Death in Dark Waters

by Patricia Hall

  “Shit,” she said under her breath as she struggled to concoct the couple of paragraphs Ted Grant had asked for. But by the end of the afternoon Joyce had raised her anxiety levels to new heights in a single phone call.

  “Can you come up, love?” Joyce asked and Laura knew immediately from the quaver in her voice that something was seriously wrong. “Some beggar’s put a brick through the window,” Joyce said, so quietly that Laura could barely hear her.

  As soon as she could get away from the office she drove to the Heights, leaving a stream of irate drivers hooting in her wake as she cut corners and chanced her luck with changing traffic lights across the town centre and up the hill to Wuthering. She parked outside her grandmother’s bungalow with a squeal of brakes and realised before she even got out of the car that Joyce had played down exactly what had happened. Not just one, but as far as Laura could see, every one of Joyce’s windows had been systematically broken, and the walls daubed with red painted obscenities.

  “Bastards, bastards, bastards,” she said aloud as she pushed open the front door, where even that small glass pane had been splintered and crazed by a heavy blow. In the living room Joyce seemed a shrunken figure, sitting alone in her armchair by the gas fire, shivering and on the verge of tears.

  Laura took her in her arms for a moment, trying to control her own seething anger as the tears began to flow down Joyce’s cheeks.

  “When did this happen?” Laura asked at last, glancing round at the shards of glass which lay strewn around the room.

  “I went up to the Project just to fetch some books. I was going to help some of the lasses with their reading down here. I wasn’t away more than half an hour,” Joyce said.

  “You shouldn’t have walked so far,” Laura said, knowing how much of a struggle the short trip must have been.

  “I can’t stop here all the time, pet,” Joyce said, scrubbing her eyes dry with a tissue. “I’ll go barmy. I need to see folk.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “The community bobby called in about ten minutes ago. He gave me the name of a glazier to get the windows boarded up till they can be mended properly. But I hadn’t the heart.”

  “Give me the number. I’ll sort it,” Laura said. She went into the small kitchen and cleared glass splinters off the worktop so that she could make tea. The back door, out of sight of the street, had been kicked almost off its hinges, she discovered. While Joyce sipped her tea she called the emergency glazing company and arranged for them to board up the house.

  “You’re coming home with me,” she said flatly when Joyce protested. “You can’t stay here. If you’d been in the house you could have been killed with all this glass flying around. Even when the windows are mended there’s no guarantee they won’t be back for another go.” Still consumed by anger, she went into her grandmother’s bedroom and bundled as many of her possessions as she could into the suitcase which she knew she kept under her bed.

  “What do you want to take from here?” she asked as she went back into the living room. Joyce looked at her with a sort of dazed fear which broke Laura’s heart.

  “My photographs,” she said, nodding at the collection of framed family snapshots which she kept on her mantelpiece. “I’d not like them lost.” Laura collected up the pictures of her parents, of the grandfather she had never known, and several of herself as a child and a young woman, and piled them into the case. This is what it must be like to be a refugee, suddenly forced by brute violence to shovel a lifetime into a suitcase and flee, she thought. That Joyce should be reduced to this filled her with horrified rage.

  As she helped her grandmother on with her coat, a knock at the front door set her heart thumping but when she glanced out of the shattered window, where the rain had already soaked the curtains, she was relieved to see Kevin Mower and Dizzy B Sanderson on the doorstep. She let them in quickly.

  “We saw your car,” Mower said. “And then the rest.” He glanced around the room angrily. “Who the hell did this?” he asked, glancing anxiously at Joyce who offered the faintest of smiles.

  “I wish I knew,” Laura said, clinging to Mower’s arm for a moment.

  “Seems to me you’ve got real trouble up here,” Sanderson said. “Tearaways out of control.”

  “This isn’t random,” Laura said. “Someone’s got it in for Joyce …” She stopped and wondered if maybe she too was part of the target. “I’m taking Joyce home with me until we can get this place cleared up,” she said.

  “The boss’ll love that,” Mower said, with a wry smile.

