by David Mark
Downey is twenty-four, and lives on the Victoria Dock estate by the waterfront. The area was built with London’s Docklands in mind and marketed as an “urban village,” but has failed to draw the middle classes away from the West Hull villages. Now large chunks of the area have been bought up by private landlords to rent out at reduced rates. It’s a mixture of hard-working families and dodgy bastards. Downey falls into the second category. He did his first stretch in a young offenders institute at sixteen, having been caught using stolen credit cards. None of the other incidents on his record include violence, but he’s no stranger to drugs. A year ago, he was arrested when a van on board the Pride of Rotterdam ferry was found to have packets of pure cocaine stitched into the upholstery. CCTV showed Downey getting out of the van when it boarded. He and the driver were both charged, but the case collapsed before it got to court. Downey had done a few months on remand in Hull Prison. Ray told his troops that he believed it was during Downey’s time inside that he joined the new outfit. The old punk rocker who used to have a hand in local supply and demand had disappeared not long afterward.
“He’s in the big leagues now,” Ray had barked, tugging at his tie as if involved in some autoasphyxiation sex game. His face was greasy with sweat and his hair, slicked back from his ratty face, had only been combed at the front. It stuck up on his crown like an antenna and gave him the look of a crazed preacher as he stomped about in front of the whiteboard, scribbling illegible theories and scrawling lines between suspects’ names.
“It was a handover, plain and simple,” he snarled in a spray of spit. “They were trying something. One lad drops the coat off, pockets full of coke. Passes the ticket to our boy. Our lad’s a thick piece of shit and loses the ticket. Reckons he’ll charm the coat out of the shopkeeper. She says no and the next thing, it turns nasty.”
Shaz Archer had chipped in next, sitting directly in front of the fan so her hair billowed theatrically around her and the lads could see her nipples through her white sleeveless blouse.
“The call to emergency services came from an unregistered mobile phone. The shopkeeper says she has no idea who called it in. Must have been somebody passing by the window. We have our doubts. I think she has a friend who didn’t want to hang around. We’ll look into that. For now, Adam isn’t talking and we’re going to charge him. See who he calls. What he does next. We’ve got a chance here, people. They’ve fucked up. They’ve hired themselves a right bloody monkey, and if they don’t want their operation going tits up, they’ll want to get him out of there before he can talk to us. Col has a few friends inside who are going to make sure he doesn’t enjoy himself too much. Let’s shake the tree and see what falls out, yeah?”
Helen had registered only mild surprise that the incident had occurred in the shop she had stood outside only the other day. She had barely taken anything in. Her mind had been elsewhere. Had she gone too far? Should she have slept with Mark on the first date? She can’t concentrate. Her mind is screeching with fears and uncertainties. Is he playing it cool? Should she play it cool, too? Should she just write it off as one great night?
She is staring blankly at the PNC database. She can’t find any connection between Downey and the driver who chucked piss over Shaz Archer, but she’s hardly concentrating on the task.
Her e-mail lights up. It’s a message from an address she doesn’t recognize.
Subject: “Thought you might like to see this.”
The e-mail contains a video clip. The file size suggests it’s only a few seconds long, so she mutes the machine and opens it up.
She sees herself. Herself on all fours, bare arse and curved spine: her sex pointing catlike at the sky. Sees Mark. Naked. Face in shadow. He’s drizzling a line of white powder onto her buttocks. Lowering his face. Snorting it up. Rubbing his fingers on her gums. She’s looking back at him, lustful and dreamy, mouthing “Do it, go on,” and then losing herself in pleasure, powder sparkling in her smile . . .
Here, now, she starts to shake. Feels her whole body tremble. Can barely control her fingers for long enough to close the video down before anybody else can see. Just stares at the blank screen as sickness crawls up her throat.
Another e-mail flashes up, from the same address.
With fingers that quiver, hands that do not feel like her own, she opens the message.
Blinks away hot tears as she reads the words.
WE WILL BE IN TOUCH. X
TEN
Friday. 9:46 a.m. The sky a dark shroud: crumpled and creased upon a landscape of dying greens and browns.
