Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  Ed reckoned he could get one more sentence out before he needed to breathe. Burnt bodies and heroin addicts. He’d be living with the smells for weeks.

  ‘You will have to make a statement and more than likely go to court but if you don’t want to help, maybe I’ll wonder if you’re the one who killed that man.’

  Ed stepped back, stuck his head out of the door and sucked in air. Discretion could go fuck itself.

  Curtis rocked on his chair and clasped his hands as sweat broke out on his brow quicker than a fat businessman grunting on a prostitute. ‘I never done nowt.’

  ‘Then make a quick statement to Sergeant Whelan and you’ll be on your way,’ Sam flashed white teeth at Ed as she pushed past, liking the look when he realised the next terrible minutes of his life would be spent in the firing-line of Curtis Brown’s ruined mouth.

  Maybe I should try for promotion again, Ed thought sourly.

  He went to the front desk, scanned the labels on the tall metal cabinet, pulled open two drawers and grabbed a witness statement frontice page and a couple of continuation pages.

  He took a breath that would have impressed a free diver and walked into the interview room.

  Ed had long ago come to realise there was something about being in a small confined space with a heroin addict. It wasn’t just the unholy smell; eventually you became immune to that. It was the addicts themselves, the endless shaking, the dirt-grey pallor of their skin, the gaunt and sunken features of a face robbed of hope and a body starved of anything worth having.

  Looking at him now, Ed knew Curtis needed a hit.

  ‘Curtis, just tell me what you saw, how you got to the garage and then you can be out of here.’

  The eyes stared back at him from sockets as deep as ocean caves.

  ‘Look I know you’re in possession,’ Ed pushed. ‘You went there to shoot up. I’m not helping you by taking your wrap away. Just tell me what happened.’

  Curtis was silent then made his decision.

  ‘I went to the garage to score. I rang my dealer and he said that’s where he’d be. I cycled. It’s miles man. Just went inside and I saw that thing. Burnt. Stinking. Scared the shit out of me. I ran man and rang your lot.’

  ‘And I appreciate you did that Curtis,’ Ed told him. ‘Did you see anyone else there, other than your dealer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you get there before...’

  ‘I was there before Deano, yeah.’

  Curtis looked down and muttered ‘shit’ under his breath.

  ‘Dean Silvers?’ Ed was straight onto it.

  ‘I’m not saying.’

  Curtis pulled up the collar of his soiled summer-weight jacket, his fingers yellow with nicotine.

  ‘Okay, so Dean comes in a car?’

  ‘Yeah, I mean no, I’m not giving his name,’ Curtis glared. ‘Pulled into the garage, turned his headlights off. He didn’t get out of the car. I bent down at his window, felt the warm air. Will this be much longer?’

  ‘No. Soon as you finish.’

  ‘I bought a tenner-bag. Him and his mate drove off. That’s it.’

  ‘Who was his mate?’

  Curtis looked down at the floor again, thrust his hands in his jacket pockets, and buried his neck in the collar. ‘I’m not saying.’

  ‘Last thing Curtis,’ Ed said. ‘Where are you living at the minute?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In case I need to see you again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Curtis I can search you and lock you up if you’d prefer.’

  Heroin addicts like Curtis were nothing if not pragmatic...always act in your own interests, keep your loyalty level at zero and only think as far ahead as the next hit.

  ‘On the streets but there’s this squat,’ Curtis said when he realised silence wasn’t his best tactic. ‘I’m there most nights.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘How should I know? It’s not like anybody’s sending me letters.’

  Ed banged the table. ‘Curtis.’

  ‘Blue door, old house, big house, on Station Road.’

  ‘I’ll find it. Do you want a cup of tea? Sandwich? You could do with knocking something into you.’

  ‘I just need to go man,’ Curtis scratched his head.

  ‘How’s your mother?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ His knees were moving faster than pistons in a car engine.

  ‘Shall I give her a message?’

  Ed watched Curtis Brown shake his head. ‘No point.’

