by Steven Dunne
‘Free advertising,’ her father echoed for the benefit of his wife. ‘Hear that, Christy?’ He gazed back, damp-eyed, at the apple of his eye. ‘Your mum would’ve been so proud.’
Becky returned her head to her father’s neck but, unable to keep her eyes from the door, looked up in time to see her stepmother stalking away. She grinned maliciously towards her retreating back.
Brook tapped on the window of the small hatch with his warrant card. The orderly looked up from his tabloid and gave Brook and Noble a steely glare before reluctantly dragging himself to his feet. He was small but powerfully built, despite advanced middle age, and was dressed in white trousers and snug-fitting, white T-shirt which matched his cropped hair and showed off hard, gym-pumped biceps. He barely glanced at them as he slid open the small window.
‘What can I do for you, Officers?’
Brook spotted the blue ink of prison on the orderly’s gnarled forearms and neck. ‘Detective Inspector Brook, Detective Sergeant Noble,’ he said, enunciating their ranks a little more distinctly than usual. ‘Is your supervisor in?’ Brook peered down at his ID badge. ‘Danny.’
‘Just popped out,’ grinned the orderly, exposing a rack of teeth like an elephant’s ribcage. ‘I’m in charge.’
Brook pulled out the SOCO photograph of the dead man and held it up to Danny’s cold blue eyes. ‘Do you recognise this man? Social Services think it’s possible he stayed here recently.’
The orderly looked briefly before shaking his head. ‘Can’t say I recognise him.’ He glanced back up at Brook. ‘You’ve tried Social Services then.’
‘And the Job Centre. Without a name they’re completely in the dark. They suggested we try here and the outreach centres.’
Danny nodded, sifting the information. ‘That’s fine. But we have a policy at Millstone House Shelter. If someone asks for help, we try to give it. We don’t ask questions about their background or whether they’ve been in prison. We don’t even ask for a name if they don’t want us to know. A hard bed and simple food is all we can give, but we give it willingly.’
‘Very commendable,’ replied Brook.
‘Look, we’re not doing the census, buddy,’ cut in Noble. ‘We just want to know if he stayed here in the last month.’
‘And you don’t have a name,’ said Danny.
‘Not yet,’ said Brook. He stared back at Danny’s lived-in features. ‘I think we’d better have a look round. Maybe ask some of your residents.’
‘They won’t be here for a few hours yet,’ said Danny, still pleased to be so obstructive. ‘Come back around five when the soup’s ready. Fine day like today, they’ll all be down at the riverside gardens tucking into a few tinnies.’
‘Five o’clock?’
‘Sure, if you like wasting your time. Even if you find someone who wants to talk to you, you won’t get much sense out of them. Not after tea-time beers. You’re better off coming back in the morning.’
Brook nodded. ‘You’ve seen a lot of dead men, have you?’ Danny’s grin disappeared. ‘Sorry?’
‘You didn’t turn a hair at the photograph,’ chipped in Noble.
Danny looked evenly into Brook’s eyes. ‘I’ve seen a few. I used to be in the life. You break into enough derelict houses to doss down, you’re gonna find bodies sooner or later — or what’s left of ’em. The lost ones. And, natural enough, the wretched and the desperate that come here are sometimes taken unto God in the middle of the night. This isn’t a health spa.’
‘You’re not in the life now,’ said Brook.
‘Not since Jesus found me in the depths of my depravity and held out His hand to me. Me! No matter what I’d become and what I’d done, He wanted me by His side.’
‘And now you do His work,’ said Brook, making some effort to keep the cynicism from his voice.
‘With a song in my heart, Inspector,’ replied Danny.
‘Praise the Lord,’ sneered Noble.
‘Noticed anyone else taking an unusual interest in your residents? Besides staff, obviously.’
‘In what way?’
‘Asking about your guests, where they might go after they leave here, maybe even plying them with alcohol.’
‘The only alcohol allowed in here, friend, is already in their bellies when they arrive. And no, no one has been taking an interest in the lost souls who end up here. Except the staff.’
