Avenida Hope - VERSIÓN BILINGÜE (Español-Inglés) (John Ray Mysteries) (Spanish Edition)

by John Barlow

  “Yeah. Why not? Doesn’t seem that important now.”

  “And you kept the note?”

  “Spent it. I know, it’s illegal. Like they care.”

  John watches the traffic as he speaks.

  “You didn’t want to keep it, out of curiosity? What happened next?”

  “She went to the Ukrainians’ room, y’know, she was their…”

  “Yes, I know what she did,” John says, “it’s okay.”

  “She was tired of it. Sick of those scumbags. They treated her like shit.”

  His voice tails off.

  They turn into a shopping centre on the ring road and pull into a quiet corner of the car park.

  “Mike rewound the tape,” Craig says, staring down at his hands.

  “Who told you that?”

  “He did. Last night.”

  Told everybody, apparently. Getting your story out, Mike?

  “Strange thing to do if you’re innocent, don’t you think?”

  Craig shifts in the passenger seat, undoes the seatbelt.

  “I was on reception. Mike came, I left. That’s it.”

  “And you changed the video before you went?”

  Craig continues to examine his hands. “Yeah. That’s why I was confused when we watched it yesterday. There was no footage of me leaving or Mike doing his rounds.”

  John taps the steering wheel with his fingers.

  “I’ll tell you what. I bet Fuller’s upset by all this. Can’t be doing anything for business. You been working for him long?”

  “About a year, evenings mainly. Don’t know how much longer, though. The place is empty. And now, after this?”

  “You sound pretty shaken up about it.”

  “I am, yeah.”

  “You liked her, didn’t you?”

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Sure.”

  John extends a hand, and Craig reluctantly takes it, still looking down at the floor.

  When he tries to pull it away, John tightens his grip.

  “Look at me, Craig.”

  “Whoa, what the…”

  “Tell me what’s going on in that hotel. Fuller, Bilyk…”

  “Get off me!”

  “Tell me. Tell me what you know…”

  There’s tears in Craig’s eyes and he’s struggling to pull his arm away, as if the playground bully’s got hold of him and he’s too ashamed to call out for help.

  “I… don’t,” he says, yanking the arm free and scrambling out. “Fucking arsehole!”

  “See you around, Craig,” John shouts after him.

  But Craig’s gone, the passenger door wide open.

  ***

  Five minutes later he’s in PC World looking at a display of printers and watching Craig, who pays for something then leaves the store, head down, walking quickly. The young man who served him leaves the till area and busies himself re-arranging DVDs on the back wall.

  John reaches inside his jacket and feels ten bundles, a thousand pounds in each.

  I knew I was going need some of this today…

  “Hi, Andy,” he says, reading the young man’s name badge as he grabs his hand.

  “Sorry, do I…”

  John looks straight into his eyes.

  “Skinny ginger kid in the Motorhead T-shirt, what did he buy? That’s two hundred quid in your palm, by the way.”

  He keeps on smiling as he looks at Andy, whose own eyes go big, then narrow a little.

  “A… a memory stick. Sixty-four gigas.”

  John nods.

  “Got a customer account with you, has he?”

  “U-hu.”

  “Go over to the till and get me his address.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Another eight hundred says you can. You’ll never see me again and you’ll be a thousand pounds richer.”

  Sixty seconds later John walks out of PC World. Andy has just doubled his disposable income for the month. John has a scrap of paper in his hand. He reads the address and doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry: Craig lives up Harehills.

  But before that there’s somewhere else he needs to go.

  Twenty-three

  He checks the name on the tower block. Council-owned flats, thrown up in the sixties, pre-fab walls and poured concrete floors. Functional. Miserable. Then again, not everybody can afford to live in a converted art studio. He consults the telephone listings on his iPhone again. Only one Macken. Tenth floor.