Aector McAvoy’s minivan heading north; dead flies on the windscreen and fluffy toys in the trunk. A local DJ talking nonsense on the radio, and sweat on the inside of the glass.
“She was brave,” says Pharaoh, fanning herself with her notes. “Standing up to him. Saying no. Lot of people would have filled their pants.”
McAvoy gives a grunt of agreement. “You never know, do you? How you’ll react?”
“She gave him a couple of good ones, according to Colin Ray. Was my grandma taught me that, as a kid. Go for the soft places. Eyes and bollocks.”
McAvoy watches the road. Nods along to the song playing in his head. It’s a salsa number and always arrives, unbidden, in his skull, when he thinks of Mel. He’d been shocked to hear what had happened at her shop. Relieved, too, to hear that Roisin hadn’t been there. More than anything, he’d been impressed. He didn’t think Mel had it in her. Apparently some drug pusher had turned up at her shop, demanding a coat containing a bumper stash of pure cocaine, and she had refused to let him take it because he hadn’t got his receipt. It had all got nasty, and according to Roisin, Mel had managed to call the police in her pocket, then give him a couple of swift kicks to his tender places. He’d been crying like a girl when the uniforms arrived.
“Never said a word in the interviews,” says Pharaoh. “Colin’s going crazy.”
Bored, listless, and too bloody hot, she stares out of the window. There’s not much to look at. It’s all green fields and sparse woodland, overgrown footpaths and four-house villages with names that were recorded in the Domesday Book. She’s seen half a dozen rest stops where swingers could get their kicks. Took great pleasure in pointing them out to her favorite sergeant.
“Detective Inspector Archer gave it her all, apparently.” McAvoy’s voice is unreadable, his expression to match. “In the interviews, I mean.”
Pharaoh turns to him, licking her lips. “You could be a politician, Hector.”
“Guv?” he asks innocently.
Pharaoh lets it drop. Were she to start criticizing Shaz Archer, she would never stop.
For a time, she considers the Adam Downey case, and what a good result would mean for her unit in general, and her own position within it. Were Colin Ray to bring the new outfit down, she would be hard-pressed to justify remaining head of Serious and Organized. She and Ray have fought like cat and dog ever since she got the job. He had expected the unit to be his, and had planned to make Shaz Archer his second-in-command. Pharaoh got it instead. They have very different styles, but Pharaoh at least knows that her rival’s style is effective and respects his record. He, on the other hand, thinks Pharaoh is little more than a nice pair of tits in a stab vest.
“You all right, guv?”
Pharaoh shakes it away. Concentrates on what she had learned in this morning’s briefing.
“He’s shit-scared,” she says. “Downey. I reckon they’ll charge him before the day’s out, whether he talks or whether he doesn’t. He won’t get bail, so the next few days should be interesting for the lad. Pretty bloody obvious he works for the new outfit in some capacity, but it’s all guesswork. Colin Ray’s going to blow a vein.” She gives the matter some thought. “Could be worse.”
“You don’t want a crack at it yourself?”
Pharaoh raises her hand to point at herself and mouth the
word “Moi?” Her bangles give a clank. “I can’t be everywhere,” she says, sighing. “Ray brought in the only significant victories we’ve had with this lot. He’s earned the right to run with it, and to fall on his face if he does it wrong. My only contribution so far has been getting one of the units firebombed down at St. Andrew’s Quay. I don’t think it would be well received if I marched in and took over, no matter how much I’d like to. I’ve got some questions I’d like to ask that shopkeeper, I know that much . . .”
McAvoy says nothing. He finds himself uncomfortable talking about what happened on Southcoates Lane. It was pure good fortune that Roisin wasn’t there when Downey tried to muscle Mel. He imagines his wife in danger. Pictures her, helpless and afraid. The thought makes the hairs on his forearms rise. He imagines her giving a statement to Colin Ray. Imagines the look on the bastard’s face. Passing judgment on her. On him. On his family. McAvoy is not ashamed of his wife, or her heritage. He just doesn’t want to give the people whom he knows to be bastards any more sticks to hit him with.
