Back upstairs in CID, showered and dressed in a grey suit and white shirt, Cooper was about to call the Petites, and failing their cooperation, call the local police department in France and have them round Nico up on her behalf. Her plans were scuppered when Chief Superintendent Nixon coughed and called Cooper to his office. Christ on a bike. Cooper’s stomach lurched and she prayed to herself. Tell me she hasn’t been found dead. She got to her feet and trotted along the hall, her boots click-clacking on linoleum tiles, and entered Nixon’s office only to find Neil Fuller in there, slumped in a chair and picking something from under his nails.
“Before you go off it, it’s not my fault,” he said with a wary look in his eyes.
Cooper’s heart rate instantly raised and she met his eyes with distrust. “What do you mean it’s not your fault?”
Nixon coughed again. “Settle down you two. Nothing to fret about Cooper. Just some reshuffling.”
Cooper didn’t like the sound of that. If Nixon was about to tell her she’d been partnered up with Fuller, she’d hit the roof. There was no way she was working side by side with that weaselly, coward of a man-child.
Cooper’s eyes remained narrowed and she folded her arms across her chest. The muscles in her chest cried as she did so. In a slow, sceptical tone, she said, “Define reshuffling.”
Nixon closed the door to his office and inched his way into the old wood and leather chair behind his antique desk. “I’m taking you off the Gallagher case.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he barked before she could fly into a torrent of reasons why not. “I’m not wasting my best talent on a missing, presumed dead case. Chances are that girl got pissed, got emotional, and jumped in the river. Fuller can handle it.”
Fuller took the insult on the chin and said nothing. Cooper, despite being called his best talent, was about to protest. She hated being transferred off cases. She liked closure. Anything less was unacceptable and as far as she was concerned, Macey Gallagher was worth fighting for. Even if no one else was fighting for that poor girl.
“She’s still alive, sir.”
“God willing,” said Nixon, though his voice suggested otherwise. “But I need you on a suspected hate crime. Keep the PC brigade off my back.”
Cooper bristled. PC brigade meant one thing and one thing only. “I’m not your token female,” she said, almost snarling.
“Don’t forget part Arab.”
Cooper’s mouth hung open. “I’m like five per cent Persian, sir. Ninety-five per cent white British. You can’t parade me as—”
“You need to solve the case before can I parade you as anything. Sit down. Fuller, take Sam Sutherland and Oliver Martin. Sam’s suspect in the matricide case made a full confession. Pick up where Cooper left off on the Gallagher case.”
Fuller ran a finger and thumb over his moustache and left the room under a cloud of humiliation.
“Question the French boy,” Cooper called after him. “Get on the next flight to Paris if need be. It leaves at eleven forty.” The door clicked shut and Cooper turned her attentions back to the superintendent. “I’m keeping my fingers in that pie.”
“Keep your fingers where I can see them,” he warned. “Fuller will be fine. Too many cooks and all that. Anyway, this case.” He dropped a file on the table. It was light and clearly new. “Omar Ali, Egyptian national, brought into the RVI this morning,” he said, referencing the Royal Victoria Infirmary that resided in Newcastle’s city centre. “A dozen stab wounds and beaten half to death. Left for dead in Weetslade.”
“Weetslade? That’s the park just off the A189, right? Former colliery.”
“Aye. That’s the one. Found by a dog walker in the early hours. Given the recent marches from the English Defenders and the White Rights Party, there’s been an increase in violence against Muslims. Not to mention that far-right prick from Manchester bringing up the Rochdale sex abuse ring every five minutes.”
“You mean Dominic Jefferson, acclaimed Member of Parliament?”
“Indeed I do. Specky, chinless, Mancunian twat.”
Cooper hid her astonishment.
Nixon thrust the file into Cooper’s hand. “You get Daniel and Keaton. Now get your skinny arse down to the RVI and speak to the victim before he bleeds to death. I want a UKIP-voting skinhead in custody before the loony lefties string me up by my left bollock.”
