by Danny Miller
On hearing this, a deep hush fell over the room. The Reverend James Tutt breathed easy. Waters, his public-speaking nerves quelled, paused to let his words sink in, and all the women’s rowdy bravado slipped away as they realized, probably for the first time, the full potential of what they could do. They glanced around at each other and exchanged little nods of agreement.
‘I don’t know if you know too many Baptist West Indian mothers, but I can tell you, they scared the hell out of the roughest and toughest gangsters on the block.’ There were howls of laughter and cheers at this. The women gathered there probably hadn’t met any West Indian mums from Hackney, but the sisterhood was resilient enough to cut through the divide. ‘As a group, together, we’re strong. We don’t just warn kids of the dangers, we bring in people whose lives have been affected … Me, for instance …’
Two hours later (the community meeting ran over by a full hour) and DS Waters was finally released from the Rainbow Room with its cartoon primary colours, and was back out in the harsh realities of the estate itself, with its looming grey tower blocks casting ominous shadows on what green space there was. Before he headed back to Eagle Lane, he drove past the home of Tommy Wilkins, sworn enemy of Billy ‘Bomber’ Harris, and prime suspect in his shooting. Waters had resolved to have one last cruise around the Southern Housing Estate before heading back into Denton town centre and checking the other known haunts of Wilkins, such as the Three Cherries amusement arcade, the YMCA leisure centre, the Life in the Fast Lane bowling alley, Silver’s gym and any number of fast-food outlets. For Wilkins and Harris these were all the hang-outs of a misspent youth they had never grown out of as they dossed their way into their mid-twenties.
Waters had exhausted every other possible source of information for locating Wilkins. His mother hadn’t seen him in days, but that wasn’t a rare occurrence, and his girlfriend, the mother of his infant son, told the same tale of woe. Then Waters caught a break. In his rear-view mirror he spotted a figure in a postbox-red tracksuit with a matching bucket hat and a pair of pristine white trainers. It was Tommy Wilkins. If he was supposed to be lying low, in his flashy ‘casual’ clobber he was sticking out like a sore thumb.
Tommy had obviously recognized Waters or his motor; the local villains pretty much had every unmarked Eagle Lane car clocked either by licence plate or just colour and type. And the DS’s Nissan Maxima was well known to Wilkins, of that Waters was sure. The young man froze, obviously hoping that Waters hadn’t spotted him. But in that eye-ripping outfit Tommy didn’t stand a hope in hell of going unnoticed.
The DS kept a steady eye on his rear-view mirror and watched as Wilkins began a slow backwards retreat. Then he twirled the key in the ignition, put her into reverse, lowered the handbrake, floored the accelerator and screeched after him. Tommy turned tail and raced off around the corner. As Waters approached the junction he let out a mighty yell of pleasure as he sensed that this was his moment, and he executed a perfect handbrake turn; the handbrake turn he’d been dreaming of ever since he got the keys of his first area car; the handbrake turn that had been running through his head ever since he saw Steve McQueen execute one in Bullitt. And whilst the Southern Housing Estate couldn’t match the undulating mean streets of San Francisco, and Tommy Wilkins really wasn’t worthy of it, it had worked a treat and the conspicuous target was clearly in his sights as he straightened up down Hillside Road.
The elation was short-lived as the red figure disappeared over a garden wall. Waters pulled up sharply, got out of the car and gave chase. Tommy slipped into an alley backing on to a row of houses. Waters heard a crashing sound up ahead, and as he turned into the alley he stumbled over the first obstacles that Wilkins had put in his path. All the dustbins had been overturned. And face down in the spilt rubbish Waters smelt some bad things. His left hand was now covered in some noxious green matter that was obviously some sort of degraded food. However, that was Angel Delight compared to what was now wrapped around his right arm – a wad of baby’s nappies. Waters suddenly had a self-righteous loathing of people who didn’t know how to dispose of their rubbish properly, and promised himself that when he was made superintendent he would ruthlessly enforce any relevant laws he could find. They deserved nothing less than the death penalty.
