by Mark Hill
Opening her notebook, Flick said, ‘I’ve been looking through your father’s record. I’m afraid it’s a long one. He was convicted—’
‘So he deserves to be dead, that what you’re saying?’
Flick reddened. ‘We were wondering if he became involved in any enterprise that could have led to his falling out with someone.’
‘I told you earlier, he’d gone straight, he wanted to drive a taxi and live the good life in Spain. When we was kids the old man lied and lied, so I always knew when he was serving up bullshit. If he was involved in something, I’d have known.’
‘And what about your brother?’ asked Drake.
‘Phil weren’t no angel. But he didn’t have those kind of mates.’
‘What kind of mates?’
‘The type that would break in and … and …’ Ryan’s voice became tiny. ‘Butcher his family.’ The room fell quiet save for the faint rasp of Ryan’s palm scraping across the stubble on his jaw. ‘And me neither, before you ask. Dad cleaned up his act after what happened to Jason.’
Drake folded his arms.
‘Jason?’ asked Flick.
‘Dad’s best mate, committed suicide years back.’ He watched Flick write something. ‘He was always round ours when we were kids. Him and Dad went way back. When Jason did himself in it knocked the old man for six.’
‘How long ago was this?’ asked Flick.
‘Three or four years. He shot his girlfriend and their baby daughter, then turned the gun on himself.’
‘What was his full name, Ryan?’ asked Drake, one shoe tapping on the carpet.
‘Burgess. Jason Burgess.’
Flick wrote down the name. She didn’t know if it had any relevance, probably not, but she was, and always would be, a thorough note-taker.
‘The fire just went out of Dad after that. Mum told him he had to give up the life or sling his hook, and she meant it. Dad didn’t have any skills to speak of, so he got it into his head to write a misery memoir.’
‘A what?’ asked Danson.
‘Mum loved those books. Santa’s Secret Kiss. Auntie’s Sadistic Cellar. You know, people cashing in on abusive childhoods. They make a mint, and the old man was always going on about his early days. It was his excuse for everything. That’s why my life’s so fucked, Ryan, because my childhood was shit. Trouble was, he could barely write his own name, let alone a whole book. Didn’t stop him trying, though. He even started doing research.’ Tears welled in his eyes. ‘Ryan, he says to me, if you knew what happened at that place, it’d make your hair curl. He got cold feet about the book. Fact was, he couldn’t string a sentence together. He didn’t know a comma from his colon. Asked me to stash the notes in my flat, just in case.’
Drake looked up sharply.
‘In case of what?’ Flick asked.
‘I dunno.’ Ryan shrugged. ‘He seemed to think it was important.’
‘We’re drifting here,’ said Drake.
Flick frowned. Ryan had just lost his mother, father and brother in a shocking act of violence, and Ray Drake was getting impatient.
‘Maybe one day I’ll write the book myself. As a tribute, like.’ Ryan sighed. ‘If I’m still alive.’
‘You think somebody may still want to kill you?’
He shot her an incredulous look. ‘I was meant to be there last night, wasn’t I?’
Before Flick could reply, Drake cleared his throat. ‘Ryan, you can help us enormously by thinking of all the people your father and brother knew who could do something like this.’
‘How many times? He was out of it … Look, there’s one or two names I can give you, but they’re small fry, because that’s what Dad was. He was a nobody, same as everybody else he knew.’
‘Thank you.’ Drake’s phone rang. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to take this.’
Flick watched him leave, wished he’d never come in the first place. Ryan’s head was all over the place. A more gentle approach may have been more productive, certainly more humane. Ray Drake, of all people, should know that. When he’d gone, Ryan placed his head in his hands.
‘Am I going to be all right?’
She felt an overwhelming sadness for him. ‘You’ll be safe, Ryan. You have my word on that.’
8
‘Give me a ring, even if you’re not coming back. Call when you get this message. I’m not kidding no more, Gav.’
‘If that was me,’ said Bren, watching Elliot cut the call, ‘I would have turned the air blue, called him every name under the sun.’
‘Been there, done that.’ Elliot shrugged. ‘Hasn’t made him call back.’
They were sat in the beer garden of the Royal Oak, a stone’s throw from Elliot’s home. It used to be a sanctuary for him, a quaint little country pub with a thatched roof and whitewashed walls – there had been an inn on this spot since Queen Bess was in pigtails – but it was tainted for him now. Only days ago, he had huddled in one of the snugs with Gavin, who took him carefully through the process of buying a burger franchise. Romancing him, grooming him.
A biting breeze whipped in low across the fields, rattling the table canopies. Elliot was frozen: the landlord didn’t turn on the outdoor heaters till evening. Bren shifted his numb buttocks on the narrow plank along the bench. He sat awkwardly, side on from Elliot, chubby legs crossed on the patio. He could probably squeeze his bulk into the narrow gap beneath the bench, just about, but they would need the fire brigade to cut him out again.
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
‘No idea.’
Elliot wasn’t one of those people who coped well with stress, and he certainly wasn’t one of life’s problem-solvers. Where decisions were concerned he left all the heavy lifting to Rhonda. She always knew the right thing to do. But he wouldn’t – he just couldn’t – talk to her about this, not if he wanted to hang onto her.
‘What did you make of him? Gavin, I mean.’
‘He smiled a lot.’ Bren, who was the closest thing Elliot had to a friend these days, stroked his cold thighs. ‘And he never drank.’
‘Yeah.’ Bren had nailed it.
‘Who sits in a pub and drinks fizzy water? That set off alarm bells.’
Elliot drained his pint. Three beers in, and his hangover was easing, that was something. ‘Then why didn’t you say so?’
