by John Barlow
“You’re going to tell him, then?”
She’s in a black t-shirt and jeans, never the one for dressing up. He can smell the Opium on her, just enough, not overpowering.
Opium had always one of his dad’s main lines, crates of fake eau de parfum everywhere, especially in December for the Christmas trade. So when John met Den, he’d bought her the real thing, receipt taped to the box, proof of purchase. It had been their private joke.
“Can we have food first? Where do you fancy?”
“The Flying Pizza. Haven’t been for ages.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Don’t you like pizzas?” she says, feigning surprise. Taking a confirmed foodie to The Flying Pizza is like taking a lover of Wagner to see Mama Mia.
“I dunno. I just had a higher opinion of you, DS Danson. I really did.”
“And to think you taught me everything I know. Sad, eh?”
Two years with John Ray had taught her a lot. How to appreciate food and wine with unpretentious enthusiasm. And not just food. How to seize life and wring the very last drops of enjoyment from it. Food, drink, music, travel… being with John had been like stepping onto a new continent and discovering that the boundaries of one’s capacity for unfettered joy and indulgence stretched way beyond the horizon. She’d been a good student, too. She wanted to know, to share the childlike delight he could show in a glass of Ribera del Duero or a well-crafted pork pie, for artisan cheese and Thelonius Monk and Mahler…
In return she’d taught him how to love, how to be at peace with someone, no need for show; how to let them into your life as if it was their natural habitat. She’d taught him to trust in the love of a person like you trust the days and nights to come and go, love so constant that it could remain unspoken, unnoticed for weeks at a time, a love so simple and implicit that it seemed impossible that it might falter or diminish.
Then he’d torn it away, showing it to be a lie.
“Any progress on Roberto?” she asks.
“Might have. But I really need to go to his flat. I’ve got the keys.”
“Don’t. Whatever you do, don’t do that. And get rid of the keys.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“What about the body?”
“No idea. It’ll be long gone by now.”
“But you’re going to tell the police, right?”
He doesn’t say yes.
“OK,” she says, “we better talk about something else then.”
“Read that,” he says, pointing to a white envelope on the dashboard.
She takes the envelope. It’s old and worn, a red second-class stamp, 12p.
“What’s this about?” she says, opening it carefully, as if it might fall apart.
“Me.”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Just read it. And forget the bad grammar.”
She does. Three short paragraphs, typed on an old machine.
22nd September, 1984
To the Head Master, Teachers and Students of West Leeds High School
They say that a school is a training ground for life. Its like a small society of its own, with rules and regulations. There’s authority and order in a school, and its where the individual is supposed to grow and develop. The pupils in school are its citizens and we all want a good society with good citizens in it don’t’ we?
She stops reading.
“What is this?”
“It was sent to the school magazine, back when I was editor. Go on, read.”
A school should be an example for everybody in it from the headmaster down to the cleaners. You should know they are respectable people and that’s basic to school because, if there’s no good example then how are the pupils going to know how to behave? That goes for the senior pupils as well.
I don’t think having a head boy whose the son of a criminal is a good example for the school. It means its ok to be a criminal and get rich that way whilst everyone else is trying to be honest citizens. We all know the damage that crime does to society. I think having a head boy who is from a crime family damages the reputation of the school and is a bad example.
Yours faithfully, a pupil
“Shit,” she says, folding the letter and slipping it back into the envelope. “You know who wrote it?”
“Yep. Andrew Holt. You met him this morning. Dad’s carer up at the home.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“He was three years below me at school. His dad was a campaigner, years ago, Len Holt. When that letter arrived, I kind of suspected who it was from, so I looked back through the files of the magazine. There were several letters from Minister Holt that the magazine had published over the years. It was the same typewriter.”
“Wow, good work detective. But the letter might have been from the minister himself, no?”
“Nah, he could spell. That letter’s from a fifteen-year-old kid with his head too far up his morally unimpeachable arse.”
“Why did you never tell me about this?”
“I’d kind of forgotten about it.”
“Must have hurt, though, at the time?”
“It did,” he says, concentrating on the road ahead. “It really did. But it also spurred me on. For the rest of that year I worked like a bloody idiot. Got the best A-levels in the school’s history. Did I ever…”
“Yeah, I think you might have mentioned that once or twice…”
“Dad’s trial was that summer.”
“You should be proud of yourself,” she says. “You got yourself into Cambridge, with all that going on around you. Why bring this up now?”
He tells her about The Ministry of Eternal Hope, and Roberto’s visits there. She listens, looking out at the orange-lit streets as Leeds gears up for Friday night. They’re driving down Headingly Road towards the city centre, a good trickle of students walking in the same direction, getting an early start on the weekend. This isn’t the way to The Flying Pizza. She didn’t really book a table there, and he knows it.
“So?” he says when he’s finished. “What do you think?”
“I told you: no coppers, no me.”
“Right you are. Fancy a big dish of gumbo and a few beers?”