  “I’ll not stop long, pet,” Joyce said with an attempt at her usual fierceness. “Just while they patch up the windows.”

  “Well, we’ll have to see about that,” Laura mumbled. Outside they heard a heavy vehicle rumble to a stop. The men had arrived to make the bungalow safe, or as safe, Laura thought, as it was ever likely to be again which would not be safe enough. Though whether she could convince her grandmother of that, she very much doubted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Laura had driven Joyce away, the two men sat in Mower’s car for a moment watching the men in overalls board up the windows of Joyce’s tiny home. Along the row of old-people’s dwellings, an occasional curtain twitched and a pale, frightened face peeped out.

  “I’m not having this,” Mower said suddenly, swinging himself out of the car again. Sanderson followed reluctantly. But when they began knocking at the doors of Joyce Ackroyd’s neighbours they met the same frozen stares and shaken heads that they had already encountered on the walkways of Priestley House. It was as if mental doors had been slammed, bolted and barred, and nothing Mower suggested in the way of encouragement persuaded any of them to open again. The elderly neighbours had seen nothing, and he knew that even if they had they would not tell him. They were too afraid.

  “Jesus wept,” Mower said, banging his fists on the steering wheel and watching the rain run in rivers down the windscreen.

  “You’ll not crack this,” Dizzy B offered. “I’ve seen it before. Usually, the dealers only need to threaten violence. Here it’s got very real. If you’re going to find anyone to tell you they even saw their auntie going to the shop to buy the evening paper or the milkman dropping off a pint on a neighbour’s doorstep, you’re going to have to offer protection, and on our own we’ve none to offer. Talk to your guv’nor. That’s my advice. If all this stuff’s really connected you need an army up here to sort it out.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Mower said. “But there’s one more thing it might be worth checking out, if only because it’s something only I know about. It was never reported officially. Come on, Dizzy. I need back-up here.”

  The DJ shrugged massively but followed Mower back out into the rain-lashed parking area to Priestley House. This time when Mower knocked on Kiley Hatherley’s front door it opened quickly and a different girl peered out. She had the same blank frightened eyes as Kiley herself but mascara lined and she was dressed in a mini-skirt and sleeveless top which showed off barely budding breasts. Under the make-up Mower guessed there lurked a child not much older than Kiley herself, but dressed for a night out clubbing on the town.

  “You must be Kiley’s sister,” Mower suggested. The girl looked at the two men speculatively before nodding faintly.

  “I’m Sharon,” she said shortly. “Are you the fuzz?”

  “Sort of,” he said.

  “I wondered if you’d come back. Someone’s done him in, haven’t they? I saw it in t’paper.”

  “What?” Mower said sharply.

  “The bloke that gave our Kiley t’booze. And that snotty little Emma Maitland.”

  “Can we come in, Sharon?” Mower asked, bemused by this apparently random stream of consciousness. Sharon looked up and down the walkway, her eyes narrow with suspicion, but evidently seeing nothing to cause her any alarm she nodded.

  “Me mam and dad’s gone to Leeds for t’day,” the girl said. “I’m minding our Kiley aft
er school. They won’t be back till right late.”

  Mower and Sanderson followed her into the living room of the flat, a cluttered space littered with overflowing ashtrays and empty beer cans and several days’ copies of the Bradfield Gazette. Kiley was curled on the sofa, her thumb in her mouth and her eyes glued to the television.

  “How old are you Sharon?” Mower asked, knowing that he would not like the answer. Sharon’s eyes flickered momentarily.

  “Fourteen,” she said firmly. Mower did not believe her but he guessed she thought that was a safe age to be allowed to babysit.

  “Last time I came your mother wouldn’t let me talk to Kiley about the man at the shops who gave her and Emma alcopops. Do you think she’ll mind now?”

  “They didn’t know who he were till I told them,” Sharon said.

  “And who was he?” Mower asked. Kiley still stared steadfastly at the TV.

  “He were this bloke who’s been murdered. I saw his picture in t’paper. I told you.”

  “Right,” Mower said. “You’re quite sure about that?”

