by Jennie Finch
‘Mr Burton,’ she said, extending her hand and forcing her face into what she hoped was a welcoming smile. To her surprise the new client was dressed smartly in a jacket, clean shirt and tie. His shoes gleamed so brightly they could have been lacquered and his hair was short but not so short he looked like a skinhead. A marked contrast to many of the scruffy, often grimy youths she encountered on a daily basis.
After an almost imperceptible hesitation Samuel Burton rose and gave a perfunctory handshake before stepping back again. As their hands touched Alex experienced a strange sensation, almost a sense of revulsion and she struggled to keep her face smiling and her voice welcoming. Studying him as he waited for her to speak, there was no apparent reason for her reaction. He was clean, tidy and seemed quite calm – almost composed. Then his eyes met hers and in an instant she read a spark of fury before he looked away once more. It was as if another person peeked through his eyes – someone utterly cold. Someone you really didn’t want to meet.
Every instinct in her was shouting to get away from this man but her job was to work with him, to help him if she could. Alex had never allowed a probationer to frighten her off in her life and she was damned if she was going to do so now.
‘Please wait for a moment,’ she said keeping her voice steady. ‘I think the upstairs room is available.’
Pauline gave her a puzzled look as she handed over the key to the ‘secure’ room on the first floor. Alex generally made a point of interviewing her clients in the less formal atmosphere of the day centre but Pauline trusted her judgement enough not to ask questions. The secure room had furniture bolted to the floor, a panic button under the desk and shatterproof glass in the door and windows. It also lacked a lock on the inside, a sensible precaution with the rise in higher-tariff offenders passing through the system. There had been a few cases of clients trying to hold their probation officers hostage in the last year or so. It was a rare occurrence but not one the Highpoint office wanted to experience any time soon.
‘Please come with me,’ said Alex and led the way up the stairs and along the corridor to the interview room. She was aware of him behind her, a few steps back and moving silently in her wake. Their footsteps were absorbed by the carpet and she realised she would probably have no warning if he did make a hostile move.
Calm down, she told herself angrily. He’s given no indication of any real danger. Just that one, tiny glimpse, seen and gone in an instant. But Alex was experienced enough to know that was a warning. She needed to be very wary of this one.
Unlocking the door, she stepped back and gestured to a chair set behind the desk. Samuel glanced at her and a flicker of amusement crossed his face as he took in the layout of the room. Seating himself in the chair he settled his weight, testing for movement before brushing an imaginary fleck of dust from the lapel of his jacket. Then he folded his hands on the desk in front of him and sat perfectly still, waiting for her to make the next move.
Alex took her place in the chair nearest to the door and opened the file Pauline had given her. It was decidedly thin, just a few flimsy copies of his Part B records from a London probation office, a transfer form and, tucked away at the back, a rather smudged list of charges from his recent conviction. Make that last conviction, Alex thought as she scanned the page. Although there were no details given, a list of previous offences was included, along with a quick note of the sentence passed. Skimming through these she realised Samuel Burton had wriggled his way out of several additional sentences by cooperating with the police. Each court appearance included a number of other offences ‘taken into consideration’ but even at first glance some of these did not seem to tie in with his proven history. There was something wrong here, she thought as she closed the file and placed it on the desk.
He was still sitting perfectly still, watching her. With a start Alex realised his eyes seemed to have changed colour. When he had first looked at her they were pale, almost watery grey. Now they were blue, a startling and striking deep blue. Once again there was a flicker of amusement from the man across the table, almost as if he knew what she was thinking.
‘I do not seem to have any contact details,’ Alex said, trying to seize the initiative once more.
‘I’m at the hostel,’ said Samuel waving one hand dismissively.
