by Chris Simms
‘Registration?’
Jon closed his eyes momentarily, searching the image in his mind once again. He could still make out the individual dents in the car’s bodywork. ‘It ended in an X. That’s all we’ve got.’
Buchanon sniffed. ‘Get someone to check the stolen car list. He was living in Cheetham Hill without any means of transport. Chances are he took it from around there.’
‘Will do.’
‘Now we have his prints, we can recheck the other crime scenes more carefully. Ascertain if he was there, or not.’
‘True,’ Jon replied. ‘We nearly lost the first one, sir. I’d just given permission for the Home Office to have it cleaned when I received word about the second victim.’
Buchanon crossed his arms. ‘Well, maybe luck will be on our side. In the meantime, I’ll get on to Interpol, Europol and the Russian embassy. I strongly suspect this guy will feature on a database somewhere.’
‘OK.’ Jon turned to the building once again, the sequence of events following their arrival replaying in his head. Five minutes earlier and we’d have had this bastard.
‘One more thing, Jon. A quick word, if you don’t mind.’
He looked at his senior officer who was now walking away from the car towards the middle of the empty car park. This, he thought, explains the odd look when you arrived. He followed the other man. The strength of the sun was finally fading and he could feel the warmth leaching back out of the dark tarmac beneath his feet.
‘I’ve had a call from a member of the public. Not a complaint, but a concern,’ Buchanon said quietly, coming to a stop and turning round.
Braithwaite’s wife. It has to be, Jon thought. He felt his face flush and wondered if it could be attributed to the waves of heat rising up from the ground.
‘A gentleman called Phillip Braithwaite.’
Shit, Jon thought. She went and rang him.
‘He’s the one now seeing Alice, is that right?’ Buchanon asked.
Jon nodded.
Buchanon sucked in air through his nostrils then held up a hand. ‘I don’t know what you’re up to, visiting his wife like you did. And, seeing as the man didn’t make an official complaint, I don’t want to know, either. But whatever you’re up to, Jon, it stops now. Understood?’
Jon concealed his surprise. I turn up at his wife’s house, pretty much accusing him of propositioning teenage prostitutes and all he does is express concern at my visit? That’s not the reaction of someone with nothing to hide. He gave a single nod.
‘Good.’ Buchanon went to step away then paused. ‘Everything OK with you? I know it’s not easy: you and Alice living apart.’
‘Yeah – things are a bit shit at the moment.’
‘Where are you living?’
Jon pictured Carmel. Buchanon certainly didn’t need to know he’d moved in with the Chronicle’s head crime reporter. ‘An apartment in the Northern Quarter.’
‘Yours?’
‘No – a friend. Kind of.’
‘Well – if you need a bit of breathing space, we can assign this case to another team. It won’t be a problem.’
Breathing space? Jon almost laughed. Are you joking? It’s stuff like this that keeps me from going bloody mad. ‘I’m fine, sir. Thanks. Hopefully me and Alice will sort things out between us.’
Buchanon held his eyes for a second longer. ‘Well, the offer’s there. I’ll get back to Manchester. When are you heading in?’
‘Soon. I just want to check everything once again. The fact he was actually here . . . I don’t know. There might be something in the crime scene we’ve overlooked.’
‘Your shout. Let’s speak later.’
Jon lingered as Buchanon’s car pulled away. Once he’d turned the corner, Rick’s head poked out of the Mondeo. ‘What was that about?’
‘Nothing much,’ he replied, setting off for the block of flats. ‘Just taking one more look. I’ll be five minutes.’
Rick gave a resigned nod, leaned back in the passenger seat and tilted the can of drink to his lips.
Inside the building, Jon climbed the stairs two at a time, the smell of human faeces hitting him as he entered the fourth-floor corridor. The corpse was still sitting on the sofa and the phalanx of three SOCOs gathering evidence gave him a regal air. A king, attended to on his throne.
