High-Wired

by Andrea Frazer

‘Hardy, that, too is an order. Get your things and go home. I don’t want to see you hereabouts for at least three days. You are dismissed. And, by the way, you can release those men you’re holding.’

  Hardy left the superintendent’s office, her lips clamped shut to avoid saying anything she might regret, and feeling that there should be smoke and flames issuing from her nostrils. She couldn’t remember ever being this angry before. And just as they were getting somewhere.

  When she got back to her office, her face was like a thundercloud, promising nobody any good. She announced loudly that there would be no ID parade for now, as the super had pulled the team off the case and passed it to higher echelons, and thanked them for all the hours they had put in. She then took time to explain to her sergeant exactly what had just happened in more detail. Groves was as appalled as the inspector was at the injustice of the situation, but managed to persuade Olivia that her time would be better spent looking for Hibbie.

  ‘I’ll push from this end, and you can spend some time phoning round her friends and asking her colleagues at the office whether she said anything to them about her plans to disappear.’

  Hal had volunteered to go over to the office where their daughter had worked, taking Ben with him. If Hal couldn’t ferret anything out, maybe the seductive charms of Ben could triumph where he had failed, and Olivia had to be content with that for now.

  Olivia checked on the way out of the station whether there had been any progress or sightings of her daughter, but the answer was in the negative, so there was nothing to get her hopes up about.

  Olivia had managed to speak to the friend that Hibbie was purported to be staying with, but she had to wait until she got back from school. The girl said that Hibbie had stayed with her for a couple of days, but that was only so that she and her boyfriend could make plans.

  ‘His name’s Michael, and he’s about ten years older than Hibbie,’ the friend told her.

  ‘And what does he do?’ asked Olivia, hopeful that this may give them a sniff of a trail to follow, by contacting his place of work.

  ‘He doesn’t do anything. He’s unemployed and living on benefits.’ This was bad news.

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘Not really. He just drifts around sofa-surfing. As far as I know, he doesn’t have a place of his own. Hibbie said they were going to disappear in London.’ This just got worse.

  ‘When did you last speak to her?’ This was her last hope.

  ‘Last night. She said they had been dossing on somebody’s floor until they got together the deposit for a place of their own.’

  ‘So, they’ve got no money?’

  ‘Michael was always broke, and Hibbie used to sub him until he got his benefits.’

  Olivia ended the call in tears. Things couldn’t be worse. Hibbie had planned the whole thing just to be with this boyfriend, one who couldn’t have sounded more unsuitable: he was basically homeless, living on benefits and Hibbie’s hand-outs, and had persuaded her to run off to London – at least, she assumed it was his idea. Already she didn’t like the sound of him, and although Hibbie had mentioned his name she had not placed any significance on it. She had picked up no clues. Or had she just not heard what her daughter was telling her?

  When Hal and Ben got home, they had no more information than she had, but Ben had got a date with the girl in the office who was closest to his sister. ‘You never know, Ma, I could turn out to be the new Sherlock Holmes,’ he joked, but soon wiped the smile off his face when his mother burst into tears again.

  ‘I feel as if the heart has been ripped out of me. How could a child of mine do this to me – to us? When have we ever seriously stopped her from doing anything she wanted? The closest we came to being strict was when we put time restrictions on when she came in at night, but we let her stay over with friends whenever she wanted. I thought she was happy, getting her own way about leaving school and going to work. Obviously I was wrong, and now she’s punishing us for something we don’t even know we did.’

  Hal tried to comfort her, while Ben did his best to produce a scratch supper using only the microwave and the frying pan, but it wasn’t until Olivia had drunk two or three glasses of wine that she managed to stop weeping.

  Ben disappeared up to his room to do some mixing, using his headphones so as not to cause a disturbance, and Hal sat with his arm around his wife, trying to change the subject. ‘I didn’t get the chance to tell you, but there was a bit of an uneasy atmosphere at the club last night.

