Down Among the Dead Men

by Ed Chatterton

  'I think it's good enough, Frank.' Thursday morning and Searle's behind his desk and holding the MLAT application on Noone. 'I've had a good look at it and it falls pretty neatly into the requirements. It would help being a bit stronger in places but if we had that then maybe we'd be trying an extradition, eh?'

  Frank knows the work the team's done on the MLAT application is solid. He's hoping that Searle doesn't raise any objections because he's already booked the flight for tomorrow morning.

  They have anecdotal evidence now from Niall McCluskey that he was following orders from Dean Quinner when he tailed Noone – or, as Noone's lawyers would point out, someone McCluskey thought was Noone – and McCluskey's willing to testify to that. Noone leaving the country seems to have helped McCluskey's memory somewhat. That, and the fact that he had been under the mistaken impression he was suspected for being involved in his cousin's death. McCluskey has also produced one Jason Reeves, aka Ghost Ninja, to back his story.

  Frank also has a nice little report in from Angela Salt detailing a number of ways in which Noone fits the description of the killer. The flaw in this – which would, no doubt, be the view of Noone's lawyers – is that it rests on Noone being the killer. And it is only a psychologist's profile.

  Lastly, and most pertinently, there is Steve Rose's work on the call to Frank's phone from Terry Peters' number. Placing the phone in New York while Noone was there is key. There can be no better reason for Frank to travel under an MLAT than needing to look at concrete CCTV evidence at JFK.

  It's a neat job.

  'Be careful,' says Searle, signing and handing the MLAT back to Frank. 'It's like a different country over there, Frank.' Searle shudders. 'Americans. And listen, don't let them push you around just because you're on your own.'

  'Thanks, sir,' says Frank. He takes the file and gets out of the office before Searle goes any further. The last thing Frank wants Searle to know is that he already has someone on the ground in Los Angeles. On Frank's budget documentation it'll be listed as 'consultancy work' but that's bullshit.

  On Monday evening, the day Rose had given him the link between Peters' phone and Ben Noone, Frank had decided that whatever happened, he'd go to Los Angeles. That evening he called Koopman and Eckhardt and persuaded them to go to the US as consultants to MIT. It's a risk: Frank's not sure it's strictly legal and he's using MIT funds for a purpose that is decidedly 'grey' but he wants help on the ground. Noone's not going to slip away because Frank hasn't tried everything.

  After leaving Searle's office with the MLAT approved Frank heads back to MIT to brief the team. As time has passed, the Peters and Quinner cases have been partly submerged beneath several new murders coming into the office. Most of them are, as usual, drug-related. Which isn't to say they won't be investigated. And the investigations all take time and money. Frank often reflects on how little the public know about the role that budgets play in how well a crime is investigated. With a finite number of officers, a growing portion of Frank's job is allocation. He's done his best to move most of last year's case involving Keith Kite over to the Organised Crime Squad and they've been happy to take it on board. Normally MIT wouldn't like losing the credits on a large one like this but since one of their own officers is in it up to his neck, Charlie Searle waves it goodbye with pleasure. Most of the meeting is taken up with logistical detail and everyone's glad when it's over.

  Afterwards, as they're heading back to their desks, he gets a text from Harris.

  Dinner tonight at my place? 8 pm?

  Frank, standing outside Em Harris's place with a bottle of wine in his hand and feeling as nervous as a teenager, presses the bell and, after a short delay, the buzzer opens the door to the block. Frank takes the stairs to Em's third-floor flat and knocks on the door.

  It opens and Em's there. She looks good in tight jeans and a white shirt. Soft electro music is floating out from the living room. Frank holds up the bottle.

  'Excellent,' she says, taking it from him. 'I thought you might not be drinking, when you're flying tomorrow.'

  'That's why I'm drinking.'

  Frank, smiling, pecks Harris on the cheek and is dismayed to sense a hesitation. Perhaps tonight isn't going to work out as he hoped it would.

  Inside the living room and he sees why.

