When the call ended DCI Jim Tyler stood up and walked over to the small kitchenette. There was still beer in the fridge, kept back for emergencies.
So: they were letting him go and wasn’t that just fine and dandy. He’d used his fists instead of his brain and let Greenslade get to him. But the truth was … the truth was that not a single man or woman on the job didn’t secretly envy his bottle, giving that bullying piece of shit the kicking he deserved. He knew the deal: Greenslade had dropped the charges on condition. He had been persuaded to play ball to reap the rewards.
Tyler took out a beer and looked at the possibilities. He could end it now, get loaded and tell them where to stick it. There was satisfaction there, and plenty of it.
In the short term.
The trouble with that picture: he could see Greenslade’s cretinous face, laughing the way bullies do, knowing that he had won.
Well – fuck that for a game of soldiers.
Gripping the bottle tightly he saw Green twat’s rat-features forming like a demon on the far wall, and with a rebel yell launched the weapon, watching it smash in slow-motion, carpeting the floor with froth and broken glass.
Quickly Tyler got changed, and in five minutes he was running through the narrow streets circling the cemetery. Breathing hard and sweating heavily inside the hooded light grey top, he could have been mistaken for a local middleweight, taking in a good dose of petrol fumes to get him whizzed up for the showdown.
He didn’t feel like a middleweight, though; more like Jodie Foster at the beginning of Silence of the Lambs.
For a second or two he let his imagination loose on the fantasy: setting out on the trail of some demonic serial killer and not fancying the odds.
It was better, or at least more heroic, than the reality of being a forty-something detective who had taken up running as part of the fight to give up drinking and losing his rag. A forty-five-year-old officer of the law who had worked his way up through the ranks, only to throw it all away because he hadn’t been able to control his taste for the bottle or his anger at seeing injustice served at the highest level.
He was approaching a group of youths assembled on the pavement outside Wilson’s Off-Licence. He saw them looking, and wondered which one would be the original smart-mouth.
As each in turn caught his eye and none looked away, Tyler felt the pressure building in his chest; the fight-or-flight dilemma turning every encounter into a matter of life and death.
The trouble with traumatic pasts, he thought. They never let you go.
He took the direct route, straight through the circle of scumbags, his heart pounding harder than the run demanded of a twenty-to-thirty-miles-a-week man on the right side of fifty.
With the anonymity of the hood and the uniform of the street he ought to be feeling a million miles from the sitting target status that had once been his lot as a uniformed beat-copper on the streets of East London. Now he had traded in those rags to play detective in the south and in the north of the big, big city.
Yet nobody knew anybody here, not really. Maybe he did need a change, even if that change came as a northbound exile to Stoke.
Tyler left the half-cut, spliff-dazed mob behind, already hearing their laughter at his heels; breathing hard against the brutal sound of it, and its connotations. Maybe it had nothing to do with him. Maybe the ghosts of the past really were dead and buried; and maybe one day he would actually believe that.
They weren’t the kind he hated, not really. They couldn’t hold a candle to the suits and ties in the top-floor offices of flawed mankind.
A few minutes and he was panting back into the flat that he had tried hard to call home, taking a shower and changing once again; leaving the beer and the shards of glass behind him and preparing to move on to find new adventure.
5
After a short meeting with the chief superintendent, in one of the more reasonably furnished rooms at Hanley Police Station in the centre of Stoke-on-Trent, DCI Tyler met with the central team, shook a few hands and had his first encounter with DS Mills.
For those present that day in the CID office, witnessing the first meeting of Tyler and Mills, there seemed little to observe. Jim Tyler, at six-feet tall, lean and toned with neatly clipped raven hair, had extended a hand towards Danny Mills and smiled. Then Tyler had issued a simple, warm greeting, his softly spoken tone belying a quiet strength that more than a few had underestimated, often to their cost.
Beneath the apparent calm, a hidden storm raged almost constantly inside the DCI, discernible from something fierce that was occasionally glimpsed in the depths of his dark green eyes. A few among the assembled might have detected a certain edge to DCI Jim Tyler, cloaked by the effect of compassionate wisdom that he exuded. But most would have missed it.
His educated voice betrayed no accent, modern newsreader, rather than old-time BBC. He had been born and raised on a Leicestershire estate, moving to London to pursue a career as a police officer. Unprovoked, the edge resident in Jim Tyler was a subtle beast.
There was nothing pompous about the man, though many over the years had misunderstood him, taking a certain shyness that he had never been entirely able to shake off, as a sign of aloofness, even arrogance. A tinge of world-weary cynicism had crept in over recent times, often expressed in dark, dry humour. It had rubbed many up the wrong way.
The contrast with Danny Mills would not have been lost on the observers to that first, brief introduction. Mills was the shorter man, with a brutal crew-cut and a strong regional accent. He had lived his entire life in the Potteries, at least until his recent and somewhat troubled move into the surrounding countryside, courtesy of the demands of his family.
