by David Carter
‘Great!’
KAREN DREW A CAR FROM the pound in the basement. She’d normally have picked an unmarked car because she knew he preferred them, but there was a silver BMW estate there, a beast of a thing with a three-litre engine, that was normally used by Traffic. But for some reason it was available to allcomers that day, and she grabbed it. All round the car were Day-Glo yellow and green jagged lines, but she didn’t care about that. You couldn’t see the crap from the inside. She hooted and smiled and picked him up near the lifts.
‘No unmarked cars?’ he moaned.
‘None, Guv,’ she lied.
He didn’t believe her, and he knew full well what was coming. Karen was ever eager to show off her driving skills, she’d passed the advanced police-driving course at the first time of asking, and for good measure she’d taken up rallying. On her days off, she spent a great deal of time terrifying the conifers all over North Wales. He would like to have said that sitting behind the wheel, she was a different person, but she wasn’t. She was the exact same slightly crazed thrill seeker. He was too old for thrills, and far too tired.
Outside the city, they joined the M53, where she pointed the car north towards Liverpool, and they hurtled up the Wirral peninsula. She eased her foot gently on the neck of the accelerator and the car surged ahead with little effort and minimal noise. He noticed her smiling, almost lovingly.
‘Good Lord,’ she giggled, ‘feel that!’
He glanced across at the speedometer. The needle flickered around the hundred tag and he had to admit it did not feel like it. He was almost beginning to enjoy himself, but when he next stared forward, he saw the road full of traffic coming back at an alarming rate. They appeared terrified and were scuttling away like geckos from the most venomous snake in the desert. He watched her face and the strange smile fixed across it. She didn’t actually say it was better than sex, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had.
‘Slow down.’
‘We’re on official police business, aren’t we?’
‘We are, but not urgent business. Slow down!’
She eased her foot back until the needle settled on eighty. ‘Better?’
He nodded and began humming a Lightning Watkins tune, as some prat in a green Ford Saloon flew past them as if they were standing still.
‘For God’s sake,’ shouted Walter, ‘take that idiot’s number!’
‘I’m driving, Guv.’
‘I’ll do it!’ and he did, just before it went out of range of his vision.
THEY ARRIVED AT THE football ground earlier than planned and that was usual for her. They had fifteen minutes to kill and took the opportunity to walk around the stadium, before ringing the bell at reception. A smiley, middle-aged woman with a scouse accent welcomed them and let them in.
In the office they were met by Billy McClennon, a red-faced Scot with thinning sandy hair. He shook Walter’s hand as if his future depended on it, and grasped and kissed Karen’s hand with a gleam in his eye. No one had ever kissed her hand before. It was a stupid, sexist, ridiculous thing to do, but kind of nice.
He led them up the stairs and along a corridor that bore photographs of the triumphant days, cups aloft, all smiles, sweat and glory, long before Johnny Foreigner had slipped unnoticed onto the English fields. They followed the corridor to a square room containing a desk, several chairs, a large white display board that someone had recently cleaned as if it might betray national secrets, and an integrated television and DVD.
Walter explained what they were looking for and handed the disk to Billy.
‘Let’s take a look see, eh?’ he said upbeat, and he slid the disk into the slot, fast forwarded it, and locked it on the vital scene.
‘Some game wasn’t it, some game,’ he muttered. No reply. ‘Ah yes, the yellow rig out,’ he murmured, his unblinking eyes gazing down at the image of Messine Ridge.
‘You remember her?’ asked Walter.
‘Sure. I was sitting about eight rows back. You couldn’t miss her. I’d never seen her before, and I haven’t seen her since.’
‘I am not surprised at that. We want to know who bought those seats. We are trying to identify these three,’ and he slid the enhanced pictures across the desk. Billy pursed his lips and peered down at the faces.
