by John Barlow
She pursed her lips. Thought about it for a second.
‘Yeah, and it’s being taken seriously.’ She paused, glanced at the stone wall, the white tent. “I interviewed three women he raped. He used Rohypnol on two of them. There were probably a lot more. Oh, he sold prescription drugs on the side. Hobby of his.’
‘Were there convictions, for the rapes?’
‘We only managed to get one to court. She’d been so shit-faced he didn’t need to drug her. They go back to her place, and she lets him in. So that’s apparent consent, soon as she opens the door. Oh,’ she added, ‘he liked to rob ’em while he was at it. The one that went to trial? He does her, then he robs her, takes everything. Empties her fridge on the way out, an’all. Takes his friggin’ brekkie in a carrier bag.’
‘You couldn’t make it stick?’
Immediately he regretted it. Proving rape in a context like that was a nightmare.
‘Defence had a bloody field day. Brushes up well, our Jason. Good-looking young fella in the dock, and half the women in court thinking they wouldn’t kick him out of bed. The victim gave evidence. Twenty minutes on the stand, she looked like a desperate old slapper.’
‘You got a conviction for robbery, though?’ he said, recalling the case summary he’d read.
‘Yeah. Big whoop. Nine months, suspended, if memory serves. Truth is, I’d’ve stuck another pencil in his face if it would have done any good.’
He let that one settle.
Rita wasn’t having any of it.
‘One of your little pauses, eh? Bollocks, Joe. I’ll be done here soon as the pathologist shows up. We can get a fry-up. I’m starving.’
With that she was off again, marching over to the crime-scene manager, who was milling around close to the tent, clipboard in hand.
Joe got his phone and searched the Yorkshire Post website. There were two articles on Jason Beverage. He’d already seen the victim’s record, but the public account was more dramatic, more colourful. Date rape in both headlines. The first time he’d been found not guilty, the second time only with robbery. On both occasions his victim was a divorcee in her thirties.
He watched the sun for a couple of minutes. Breakfast with Rita? Perhaps not.
25
A fine mist hung on the air, like cigar smoke in an empty room, as if it was in no hurry to disperse. Yet Joe could see right across the valley, and onto the next, then the next. Each ridge was a deep emerald-green, criss-crossed with old walls, the odd farm building here and there. In the valleys there were modest mill towns, little more than dark smudges, hidden between the great pleats of land that rose steadily towards the Pennines. God’s Own County? That might be pushing it a bit, but on a crisp, bright morning, Yorkshire could be pretty inspiring.
He leant on a stone wall that ran along the side of the road in a line just cockeyed enough to seem wilful. Both his hands were wrapped around a large paper cup of coffee that he’d got at a Starbucks in Cleckheaton, next to the junction for the M62. The wind was cold enough to make the coffee a welcome companion, although it tasted of nothing much.
He was only a handful of miles from the motorway, yet it felt like another world. He’d grown up in Leeds, close to the city centre, and he’d never got used to West Yorkshire’s quick-fire transitions from the urban to the absolutely rural. The nearest his parents had come to showing their sons the glories of the Broadacres was when they’d occasionally driven up through the Dales on their way to a gig in Darlington or Middlesbrough. Whenever they saw a field full of sheep they’d all cry, ‘Mint sauce!’
His phone buzzed.
‘Joe? It’s Gwyn. Where are you?’
‘Just going to interview someone. Did you get my message?’
‘Yeah. Pencil man strikes again. Rita got me up to speed. I just had brekkie with her, as it happens.’
A pause.
‘Right, right,’ Joe said. ‘So, we’re waiting for a decision on joint operations. See you in Leeds in an hour or two?’
He ended the call, wondered what he’d missed at the breakfast meeting. He looked directly to his right. Gabriel Farm was just up ahead, standing a little way back from the road. No longer a farm, only the main house now remained, an eighteenth-century building, attractive in its way, with narrow windows along the upper floor where hand-loom weavers would have worked, taking advantage of every last bit of daylight.
