Where the Dead Fall

by Where the Dead Fall (retail) (epub)

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  The steel-blue eyes turned on Ridpath. ‘You? Don’t you think you’ve done enough? For the moment, you’re assigned to the Coroner’s Office. I suggest you do your job there. Margaret Challinor doesn’t suffer fools gladly.’

  The door slammed shut and the car raced off.

  ‘Up yours, ma’am,’ said Charlie under his breath.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The two detectives were left standing on the pavement.

  ‘You believe me, don’t you Charlie?’

  ‘I believe the evidence and so far you are the only witness who reports seeing a man with a gun at the side of the motorway. No CCTV or dash cams support you.’

  ‘Why would I make something like that up?’

  The DCI shrugged his shoulders and took another long drag on his cigarette. ‘How’s the cancer?’

  Ridpath eyed his boss suspiciously, ‘In remission,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You still taking pills?’

  ‘I see where you’re going with this. “Hallucinations as a result of taking tablets for his illness, your honour”.’ Ridpath mimicked Charlie’s demeanour when giving evidence in court. ‘They are not “pills”. It’s Revlimid. Just one a day, no side effects.’

  For a second his mind flashed back to the awful day he had to tell Polly he had cancer. Watching her face as the news sank home and then the inevitable question.

  ‘Are you going to die?’

  ‘Not if I can help it, I want to see Eve grow up. The consultant says there’s a new course of treatment which, if I start straight away, gives me the possibility of remission.’

  Of course Polly spent the next two hours researching myeloma.

  ‘It says here the prognosis is you have four years to live… at most.’ She looked at him with her eyes filled with tears. Four years, Ridpath, that’s all you have.’

  ‘The consultant explained it to me. It was before they discovered this new combination treatment. Their success rate is much higher now, many people go into remission and the cancer disappears.’

  He could hear the words now, only half believing them, but trying to keep a brave face for Polly.

  It was funny but he knew the strongest person at that moment had to be the one whose health was the weakest. So it goes.

  Then followed the course of treatment. Christies were brilliant but nobody should have ever to go through what he faced.

  He was put on an experimental treatment of a combination of Revlimid, cyclophosphamide, and dexamethasone, called RCD by the consultant, all of which were taken by mouth in twenty-eight-day cycles. The cyclophosphamide was the chemotherapy, while the ‘D’ element was a steroid. Some days he had to take more than thirty-two tablets.

  He had four cycles and then went on to stem cell collection; more days visiting the hospital, more injections and long hours sitting with a needle in his right arm and another in his left, connected by tubing to a machine that took stem cells out of his blood and then returned the blood back to his body.

  It felt like something from a 1930s Frankenstein movie with him as the re-created monster.

  Then came the killer time when they gave him high doses of melphalan to kill off the cancer cells and reintroduce his own stem cells. Four weeks in total isolation at Christies, unable to touch or hold Polly and Eve. A bastard of a time, not knowing if the treatment would work.

  He couldn’t face it again.

  Not again.

  ‘…Ridpath…’

  He heard his name being spoken.

  ‘You’d been driving back from Teesside. How long is the journey? Four, five hours? Did you take a rest?’

  Ridpath shook his head. ‘I was in a hurry to get back.’

  ‘The blood alcohol test is going to come back clean, isn’t it?’

  It was Ridpath’s turn to roll his eyes. ‘Of course, it is. The last time I had a drink was the night before, at the end of course party.’

  ‘You were tired. It had been two weeks of hard work on the course. You’re taking drugs for cancer. It all happened in a flash. You thought you saw a man with a gun at the side of the road…’

  ‘That’s bollocks, Charlie.’

  The DCI took the last drag on his Embassy before flicking it into the gutter. ‘Listen, you know how it works. You can’t bring a whole city to a stop without somebody taking the blame. Our glorious leader is sitting in the back of her car working out whether to give you up now or wait until the toxicology comes back with evidence of cocaine, speed or E in the victim’s body.’