‘And Jesus,’ said Brook. Danny answered with a fake smile. Brook turned and signalled to Noble to leave.
‘I think his name was Tommy. He was here,’ said Danny. ‘About three, four weeks ago.’
‘Tommy?’ asked Noble.
Danny turned to leaf through a ledger. ‘Tommy Mac, it says here. I assume that’s short for something. He was a Scot.’
‘Is there a date?’ asked Noble.
‘April twenty-fifth for two nights.’
‘Anything unusual about his visit? Anything happen to him, like maybe he got into an argument with someone?’
Danny shook his head. ‘He came. He left. Far as I remember.’
‘No one here he managed to aggravate, someone who might bear a grudge?’
‘There’s always conflict, Inspector. Spend a couple of nights here and you’d be arguing over a discarded tab end with the guy in the next bed. But the one redeeming feature about the demon drink is they rarely remember anything the next day.’
‘Do you have CCTV?’
‘Some. Thefts and assaults are not unknown.’
‘Would you have it for Tommy’s visit?’
‘Not after three weeks.’
‘I’d like a photocopy of the names of all the men who stayed here during those two nights. .’
‘I told you. .’
‘. . or whatever names they gave. I also want the names of staff on duty while Tommy was here.’
‘The staff I can give you. You’ll need the director’s permission for a list of guests. Not that they left contact numbers. They leave here and they become invisible again, as soon as the door shuts behind them.’
Jake sat on his bed, naked but for a towel round his waist, chatting on MSN with some of his fellow college footballers. They had a big game against Trent Poly at the weekend and his teammates were not shy in telling all their contacts on Facebook how convincingly they were going to win. Trent Poly r gay.
‘Trent Poly is gay,’ he said, but declined to correct their grammar online. Jake didn’t usually join in such meaningless banter. He didn’t see the point. They’d know the result after the match and the endless speculative boasting seemed like a waste of effort — doubly so if they lost. Tonight, however, he was happy to kill time, to be distracted by trivia and he spent another vacant half-hour trying to respond to his teammates’ incoherent ramblings.
Kyle’s Smiths CD was playing. After fruitlessly searching for Kyle in the dark fields the night before, Jake had returned to pick it up and bring it home. Now he was going to his party. What would Kyle say to him when he opened the door? Track 9 began to play. Take me out tonight.
Jake glanced sideways at the DVD-shaped parcel on the bed. Picnic at Hanging Rock — Special Edition. He’d bought it earlier today and it was expensive. His mum had wrapped it for him though he wouldn’t tell her who it was for in case she mentioned it to his dad. When she’d asked if it was for a girlfriend, he’d let her believe it.
With a heavy heart, he typed in a final inanity, being careful to misspell a couple of words, and logged out of MSN.
Becky’s face fell as Kyle opened the door to her. ‘Shit. What happened to you, Kylie?’
He smiled weakly at her despite the painful swelling around his face. ‘You should see the other guy — not a scratch on him,’ he joked.
‘But what. .?’
‘I had a disagreement with Wilson about my sexual orientation.’
‘That fat tub of guts. At least you’ve got a sexual orientation.’
Kyle giggled then winced in pain. ‘Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.’ He ushere
d her in. Becky couldn’t hear music or even a TV. Only Adele was there, sitting on a small sofa with a bottle of untouched WKD in her hand, staring into space. She glanced up at Becky and smiled when she saw the jeans, trainers and sweatshirt, the leather rucksack over her shoulder.
Becky nodded back at her and looked around. ‘Geek Boy not here?’
Adele shook her head. ‘Not yet. Do you want a drink?’
Becky prepared to refuse, citing her skin as the reason. A model must have beautiful skin. ‘Don’t see why not.’
Jake stood beneath the streetlight outside Kyle’s house. He’d been there nearly five minutes, just watching, wondering what to do. He’d seen no one arrive and no signs of life. There wasn’t even the barely muffled pulse of loud music that had greeted his arrival at every other teenage party he’d attended. Maybe Kyle hadn’t come home after the previous night’s beating. Maybe he was lying out in the fields injured or dead. For the first time in his life, Jake envied people who smoked.
