Wouldn’t it be great if I could ask Paul to help me, she mused. He had once been head of the firearms team. He had a rifle and a pistol locked up at the Altrincham Rifle Club range, he had told her. Not long ago he had boasted, modestly of course, about the row of trophies in his flat that she really ought to come and see. He could teach her how to use it.
What a crazy thought, Julia. You really are losing your mind. Why are you being so obsessive? Why can’t you be like other women? Perhaps it’s because other women have led ordinary lives so they don’t need to be obsessive. Oh, how I bloody well wish I could lead an ordinary life . . .
On a piece of paper she scribbled the name Charlie Kuma. The letters had a wobbly look as though she’d written them in her sleep. Charlie had been pretty clean lately, but he owed her one and she was sure he wouldn’t blab. She had forgotten the name of the street he lived in with his girl friend, but was sure she could remember how to get there. Joe Sagoe, who lived in the same road, would have been a safer bet. He never opened his mouth. But Avril Scott had been shot outside his house so it was likely he’d be picked up for questioning. It didn’t take rocket science to work that one out.
She tore off the piece of paper and slipped it into the A to Z ready for tomorrow, necessity blanking the part of her brain that was screaming Stop.
SUNDAY
- 28 -
Julia sped down the narrow twisting tree-lined road, past Styal Prison and on towards the airport where a myriad lights gleamed like glow-worms on a misty riverbank. Swinging north on to the M56 a sudden shower steamed up her windows and drenched the car with spray from thundering lorries. She kept going, carried on straight into Princess Road, then slowed down as she reached Moss Side, just short of the city.
Charlie Kuma lived with his girl friend at the opposite end of Joe Sagoe’s street, a long row of terraced Coronation Street houses somewhere between Claremont Road and Moss Lane East. She would recognise Joe’s house. Joe had a macabre sense of humour and nobody could miss his house, unmistakable bright red painted brickwork with its peacock-blue front door, and black skull and crossbones. She’d have to watch out though, in case the police were still staking out the house.
Round and round the wet deserted streets she drove, searching for a familiar landmark. Down a side street she glimpsed a police van. Keep moving, she told herself. The police are wary of anyone cruising around in Moss Side, stopping or doing anything out of the ordinary. You don’t want to get picked up on suspicion of drug dealing, or prostitution . . .
Freddie Pye’s Scrap Metal. Charlie’s house was somewhere near here. Damn. A dead-end. New concrete bollards blocking the road in three directions.
Out of nowhere a skinny youth appeared on a bike, water swishing from the tyres, his ebony skin glistening in the rain. As he circled the Merc his head swivelled to watch her with his muddy, red-rimmed eyes. He could throw a brick through her windscreen and nobody would even stop and stare. He skidded to a halt next to the car, leaned on his handlebars and looked at her. A moment later he unzipped his yellow anorak and plunged his hand into the inside pocket. A drug dealer. God, do I look that desperate?
Relax your face muscles and reverse again, she told herself. Keep your movements slow and controlled. Avoid eye contact.
When she looked in the rear view mirror again, the dealer had gone. So that’s how they did it. On bikes they could nip between bollards for a quick getaway where cars hadn’t a hope.
Take your time now. It can’t be far.
West Indian Sports and Community Centre. God of Prophecy Church. It all looked familiar, yet the seedy, deserted look of the area seemed to have worsened. Boarded-up houses. Overturned bins. Dogs poking around in mounds of black bags. Sodden piles of waste paper. Alleyways clogged with refuse. Broken windows stuffed with bits of cloth . . .
Then another row of grey concrete bollards.
Where are you, Charlie Kuma?
There was still an eerie absence of anything on the streets, yet Julia had a feeling of being watched, as though any minute now a row of thugs would emerge from the faceless houses.
Turning the next corner she saw a police van blocking the road. Four police officers stood next to a house with a peacock blue door that had to be Joe Sagoe’s. Doing the fastest three-point turn she’d ever done, she shot into the next side street.