  ‘She’s still your mother even if she did kick you out. Can’t blame her. Not with you nicking things every time her back was turned.’

  ‘Can I go now?’ Curtis stood up.

  ‘How many other times have you bought drugs at that garage?’

  ‘That was the first time.’

  ‘We need to get you to hospital,’ Declan said as Pixie Carlton sat in the caravan’s dinette, a cup of tea in his left hand.

  Declan had left the A1 and parked on the first out of town retail park he had come across.

  His wife had bandaged Pixie’s right hand and dressed him in some of her husband’s clothes. The red checked shirt was too wide and too short; the jeans, too big around the waist, finished closer to his knees than his ankles.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Pixie said, droplets of sweat falling like the start of a cloud burst as shock and a burning temperature took their toll.

  ‘What’s your story then?’ Declan said, leaning against the cooker, rolling a cigarette. ‘Bollock naked, beaten to a pulp. You don’t sound the type. Too posh.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  The four women, Declan’s wife, daughter and two granddaughters, were squeezed around the dinette. They stared at Pixie but said nothing.

  ‘It’s a story that you should tell us, especially if me stopping for you has put my family in danger.’

  Pixie looked up at him and put the tea on the table.

  ‘You’re in no danger. If they’d wanted to kill me they could have done.’

  He winced as the pain from his hand played pinball with every nerve in his body. He took a deep breath.

  ‘They wanted to teach me a lesson and remind everybody else what happens if you cross them. Dumping me on the A1 was just Mat’s idea of a laugh.’

  ‘Mat Skinner?’

  Pixie’s head jerked in surprise. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Piece of shit just like his father,’ Declan said. ‘How did a well-spoken young man like you get mixed up with that scum?’

  Pixie had found himself asking the same question on a daily basis.

  ‘God I wish I’d never set eyes on them. I’m an estate agent. Met them when they were looking to increase their property portfolio, got chatting and eventually I got the courage to ask about buying some coke. Nothing heavy at first but I ended up supplying my mates...’

  ‘And you stole from them. The Skinners,’ Declan interrupted.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Not the brightest.’

  ‘I know.’

  Pixie dropped his head, a big man broken but not looking to blame anyone but himself.

  ‘Who’s at home?’ Declan asked.

  ‘Nobody,’ Pixie told him. ‘Live alone. Rented.’

  Declan’s wife stood up.

  She told him that was enough talking, said Pixie needed a hospital and needed it now.

  ‘C’mon then,’ Declan said. ‘Listen son if the police come round I’d prefer you don’t mention us.’

  ‘I won’t. I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘That’s how I’d like to keep it.’

  Instinctively Declan held out his right hand. Pixie moved his own on reflex but only for a moment. The pain bent him double.

  ‘What’s the sketch with Curtis?’ Sam said, as Ed walked into her office.

  Ed grimaced: ‘Apart from scratching and my clothes stinking of piss?’

  Ed brought Sam up to speed with Curtis’ statement and his slip about D
ean Silvers.

  ‘It was Silvers who suggested the garage for the meet,’ he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. ‘We can’t rule out dealers or users being involved. The MO would suggest dealers rather than users but a user like Curtis could have seen something. I’ll go and see his mother later, see if she can shed any light.’

  ‘You know her?’ Sam asked him.

  ‘Went to school with her. She was a magistrate.’

  ‘Jill Brown?’

  ‘That’s her,’ Ed said. ‘Decent woman. Her husband died years ago. Cancer. Curtis had been no bother until then but that’s when he went off the rails. He just got in with the wrong crowd. It happens.’

  Ed reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a blister pack of pain killers.

  ‘You okay?’ Sam’s eyes flashed concern.

  ‘I’m fine. Just getting a bit of gip from my neck.’

  ‘Do you need to go home?’

  Sam had wanted Ed to return to work on restricted duties, to ease himself back after the stabbing but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘It’s just because I’m cold,’ Ed pushed the pack and took out two tablets. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  He popped the tablets into his mouth and washed them down with a slurp of tea.

