Snatched (46 page)

Hands shaking, because she had no doubt that they would think she was a crazy old fool, Pauline went back into the living room to get the policewoman’s number.

‘What you doing?’ John asked, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

‘Never you mind,’ she said, hurrying back into the kitchen and closing the door. It would be hard enough making this call without him jeering at her.

Jay Osborne had had Terry put in one of the holding cells back at the station. Since he’d realised how serious this was, he’d taken her advice and opted not to be interviewed until his solicitor was present. Even though that meant being detained for the night, because the office concerned had informed them that his solicitor was in London and wouldn’t be back until the following afternoon.

Telling one of the PCs to make sure that somebody took Terry a cup of tea, Jay left him in the cell and headed to the canteen to get herself a coffee.

She’d really hoped that the anonymous caller who’d given them the tip-off had got it wrong, because she had genuinely thought that Terry was innocent. But now he’d admitted being awol for those couple of hours after getting home that night, added to which there had been a couple of half-hour periods when he’d still been at work during which he’d been alone, it looked like they’d have no choice but to investigate his movements.

Smiling wearily when Ann, her driver, came over just as she found herself a quiet table and sat down to drink her coffee in peace, she groaned when she heard about Pauline Wilson’s call.

‘Okay, well, let me just have this and we’ll call in on her,’ she said. ‘And then I need to go to Cheetham Hill to let Sue Day know what’s happening, because she’s not answering her phone.’

Livid about Terry being arrested, Leanne rooted through her pockets for the knife that Goldie had given her to protect herself with on the night of her party. Finding it, she set off for Kelly’s house.

Kicking the door when she got there, she stood back and yelled, ‘Get yourself out here, you lying bitch!’ Then she booted the door again, and didn’t stop until Kelly opened it.

‘What the fuck are you
doing
?’ Kelly gasped, peering at the scuff marks on the door. ‘My mam’s gonna go mad when she sees that.’

‘Do I look like I give a toss?’ Leanne snarled.

‘If this is about me telling Terry, I’m sorry,’ Kelly squawked, stumbling back over the doorstep as Leanne came towards her.

‘It’s not about that, and you know it,’ Leanne snarled. ‘It’s about you grassing him up to the police!’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Kelly protested fearfully. ‘Honest to God, Lee, I haven’t said nothing to them!’

‘Your phone’s ringing,’ Carole said, slapping Fred on the head as she walked past the couch. ‘And hurry up and answer it, ’cos I hate that fucking ringtone.’

Jumping up, Fred ran into the kitchen to get his phone. Seeing Ben Greene’s name, he grinned. ‘Yo, dude! Wha’ppen?’

‘Your Leanne’s gone off her head!’ Ben squawked, sounding terrified. ‘She’s kicking the shit out of our Kelly, accusing her of grassing up her boyfriend to the pigs. You’d best tell your mam to get round here and sort her out before my mam gets back from the pub, or there’ll be murders!’

Rushing back into the living room, Fred relayed the message. Then, telling Ben that they were on their way, he followed his mum, who was already dragging her jacket on as she marched out of the door and up the path.

Dave was in the pub when his mobile rang. Grinning slyly when he saw Carole’s name on the screen, he answered it, hoping to hear good news about Terry.

‘Hope you’re proud of yourself,’ Carole spat at him, sounding breathless as she paced down the road. ‘Our Leanne’s been rowing with Terry all day about you and that whore, and now he’s been arrested and she’s kicking seven shades out of Kelly Greene over it.’

‘So what’s it got to do with me?’ Dave asked, taking a casual swig of his Scotch.

‘It’s your fault she’s het up in the first place,’ Carole yelled. ‘So you’d best get your arse over here and sort her out before
she
gets arrested, an’ all. And Maggie Greene’s on her way home, so I’m going to have to deal with her. And if I do for her and get banged up, you’ll have to take our Fred and Len into your little love nest, won’t you? So it’s your choice!’

Chuckling softly when she hung up on him, Dave finished his drink and strolled out to the car. He’d not long made that anonymous call, but if the pigs had already arrested the cunt it could only mean that they’d already suspected him of having something to do with it. And that was great, because now Terry wouldn’t only have to face the fact that he’d lost his family, he’d have to accept that he’d lost Leanne as well, because they’d never survive as a couple with him behind bars. And even if Leanne was the kind of girl who would wait for him, she was more likely to go back to that lad she’d started seeing again.

