Rock, Paper, Scissors

by B Baskerville

  “How is Theo?” asked Cooper as Blackburn struggled into a chair that was far too small for his frame.

  The guards who had escorted Blackburn mumbled a few words to Northcutt and left the room.

  “He’s gone back to school, believe it or not. Enrolled in some adult education classes, business and the like.”

  “Good for him.”

  “It’s brilliant is what it is. Inspired me to, erm…” he waved his hands around looking for the right phrase, “better myself. Got a job in the library. Can read all day if I want.”

  “That’s excellent, Eddie. I’m glad to hear it.”

  “But that’s not why you’re here, is it? You didn’t come for a catch up with ol’ Eddie. You need something? Information?”

  Cooper cast an eye over her shoulder at Northcutt, then leant across the table and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper.

  “Macey Gallagher.”

  “The Irish girl? Pretty young thing?”

  “Yes. That’s her. You know who took her?”

  “Nah. Nothing to do with my lot. You know that’s not our style.”

  “But have you heard anything? Whispers on the grapevine?”

  Blackburn shrugged. “Sorry, darling. You know I’d help you out if I could but no one tells me owt these days.”

  “I heard Fletcher was running the family business. He tell you anything?”

  Blackburn propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on steepled fingers. “The Blackburns run a taxi firm and a chain of pizzerias. We’re just honest entrepreneurs trying to earn a living in today’s competitive climate.”

  “Yeah. And I’m Kim Kardashian West.” Cooper sighed and looked to the table in disappointment.

  “There’s something else.” Blackburn’s eyebrows were peaked in the middle as he read her face and took a butcher’s into her soul. “What else did you want to ask me?”

  Was she that obvious? Cooper leant even further across the table so she was close enough to smell his prison-issue porridge breakfast and considered the ramifications of what she was about to do. It was out of character, unprofessional, and it was criminal.

  “Hutchins,” she said.

  Excitement flickered in Blackburn’s eyes and the corner of his mouth began to twitch. “You want him killin’?”

  Cooper quickly shook her head. “No. And I mean it. No.”

  “But?”

  “My daughter was next. He would have killed her…”

  He sat quietly for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth, imagining what he would do if someone harmed his own daughter. Not that anyone would dare. “And you want his stay at this fine, five-star establishment to not be the most comfortable?”

  Cooper’s hands gripped the edge of the table between her and Blackburn until her knuckles turned white. She wasn’t a perfect detective, the sort who never broke the rules or slipped into the grey area between moral and immoral. She was human.

  “I want him to know what fear feels like.”

  Blackburn surveyed her face. She was serious.

  “Consider it done.”

  * * *

  “Where have you been?” Tina had a face like a bulldog chewing on a wasp. She was stood on the front step as Cooper and Northcutt pulled up. Her hair was wet from the shower and she was dressed in pyjama bottoms and a vest.

  “I just had to nip out, sweetheart. No need to worry?”

  “No need to worry?” Tina’s voice was so high Copper wondered if all their glassware was about to smash. “You were kidnapped by a madman! Who’s still on the loose I may add.”

  “It’s fine, Tina.” Cooper walked past her daughter, into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine.

  “It’s NOT fine.” Tina’s face was red and blotchy and tears were about to spill out onto her cheeks. “You, Dad and Josh have made sure I’m accounted for at all times. Never left alone. Escorted here, there, and everywhere. And you know what? It’s been a right pain in the arse, but I’ve gone along with it because I knew it gave you peace of mind… and then…” A tear burst free and Tina wiped it away with closed fists. “And then when something similar happens to you, you just swan off without telling me and it…” Her voice caught in her throat.

  “And it was a shitty, selfish thing to do.” Cooper’s heart melted. “You’re right. You’re so right. I’m really sorry, T.” She held out her arms and Tina moved in for a quick hug before letting go and eyeballing the floor. “Can I make it up to you? It’s your birthday tomorrow, how about we start the celebrations early? Invite Josh over, we’ll get a takeaway, anything you want.”

  Tina considered the offer. “Bowling. Me, you and Josh. And a burger afterwards?”

