Director's Cut (6 page)

“No, Sir. I'm self-taught.”

“Well, Sergeant…”

“Butler. Detective Sergeant Butler.”

“Well, Detective Sergeant Butler, do yourself a favour and teach
yourself something else. Things have a way of coming round. One day
you're going to need a favour and somebody's going to take the piss
out of you…”

“Right,” Butler said. “Let's carry on.”

They went through the rest, friends or relatives, places she might
have frequented, health or medical conditions and so on.

Butler said, “Does she have a driving licence?”

“Yeah, she's got a licence.”

“Does she have her own car?”

“You kidding? The way she drives there's no way she's driving
mine.”

“She took it with her?”

“Well, of course she did. She'd drive to the fucking bathroom if that
was possible.”

From the side of the room Anian said, “Is this Helen?” She stood
gazing at a framed painting of a naked woman. An oil, subdued, heavy
paint where the light shone through, lots of knife.

Ticker Harrison said, “That's Helen. Now tell me, if you can, that
she ain't perfect?”

Butler's interest picked up. Maybe it was the woman's lack of
inhibition; there wasn't much left to the imagination. He was surprised
he hadn't noticed it before. It was a pose guaranteed to draw the eye.
He asked, “When was this painted, Sir?”

“Finished about a month ago. No more than that. Paint's hardly dry.
What do you think?”

Butler turned back to Harrison and said, “You’re right, you do have
a very beautiful wife and your description of the birthmark was spot
on. If you can give us a recent photograph and a car registration, we'll
go and try to find her.”

On their patch three women were officially missing; Helen Harrison
would make it four.

ht. A healthy stalk, tall or short, fat or thin, was
essential to the hearty bush. Abduction was way down, the least likely
scenario.

.
As though reading Sam Butler's mind Inspector Jack Wooderson
said, “Is there any crime you might read into this?”

“Apart from Imelda Cooke, no Guv.”

“I've looked at it; we've spent a lot of man-hours, more than the
books can afford.”

“She had kids.”

Wooderson nodded thoughtfully. It was not a good sign when
women went missing without taking their children. But it did happen.
And just lately it was happening more and more. Responsibility was
something of the past.

“Anything else?”

“No .”

“Then put it to bed. We've exhausted every line on this and there’s
nothing else to do. Unless you can come up with something new then
let's not waste any more time.”

It grieved Butler to know that his inspector was absolutely right.
And yet he had a feeling about this one – the sixth sense that was the
mark of a good kozzer.

An experienced copper's intuition was often more important than
the evidence, or lack of it. Here, there was nothing concrete, not even a
crime, yet Butler's gut tightened. It was the feeling you had the
morning after the night before that you couldn't remember. A
sickening feeling, just before you slept again, that somehow you'd
messed up. Here, save for Helen Harrison, and who could blame her
for leaving Ticker, the other women didn't fit the pattern to take a
walk. And yet, at the back of his mind, was the knowledge of how little
he'd known about his own wife when she'd had her affair.
It had gone on for months. Things had drifted, become

commonplace, and it wasn't until the final few weeks that he suspected
there was something wrong. He was a copper, damn it, and even he
hadn't realized what was going on under his own roof, in his own bed.
It had just been a gut feeling that had led him home. Intuition. The
copper's best friend. And there they were, the after-blast of coition
burning their faces. Until they saw him. Then the glow faded quickly.
But had he not found them then he was certain that one day he would
have gone home to an empty house. Just like Ticker Harrison. Just like
Rick Cole.

As far as Helen Harrison was concerned Butler guessed that she
was seeing another man. Putting distance between herself and her
husband was all that she could do. There could never be an amicable
arrangement with a man like Ticker, and for his wife,
unto
death would
be exactly that.

DC Anian Stanford turned on the light and the flickering strip made
him blink, made him realize how much time had been lost while the
early afternoon gloom had closed in. He acknowledged her with a
quick smile then tuned into the report again, hoping to find that illusive
connection, wondering whether he should break the unwritten rule.
Taking a chance wasn't like him at all. Reluctantly, he lifted the
telephone and after a few moments said, “Guv, it's Sam.”

