‘By this friend. That was convenient. And what about Jamie Barham’s abduction? Had that been prearranged, too?’
Weller shook his head uncomprehendingly. ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me there.’
‘You needed an incentive to persuade Anna Barham to give up those documents, and her brother was it. That’s why you snatched him from the library.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Mariner switched to a different tack. ‘You were in quite a hurry to leave once you’d got your package.’
‘There were other interested parties. Our friend wanted the documents pronto.’
‘So why not just leave the city by car or train like most other people?’
‘I like boats.’
‘So, tell us a bit more about this friend,’ Mariner said.
‘How does he contact you?’
‘On the moby, how else?’
‘So where’s your phone?’ Mariner had seen the bagged up possessions when they’d been logged into custody, there was no mobile phone among them.
And for the first time during the interview Weller looked mildly unsettled. ‘I must have dropped it somewhere,’ he said.
Mariner was prepared to lay bets on the canal being the most likely resting place. He’d have to find out if anyone had seen Weller ditch it. Alternatively, it could have gone into the drain along with the package. A search team was working on that at this very moment. Perhaps that’s what bothered Weller—the realisation that his phone, and all the information on it, might be recovered. It was some small comfort.
‘Have you worked for this friend before?’
‘A couple of times.’
‘Including Sunday the sixteenth of February, the night someone got into Eddie Barham’s house, locked his brother in the cupboard and turned over his house before injecting him with a fatal quantity of heroin?’
Weller shook his head doubtfully. ‘I’m sure I’d remember something like that.’
‘What were you looking for then? More documents?’ A blank look. ‘Are you denying that you were in Birmingham that weekend?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll have to check with my secretary.’
That was when Mariner nearly swung for him. Instead, straining to keep a lid on his frustration, he suspended the interview. On one level, Mariner had to admire the man for being so composed under pressure and sticking rigidly to his story. He was consistent and plausible and, from the Crown Prosecution’s point of view, hardly incriminating at all. And they had no leverage. Knox was right, all they’d got were the errand boys, and they were having a laugh on him.
Worst of all, he couldn’t even balance the books with the recovery of Jamie Barham. He’d just disappeared into thin air. Weller simply denied all knowledge of him.
According to him, he’d just been attacked in the street, ‘some nutter’ had walked up and head butted him, completely unprovoked, which would neatly explain why a sample of his blood was going to match with the stains on Jamie’s shirt.
Amongst the items that had been bagged up by the custody sergeant was a bill for two nights’ accommodation at a cheap motel on Lee Bank, which indicated that they’d checked out earlier in the day. By the time a team of officers was dispatched, the chambermaid had cleared up the detritus and had discovered no bodies, dead or alive. They’d check for fingerprints but Mariner doubted that Jamie Barham had made it that far. Mariner felt as if he was trapped in a maze. What earlier in the day had seemed like limitless possibilities was gradually being undermined as each, one by one, led them into a blind alley.
The one remaining hope of prising open the case was the man who knew the whole history. But the news that finally came through from Dennis Weightman wasn’t good.
‘Have you brought him in?’ Mariner demanded, his patience beginning to fray at the edges.
‘We couldn’t,’ Weightman said, glumly. ‘We went up to the farm, but his wife hasn’t seen him since this morning.
She claims not to know where he’s gone.’
It was a growing trend. Mariner pushed a hand through his hair as he felt the world falling down around him.
Anna Barham was wandering amongst the ruins of her own life. On returning to her flat, she’d sat for almost an hour over the phone, willing it to ring so hard that it physically hurt. Then, instead, her door buzzer had sounded.
Cautiously, leaving on the chain, she opened it and peered out. To her surprise it was a woman, a police officer.
‘Anna Barham?’
‘Yes.’ What the hell was she doing here? What was going on?
‘DI Mariner asked me to call round. We need to ask you some questions.’
