by David Mark
“Somebody had better tell me what’s going on,” says McAvoy.
For a moment the only noises are the sounds of the forest. Raindrops patter onto dead and dying leaves. The wind plays with spindly branches, and crows scrap with magpies in the tangle of greenery.
“One phone call and I’ve got a dozen uniformed officers here,” says McAvoy more confidently than he actually feels.
“It’s a misunderstanding,” says Jasper pleadingly. “Look, we’re not bad sorts, this is just a mix-up . . .”
“Seriously, I can barely hear a thing, mate,” says Will, arms wide. “Can’t we just shake and forget this happened?”
“The trailer’s nothing to do with us.”
Will and Jasper turn fierce eyes on Liam at the mention of the trailer, and McAvoy turns his attention back to it.
“Do you have the key for the lock?”
“It’s not ours.”
“Of course it’s bloody yours! And you tried to blow my head off for looking at it!”
“That thing’s been there for years,” says Jasper soothingly. “We were just out walking, honestly.”
“So this is your land, is it?” asks McAvoy. “You’re patrolling to make sure no trespassers come and steal your leaves?”
“No, no, but we know the owner and he doesn’t mind—”
Liam is speaking now. He’s rewarded with a hissed “Shut up” from his friend.
McAvoy sighs. Breathes in a lungful of cold, damp air. Makes a show of reaching into his coat pocket for his phone.
“Easy, no need for that,” says Jasper hurriedly. “Look, there’s not much to tell.”
McAvoy realizes he is still holding the shotgun. Tries not to let himself feel he is threatening these men. They are staying where they are out of civic duty and respect for the authority of the law.
“Who did you think I was?” he asks again.
Jasper is about to speak when Liam steps forward, his hand still on his chest. “We’ve got some business interests,” he says. “Here.” He nods at the trailer. Sighs. “There.”
“We’ve had bother,” says Will, butting in. “Couple of blokes came to see Uncle Jasper. Said they had heard we were making money. Wanted to help. Wanted to offer resources.”
“Bloody protection racket,” says Jasper bitterly. “I told them I didn’t need protecting. I’ve got a nephew who does boxing. Got my shotgun. Got the lad here. We don’t need to pay anybody else. We’re just a bunch of entrepreneurs. We don’t want trouble.”
McAvoy considers each of the men in turn. “They said they would come back?” he asks.
“Made it clear,” says Jasper. “We’ve been shitting our pants for days, haven’t we, lads? I mean, they said it was a friendly offer, but people like that don’t like refusal, do they?”
“Like what?”
“They were young lads. Two of them. No older than the boys here. But they didn’t do much talking. Just introduced themselves and passed me a phone. I spoke to this slick chap. Southerner, I reckon. Told me how much help he could give me. Said it must be difficult, running a business in the middle of nowhere. Said he could take away those worries for a minor percentage.”
“And you said no?”
“My blood was up! Who did they think they were?”
“Where did this happen?”
“My bloody house!” he says, indignant. “I just live down in Ottringham. Jasper Blackwell. Didn’t say, did I? Land here belongs to the next farm over. Never uses it, does he? And I hate to see it going to waste . . .”
McAvoy looks into the man’s anxious, earnest face.
“Is it drugs?” he asks, nodding back at the trailer.
“Christ, no,” says Will, stepping in. “Nowt like that.”
“Well?”
Liam gives a huge sigh and puts his head in his hands.
“I’m good with computers,” he says. “Will and me met at university—”
“I didn’t stay long . . .” butts in Will.
“My family do import and exports,” Liam continues. “I do a bit of buying and selling. Stuff you can get really easily here sells for a fortune back in Tunisia.”
“That’s where you’re from?”
“Me? No, I’m from India. I just have business connections there. Look, this is all a bit complicated . . .”
McAvoy tightens his grip on the stock of the gun. Picks his words carefully and chooses not to swear. “What’s in the trailer?”
“Bin bags,” blurts out Jasper suddenly. “Charity bloody bin bags! Easy money, no hassles,” he says, as if reciting it the way the idea had been sold to him. “Nobody gets hurt . . .”