  “Course I am,” Sharon said. “He were always hanging around, weren’t he, when we went for us dinner up the chippie. And outside t’ school sometimes. He never did owt. He weren’t dangerous or owt like that. He were just there, sometimes, talking to t’bigger lads. And that day he were in’t shop buying stuff and when he come out he just gave Kiley and Emma t’bottles.”

  “He didn’t want anything in exchange? Didn’t ask them to go with him?” Sanderson asked angrily.

  “He never does. He just chats to folk, mostly the lads, not the girls. Any road, I were there. I were watching Kiley. I bought her t‘chips and I were going to teck her back to school wi’me when it were time.”

  “What class are you in, Sharon?” Sanderson broke in again.

  “Year Six …” The girl stopped, realising she had been tricked.

  “She’s eleven,” Dizzy B said flatly. “You need help here, Kevin. Parents, social workers, your guv’nor, the whole shebang. We’re up a creek without a paddle.”

  Mower shrugged tiredly.

  “Never mind,” he said. “At least we’ve found someone on this bloody estate who saw something sometime. The rest of the bastards go round like the three wise monkeys.” He pulled out his mobile and called police HQ.

  “We’ve got two young kids here on their own who need to talk to DCI Thackeray,” he said. “Can you deal?”

  Martin Harman had slipped into police hands almost by chance when he walked into the Devonshire Arms, Bradfield’s only gay pub, at the precise moment that DC Mohammed Sharif was asking the barman about Stanley Wilson’s friends and acquaintances.

  “Here’s the lad you want to talk to,” the barman said, not bothering to disguise his relief. “Martin’s a good mate of Stanley’s. Best mate maybe.”

  Sharif turned towards the newcomer to the almost empty bar and smiled the smile of a hungry tiger. The young man who had just come in did not smile in response. Instead his already pasty face acquired a greenish tinge and his pale blue eyes flickered this way and that, like a small animal seeking some burrow down which to dive in the face of the predator which Sharif undoubtedly believed himself to be. Harman was a skinny youth, spotty as well as pale, with unfashionably long fair hair straggling down his back in greasy strands onto a scuffed leather jacket. He glanced at the warrant card which Sharif flashed in his direction and flashed the tip of his tongue over dry lips.

  “Best mate, is it?” Sharif said, his dark gaze never leaving Harman’s.

  “Not really,” Harman muttered, glancing wildly round for the barman who had taken himself to the far end of the bar where he was busy polishing glasses and avoiding anyone’s eye.

  “You know Stanley’s dead, I take it?”

  “Yeah, someone showed me his picture in t’evening paper,” Harman said.

  “But you didn’t think we might want to talk to you?” Sharif asked.

  “I didn’t think,” Harman said. “I ain’t seen Stanley for weeks.”

  “Well, I have a boss who’s been thinking a lot about you.”

  “How has he?” Harman said wildly. “He doesn’t know I exist.”

  “Ah, but he guessed you might,” Sharif said. “Stanley Wilson being what he was. My boss just guessed there might be someone like you we’d need to talk to. So if you’ll just come down to police HQ with me you can meet my boss and he’ll tell you everything he’s been thinking since we found Stanley. That OK with you?”

  And just in case it wasn’t he took hold of Martin Harman’s arm with just a little too fierce a grip and turned him on his heel and marched him towards the door.

  “Thanks mate,” he called over his shoulder to the barman, knowing this would cause him maximum embarrassment with the handful of other customers who had been watching the proceedings anxiously. Outside in the gusting rain he thrust Harman into the front seat of his car, wiped his hands ostentatiously on his trousers after he had slammed the door, got in the driver’s side and opened all the windows in spite of the weather.

  Harman glanced at him fearfully but said nothing.

  “One of my clients must have left something unpleasant under the seat,” Sharif said, face as frozen as an Egyptian god, as he crashed the car into gear and swung out of his parking space at a furious pace. “Left a nasty smell.” By the time he pulled into the car park at police HQ Martin Harman was shaking, although not another word had been spoken.

