Friendless Lane

by Helen Black

  ‘Shouldn’t MCU do that?’ asked the WPC.

  Lilly knew that Jack and everyone in MCU had been warned off Hussain, but those orders probably hadn’t filtered through to Uniform.

  ‘Unfortunately an officer in MCU has been killed,’ said Lilly. ‘I imagine they’re all a little preoccupied.’

  Both the WPC and her colleague’s mouths fell open.

  [#]

  Kelsey was proper soaked when she rocked up at the club.

  ‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ Reggie boomed from the bar.

  ‘Anyone in?’ Kelsey asked him.

  He didn’t answer, came out and strolled over. Each of his hands was like a sledgehammer.

  ‘You heard from your mate?’ he asked.

  ‘Nah.’ She tried to sound casual.

  ‘That’ll be because someone chopped her up, don’t you think?’

  ‘What?’

  Reggie reached to a newspaper lying on one of the tables. ‘It says here her name was Gemma Glass.’

  ‘Right,’ said Kelsey.

  ‘And while I don’t much care what happened to the silly bitch,’ he threw the paper at Kelsey, who caught it and held it against her wet coat, ‘I do care that it turns out she was fucking fifteen.’

  Kelsey took a step back and swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t know, Reggie, honest I didn’t.’

  ‘If there’s one thing guaranteed to get the Old Bill sniffing around, it’s dead kids,’ he shouted.

  Kelsey held the newspaper out in front of her as if the damp, flimsy pages might offer some protection.

  ‘She gave you ID, Reggie, you’re covered.’

  He balled his giant fists. Kelsey knew he wasn’t worried about getting done for having Gem work for him, but he still didn’t want the police sticking their beaks in his business.

  ‘Get out of here before I lose my temper, Misty,’ he told her.

  ‘Can I just go upstairs and sort some things?’ she begged. ‘Then I’ll get off, I promise.’

  He pulled back his arm and Kelsey cringed, waiting for the blow. ‘Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Here. Now.’

  She didn’t need to be told a third time and legged it into the rain. She didn’t stop running until she was well away from Latymer Street, then she bent forward from the waist and threw up between her feet. She stayed like that, a string of mucus dangling from her lips, until she was sure nothing more was coming, then she wiped her mouth with her hands.

  She was wet and cold and clucking. Shit. What was she meant to do now? There was a twenty-four-hour café over the road; she’d go inside out of the rain, sit down for a bit and gather herself.

  Inside, it was filthy, but at least it was warm. She ordered a can of Coke, knowing she wouldn’t be able to keep it down, and sat at a table in the window. She pulled out her phone and called Talisa.

  ‘Yeah?’ Talisa’s voice had that lovely gooey sound to it that meant she was on it. Kelsey could almost taste the gear.

  ‘You got some, then?’ she said.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Got any left?’

  ‘Nah.’ Even if she had, Talisa wasn’t sharing. Kelsey didn’t blame her really. When there was a drought, you needed to sort yourself out first. ‘Get over to Bury Park, mate.’

  Kelsey rolled the cold can against her cheek. She was going to have to go over there. What choice did she have?

  [#]

  Lauren Stringer lay face down in the mud.

  A forensic tent had been erected around her to preserve the scene as far as possible, but the rain might already have destroyed vital evidence.

  Jack pulled up the hood of his white suit and stepped inside. Phil Cheney and his team were already there, taking photographs and gathering samples.

  ‘Hey,’ said Cheney.

  ‘Hey,’ Jack replied.

  There were no words.

  Cheney directed his team as Jack stood by, watching and shivering. God, Lauren looked small. With her hair and clothes plastered to her, she looked like a child. Death did that to people; sucked something away, something tangible. Cheney would probably talk about leakage of bodily fluids and what have you, but it was more than that.

  ‘Are we okay to bag her up?’ Cheney asked.

  Jack took a step forward in the mud, his paper suit rustling, and squatted next to Lauren’s head. ‘What were you doing here, love?’ he asked in the softest of voices. ‘Why in God’s name were you out here on your own?’

  ‘Pound to a penny she didn’t die here,’ said Cheney.

