When She Was Good

by Robotham, Michael

  Sacha walks forward, waiting for someone to notice us. A couple of the men look up, studying her as though they might have met her before, or wish they had. They look along the sorting line, wondering who is going to claim her. Nobody does.

  A woman with a high-vis vest turns when someone nudges her. In her mid-thirties, she wears her tight black curls tied together in a colourful scarf that seems to balance precariously on top of her head.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asks in a lilting Jamaican accent.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ says Sacha, taking the lead.

  ‘If you’ve come to donate, clothes go in the red boxes, blankets in the green; and canned goods can be stacked on the table. Nothing perishable.’

  ‘Who are you collecting for?’ asks Sacha.

  ‘Whoever needs it most,’ she replies. ‘The homeless. The destitute. The needy.’

  One of the men shouts out to her. ‘Hey, Billie, how about a Rosie?’

  Billie checks her phone. ‘Ten minutes. And take your cigarettes outside.’

  ‘A Rosie?’ I ask.

  ‘Rosie Lee – cup of tea,’ says Billie.

  The workers begin to move away from the tables. The nearest of them gets up from a stool and becomes a towering figure, touching seven feet, dressed in a black T-shirt that hugs him like a second skin.

  ‘Can I get you a cuppa?’ he asks Billie.

  ‘White with one,’ she replies.

  ‘Anything for you ladies?’

  He’s directed the question at me, wanting to see how I react. Sacha answers for both of us, declining.

  The man doesn’t move. He is sizing me up, deciding if I’m a threat. I’ve seen the look before in the eyes of men in prison, where their status and affiliations can keep them safe. This man has no need of protection.

  Looking around, I see similar signs among the other workers – home-made tattoos, gym-hardened muscles and an exercise-yard shuffle.

  ‘You’re a charity for ex-offenders,’ I say.

  ‘The answer is in the name,’ replies Billie. ‘Out4Good.’

  She puts her weight on one leg and props a hand on her left hip. ‘But this is only a small part of what we do. We find them jobs. We give them housing. Food vouchers. Medications. Health checks. Today, we’re putting together care packages for struggling families and the homeless.’

  The man-mountain has gone to a small kitchen off to the side, where people are queuing in front of a silver urn.

  ‘If you’re not here to donate, why are you here?’ asks Billie.

  ‘We’re trying to trace the movements of a man called Hamish Whitmore.’

  ‘The detective.’

  ‘You met him.’

  ‘Once. He dropped by a week or two ago asking questions, just like you are. He wanted details about our employees.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Exactly what I’m going to tell you. Nothing.’ There is a harder edge to her voice. ‘We employ men and women who have admitted their mistakes and served their time. We offer them a clean slate. No questions. No baggage.’

  ‘What if I mentioned the name Eugene Green …?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Terry Boland?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’ A curl of hair has escaped from her scarf and falls across her left eye. She blows it aside. ‘I hope you haven’t come a long way – because this is a waste of your time and mine.’

  The man-mountain returns carrying her mug of tea, which looks like a child’s teacup in his hands.

  ‘Everything OK, Billie?’

  ‘Fine, thank you, Nicholas.’

  He opens his other hand, offering her a biscuit.

  ‘It’s polite to put that on a plate,’ says Billie.

  ‘I forgot.’

  She takes it anyway and dunks it into her tea, biting off one end.

  ‘Who set up the charity?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s part of the Everett Foundation.’

  ‘Phillip Everett.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘At university, I studied one of Lord Everett’s speeches to the House of Lords where he argued for better training and job programmes for ex-cons.’

  ‘That’s exactly what he’s doing,’ says Billie. ‘We offer apprenticeships, legal services and affordable housing, as well as finding jobs.’

  ‘What do you mean, “legal services”?’ I ask.

  ‘Sometimes people are wrongly charged or imprisoned. The Everett Foundation provides legal assistance.’

  ‘Representation?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Sounds expensive.’

