by Menon, David
‘Apparently they’ve got a lot of circumstantial evidence against the suspect Gary Mitchell but they want witnesses and can’t believe that on a Sunday lunchtime in a built up area nobody saw anything’.
‘It’s right on the border of your constituency of course’.
‘I know’ said Martha. ‘I feel so sorry for his mother. If it was my son … well I don’t want to even think about it’.
‘And she’s been picked on unmercifully because she’s a single Mum who worked in a lap dancing club’.
‘Oh if she’d been part of a professional, middle class, attractive and articulate couple she’d be swamped with everyone’s sympathy. But because she’s got nobody to stand up for her then she’s attacked as if it was all her fault. It bloody annoys me. Our society has still got so much growing up to do’.
‘Bring back hanging for child murderers?’
Martha took a deep breath. ‘You know I don’t believe in capital punishment under any circumstances, Ashley’.
‘It would be very popular with the public’.
‘And in the cases of child murder I understand the sentiment but sometimes it’s up to politicians to lead public opinion and not just follow it for electoral gain. That’s what completely devalues our principles. Anyway, you’re even more against capital punishment than me’.
Ashley smiled. ‘I know. I was goading you’.
‘I know you were’.
‘Wait a minute … what the hell is this?’ Ashley held up the inside of one of the letters he’d opened which was pretty sinister in its nature. The letters of each word had been cut out of newspapers and magazines and they read …
… LEAVE IT ALL ALONE …
‘Oh my God’ said Martha. ‘We’ll need to get it to the police straight away but does this mean they’ve got a serial killer on the loose? This is because of the petition. I’ve rattled someone, Ashley. Christ, I just hope I haven’t pushed them into making a victim of another child just to stick two fingers up at what we’re trying to do’.
EIGHT
Brett Collins was not looking a very pretty sight when Adrian and Joe turned up to see him in hospital. Apart from being hooked up to a drip he couldn’t open one of his eyes and his face was barely visible through the evidence of the obvious pounding he’d taken.
‘Jesus, Brett’ said Adrian ‘Couldn’t you have just gone in for plastic surgery?’
‘The doctor says you’re lucky to be still with us, Brett’ said Joe. ‘What with the broken ribs and all the internal bleeding that they only just managed to contain’.
‘Well if you’ve got a point to make then go with it’ Brett said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. ‘I’m not feeling my best’.
‘Who did this to you, Brett?’ Adrian wanted to know. The man was clearly struggling to speak but they needed to know. ‘Who took you to the edge of death?’
‘I fell’.
‘Yeah of course you did’ said Adrian. ‘We received a call to say that you were in here. The caller wanted to remain anonymous. Now that suggests to us Brett that this was linked to criminal activity and we want to know about it. We want to know about all of it, Brett’.
‘I’ve told you what happened’.
‘Yes and our sides are bloody splitting’ said Joe. He was tempted to apply physical pressure on Collins where he knew it would really hurt him. But then he stopped himself. Could he really be thinking like this? Was he really the same sort of savage who did all this to Collins?
‘We’ve got a good idea who did this to you’ said Adrian, standing on the other side of the bed from Joe with his arms folded across his chest. ‘All we need you to do is confirm our suspicions’.
‘Nothing gets past you two’.
‘Yes well it’s a habit we both displayed at police training college’ said Joe sardonically. ‘Everything else we’ve just filled in along the way which is all very interesting but we need to hear from your lips, Collins, who tried to mash you as if you were a spud. So why don’t you let us get on with our day and we’ll let you get on with yours’.
‘It’s not as if you’re going anywhere though is it?’ Adrian added. ‘So you can just get back to relaxing and enjoying the painkillers’.
‘You two have no bloody idea’.
‘So why don’t you tell us? Is it because they’ll be back to finish the job if you do? We can protect you, Collins. We can make sure you’re not got at again but you need to meet us halfway and tell us what we need to know’.
