Deadly Friends (7 page)

She was picking at her fingernails, absent-mindedly removing imaginary dirt from under them with her thumbnail, a faraway expression on her face. ‘It’d be nice if they could come up with something,’ she said. She wanted Darryl behind bars.

‘Day after tomorrow,’ I told her. ‘We’ll have a word with him then. Put it in your new diary.’

Sparky was pulling his coat on. ‘I’ll get down to the squat, Boss,’ he said. ‘See if they need any help.’

‘OK. I’ll probably be here if you want me, but try not to.’ I didn’t envy them, having to cope with all the residents, plus children and animals. It’d be a pantomime.

‘What are you doing tonight?’ he asked.

‘Not sure. Haven’t thought about it.’

‘In that case, come round. See the New Year in with us.’

‘Aren’t you going out?’

‘No. Sophie’s going to a party, so Daniel would be left on his own. We’ll stay in with him.’

‘Right, thanks. I’ll come round late on, if that’s OK?’

‘See you then. I might have to tear myself away to fetch Sophie. The joys of fatherhood,’ he added, making a face.

A copy of The Sun was lying on Jeff Caton’s desk, with the headline ‘5,000 New Cops’. I picked it up and read the story.

It didn’t take long. The streets were about to be reclaimed for the people. The PM’s new initiative would meet the muggers and vandals and drug pushers head-on, make them realise that they had no future in the New Society. Suddenly, we had Society again. They made it sound as if our towns and villages would be flooded with policemen. You’d be able to walk your dog at two in the morning, safe in the knowledge that a friendly bobby would be standing on every street corner.

I pulled out my calculator and typed 5,000 into it. Divide by forty-three forces, except that the Met would get the lion’s share, then by the seventeen divisions in East Pennine and the number of stations in Heckley. We cover twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, but each officer only works five eight-hour shifts. I tapped the appropriate keys. Then there’s holidays, training courses and sick leave. I hit the equals button and watched as minute electrical forces shuffled
molecules into new locations, spelling out a number. It said that at any given time the citizens of Heckley would have the benefit of an extra 0.49 of a policeman on duty. Allowing for meal breaks, paperwork and time in court, it worked out as the equivalent of a rooky wolf cub. Halle-flipping-lujah.

I did a report for Makinson and caught up with the burglaries. Lunch was a mug of tea. The doctor in Wandsworth was on his rounds, I was told, but I’d catch him about ten to four. Sparky rang to say that they’d found nothing of interest at the squat and Nigel told me that Skinner’s brother-in-law had been traced. He’d be having a word with him shortly.

It had never looked good, and then it all fell to pieces. Nigel came in with the till receipts and they sounded just like the one a Traffic officer from Cambridgeshire described to me. The doctor in Wandsworth verified that he had been contacted by Dr Jordan, and Skinner had collected his prescriptions from him like a good little boy. Jim and Mary were stalwarts of the local church and supported Skinner’s story, and finally, we didn’t have a weapon.

‘Let him go,’ Superintendent Wood said.

‘Let him go,’ Chief Superintendent Isles concurred.

‘You can go,’ I told Skinner. The only bright spot was the thought of the look on Makinson’s sunburnt face when he learnt the news, and I wondered how I could wangle being there at the time.

I hung around in the office until I knew the Bamboo
Curtain would be open and had my favourite, duck in plum sauce, for tea, washed down with a pint of lager. There was no reason why I shouldn’t have a little celebration of my own. The place was almost empty, so early in the evening, and the proprietor came and shared a pot of Chinese tea with me, on the house. Later, it would be rowdy with drunks, but the staff would serve them with patience and courtesy, their contempt suppressed by ten thousand years of oppression.

There were no messages on my ansaphone but the postman had made a delivery. The various financial organisations that knew my address were suggesting that now was the time to reorganise my lifestyle and the house insurance was due. I binned most of it and had a shower.

I had no clean shirts. Well, no decent ones. I don’t wear designer clothes and automatically reject anything with the label on the outside. If they want me to advertise their wares they should pay me, or at least bring their prices down. All jeans are made from the same material on the same machines to the same measurements. Only the labels vary, with perhaps an odd row of decorative stitching. I buy mine in the market at half price. I pulled on a pair that had that washed-once look, when the colour is at its brightest.