With a deep breath, he approached the glass front door and raised a hand to knock. But instead of knocking, he waited. He couldn’t hear anything; no music, no laughter and none of the usual loud screeching and shouting for attention that characterised every other conversation held at such gatherings. It was as quiet as the grave.
He stood frozen, his hand aloft, ready to pound on the door. Finally he lowered his arm and walked around the side of the house where there was a large floor-to-ceiling window. The curtains were drawn but Jake could see movement on the other side so he drew nearer and fixed his eye to a crack in the material. He pulled back and turned away, deep lines of confusion etched on his brow. A second later he walked back down the small drive and set off for home.
Becky stood at the sink in Kyle’s kitchen and wiped the last of the talcum powder from her face. When she’d finished, she stared at her reflection in the window. The harsh strip-lighting left no hiding place for all the minor blemishes that others overlooked but she obsessed over. She looked away at once.
The noise of the TV increased as a door opened and Adele came over to put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Okay, Becks?’
Becky smiled faintly. ‘Always.’ She laughed. ‘Lamest party ever, right?’ Adele smiled back. ‘I should text Fern and tell her she got off lightly.’ Adele raised an eyebrow but Becky had already realised. ‘Right. No phones.’
‘Come and watch Badlands. You’ll like it.’
Eight
Saturday, 21 May
The next morning, Brook jogged up the steps of the entrance to Division Headquarters in St Mary’s Wharf, and waited for Noble to swipe his card against the sensor before following his subordinate through the smoked-glass door. Sergeant Harry Hendrickson was on the Duty Desk and spotted DI Brook hurrying by. Hendrickson was in his late fifties and had a face like Sid James on a bad day. He’d never got over being rejected by CID in his distant youth, and a detective as clever as Brook had become the natural focus for his resentment, the more so because Brook wasn’t a local man.
Hendrickson sneered as sourly as he dared in Brook’s direction, but the senior officer kept his eyes glued firmly to his feet. Noble in turn gave Hendrickson no more than a glance as the pair passed.
‘Morning, Detective Sergeant,’ bellowed the uniformed officer when Noble didn’t acknowledge him.
For once Noble didn’t answer or react to the fake bonhomie. Usually he nodded a greeting, played along to keep a foot in both camps as he had with Keith Pullin the other morning. But this was getting out of hand — too many people felt they could be openly hostile and Noble decided it was time to stonewall the backhanded insults aimed at his superior.
Brook pushed through the door that led to the lifts but he ignored them and made for the stairs. At the same moment a lift door opened and Chief Superintendent Mark Charlton stepped out. Brook saw him from the corner of an eye but pretended not to notice and bounded towards the first step.
‘Morning, gentlemen,’ called Charlton, raising an arm and halting Brook in mid-stride.
‘Morning, sir,’ said Noble. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good.’
Brook turned to face the Chief Super with barely detectable scorn. Noble watched him, wincing in anticipation. Good at what? was Brook’s usual retort to such a greeting. More often than not it was followed by Are you American? Noble saw Brook open his mouth to speak but fortunately the moment passed without comment.
‘What news about that floater?’ asked Charlton, looking beyond Brook to his destination. Close to regulation minimum height, Charlton was always uncomfortable standing beside two six-footers. ‘I’ve had Brian Burton from the local rag on to me about it. Just an old tramp, I heard.’
Brook raised an eyebrow. ‘Even tramps have mothers. Sir.’ Charlton and Brook’s eyes locked briefly before the Chief Superintendent looked away, tight-lipped.
‘You know what I mean, Inspector. The type to get falling-down drunk and end up in the river — the type worth a fourline paragraph on page eleven of the Derby Telegraph.’
‘There’s a little more to it than that,’ answered Brook.
‘Oh? How so?’
‘We’re still assessing that, sir,’ said Brook. ‘It’s not suicide and it could yet be murder.’
Noble looked sharply at Brook.
‘I see,’ said Charlton. He tried to sound authoritative. ‘Well, get your paperwork on my desk today and don’t waste any more time on it than necessary.’