  Harman was still looking terrified when Michael Thackeray himself came into the interview room where Sharif and Val Ridley were facing him across the bare and scratched table.

  “Mr. Harman,” Thackeray said mildly. If there was going to be a good cop, bad cop routine here it was clear that Thackeray had been cast in the kindlier role. “I’m glad we traced you. And I’m pleased you agreed to come in and talk to us.” Harman shrugged his thin shoulders and glanced at Sharif with undisguised hatred.

  “I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?”

  “I understand you knew Stanley Wilson quite well?” Thackeray ignored the tension which made the air in the enclosed space tingle. “You must have expected that we’d want to talk to you. Now, tell me how you met him, would you? Where and when?”

  “I met him at the Devonshire, the way you do,” Harman said. “It were ages ago. I can’t remember exactly when, can I?”

  “Bought you a drink, did he?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “And the relationship developed from there?” Thackeray offered Harman a cigarette which he lit with trembling fingers. Given the contempt radiating from “Omar” Sharif he felt more sorry for Harman than he might normally have done. After all, there was no reason yet to suppose that Harman had strangled Wilson after some lovers’ quarrel.

  “I suppose,” Harman said, his eyes shifting uneasily now.

  “And it became physical?” Thackeray insisted.

  “Well, yeah, it did, as it goes. Now and then. It weren’t a great love affair or owt.”

  “But Stanley was quite a lot older than you, wasn’t he?”

  “A bit. A few years.”

  “So how old were you when you met him?” Thackeray guessed his Asian DC would not like the answer, at least if it was even marginally truthful. Harman glanced down at the table while Sharif simply glared.

  “Sixteen,” he said and Thackeray thought that was close enough not to argue with. He knew Wilson preferred young men but as far as he knew he had never been accused of being a paedophile, in Britain at least. He seemed to prefer to play on the very edge of legality claiming, as no doubt he would have claimed in this case, that his partners knew their own sexuality and were willing.

  “So you became his boyfriend,” Thackeray went on, carefully keeping his tone neutral although he could sense the young Muslim DC seething beside him. “How long ago was this? Months? Years?”

  “Three, four years ago,” Harman said. “I don’t remember exactly. It’s alway
s been a bit on and off. Stanley weren’t the faithful kind, if you know what I mean. He was always on the lookout for summat new.”

  “Did he pay you?” Sharif said suddenly, his voice thick with emotion. Thackeray glared at him and Harman flushed uncomfortably.

  “No, he bloody didn’t,” Harman said passionately. “It weren’t like that. I’m not a bloody rentboy.”

  “I take it you were a regular visitor to Stanley’s house?” Thackeray asked, the question apparently as innocuous as the rest.

  “Yeah, course,” Harman said. “He couldn’t come to mine, could he? I still live at ’ome, don’t I?”

  “With your parents?”

  “My mam. My dad did a bunk years back.”

  “The reason it’s important, Martin, is that your fingerprints will be around the place at Stanley’s house so we’ll need to eliminate you. You’ve no objection to us taking your prints, have you?” Thackeray’s tone left no doubt that a negative reply was not an option. Harman shook his head miserably.

  “When were you last there, do you reckon?” Thackeray pressed him.

  “Last week,” Harman muttered. “Thursday or Friday maybe.”

  “And not since?”

  “I’ve not seen him since.”

  “Not quarrelled, have you?” Thackeray asked quickly and saw Harman flinch.

  “No, he were busy, that’s all,” Harman said. He hesitated for a moment, glancing at all three officers in turn before evidently making up his mind to continue. “Well if you must know he were in a right funny mood. Excited, like.”

  “Any idea what he was excited about?”

  “He didn’t say much, but he had a lot of holiday brochures in t‘front room so I guessed he were planning a trip. I thought maybe he’d come into a bit extra, like. Most o’t’time he were skint, but now and again he’d be flush and that were when he went away to one of his exotic spots. Course I knew what he went for …”

  “He didn’t take you with him?” Thackeray asked.

  Harman laughed thinly.

  “Fat chance. It weren’t me he were going to Thailand for, or wherever. Get real.”