Hard Time

by Maureen Carter

  Move on, Beverley, move on. She gripped the wheel, put her foot down. Christ, there were plenty more productive thoughts to keep her going. Her brain had been working overtime in the early hours, compiling a list that would occupy an army. It had been nearly three before she finally drifted off. She stifled a yawn just thinking about it.

  Three early birds, all slap and sundresses, were waiting for a bus on the Alcester Road. The women were about Bev’s age, shop workers, office staff, maybe factory hands. They were having a giggle, nattering about last night’s telly or where to drink at the weekend. Did she envy them? People who didn’t take their job home, whose heads weren’t crammed with killers, whose lives weren’t haunted by death?

  Yes. No. Maybe. She turned her mouth down. A few years back she’d not have given it a second thought. Now?

  Focus, for Christ’s sake, Beverley. She lit a Silk Cut, dropped the window an inch. Current priority was pinning down any possible collusion between the parents and the kidnappers. Mac could check the Priory, find out who’d visited Jenny. As for Bev, she had a financial avenue to explore. Half a million pounds might not be a lot of cash to the Pages but if the handover went pear-shaped it could turn into the costliest mistake of their lives. One that Daniel could end up paying.

  Byford’s office smelt of peppermint and Pledge. The cleaners had left the polish fumes, and a mug of mint tea stood at his elbow. He’d brought in a flask of the stuff from home to try and combat a flare-up of IBS. Byford had hit the Laphroaig last night, hoping it might help him sleep. Big mistake. The guv was now as irritable as his bowel. There’d been no overnight developments on any of the inquiries – nor the Maxwell case. That could change. He’d told the news bureau to issue a picture to the media and a release about man-wanted-for-questioning. He hoped the hotline number would melt in the heat.

  At least, coming in early, Byford had caught up on most of the other paperwork. He skimmed yet another crime-scene report. And heard a faint alarm. He read it again from the top, seeing a line of spinning plates. One lay shattered on the floor.

  On Monday, a man and woman in their thirties had been found dead in a stolen fume-filled car in Stirchley. The attending officers had written it up as a suicide pact. Or written it off? The big man pictured a child’s body lying in the city morgue, unidentified, unclaimed. Wondered if there was a connection and why no one else was thinking along the same lines. He dialled an internal number. “Mike? A word...”

  Powell arrived a minute later, tie askew, looking as rough as Byford felt. Byford noted mauve shadows under the eyes, blood beading from a couple of shaving cuts on the DI’s jaw. In all the years he’d known Powell, he’d never seen the DI less than perfectly groomed. “You OK?”

  Powell nodded; didn’t elaborate. Byford pushed the report across the desk, curious to see if he would read it the same way.

  The DI’s frown deepened. “Rings a bell, actually.” He ran a finger gingerly along the gash at his right temple, still an angry scarlet. “I was at the lab when Overdale got the call-out.”

  The guv sat back, a tad annoyed that Powell hadn’t mentioned it, simultaneously relieved it hadn’t been overlooked in the welter of other work. “It’s been checked, then?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The suicides. No connection with the boy’s body?” The sites were less than two miles apart, the couple found within hours of the child. Uniform at Stirchley may not have made a link but Powell was SIO, paid to think further.

  The DI shook his head. “Never occurred.”

  “What?” Unbelievable.

  “Other things on my mind.”

  “Tell me about it.” It was a sneer, and meant to be. The guv rose, walked to the window, fists clenching at his sides. The car park at the back of Highgate was nearly empty. “Two days you’ve had squads out there, chasing leads going nowhere.” The angrier he was, the quieter he spoke. Powell strained to catch the words.

  “Come on, guv. I’m not the only...” The DI’s petered out as Byford spun round. Powell had a point, he wasn’t the only cop not to spot it. The guv was furious with himself as much as anyone. It wasn’t that he’d taken his eye off the ball: there were just too many balls in play. But Powell had been right there on the pitch - knew the pathologist had been called out, knew about the deaths, hadn’t acted.

  There might be no connection, of course, Byford realised that. But not to have checked was slack. Like not mounting a police guard at Monks Court? He’d backed Powell at yesterday’s brief, but was there a part of him that subconsciously thought the DI had fallen short? Byford shook his head, wasn’t sure. “Forty-eight hours down the pan.”