  “Absolutely.” Cooper laid a coaster over her wine glass, it would keep for later. “The babysitter will have to come too. Call Josh and tell him we’ll pick him up in twenty and if he keeps us waiting I’ll get Northcutt to start the siren.”

  * * *

  Cooper hadn’t been to a bowling alley in years, but it turned out she wasn’t too rusty. She bowled three strikes and a handful of spares but it wasn’t enough to beat the teenagers. Josh opened the game with a turkey and once Tina started applying her knowledge of trigonometry and physics to the activity, no one stood a chance. It was now half eight and Tina and Josh were in Tina’s room watching Netflix, or at least she hoped that’s what they were doing; she’d told them to leave the door open but hadn’t been upstairs to check. Cooper finally had her glass of wine back in hand and was sat at the kitchen table with her laptop open. She wasn’t supposed to do any official work, but she could use Google as much as she liked.

  Starting with a simple search relating to Feisty’s club she noted down every skirmish, complaint or newsworthy event she could find. Next, she dove deeper on Nicolas Petite with a little help from Google Translate. Nicolas Petite had been awarded a substantial grant for outstanding academic success and had hit the local headlines for blowing it all in one hedonistic night of partying that involved buying all his graduating class Champagne and hiring a bunch of strippers - male and female - for his friends’ entertainment. The local press had dubbed him irresponsible, ungrateful and a bad role model. Two years ago, he’d been part of a group who climbed Kilimanjaro, raising over twelve thousand Euros in sponsorship, which they used to buy supplies for village schools in the Machame area. Nico’s social media was flooded with images of him with smiling, bright-eyed, Tanzanian children. Then a headline caught Cooper’s eye. Baker’s Son Arrested on Drugs Charges. Nico had been accused of distributing poppers out of his parents’ bakery. According to sources, his classmates would come to the bakery on Saturday mornings when they knew he was working, order a pastry, hand over extra money and Nico would pop the pill into the paper bag along with a mille-feuille or an éclair. The charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.

  “Hmm.” Cooper had such distaste for Nico Petite she had to take care not to blind her own judgement. Being a drug dealing drink-spiker did not necessarily mean he was capable of rape, kidnapping, murder or whatever cruel fate had been bestowed upon Macey. He had done a runner to his homeland, the flight manifest confirming he was on the eleven forty AirFrance flight to Paris on the Monday after Macey’s disappearance and had so far, not reported to his local police station or returned any of Northumbria Police’s calls. Cooper cast her mind back through the various statements and pieces of evidence that had been collected so far and it was the van that was playing on her mind. It had been in the camera footage taken from the accountancy firm and the cat café and the sliding door of a van had been near enough to Macey to be captured on the voicemail she left Walker. She braced herself and called Imogen West.

  “Yah?”

  “Imogen? This is DCI Erica Cooper.” Loud music was thumping in the background so Cooper raised her voice. “I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.” Cooper could imagine Imogen and Alison seated in a swa
nky bar waiting for someone to buy them drinks. “Has Nicolas Petite been in contact?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t need to remind you of how serious this case is. If you protect him, charges will be made against you.”

  “I’m sure. I haven’t heard a thing. I sent him a few texts but he never replied.” Her voice became muffled but Cooper picked up, “No, a double, please. Vodka.”

  “One last question, Imogen. Does Nico drive? or have access to a van?”

  Cooper thought she heard a snort.

  “Nico thinks there are two sorts of people in this world… Thank you, darling. It’s Diet Coke, right?… Those who are meant to drive and those who are meant to be driven. You can guess which category he falls into.”

  Cooper hung up without thanking Imogen. The news Nico didn’t drive was disappointing. She’d still check if he was the registered keeper of a van but her chances weren’t good. She dialled another number.

  “Erica, it’s Saturday night. It’s the Easter weekend. This had better be good.” Fuller was not amused.

  “I’m bored. Humour me.”

  “Make it quick,” he grumbled.

  “The bouncer. Tiny, I think his name was. Did you talk to him?”