As he took stock of the premises, noting the modest gentrification – a broad gravel driveway, a well-kept lawn, and a decent 4x4 outside – the dark-blue front door opened. Out came Leo Turner, carrying a rubbish bag which he took around to a bin at the side of the house.
‘OK,’ Joe said, reaching for his notebook and quickly finding Turner’s number, ‘who’s betting…’
He watched as Turner stopped, searching his pockets for his phone, then stared at the screen for a second.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, this is Detective Romano, Leeds CID. We met yesterday.’
‘Ah, yes. You abandoned me in the library.’
‘Call of duty, I’m afraid. Murders, they’re unpredictable.’
‘Yes, I suppose they are. Your no-show yesterday gave me pause, so I spoke to some people. The League is happy to supply you with a full list of members. I can email it over to you.’
‘I’m in the area, as it happens. I can pop round. Are you at home?’
‘I’m afraid not. Don’t know when I’ll be back either. I’m spending the day with my mother.’
‘And where would that be?’
‘Derbyshire. Really, I think email would be the best bet. I might be very late back tonight.’
Joe was too tired to bother replying. He ended the call and got back in the car. He was about to turn the ignition on. Then he changed his mind.
He tapped WhatsApp, while with his other hand he got his notebook and found her number.
Hello. DS Romano here. We met yesterday in Cleckheaton Library? I’m doing some background interviews today. I wondered whether you might be available at some point in the afternoon for a chat? If not, perhaps tomorrow? Thanks in advance, Joe Romano.
He’d never been comfortable with the abbreviated language of digital messaging. He liked the flow and feel of full sentences. It was a more respectful form of language, somehow gentler.
He threw his phone onto the passenger seat and looked at Turner’s country cottage.
‘Right, here I come.’
The door had a brass knocker in the shape of a clenched fist. Joe made good use of it. When Turner appeared, he looked surprised, then a little embarrassed.
‘Ah…’
‘You got back sharpish!’ Joe said, all smiles. ‘Can I?’
It wasn’t a question. He walked straight into the house. The door gave onto a large open-plan living room which retained the best of the building’s original features, enhanced by heavy, traditional furniture and several large sofas of considerable age and quality. There was music playing in the background.
‘The Brandenburg Concertos,’ he said, noting the aroma of a log fire.
‘Classic FM,’ said Turner, following Joe in and closing the door. ‘I had planned a day of quiet reflection, hence my small subterfuge. I do apologize. Anyway, now that you’re here, let me get those lists for you.’
He disappeared without another word. Joe walked across to the old stone hearth and stood in front of it, feeling the warmth of the fire against his legs and watching the ever-changing hues of orange and yellow as they spun and twisted into one another. He’d done the same thing hundreds of times in his grandma’s house, when the patterns of flames amid the glowing coals had become red dragons and swirling orange phantoms. That was before he knew what the human soul was capable of. These days he preferred not to descend too far into the Inferno.
Turner reappeared, two sheets of printed paper in his hand.
‘Here you are. Full member list of the Patriot League, and the same for the discussion group. I’ve included all the address
es and phone numbers where I have them. Most are here.’
Joe scanned the name lists, then folded the sheets and slotted them into the inside pocket of his jacket.
‘This is evidence, you know?’
‘That sounds like a threat! You do know that I’m a—’
‘A lawyer, yes, I know.’ An hour’s sleep was all he’d managed but he held back his impatience, took a breath. ‘The investigation is now covering two murders. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, any failure to cooperate at this stage will be noted.’
Turner was unimpressed.
‘Another drug pusher, was it?’
Joe couldn’t be bothered.
‘Try the Kirklees District Police Twitter feed.’