  Powell stiffened, voice raised. “You don’t know...”

  Byford lifted a hand. “No. I don’t. Not yet. But you’d best find out. Fast.”

  “Seen this, sarge?” Mac barged into the office waving a printout. He stopped suddenly, sniffed suspiciously. “God. It stinks in here.”

  Bev gave a weak smile. “New perfume, mate.” She’d only just walked in and was standing at her desk, steaming coffee in one hand and a Subway BLT in the other. She read the report over Mac’s well-covered shoulder: a missing person. Then joined a few mental dots. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I checked the A-Z,” he said. “Lords Drive’s in the next street.”

  From Monks Court, the scene of an arson attack that had claimed three lives – one body still not identified. And here was a misper from round the corner.

  “It came in last night,” he said. “No action assigned.”

  Bev nodded, not surprised given the current workload. And like any cop she knew the stats: two hundred and ten thousand people go AWOL every year in the UK. Most come back safe and well. A tiny number are never seen alive again. Police act in the vulnerable cases, concentrate on the under-eighteens. This guy was twenty-two.

  The mother had phoned it in Tuesday evening. Liam Fallon had gone for a drink with mates on Monday night and since then... nada. Early days, but Bev’s tingling scalp said otherwise. She sniffed, off-loaded her bits, picked up the phone. “Prob’ly nothing in it.”

  “Shouldn’t we pass it on to Flint’s team?” DCS Kenny Flint, the SIO on Operation Phoenix.

  “Sure should.” She shushed him with a finger. “Mrs Fallon?”

  Where the hell was it? Powell riffled through in-tray, out-tray, top-to-bottom drawers, even checked the bin. He could’ve sworn he’d left the letter on his desk. If he’d had any doubts about chucking it in, he had none now. The guv had looked at him as if he was shit on the bottom of a shoe.

  Was he justified? The DI cradled his head in his hands as he recreated the scene in the pathology lab. The pain as his thumb grazed the cut at his temple acted as an unwitting prompt. He’d been out of it when Gillian Overdale got the call. Literally. Carol Pemberton had mentioned it in passing after he’d regained consciousness.

  How the hell was he supposed to...? He slammed his fist on the desk. Byford was well out of order. Then the DI saw the little boy’s body on the slab. No. Powell was culpable. He should’ve been thinking on his feet. He just wasn’t up to it. Like with the police guard at Monks Court.

  For a second, he considered walking. Leaving without a glance back. Knew he couldn’t do it. Knew that until the case was sorted, the boy’s dead eyes – like his brother Sam’s – would follow him, however far he went.

  “Has Liam ever taken off before, Mrs Fallon?” Bev twirled a biro, listened for the silences that could say more than words.

  “Oh no, bab. Never. He’s a good boy. Knows how I fret, does Liam.” The Birmingham accent was thick enough to grate. There was something else in the voice: it sounded older than Bev expected. She skimmed the notes she’d made since the start of the phone conversation. Liam lived at home, was unemployed, hoped to go back to college to do A-levels. “Has he ever been in trouble with the police, Mrs Fallon?” Mac was running a check with criminal records anyway.

  “Oh no, bab. Never.” />
  “Was there any sort of an argument, misunderstanding?” Bev mouthed along with what had become Mama Fallon’s mantra: Oh no, bab. Never. “You’ve checked with his friends? The rest of the family?”

  For the first time there was a pause at the other end. “It’s just Liam and me. I don’t really know his friends.”

  There was a good deal she didn’t know. In Mrs Fallon’s maternal eyes, Liam was angel made flesh. But the criminal record Mac had just slipped on Bev’s desk suggested Liam’s halo had slipped. It was mostly minor stuff – shoplifting, criminal damage, a TWOC or two.

  She stiffened. According to the files, Liam hadn’t just taken vehicles without consent. He’d torched them.

  The Morriss scalp tingled again; her voice gave nothing away. “Right-oh, Mrs Fallon. Leave it...”

  “But what will you do?” Bev heard a sob. “If anything’s happened...” She pictured a crumpled face, wished she had the answers. She told Mrs Fallon they’d get back soon as and hung up deep in thought.