Waters retched, swore loudly and then got to his feet and carried on the chase, swerving around and jumping over the rolling bins and their contents. He spotted a flash of white trainer making its way into the entrance of Tideway House.
‘Come on, Tommy, that’s enough running about for one day!’ the DS called as he followed him.
Tommy stopped, three floors up. Waters caught up with him on the walkway. The DS was right, that was more than enough running around for one day, and Wilkins was bent over on his haunches, doubled up in exhaustion, wheezing and sweating in his new bright-red tracksuit. He might have been dressed like an athlete, but the daily diet of JPS Black King Size cigarettes and snakebite and black had taken a significant toll over the years. Tommy took on board some laboured breaths that sounded like sheets of coarse sandpaper being rubbed together, and then straightened up.
Waters smiled and gave him the headline: ‘Gotcha.’
Then Tommy did the strangest thing. He jumped over the balcony.
‘I can tell you’re not really up for this.’
‘I’m just a humble DC and I’m happy to work on whatever case I’m assigned,’ said Sue Clarke as she and DI Eve Hayward stepped out of Eagle Lane station and made their way to her car.
‘But you can’t beat a nice juicy attempted murder case, can you?’ Hayward didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Of course you can’t – unless it’s an actual murder case. Working round the clock on one of those really gets the adrenalin running. Do you get a lot of shootings around here?’
‘Normally I’d say, not really. But there were a couple last year and, of course, we’ve just had two in one day. Whilst it’s not West End Central, for a town like Denton it’s a bit like the Wild West at the moment.’
‘Those would be George Price, a sixty-two-year-old bookmaker from North Denton, and one Billy Harris, twenty-five, otherwise known as Bomber, an unemployed resident of the Southern Housing Estate.’
Sue Clarke nodded her approval. ‘Wow, I’m impressed. And I thought you were just here for the dodgy designer T-shirts.’
Eve Hayward laughed. ‘And I appreciate your frankness. I see I’m going to have to give you one of my scintillating lectures on the evils of dodgy designer T-shirts.’
‘I’m sorry, Inspector Hayward, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, I know that counterfeit—’
‘Relax. And please, call me Eve.’
‘Sue.’
They shook hands and crossed the road to Clarke’s green Datsun Cherry. As the DC searched her handbag for her key, she noticed Eve Hayward peering inside the car, and saw what she saw: the grubby child seat in the back, next to a big furry purple elephant, some half-chewed Farley’s Rusks, a banana skin and a naked Action Man. In the front seats, where the grown-ups sat, it was even worse – there was the collection of empty Styrofoam containers, from takeaway burgers and curries, along with countless empty crisp bags and Frost’s old fag packets and Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit wrappers. Sue Clarke winced in embarrassment; she’d bet a month’s wages that Eve Hayward’s car didn’t look like this tip on wheels.
‘Tell you what, Sue, why don’t we take my car, it’s just up the road. I’ve got all my stuff in it, which I think I’ll be needing.’
Clarke said it was a good idea and started to explain away the mess, but the DI simply strode off. Hayward completely changed the subject and seemingly couldn’t care less about the state of the debris-strewn Datsun, a lack of interest which suited Clarke down to the ground.
‘I fully understand, a couple of shootings does seem more like the business end of what we do,’ the DI was saying. ‘But what I’ve noticed since we set up the counterfeit-goods unit is that one thing tends to lead to another. I’ve covere
d all sorts of cases where you think there’s no connection, but when there’s a high volume of counterfeit goods suddenly turning up in an area, it’s usually something highly organized and leads to other crimes. Just out of interest, how’s it going with the George Price case, anyway?’
‘We have a couple of eyewitnesses who gave us a good description of someone leaving the scene whom we’ve been able to identify, but not yet been able to eliminate from our inquiries,’ said Clarke, aware she was sounding stiff and formal, but also realizing she was trying to make up for the sloppy and unprofessional interior of her car.
‘So, Terry Langdon is away on his toes?’
Is there anything this woman doesn’t know? thought Clarke. ‘So for me to become a DI, like you, I really do have to be smarter than everyone else?’
‘Just all the blokes. Not that hard.’