This is madness, she said to herself, her heart almost beating out of her chest. Not a chance now of trying to get to Charlie’s girlfriend’s house; the other end of the street would be blocked off too. Besides, getting nicked carrying an unlicensed gun was the quickest way of losing her practising certificate. Her livelihood.
Unlawful possession of a firearm. How would I plead? Reasonable Excuse? It would depend on whether the court approved of the motives. What motives? Somebody is threatening to kill my daughter, Your Honour. Who is threatening to kill your daughter, Mrs Grant? I’m not at liberty to say, Your Honour. It is not an answer simply to show that the weapon was carried for self-defence, Mrs Grant. There is a reasonable excuse only if the weapon is carried to meet an immediate and particular threat . . . But, Your Honour . . .
Well, that’s that then. No ammunition, so get the hell out of here. Some other weapon will have to do. Scissors, kitchen knife, razor blade, acid.
She felt a rush of bile to her throat. ‘No!’ she screamed out loud.
She quickly looked around to see if anyone had heard her, then drove on. She stopped at the next corner and let out a huge sigh of self-disgust. It is an offence to carry any weapon in a public place, don’t you know, you depraved woman. And it doesn’t have to be a machine gun or a flick knife. Even a piece of household cutlery in your handbag or a baseball bat under the car seat, makes you guilty of possessing an offensive weapon. The plain fact of the matter, Julia Grant, is that you can never hold a weapon with the specific intent of using it in a defensive fashion. And you should bloody well know that.
Except . . .
Except in a situation of complete surprise. In a life-threatening situation if a weapon comes to hand and you use it to defend yourself then you’ve got reasonable excuse.
Julia was like a lioness with the preservation of her cubs uppermost in her mind. She thought of Wendy’s home-made floppy velvet hats, with long hatpins stuck in the front to stop them flying off your head in the wind. You just happen to have one on the back shelf of your car.
Well, I’d never actually use it, would I? No, of course you wouldn’t. But it would be there, wouldn’t it?
She glanced up at the house on the corner, grasping for anything distracting that would strangle her sick thoughts before they got beyond control. Wind howled through the broken windows. Perhaps there were children huddled in its damp, unsheltered corners, cold and hungry, deserted and unloved. I should be at home with Nicky now, playing the Swan Lake music and watching her dance, just like I promised. Not driving around Moss Side deliberately trying to break the law.
The rain came down with a hissing roar that made the street seem even more desolate. She flicked the windscreen wipers to extra fast, released the hand brake and, keeping a wary eye open for police cars, she crawled slowly down the street. What made me think I could ever use this gun, even if I could have got ammunition from Charlie K?
To what evil madness is Sam Smith driving me?
Back on Princess Road, she headed south. No harm had been done, thank goodness. The only purpose the gun would have served was as her own personal psychological crutch. But thankfully common sense had whipped away that crutch leaving her . . . What?
Afraid?
Me? Julia Grant. Afraid?
Gradually her foot eased off the accelerator, until she had slowed almost to a complete stop and her eyes had become mere slits as she wrestled with her conscience.
Rubbish. You’re getting soft. Remember Joanne Perkins? Duke? Avril Scott?
You need that ammunition and you need it today.
She looked in her rear view mirror. No pale bl
ue Volvo. No police car.
So it wouldn’t hurt to have one more go at finding Charlie Kuma.
* * *
Charlie’s wife lived in the Gooch Close area, in one of the newer houses on the site of demolished Victorian terraced houses. Charlie had told her he sometimes went back there when he'd had a fight with his girlfriend.
I could be there in five minutes, Julia said to herself, pressing her lips tightly together as if this would stop any further debate.
At the major intersection with Gooch Close, the lights turned red. She cursed her bad luck. They could jump you here, even in broad daylight. This was the most dangerous area of Moss Side, where rival gangs shot and knifed each other to death in the war for the control of the illegal drug trade. Ahead of her, making the newer modern houses look like rabbit hutches, an ancient church towered majestically into the rain-darkened sky.