There is one exception to my aversion to style. Wrangler do a shirt that has a row of mother-of-pearl press-studs down the front instead of buttons, and the
first time I saw one I thought that one day all shirts would be like that. Harold Wilson was at Number Ten at the time, but Scott McKenzie was at number one. I found a faded example in the recesses of the wardrobe and put it on. I was only going to Sparky’s; I’d do.

Once upon a time I thought I was trendy, at art school, when I was competing with the other young blokes, like a stag at rutting time. I had an Afghan coat. I gave it to the Oxfam shop, and a couple of years ago I’m sure I saw it on telly, when Kabul fell. What goes around comes around.

I made a mug of tea and relaxed for a while to a Dire Straits CD, hoping Annabelle would call me. It was ten o’clock when the phone rang, as I was opening my front door, leather jacket half on, half off.

‘Priest!’ I snapped into it, with faked authority.

‘Hi, Charlie. Pete Drago. How are you?’

Hiya, Dragon,’ I replied. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. I’m fine, how are you?’

‘I’m OK, thanks. Counting the days, of course, like you, I suppose.’

‘Time flies, don’t remind me.’

‘It doesn’t seem like fifteen years since I rescued you from that big nympho when we were at the Academy.’

‘Your memory’s playing tricks. It was me who rescued you.’

‘No it wasn’t. I was knocking her off for the rest of the course.’

‘So were most of the others.’

‘Then everyone was happy. I wonder what happened to her?’

‘I married her. So where are you, these days?’

‘Ha ha! Good one. I’m at Penrith, back in uniform.’

‘Penrith? What took you there?’

‘It was either move up here and go back into uniform or have my buttons cut off in front of the massed troops of the division. It’s not too bad.’

‘I get the message. It sounds as if you haven’t changed much.’

‘It was a long time ago. Listen, I rang Padiham Road for a chat with a couple of old pals and they said you’d been after me.’

‘That’s right. We have a suspected rapist called Darryl Buxton who may have originated in Burnley. There’s nothing on the PNC for him, so I was hoping for some local knowledge.’

‘That’s what I was told. When I heard the name the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, except that it’s not quite right. The bloke I’m thinking of is called Darryl Burton.’

‘Burton?’ I repeated. ‘No, this is definitely Buxton. What did your man do?’

‘He raped a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, eight years ago. Invited two of them to his flat one bank holiday Monday and plied them with cheap wine. One of them passed out and he raped the other. He pleaded not guilty and just before the trial the girl’s parents withdrew the charges. It had been made plain to them that he
intended destroying her credibility in court. I think she knew what it was all about.’

‘It sounds like our man. What does he look like?’

The description could have been read from Maggie’s report: ‘Yuppy meets football hooligan’ was his final assessment.

‘It’s him,’ I said. ‘He’s moved away from Burnley and changed his name.’

‘If it is the same bloke he’s a nasty piece of work. He was only about twenty, but he worked as a heavy – a repo man – for a firm of bailiffs, or something.’

‘This one works for an estate agency called Homes 4U. He’s a branch manager.’

‘That’s them! Homes 4U. Estate agency is putting it a bit high, I’d say. They’re not above calling round to slow payers with the baseball bats.’

‘Great. You’ve been a big help, Pete. We’re bringing him in after the New Year, so it’ll be good to have some background on him.’

‘I haven’t finished yet,’ he said. ‘I left a few months later, but I’ve a feeling that he pulled something similar after I’d gone. The man to talk to is called Herbert Mathews. He was our collator but he retired on ill health about a year ago. I’ll give you his address. If it breathed in Burnley, Herbert knew about it.’

We chatted for a while, agreeing that we ought to get together, knowing we wouldn’t. We’d said our farewells when a thought struck him. ‘Charlie!’ he shouted as I was replacing the phone.

‘Yeah.’

‘I just thought of something. I believe you told Padiham Road that this rape was on Christmas Eve?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, the one I investigated was on a bank holiday Monday.’

‘So?’

‘So you know what tonight is? Maybe there’s a pattern.’

‘Shit!’

‘Quite.’

‘Happy New Year.’

‘Thanks. And you.’

We rang off and I sat thinking for a while. Sparky’s wife, Shirley, answered when I dialled their number.