“That’s nice,” says Pharaoh, looking at his left wrist.
“Thanks, guv,” he says, and can’t keep the smile from his face. Roisin had given him the new watch in bed last night. She had told him it reminded her of him. “Precious, with a big face,” she had said, giggling and sitting cross-legged in front of him, their bedroom piled high with boxes and bags, ready for the move to their new home, their new lives. He had hugged her and stroked her hair, said thank you time and again, even as the policeman’s voice in his head screamed.
Where had she got it? Where had the money come from? Christ, we’re up to our eyeballs in debt and she’s splashing out on a watch for me, a new mobile phone for her, football cleats for Fin . . .
“Thought you were skint,” says Pharaoh guilelessly.
“I think she’d been saving. She’s been doing nails . . .”
Pharaoh nods, losing interest. She hums a song that sounds a little Motown in origin, then begins to root through the glove box of the minivan. She is worse on long journeys than either of his children. She’s a terrible passenger and can’t seem to help giving him directions, urging him to slow down, speed up, change gear, or use his blinker, even though she drives like a madwoman herself.
“How do you keep it so neat?” she asks, her tone critical.
He takes his eyes off the road for a moment and glances in her direction. She’s wearing black today. Head to toe. Trousers, boots, blouse, and biker jacket, which she is steadfastly refusing to remove, even though she is clearly far too warm. Her hair is sticking to her forehead and clinging to her hoop earrings, and she has a sheen of perspiration on her upper lip.
“Eclectic tastes, Hector,” says Pharaoh, examining his CDs and not waiting for him to answer her previous question.
“Some of them are Roisin’s . . .”
“Yeah, I can see that. Shakira. Pink. Lady Gaga.” She eyes him. “You sure you’re not a closet pop fan?”
He gives a laugh. “Mine’s the depressing stuff. That’s what Roisin says.”
Pharaoh holds up a CD with a picture of a woodland clearing on the case. “This any good?”
“Emily Barker? Superb.”
Pharaoh puts the CD in the player. After a few seconds the car is filled with mournful accordion and sad guitar, vocals about love and loss, bleeding knuckles and flying crows. The song always hits McAvoy in the heart. He can’t listen to it with his eyes open, which is why he rarely plays it in the car. Pharaoh gives it a minute, then switches it off.
“Fucking hell, Hector.”
“She’s amazing.”
“That your thing? Folk?”
“It’s not folk. Not really. And no, it’s not my thing. I don’t have a thing . . .” He stops himself, chewing his lip, embarrassed. “There’s some U2 in there. Oasis.”
Pharaoh holds up another CD. “Prodigy?”
McAvoy shrugs. “‘Firestarter’ was a big hit when I was at university.”
She considers the image in her mind. “I’m not sure I can imagine that without going insane, Hector. I can’t see you dancing. Not properly. Maybe a Highland fling. In a kilt. Eating haggis. On the back of the Loch Ness monster.”
McAvoy pulls a face, scowling at the road, saying nothing as Pharaoh stuffs the CDs back into the glove box with no consideration for the careful order in which they had previously been stacked. She goes back to staring out of the window, occasionally referring to the notepad in her lap. After a while she gets bored again. “Are we nearly bloody there?”
McAvoy had been pleased when Pharaoh had told him she was coming with him to the mental facility on the road to Driffield. She had been interested in what he had told her about Sebastien Hoyer-Wood. She even remembered hearing about the case, though she had been a young sergeant working in another patch at the time of his crimes. McAvoy’s discoveries are being thought of as a lead, though the exact direction is unclear. Back at the station, Ben Neilsen is trying to find a current address for the shrink who did the medical report on Hoyer-Wood and who worked at the private asylum that McAvoy and Pharaoh are on their way to visit. They have requested the old case files and already discovered that the psychiatrist was a man called Lewis Caneva. A Google search came up with a few old academic papers and a profile in some long-defunct medical periodical, but he has clearly not been thought of as a rising star in a long time. A quick check with his professional association showed Caneva is no longer practicing, and as such, the association has no record of his current whereabouts. It had all struck McAvoy as worthy of some further digging, and he had suggested a trip to the facility, which has lain dormant and for sale for the best part of a decade. Another quick sweep of some property websites revealed that Abbey Manor has just been snapped up by some multinational healthcare giant, which is seeking planning permission to transform it into a luxury home for the rich and dying.