Cooper took the file and closed her eyes for a moment. At least, she told herself, at least Nixon was equal opportunities when it came to offending people.
- Chapter 12 -
Cooper dodged a team of paramedics wheeling a patient into the trauma centre of the Royal Victoria Infirmary. A robust woman with tension alopecia at the temples was sat astride the patient, the heels of her hands thrusting into his chest as a pale, panicky looking man squeezed a bag valve mask and tried to keep pace with the trolley. Cooper waited for the commotion to die down before she approached the young man monitoring the main desk. He was a pretty boy with lipstick smudges on his neck and a twinkle in his eye. His face hardened when she presented him with her ID and he escorted her to the room that housed Omar Ali.
Cooper’s step faulted as she took in the scene. Doctors and nurses buzzed around the bed at such speed that Cooper could barely see Omar. The movement of their blue and indigo scrubs moulded them into a sea of bodies. Machines beeped, wires and tubes protruded in all directions and pads of white gauze blossomed with red blood. She approached the bed cautiously, not wanting to get in the way of the people doing the most important work right now; keeping him alive. She caught Omar’s eye. His mouth and nose were covered with an oxygen mask and his dark eyes were wet with fear and confusion. His lips quivered and his finger twitched.
“Omar,” she whispered in his ear. “My name’s Erica. I’m a detective with Northumbria CID and I’m going to do my very best to find the people who did this to you.” She didn’t want to question him while he was in this state. Her intention was only to let him know she was on the case, that the police knew he’d been attacked and that they cared. She moved out of the way while a doctor applied pressure to a wound on Omar’s chest. His finger twitched again, beckoning her back to the side of his bed. “What is it, Omar?” She leant in as close as she could.
“Ba— Da—”
She didn’t understand.
His arm was swollen and bruised with great grazes along the length of his forearm and blood oozing from his elbow, but he managed to lift it, hook a finger under his oxygen mask and try again.
“Bad dog,” he said.
“Bad dog? What do you mean, Omar? Were you attacked by a dog?”
Omar’s eyelids flickered and his irises rolled back into his beaten skull. The rhythmic beeping of the machines turned frenetic and all hell broke loose.
“We’re losing him.”
A pair of electrodes were pressed to his chest.
“Clear.”
As Omar’s body convulsed, Cooper was dragged from the room by a nurse with blood-stained scrubs.
“Will he make it?” she asked.
The nurse sucked her lips in and looked to the floor before answering. “He’s in a terrible way. But he’s tough. We revived him once already.”
“Before he...” Cooper couldn’t find the word. “He said bad dog. Those wounds on his chest. Are they bite marks?”
The nurse shook her head. “No. They’re definitely stab wounds. Scissors, he told us when he first came in.”
“Scissors,” she repeated to herself. Then what did bad dog reference? “What else did he say? Was it a gang attack?”
“Sorry.” The nurse shrugged. She didn’t know any more than that. “I’d better get back in there.”
Whoever attacked Omar, they had left him for dead and Cooper worried that when word got out he was still alive, they might pay him a visit to finish the job.
“Sir,” she called her superintendent. “Omar Ali flatlined. They’re working to revive him but it looks touch and go. I want
a uniform stationed at the RVI, outside our assault victim’s room. As far as I’m concerned, this is attempted murder. If Omar wakes up and the perp comes to finish what he started—”
“Say no more. I’ll have two uniforms in rotation outside his room.”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”
Cooper waited at the hospital for an hour. The nurse was right about Omar being tough. They’d brought him back but he was in a coma. She watched doctors and nurses come and go. Watched them stitch up the stab wounds, clean and dress the grazes and ice the bruises. She couldn’t do anything for Omar sitting around waiting for him to wake up so she thanked the man with the lipstick covered neck and walked out into the brilliant sunshine of a chilly April day in the north. She might not be able to do anything for Omar Ali right now, but she was in town and she could perhaps do something for Macey Gallagher. Feisty’s, the last bar Macey was definitely in, was only a fifteen-minute walk away.
