Suffer the Children

by Adam Creed

  ‘Get yourself off home,’ Staffe says now. ‘Give me Debra Bowker’s number and I’ll call her.’

  ‘There’s too much to do.’

  ‘Take Becky and the kids down the park. And there’s a favour you can do me. I’ll call you later.’ Staffe scrunches a note up and presses it into Johnson’s hand, looks around furtively as he walks away.

  When he reaches the door, Johnson calls out ‘Sir!’ looking at the twenty-pound note Staffe had slipped him.

  ‘Get a takeaway. And put the kids to bed early.’

  Back in his office, Staffe picks up a copy of the photograph, reads the lettering.

  SEE JUSTICE DONE.

  See justice done might mean ‘kill the guilty’.

  See justice done might mean ‘protect the innocent’.

  See justice done. Photograph it.

  *******

  The Kilburn house smells different. Marie has obviously burnt the lunch and been smoking her roll-ups. Harry has left his computer games strewn over the living-room floor, but Staffe can’t bring himself to be annoyed, possibly because of what he has in mind.

  He quickly tidies up and opens the front windows and the doors on to the back garden to get a draught going, then gets down to business. Marie has left a note that she’ll be back at six and will cook dinner, so Staffe texts her to say he’ll be out. It is five o’clock now and he goes straight upstairs to the guest room. He sits on the floor and takes stock of how her suitcase is packed before he systematically goes through her things.

  He tries not to feel bad about this. Marie has never asked him for help. They coped with the murder of their parents in different ways: Staffe went off the rails, but put his money into property and then joined the force. Within a few years Marie had blown her inheritance on travel, drugs and bad relationships before falling pregnant with Harry. The father, an out-of-work session musician, lasted less than a year.

  Staffe picks a meticulous way through the suitcase, putting the clothes in one pile, her books and trinkets in another; it is not until he gets right to the bottom that he finds what he wants. A building society passbook shows that she has less than two hundred pounds. Her bank account is overdrawn. There is also a clutch of unpaid bills and he commits the billing address to memory – 26d St John’s Road, Peckham. But there is nothing which bears the boyfriend’s name. No joint names on any of her domestic contracts.

  He sighs and goes to the window, looks up and down Shooters Hill to check she is not on her way back. He surveys her gypsy life in miniature and kneels by the small stack of books: Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter and Toni Morrison. He flicks through the pages and on the inside cover of Beloved he finds what he wants. Inscribed in a self-consciously flowery hand is the name. Paolo Di Venuto, Summer 2007. Despite his taste in books, Di Venuto has a penchant for roughing up his women.

  Downstairs, a door slams and Staffe leaps up.

  ‘Will!’ calls Marie from downstairs.

  ‘Shit,’ he says to himself, quickly repacking the case as best he can in the order he recalls. Papers first, then books and clothes. He drops her bras and knickers and the hooks and eyes snag on each other, catch on his watch-strap. His hands begin to shake and he makes a mess of the penultimate layer, finishing off with singlet tops and a denim skirt.

  She is coming up the stairs and Harry is clattering about in the room below.

  ‘Will!’

  He closes the suitcase, struggling with the lock as he hears her padding along the hallway. He slides the case back by the side of the bed and rushes to the window, begins to open it as the door is pushed open.

  Marie frowns, hands on hips. ‘What the hell!’

  Staffe knows his only option is to fight fire with fire. ‘For Christ’s sake, Marie. Those roll-ups of yours stink the place out. Can’t you smoke outside?’

  ‘This is our room. I’d appreciate …’

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you smoked outside. OK!’

  ‘If you don’t want us here, there’s other places I could go.’

  Staffe knows this is a lie. If there was anywhere, she’d be there. ‘Look. You can stay as long as you want. You know that.’ She is wearing a short-sleeved, Amnesty International T-shirt and he can see where the foundation make-up has faded, failing to cover her bruises. He walks across to her, trying to be cool. He puts his hands on her shoulders. She feels fragile. He kisses her on her forehead and says softly, into her hair, ‘I’m sorry I came into your room. I won’t do it again.’