  “Oh, Jesus. Come on, Erica, let it go. After what you’ve been through—”

  “Please, Neil.” She sipped her wine and listened to him let out a very long sigh. “Did he mention anyone hanging around the club, or any suspicious vehicles?”

  He kept her waiting, sighing again. “Nothing suspicious. Just the usual mix of taxis, Ubers and the Tyne Pastors.”

  “You mean the Street Pastors?”

  “No. It was the Tyne Pastors. Same idea, different uniforms.”

  “You spoke to them?”

  “Yeah. Called them. They had nothing. Can I go now, Erica? There’s a bottle of Brown Ale with my name on it.”

  When Fuller rang off, Cooper topped her wine up and did some more digging. Try as she might she could find no online presence for any organisation matching the Tyne Pastors. There were the Street Pastors and the City Pastors but no Tyne Pastors. They didn’t exist on Google, Facebook, Twitter, anywhere. She wondered if she’d misheard and he’d said Town Pastors, or perhaps he just told her what he thought she’d want to hear. Anything to get her off the phone. She’d probably do the same if the roles were reversed. She opened a new tab on her browser and tried one last time, searching for Feisty’s, Newcastle, Pastors and Van. She scanned three pages of nothing until Reddit gave Cooper her first nugget of information.

  r/NewcastleUni Posted by Giggles768 11 months ago

  Ladies be careful. I was worse for wear coming out of Feisty’s last night and two men tried to get me to go in their van. Said they were the Tyne Pastors. Seemed a bit suspect. They didn’t have any ID and their van was creepy as owt. No logo or anything.

  The back of Cooper’s neck tingled with horripilation. Nico had been relegated to number two; the van was now her number one suspect. Macey had walked off with a woman with dark curls. Had they both been bundled into the van? She made a note to check in with Mispers for anyone matching the woman’s description and remembered that the woman was wearing some sort of work vest. She may have been a good citizen helping out the lost and disorientated of Tyneside, or the fake pastors Giggles768 spoke of could have upped their game.

  Cooper continued scrolling down the thread. Most of the messages expressed concern, some complained that the city wasn’t as safe as it used to be, others suggested buying a rape alarm and a can of pepper spray. Then there was a reply that made Cooper’s heart stop for a second.

  r/NewcastleUni Posted by PopTartBoy4 11 months ago

  Something similar happened to my girlfriend. She was coming out of the club next door when she was approached by a man who claimed to be police. He said she was arrested for dealing drugs (utter bullshit) and he told her to get in his van. She ran off and the van followed her all the way down to the Quay Side. Luckily she lost him down a side street and made it back to my place. Be on the lookout.

  Cooper downed her full glass of wine and got to her feet. It was time for Josh to go home and for her to go to bed. She had things to mull over.

  - Chapter 26 -

  “Do I look okay?”

  Cooper was flabbergasted. Her daughter looked more than okay. She looked more grown-up than ever. How could her baby girl be fifteen already? Fifteen years flew through her mind’s eye. Babygrows, bottles, dummies, hand-me-downs from other mum’s on the force, first proper shoes, first school uniform, first netball kit. “You look amazing, T.”

  Cooper couldn’t remember the last time Tina had worn a dress. She used to wear a regulation knee-length pleated skirt to school, but ever since Lucy Parker in the year above was up-skirted and the photo circulated to every teenage boy in the borough, Tina had opted for trousers. Tina looked at herself in her mother’s mirror and examined the fabric of her t-shirt dress. She was knock-kneed and adjusting her weight awkwardly as she tried to get used to a pair of heels. She’d even straightened her hair, which was a big deal for Tina. She hated brushing her hair and the most Cooper could usually hope for was that it was secured into some semblance of a ponytail.

  Cooper joined her daughter at her side and put an arm over her shoulder. “How’d you grow up so fast?”

  Tina shrugged. “Listen, Mum. I wanted to ask you something. Technically, I don’t need your permission but…”

  That didn’t sound good. Cooper patted the bed and they sat on the edge of the mattress. “What is it, T?”

  “I want to go on the pill.”