  ‘Lord Everett began the foundation with his family’s money. He’s the most inspiring man I’ve ever met.’

  ‘So, you’ve met him,’ says Sacha.

  ‘Every year he throws a Christmas party and invites all of us, the employees, ex-offenders, donors, politicians … Last year he set up a fairground at his country house. There was a Ferris wheel and dodgem cars and fortune tellers. People brought their kids and Lord Everett dressed up as Santa Claus.’

  The workers are wandering back from their tea-break. Billie notices the time.

  ‘Hamish Whitmore is dead,’ I say. ‘He was murdered.’

  The bluntness of the statement surprises her. She blinks at me uncertainly.

  ‘I don’t think I should be talking to you. If you have any questions, you should put them to Mr Manning.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s on the board of trustees of the Everett Foundation. That’s where I sent Detective Whitmore.’ She scrawls the address on a corner of butcher’s paper and tears it off.

  ‘This is where he works.’

  I recognise the street. Deansgate in Manchester. It’s the second address on Suzie’s satnav. Not far.

  35

  Evie

  Guthrie is on the warpath because someone has tampered with his phone. He’s convinced that I’m to blame, but he can’t prove anything, and that makes him even angrier. Right now, he’s complaining that his phone is possessed and ‘has a mind of its own’.

  Ruby and I are hiding in my room, playing our version of Scrabble (we hand-pick our tiles to make the filthiest words). Nathan pokes his head around my door. He has a pimple on his forehead just waiting to be popped.

  ‘How did you do it?’ he asks.

  ‘Auto-correct.’

  ‘You got hold of his mobile.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘It was unlocked?’

  ‘He doesn’t use a passcode.’

  ‘People that stupid don’t deserve a phone.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  The plan went down at breakfast when Guthrie was tucking into a full English. Ever since his wife kicked him out, Guthrie has been eating most of his meals at Langford House; another reason he’s getting so fat. This morning, Ruby ‘accidentally’ spilled a full mug of tea into his lap. While Guthrie was dancing around, calling her names, she palmed his phone from the table and slipped it to me.

  I waited until he went to the staff bathroom to sponge off his trousers. Then I opened his phone and changed his auto-correct settings, altering a few common phrases. If he typed the words ‘I want’ in any context, it would instantly change to: ‘I want to sleep with your sister’. The sentence, ‘I’ll be home’ was completed by: ‘when I’ve had a blowjob from your mother’. ‘Office’ became ‘brothel’. ‘Dinner’ became ‘your shit cooking’. And ‘I love you’ changed to ‘I was a dickhead for marrying you’.

  By the time Guthrie got back to his breakfast, his phone was on the table and he was none the wiser until he started sending text messages. I couldn’t be completely sure the prank would work but I was pretty confident because Guthrie is one of those ‘two-thumb’ texters who never look at the screen when they’re typing.

  It took most of the day before the shit hit the fan. Guthrie has gone nuclear. We can hear him pleading to his wife on the phone, saying, ‘It’s not me, baby, I promise, yo
u … No, of course not. You’re much prettier than your sister … No, never, I swear … I would never say that about your mother.’

  I laugh so hard a little bit of wee comes out.

  ‘Shhhh, he’s coming,’ says Nathan, who has been acting as our look-out. He scurries back to his room and Ruby begins studying her Scrabble tiles.

  Guthrie arrives. ‘It was you!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You sabotaged my phone.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  He’s standing over me with spit flying from his mouth. ‘You fuck with me and I’m going to fuck you right back.’

  ‘Is that allowed?’ I ask. ‘Fucking, I mean. Duty of care, and all that. You’re an adult, I’m a minor. You are supposed to keep me safe and protect me from sexual, physical and emotional harm. I have the right to be treated with respect and dignity.’

  For a moment, I think Guthrie’s head might take off and fly around the room like a farting balloon.

