by Zoe Sharp
Apart from telling Madeleine to follow me I hadn’t said a word to her since we left the health club. I couldn’t believe she’d given Jav such an easy escape route, and I didn’t trust myself not to tell her so in short, pithy sentences. I should have realised that Sean would take a line of less resistance.
Watching the two of them together now I wondered, briefly, what it was about some women that made men so desperate to hold the nasty world at bay for them. Whatever it was, I knew I didn’t have it.
“So, what happens now?” I asked, breaking in more abruptly than I’d intended. “Have you had any luck tracking down Langford?”
Sean let his hands fall away and shook his head. “He’s dropped right out of sight,” he said.
“Is there any chance Jav might have been telling the truth?” Madeleine asked now, with some hesitation.
“Doubtful,” I said shortly.
“But possible, nevertheless,” Sean said. The look he directed towards me lasted only half a second, but it was enough for me to read the warning.
“We still need more information about him.” He sighed, passed a hand across his eyes, and leaned against the wall by the window. He had that focused quality I’d seen in him before. Whenever we’d been out in the field, even just during training, Sean switched into a different mode, pared-down, alert.
“Madeleine, would you go and see O’Bryan?” he said now. “See what you can wheedle out of him about Nasir’s background, and quiz him about Harvey Langford while you’re at it.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it again. Sean had always had the knack of inspiring his troops. The way the other girl reacted, so pathetically grateful at being given the responsibility, took the wind right out of my sails.
“What would you like me to do?” I asked instead.
“If you’ve nothing more pressing, I’ve got a couple of leads on where to find Ursula,” he said casually. “I’d like you to come with me.”
I nodded, downed the rest my coffee in a gulp and collected the empty mugs together. By the time I’d dumped them in the kitchen sink and gathered my leather jacket, Madeleine had already used her mobile phone to check that Eric O’Bryan was available, and willing to see her.
“He’s in his office all afternoon,” she said brightly when I returned to the living room.
We moved out of the flat, and I followed the two of them down the wooden stairs to the street where the Grand Cherokee was parked next to the kerb.
We took the back streets into Lancaster, winding up through the Marsh estate, before dropping Madeleine off near the Castle prison. It was easy enough for her to make her way down from there through the pedestrianised shopping centre to O’Bryan’s office.
She left us cheerfully enough, with a purposeful stride. Sean watched her cross the road in front of us and set off along the far pavement.
“You should go easier on her,” he said as we nosed back out into traffic.
Surprised, I twisted in my seat to face him. “Funny,” I said dryly. “That’s almost exactly what she said to me about you.”
He glanced at me then, nearly smiled, but not quite, and when he spoke his voice bordered on the chilly. “Not everyone’s had the training you have, Charlie,” he said. “Not everyone can stay so together under pressure. Madeleine’s speciality is electronic security and surveillance, and she’s very, very good at it. She’s not a field agent, and never has been. I won’t have her confidence dented because she made a human mistake in circumstances way outside her usual remit.”
“I’m not a field agent either,” I said, stung by the hinted rebuke. The lights changed and we moved forwards into the flow. “You seem to forget, sergeant, that I’ve been out of the army now for longer than I was ever in.”
“Speaking of which,” he said, “I’ve been doing some digging.”
My heart was suddenly thumping in my chest. “And?”
He let the Cherokee freewheel down the hill past the new bus station, changing lanes to head for Morecambe and keeping his eyes on the road, so it was difficult to tell what he was thinking.
“There was a phone call,” he said at last. “Just after the court martial, apparently. Female. She rang the guard room at camp wanting to speak to me. When they told her I wasn’t available she said to pass on a message. Said I shouldn’t have let it happen to you. Said to tell me not to be so cruel as to keep ignoring your calls. That if I still felt anything for you at all I should get in touch.”
My skin shimmied. “Oh shit,” I murmured. “They didn’t exactly need anyone to draw them a diagram after that, did they?”