Turner made a show of searching on his phone. Joe watched, and it occurred to him how often our first response to any kind of event now involves staring at a tiny, hand-held device. We consult technology like the ancient Greeks used to seek the truth at the Deltic Oracles, as Bridgette might say. Only now the oracles sit in data warehouses and the language they speak is the aggregated squawk of a billion supplicants who already know the answer to everything.
Shaw and Beverage: were the deaths of a drug dealer and a rapist-cum-thief worth the cost of a police investigation? A majority opinion would already have emerged on social media. And let’s face it, he told himself as his exhausted brain struggled to maintain any kind of rationality, it’s the public who pay for the police. Perhaps they should decide.
‘Can I offer you some tea?’ Turner said, putting his phone down on the large circular table in the centre of the room. There was a breakfast setting for one, complete with a hefty brown teapot, plus several Sunday papers: the Sunday Telegraph, the Yorkshire Post.
‘It might need a bit of freshening up.’
‘I’m fine, thanks. Tell me, Mr Turner, where were you last night?’
Turner raised his eyebrows.
‘Really? You suspect me of doing that?’ he asked, gesturing to the phone. ‘Murdering rapists is hardly my thing, officer.’
‘Well, all I know at this stage is that your thing includes lying to a CID officer investigating a double murder.’
‘In my defence it was only a single murder at that point.’
‘Are you making light of that fact?’
‘Would that be a crime?’
‘Like I said, it’s been noted. Last night, please?’
‘I was here all evening.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes. I live alone.’
‘And what were you doing?’
‘I was reading. In fact I was rereading this.’
He took a hardback book from the table and offered it to Joe: 12 Rules for Life.
‘A self-help book?’
‘Jordan Peterson. An academic psychologist, at Harvard for many years. And quite the literary star these days. It’s far more than self-help. He explains the scientific basis for many assumptions that are currently unfashionable.’
‘Assumptions? Such as?’
‘Being forthright, being competitive. Taking responsibility for one’s actions. The profound psychological differences between men and women.’
Joe put the book down.
‘Lobsters? This is the lobster guy, right?’
Turner looked mildly impressed.
‘Male lobsters compete for females. The victorious male generates more serotonin for himself, which reinforces his confidence. It pushes him on, and he gets better at it, tries harder. It’s the same mechanism in humans. We compete. We’re supposed to.’
Joe had read a couple of things about the book in the Guardian. But like most things he read these days, it had seemed interesting but distant, like Nick Cave’s latest album, Tarantino’s latest film, anybody’s latest anything… music, films and places that he would never hear, see or visit, all filed in a self-deleting part of his brain.
‘What’s the crossover in membership between the League and your discussion group? There’s Danny Cullen and his two sidekicks. How many more?’
‘None, as far as I recall.’
‘Danny Cullen? Would you describe him as a man in search of the truth?’
‘Aren’t we all? The ones who are searching for anything, that is.’
Joe rubbed a hand across his face, forcing the tiredness away.
‘The English Patriot League. I read your website, the vigilante stuff in particular. Your members actually confront people on the street?’
‘Yes, the braver ones among us.’
‘That’s a dangerous game, wouldn’t you say?’
‘We try to engage them in conversation, explain what they’re doing to people’s lives. And, of course, we report them to the police, for what it’s worth.’ He smiled. ‘But, yes, it’s a fine line, I accept that.’
‘And then there’s the patriotic bit. The race button’s gotta be the easiest one to push, especially now after everything that’s happened over the last few years. Folk are confused, angry, constantly worried. Throw in some anti-drugs rhetoric, you’ve got yourself a social crusade.’
‘If you’ve read the whole website you’ll know we address all sorts of social issues.’
‘When I was at the League meeting on Friday, the only thing I heard was Cullen stirring up racial hatred against Asians. What I don’t really understand is what you’re trying to achieve.’