  ‘Since his mum finally kicked him out Curtis has been locked up a few times for shoplifting,’ Ed said. ‘That’s about his level, like most of them, that and stealing from their own.’

  Sam stood up and asked Ed to head over on a fact-finder to Jeremy Scott’s home as a priority.

  ‘No point in us both going,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a chat with Bev.’

  Chapter Five

  The Avenue was one of Seaton St George’s most exclusive streets, the grass verge and mature trees separating the footpath from the pothole-free wide road. Ahead, Ed saw the revolving yellow lights of the council gritting machine moving at a steady pace. He pulled up outside The Willows. He knew plenty of the houses in this street were home to senior figures in the local authority.

  Wouldn’t do for the big wigs to put up with potholes and ice. They’d have council workers scraping the frost from their windscreens if they could get away with it.

  Ed had gone from interviewing Curtis Brown to this rarefied world in twenty minutes.

  He walked up the gravel path, stones slick with ice crunching under his feet. A few lights were on in some of the houses, people preparing for their working day, a day starting considerably later than Ed’s.

  A light shone through the small stain glass window in the top of the door. The front room lights were on, curtains drawn. He knocked on the freezing cold door, his knuckles stinging against the wood.

  Nothing.

  He knocked again.

  Still nothing.

  Ed walked down the side of the house, opened a trellis gate and stepped into the back garden. The lawn was short, the grey paving-stone patio covered in frost, the plants cut back.

  He peered through a wooden-framed window, single glazed and misted by a patch of frost on the inside. Ed was looking at the kitchen, the light on. He could make out freestanding units which seemed tidy enough before his gaze rested on the dark grey worktop next to a stainless steel sink and drainer. The pork pie, cut into precision quarters, and a delicately-sliced tomato on a blue plate looked like a surgeon had dissected them.

  Again no one answered when he knocked, the room silent as a still-life.

  He completed a walk around the perimeter of the house. On the front drive was a Jaguar XJ6, an older model with windows frosted. A PNC check confirmed Jeremy Scott was the registered keeper.

  An old woman appeared by the fence next to the Jag. Her white hair perfectly complemented the frost, although her once white quilted dressing gown was now the colour of slush on a busy town centre road. ‘Can I help you?’

  Ed glanced at his wristwatch. Just gone 6am. He wasn’t expecting to see anybody so early

  ‘I’m trying to get in touch with Mr Scott.’

  ‘Are you family?’

  ‘Police.’

  Ed flashed his warrant card.

  ‘Is he alright?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out Mrs?’

  ‘Miss… Miss Cully. Jayne…with a ‘Y’. Is he in trouble?’

  ‘We’re just trying to locate him Miss Cully. Have you known Mr Scott long?’

  ‘We’re neighbours.’

  Ed made a show of stamping his feet and rubbing his hands.

  ‘Look it’s cold. Do you mind if I come into your house? Perhaps we can have a cup of tea.’

  ‘Tea? With a gentleman? That’ll be nice. Long time since I’ve had tea with a gentleman.’

  Jayne Cully turned and tottered back towards her side door, leaning heavily on a shiny black stick that was the straightest thing about her. Ed noticed one of her worn slippers was red and sheepskin-lined, the other black and plain.

  She was already at the kettle as he stepped into the kitchen.

  ‘So Miss Cully.’

  She shuffled around to face him with the speed of a jewellery box marionette on a drained battery, facial expression to match. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m the policeman you were talking to outside.’

  Her face was vacant. ‘Policeman? Where’s Johnny?’

  Ed sighed and felt a jab of sadness and anger.

  Jayne-with-a-Y was clearly suffering from some type of dementia, another decent person left to fend for herself until she had to go into a home, the house in which she’d probably spent most of her life sold to pay for her care.

  Ed made himself a mental note...give everything away so when your time comes you’ve got no assets.

  ‘Do you know who lives next door Jayne?’

  ‘Mr Scott.’

