The hairdressers, two young women and one young man, wear black trousers and white shirts, matching the colour scheme of the tiled floor, the black leather chairs as large as a dentist’s and the huge white sinks and mirrors surrounded by spotlights like an actor’s dressing room.
“Buona sera, Mr Cade,” the London accent greets me as Antonio rises from the first black leather chair, where he reclines sporting his inevitable white shirt while reading on his mobile phone.
“Mr Matteo,” I reply, shaking his proffered hand and enjoying the warm smile of his middle-aged Italian handsomeness.
After years shearing heads and cheeks in London’s Soho, land of gangsters and their molls, celebrities and politicians, twenty years ago Antonio had sought peace and quiet, sold out there, bought this shop, rented out three chairs and now works himself only on those customers he knows and likes. I have been coming since I was a teenager, glad to be accepted then if truth be told. Enjoying the camaraderie, ‘the craic’, the heated discussions about European politics and literature, the state of Britain, football, boxing, anything, everything, life. I still count myself privileged to have grown-up in here, to be one of Antonio’s chosen.
“Been too long,” he whispers as he trims my long hair. It has been six months at least when once I came weekly.
Without another word, he gives me an old fashioned wet shave, rubbing various potions into my skin and burying me in hot towels. Ritual and care in exquisite intimate luxury surround me as he brushes warm shaving cream sensually on my face. Antonio spends time reverentially whipping the cream up, then ‘getting the bristles up Caleb.’ He absorbs himself in his shaving art, scraping almost like an archaeologist painstakingly removing layer after layer without harming what is beneath. I do not like losing total awareness, but do so here, now. We finish with cold towels to close my pores, and a muted aftershave he knows I like.
As ever Antonio’s invigorates. I am here to relax, to let my brain quietly marinate all the data that had come in this past twenty-four hours. And to ask two questions.
Bars, barbers, brothels are like servers on the Internet, much data passes through. But who is to say which is crucial, which marginal. I am here for intelligence crucial to me. The pig of a man shrugs on a much-worn duffel coat over his thick jumper, eyes boring into mine in the mirror as he moves to approach me from my back even as Antonio turns, razor still glittering with foam in the lights bouncing from the mirrors. The man, a local farmer and church warden, checks, looks, two against one perhaps, departs. The small man wanders out still talking to himself, the silver headed woman pays and leaves, casting a curious glance my way, looking remarkably raffish in dress and discreetly streaked hair. On Antonio’s nod, the three stylists slip outside and out of sight, cigarettes in hand as I note his jealous stare.
“I miss smoking,” his voice is husky and low. “So much, and love and hate the smell when they come back in. What can you do?”
His mind veers away and I know he is about to thank me, as he always does, for Bess’ help in making his mother’s final few months of life bearable when she was struck with dementia. To stay the moment, question one. I ask about all three Rudds and Derek Stephenson.
The shop is empty but still Antonio looks around to ensure none are watching or listening before his head comes close to mine as I stand and he brushes my coat.
“Nothing good, the bad one, Wayne has been back around here for a few months, works for his Dad’s cousin Bull now they say, pretty big job, on the D’Eysncourte, keeps his nose clean, flashes through Merian sometimes in his big black SUV, all tinted windows and cowboy style decorations. ‘Cat’ and the other work on the estate too, free and easy with their cash I hear. Dad, sad drunk but good at his job.”
Nothing else, he does not know where Wayne lives, where the others get their cash, none of them come in his shop.
“Thankfully. They are all trouble, heard what you and Sam Aystrup did for Bert and Tina, good, will call you if I ever need any help.”
“Anytime,” I say but wonder if I shall be able to get away with such vigilante actions again.
The twelve strikes of noon boom from Merian’s soaring church spire nearby as I pay Antonio.
My phone goes. It is Creel, in a foul mood, barking out instructions, falsetto. He is excited over something.
“My office, two this afternoon, headquarters. Without fail,” and rings off.
***
Evidence comes with different levels of credibility or purchase to move a case along. An eye witness is best? Yes, you can tease out nuances. And no. Humans are fallible, can get things wrong, misremember, tell lies, not notice everything. Photographs are good, but easily doctored and even if originals only give you a single moment of what has happened - a powerful one to be sure - but with little verifiable inkling of what came immediately before or after. Audio recordings offer only sound even if that can be invaluable. While CCTV is everywhere - one for every eleven people, the latest report says, six million cameras throughout the UK, two million in London alone.
The police and local council have them in Merian market square, where Friday and Saturday night drunken revels and trouble are common. But I cannot access material from police sources for my mother meeting the dead woman last Saturday morning, lest I draw attention to what I am doing or leave an electronic trail.
As Antonio passes my change, I ask the second question. In answer, he leads me to the back door of a shop around the corner that has housed the same jeweller for a century.
“Ah, here we go,” a barely visible Antonio whispers dramatically from a haze of his cologne once we are ensconced in a dark corner of the jeweller’s backroom. “Nine thirty Saturday you say?”