“Somebody’s going to get hurt in a minute,” says McAvoy, snapping. “Now, pick a bloody spokesman and make some bloody sense.”
It takes ten minutes for the bedraggled trio to tell their story. Liam has family who sell secondhand designer clothes in countries where anything with a Western brand goes like gold dust. He used to make a bit of pocket money wandering around the charity shops and buying up anything that could be flogged for profit overseas. A year back, he graduated from university with plans to go into computers but couldn’t find much in the way of work. Started doing jobs for the family firm instead. Those jobs became less and less legitimate over time. Somebody had realized how much easier it would be if people didn’t bother donating to the charity shops at all and just gave the stuff straight to Liam’s family instead. Liam knocked up a design on his computer and had the printing done back home. Had a job lot sent over from India inside a shipment of fine tablecloths bound for a chain of restaurants in the East Midlands. And it turned out, as predicted, that there was good money to be made in fake charity bin liners.
“People were chucking the stuff out anyway,” protests Will in the face of McAvoy’s disapproval. “They didn’t care where they ended up. Those bin bags are a nuisance anyways. We were doing people a favor, taking them off their hands . . .”
“They were giving them to good causes.”
“Well, so were we. They’d have made people happy overseas . . .”
“I’m touched by your philanthropy.”
Liam had approached his friend Will and asked him if he would help with pickups and drop-offs. Together they left fake charity collection sacks outside thousands of homes in East Riding: all embossed with official logos and images of crying children. Will had, in turn, approached his uncle to ask if he knew of anywhere they could store the stuff they recouped until it could be shipped abroad.
“I live on an old farmhouse,” says Jasper, shrugging. “Got a couple of outbuildings. Stuff was fine there until I got that call.”
McAvoy looks at the trailer. “You couldn’t fit more than two dozen bin bags in there,” he says, frowning.
Jasper sighs. Holds up a hand as if in supplication. “Underneath,” he says reluctantly.
“I don’t understand,” says McAvoy.
“The trailer’s just a marker, mate. You ain’t seen nothing yet . . .”
The bogginess of the forest floor makes the going hard, but together the four men succeed in rolling the trailer forward a few yards.
“Brought it with a Land Rover,” says Jasper, wheezing. “Years ago, it was. Used to make a few drops of home brew, I did. Was nice to have somewhere I could get away and have a think about the world. My granddad worked here, y’know. During the war. All this belonged to the manor house then, but it’s all part of the next farm over now.”
McAvoy wipes the sweat from his head. He had been unsure about dropping the gun and letting the three men help him but his curiosity dictated that he take the risk. He can feel his heart beating hard. Can feel moisture on his back and hopes it is perspiration rather than a torn wound.
“There,” says Will, nodding at the ground. “This will all be taken into consideration,
yeah? That we’re helping you? You think it will be a community service order or something, mate? I mean, I know we did wrong, but . . .”
McAvoy isn’t listening. He’s staring at a metal disk, a meter in diameter, set in a slight rise in the undulating forest floor.
“Dug them during the war, my granddad says. Had to sign the Official Secrets Act. Only told me when he was in his eighties and going a bit daft in the head. I didn’t believe him, to be honest. Some underground bunker out in the middle of Winestead Woods? But I brought the metal detector. Still a million-to-one shot that I found it.”
“You didn’t tell the authorities?” asks McAvoy.
“Didn’t see it was any of my business.”
“You’ve made it your business, though, eh?”
Jasper looks a little upset at having his integrity questioned. “It was a nice secret to have.”
“And you’ve dumped your knocked-off clothes down there, have you?”
Jasper nods. “Almost burst a bollock getting the lid open. We were just thinking on our feet, weren’t we, lads? These buggers were trying to muscle in. We needed somewhere safe to keep the stuff. Figured we could guard it if we needed to.”
“And shoot whoever turned up?” asks McAvoy with a look of disgust on his face.
“Come on now, mate, we’ve helped, haven’t we?”
“You’ve committed a crime.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“No buts.”