  ‘I don’t know who rattled their cage, but the manager and his assistant were really jumpy, forever disappearing to make phone calls and going outside for a smoke. I thought they’d both given up, but they were both back on the fags last night. For all I know, it might even have been weed.’

  But Olivia didn’t even have the enthusiasm to pretend to be interested. ‘Hal, what does it matter to me what’s going on there now I’ve been dragged off the case? Even if I could tie that place into what I’ve been working on, nobody would take any notice of me because I’ve been shut down. Canned. Retired from it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Liv, I just didn’t think.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Olivia didn’t wake until midday, having drowned her sorrows in a lake of wine then swallowed down a couple of sleeping tablets. When she did wake up, her mouth was so dry it could have been made of wood, and her head ached abominably as her stomach roiled in protest at the amount of acid that had formed in it.

  She managed to stagger into the bathroom and swallow two glasses of water, before putting two large tablets into a third glass. While they fizzed, she got out a couple of painkillers and washed them down with the still effervescent liquid. Then she looked in the mirror and reared back from what she saw. Her hair made her look like a bag lady, and her face seemed to have aged ten years overnight. Her decision to get straight into the shower was a reaction to what Hibbie would think of her if she were to come home today. She needed to look at least human for whenever her daughter came back. She simply couldn’t allow herself to go to pieces physically.

  When she got downstairs, Hal was in the kitchen cooking some brunch. He told her Ben had gone out really early to check out some of his contacts in the bigger town where Hibbie had worked. He said he’d phone in at regular intervals to let them know if he’d made any progress, but Olivia was like a cat on a hot tin roof. ‘I can’t believe the stupid girl said she’d go to London. It’s an evil place, she could get sucked into drugs, or prostitution just to get together enough money for food. She could get herself killed, Hal, or worse.’

  ‘What could be worse than being killed?’ asked Hal.

  ‘Getting hooked on drugs, sucked into prostitution, and getting a regular beating from her pimp. Is that bad enough?’

  ‘God, you really know how to look on the bright side, don’t you? What if she gets fed up with living on somebody’s sofa or floor, cheesed off with no money and not enough to eat, and all the things she’s had done for her like cooking, cleaning, and laundry are suddenly her responsibility. You really don’t suppose she’d just turn up here voluntarily, or at least phone and ask for help,’ he suggested.

  ‘And what if she’s got no money to top up her phone with? She’s only got a pay-as-you-go because we didn’t want her running up big bills like her friends were.’

  ‘Liv!’ Hal shouted. ‘You sound like Chicken-Licken when he said the sky had fallen on his head. We can’t live on what ifs. What if she just decides to get in touch with us and ask us to come and get her? You know our Hibbie; she doesn’t like roughing it. She even refused to go camping when the rest of us wanted to go because she couldn’t use a proper shower or her hairdryer.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Hal. I guess I’ve just got an over-active imagination. It goes with the job.’

  In the police station, an elderly lady who had come in to speak to somebody of senior rank was passed on to DS Groves. She was in a state of heightened emotion, and gave her name a
s Elsie Trussler.

  Lauren showed her into an interview room and asked her what the matter was. ‘It’s my boy. Your lot came round yesterday and told me he was dead – shot. Now, I know he wasn’t a saint, but he didn’t deserve that, I’m sure. But he’s been mixing with some rather unsavoury characters, and I warned him, no good would come of it; and now he’s dead.’

  ‘And you want us to find out who did it?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘Oh, I know who’s responsible for it, even if he didn’t pull the trigger.’ The woman’s face was grim.

  ‘You do? Who?’

  ‘A man called Julian Church. He runs that big club on the seafront – The Shoreline – but my Dennis started doing odd jobs for him, and he got me my job as a cleaner there. Anyway, my Dennis got into some serious stuff with some other men, and he wouldn’t tell me anything about it, just that the money was good.