‘Hi, Shirl,’ I said. ‘Would you be terribly disappointed if I didn’t come round? I’m falling asleep and don’t think I’ll be very good company.’

‘I’ll be a teeny bit disappointed,’ she replied, ‘but my teenage daughter will be devastated.’

‘Sophie? I thought she was at a party.’

‘She just rang to say it was boring, so Dave’s gone to fetch her. At least, that was her excuse. She’ll be upset when you’re not here.’

‘I doubt it,’ I said.

‘Charlie,’ Shirley began, ‘don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that your goddaughter has an almighty crush on you.’

‘Er, no, can’t say I have.’

‘Well she has.’

‘Oh heck. What do we do about it?’

‘Nothing. We’re hoping she’ll see the light. Are you sure you can’t come round?’

I wanted to. These days invitations are rarer than apprenticeships at the Job Centre. I nearly made a joke about having me for a son-in-law, but decided not to. It was a delicate subject. ‘Listen, Shirley,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell Sparky – Dave – but something’s cropped up. I’m going to the nick for an hour, see if I can help, that’s all.’

‘Oh, right. So what shall I say when they come in?’

‘Tell Sophie that I’m curled up in front of the fire with a mug of cocoa and the latest Jeffrey Archer. That should do it.’

‘Aversion therapy.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Charlie?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Thanks, love. And be careful.’

The town centre was crowded with groups of young people, singing and swaying, spilling into the road as they toured the pubs. Some wore funny hats or strands of streamers round their necks. Nobody wore a coat. They breed ’em tough, these days. The wind had swung again, away from the Pole, but it was still thinner than orphanage custard. Fortunately, alcohol is
a good antidote. Tests have shown that vast quantities of it slopping around in the stomach are equivalent to wearing two vests and a jumper.

I eased the car through the crowd, towards the Tap and Spile. The sexes were still segregated, but the time for mass pairing-off was rapidly approaching. A group of giggling girls sharing hardly enough clothes for one staggered into the road. I stopped and waved them across, and the one who got the blouse blew me a kiss. A party of young men in T-shirts shouted at them. Love was in the air, empathy was running high, but it could all change at the drop of a lager bottle or a misunderstood come-on. It was just a matter of time.

Darryl’s silver Mondeo wasn’t in the Tap’s car park. If he had any sense he’d have used a taxi, tonight of all nights. I eased out into the street again and worked my way round most of the town-centre pubs, without finding him. Uniform branch were out in force, but I didn’t speak with them.

Once I was clear of the throng I hot-wheeled it to the fancy canal-side development where Darryl lived. It had started life as a wool warehouse, a century and a half ago, when buildings were made to last but there was still something in the budget for ornamentation. It escaped the vandals in the town hall by the thickness of a small bundle of tenners and was now a highly desirable block of upmarket apartments, complete with security gates and private moorings. Most of the parking spots were occupied, but not by Darryl’s car. I noticed that some of
his neighbours were doing a lot better than he was.

I telephoned the nick and asked for all cars to look out for him. If anyone radioed in with a contact, tell them, I said, to check if he was with a woman. If he was, they had to ruin his chances. I can be a heartless so-and-so. If Charlie’s not getting it, nobody gets it.

I drove back to the Tap. The streets were quieter, with everybody inside the pubs, pouring the last desperate drinks down their throats, as if prohibition came in on the chime of midnight. A minibus of women pulled out, leaving a big parking space for me.

I’d forgotten how crowded pubs could be. Did I once enjoy this? I couldn’t believe I ever had. It was shoulder to shoulder, with a pall of smoke hugging the ceiling. At my height I was getting a superdose. I looked around and started to fight my way to one of the anterooms that branched off the main saloon, in search of a drink, or some air.

The landlord was behind the main bar, serving drinks to the four-deep throng like a robot. An order would be shouted at him or one of his staff and a tenner passed across. Pints were pulled and a handful of coins given back. Then on to the next customer. Nobody checked their change. The sumo wrestler was dressed in red, her hair piled impossibly high. She looked as if she should have been standing at the far end of a bowling alley.

It was marginally quieter in the far room, except for the constant procession to the toilets. I yelled an order for a pint of lager over someone’s head. He turned
indignantly, found himself staring at my chest and decided to wait. The barman passed me a can.