As she waited, a youth with a back-to-front navy blue baseball cap sauntered towards her. She threw her handbag on the floor and checked the door locks. She watched him sidle round the back of the car.
The lights were still red.
The youth kicked the bumper, then slunk up to her window and glowered at her, hunching his shoulders as the wind blew the rain into his pale, pinched face.
‘Sod you,’ he shouted, showing his yellowed teeth.
The lights changed. She let out her breath and turned sharp left, foot flat down, tyres screeching. The nearside wheel hit an empty tin, sending it clattering down the street.
She parked the car outside Charlie’s council house. She was glad the rain was keeping most people indoors.
She got out and hit the remote. The locks clunked and the alarm lights flashed. Two men with hair shaved at the sides and sticking up on top like petrified stalagmites materialised from nowhere. They stood watching her, then walked on muttering to each other and looking back over their shoulders.
She turned up the collar of her raincoat. ‘Into the Lion’s Den,’ she muttered, dodging piles of dog dirt on the pathway to the house.
Charlie’s wife opened the door, one child clutching her skirt, another on her hip.
The smell of unwashed nappies, cabbage, mould and cats wafted through the door. Julia made an effort not to breathe. Behind the woman she could see a steep narrow staircase with two steps missing.
‘Is Charlie here?’ Julia asked.
Charlie’s wife laughed, a short hollow sound that echoed down the bare passage. A cigarette stump dangled from her bottom lip.
‘Come in. Ya’ll catch ya death out there.’
Digging her nails into her palms, Julia followed her into a tiny dark room on the left. Wallpaper hung down in tattered strips from the damp walls. The woman kicked a pile of newspapers off a straight wooden chair in front of the boarded-up window.
‘Sit here,’ she said, then lowered herself onto a filthy, sagging armchair. It was the only other furniture in the room besides two old maroon motor car seats, their yellowed foam innards protruding like lumps of fat from a slaughtered pig.
Julia felt the nausea rise in her throat. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.
The baby looked at her with eyes as round and brown as pennies. Vomit dribbled down its mouth on to its mother’s stained and creased dress.
‘Haven’t laid no eyes on the bastard all week. Maybe he’s . . .’ The woman shrugged.
Julia waited quietly. She wasn’t going to give up now. Everyone knew everything in a neighbourhood like this. People talked. Someone would know where Charlie was.
She forced herself to smile at the woman. ‘You must have some idea.’
The woman crinkled up her big dark eyes, as though trying to weigh up why Julia should want to see Charlie. ‘Could be with that bitch.’ Her top lip puckered. ‘Could be at Sweet Cherry. Bout eleven tonight,’ she added surprisingly quickly.
Julia felt her heart beat faster, felt a bead of sweat trickle down her chest. Sweet Cherry was one of the most infamous clubs in Manchester, in the centre of the red light district of Moss Side, where once the middle class elite had luxuriated in their Victorian mansions.
There’s no way I could walk into Sweet Cherry, she told herself. Not now. Not at eleven o’clock tonight. Not ever.
Just then the baby brought up all the milk it had consumed, and another toddler came tumbling down the steep narrow staircase.
The woman leapt to her feet and picked the screaming child up by the arm.
‘Now look what you done. You and your smartarse car.’
Julia stood up. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and let herself out.
Three surly youths were walking towards the Mercedes SLK. She ignored them as she climbed nonchalantly into her car.
‘And when you find him tell him his brats is hungry,’ the woman yelled after her.
On the next corner Julia stopped the car. She opened the window, letting the rain spatter on her face as she breathed in deeply. She looked back towards Charlie’s house, biting her lip until it hurt. That wasn’t a home. It was just a place to keep off the streets.
A tall slinky man with plaited hair, an embroidered waistcoat and thick gold chains around his neck, came out of a nearby house. He glared at her as he unlocked his shiny new BMW. ‘Lookin’ for someone?’ he asked.
She shook her head, double checked the locks and drove off into the rain. Informers are always on the lookout for a quick payoff, she reminded herself. The police force is super-alert around here and I’ll have to leave soon or I’ll find myself picked up for questioning. If ever Paul got wind of it . . .
