No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) (9 page)

The Greyhound was a good choice for a quiet lunchtime pint and a handy base while he was back here but if you wanted a decent atmosphere in the evening it had to be the Lion, with its younger, slightly rougher crowd. Everything in the pub was hazy, obscured by the thick veil of cigarette smoke which always hung over the place. The Lion was half full already and Tom knew virtually everyone in there. Soon the older guys would drift home and the young ones would come out to take their place. He squeezed into a gap at the bar and ordered a pint of bitter from Harry the landlord. He was immediately pulled up on his accent.

‘No way,’ he protested.

‘It’s changed man,’ Harry assured him, ‘you’ve gone posh on us.’

‘Bollocks,’ he said but there were smiles from regulars who were going along with the wind-up. Tom endured a
few minutes of good-natured banter on the subject of him turning into a soft southerner after just a few months in London.

‘If it’s any consolation, I get even more grief,’ the comment came from the bar stool next to him, from a man Tom had never spoken to before. The guy was way too young to be an alkie but he was a definite barfly: one of those fellas whose leisure time pretty much consisted of hours spent in one pub. Tom had noticed him before, sitting quietly in the corner, nursing a pint while reading a book or gazing off into space, lost in his private thoughts. He looked out of place among the other, far older regulars; mostly retired guys who’d been shooed out of their homes by wives who wanted a bit of peace or some cleaning time without their men getting under their feet.

‘Not from round here then?’ asked Tom.

The man, who was about Tom’s age, replied, ‘I’m from that mythical place known as “down south”, which covers anything the wrong side of Scotch Corner. Everyone’s been great since I arrived but if I stayed another twenty years I reckon they’d still all think I was just passing through.’

‘You could be right,’ admitted Tom, ‘but I am actually from here.’

‘And now you’re back?’

‘I’m a journalist. I go where the news is,’ Tom said quickly. ‘It just happens to be here right now.’

‘I never read newspapers,’ he said it matter-of-factly, ‘news depresses me,’ and when he noticed Tom’s disbelief, he added, ‘I’m serious, it’s only ever bad. If newspapers or the TV news ever covered anything happy, I’d pay more attention but they don’t, so I won’t.’

Tom
was taken aback by the innocence of that statement. It was so unusual it was almost refreshing. ‘Blimey, doesn’t it feel a bit strange not knowing what’s going on in the world?’

‘I do know what’s going on in the world. I just don’t get it from newspapers. I read specialist stuff, magazines.’

‘Specialist stuff?’

‘Rugby, fishing, history,’ he shrugged, ‘all kinds of things. I just can’t be bothered with politics or other people’s tragedies.’

Tom contemplated a world without newspapers or the TV bulletins and wondered how long he’d be able to survive without them. ‘I’m one of those people who has to walk miles to get a copy of yesterday’s English newspaper when I’m on holiday.’

‘Can’t remember when I last opened one.’

‘I’m glad you are in the minority or I’d be out of a job. So how did you end up in Great Middleton?’

‘I’m a teacher.’

‘A teacher who doesn’t read newspapers?’ Tom was even more surprised.

‘I teach the little ones. They’re not big on world affairs. I’m at the junior school.’

‘I used to go there,’ said Tom. ‘I’m Tom Carney. I didn’t get your name.’

‘Andrew Foster,’ answered his new friend. ‘I spend my days with nine-year-olds and most of my evenings in this pub. I’m sure those two facts are not entirely unrelated.’

‘I’ll bet. Do you know this missing girl then: Michelle Summers?’

‘Before
my time, mate, never taught her. She was at the local comp.’

It was almost a relief. Freed from the necessity of speaking professionally to the school teacher, Tom began to relax. The two men drank together and exchanged stories on the perils of teaching gobby infants or interviewing gormless models who’d been shagging footballers. Despite having absolutely nothing in common with this solitary, young man, except perhaps their age, Tom found Andrew Foster to be excellent company. He had a dry sense of humour and what could only be described as a healthy cynicism that dovetailed neatly with Tom’s own world-view.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder then and Tom turned to see Boring Bryan, as he was known locally, ‘I need a word,’ the old man said importantly.

‘Okay,’ but Bryan indicated Tom should follow him to a quiet corner. Reluctantly he left the bar stool and followed the pub regular to a table. They sat either end of a large ashtray piled high with stale cigarette butts.

‘You want to find out what happened to poor little Michelle?’ he asked conspiratorially once they were seated.

‘Well, yeah.’

‘Did you see the press conference?’

Tom shook his head, ‘I was driving up here.’

‘Take a look at it on the late news,’ Bryan urged him, ‘take a good, long look.’

‘Why?’

‘Because
he
did it,’ announced the old man firmly.

‘Who did?’

‘The
stepdad,’ he told Tom, as if it was obvious.

‘Right,’ said Tom, hesitantly, ‘and what makes you think that, Bryan?’

‘I saw it on the telly at lunchtime. He showed no emotion. His stepdaughter’s gone missing, his wife is in pieces and he just sits there staring out with those dead eyes of his like all’s well with the world.’

‘Yeah but that’s not evidence, Bryan, just because he wasn’t crying in a press conference. Those things affect people in different ways.’

‘He did it,’ Bryan jabbed a finger into Tom’s chest, ‘you mark my words.’ Then he got to his feet and ambled off to the gents.

Tom was left to ponder the fact that Boring Bryan’s conviction, that Michelle’s stepdad looked shifty so he must be a murderer, was the strongest lead he was going to get that day. ‘Christ almighty,’ he muttered as he wandered back to the bar. The school teacher held up his empty glass and mouthed the word ‘pint?’ at him. Tom nodded. Maybe just a few, he thought, for where was the harm in that?