  It might not stand up, of course. Liam could be on a bender or a coach trip to Blackpool. She punched another number. If in doubt, check it out. But someone else would have to take over now. She’d point it in Kenny Flint’s direction, just hoped it went somewhere.

  May 2001

  Holly had arrived in London a few weeks after her sixteenth birthday. She was under no illusion about streets paved with gold. No illusions, period. She had money in her pocket and hatred in her heart. Satan was behind her but still festered in her mind. Soon the poison would be extracted.

  First, she had needed a roof over her head and a job to pay her way. Never again in her life would anyone exert control or abuse power over her. For years the beast had taken her body. Now, if need be, she would sell it to strangers. It would be no hardship, she had thought cynically. Needs must, when...

  But the devil didn’t drive. For once, Holly had an easier ride. She had barely stepped from the train at Euston when a youth worker approached, offered her temporary accommodation, a shabby room in a rundown tenement in Hackney.

  The real break had come three days later when a fashion photographer stopped her in the street, said he could get her modelling work. Yeah, right, she’d said. Not that she doubted it. She was well aware of the openly admiring glances, whispered asides. As many heads turned here as at... No, she had thought, not home. Home – like her mother – was a place she had yet to find.

  Holly attended her first shoot that week. Three months later, she appeared on the cover of a teen magazine. In demand for her fresh-faced innocence and breathtaking beauty, only Holly knew the canker behind her smile, only she knew the poison in her soul.

  35

  Bev put the phone down, worked the timings in her head. Should make it before lunch. Having got the bum’s rush from the Pages’ bank and building society, she’d just had a word with the ad agency. Maggie Searle was the bean counter there and was expected back in ten minutes. She’d certainly know if there’d been any large movements in the account. ’Course, whether she’d be saying...

  “Follow the money... Who said that, Mac?”

  He glanced up from a monitor. “Deep Throat, wasn’t it?”

  She glared but he was all innocence; maybe he’d not caught that particular piss-take doing the Highgate rounds. She jumped to her feet, eager for fresh air and a fag. “Right. Come on. Let’s hit it.” They were dropping by the Priory on the way back from the agency. Mac’s phone entreaties to the hospital had been less than fruitful. He’d not elicited a name, let alone a visitors’ list. At least if they were face to face the female frost on reception couldn’t hang up. Again.

  The car keys were at the bottom of her bag. “Shit.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.” The DI’s letter lay crumpled at the bottom. What the hell had she been thinking? Must’ve been stark raving mad. Couldn’t even put it back now, not with lipstick on it. She scrabbled round for the errant tube top, clamped it down hard.

  “Not having a hot flush, are we?” Mac asked.

  “Wasted in this job, you are, mate.”

  Saint Paul’s basked and baked in the almost midday heat. The square was a suntrap, the green an anaemic dustbowl. A couple of chirpy sparrows took an impromptu shower under a dripping hanging basket. Bev smiled. “Aaah. Look at that. Cute.”

  “I’d rather look at that.”

  She followed Mac Tyler’s lecherous gaze. “No chance, mate. Brad Pitt’d be hard pushed to pull a bird like that.”

  The woman wasn’t flaunting it but she oozed sensuality: silky black hair, porcelain skin, bone structure that subtly enunciated class. Bev suddenly realised she’d seen it all before. “Well, well,” she said. “If it isn’t the lovely Laura.” La Foster wasn’t wearing the glasses or Bev might have spotted it earlier. It helped that the vision of loveliness had just turned into the ad agency.

  Mac arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t say she was a hottie.” She’d brought him up to speed during the journey, but La Foster in the flesh had the DC’s pulse racing.

  “Watch it.” She winked. “Man your age...”

  A brass lion wedged the door open, a couple of electric fans were in evidence as well. Maybe the air conditioning was on the blink. Laura was leaning across reception, revealing a perfect rear profile. She was consulting with the new girl: Chelsea, was it? Bev gave a discreet cough.

  Laura turned. “Sergeant? This is a surprise.”

  Before Bev opened her mouth, Mac had offered a hand. “DC Tyler,” he said. “Mac Tyler.”

