Good People (22 page)

The caravan perched, slightly askew, on crumbling breeze blocks, between a tyre-fitting unit, and a blank spur off the roundabout that patiently awaited the arrival of backers and takers for Dinas’s first business park.

Day and night, the comings and goings to that caravan would have been under the scrutiny of everyone who drove past. And it would have been worse at night: any deviant passion bathed in streetlight, and strafed by the headlights of vehicles sweeping into and out of town.

I drove home disappointed, but not too disillusioned. I now had a working hypothesis that tied all of my missing girls together. Maybe Boon, too, if what really happened at the hut that night was bad enough to have caused Trevor to top himself.

Now I just had to find some way to prove it. Also, perversely, I had to hope that I might be wrong. Otherwise, I had to live with the prospect of Magda being out there somewhere under the patronage of a couple of perverts.

‘Do you like Indian?’ I asked as I walked Sally to the taxi.

‘Indian!’ she exclaimed, more mirthful than ironic. ‘Gosh, Sergeant Capaldi, you sure know how to spoil a girl.’

But in Dinas, if you wanted more than Chinese takeaway or microwaved pub fayre, Indian was what you got. And the Golden Mogul was where you got it. It was located out of town in what had formerly been a big roadhouse pub called the Owen Glendower.

The waiter took Sally’s coat, and I immediately felt the guilt over Magda dissipating, corroded by possibility and attraction. Her hair was plumped and sleek with a discreet tinge of red through it. The bone weariness from our first encounters was replaced by an expression of amusement and expectation. She was wearing a short, low-cut, tight-waisted black dress, with black tights. A double row of pearls looped down to the moan-inducing lift of her breasts.

‘You look great,’ I said, meaning it.

‘Thank you.’ She dipped her head, pleased. ‘And now I can ask: what happened to you?’ She brought two fingers up over the scratches on my cheek like a faith healer.

‘Line of duty.’

‘Cop-out.’ She grinned.

‘Why didn’t you comment before?’

‘You were working. It wasn’t my place.’ Very briefly, she let her fingers touch the scratches.

We kept the talk light. Stayed in the froth that floated over the darker stuff. We skirted round our marriages. Places we had been, places we would like to go to. But I could sense that she was homing in on biography.

‘Do you speak Italian?’ she asked.

‘Not very well.’

‘With a name like Capaldi?’

‘My father came over from Italy to help his uncle who’d been a prisoner of war and stayed on and started a business in Cardiff. It wasn’t meant to be permanent, but he met my mother and turned into a born-again Welshman.’

‘He wasn’t a policeman?’

‘No, a wine and olive-oil importer.’

‘Sounds glamorous.’

‘It was hard work. Making the sales. You have to remember that this was in the days before universal wine drinking, and olive oil was something you bought in tiny bottles from the chemist to rub into babies’ bums.’

‘You didn’t want to go into the business?’

I shook my head, skipping over it. Then realized that if this lady and I were going anywhere, she deserved frankness. ‘I didn’t have the choice,’ I said, offering her the opening.

‘No?’

‘When I was younger, a friend and I got busted in Spain on our way home from Morocco. We were charged with possession of marijuana.’

She smiled conspiratorially. ‘Guilty?’

I returned the smile and shrugged. ‘Whatever. It was potentially quite serious though. There had been an increase in the rumblings over Gibraltar, so there was political stuff mixed in. I had to call my father to see if he could bail us out. He had a friend in Cardiff, a retired senior cop with connections. My father made me a deal: if he got us out of Spain, I would join the police force.’

She looked puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘To turn me into a serious citizen.’

‘Would he have left you there?’

‘Let’s just say that this was not my first misdemeanour. Hence the pressure.’

‘So, not exactly a crusading ambition since early childhood?’

‘Not quite. I enjoy the work though. And I think my father saw that I would.’

‘Dinas?’

‘Pardon?’ But I was stalling, I knew what she meant.

‘You told me that you used to be in Cardiff.’

She had remembered well. She met my eyes. Her expression was the equivalent of squeezing my hand.