Alex blinked at him, wrong-footed once more. It was the practice for hostel clients to be allocated a bit further up the food chain, the more experienced officers dealing with these potentially more difficult and dangerous offenders. She thought Eddie, the stalwart of mid-range probationers, or Margaret who specialised in sex offenders and those with mental health problems or psychological difficulties, would have picked up Samuel Burton. She had only been in the job a year or so – with a start she realised she had taken up the post almost two years ago. In the eyes of the service, she was an experienced officer. It was a sobering thought.
Forcing her attention back to the interview, she elicited a few personal details, his room number at the hostel and how long he had been there. The probation hostel was run by a team of middle-aged men and operated rather like a scout camp but with the added excitement that the residents could be sent back to court, perhaps even to prison, if they stepped too far out of line.
Part of the regime involved the gradual increase in privileges for residents. Everyone started off sharing a four-bed room. After several months they might have earned a place in a two-bed room. Only after six months of impeccable behaviour could a resident be considered for one of the coveted private rooms. Samuel’s room number indicated he was still on the first floor, in one of the four-bed dormitories. She couldn’t help wondering how he, not to mention his roomies, was coping with that.
There was little she could do without more information and his full court report with details of his day centre order seemed to be missing from her notes. Reluctant to ask the client for information that should already be in the file, she decided to set an induction day and kick him loose. It was obvious from the barely hidden sneer that he knew exactly what had happened and Alex locked the door and returned the key to Pauline, feeling more demoralised than ever.
Lauren watched her over the top of her typewriter, bright eyes studying her face and posture. As Alex turned to leave, Lauren beckoned her over.
‘Don’t know about that one,’ she said softly, eyes following Pauline who was drifting around the office keeping everyone busy and occupied. ‘Reckon he’d look right smart in a black and silver uniform.’
Alex thought of Samuel with his straight, bright blond hair neatly cut and his strange blue eyes and silently agreed.
The funeral of Derek Johns was a subdued affair. Newt arrived a few minutes before the coffin was carried into the church by a choice selection of cousins and the deceased’s closest adherents. Sue and Ada sat at the back, ignored by most of the mourners. Only Iris, as she followed the plain wooden box into the church acknowledged their presence, giving a nod to Sue and favouring Ada with a fleeting smile. Alex, who had made a point of waiting outside the church, managed to prevail on the wardens to remove Newt’s handcuffs, though the cost to her was being forced to sit on one side of him, surrounded by the remnants of the Johns clan. The two men from Dartmoor took up positions behind him, one of them nearer the door and sitting in a position the block the aisle if necessary. A third man waited outside, beside the car that had driven him the seventy or so miles from the prison.
‘Would think I was one of they Kray twins,’ Newt muttered to Alex as he took his place next to her. Despite Alex’s request and Iris’s pleading he had not been allowed to walk behind the coffin. All eyes were on his mother as she slid into the front pew beside her remaining son and the brief service began. Iris bore herself with a quiet dignity, head held high despite the brevity of the eulogy – what could anyone possibly say without either incriminating or perjuring themselves, thought Alex – and the obvious discomfort of the minister. When it was all over, Iris took Newt’s arm and led him out of the chu
rch behind the coffin, one look at her face causing the prison officer stationed beside the aisle to step back and let them past. Alex followed the pair out at a discrete distance, uncomfortable under the stares and whispers of the small congregation.
As she emerged into the bright sunlight, Iris took her hand, staring at her with clear, green eyes.
‘I want to thank you,’ said Iris softly. ‘Don’t reckon Billy would be here now without you.’ She nodded to her son who was standing beside her, his pale face made more sickly than usual by his mop of red hair. Alex smiled and shook her head slightly. Deep down she was not sure her efforts had made that much difference. After almost eighteen months inside, the authorities at Dartmoor had finally come to the realisation that Newt – Billy Johns – was not much of a flight risk after all. His moment of madness, early in his sentence, had only been staged to enable him to get to a telephone away from listening ears and even this had been at the instigation of the man they were now burying.
