by Limey Lady
Just not close enough or well enough to give a decent description.
She was certain he was at least six foot and well-built: short-haired and clean-shaved; wearing a full-length leather jacket that could have been dark brown or black.
That was about it. The man hadn’t seen Amber and had simply turned left onto the properly paved footpath and strolled away towards town. Amber had expected to see Jaylo following, but she wasn’t. So she had gone as far as the point where the man had left the waste ground and peered into the darkness, seeing nothing other than the glow of what she now knew to be the dead tramps’ fire.
At the time she’d felt just the teeniest bit worried about her friend, but nothing extreme.
Not having any real reason to raise an alarm, Amber had carried on back to her usual place, where the first person she saw was Jaylo, unmolested and fresh from a profitable night of her own. So they’d gone to the pub early and that had been that.
Breaks had been slimmer, fewer and farther between from the murder of Micky Johnson. That much said the boys back in the 1990s had put in the extra mile when it came to legwork. Faced with even less forensic assistance and a complete lack of clues, they’d resorted to interviewing en masse, concentrating quite heavily on pubs, judging from the reports on file . . . and almost exclusively without success.
The one glimmer (missed back then, perhaps only visible now, in the light of Amber’s account) had come from a girl called Isla. In those days Isla had been nineteen and regularly out for a good time. The local plods had interviewed her more than once, probably because they kept bumping into her in every other bar. Isla had said that she’d first noticed an “odd man” in The Ring O’ Bells, early on the evening of June the first. She’d quite frankly admitted she’d fancied this man, and had noticed him again a little later, probably in The Cricketers. And again somewhere else, but she couldn’t swear where; possibly the Sun.
Isla’s suspicions had been aroused because the man was a stranger (she’d reckoned to know most men of his sort of age in town) and had been odd because he hadn’t made a move on her. And her being in-between boyfriends, only too eager to be moved upon.
She had, however, been a bit better with descriptions: aged twenty-five; six foot tall; short blond hair and goatee; beautiful, sexy blue eyes; good-looking . . .
He’d been wearing a full-length leather jacket, in black. And it was quality; worth two hundred quid at least . . . in twentieth century money.
And that really was it; the sum total of their investigations. A man who might only have existed in Isla’s imagination was supposed to have worn a similar coat to the man Amber claimed she’d seen but couldn’t hope to possibly recognize again.
It was excruciatingly thin. And Amber was not the most credible witness. If she hadn’t been the only recent witness, they wouldn’t have kept going back to interview her again and again.
Except now Carson and Zalinski had arrested a man who more or less fit Isla’s description, and had a full-length leather jacket in his possession.
Not to mention a handgun that could have dispatched the latest three victims.
*****
Carlisle shoved the pile of new and old statements away from him. If he had been bitter and twisted, he would have thanked God it had been his lads who had stumbled on Lockwood and not someone else’s. You could account for pure luck by claiming solid police-work was part of red-hot detecting . . .
But that only applied when the solid police-work came from your own coppers. Having to rely on solid police-work by coppers from elsewhere (like from fucking Sheffield) was not a major career move.
‘Okay,’ he said to the officers before him, all seasoned team members who still referred to their man as Mr Bastard, not the fancy, headline-grabbing Leatherjacket. ‘It’s looking good. But we dot and cross everything. Get that profiler in before we kick off with the formal interview. And I want Wilfred there when we do it.’ He thought a second. ‘Have we any news on the gun?’
‘Within twelve hours,’ Marsh said. ‘It should fit in with the interview. Unless he fesses up as easy as Wilfred reckons he will.’
‘Wilfred’s here already?’
‘He’s here and raring to go with the preliminaries.’
‘Okay then. Let’s do it.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
(Monday 22nd September 2008)
Penny wasn’t locked away in her Amsterdam hotel room (as Jamie had laughingly suggested she may be to Nat); she was staring in fascination at a video of a man’s big thingy sliding in and out of a lady's thingy. And it really was quite a big man’s thingy at that. Although there was drink to be drunk and plenty of other sights to be seen, the images on this nearest TV had held her attention for ages now.
It was perfectly obvious what was happening, of course, but there were still questions to be answered. Was the man bonking the woman or was she bonking him? It wasn’t so easy to tell. The close-up of the woman's thingy filled the top half of the screen; the bottom half was filled by the guy's groin and upwards-pointing thingy. There was no doubt his thingy was going in very deeply because her groin and his groin kept bumping together in the dead centre of the picture. But who was really bonking who?
Surely they couldn't both be doing it? They would have to be synchronized bonking champions to be meeting in the dead centre like that, every single time.
And who were they, for Goodness' sake? All the other screens were showing films featuring complete people bonking; why didn't these two have arms and legs, bodies and faces as well? From what little she could see, apart from admiring their stamina, she knew nothing else about them except the girl had lovely red hair and the guy had a fairly fat thingy.
