I knew it was you.
No you didn’t.
Then there are golf courses and care homes and they are in the suburbs of a town but they bypass it and soon they are turning onto a slip road and then they are on the motorway heading south and Brindle has to take extra care to keep Rutter in sight but it’s not hard as Rutter’s truck seems incapable of doing more than fifty miles an hour. He lets the gaps between them open up. He grips the wheel and his knuckles crack and he tries not to count the motorway lampposts that arch overhead like giant herons poised over perch-filled ponds.
Mace’s can is empty. It sits in his lap between his thighs now.
Why have you brought me?
Because I owe you.
Too fucking right you do says Mace. I’m the only ally you’ve got round here. They all hate you up in town. At the station too – there more than anywhere. They despise you.
Brindle checks his rear-view mirror and then shrugs.
Doesn’t it bother you? asks Mace.
What – being hated?
Yes. By your peers.
Who says they hate me?
Everyone.
They’re not my peers says Brindle.
Your colleagues then.
They’re not my colleagues either. They’re just policemen and women who I’ll probably never see again. Roy Pinder is knee-deep in shit; when I’m done with him he won’t be a concern. His days are limited. The countdown has started.
But their abiding impression of you is that you’re a cunt says Mace.
So?
Mace looks at the policeman and laughs.
Brindle looks at him sideways and then back to the road and Mace detects the faintest of smiles.
Maybe I am.
Oh you are. You definitely are. But it clearly doesn’t keep you awake at night.
Brindles feels for his tie-knot. He touches it lightly. Straightens it.
A million things keep me awake at night he says. But what people think of me is not one of them.
THE NIGHT THAT his mother fell on the ice he stayed in the X for hours. He watched the rest of Four Hours of Fuck-Hungry MILFs then he had a coffee and a cigarette and then he went into Screen Two and he watched Den of Depravity as around him old men masturbated. Some in stockings some not. One of them was clearly drunk and commentating both on the film and what was going on around him.
When the film finished the other men left but he stayed in his seat and waited for a few minutes and then he watched Den of Depravity again.
At some point he must have fallen asleep because he was woken by someone tapping him on the shoulder. He saw the twisted healed lip as Skelton loomed over him.
He slowly stood and then followed him through the door and down into the subterranean labyrinth beneath the cinema. No words were exchanged; they didn’t need to be. He was taken to a room at the back that he had not been in before. It had a strong metal door on it and was like a very large prison cell but with a rug and a rail with some clothes hanging on it. Dinner jacket and several bow ties. A picture of Princess Diana torn from a magazine was tacked to the painted brick wall.
Sit down said Skelton. Wait here.
After a few minutes Larry Lister arrived.
Well well he said. So you’re the young pig man.
He stood.
Yes.
Have we met? says Lister.
Yes.
Larry Lister did not appear as friendly as he did on television. He looked different without his manic smile.
I’ve been up your way said Lister. The valley. Pretty wild up there. Nice place. Nice place to escape to. Here: how’s that mutual acquaintance of ours?
Who? said Rutter.
You know. Your friend and ours. The cock of the midden. Raymond Muncy.
Muncy?
Lister looked to Skelton and then back to Rutter.
This boy’s a fucking simpleton.
Answer him said Skelton.
Rutter sniffed and looked confused.
I didn’t know you lot was mates with Muncy.
We’re not.
When Rutter said nothing Larry Lister continued.
Just the opposite. It seems Mr Muncy is a moralist. It seems he prefers to do his own thing. The lone wolf and all of that.
Rutter stared back.
He was welcomed in and he tried a taste but then he turned his back. Embarrassed the fuck out of Roy Pinder did that. And now he carries our secrets around with him and we can’t be having that. Fuck no. Especially me with my reputation. Not now. No. Do you understand?
I think so said Rutter.
You understand nothing son said Lister. But lucky for you Mr Hood says you’ve been doing valuable work for us.
He shrugged.
He says you like to have your way with leftovers said Lister. Is that right?
Again he did not say anything. He looked at the carpet by the door.
You don’t need to be shy son. We all have our peccadilloes. That’s what this place is all about. You should know that. Have you got nowt to say for yourself?
He shook his head.
Good said Lister. I like that. Discreet. Muncy’s got a big mouth but not you. Have a cigarette son.
He pulled a pack from his pocket and offered him one. He shook his head again.
Go on – take one.
Again he shook his head but then Lister said take one in a voice that he couldn’t refuse and then he said how’s your mother? and that threw him because he didn’t think Lovely Larry Lister knew anything about him or his mother or the farm or the pigs. Lister continued: we’ve got to look after our mothers because it was them that brought us into the world and without them we’d be nothing. And you always look after your own.
When he said this he stared at him. As he searched his face he wondered whether Lister and Skelton and Hood knew what had just happened up at the farm. But could they really know that already? Had Pinder put somebody on him?
You live close by said Lister. Ray Muncy has a daughter doesn’t he?
Aye.
Know her do you?
Rutter shrugged.
Seen her.
