And look at him now, still languishing as a Detective Constable. Ian Bradshaw’s early run of achievement had left him singularly unprepared to deal with the spectacular failure of his police career. None of the academic or sporting stuff mattered if it turned out that you were basically clueless. Everyone had always told him when he was growing up that he could be anything he chose to be but when it came down to it, he couldn’t even become the one thing he really wanted to be; a police officer; or at least a competent one.
Now he was staring at the ceiling once more as he lay on the soft leather couch, while his counsellor, Doctor Mellor – recommended and paid for by Durham Constabulary in an effort to prove they had not entirely washed their hands of him – tried once again to forge some form of empathetic bond between them.
‘This is our fifth session,’ Doctor Mellor’s soft and faintly hypnotic voice drifted over to Bradshaw from his seat in the middle of the airless room, ‘and I think we have established enough trust between us to begin to explore the matter of your self-esteem, right?’ The doctor had a habit of ending his pronouncements with the word right, an annoying little verbal tick that made his voice rise in pitch at the end of every sentence. The good doctor clearly didn’t know he was doing it but Bradshaw had taken to answering his questions literally, because he suspected it might irritate the older man.
‘Not right.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Sixth,’ answered Bradshaw. He couldn’t see the doctor, he was still looking at the wooden blades of the ceiling fan, but he knew the man would be frowning while he attempted to understand his patient’s meaning. ‘This is our sixth session.’
‘Is it?’ the voice was disbelieving.
‘Yes it is.’ Bradshaw wanted to add, ‘Believe me, I know!’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ the doctor’s face would be a picture of geniality now but if Mellor couldn’t get a simple fact like this right then what chance was there that he could actually help Bradshaw to conquer his ‘demons’, as they were both encouraged to call them?
‘I am,’ confirmed Bradshaw.
The doctor cleared his throat and asked, ‘would you like some tea?’
Always the same offer, always the same reply. ‘No.’
‘I will have some, if you don’t mind,’ the doctor said.
‘Why would I mind?’
He heard the doctor pad across the carpet then the snick of the kettle as he switched it on. ‘So, as a young man, how did you feel about yourself, Ian? Would you mind telling me that? Take as long as you need.’
‘If you like.’ Ian Bradshaw didn’t really care. He just wanted the seconds to tick by until they made minutes, and then for the minutes to accumulate as quickly as possible until there were sixty of them and the hour was up, whereupon the doctor would solemnly announce, as he always did, that ‘alas and alack our time is through,’ before moving on to his next victim – the money-grubbing old goat.
Bradshaw thought for a long while before answering, so long that he heard the kettle hiss then bubble as its watery contents slowly began to drift to the boil, then the words came out, seemingly of their own accord. ‘When I was a boy I used to think the world was a movie about my life and I was its star.’
‘Interesting,’ said the doctor and he began to pour.
‘Is it?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Bradshaw could hear the clink, clink, clink of the metal spoon against the bone-china cup as the doctor stirred. ‘And now, Ian,’ he probed gently, ‘how do you feel about yourself now?’
Again, there was a long silence before the younger man spoke.
‘Like a bit-part player,’ answered Bradshaw, ‘non-speaking.’
Mellor contemplated DC Bradshaw’s response for a time.
‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ asked the good doctor eventually.
‘Isn’t that the whole point of the exercise?’ replied Bradshaw.
‘Therapy is a two-way street, Ian,’ Doctor Mellor reminded him, ‘you talk to me, we establish a bond of trust, over time. I feel it’s only fair for me to repay that trust.’
‘So, you’re going to tell me about your childhood?’ asked Bradshaw.
‘No, no, Ian,’ a slight grimace of irritation from the usually unruffled doctor, ‘that’s not what I am going to do and I suspect you know that. No, I am going to tell you what I think. What we have here is a classic case of a life failing to live up to really quite unrealistic expectations. I believe you to be a romantic at heart, Ian, with a romantic’s overblown view of the world and I don’t just mean where the fairer sex is concerned, though you are currently single,’ the doctor needlessly reminded him. ‘We have spoken before about your long-held desire to join the police force, which I feel was the nearest thing to your childhood comics filled with heroes who would somehow save the day. You expected that the job of a police officer would be something you could fall into quite naturally and were subsequently quite unprepared for the frustrations of the job.