  ‘She wouldn’t do anything like that.’

  ‘Wanna bet?’ Charlie’s arm came round Ridpath’s shoulders. ‘That’s what I always liked about you, Ridpath. Your bloody naivety. You still think it’s all about just doing the job and putting the bad guys away. Well, listen to your Uncle Charlie. Look what happened to John Gorman. Best bloody copper I ever worked with. Makes one mistake and they throw him to the wolves.’

  ‘He retired on a full pension, Charlie.’

  ‘Aye, with at least six good years of work still left in him. You know what the best bloody detective in Manchester is doing at the moment?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘He’s growing rhubarb on his allotment. Bloody rhubarb.’ The DCI’s eyes narrowed as he shoved his face even closer to Ridpath’s. ‘And I haven’t forgotten, it was you and that bloody woman, Margaret Challinor, who helped end his career.’

  Ridpath pushed him away.

  Charlie started to laugh. ‘What do the foreigners call it? Karma, that’s it. Well, your bloody karma’s just come and shat on your head, Ridpath. You’re stuffed.’

  He turned and walked back to the car park, laughing and shaking his head.

  Ridpath stood there for a moment. An ambulance drove past heading for A&E, its siren blaring and lights flashing.

  He reached into his pocket for his car keys.

  Shit.

  The car was still being held by the forensic team.

  Could the day get worse?

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘You’re very tense.’ She dug her nails deeper into his shoulder muscles, feeling him respond to the pressure of her massage. ‘Just relax. It’s all been planned to the last detail.’

  ‘I just don’t like you being with him. He’s scum, they all are.’

  She dug her nails in deeper feeling him flinch. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t be for long. It will make it easier for you. A naked man has nowhere to hide.’

  He smirked. ‘Or nothing to hide.’

  ‘You’re to wait until I go to the bathroom, understand? And have the tranquilliser ready. I’ll make sure he drinks the GHB, but we need to have him more compliant. A heavy dose of Ambien should do the trick.’

  ‘Are you sure you can get him to come back to the house?’

  She let go of his shoulders, pushing back the rough material of his sweat shirt to cover his muscles. ‘By the time I’ve finishing teasing him, he’ll be like a dog on heat.’ She tapped his head. ‘Men, you should think more with this and less with these.’ She grabbed his balls.

  He shied away covering himself. ‘And afterwards?’ he asked quickly.

  ‘We hold him but not for long this time. We need to ratchet up the pressure. The sooner they start blaming each other the better.’

  ‘His father will go apeshit…’

  ‘The favourite son and appointed heir shot dead, and his dick cut off. If that doesn’t set him off, nothing will.’

  ‘I still don’t like the dumping ground. It’s too open, what if we’re spotted on CCTV?’

  ‘I’ve already fixed the cameras at the church; it’ll take them years to put them right. And hiding in plain sight is our strength. There will be so many cars in the area shopping on a Saturday ours will be difficult to spot.’

  ‘I still don’t know.’

  She walked up to him and put her arms around his neck. ‘Listen brother, have I been wrong so f
ar?’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘You just do what I tell you. We’ve started it now, we carry on to the end.’

  ‘Don’t you feel anything for the people we’re going to kill?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not a thing. They are just corpses in my way. You’re not going soft on me like Ronnie, are you?’

  Her brother shook his head.

  ‘Look, we had to get rid of him. He was going to tell the police what we were doing. It was the right thing to do.’

  ‘I know, I just…’

  ‘You just need to be focused, brother. It’s what our father would have wanted. We’re doing this for him. Nothing else matters.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ridpath parked on the hard shoulder of the M60 with his warning lights flashing.

  He knew the accident had happened somewhere near here, but nothing marked the spot. Not even a bloody big X. No police sign asking for witnesses to come forward. No chalk outline of a body in the middle of the road. No orange and white tape on any of the barriers.