  ‘Moved?’

  Cheney nodded. ‘Not enough blood.’

  ‘When?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Not long at all. Hours.’

  ‘Which means she can’t have been moved that far,’ said Jack. ‘If you take into account getting the body into a car and out again.’

  He straightened, and the forensics teamed lifted her up and zipped her into a body bag. The sound of the zip filled the tent.

  ‘Did she suffer?’ Jack asked.

  It was a question routinely asked by the families of murder victims. The thought of a loved one dying was dreadful, but the thought that they’d passed on in fear and pain was unbearable.

  ‘She lost a lot of blood, very quickly,’ said Cheney. ‘It wouldn’t have been instantaneous, but it wouldn’t have taken long.’

  That was something Jack could take to the team and Lauren’s family. Dear God, the family. He was going to have to get over there before word got out.

  ‘Will there be a collection?’ Cheney asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jack suddenly panicked that that was something else he would need to sort. ‘I’m sure there will, yeah.’

  ‘Let us know,’ said Cheney. ‘We’d like to contribute.’

  The other members of the team muttered their agreement. They were job; of course they’d want to contribute.

  ‘Aye,’ said Jack.

  Cheney came to stand beside him, put a hand on his shoulder and nodded for two lads in the team to take Lauren away. They each took an end of the stretcher, then lifted her from the ground and moved slowly from the tent to the waiting ambulance.

  [#]

  The custody sergeant’s eyebrows were so high, they would have met his hairline if it hadn’t receded to the crown of his head.

  ‘You’re asking for bail, Miss Valentine?’

  Lilly stood at the other side of his desk, Julia by her side.

  ‘I am, Sergeant. She’s not being charged at this time.’

  Amusement played around the corners of his mouth. ‘The officers in the case are going to speak to the victim again, aren’t they?’ He looked at the WPC and her colleague, who both nodded. ‘He lives in Luton, not the Outer Hebrides. They should be back in an hour or two.’

  ‘When they start asking him about my client’s missing daughter, I suspect it might take a bit longer than that,’ said Lilly. ‘If it bothers you that much, bail her until first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘And what if she tries to attack Mr Hussain again?’ asked the custody sergeant. ‘I can’t attach any conditions to your client’s bail.’

  ‘I know that,’ Lilly replied. ‘But in all honesty, she didn’t attack him.’

  The sergeant leaned forward and his stool let out an impressive plastic raspberry.

  ‘She had a knife, Miss Valentine.’

  ‘She didn’t hurt anyone.’

  He sat back and folded his arms, his face unconvinced and unimpressed.

  ‘Look, Sergeant, she wanted Hussain to tell her where she could find her daughter, but now the police are involved she can leave it to them.’ Lilly cocked her thumb at the two officers. ‘Which is what she wanted all along.’

  The sergeant looked over to his colleagues. ‘What do you two say?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ said the male officer.

  ‘I think we should give her bail,’ said the WPC, her voice little more than a squeak.

  ‘Go on,’ said the sergeant.

  The WPC looked at
her shoes as if they were the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.

  ‘It’s true that Mrs Blythe has been trying to get us involved,’ she said. ‘I checked the records myself. And we know she came in with her daughter to try to report a rape, because I’ve checked that too.’

  ‘And you know Hussain was in here for the murder of another girl only this morning,’ Lilly added.

  ‘All right, all right, I’ll give bail until tomorrow morning, but you listen to me, Mrs Blythe.’ He pointed a stubby finger at Julia, the nail bitten to the quick. ‘If you go anywhere near Mr Hussain, you’ll be arrested on the spot and there’ll be no more chances.’

  Julia nodded and scrabbled to sign the release documents that the sergeant had passed to her. Finally he reached below the desk and handed her a plastic wallet.

  ‘Your belongings,’ he said. ‘Minus the ruddy great knife.’

  Julia gave a nervous laugh and emptied the wallet. Inside was a handbag and its meagre contents. Lilly cringed. What she kept in her own bag would be enough to fill a skip. Julia had only an expensive Osprey purse – which presumably had been bought before the Blythe family had fallen on hard times – a comb, a tin of lip balm and her mobile phone.

