by Bud Craig
Eventually we faced Mick Askey across a table in a poky, whitewashed interview room. His face was less flushed since I had last seen him and, in the kind of striped shirt that would go with a suit, he looked almost smart. “Now then, Mick,” I said.
He nodded.
“All right.”
“This is Charlotte.”
Again a nod.
“Now then love.”
“Hi,” she said, nibbling her bottom lip.
This place raised my liberal hackles. Why are people dumped in these warehouses that smelled of wee and school dinners? Some of them shouldn’t even be here. Though Mick should, I reminded myself.
“I just wanna say from the start,” said Mick. “I’m innocent. I want you to tell everybody that, you know what I mean?”
“That’s not what we’re here for, Mick.”
He lowered his voice.
“I don’t give a fuck what you’re here for. I’m only here for two reasons: to get out of my cell for a bit and to tell you I never touched that Copling feller.”
“Copelaw.”
“Whatever his name is I never laid a finger on him.”
“Somebody did,” I said, “he didn’t bop himself on the head.”
“Listen, Mick,” Charlotte said.
“No, you listen. You’ve got to help me, mate. It’s doing my head in, this place.”
I looked at Charlotte, who shrugged.
“You’re talking to the wrong person,” I told him. “I can’t interfere in a case like this.”
“Just listen to me,” he said, “that’s all I ask. I’ve got to talk to someone. It’s going round and round in my head. I’m cracking up.”
“Mick, please…”
“I’ve been forced to stay in places I don’t want to be all my life. I got took into care when I was four.”
Oh, no, here comes the hard luck story. We didn’t have time for this.
“Foster parents, care homes, secure units, I did the lot. Now this. And for something I didn’t even do. Just listen to me, will you?”
I took a deep breath.
“OK, say what you’ve got to say, but when you’ve finished me and Charlotte have some questions for you.”
“Thanks, mate.”
“And remember we haven’t got much time.”
“Well, that night I was coming to see you, mate. I got into social services just as some bird was going in…”
“The cleaner?”
“Yeah, I nipped past her through the front door.”
I knew all this.
“And?”
“Well, she started having a go but Copelaw came along and took me into his office.”
“What happened between you and Mr Copelaw?”
That was what I really wanted to know. I hadn’t thought Mick would give me the chance to question him about the murder. I’d better take advantage while I could.
“It’s hard to remember. He said summat like, ‘Sit down and calm down, we won’t get anywhere shouting and bawling’.”
I could imagine Bill saying that. Mick flexed his fingers.
“So I sat down,” he said. “I told him I’d calm down when he stopped people like you hassling me.”
“What did he say to that?”
Mick leant back and folded his arms across his chest.
“He must have asked me what it was all about cos I definitely gave him that letter you sent me.”
He closed his eyes as if trying to bring it all back to his mind.
“He read it and handed it back to me.”
“Anything else happen?”
“I lost my rag again at one point,” he said.
Surprise, surprise.
“Why?”
“Well he was trying to fob me off, know what I mean? You know, ‘I won’t be able to talk to Gus until Monday. I can’t do anything till then’. Load of bollocks.”
He scratched his head before going on.
“I said, ‘he’s got a fucking mobile, hasn’t he?’ Phone him.”
A look of scorn spread across his face.
“He said you were tied up with an urgent case. Tied up with a pint more like.”
“What happened next?” I sighed, thinking better of telling him I really was on an urgent case.
“I got fed up and got out of my chair. I lost it a bit, got a statue off his desk and threw it at him.”
He’s admitted handling the murder weapon, I thought. He shook his head in dismay.
“It missed. He just picked it up off the floor as calm as anything and put it back on the desk.”
“Then what?”
“He said, ‘fuck off out of it, Mick, I can’t be bothered with you.’ Well, a feller in his position shouldn’t be talking like that.”
I struggled to hold back a smile. At least Bill went out with a bang.
“What did you do?”
He shrugged.
“I fucked off.”
“So he was alive when you left?”
And the trophy was still on the desk. Unless he were lying. Would an upstanding citizen like Mick Askey tell me fibs? Surely not.
“Yeah and as I was running out the front door, this bloke brushed past me.”
“Which direction was he heading?”
“Towards Social Services,” he said. “He was about my age, I reckon. Average height. Fair hair. Had a leather jacket on.”
“Any idea who it was?”
“No, but my brief’s looking into it.”
“Who’s your brief,” I asked as if I didn’t know.
“Coloured lass, good though, seems to know what she’s about, know what I mean? Pym, she’s called, Martina Pym.”
Using your Sunday name, are you, Marti, I said to myself.
“If you’ve got a good solicitor that’s half the battle,” I said. “She’ll sort it out for you, but you’ll have to be patient.”
He nodded.
“Now, Mick,” I went on, “while there’s still time let me explain why we’re really here.”
“Fair enough.”
“According to our records,” I said, “and her birth certificate, you’re Charlotte’s father.”
