Acid Row

by Minette Walters

  ‘What happened to the guy with the tin helmet?’ asked one.

  No one knew.

  Gardens, Humbert Street

  To Gaynor, three houses down, Jimmy was unmistakable as he came through the kitchen door. She had a fleeting sense that she knew the woman beside him but there was too much blood on her face to be sure. She raised a hand in recognition but they turned left out of the door, heading for Bassindale Row, and never even glanced in her direction.

  She called out: ‘JIMMY!’ but he was intent on kicking down fences and running for the next one, and he didn’t hear her.

  Not for a second did she guess that she was watching the exodus of the paedophiles. She had barely thought about them since the riot started, except to blame herself for inciting the march, and she didn’t know where she was in relation to Melanie’s maisonette as she had never been inside the gardens before. She could only interpret what she saw from what she thought she knew, which made this one of the exits Jimmy had been sent to establish.

  It was obvious there had been an accident. Or something worse. Another petrol bomb? A stampede? It was the only explanation for Jimmy’s frantic haste, the body across his shoulders, the blood on the woman’s face and the elderly man who followed behind them, holding his hands in front of him as if he were hurt. Jimmy was taking the injured out.

  Her heart lurched with immediate fear for her children. She took tentative steps past the climbing frame, expecting to see other people come running out in Jimmy’s wake, but it was strangely quiet. She raised her face to the helicopter again, shielding her eyes from the sun. What on earth was going on? Where was everyone?

  Jimmy lowered Milosz to the ground behind the six-foot fence that was the border between the garden of the end house in Bassett Road and Bassindale Row. He had tracked through to the Bassett gardens in the hope that the crowd spilling out of Humbert Street was thinner there, although the yelling and shouting were still far too close for comfort. They could hear feet pounding the tarmac, people talking, even the smell of cigarette smoke as bystanders lit up to watch from a distance. He saw his own fear mirrored in the eyes of Sophie and Franek as he held a finger to his lips to keep them quiet.

  It was an unnecessary instruction to Franek, whose face was as white and pasty as his son’s. He slumped into the lee of the fence and covered his head in his hands as if hiding behind flimsy, waney lap panelling could somehow protect him from the terrifying reality of mob bloodlust. Neither Sophie nor Jimmy paid him any attention.

  Jimmy knelt on the ground beside Milosz and took several deep breaths before he could speak. ‘I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to carry him the whole way out,’ he whispered in Sophie’s ear. ‘He weighs a ton. Do you think he’s dead?’

  She was squatting next to him and pressed her fingertips to Milosz’s neck before resting a hand on his chest to feel for movement. ‘He’s out cold,’ she whispered, rolling an eyelid back with the ball of her thumb, ‘but his automatic responses are functioning – he’s breathing and his pulse is strong. It’s not concussion, because he’d have come round by now, so I’m guessing he’s switched off completely this time.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It’s how he deals with fear,’ she murmured. ‘Retreats inside himself. His father’s doing the same thing by covering his head.’ She dug her fingernails into Milosz’s nostrils and bit them into his septum. There was a flicker of his eyelids as his nervous system registered pain but no returning consciousness in the way the policewoman had responded to Eileen Hinkley’s smelling salts. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered apologetically. ‘He needs more help than I can give him at the moment. Even if I could bring him out of it, he’d be too uncoordinated to walk for a while.’

  Jimmy jerked his head towards the fence. ‘We’ve gotta break out on to Bassindale and aim for the perimeter wall. It means pushing through the crowd coming the other way, and that’s gonna be fucking hard with a dead weight on my back and a couple of cripples in tow. Sorry, lady, but you look like shit –’ he nodded at Franek – ‘and he ain’t much better. I don’t see how we’re gonna do this. It only needs one of us to fall and we’re all up the fucking creek.’

  Sophie’s own fear came back in a tidal wave. She hadn’t realized he meant what he’d said to Franek in the upstairs room. She had assumed it was an excuse to get them out of the house. ‘Oh, God,’ she said, pulling herself away from both him and Milosz. ‘I can’t do this. Truly, I can’t. I’m not brave enough.’