Brook smiled his reply.
Charlton was on the verge of turning away before finding a riposte to Brook’s earlier gibe. ‘You know, you glamour boys in CID never really have day-to-day dealings with tramps or the homeless and alcoholic. It’s us in uniform that have always had to clean up their mess. The nurse punched and kicked in Casualty. The primary-school kids on their way home lured into a derelict house and sexually assaulted. If you’d seen what I’ve seen out in the field, you wouldn’t think some of these scumbags had mothers.’ He glared at Brook only to see that he’d already gone and was sprinting up the stairs.
Back in his office, Brook sipped on the over-sweetened vending-machine tea, aware that Noble was waiting for something.
‘Something you want to say, John?’ Noble shrugged so Brook asked it for him. ‘Why did I tell Charlton it might be murder?’
‘That would cover it,’ answered Noble.
Brook took a sip of tea. ‘Are we certain there was no coercion?’
‘Habib and Petty were. And they’ve seen a lot more of these. .’
‘Tramps?’
Noble shrugged. ‘For want of a better word. And we know the path our corpse was on. He only had another year, according to Habib.’
Brook looked away. ‘You’re right. But I don’t like Brass pushing us to sign off on cases before they’re done and dusted.’
‘So we’re not ready to pass this down the food chain?’
‘Not a chance.’
‘Because of the planning that went into disposal. .’
‘Not just the way the corpse was dumped, John. The way it was filleted, treated with such care then just discarded in the water seems perverse. Almost as though. .’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know,’ Brook said. ‘But I’ve never seen anything like this. We should give it another couple of days at least.’
‘You don’t think it’s a mortuary mix-up then?’
‘You heard Habib. The body wouldn’t have been cut that way if it had been through the system.’
‘I also heard him say it wasn’t murder.’ Noble smiled at Brook. ‘But I suppose if the Chief Super thinks all bets are still on, we don’t get reassigned.’
Brook grinned back guiltily. ‘That never occurred to me.’
‘Course not.’
‘But you’re right. Charlton will have us back on fake IDs or, God forbid, break-ins if we sit around twiddling our thumbs.’
‘A valuable public service that,’ Noble suggested.
‘But not our skill-set, John — and the householders of Derby deserve better than to have their cases dumped into our inexperienced hands.’
Noble laughed then looked back at Brook.
‘Something else?’
Noble hesitated then said, ‘Never mind.’
‘No, spit it out. We don’t crack cases by suppressing ideas.’
‘It’s not about the case.’
Brook took a sip of his tea. ‘What is it? Come on, let’s hear it.’
Noble braced himself. ‘Okay. How come you go out of your way to wind up the Chief Super yet put up with all that crap from a nobody like Hendrickson?’
‘Hendrickson doesn’t like me?’ asked Brook innocently.
‘You know he doesn’t and he’s not shy about showing it. And he’s not the only one.’
Brook looked into his tea cup. ‘Like. .’ He looked up to Noble for help.
‘Keith Pullin.’
‘To name but one.’ Brook nodded.
‘That’ll be the day.’
Brook grunted in brief amusement. ‘Some time ago, Charlton tried to get me to take early retirement and he wasn’t subtle about it.’
‘Well, you did undermine a case by going to the Telegraph behind his back.’
‘Two innocent people were being railroaded, John. I couldn’t let that happen.’
‘And Charlton hasn’t forgiven you.’
‘I obviously told you all this.’ And when Noble laughed without mirth: ‘Something funny?’
‘You could say,’ replied Noble.
‘Enlighten me. Come on, let me in on the joke.’
Noble took a sip of tea. ‘How long is it since your transfer to Derby, sir?’
Brook looked briefly at the ceiling then back at Noble. ‘Six years?’
Noble shook his head in disbelief. ‘Eight — it’s eight years since you moved up from the Met and eight years we’ve worked together.’
Brook shrugged. ‘If you say so.’
‘I do say so. And you ask me whether you told me about Charlton trying to get you off the payroll.’
‘And did I?’