by Nigel Cooper
‘Helen, look, I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now, but … we can have more children, we’re still young.’ Ooops, big mistake. John realised that was the wrong thing to say the moment the sentence slipped off his lips, but he had to try and say something, he was desperate and Helen outright refused to listen to any kind of reason.
‘What! What are you talking about, you think we can just replace our children? We’re talking about our boys here, John, not a couple of broken laptops.’
‘Don’t you think I know that, I’m just saying, we need to move forward with our lives, rebuild a new one.’
‘I CAN’T REBUILD ANYTHING!’
John shook his head in frustration and let out a light sigh as he resigned himself to the fact that nothing he could say or do would help or make the slightest bit of difference.
He paused for a moment, then said, ‘I can’t do this with you anymore, Helen.’
‘Do what exactly?’
‘This, these endless discussions about what we should try and do next, the heated arguments, the shouting and screaming. It’s not healthy, in fact it’s positively dysfunctional, Helen, it’s like a poison running through your veins and it’s not doing anybody any good. Please, Helen, you have to let it go.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You know, I’m so glad you’ve managed to draw a line under this and put it all behind you so easily, I’m happy for you, John.’
‘This isn’t just about you, you know. I’m involved in this too, I’m your husband and I’m standing right here.’
‘Really, my husband, and what exactly does that mean to you, John. I mean, you didn’t exactly honour our wedding vows did you, “to love and to cherish”. I don’t remember hearing you say, “as long as I can go and fuck another woman while my wife is eight months pregnant with our twins”.’
‘Nice, really nice, Helen. I was wondering how long it was gonna take before you brought that up. It was over four years ago, Helen, how many times do I have to get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness, how many times do I have to apologise for that, Helen, how many? I mean, when, Helen, when are you going to forgive me for that?’
‘Maybe never.’
‘Well, that’s just great.’
‘And you’ve got the cheek to suggest that we try for more children? Is that all it would take for you, John. Have a couple more kids and it would be like Edward and Jamie never existed? Is that it?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course not, that’s not what I meant.’
‘And then what, I get pregnant and you go off and find some other woman again because I’m so damn physically repulsive with a bump? Well I’ve got news for you; it’s never gonna happen, John, never. Maybe you should run back to your little whore and fuck her some more, I’m sure that little tramp will be happy to spread her legs for you and give you some replacement children.’
‘You bitch.’
‘Oh, I’m the bitch? Well, fuck you, and your whore,’ she screamed, throwing her empty wine glass at him and narrowly missing his head. ‘Why don’t you fuck off out of this house and go back to her. In fact, don’t bother, you can invite her here because I’m leaving,’ she said, storming out of the living room.
‘Helen, you need to calm down,’ he shouted after her.
‘Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,’ she screamed back as she stampeded up the stairs, driving her feet hard into each step, as if each one was John’s face.
John went to the kitchen to pour himself a stiff drink. He knew that following Helen up the stairs would only add fuel to the fire, better leave her to it, she’ll come to her senses, eventually, he hoped.
Fifteen minutes later, Helen dragged a large suitcase down the stairs and out to her car.
‘What are you doing?’ said John.
‘I told you, I’m leaving,’ she said, as she grabbed her coat and handbag.
‘Wait,’ said John, following her out the front door onto the driveway. ‘We need to talk about this, Helen.’
‘There’s nothing left to talk about, you’ve made that perfectly clear,’ she said, opening her car door.
‘Helen, please, I’ve been with you one hundred per cent during all this. I’ve backed you and supported you and campaigned with you, tirelessly. We’ve done everything any parents could have done, Helen … Helen.’
‘Not everything, there’s something I can do, I’m going to get justice for my boys,’ she said, spitting the words out like venom.
Chapter 17
Helen
I didn’t sleep much last night, not because of the argument with John – we’ve had plenty of those recently – but because I was up until three in the morning with my MacBook connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi looking things up on Google, researching. After I left Abbotsley last night I checked into the Orchard Park Travelodge on the A14 just to the north of Cambridge, nothing fancy I know, but I wanted something low key as I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself.
This morning I got up, showered and dressed and then headed out to buy some essentials – today I’m going to become somebody else, somebody with a mission.
I looked at the woman on the Clairol nice’n easy Natural Black hair dye box and wondered if I would look as pretty as her thirty minutes from now once the application takes hold. Somehow, I doubted it; I haven’t looked attractive for over a year now. Going from natural mousy blonde to jet-black is a radical change, but for what I have planned, a radical change is an essential requirement.
My iPhone alarm went off, reminding me to rinse off the dye and shampoo, which reminds me, I must switch my iPhone off, remove the sim card and store it somewhere safe, somewhere else altogether, away from here. I doubt John will be phoning the police about me anytime soon, I’m hardly a missing person. However, from here on in, regardless of the details of my plan (which I still had to come up with), I don’t want my movements or whereabouts known to anyone, especially the police.