My question had been who might have CCTV footage of Merian market last Saturday morning, and be willing to let me have a look at it, no questions asked. Antonio had beamed, had not asked why it had to be done discreetly, nor why I wished to see the footage, and taken me out as his three stylists came back in with a gaggle of new customers.
The grainy colour images begin on the twenty-inch screen. We have images from two cameras on a split screen. One image is a static wide shot of the whole square, the other is a mid-shot precisely zoomed in on the fruit and veg stall for some reason.
Antonio explains, “Darren, the apprentice here, looks after the CCTV, they have these two cameras and two more on their selling areas inside. The one on the stall is because he fancies the girl with the tight jeans serving, see?”
Antonio adeptly works the computer in fast reverse until the time code running across the bottom reads nine twenty-five.
‘Ah, Signora Cade,’ he says, and the scene plays out in silence just as Sam described it. It has been raining but before the snow. My mother is queueing at the fruit and veg stall, third of half a dozen others. The four servers are all eager activity gathering up potatoes, accepting leeks, cabbage, tomatoes, bananas, whatever customers have chosen, picked up and offered across. My mother has just paid - the vegetables were on her kitchen table when I visited - when the dead woman approaches from the side, clearly veering in on my mother, having waited until she was free.
They talk for three minutes, my mother clearly becoming more and more agitated, finger prodding forwards in warning at the last. If only I knew what was being said but the image is too blurred for even a lip reader.
“Two truly beautiful women, Caleb, I mean no offence. I must follow Darren, get a camera? No?”
We watch it through again. The dead woman pulls out her mobile phone and seems to show my mother something on its screen. An image, video, a recording? Whatever it is, my mother physically rears up, her bag of vegetables swinging in her haste to be gone as she turns, her hand flicking at the dead woman in dismissal, out of shot within moments as Sam appears. The dead woman stares after her, upset herself I think.
Antonio lets the footage continue until I ask to watch it through again. My mother reacts as though prodded with a ‘gad’, local parlance
for a nail on the end of a long stick that we used as kids to spear dab fish in the beach rivulets with Sam and Henry long ago. Often also picking the clinging samphire seafood there too.
I watch the sequence four times, and ask Antonio to still frame that final moment. The dead woman is in clear profile. It is definitely her, even with the face a touch blurry. The clothes are much the same as she died in, she has her camera slung over her shoulder, a neat black handbag too. Three customers are staring at the incident, as are two of the market servers. I know them all, good folk, no gossips but bound to tell others this odd story about the normally serene Marion Cade. Shaking their heads no doubt as they end their tale, ‘lovely woman even with the burden of her son.’ At the last, Sam approaches to the edge of the wide shot from the right, and is in the mid shot just as my mother storms past him.
My mind struggles to fathom what this can all be about. I have only seen my mother upset like this a very few times. When we lost Bess and Grace, on the anniversaries, my father’s funeral, when Bess moved away and Valentine went to boarding school that sad autumn when I was eight. Loss of my playmates meant regular holidays thereafter with trips to Rome, Paris and Florence that were tantalisingly once planned for the future as a family.
***
I have no idea how long we sit there with the still image. I need to get to Creel and, no doubt, my comeuppance. I also long to get away from this dark dusty pit in the jeweller’s, and if I am honest, Antonio’s strong cologne.
His hand on my arm gives me pause, “My friend, why settle for an Abergavenny when you can have an Able and Willing?”
Cockney rhyming slang from an Italian born man who grew up in central London and now lives in rural Ancaster.
“Abergavenny, a penny, Able and Willing, shilling, my friend, there is more on that tape. Trust me, barbers have sharp eyes, sharper even than the Carabinieri it seems.”
He plays the very last section again and then two minutes longer, his finger appearing eerily out of the darkness pointing against the wide shot on the screen as my mother disappears to the right of the frame.
In the wider shot, two figures, hiding in the narrow confines of the dark Pawnshop Passage to the left, are some distance from her but seemingly taking pictures or video of my mother on their phones. As she leaves, the two move forward, skirt all the stalls, cross the square and follow her.
I stare at the image as Antonio still frames on them in wide shot. They never cross into the mid shot camera. Their faces are carefully hidden in hoodies throughout.
One is tall, thin. The other smaller, moving with the easy grace of a cat.
28
County Police headquarters stands thirty miles from Merian, on the northern outskirts of Ancaster City in the centre of the county. ‘The Ark,’ as it is known by friend and foe alike, lies sleek and modernistic in three long wings, six floors apiece of steel and glass design, meeting in a huge glass dome at the centre. Lights permanently ablaze shine out like a myriad of beacons in the bleak grey and flat countryside. Until last Friday I worked here for ten years - three heading a Major Crimes squad and almost seven in Intelligence.
The atrium in the dome is the hub, full of people and noise at shift change. Civilian support workers for everything from communications, filing and secretarial are everywhere. The clink of cups and hum of conversation comes from the cafeteria, circling the atrium at levels one and two. By the reception desk and security barriers, two huge Christmas trees soar thirty feet in the air, their decorations sparkling in a tapestry of colourful reflections in the dome’s tinted glass as Christmas carols gently drift from loudspeakers.