‘Don’t you see, though, that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you,’ the doctor suddenly announced cheerfully, ‘apart from a quite temporary sense of shock and despair caused by the trauma of the … er … incident of which we have previously spoken at length. Aside from that, the realities of day-to-day life simply fail to live up to your expectations.’ The doctor spoke those last words as if he had just discovered a cure for cancer or at least the particular tumour that afflicted Bradshaw. This time the silence went on for so long the doctor felt compelled to prompt the detective constable with a ‘right?’
‘I know that,’ said Bradshaw and he sat bolt upright on the couch. ‘I bloody know that. Jesus Christ, six sodding hours for you to finally come out with the bleeding obvious! Life hasn’t lived up to my earlier hopes and aspirations; well then, that’s just me and about nine-tenths of the rest of the planet isn’t it? I don’t suppose you wanted to do this when you were a kid, did you?’
‘Calm down, Ian,’ cautioned the doctor.
‘Calm down? Bollocks to that!’ Bradshaw sat up suddenly, ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ and he climbed down from the couch and struggled into his jacket.
‘But Ian,’ protested the dumbstruck doctor, ‘we’ve barely had forty minutes, you’ve still got twenty left.’
‘Keep the change!’ called Bradshaw as he went through the door.
He hadn’t gone more than a few yards when the receptionist reached him. They were both moving at speed and almost barged into one another.
‘Detective Constable,’ she said, ‘I have a call for you. They say it’s urgent.’
They walked quickly back to the front desk together and Bradshaw picked up the phone. It was Peacock.
‘Get your arse back here sharpish, Bradshaw,’ the Detective Inspector ordered, ‘the boss wants everyone assembled in half an hour.’
‘What’s happened?’ Ian asked, and when Peacock answered, Bradshaw felt a stone where his stomach had been.
‘Another girl’s been taken.’
CHAPTER SIX
Jesus, thought Tom Carney, what the hell did he have to do to please this man? ‘What’s the matter?’ he protested weakly. The alpha male within him had run for cover at the first sound of the Doc’s booming voice and he already sounded like a small child caught licking the icing off a cake by his mother.
‘He’s suing us!’ yelled Docherty, ‘and, according to our lawyers, he’s going to bloody win!’
Tom rallied then. ‘Of course he’s going to sue us. What choice does he have? He’s not going to admit it, is he? If he does that he’s finished. Timothy Grady’s a politician, so he’s got to sue or at least say he’s going to sue – but he isn’t going to win. He can’t win!’
‘Oh, can’t he? Which law school did you go to? Or are you George Carman in disguise?’ Tom kept silent. ‘No? Well perhaps you can get me his number because I think we are going to need the best libel lawyer in the country thanks to you, that stupid bitch Anna-Louise and that nugget Jon
athan. The only person I blame for this disaster more than you lot is my deputy. He, at the very least, should have known better!’
In that instant it all became clear. Alex Docherty was already distancing himself from the story, the front page lead on his own paper, on the hard-to-disprove point that he was technically on leave on the day it was cleared to run, at a Buckingham Palace garden party of all things, and poor, unfortunate Martyn Tracy had taken on the job of Editor in the great man’s absence for a day; a single day that would probably destroy him and everyone who worked on the story, if Grady won his libel case. It mattered little that Docherty was in touch with every aspect of it right up until virtually the hour that it ran. He would only have to claim that he would never have agreed to run the story in its entirety and it would be the deputy editor who’d carry the can. Editors lost their jobs over this kind of thing. Newspapers weren’t made of money and their owners did not like to lose libel cases. Juries had a nasty habit of awarding massive pay-outs to the wronged, even when they were as guilty as sin and everybody knew it. It was one thing to know someone was dodgy, another thing entirely to prove it beyond doubt in a court of law. Alex Docherty had consulted the paper’s lawyers and he was already running for cover. So much for it being ‘his paper’.