Mick unfolded his arms and leant on the table. Behind him on the wall I noticed an AIDS poster that looked as if it had been there since the disease was first discovered. He said nothing.
“Are you gonna talk to me?”
He looked up at the ceiling. I waited.
“I can’t help you, mate.”
“You could start by telling me whether you are Charlotte’s father.”
He breathed hard through his nose and drummed his fingers on the table.
“No, I’m not,” he said, “I haven’t got a daughter. I’ve got a lad. He was in Birmingham last I heard.”
“Do you want to say anything, Charlotte,” I said, looking towards her.
She shook her head.
“Let me go through the facts,” I said, “Charlotte’s mother is Tracy Stephens. She lives in Little Hulton. You lived with her for about a year.”
“I might have done,” he shrugged. “Hard to remember. I’ve had a few birds, know what I mean?”
What Mick was saying was probably true. I was willing to bet he had had ‘a few birds’. Sometimes I thought a handful of men like him had fathered most of the problem kids in Salford. Not for the first time I wondered what the attraction was with these blokes. Was the secret of success not to wash from one week’s end to the next; to cultivate broken and discoloured teeth; to behave as if you’d never heard of safe sex? Deciding not to pursue these thoughts any further, I got back to the point.
“Now, during that year, Charlotte was born. Tracy put you down as the father on the birth certificate. Why would she do that?”
He sat still for a moment, as if deep in thought.
“Tracy, I remember her now. Lying cow. And I know for a fact she’s had more cock than I’ve had hot dinners.”
“If you’re not my father, who is?”
We both looked at Charlotte, taken aback by her intervention.
“Take your pick,” he said.
A silence descended. Mick rested his chin on his hands and sighed.
“There’s things you don’t know, things you don’t want to know. It’s just…it’s not as simple as you’re making out.”
“So explain,” Charlotte demanded.
He pursed his lips and shook his head.
“I’d like to help you love,” Mick went on, “I would honest, but take it from me, I’m not your dad.”
“Listen, Mick,” said Charlotte, sounding more confident now. “There’s only one way to find out for sure. Would you take a DNA test?’
He puffed out his cheeks, letting air out slowly. He shook his head again.
“No way.”
“Please,” said Charlotte, “I’m begging you. I don’t know who my real father is. Imagine how that feels.”
I wondered if Mick knew who his father was, as Charlotte appealed to him.
“Take the test and we’ll know one way or another.”
“No. No. I’m telling you love, you are not my daughter. Leave it, it’s for the best, I promise you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I sat back in my seat on the half empty train. It was still t-shirt weather and I’d even risked wearing shorts for the first time since last August. I checked that I had everything I needed. I’d put my iPod in its case on the table in front of me. Next to them there was a set of headphones. I took the book I’d brought – Fly in the Ointment by Anne Fines – out of my rucksack. It joined the other stuff. I’d nearly finished it so had brought Rugby Renegade by Gus Risman as well. I took my ticket out of my shorts pocket and looked at the date. Thursday 28th April. Bloody hell, April was nearly over. Where had the previous twenty-seven days gone? I thought of the weather forecasters saying it was the driest April since the year dot. And my dad worrying about the lack of rain on his allotment. Thinking of the irony of a Salfordian complaining when it didn’t rain, I took out my mobile and texted Steve:
20 minutes late out of Piccadilly. Should still make the connection at Shrewsbury. Due in Barmouth 15.52
A couple of days in Wales would go down well, I thought. Steve and I would go walking, get drunk, argue politics and listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Not necessarily in that order, I said to myself as I thought about last night’s Crimewatch programme. It had gone over the Kylie Anderson case again. Elaine Anderson had appeared to talk about her daughter’s abduction. She had made an emotional but controlled appeal. She had worked tirelessly for 18 years to keep the story alive. In the process she had become a media star herself, travelling the world and developing a slight Californian accent in the process. She had written books, hosted a TV series, Keeping Hope Alive, about missing children and set up a trust fund for Kylie from her earnings.
Her looks, charisma and sincerity had in general won over the sceptics. There were those who thought it unnatural that a grieving mother should be able to play the role of TV personality. Others blamed her for exploiting the tragedy to become famous. There had been intermittent speculation that she had had something to do with Kylie’s disappearance, even killed her. Me, I just felt sorry for her. It didn’t take much imagination to know how I’d feel if that had happened to Rachel or Danny.
At Barmouth station four hours later I got out of the train and slung the rucksack over my shoulders. The good weather had continued with no sign of let up. I looked ahead to the end of the platform. I had to shield my eyes with my hand although my glasses had lenses that go dark in sunlight. I saw Steve waiting by the exit. A couple of minutes later we were driving in his Jaguar through the town with its slate roofs and onto the road to Dolgellau. Within half an hour I was sitting in Steve’s back garden, a book of walks on the picnic table in front of me. Steve had instructed me to choose a walk for tomorrow.
