by Gavin Smith
“Well, next door was just covered in flames and then the man in the football shirt came running from nowhere, saying he’d seen someone still inside and kept pointing at the upstairs window and shouting but I couldn’t see because it was just a curtain of fire. But he went so close and I couldn’t decide if he was screaming because he’d seen someone or he was on fire himself. Then the fire engines turned up and I suppose you know the rest.”
Slowey finished writing his sentence and allowed a silence to fill the car, momentarily thinking about breakfast, sleep and Dale Murphy, in that order. “Thanks for that account, Mrs Jennings. Couldn’t have been better if we’d rehearsed it.”
“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Her shoulders sagged and tears ebbed along the creases in her face and onto the knuckle pressed against her teeth. “I’ve lied,” she spat, the fine spray merging with the dimples of the car’s cheap trim. “I’m weak and stupid and now they’re dead because of me.”
Slowey goggled, glanced at his notes and prodded his wilting brain into recalling what he’d said to her. Then, as if he were stalking some twitchy prey, he lowered his voice to a whisper and inched slowly towards her.
“Let’s have the truth then, Marjorie. We can’t bring them back, but we can still help them. I’m going to stay here and look after you but let’s have the truth.”
He slid his notebook into the foot-well as if he were surrendering a gun. She nodded, shoulders hunched, and opened her mouth to speak but found only thick sobs. Slowey draped a hand over her shoulder, but the jagged bones neither flinched nor yielded. Then something flexed inside her and her spine was straight again, her chin high and she was blowing hard into the tissues.
“I’m alright, it’s alright.” She opened her eyes wide to show him that the storm-clouds had blown over. “I didn’t particularly like them, that’s all. I know that sounds silly. But I heard some footsteps on their gravel, five minutes or so before I knew there was a fire. I heard a sort of sloshing noise and something like tearing and feet running away. I could have looked, could have done something, anything, but I didn’t. I just thought, they’ll be having a fight or a party or being a nuisance and I won’t be disturbed, not this time. And now look. I could have phoned someone.”
A bark from the world outside punctured their bubble. Slowey glared at the gawping men and the dog that seemed to be stalking his car. Marjorie, voice dwindling, was holding her breath and twisting to follow the dog’s orbit.
Gretel bounded from the van and into the cul-de-sac, eyes glossy with joy and head held high, the better to drink in the sights, sounds and, most vitally, smells. Her new, bespoke shoes, the latest in canine kevlar, scuffed the pavement, but this didn’t stop her tail from flickering fast enough to make her wobble from side to side. As she drew close to number thirteen and the history of the blaze changed from mere odour to explosion of sensation, she cast longing glances at her handler and tugged at the lead to make him understand her joy.
Harkness looked on from his perch on the footstep of a fire engine. He’d discarded the protective gear and tried and failed to restore order to his suit, which had become a coordinated set of sweat-sodden rags. Swigging from a bottle of warm water, he raised a hand to acknowledge a nod from the dog handler. He’d briefed McKay and needed this opportunity to watch, think and remain conscious.
The dog, introduced to Harkness as a Spaniador, was a sleek, black missile of curious energy. As gregarious as one parent and as frantic as the other, the breed had proved ideal for the sport of sniffing out all manner of lethal substances, from cocaine hidden under windowsills to unleaded petrol unwittingly carried away on the hands and clothing of arsonists.
Off the lead now, and at a gesture from the handler, the dog swept the driveway, tail swinging like a metronome and head down, nose hoovering up and filtering a panoply of chemicals. The snuffling intensified at the doorstep and in the hallway, and she retraced her steps and repeated the exercise before standing erect in the door frame and issuing a resounding bark that must have been borrowed from a bigger dog.
A tickle behind the ears was gratefully received, but the hoped for snack or toy was not forthcoming. The dog was coaxed back onto the driveway and invited to track the odour backwards. For long minutes, she found hope in every displaced pebble, every drowned weed, then an invisible cord dragged her onto the pavement. She circled and weaved, then turned right and moved slowly towards the end of the cul-de-sac.