Hands in pockets, Jon stood in the doorway watching. He knew every crime scene began immediately to deteriorate with time. The presence of people, or mere currents of air caused by their movement, could lead to fragments of evidence shifting and the narrative they told being lost. This was the golden time, never to be regained. ‘Can you dust for prints on the frame, here?’ he suddenly asked, nodding to his left. In his mind, he imagined the man stepping up to the door. Did he lean a hand against the wall, listening for a moment before knocking? ‘And the corridor wall immediately around it. Just the area between waist and shoulder height.’
He heard a door open further down the corridor and an over-weight black man stepped out, a mobile phone in his hand.
‘Is the man really dead?’ he asked in a sonorous voice.
Jon moved towards him, anxious to stop him from getting too close. ‘He is. Can you use the other stairwell, please?’
Stepping back, the man drew in air between the spaces of his teeth before muttering to himself, ‘He owed me money.’
Jon had half-turned to the crime scene. He glanced back. ‘Sorry?’
The other man held up his phone. ‘He borrowed this to make a call. My credit is now almost gone.’
Rapidly, Jon closed the gap between them. ‘When was this?’
‘Five days ago? It is here in my call history. Six minutes and eleven seconds. Over two pounds fifty.’
‘Can I see, please?’ Jon asked, taking out his notebook.
‘Yes. It is recorded here.’ The man pressed a few buttons and showed Jon the screen.
4:15 pm, 21 August 2008. 6 mins, 11 secs.
Jon looked to the next line of text. Oh, you beauty. The phone number was right there. Jon scribbled it down. ‘What did the man say to you, when he borrowed your phone?’
‘He did not speak English. He knocked on my door, making a telephone with his hand. Then rubbing his fingers to say he would pay. Which country is he from?’
‘Russia.’
‘Ah, Russia.’ The man gave a knowing nod, as if it was common practice in that country to borrow phones and then avoid paying for the calls by being murdered. ‘I should not have trusted this man.’
‘And what is your name, please?’
He hesitated before replying in a low voice. ‘Victor Labon.’
‘And the number of your phone, Victor?’
Reluctantly, the man gave it.
‘And has anyone tried to call the man back?’
‘No.’
Jon rummaged in his pocket then handed the man a five-pound note and his business card. ‘Here – a reimbursement from Greater Manchester Police. Anything else about this man, call me. OK? Anything you might hear about him from other people in this building, I’ll pay you.’
The man grimaced, teeth a perfect white in the gloom of the corridor. ‘The reason I am here is because I did such things in my country. Governments change, and soon the police and their friends are got rid of, too.’
‘Well,’ Jon said, card and money still held out. ‘Governments also change in this country. But us lot? We’re not about to be replaced by anyone.’
With a sad smile, the other man accepted the two items.
Jon headed for the stairs, eyes on the phone number in his book. It was a landline with an 0207 prefix. The code for central London.
The sea before Oliver Brookes was ribboned with long white crests, giving the appearance of shallow steps receding towards the horizon. He imagined walking up them, striding across the glossy surface until he reached the giant red orb quivering in the distance.
With a gentle sigh, another small wave toppled onto the coarse sand. He closed his
eyes, savouring the last of the day’s heat. When he finally opened them again, the sun had disappeared.
In his arms were another seven ducks, left behind by the high tide. As he trudged across the sand, he held each one to his ear and shook it. All were free of water.
He reached the gate to his garden and the wind chime he’d fashioned from some lengths of washed-up bamboo began to tock as a light breeze stirred.
The mobile he’d been creating from the ducks now dominated his front garden. A central strut rose ten feet high with thin arms radiating off at erratic angles. From the end of each one hung a wooden coat hanger. From each of these dangled several ducks, all wearing the same vacant grin.
He sat down and lined his latest harvest up in the grass. From his shirt pocket, he produced his penknife and several lengths of twine. He picked up the first duck and removed the white plug from its base. Then he turned it over and with the penknife’s spike began to gouge out a hole through the centre of its back. Once it was wide enough, he fed the end of some twine through, pinching the thumb and forefinger of his free hand together, so he could reach into the empty plug hole and extract the string from the duck’s belly. He then repeatedly looped the twine on itself until the knot was larger than the hole in the duck’s back. As he drew the string back out and replaced the white plug, the noise of an outboard motor reached his ears.