  ‘I’m no fool, and I can put times and places together. I know him and those three goons he hung around with were mixed up in them killings that have been taking place. Of course, I wouldn’t have said anything, only there was this knock on the door, and suddenly my Dennis was dead.

  ‘Well, that man from the club, he phoned me yesterday morning and told me to come in and give his office a right good polishing, which was odd as I didn’t normally clean his office, but before I could get round there, I had a visit from your lot.

  ‘As I said, I’m not stupid, and it sounded to me that he wanted me to go and polish away any stray fingerprints. He’d probably given the place a going over himself, but he sounded rattled, and I guess that if he was the belt, I was the braces, and he was going to make a run for it with no evidence left behind to identify him, because of my little can of polish and my trusty duster. It’s easy enough to change your appearance, but I do know fingerprints are impossible to alter. They’re what are referred to as “irrefutable evidence”, ain’t they, ducky?’

  Lauren couldn’t agree more, and took down Mrs Trussler’s statement herself, then contacted Devenish’s secretary to see if the superintendent had a minute to spare for her, because she’d got some evidence that she thought ought to go straight to him. She was quaking when she finally mounted the stairs, because she had had little to do with the man, but was more than conscious of his reputation of ripping junior officers to ribbons.

  He kept her standing, as she explained what had happened with Mrs Trussler’s visit, and pointed out the opportunity to go over the club’s office before its regular cleaner got in there. The man sat stony-faced while she explained that she had the woman’s statement with her, which he took without a word, then informed her that it would be passed to the ‘relevant department’, before dismissing her without a smile or a courteous word.

  ‘Just keep your nose out of this one,’ he said as she exited his office, relieved that the ordeal was over with. ‘Those three men’s deaths will be paid for without any interference from you or your well-meaning but short-sighted inspector.’

  That evening, Ben didn’t get back until nearly midnight, to find both his parents sitting fretting about where he’d got to, and whether he’d found out anything further about his sister’s disappearance.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ asked Olivia, her face ashen.

  ‘Give me a chance, Ma, I’ve just walked through the door. Anyway, you could have phoned me to ask for an update.’

  ‘We didn’t want to disturb whatever you were doing,’ replied his mother. ‘Come on, did you find out anything?’

  ‘Let me get a cup of tea and I’ll tell you,’ Ben replied, infuriatingly.

  ‘I’ll get it. You sit down and tell your mother what you’ve discovered,’ said Hal, rising from his seat. ‘I’ll make us all one.’

  ‘Come on, come on,’ said Olivia impatiently. ‘Did you or did you not find out anything?’

  ‘I found out where she really is,’ declared Ben with some triumph. ‘She’s not gone to London at all.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ replied Olivia, putting her palms up to her face, one on each cheek. ‘Where is she, then?’

  ‘Down Portsmouth way. Apparently Michael’s got family or friends, or something, down there. They wanted to get a place of their own, but Michael hasn’t got a decent credit rating, so they couldn’t pass the financial checks, even with Hibbie working.’

  ‘Whereabouts down Portsmouth way? Have you got any more detailed information?’

  ‘I haven’t exactly got an address, but I have an area covering a few streets where she probably is,’ he said, going over to the computer and pulling up a map site. ‘I’ll print it off for you so you can see.’

  ‘So what have you been doing all day, son?’ asked Hal, coming through from the kitchen with a loaded tray.

  ‘I had some early visits to make, then I had some calls to make. After I’d stopped for some lunch, I had some later calls to make, then I took that girl out from the office and milked her for everything she had. She was like putty in my hands.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t go into details,’ commented Hal.

  ‘Did you get her mobile number?’ asked Olivia, more prosaically.

  ‘Of course I did, Ma. What love machine would be worth his salt if he didn’t get the babe’s number?’

  ‘Give it here. I want to ring her.’

  ‘Liv, it’s much too late,’ Hal cautioned her.

  ‘It’s never too late,’ she said, punching in numbers on her mobile. ‘Hello, I don’t know your name but this is Hibbie Hardy’s mother, and I’m going out of my mind with worry.’

