s one left in the fridge, love.’

‘Be quick though, Sean,’ Carly said, ‘the news is coming on. You might see me in a starring role.’

Sean helped himself to a beer. He wouldn’t mind skipping the news. He had a nagging feeling that he’d be the one in the starring role. They sat through a long piece about a slump in UK manufacturing.

‘Nothing new there, it’s been slumped round here since the Three-Day Week,’ Maureen said. She settled the cat on her lap and lit up a cigarette.

When the local news came on, they could see the fire crew pouring water into the broken window of AK News. Sean spotted Carly’s back on the far right of the screen, arms wide like a one-woman human cordon.

‘A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do,’ she said.

Sean didn’t need
Look North
’s help in reliving the evening. By the time he’d got the number of the security firm, from a plaque above the front window of the Health Centre, Khan was on the phone to say they’d got a couple of lads from the riot van to batter in the back door. Inside a locked toilet they’d found a very miserable looking Saleem Asaf. Sean was told to stand down, but he was to report to Khan, back at the station, first thing in the morning.

The programme cut to Winston Grove. A familiar figure was standing next to the
Look North
woman, leaning towards the microphone as if he was about to burst into song. Terry Starkey. He had his arm round the shoulder of someone off-screen. Sean sipped his beer but he couldn’t swallow it.

‘It’s people from outside, coming onto our estate,’ Terry Starkey told the camera. ‘Dealing drugs, bringing trouble in,
that’s what the police are telling us. They can have dozens of coppers down here for one dead Paki, but on an everyday basis? We don’t see no one.’

Then the camera pulled back and there was Sean, smiling. Fucking smiling. What the hell had come over him?

‘Who the …?’ Carly spluttered and sat bolt upright, sloshing beer onto Maureen’s carpet.

‘Is that you, love?’ Maureen turned to look at him, taking in the same T-shirt, the same haircut, as if he could possibly have a double out there who’d stolen his clothes. By the time she looked back at the screen, the image had changed back to the burning shop. They sat silently, staring, but he didn’t reappear. Carly took out a tissue and mopped at the beer on the carpet.