That had seemed unreal, like days ago, when WPC McLaughlin had come to tell her about the chase and the arrests. ‘Where’s Jamie?’ Anna kept asking, but all that came back at her were more questions: Who did you speak to? Would you recognise his voice? Then gradually it began to dawn. They hadn’t got Jamie.
‘Where is he?’ she demanded, finally, angrily.
And at last WPC McLaughlin admitted it. ‘I’m sorry.
We don’t know.’
At first Anna was furious, then frightened, and as soon as she was left alone, she knew she had to act. Okay, so according to WPC McLaughlin, the police had issued a description city wide, and there would be an appeal broadcast on tonight’s local news bulletin, but Jamie was hardly likely to turn himself in on the strength of that. Someone had to get out there and look for him, and if the police weren’t going to do it then she’d have to do it herself.
As soon as McLaughlin had gone, when it had already begun to get dark outside, Anna had embarked on her own search. Since then she’d been trudging the streets for hours, praying for a glimpse of her younger brother, even though deep down she knew it was a vain hope.
England’s second largest city, Birmingham’s population was a little over one million. It was like trying to find a needle in a whole field of haystacks. But Anna couldn’t bear the thought of Jamie out there on the streets, or lying in a gutter, while she sat at home and did nothing.
Besides, she had to do something to answer the guilt that was gnawing away at her inside.
She’d let everyone down; her parents, Eddie and now Jamie, too. For fourteen years Eddie had successfully looked after Jamie, and now after less than a week she’d failed spectacularly. Voices in her head berated her: if only she’d stayed at home, if only she’d watched Jamie more closely, if only she’d been more attentive to Eddie and been less absorbed in her own pathetic life. It was all her fault.
She was responsible.
Unable to come up with anything more logical, she’d begun her search back at the Conference Centre. Someone had to have been waiting there to collect her package and perhaps, having achieved their aim, they had released Jamie somewhere in the vicinity, too. They had no reason to hold him any longer. He was of no further use to them. Keeping a steady pace, she scoured the inside of the building, before moving out to its surrounding walkways, the warren of underground car parks, searching each face she saw, studying the movements of people as they walked, frantic for a glimpse of Jamie’s gangling walk.
She carried a photograph of Jamie with her, and occasionally showed it to passers-by, but all she got in return were blank looks, slow shakes of the head. The population on the streets began to diminish as people went home and faces began to blur and merge. What had begun systematically quickly degenerated into an aimless lurching from one passage on to another, her movements driven by fear and desperation, the voices in her head getting louder and more insistent.
All the time she walked she tried not to think about how Jamie might be holding up. It was bitterly cold and he would be freezing. The rain earlier in the day meant he might be soaked through, too, and beyond his carefully maintained environment he would be petrified. But as the minutes and hours ticked by, the vision that loomed terrifyingly larger was of Jamie lying lifeless and beyond fear in some dirty, back stre
et alleyway. As darkness enveloped the city, black shadows lurked in the emptiness.
The lights were inadequate and Anna realised that she would need a torch if she was to cover everything and she was exhausted. She would go home and eat something, have a short rest, collect a torch and then she would start again.
Mariner left the office late. He could no longer think straight, which was probably why, ten minutes later, he found himself sitting in his car outside Anna Barham’s flat.
He didn’t know quite why he was here. What was he planning to do? Apologise? Explain? Offer some comfort? Ha!
That was a joke. He caught a whiff of something acrid and unpleasant. His clothes reeked of the filth and smoke of the interview room, so before going into her building, he walked over to the canal to allow some fresh air to wash over him.
Up on Farmer’s Bridge, he leaned his elbows on the railings and looked along the glistening oily strand, dotted with lamplight, that disappeared into the darkness. Just up ahead the canal split. To the left began the Farmer’s Bridge locks, a series of deep watery vaults that took the canal down underneath the city. Up ahead, five hundred yards along the main route, the bright lights of the Brindley Place restaurants vibrant with activity; friends and couples enjoying a night out. He’d never been part of that. This was where he belonged, on the outside looking in.
