“I know what you mean. I’ve lived in the Clough for years but I’d never been in here until last night.” He gave a tired smile. “There are better pubs in town so don’t despair. I can recommend the Dog and Fox.”
Dylan knew it well. He’d recommend it too. There was a slim chance he’d be recognised there though.
He fished in his pocket and took out one of the refuge’s leaflets and a pen. “What was the name again? The Dog and Fox? I’ll give it a try.”
His new friend didn’t comment. He was too busy staring at Dylan’s leaflet.
“I’m staying there,” Dylan explained.
“Really? My daughter—” His companion took a breath and tried again. “My daughter stayed there too. Just for a few weeks. About a month. Some time ago.”
Dylan had hoped that the refuge’s leaflet might prompt conversation, but he’d struck gold. “Really?”
“She’s a teenager and went there in a state of—well, you know what teenagers are like.”
“Only too well.”
“I—” His companion’s voice cracked. “I have leaflets of my own. Will you—look—” He reached down to a briefcase that was propped against his stool and pulled out a sheaf of papers, all asking for information about the missing Farrah Brindle. “Will you take a look at this? Perhaps you’ve seen Farrah. My daughter. We have no idea where she is, you see. The police—they’re still looking, of course, but they’re getting nowhere. Have you seen her?”
So this was Malcolm Brindle. And the poor bastard was so distraught, he was struggling to force words out. Damn it, Dylan wished he wasn’t in such a rush.
“I haven’t seen her,” Dylan said, “but I’m sure I’ve heard her name mentioned.”
“You have?” Brindle’s face sparked with brief hope.
“Yes, someone—” Dylan pretended to think. “Ah, it was the vicar. Bill Owen told me about her disappearance.”
“Oh, him. Yes, I suppose he would. I haven’t seen him in a while.” Brindle’s face dropped before he forced it into a more composed shape. “Will you take one of these anyway? Show it to people?”
“Of course.” Dylan folded one of the flyers and tucked it in his jacket pocket. “What made you think I might have seen her? Are you expecting her to return to the refuge?”
“No. Not really. I was clutching at straws. Do you have children?”
He did. Davey Young didn’t. “No.”
“Then you couldn’t understand.”
Oh, Dylan could understand. He’d want to die if Luke or Freya vanished. He didn’t know what he’d do—well, yes he did. He’d do all in his power to find them and bring them home safely.
“The police think there’s a link between the refuge and Farrah’s disappearance, you see. There isn’t. She went off the rails a little, rebelled, stayed there for a month and came home. If anything, she seemed better after her stay there. More like her old self. It was a month later when she—she just vanished.”
“I’m sorry.” Dylan quaffed his beer. “Why do the police think there’s a link?”
“Because another girl who was staying there disappeared. That was months ago, and there’s no connection. The other girl comes from a bad family—her stepfather drinks in here. I saw him last night. It’s his sort of place. The police took him in for questioning when his daughter—stepdaughter—disappeared, so it’s obvious they know something that they’re not telling us.”
So that was why Brindle was paying his second visit to the Jolly Sailor.
A loud groan went up from those watching the match. There was clearly a strong contingent of United supporters in the pub because Arsenal had scored. Dylan watched the replay of the goal, a beautiful curling shot from a free kick. He’d bet Luke had enjoyed that one.
He missed his kids when he was away for a few days so God knows how Brindle was coping.
“Bill Owen thought Farrah had probably taken off for the bright lights—London perhaps. Is that likely?”
“No. The man’s a fool.” He looked as if he regretted the outburst. “He’s well-meaning, but getting involved with the local Girl Guides group doesn’t give him any real knowledge of young girls, does it? He’s never been married, never had children. No, Farrah didn’t take off for London. Even at her worst, and teenagers can be difficult, she knew the difference between right and wrong. She wouldn’t let her family worry. She wouldn’t have left her dog either.”
“Ah yes, he mentioned a dog.”
“Something happened to Farrah,” Brindle said with certainty. “She didn’t go anywhere willingly.”
“I’ll ask around and show people this.” Dylan tapped the flyer in his pocket. “Someone might know something. If I find out anything—”
“Yes, yes.” Brindle reached into his briefcase for a pen and square of paper. “Call me, will you? Anytime. Day or night.” He wrote down his name, address, and landline and mobile numbers and handed the paper to Dylan.
“I will.” Dylan put the paper in his pocket with the flyer. “I’m David, by the way. David Young.” He was also in a hurry. If he didn’t find a fast taxi, he’d miss his lift to Leeds with Child and the gang. “I have to go,” he said. “But I promise I’ll ask around. Will I see you again?”
“If you come here again, I might be here. Otherwise, call me. Anytime. And thank you, I appreciate it. Good to meet you, David.”
Chapter Twelve
Dylan had expected to see around a dozen people interested in hearing what Child had to say about repentance, doing God’s will or whatever else he decided to tell them. The reality was row after row of occupied chairs. A very quick calculation suggested that more than a hundred people were crammed into this small hall.