“How did you get on with Ticker?”

Butler double-checked that Wooderson's door was closed then in a
lowered voice said, “Listen, can we meet up tonight? Better still, come
to dinner.”

“This isn't like you, Sam. You seem worried?”

That was a joke although Butler didn't get it. The DS wasn't happy
unless he had something to worry about.

“I saw Ticker, filed the report.”

“Good.”

“Come to dinner. Janet would love to see you again.”

“Does she know I'm coming?” A long silence answered the
question. Eventually Cole asked, “What time?”

“Make it eight.”

Butler sat with the phone tapping against his chin before he nodded
purposefully and said to Anian, “You're coming to dinner tonight,
eight o'clock. It's business.”

“Overtime, Sarge?”

“Don't take the piss, Anian, there's a good girl.”

Rick Cole showered and changed and downed a large Teacher's before
driving out towards the Butler's place. To get there he had to drive
across town.

Cole knew the city. A lifetime ago he had plodded there, to begin
with under the guidance of a parent constable. Now they were called
street duty PCs. A dozen years later he was wearing plain clothes at the
Yard but those days were so distant that he sometimes wondered if
they’d really happened. For one reason or another everything had come
unstuck and he had ended up at Sheerham. It could have been worse.
He was acting up and had an office to himself and that in itself was a
luxury for a DI. It wouldn’t last indefinitely and the grapevine buzzed
with rumours of a fresh-faced DCI coming over from the Yard.
Driving through town most people would use the main road that
passed through the south on its way to the city, and they'd find it one of
those places that didn't register. Perhaps unconsciously, they'd closed
their eyes. The south was where most of the blacks lived and was congested,,
noisy, filled with litter. It was a place to leave behind.

The MP was black, Gilly Brown, and his heart was still

in the West Indies. He controlled the council, or at least
his siblings who made up the majority, and on his behalf they spent more council
tax on coffee mornings than libraries, more on banning the black from blackhead
than bus passes for the elderly. But he was laughing at the system. His pockets
were comfortably lined. Gilly Brown was living proof that enough split votes
would let in the wackos. He'd swear allegiance to the Queen and country, Princess
Anne too. He'd swear to anything that moved so long as it added to his bank
balance.

Tower blocks littered the skyline, council estates were run down.
Finer roads ran through the north of the town where properties had
their own drives and bordered a well-maintained parkland. Most of the
Jews – outside of Hampstead Garden and Golders Green –

lived there along with the Maltese gangsters and Gilly Brown. And
Ticker Harrison.

The Sheerham High Road ran through the centre of town. It was the
main shopping precinct which was dominated by the Carrington
Theatre, a huge red-brick building that once, long ago, attracted the
stars. Narrow side-streets criss-crossed the High Road but the shops on
these petered out quickly to the odd Asian grocery that sold everything
day and night and Christmas Day. Then it was row upon row of
terraced housing. The front gardens were about a yard wide and out
back was enough room to keep the lawnmower. Most of these
buildings were in poor shape, windows were cracked or boarded and
doors were blistered. It was a place covered in graffiti and litter. It was
the place that produced most of the criminals and the highest

unemployment figures.

As the night fell and the neon took over, the pensioners barricaded
themselves indoors and the youngsters came out to play. It happened in
every town and city across the country yet here it was concentrated, the
overspill from the city, and the energy was frightening. The bars and
clubs were packed with young drinkers slamming down their highpowered
bottles.

This was Sheerham.

Cole's patch.

While he waited at the crossroads before the Carrington Theatre he
noticed that something from the past was stirring. Lottery money and
local taxes had revamped the Class A building and given it an exotic
quality. The red brick glowed like a furnace and threw out a ray of
comfort over the Romanian beggars as they pushed their smack-faced
kids at the box-office queue. There was a woman on the billboard,
eight-feet high, in skimpy black underwear and high heels.

Rick Cole took a second glance at the cardboard blonde, Anthea
Palmer, ex-weather girl, and while traffic lights held him back he
decided that the smile on her face was as false as the promise of the
theatre’s new dawn.

