Death in Dark Waters (13 page)

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Authors: Patricia Hall

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural

BOOK: Death in Dark Waters
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“Michael,” she said softly.
“The Warp and Weft in half-an-hour,” he said at last, naming a pub where they were unlikely to meet any of his colleagues or hers. He was already sitting at a corner table when she arrived, surrounded by an array of old wool mill relics, now collectors items rather than anything with much bearing on Bradfield's economy. He had a glass of tonic and ice in front of him and a similar glass which Laura hoped contained
vodka as well as tonic on the opposite side of the table. Laura slipped off her coat and dumped it on an empty chair and leaned across the table to kiss his cheek.
“I've been confining my inquiries to the town hall this morning,” she said. “Am I forgiven?”
“Of course you are,” he said, wondering whether there were any circumstances in which he would not forgive this woman who still sent his heart lurching, and other men's heads turning, when she walked into a room, copper hair flying and eyes sparkling. “But you mustn't expect me not to worry if you take risks.”
“I know,” she said, her expression sober. “Anyway, I'm into the murky waters of local politics this morning. Physically safer but not that much cleaner, I suspect. Did you know that they're going to pull down the flats up at Wuthering and turf most of the residents out. They'll have to make do with surplus accommodation no one else wants while yuppies move in up the hill. They're even planning to pull the old folks' bungalows down. Joyce will go bananas when she hears.”
“She'll be out with her protest banners again, then?” Thackeray asked, though with affection.
“‘Fraid so,” Laura said. “She's already in the whiz-kid Spencer's bad books for trying to get him to fund the IT project up on the Heights that keeps getting trashed. You know, Spencer said something very odd about that. Wasn't Barry Foreman the guy with the twins who nearly got shot out at Benwell Lane last year? The security company boss?”
“What about him?” Thackeray asked, hoping that Laura's antennae would not pick up the spark of excitement she had fanned into life.
“Spencer said he wanted to work with “the youth”. Has he taken up philanthropy or something? I mentioned it to Ted Grant and he seemed to think Foreman was God's gift to the poor and needy too. Not the impression I got when I met him, I must say.”
“Jack Longley told me Foreman had got himself involved
in the regeneration committee up there,” Thackeray said carefully. “But I thought it was a donation they were after rather than anything more hands-on.”
“Ted Grant's got himself appointed onto that too,” Laura said. “Are they recruiting the great and the good, or just those who like to imagine they are?”
“The rich and the influential, more like,” Thackeray suggested. “And Grant will be a useful ally to have if there's going to be a lot of protest up there.”
“I'd like to be able to say that my respected editor couldn't be bought but I reckon that's wishful thinking. He's never been out looking for the radical campaigning journalism awards, hasn't Ted. And he's done his damndest to make sure none of the rest of us are in the running either.”
“With limited success in your case,” Thackeray said, not quite able to keep a note of disapproval out of his voice. “So is this your next campaign then? Hands off the Heights? Save our local eyesore?”
Laura drained her drink and gave Thackeray one of her most beatific smiles.
“You're pushing your luck, Chief Inspector,” she said. “No one's going to mind if they blow those flats up tomorrow. It's what happens next that matters.”
He got up and planted a kiss on the top of her copper curls.
“Let me get you a sandwich,” he said. “And then you can tell me how Joyce is going to lead her troops into battle against the town hall. All we poor coppers'll get is the blame when the protests turn nasty and a few rioters get their heads clouted.” Laura watched him shoulder his way through the lunch-time crowds with a rugby player's ease, and felt a sudden surge of emotion. She knew how determinedly Thackeray wanted to protect her but she wondered if he knew how she too felt that protective urge, not to shield him from physical harm, which he if anyone, she guessed, could cope with, but from the sort of damage which his marriage had inflicted. There came a point in any relationship, she thought,
when it became almost impossible to envisage life without the other half of it, and she guessed she had reached that point with Thackeray. Although whether that resolved anything in the long term she was less sure. You might cleave to a rock, but that didn't mean that in the end your grip might not slip and the tide dash you to pieces on its jagged edges.
