Get Cartwright (16 page)

‘I’m not in the mood for a drink, Guv,’ said Annie, hardly even glancing at Gene.

‘Your moods don’t mean snuff to
me,
darling,’ Gene snapped at her. ‘I’m your guv’nor and you’re finding out what that really means. That’s why I want you here, right now, with the lads – so I can keep my twinkly eye on you. No more rummaging through the police files like they’re your private scrapbooks, no more running “private investigations” out of my manor. It’s domestic duties for you, my lovely. Your new beat is between CID and the Wavy Line on the corner … until I can figure what to do with you.’

Annie sighed, but still she would not look at Gene or anyone else. Her mind was far, far away from all this. Sam understood her confusion, her doubt, her fear. He had gone through it all himself and he had come through; stronger, more able to cope with the strange world he found himself in. He had learnt to adjust – and Annie would learn too.

Gene quaffed deep of his pint of Courage, smacked his frothy lips, and intoned, ‘Earles. I
still
can’t place that ruddy name. Raymond, any joy?’

‘Workin’ on it, Guv,’ Ray answered. ‘Not a lot to go on, but I’m doing me best.’

Gene brooded for a moment, then said: ‘This ain’t the place to go into details – too many earwigs flappin’ – but things are coming together into the shape of a giant cack.’

‘I take it that by that you mean that this case is bringing certain unpleasant elements from the past to the surface,’ put in Sam.

‘I do
,’
said Gene. ‘And more than just that. This department – meaning
me
– is in line for stick from the press. Mickey Carroll shouldn’t have snuffed it, not on
our
watch. He should have been apprehended, all in one piece. What’s more – and for reasons he don’t seem eager to divulge – Tyler decided that Carroll could do with an extra arsehole installed and fired a slug into him. In front of the press. And everyone. Like a bloody weirdo. And talking of weirdos, I caught him rolling about in the bloody graveyard this afternoon, but I think we’ll draw a line under that one and say no more.’

Chris gave Sam a suspicious look. Ray shook his head and snorted contemptuously, like he thought Sam was a total divot.

‘And now,’ Gene went on, ‘it looks like people who should be dead ain’t half as dead we’d like ’em to be and are very much running about on our patch. This ‘erbert Gould, he’s playing us like guppies.’

At the mention of Gould, Annie looked across sharply at Gene, her brow furrowed, her eyes intense.

But Gene paid no attention to her: ‘All in all, my little playmates, there’s a shit storm about to break right over our heads – and we’re
all
in line for a drenching. A big, brown drenching.’

‘Oh,
please,
Guv!’ Chris grimaced.

‘But we’re gonna take steps,’ Gene told them, fixing them all with a very level look. ‘We’re gonna keep everything contained. Bristols, you ain’t going to pry into them files no more. You ain’t going to pry into
anything
except the petty cash tin when we’re low on digestives. Tyler, you’re going to explain to the press that the gun went off by mistake. Chris, you’re going to speak to them meat-heads in forensics and get ’em to issue an official report that says Carroll’s gun was faulty, which is why it went off in Tyler’s hand.’

‘Wilco, Guv,’ Chris winked, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Understood.’

‘All in all, that should buy is a bit of breathing space,’ Gene declared. ‘And we’re going to make use of that space. We’re going to pick up Gould’s trail, zero in on him, and nail him before he gets his hands on any more ex-coppers. Ray, I don’t care what it takes, get me leads. Earles, if he exists, or anyone else … Damn it, I know that name!’ He shook his head, refocused himself. ‘Whatever it takes, Ray. Any skeletons what have escaped from the CID cupboards are in line to get royally nicked. And them what
haven’t
escaped are damn well gonna stay rattlin’ right where they are! You getting what I’m saying, Gladys?’

He glowered at Annie, but she seemed oblivious to him, her thoughts many miles away.

‘Dozy mare,’ Gene muttered. And then, ‘Boys – we can get through this and come up smelling of lavender. Just don’t let me down.’

‘We won’t, Guv,’ said Ray and Chris in unison.

Gene nodded thoughtfully, drew deeply on his cigarette, and said ‘Right then. I can enjoy me beer now.’

Fag in one hand, pint in the other, Ray gave Annie a sour look and said: ‘Look at that face. There’s nowt point in ‘avin’ totty round the department if it wears an expression like a bulldog with a hornet up its fanny.’

Chris giggled.

Annie slammed down her drink and tried to walk out, but Gene blocked her like a wall.