‘We’ve no glasses,’ he shouted.

‘Does that make it cheaper?’

‘No.’

I handed him a pound coin and said: ‘Call it right.’

‘It’s eighty pence short,’ he replied.

‘They’re only seventy-five pence in Safeway’s,’ I protested.

‘Then go do your drinking there,’ he told me.

I gave him another pound and turned away.

A bunch of women were filing into the ladies’, handbags at the ready. I stood back for them and found a piece of wall to lean on. Darryl might have been there, but I couldn’t see anyone who fitted the picture I’d formed of him in my mind. Sometimes, that’s a misleading thing to do. I wiped the top of the can with my shirt cuff and took a swig. It was warm.

The first of the women emerged from the loo and stood waiting for her friends, so they could form a united assault on the wall of bodies they had to negotiate. I looked, then looked again. She had the kind of figure and face that turn brave men into quiche eaters. I sidled towards her, noting that she looked nervous, out of her natural habitat, in that crowded place.

‘Anyone would think it was New Year’s Eve,’ I said, pulling up alongside her. Might as well go straight into the clever stuff.

She gave me a little smile. ‘I saw you come in,’
she replied. ‘How did you manage to get served so quickly?’

‘Influence,’ I replied. I waved my free hand expansively and glanced around. ‘I, er, just happen to own the place.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ she laughed. ‘You’re Pete Stringfellow.’

She had a large face, with shoulder-length wavy hair, streaked with blond. Her eyes, nose and lips were all extravagant, giving her an earthy appearance, but her shoulders, bare apart from the thin straps of her dress, were narrow and delicate. It wasn’t really a dress, more like an underslip, in a silken material that clung to her curves as if by static electricity.

‘His son, actually,’ I said. ‘If you’ll let me buy you a drink I could demonstrate how I did it.’

‘Thanks, but I’m all right. We’re just leaving.’

‘That’s life,’ I said, resignedly.

‘We’re going to a party. Well, it’s not really a party. Just a few girls having a laugh, sort of thing.’ After a pause she added: ‘You could always come to let the New Year in …’

It was tempting, but I heard myself saying: ‘Thanks all the same, but I’d probably spoil your evening.’

‘Yes, you probably would,’ she replied, smiling.

‘Is this your local?’ I asked, choosing my words carefully to avoid the oldest chat-up line in the world.

‘No. First time I’ve ever been in. Is it yours?’

‘Similar. My third time in about twenty years. Probably my last, too.’

One of her friends came out of the loo, retrieved a champagne glass with a cherry in it that she’d left on a table, and joined us. She had wild frizzy hair and spectacles with luminous green frames. ‘You’re a dark horse, Jackie,’ she said. ‘So who’s this you’ve been keeping a secret, hey?’

Jackie of the generous lips stared into my eyes with a pair that looked as if they’d been sculpted from porcelain and glass by a mad scientist. Eyes like that are not just windows to the soul, they are an expression of the glory of creation – like the first buds of spring, or the Milky Way seen through a telescope. The lashes that framed them were long and heavily mascaraed, but they were all her own.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘he’s just an old friend. He’s called, er, Hugo.’

‘Hello, Hugo,’ Green Specs said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve another friend for me, have you?’

I decided to play it strong and silent. I said: ‘No.’

There was a crash and a scream from the other room, and we all turned to look. A youth came barging towards us, chased by several others, fighting their way through the crowd that was parting like the Red Sea. They dragged him down and fists and feet started going in. The first youth’s buddies rallied to his support with chairs and bottles and soon the air was filled with flying missiles and the screams of women.

Jackie’s friends coming out of the ladies’ came up against another bunch trying to get in, away from the
violence. I pushed open the door to the gents’ and said: ‘In here,’ propelling Green Specs and Jackie through it. I held it open until all the women were inside and followed them.

The blokes shaking the drops off were bemused by the sudden influx of talent into their sacrosanct space. ‘Come to help me, luv?’ one of them said.

‘Who do you think I am,’ a girl replied, ‘Tinkerbelle?’