‘Jack thinks there’s potentially too many people with too many motives to focus all our attention on Terry Langdon so quickly.’
‘Jack is DI William Frost, I take it. That’s not me being clever, that’s just obvious.’
‘Are videos on your list of counterfeit items?’
Eve Hayward nodded. ‘We call it piracy, you know, like with bootlegging music cassettes. And they’re right at the top of it. It’s fast turning into a multi-million-pound industry.’
‘Well, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. I was going to talk to George Price’s son, and he works at Video Stars on the High Street.’
‘Perfect. Multi-tasking, that’s what the men think we’re good at, apparently. I just call it getting stuff done.’
Hayward stopped at a highly polished red MG MGB GT. ‘This is me.’
Clarke couldn’t help but exclaim, ‘Yes, it is!’ Then she explained, ‘I’ve always wanted one of these. Ever since I was a kid. The closest I got is the car my Barbie had.’
‘Funny you should say that, Barbie dolls are probably the most counterfeited toy on the market.’
Hayward turned the key in the lock and let Sue in. She took in the interior with its polished burr-walnut dashboard and shiny chrome-framed dials, like the binnacles on luxury yachts. Not so much as a stray Ferrero Rocher wrapper in the ashtray. Clarke bit her lip, hard, because right now she felt like crying. She couldn’t precisely say why … or maybe she could: she was tired, little Philip hadn’t been sleeping, and with all her overtime, and her mother staying at the flat, life was proving to be hard work and chaotic at the moment. But she knew that now wasn’t the time for tears. She concentrated on her breathing, so she wouldn’t get all juddering and emotional.
The DI started the engine and revved it up. She then turned on the radio, tuned it to Radio 1 and turned up the volume. Status Quo were rocking out with their customary raucous three chords, which shook her out of her funk. Clarke suspected Eve Hayward knew exactly what she was doing and she was grateful for it. She was making the inside of her immaculately kept car as noisy and distracting as possible, and giving Sue time to regain her composure.
‘Right, Video Stars it is then. I think I know where I’m going, I had a good drive around earlier.’ The London inspector turned to Clarke and gave her a big warm smile. ‘But I have a tendency to drive stupidly fast, so give us a shout, Sue, if I take a wrong turn.’
Eve Hayward was as good as her word and drove off fast – very fast.
Saturday (5)
Tommy Wilkins was now on the same ward at Denton General as his arch-enemy, Billy ‘Bomber’ Harris. In fact, their beds were next to each other. This wasn’t bad luck on their behalf; it was smart strategic thinking by DS John Waters, who had contrived the cosy arrangement.
When Waters had peered down from the third-floor balcony of Tideway House, he’d seen the red-tracksuited figure of Tommy Wilkins splayed out on the ground like a starfish. There was some blood (a crack on the back of the head had made a pool of it) but not as much as Waters initially thought, because a good deal of it was in fact Tommy’s red Fila bucket hat. And there was a broken arm and wrist where Tommy had tried to break his fall. But he’d got lucky. What had actually been more effective in breaking his fall was the big green plastic wheelie bin that he’d bounced off before he hit the deck. Still, there was also the issue of a missing tooth and a broken nose, which Waters had spotted before Tommy jumped. It looked like he’d been in the wars before he’d leapt off the balcony in an attempt to escape the law.
John Waters sat between the two wannabe gangsters with what, even he would admit, was a smug grin on his face.
‘So, tell me, boys, who’s gonna break first? Billy, how about you? Anything you want to say to Tommy? Maybe compliment him on his marksmanship?’
Bomber didn’t flinch. He lay in his hospital bed, stiff as its starched sheets, staring straight ahead of him.
Waters turned his attention to Wilkins. ‘How about you, Tommy? You wanna tell Bomber what a son of a bitch he is for knocking out your front toothy-peg, and breaking that beautiful, noble-looking nose of yours?’
Tommy was mimicking Bomber in his indefatigable pursuit of staring ahead of him, keeping his mouth shut and not giving anything away. He also appeared strangely serene, and didn’t even look in pain any more, like he was practising some sort of Zen meditation. Or maybe it was just his normal empty-headed stare, thought Waters.