‘Nope, you’re staying,’ he intoned, looming over her.

‘Back off, Gene,’ Sam put in.

‘The team stays together,’ Gene ordained. ‘And that goes for you too, Bristols, even if you are just the tea girl now.’

‘I said back off, Gene.’

‘This bird can’t be trusted, Tyler. She might start digging out more of them bloody files.’

‘With a face on her like a bulldog with a hornet up its fanny!’ snickered Chris, captivated by the phrase.

Ray smirked and shot a look at Sam: ‘It ain’t a
hornet
stuck up her fanny, Chris. I think it’s a DI.’

Sam threw a punch, but Ray ducked away, grinning. Nelson looked across at them, weighing up the situation, deciding whether or not to intervene.

‘Settle down, class!’ Gene said. ‘Ray, smoke your fag. Tyler, stop being a nob-end. Chris –’

‘I ain’t done nuffing!’ whined Chris.

‘–
keep
doing nuffing, it suits you grand,’ Gene said. And then he turned to Annie. ‘And as for you, WPC Legs-Like-Stan-Bowles, I’ve got my beady little eye on you. You’re on probation. From now on, you don’t go out of my sight, not if you want to hold on to the pretend job you do in my department.
Capisce?
’

‘I’m not one of your villains,’ Annie challenged him.

‘No, but you sometimes play on their side.’ Gene puffed out his chest.

‘Oh, right, so you’re blaming
me
for the deaths of Carroll and Walsh?’

‘You didn’t pull the trigger, petal, but you gave somebody bloody good directions for pointing the gun.’

‘So what?’

Annie’s manner so cold, so abrupt, so totally out of character that even Gene was shocked. Chris’s jaw dropped. Ray laughed. Sam didn’t know whether to rush forward and put his arms around Annie or let her have this thing out with Gene.

Annie was at last making eye contact with Gene. In fact, she was boring holes into him with the ferocity of her stare.

‘Carroll, Walsh, Darby …’ she said, her voice low and full of hate. ‘Why should I give a
damn
about the lives of these men?’

‘Has a gasket blown inside your tiny control panel or summat?’ Ray put in angrily. ‘Them are coppers you’re talking about, Cartwright. Them are
our
lads.’

‘Shits, the lot of them,’ spat Annie, turning on him.

‘Oh aye?’

‘Yes, Ray, aye.’

‘Who’s talking here?’ Ray asked, suppressing a grin. ‘You, or your ‘omones?’

Annie sneered at him, a look of genuine disgust contorting her face. ‘I bet you’d’ve been just the same …’

‘Same as what?’

But Annie just slowly shook her head in contempt. Sam knew what she was referring to. And perhaps she was right. Perhaps if Ray had been in the force back in the days when Clive Gould had half the police in his pocket, he too would have been part of the cover up.

‘Annie,’ Sam said softly. ‘Let me take you home.’

‘Hold up,’ Ray said. He set down his drink, rested his smouldering cigarette in the ashtray, and squared up to Annie like he was preparing to duke it out with her. ‘What you getting at, Cartwright? Eh? You want to be one of the team? You want to be treated just the same as the blokes? Fine. I’ll treat you like a bloke. You
look
halfway like a bloke, so that’s a start. Now – spit it out – what are you accusin’ me of?’

‘Ray, grow up and piss off,’ Sam said. ‘Annie, let’s go. I’ll walk you to your –’

Annie pushed Sam away with her elbow, not even looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on Ray. Like him, she also looked on the verge of getting physical.

‘You would have been just like ’em!’ she hissed.

‘Like what, you drippy tart?!’ Ray came back at her.

‘You’d have sold him out too, just like they did …’

‘What are you talking about! I’m a gnat’s chuff away from decking you, Cartwright!’

‘Try it,’ Annie said.

‘Ray, I said pack it in!’ Sam barked, refusing to be shoved aside. ‘Annie’s got more on her mind right now than you could possibly imagine.’

‘But she ain’t saying very much, is she!’ Ray shouted back. ‘Making accusations what she don’t back up. Now why’s she doing that?’

‘It’s personal!’ Sam said, raising his voice. ‘It’s nothing to do with you! It’s about her and her father and –’

He knew at once that he’d said too much. He tried to bite off the words as they came out of his mouth, but of course it was too late.

‘Her
father
?’ sneered Ray. And he gave a bitter, who-gives-a-shit laugh. ‘So all this is because a little girl got a problem with her daddy? Stone me, is he as big a twat as you are, Cartwright?’