I bowed my head into it. ‘I met a farmer. I shouldn’t have, the case was nothing to do with me. He was down in Cardiff trying to persuade his daughter to come home. Vice had found her working for a pimp called Nick Bessant. Underage but with a grown-up crack habit. What none of us knew at the time was that Bessant already had the farmer’s son working for him. Gay extortion tricks and porn films in return for feeding his junk habit. This little shit had gone home and told his baby sister about the Life. Turned her head. The farmer loses his other kid.’

‘I think that I may have read about this. What’s coming?’

I nodded. ‘We had something to charge Bessant with. Something unrelated. By this time I’d been running around Cardiff with the farmer, on my own time, trying to track down the daughter, who had run away from him again. Mind you, he hadn’t said a word to me about the grief he was holding for his son. Anyway, someone comes up with an address for Bessant and I get the call. I agree to take the farmer along with me, thinking he’ll get some small consolation from Bessant’s arrest.’

I had missed it at first, in the back of his beat-up Land Rover, my eyes on the two dark dogs with white chest flashes, cowering from too much urban-weird information. The shotgun was empty then. When he broke it open, I had sighted through the barrels, seen a street light’s cataract penumbra through the two oiled, empty holes.

‘I let the farmer keep the gun.’

‘You thought it was empty.’

I shook my head. Had I honestly believed that my fucking goodness was touching everything with safety? That an empty gun would stay empty because I refused to believe that there could be any other possibility?

‘I missed it. We were standing there in that squalid room, the farmer and Bessant staring each other down. They both knew, though. It was only when the farmer told me he’d swear that he forced me to bring him here at gunpoint that I realized, too late, this was too sophisticated for the man. And then Bessant sang.’

‘Sang?’

‘“Farmer John”, a Neil Young song. He only got as far as the first line.’ I shrugged, trying not to recall the pink miasma of blood and brain matter. ‘They put a spin on it. I was the briefly celebrated survivor of a hostage situation.’

She nodded. ‘That’s what I remember. Just the event. I didn’t remember your name to put to it.’

‘You probably also missed the little item that came later, announcing my breakdown. Then they quietly shipped me off to the Gulag.’

She leaned across and covered my hand with hers. ‘Welcome, Comrade.’

We both laughed.

We were lighter and happier with each other after that. It was a shame it couldn’t last.

It was Friday night, the pubs hadn’t turned out, so it was too early for it to be busy. But it went even quieter when they walked in. Sally picked up on it first. I followed her look towards the entrance. Three of them. Obviously rugby players. The prop-and-block variety.
No-neck monsters
, to quote Tennessee Williams, although in his case he had been describing children. These guys were far removed from childhood.

The biggest one was Paul Evans.

The head waiter approached them, smiling deferentially. Evans nodded curtly without looking at him, and made a beeline for us. The other two stayed at the entrance with the head waiter, who was now looking distinctly apprehensive.

Evans nodded slowly, and gave us a big, sloppy smile. ‘I’d watch out if I were you, Mrs Paterson, or he’ll try and drill you from behind.’

‘Go away, Paul,’ Sally said wearily. She knew that our night was now broken.

‘Out under false pretences are you, Sergeant? Pretending that you really like women?’

I felt Sally’s hand clutch my knee under the table. After the first shock, I realized that it was restraining. It was also unnecessary. Paul Evans was a slob and a bully, but also huge, which meant that in this unfair world he could get away with it.

But I could still play bravado. ‘Don’t get jealous, Paul. Wait for me in the car park, I’ve got enough left in me to shag the three of you.’

‘Glyn,’ Sally warned.

‘Fucking queer,’ he snarled under his breath, balling his fists.

‘People, Paul …’ I circled my hands, checking him ‘. . . witnesses. You’ll be up for assault.’

‘We’ll see you in the car park.’ He wheeled away, back to his friends.

‘Good,’ I called after him.

‘You shouldn’t have aggravated him,’ Sally said, leaning forward.

‘He was already primed,’ I told her, taking out my mobile phone.

‘Who are you calling?’

‘First the taxi.’ I smiled at her reassuringly. ‘And then the guard of honour.’

Emrys Hughes didn’t like it. His professional duty was compromising his impulse, which was to join the three sulking rugby players into beating me into a mousse. Instead, he had to escort Sally and me across the Golden Mogul’s car park to the waiting taxi.

‘I had none of these problems before you arrived here, Capaldi,’ he moaned.