‘Don’t recognise any of them, and those seats are not for season ticket holders. The people in that section vary from match to match, guests usually, but we might have a record who bought them. It will take about twenty minutes to check. Do you want to wait?’
‘Sure.’
‘Would you like coffee?’
Walter nodded, and the Scot disappeared.
Billy McClennon was temporarily exchanged for two reasonable coffees brought by a young girl in a smart red suit who smiled and said: ‘There you go,’ at least three times. They sat and sipped the drinks without saying much, still thinking of the woman in yellow, and before they’d finished drinking, Billy returned.
‘As I thought,’ he said, grimacing, ‘those tickets were gifted to a relative of one of the players. But he didn’t use them himself.’
‘So he sold them for financial gain?’ said Karen in a rush, a little more officiously than she’d intended.
‘I couldn’t comment on that, but selling tickets for a profit, no matter how much we might disapprove of it, no matter how much we levy penalties to stop it, is not a criminal offence.’
‘Look,’ said Walter, ‘we’re not interested if someone has made a few quid selling a few tickets. Our only concern is that a man in Greece was stabbed to death, and one of these people could be responsible.’
Billy nodded. ‘I understand that.’
Walter spoke slowly, as if he was thinking hard on every word.
‘Do you think it would be possible to trace whose hands those tickets flowed through?’
‘In short, no. Once they entered the land of toutdom, they could have gone anywhere.’
Walter sighed and pawed the photographs again.
‘Any ideas on how we could trace these people?’
Billy smiled. ‘That shouldn’t be too difficult. Print them in the local paper. Someone’s bound to know them.’
‘We don’t want to do that. It might scare them off. It may come to that eventually, but not yet.’
Billy interlocked his fingers and stared down at the faces.
‘If you supply me with copies of these pics, I’ll issue them to the stewards. Who knows, these people might come to the next game. Someone is bound to know them. Three people can’t attend a football match and disappear. Why don’t you leave it with me?’
‘You can have these.’
Billy nodded as Walter stood up.
‘You’ve been most helpful.’
‘But not helpful enough, eh? Don’t give up on me yet, Inspector. I’ll find them for you.’
Walter and Karen returned to the car in silence, lost in thoughts, a silence Karen broke.
‘Do you think he’ll get anywhere?’
Walter bobbed his head. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Funny that; so do I.’
‘Someone must know them.’
‘Of course they do, but the thing is, will they tell us?’
Chapter Forty-Five
IN THE SEVENTIES DIANE Shearston bought her apartment in the Albert Dock development off plan. She was the third person to commit to purchasing there. She took advantage of the incentives available when it seemed the development might stall. At the time, people laughed and sniggered behind her back.
‘You don’t want to buy there,’ they said, ‘who’d ever want to buy a house looking out over a muddy dock on one side, and a polluted river on the other?’
People actually laughed.
FIVE YEARS RUSHED AWAY and the value of her apartment had all but tripled. Her home was on the fourth floor and it looked out over the Mersey through triple glazed porthole windows. The apartment was huge, three double bedrooms, large living cum dining-room, a state-of-the-art la
te seventies kitchen, and an avocado pear bathroom.
The ceilings were high, the walls massively thick, reminding residents it was once a Victorian warehouse, with original features retained where possible. The most impressive being three Portland stone circular pillars that split the living area from the dining quarters. With its curved ceiling there was something of the Cavern Club about it.
She’d kept the interior simple and neutral, white and cream walls, painted regularly, judging by the fresh smell of paint that zipped past Vimy’s nose as he entered her home. There was a Danish rectangular glass dining table surrounded by six metal chairs, and two chunky comfortable sofas, arranged opposite one another, with a square Grundig television to one side. Diane was something of a technology queen; her latest pet gadget, a small control box that enabled her to change TV channels without standing up, and without touching the TV. It impressed Vimy, and he wanted one.