  It was as if the accident had never happened.

  He had picked up his car from the forensic garage, finding it covered in a fine white powder. They had even dusted his dashboard. At least they had been thorough.

  He had sat behind the wheel in the garage for a long time, thinking what to do. He knew he couldn’t just go home. The place would be quiet and empty, with only the warmth of a bottle of Laphroaig waiting for him. He could go back to the coroner’s office in Stockfield to catch up on the cases he had missed. But the only person likely to be there was Mrs Challinor and he didn’t want to see her just yet.

  It was obvious to him neither Charlie Whitworth nor Claire Trent were going to fight his corner. If there was going to be a sacrificial lamb for last night’s gridlock it was going to be him. That was certain.

  He lit a cigarette he found in the glove compartment, enjoying the way the smoke filled the interior of the car, replacing the smell of fingerprint powder with the sweet tang of tobacco. He took a long drag and coughed. Stale tobacco.

  For a second he was taken back to the first time he had smoked – in the outside Jacks at school, along with Tony Hughes and Dermot Callaghan. It seemed so long ago now. All three of them sardined together in the toilet with the broken door, swallowing the bitter smoke from the Park Drive Dermot had stolen from his father. A few quick, shared puffs and they were real men, just like the workers in Trafford Park. The aroma of the Jacks would stay with him forever: A sweet combination of piss, sodden paper and fungus-stained water that ran down the walls and pooled between their legs.

  He liked the lessons at Xaverian well enough, but the Dominican Father who taught them was a foul tempered old man with a halo of sweat clinging to him like a shroud. Ginger hair sprouted from his knuckles and nose like orange weed. A rope tied around his waist, yellow with age and sweat and rust, held his body together like a sack of Irish potatoes.

  Catholic schooldays. He was sure it was the same the world over. He was no longer a Catholic though, the Fathers had beat any belief in God out of him. The arrival of the myeloma when he was just thirty-five simply reinforcing his lack of religion. How could any all-powerful God allow it to happen?

  Enough wallowing in the past, Ridpath. Unless he did something he was going to be well and truly screwed by a system that put more emphasis on assigning blame than encouraging success.

  If he was going to get out of this hole it would be down to himself. Not Charlie bloody Whitworth or Claire Trent.

  So here he was parked on the hard shoulder of the M60, risking life and limb as cars raced past less than five feet away.

  He stepped out of the car and looked around. The scene was totally different from yesterday. For one, all the traffic was moving and secondly, there wasn’t a massive artic blocking the lanes with a body lying in the middle of the road.

  To his left Sale Water Park was quiet and serene. Though the trees he could just spot the huge man-made lake, created fifty years ago by the flooding of a gravel pit. In front of him, the deafening noise of traffic racing to its destination like blood corpuscles hurrying to a site of infection. Each one holding just one staring driver in his metal box.

  He walked back towards where he thought the accident had happened, looking at the middle of the road.

  Nothing.

  He stopped once more to get his bearings. There was the tall yellow tower with the camera pointing directly at him. He gave whoever was watching a wave and carried on. From what he remembered, it should be a little further back.

  And then he saw it. A small dark patch in the middle lane about a foot square, looking like an accidental oil spill. It was all that remained of the victim’s blood. A small memorial to a life lost.

  He walked on, seeing the black skid marks of his tyres etched into the road surface. Had the traffic cops measured the length to check how fast he had been going?

  Probably.

  Next to them were large tyre marks in the outside lane. But they were much shorter. Obviously, the lorry driver had seen the victim far too late to stop in time. The tyre tracks thickened and then continued on past what was left of the victim’s blood.

  Nothing marked the spot where the accident had taken place.

  Just cars racing past, rushing to go shopping, dashing to the football, or simply hurrying to see their family. The thought made him stop for a moment. He hadn’t called Eve to apologise yet for yesterday. He knew he was putting it off but he couldn’t face her voice. She would never accuse him of not caring about her but he would hear the tears in her speech. A dubious pleasure he would save for later.