McAvoy scratches at the back of his neck. He hasn’t thought about the Winn family for half an hour. Wonders what the hell he is going to do next. He can’t ask all three men to accompany him back to his car so he can drop them off at the police station. He’s simply stumbled onto something. There has been no investigation. No proper search. He has no desire to start clawing through damp bin bags in an underground bunker dug decades ago to house local resistance men in the event of an invasion.
“I need your addresses,” he says at last. “Officers will be with you within twenty-four hours to discuss this properly. You are not to remove anything from either the trailer or the bunker. Your information may actually be very useful in connection with an investigation into organized crime. Would you be willing to cooperate with that?”
Jasper nods his head, childlike and grateful.
“Do you think we’ll go to prison?” asks Liam again, in a pitiful whine.
McAvoy is about to speak when his phone rings. He holds up a hand in apology and takes the call.
“Hello, guv,” he says. “I may have something you’ll be happy to hear all about . . .”
His face falls as he hears the sound of Trish Pharaoh dissolving into sobs.
The color drains from his face.
Listens, without speaking, as she tells him about the horrors inflicted on the body of Tom Spink.
FOURTEEN
9:06 P.M. HULL CITY CENTER.
Pharaoh lights a cigarette from the tip of her last one and flicks the stub against the white-painted wall of the new police station. Slows her pace as she sees the figure outlined beneath the yellow streetlight on the corner of Myton Street.
A few meters ahead, a drunk man in a tracksuit and brogues is pissing on the tiled floor that leads through a clear-glass door to the unmanned front desk of the gleaming new community policing center. He’s doing it quite artistically. Turning in slow circles for maximum coverage while not letting the puddle reach the half-empty bottle of cider by the curb.
“Bastards,” says the man when he catches Pharaoh’s eye. Then, “Fucking bastards,” for extra emphasis.
Pharaoh nods acceptingly. “You should poke your todger through the letter box,” she says. “Really show them who’s boss.”
The man gives a grin. Wishes he’d had the idea before he emptied his bladder. Pharaoh gives him a nod. A look of approval. Sniffs hard and inhales a lungful of smoke. Walks behind him and shoves him hard in the back. Doesn’t even turn around as he slips and slithers to the ground and starts shouting curses at her diminishing shape.
Pharaoh has bite marks on her index finger and wrist. She has chewed herself almost to the bone. The anger she feels has a heat and intensity; a dangerous potency that makes her feel as though her body is too small a container for it. She is having to walk just to burn some of it off. She’s a mile from Hull Royal Infirmary now. Stamping her way down the little road at the back of the shopping center. There are multistory car parks to her left and right, and the presence of Styrofoam takeaway cartons and smashed glass in the gutters betrays the hour. She can hear sirens somewhere. Can hear the symphony that accompanies a city grinding its way to a fitful sleep.
Pharaoh catches a glimpse of herself in the dark glass of a furniture store and turns her head before she has time to focus on the lines in her forehead, the bags beneath her eyes, or the pouting lip of belly that her biker jacket fails to conceal. She hates herself tonight. Hates herself for what has happened to Tom Spink.
He’ll be okay. That’s what the young doctor had said. Going to need a lot of rest and painkillers, but no injuries to anything vital for life. No, his attacker had instead made merry with his expendable parts. Fired half a dozen nails through the soles of his shoes and into his feet; two of which went all the way through and emerged, gleaming and gory, through the laces of his Hush Puppies. Snapped his arm backward at the elbow. Hit him in the face so hard Tom had been choking on his own incisors when the paramedics arrived.
Pharaoh licks her teeth. She’d sat by Tom’s bed for a couple of hours, squeezing his hand and managing tight, thin-lipped smiles whenever his wife looked at her through red-seamed eyes. Managed to cough up a few promises that she would get whoever did this. Choked on her own spit as she kissed him on his wrinkled forehead and told him she was more sorry than he would ever know.
And she had begun walking. Didn’t really know what else to do. She’d half entertained the idea of a drink in some unfamiliar pub, but most of the city center boozers close the doors at eleven p.m. on a weeknight and she knows that, should she pop the cork on a bottle tonight, she won’t stop drinking until she can’t see.
