White Riot (14 page)

He sighed. Di Nattrass had really gone to bat for him. Put her own job on the line. It had really surprised him. But ultimately even her intervention hadn’t saved him. They had still thrown him out.

Turnbull’s last case as a member of Northumbria Police had brought down a sex-trafficking ring and the successful arrest of a serial killer. But instead of the expected commendations, he had ended up out of the service. Too many dead bodies. Tyne Dock ablaze. Too cavalier, too maverick. Not by the book. Transparency was all now, and his methods couldn’t be held up to public scrutiny. A walking time bomb. Too much potential embarrassment.

For his superiors, not for him.

And now all he had was a soul full of bitterness, a heart full of broken dreams. And daytime TV.

He thought of making a cup of tea. Or coffee. Gave a shuddering self-pitying sigh. What his life had come to.

He caught his reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. Once so sure of himself and his opinions, now he didn’t recognize the face staring back at him. He used to be Mr Monochrome in every sense: his clothing, his views, even his football team black and white. Now just a slurry of sludgy, blurry greys. His once neat hair greasy and untidy, more grey than black. His weight increasing from lack of exercise. His shoulders sagged. His T-shirt stained, dirty. His
beard beyond designer stubble. And jogging bottoms. Jogging bottoms. But the eyes were the worst. They showed a man who had given up. On himself. On everything.

He hated the Trisha Trash and the Kyle Cunts. And feared that was what he was becoming.

Then: a knock on the door.

Turnbull turned, unsure whether he had heard correctly. He stood, unmoving.

It came again. Unmistakable.

He crossed the room, made his way downstairs. Tamping down the small surge of hope in his chest. It would only be Jehovah’s Witnesses. Or canvassers ahead of the election. Still, he could send them off with a mouthful.

He opened the door, insults charged and ready to hurl. They died in his mouth. It was the last person he expected to see. Joe Donovan.

‘Hello, Paul,’ Donovan said. ‘Bastard of a job tracking you down. Almost like you didn’t want to be found. Can I come in?’

Turnbull stood mutely aside, let Donovan enter, followed him up the stairs. Donovan looked round. Turnbull saw the flat from Donovan’s perspective: a collection of rooms decorated with carpet remnants and trade-only paint and wall coverings, containing geriatric charity-shop furniture and an air of despair and hopelessness. Turnbull felt a bile-ball form inside him.

‘What d’you want?’

‘Cup of tea would be nice,’ said Donovan, sitting down on a sofa that had last had a brush with fashion when Thatcher was coming to power, trying to ignore the cloud of dust that rose as he did so.

Turnbull didn’t move. Donovan was taking it all in.

‘This where you end up when they chuck you off the job?’

‘They didn’t chuck me off. I resigned.’

Donovan nodded. ‘Right. Made their job a lot easier, then.’

‘Fuck off.’ He looked away from Donovan, embarrassed by his sudden outburst. Donovan said nothing.

‘Traffic division,’ Turnbull said bitterly, as if vocalizing an ongoing internal conversation. ‘Fuckin’ traffic division. That’s what they offered me. That or a desk job somewhere down in the fuckin’ bowels. May as well have just said they were movin’ me to the fuck-up squad. What choice did I have?’

Turnbull sat down in an armchair, armrests holding so many cigarette burns they seemed part of the pattern.

‘And then Karen throwing you out,’ said Donovan.

Turnbull stared at the floor, nodded. ‘Changed the locks one day when I was out, threw all my stuff into the street. Can’t see my kids, nothin’.’

‘Bad,’ said Donovan, genuine empathy in his voice.

Turnbull looked up. ‘What the fuck would you know about it?’

Donovan didn’t have to answer. Turnbull stared at the pattern on the carpet, wondered what sort of mind had ever considered the sickening swirls and clashing colours a good idea.

‘How d’you find me?’ Turnbull asked eventually.

‘Phoned Di. She didn’t want to give your address out but—’ He shrugged, smiled ‘—I insisted.’

Turnbull nodded absently. ‘Diamond. Only one who kept in touch. Rest have backed off like I’m fuckin’ Typhoid Mary. Like my bad luck’s goin’ to rub off on them.’

‘Suppose you can’t blame them under the circumstances.’

Turnbull’s anger broke again. ‘What the fuck d’you want? Did you just come here to make—’ he moved his hands around as grasping words from the air ‘—judgements you’re not qualified to make?’