“I would love a big dish of gumbo and a few beers.”
He slows down, indicates, and turns towards his favourite part of town.
They slow down as the Halal butchers comes into view.
“The Caribbean Kitchen’s further up, isn’t it?” she says, looking at the row of shops, some of them still open.
“Yeah, I just wanted to see whether Holt’s still here. Look, there’s his place, above the butchers.”
They pull in a few shops down. There’s light in the upstairs windows, and there are shadows moving behind the drawn curtains.
“Well someone’s up there,” she says.
“It’ll be another criminal, cleansing his soul.”
“Perhaps it’s the carpets they’re cleansing.”
“Eh?”
“Look, other side of the road, white van half a dozen spaces up.”
He looks.
“What about it?”
“It’s the one from the nursing home this morning.”
“How do you know? It’s plain white.”
“Exactly. That’s what struck me this morning. No company name on the side. And the number plate? SYL. See-you-later. I remember it. Force of habit.”
“You sure?”
“You might be good with typewriters, John, but you’re shit with vans. And yes, I’m sure.”
“What’s the dry cleaning bloke doing here?”
“Coincidence? Premises around here?”
“What if he’s up there with Holt?”
He looks at her. His expression isn’t even expectant, more a matter of putting the question out there, feeling for a response.
She knows exactly what it means.
“No way.”
“I could go myself, but I
’ve already been once today, and I left under a bit of a cloud.”
“No way, John. You think I’m gonna go in there waving my warrant card just to see if Mr Shake n’ Vac is saying his prayers?”
That’s precisely what he was thinking.
“Do it yourself,” she says, irritated but trying to keep it friendly. “I nearly screwed up my career for you once.”
A year ago it hadn’t been friendly. She should have turned him in. But she moved to the other side of the Pennines instead, wiping the slate clean and trying to forget John. Now she’s back, and she doesn’t quite know why.
“Doesn’t matter,” he whispers, sliding down a fraction in his seat. “There he is.”
They watch as the carpet man from this morning, the one with the thinning mousy hair and the permanent smile, emerges from the door next to the butchers. He crosses the road, gets into the van, and drives off. And he’s not smiling now.
“Shall we follow him?” he says.
She snorts. “Let me out first.”
The van moves off up the road, its tail lights getting smaller and smaller until they disappear into the distance.
They sit there a while looking at the traffic. She puts her hand on his, squeezes.
“John, this isn’t gonna work. Not if you keep asking me to do stuff like that. Perhaps it’d be better if I wasn’t here?”
He leans to his left, lowering his head gently until it rests on her shoulder, the cold leather of her jacket against the side of his face.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
She pushes her fingers into his hair.
“A bloke’s dead, John. The police need to know, and they need to know whatever you saw this morning.”
“If I tell ’em, will you help me look for whoever did it?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“In exchange for the gumbo?”
Chapter Eighteen
Baron’s got his coat on now. The wind’s picked up, and it’s threatening to rain. He’s decided to wait for the body to be brought out of the ground. No point going back to Millgarth yet. They’ve got nothing to go on.
Door-to-doors are not proving very useful either. The closest houses are over on the other side of the main road, quarter of a mile at least, and most people are down the pub. He’s got a team collecting CCTV footage, but there’s no camera pointing directly at the entrance to the waste ground. Plus, no one’s been reported missing, nothing unusual’s been called in. All he can do is wait for the body.
His phone buzzes. It’s Stella. He’s tried her a few times, but she hadn’t picked up. Probably saw his number, decided he could wait. He’d left a message with the babysitter as well. Too late to speak to the boys, who were already be in bed.
“Hi,” he says.
Her tone is polite but clipped, efficient to the point of boredom. In the background he can hear music. She’s at a wedding, or one of those functions she used to enjoy so much. He hated them. When people found out he was divorced, the invitations dried up. If he ever gets married again, he’s going to keep it quiet. Not going to functions is the sole advantage of the bachelor life.
They’ve had the same conversation countless times. Neither of them really needs to listen. He calls tomorrow off, apologises briefly, knowing she doesn’t want to listen to it.
“OK. We’ll cope, as usual,” she says, a slight drawl in her voice.
A thought occurs to him. “Stella?”
Half an hour? Tomorrow afternoon. He could manage that. Nip up the A64, grab some fish and chips, eat ’em out of the paper in the park, just him and the boys. Then roll up the paper, a quick kick-around, the three of them…
But he knows it’s not going to happen. Half an hour drive to York, and in those thirty minutes there’d be any number of reasons for him to turn around. First full day of a murder enquiry your phone never stops. It’s hard enough finding time to eat. Trip to York and back? He’d only have to let the boys down again, another phone call, daddy saying sorry, those two telling him it didn’t matter, that they understood. But they didn’t. How could work be more important than seeing your own dad once a fortnight?
“Steve?” Her voice is vacant, as if she’s keen to get back. “Are you there?”