  The wind was knocked clean out of Cooper. “Oh. Jeez, Tina.” She suddenly felt very protective and wasn’t sure how she viewed Josh anymore. Sweet, polite Josh, who was currently waiting downstairs.

  “Don’t panic, Mum. Josh and I aren’t… You know. I just want to regulate my periods. If I go on the pill, I’ll know exactly when I’m due and I won’t have any accidents.”

  The relief must have been etched on Cooper’s face because Tina added, “You look weird.”

  “I’m just…”

  “Glad I’m still a virgin?”

  Cooper laughed. “Something like that. Listen, I never regretted having you in my life, not for one second, but I was so young and I don’t want—”

  “Me to be a teenage mother? Surely that’s another reason I should go on the pill. So that when I am ready for… You know… I won’t get pregnant.”

  “I can’t argue with your logic,” Cooper said, taking her daughter’s hand in hers. “How about we don’t mention this to your dad though?”

  Fear flashed in Tina’s eyes. “God. Imagine? Yeah, best we don’t say anything.”

  “Anyway.” Cooper pulled Tina to her feet. “Your guests are waiting, birthday girl.”

  Tina gave a toothy grin and she made her way downstairs, the heels causing her to teeter like Bambi on ice. A duet of Happy Birthday, sung by Kenny and Josh, filled the house.

  Downstairs, Kenny had filled the living room with a hundred balloons, and silver confetti shaped like the number fifteen had been sprinkled over every table, mantlepiece and countertop. Josh greeted Tina with a kiss on the lips and a nervous glance in Kenny’s direction, before handing her a card and a small box that could only be jewellery.

  Cooper joined Kenny on the sofa. “Thanks for all this,” she said, motioning at the decorations.

  He shrugged as if it was no effort. “She’s worth it,” he said with a slight blush to his cheek. “You both are. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for all of her birthdays. I was a selfish idiot.”

  Thinking back to all she’d been through as a single mother, Cooper bobbed her head from side to side and replied, half-jokingly, “Yeah. You were. But you’re here now and I’m glad you and Tina have the makings of a real relationship.”

  Tina shrieked as Josh secured a silver necklace around her neck. “Look, Mum! It’s the molecule for serotonin.” She held the
pendant in her fingertips. “The happy hormone.”

  Josh turned purple and whispered a little too loudly, “All I want to do is make you happy.”

  Kenny rolled his eyes at Cooper. “Bloody millennials and their sentiments. No one talked to each other like that when we were their age.”

  “When we were their age the standard chat up line was, giz a snog.” Cooper shuddered. She’d always hated the word snog and thought it was the most unappealing word for kissing ever invented. “Besides. They’re not millennials. The millennials were born between seventy-seven and ninety-five. So I hate to break it to you - given your love of millennial bashing - but you, dear Kenny, are a millennial.”

  Kenny’s mouth opened, closed and opened again. “No, that can’t be right. The millennials are the young’uns who eat too much avocado, need twenty pronouns and are scared of handling raw chicken.”

  “You’re a millennial, Kenny. Deal with it.”

  “So what are those two?” he asked, raising a can of lager in Tina and Josh’s direction.

  “Generation Z, also known as iGen or the digital natives. They’ve never known a time without the internet.”

  Kenny relaxed back into the sofa. “A time without the internet? Man, I remember those days. Woah! That makes me feel old.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Cooper, wondering how she could possibly be old enough to have a daughter who wanted to go on the pill.

  Kenny looked down to the carpet. “No texting, no mobiles, no Spotify or Netflix.”

  “No cyberbullying, no sexting, no Twitter mobs, or online shaming.”

  The doorbell rang, signalling the arrival of Atkinson and the Sutherlands, closely followed by two of Tina’s netball team and four friends who attended the same study group as Tina and Josh. The teenagers immediately set up camp in the kitchen as that, apparently, was where the cool people hung out. At least that was something that hadn’t changed since Cooper’s day. Cooper struggled to pick Caroline out of the sea of youngsters at first. She’d shot up in recent months and was now a young woman with her mother’s dark blonde bob and her father’s shiny grey eyes. She was immediately welcomed in by the group and Cooper caught the look of joyfulness on Sam’s face.