After a quick towel dry I roughed up my hair and observed the result in the mirror. You’ve got to hand it to hotels, they certainly know how to light up a bathroom, it was seriously bright in here, not the kind of lighting you’d want if you had any flaws, they showed up everything. The result was perfect, black with what looked like a hint of blue under the hotel’s bathroom lighting. While I was out buying various items I also popped into a barbers in the city. I didn’t want anything special and it would have cost me six times the price in a ‘Lady’s’ hairdressers, besides, I would have had to have waited a month for an appointment, and I didn’t have a month. Anyway, I just needed my long haircut shorter, not too short, covering my neck, but not quite touching my shoulders. The lady in the barbers shop did an excellent job, I just walked in, sat down and she did what I asked – barbers are good like that. Overall my new black and shorter hair gave me a slightly ‘harder’ look; right now I didn’t mind that.
I quickly dried my hair with the hotel’s dryer, using just my fingers, then put on the new clothes I’d just bought: black jeans, black blouse, black reefer jacket and a pair of black suede Timberland Premium 6 boots, which were kind of like Dr Martens, only more comfortable. I’m not going to be wearing smart blouses, skirts and heels for while, not until I’ve accomplished my mission, and that mission starts right now.
I needed a certain type of person, to do a certain type of job, and you’d be amazed at just how easy it can be to find such a person with just a few clicks of a mouse. Last night I’d carried out some Google searches for terms such as: Gangs in Cambridge, Cambridge criminals, Drug dealers Cambridge, that sort of thing. To start with I didn’t have much luck finding what I was looking for, but after adjusting my search terms and clicking on a few sub-links I soon started to get somewhere. Eventually, I found a man, a certain type of man, who looked like he fitted the bill to perfection.
I’d bought a few other essential items while I was out this morning too. Apart from hair dye and some new clothes, I’d also bought a pay-as-y
ou-go mobile – cash, and giving the salesman a false name and address – and an iPad mini, again, paying cash and not giving my name or address. When this was over I’d remove all the data from both devices and then physically destroy them by breaking them into pieces and tossing them in the river Cam to be sure that the remains rusted away. I have to be careful; I can’t leave any electronic evidence, or any kind of trace evidence whatsoever. I’ve read enough crime novels over the years – police procedurals and detective series – to know about these things. The likes of Peter James, Mark Billingham, Stuart McBride, Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, collectively, have given me more than enough of a knowledgebase on all things crime. Sure, these authors write fiction, but I also happen to know that authors tend to do an awful lot of research for the purposes of authenticity and accuracy with police procedural and criminal matters. I’ve read enough ‘Acknowledgements’ pages in the back of crime novels to know that most crime writers have friends on the force who they seek assistance and help from while researching any given crime novel. So I figured a lot of what I’d read in all those crime novels over the years would be fairly accurate to a degree, give or take a little artistic licence here and there.
Lots of criminals, especially petty ones, get caught out of plain stupidity, such as robbing somebody’s house and then listing their swag on eBay the very next day – idiots. That’s usually the first place the police look after getting an inventory of stolen items from the victim. A dumb burglar steals a Sony PS4, an iPad, a Dyson V6 Absolute and the next day they all appear – by the same dumb burglar – on eBay with no reserve and a £1 starting price. The police contact eBay, get the seller’s particulars, including address, and then charge around to his house, knock on the door, and see all the stolen items piled up in the hallway behind him. It was a fact that eBay, Gumtree and social media sites made things very easy for the police these days.
I’ve also read that a disproportionally high percentage of prisoners in England are from the Eastern Bloc: Poland, Hungry, Romania, Albania and the like. The reason for this is quite simple and involves a different kind of stupidity, ignorant stupidity. In countries like Poland for example the police and their forensics techniques are somewhat lacking and behind that of the UK, and they certainly don’t have the kind of CCTV systems that you find on practically every city street in England. A petty Polish criminal comes to England and goes about his criminal activities as if he was back home and in no time at all, he’s been caught and thrown in jail. Me, I’m not going to be one of those idiot criminals, I’m smart and intelligent, I’m going to be vigilant, I’m not going to leave any such trace evidence.
I’ve changed my appearance and clothes; including a black North Face hoodie and some large sunglasses in case I find myself in a CCTV riddled City Street. I have a new pay-as-you-go mobile phone and a new Yahoo email address, which I set up this morning on my new iPad mini. From now on, I’ll be using my unregistered iPad for any Google stuff, Internet research or email communication. I’ve read about IP addresses and I don’t want any of my research and email communication being attached to my own personal laptop; the same goes for my personal mobile phone, which I know can act as a GPS tracker for the police, making it easy for them to pinpoint my location and movements.
I spoke with the man that I tracked down online on my new mobile this morning, after finding an email from him online and sending him an urgent message to call me. After I briefly explained what it was I wanted, he told me that he could not help me personally, but he knew a man who could, but he didn’t want to discuss it via email or on the phone, which suited me, as I didn’t either.