  When the call had ended, Olivia looked like she had been struck. ‘Apparently she told this girl that life was hell at home, and that she needed to get away. She and Michael loved each other and wanted to live together without us interfering. How could she say all that when we didn’t even realise her relationship with him? We still don’t know his surname.’

  Taking the map that Ben held out to her, warm from the printer, she looked imploringly at Hal, who shook his head emphatically.

  ‘No, no. There’s no way we’re driving down to Portsmouth now. We need to get a good night’s rest so that we’re ready for a long, hard search. It may only be a few streets, but it could take hours to find her. And what if she’s not in? We wouldn’t recognise this Michael if we tripped over him. No, you’re going to bed now, and we’ll talk it over in the morning.’

  Olivia fleetingly considered driving down there herself straight away, but soon dismissed it. She knew she would be too tired by the time she got there to be of any use searching through the dark sleeping streets.

  She was eager that they got an early start the next morning, but Hal put on the brakes even before they’d retired for the night. ‘You know Hibbie,’ he stated. ‘She likes to be busy, and if I know her, she’s already got a job, even if that waster who’s lured her away from us isn’t working. We’d be better going later in the day, we’d be more likely to catch her at home.’ The last two words stuck in his throat, as Hal’s mind shouted that this was her home, not some anonymous terrace in Portsmouth. He’d had a look at Google Maps and he could see that it was not a salubrious area.

  Like Hal, Olivia had to be content with waiting, but she went huffily off to bed convinced that she wouldn’t sleep. The stress had exhausted her so much, though, that she was gone even as her head hit the pillow.

  It was early afternoon when Olivia and Hal set out the next day, Ben in the car too, as he and his sister had been very close at one time, and his powers of persuasion might prove better than that of their parents, considering what she had told her colleague at work about her home life. It might have been fiction, but it had to come from somewhere, and they had to find out what had caused her to get into such a state that she had run away like this.

  There were about six streets in all that made up the area indicated by Ben’s source, and all had names like Ladysmith or Mafeking – evidently products of a bygone age and, as they discovered, mostly in a state of di
srepair that would lead, not too far in the future, to demolition and redevelopment. It was not an area that had been adopted by young professionals, prettied up and modernised. It was just a neglected corner of this city that, it seemed, nobody cared about.

  They parked the car outside a Cash Converter shop, and each of them took two streets to nonchalantly stroll down, looking for any signs of Hibbie, but there was nothing to indicate that she had even passed through.

  After twice swapping routes so that they wouldn’t be seen traversing the same two streets more than once, they headed back to the car for a cup of coffee from a vacuum flask that Olivia had prepared before they left. She had also made a few rounds of sandwiches to keep them going, and handed these round to the other two.

  ‘Now, don’t get downhearted,’ said Hal. ‘She may be out at work. We’ll keep watch from here where we can see down this main road, and if she hasn’t appeared in an hour or so we’ll do our little reconnaissance trip again.’

  ‘And if nothing comes from that?’ his wife asked anxiously.

  ‘Then, we’ll start knocking on doors to see if anyone’s noticed her coming and going.’ For now, there was nothing else they could do, and Olivia felt frustrated with helplessness. Somewhere, out in those mean dingy streets, her daughter was sleeping and living and eating and drinking, and Olivia didn’t have a clue where.

  About forty-five minutes later the leaden sky began to weep rain. It wasn’t a lazy, gentle rain, but one that stung with its iciness and threatened to turn to sleet. It matched Olivia’s mood precisely, as she got out of the car again to recommence her hopeful trudging.

  It wasn’t until she had turned into the second of her streets, that she noticed a hunched, sodden figure, trudging exhaustedly down the road though the winter darkness, illuminated only by the street lamps. Her heart lifted: she knew that outline – she would recognise it anywhere. Flooded with joy and success, she quickly noted the number of the neglected property it let itself into, and gathered her troops together for a confrontation.