  She wraps her arms around his waist and he pats her back, the way he remembers his mother doing when they wouldn’t go to sleep.

  *******

  Marvitz Builders Merchants, where Karl Colquhoun worked, is closing up for the day when Staffe gets there. Johnson should have done this visit, but Staffe needs a personal favour from his sergeant and this is his idea of recompense.

  Staffe has brought a photograph of Karl Colquhoun but there was no need. The foreman of the timber section knows why he is there as soon as Staffe shows his warrant card.

  ‘I was expecting a visit,’ he says.

  ‘Do you usually shut at this time?’

  ‘This weather, there’s only one place builders’ll be. They get rained off in winter and sunned off on days like these. My boys’ll be with them, no doubt.’

  Staffe looks around the deserted bays, piles of sawdust and chippings all over the floor, the smell of resin sweet in the thick air.

  ‘He was a good worker, Colquhoun. Wouldn’t have left the place in a state like this.’ The manager takes hold of a broom.

  ‘How did he get on with your boys?’ says Staffe.

  ‘All right, till Ross Denness came.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A new lad. Knew Karl from the estate he lived on.’

  ‘And where might I find our friend Denness?’

  The manager has begun to sweep up and says, ‘Pound to a penny he’ll be in the Rag.’

  ‘The Ragamuffin!’

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘No. But I know someone who does.’

  The landlord of the Ragamuffin points a gnarled, badly re-set finger in the direction of a tall, gangling late-twenties man with lank hair and a sneering smile.

  Ross Denness is in the far corner of the pub, leaning against the pool table with a young girl rubbed up against him.

  The Ragamuffin would have been a good boozer at some point, until they knocked all the vaults and tap rooms and snugs into one and painted the walls blue and replaced the last beer pump for yet another brand of premium lager. There are more girls than men, drinking alcopops and showing their backsides with impossibly low trousers or obscenely high skirts. The men strut round with their pumped-up chests and shaven heads and there is quite definitely something in the air.

  Staffe sips his Diet Coke and watches Denness. The girl shows her face and looks barely sixteen. It’s a thin line, he thinks, that separates Denness from his work colleague, Karl Colquhoun.

  He gets the landlord’s attention again and nods to the pool table. ‘Monday afternoon. Was Denness in here?’

  ‘He’s in most every afternoon.’

  ‘And Monday?’

  ‘He was here. Got in about half four, five, I’d say.’

  ‘For how long?’

  The landlord laughs. ‘Till shut. Same ole, unless he pulls.’ He looks across at Denness. ‘Reckon he’ll be havin’ an early one today. He’s a boy!’

  ‘And what about Rob? Rob Boxall.’

  ‘Rob’s not been in for ages.’

  ‘He know Denness?’ asks Staffe.

  ‘You’d best ask him that.’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  The landlord shrugs and picks up a glass from the glass-washer tray, starts to wipe it dry.

  Across the room, Denness must have said something lewd as the girl puts the bottle of blue fluorescence in her mouth. She pretends to be offended and punches him in the chest. He falls backwards on the table and she moves up aga
inst him so his knee is between her thighs. When he comes back upright, he puts a hand up her practically non-existent thin white cotton skirt and she kisses him.

  Staffe decides enough is enough and by the time he gets to the table their heads are circling manically. She clocks Staffe while she necks open-eyed with Denness, pushing his hand away from whatever base they call it in these parts.

  ‘Ross,’ says Staffe, tapping him on the shoulder.

  ‘What the fuck …?’ Denness looks up, a smear of lipstick all around his stubbled mouth.

  ‘I’m DI Wagstaffe, just wanted a few words.’

  ‘If it’s about that kid-fiddler Colquhoun, I say good riddance to bad shit.’

  Staffe looks at the girl, says, ‘Shouldn’t you be doing your homework?’

  ‘I’ve got ID,’ she says, playing with her streaked hair extensions.

  ‘I’m sure there’s a story behind that, too. I could look into it, if you want.’

