Billy Skinner was sitting in the back office, a take-away cup of good quality coffee in his hand. He despised instant more than Marge’s spaghetti.
‘So what about Harry Pullman?’
He looked at the three of them over the rim of the cardboard as he sipped the black liquid.
Mat spoke. ‘We had a word. He shit it he did.’
Mark and Luke looked at the floor.
‘What do you mean, we had a word?’ Billy asked.
‘Said we thought he’d been skimming.’
Billy put the cup on his desk, sat up straight, and asked his next question like someone conducting a job interview.
‘Did you speak to the lads on the door?’
Mat puffed out his chest and glanced at his brothers.
‘Went straight to the organ grinder,’ he said. ‘No point speaking to the monkeys.’
Billy slammed his fist hard against the desk, the sudden impact sending the cup jumping and a river of coffee rolling across the surface.
‘I told you to speak to the doormen first,’ his voice was a blade. ‘See if they’d noticed a drop in punters. But oh no, you know fucking best, dive straight in like the Neanderthal you are. Fucking idiot. And what did he say?’
Mat opened his mouth.
‘Don’t bother answering.’ Skinner stood up and leaned across the desk, hands pressing into the black leather top. ‘Let me guess.’
He glared at Mat. ‘He said no.’
‘Well, yeah he did.’
‘So what’s your next move Einstein?’
Mat stared at his father.
Billy Skinner sat back down. ‘Luke, what do you reckon?’
The youngest son knew his father would push him for an answer; saying nothing wasn’t an option and besides if Mat had listened to him and Mark he wouldn’t be in this position.
‘Well?’
Mat turned his head and stared at his brother.
‘If he is skimming, he knows we’re onto him now,’ Luke said. ‘He can do one of three things - run, bluff it out or take us on.’
‘Don’t be fucking stupid,’ Mat said.
Billy was shouting again, his soaring blood pressure turning his face the colour of Ribena.
‘When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.’
He pulled open the top drawer, picked a cigar from a box of Cubans and carefully trimmed the end with a metal cutter. Leaning his head against the back of the chair, he lit up and blew a plume of smoke towards the ceiling.
His eyes returned to his sons.
‘I’ve known Harry Pullman for forty years,’ he said. ‘We went to school together. He’s always been loyal, but do not underestimate him. That nephew of his is ambitious. You could learn from him Mat. He works for what he can get, not like you, expecting it all on a plate. Ambition is a good thing.’
He inhaled on the cigar and spoke as he let smoke drift with the words.
‘Uncontrolled ambition is not, it’s dangerous.’
His boxer’s neck and head were engulfed in thick, aromatic smoke. ‘So what do you reckon we do then Luke?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you stupid,’ Mat snapped.
‘Get out!’ Billy yelled, pointing at the door. ‘Make yourself useful. Go and help with the cleaning or something.’
Mat clamped his mouth, clenched his fists, and stormed out.
His father was losing it, going soft. There was no room for sentiment in this business even if you had known somebody for a lifetime.
‘Okay,’ Billy said once the door had stopped reverberating against the frame. ‘Carry on.’
‘As I said, do nothing,’ Luke said. ‘I’ll go and see Harry today. Apologise for Mat’s behaviour. Tell him that wasn’t why we were there. Mat just got it into his head.’
‘Mat won’t like that,’ Billy interrupted.
‘Tough,’ Luke went on. ‘He’s got us into this mess.’
Billy looked at his son and liked him.
‘Your mother always said I was successful because I never made decisions based on emotion,’ he said. ‘I always planned, always tried to think of every angle. Hotheads never win the day and your brother’s a hothead.’
‘We’re still looking into his background,’ Sam had said, trying to hide her shock.
She felt blindsided, stunned when Alistair told them how the sex allegations went back years to Scott’s time teaching at a boarding school he thought might have been in Hampshire.