 
Michael Thackeray did not go straight back to his office after lunch. Instead he picked up his car, made a call on his mobile and headed out of town to a pub set back from the traffic on the Manchester Road. The man he had arranged to meet was sitting alone at a table at the back of the lounge bar and glanced around anxiously when the policeman came in. He was a small tired-looking individual in a grey suit which had seen better days, his collar dusted with dandruff, his fingers yellowed by nicotine. His pale blue eyes flickered nervously from Thackeray to the other customers in the bar and back again.
“I'm not too keen on meeting like this,” Stanley Wilson said as Thackeray pulled out a stool and sat down opposite him. “I know you did me a favour …”
“And one deserves another, Stanley,” Thackeray said, without a flicker of sympathy.
“You could get me into a lot of trouble.”
“And you could get into a lot of trouble if you're caught again with an under-age lad. You only got away with it last time because anyone would have taken Malcolm for twenty if he was a day. And he was obviously willing enough.”
“You'd not have got a conviction,” Wilson said bitterly. “Malky wouldn't'ave hung around for a court case.”
“You were willing to take a chance, were you?”
Wilson shook his head imperceptibly.
“Exactly,” Thackeray said. “So in return for that caution, which was more than you deserved, I need some information. You're still working for Barry Foreman, are you?”
Wilson nodded gloomily.
“I'm only t'bloody dogsbody in that office,” he muttered. “I don't get to hear owt important.”
“It's not Barry's books I'm interested in at the moment,” Thackeray said, although that was not strictly true. “I wondered if there was any word in the office about his girlfriend? Karen? And the kids?”
Wilson shook his head in some bemusement. “She buggered off, didn't she? That's what I heard.”
“With the babies?”
Wilson's eyes flickered round the room again.
“You can't imagine him keeping two kids on his tod, can you?” he asked. “Word is they weren't his, any road.”
“So Barry hasn't talked about the twins since Karen left?” Thackeray persisted.
“He never talked about them much before she left,” Wilson said. “I reckon Rottweilers'd be more chuffed to be dads. Funny thing was, he seemed to be quite looking forward to it before it happened. He must have thought they were his then, mustn't he? But after, he were wild about summat. He never said nowt. He never does, does ‘e. But you could tell he had one o'them moods on 'im. That's the time to keep your head down wi'Barrry. He's an evil bastard when he's crossed.”
“Did you ever see him with Karen? Or the twins?”
“Nah,” Wilson said, lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the previous one. “He's not the sort who'd bring kids to the office, is he? Not your new man.” Wilson sniggered, choking on his cigarette smoke. “Karen used to come in now and then,” he added, wiping tears from his eyes. “She came in once in a right mood. You could hear them at it all over the office. Summat about her credit card being withdrawn.”
“When was that?” Thackeray asked, his eyes sharpening. “Before the twins were born or after?”
Wilson screwed up his face as if in pain and allowed Thackeray to refill his pint glass at the bar before he came up with a reply. He took a long pull at his drink.
“After they arrived, I reckon. I remember her being
pregnant. Like a barrel, she were. But not this time. She had one of them slinky trouser suits on, tight fit, belly button on show, all that. Back to normal, you might say. Looked as if she'd been shopping. It must have been after t'kids were born. It's not that long ago.”
“And that's the last time you saw her?”
Wilson nodded.
“I want you to ask around and see if anyone else has seen Karen - or the babies - since then,” Thackeray said. Wilson turned his glass on the wet ring it had made on the table and looked dubious.
“Ask around who, Mr. Thackeray?” he asked. “They'll think I'm soft in t'head. Why would I be asking around after Barry's tart? Me, of all people?”
“Keep it casual,” Thackeray said. “The women in the office always know what's going on with the boss's love life. Keep your ears open and see what you can pick up. The girls'll trust you, won't they? I want to know if Karen was seen in Bradfield later than that row over the credit card. OK?”
“Summat in it for me, then, is there?” Wilson avoided Thackeray's eyes and his voice took on a whining note.
“You've had all you'll get out of me,” Thackeray said, getting to his feet. “Call me on my mobile if you hear anything of interest.” He scribbled the number on a beer mat and thrust it towards Wilson. “I've not forgotten Malcolm, Stanley, even if you have.”