“No,” he said, voice neutral, “I dare say they didn’t.”
The traffic slowed where it merged from two lanes into one along the opposite side of the river from my flat. I stared out of the window at the jagged pale blue supports for the new Millennium footbridge that spanned the water, but I didn’t take in a line of it.
“So, any ideas who it was?” I asked after a while.
“That we don’t know,” Sean said. “The call came in on an outside line, but that’s as much as my contact could tell me. Why, who do you suspect?”
I shrugged. “It’s difficult to tell without hearing the voice whether it was malicious or genuine. The words sound concerned for my welfare, but that could just be a clever way of disguising the intent.”
I swallowed, alarmed to discover I was close to tears. I was damned if I was going to cry in front of Sean. Instead, I managed with surprising calm, “That call couldn’t have done my cause more harm than it did at the time.”
“I suppose it could have been someone connected with one of the men involved,” Sean said. “A put-up job to stir it for you. You didn’t tell me Hackett was one of them, by the way,” he added. “He always struck me as a nasty piece of work.”
My neck and shoulders seized instantly, and I could hear the thunder of my own pulse inside my ears. Fear was like a stone in my stomach. Oh God, what else had he found out?
“I still wouldn’t rule out Lewis and Woolley as candidates either,” he went on, as though not noticing my reaction. “It wasn’t much of a secret that they didn’t like you, I’m afraid. You were in a different league, and it showed.”
“If I’d known where it was going to lead, I would have happily moved to the back of the class,” I said, trying not to let the bitterness creep out.
“No you wouldn’t,” Sean said straight away. He flicked his eyes across at me dispassionately. “I know how your mind works, Charlie. You want to win, or you don’t want to play.” He managed a smile that mocked himself as much as me. “In that respect, we’re very much alike.”
“Is that why you quit?”
“Not really,” he said. “In the end I found that I just enjoy breathing.”
Nineteen
We didn’t speak again until we’d travelled through Morecambe and were heading further out towards Heysham. Sean had three locations to try, and we drew a total blank on the first two.
“If this one is a wash-out, we’re back to square one,” Sean said as we pulled up outside the last address. He peered out through the windscreen at the grim-looking three-storey flat complex in front of us. “Ah well, let’s get this over with. I have a feeling if we’re up there for too long the wheels will have gone by the time we get back.”
We left the Cherokee parked on the broken-up tarmac, and headed across the rubbish-strewn grass to the outside staircase at one end of the block. We took the stairs to the top floor in silence, stepping over the soggy detritus scattered over each exposed half-landing on the way up.
The flat we were after was in the centre of the row. Sean knocked on the shabby front door while I tried not to listen to the full-scale screaming match going on in the next flat along.
Eventually the door was opened by a girl not yet completely out of her teens, with a baby balanced on her right hip. She had a lank blonde ponytail, and the remains of a hare lip. At the sight of Sean her eyes widened a
nd her mouth formed into a soundless oh.
She tried to slam the door shut on us, but Sean had his shoulder against it before she had half a chance. The flimsy hardboard rebounded off him and he kept right on coming, as unstoppable as a truck, and about as compassionate. The girl retreated backwards down the tiny hallway, clutching at the child.
I stepped across the threshold after them, closing the door firmly behind me.
“You can’t come barging in here like this, Sean,” the girl protested, her voice high with panic.
“Give it up, Leanne,” Sean said now. His voice was tired rather than angry, which somehow made it all the more threatening. “You know why we’re here. Where is she?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Leanne snapped. The baby took its cue from her. It’s little face crumpled around the dummy in its mouth, then it turned a healthy shade of puce, and started screeching.
Leanne jiggled the child by way of comfort. It didn’t seem to help much. She lowered her voice, but it lost none of its venom. “Get out before I call the cops.”
Sean laughed, and it wasn’t a happy sound. “Go ahead,” he invited. He stepped to the phone on the hall table, lifted the receiver and held it out to her. “Your phone was cut off six months ago. You could always try a letter.”