I leant on the door, holding it closed against the hammering on the other side. A toilet flushed and a big chap, about six-six, came out of one of the stalls, stuffing his shirt into his waistband. His first thought when he saw the women was that he’d been in the wrong toilets, and his expression of panic reduced us all to a mass fit of helpless giggling. Jackie fell shaking against me and I wrapped my arms around her and sobbed with laughter into her hair. I enjoyed that bit.

When the thunder of war had rolled away I took a tentative peek out, then pulled the door wide open. The place looked as if it had been hit by a pre-emptive strike by the Sandinistas. Every table and chair was overturned and people stood around dazed by the suddenness of it all. Girls wept and boyfriends comforted them with cuddles and braggadocio. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, as if from cannon fire, and the clock behind the bar showed one minute past midnight. We’d missed it.

A small crowd stooped around a figure sitting on the floor near the bar, so I walked over, feet crunching on broken glass, to see if assistance was required. It was the landlord, bleeding profusely from a head wound. There is a God, I thought.

‘Got ’it by a can,’ a youth explained.

‘Not light ale, I hope,’ I replied.

‘No, it looked like Webster’s to me.’ I was obviously in the presence of an aficionado.

A hand slipped into mine and I turned to find Jackie with me. ‘We’re going,’ she said. ‘Our taxi’s here. I just wanted to say goodnight. And Happy New Year.’

She tipped her head back and stood on tiptoe, for a kiss. I planted one smack on those gorgeous lips, like I’d wanted to do ever since I’d first met her, sometime last year. Her eyes were sparkling, literally – a million fireflies whirling and spiralling in them in some ritual dance of passion. I pulled her closer and revelled in my newly acquired power over women. The floor was sparkling, too. I looked up and saw that we were standing under the globe of mirrors, which had been turned on for extra atmosphere.

‘Happy New Year,’ I sighed, stealing an extra squeeze. ‘I’ll come out with you. Where’s your coat?’

‘I haven’t brought one.’

‘You’ll freeze to death. And mind your feet on the glass.’ As we reached the door a pair of bobbies in flak jackets strolled in, big and intimidating. I winked and received a brief nod of recognition. In the car park I
said: ‘It’s Charlie, by the way. Hugo’s identical twin.’

‘Hello, Charlie. And goodbye. I’m Jacqueline. Are you sure you won’t come to this party?’

‘No. I’d better not.’

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’

‘But you have a girlfriend?’

‘Yes.’

‘I bet she’s rather special, isn’t she?’

Her friends were squeezing themselves into the back of a white Granada. ‘This is ours, Jackie,’ one of them called to her.

‘Yes, she is,’ I said.

‘Ah, well,’ she sighed.

Jackie was shivering with cold. My jacket was unzipped and I enfolded her in it as we kissed for the last time. Her lips parted ever so slightly before she took them away. The curve of her back, the silken material under my hands, and the smell of her reached parts of me that no fizzy lager ever did.

‘Either put him down or bring him with you,’ Green Specs was saying. We disengaged reluctantly and Green Specs gave me a cherry brandy peck. She was still holding the champagne glass. I reached out and took it from her.

‘Jackie!’ I called as she moved towards the taxi.

She turned back to me. ‘Be careful,’ I said, quietly. ‘There’s some nasty people about.’

‘Are you a policeman?’ she asked.

I stooped until my lips were next to her ear. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I’m a policewoman in disguise.’

Her laugh was every bit as generous as the rest of her. ‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘They knew you.’

‘Listen,’ I went on. ‘If you ever come across a man called Darryl, run away, drop him, fast as you can. Understand?’ She looked concerned and nodded.

‘And tell your friends.’

‘Darryl. Right. And you be careful, too, Charlie.’

As the taxi drove away three faces turned in the back seat, pale in the street lights, and hands waved. I waved back and cursed myself for being fifty kinds of fool. There was a footfall beside me, and one of the PCs said: ‘Trust the CID to get all the perks.’

‘Life’s a bitch,’ I said, planting the champagne glass in his gloved hand. ‘Here, have one on me.’

Next morning I awoke with a hangover. At first I blamed the monosodium glutamate in the Chinese, until I remembered the large gin and tonic I’d taken to bed with me. I’ve never done that before, and it didn’t start out as a large one. It was just that some adjusting of quantities was required after the initial sip, and before I knew it the tumbler was full. Annabelle had left greetings on the ansaphone, and I was missing her. The g and t was compensation.