Harkness stood and joined the two firemen, all of them breathing softly as if any sound might disturb this delicate instrument. The dog paused at the gate of number twelve, glanced down the driveway, took one short, hard breath and barked once, twice. Harkness felt the blood pounding in his temples and dared to imagine that the case could be this simple and this grotesque. He trotted after the firemen, for a second failing to understand one’s smirk and the other’s slowly shaking head as something let loose a banshee howl full of spite and menace.
The dog barked again but, at a command from its handler, sat and ignored the provocation. The cat on the driveway of number twelve continued to arch and fizz as if glued to a live rail. Then, perhaps recognising something in Harkness’s eyes, it tucked in its tail and ran to the back of the house, a marvel of grace and stealth but for the frantic jingling of the bell on its flea-collar.
The dog was urged away from the gate and encouraged to once more scour the ground for any whiff of accelerants, that magic trigger that would win her approval, food and play. Harkness fell into step with McKay, willing the quaking in his chest to subside.
“She was spot on last time, but it’s not an exact science,” said McKay, examining his palms. “Most of the time, we get nothing. Unless we’re in someone’s house and we’re expecting to find it. Which I don’t suppose is that useful right now.”
“Last time?”
“Byron Street.”
“That was really the last time? That’s two years ago.” Harkness shook his head and rubbed a hand over yesterday’s stubble.
“’Fraid so. Nice dog though.”
“Yes. Charming.”
The dog was sweeping the pavement next to Slowey’s Fiesta, attracting the attention of a grey-haired woman in the passenger seat. Slowey seemed to be reaching for something in the foot-well. A bark made Slowey start and glare with an inquiring flex of the eyebrows at the three men staring at him.
The dog circled the car’s rear bumper, stood to attention there and barked again with a note of finality. A trail of greasy and fragrant delight had dripped from the petrol cap and was without doubt an accelerant. Her job was done and her treat was long overdue.
“Sadly, he’s got a good alibi,” said Harkness. “Perhaps Gretel can write her own statement.”
“I’ll get her prints some other time,” said Slowey, as they watched Marjorie waving at them in regal fashion from the back of a departing taxi.
“What did you make of her?” said Harkness, allowing himself a cigarette and relishing every filthy, toxic particle as his heart slowed to walking pace. He blew a lungful of stale air through the Fiesta’s open passenger window, grateful he could no longer smell his own breath, and slotted the lighter back into the dashboard. The smoke dispersed slowly, the air sluggish and thick with other poisons.
“Sad and mad but not bad. Didn’t really get to the bottom of her story but she didn’t like her neighbours. Mind you, cooped up in that house with mentalist son and crippled husband, or vice versa; that’d make me twitchy. She’s the only witness so far though, and she saw nothing, just heard gravel.”
“As your supervisor, I really should address some of your training needs, particularly when it comes to disrespectful terms for the otherwise enabled. What about the ranting man?”
“Interesting. Keith Braxton, not so solid citizen of this parish. Form for fighting but not much else, lives over the road. Thoroughly enjoyed himself tonight. Not long before closing time at the Friars Vaults, he sees Dale Murphy getting thrown out. Dale’s
tanked up and fighting with ‘some scrote’. Keith doesn’t like Dale on account of him being a prison officer. He doesn’t like coppers either, but apparently I’m alright.
“One brief lock in later, Keith staggers home to see Dale’s house on fire. Give him his due, he tries to get in but can’t and gets himself instant sunburn. He was most disappointed to learn of Dale’s absence from the household.”
A cool breeze swept through the car, a taste of rain and wet grass, a memory of hope. Above their heads, the black night was diffusing into blue dawn, the horizon rimmed with ochre and pink that would learn to blaze in white and gold.
“Start the car. I think better when you’re driving.”
Slowey brought the car back to hacking and spluttering life and reversed out of the cul-de-sac. Harkness found he was looking into his own eyes, and didn’t care for the spectacle: bloodshot eyes barely open, skin a livid red with black loops and smears where he’d wiped away sweat, crescents of stubble where his eyebrows should be. He gripped the rear view mirror, tried to turn it back towards Slowey and found it floating free in his hand.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Slowey. “I’ve got two others. Don’t use it much anyway.”