‘He left under a cloud,’ Alistair was saying now, his gaze across the promenade and towards the sea. ‘In the end he was acquitted in court but his career was finished from the moment he left that school. He moved back up north after the trial. I don’t think anybody knew about it up here. Certainly my parents never said anything. Well you wouldn’t would you?’
Alistair sipped his coffee, watching two gulls spiralling in a dog-fight high above the grey water.
‘He became a private tutor giving music lessons and lived off that and the money my aunt left him when she died,’ Alistair said. ‘She was from money.’
Scott’s wife had stood by him, convinced he was innocent and had felt vindicated when he was cleared.
‘She died not long after the trial and he sold up, pocketed a fortune,’ Alistair said.
Sam lit a cigarette, her mind racing with the possibilities the story had opened.
‘Can you think of anybody who would want to harm your uncle,’ Sam asked.
Alistair Scott finished his coffee and shook his head.
‘No idea,’ he said. ‘He was an old man but I haven’t exactly kept in touch.’
Dean Silvers watched the waves rolling liquid dark towards them, salt air on his lips and the lulling sound of water lapping against the pier legs below. He had loved the sea since he was a kid and still felt its call, an invisible force pulling him wide-eyed to something awesome and endless. The fact the Victorian pier was a good place to talk freely was a bonus. Police would struggle to keep any surveillance mission covert here, still less plant bugs that could conquer the winter roar of the North Sea.
He’d seen the two women detectives drinking their coffee but he was sure they hadn’t seen him. And if they had, so what? He had no idea who the man was they were talking to; probably another cop by the look of him.
He watched a white yacht with white sails rise and fall on the swell and imagined a couple on board, a chart laid out to their next destination. Were they only out for the day or at the start of a bigger adventure? Deacon Blue and their song Dignity flashed into his mind. He’d have a yacht one day. The only difference between him and the bloke in the song was he didn’t pick up litter and he wasn’t going to work for twenty years saving his money.
In the words of another song by a band he couldn’t quite remember, he was moving on up. Take over from Billy Skinner and he wouldn’t have to wait long.
‘So do you think Elgin will come good?’ he asked.
Harry Pullman was standing next to him, an uncle enjoying some time with his nephew if the cops on the promenade ever got round to asking.
‘Can’t think of any reason to doubt him,’ Harry said. ‘He came to us. He’s in a hell of a state.’
‘What was the grandson bit about?’
‘Oscar, a canny kid,’ Harry told him. ‘Elgin reckons the lad was touched up by a couple of faggots at some sports club.’
Silvers’ body stiffened and he jerked his head away from the white yacht making good headway towards the horizon.
‘Fucking nonces. They been sorted?’
‘Not yet. John doesn’t want to go to the cops. What would be the point? A 10-year-old’s word against two blokes. No witnesses. No forensic.’
‘That’s how they get away with it,’ Silvers leaned forward and rested his forearms on the railing. ‘What’s he going to do about it? Scum like that need sorting.’
Harry said wheels would soon be in motion, that he’d told Elgin they could probably help.
‘W
ell give me the nod,’ Silvers stood up straight. ‘Beating a couple of nonces is always good for the soul. Anyway, Elgin, do you think there’s a tape?’
Harry said he was 100% sure, said no way Skinner would have passed up the opportunity.
Each stood in silence, watching the distant yacht and the white tipped waves.
‘So we take out Skinner and get the tape and in return Elgin hands the new licences to us,’ Silvers said. ‘Sounds easy.’
Harry Pullman, deep in thought, was no longer focused on the yacht. It was a full minute before he spoke.
‘It needs to be funded Dean,’ he said finally. ‘Billy Skinner’s got a lot more cash than us. How the hell can we buy the places he’s turning into wine bars and clubs?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Silvers said. ‘If something happens to Billy, Mat will go after anyone and everybody. Kick an angry dog and it bites everyone. He would probably come after us but he’ll go after others as well. He’ll cause such a shit-storm there’ll be coppers breathing down every neck that’s not broken.’