Wilson watched Thackeray as he walked swiftly towards the door.
“Fuck you,” he said softly under his breath, but he put the mat in his pocket just the same.
Glancing into the main CID office on his way back to his desk, Thackeray's attention was caught by a flushed looking DC Mohammed Sharif standing by Val Ridley's desk. Ridley caught his eye.
“You decided to close it then,” she said.
“Close what?”
“The Carib Club. It's all over the Gazette. Didn't you know, boss?” Sharif said triumphantly.
Thackeray glanced at the paper Val pushed in his direction and soon picked up the same triumphant note in Bob Baker's story, in which Grantley Adams and the imam at the local mosque vied for the credit of closing down the den of iniquity on Chapel Street. His face tightened but he said nothing as he finished with the paper and folded it neatly.
“Can I borrow this?” he asked.
“Sure,” Val said. “I hear uniform isn't very pleased. Reckon it'll cause more trouble than it prevents.”
“They should be pleased there's one less source of drugs in town,” Sharif said. “D'you want us to follow up on the DJ, Sanderson, boss? He has to be dealing. I can smell it.”
“It could just be that your sense of smell's a bit off,” Thackeray said. “And that could worry me a lot, Omar.”
Thackeray went upstairs to Superintendent Jack Longley's office and barely waited for the secretary to clear his visit before pushing open the door.
“I see we went ahead with closing down the Carib,” he said, dropping the newspaper with its banner headline in front of Longley. “The drug squad's charged someone, have they?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Longley said. “It's a voluntary move. And temporary. Let's just say that they were persuaded, shall we? Seven days peace and quiet while things calm down.”
“Whose idea was that, then?”
“Mine, as it goes,” Longley said tetchily. “We've interviews to complete. And I want the place searched thoroughly. Sniffer dogs in, the lot.”
“And you want Adams off your back.”
“Amongst others,” Longley admitted. “But he's not the only one. As far as I can see the only person who wants the place kept open is Barry Foreman, and that's only because
there.”
“A bit like asking the fox to mind the hen-house,” Thackeray said.
Longley looked at the DCI and wondered how far he was beginning to let his prejudices cloud his judgement.
“Aye, well, I've told you what I think about that,” he said, mildly enough. “It's evidence you need.”
Thackeray looked at his boss's bland expression for a moment, wondering whether to share his worries about Karen Bailey and her children but at a loss to summon up a single concrete piece of evidence for his fears so he decided against it.
“He'll trip up eventually,” he said.
“Maybe.”
“I'll guarantee it,” Thackeray said.
Kevin Mower leaned across the boy at the computer screen, a burly youth in dark tracksuit and baseball cap, and flicked a key.
“Use the spell-check,” he said. “Look, it brings up the underlined word and suggests the correct spelling.”
“Oh, yeah,” the boy muttered, evidently astonished by the power of the technology. “If we'ad this at school I mighta' got me GCSEs. It were the writing and spelling that did for me every time.”
“Everyone uses word-processors now,” Mower said. “If you can get to grips with this you'll find it much easier. Then you can do a course at the college if you want to later on.”
“They won't tek me at t′college,” the boy said, successfully replacing Hites with Heights.
“Of course they will if you put in a bit of practice here,” Mower said cheerfully. The boy shrugged uncertainly.
“Mebbe,” he said, but he returned to the slow jabbing at the keys which Mower had interrupted with a dogged determination which few of the Project's clients had showed when they tentatively sidled in through the doors. Mower glanced across the room at Donna who was helping a tall black girl at another keyboard. Their eyes met and Mower smiled faintly. It was a long time since he had experienced the satisfaction that he gained from helping these kids on the Heights, and he had begun to wonder whether this was not a road he might be persuaded to follow. It seemed to him it might be more productive than helping to dump them in the crime schools which passed by the name of young offenders institutions.
At that moment the door opened and the dreadlocked head of Dizzy B Sanderson appeared in the gap. A ripple of excitement ran round the young people at the computers but Mower quickly ushered the visitor out into the reception area.
“He'll be here to talk to you when you break for lunch,” he said to the class. “I won't let him go away.”