‘No, you just had your good people,’ I said, nodding across at the three glowering men. ‘Keep them away from me, Sergeant Hughes. They’re big, but they’re stupid, and I will make sure that they get real time in a bad jail if they pursue this.’

‘Goodnight, Mrs Paterson,’ he said, ignoring me, slamming the taxi door shut on us.

‘What’s going to happen, Glyn?’ Sally asked anxiously.

‘They’ll tire of it.’ I glanced back through the rear window at the receding light of the Golden Mogul. ‘No one really believes it, anyway. They just have to find an outsider to blame for an event that doesn’t fit their experience.’

She reached her hand into mine, lacing our fingers. She let her head drop on to my shoulder. ‘I’m not going to sleep with you tonight,’ she whispered. She saw my face fall flat. ‘Sorry,’ she added with amused commiseration.

‘Couldn’t you give a guy a little hope?’ I asked.

‘I’m probably not going to sleep with you tonight.’

‘That’s better.’

We squeezed our hands together. This was fine. The big bad boys behind us. Driving through the night with her head on my shoulder. Night clouds and the tops of trees scudding past my eyeline. ‘Did Boon ever know the young black girl from Manchester who worked for Sara Harris two summers ago?’ I asked casually.

She stiffened. She unlocked her hand from mine, whipped her head off my shoulder before I had finished the question.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, bewildered.

‘You don’t know?’ she challenged.

‘It was just a casual question … not business,’ I lied.

‘You have no idea how that grates. The crap I have had to put up with around here. I had hoped that you were above it.’

‘How what grates?’

‘Racial stereotyping. Assuming that because the girl was black, Boon would be drawn to her.’

Oh shit … I winced internally. ‘I wasn’t stereotyping,’ I protested, back-pedalling. ‘Or if I was, it’s because they were both young, not because they were black.’ Which, of course, had been my first thought. I had forgotten how sensitive women can be. How quickly romance could turn precarious.

‘Boon wasn’t here when she was around,’ she explained, slightly mollified. ‘You should have asked me.’

‘You knew her?’

‘Yes, she used to wash my hair at Sara’s. A nice kid.’

‘Called?’

‘Flower.’

‘Fleur?’

‘No, Flower, the proper English spelling. Flower Robinson. Why did you want to know?’

‘She came up in conversation. Any idea what happened to her?’

She shook her head. I didn’t press it.

I got out of the taxi at Sally’s. I glanced at her. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I told the driver to wait. She didn’t protest. I walked her to her door.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spoil things,’ I said.

She smiled at me wanly. ‘I overreacted. I think I was nervous. I haven’t done this for a while.’

‘Neither have I.’

‘Good.’

We laughed silently, breaking the clot, and we both realized then that we could have stood there for a long time, slowly moving in closer to each other, not necessarily taking it anywhere.

But sadly we were adults now. The night was cold. And I had a taxi waiting.

Bryn Jones called me the following morning. When I had finished the call I remembered that it was Saturday. He shouldn’t have been at work.

‘We hear that you’ve run into a little local difficulty.’

‘Who told you that, sir?’

‘Concerned colleagues.’

That meant Morgan and Hughes. Concerned only because I was complicating their lives.

‘We can pull you out of there.’

I groaned inwardly. Not so long ago that would have been music to my ears. ‘No thanks, sir.’

‘O-U-T,’ he spelled it, ‘you’ve been begging us for this.’

‘It’s what they want, sir.’

‘What who wants?’

‘A certain section of the community is holding me responsible for the death of Trevor Vaughan.’

‘You don’t think that was kosher?’ he asked, a note of cautious tension rising into his voice.

‘I’m pretty sure that he did it to himself. It’s why he did it that intrigues me.’

‘We could order you out,’ he warned.

‘I’d rather stay. I’d like to try and find out what’s behind this reaction.’

‘Just don’t leave it too late to jump.’

‘I won’t. Thank you, sir.’

‘Use my mobile number if you need anything.’

‘There is one thing that would be useful …’

‘What’s that?’ he asked warily.

I gave him the details of the children’s home in Manchester, and asked if he could set it up so that they would receive a call from me as one of the good guys. I sensed the pause on the line. He would be debating with himself whether to ask me what I wanted this for. Knowing that my answer would probably make him refuse the request.