Dean’s knuckles tightened around the black handrail, his whole body taut and primed for a fight.
‘Nobody will want that,’ he went on. ‘They’ll not just stand by and let him. He’ll get himself killed and Luke will want to broker a deal, especially if John Elgin gets his magistrate and police mates to start kicking off about the licences they already have.’
Harry let it play out in his head.
‘Sort out Billy and everything else falls into place, is that it?’
Silvers nodded as Harry turned his head to face him.
‘Do you have any idea what stakes you’re playing for?’ Harry said now. ‘You’ll have one shot at this and even then there are no guarantees. Get it wrong and you’re a dead man. Me as well.’
Overhead, the gulls were back, shrieking into the heavy sky.
Silvers watched them and smiled, breathing in deep.
‘But get it right and we move up in the world,’ he said.
Chapter Nine
Sam left Bev with Alistair, rang Ed, and got a lift to The Avenue to meet him.
He was leaning against a wall as she walked towards him and listened in silence as she repeated Alistair Scott’s story. ‘Bloody hell you’re not thinking of making all the victims TIEs are you?’ Ed said when she had finished.
Sam laughed. ‘What like a TV drama? Trace, Interview, Eliminate. No chance.’
They were nice words, good for TV crime shows, but scriptwriters had no concept of the criteria that had to be set to eliminate people, never mind the huge amount of work involved.
‘It’s why Sue never lets me watch them,’ Ed said. ‘All I do is shout at the screen. I know it’s only fiction but being in the same room as reality shouldn’t be that hard. I’m sure they just hear a conversation or a phrase that sounds good and run with it.’
Sam’s immediate plan was much more practical - more research on Jeremy Scott and use the media to help with the digging.
A retired teacher bound and burnt alive was news. The fact that teacher had walked on child sex charges only upped the ante.
‘Let’s start thinking about the press,’ Sam said. ‘Get our strategy right and they can help us here.’
She looked around and saw the long-wheel based white police Ford Transit in the road, eight uniforms walking up and down the driveways or standing at doors talking to residents. Each officer carried a clipboard and Sam’s prepared questionnaire.
‘How’s the door-to-door going?’
‘Plenty of them at it but nothing as yet,’ Ed told her. ‘SOCOs are inside Scott’s house.’
Sam nodded, looking at the smaller white SOCO van parked behind the Jaguar on Scott’s drive.
‘Anything?’
Ed told her there was no sign of forced entry, no blood traces, and nothing out of place.
‘It’s as if he just walked out of the house,’ Ed said. ‘The fact I found the door unlocked makes you think he was expecting to walk back pretty much immediately.’
‘What about the van?’ Sam said, scanning the houses.
Ed said the only witness so far was Jayne Cully and she seemed confused, to put it mildly.
Sam searched her coat pocket for her cigarettes.
‘That doesn’t mean the white van wasn’t here, though. We just need to find someone else who saw it.’
The allegations, Sam told herself. They have to be the trigger.
She looked around the street. No press with cameras, no members of the public with mobile phones pointing in her direction. She lit the cigarette.
There was no CCTV around the garage and picking out the van on cameras covering the town would be a lottery shot without at least a partial number.
‘Nobody we’ve spoken to so far got a flyer saying they’d won a TV or anything else so that’s probably how they got him to the van,’ Ed said. ‘But why leave it lying around for us to find.’
Sam drew deeply on the cigarette as Ed went on.
‘Maybe Jayne-with-a-Y disturbed them. Let’s be right, if they’d seen she clocked them they’d want to get away pronto. They won’t have known she’s got dementia.’
Sam looked past his shoulder and shook her head. ‘Look at that.’ Ed turned around and smiled. Seven uniforms were standing on the pavement, each holding a mug of tea, a large round lemon drizzle cake on a plate balanced on top of the garden wall.
Debs Lescott waved towards them.
‘Seems like you’ve got a fan,’ Sam teased.