Wonderful stuff!

‘I’m so sorry for dragging you round here like this,’ Pauline apologised when Jay arrived. ‘I wouldn’t normally have bothered you, but with everything that’s already happened I thought I should let you know. And you did say you wanted people to tell you anything, no matter how small it seemed.’

Assuring her that it wasn’t a problem, Jay followed her through the living room and into the kitchen, leaving Ann in the car. This should only take a minute, she reckoned, so there was no point them both going in.

Handing Connor’s drawing to Jay, Pauline pointed to the sad-faced figure in the centre, saying, ‘That’s Nicky. And I thought this was supposed to be a house,’ she went on indicating the structure around the figure. ‘But Connor said no.’

‘He spoke to you?’ Jay asked, her eyebrows rising.

‘Well, not at that point,’ Pauline admitted. ‘I was asking him questions, and he was nodding or shaking his head. But when I put him to bed, I’d just come out of the room when I thought I heard him say something. So I went back in and tried to get him to say it again, and he said “shed”.’

‘Shed?’ Jay repeated. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, almost sure,’ Pauline said, folding her arms now. ‘But it was pretty quiet, so I can’t be positive.’

‘He didn’t say anything else, then?’

‘No. He just went to sleep.’

Popping her head around the door just then, Ann told Jay that there was a disturbance across the estate, and they were the closest unit so they would have to attend.

Asking Pauline if she could take the picture with her, Jay said, ‘I was about to go and see Mrs Day, as it happens, so I’ll get her to take a look at it. See if she can think what it might mean.’

‘You know she’s at the hospital, don’t you?’ Pauline told her, following her out.

‘No, I didn’t,’ Jay said. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

Telling her that it wasn’t Sue being treated, Pauline said, ‘I only found out about it earlier myself, but it seems she’s moved in with Dave at his dad’s place, and she was there when they took Jack in, so she’s gone with him while Dave dropped Connor off here.’ Shrugging now, sure that the policewoman was as mystified by this new turn of events as she herself was, she said, ‘She seems happy enough, so I’m not going to knock them. But when you see her, can you tell her that Connor’s been good as gold, and to give me a ring if she wants me to keep him another night.’

Telling her that she would pass the message on, Jay got back into the car where Ann was waiting for her.

‘Kelly Greene’s apparently being assaulted by Leanne Miller,’ Ann explained as they set off. ‘One of the neighbours called it in; reckoned they saw a knife. And the mothers are supposedly looking set to get stuck into each other, too. And in the meantime Leanne’s dad’s turned up.’

‘Funny,’ Jay murmured, slipping the drawing into her pocket and buckling her seat belt. ‘I’ve just been told that Mr Miller senior is in hospital, and Sue Day’s with him. So what’s Dave doing here?’

‘Having fun watching the women scrap, knowing him,’ Ann muttered caustically.

Kelly had escaped by the time the police arrived. Back inside the house, she’d locked herself in the bathroom, and was crying as she surveyed the mess that Leanne had made of her face and hair in the mirror. She was going to have a huge black eye, and it would take months for the hair to grow back where Leanne had yanked a whole handful out. And Kelly didn’t have a clue what she was supposed to have done.

When Leanne had started kicking the door, Kelly had been sure that she was going to have a go at her for telling Terry about her and Zak. But she’d accused her of grassing him up to the police, which hadn’t made any sense, because Kelly hadn’t spoken to the police. But Leanne hadn’t believed her and had started threatening her with the knife. Then both of their mams had turned up and started kicking off at each other, and it had all gone mad. But when Leanne’s dad had come and taken the knife off Leanne she’d gone really loco and had laid into Kelly with her fists instead. And her dad had left her to it – until one of the neighbours had shouted that they’d called the police.

Hearing the sirens as the police car turned into the road and pulled up outside, Kelly crept into her bedroom to watch what was happening through the window. There was no way she was going out there and grassing Leanne up for what she’d done, or she’d be dead next time Leanne got hold of her.