“So. Murphy,” said Harkness, flicking the cigarette stub from his fingers to flicker through the air and bounce and roll along the tarmac where its trapped heat would slowly fade and wink out. He turned the rear view mirror over in his hands, looking for a way to reattach it and seeing only shapes that didn’t seem to fit together.
“Burning down his own home with the kids still there? When he still lives there himself? Don’t know. He was pissed up and he hasn’t turned up. Yes, we need to lay hands on him.”
“And the mysterious stranger from the Friars Vaults?” Harkness reattached the mirror with a satisfying clunk, then noticed it was facing oncoming traffic.
“A personal grudge against Murphy? Don’t suppose we can ignore that possibility. Look, I’ll sort the mirror out later. At least it’s attached again. Please stop.”
Harkness released the mirror, thinking that if Slowey were to mow someone down, they would at least be distracted in their terminal seconds by their own bewildered face looking back at them.
“Right, here’s the plan.” Harkness slapped his palms together, making Slowey jump and veer across the centre line. “Drop me off at the ranch. I’m going to apprise the top brass and waste time on the computer when I should be out pounding the streets. You are going to knock up the landlord of the Friars Vaults and find me a mysterious stranger.”
CHAPTER TWO
Divisional Headquarters on Beaumont Fee won an architectural award once. The evidence still lingered, a framed certificate nailed to a wall in a caretaker’s cupboard somewhere, its ink as faded as the decade it represented.
The vision must have burned brightly once. Entrenched in a steep slope midway between the wharf and the hilltop medieval quarter, the station’s back door was on the third floor and its basement garage on street level. Perhaps the architect wanted to imitate the mighty legionary fortress of Lindum Coloniae, now buried under office blocks and supermarkets. Yet the station’s mighty blocks, arranged in tiers around a central keep, failed to cow the barbarian hordes of drunks, thieves and miscreants.
Perhaps the architecturally literate might concede that the pre-cast concrete with its roughened edging and pebble-dash dared to fuse the contemporary and the timeless. To Harkness, it was every bit as timeless and elegant as a paisley kipper tie with a brown nylon suit. Such abominations had been in vogue within the working lives of some of his colleagues; but the changes of style they most rued were of a far more practical nature.
Up until the mid-eighties, a recalcitrant suspect could have been left in the cells over the weekend; he would learn to cooperate without disrupting a detective’s social life. If he were fitted up now and again, so be it; it was just recompense for the things he’d got away with, karma given a helping hand. If he were knocked around, it just showed that justice had to get its hands dirty from time to time.
Anything that didn’t fit the facts as you wanted them to appear could be lost down the back of the office sofa. The saloon bar of the Nip & Tuck was as good a workplace as any; reeking of ale or driving half cut were natural consequences of a high-pressure job, and far preferable to not standing your round or being one of the boys. Rules could be broken and bent to serve the greater good.
Now, every Billy Burglar had more rights than he knew what to do with. Every conceivably relevant scrap of paper had to be catalogued, scrutinised and disclosed if major prosecutions weren’t to founder on the rocks of the technical defence. Interviews were recorded in a way that limited a detective’s scope for creativity. Where once they’d made the law, cops could now be pilloried, dismissed or jailed for the kind of transgressions that would earn the average citizen a fine and a polite rebuke. The rules were prized above the greater good, and a problem statistically analysed was more welcome than a problem messily solved.
They’ve ripped the arse out of this job, the old-timers would insist over whisky chasers. Harkness, head thick with fatigue and the dregs of a hangover, could hear the same old litany looping through his head every time he walked into this monument to times best forgotten. He stumbled down the slope to the basement garage, pressed his wallet to the wall sensor and ground his teeth in time to the clanking of the roller shutter door.