  She nodded, slightly uncertain. “How can I help?”

  “We’re here to see Maggie Searle,” Bev said. “I did call...”

  “No problem. I’ve only just come in, so I’m a little out of touch.”

  Chelsea lifted a tentative hand. “Maggie’s not back yet. Held up in traffic.”

  Laura nodded, glanced round. A well-dressed man, presumably a client, was in the seating area, flicking casually through GQ. Mac was hitching his denims when Laura looked back. “Why not wait in my office?” Bright smile. “I have to go out again anyway.”

  Least she was polite about it; police were bad for the image business. She ushered them through reception. “Have a seat. I’ll get Chel to rustle up some coffee.” Bev masked a wry smile; thank God the new girl wasn’t a Clapham. She watched as Laura exited, leaving a discreet trail of vanilla.

  Mac flopped on to an ivory leather two-seater sofa but the chances of Bev sitting when she could be on the snoop were zero. She prowled round, trying drawers on the desk and the filing cabinet. All locked. She sidled over to the wall, cast a glance at framed letters and photographs. Beaming grins, grateful customers. Boring. Her eyes lit when she spotted Laura’s glasses on the desktop. She’d always fancied a pair like that.

  “What are you doing?” Mac’s bemused smile was reflected in the glass as, stern black frames perched on the end of her nose, she posed in front of one of the picture frames.

  “What you reckon? Intellectual, or what?”

  “Or what.” His glance shifted to the side and he jerked upright.

  “There they are.” Laura was framed in the doorway, holding out a palm. “I wondered where I’d left them.”

  Bev’s blush was bright red as she snatched off the glasses, handed them over with a faltering smile. “Nice bins.”

  “Nice bins?” Mac’s withering tone matched the look on his rumpled face. He was behind the wheel, Bev jotting notes at his side. She shrugged. More pissed at not getting a steer out of Maggie than being caught red-handed by Laura.

  The formidable Ms Searle had been adamant. Without authorisation from Richard Page, her lips were sealed. Bev hadn’t really expected much else, even though she’d played every emotional card in the deck. She tapped the pen between her teeth. “What d’you make of Maggie Searle?”

  “Seemed straightforward enough.” Mac checked the mirror, overtook a kamikaze cyclist. “She was being loyal to the boss.”


  What about the boss’s son? Shame they hadn’t done the interview in Richard’s office. Daniel’s picture gallery might have loosened the accountant’s tongue. Bev had got into the habit of carrying the boy’s picture round; she slipped it from her bag, studied it for a few seconds. “Sod the Priory – let’s hit the Pages. Straight to the horse’s mouth.”

  Mac nodded. “Fine by me.”

  They drove in silence, apart from forty-mile-an-hour boom boxes – convertibles with mega-speakers blaring music so loud it made your ears vibrate. She caught snatches of reggae, bangra, James Blunt. Yeah, well. She closed the window. “Shall I get a pair, then?”

  Mac’s frown gave way to enlightenment. “Glasses?”

  “Nah. Skis.” She rolled her eyes. “Reckon I looked cool?”

  “Cool as in...?”

  “Classy chick.”

  “Not quite.” He dodged pre-emptively. “I was thinking Nana Mouskouri. On medication.”

  “My wife’s not well.”

  Bev and Mac were shuffling their feet in the hallway. The reluctant invitation had extended no further. Richard Page looked none too brilliant himself. Greasy hair flopped into his troubled eyes; a hand worried a flaky patch of skin round his unshaven jaw.

  “A few words. That’s all we need.” Bev glanced at Colin Henfield but the FLO had no chance of voicing support.

  “I said no.” Page’s folded arms and planted feet reinforced the message. Short of Colin pinning the bloke down while Mac and Bev legged it upstairs, they’d not be questioning Jenny today.

  “OK, Mr Page. But we’ll speak to her sooner or later.”

  “That’ll be later, then.” It was the way he said it that riled Bev. “Hey! Where are you going?”

  The sitting room. She didn’t look back. Sun spilled across the carpet through french windows, picked up dust, the odd cobweb. Bev took an upright chair, adopted similar stance, let her body language talk. The prickly silence did the trick, or maybe the fight had gone out of him.