  Denness is taller than Staffe and a couple of mates have come across, half laughing, half snarling, holding bottles. Staffe’s heart beats fast and his palms begin to sweat. Even after twenty years in the game, there are places where the law doesn’t wash, people it doesn’t know how to touch any more. ‘On your way,’ he says to the girl.

  She looks at Denness and he shrugs. As she gathers up her handbag and cigarettes, Denness slaps her bottom. She laughs and runs her tongue around her lips.

  ‘The fuck do you want?’ says Denness. ‘You done your job in the first place no one would have needed to top that piece a shit.’

  ‘How do you know Colquhoun did what he was supposed to have done?’ says Staffe.

  ‘Everyone knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘His last missus had to piss off out the country to keep him off his own kids and now they say his new missus can’t see her own kids in case he starts giving them one. Fuckin’ frag.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about the victim.’

  ‘Victim?’ says Denness. ‘Give ’em a medal, I say. And, anyway, I worked with him, didn’t I?’

  ‘And you live round the corner from him.’

  ‘So fuckin’ what?’

  ‘Do you know Leanne Colquhoun?’

  He takes a swig from his bottle of Beck’s and says, ‘I know a lot of women. How d’you expect me to keep track?’

  Denness is swaggering now and his mates are laughing, nudging closer still, forming a ring.

  ‘What about Leanne’s ex, Rob Boxall? You know him?’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Staffe can see Denness’s mates look away, drinking from their bottles.

  ‘Don’t ring no bells.’

  ‘Just so you know, you’re being watched. Put your filthy hands anywhere near that girl again and I’ll have you for kiddie fiddling.’

  ‘She’s a woman, you muppet,’ says Denness.

  ‘That’ll be your burden of proof,’ says Staffe.

  ‘The fuck you say?’ says Denness, like he’s wrestling with algebra.

  Staffe has had enough. He turns on his heel and pushes his way out of the pub. When he gets to his car, he leans against the off-side wing, sees the girl in the bright white light of a fried chicken queue opposite. Ross Denness comes out of the Rag. The girl waves at him but Denness blanks her. He has a face like thunder and, putting his head down, he strides off up the high street.

  Unsure whether to follow him, Staffe feels suddenly nervous, as if he might be under-equipped. But then a car blazes towards him. It blares its horn and swerves towards his car and Staffe has to throw himself on the bonnet. He rolls on to the pavement as the car screeches to a halt just yards away and a youth jumps out shouting, ‘What the fuck!’ Staffe gets up off the pavement, brushes himself down.

  The youth from the car walks towards Staffe, leaning backwards and swaggering with his pelvis pushed out, low-slung baggy jeans and a sideways baseball cap. As he walks, he talks, jabbing two fingers towards Staffe as if he’s holding a gun. ‘You in the fuckin’ road, man. What you doin’? We seen you, man. Know your game.’

  Staffe takes a deep breath and reaches into his inside pocket for his warrant card. The youth flinches, reaches into his own back pocket and with a fizzing noise he releases the catch to a flick knife. Staffe holds out his warrant card and says, ‘I’m police, you fucking prick, now drop that knife and put your nose against the wall.’

  He doesn’t know how this will pan out, can’t be sure he can pull it off. You never can be sure. And true enough, the ringleader looks back towards his mates in the car. Staffe knows he only has one chance. Four of them pile out of the car, so Staffe takes a step towards the youth and launches himself, going for the arm with the knife. He takes hold of the weapon and feels a bright seam of pain open up along his arm. He twists the youth’s wrist and sees his face come towards him, snarling. Staffe shoves him into the wall, drops him to the floor.

  The youth squeals and the blade drops to the pavement, metallic, smeared with Staffe’s blood. Staffe puts his boot on the blade and stands back as the chav curls into a ball, saying, ‘Fuckin’ bully, I’ll do you. Fuckin’ bully, don’t hit me no more.’ The ringleader looks daggers at the four mates who have stopped dead in their tracks. Then, to the gathering crowd, he says, to no one in particular, ‘You see that? You see that fuckin’ copper pullin’ a knife on me.’