Often?
She’s off at school somewhere.
She comes back though?
Again Rutter shrugged.
Lister looked at Skelton.
It’s like blood out of a stone is this. But you know who she is?
Yes.
Good said Lister. Mr Hood says he knows you’ll not let us down.
Larry Lister made an elaborate show of lighting a cigarette with a match and then puffing on it for a moment.
Stick with us son and you’ll get everything you want in life just like I did. You wouldn’t want to make any enemies here.
Not like that flash cunt Muncy said Skelton.
No said Lister. Not like him.
Because cunts like that need taxing.
Lister put his hands into his tracksuit trousers and studied him. After a few moments of this he pulled a handful of badges from his pocket. He jiggled them in his hand and selected one.
Here you are. There’s a good lad.
He reached over and pinned it to his padded plaid work shirt.
We’ll be in touch said Skelton. Might be next week. Might be next year. But we’ll be in touch.
Rutter looked down at the badge. Everything you want in life said Lovely Larry Lister. It’s all for the taking.
He turned and left.
IT WASN’T SUICIDE.
Brindle puts away his phone.
What? says Mace.
Lister. It wasn’t suicide. I’ve had the call.
No?
No.
Then what?
A tongue up the arsehole.
A tongue up the arsehole? What does that mean – is that cop slang?
They found him with his tongue cut out and shoved up his arse.
What the fuck says Mace.
It’s true.
They both fall silent.
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Are you joking? says Mace.
Have you ever heard me joking?
Can you even die from – Obviously. In his house. It’s symbolic.
Symbolic?
Of course. Symbolic and practical: cut out someone’s tongue and they can’t speak. Mexican gangs do it so that their victims can never spill the secrets of others. It’s a trust thing. A fear thing.
It’s a medieval thing says Mace. No – it’s biblical. That’s Old Testament stuff: the tongue is a restless evil full of deadly poison.
I didn’t have you down as an altar boy says Brindle.
I’m not. But I’ve got a good memory.
Mace drinks more vodka from his bottle.
Seems apt he says. People always said he talked out of his arse.
I knew you were going to say that says Brindle.
And I knew you were going to say that says Mace.
HE STAYED UNTIL two in the morning. When he stepped out onto the street the cold hit him instantly. From a takeaway lit so brightly it hurt his eyes he bought some chips and a can of fizzy orange juice and he ate the chips and drank the juice in his truck and then wished he had bought a hot drink instead.
He had to de-ice the windscreen. He kept the engine running for a long time. The syrupy remains of the orange drink began to freeze on the dashboard. Smoke mingled with his breath and this corner of the city was silent.
He drove for the rest of the night. On and off the motorway. Then onto a dual carriageway. He pulled over to buy petrol with his bank card and he kept his receipt and he made sure he was seen on the CCTV cameras and then he drove on down country lanes with the heater blasting warm air and he drove through towns and villages he had never been to.
He found himself driving slowly around suburban estates where the houses and the gardens and the cars all looked the same. Neat and clean and trimmed and uniform. He lost himself within their streets and cul-de-sacs and felt like the last living man on the planet.
He drove down unknown dales and darkened valleys. Across moors.
He fixed his eyes to the road and let instinct guide him.
He followed the first streaks of the rising sun back home. The light of day seemed to say that it was alright to return now; that the night and the cold and the ice had conspired to do that which he had been unable to: to silence his mother. That it had ended. That it was over. That she was over.
It was still early when he drove up the dale and turned into the hamlet. A needle-sharp hoar frost clung to the fences and the dry-stone walls and the roof slates. It shone.
Only the light in the Laidlaws’ place was on. Brian and Sheila at the post office.
He took the track up to the farm in first gear. His wheels spun on the crushed ice powder. He considered turning back and driving off and never returning. Just leaving.
He didn’t want to see her heaped and frozen because that would start a process that he had no interest in.
He pulled up on to the verge around the side of the house and smoked a cigarette before getting out and taking some deep breaths and then he walked around to the back of the house to see –
Nothing. A space where she had been.
She wasn’t there.
His mother was not there.
He looked to the house: no sign of lights or movement from within.
He scratched his head. He took off his beanie and scratched his damp matted scalp. Then the cockerel started crowing.
Sherrup you he said.
He felt for his tobacco pouch in his breast pocket and instead touched the button badge. On it was Lister’s grinning face framed by a star shape and then beneath it the phrase Keep smiling – and be lucky.
It was the postman who had found her.
Rare was the day when he made it up the track of ice and frost in his van at that time of the year but that morning was one of them.
She had ordered a new housecoat from the catalogue. It had needed signing for.
It was still dark when he saw her form laid out in the yard. He mistook her for a woodpile but something drew him closer.
He felt her wrist and she still had a pulse – just. He had banged on the house door but when no one answered he covered her with his coat and a half-dozen empty mail bags and then he ran slipping and sliding down the hill to Brian and Sheila Laidlaw’s post office.
Might be she’s been out there all night said the postman.