There were signs of a creeping middle-aged spread that Danny Mills remained in denial of, and it was born out of a passion for food of almost any description and a taste for beer that circumstances of late had caused him to neglect. For a man who loved his football, it had been noted by more than one colleague that the DS looked better suited to the game of rugby. But he had long given up playing sports of any kind.
There were rumours circulating in whispers that Tyler had arrived under a cloud. Mills was staying out of it. Gossip was toxic, and over the years he had seen it cause empires to fall and many heads to roll.
Following the short meeting with the new DCI, Mills had finished organising the team before taking the opportunity to drive home for a couple of hours, cursing every mile that the office was no longer a stone’s throw away.
That auspicious day was promising to be a long one, and doubtless the first of many.
When Mills returned to Hanley Police Station, the dirty grey block that blighted Cedar Lane, Tyler announced that they would visit the site where the bones had been discovered, before making the drive out to the moorland town of Leek.
In Leek, ten miles to the north east of Hanley, there lived a forty-six-year-old woman who once had a brother. If that brother had still been alive he would have been forty-five years old. But thirty years ago, almost to the day, that brother failed to return home from school.
The boy, his sister and their parents had lived less than a mile from where the bones had been discovered. It was the first credible lead out of a sack full of hoax calls and sad, twisted flights of fancy. It still might go nowhere.
Another statement would have to follow soon and the pressure at the top was building nicely. Forensics weren’t coming up with anything contradicting the mathematics suggested by the woman in Leek, though the pathologist needed to have his say and that announcement looked to be imminent. But so far, thirty years was shaping up to be a good estimation.
Which made the boy fifteen the day he failed to return home; and again, science had no problem with the figures, Pathology willing.
If the woman from Leek wasn’t crazy, or otherwise mistaken, her brother had been pulled from a mound of earth by a black retriever named after one of the city’s greatest heroes.
And if everything went on adding up, the dead boy was
soon to be known to a news-hungry city as Alan Dale.
6
‘I believe that the village was actually named in the Domesday Book,’ said Tyler, watching his new partner observing the scene of crime officers still busying around the site where the body had been discovered.
‘True,’ said Mills. ‘Except that this isn’t the village.’
Tyler looked up towards the higher barricade, with the trees of the park billowing in early summer splendour. He admired the stunning explosion of colour before turning to look down beyond the lower barricade, to a strip of grim factory buildings crumbling alongside the busy city artery. A city of contrasts, he thought.
‘The newspapers and the news stations seem to think this is the village.’
‘Perhaps they should have asked the locals,’ said Mills. He followed Tyler’s gaze. ‘That lot will be next, no doubt.’
‘What’s that— oh, I see. For the bulldozers, you mean. You don’t approve?’
‘Maybe they’ll find a corpse or two there. That would really put us on the map.’
‘Any reason they should find a corpse or two?’
Mills, visibly bristling, shrugged.
‘Something the matter with your shoulders?’
‘The village begins at the park gates, sir. The corpse was found in—’
‘Stoke, I believe.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Once the capital town of this extraordinary collection, this quite remarkable city.’
He watched Mills’ eyes scanning his own for traces of irony and failing to find any.
‘Sounds like you called in at tourist information, sir.’
‘Does it? Maybe an outsider can see this place as it is now, and not as it once was.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
In the heat of DCI Tyler’s returning glare, DS Mills lowered his own.
‘Finished, Sergeant? Good. I’m here to do a job, same as you. Come on. I need you to navigate the maze and get us over to Leek. Miss Dale is expecting us. She’s been waiting thirty years, so the least we can do is arrive on time today.’
The two officers got into the car beyond the lower barricade now festooned with police warnings, and Mills pulled out into the stagnating line of traffic.
This part of the world was certainly full of surprises. Tyler had expected the ugliness, the testament to fading industrial splendour, but not the greenness, the rolling hills visible from practically every vantage point. Perhaps the entire city was filled with people who knew how to keep a secret; how to keep the rest of the world at bay.
If that’s the case, he thought, it doesn’t bode well for the coming days.
Mills drove back towards Hanley, taking advantage of the recent bypass to avoid the worst of the traffic. The narrow arteries of the city struggled to deal effectively with the weight of twenty-first century traffic, and the new flyover was generally regarded as a necessary deal-with-the-devil if the city was not to grind to a complete halt.
Skirting Hanley, it seemed an enigma to Tyler that within a few minutes they had navigated the bypass entirely and were already free of the congestion and out into open countryside. This was like no other city that he had laid eyes on. ‘This truly is a miraculous place,’ he said.
Mills didn’t respond immediately. He eyed Tyler sideways and then asked, ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean to say, one minute we’re in the thick of it, the next minute, literally, the city has all but vanished. And it seems to perform this trick no matter which direction you take. How can this be so?’
‘Look, sir—’
‘No, you look,’ snapped Tyler. ‘I want your mind on the job, and I mean one hundred percent. I can hear your thoughts, man. The silence is full of them. When we’re interviewing, I want you analysing the words, the pauses, and the look in the eye. I don’t expect to find that you’ve missed it all because you’re busy fretting over whether I’m trying to make some backhand jibe about your heritage.’
‘The miracle is in the shape of it,’ said Mills, not dropping a beat.