As she turned into Princess Road, Smith’s words rang in her ears.
Don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell the police.
She was glad she had told Paul the bones of Smith’s call. Yet now, as she headed back to Wilmslow, she was even more convinced it was still only her and Smith.
- 29 -
By the time Julia drove up to Hillside House she was terrified that something might have happened to Nicky in the hours she’d been away. She glanced at the empty house opposite, reassured when she saw a hazy face at the window.
Wendy met her at the door.
‘Is Nicky okay?’ She heard the tremble in her voice. Did ordinary women feel this terror whenever they left their children?
Wendy closed the door. ‘She’s in her bedroom,’ she said calmly.
Julia’s stomach scrunched into a knot. ‘So early?’ she asked.
‘Don’t know if she’s asleep yet, but she’s in bed. Had her tutu on earlier. Said she was going to dance Swan Lake but she took it off in the end. Don’t worry. She’s been fine.’
Wendy’s voice was soothing, though her words were tinged with reprimand. ‘Had her tea half an hour ago,’ she went on. ‘She and Duchess together.’
‘Together?’
She smiled at Julia’s dismay. ‘I put a mat on the floor and they both sat on it. Shared their food.’ She lowered her eyes, still smiling, and Julia knew there was more.
‘And then?’ she asked.
‘Well, Duchess is so soft and clean . . .’
‘Oh, Wendy. That puppy’s not in Nicky’s bed, is she?’
‘I told her. Nicky, I said. Just this once. And only for half an hour. You see, that’s about how often it ─ well, I don’t think it’s properly trained yet, is it? She wanted Kitty and all the kittens as well but I told her they were quite happy in their box in the utility room.’ Wendy glanced at her watch and pulled a wry face. ‘I said it was too early to go to bed but she said Duchess was tired.’
Oh, what the hell, Julia thought. What does it matter if the bed gets wet. I left Nicky alone again when I was supposed to have spent all day with her. And what about Wendy? She should be out with Alan. The poor girl hardly ever sees him. I must make it up to both of them, she told herself.
She took off her jacket and dumped her handbag on a chair. ‘Any calls?’ she asked, hoping she sounded as though she didn’t really care.
‘Just the superintendent. Twice.�
�
‘Any others?’
‘It rang once while I was in the utility room,’ Wendy said. ‘When I picked it up and said hello I heard a click. I’m sure he’ll ring again.’
Yes, I’m sure he will, Julia thought. He hadn’t even told her yet where he wanted her to hand over the money and time was getting short.
‘Thanks for staying so late, Wendy. Oh, I almost forgot. I’ll be leaving at seven tomorrow morning. I have to see to some financial matters before I go to court.’
It wouldn’t be a five-minute job either, she thought as she ran up the stairs. To get her hands on two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
No, Simon. I don’t want the trust revoked . . .
And as if it were yesterday that terrible night at Withington Hospital exploded into Julia’s mind ─
Gripping the metal frame surrounding his broken body and wondering why this ghastly thing has happened to the man she’s grown to love, the man she’s not given enough to, and now it is too late. Seeing the pleading in his eyes, straining to hear his voice. Not believing he can actually be dying, fighting to keep away the tears and the pain of impending loss.
Hearing his voice: ‘Please, Julia, let’s get Ben to execute a deed to vary the trust. It’s what Mum and Dad would have wanted, if they’d known . . .’
Telling him firmly, though inside she is crumbling: ‘No, Simon. I don’t need the money. I have my job. I earn enough for my needs and for Nicky until she’s eighteen. Natalie and Charles were right to leave it all to Nicky.’
His voice getting fainter: ‘They were so thrilled that she was a girl. Please, let me see her again ─ ’
Taking the baby from the carry cot, holding her up as tears roll down his cheeks. Watching him drift off. Stroking his brow, pressing her hand into his. ‘Simon, darling, I love you and I always will.’ The first time she has ever told him this and not even knowing if he can hear her.
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