CHAPTER TWELVE

Day Two

‘Get away from there, you small boys!’ the headmaster’s voice was loud and so full of implied threat that the half dozen seven-year-olds immediately turned and fled, dashing away from the enormous vehicle that captivated them. They ran all the way back up the hill and across the playground, without looking up to meet the disapproving gaze of Mister Nelson. He watched them go, the last stragglers from the morning break, before continuing to walk down the hill towards the freshly dug earth. He turned his head to address Theo Hutton, who was frowning at him. The headmaster belatedly realised the borough councillor wasn’t used to seeing his more aggressive side, the one he saved for unruly children, and that it might not exactly be the image he wanted to convey to one of the north east’s more renowned political power brokers.

He forced a smile to crease his face. ‘Boys will be boys.’

The two men watched the yellow JCB with its enormous, sharp-toothed iron bucket on the end of a long metal arm, as it came crashing down once more to chew the ground in front of it. A huge scar stretched behind the digger, marking its progress across the land, its body juddering each time the mechanical arm dipped and scraped the bucket into the ground, turning green sod
into rich, dark soil. Some way behind the digger, another vehicle followed at a more measured pace, its front end ploughing the earth into a flat surface.

‘Making quick work of that,’ said the councillor.

Councillor Hutton glanced behind him at the primary school; a single-storey building with a flat roof, and walls made almost entirely out of glass and metal frames.

‘This all used to be part of Mackenzie’s farm,’ he told the headmaster.

‘I know.’

‘And that,’ said the councillor, pointing out at the land being dug up by the JCB and carrying on regardless, ‘used to be nowt but a bloody marsh. You could walk on it half the year, but a lot of the time it was covered in tadpole-infested water.’

‘So I hear,’ answered the headmaster. He lacked the patience for one of Councillor Hutton’s ‘it-were-all-fields-round-here-when-I-was-a-lad’ speeches today. ‘And the decision to drain it has been the most cost-effective part of the new building project, transforming useless marsh into prime building land.’

‘We’re not facing the planning committee now,’ Nelson was a self-satisfied prick, thought the councillor, determined to bask in the success of his pet project, a new building incorporating two additional classrooms, as well as a swimming pool and dining room that could accommodate children from the neighbouring village, dooming their own school to closure.

As they drew nearer to the digger, both men’s thoughts were interrupted by a harsh squealing noise as the driver hastily applied the brakes and it lurched alarmingly. The
driver leaped from the vehicle, losing his yellow hard hat in the process, which bounced along the ground. He ignored it and ran round to the front of the digger. The head teacher experienced an illogical fear that a child had somehow become trapped under the digger but surely they would have seen him. They drew nearer as the driver peered down at the freshly dug hole. They couldn’t see what had alarmed him but they could hear his panicked murmurings.

They advanced cautiously until the driver sensed their presence and turned. ‘Get the police,’ he called and when they simply stared back at him, he swore and started to run towards the school building. Councillor Hutton and the headmaster looked at each other then walked towards the hole, the rich, wet soil clinging to their shoes.

They drew right up the edge and peered in.

‘Oh my good God,’ said the headmaster.

‘Jesus-Christ-almighty,’ added the councillor for good measure.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ian Bradshaw took the call. The first voice he heard was a woman’s, the police sergeant on the front desk, asking to speak to Kane.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Kane is at Michelle Summers’ mother’s home,’ he said precisely.

‘DI Peacock then?’ she asked hopefully, as if she couldn’t possibly entrust her news to the station half-wit.

‘He’s with the DCI. Perhaps I can help?’ he added reasonably, knowing their absence had painted her into a corner.

There was a pause while she weighed this up. Was he considered that much of a liability these days? It seemed he was. Finally she spoke and there was a trace of resignation in her voice. ‘They’ve found a body,’ she told him, ‘at Great Middleton School.’

Bradshaw was determined to be discreet. He would take the DCI to one side and quietly inform him the girl’s body had been found. He would spare the family any unnecessary anguish until the time came when they could be spared it no longer. He knew if they realised Michelle had been found their first instinct would be to go to her, but how could forensics pick up anything if the grieving relatives contaminated the crime scene? Bradshaw
climbed out of the car, straightened his jacket, marched purposefully up to the front door and rang the bell.

‘Who found her?’ asked DI Peacock moments later as Bradshaw’s car sped down the hill towards the school.

‘A JCB driver,’

‘Where is he now?’ DCI Kane was in the back seat, with DI Peacock riding shotgun in the front.

‘In the headmaster’s office with a cup of tea and a biscuit, so he can’t blurt anything to the press or passers-by.’ He could tell by their silence they were happy with that. ‘The kids are all in the main hall in the centre of the school, for a “special assembly” until they work out the best way to get them out of there with the minimum of fuss,’

‘Anyone else know about this?’

‘Another workman, he’s also in the building,’ Bradshaw repeated virtually every word the desk sergeant had told him, ‘and there is a local politician – a borough councillor who was walking the grounds with the headmaster when the body was found,’

‘That’s all we need,’ muttered the DI

They got out of the car then walked round the building towards the playing fields at the rear. Bradshaw told himself that the outcome had been entirely predictable. Nobody expected poor Michelle Summers to turn up alive and now they would concentrate on finding her killer. In a strange way, as he walked side by side with the DCI and his DI it almost felt like he was back in the fold.