  She nipped off the lid of the tin and smeared a layer of balm over her chapped lips. Then she turned on her phone and put it to her ear, presumably to check her messages. Out of nowhere, she made a strangled sound and dropped the phone on the floor.

  ‘What?’ Lilly asked her. ‘What’s wrong?’

  The WPC bent and picked up the phone, held it out to Julia, but Julia made another strange noise and pressed her hands to her throat. The WPC put the phone to her own ear, then wide-eyed with horror passed it over to Lilly.

  [#]

  Lilly drove Julia home in silence.

  ‘Stop,’ Lilly said.

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Stop torturing yourself.’

  ‘She was begging me for help,’ said Julia.

  Velvet’s terrified pleas were seared into Lilly’s soul. ‘I know, and you have helped. You’ve got the police involved.’

  ‘She says they’re going to kill her.’

  Lilly pulled on to the tarmac drive and a lorry rumbled past, making her car rock.

  ‘I can come in with you if you like,’ she said. ‘Sit with you for a bit.’

  ‘No,’ Julia replied.

  Lilly knew why. Julia wanted to be alone so that she could sob and scream and smack her fists against the walls.

  ‘Okay, but stay put,’ said Lilly. ‘I’ll swing by to collect you at eight thirty tomorrow.’

  Julia got out of the car, unlocked her house, mouthed, ‘Bye.’

  Lilly let out a long breath and watched the windscreen wipers move back and forth. In a similar motion she wiped the tears from her cheeks, then drove home.

  [#]

  Sam was at the door dressed and waiting as Lilly let herself in.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  ‘I thought you might be Kelsey.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘She left ages ago. I just hope she hasn’t done anything stupid.’

  ‘Kelsey and stupid go hand in hand,’ Lilly replied.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘What?’ Lilly gave a harsh laugh. ‘Her life has been one long series of fuck-ups.’

  She didn’t know why she was being like this. Kelsey Brand didn’t deserve her fate any more than Velvet Blythe did. Just two kids that life had it in for.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Terrible day.’

  ‘Should we call her?’ he asked.

  Lilly wanted to rest. She wanted to pour herself a glass of wine and eat her way through a family-sized mint Aero, cube by green bubbly cube. Today she had been witness to a knife incident in a school, thrown to the floor, dragged around in handcuffs, slung in a cell. Then to finish off she’d had to listen to a frightened girl begging for her life.

  ‘I need a minute, mate,’ she said and leaned heavily on the kitchen table.

  He hovered behind her, dancing from foot to foot, glancing at the clock on the cooker.

  ‘Okay.’ She held out her hand. ‘Pass me my phone.’

  He bounded off to the hallway, where she’d dropped her handbag; bounded back. Lilly hadn’t seen him move so quickly since 2008.

  She scrolled through her contacts and pressed dial.

  Kelsey answered after one ring. ‘Call me back in five, Lilly.’ Then she hung up.

  [#]

  WPC Flora Cross loathed her partner Liam Rockwell.

  It had started when he first called her Flo.

  It wasn’t that she was precious about nicknames, but when it came to Rockwell, it was obvious he was doing it to make her sound young and silly.

  It was ridiculous, but this small issue had soured their relationship. She loathed him and he took every opportunity to undermine her, which made her loathe him more. It would have been easier to just let him have his idea of fun, but she would rather drink a pint of her own piss than give in to him.

  At her first assessment, she’d been tempted to ask to be partnered with someone else, but she didn’t want to give the impression that she was a bleater. Better to wait until she’d been in the job a bit longer and proved her worth.

  He was already in the squad car waiting for her, the engine running.

  ‘Ready, are you?’ he asked, as if he’d been waiting hours.

  After they’d left the custody suite, she’d popped to the loo, then made her way straight out. She couldn’t have been more than two minutes.

  ‘I needed to change my Tampax,’ she said, enjoying the sight of his face changing colour.

  ‘That lawyer is a bit of an arse-ache, don’t you think?’ Rockwell changed the subject.

