Doing the Best I Can_A Manchester Crime Story featuring DSI Jeff Barton

by David Menon

  Suzanne had always loved her nights out on the town with her mates. She stepped out of the lift with her two house mates and into the main lounge area of the bar. She really liked ‘Costello’s’. It was where the eligible unattached men of Manchester gathered to sniff out a potential new girlfriend and where girls like Suzanne and her friends came to go ‘Husband Hunting’. Suzanne didn’t need to look at what was on the market anymore though as far as men were concerned. Much to her friend’s chagrin she’d taken up with Lance Parkin who was a camera operator at the MediaCity studios in Salford where Suzanne also worked as part of the administration team for the BBC ‘Northwest’ tonight programme. The problem her friends had with Lance Parkin was that he was regarded as a tart who’d fuck anything that would let him. Suzanne was aware of his reputation and at the same time she couldn’t care less. She and Lance’s feelings for each other had grown pretty intense over the last few weeks and the he’d introduced her to his Mum and Dad who were absolutely delightful. They’d been open towards her and easy to get along with. So different from her own parents. Well, so different from her Mum. She didn’t have anything to do with her Dad who’d divorced from her mother years ago. It was one of the things that had led her Mum to be in a depressive state and dependant on tranquilisers. It felt like a morgue at home sometimes except those living there weren’t dead.

  The air felt a little damp all this way up. It had been raining earlier that day but that didn’t seem to bother any of Suzanne’s fellow patrons. She was focusing on the bar but out of the corner of her eye she caught glimpse of what so many came here for. That view was outstanding. White lights against a black background that seemed to stretch on forever. There was a slight nip in the air and she and her two flatmates had brought light cotton shawls to put over their shoulders. They were also all wearing the same kind of one piece dress that just about covered their nipples at the top and maintained the privacy of where babies were made at the bottom. They all had long legs furnished with high heels on their feet. They got to the bar and Candice wondered if they should order cocktails. ‘How about a Manhattan?’ she suggested. But Suzanne and Briony didn’t hold with that at all.

  ‘A Manhattan is so last year, darling’ said Briony in her best affected voice.

  ‘I think it has to be champagne’ said Suzanne. ‘And not any sparkling wine. I mean the proper stuff from France’.

  ‘My lord’ said Briony. ‘We can tell the kind of circles you’re mixing in these days’.

  ‘It always used to be our regular tipple’ said Suzanne as if she was describing what they used to have in their sandwiches for lunch. ‘So why shouldn’t it be now?’

  ‘Can’t argue with that’ said Briony. ‘A bottle of the best posh piss it is’.

  Suzanne bought the next bottle and Candice bought the one after that. They were halfway through it when the subject of Lance came up. He’d been sending text messages to Suzanne throughout the evening and Briony and Candice felt more like being candid than they would’ve been if they hadn’t have been supping all that champagne.

  Suzanne raised her eyebrows. ‘What now?’

  ‘Suze, it’s just that we don’t want to see you get hurt’ said Briony. ‘Okay, so he may be being really attentive right now but will that last?’

  ‘Oh, well thanks for your confidence in my ability to keep my man, girls’ said Suzanne in measured tones.

  ‘He’s a sleaze bag, Suzanne’ said Candice.

  ‘Oh don’t waste time sparing my feelings’ Suzanne retorted. ‘And look, he has that reputation, granted, but I’d be bloody worried if he didn’t have some kind of history at his age. I know he isn’t thirty until next year but you know what I mean. And let me tell you, girls, I’m truly benefitting from all that experience he has in the bedroom department. The sexual chemistry between us is awesome and keeps getting better and better’.

  ‘We know’ said Candice. ‘We live in the same house, remember? We can hear you through the walls’.

  Suzanne smiled. ‘Sorry. Well no I’m not actually and do you know what? If either of you two met a guy that you were getting wrapped in then I’d be the first to be over the moon for you. And to be honest, I’m just a little bit pissed that all you can do with me and Lance is pick bloody fault all the time. I’m happy. For the first time in my life I feel like things might just be going my way. Why can’t you be happy for me?’

  ‘We are happy for you, Suze’ said Briony who thought that she and Candice may have gone a little too far with their big sister routine. She could see that Suzanne was starting to get upset. ‘We’re just worried, that’s all’.

  ‘Because it’s Lance Parkin’.

  ‘Exactly’.

  ‘Well you don’t need to be because he means everything to me and I’m not exactly stupid when it comes to judging characters. So give me some credit, yea? All you see is a sleaze bag but I think that’s only because he’s never hit on either of you’.