Dizzy flung himself into one of the dilapidated armchairs from which the smears of red paint had been more or less removed and sighed dramatically.
“This town does my head in, man,” he said. “You heard about the club being closed down?”
Mower nodded.
“I read about it in the Gazette,” he said. “It seems a bit drastic.”
“Some copper came over all heavy, persuaded Darryl to volunteer to close for a week.”
“D'you know who the copper was?” Mower asked cautiously.
“Some guy in uniform. Not one of your lot. But Darryl says he'd got the whole thing sussed - new people on the doors, some local firm that does most of the clubs round here.”
“Barry Foreman's mob?”
“That's the one.”
“I've come across Foreman before. A nasty bit of work, if you ask me. I reckon if he's helping your mate Darryl out there must be something in it for him,” Mower said.
“Protection, you mean? Is he into that?”
“I don't think we're sure what he's into, though my boss is convinced there's a drug connection. But we've no evidence. As far as we know he does doors, does some secure deliveries, that sort of thing. I've no doubt we'll have his lads patrolling the streets up here before long if all this new stuff goes through. Then we'll see whose side he's on.”
“Yeah, well Darryl seemed happy enough with him. Anyway, it's all safe and sorted, and then the Old Bill comes on all heavy anyway. As Darryl hears it, those kids got their Es in some pub, nowhere near the Carib at all. I saw no one dealing that night and I get a good view of what's going on round the dance floor. There was some dope. You could smell that. But I didn't see anyone selling anything stronger. They've got
no grounds to close the place. But the local rag's running this campaign, stirring things up, and they don't want to know when Darryl wants to say his piece. Don't want a few facts to get in the way of a good story.”
“Who's doing it? Bob Baker?”
“Yeah, that's the guy. All this stuff about the father of the kid who got knocked down. If you ask me that's just an excuse to get at Darryl and the black kids. I reckon it's the blasted Asians at the back of it. If you want to find a racist in this country that's where you should look. That Asian guy of yours who arrested me was no better than he should have been.”
“Young Sharif?” Mower said. “He's new. I don't know him well. He arrived just as I …” He hesitated seeking the right word for his departure from CID.
“That's the one,” Dizzy said. “DC Sharif.”
“Have you made a complaint?”
“What's the point?” Dizzy asked. “You know how long it takes and I don't think I'll be coming back to Bradfield again after this little lot, so you can sort DC Sharif out yourselves. I'm planning to go back to Manchester tomorrow and then to London so I thought I'd just look in on your kids one more time. I brought them some vinyl.”
“They'll like that,” Mower said, glancing at the case of records that Dizzy had dumped beside his chair. “We've got a hi-fi system locked away somewhere. It's too risky to leave it out when there's no one here.”
“Tell me about it,” Dizzy said. “So, are you jacking in the job, then?”
“I don't know,” Mower said. “I've got another couple to weeks to make up my mind.”
“Do it
man,” Dizzy said. “I never regretted it. Stay in and you'll end up dead or damaged - if you're not already.”
“Damaged, anyway.” Mower smiled wryly.
“So get a life,” Dizzy said emphatically. “If the head-banging hurts, give it up, for God's sake.”
“It's not as easy as all that,” Mower said. “I owe people.”
“You owe yourself more,” Dizzy said flatly. “If you don't look after yourself no one else will.”
“Maybe,” Mower said. He glanced at his watch. “We break for lunch in five minutes. Have a chat to the kids and then we'll go for a pint.”
Dizzy leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head and stretched his long legs.
“Sounds OK to me,” he said. But even as he closed his eyes, there was a commotion at the door and Mower sprang to his feet in alarm as a couple of young boys in school uniform burst in.
“Is Emma Maitland's mum here?”
“She's been right sick down by Priestley.”
“She needs her mum, quick!”
Mower's heart lurched as he took in the urgency of the children's voices.
“I'll get her,” he said and hurried back into the classroom where Donna looked up in alarm.
“Can you come? It's Emma,” Mower said. The colour drained from her face, turning it putty coloured beneath her careful make-up. She grabbed her coat and bag from the teacher's desk and hurried to the door. In the reception area, Mower took hold of Dizzy B's arm and thrust a set of keys into his hand.