  Actually, Cross had liked her. She wasn’t all smooth like some defence briefs, but she was clever and refused to be bossed around.

  ‘She seemed all right,’ she said.

  ‘The custody sarge’s tongue was hanging out of his head,’ said Rockwell. ‘She had him wrapped around her little finger.’

  From what Cross had seen, the solicitor had just made a good argument that her client should have bail, and anyway, Rockwell hadn’t exactly argued against her, had he? Probably worried she would wipe the floor with him.

  ‘I think it’s up here on the right,’ she said, pointing to a side road.

  They pulled up outside Khalid Hussain’s house. It was a decent-sized semi, though the pebble-dash was from a bygone era.

  ‘It doesn’t seem very likely that a teacher would get involved in something like this,’ said Rockwell.

  On the contrary, it seemed to Cross that a teacher would be in an ideal position to groom children. He would know which ones were susceptible, have an opportunity to get close to them and be provided with an endless supply of fresh meat.

  ‘Still, if Jack McNally thinks he’s a wrong ’un, who are we to argue?’ he said.

  They got out of the car and knocked at the door. By the step was a plastic recycling box, empty except for one pickled onion jar.

  An elderly woman answered the door. Her thin grey hair was pulled severely off her face and loosely covered with a black scarf.

  ‘Is Khalid Hussain home?’ Rockwell asked.

  The woman was wearing a fleece jacket over shalwar kameez and thick walking socks and sandals.

  ‘Card, please,’ she said. ‘I see card.’

  It took Cross and Rockwell a second to realize she meant their warrant cards; uniformed officers were rarely asked. They took them out and held them up. The woman inspected each one carefully.

  ‘I can help?’ she asked.

  ‘Khalid Hussain.’ Rockwell spoke too loudly. ‘We need to speak to Khalid Hussain.’

  The woman smiled, then shouted over her shoulder in Urdu. When no one arrived, she gestured for Cross and Rockwell to enter the house, grumbling to herself. They were led through the hallway into the sitting room, where Al Jazeera
blared from a flat-screen television. The woman bent with a loud grunt, a hand pressed against the base of her spine, and turned it off. She bellowed again, this time answered by the clatter of footsteps overhead, then down the stairs.

  Hussain walked into the sitting room, scowling and barking in Urdu. When he saw Cross and Rockwell, he went quiet and smiled, though a fraction too late to be genuine, thought Cross.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ said Rockwell. ‘We just need to ask a few more questions about that business at school today.’

  ‘Of course.’ Hussain pointed to the sofa. ‘Please sit down.’ He had another, albeit quieter, exchange with the woman. ‘My mother asked if you’d like tea.’

  They said they would and Mrs Hussain shuffled out.

  ‘We’ve now had an opportunity to interview your attacker,’ said Rockwell.

  Cross wished he wouldn’t call Julia Blythe that. It made it sound like she’d stabbed him six times. That said, it was better at this stage to let Hussain think this was a cut-and-dried case as far as they were concerned.

  ‘She says she knows you,’ said Rockwell.

  ‘No,’ Hussain replied.

  ‘Her daughter attends your school,’ said Rockwell.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a big school.’ Hussain opened his arms wide. ‘Lots of pupils.’

  He hadn’t asked for the name of the pupil. Surely that was the first thing he would have asked?

  ‘Your attacker says you taught her daughter English,’ said Rockwell.

  ‘No,’ said Hussain.

  How could he know that when he still hadn’t asked who they were talking about?

  ‘Velvet Blythe,’ said Cross.

  Both Hussain and Rockwell seemed surprised that she had spoken.

  ‘Velvet,’ Cross repeated. ‘It’s a very unusual name.’

  ‘Sorry, but it doesn’t ring a bell,’ said Hussain.

  He was lying, Cross was certain of it.

  Mrs Hussain returned with a metal tray laden with three glass cups, a teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl and several spoons. Everything rattled nervously. Cross jumped up and took the tray, setting it on the table herself for fear the elderly woman might up-end it on top of them all.

  Mrs Hussain gave a nod of thanks and bent with another loud grunt to pour.