‘One might say we’re trying to do your job. But that would be facetious. The truth is, we’re trying to build a grassroots base, a response to what’s going wrong in our communities. This isn’t about racism. Institutional racism is a scourge, in absolutely all its forms. What concerns us is how society confronts these issues. The country is on the wrong path. Disastrously so. The assumptions that underpin our society are rotten. There’s a failure even to say what the problems are. The idea of the League is to get some momentum, to bring these ideas into the public eye. To make decency mainstream again.’
‘Decency?’
Turner was already moving towards the door.
‘Please, let me try to explain.’
The two of them stepped outside. They stood there, looking across the valleys of West Yorkshire. The mist was lifting, and the view was remarkable.
‘That long valley?’ Turner said, pointing to the east. ‘Do you know what it’s called?’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to help me with the geography.’
‘It’s the Calder Valley. But they call it Happy Valley. You may have seen the TV show. A police drama, entertainment for people who don’t have to live there.’
Joe knew the reputation of the area, but not the TV show. The towns of Hebden Bridge and Todmorden had been focal points of hippy communities in the sixties and seventies, and the following generations had inherited the drug culture, which had spread along the valley and become deeply ingrained.
‘Drugs,’ Turner continued. ‘It’s no longer about well-to-do kids having a spliff at college. Or the educated middle classes enjoying the occasional line of coke. It’s children from deprived homes getting addicted at eleven, twelve. Pushers hanging around outside schools. That’s where the growth market is. Go and park up outside a school. You’ll see them, every day. The result? Dysfunctional families, kids growing up with no role models, no one working, no stability, no normalcy. It’s destroying the fabric of our communities, creating a drugged, aimless underclass.’ His eyes lit up. ‘You see? Underclass? One of the words we’re not allowed to use anymore. Yet it exists. Like I say, go to Happy Valley. See how happy they really are.’
Joe looked out across the valley. It was so achingly majestic that he couldn’t quite believe that he lived in the same county. He’d never appreciated what he had on his doorstep, what he’d always had. Mint sauce!
‘You make a persuasive case,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you should be the one leading the Patriot League.’
Turner shook his head.
‘A popular movement needs a popular leader. Populist, if you like.’
; ‘And Danny Cullen’s your man? Hand-picked?’
‘You’d be surprised. It takes courage to ban drugs from a pub on a housing estate in Batley. And to enforce it.’
‘He enforces it?’
‘I’ve seen it myself. He turfs them out.’
Joe took the two lists from his pocket, confirming that Cullen and his two assistants were on both.
‘Mr Rank and Mr Scholes. Ranksy and Daz, I assume?’
Turner nodded, with just the hint of a smile.
‘Our trusty foot soldiers.’
‘Tell me,’ Joe said, ‘what do you know about Craig Shaw?’
Turner’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Very little. Other than he was a known drug dealer.’
Joe put the lists back in his pocket.
‘Known to you?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘We’re looking into the Patriot League’s links to Shaw. It’d be helpful if you could start to think of possible points of connection. Does anything spring to mind?’
‘Nothing that I can think of.’
‘Nothing at all? You can think of no connection between Craig Shaw and any members of the Patriot League?’
‘No. I cannot.’
Joe took a moment. Turner must have known something about Cullen’s daughter and her relationship with Shaw. Not much to be gained from accusing him of lying, though, not just now.
‘OK. I’ll be in touch. Please be available this time.’
Turner accompanied him to his car.
‘A-ha!’ Joe said as he opened the door, his best Columbo impression. ‘Do you own a bike? Mind if I take a quick look?’
Turner paused.
‘A bicycle? I… I do have one, as it happens.’
Without another word he strode out around the side of the house, pristine gravel crunching underfoot. The garage was at the back, a small, freestanding stone building out of sight from the main road.
‘Here,’ he said, pulling the doors open to reveal a black bike.
‘Impressive,’ Joe said, running a hand gently along the crossbar. ‘Twelve-speed?’
‘Fifteen. It’s a hybrid. Like a racer but a bit more robust. Perfect for the roads around here.’