Good People (8 page)

‘No,’ I said to David as he started to pull my pint.

He looked surprised. ‘Sun’s over the yardarm.’

‘I haven’t finished work yet.’

‘Someone you don’t want to meet?’ His question followed me as I left the bar.

I got away fast. It was precautionary. It would have been messy enough tangling with one of Gina’s run-of-the-mill lovers, but mixing it with the one who had been trained in the precise arts of close-range warfare would have made the mess too one-sided.

Trevor Vaughan was still a temptation. But, after my visit this afternoon, he would now be well and truly buffered. So I decided to shift my interest to the one member of the group that I could currently tackle with impunity. Mostly because he was no longer around.

And I still couldn’t get a handle on the name.
Boon
Paterson?

It was virtually dark now, with a vague wash of blue-grey light high in the west, the sky clear, promising a cold night. I crawled slowly along the frontage of the few houses that comprised the hamlet. Low cottages with a terrace of ugly brick houses, and a corrugated-iron chapel surrounded by metal railings.

Boon Paterson’s house was the one I would have chosen. A freshly painted stone cottage with its first-floor windows hunkered down under low eaves. The soft light through the curtained windows promised the warmth of a proper fire, and an imagined smell of baking. All safe and well inside, with the cold and cheerless night shut out.

The woman who answered the door was wearing a faded yellow dressing gown and a frown.

‘Mrs Paterson?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she replied guardedly, pulling the dressing gown tighter around her.

I held out my warrant card. She leant forward to read it before I could introduce myself. ‘What is this about, Sergeant?’ She wasn’t local. English. Slow, flat vowels, a south or southwest accent.

‘Have I come to the right address for Boon Paterson?’

She blanched. ‘Yes. Is anything the matter?’ Her voice rose anxiously.

I smiled reassuringly. ‘No. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m just trying to get in contact with him.’

She shook her head, watching me carefully, as if she was trying to work out whether I was about to spring something awful on her. ‘I’m his mother, Sally Paterson. He’s not here.’

‘I was aware of that.’

‘Well, why turn up here in that case?’ she snapped, visibly annoyed.

‘Does he have a mobile phone number?’ I asked quickly, before she could close the door in my face.

‘I’m letting all the heat out here.’

‘I could come inside?’ I suggested.

‘Is Boon in any kind of trouble?’

‘No, I just need his help on something I’m working on.’

She relented. I caught a glimpse of sandwich preparation on the kitchen table as she led me through to the living room. A portable gas heater stood on the hearth in place of my imagined open fire. The furniture was old, chunky, and looked comfortable, and there were some classy touches of understatement in the arrangements and the decoration. I would have moved into the place as it stood and only changed the fire.

‘Does this have anything to do with Saturday night’s shenanigans?’ she asked.

‘You heard about them?’

She smiled for the first time. ‘It would have been hard not to, round here.’

‘My interest is in the young woman that was in the minibus.’

‘Boon wasn’t there.’

‘He was when she was first picked up. He could give me a description. Perhaps help me identify her.’

She looked surprised. ‘I didn’t think there was any mystery. I thought that she was supposed to be a prostitute from Cardiff?’

‘That’s what I’d like to establish.’

‘Is there some sort of doubt?’

I decided to trust her. ‘I’m concerned that she might still be missing.’

She cocked her head to look at me. ‘Capaldi? I think I’ve heard your name mentioned, but I haven’t seen you before, have I?’

‘Probably not. I haven’t been here long. I used to be in Cardiff. I’m here on a secondment.’

‘You must have done something very bad to deserve that,’ she said, deadpan.

I smiled wanly. She hadn’t realized how close to the mark she was.

‘And young ladies don’t go missing in these parts, Sergeant.’

‘I’ve already had something along those lines explained to me.’

She laughed, it softened her features. ‘Well, a word of advice: don’t believe everything that the sanctimonious buggers tell you.’

‘Can you elaborate on that?’ I asked, trying to keep a lid on the flash of interest that she had just sparked.

She shook her head, shrugging it off, moving on to look at me quizzically. She had an intelligent set to her face, but there was a carelessness about the way she projected herself. Without too much effort she could have shifted to attractive. This evening’s projection, however, was tiredness. ‘Do the McGuires know that you’re asking me these questions?’