Les, he thought. Out checking his lobster pots. He looked across the small cove, but the boat had yet to round its rocky point. He stood up in readiness to flag the old fisherman down. His sack of potatoes was almost empty. Tinned produce was getting low. Milk powder and biscuits were pretty much gone. He had an account with the small store in the village and Les would happily ferry him supplies, accepting only a wooden sculpture as payment.
The boat came into view, but it was an inflatable, lying low in the water with the weight of the three men inside. He watched the vessel, water furling against its blunt prow, a pair of whisker-like lines trailing behind it.
The three men were all wearing odd clothes. Inappropriate choices for a boat. A black leather jacket. A white tracksuit top. One was wearing a red baseball cap and none had a buoyancy aid on. They were all facing inland and he knew they had seen him. He was about to raise a hand in salute, when something made him change his mind. The skinhead at the front turned slightly to say something to his companions. They continued to stare as the boat slowly skirted round the rocks at the other end of the small bay. Feeling faintly uneasy, Brookes turned back to his garden and the tree-like structure festooned with dozens of ducks.
Jon pushed the armchair round so it was facing the windows then sank down into it, the case file for Vladimir Yashin on his lap. Breath escaped his lips as he stretched his feet out. The tightly packed buildings of the city’s Northern Quarter filled his immediate view, most now completely bathed in darkness. Beyond, the structures of Manchester’s taller buildings loomed, the red lights at the top of the Beetham Tower marring his view of the moonlit sky.
A solitary figure appeared in the deserted street directly below, hood up, hands dangling at his sides, knees flexing needlessly and shoulders rolling backward with each step: the triumphant strut of those who felt that the streets of the city were theirs. This is me, the gait said, and I do what I want.
Jon wasn’t surprised as the man began looking into each parked car, checking for briefcases, coats or anything of potential value. He moved from sight to continue his nocturnal scavenging elsewhere.
Seconds later, a smaller, silent, form glided into view. A fox. Ears alert, it skittered nervously along, pausing to lower its nose and test the exact parts of the pavement the man had just paced. An anxious pet, Jon thought, fallen behind its master.
The soft music coming from the speakers at his side started up again, the easy cadence of the banjo accompanied by a slowly beating drum. I’m a man you don’t meet every day. The lids of Jon’s eyes lowered as his mind went back to the night he’d spent with Alice in that Irish bar. I’ve got to stop listening to this album, he thought. It’s messing with my head. But he didn’t reach for the stop button. Instead, he remained motionless, remembering his certainty that, as good as the evening was, it was only going to get better. The pints of Guinness, the smoke, the singing. Alice’s smiling face. He held the memory, not daring to breathe in case it should disintegrate.
Somewhere, a car’s horn started to beep, the urgent repeats like an agitated animal calling for its young. He opened his eyes, lifted the bottle of rum from the floor at his side and examined the label. Havana Club, Cuban Barrel Proof. He looked for the strength. Forty-five per cent. Good choice, Carmel. After pouring some into a small glass, he took a sip and tracked its fiery descent.
Carmel. He pictured her face, the way her eyes lit up before that infectious laugh of hers rang out. Weird, the difference an age gap of ten years makes, he thought. Another time and another place, I could have really fallen for you. God knows, before having Holly, all I wanted was to go out, drinking in bars and eating in nice restaurants. But now? He regarded his glass. A relaxed meal at home was fine. A decent bottle of wine, music on low.
A brief tattoo on the drum announced the start of ‘A Pair of Brown Eyes’. The song had never sounded sadder. He crossed his feet, sinking further down into the seat, the glass perched on his near-horizontal stomach. It’s all wrong, he thought, picturing his old home with Alice and Holly asleep inside. His dog, Punch, living indefinitely in the house of his old rugby coach. This distance between us all should not exist.
The dark windows before him suddenly brightened with a strip of reflected light. He looked round the backrest of the chair and saw Carmel standing in the bedroom doorway, the buttons at the neck of her nightie all undone. ‘What time is it?’ she squinted.