  ‘The doc said you were.’

  ‘Which doc?’

  ‘Harry . . . at the clinic . . . and someone called Jenny. Reckoned you were a fighter.’ He gripped hold of her hand to stop her moving any further away. ‘You’re Sophie, right? My Mel’s doctor. The lady who started “Friendship Calling”. The one whose wedding we’re coming to. Shit, girl! Mel’s standing in front of that house stopping the fucking retards throwing Molotovs. Are you telling me she’s got bigger balls than you have?’

  Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Melanie Patterson? Are you Jimmy James?’

  He nodded. ‘I gave my word I’d bring you and these fuckers out before I went back for Mel and the babes. But we’ve gotta get a move on and you’ve gotta help me. I can’t do it on my own. A lady by my side’ll make it look kosher.’

  She envied Nicholas his coma. Why couldn’t she lie down and refuse to make any more decisions? She wanted to say: I’m hurting . . . I’m bleeding . . . I’m frightened . . . Instead she flicked a glance at Franek. ‘What are you going to do if he collapses? You can’t carry two dead weights.’

  ‘He won’t. He’s scared shitless of being left behind. He’ll be ripped apart if he doesn’t keep up.’

  ‘He has asthma. He might not be able to.’

  ‘Then he’s a dead man,’ said Jimmy unfeelingly.

  Oh, God! Her imagination was in overdrive again. Nothing was that simple. Even in Acid Row you couldn’t just abandon old men beside the road with their hands tied. People would ask questions. ‘You don’t know what he’s like. He’ll call out . . . draw attention to himself . . . make you go back to stop us all being killed. Someone will recognize him.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said Jimmy with more confidence than he felt. ‘Most of the guys out there don’t even know what this fight’s about, and even if they do, they won’t reckon a black guy and a girl would be hanging around nonces. They’ll just think we got caught in the middle of something.’ His face broke into a smile. ‘Tell them you’re a doctor . . . talk medical stuff . . . give us credibility. Your mate, Harry, reckons you can take the steam out of anything.’

  Briefly, Sophie closed her eyes. She felt like screaming. Harry was an idiot. And she didn’t trust anyone whose idea of credibility was for a battered and bloody woman to walk down the road talking ‘medical stuff’. ‘Where are we exactly?’ she said then, glancing towards the nearest house.

  She was off her head, like the policewoman, thought Jimmy. ‘The end house in Bassett Road,’ he told her, ‘the corner with Bassindale.’

  ‘Which number?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  She looked towards the Humbert Street house behind them. ‘If that’s the Bassindale Row end, then it must have a higher number than Melanie’s?’

  ‘Yeah. Hers is the other side of 23 from here.’

  ‘OK.’ Sophie pictured the layout of the streets in her mind, mapping them according to patients. ‘That makes this 2 –’ she pointed at the neighbouring garden – ‘that one 4 and the one beyond 6. I know the woman who lives in 6.’

  ‘It doesn’t help us. We’ll be going the wrong way, and half of Bassett’s out in the road, anyway. She probably won’t even answer the door . . . but, let’s say she does, we’ve still got to get back on to Bassindale. It’s just adding time to the journey.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘She only leaves the house to go to the hospital and she won’t have an appointment on a Saturday. We can take shelter there, and it’ll give me a chance to bri
ng Milosz round while you go back for Melanie and the kids.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘I feel like death warmed up at the moment, Jimmy, and you can’t carry all of us. So get us to number 6, then go back for Mel. Please?’

  Jimmy nodded towards Franek. ‘What about him?’

  ‘I’ll tie him up so tight he’ll wish he’d never set eyes on me.’

  ‘OK.’ He hauled Milosz into a sitting position then lowered his shoulder to hoist him up again. ‘So what’s wrong with this patient of yours?’ he asked, pushing himself upright with an effort and locking his knees. ‘Why won’t she go out?’

  ‘Squamous cell carcinoma,’ said Sophie succinctly. ‘They had to take off most of her nose to eradicate it. She’s got a hole in the middle of her face.’

  Oh, shit . . . !