‘Your son’s friends?’

She nodded.

I decided on honesty. ‘I think they thought Boon’s absence kept him safe from me.’

She laughed. I sensed that it was private amusement.

‘Did Boon mention anything to you about Saturday night?’

‘I haven’t seen him.’

It was my turn to show surprise.

‘I’m a care assistant at the Sychnant Nursing Home. I’m working nights at the moment.’ She touched the collar of her dressing gown, explaining it. ‘Boon must have left in the small hours on Sunday morning. He had packed up and gone by the time I got home.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know why he left so early, he wasn’t due to catch his flight until very late last night.’

‘He’s posted abroad?’

‘Cyprus. He’s with the Signals Regiment.’

‘Where was he flying from?’

‘Brize Norton, Oxfordshire. It’s not really that far.’

‘Perhaps he had other people to say goodbye to?’

She pulled a face. It made her look older and even more tired. ‘More like he couldn’t stand spending any more time with his mother.’ She tried it out as a joke, but a tiny crease of pain blistered the surface.

Her emotion was palpable. I smiled sympathetically. She started to respond, and then remembered that I was a cop, that I was trained to entice people into the confessional. She shook her head, pulling herself out of it. ‘Testosterone. It turns young men into monsters.’

She moved forward and reached out to the mantelpiece behind me. For an irrational instant I felt myself thrill at the possibility of physical contact. ‘Here,’ she said, stepping back, handing me a framed photograph, ‘that’s Boon.’ I hid my disappointment as she retracted.

But I couldn’t conceal my surprise.

‘You didn’t know?’ she asked, amusement showing in her eyes.

I shook my head. Boon Paterson was a handsome, sturdy, not too tall, young black man. He was standing in khaki fatigues besides a camouflaged Land Rover, a wide smile on his face, and a radio with a long whip antenna strapped to his back.

‘His father?’ I asked, hoping that it didn’t sound too crass.

‘His father’s a shit,’ she said vehemently. But she had understood the question. ‘Boon’s adopted,’ she explained in a softer voice. ‘His birth mother was sixteen years old, and no one was volunteering as the father. She gave him his name. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? You call your child Boon, and then decide that you can’t cope with the reality of it.’ She was pensive for a moment. ‘My husband left me,’ she said, explaining the outburst.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘So was I.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Now I have to spend my nights at the Sychnant Nursing Home.’

I looked down at the photograph again. Trying to understand what it must have been like. To be black and grow up in a place like this.

She read my mind and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant, that’s it, time’s up. I’m running behind now. I’ve still got to shower, and I’ve got stuff to prepare to sustain me through another long night.’

She shook hands under the front porch. Her parting smile was warmer. I walked to the car thinking about her. We shared the same polarity. We were both outsiders, both damaged goods. By the laws of magnetism I should have been repelled. I wasn’t.

As soon as I was clear of the house, I tried calling Boon on the mobile phone number that Sally Paterson had given me.

I got an unable-to-connect message. No answering service. I tried again, with the same result. He could still have been in transit. On a plane with his phone switched off. Or, if he had returned, he could be catching up on sleep, or already on duty.

To try to go through official channels would require clearances that no one was going to give me.

On the drive home I rotated through the other information that she had supplied. Wondering what she had meant when she told me not to believe what I had heard about young women not going missing in these parts? Was Boon being black just a surprising fact? Did it have any relevance to Magda?

Why had they dropped him off in Dinas? His mother had been surprised that he had left so early. She had been hurt that he hadn’t seen fit to say goodbye to her. Even if he had been part of that group that had lurched down off the hill on Sunday morning, he would still have had plenty of time to report in at Brize Norton.

I started to develop a scenario. I put Boon back on the minibus. They have now picked up Magda, and have dumped the driver. Sod the pimp story, one of the group is driving. But that’s immaterial. They are heading towards the hills to continue the party.

With an attractive white girl on board.

And one black guy.