There was no admission fee but people were encouraged to make a donation. Ten—and five-pound notes were weighted down by one—and two-pound coins. The sight of the cash surprised him, but there was probably no more than two or maybe three hundred pounds there. Out of that had to be taken fuel costs and hire of the hall, so Child’s profit wouldn’t be great.
Dylan sat on a plastic chair near the back of the hall and waited until, finally, Child, dressed all in black with a large crucifix hanging from a chain round his neck and reminding Dylan of Johnny Cash, bounded onto the stage and stood in front of the microphone. He didn’t need to say a word. The sight of him silenced the audience. Even Dylan had to admit that he had a certain stage presence.
“Why me?” Child smiled at his audience. “That’s the question I ask myself every single day. Why me? Why has God chosen me?” He put his hands deep in the pockets of his black trousers. “I’d like to tell you a little about myself. My father was a bad man and spent most of his life in prison. My mother was a drug addict who rarely knew what day it was. When I was taken into care at the age of four, I thought my life would get better. It didn’t. Perhaps the staff did their best, but food was scarce and I was regularly beaten for some misdemeanour or other. I ran away at eleven, was dragged back, ran away again, and at fifteen, when I finally escaped, I lived rough on the streets of London.”
Someone in the audience cleared their throat. Other than that, there wasn’t a sound. People were hanging on Child’s every word as if he were about to give them next week’s winning lottery numbers.
“Oh, yes, I know what it’s like to be cold and hungry. I’ve slept on the freezing streets and known nights when an hour’s rest in a shop’s doorway is a luxury. I know how it feels to have cold, wet feet all day because there’s no money for shoes. I know the humiliation of scouring waste bins outside cafés and restaurants for scraps of food.”
Bill Owen had said Child possessed the gift of the gab. He was right. The audience couldn’t have been more enthralled.
“Looking back, I suppose it was no surprise that I ended up in prison,” Child said. “I had to st
eal food to eat. I did bad things, ladies and gentlemen, and quite rightly, I served my time.”
Pah. Child had got away with a lot more than stealing a few scraps of food. Probably murder. If he were convicted for every crime he’d ever committed, he’d take his final breath in jail.
“I’ve known hard times,” Child said, “but, although I didn’t realise it at the time, God was my constant companion. He stayed with me. Everyone else gave up on me, but he never did.”
He beamed at his attentive audience.
“It was in prison that God spoke to me. One night, an inmate, a cold-blooded killer, a drug addict, came to my cell. Prison warders had found his stash of cocaine and he was convinced, wrongly I must add, that I’d tipped them off. He had a knife in his hand and he was about to kill me.” Child paused for dramatic effect. “I was innocent, ladies and gentlemen, but I had a man—a killer—holding a knife to my throat.” Another long pause. “What happened next can only be described as a miracle. Just as that knife was about to slice through my throat, this man, this killer, fell to the floor in front of me.”
A wave of shocked gasps rippled through the audience.
“I shouted for the guards and tried to revive this man who’d wanted to kill me but, sadly, there was nothing we could do. A massive heart attack had claimed his life.”
Utter bollocks. There had been no such deaths during Child’s relatively short spells in a cell. Two inmates had committed suicide but there had been no heart attacks.
“It was much later, with the man’s death still haunting me, that I questioned the evening’s sequence of events. Why did he die at that precise moment? Why not five minutes later, when he’d done the job he’d come to do? What instinct made me try all I could to resuscitate him? I asked myself those questions, and many more, over and over. The answer to all three? God. I have no doubt of that. God didn’t want my time to be over. God had plans for me.”
Again, Child paused for dramatic effect. Instead of turning to crime, Child should have gone on the stage. He was a natural actor. He moved across the small stage, meeting and holding the gazes of a select few sitting in the front rows.
“Why me?” he asked them. “Why would he choose a nobody like me?”
He looked to the audience for answers but they had none.
“Perhaps it was because I understood that, for many, life isn’t easy. I don’t know. All I know is that I was chosen. And I know this because God spoke to me. He told me to go out into the world and help people. There were people on the streets, he said, just as I’d once been, who needed my help. There were many, many others who were strangers to God and who needed to hear his word. Yes, ladies and gentlemen—” Another dramatic pause. “I have been chosen by God.”
Spontaneous applause burst out like gunfire. People were on their feet to applaud, cheer and stamp their feet.
Dylan couldn’t believe people were so gullible. How could they swallow such crap? After leaving prison for the last time, not having come close to saving anyone’s life, Child had worked for the leader of one of the biggest drug rings in the country. Thanks in part to Dylan’s spell undercover, most had been arrested. Child, unfortunately, had got lucky.
Child’s talk went on and on. The audience loved him. He was more popular than Jesus would have been—although sadly, he hadn’t yet demonstrated his ability to turn water into wine.
When he’d milked the audience for all he could, he got to the important stuff.
“Of course, helping those less fortunate doesn’t come cheap. They need food and a bed, for starters. To give them that, to help these poor souls, we need your donations. If you can spare anything, no matter how small, please give it. I know you’ll all rest easy in your warm beds knowing you’ve given a nourishing meal or a blanket to some poor lost sheep.” His audience was treated to a beaming smile. “Remember this from Matthew 6:24. ‘No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.’ Thank you.”