Janet Butler was forty and a rinsed blonde. She might have walked in
from the sixties. She had settled comfortably into motherhood,
surprising most who knew her, including her husband. She'd met Cole
on a dozen or so occasions, mostly police functions when Cole used to
go to them. Her eyes, like only an older woman's could, promised
everything and nothing at all. She flirted and he let her. It was all very
cosy, like an afternoon tea dance without the afters. Safe and easy and
none of it serious. At the door she gave him a decorous little hug and
her perfume touched a memory.

“Rick, it's been a long, long time.”

She was warm and familiar. It took him a moment to adjust. To
remember that beneath it all she was as cold as the rest of them. That
once upon a time she'd had an affair and left her husband devastated.
“Too long, Janet. You're looking good.”

“Better than good. Take another look.”

She gave him a little twirl.

“Agreed. How's the baby.”

“The baby's name is Lucy and she's good too. If you're very, very
quiet you can take a peep into her bedroom. That'll be a treat for you.
Come on in.” She fumbled for his hand, more of a caress really and,
rubbing his hand all the way, led him into the dining room.
Cole heard voices before the door was opened so finding another
guest was hardly a surprise. Discovering that it was DC Anian
Stanford definitely was.

She stood by the CD, glass in hand, while Butler knelt searching
through a pile of discs. In place of her working clothes were black
jeans, brown vest and sneakers that left a strip of olive instep. There
was nothing under the vest. Her nipples stuck out like a couple of
filter-tips that looked good enough to smoke. Her hair was down, black
as tar and elbow length. He noticed for the first time how tall and
skinny she was.

Janet spread her hand and said matter-of-factly, “You know
Anian?”

Cole nodded briefly. Anian returned his acknowledgement with a
quick nervous smile.

Butler found his CD and waved the disc toward his guest. “Guv.”
“Sam.”

The DS struggled to his feet. “Drink?”

“Good idea.”

Leaving Anian to load the music, they moved to the drinks cabinet,
out of earshot, and while he poured, Butler said, “Anian's working the
case with me.”

“Right.”

“You don't mind?”

“You should have mentioned it, that's all.”

Butler tut-tutted the idea. “Didn't seem important.”

“She's not my type.”

Butler fell in. “Colour? You?”

“Figure. She hasn't got one.”

“Nor have the fashion models. It’s the fashion."

“I’m an old-fashioned guy.”

Butler smiled and raised his glass. “To old times, Guv.”

Cole nodded. “I'll go with that.” He emptied half his glass. Butler
held on to the bottle, waiting, then topped up as Red Red Wine filled
the room.

“I want her to be in on this. She's done most of the legwork.”
“Talking shop. Janet will love you.”

“I've primed her. We'll get shot of it while she's serving up. That all
right with you?”

Cole shrugged and wondered whether he'd made a mistake. He was
already feeling the limb that he knew Butler was going to put him on.
The women were on the sofa, drinking Jacob’s Creek and jabbering
like women do. Their conversation ended abruptly as the men
approached.

“I've been telling her all about you, Rick. Everything. She's been at
Hinckley… How long?”

“Almost a year.”

“And you've barely said hello. That's disgraceful. It really, really
is.”

“Sweetheart,” Butler put in. “It's not like that.”

“Yes it is. It's exactly like that. Give a man rank and you create a
monster.” She turned to Anian. “The days have gone when men were
men and women were proud of them. Agreed?”

Anian's laugh was forced and apprehensive.

Cole caught Janet's exaggerated look of indignation and laughed
out loud.

Janet moved into the kitchen. Butler topped the glasses again before
he turned to Cole.

“So how was Ticker?”

Butler shrugged weakly. “Anian held her own.”

Cole glanced at the girl and murmured, “I expect she did.”
Butler put in quickly, “Jack's not interested, told me to put it to
bed.”

“So what's the problem?”

“The problem, Guv, is that three of the four women are pregnant.
What are the odds on that happening? It'd make the lottery look good.
On our patch we've got four missing women, forget the kids, the
runaways. Just concentrate on adult females. We've got four.”
“And three are pregnant?”