  Command centre – police helicopter footage

  The camera picked up Jimmy and his group again when the spotter watching them said they’d switched away from Bassindale Row and were heading back into the Bassett Road gardens. The observers at headquarters pinpointed the house they entered as number 6, and a check of their records showed the occupier was a Ms Frensham. This information was passed to Ken Hewitt at the Nightingale Health Centre and verification came back immediately that Clara Frensham was a patient of Dr Sophie Morrison’s. The assumption, rightly, was that Sophie had opted to take shelter, and Jimmy’s reappearance through the back door, alone, some two minutes later confirmed this.

  It was clear from the way he headed straight back towards 23 that his intention was to extricate his girlfriend. A tentative identification of the woman who had stood irresolutely behind the house before suddenly making up her mind to go in had recorded her as Gaynor Patterson, although a question mark remained beside the name as the only description the Health Centre had been able to furnish was Jenny Monroe’s belief that she had blonde hair like her daughter’s. Attempts to raise her on her mobile proved fruitless since, like Jimmy’s, her battery had run out.

  A similar question mark remained beside Melanie’s name, because Jimmy’s earlier observation to Harry Bonfield that the tall, blonde, pregnant girl sounded like ‘his Mel’ was hardly proof that she was the girl in front of the house. All attempts by Ken Hewitt and Jenny Monroe to reach Melanie had met with failure. From being constantly engaged the phone was now disconnected, its innards smashed beyond repair beneath the heel of a rioter after Colin had dropped it when he ran to Melanie’s aid. The identity of the man in the tin helmet, why he had entered number 23 in the first place and why he remained inside, continued to mystify the police.

  Jimmy’s beeline approach towards the rear of 23 allowed the camera’s field of vision to cover events on both sides of the house. It caught the abrupt change of gear in Jimmy James’s stride as he pounded across the garden to fling himself through the back door; the sudden wild charge of part of the crowd towards the broken front-room window; and the gut-churning disappearance of the blonde girl as Wesley Barber punched her in her pregnant stomach and she fell beneath trampling feet.

  A shout of horror rose from every throat in the command centre.

  Twenty-five

  Saturday 28 July 2001

  Car park, Hilton Hotel, Southampton

  TOWNSEND’S BMW STOOD on its own in a corner of the Hilton car park. ‘Anything?’ Tyler asked the officer beside it.

  The man shook his head. ‘The boot’s clean as a whistle, sir. A pathologist might find something but I wouldn’t bet on it.’

  ‘Too clean? How did it smell?’

  ‘Nothing unusual. I’d have noticed detergent.’

  ‘Any luggage? Video camera?’

  ‘Just a laptop.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Tyler peered through the back window. ‘What about inside?’

  ‘Aftershave. An expensive one, too. The guy reeks of it.’ He pulled a face. ‘He’s quite a piece of work, sir. The birth date on his driving licence says he’s forty-five . . . but he’s doing his damnedest to look thirty. Phoney as hell, if you ask me.’ A thoughtful expression crossed his face. ‘He’s no pushover . . . didn’t blink an eyelid when I opened the car door for him.’

  ‘Did he object to you searching the boot?’

  ‘No. Opened it himself.’

  ‘Did he ask what you were looking for?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Tyler again.

  Conference room, Hilton Hotel

  Phoney or not, Tyler understood immediately why Laura had fallen for Edward Townsend. ‘A piece of work’ was a good description for him. Tanned, clean-shaven skin. Muscled arms and shoulders. Close-cropped hair. Compared with Tyler’s ruddy and rumpled St Bernard look, he had the polished bronze sheen of Barbie’s Ken. (Which might explain why an eighteen-year-old going on twelve like Franny found him attractive, thought Tyler acidly.) But he was too synthetic to hold the attention for long. The eye yearned for something interesting to fasten upon – laughter lines, grooves of character – anything that didn’t conform to a love-starved woman’s idea of male beauty.

  It was an image that worked better from a distance. Close to, Tyler wasn’t surprised that the manager at the Bella Vista had been suspicious of the man’s relationship with Franny. His hair looked dyed, the tan was almost certainly fake, and his restless, pale eyes never held a gaze for more than a second. Tyler made a determined attempt to look at him objectively – it was too easy to allow prejudice to colour his view – but he still felt his hackles rise in response. Perhaps it was the aftershave.