‘But we’ve got photos of Grady coming out of his apartment and pictures of her going in,’ Tom protested.
‘Not the apartment,’ the Doc corrected him, ‘the apartment block. She could have been shagging anybody in those flats, or so his lawyers will claim,’ countered his editor. ‘I told you we needed a recording of them screwing or at least negotiating the terms of the shag in advance.’
‘And I told you there was no chance of that,’ said Tom, ‘it was his flat and he wasn’t daft. He used to just point at the bedroom when a girl arrived and she’d go in and strip off. There was nowhere to conceal a mic on her. He just did the bizzo and handed her the cash. You told us to write it anyway.’
The Doc shot him a warning look and Tom realised he would be expected to erase that little exchange from his memory, which had occurred when Alex Docherty was in one of his egotistical, print-and-be-damned moods.
‘Our lawyers are saying it’s flimsy,’ said the Doc, ‘it looks like a tabloid set up and he can just say he has never even seen her or her mates before, much less given them one.’
‘He has given her several!’ Tom argued, ‘and her mates – and they are all willing to swear it was him.’
‘They are hookers!’ the Doc shouted and he waved his arms in frustration. ‘Which means their word counts for a bit less than a cabinet minister’s!’ He seemed to force himself to calm down then. ‘And there’s something else.’
‘What?’
The Doc seemed pained, ‘his lawyers are asking for the exact times and dates we are claiming he was shagging Miss Sparkle and her mates.’
‘So?’
‘Our lawyers reckon it’s so they can go back to Grady and ask him if he has alibis for those times and dates.’
‘Well he hasn’t,’ said Tom, ‘has he?’
‘Well let’s see, shall we?’ The Doc made a great show of pretending that he was thinking. He placed a hand to his chin and wrinkled his forehead in a mock frown. ‘He’s a wealthy, powerful individual who might one day become Prime Minister, which means he can generously repay a lot of favours. There have been rumours of dodgy dealings surrounding him for years, so we already know he’s bent. What do you think, Tom? Reckon he’ll have any trouble coming up with those alibis?’
‘But this is …’
‘Unfair?’ offered the Doc, ‘to hell with fair. This tosser is fighting for his political life right now and most probably his marriage as well. He ain’t gonna fight fair, is he?’
Tom was feeling bewildered now. Faced with his editor’s certainty, he suddenly ran out of arguments. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘About this? I don’t know. I’ll probably develop an ulcer and have a heart attack as well but you worry about yourself, not me.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We can’t have you in the office writing more stories while we are being sued because of your last one. The lawyers would have a fit. I need you out of the building. Take a holiday,’ Docherty told Tom. ‘Don’t look at me like that. You’ll still get your money. I’d kill for some paid holiday right now.’
‘What about my contract? You know I’ve only got six months and it expires soon.’
‘We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?’ he told Tom.
‘Are you throwing me out? Is that what you’re doing here? Just tell me if you are.’
‘No, I am not throwing you out, so don’t give me any more grief!’
‘So why can’t you tell me what’s going to happen at the end of my contract?’
‘Because I don’t actually know if I’ll be there then, let alone you! I might not even survive the day. Nobody likes to lose a libel case, son; they are way too expensive, even for us.’
Jennifer chose that point to put her head round the door.
‘Sorry, Chief, you said you wanted to write that letter to Cryptic Ken.’ And when he blinked at her in something like recognition she added, ‘I could come back later.’
‘No, Jennifer, come in,’ he told her, taking a deep breath, ‘I’m done here,’ He left Tom under no illusion that their conversation was over.