  ‘On the other side of Mr Scott?’

  ‘The Greens.’

  ‘Thanks Jayne. I’ll pop round later.’

  He figured there was no point waiting for the tea. Jayne with a ‘Y’ was only making a cup for one.

  ‘Thanks for calling round,’ she told him. ‘I’ll tell Johnny you called.’

  Ed went back to his car and put on the radio. No point in going back to the nick but it was too early to knock on the neighbour’s door. He listened to the news. At least all those late night phone-ins with the world’s sad and lonely ringing for a chat had finished.

  He leaned back against the headrest and remembered an all-night static surveillance, where and when he wasn’t sure but long before the end he’d decided he’d rather tackle piles than listen to any more sob stories.

  It was just after 7am when he spotted movement in the Greens’ house.

  Ed walked up a gravel path even crunchier than Jeremy Scott’s and knocked on the door.

  ‘Mrs Green?’

  ‘Sorry, no,’ the woman, late middle-age, pearl buttoned cardigan over long patterned skirt, mousey short hair unflattering above a round plain face, was puzzled.

  ‘I’ve just been speaking to Jayne next door and she said...’

  ‘Ah, poor Jayne. Lovely lady. Is she alright?’

  ‘Yes she’s fine, Mrs?’

  ‘Lescott. Deborah Lescott. We bought this house off the Greens over twenty years ago. Jayne’s memory is going, bless her. Comes to all of us I suppose, everybody living longer. And you are?’

  ‘Ed Whelan. Detective Sergeant Whelan.’

  He produced his warrant card for the second time that morning. At least with criminals you rarely needed to show your ID; most already knew who you were and those who didn’t guessed in a heartbeat. Something about ‘the look’ was an instant give away.

  ‘It’s your neighbour Mr Scott I’m trying to locate. Does he live alone?’

  ‘He does,’ Deborah Lescott said with an edge. ‘Keeps himself to himself…unless he’s complaining about something.’

  ‘One of those is he?’

  ‘My late husband used to say he had a face that could curdle milk. Complained our bushes were too high, the barb
ecues were too smoky, cars were parked wrongly on the road. One of the most obnoxious men anyone could ever meet. Has something happened?’

  She sounded hopeful.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to establish,’ Ed told her. ‘Is he married?’

  Deborah Lescott gave a condescending smile.

  ‘I don’t think marriage ever interested him. I don’t want to sound a gossip, but he was, well,’ she looked left and right, like a spy from a stage farce, and lowered her voice. ‘You know, camper than a row of tents.’

  Ed bit his lip and nodded. Imagine saying that at an in-house diversity course? A definite case of goodbye course, hello disciplinary hearing.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘A few days ago. Would you like a cup of tea Sergeant? I can put the kettle on. It’s too cold to be stood at the doorway, and if I can help?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Ed was in no doubt that she would get two cups out of the cupboard.

  He followed her down the hallway into the kitchen, mentioning Scott’s lights were on and his car was on the drive.

  ‘Could he have popped out?’ Ed asked.

  Deborah Lescott reached for the kettle with one hand and turned on the cold water tap with the other.

  ‘Possibly, but I haven’t seen him and I don’t think his car’s moved in a while.’

  ‘Is that unusual Mrs Lescott?’ Ed leaned against the units.

  ‘Please, it’s Debs. Yes it is now I come to think about it, but I just thought, well…you know…actually I haven’t given it a second thought until you asked. He wasn’t the type of neighbour you kept an eye on. A widow either side of him and he kept an eye on neither of us.’

  She dropped teabags into the cups.

  ‘Everybody else is quite friendly and I pop into Jayne’s when I have time, drop off a sponge cake or some scones.’

  ‘As a matter of interest, who’s Johnny? Jayne called me Johnny.’

  Debs poured boiling water into the cups.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind but it just seems easier than making a pot… Johnny? It’s her brother. He died years ago.’

  Ed took the cup Debs held towards him, his fingers burning before he could get it safely onto the worktop.