What, he asked himself, would the old timers do with this barrel of worms? Should he be rounding up the usual suspects, taking names and breaking balls, or retiring to the office to ensure that every procedure and line of enquiry was followed to the highest standards of diligence and integrity; or whatever the manual said. The lift door was standing open and he allowed it to carry him up one floor, forehead pressed into the cold film of grease on the control panel.
The sticker on his desktop computer congratulated him on his upgrade to ‘Windows 95’. He switched it on and knew there would be ten minutes of electronic churning beneath a flickering hourglass before he could coax any work out of it. He draped his jacket and tie on the back of a chair and unbuttoned his shirt. He retrieved the high-backed executive swivel chair which was now his by right, and rolled the smaller minion’s chair into a corner. An artist’s palette of food stains marked his seat, a cultural history in nylon, lard and ketchup, the previous incumbent’s territorial pissing.
The light slanted through the blinds, kind at first, glittering on dust motes and brilliant on screens and windows. The sun crested the horizon, clear and truthful, the dust settling on towers of paperwork in disarray, human misery analysed endlessly; on mugs discarded in a hurry for fungus to feast on at leisure; on bins overflowing with fast food wrappers; on boxes that had split and spilt a thousand pamphlets on this year’s third definitive crime prevention initiative; on the ransacked search kit in the corner, guaranteed to contain nothing but the wrong-sized gloves and torn evidence bags; on the whiteboard, now grey with a thousand layers of smeared ink, with its names, call-signs, numbers and mug-shots; on the gun-metal cabinets where a hundred types of form and a dozen CS gas canisters were stored.
The fluorescent lights stuttered into life and the cleaner walked in, industrial vacuum cleaner in tow. She registered Harkness with a nod, eyes and mouth down-turned. She seemed neither surprised nor happy to find company. He was a trespasser in her world and he found himself removing his feet from the table.
He dialled a cup of syrup masquerading as coffee from the vending machine in the night canteen. The TV had been left on and selected members of the urban underclass were being goaded into flurries of rage and repentance by a man who truly, passionately wanted to understand their pain, but was there to lay it on the line and give them hard facts and home truths and then offer them a team of counsellors to wave a magic wand over life’s horrid complexities.
His phone chirped, its battery waning. He should text Hayley, but that might wear the battery down and he couldn’t remember where h
e’d left his charger. In any case, the volumes left unsaid would eclipse whatever thoughts his fat thumbs could squeeze into crude shorthand.
Sugar was always an answer. He pushed some change into another machine, dialled a number and saw his own reflection, like a lion watching a crippled zebra, as the Mars bar uncoiled from its row, inched forward slowly, tilted to drop and deliver its rush of glucose goodness, then hung there, wedged.
He could stand the expense of walking away or buying another. He could see the sense of the notice warning against trying to shake items loose from a top-heavy hunk of glass and metal. But that was his Mars bar, he needed it and this machine really should know better. The pressure spiked behind his forehead and he shoulder-charged the machine, felt it rock backwards, heard something drop, felt it rock towards him, flung his shoulder into it again, swore and spat and made it stop moving.
He was panting, spent, calm. He crouched to retrieve the Mars bar and some other items he’d liberated. As he stood to leave the contraband on top for other gannets to take, he traced a crack running the length of the machine's glass casing. He glimpsed his own reflection again, his face in two ragged halves. He glanced at his watch, peered down the corridor and listened, hearing nothing but the TV where fingers were jabbing and chairs flying to a fugue of righteous hatred, threats and self-pity.
Harness pocketed the free snacks, took a clean tea-towel, wiped clean any part of the machine he might have gripped, butted or tackled in an unusual way, replaced the towel on the tea urn and sauntered back to the office, seeing nobody. He resisted the urge to whistle.
Chewing the Mars bar in delicious figures of eight like a candy floss machine, he tried and failed to log on to the computer. According to the password protection protocol, he was either an expired user or he should have changed ‘Hayley’ before today. Prepared to believe either explanation, he logged on using Slowey’s details, and was gratified to find that he was still using child number three, ‘Jemima’, as his password.