Donovan shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Mister Smartarse. Mister Cunt. Mister I-don’t-need-to-operate-within-the-law-because-I’m-better-than-all-of-you.’

Donovan bit back words, stood up. ‘Call me when your head’s in a better state.’

Turnbull looked at Donovan. They weren’t friends. Didn’t even like each other. But there was mutual respect there, trust even. And Turnbull couldn’t say that about many people. Certainly not his former colleagues.

‘Wait.’

If Donovan walked, Turnbull wouldn’t find out what he wanted.

And he would be alone again.

Turnbull eyed again the hideously patterned carpet. ‘Sorry.’

Donovan sat back down, tried to shrug it off. ‘OK.’

Another silence stretched between them.

‘Why did you come here?’ said Turnbull. ‘I doubt you’re concerned about my welfare.’

‘You’re a friend, course I am.’

The words hit. Turnbull couldn’t look up. Couldn’t trust himself to say anything.

‘But there was something. Got a job for you.’

Something fluttered inside Turnbull’s chest, like a sparrow trapped in a cage breaking for freedom. He looked up. ‘A job?’

‘Yeah. If you want it, that is.’

‘What kind?’

‘One that requires discretion, tenacity and patience.’

Turnbull attempted a laugh. ‘But your go-to guy for that wasn’t available, so you came to me.’

Donovan smiled. ‘Jesus, that’s a first. Self-deprecating humour from Paul Turnbull.’

‘Fuck off.’

Donovan laughed. ‘That’s more like the twat I know.’

Turnbull smiled. Stretching muscles he hadn’t stretched in weeks. Months, even. The sparrow fluttered harder. Then stopped.

‘Last time I worked with you I got kicked off the force.’

‘You can’t blame me for that, Paul. So. D’you want to know about it?’

‘Tell me.’

Donovan told him of the couple in Hertfordshire who had turned up one day with a son. ‘There’s talk it might be some kind of international child-smuggling operation. But I’m not interested in that. I just want to find out who the boy is and where he came from. So what d’you think?’

It sounded so easy. All Turnbull had to do was say yes and he could start living again. He opened his mouth; no words came out. The fluttering started again. Bigger this time, harder. He was scared. He had left more than his job when he left the police.

But he couldn’t let Joe Donovan see that. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ His voice was loud, words wrapped in a hard carapace of anger. ‘You come along and … and plug my life-support system back in, and everything’s fine again? Yeah?’

He had more but Donovan cut him off. ‘Look around you, Paul. This isn’t a place to live. This is a place you go to die. Listen, mate, I know what a struggle it is day after day just to get up. I know what it’s like to have a whole load of nothing stretching out in front of you and think this is it, this is my life.’

‘Good for fuckin’ you.’

‘Yeah, good for fuckin’ me. An’ I’ll tell you. It’s a deep, dark pit and you haven’t begun to reach the bottom yet. Not even halfway.’

‘So why’s this job so important you want me to do it?’

‘Because I want someone I can trust. Because the boy that this couple have got? I think it’s my son.’

‘What?’

‘You heard. So what d’you want to do? Stay here or climb out?’

Turnbull swallowed hard, not trusting himself to speak. His hands were shaking. He struggled to bring himself under control. ‘Climb,’ he said, his voice sounding like someone else’s.

Donovan smiled, relieved. ‘Good.’ He held out his hand. ‘Consider yourself on the payroll. Welcome to Albion.’

They shook.

Turnbull smiled, caught his eyes in the mirror. No longer saw a man who had given up. Saw someone whose eyes held, no matter how small an amount, hope. ‘I’d better get a shave, then.’

‘You should have called us sooner, Trevor.’

‘Why? You didn’t even have the trace in place.’ Whitman was sitting on the sofa in the old rectory, Lillian perched on the arm, her hand draped protectively over his shoulder.

The curtains were drawn to keep out the heat. It just succeeded in making the room feel more claustrophobic.

Peta looked at Amar, shrugged. It was true. They had been in the process of doing that when Whitman had received the call.

Whitman put his glass to his lips with shaking hands. Drained it, swallowed hard, grimaced, the whisky going down burning. Lillian held him all the harder. His shirt looked like he had slept in it, his hair was all over the place. He looked like Wayne Coyne after a particularly intense Flaming Lips gig. Eyes sunken black and red, like ragged wounds in his face. Enough newspapers lying around to mop up an incontinent pet. Despite the reservations she had about him, Peta felt pity for the man.

‘So what do we do now, then?’ Whitman said.