‘Late,’ he whispered, guilt at what he’d just been thinking immediately filling him. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah.’ She scratched her head. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just mulling over stuff. This case. Is the music too loud?’
‘No. Are you coming to bed?’
‘In a bit.’
‘We’ve hardly seen each other recently.’
He sat back in his seat, addressing her reflection. ‘I’m sorry – it gets like this sometimes with work. Once this blows over, how about I take you out for a meal? You choose the restaurant.’
She smiled. ‘Deal.’
‘Good.’ He placed the glass on the floor and opened the file. From the corner of his eye he could still see her reflection. She stayed there a few moments longer and, when she eventually stepped back and pushed the door shut, he couldn’t help feeling relieved.
Fourteen
Alice turned the corner of the corridor. At the other end of it, a stick-thin man was handing a bottle of Ribena over to a more heavily built individual. As she approached, they caught sight of her and the bottle vanished beneath the larger man’s Manchester City top. Tony Garrett, Alice thought. The MHU’s Mr Big. He watched her, something like a leer playing at the corners of his lips. Suddenly Alice wished she had one of the panic alarms that hung from the belts of all of the unit’s regular staff. Light from the fluorescent strip light caught on his bald head as his eyes slowly ran down her body. He’s not going to move, she thought. He’s going to make me brush past him.
She slowed to a stop, and realised she was outside the single-occupancy room that contained the youth. The name tag on the door read J Smith. With his file missing, she thought sadly, they don’t even know his name.
Alice knocked, then opened the door and stepped inside. He was lying in the bed, brown eyes staring upwards, bare scalp covered in flaky red patches. Alice glanced through the window to the corridor beyond. Garrett was walking away, bottle of Ribena swinging from one hand.
Knowing she shouldn’t be there, she turned uneasily to the figure in the bed. ‘Morning, my name’s Alice.’
He stayed perfectly still.
Alice stepped over to the bed and looked down
. The sheets had been tucked up right beneath his chin, so only his head poked out. She looked at the remains of scabs on his lips, the high cheekbones and feminine eyelashes.
The doors to the narrow wardrobe behind her were ajar and she could see it was empty. You are one nosy cow, she thought, quickly crouching down to open the bedside locker. A wash bag was the only item on the shelf. She unzipped it and examined the small amount of toiletries inside. Not a single personal item. After replacing it, she straightened up and leaned forward to bring her face directly above his.
‘Can you hear me?’ She lifted a hand, held it a few inches from his face and suddenly clicked her fingers. He blinked. So you can hear, she thought. You just prefer not to. What on earth happened to put you in this state? ‘Are you thirsty? Can I pour you a drink?’
She thought his head moved the tiniest of fractions.
‘You’d like a drink?’ Alice sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the plastic beaker of water on the bedside table.
‘Here, shall I lift your head?’ She slid her hand round, fingertips passing across the bumps and nodules of his skull. Slowly, she tilted the cup to his parted lips. Some water went in and his throat moved. ‘More?’
He closed his eyes and she guessed it was to signal no. So, Alice thought, you understand English. She replaced the beaker.
‘Can you tell me your name?’
A tear welled up out of a corner of one eye.
‘Hey,’ Alice whispered, brushing it away with one forefinger. Her hand returned to her lap and she contemplated her next move. ‘Would you like a mint? I’ve got some, somewhere. Though I warn you, they’re a bit strong.’ She removed the packet of Fisherman’s Friends from her pocket. ‘Here, try one.’ She shook an oval-shaped lozenge out.
As soon as it neared his face, his nose wrinkled and his head thrashed to the side.
Hastily, Alice withdrew her hand. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Bad idea, Alice, she told herself. She shoved the mint into her pocket and placed a palm on his shoulder, waiting for his breathing to calm. Jesus, she thought. What’s the problem with mints? Still, at least it seems he understands me. A bit more care and attention and he may open up a little more. ‘I’ll pop in again, if that’s OK? Maybe bring you something else. Biscuits. Some fruit juice, maybe?’