Adrian’s mobile rang and when he looked at the caller id display he saw that it was his girlfriend Kate. He shouldn’t do but he excused himself and left the room leaving Joe to deal with the hapless Collins alone. Joe looked down at the useless waste of space and oxygen and wondered how he was possibly expected to have any respect for someone like him who followed in that great tradition of tiny little stupid beggars who thought they were big men with a wide view of all the stuff around them that they thought they controlled. But they were the puppets. They were never the puppeteers. They were the ones who moved whenever their strings were pulled and yet they portrayed to the world that they were the force to be reckoned with. They were pathetic. Collins was pathetic. They didn’t deserve the Joe who’d grown so much as an officer in DCI Sara Hoyland’s team. They didn’t deserve the Joe who’d almost died at the hands of gunmen who were supposedly the bad guys but who’d turned out to be the good guys. They didn’t deserve the Joe who was so anxious to make the right impression on his new team with DSI Jeff Barton. This was someone who could deliver results for Joe’s new team. His revelations could help Joe slide into his new team without having to worry about what people thought about his effectiveness as a police officer. He could help Joe feel like he was better than those who’d almost succeeded in slaying him.
He reached out randomly and connected one hand over Collins mouth and he pressed the other into the side of his torso. Collins head immediately jerked back. The pain was written right the way across his face and Joe could see tears coming out of his eyes. The readers on the machine he was strapped up to began to flicker quite wildly too and Joe knew he wouldn’t have much time before medical staff came flooding in. He leaned forward and spoke in a loud whisper of a voice.
‘Connelly did this to you, didn’t he?’
Collins shook his head from side to side. Joe pressed deeper into the side of his torso and had to hold his hand down more firmly over Collins mouth to stifle the scream of pain.
‘Didn’t he?’
Collins nodded his head and with his one open eye looked pleadingly at Joe.
‘And did he deal with Terry Latham?’
Collins couldn’t help but show a flash of recognition in his eye when Latham’s name was mentioned.
‘Did he have him done over and murdered?’
Collins nodded his head and Joe took his hands away and leaned back up straight. He knew enough about the machines to see that Collins heart beat had become rapid so to cover himself he called for the medical staff who were already on their way and came sweeping in.
Joe left them to it and stepped back quietly out of the room.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Adrian when he saw the commotion.
‘Collins talked and I think it must’ve all got too much for him’ said Joe without looking Adrian in the eye.
‘What do you mean he talked?’
‘I mean cloth head that he told me that his boss Connelly had ordered his bashing and that Connelly had also been behind what happened to Terry Latham. Now I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to work out that if Connelly knows he was Bradley’s father then he’ll be out for revenge. He’s the sort who believes in an eye for an eye with no questions asked’.
Adrian rang the information in to DS Ollie Wright and suggested that all the paedophiles in the Greater Manchester area were checked out, especially the ones who Latham had been counseling because if he’d been able to find him then he probably had information on the othe
rs who were known to him.
‘Looks like I got that call just at the wrong time’ said Adrian after he ended the call to Ollie Wright. ‘I missed all the fun’.
‘It doesn’t look too funny at the moment’ said Joe.
‘No’ said Adrian, curiously.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing’ said Adrian who didn’t want to go where his thoughts were taking him. Joe had certainly developed a side to him since he was near fatally wounded in a previous case but could he be capable of doing what Adrian feared he had done?
John Squires wasn’t questioning anything about his new association with Bernie Connelly. Part of the deal was that he’d killed someone. It wasn’t the first time although admittedly when he’d done it before it was back in Rhodesia and there was a civil war going on with the black majority. He’d had no sleepless nights then and he’d had none since he’d dispatched Terry Latham into judgment day. He knew that Connelly had set him up to get his hands dirty and prove his loyalty to him. But John already had dirt and blood on his hands and he wasn’t sure if Connelly knew that. Still, getting rid of the likes of Terry Latham had been the right thing to do. Filthy perverted scum like him didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as ordinary, decent people. That’s where he and Connelly came together. Police and other law enforcement agencies had lost the battle when it came to law and order. Only people like Connelly who’d naturally inherited the same sense of justice as the Kray twins and that played well with the man and woman on the street. They’d had enough of excuses being thrown out for perverts. They wanted them dealt with and they wanted no more ‘understanding’. Kill them. Get them away from all the kids they could do so much harm to. It was time to take back control and nobody except middle class do-gooders who wouldn’t know justice if they ran over it would disagree with that.