A Greggs bacon butty later and Cooper was hammering on the door of Feisty’s.
“We’re not open,” came the reply.
“Northumbria police,” Cooper stated. It was an answer guaranteed to get a response, and within seconds the door was yanked open and a woman with rollers in her hair and a dripping mop in her hand greeted her with an up-and-down-stare.
“There’s no drugs dealt in here, love. The doormen are top at keeping the dealers out,” she said in a rough local accent.
“I’m not here about drugs,” Cooper reassured her, “but I would like a quick chat. Can I come in?”
The mop was shoved back into its bucket and the door was opened enough for Cooper to squeeze through.
Nightclubs without people and music always seemed a bit sad to Cooper, like a seedy ghost town. Without the disco lights and foggy vision of alcohol consumption the cracks of the place showed. Stained floorboards, peeling wallpaper, rips in the upholstery. In the harsh light of the day, the roped-off area that she had been led to looked more DIY than VIP.
“Misha Rudd,” the woman extended her hand. “I’m the owner-manager of this money pit.”
“Business not good?” Asked Cooper.
“Not since the bar next door was featured on Geordie Shore, now every Charlotte Crosby wannabe has to been seen in there instead of here.” She sighed and adjusted a roller that wasn’t cooperating, pinning it back in place.
“I’m here about Macey Gallagher.” Cooper brought up a picture of Macey from her phone.
Recognition showed on Misha’s face. “She was on the news last night. Missing?”
“That’s right. She was here the night she disappeared. The eighth. This was the last bar we know she visited. Could I speak with anyone who was working that night? And I’ll need to take a look at your CCTV.”
Misha looked in two minds but pointed to a girl polishing glasses behind the bar. “Dora was in. You can speak to her, but,” she paused, “our cameras are on the blink. Have been for weeks. I can’t afford to have them fixed. I know it’s not proper but it’s that or be able to pay the staff their wages.”
Cooper seethed. Camera footage could have been key. She thanked Misha through gritted teeth and approached a mousy girl in huge round glasses. “Dora? I’m DCI Cooper with Northumbria police. Your boss tells me you were working on Saturday the eighth.”
Dora nodded. “I work most Saturdays. Is there a problem?”
“This is Macey Gallagher, she went missing last Saturday and was last seen in here.” She displayed the photo of Macey and her friends and zoomed in so that Macey’s image filled the screen. “Do you recognise her from that evening?”
Dora nodded and her glasses slid down her nose; she pushed them back up with her middle finger and Cooper hoped that wasn’t her veiled way of giving her the finger. “She’s been in a few times. I recognise her friend. She was... yeah she was in a bad way, like. Wobbly on her feet.”
“Did you see anyone hassling her or looking at her funny?”
“She’s a pretty girl in a little dress. Lots of guys were looking at her.”
Cooper picked up a hint of resentment. “Tell me more.”
“There were some guys in the club that night, they were playing pub golf. About forty of them, all in golf jumpers. They looked like right pillocks. Anyway, I think I saw her chatting with four or five of them for a while. She stumbled about a bit, and they had to help her stay upright. I think one of them fetched her a glass of water at one point but I didn’t serve him, it might have been a gin and tonic for all I know.”
“Did you see her leave?”
“Yeah, she was hurled out.”
“Hurled out?” Cooper leant in.
“She was sick on herself. Not a lot. Not like projectile or owt. More of a hiccough that turned into a little bit of spew. Anyway, the bouncer saw and he had her outside in under a minute.”
When Cooper got her hands on Nico Petite, she was going to wring his— Nixon’s warning rang in her head. She shouldn’t even be here. “Who was the bouncer?”
“Tiny McGown. He works a day shift outside the jewellery shop on Pilgrim Street.”
Cooper tried her best to get descriptions of the boys playing pub golf from Dora but they all sounded alike. Preppy, barely old enough to be drinking but acting like they ran the entire city.
Back in the daylight of the main road, Cooper put a call into Neil Fuller.
“Erica?”