  Linda's sitting on the sofa holding a glass of wine. She looks up at Frank from underneath her fringe. Her neck is flushed red.

  'You're not going to throw that at me, are you?' says Frank, pointing to the wine. Linda looks past Frank to Emily.

  'Play nice, Frank,' says Em. 'This isn't easy for Linda either.'

  'I think you'd better get me a glass, Em.' Frank turns back to Linda. 'At least we're both armed then, eh?'

  Em puts her hand on Frank's shoulder and leans in close. 'Please, Frank,' she says softly. 'For me. It's important.'

  Frank holds up his hands in surrender and nods. He moves to Linda and puts out his palm. 'Frank,' he says. 'We have met, but we never got properly introduced.'

  Linda's hand is small in his and soft. 'Sorry,' she says in a voice almost too quiet to hear. 'I'm Linda.'

  'I know.'

  Em comes across and hands Frank a large glass of red. Frank sits down next to Linda and clinks the rim of his glass with hers. She almost flinches and Frank wants to tell her it's OK. Instead he sinks back into the cushions and takes a large mouthful of the wine.

  'Are we still having dinner?' he says. 'Or has that changed too?'

  'We are,' says Em, 'although whether or not you're eating largely depends on your behaviour.'

  'I am hungry.'

  'Good.' Em sits down on an armchair at ninety degrees to Linda. 'I – we – thought this would be a good idea.'

  'I didn't,' says Linda. 'It's embarrassing.'

  Frank turns to her. 'I agree. What do you say we avoid talking about the subject entirely and pretend this is just a few friends having dinner? I'm all for emotional air-clearing so long as it doesn't involve me. Let's do the English thing and bury our heads in the sand.'

  Em shakes her head. 'Frank –' she begins, but Linda cuts across her.

  'Frank's right. Let's just have dinner.'

  Em opens her mouth to speak and then closes it again. She frowns at Frank and he shrugs. 'Two against one,' he says. Linda smiles.

  Over dinner they do talk. With a couple more glasses and some good food inside them talk comes easier. It helps that Frank likes Linda and she seems to be relaxing in his company. Strangely, Frank feels as if he should be the one helping her through the evening. And then he realises that this is exactly as it should be. He was the one who slept with Linda's partner. Linda's the one who's got a genuine grievance. All he got was a gobful of vinegar and a bad scare.

  There were some women who wouldn't have used vinegar.

  By eleven, Em and Linda are holding hands and Frank's got the picture.

  They are back together. Solid. The thing with him was the result of a bad patch. For the first time since he's known Em Harris, Frank's being allowed to see the vulnerability and pressures she faces.

  When Frank leaves he hugs Linda awkwardly but with warmth.

  'It was nice to meet you, Frank,' she says. 'I hope we can be friends.'

  At the door he hugs Em and this time there's no hesitation from her. 'Thanks, Frank.'

  They disengage and Em fixes him with a stare. 'Be careful over there. If you're right about this guy, he's one of the worst. And you'll be alone.'

  'I'll be fine,' says Frank. He leans back in close and cups Em's face between his hands and kisses her softly on the lips. His eyes are open and he looks right at her.

  'See you in a few weeks,' he says and steps through the door. Em closes it gently behind him.

  Outside, safe from view, Frank leans forward, supporting himself by placing his hands against the wall of the corridor. He lets his head hang down and he shakes it from side to side, the very essence of a broken man.

  'Frank?'

  Frank jerk
s upright and sees Em watching him from the door. She's holding his jacket.

  'You forgot this.'

  Frank takes it and puts it on. 'You never saw that, right?' he says.

  'Saw what?' says Em and closes the door.

  Five

  Frank's never been a good flyer.

  He's not in the category that requires sedation or hypnotherapy, but sometimes it's close.

  On board he settles into his seat in economy as best he can, glad that the check-in girl noticed his flight had been paid by Merseyside Police and had given him an exit row. Airlines like policemen passengers.