She flicked through the three channels, but there was nothing she liked. She switched it off and placed an LP on her Bang and Olufsen stereo that she’d treated herself to from her Christmas bonus. The record clicked and banged, proof she’d played it to death. A wolf yowled hauntingly, and the singer began his journey.
Vimy didn’t recognise the song, and he didn’t like the mournful voice of the singer, but he wouldn’t have recognised it even if it had been the Beatles.
‘Coffee?’ she said as she sang along.
He nodded. ‘Black, please.’
He went to the window and stared out across the dark river. The glass was so clean it appeared there was no glass in it at all. He could see the last river ferry berthing in Birkenhead on the far shore, and the lights of the landing stage twinkling across the falling waters. To the left of the far passenger jetty, a big bulk carrier was under construction beneath the floodlights at the Cammell Laird shipyard, the same yard where they’d once tried to build ships for the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. President Lincoln put an end to that mischief by threatening to declare war on Great Britain, and the orders were binned.
Three different sized tugs in line astern like ducks on a lake were heading for the Canada dock at the end of a long day. His sightseeing was broken when he heard the trendy whistling kettle coming to a boil, and he retreated to the sofa.
Diane returned, still singing, placed two steaming Beatles mugs on the coffee table, and sat beside him. How elegant she looked, as she passed in her armless grey dress. She sat close to him. He could feel the electricity from her bare arm through his jacket, could hear it crackling, and smell her perfume.
‘So how’s Jamie?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I’ve dumped him.’
Vimy pulled a face, grabbed the coffee and burned his lip.
‘Why?’
It was her turn to pull a face.
‘He tried to tell me what to wear; he tried to tell me who to talk to, he tried to say who I could see and who I couldn’t, and when I could go out, and when I couldn’t, and what I could eat and drink, and what I couldn’t, and even how I should wear my bloody hair. I didn’t appreciate all that crap; and anyway...’
‘Anyway, what?’
‘I don’t think I am cut out to spend my entire life with one man. It’s more exciting to see someone occasionally, perhaps not to know exactly when. It’s the anticipation thing. It gets me every time.’
He smiled in agreement. She was an unusual girl, and if she was to be believed, she had a different agenda to any woman he had ever met.
‘You think so?’
‘Yes, and besides, there’s someone else.’
‘Really,’ he smirked. ‘Lucky you. Who?’
‘That’s my business. I’m not saying, it’s private,’ and she sipped more coffee.
There was a short silence, and he guessed he might have strayed over the line into prying into her personal affairs. For a long minute, they both sought an appropriate thing to say. He looked at her and caught her looking back. She was so beautiful and that beauty, emphasised by alcohol, took his breath away. He leant across and kissed her. He’d done it before, kissed her, and it hadn’t meant a thing, and this time it was just for the sheer hell of it. She pursed her lips, but didn’t respond. The lips were cold but sweet, her light lipstick an unusual flavour, a come-on to kiss her again. But he didn’t. He eased away. Still, they stared into each other’s eyes for signs and clues. What was he doing? Stealing a drunken kiss, a boss taking advantage of a vulnerable employee late at night, or could it be more?
Did she want him to kiss her? Her response had been muted, and did he not have the love of his life, his relatively new wife and mother of his infant child waiting patiently at home?
‘You’re married,’ she whispered.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am.’
Perhaps that was what made it so exciting. The forbidden.
There was another long silence before she said, ‘I don’t care you’re married.’
‘I have a beautiful wife and a young son I adore.’
‘So why are you here?’
It was a good question.
He thought about it for a moment.
‘Just because a man loves his wife, it doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate other desirable women. It doesn’t mean he loses the urge to be held by another.’
He knew that sounded corny, the kind of thing married men always said to their secretaries and potential mistresses when attempting to lure them to bed.
‘I’ve liked you since that first interview,’ she said. ‘I’ll always remember that day.’
‘Really?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘Not until now.’
She held her hands together like a church steeple and smiled.
‘What about Jamie?’ he said again.