“You could never get tired of that view,” I said as he brought out two mugs of tea.
In one direction Cader Idris towered over the hillside; in the other you could see down the valley of the river Wnion to the coast. I thought of boyhood holidays around this part of Wales. For two weeks every summer I’d go with Steve’s family to stay with his maternal grandparents. In return, he’d come with us to my dad’s folks in County Kerry. Happy days.
“I take it for granted sometimes,” he said.
He sat down opposite me and put the mugs on the table.
“Jackie said she’d try and finish work early.”
“How is she?”
“Fine, you know, same as ever.”
I pictured Steve’s second wife and thought once more what an improvement she was on the first.
“So you’re back at work,” he said.
I explained about the case I was dealing with.
“It’s just part time, as and when, you know.”
“Yeah, you don’t want to be doing too much.”
“I’ve got another job as well,” I said after another mouthful of tea.
“What’s that?”
I took out my wallet and handed him a business card.
“GRK Investigations? What the bloody hell’s that?”
I told him I’d set myself up as a private investigator. As expected, he laughed out loud.
“Private investigator, you? How do you intend to get any clients?”
“Marti will get me work.”
He looked puzzled and seemed to think for a while.
“Marti? Who’s he?”
“She is a solicitor I know. And she’s…”
I hesitated, drinking more tea.
“Well, we’re, you know…”
His eyes opened wide, his grin threatened to split his face in two.
“You’ve got a bird.”
I nodded, trying to keep the smirk from my face.
“When did this happen?”
I shrugged.
“Well, it had just started around the time I last saw you but I didn’t want to say anything. You never know, it might have just fizzled out.”
“But it didn’t?”
“Not so far.”
“You little bugger,” he said. “You always were a bit of a bird magnet, though, before you met Louise.”
He grinned.
“So, what’s she like, a right cracker, I’ll bet.”
“Yeah, gorgeous.”
Just then I heard footsteps and turned to see a woman with long, red hair, dressed for work, approaching.
“Gus,” she cried in a Welsh lilt. “Come here.”
She folded me in an embrace, planting a smacker full on my lips.
“I could leave home for you, you know,” she said, smoothing down her Wales Tourist Board jacket.
She had said that before.
“Well, don’t let me stop you,” said Steve.
“I’ll just get changed,” said Jackie.
“Anyway, you’re too late,” Steve went on, “he’s spoken for.”
That stopped Jackie in her tracks.
“Is he now? You mean…”
Steve nodded.
“Got himself a girlfriend.”
She sat next to me on the garden bench.
“Maybe I’ll get changed later,” she said. “Tell me all.”
“Well…”
“She’s a solicitor,” Steve put in. “Gus reckons she’s gorgeous.”
“Really? Have you got any photos?”
I shook my head then thought of the day I’d photographed Marti on her doorstep.
“Although,” I corrected myself, “there’s a couple on my phone.”
Getting the phone from my pocket I managed to find the pictures. Twisting the phone around until the screen was out of the sun, I held them up for inspection.
“Hey, not bad, Gus,” said Steve.
“She’s black,” announced Jackie.
I hadn’t known whether to tell Steve and his wife, that Marti was black. If she hadn’t been too busy to come to Wales with m
e, they would have known. The dilemma of the white liberal was deciding between two opposing positions that were held simultaneously. Of course the colour of someone’s skin didn’t matter; of course it mattered. Well, I thought, better men than me have tried and failed to resolve it.
“And she’s from Liverpool,” I added.
Steve was about to drink more tea but he took the mug away from his mouth and put it down on the table.
“A black Scouser, eh? You like ‘em exotic, Gus. First a blonde from Darlington, now this.”
“Yeah, well…”
After a few more questions about how long I’d known her, how we’d met and what Rachel and Danny thought, Jackie finally started to move off.
“I’m trying a James Martin recipe tonight, Gus,” she said. “I’ll be interested to see what you think.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“And remember, Steve, certain topics of conversation have to wait until I’m in bed.”
“Such as,” I asked.
“Politics,” she replied. “I know what you two are like when you get together.”
“Well, he’s such a right wing toss pot, Jackie, somebody has to put him right.”
“There speaks a typical loony lefty,” put in Steve
“That just proves my point.”
She turned again to Steve.
“And the only time you listen to Creedence Clearwater is tomorrow morning when I’ve left for work.”
I looked at her in amazement.
“You don’t like Creedence?”
“I used to until I started living with this bloke called Steve Yarnitzky. The man’s obsessed. If I never hear Proud Mary again, it’ll be too soon.”
With that she smiled and left us.
“So this new girlfriend, has she given you any jobs yet,” asked Steve later.
“She’s got me investigating Copelaw’s murder,” I replied.
“What? How does that work?”
I told him what Marti had said about ‘leather jacket man’ and how she had persuaded me to look into it while I was working at Ordsall Tower.
“Sounds like the old pals’ act,” said Steve with a world-weary cynicism.