If you carried on beyond that past the tourist areas, through the university complex and beyond, eventually you’d come to his home. It made him and Anna Barham practically neighbours, he thought suddenly, on the same continuum but poles apart.
He was procrastinating. Mariner hadn’t imagined he could ever be reluctant to see Anna Barham, but facing up to her now was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. He had no answers, only more questions. The desire to turn back the clock and make everything right again as intense as a physical pain. He stood longer, mustering the courage to go up to her flat, but in the end he didn’t have to. As he looked out over the canal a small familiar figure emerged from the gloom on the towpath below. Initially he couldn’t be sure that it was her. The posture was all wrong.
Her shoulders were hunched, and her feet dragging. Christ, he thought, I’ve done that.
‘Anna?’ he called out to her. Immediately her face lifted, and her pace quickened as she hurried towards him, injected with sudden optimism. The transformation cut through him.
‘You’ve found him! Have you found him?’
‘No.’ Mariner shook his head, extinguishing the flame of hope with a single word. ‘I’m sorry.’
She crumpled again, devastated. ‘What do you want then? Why are you here?’ Even in the dim halo cast by the streetlights she looked pale, and her eyes red-rimmed.
‘I just came to see that you’re okay,’ he said, lamely.
‘Okay?’ she was incredulous, though her lower lip trembled.
‘You’ve got a nerve.’ Anger began to take over. ‘This is all down to you. If you hadn’t barged in…’
‘I thought you were in danger. You were in danger. You vanished without telling anyone where you were. What did you expect me to do?’
‘Nothing. It was your weekend off! Don’t you get it?
They had Jamie! They told me if I contacted the police they wouldn’t guarantee his safety! And you gate-crashed the whole thing like a bull in a fucking china shop! What the hell were you playing at??’
‘I was trying to help,’ said Mariner, lamely.
‘Well you didn’t, did you? You’ve ruined everything.
You shouldn’t have interfered!’ And unable to contain her fury any longer, she hit him, a stinging blow across the face that jarred his still fragile nose. Despite the sudden rush of heat down the inside of his left nostril, Mariner didn’t move. Unable to meet his eyes, she looked away, jamming her hands down in her pockets. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, though she seemed not to notice.
‘You’re bleeding again,’ she said, finally, glancing up at him. Her anger had moved on like a passing storm, leaving her weary and desolate. ‘You’d better come up.’ Cupping a hand under his dripping nose, Mariner followed her in silence. Standing in the lift he wanted to reach out and put a comforting arm around her, but she kept her distance.
This impotence thing was spreading through him like wild fire.
Her flat wasn’t the same one he’d been into just a couple of nights previously. It was a bomb site. There were spent coffee mugs and glasses on nearly every surface. Clothes were draped over furniture and it was untidy and neglected.
In the bright light he could see that she was the same. She wore no make-up and her hair was unbrushed, her baggy clothes carelessly thrown on.
Mariner followed her into the living room where from beneath a pile of clothing she unearthed a box of tissues.
‘Thanks.’ Mariner took it from her as his mobile rang.
It was Knox. ‘Boss? I’ve just picked up something on the radio. A serious RTA involving a young IC 1 male, close to the city centre. He was behaving erratically and ran out in front of a vehicle.’ A wave of revulsion struck Mariner and he struggled to keep his voice normal. ‘Okay, thanks.
Give me a minute.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said to Anna, hoping that his tone didn’t betray the emotions raging inside him. ‘Please stay here now. We’ll find Jamie. I promise you.’ Pressing a wad of tissues to his nose, he hoped to God that they hadn’t already.
‘How can you be so sure?’ She was scathing. ‘You have no idea. He could be anywhere. He could be…’ But she couldn’t bring herself to complete the sentence. ‘You should have stayed away,’ Anna told him.
‘I’m sorry. I did what I thought was right.’ Christ, how many times in his life had he said that?