“It just all seems to point to something,” McAvoy had said when he filled Pharaoh in. “I don’t know what.”
Pharaoh had agreed with him. She phoned him in bed last night and spent twenty minutes listening to his theories. It was a bizarre conversation because she was on his TV at the same time, busy appealing for witnesses to Yvonne Dale’s death to come forward. Roisin had made a gun of her forefinger and thumb and pretended to shoot herself in the head. Sometimes there is too much Trish Pharaoh in her life. By the time McAvoy hung up, Roisin was making a noose out of her dressing gown belt. Still, he’s pleased Pharaoh’s here. Her presence suggests he is doing things the right way. He is following the trail correctly. He has investigated murders on his own before and found himself constantly riddled with doubts and questions. Having Pharaoh here makes him feel like a policeman.
“Here,” she says abruptly. “Right.”
Dutifully, McAvoy turns the vehicle down a barely visible side road, hemmed on both sides with sycamore and ash trees. They follow the deserted road for half a mile, past a row of half a dozen houses whose occupants will probably be the last to hear about the end of the world.
“Pretty,” says Pharaoh appreciatively as she glimpses the old church to her left. She succumbs to impulse and winds the window down, sticking her head out like a happy dog.
“Have I told you the story?”
“Yes,” says Pharaoh abruptly. “You have.”
They have arrived in the tiny hamlet of Watton. The nearest place with a post office or somewhere to buy milk is four miles away in Hutton Cranswick. The larger town of Driffield is a little farther up the road. After that, East Yorkshire starts to become North Yorkshire, and the house prices go up. McAvoy has never been here before, but plans to bring Roisin and a picnic. “Bloody hell,” says Pharaoh as they drive slowly through ornate brick gates and into a vast drive coated in round shiny pebbles. “Rather posh.”
The manor house is magnificent, all stone-vaulting and turrets, tepee-to
pped towers and rounded, mullioned windows. In this light, it appears timeless, though McAvoy finds it hard not to imagine some medieval princess sitting at one of the dark windows, weeping and working on her tapestries as her father and brothers practice swordplay in the grounds.
“Cost more than three million,” he says. “I’ve requested a brochure.”
McAvoy parks the car in the shade of some tangled elderflower trees. He makes a note to tell Roisin the berries are coming early this year, then steps from the car and listens to the silence. Wonders how one should knock on a door of this size. Whether he should go to the kitchen entrance, like a tradesman.
Christ, Roisin would love this, he thinks.
It’s a beautiful home, and yet carries with it an air of something vaguely unsettling. It is not so much the quiet, though the absence of noise is noticeable. It’s the air. The heat seems more oppressive here. There is a whiff of something McAvoy recognizes as rotting vegetation; like the bottom of a compost bin when it has been cleaned. Something remains here. Something lingering and powerful. McAvoy listens hard and can hear the sound of rushing water somewhere nearby. He hangs on to the sound. It seems to represent a place beyond the mansion walls. It represents escape.
As they approach the big front doors, a figure comes into view. A young man in overalls and a lumberjack shirt is spraying the paved area in front of the giant front portico with what McAvoy takes to be weed killer. A large canister of the stuff is strapped to his back and he has a hose in his right hand. He’s whistling to himself, the cords from a pair of earbuds dribbling out from underneath a dark baseball cap. McAvoy doesn’t want to come upon him unawares, so makes as much noise as he can as he approaches. Pharaoh has no such qualms, and merely yells, “Oi.” The man turns, startled. He’s in his late twenties. Not bad looking, but could do with a scrub. He pulls an earpiece out of one ear but leaves the other one in. He gives them a smile.