  The take-off is bearable as long as Frank keeps his eyes shut and doesn't move a muscle. He pretends he's asleep but only so that he can't watch the disturbing spectacle of the moors at the edge of Manchester spinning below them as the plane rises. Anyone looking at his face would assume serenity within but the grinding of his teeth gives him away.

  After an eternity, the seatbelt light pings and Frank opens his eyes as the plane levels. From here it's manageable as long as they don't hit turbulence and as long as he doesn't, even for a second, think about the insanity of strapping yourself inside a cylindrical pressurised tube full of flammable material and hurtling halfway round the planet through the upper atmosphere.

  Almost four hours pass without incident and then it happens.

  A solid-sounding bump and the aircraft vibrates enough for the seatbelt sign to come on. Frank cinches his tight around his waist and closes his eyes.

  Another bang. This time more violent and more prolonged. A couple of people squeal nervously and one or two behind Frank scream.

  Frank would like to join them.

  It's only forty years of conditioning as an emotionally stunted northern English male that prevents him.

  The aircraft drops quickly and now some people are screaming properly. Frank feels his stomach lurch and he thinks he's going to be sick. That they're all going to die is now a given. He tries to conjure up some deep and meaningful thoughts but all he can think about are flames, and blood and smoke and tearing, screeching metal, and death.

  The captain's voice comes on. 'Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we are experiencing some turbulence. At this point we'd advise everyone to remain seated.' His voice is calm, urbane; the voice of a privately educated Englishman. Frank is ashamed that he feels glad about that. Even in the face of death we know our place. He feels perversely proud to be from a nation in which the idea of class is so ingrained that this can be so.

  There are more bumps and more bangs and the engine noise seems to alternately increase and decrease. Little by little, the passengers fall silent. Five hundred years go by.

  They're going to die.

  'Captain Toms again, ladies and gentlemen. Hope that that bumpy patch wasn't too troublesome. We have received advice from JFK that the weather in New York is a pleasant seventy-two degrees for our arrival. If you could just sit back and enjoy the rest of our flight we will advise on onward flight connection details. Our descent will commence very shortly.'

  The lying, two-faced, upper-class bastard.

  It's clear to anyone with a brain that they are in serious trouble.

  The plane descends in near silence towards New York. Frank can't be the only one who thinks Captain Toms may have been skipping the details about three of the four engines failing, or the catastrophic icing up of some key widget, or the fucking terrorist holding a knife to his throat in the cockpit.

  A small child starts crying, softly at first and then with increasing volume.

  At least I don't have that worry, reflects Frank. He doesn't mind the crying. He wonders what it must be like to be worrying about not only yourself, but about another. Families are strange things when you think about it. Two strangers meeting, producing offspring and then trying to keep them from harm. Not all, obviously. The cancerous Terry Peters wasn't exactly an advert for the nuclear family.

  And Nicky. Poor Nicky hadn't been looked after, had he? Not that his parents had known. If Noone hadn't come along at just the wrong time, Nicky may have been 'just' damaged by Terry Peters instead of being left to die alone in the dark. Even thinking about Terry Peters makes Frank tense. He knows from the forensics that Terry met a bad end but nothing could have been appropriate punishment for that evil cunt. Frank finds he is gripping the seat so hard his fingernails are scratching the plastic veneer. And it's not because he's flying.

  In the absence of Terry Peters, Frank's going to get Ben Noone.

  What about Noone? What was his family background? Would there be something in Los Angeles that might help Frank understand Noone, and more importantly, stop him from killing again?

  The wheels of the plane touch down and Frank's jolted back to the here and now.

  Turns out the lying upper-class bastard had been telling the truth.

  There's a long queue at immigration. By the time Frank's shuffled to the front he's lost the good feeling generated by the simple pleasure of having his feet on solid ground. He's got no idea what time it is in the real world but it feels like 4 am to him.

  The fat uniformed woman sitting in the booth motions him forward. Frank hands his passport over and tries not to look too impatient. The immigration officer glances up at Frank without expression and places his passport face down on a scanner. She moves her head across to a computer monitor and then back to Frank.