He put his head round the door of Connelly’s office at his Knutsford, Cheshire home. ‘If it’s okay with you, boss, I’ll be getting off home’ he said. It was just after eight o’clock in the evening and he’d first got there at seven-thirty that morning. Connelly had managed to ‘obtain’ the list of paedophiles who Terry Latham had been counseling and it had been John’s job to go to each of the eleven addresses to check it out. Connelly was planning to abduct them all and get to the truth about what happened to Bradley Thompson but these things needed to be carefully planned and that meant sending someone out to check the place out and the surrounding area. These perverts tended to live fairly secretive lives for fear of being discovered. They didn’t make any friends. They kept themselves to themselves. They scuttled around like mice across a polished floor and tried to make sure that nobody took too much notice of them. The only people they could feel confident of making friends with were amongst their own perverted kind. ‘If there’s nothing else you need me for?’
Connelly had pushed his chair back and had his feet resting on his desk. He was making his way through his second large scotch of the evening and had a thick Havana cigar on the go too.
‘Will you join me in one of these, John?’ said Connelly, holding up his glass.
John didn’t think that Connelly was someone you should ever say no to, however matey he might come across, so he accepted. He sat down and watched Connelly pour him a scotch. John was desperate to get home to his dear wife Antonia. Dear, sweet Antonia who’d probably had to put up with more from him over the years than she should’ve done and yet she still stood by him with such loyalty. He dreaded to think what she’d say if she knew what he was getting up to these days with Connelly.
‘Can I ask you a personal question, John?’ Connelly asked.
John read Connelly’s expression. He hadn’t seen him look so wistful before like he’d been contemplating the real issues that divided life from death.
‘Ask away’ said John with more confidence than he felt. He wasn’t sure what angle Connelly was coming at this one with. And Connelly always had an angle of some kind.
‘Do you regret not having had any kids?’
John sucked up the air before responding. ‘Yes is the short answer’.
‘Of course, I am assuming that just because you and your lady don’t have them that you don’t have any others kicking around that you sired when she wasn’t looking?’
John smiled. ‘No’ he said. ‘I don’t’. John and Antonia had got together when they were both very young and he’d never been with any other woman before or since. They were both very innocent at the start but they’d managed to work it all out since. Sex wasn’t something that was talked about amongst people with their background and it wasn’t talked about in the all white Rhodesian community where they’d both grown up outside of Bulawayo.
‘Do you reckon you’d have made a good father?’
John hunched his shoulders. ‘I’d have done my best. I guess its immaterial now’.
‘Do you reckon I’d make a good father, John?’
John really didn’t know how to answer that. On the face of it a gangster maybe wouldn’t be the kind who’d make a good father. But then again he’d seen how Connelly was intent on making whoever was responsible for Bradley’s murder pay. Maybe that primal need for a father to avenge the murder of his son is what makes a good father.
Connelly threw his head back and laughed. ‘You don’t have to answer my question, John. The look on your face says you don’t really want to and I don’t blame you. Who’d want a big old madman like me for the father of their child?’
Bernie had fallen in love with Lucy Thompson the first time he saw her. He remembered her standing there in the pub he used to go into over Denton way. He knew she was a bit of a girl with a certain reputation but it didn’t bother him. It’s not like he’d never met that sort before. But Lucy was special even though Bernie always knew at the time that Gary Mitchell was getting a piece of her too. It drove him insane with jealousy. It made him want to sort Mitchell out but something about Lucy made him want to back off from his usual way of dealing with any rival. He left Mitchell alone. He stood by whilst Lucy made it more than crystal clear that she’d choose Mitchell over him any day.