“It’s OK, Leanne, you may as well let him in,” said a dull voice from the sitting room doorway. “Once he sets his mind to something there’s not much can stop my brother.”
Sean turned to face her. “Hello Ursula,” he said quietly.
Leanne tried to smother the baby’s cries against the stained shoulder of her T-shirt, then whisked the infant off into the kitchen. The thin plywood door she slammed behind her did little to muffle its wailing.
“You’d better come through,” Ursula said. “Don’t take it out on Leanne, she’s only trying to help.”
Sean’s sister led us into the cramped living room and sank down into the single armchair by the gas fire. He sat on one end of the sofa nearest to her, and was so close their knees almost touched. I stayed on my feet, trying not to look like I was hovering.
Roger didn’t look like either of them, but Ursula was almost as tall as Sean, with thick dark hair cut short and feathered in to her pale face. The facial structure was the same, high wide cheekbones and a good jawline. Arresting, rather than conventionally pretty.
“Mum’s worried about you,” Sean said gently. “You should get in touch with her, at least. Let her know you’re all right.”
“But I’m not, am I?” Ursula said. She sat up, and for the first time I could see the curve of her belly beneath the baggy jumper she wore. Four, possibly five months gone, if I was any judge.
She looked her brother in the eye and demanded bitterly, “What do you want me to say to her, Sean? ‘Hi, Mum, I’m pregnant to an eighteen-year-old Paki, but don’t worry, there’s not going to be any mixed marriage, because he’s just been shot dead.’ How do I tell her that?”
It was a fine defiant speech, only let down by the way her chin trembled at the end of it.
“She already knows,” Sean said, keeping his tone quiet and measured. “And what she doesn’t know, she’s guessed. Anything you tell her now isn’t going to be as bad as her sitting at home worrying about where you are, and what’s happening to you. Mum doesn’t give a stuff who the father is, not really. You should know that.”
He reached for her hands, took them in both of his, smoothing his thumbs over her bones. “This is her first grandchild, for God’s sake. It could well be the only one she ever gets. Don’t take that away from her.”
Ursula sat motionless for a moment, then jerked her hands out of his grasp, but only to wipe them quickly across her rapidly filling eyes. Sean waited half a beat, then folded her into his arms and held her there, listening to the sobbing.
Our eyes met over the top of his sister’s head. It was strange to watch him offering such tender comfort with his body, while his face was so utterly cold.
I continued to stand and say nothing. There was nothing I could say.
It was a little while before Ursula moved again. She sat up, dug down a sleeve for a handkerchief, blew her nose and got herself together. She threw Sean a shaky smile. Not much of one, but better than nothing.
“So, do I tell Mum you’ll come home and let her fuss over you?” he asked.
“I can’t,” she said, anxious again. “I-I don’t think it’s safe for me to be where anyone can find me at the moment.”
To his credit, Sean didn’t point out that we’d traced her here without vast effort. Instead he said, “Why? Why isn’t it safe at home?”
She shrugged. “Nas was – he was scared. Last week, he told me to get out and find somewhere safe to stay for a while. Told me not to go home until he said it was OK. He didn’t say what was wrong, and now he’s dead.” She looked up at him with overflowing eyes. “And I’m too scared to go back.”
Sean stood up. “I’ve got friends down south,” he said. “We’ll get you right out of here until this is all sorted out. Go pack your stuff.”
She sniffed again, nodded. “OK,” she said, sounding subdued, but eager, all at the same time. She made it as far as the doorway before Sean called her back.
“Just one thing,” he said. He always did know when to apply pressure. He’d been so good at that in the army. “Where was Nas getting his money from?”
Ursula’s expression flashed over from gratitude to mistrust. “I don’t know,” she said carefully.
“Don’t lie to me,” Sean said, his voice even. “Was he back up to his old tricks again?”