Unlike the prison authorities, Alex knew the truth behind Newt’s ‘escape’ but, as his actions had unwittingly led to the murder of Ada Mallory’s husband, she had never spoken to anyone else about the incident. In her mind, Newt was innocent of any blame and she wasn’t going to be the one who brought any further charges down on him. It wasn’t as if she had lied to the investigators or the prison service. They had never bothered to ask her if she knew anything about the incident. If they had, she would have been bound by her duty as an officer of the court to tell them about Derek and how he had used the information from Newt to murderous effect, but they hadn’t bothered – and she hadn’t volunteered.
The mourners trickled out of the church, most of them stopping to shake Newt’s hand and exchange a few words with Iris. A number of them gave Alex a look, some surprised and one or two downright hostile. Clients, she thought, as she stepped back into the shade of the church porch.
‘Well, that went off quite well, don’t you think?’ said Sue softly.
Alex glanced over her shoulder and saw Ada standing behind her, face hidden in the shadow of the doorway.
‘Will you be coming back to Iris’s after the burial?’ she asked.
Sue and Ada exchanged glances.
‘Don’t rightly know as I’d be that welcome,’ Ada murmured but at that moment Iris finished with the last of the line of mourners and stepped back into the porch.
‘I want to thank you all,’ Iris said, indifferent to the curious looks her behaviour attracted from the Johns clan. ‘Means a lot to me, you comin’ here. And especially having Billy here with me, even for the one day.’ She turned to face Alex. ‘I know is asking a lot but would you come back, to the house? Reckon they’ll let him stay a bit longer,’ she nodded towards the prison officers who were hovering by the car away from the crowd. ‘Of course, you’s welcome in your own right too,’ Iris added hastily. ‘Didn’t mean it just on Billy’s account. All of you – been good friends to me and – well, I don’t reckon many of them have a good word to say about me now.’ She glanced at the rest of the Newt’s relatives, her face hardening as she watched them greet her son and shake his hand. ‘Sooner I can get him away from that lot, the better,’ she muttered.
Despite her misgivings, Alex found the rest of the afternoon rather interesting. Nursing a glass of orange squash (‘You’re a cheap round,’ Ada commented) and a barely visible presence in the crowded downstairs of Iris’s village council house, she watched the flow of people as they moved in and out of different groups, initiating or retreating from conversations. A lot of the Johns gang wanted to talk to Newt and there were several attempts to lure the prison officers away, presumably so that family members could exchange a few words in private. Newt, she was pleased to note, was having none of it. Like a dutiful son, he stood beside his mother, smiling and nodding at all who came to offer their condolences but never allowing Iris to be edged out of the way. He was the perfect gentleman and, from the sour expressions on some faces, a bitter disappointment to a few of those gathered around.
Halfway down her second glass of squash she began to muse idly on Newt and the family. He looked like Iris’s boy today, she decided. There was something in the quiet dignity with which she moved and held herself that was mirrored in the young man. Same smile too, a sudden, wide, welcoming look that seemed to light up those around him. He was a charmer, all right. His brother Biff had been very different by all accounts. Alex had not met Biff, only encountering the Johns family after Newt’s arrest some eighteen months ago but her colleagues described him as a brawler, like his father. He resembled him physically too. Alex had met Derek Johns just once, whilst out on the Levels visiting Ada’s husband, Frank Mallory. Derek had killed Frank out of revenge, posing as him and going through the initial interview questions whilst all the time Frank’s body was mouldering in an ancient freezer in the kitchen.
It was not an encounter Alex liked to dwell on, but she remembered Derek’s face quite clearly. Heavy, florid features, dark hair that hung in greasy ringlets across his forehead, eyes so dark they were almost black and, a strange detail, one gold earring in his right ear. Nothing like Newt, who obviously took after his mother. As she finished her drink and wondered how long the afternoon was going to last, she tried to recall whether the gene for red hair was a recessive or not.