  Cast your mind back, John. Victim of crime counsellors in your house, making you cups of tea, and detectives hanging about in the hall trying to look concerned, begging time with you, eager for information and to be away.

  He sits, engine still running, wondering if they’ll still be there. One day since the girl was found dead. He’s been through this, knows what it’s like. The grieving relative, the one left alive with no answers.

  Tenth floor. They’ve tarted these old blocks up. No more lifts that stink of piss. There’s a porter now, a security door with camera and intercom. He has to lie just to get in the building. Says he’s a friend. Friend of her dead daughter.

  Lying to the newly bereaved, John. Another ethical milestone.

  ***

  “They’ve been and gone,” she says, lighting a cigarette and fussing about finding him an ashtray. “And now you, whoever the hell you are…”

  She sits in an armchair opposite him, another ashtray in her hand, careful not to drop ash on the carpet.

  “You’ve had the grief counsellors?” he asks.

  “And coppers. They were here most of yesterday. Young woman mainly, stayed til late. Back again this morning an’all. I told her I’d rather make my own dinner. Said she’d call in this after’.”

  He has no idea what to say.

  She helps him out.

  “So why are you here?”

  There’s a thread of accusation in her voice, a bitterness that he can’t quite make out.

  “Just a friend,” he says. “And a couple of people I work with knew her. Younger than me, y’know.”

  He feels the suspicion in her silence. A couple of people I work with. Younger than me. What a stupid thing to say.

  She smokes on in silence.

  “She was good person,” he adds, despite the brief and pretty much negative picture he’s been given of the girl. “Lively, intelligent. I mean, I didn’t know her that well, but…”

  “She tried at school.”

  The woman speaks without emotion, as if she’s been through this so many times its meaning has faded. “Didn’t seem to matter. There was always some problem. And me on my own, I couldn’t do much. Same when she left school. Got on an arts foundation course, but that fell through. Hair dressing, that didn’t last either. After that she kept getting turned down for courses. In the end she got work as a croupier at the casino, did that quite a while. Seemed happy there. But about a year ago she got made redundant. That’s when she got into, you know, the other stuff. She had a wild side, I suppose you’d say.”

  “Not always a bad thing,” John says. Another crass remark, and he hates himself for it.

  “It is if you end up dead in the boot of a car.” She pauses to stub out her cigarette. “And that’s that. My only daughter. A prostitute.”

  “There are worse things,” he says.

  You stupid bastard.

  He wishes he hadn’t come.

  “Like what?” she asks.

  “Worse people, I mean. The scum who did it, for example.”

  He stops. Remembers exactly this conversation. Different names, different place, but the conversation was the same. Words in the void left by a death you can’t explain. Your body overwhelmed and exhausted, your senses at a minimum… you touch things and they hardly register, sounds, tastes, all fuzzy and indistinct.

  Den had been there right after it happened. He remembers the chirp of her radio, the blur of her voice, then someone else. They’d heard the shot and come running. She’d used
the sleeve of her uniform to wipe the mess off his face.

  “You know,” he hears himself saying, “my brother had a few terraced houses up Harehills way. Filled ’em with illegal immigrants, all paying through the nose. Then he kicked ’em out, and those who wouldn’t leave got taken outside and beaten with baseball bats. One ended up in a wheelchair.” He looks up at her. “That’s worse.”

  “Nasty piece of work is he, your kid?”

  “Was. Someone took half his head off with a shotgun.”

  She draws in breath, sinking back in her chair a little.

  “I was there when it happened. Ten feet away,” he adds.

  She looks up at him, pity in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, love.”

  “Joe was worse than your daughter, Mrs Macken. There are bad people, then there are people who make mistakes. Young girls, they don’t know everything. Who does?”

  “And that’s it?”

  “And that’s it. She’s not to blame. Neither are you.”

  “She was trying to jack it in, the escort thing. She hated it. Just needed a friend, someone she could trust.”

  Freddy. Why did you let this happen?

  “Did she have a boyfriend?” John asks.