They called it in and then he and Brian ran back up to the farm to cover her slumped form in more blankets.
The ambulance took an hour and twenty minutes. She had a severely fractured skull and hypothermia.
The trauma of the blow when her head hit the farmyard floor had caused an aneurysm then later that day – in her hospital bed – she experienced a series of small strokes. She would never speak again. Pneumonia followed then a collapsed lung. Each was enough to kill anyone.
Yet somehow her heart kept beating. Intensive care was her home for three weeks then she spent four months on a ward. After that she was moved to the hospice for the incapacitated the infirm and the terminal. Round-the-clock care for everything. Soon his future inheritance would run out though and there would only be the house to his name. He received letters from an accountant wishing to discuss financial matters but he binned them. After a while the letters stopped coming.
BRINDLE’S PHONE RINGS again. He answers it saying nothing. He only nods. He says nothing for a long time. Yes he says and then he says it again. Yes. OK good. And you’re sure Lister’s prints are on it? The property can be traced to him? When? OK good. That adds up. Now look at his money. See what incomes he had. Where it came from – and what for. Talk to the team who are working his catalogue of cases – they’ll have a head-start on this. Be sure to tell them it’s for Cold Storage. Mention Tate. Mention me if you have to. Just get those accounts. I need you to look into something else too. Yeah. Roy Pinder. Pinder he says again. He’s a copper. Don’t worry about it – he’s a nobody. No – not one of us. Find out any investments he has too. Incomes. Check his accounts. You know the drill. Yes. Thanks. As soon as you can. He hangs up and turns to Mace.
The dominoes he says. They are set to fall.
9
THEY JOURNEY DOWN the motorway for many miles. A drunk Mace and an agitated Brindle. There is flat arable land either side of them. It is turning into a clear bright day.
More familiar sights pass by. The army garrison. The service station in whose lorry park Brindle and a team had once staked out a dawn death-fight between two rival gypsy families. They had waited until their suspect – a man known only as Yarm Kenny – had been beaten unconscious then cuffed his shattered wrists and arrested him on an unrelated manslaughter charge. It was easier that way.
They see disused quarries. They see a gatehouse and the high boundary walls of an ailing country estate. Brindle watches the white line and the speed limit.
Long minutes pass and then the motorway presents options and Rutter takes one and Brindle follows.
Still they keep a discreet distance from Rutter. Brindle is back in more familiar territory now. Up in the Dales there is too much space and silence. Things are left to fester unnoticed. At least in the city the rot is visible for all to see. Eyeballs watch from doorways and everything sits on the surface; everyone a potential witness.
You were right about Lister’s house in the valley says Brindle. His retreat.
I know says Mace. I told you.
Cold Storage are tipping off those already working on his cases as we speak.
Mace reaches into his jacket for his bottle of vodka. He uncaps it and takes a swig then offers it to Brindle who shakes his head but then a moment later reaches out and grabs it and takes a gulp. He winces. Mace smiles.
So you could probably thank me at this point he says but then Brindle’s phone rings again. He answers and listens.
You’re sure about this? he says to the caller. What are they called? And you’re sure? OK. He hangs up.
One of the best there is says Brindle. We have our link.
Which is?
Lister was down on the board of a company. He was on many actually – about a dozen so it seems – but only one of them pays Roy Pinder a quarterly income. Blue Kingdom.
Blue Kingdom? Who are they?
Some company who are listed as having owned properties in the city – a club a pool hall a cinema – but not much else. A front probably. They have also traded under the name Cellar Entertainment but there are no tax records. They’re fake. Or a cover for something that I will bet involves Lovely Larry Lister.
Involved says Mace. Past tense.
Suddenly without indication Rutter pulls over. They are deep in the city now. They are on a side street whose name Brindle is unaware of. He keeps driving so as not to get spotted. A hundred yards down the road he turns around in the forecourt of an MOT garage and then heads back towards Rutter.
What’s he up to? says Mace.
They park up at a distance.
Rutter climbs out of his car and is on the pavement. He is looking up. Squinting and craning. Looking at a large stone building. Something that was perhaps once a bank or housed an accountancy firm or was maybe even a small theatre. The ornate original features of the frontage are still in place but it is in need of external work.
The incongruity of Rutter in the city strikes Brindle. Seeing his suspect like this – amongst the visual clutter. Dwarfed by billboards and buildings. Diminished by architecture and trailing Dales mud on cracked pavements. It doesn’t sit right.
But there is something else about him – something he can’t at first identify. Then it clicks. He is dressed differently. Rutter has changed his clothes for the first time since Brindle has been watching him. The first time in what must be weeks. He has swapped his filthy torn tartan blue padded work shirt for a slightly less filthy slightly less torn red tartan one. Nor is he wearing his woollen beanie hat. The trousers may be the same as he always wears and the gumboots definitely are but from here across the road he nevertheless looks slightly less malodorous. It is as if he has made an effort for this visit.
Mace seems to think the same thing.
He’s dressed differently he says.
Yes.
What do you think he’s up to?
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