‘I don’t really know what to say to that, boss’ said John.
‘No, I get that a lot’ said Connelly. ‘It goes with the territory’.
‘But what I will say is that I genuinely admire the way you’re chasing revenge for the murder of your boy’ said John.
‘I know the police for what they’re worth which isn’t much have got the wrong man’ said Connelly who was going through his own form of grief over the murder of Bradley. He’d never been part of his life but he still wanted to rip the heart out of whoever murdered him. This really was personal. It was his chance to do something for his son. ‘And it takes a lot for me to say that when the man in question is Gary bloody Mitchell. There’s a part of me that would love to see him rot believe me. But he wasn’t responsible. It was one of those paedophile pieces of shit and I know that’.
‘I meant to ask that, boss?’
‘What?’
‘How are you so sure? The police say they’ve got a lot of evidence against Mitchell’.
‘But they’re wrong’ said Connelly. ‘I just know it. What other excuse for a human being would kill a child except for a nasty little scumbag like a paedophile? I’m going to get them, John. I’m going to get every last single one of the little bleeders’.
At the end of a long and exhausting day Jeff allowed himself to be dragged down to the pub by Rebecca.
‘I can’t stay long’ he cautioned when they were standing at the bar. He ordered a pint of bitter for himself and Rebecca asked for a glass of dry white wine. ‘This is my round’.
‘No, don’t be silly, we’ll go Dutch’ said Rebecca who stood there wanting to burst into tears. This wasn’t how it should be. This was supposed to be a kind of date between two people who had eyes for each other but already he’d laid down a condition. She loved him. She loved him so much and yet it was like trying to hold running w
ater in her hands. It was leaking everywhere and she felt like just letting go.
‘Rebecca, call me old fashioned but I want to buy you a drink’.
Rebecca smiled. ‘Okay. I’ll let you’.
They took their drinks to a small table by the window. It wasn’t exactly a great view. That was the trouble with these kind of modern pubs built on the edge of modern housing estates. All you could see were street signs, fencing that had been varnished almost all the way through, and in the near distance were driveways and neatly kept front gardens and satellite dishes. This was housing for those who’d come to raise kids. It was where they drove each morning to their pretty little jobs that fitted neatly into their pretty little lives and every day of every month had its own little routine. Rebecca would’ve traded places with any of the women who lived there happily unaware of how lucky they were to live with men who loved them. She knew it wasn’t as simple as that. She knew from her job that carefully painted doors could hide a multitude of tragic situations. She was just desperate for the chance to see if she and Jeff could turn out happy or tragic. She almost didn’t care which. She just wanted the chance to find out.
‘’How’s Toby doing?’ she asked.
‘He’s a lot better, thanks’ Jeff happily reported. ‘He should go back to school tomorrow’.
‘Oh well that’s progress’ said Rebecca. ‘Is he still coming to you in the night?’
‘Oh yeah’ said Jeff. ‘I think that’ll be for a while yet’.
‘And you don’t mind?’
‘Mind? I just want him to feel safe and secure and loved. If that means coming into my bed until he gets over the trauma of finding the body of Bradley Thompson then so be it’.
‘Jeff, I didn’t mean … ‘
‘ … I know what you meant, Becky’ said Jeff. ‘I’m not saying it isn’t hard being a single Dad. But I do it willingly’.
Rebecca couldn’t think of anything to say to that. They’d been over it so many times it was becoming something of a chore to even think of going over it again. She wanted Jeff to dance with her. She wanted him to plant them a garden where their feelings would grow and sustain them all the way through. She wanted him to see that she had everything he needed if only he could let go of whatever it was that was stopping him from opening his eyes. Because his eyes weren’t open at least not to her. She’d been circling round the edge of his heart for so long and yet she was nowhere nearer. He said at the barbecue that he wanted to give them a chance. He said that he’d been holding back because letting go of the grief over Lillie Mae was both needed and yet terrifying at the same time. It would take someone very special and maybe she just wasn’t special enough.