  'One moment, sir,' she says and looks across to her right to where two of her colleagues are standing. She beckons to them.

  'Is there a problem?' says Frank. The woman holds up a hand, signalling him not to speak.

  The other two immigration officers arrive. They look at Frank in utter distaste. One of them is Hispanic and one white. Both are enormously overweight. Both carry guns on their vast belts.

  The Hispanic immigration officer takes Frank's passport and then looks at the screen and then back at Frank. He then shows the passport to the white guy and they exchange a pantomime of worried looks, all knitted brows and cold stares gleaned from TV shows.

  It's almost laughable.

  Frank turns briefly back in the direction of the crowded immigration hall and the smile is wiped from his face. To his right, through a thicket of passengers, he spots a face he's seen before. It's just the briefest of glimpses and then it's gone, hidden by a pillar, but it's like a slap.

  'Sir. Sir.'

  Frank turns slowly back towards the immigration officers.

  'You're going to have to come with us.'

  'I know I do,' says Frank. 'That's why I'm here. I'm a police officer. I'm here to see someone called Gloria Lopez. She's the FBI field agent acting as liaison. I'm sure she'll confirm my details.'

  Frank flicks his gaze back to the hall trying, without success, to find the face he'd seen.

  'Sir. I repeat, you will have to come with us.'

  The Hispanic guy is resting his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  'Seriously?' says Frank, looking down at his hand. 'This is what you're doing?'

  Frank shakes his head and mutters something. The fat white officer points in the direction Frank should take. Frank starts walking and looks back but can't see anything.

  Now he's wondering if he's imagined it. Why would the guy who put him on the bathroom floor in the cafe in Liverpool be in New York?

  Six

  Back when he'd been doing the job Frank Keane's doing now, Menno Koopman had come to Los Angeles to do a job swap in the US. He and Zoe had stayed in a chain hotel in an area of town that seemed to consist entirely of outlet stores and fast-food restaurants. It had been a depressing experience. So much so that Zoe had checked them out of the hotel and into a small rented apartment on Nichols Canyon. In the new location, the city had slowly begun to reveal its charms.

  Now, sitting on the narrow balcony of the rental unit Frank had lined up for them just off San Vicente Boulevard in West Hollywood, he's having a hard time convincing the jet-lagged Warren Eckhardt about the city's good p
oints.

  'I've already been told three fucking times there's no smoking,' says Warren. 'And one of those times was on the street by a bloke wearing lime green shorty shorts and holding hands with another bloke.' He inhales deeply and blows a thick jet of smoke out into the Los Angeles night. 'I mean, it's not like my little bit of smoke is doing much to the air, is it? Fucking smog's making smokers of every bastard in the joint as far as I can see. I'm not even supposed to smoke in this fucking place and we're paying for the damn thing!'

  'Merseyside Police are paying,' points out Koop, but Warren pretends not to have heard him.

  Koop leans as far back from Warren's smoke as possible. Perhaps bringing Australia's most committed smoker to the least smoke-tolerant city on earth had been a mistake. For the life of him Koop couldn't see how Warren Eckhardt was going to last two days in California, let alone two weeks. And if the anti-smoking mob didn't get him, surely the Rainbow Coalition would finish the job? Right on cue, Warren starts up again.

  'And did this mate of yours know he's booked us into the gayest neighbourhood outside of Darlinghurst?'

  Koop shrugs.

  'Did you see the little Indian guy at the desk when we checked in? Thought me and you were a pair of poofs. I could tell he wasn't happy about it.'

  Koop sometimes forgot Warren was from Queensland.

  He laughs.

  'What's so funny?' asks Warren.

  'When you filled in your address on the form you put "Queensland". That's why he was looking at you. Probably thinks it's some sort of special gay town in Australia.'

  'I never thought of that.'

  'You'll be safe,' says Koop. He looks at Warren's lumpy form, his fingers yellow from nicotine and eyes like two oysters past their sell-by date. 'Can't see too many of the boys making a beeline for you, mate.'