  “She had someone. Like a split personality these last few weeks, love-sick teenager one minute, uptight and nervous the next.”

  “Any names?”

  She shakes her head. “It wasn’t the one from before, though. Now he did promise.”

  “Who?”

  “Sugar. He promised me.”

  Sugar?

  “Promised what?”

  “To look after her. I couldn’t, not in the end. She was too big for her own boots.”

  She stubs out her cigarette. Coughs.

  “Did you tell the police this?”

  She ignores him, fishes for a phone down the side of the armchair.

  “I don’t know who you are, and you didn’t tell me your name. But you’re not a friend of Donna’s, are you?”

  “No, I’m not. I’m asking around, trying to find out what happened. I’ve got a few contacts, y’know, people I can go to.”

  “Fat lot of good that’ll do me,” she says, as she finds a number and presses dial. “You wanna be here when the police come back?”

  “Not really,” he says.

  “Thought not.”

  She doesn’t get up.

  ***

  Back in the car. He texts:

  2 years ago. Thanks for looking after me. J xxx

  Reads it back a dozen times. Gets as far as selecting Den’s number. Then deletes the message.

  He sits there a while.

  Sugar?

  Makes a call.

  “Roberto? It’s John Ray.”

  Twenty-four

  She’s in the far corner, with a good view of the door and the car park.

  “You’ve eaten,” he says, seeing the ketchup-smeared carton of a Big Mac and a half eaten portion of fries in front of her.

  “I thought I better get here early, make sure they weren’t following you again.”

  “You look good,” he says, sitting across the table from her.

  “I look like shit. So do you.”

  The thing is, even when she looks like shit she looks great. He wants to touch her, run his fingers across her cheek and see her nose twitch; he wants to watch her lying naked on the bed reading one of those crappy novels she likes, and to see her eat noodles badly with chopsticks, sauce dripping down her chin.

  “So?” she says.

  “I need to know what you think of this bloke. Sugar, he’s called. Let’s just listen to what he has to say. From what he told me on the phone he knows something.”

  “And he’s not currently talking to DI Baron because…?”

  “Because he’s keeping out of their way. Not the cooperative type.”

  “And me? Did you tell him I was gonna be here?”

  He watches her take a long thin chip and nibble it down to nothing.

  “Actually that was his idea.”

  “Fuck, he knows who I am?”

  “The young detective from Leeds CID who’s knocking about with Tony Ray’s son? Every crim north of Nottingham knows who you are, Den.”

  “Well that’s a comforting thought. If Baron finds out I’m gonna lose my job, you know that?”

  He shakes his head. “I got Sugar’s word on that.”

  “Well that’s fine then…”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll not mention you to anyone. Believe me, my dad’s name still carries a lot of weight.”

  “Honour among thieves, eh?”

  “Don’t mock. I’m not enjoying this either.”

  “No? I’m just beginning to wonder…”

  They both look up. And they’re not the only ones.

  He’s in the doorway, scanning the room. Shaved head, the tattoo of an angel on the back of his neck, its wings extending part way round as if clamped there. He sees them and steps through a litter of kids that have been left to play on the floor. There’s something smooth and feminine about him, a cat-like assuredness edging on disdain. And John has no doubt that Sugar, five-ten and no more than ten stone, would make a very good minder.

  That’s what Roberto had said, name-checking Sugar immediately. A minder, amongst other things. Tasty as well, very tasty. Yes, they could get a message to him…

  “Thanks for coming at such short notice,” John says.

  Sugar slides in next to him, staring at Den, nothing threatening, but not friendly.

  “Right,” he says, taking a chip from Den’s sachet.

  “Help yourself, why don’t you?” she says.

  He pops the chip into his mouth, flashes her a smile.

  “Okay,” says John, “just to clarify, this meeting never happened. We can have your word on that, no?”

  Sugar chews slowly before swallowing.