  ‘Hey now girlfriend, wait a minute’ said Candice. ‘That was a bit harsh’.

  ‘Maybe but it’s true and you know it. You look at Lance and all you see is a guy with a reputation who’s managed to leave you both out and you’re jealous that I’ve got someone whilst you two have a deep and meaningful relationship with Netflix’.

  ‘Well’ said Briony ‘That’s us told’.

  ‘Well yes it is because I’m tired of your sniping. When I look at Lance what I see is this tall, handsome, gorgeous man who treats me like the lady I’ve never been treated like by a man before. He cares about me, you know. He really cares about me. He’s even got me into eating proper meals again and you know I’d fallen out of the habit of that when I was a teenager. He’s on an assignment down in Southampton tonight and he’s missing me and I’m missing him and I can’t wait until I go over to his place tomorrow night. You both know what I went through when I was growing up and what I’m still going through with my Mum. I never thought I’d find real happiness so please don’t put the damper on it now. You’re my two best friends and I don’t want to lose you but I need you to accept that my life is just starting and that’s because of Lance’.

  The three young women wrapped their arms round each other and tearfully dedicated their friendship to each other. Briony and Candice promised not to be so hard on Lance and that yes, they were happy for her if Lance was making her happy and if he was who she wanted. They also said that if he did hurt her they’d be the first to stick a knife in his balls.

  After that, Suzanne decided she needed a cigarette. She didn’t smoke much these days but every now and then, like when she’d been emotional with her two best friends, she felt like one. She picked up her bag and told the girls she was heading down to ground level for a cigarette in the small open area that Costello’s had just between the lift and where the security guards stood. She went to get the lift and when it came she got in and waved at Candice and Briony as the doors closed.

  And that was the last her friends ever saw of Suzanne Elizabeth Hermitage.

  TEN

  Barton was finding the investigation he’d been given into the possible fraudulent practices of a bunch of tradesmen across the Greater Manchester area to be the biggest fucking bore of the century. Yes he could smell that crimes had probably been committed and that as a law enforcement officer he should be actively pursuing those responsible. But really? Would the world stop spinning if he and his team didn’t manage to find out who was selling the kind of components needed by any good plumber, electrician, painter and decorator, carpenter, at prices that were below the accepted rates? Even though it wasn’t part of his job to pick and choose what he thought was worthy of investigation and what he thought wasn’t, he really couldn’t get excited about all this. Not when there was still a serial killer on the loose who may strike again at any time. Chief Constable Hermitage had been wandering around the place with a sickening look of self- satisfaction since Scott Delaney’s suicide. Barton feared that it would take another victim to wipe that
smile off his fat face although in some ways he did have to hand it to Hermitage. He really did have some bloody front. Even though the parents of Scott Delaney had made it clear and in no uncertain terms that they didn’t want him at their son’s funeral because of his very public naming of Scott as a murderer Barton had thought it insensitive of Hermitage to turn up at the funeral anyway. But he wouldn’t listen to Barton when he’d tried to remonstrate with him. The tension at the ceremony had been palpable but after the church service and before the burial Hermitage had finally had the good sense to leave after Delaney’s father and brother and other members of his family had threatened him. The family told Barton that they were planning to bring out a civil law suit against Hermitage and the Greater Manchester force for actions that led to Scott committing suicide. Barton could see quite clearly how hurt and pain and grief mixed with anger were eating away at Scott Delaney’s Mum and Dad. They knew Scott was innocent. Barton knew that Scott was innocent. He could well understand why Scott’s parents wanted to bring this to court.

  But it also made him nervous for them because he would never underestimate the lengths that Hermitage would go to in order to make sure he came out untouched by his own lies. Even so Barton wasn’t going to be pushed around by Hermitage any longer. He called a team meeting in front of the white board in the squad room. If Hermitage came by flapping his bloody wings then let him. He was bored with the whole dogfight crap going on between them. And from the looks of it the rest of the team were all bored too judging by the way they’d collected all their shit together. He got someone to close all the doors so they couldn’t be overheard. It felt like they were holding a dissidents meeting in 1970s East Germany or something. And all because the Chief Constable was corrupt and a twat. Not forgetting the fact that Barton had been intimately involved with Hermitage’s wife. Let’s not make that Hermitage show a total lack of professionalism.

  ‘So let’s start with Scott Delaney’ said Barton as he pointed to his picture on the white board. ‘Now according to my old mate Dr. Rashid Ahmed who conducted the autopsy on Scott Delaney’s body there was no sign that any restraints were used on Delaney either prior or during his death’.

  ‘But you don’t believe that’s true, sir?’ asked DS Adrian Bradshaw.