‘OK, you two. Let me run this by you. I’m assuming it’s tit for tat between you, as usual. Something happened, maybe it was over a girl, maybe it was over a couple of quid, some hash, some amphetamines, a football match – or maybe it was some deep philosophical point you two just couldn’t agree on. But either way, you know me, boys, and you know I’m going to find out what’s it all about.’
There was a sizeable pause, and then the two men, almost in unison, looked at each other. John Waters watched them closely – who would be the first to talk, who would be the first to grass and drop the other one right in it. Waters’ eyes narrowed as another glance passed between them and they silently communed; but for the life of him, the DS couldn’t get a read on it.
Then Billy ‘Bomber’ Harris broke the silence: ‘Tommy didn’t shoot me. I shot myself. I was playing with a mate’s gun, and the thing went off. End of.’
‘And Bomber didn’t break my nose, or knock my tooth out. I fell down some stairs in our flats. Nothing more to it.’
They both now aimed their gaze at Waters, and grinned, Tommy perhaps a little more gap-toothed than Bomber. DS Waters would have been the first to admit it: their declarations of innocence and unity had managed to wipe the smug smile right off his face.
‘Sugar?’
‘Two for me, please,’ said DC Sue Clarke.
‘None for me,’ said DI Eve Hayward.
‘Actually, sorry, no, none for me either.’ Clarke then turned to Hayward and said, ‘Keep forgetting I’m trying to give up.’
Michael Price disappeared behind the counter to make the coffees. As they waited for him to return, they busied themselves by looking at the latest releases. The shop was small, a one-man operation at the best of times, but it still had a wall-to-wall offering of all the latest releases. Ignoring these, Clarke picked up a copy of The French Connection and read the blurry synopsis. She remembered what a great film it was, with its gritty realism and the enigmatic ending of Gene Hackman’s detective, Popeye Doyle, stepping into the darkened warehouse after the main villain, and the single gunshot. Did he, didn’t he? Was he, wasn’t he? In complete contrast, Eve Hayward picked up a copy of Octopussy and tested the box by running her thumb under the clear plastic cover to feel the quality of the printed paper. Clarke raised an eyebrow at this, and Hayward returned her questioning glance with a little side-to-side wobble of her head as she weighed up the possibilities of it being pirated.
‘I’ve not been to the hospital yet. How is he?’ asked Michael Price as he put down three mugs of coffee, each bearing a Star Wars theme and several chips.
The women both put the videos back on the shelf and also returned to the
counter. Michael Price sat on his stool behind it, but still managed to look far too big for the small space. Clarke was struck by just how much he resembled his father. Not yet as heavy, and with a fuller head of short curly black hair, but a chip off the old block nonetheless.
‘He’s stable,’ said Clarke.
‘Always knew it would happen.’
The two detectives exchanged surreptitious glances. ‘Why’s that?’ asked Clarke.
Michael shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘It’s just the sort of bloke he is. You know, what goes around comes around.’
Clarke didn’t attempt to catch Hayward’s eye this time; there was no need to. What goes around comes around – these were not the guarded words you’d expect to hear from a potential suspect. And at this point, attempted patricide was a distinct possibility.
‘Where were you yesterday afternoon, Michael?’
Michael Price laughed, and it was loud and seemed to fill the whole shop. ‘Jesus, you think I did it?’
‘We need to eliminate as many people as possible from our inquiries as quickly as possible.’
‘I was at home.’
‘All day?’
‘All day.’
‘Was anyone with you?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have anyone at all to corroborate that you were at home all day?’
‘No. It was my day off. I just got a stack of films and spent the day on the couch watching them and playing Chuckie Egg.’
‘What’s Chuckie—’
Eve Hayward interjected, ‘Chuckie Egg is the latest ZX Spectrum game, right, Michael?’
Michael Price’s eyes widened in approval at a potential fellow game-player. ‘You play it?’
‘No. But I’ve heard good things.’
That obviously counted for nothing in his world, and he quickly dropped the smile of camaraderie he was wearing.