Cryptic Ken was the paper’s resident astrologer, a man whose days were constantly rumoured to be numbered because his horoscopes were too mundane for the Doc’s tastes. Their last row had been loud enough for half the office to hear every excruciating detail. Alex Docherty wanted to see dreams, wealth and steamy love affairs in each horoscope, every day.
‘But that’s not how it works,’ protested Cryptic Ken, ‘life isn’t like that.’
‘Who cares how it works?’ demanded the Doc. ‘It’s all a load of wank anyway! Horoscopes are bullshit. How can one-twelfth of the population experience exactly the same level of good or bad fortune on the same bloody day, just because they were born during a random positioning of the stars? I’m selling dreams on every twatting page here. I want each and every reader to think it could happen to them; whether it’s playing for England or ending up in a threesome with Sharon Stone and the bird behind the bar at their local pub and you, pal, are letting the fucking side down!’
Now Jennifer sat on the edge of the couch and crossed her legs primly, holding a pen close to her notepad, ready to transcribe the editor’s latest death warrant.
But first the Doc turned to Tom. ‘Do me a favour, son, leave my office now will you, like a good little boy – and don’t ever have the temerity to go mentioning your contract to me again or I’ll terminate it on the spot.’ And he turned back to Jennifer.
‘I want you take this down word for word, exactly as I speak it,’ he told her. ‘Dear Cryptic Ken … as you no doubt will have foreseen … you’re fucking fired … fondest regards, the Doc,’ then he glanced to one side and realised Tom was sitting there in mute shock. ‘Why are you still here?’ he demanded.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The team was so large they had to go the training room so their senior officers could address them all. The twenty-five detectives assigned to the investigation into the murdered girls filed into the room. DI Peacock was already there and DCI Kane, so too was Chief Superintendent Trelawe. A fourth man Bradshaw had never seen before was standing to one side of the top brass.
‘I’m sure you’ve all heard by now,’ Kane began, ‘we have another missing girl.’ He looked around the room to let that one sink in. ‘Now, I’m going to give you the bare facts as we know them,’ he continued, ‘then I’m going to hand you over to Chief Superintendent Trelawe.’
DCI Kane waited to ensure he had their full attention then continued, ‘the latest girl is Michelle Summers, aged fifteen, from Great Middleton. She disappeared last night, her last known whereabouts being the bus shelter at the foot of the hill at the eastern end of the villa
ge. She was seen there by a number of witnesses, presumably waiting for the last bus that would take her through the village to her home at the opposite end of Great Middleton, right by the main arterial road. Michelle lives there with her mother and stepfather, no siblings. None of our witnesses saw her walk away from that bus shelter or get into a car with anyone. The driver has already been questioned and swears that nobody boarded his bus from that stop last night. We are looking for passengers who can confirm this.’
‘There’s a boyfriend, Darren Tully, same age as Michelle, but he got a lift home from a friend’s mother. The mother confirmed she saw Michelle alive and well, so we can rule him out. We’ve spoken to Michelle’s mother. She fell asleep on the couch downstairs and didn’t hear her daughter come home but there was a light on in the girl’s room when she went to bed, so she assumed all was well. It now looks as if it may have been left on when the girl got ready to go to the youth club earlier that evening.’ Then he added, ‘We’re not sure how reliable a witness the mother is.’
‘Meaning she’s a pisshead,’ whispered the officer next to Bradshaw.
Either Kane didn’t hear this comment or he chose to ignore it. ‘Now it is of course entirely possible that young Michelle is a runaway but she only had the clothes on her back and a few coins in her purse. From the M. O. alone and the assurances of the family that the girl had no reason to run off, we have to accept that this is likely to be the work of the man the tabloids have taken to calling The Reaper. We think it is very possible therefore that Michelle Summers is Girl Number Five.’ The room was immediately filled with the low humming sound of twenty-five detectives all offering each other an opinion at once. Kane held up a hand to silence them. ‘Like the other victims, she’s been snatched from the street. Two were walking home from school, one was waiting by the side of the road for her ride home and another, like Michelle, was taken from a bus stop.
No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) Page 3