In his car, Mariner patched back through to Knox. ‘Let’s have the details.’
‘It’s at the Bristol Road, the junction with Lee Bank Middleway. It doesn’t sound good.’
The nightmare was escalating. With blues and twos to speed him, Mariner was at the scene in minutes. The roadside was chaotic, lit by the strobing blue lights of the emergency vehicles. The HGV involved had swerved into the crash barrier and was blocking the carriageway.
Uniforms were diverting the traffic around it. Mariner parked some distance away and walked towards the melee.
As he approached he could hear the remonstrations of the van driver.
‘I didn’t stand a chance, he just ran out in front of me!I couldn’t have done anything!’ A WPC was trying to calm him.
A small group of green-clad paramedics was huddled over something at the side of the road. As Mariner headed towards them, one sat back on his haunches. ‘What a waste,’ he said. There were murmurs of assent around the group.
Getting nearer, Mariner saw the crumpled and twisted body on the ground, its upper half now respectfully covered by a blanket awaiting a stretcher. He took out his warrant card and waved it at the nearest paramedic.
‘I’m DI Mariner. I need to get a look at him. I may know him.’
The man appraised him warily, taking in Mariner’s dishevelled appearance, the bloodstained clothing. ‘Go ahead mate, you might save us some bother,’ was the almost indifferent reply. With incidents like this commonplace, it was pure self-preservation.
As Mariner got nearer, the commotion seemed to fade away into the background, leaving only the sound of his own heart punching at his ribs and pulsing the blood in his ears. He knelt down beside the broken figure and gingerly raised the blanket. He closed his eyes as an express train roared its way around his skull. The boy had bleached hair and a single gold hoop in his ear. It wasn’t Jamie.
‘Any luck?’ asked the paramedic.
Mariner felt weak enough to pass out. ‘No, sorry. It’s not who I thought.’
Somehow Mariner communicated this to the senior officer at the scene, who also seemed to study him too carefully, before lurching back to his car, nauseous with relief.
He called Tony Knox. ‘It’s
not him. Keep looking.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Knox. ‘All that leaves is the muggers and perverts then.’
Mariner studied himself in the rear-view mirror. He wasn’t a pretty sight. Pale and unshaven, there was a thin crust of dried blood around his nose, and looking down he saw that more blood had stippled his tie and shirt. He should get cleaned up. Knox would contact him if there were any developments. He also felt an urge to wash away the nasty taste left by Knox’s words. His first port of call was the Boatman, where Beryl didn’t even bat an eyelid.
In Mariner’s estimation the biggest threat to Jamie out there wasn’t from perverts, but that wasn’t to say that it didn’t exist. Back when he was living in the squat there were several occasions when Mariner had woken up to find unwelcome hands pawing at him. He’d been strong enough and aware enough to fend them off. Jamie Barham wouldn’t have that advantage.
Suddenly he realised he hadn’t eaten much today and the two pints and whisky chaser were starting to make his head spin. He walked home while he still could. The house was dark, but for the comforting glow of the wood-burner. He didn’t bother with the lights.
‘Bad day?’ said a voice as he crossed the room.
Christ! He hadn’t noticed Jenny sitting there, curled up in the armchair.
‘Hideous,’ he said recovering from the shock. ‘Couldn’t get much worse, but I won’t bore you with the details.
Couldn’t even if I wanted to.’
‘Anything I can do to help?’
Jesus, what an offer. ‘No, I’m fine,’ Mariner slumped on to the sofa. ‘Anyway, what are you doing up and about at this hour?’ he asked, eventually.
‘I couldn’t sleep. Tony’s gone. Back to his wife.’
‘Ah.’ That explained a lot.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘It was only a fling. We both knew that.’ She said it with the worldliness of a forty-year old. ‘Thing is,’ she went on. ‘I was wondering if you’d let me stay on. I really like it here. I’d pay rent and everything, and Tony said you were looking for a lodger.’
Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01] Page 29