  He tried to force his mind back to that fateful moment less than twenty-four hours ago. The man running from the left, braking suddenly, looking back to the man with the gun, standing behind the crash barrier. Standing behind, not on the hard shoulder.

  Behind the crash barrier.

  He looked over to the left.

  A six-foot high wooden fence separated the Water Park from the motorway.

  Had the young man somehow managed to climb over it?

  In his imagination, he tried to remember the angle of the man’s run. It was to the left and behind where he was standing. He stepped over the knee-high metal barrier, down a small ditch in the grass and strode over to the fence.

  It seemed solid enough; overlapping panels of pine dowsed in creosote. The panels were set in a concrete foundation running along the bottom. Unusually for Manchester there were very few pieces of graffiti. Denis Wuz Here, City Champs, Wythenshawe Forever, and Bogside Boys.

  The last was a beautifully decorated double B logo which Ridpath recognised as a gang mark. Like lions’ spray marking their territory. In Manchester’s case it was done with spray paint rather than urine. But from the smell they may have pissed here too.

  He walked along the fence checking it. About twenty yards along he noticed three of the panels gave slightly as he pushed them. He stopped and pushed harder.

  Nothing happened except for a slight give in the fence. He stepped back. From the front it looked the same as every other part of the fence but as he went closer he saw the three panels were not joined to the rest. He pushed them aside with his hand and they slid to the side like a door.

  He popped his head through the gap and looked around. The land sloped down from the fence through a gap in the trees to a road wending its way through the Water Park.

  Had the young man run this way? Did he know about the door in the fence? Was the man with the gun chasing after him? Had he just stepped through when Ridpath saw him?

  Ridpath eased his body through the door, careful not to touch the sides. The dirt path was clearer now, a definite gap between the trees.

  At the bottom a teenager in a hoodie was just walking from the road onto the path heading towards Ridpath, his head down, hands in his pocket, kicking gravel in front of him.

  ‘Oi, you!’ Ridpath shouted.

  The l
ad looked up suddenly, saw Ridpath shouting at him, turned in a heartbeat and ran back the way he had come.

  Ridpath shouted again. ‘You. Stop. Police.’

  The lad kept running.

  ‘Stop, you little bugger.’

  Ridpath threw himself down the trail, feeling his feet slip and slide on the greasy soil. His legs went from under him and he was flat on his back, still sliding down the trail. He came to a halt in a tangle of undergrowth and soil litter.

  Throwing the branches off him, he got up and raced down the trail, taking more care this time and slowing whenever it became too steep.

  He reached the place where he had seen the lad and looked right and left.

  Nothing.

  On the left a couple of old Victorian houses, one displaying a sign for a cats’ and dogs’ home. On the right more trees on either side of the path, leading to the artificial lake.

  But he couldn’t see the boy. It was like he had vanished into thin air. Manchester’s own Houdini. Where did he come from? Where was he going to?

  Ridpath trudged back up the trail, brushing off the dirt and leaves from the jacket and trousers of his suit. Another bloody bill, this time for dry-cleaning.

  He reached the top close to the fence and turned to look again. Obviously, this route was used as a short cut between estates. He could imagine the boys taking their life in their hands every time they crossed the M60, gloating in their bravado.

  He stepped through the fence and heard the loud whoop of a siren in front of him. Parked behind his car was a police BMW with a tall copper stepping out of it, placing his cap on his head.

  Ridpath ran back to the motorway.

  The copper checked him. ‘Is this car, yours, sir?’

  ‘I can…’

  ‘Licence and registration, please.’

  ‘Look, I can explain…’

  ‘Licence and registration first, explanations later.’

  ‘Ridpath pulled out his licence and his warrant card from his wallet. ‘I’m on the job, investigating the accident that happened here yesterday.’