Everything, everyone stills as I enter. Previously in Intelligence I slipped in early by a side door, left late the same way. To get to Creel’s office I have to come in the front. Both receptionists ignore me but one is ultimately, if reluctantly forced to deal with me. She rings up, speaking even my name with distaste, almost spitting out then that the Chief Superintendent will call when he is ready.
I sit with my back to the throng on one of the black leather sofas, adopt the posture of the young and pull out my phone as though I have messages to read or send. I haven’t. I wait. And wait. Sitting beside the floor to ceiling glass wall overlooking lawns stretching away to the vast car parks I enjoy two blackbirds effortlessly springing onto a nearby wall. The bright orange-yellow beak of the male gleams even in the half light, the female all brown with spots and streaks on the breast nearby. Common the bird may be but its song is mellow even though I can only hear it in my imagination with the noise of so many people behind me.
Acting Detective Inspector Amy Grayling has heard I am in the building, texts to wish me well for my meeting with Creel. Everyone knows it seems.
Finally, the receptionist points dismissively that I should go up to the sixth floor, wing A. Odling meets me as the lift arrives, and leads me silently through the immaculately spacious and gleaming squad room for Major Crime Team 1 which he now leads. Large busy men and women stare aggressively, some bristle to their full height like stags guarding their domain, as the latest computers buzz and printers ping. My gaze flicks across, seeing hate or indifference in all.
My guide makes a point of pausing us in the middle of the room to say loudly, “You look like shit DCI Cade.”
The laugh is loud and haughty, “Bit of a palooka even. My money is on young Jason tonight, foregone conclusion.”
Word travels fast in Ancaster, but how does he know anything at all about the sparring I am doing as a favour? And why rake up the old insult, palooka?
The score of detectives have looked up again on cue, smiling, smirking, some joining in their raucous leader’s triumph even as I reply and walk on past him, “He will do as well as you did in The Box, Fudge.”
***
Creel sits like an emaciated Buddha in semi-darkness, seemingly surrounded by verdant shrubbery. A devotee of plants and flowers he has a score of different varieties he lovingly tends on shelves behind and beside his desk to produce a vibrant display and a striking aroma. Daylight through the large picture window is paltry and the only light in the gloom is from one tall spot style lamp as he indicates I should sit opposite on a chair deliberately placed so I will be looking up at him and into the light. Petty but effective, if you let it be.
A side table is a mass of charts, graphs, columns of figures and A3 spreadsheets laid out as befits the trained accountant Creel is.
His desk itself has only two files laid on it – both are clearly visible, one very thick bearing my name, the other thin says Sam Aystrup. Creel says nothing with only the noise of police vehicles arriving and departing audible from the car park outside. I am suddenly aware of a strong deodorant or spice, and looking around, see two electronic aroma emitters lit at their work.
He begins immediately, geared for conflict as Odling takes a position standing at the door five yards behind me and out of vision. Mr Jekyll begins to rise in me, overcoming Hyde. I turn to stare at Odling, wanting to hurt him. I am reminded again how much bigger he is than I. Big men throw their weight around from an early age, expect to be in charge, to dominate because of their size. It does not follow. I have fought them, their attitude all my life. Meet them half way and they get nervous. There is no immutable right for the big to be in charge. A smaller guy challenging that arrogance, the very core of their being for many, can disrupt and throw them off with ease.
Enough of this nonsense, I deliberately and slowly stand, moving with my back to the window, so I can see the two of them and be in silhouette myself.
Odling only grunts and Creel has to either adjust his lighting set up or begin.
He chooses the latter, “The hit and run of the homeless woman, you were at the crime scene again this morning, in the field nearby, interfering with evidence no doubt?”
“Why?” Odling barks, adopting the bad-tempered routine of a big man though I notice he does not come close and in my face as he would usually do with most.
&n
bsp; Creel’s eyes are bright on mine, prominent Adam’s Apple bobbing in anticipation as I do not respond, “Well?”
“Passing by,” I say, all soft innocence, neither denying nor accepting the main charge of interfering with evidence, “but not my case, DCI Odling’s task surely?”
They say nothing, unsure. To be adamant that I was there this morning, they will have to reveal their source – a witness or Albion’s CCTV material perhaps. And if it is the latter, then it should have recorded the woman’s death and hence clear Sam. There is no response. Why not go on the offensive myself, see Creel splutter falsetto and Odling go beetroot red?
“Of course, your whole case is weak.”
I cannot resist, “As usual. The dead woman is not homeless.”
They struggle not to glance at each other as I go on, “You have rushed to judgement, do not seem to even be trying to establish her identity, just condemned her as homeless and thus not worth any effort?”
Lucinda in the Media Office had confirmed earlier that no statement or press photos had been issued to the media, nor was there any house to house being carried out of local villages, hotels or bed and breakfasts to ask if anyone knew the woman.
“While I know, you have got the wrong man in your sights as responsible too. A habit you have got into in recent years.”
I keep my voice steady while the meaning is venomous. You two are either totally incompetent or corrupt, perhaps both.
Bitter Pastoral_A DCI Caleb Cade Crime Thriller of rural Ancaster County. Page 17