‘What’s that?’
‘Stoke was never designed to any particular scheme. Six towns built themselves up in a ramshackle way, competing, expanding and finally converging. You couldn’t sort the mess out if you wanted to. It happened to go long and narrow, hugging the water, serving industry and it never quite extinguished the countryside. I hope that answers your question.’
‘Admirably,’ said Tyler, impressed. ‘Thank you for the orientation.’
‘You are more than welcome.’
A journey of less than a dozen miles out of the city, most of it on the road northeast as it cut ruthlessly through the North Staffordshire countryside, brought the two officers into the town of Leek.
‘The gateway to the moorlands,’ said Tyler, as they arrived. ‘And this time I do confess to stealing from a guidebook.’
Mills said nothing, but there was still an edge to the way that he didn’t say it.
Sheila Dale sat in the front room of her small terraced house on the far side of Leek town, peering constantly through her net curtains in anticipation of the arrival of the promised unmarked police car.
When the car came into view the woman didn’t hesitate. She was out on the street before the detectives had chance even to weigh up the neighbourhood. Net curtains were fidgeting at front windows on both sides of the street as Miss Dale shepherded her visitors through the front door and into her lonely world.
Sitting in the spartan elegance of the front room, Tyler thought the woman looked a good ten years older than she was admitting. He knew how the world could do that.
‘Nice town, Leek,’ he said. ‘It’s my first time. How long have you lived here?’
Dale looked nervous, her eyes moving between the officers, as though overwhelmed by the volume of company. Tyler wondered how long it had been since another human being had set foot through that front door.
‘I moved out of the city after Mum died,’ she said.
Tyler gestured to Mills, and the DS started to make notes while the senior detective conducted the interview.
Alan had failed to come home after school one afternoon in early summer. ‘Just a few weeks before the main school holidays, it was. Mum and Dad never got over it. You never get over something like that.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Tyler.
The woman looked doubtful. ‘For a time, Mum seemed to hold out, running on hope. She kept that up for a long time. It was her way of being loyal to her lost son. I think Dad was closer to Alan, though. I think Dad had more of an idea of what really happened.’
She asked if the two detectives would like a cup of tea, but Tyler answered for both of them, licking at dry lips but saying that they were okay for the moment.
‘You say that your dad had more of an idea of what really happened. What do you mean by that, exactly, Miss Dale?’
‘I think he feared the worst. That Alan wouldn’t be coming back.’
She glanced at Mills, as though to tacitly enquire whether his colleague was in the habit of asking stupid questions. But Mills merely bit his lip and tried to smile politely.
‘Dad basically pined to death. They called it a viral infection – I suppose they had to call it something. Maybe it was, and he was too weak to fight it. But I know that it was all down to what happened to Alan.’
Tears were threatening, her voice wobbling. ‘He was dead within the year. I mean, within the year of Alan …’
The tears came down like a flood, and it was Mills’ turn to ask if anybody would like a cup of tea yet. But Sheila Dale was rallying. ‘Mum kept saying he would come back one day. She had all these fantasies about him going to London, America, even. Coming back rich. ‘You’ll see,’ she used to say. ‘You’ll see I’m right. One day he’ll be outside in his Rolls Royce.’
‘But he didn’t come back. I knew from the start he would never come back, not from where he’d gone. No coming back from
there. And then Mum became ill about five years later.’
Tyler frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘About your brother not coming back from where he’d gone?’
‘Well, isn’t it obvious?’
She looked again at Mills for some assistance.
‘We’re a bit slow,’ said Mills, trying to strike a genial note. ‘We need things spelling out, I’m afraid.’
‘Slow?’ said Dale. DS Mills had already realised his mistake. ‘I wouldn’t say the police were so much slow as couldn’t care less. Why should they, what’s a poor working-class boy like Alan to the authorities?’
She took a few seconds to compose herself, blinking away the tears in the process. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just don’t think that much of an effort was made when my brother went missing. I think they missed their chance.’
She looked at the two officers, one to the other, and her expression softened. ‘But I can’t hold you pair personally responsible for thirty years ago, can I? That wouldn’t be fair.’
Tyler allowed a short pause before asking again what she had meant by Alan not coming back from where he’d gone.
‘He had nowhere else to go. He loved home, and he was happy there. Alan wouldn’t have let his family suffer like that. He would have made contact.’
‘You thought he was dead?’
‘Do I have to spell it out?’
‘Yes, Miss Dale. I’m afraid that you do,’ said Tyler.
‘Not exactly Holmes and Watson, are you?’
‘We do our best. And I believe that DS Mills makes a lovely cup of tea. Perhaps it is time to test that belief.’
Mills made the tea while Dale told of how she had been working as a librarian when her mother became sick. Tyler thought how she looked like a librarian: the glasses, the thin, humourless face; almost a caricature of a librarian, in fact.
‘I went part-time to look after her. She died less than two years later. Seven years after Alan went, it was. She was saying he’d come home one day, saying it right up until the day she died. But I think she’d given up believing it and I sometimes wonder if she ever really believed it.’
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