“No!” she denied instantly, but couldn’t meet his gaze. “He knew if he got caught again he’d get put away for it, not just juvenile detention centres, the real deal this time, so he kept out of the action. He, well, he was doing a bit of scouting, that’s all. Passing on names, you know?”
“Who to?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated, and this time it had the ring of truth about it. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.” She paused, memories hitting her like a bad dream. “He just wanted the best for the baby,” she said. “He was so pleased about it,” and her face started to dissolve again. She stumbled out of the room and across the hall, wrenching the door shut behind her as she went through it.
We started after her, but Leanne appeared out of the kitchen at that point. She was minus the baby, which was manacled into a high chair behind her, and trying to chip its way to freedom with a plastic spoon. Leanne stood with her hands on her hips, as though daring Sean to follow his sister into her bedroom.
He eyed the closed door for a moment, then turned that intense gaze onto Leanne instead. “Has Roger been here, too?” he demanded.
Leanne tried to stand her ground, but quailed rapidly. “Yes, but we haven’t seen him since—” she glanced at the door and lowered her voice. “Since the night Nas was killed. Roger came to tell her he was dead.”
“When?”
She thought for a moment. “Late, close to midnight, I think. I’d been having trouble with the little one. She’s teething. I was still up with her.” She glanced back at the child, who was now attempting to redecorate the kitchen in something pale green and pureed out of the dish in front of her, and letting out shrieks of delight.
“Roger was in a right state,” Leanne went on. “Covered in dirt, and crying like a little kid. Kept saying he was sorry over and over. Crazy with it, you know? Scary really. I’ve got some leftover diazepam in the cabinet. I tried to give him some to take the edge off it, but he just chucked it back at me and took off.”
“Did you go after him?” Sean asked, tense.
“What, at that time of night, round here?” Leanne’s voice was scornful. “No I did not! Besides, by that time I’d got enough on my hands coping with Ursula. She was frantic.”
The bedroom door opened then, and Ursula came out again, carrying a small canvas bag. We waited while she hugged Leanne,
and promised to be in touch, then she allowed Sean to shepherd her out of the front door and along the open walkway to the stairs.
We were down to the second floor before we heard the motorbike arriving. I registered the sound of a big four-stroke out of habit and, glancing over the slatted balcony rail on my way past, I saw the black and yellow Honda CBR 600 come wheeling off the street into the parking area below us.
By the next half-landing, the rider had the side stand down, and the engine cut. The bike was too big for him, and although he was wearing a nice Shoei helmet, he had on just a denim jacket, and no gloves. I often wonder what makes these lads go out and buy machines that will do one-fifty plus, without bothering to get the proper gear to go with it.
As we turned onto the final half-landing, Sean suddenly stopped dead. I pulled up short and followed his gaze. The CBR rider had removed his helmet, and was walking across the grass towards the stairwell, with his face clearly visible.
This time, Sean didn’t make the mistake of yelling his brother’s name. He didn’t bother with the rest of the stairs, either. He just put both hands on the railing, and vaulted straight over it, coat flying. Ursula let out a strangled cry as he dropped out of sight.
Roger had frozen at her cry. It was only when Sean started heading for him at speed that he sprang into action.
He panicked completely then. He threw the helmet he was carrying at Sean, who swiped it to one side without breaking stride, as though it had no substance. The expensive lid smacked onto the rough ground of the parking area, bounced a couple of times, and finally rolled into the gutter, the gelcoat cracked and useless.
Roger managed to get to the Honda first, but fumbled getting the key into the ignition. I almost thought Sean had him, when the boy managed to get his thumb on the starter and the motor fired up. He snatched the Honda off its stand and kicked it clumsily into gear with the throttle already halfway open.
The effect was electric. The rear wheel ripped free of the road surface, spinning wildly, and churning up clouds of grey smoke as the transmission tried its best to bring the bike’s substantial horsepower into play.