‘Ask questions.’ She sat down next to him, switched on the Dictaphone in her pocket. ‘Did you recognize the voice?’

Whitman drained his glass, sat forward, head in hands. Sighed.

Peta looked to Amar who was sitting on the chair by the fire. He gave her a nod, handing the play to her. She would be good cop, he bad. Or at least she sympathetic, he
flippant. They were roles that had worked for them in the past.

‘Was it Baty again? Is that who it sounded like?’

Whitman shook his head, gave a small whimper.

‘Who, then? Did you recognize it?’

Whitman covered his face with his fingers, grimaced behind the mask. ‘T. S. Eliot …’

Peta and Amar shared a look, frowning.

‘What?’ said Peta.

‘T. S. Eliot …’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Amar. ‘He died years ago.’

Whitman looked up. His eyes were red for any number of reasons: tears, fatigue, intolerance at Amar’s wilful stupidity. ‘The person on the phone. Quoted T. S. Eliot at me.’

Silence fell in the room while that fact was digested.

‘Not that one about the cats, was it?’ said Amar. ‘Went to see that show with the school. Piece of shit.’

Whitman turned his attention to Amar. ‘No. Not the one about the cats. The one that used to be a code for my old group.’

‘The Hollow Men,’ said Peta.

‘Right.’

Peta leaned closer. ‘So what did they say?’

Whitman reached for the whisky bottle. Peta gently moved it out of his grasp. ‘You can have that in a minute, Trevor. I just need to know what they said.’

His eyes couldn’t meet hers. ‘They said … they said … They’re planning something. And I was too late to stop them.’

Questions tumbled through Peta’s head, all sparked off by Whitman’s words. She didn’t know which to come out with first. ‘Too late in what way? Planning what?’

Whitman shook his head. ‘I don’t know …’

‘Did you recognize the voice?’

Whitman sighed. ‘I don’t … I might have done.’

‘Male or female?’

‘I don’t know. It sounded familiar. But different.’

‘Like it was distorted?’ said Amar.

‘Yeah,’ said Whitman quickly, latching on to the phrase like a drowning man to a life raft. ‘Distorted. That’s it. Like they wanted me to hear it but not recognize it.’

Peta looked at Amar, shared a frown.

‘Give us some help here, Trevor. Did you recognize the voice?’

Whitman looked up, about to speak. Then put his head down again, shook it, sighed heavily. ‘No. But I think it was one of the Hollow Men,’ he said weakly. ‘Try them.’

‘Which one?’ said Amar.

‘I don’t know.’ His hands were flexing and unflexing. Practising reaching for the whisky. ‘Just get the trace set up. Please. Soon.’

Peta sat back, looked at Amar, shrugged. That seemed to be all they were getting. Whitman, sensing their talk had come to an end, reached for the bottle. Peta didn’t stop him.

She stood up, looked at Lillian. Her mother seemed haggard, weighed down with worry, like she had aged several years in the space of a few days.

‘Thanks, Trevor,’ said Peta, turning off the Dictaphone, ‘Amar’ll get the trace set up straight away. He’s brought his stuff. Next call that comes in, we’ll be on to it.’

Whitman nodded, whisky glass to his lips.

Peta turned to her mother. ‘Lillian, can I have a word …’

They walked into the kitchen together. Once inside, Peta shut the door, faced her mother. ‘How are you bearing up?’

Lillian picked up the tea towel from the table, began to pleat the edges in her fingers. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Well, as fine as can be expected, you know. It’s a stressful time at the moment.’

Peta nodded. ‘Look, I want you to tell me the truth. Does Trevor know more than he’s saying?’

Lillian began pleating harder. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Does he know who’s making the phone calls? Is there something stopping him from telling us?’

Lillian looked like she wanted her daughter to leave. Peta didn’t move.

‘Lillian?’

‘I … I don’t know. He … If he does, he hasn’t told me.’

Peta opened her mouth to say something more but got nowhere. Lillian slumped down in a chair, head down, caught up in a burst of sudden, intense tears. The sobs racked her body, shoulders heaving, head bobbing.

Peta didn’t know what to do, how to comfort her. She sat down beside her, put her arm round her. Lillian fell into the embrace, sobbed further.

‘This … this was supposed to be a happy time for me,’ Lillian managed between waves of tears. ‘I huh-hadn’t seen Trevor in years. I wuh-was so looking forward to get-getting … to seeing him again. And now this, now this …’