  Staffe bends down, picks up the knife and as he does he sees blood streaming off the end of his fingers. His suede jacket is torn and the pain begins to kick and spread. He grimaces, blade in hand and the crowd takes a step back as he puts a foot on the youth’s chest.

  The teenage girl comes out of the fried chicken shop, shouting, ‘He’s been lookin’ for a fight, that copper. Been in the Rag tryin’ to start on my boyfriend, he was.’ In the near distance a police siren winds up its wail and Staffe takes a deep breath, holds his wrist as tight as he can. He anticipates the allegations, the audience with Pennington and all the paperwork. He wishes he had gone to Bilbao and can practically smell the sea air as he watches the blood pool around his feet. He feels fainter and fainter as the adrenalin begins to abate.

  Tuesday Evening

  ‘You should go to the hospital with this, sir,’ says Josie, tying the bandage around Staffe’s wrist.

  ‘How did you get on with tracking Leanne’s ex down?’

  ‘Rob Boxall? He’s doing two years in Bellmarsh for dealing MDMA and C meth. Been in since May, so he’s off the hook.’

  ‘You’d better get someone to pay him a visit, see if he knows Ross Denness?’

  ‘Sure, sir.’ Josie is examining Staffe’s arm. Still holding his hand, she says, ‘That youth outside the Rag …’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s saying you went at him with the knife. His mates are backing him up. And so’s that girl.’

  ‘Have we got an ID on him?’

  ‘We’ve got a couple.’ Josie sits down on the opposite side of his desk and leans forward with her elbows on the desk, her face resting on the backs of her hands. She raises her eyebrows and says, ‘He said to say, “Jadus knows”.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Josie leans back in the chair. She looks at him long, hard, quizzical.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You should be on a beach or up a mountain and here you are with your arm all bandaged up and some gangland fatwa out on you. Let me buy you a drink.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘It’s a case of you “won’t” do it, not “can’t”.’

  ‘Thanks for the lecture.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ she says, standing up and walking out of the office. As she gets to the door she leans back into the room, says, ‘If anybody ever needed a drink …’ and she laughs.

  Staffe gestures for Josie to close the door behind her; as she does, he dials Johnson’s home number. ‘Rick?’ he says.

  ‘Just going out for the takeaway, sir.’

  ‘You can do me
a favour,’ says Staffe.

  ‘Ahaa,’ says Johnson.

  ‘I want you to go down to Peckham, scare the living shit out of a lowlife called Paolo Di Venuto.’

  ‘For doing what?’

  ‘For being a bastard.’

  ‘Can you be more precise?’

  ‘He’s seeing my sister. Scare him off with anything and everything you can think of: benefit fraud, immigration, dealing or possession. You’ll get the drift when you see him. And see how he responds to an allegation of ABH. Just say you’ve had an anonymous complaint.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point asking why I’m doing this?’

  ‘26d St John’s Road,’ says Staffe, hanging up, punching in Debra Bowker’s number in Tenerife. As it rings, he writes himself a note to get the ‘see justice done’ photograph remastered, to investigate its every detail, to get the Tech’s take on the hood’s material, any labelling on the clothes and match the hair in the photo to any samples taken from the scene and from Leanne Colquhoun.

  A woman answers the phone.

  ‘Mrs Bowker? Debra Bowker?’ says Staffe.

  ‘Miss.’

  ‘I’m DI Wagstaffe from Leadengate CID.’

  ‘I spoke to one of your colleagues.’

  Staffe leans back in his chair, puts his feet up on the bottom drawer of his desk. On the other end of the line, he can hear children playing. ‘I just wanted to be sure about your movements over the past few weeks.’

  ‘I told your colleague.’ She sighs. ‘Look. If I was you, I’d have me at the top of your list but I can assure you, I had nothing to do with it. Much as it would have pleased me to see the bastard suffer.’

  ‘What do you know about Rob Boxall?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘And what about Ross Denness, Mrs Bowker?’

  ‘Miss!’

  Staffe sits up, quickly. He scrawls a note – ‘debra colquhoun. check passports and airlines’. ‘I apologise. As a matter of interest, when did you stop being called Debra Colquhoun?’