Dave had tossed the knife under someone else’s hedge by the time the police car pulled up, closely followed by a vanload of uniforms. He’d have left them to it, but with some of the coke still sitting undelivered in his boot there was no way he was risking them pulling him on suspicion of trying to leave the scene of a disturbance, because then they’d have the authority to search his car.

‘Right, what’s going on?’ Ann asked, jumping out of the car and coming straight to the point.

‘Don’t look at
me
,’ Maggie Greene said indignantly. ‘I’ve been at bingo and come home to find
her
–’ she jabbed a finger in Leanne’s direction ‘– kicking ten tons out of our Kelly.’

‘What have you got to say about it?’ Jay asked Leanne.

‘Nothing,’ Leanne said, shrugging nonchalantly. ‘She went for me, so I defended myself.’

‘Like fucking hell you did,’ Maggie squawked. ‘Our Ben’s already told me you was trying to kick the door in. That’s why Kelly come out in the first place.’

Fronting it out, Leanne said, ‘I didn’t kick any door. I was just talking to her about something, and she flipped out.’

‘Everything’s sorted now,’ Dave interjected calmly, unfazed by the PCs who were standing around them in a semicircle, waiting to pounce if it kicked off again.

‘Where’s Kelly?’ Ann wanted to know. ‘Let’s have her out to give us
her
side before we decide if it’s sorted, eh?’

Catching the dark look of warning that Dave was giving her, Maggie felt a shiver of apprehension ripple down her spine. Inhaling deeply, she said, ‘It’s all right. There’s no harm done. Just two girls having a scrap over a lad. You know how it is.’

‘We had a report that a knife was seen,’ Jay said.

‘Knife?’ Maggie repeated, folding her arms and looking at the Millers as if they were all on the same side now. ‘Don’t know nothing about a knife. Do you?’

‘Someone’s telling porkies,’ Carole said, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe that people were capable of such exaggeration. ‘There’s no knives round here. Like Maggie said,’ she went on, standing shoulder to shoulder with the other mother as if they were the best of mates, ‘this is just a silly girly thing got out of hand.’

‘Won’t mind if we search you all, then, will you?’ Ann said.

‘Feel free,’ Dave said, holding out his arms, safe in the knowledge that he had nothing on him.

Ann patted the women down, while two of the male officers gave Dave a quick search. Finding nothing, they turned to Jay and shook their heads.

‘I’d still like to see Kelly,’ Jay insisted.

‘Sorry, love, but she’s gone out,’ Maggie lied, praying that Kelly would have the sense to stay inside. ‘She said she was meeting up with some friends, so I couldn’t tell you where she’d be by now.’

Aware that they had closed ranks and that she was going to get nowhere, Jay sighed and said, ‘So I take it no one wants to press charges against anyone?’

‘No,’ they all replied in unison.

‘We’ll leave you to it, then,’ Jay said, heading towards the car as the PCs went back to their van. Pausing there, she turned back, saying, ‘Sorry to hear about your father, by the way. I’m just heading over to the hospital to speak to Mrs Day if you’d like a lift.’

‘No, you’re all right, love,’ Dave said, retaining the unconcerned smile, even though he could have killed her for saying that in front of his daughter, because he could already feel Leanne’s furious glare burning a hole into the back of his head. Now he’d have her on his back about that as well as everything else, and he hadn’t even had the chance to talk to her yet.

25

Jack had been resuscitated twice in the ambulance on the way over to the hospital and it had been touch and go for a while, the paramedics warning Sue that he might not make it. But the old man was made of sterner stuff, and he’d rallied round by the time they reached the hospital.

He was awake now, but very weak, and Sue had felt compelled to hold his hand as she sat beside his bed, even though she didn’t know him all that well.

Jack was grateful for her being there, but he was also worried. Gazing at her through half-slitted eyes now, he said, ‘You should be with Connor, not sitting here with me.’

‘Connor’s fine,’ she assured him.

‘No,’ Jack said, shaking his head. ‘You shouldn’t leave him with David. Please . . .’

‘He’s not with Dave,’ Sue said, a flicker of a frown on her brow. ‘He’s staying at my friend’s house for the night.’

Sighing weakly, seeming relieved to hear this, Jack said, ‘He’s a good boy, you know. But very sad.’