Penny absently picked up her glass and sipped champagne. It was hard to say if she was drunk or stoned. On balance she supposed, even though they hadn't stopped drinking since the airport and she’d just smoked her very first joint, it was probably the cake that had affected her most.
Not that she was complaining; she didn't feel awful, as if she was really, really drunk. No, she was exceptionally at ease; that was all. For once time wasn't pressing and she felt she could take a proper interest in things.
Or thingies, she thought, and giggled.
‘Paula's getting us men,’ Yvonne announced, appearing out of nowhere to sit beside her.
Penny considered the news. She could clearly remember the train from Schiphol and checking in to their hotel. They’d had drinks before, during and after an early evening meal. Then they’d gone out for a few “coffees” and things got hazy. She remembered Sally dragging them into a bar, where they’d had yet more drinks and watched a live sex show. Then they’d done some window shopping and had a big laugh when a beautiful Asian girl tried to get Yvonne as a customer. And then Paula had brought them here.
Paula called this place a “bordello” but it was obviously a brothel. If anyone had told Penny six months ago that she would set foot in such a place she would have scoffed. Now, relaxed as she was, she found the idea quite acceptable; exciting, even.
She tore herself away from the synchronized bonkers and looked around. The woman who had met them at the door must be “Madame” she decided. Madame seemed to have been expecting them, come to think about it. She’d led them straight through a huge, bar-like area filled with men and happy hookers into this much smaller area with leather seats for about a dozen people, although so far the four of them had been in there on their own. Five large, flat-screen TVs were dotted around the walls, each showing a different sex film. Penny had had a good look at all five before concentrating on the thingy/thingy one.
Okay, so she’d had a very, very good look!
The first to attract her attention was the one playing right behind Yvonne now: the one with the man's head between the woman's legs. That one didn't pose questions because the camera was moving all the time. Okay, you never got to see much of the man's face, but there were lots of clever shots of his tongue doing quite wonder
ful things. And lots of pans over the woman's body, letting everyone see how willingly she was offering up her most sensitive thingy and apparently climaxing every five minutes or so.
She looked to be enjoying herself very much.
‘I'm really nervous,’ Yvonne said to Penny, whispering so the others couldn't hear. ‘I'm not sure I am going be able to do this. When I’ve cheated before it’s always just happened. This is so . . . so deliberate.’
‘Relax,’ said Penny. ‘Just do what I am going to do.’
‘You mean lie back and think of England?’
‘Not exactly; I'm going to lie back and think of Johnny Depp.’
‘My God,’ Yvonne gasped. ‘You really are going to do it, aren’t you?’
‘Just watch me,’ said Penny, and then giggled uncontrollably.
Madame was back carrying a card-reading machine. She showed Paula the numbers in the display. After saying something that made the Madame smile, Paula very carefully tapped in her PIN and almost immediately the transaction was approved. Madame left but quickly returned with half a dozen scantily dressed, well-muscled men who all looked to be in their mid-to-late twenties.
‘You first, Sally,’ Paula said. ‘Seeing as you're the virgin.’
‘I fancy them all,’ Sally said. Then, to Madame: ‘I'm not really a virgin. Can I just have the one with the biggest dick?’
Madame signalled to one of the guys. He kissed Sally’s hand before leading her away. Suddenly Sally was blushing and tittering but she went readily enough.
‘I'll have the one that looks like Ronaldo,’ Paula said, making a grab for a guy who did have the looks of the Manchester United player. ‘See you back here in an hour,’ she called as she left. ‘Make sure you both get my money's worth.’
Penny could see that Madame expected her last two customers to be less easy to fix up and decided to be helpful.
‘I want half an hour of that,’ she said, pointing to the TV featuring the man with the penetrative tongue. ‘Followed by half an hour of that,’ pointing to the thingy/thingy.
‘Then you want Klaus,’ Madame said, pushing her towards a cheeky-looking black guy.
Penny had never bonked with a black guy before, but only through lack of opportunity; she was most definitely not in the least prejudiced and was attracted to Klaus instantly. Better still, he looked like a guy who knew his way around a girl's body and, at that moment, that was precisely what she wanted.
Yvonne suddenly didn't seem so nervous anymore either. As Penny left the room she heard her say: ‘Does that mean these three are all for me?’
*****
Danny Painter had controlled big chunks of Bingley for longer than anyone could remember. According to Tinner he was the “Harry Redknapp” of local gang bosses. Being a lifelong rugby man, Pat supposed that meant Painter was wise, experienced and as popular as a gang boss could ever be. What he struggled to understand was how Painter could get along so well with Sean, who was more like Mourinho crossed with Wenger . . . and with maybe a dash of Martin O’Neill.
Painter had brought along his minder today to show it was a business call, not a couple of friendly jars in the Kings. Pat didn't know the minder and wasn't impressed. He daren't think what Mike McGuire would have made of the puny brat.