“You in France yet?” A snorting noise confirmed he was not. “I just spoke to a barmaid from Feisty’s who was working the night Macey went missing. “She was chatting to some guys who were playing pub golf.”
“The barmaid?”
“No, you idiot. Macey was. They might have plied her with more alcohol. Find them and see what the deal is.” Cooper’s temper was being tested. “And get to Newcastle Jewellery Co. on Pilgrim Street. Speak to a security guard named Tiny McGowan. Something tells me he’s not so tiny. He was on duty at Feisty’s that night and he chucked Macey out after she threw up on herself.”
“Erica...”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for the intel, but Nixon warned me you’d do this. This isn’t your case anymore. Let me get on with it and let it go.”
Hanging up and thrusting her phone into her pocket with unexpected aggression, Cooper marched up and down the street, avoiding the wrath of mums with pushchairs, commuters dragging wheelie cases towards the train station, and death-wish delivery cyclists who shouldn’t even be on the bloody path. She scanned the street until her eyes came to rest on a camera bubble above a doorway to an office building. A few minutes of sweet smiles and Cooper was sat in front of an accountancy firm’s security footage.
“Perfect,” purred Cooper. The image was grainy but it clearly showed Macey leaving Feisty’s, trying to re-enter and being denied. As predicted, Tiny was easily six-three. Cooper watched Macey walk along the street, stumble and continue. It was a chaotic Saturday night and it was hard to keep track of Macey in the crowd. Cooper tried to take in all the details. Countless Uber cars, an ambulance whizzing by, a topless man dancing in the middle of the road, a dark van driving past, a skinny boy losing his pizza to a bald man with a beard. The bald man getting into a fight. The bald man approaching Macey before she ran down a side street. “Who is this prick?” she muttered, thinking he looked familiar. “I need a copy of this.”
A most obliging man with pink cheeks and even pinker ears burnt the footage onto a USB stick and handed it over. Cooper thanked him with the sort of smile that would last him all day and headed for the side street she’d watched Macey disappear into. A cat café selling crepes and overpriced coffees to people wanting a side order of fur with their food had a camera over the door. The Japanese waitress wasn’t sure if the owner would want her letting someone into the office but Cooper had her call the boss in question and she let him know that as his camera pointed onto the street she was entitled to look at it and if he made her come back with a squad car and a bunch of uniforms it would b
e very bad for business.
Scanning the files for the previous Saturday, Cooper clicked on footage that had been taken between two thirty and three thirty and sat back in her chair and waited until she spotted Macey run into the arms of a woman who resembled Pearl Baxter. She was a little taller and a little paler and though the footage was in greyscale, she appeared to be wearing some form of worker’s vest over a jumper. They chatted for a little while. The ambulance was visible in the distance; it appeared at the end of the street for less than a second as it made its way to its destination. A van slowed as it passed the two ladies and the bald guy came back into the frame. He walked behind Macey, keeping his distance. The woman with the curly hair pointed further down the street, they linked arms and strolled out of shot, followed by the bald guy. Cooper rewatched the footage four times, pausing and playing, pausing and playing. She was sure she recognised the bald man with the beard, she just wasn’t sure where from.
* * *
In a lay-by off the A696, Cooper was avoiding paying for airport parking as she waited for Justin Atkinson’s flight to land. Man, she had missed her favourite scene of crime officer. Missed his conversation, missed his warmth, his humour, his tender kisses that made her giggle like she was five years younger. Whilst she’d been in town, after visiting Omar Ali and viewing CCTV of Macey Gallagher, she’d let off steam by nipping into John Lewis’s lingerie department and picking up a lacy bra and knicker set from Elle McPherson’s collection. It fit perfectly and she couldn’t wait to slide out of her clothes and show them to her man. She heard her phone buzz and she reached into the Mazda’s glove box to retrieve it. Her hopes that it was Atkinson saying he was at baggage reclaim were dashed when she saw the message was from Fuller. I’ll follow up on Curly and Baldy. But seriously, Erica, stop stepping on my toes. Don’t make me go to Nixon.
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