  “You’ve already had my word, Mr John Ray. Once was always enough for your dad, and your brother.” The comment falls awkwardly between them. Sugar sits back, exhales. “All right, yes, this’ll never go anywhere.” He looks at John then at Den. “I promise.”

  You’ve made promises before, Sugar…

  John is about to make a start, but it is Den who speaks first.

  “Freddy? Do you know Freddy?”

  Sugar nods. Says nothing.

  “He’s in Millgarth,” she adds. “Arrested for murdering Donna Macken, no charge yet.”

  “I know. What’s he been saying?” Sugar hunches his shoulders a touch and settles back into the seat.

  “Don’t know, exactly.”

  “That right? I heard he’s got Henry Moran with him, and you must know something?”

  “I’m not on the case,” she says.

  “Yeah, you’re playing alibi for this lucky fella! Talk about cast-iron.”

  He takes another chip.

  “Your boyfriend’s car an’ all,” he adds, holding the chip in front of his mouth, talking as if John isn’t there.

  “Tell me about Donna,” she says.

  Sugar puts down the chip.

  “I met her when she was working at Dukes Casino in town. She worked behind the bar.”

  “I thought she was a croupier,” says John.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Her mother.”

  “She worked behind the bar.”

  “And you?” Den asks.

  “Security. We got on well. Y’know, working in a place like that, smiling at every arsehole as walks through the door, it gets on your tits. Especially for Donna.”

  “Especially?”

  “Because she didn’t like being talked down to.”

  He stops, looks at the kids playing nearby, screwing up one side of his mouth. At first it appears that he’s pausing to think. Then John notices a slight tremor in his breathing. A second or two and it’s gone.

  “She got more attention than most girls. Because of the way she looked,” he says, eyes still
on the kids. “There are fellas’ll walk into a casino, see a girl like her, and just assume she’s selling it. She got so many offers in the end she took one. Good looking bloke an’ all, young.”

  “So why’s he paying?” Den says.

  Sugar shrugs.

  “You think good looking guys never pay for it? It’s a funny thing. I never worked it out. But you’d be surprised. So, she sets up a time with this bloke. Hotel in town. I go along and wait in the bar downstairs. I’ve got the room number and the time she’s supposed to be out.”

  “Just out of interest…” John says.

  “Two hundred. That gets you an hour and a half. You want anything whilst she’s there, bit of coke, bennies, blow… nothing heavy, she rings down and I take it up.”

  “In with the price?” John asks.

  The other two look at him.

  “He’s joking, right?” Sugar says to Den.

  “Do we know who this man was, the first one?” she asks, keen to move on.

  Sugar shakes his head.

  “She saw him again, though.”

  “Did she have many regulars?” asks Den.

  “Yeah, a few. About a year ago Dukes got new owners, and they sacked a dozen people, including Donna. From then on she just did the escorting.”

  “What about you? Ever have sex with her?”

  “Well… yeah. I mean, yeah.”

  “Surprised that I ask? Perk of the job, is it? Pimping a young, lonely girl around town? Filling her with alcohol and hiring her out like an animal?”

  “This is Donna, right?” he says, speaking to John for the first time. “We’re talking about the same girl?”

  “Donna Macken,” says Den, her words cold and measured. “Drunk, stoned, beaten up, possibly raped, side of her skull cracked, dead in the back of a car. That’ll be the fucking one!”

  “Donna,” he says quietly, “was the toughest bitch I’ve ever met. And I didn’t pimp for her. I worked for her. I’d wait down in the hotel bar. Forty quid she paid me.”

  “But you had sex with her?”

  “We’d sometimes go out clubbing, if we both had a night off. One thing’d lead to another. I mean, she’d come on to me. To be honest she was pretty randy.”

  They sit there for a while in thought.

  Den eats a cold chip. She’s in control, completely unfazed, amazing… All John wants is to have her back in his life, on a yacht somewhere, miles away from all this shit.