  Two uniformed constables stood stolidly by the doorway, arms folded, moving aside to let Tyler and Butler enter. A table ran down the centre with notepads, drawn-up chairs and a coffee urn and cups at one end. Townsend, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, sat at the other end, suit jacket draped across his chairback, laptop open in front of him, a screensaver of clouds flickering across the monitor.

  ‘DCI Tyler and DS Butler . . . investigating the disappearance of Amy Biddulph,’ said Tyler as he pulled out a seat beside the man and sat down, crossing his legs and resting his elbow on the table. Butler took the chair on the other side. ‘Thank you for agreeing to talk to us, sir.’

  ‘No one told me I had a choice.’ It was the same voice that had spoken on the mobile, although the London vowels were less obvious in person than over the phone. Was his background something else he wanted to hide? Tyler wondered. He certainly had the trappings of a self-made man: BMW, Rolex, Armani suit.

  ‘It’s always difficult in cases like this,’ said Tyler equivocally. ‘We need to guarantee immediate access to people who can help us.’

  ‘I don’t have a problem answering questions. Amy’s a sweet kid. I’d do anything to help her. All I asked of these men –’ he gestured towards the uniformed constables – ‘was that I be allowed to explain the situation to the other people at my meeting. I don’t believe that warrants detention, does it, Inspector?’

  ‘We’ve explained on your behalf, sir,’ Tyler told him pleasantly. ‘They’re happy to wait until we’ve finished. They all agree that a child’s life is worth a short delay.’

  The eyes rested on him briefly. ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘That you have privileged information about Amy Biddulph, and it was important for us to talk to you as soon as possible.’

  ‘What sort of privileged information?’

  ‘From the time she and her mother were living with you. I understand you made a number of video tapes of her. We’d appreciate those, sir. Film is more useful to us than the still photograph we’re using at the moment. People find it easier to recognize a child from a moving image.’

  He looked amused. ‘They don’t exist any more. Laura cut them to shreds and left them lying on my sitting-room floor before she left. Didn’t she tell you?’

  Tyler’s certainty wavered. There was never enough time in an investigation like this. Too many questions would always remain unasked. ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

  Tyler
nodded. ‘How do you know Laura found them all? Do you remember how many you made?’

  ‘I do, as a matter of fact. I used the same three over and over again. The only reason I filmed Amy at all was because she liked performing and wanted to see herself on TV.’

  ‘Then why film her naked in the bath?’

  He gave an easy laugh. ‘Good acoustics and a handy loofah for a microphone. She was doing “Like a Virgin” at full blast. Pretty damn well, too. She’s a great little singer.’

  ‘What happened to the tapes you made of Laura?’

  Townsend laughed again, his eyes pouching into mischievous creases. He was very relaxed. Even charming. ‘Come on, Inspector. They won’t help you find Amy. She wasn’t in any of them. Laura must have told you that, at least. Frankly, they weren’t the sort of movies you’d put a kid in.’

  ‘So I gather. From the way Laura describes them, they were a masturbation aid. Presumably you saved them?’

  He spoke without hesitation. ‘I never save anything from dead relationships, Inspector. I reused them.’

  ‘What for?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Probably a development we’re building in Guildford. We’ve had problems with materials being nicked so I put a camera on site. The workforce doesn’t like it but there wasn’t much else I could do if I didn’t want to be robbed blind.’

  The navvies Tyler knew were tough-talking homophobes who held a person’s gaze when they spoke to him. It didn’t make them any more truthful and honest than the next person, just more direct, and he wondered what Townsend’s men thought of him. ‘How can you be so certain about Amy’s tapes . . . and so uncertain about Laura’s?’

  ‘I made more of Laura . . . mostly before she moved in. With Amy, there were just the three. She wasn’t interested in past performances . . . everything had to be very immediate or she became bored.’ He unstrapped his Rolex and put it on the table in front of him, betraying the same impatience to move on that Martin Rogerson had shown earlier. ‘As I said, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Inspector.’