We’d agreed to meet in the car park behind the Milton Arms pub on Milton Road. I decided to park on a side street, Birch Close, a hundred meters away, and then I walked up to the pub car park. Being vigilant, I didn’t want this guy noting my car’s registration number, not that he had any need to, but…
I walked down the side of the pub to the car park. There were about twenty cars scattered about, but the one that stood out for me was the black BMW X5 with heavily tinted windows, the front ones not quite as limo-black as the rear, allowing me to see the driver acknowledge me. I’d told him what I’d be wearing and he told me what car he’d be in. I walked over and as I approached I heard the central locking pop, I opened the passenger door and quickly assessed the situation as I got in, noting that there were no rear passengers, he was alone and although he looked more than a little shifty, I felt relatively safe.
‘You must be Natalie?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. Well, I wasn’t about to use my real name, not for this, or for any part of my plan. I went with the name Natalie after the 90’s pop singer, Natalie Imbruglia. I figured it would be an easy name for me to remember because of the association with the song ‘Torn’, which I loved.
‘Did you walk?’ he said. Obviously he’d noticed that I didn’t arrive in a car.
‘No, I parked around the corner.’ He smiled, respecting my lack of trust.
‘Fair enough. Ok, here’s a phone number of a man who can help you, or at least he can put you in touch with a man who can help you. Tell him Dexter gave you the number,’ he said, handing me a piece of paper with a scribbled mobile number on it.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting, but I thought it would be a bit more than being handed a scrap of paper with a mobile number scribbled on it.
‘You can get out now,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ I said, and got out.
As soon as I got back to my car I called the number using my new pay-as-you-go phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, I got your number from Dexter, he said you could help me.’ Dexter? I suspected that wasn’t his real name, perhaps some sort of secret code to let the man I was calling know what I was calling about. Dexter after the television series about a serial killer perhaps? It could certainly fit, anyway…
‘Maybe I can, maybe I can’t. Let’s meet to discuss your requirements,’ he said. His voice was deep and gravelly.
‘Ok, where and when?’
‘How pressing is this matter?’
‘Pressing.’
‘You know the American cemetery?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you be there at four?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ok, I’ll be by the three rectangular ponds, you know the ones I mean?’
‘Yes.’
He hung up, no goodbye, nothing. But I suppose men like that were all about business, money, dirty deeds, getting to the point.
* * *
As with the Milton Arms, I drove a few hundred meters past the American Cemetery, up the hill, and parked in the Crome Lea Business Park. I walked back down the hill along the path that ran alongside the A1303 and into the main entrance to the cemetery. I was five minutes early, but when I looked over to the right he was already there, standing at the edge of the pond closest to the large flagpole. Although the sun was out, it seemed quite eerie, the lifeless star-spangled banner at the top of the mast suggested there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze, not even up there. I couldn’t tell if he had noticed me walk in. He seemed to be looking into the water, but he could have been looking at me through his dark sunglasses in his peripheral vision. He looked out of place in this environment; he just didn’t seem to fit somehow. It was obviously him, the way he held himself, his deportment, he just looked like the type of man who could arrange to have somebody killed. I walked over.
‘We spoke on the phone?’ I said.
‘Did we?’ he said.
Oh shit, have I got the wrong guy? ‘Erm, I’m sorry, I think I’ve mistaken you for some—’
‘You need my help?’ he said.
‘Are you the man I spoke to on the phone?’
‘That depends on who gave you my number and what we spoke about.’
‘Dexter gave me your number, you said you could help me.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘I don’t understand, you sa—’
‘I said maybe I could help you … or maybe I can’t.’
I looked at him, but his designer sunglasses were practically mirrored, making it very hard for me to see, or read, his eyes.
‘Let’s walk and talk,’ he said, heading in the direction of one of the semi-circular paths that ran between the hundreds of white crosses. ‘Anybody who comes via Dexter’s recommendation usually has a very specific request. So who is it?’
‘Does it make any difference?’
‘Well, let’s see now. Certain types of people require a certain kind of skillset, depending on who it is. There could have risks attached, expensive risks. While certain other people are just out of bounds, pregnant women for example. So yes, it makes a difference. I need details, specifics.’
‘His name is Derek Stanton, Father Derek Stanton to be exact.’
‘Ah, I see,’ he said, as he tilted his head to one side like a bird of prey eying its prey as he looked at me closely. ‘You’re the mother, you’ve changed your hair, but I recognise you from the television appeals and the newspaper pictures. Terrible business, I’m sorry for your loss,’ he said, rather matter of fact. I doubt he genuinely meant it.
‘Can you help me?’
He paused mid way around the path, let out a little sigh, then said, ‘Yes … do you know where he can be found or where he lives?’
‘Yes, I know where he lives,’ I said. And I did, that part was fairly easy for me to find out, given my involvement in the case.
‘Ok, I can put you in touch with a man who can help you.’
‘Somebody else?’
‘Of course, I don’t get involved in such matters personally. But don’t worry, this man is more than capable.’
‘How much will it cost?’
‘Five grand … cash of course.’
‘Of course. So how does this work?’