Her footsteps take her back in the direction of the divided highway. There are few cars on the roads. In the distance she can see a thin curve of moon bouncing off the inky-black water of the marina. Can see the black mass of the Spurn lightship, blotting out the masts of the pleasure craft that sit motionless to its rear.
She crunches across the gravel and broken glass of a car park that nobody would be daft enough to use. She remembers being here before; years ago. Was one of her first jobs in Hull. Her chief superintendent in Grimsby had offered to share her expertise with one of the highfliers on the old CID team across the water. A prostitute had been left for dead in a skip. Every bone in her face had been broken. Pharaoh had been a detective inspector then. Had only just come back to work after having her third child. She’d been eager to get a result. Knew that whichever bastard had done it deserved what was coming to him and more. Had been only too willing to work day and night to put the bastard away. Turned out she wasn’t needed. The Hull highflier had his own way of doing things. Ran a slick, efficient operation with a clear-up rate that was the envy of the service. He was Humberside Police’s blue-eyed boy and he was a smarmy, dangerous, egocentric wanker. His name was Doug Roper. He had been made a detective chief inspector just a couple of years before Pharaoh had first shook his perfumed, moisturized hand. Already had the respect and admiration of colleagues who were double his years. Scared the shit out of villains and could charm grieving wives and mothers into peals of laughter with just a few words. He dressed like a movie star. Wore bespoke suits and Italian leather shoes. Groomed his facial hair into neat peaks and points and wore his hair longer than regulations allowed. He reveled in his image of a swashbuckling maverick and couldn’t keep his face or his name out of the Hull Daily Mail. He was the symbol of Humber
side Police. Pharaoh had formed the impression within about ten seconds of introducing herself that he was a prize prick. But she was in the minority. Women constables lined up to be bedded by him, and he never had to buy a round with the lads. His coattails were a comfortable and fast-moving magic carpet and half the police force was trying to ride them. Pharaoh only worked half a day on the case that had brought her to Hull. Was sent off on some fool’s errand by Roper’s right-hand man. He was a big, bullet-headed bully with capped front teeth and bad skin, and he’d looked down her top like an artist considering a blank canvas when he had told her to go speak to the owner of the car park about CCTV footage that she already knew did not exist. Absolom, his name was. David or Daniel or something like that. He’d slithered away when Roper was brought low. She reckons he’s probably still following the slimy prick around; cutting the crusts off Roper’s sandwiches and putting his condoms on for him before he bangs his latest slag.
She remembers getting the call. Absolom, in his campy, greasy voice. Roper had arrested somebody. He’d confessed. Was a Bosnian guy, living in one of the nasty flats beneath Clive Sullivan Way. He’d liked the look of the prostitute and didn’t want to pay for it. Couldn’t get hard when she hitched her skirt up, and lost his temper when she sighed. Roper got him sent down. It was a good result. A neat result. They had a witness who could place him there, and a DNA match. Pharoah’s services were no longer required. She’d known just from the way he’d said the suspect’s nationality that Roper was playing tricks. She’d run the name of the witness through the PNC database and found endless links between himself and Absolom. She’d smelled something rank about the whole affair, though she was still too career savvy to take her suspicions to a top brass who worshipped the ground the pair walked on. The whole thing had left Pharaoh wishing a hundred varieties of death on Roper, Absolom, and anybody else who thought of the pair with anything other than loathing. Making sense of her feelings about Roper is easier today. He’s no longer a cop. McAvoy saw to that. Found out that Roper didn’t care whether he put the right person away as long as he made headlines while doing so. Took his findings to the top brass and was rewarded with a place on Trish Pharaoh’s new CID unit. Roper got his pension early. Left with a golden handshake and no stain on his record. Buggered off to work as an adviser for some posh firm of London corporate lawyers. Living the high life in a flat in Mayfair, last time she’d heard his name in the canteen. Left McAvoy with a reputation as a snake, which he has had to half kill himself to remove.