This was turning into an expensive night out for members of the audience but they were past caring. They loved Child. As Owen had said, he’d make a good salesman. Notes and coins were being thrown in bowls that residents of the refuge were carrying from row to row.
Dylan was clearly in the wrong business.
When the noise died down and every spare penny had been lifted from the audience, Child made a cringeworthy speech of thanks and introduced Doll.
Dressed in long skirt, flowing top and scarves, she looked more like Gypsy Rose Lee than the wife of an East End thug. Actually, she didn’t scrub up too badly. Dylan had seen her looking worse, a lot worse.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of my husband and the wonderful work he’s doing,” she said. “There are so many troubled people in the world, so many wondering if life is worth living, if it’s worth spending another cold night on the streets with only more cold nights to look forward to—it’s truly heartbreaking. But just as God spoke to Joe, I know the Lord is watching over me too. I often think—” She broke off, as if she were listening to something only she could hear. “Wait. Sorry, I’m hearing—Is there a Phil in the audience? Phil?”
Audience members turned in their seats to see if they could spot Phil. No one could. No hands flew into the air. Bad luck, Doll. Try John.
“Just a minute. It’s not Phil. Perhaps it’s—Phyllis? Is Phyllis here tonight?”
Doll had struck lucky. An elderly lady’s hand shot up. She looked embarrassed as everyone turned to stare at her.
“I’m Phyllis,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
“I have a message for you.” Doll’s eyes were closed. She was shaking her head, swaying from side to side. “Something about—I can’t quite make it out—something about waiting for you. Someone’s waiting for you.”
Jeez! There should be a law against this.
“Is it Vic?” the lady asked.
“Vic, is that you?” Doll continued to sway. “It’s faint. I’m sorry. If it was Vic, and I can’t be sure, he says he’s waiting for you. He says he’s never left you and he never will.”
“Oh.” Phyllis had to reach deep into her coat pocket for a handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes. “That was Vic. It must have been. Thank you, dear. Thank you so much.”
Oh, please.
“I’m getting a message for Mary,” Doll said, and three women stuck up hopeful hands.
“That’s me,” one of them cried.
“This is from Bob. Bobby? Does the name Bob or Bobby mean anything to any of you?”
“Yes, yes,” another woman said, and she began sobbing. “Poor old Bob. My dog. We lost him just before Christmas. Is he all right?”
For some reason that escaped Dylan, this had people gazing at Doll in awe. Bob was all the proof they needed that Doll was genuine. If dogs were willing to send messages through Doll, she was truly special. She was the chosen one.
After twenty minutes spent listening to Doll toss out names—common names, he noticed—he wanted to vomit.
“I’m sorry,” Doll said, “but I don’t have time for more. I’ll be back in Leeds on Wednesday though, if anyone wants to see me privately. I do have to charge for one-to-one sessions, to cover the cost of hiring the room. See one of us before you leave, if you need to speak to a loved one.”
Doll left the stage looking weary, as if the weight of the dead lay heavy on her shoulders.
Child, however, literally skipped onto the stage. “Thank you all for coming. We’ll be here for another hour, so if any of you have problems, come and chat. We’ll do our best to help. If any of you haven’t made a donation to our refuge or to the work we do with the homeless, please do so.” He smiled a winning smile. “We take cash, cheques, blankets, bread—anything at all.”<
br />
He gave a slight bow and left the stage to thunderous applause.
Dylan expected everyone to make a swift exit, but no, they wanted to speak to Child in person. Better still, they wanted to touch him. They shook his hand, they touched his sleeve and they gazed at him in wonder.
Eventually, people began, very reluctantly, to don coats and scarves and leave the building. It was the younger people who stayed behind. They watched Child, but mostly hung back from him, as if they were too in awe of him to approach. They were teenagers mostly. Impressionable young people. Young people who believed they had all life’s answers and yet wanted confirmation from a man like Child. If only they knew.
Dylan got roped into stacking plastic chairs, and when he finished, Child was in deep conversation with a girl—well, she was a teenager doing a great job of pretending to be twenty-five. A short skirt showed off legs that went on forever. Long dark hair fell down her back. Whatever were her parents thinking about, letting her leave the house dressed like that? Sex on legs, and he’d bet she wasn’t even sixteen.
She was looking up at Child, talking animatedly one minute and smiling coyly the next.
Dylan sidled over.
“We’re a long way away from you,” Child was saying, “but, naturally, you’d be made welcome. Everyone is welcome. That’s what we’re all about. Anyone who has problems can find a safe place with us.”
“Thanks.” Her broad smile lit up perfectly made-up eyes, the lashes heavy with thick black mascara.
“You don’t look as if you have problems,” Dylan told her, smiling.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” she said. “Do this, do that, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. I had to get away from him before he killed me. I’m staying with a mate here, but it’s only temporary.”
“Before who killed you?” Dylan asked.
“The bastard of a boyfriend I had. Honestly, I always end up with the wrong ones. Still, it’s good. He doesn’t know where I am. I’m okay up here.”
Deadly Shadows (A Dylan Scott Mystery) Page 8