Ed raised his arm. ‘Come on. She’s bound to have saved some for me.’
Sam gave him the eyebrows up.
‘And if you’re really lucky she might have kept some cake for you as well.’
Ed walked ahead and made the introductions as Sam joined them.
‘Debs this is DCI Sam Parker.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Sam extended her arm. ‘And on behalf of the officers, thanks for the tea and cake.’
‘As long as there’s some left for us,’ Ed said, winking at Debs.
‘Of course there is. Come on. And it’s no bother.’
Debs made three mugs of tea and cut three large slices from a huge Victoria Sandwich cake.
‘All this activity has upset Jayne,’ Debs told them. ‘She keeps telling me about Jeremy being pushed into a white van. She seems adamant.’
Ed bit into the moist sponge, wiped crumbs from the corner of his mouth and spoke as he chewed.
‘I believe her.’
‘You do?’ Debs asked, startled.
‘I do,’ Ed took another bite. ‘I know she gets confused and her memory’s failing but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.’
Debs dragged her eyes from Ed and cut another half brick from the sponge.
‘How refreshing Ed,’ she said as she worked the knife. ‘Plenty wouldn’t have believed a word. More cake?’
Sam looked at Ed and was giving him the eyebrows again when his text alert sounded.
‘Excuse me while I check this.’
Now it was his turn with the eyebrows. The text was from Sam.
Grab your coat. You’ve pulled. Smiley face.
He kicked Sam’s ankle.
Brown leaves blew in the wind, traffic rumbled beyond the black railings, but Adam Best’s ears were tuned into something different; the sounds of children squealing as they chased each other on the grass, the noise of rusted chains as the swings flew ever higher.
Adam liked children, enjoyed watching them, and there was nowhere better to watch than in a park on a Friday afternoon when school had just finished, even if darkness was descending.
Some of the young boys wore football strips: the pale blue of Manchester City, the dark blue of Chelsea, the white of Real Madrid, all proof that tomorrow’s glory supporters were ready-in-waiting. As a boy himself Adam had followed Southampton before he realised it was more fun supporting a team who won something more than once in a generation. Some of the girls wore sma
rt brown jodhpurs and waterproof country tops, ready to go to their ponies and riding lessons.
Adam Best cut a less polished figure, brown hair needing a wash, blue suit jacket worn at the elbows and a hem coming loose from chocolate-brown chinos. The pristine white of his Stan Smith trainers made the rest of the ensemble shabbier still.
A tall man, well-dressed and like Adam in his late-fifties, sat on the opposite end of the bench. ‘You’re a regular here aren’t you?’
Adam tugged down on his black Adidas baseball cap.
‘No law against it is there?’
‘None at all friend,’ the stranger shuffled closer. ‘Just wondering what sort of guy sits in the park every afternoon when school’s turning out.’
‘Spying on me are you?’ Adam looked away.
‘You stick out that’s all,’ the stranger said. ‘Stick out to the sort of people looking for your type.’
Adam turned his head and looked into the man’s brown eyes. ‘My type? What’s that then?’
‘We know your type.’
Adam stood up and began to walk away but in a moment the stranger was at his side.
He gently took hold of Adam’s elbow and eased him round to face him.
‘Don’t rush off friend. We’re kindred spirits. I’ve seen you in here every day for a fortnight. I know why you come.’
The stranger bent slightly until his mouth was almost touching Adam’s ear.
‘Same reason as me,’ warm breath came with the whisper.
Adam stepped backwards, almost stumbling.
‘Leave me alone,’ the voice a whine. ‘I know what you’re doing. Just get away.’
The stranger moved closer again, arms slightly outstretched and palms up.
‘You think I’m one of those vigilantes,’ the stranger seemed amused. ‘Like the do-gooders who pretend to be young girls online? Organise a meeting and then hand the man over to the police. That’s not me, friend.’
‘Then maybe you’re the police,’ Adam said, looking the stranger up and down. ‘Just leave me alone.’
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