‘I've been talking to Harry Williamson,’ Painter began. ‘I know he's full of crap, but a couple of things need checking out.’
Pat glanced at Sean, wondering how recently he'd heard from his mole.
‘First,’ Painter went on, ‘he reckons you're involved in a drugs deal that's coming off; meaning a big one. I told him that can't be kosher, because you swore you’d never get involved again. But he insisted he was right. So is he?’
‘Williamson probably thinks so,’ Sean said, clearly unperturbed. ‘But he’s wrong.’
‘He sounded convincing to me.’
‘Danny trust me, he’s just shit-stirring, as usual. I don’t know why he can’t stick to Shipley and keep his nose out of our business.’
‘Did you just say our business?’
‘I meant Bingley, Danny.’
‘Does that mean dealing in Bingley?’
‘Honest to God Danny, it’s not how Williamson’s telling it.’
‘How is it, then?’
‘I've been asked to invest in a venture by Pat's cousins,’ Sean said. ‘Fuck knows what they’re up to, I certainly don’t. My involvement is strictly financial.’
‘Williamson says they’re giving you a share.’
‘He's just guessing because they won't do business with him.’
Even though he was well past retirement age, Danny Painter liked to think he was intimidating. Once upon a time (as legend had it), when his voice had just broken, he’d done a northern job for Reggie Kray. It was the highlight of his CV and still made some older people tremble.
‘So you’re financing a venture without knowing what it is?’ he growled.
‘I’ve lent Joey McGuire fifteen grand. He’s giving me back eighteen.’
‘Didn’t you ask what for?’
‘You haven’t met the McGuires, have you?’ Sean spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘If they don’t volunteer, you don’t ask.’
‘Just let me get this clear. You put money in. You get money out. End of story.’
‘That’s exactly right. You’ve got it spot on.’
Pat was bored already. Danny Painter could question Sean all night and he’d never get him to admit anything. Painter probably knew this as well. He wasn't done yet, though.
‘Talking about dealing,’ he said, ‘I've been having problems for a while now. It started with what I first thought were independents in Crossflatts. To be honest, I don't give a shit about Crossflatts, so I let it go. Worst luck. Jacko might still be with us if I’d taken notice . . . Which brings me to Kyle Cassidy.’
Sean's self-confidence (previously bordering on smugness) took a visible knock. ‘Kyle Cassidy?’ he echoed.
‘Yeah; Williamson told me Kyle's been running all those independents. Apparently he’s just found out. One of his guys has been supplying Kyle all along. He gave me the business: dates, amounts, everything including chapter and verse.’
‘Kyle,’ Sean said, shaking his head. ‘If that's true, I'm going to kill him.’
‘You're not springing to his defence, then?’
‘Well, I suppose innocent until proven guilty and all that. I’ll check it out and then I’ll kill him; the shitty little rat.’
Pat hid a grin at that. Sean was a well-built six footer. Kyle was fucking massive. Mike McGuire, who would have blotted out Frankenstein’s monster with his shadow, could fairly call Kyle little, but Sean . . .
It was obviously catching though, this misconception of size.
‘I’m not letting the little twat off with this,’ Painter said. ‘I’ve got him cold.’
‘Yeah, yeah, Danny, but let’s have a fair trial first, eh? Who's this supplier of Williamson's?’
‘Did you see Look North on Friday night? He was the body in the canal.’
‘You mean Williamson’s topped him; just like that?’
Painter stared at Sean flatly.
‘How should I know? Maybe he shot himself in the head then dived into the water? All I know is that he confessed first.’
‘So Williamson says.’
‘Sean, you don’t like Harry Williamson. That’s understandable. He hates you too. It doesn’t mean he’d lie to me though, does it? Not about something as important as this.’
‘That cunt would lie to his mother, if she hadn’t disowned him at birth.’
Painter shrugged and carried on looking grim.
‘Let's say I'm making enquiries through those independents,’ he said. ‘I don't want to jump any guns. And I really want to be sure I get the right person. Get that? I want to be sure before I go off on a revenge trip. We can't have the wrong person getting chopped up like Jacko, can we?’
‘Fucking hell,’ Sean said w
hen the visitors had gone. ‘Do you think he’s right?’
‘Probably.’ said Pat. ‘But I never liked Kyle in the first place. All I know is that we'd better make our own enquiries PDQ. Fuck knows what else he's been up to.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
(Wednesday 24th September 2008)
‘I think I've been rumbled.’
John Hunter's bottle-green eyes gleamed. He peered around his bit of the ward as if searching for spies.
Heather perched on her blue plastic visitor’s chair and followed his gaze. Geoff Rodgers was dozing in the next bed, visitor-less as yet. Diagonally across from Dad's bed, Mohammed was talking to his first shift of evening callers. The new chap in the bed straight across was lying deadly still while his wife sat by him, looking worried. Apart from Penny not being there, all was as usual.