  ‘Well maybe I’ve just got an overly suspicious mind but I’ve called Rashid a couple of times to talk to him about it but he’s not yet returned my calls which is unusual of him, I must say, particularly as he’s a mate as well as a colleague. But we’ll park that one for a while. So what else is there?’

  ‘Sir’ Louisa Pilkington the civilian support worker began. ‘We’ve checked all calls to and from the phones of both Karina Kowalewski and Stacey Donaldson in the last seventy-two hours of their respective lives and none of them were from unknown numbers. They were all numbers that were already stored on their phone’s contact list and they all have alibis. In fact, in the case of Karina Kowalewski the last call she had was from her brother but he’s over in Poland. It’s so sad. According to her workmates at Stepping Hill hospital he was planning to join her here next month. He’d just bought his ticket and was very excited. She’d got him a job lined up at the hospital too’.

  Barton shook his head sadly. ‘Like you say, Louisa, it is sad. But I don’t think our killer would risk using a mobile phone that could possibly be traced anyway’.

  ‘He might just get talking to them in a bar, sir, and plies them with enough alcohol to make them do exactly what he wants them to do?’ suggested Bradshaw. ‘It would seem the most obvious way’.

  ‘Yes because even in the case of Stacey Donaldson who was pregnant the autopsy on her showed quite high levels of alcohol’ said Barton.

  ‘Do you think he targets them for a specific reason, sir?’ DCI Wright wondered.

  ‘Or we could be looking at two murders committed by the same killer but for different reasons?’ suggested DS Ben Masters.

  ‘In which case there’s going to be nothing that connects Karina Kowalewski with Stacey Donaldson’ said DC Emily Ng.

  ‘But I don’t think we can put these down as a couple of random murders, sir’ said Wright. ‘The question is what does connect these two women in the killer’s warped, twisted mind?’

  ‘Could it be some kind of grudge, sir?’ Bradshaw went on. It was strange sometimes in the squad room these days. He automatically expected to see his old friend DC Joe Alexander sitting there, usually nursing some grudge or other. But Joe had passed. He wasn’t around to whinge in his ear all bloody day. Bradshaw missed him. He’d even been round to see his parents recently to see how they were doing.

  ‘But against what though, Adrian? I mean, if we say that the killing of Karina Kowalewski was a random act in some way and for some reason but that Stacey Donaldson was targeted then that’s where any grudge comes in. But from where and from whom?’

  ‘The circuit, sir?’

  Barton wrote the words on the white board and then circled them round and round again. ‘Ben, everything that your sister-in-law Rosie Franklin told you about what she suffered at the hands of her father and his friends? Could you brief us all on that, please?’

  Masters cleared his throat before beginning. ‘For a period lasting ten years members of the circuit held sex parties every weekend. Those who had daughters brought at least one of them along. They always left one daughter out as if they wanted to leave one clean in each family as it were. My sister-in-law Rosie Franklin was the one who was chosen from her family. Her sister, my wife Kaitlin was never chosen. Apart from the fact that these girls were children and this was all happening against their will, they were raped repeatedly. Rosie was raped hundreds of times during her teenage years by her father and his friends. I mean, these so-called men sanctioned the raping of their children by other men. It went way beyond being just immoral. It was downright evil. Rosie and all the other girls have been carrying it all around with them for all these years and even those who weren’t chosen have suffered. They’ve thought they weren’t good enough and they may have carried that sharp rejection into adulthood. But none of these girls had any choice. They were forced into the most heinous acts of sexual violence over these weekends and then they’d have to hop off to school on Monday morning as if nothing had happened. And they liked it if they struggled apparently. They liked to create the whole rape scenario thing. In the case of my wife Kaitlin she refuses to acknowledge that it ever happened and that her sister Rosie is making up wicked lies to spite her darling Daddy who in her eyes is a Saint and can do no wrong. But Rosie says that Kaitlin could hear her and the others screaming. She said she could see the terror in her eyes every Friday and Saturday night. She also knew that Rosie had an abortion when she was fifteen that was hushed up by members of the circuit. And if they can cover up an underage pregnancy and then abortion it makes you wonder what else they can cover up’.

  The room went quiet for a few moments after Masters had finished his testimony. It was one of those occasions when everybody was so strung out by what one person had said that they couldn’t work out where to take it from there.

  ‘Thank you, DS Masters’ said Barton. ‘I know that must’ve been difficult for you because of the personal nature of the situations you described and that’s appreciated’.

  Masters nodded his acknowledgement. ‘I just want these sick bastards brought to justice, sir’.

  ‘And so do I, Ben. Believe me’.