  Meanwhile, Ruby has gone quiet and I’m worried she might break down and say something, but she’s tougher than she looks.

  Guthrie is all bark and no bite; a big man with a small mind. He shouldn’t be a social worker. He should be a janitor, or a night security guard, or a baggage handler. Some job that doesn’t involve dealing with people.

  After he leaves, Ruby exhales slowly like she’s been holding her breath. ‘How do you remember stuff like that – about duty of care and shit?’

  ‘I read a pamphlet I found in Madge’s office.’

  ‘You should become a social worker, or a shrink.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah. You could help other people.’

  ‘Nah. I can’t even help myself.’

  36

  Cyrus

  The foyer of the office block is the size of a large ballroom with soaring glass windows that reflect other windows, creating a hall-of-mirrors effect where I can see multiple versions of myself facing in the same direction.

  The young male receptionist is dressed in a tight-fitting shirt with stove-pipe trousers that show off his bare ankles and lace-up canvas shoes.

  ‘Hello, my name is Marcus, how can I help you?’

  ‘We’re here to see Fraser Manning.’

  ‘Does he know you’re coming?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Confusion clouds his eyes. ‘Mr Manning doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.’

  ‘We’d like to make one.’

  ‘Certainly.’ He hands me an iPad. ‘You’ll need to make a written application, including the nature of your business and a list of questions you may want to ask him. Any appointment is limited to twenty minutes, unless he deems this insufficient. And Mr Manning reserves the right to have a witness present and to record any meeting.’

  ‘When can we see him?’ asks Sacha.

  Marcus consults his own iPad, swiping across the screen with his forefinger. ‘July the fifth.’

  ‘That’s months away.’

  ‘He’s a very busy man.’

  ‘We’d prefer to see him today,’ I say.

  ‘He has meetings all afternoon.’

  I sigh and lean my elbows on the smooth glass counter.

  ‘Can you inform Mr Manning that I’m a forensic psychologist employed by Nottinghamshire Police. Several weeks ago, a former detective called Hamish Whitmore came to this address looking for Mr Manning.’

  ‘Why does that concern you?’

  ‘Detective Whitmore was murdered a week ago.’

  Marcus opens and closes his mouth, as though clearing his ears. ‘Are you suggesting …?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m simply trying to trace Detective Whitmore’s movements to discover who he met and what they discussed.’

  Marcus starts making concerned hmmming and ahhhing sounds, before taking my business card and asking us to wait. He points to a pair of black leather sofas that look expensive but are less comfortable than the middle seat on a packed red-eye flight.

  I notice a man standing to attention inside the automatic doors. Dressed in a dark suit, he looks almost an ebony statue, with an oiled head that reflects the light.

  ‘You’d think a charity would be more welcoming,’ says Sacha.

  ‘This isn’t a charity,’ I reply, glancing at brochures on a coffee table. ‘It’s some sort of private bank or investment firm.’

  We’re kept waiting for more than four hours, until most of the staff have left the building, spilling out of lifts and crossing the foyer. Periodically, I make the long walk to the front desk to ask about our request. Each time, I’m told that Mr Manning is still in a meeting.

  ‘He’s going to sneak out,’ says Sacha. ‘There’ll be a lift that goes straight down to the car park. He could have gone already. He could have walked right past us.’

  Another thirty minutes pass. I’m on the verge of giving up when the receptionist approaches us.

  ‘Mr Manning can give you fifteen minutes.’

  The man who has been standing sentry like a Buckingham Palace guardsman escorts us to the lift and we ascend in silence. As the doors open, we’re greeted by Fraser Manning, who is surprisingly youthful and tanned. We shake hands and I notice how he pulls me closer and cups my right elbow. It’s a power signal. Dressed in a charcoal-grey suit, white shirt and bright red tie, he reminds me of a Labour politician in the Tony Blair mould.

  ‘I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve been in meetings all afternoon. We have a major deal going through – a merger – and both parties are making last-minute demands. It’s like herding cats sometimes.’