“Nothing. Have a nice night.”
“I will. Bye.”
He slips the phone back in his pocket, looks down at the latest lump of dead human that’s keeping him from his sons. A lot of the soil has now been removed from the hole, revealing the body of a large man. About six foot, heavily built, half his head missing, and the nose. His clothes look like they’ve been burned, his skin as well in places, although until the body is cleaned it’s difficult to say.
He crouches. Looks more closely. Decent shoes, shop-bought trousers, leather belt. Black shirt, seems to be, what’s left of it.
“Wallet? Rings, bracelets?” he asks a SOCO who’s labelling evidence bags in the corner of the tent.
“Nowt. Teeth knocked out an’all.”
“Every one?”
“Yeah. Hammer, something like that. Quick job. Probably find one or two of ’em in his throat.”
“Tats?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
Baron looks at the dead man. He’s getting on, middle aged at least, but he’s hefty, the forearms thick and muscular. Thick neck. Big bastard. No tattoos?
“Right,” he says, standing up and looking around. “Whenever you’re ready.”
He steps out of the tent. Over by the cars a couple of the forensics men are smoking. He wishes he smoked. Times like this you need something. Den used to smoke at crime scenes, always had cigarettes in the car, used to say she needed something before she could face a dead body. He wonders how she’s getting on in Manchester. He should give her a ring sometime. Why hasn’t he? He doesn’t know.
When he looks in the tent again, five men in white suits are standing around a stretcher, the dead body laid awkwardly on its side. They make room for Baron. The sodden fabric of the man’s shirt is black, burned away in patches all down one side.
“Let’s have a look under that shirt,” he says.
One of the SOCOS bends down and carefully lifts the shirt, holding the collar between gloved thumb and index finger. It comes away easily. Underneath is a tattoo, extending right across the man’s back, from one shoulder blade to the other. There’s some sort of image framed in a wreath, and beneath it some writing, nothing legible.
“Right,” Baron says, already turning to go. “Get that cleaned up and photographed, then you can take him in. Photos to me, soon as,” he calls out as he marches towards his car, coat blowing open in the wind.
Ten minutes later they’re back in the city centre, Steele driving, Baron holding his phone patiently. It pings as the image arrives.
He stares at the screen for a second, and smiles.
“Right, we’ve got him. Game on.”
Chapter Nineteen
“John,” she says. “I don’t want any elephants in the room.”
“OK, let’s round up those elephants.”
“Are you involved in anything dodgy?”
It’s a fair question.
“No.”
“No more funny money? Stolen cars?”
“Nope.”
He had been, though. Back in the old showroom, as he stood and watched the life drain out of his brother, he’d taken stock of his own life. University degree, decent career, the prodigal son who’d made a success of himself… Suddenly it felt like it had been an act, a conceit against himself, a pointless waste of time. So he made a decision, the worst one he’d ever made.
“Sure?”
“Hundred per cent legit,” he says, “white sheep of the family again.”
When he died, Joe had been working with a new supplier of counterfeit banknotes, great quality, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. John, confused and disorientated by the murder of his brother, took over the contract, doubled the order. It was his first for
ay into serious crime, and his last.
It wasn’t about being a criminal, though. He’d never wanted that. What he wanted was to escape, to leave everything behind, make a fresh start. He wanted a yacht. That had been the dream. Him and Den in the Mediterranean, living on a 60-foot motor boat bought with dodgy money. He really had been out of his mind.
She takes a drink from her bottle of Grolsch. “I’ll have to take your word for it,” she says, trying to see behind his golden eyes, a bit less of a glint in them now, a year on, but still John.
The scam with the fake money and the sports cars had gone wrong. Freddy got caught up in it. John had never asked him to get involved; it was Freddy’s own fault, and he did four months for it. As for John, he’d managed to extricate himself from the mess in time.
Problem was, he had then told Den the whole thing, from start to finish. She should have turned him in. But she didn’t. She left him, left her job, everything, and moved away.
“Just out of interest,” she says. “The money you made illegally last year. Still got it?”
He shakes his head. “Blew most of it.”
“On what?”
“You were sitting in it ten minutes ago.”
She stifles a laugh.
“Nice symmetry, though,” he adds. “Most expensive Porsche I could find. Hundred and twenty K.”
“You’re joking!”
He goes all serious. “It’s got torque vectoring and seven gears. Seven! And it does nought to sixty in less time than it takes me to uncork a bottle of wine.”
“Now you’re giving me the horn.”
“It’s got one of those as well, oh yes…. Whole thing was a waste of money, of course. I hardly ever drive it. Just one mistake after another with me.”
There had only been one mistake, though, and that was Den. He didn’t care about the money. He should have told her sooner, as soon as he knew she was special. She would have forced him to choose. And he’d have chosen her, no contest. But he didn’t tell her soon enough. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he blew it.
“So,” she says, changing the subject. “Tell me about the adorable redhead.”