With lightning speed, Annie smashed her glass against Ray’s face and down he went, striking the bar and bouncing off it and fetching up in a heap on the floor. There was suddenly noise and chaos as the crowd of drinkers around him reacted to the violence and tried to surge away from it.

Sam reached out for Annie, but she was already fighting her way out, clawing and elbowing her way through the packed pub, making for the street.

Ray clambered to his feet, his face speckled with blood, his shirt and jacket drenched with gin and tonic. A slice of lemon had wedged itself half into his breast pocket, like a yellow handkerchief. Furiously, he made to go after Annie, but Sam threw himself in front of him, bringing up his fists. Without hesitating, Ray drew back his own fist to hurl a punch – and found his wrist clamped tight in Nelson’s hand. Ray struggled to get free, but Nelson held him fast.

‘Let’s have some mellow in here,’ he said. At once, the clamour and confusion evaporated. The pub fell silent.

‘Get your ruddy ‘and off me!’ Ray growled. His blood was up. He was dangerous.

But Nelson did not so much as bat an eyelid: ‘I said
mellow …
And that goes for you to, Mr Raymond, sir.’

He fixed Ray with an intense stare – not threatening, not angry, just focused. Whatever was in that stare, it did the trick. Ray slowly slackened, he unclenched his fist, and all the fight went out of him.

Nelson let a smile start to spread across his face and let go of Ray’s wrist.

‘I got a first-aid kit somewhere round de back,’ he said, indicated that Ray was to follow him. ‘I’ll sort you out.’ He looked around at the throng of silent drinkers all staring at him, and his smile broadened into a grin. ‘You boys is gonna have go tirsty for few minutes. Nursey Nelson has a patient to attend to.’

Sam turned away, meaning to go after Annie, but found Gene blocking him.

‘Well go on then, Tyler,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘Go after her. And when you catch up with her, give her a message from me.’

‘I think I know what it is,’ said Sam, his shoulders sagging.

‘I think you probably do,’ said Gene. ‘With immediate effect, Tyler. She don’t even come back to clear out her desk.’

‘You can’t do that, Guv.’

‘I’m DCI Gene flamin’ Hunt, sunshine, so I think you’ll find I can. Gross misconduct. Assault of a fellow officer. Woeful lack of action in the chest-and-leg departments. More than enough to render her contract with CID somewhere on the level of a sheet of used Andrex. Tell your crumpet from me, Tyler. She. Is.
Out
.’

Sam pushed his way past the gawping drinkers, crashed through the doors and headed out into the night in pursuit of ex-copper Annie Cartwright.

It was the sound of crying that drew Sam’s attention to her. Annie was standing under the smothering orange glow of a sodium street lamp with her face buried in her hands, standing out sharply against the deep darkness of the Manchester night.

Sam rushed up to her – and stopped short. His instinct was to put his arms around her, tell her over and over that it was all right, that he understood, but she was volatile tonight, wound up and wired. He feared she would react badly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was angry with Ray. That’s what made me say what I said.’

Without looking at him, Annie snivelled, ‘You knew all along, didn’t you.’

‘Yes. But I didn’t want to say because … I wanted you to find out for yourself, in your own way, in your own time.’

‘I think I knew from the start, deep down. I think I always knew he were me dad.’

Annie turned and looked at him with bloodshot eyes, her face streaked with tears.

‘Is anything real?’ she asked, her voice cracked and clogged with emotion.

Sam nodded.

With a big, snotty sniff, she said, ‘And you? Are
you
real, Sam? Because I don’t … I just don’t
know
anymore!’

Sam hesitated no longer. He flung his arms around her like he meant to crush her to a pulp. And in return, she held on to him, like she was clinging to floating wreckage.

Her voice muffled against Sam’s jacket, she said gently: ‘Ray. Is he ...?’

‘Shocked more than hurt,’ Sam assured her.

‘I glassed him, Sam.’

‘He asked for it. Perhaps it was a little over the top, Annie, but he most definitely asked for it.’

‘I suppose the Guv’ll fire me.’

‘I’ll straighten everything out with him, I promise.’

‘Don’t. I’m not going back. I’m finished with all that.’

Sam kissed the top of her head: ‘You’re just upset. You’ll feel differently about it later.’

‘No, I won’t. Because …’

Sam waited, but Annie said nothing for a long time.

‘We can’t stand here in the street forever,’ he said eventually. ‘Why don’t you let me take you to my place. It’s not far.’