‘I only went with him to take my mind off you. It didn’t work. Not at all.’
‘Oh Diane...’
Vimy curled his arm around her shoulder. The record clanked to an end, breaking the spell. She stood up, crossed the room and replaced it, and Johnny Nash crooned his big hit.
Vimy knew the tune but wasn’t seeing clearly at all, just the opposite. He was confused. They drank more coffee. It was strong and sweet and was sobering them up, reminding him he shouldn’t have been there.
She sat down again and cuddled into his arm.
‘If you ever want me, Vimy, I’ll always be here for you. I know you’re married and I know you’ll never leave Laura. I understand that, and I really don’t want you to leave her. I just want you to know, I’ll always be here for you.’
‘Oh Dee,’ he said, and gently kissed her again.
She was offering to be his mistress, and he was touched. The next time their lips brushed, there was a flicker of response. It would be so easy to stay the night, to take advantage of a stunning woman, a vulnerable woman, a woman he cared for, and a girl he had now come to see as quite lonely. What red-blooded man would spurn the chance? But he knew he shouldn’t, and he knew he wouldn’t, and as he sat there, he felt as if Laura was perched on his shoulder, watching his every move, imploring him to get up and leave, but he didn’t.
Diane yawned and stood up.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she said, signalling the evening was over. ‘Early start in the morning. Demanding boss. You know how it is. You can let yourself out... or whatever.’
She crossed the room and disappeared into the bedroom without looking back. She’d made her feelings known; there was nothing further to say. The bedroom door remained ajar. Soft white light shone from within. Vimy remained in the chair, gazing across the room, as Johnny Nash crooned to him alone. Vimy studied the ceiling for some minutes, until the record became noticeable by its absence. Outside, the packed city had fallen asleep. He stood up, went through the door, and closed it behind him.
She was sitting on the side of the bed, naked. He closed on her and knelt before her. He guessed she didn’t realise how wonderful she was. She had long known that Vimy Ridge was
the only man she could ever love, and was prepared to share him, if that was what it took. She had never imagined she could fall in love with a man she worked for, or a man she was forced to share, and in that moment, she abandoned her independence.
She would settle for being Mr Ridge’s mistress for as long as he wanted her, for as long as he cared. It was to be her lot in life. To be a secretary in the old-fashioned leery, winking sense. I’ll have to discuss this with my PA. The scarlet woman, the hussy, the office whore, and all those hurtful sobriquets that women in her position were called. She had become the pretty colleague fattening wives at home would suffer nightmares about.
He was exactly as she’d imagined he would be when she’d lain awake at night thinking of him. They whispered silly things, talking at the same time, cuddling together and staring deep into each other’s burning eyes, and they both knew things would never be the same again.
‘I’ll give you a key,’ she whispered.
‘If you want.’
‘You can come whenever you like.’
‘I will.’
‘There will never be anyone but you. Don’t ring, just come and surprise me. I don’t care if you come once a week, or once a year, just so long as you come.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’ll always be here for you.’
‘I know.’
They closed their eyes and wallowed in each other’s warmth and company, their skin touching the full length of their bodies in sweet silence, their minds as one. The caffeine chased the blood around their veins and they knew sleep would be a long time coming.
Vimy whispered, ‘I can’t sleep. It’s the coffee.’
‘I know. I made it especially strong.’
‘You’re so naughty.’
‘I am. And so are you.’
He didn’t reply, for it was the truth. There was nothing further to say. He kissed her again, and again.
IN THE MORNING, THEY rose early and washed and dressed. They barely spoke, but there was no awkwardness between them. It hadn’t been a one-night stand fuelled by drink, and they both knew that. It would be the first of many nights, her only regret being it had taken him so long to come to her. When they were ready to leave, they embraced and kissed. She held him hard because she had no idea when he would come again. She had made her life choice and was content with it. She took a set of two keys from her handbag and slipped them into his hand.