What if Magda was turned on by Boon? She wouldn’t know the social pecking order here. Her first impressions are of a busload of rednecks and an attractive young black kid. Where’s the choice? So is this what gets Boon booted off the bus in Dinas? And, more importantly, what does it do to the group’s perception of Magda? Does it change the dynamic? Angel to slut?

The telephone woke me in the early morning.

‘It’s Sally Paterson …’ A woman’s voice trying to contain urgency.

‘Sorry … ?’ I said groggily.

‘Boon’s mother. You gave me your number, I didn’t know who else to call.’

I straightened up, adrenalin kicking in. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I’ve just got in from work. There’s a message on the answering machine from Brize Norton. Boon never reported in for his flight back to Cyprus. No one knows where he is.’

Sally Paterson opened the door before I managed to knock. She had been watching for my arrival. Her hair, which had been pinned into a loose bun, was escaping in straggling wisps, and she was still wearing the sickly pink polyester housecoat that doubled as a uniform at the Sychnant Nursing Home. I followed her through to the kitchen, her handbag gaping open on the table where she had dropped it before checking the answering machine. She had shadows of fatigue under her eyes from her night’s work, and was speedy with worry, her heels working like castors, seeking solace from motion.

‘Did you make the calls I suggested?’ I asked.

She nodded distractedly, and I guessed that she hadn’t picked up much comfort. ‘I went back to the Transport Officer at Brize Norton. No change there. Boon’s about to be officially classified as absent without leave.’

‘What about his base in Cyprus? It could be a simple case of army SNAFU.’

She shook her head. ‘He never arrived. And he’s not on the way. There were no alternative travel arrangements. He was expected on the Brize Norton flight.’

‘Did you get in touch with the taxi company?’

‘I rang the one he usually uses. They didn’t get a call to pick him up on Saturday night.’

‘We’ll ring round,’ I said soothingly. ‘They may have been too busy.’

‘They would still have known if he had called,’ she snapped. She threw her head back and screwed her eyes closed tightly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed. ‘I mustn’t take this out on you.’

‘That’s okay.’ I persuaded her to sit down. She was frayed from trying to contain the arcing sparks of her anxiety. The night shift hadn’t helped. I made a pot of tea and sat down opposite her. ‘How did he get home?’ I asked.

‘Home?’ she replied, eyeing me blankly.

‘The minibus dropped him off in Dinas. That’s at least five miles away. How did he get back from there?’

She shook her head while she was thinking about it. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked at me wanly. ‘Is it important?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do I do?’ she asked, trying hard not to let helplessness in.

‘The first thing you ought to do is try and get some sleep.’

She shook her head in a vague protest.

‘Is there anyone you can get to come over? Family? Any friends you would like me to contact?’

‘My mother’s in Dorchester, but I wouldn’t want to worry her.’

‘Any special friends?’

She smiled weakly. ‘You’re very tactful, Sergeant Capaldi. No. No special friends. Boyfriend. Or girlfriend.’

‘You can call me Glyn, if it helps.’

‘Glyn …’ She tasted it. Then nodded. She looked up, eyes suddenly alert now, as if she had reached a decision. ‘Do you know why he doesn’t talk to me any more?’

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ I said quietly.

‘No, I want to. I have to keep trying to understand this myself.’ She arranged the words in her head for a moment. ‘It’s because he blames me. Blames us, I should say, but his father’s not around any more to take his share. He blames us for bringing him out here. For depriving him of his culture, he tells me. His heritage. You see, now that he’s in the Army and teamed up with other Afro-Caribbean men, he’s accusing us of dragging him away from his natural background.’ She laughed self-mockingly. ‘And to think that we deliberately brought him as far away as we could from that background. To keep him safe, we thought.’

I glanced out of the window. Cold slate roofs, grazing sheep and slanting rain. About as far away from life on the Street as you could get. ‘Why Wales?’ I asked.

‘It wasn’t meant to be Wales. We just wanted to get out of the city. Boon was six months old; we wanted to be in the countryside. I thought we could try somewhere like Oxfordshire or Northamptonshire. Somewhere not too far from town. But Malcolm was offered a good job here in Mid Wales.’ She shrugged. ‘Housing was cheap, we could buy a nice place, and still be relatively well off.’