Chapter Two
Acting Detective Constable Dave Brown chewed the end of his pen and stared out of the window across the main square in Taunton. Around him several of his new colleagues were filling in forms and completing reports to the steady swish of paper being shuffled around. In keeping with the times, the teams took every opportunity to catch up on the ever-rising tide of official housekeeping. Reluctantly, Dave turned his attention back to the statement form in front of him. He’d been on secondment to the detective squad for two weeks and in that time had barely been out of the building. He’d seen more action as an ordinary PC back at Highpoint, he thought ruefully as he began filling in the details of his actions and the events leading to the arrest of a Bristol-based drug dealer on the Levels.
On the evening concerned, Dave had gone out on his own initiative, looking for Alex after her flatmate Sue contacted him to say she had driven off alone to look for a probation client and his prompt action had possibly saved Alex from a watery death in the canals. That, and his previous success in locating Derek Johns and uncovering his hand in several murders, had led to the chance at a detective post – but the downside was none of his previous success counted to his assessors. He was starting all over again, desperate to impress, to show what he could do. Only there was nothing – absolutely nothing – happening in the area.
What he needed, he mused, was a nice, juicy murder. Or a couple of armed robberies, maybe. I’m a bad person, he thought as he bent over the statement form. I should be glad life is settling back down again now the Johns gang are out of business, not wishing harm on persons unknown just to further my own career. Still, he needed something to come up before his three months were over. The thought of returning to Highpoint, tail between his legs, was too horrible to contemplate. Whilst there he had often been the butt of his colleagues’ jokes and his life was unlikely to get any better if he failed to make the grade in Taunton and was posted back to Highpoint.
Out on the Levels, in her little cottage between Kings Sedgemoor and Westonzoyland, Ada Mallory opened the back door to let in the cool evening air and call the dogs for their supper. Humming softly to herself, she rinsed their bowls in the sink, wiping down the porcelain basin and drying her hands on a towel before reaching under the sink for the bag of dog meal she kept out of sight. Mouse was no problem, she reflected. A gentle soul was Mouse – maybe a bit too quiet, and not the boldest of dogs, unlike his father, Mickey.
Now there was a character. She’d rescued him when he was just a skinny scrap of fur floating helplessly down the narrow stream that ran behind her garden. Alerted to his plight by shrill, desperate barks, Ada had waded in and scooped up the pupp
y a few seconds before the lump of bark he was clinging to rolled over and was sucked under the water as the stream met the junction of the main canal. Mickey had repaid her kindness with fierce loyalty, comfort and companionship through the long, solitary evenings. She had never been afraid as long as she had Mickey at her side, even if he was a terrible thief. She paused for a moment, hands reaching for the clean bowls, as she considered what she was going to do when Mickey went. His muzzle was grey now, he wasn’t so quick on his feet and he was starting to lose his sight.
‘Damn those dogs,’ she said crossly. ‘Where’ve they got to now? Mickey! Mouse! Come on, ’tis time for supper!’
She almost dropped the heavy sack of meal as a man stepped through the back door into her kitchen.
‘What you doin’ here!’ she said, stepping back until she was hard up against the sink.
‘Now then Ada, don’t you be like that,’ said the man, lifting the bag and placing it on the draining board. ‘Can’t an old friend pop by to say hello?’ He stood in the doorway, smiling at her, his bright blue eyes twinkling with mischief.
Apart from a few streaks of grey in his hair and the network of fine lines around his eyes he had barely changed, Ada thought. Still the gypsy boy who had charmed her out of her shell – and, on more than one occasion, her bus money.
‘Thought you was locked up,’ she said crossly. ‘So, I’m askin’ again. What you doing here, Tom Monarch?’
‘Well, what them polis got on me to lock us up then, eh?’ Tom grinned at her, a devilish expression on his face. ‘Was me as was stuck in the bog, right? Was that Derek Johns cut the ropes to the bridges an’ almost killed us, so I reckon I’m innocent here.’
Ada snorted in disgust, turning away to pour food into the bowls for the dogs who crept round Tom, looking suitably shamefaced.