  In the same breath, he adds, ‘I feel as though I recognise your name. Have we met?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did you ever work in the City?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go to Cambridge?’

  No.’

  He’s ready to move on when some sort of recognition sparks in his eyes.

  ‘Oh! Dear me! You’re the boy … your family …’ He doesn’t finish the statement and looks genuinely distraught. ‘Please forgive me. That was so inappropriate. You must think me very callous.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  He continues to apologise, admonishing himself. Soon I’m apologising with equal vociferousness and it becomes a typically English exercise in self-reproach. At the same time, it strikes me as odd that he remembers my name from a tragedy that took place so long ago. I contemplate whether he has searched for details about me in the hours we’ve been waiting.

  We’re escorted to an office where a desk lamp burns brightly, but the rest of the room is in semi-darkness. Manning sits in a black leather chair, behind the desk that hasn’t so much as a paperclip on its smooth surface.

  ‘How can I help you, Cyrus and Sacha? An alliteration. Are you together?’

  ‘Friends,’ I say, answering too quickly. ‘We’re trying to trace the last movements of a former detective, Hamish Whitmore, who was murdered a week ago.’

  ‘Whitmore – I remember that name. I read the story in the Manchester Evening News. Decapitated. Horrible.’

  ‘Do you remember him?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. I meet a lot of people in my work, but I’m sure I’d remember a detective. What makes you think he was here?’

  ‘The manager of an Everett Foundation charity, Out4Good, gave him your name and address.’

  ‘I see. Who told you this?’

  ‘Billie. We spoke to her earlier. She confirmed that Whitmore visited the charity. We believe that was on the fifteenth of May. She sent him here.’

  Manning takes a large mobile phone from his jacket pocket and thumbs the screen.

  ‘I wasn’t in the office on the fifteenth. I flew to Geneva that morning.’

  ‘In a private jet?’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  Sacha changes the focus. ‘Is it possible to check the CCTV footage in the foyer to see if Hamish Whitmore v
isited on that day?’

  ‘I can arrange that,’ says Manning, typing a note on his phone. ‘But perhaps you could explain exactly what you’re after.’

  ‘We’re tracing Hamish Whitmore’s last days.’

  ‘Is this an official police investigation?’

  I ignore the question and ask one of my own. ‘Were Eugene Green and Terry Boland ever employed or given assistance by the Everett Foundation.’

  ‘The notorious paedophile, Eugene Green?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Manning sighs and places his phone on the table. ‘The answer is “no comment”.’

  The pause grows uncomfortably long.

  ‘My refusal to answer is not an admission,’ he says finally. ‘I have no idea if these two men are on our files. The Everett Foundation has helped thousands of ex-offenders to find work and housing and to learn new skills. Most are now leading productive and law-abiding lives. Occasionally, we have to accept that people squander the opportunities we offer, surrendering to their past addictions or returning to a life of crime. We offer people a second chance, Cyrus, but not everybody grabs hold of that opportunity. Can you imagine the public outcry if I was to confirm (which I’m not) that Eugene Green was in one of our programmes? We’d never raise another penny in donations; or get another government contract. Lord Everett is already a punchbag for the Daily Mail because they consider him to be a bleeding-heart liberal, one step removed from J. K. Rowling. My job is to protect the charity and Lord Everett from that sort of publicity.’

  ‘Regardless of the consequences?’

  ‘What consequences are they? Would you propose to shut down the entire banking system because one bank was robbed? Would you close down every church because one priest abused a child?’

  He opens his palms as though everything he’s saying should be obvious to me. I’m losing this argument because I can absolutely see his point. He’s not willing to risk the reputation of the foundation and Lord Everett by seeking answers to questions that are so redolent with danger.

  Sacha has been quiet throughout the exchange. Now she reaches between the seats and touches my thigh. It’s a signal for me to let this go.