“Mind the shop for us, can you? We've got an emergency,” he said. “Don't leave the place unlocked, for Christ's sake. See the kids off the premises and if you've gone when I get back I'll catch up with you later on your mobile.”
Donna was already running awkwardly across the muddy grass between the Project and Priestley House on too high heels and Mower had to sprint to catch up with her. A small crowd of children were huddled around a small figure on the ground close to the main doors and as the adults arrived they drew away uncertainly, leaving just one girl supporting Emma's head. Mower shouldered in
front of Donna and leaned over the child, who seemed to be unconscious.
“She were right sick,” her friend said.
“What's she taken?” Mower asked harshly as he lifted Emma's eyelids gently.
The other girl glanced away, her expression guilty. Before Mower could intervene, Donna had seized her by the shoulders and shaken her hard.
“Come on, Kiley, what's she had? Is it drugs? What is it? You must know.”
Kiley pulled away, her pale face sulky and her eyes full of tears.
“It weren't drugs,” she said. “We'd not do drugs. It were just a drink. I thought it were fizzy pop. A man gave it us when we went for some chips. I didn't like it, though, and Emma drank most of it. An' then she went all funny and I thought I'd teck her home, like, and find you. But she couldn't stand up, could she? And then she were right sick.”
Mower thrust his mobile phone into Donna's hand.
“Get an ambulance,” he said. While Donna punched in 999, he put his coat round Emma and pulled her upright.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Come on, wake up.” The child's eyes flickered slightly but did not open. He glanced at Donna who was sitting on her heels in the mud, her face rigid with fear.
“Ambulance is coming,” she whispered. “What d'you reckon?”
“She'll be fine,” Mower said with more confidence than he felt. “Some sort of alcopop, I should think. Though what stupid beggar's been handing them out to kids I can't imagine. But I'll bloody well find out, I promise you.”
In the distance they could hear the siren of the approaching ambulance. Mower put his arm round Donna.
“Come on,” he said quietly. “She'll be OK.”
“And if she's not?” Donna said, her voice reduced to a dry croak. “She's everything I've got.”
 
 
By the end of the afternoon Mower had driven Donna home, leaving a pale but conscious Emma settling down to sleep in the children's ward at Bradfield Infirmary. Donna led the way wearily up the long concrete staircase to her flat and flung herself into a chair, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Mower perched awkwardly on the arm of the chair and put an arm round her.
“Come on, lover,” he said. “It's all over now. She's come to no harm. They've only kept her in overnight as a precaution.”
Donna shuddered.
“So they say,” she said. “They'll have social services round as soon as my back's turned. They'll take her away from me, Kevin. You don't know the half of it.”
“Perhaps you'd better tell me then,” Mower said quietly.
“It were when she were little. Her dad and I were in a terrible state, rowing and breaking up and getting back together and rowing again. He was unemployed and drinking and there was no money in t'kitty. There were no end to it. One night Emma were fast asleep in her cot and her dad buggered off at the end of a blazing row and I ran off after him. I weren't out long. I swear I weren't. Not more than half an hour. But when I got back the stupid old bat who lived next door had sent for t'police because Emma were crying, and then social services turned up, and they took her away, had her examined and everything. They gave her back next day, because there was nowt wrong with that baby. Even her dad worshipped her, and there wasn't much he worshipped apart from a bottle of booze, believe me. But they put her on some register and it were years before she were taken off. You have to believe me, Kevin, I've done everything by the book for that child. Every jab at the doctors, every toy and book she should have, every bit of reading practice and homework from school. I've done everything I could to live that night down and then some. And now …”
“It's all right,” Mower said. “You only have to look at Emma to see she's a well cared for child. This is just a stupid thing she's done herself. She should never have taken the drink from this man. But no one's going to blame you. You weren't there. Kids do these things.”
“I don't know what she were doing out of school. She's supposed to have her dinner at school not go gallivanting round t'neighbourhood for chips.”
“Yes, well, I think maybe her mate Kiley has some explaining to do,” Mower said. “Where does she live? Is it far?”
“Just down below. Number 18.”

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