‘Ain’t against the law not to drink. And, anyway, you were so wrapped up in his get-rich-quick scheme that you wouldn’t have listened to me. If it makes you feel any better, I would have fallen for the same scam.’ Bren patted his big belly. ‘Probably best that I stay away from the burger business, though.’
Elliot appreciated Bren’s attempt to cheer him up, but could barely muster a smile. He had fallen hook, line and sinker for Gavin’s cheerful bullshit. Gavin had shown him glossy brochures and business plans and paperwork with embossed letterheads; he’d even gone to the trouble of taking him to that empty shop unit. Elliot of all people, who had wasted so much of his own life lying and cheating and stealing, should have known better. Takes one to know one, and all that.
It was karma, that’s what it was. All he wanted was a quiet life. Elliot loved his routine, the pub, the long walks. But he had trusted somebody from the outside world. As soon as you let a stranger into your life everything went to shit, it happened every single time.
‘She’s not going to forgive me,’ he said bitterly. ‘Not this time.’
‘You could always try Owen.’
‘Ain’t gonna happen,’ Elliot said sharply. He had enough problems on his plate without adding Owen Veazey to them.
Bren looked hurt. ‘Only trying to help, Ell.’
‘Yeah, well …’ He snatched up his phone and his ridiculous plastic fag, put them in his pocket. ‘Keep your ideas to yourself.’
Bren watched him swing his legs from under the bench. ‘You going?’
‘Better get off.’ Elliot felt ashamed of his outburst – Bren was only trying to help, after all – and he clapped him on the shou
lder. ‘Thanks for listening.’
‘Don’t dismiss it out of hand, Ell.’ Bren’s chins quivered against his collar. ‘We’re not talking a long-term loan. Just to tide you over till you can find this Gavin. You could pop the money back in the bank before Rhonda even notices it’s gone. Owen knows you; he’ll do you all right.’
‘Sure,’ said Elliot, who wasn’t inclined to touch Owen with a bargepole. ‘See you soon, Bren.’
But before he could leave, his phone rang. The screen flashed urgently: Gavin’s number.
‘You gonna answer it?’ asked Bren, watching.
Elliot slowly lifted the mobile to his ear.
And heard a child weep. Juddering sobs. Angry tears.
‘Hello?’ Elliot asked. ‘Gav?’
The sobbing became snivels, and then –
‘She’ll know the kind of man you are,’ said an angry voice.
And it howled: an agonising cry of emotional pain that nearly burst Elliot’s eardrum.
He yanked the phone away, cut the call. Stared at the mobile as if it could somehow explain what he’d just heard. Acid churned in his guts.
Elliot was gripped by an odd disconnect. He had the overwhelming feeling that there was something that he really needed to know, something important.
‘You know what? I might stay for another pint, after all.’ He started walking away. ‘You go get them in.’
‘Where you off to?’ asked Bren.
‘To buy some fags.’
9
Lines of inquiry opened up in the investigation by late afternoon.
Flick’s team had compiled a list of Kenny’s criminal associates, and Upson and Steiner were locating last-known addresses. The response from old mates of Kenny’s had been uniform. Ain’t seen Kenny in years. Kenny dropped his old friends. Kenny don’t come round here no more. His missus put his head in a noose. And so on.
Fact was, Kenny’s criminal acquaintances didn’t have a bad word to say about him. He never grassed, never ripped off his mates, never made enemies.
‘So basically …’ Millie Steiner corrected her posture, as her Alexander Technique teacher had taught her, in a chair borrowed from the Incident Room. ‘Kenny was a saint.’
They were sitting in Flick’s office. Upson took the edge of Flick’s desk, looking down. ‘If it weren’t for the fact that his record stretches back to flogging used arrows after the Battle of Hastings, I’d have to agree.’
‘Ryan’s right,’ said Flick. ‘Kenny was small potatoes, the same goes for Phil. I’m just not seeing it.’
She hadn’t seen Ray Drake since he’d walked out of the interview suite earlier. According to Kendrick he’d spent the afternoon with Harris, coordinating a response to the press. The DCI loved his moments in the spotlight, and Flick imagined him knotting and re-knotting his tie just so, and practising authoritative gestures that gave him gravitas in front of the TV people, as Drake advised him on what to say. Drake hated the cameras, hated speaking to the press, and would stay well out of it.
‘What about Barbara? Have we missed a trick there?’
‘She worked part time at Greggs,’ said Steiner. ‘Was a hard worker, a bit of a character by all accounts, and loved a chat. Customers liked her.’
‘You don’t do that to someone …’ Flick leaned back to examine the ceiling tiles. ‘You don’t truss up an entire family and stab them to death unless you’ve a seriously massive grudge.’
‘We’re working on it, guv,’ Upson said, picking up the framed photo of Flick’s nieces and nephew from her desk. ‘Everyone’s moving as quickly as they can.’
Flick glared at Upson, but he was too busy frowning at the photo.
‘What about the mobile? Someone sent Ryan a message.’
‘Kenny complained to a work colleague last night that he’d lost his phone,’ Steiner said. ‘He swore blind he’d had it on the way to work.’
‘Ryan said Kenny took the 41 to Hornsey every night and the night bus back. Someone could have nicked it then.’
Steiner jotted in her notebook. ‘I’ll get the CCTV footage from London Transport.’
‘Wait up.’ Upson waved the photo frame, and Flick anxiously expected it to slip from his fingers and shatter on the floor. ‘If someone who had reason enough to kill him sat next to Kenny on the bus, wouldn’t he recognise him?’
‘Perhaps Kenny did recognise him. Perhaps they chatted. Get someone to dust Kenny’s locker at the supermarket. It’ll be in a secure area, so get the CCTV as well.’
There was a rap on the window, and Sandra Danson stuck her head in. ‘Ryan’s finished, Ma’am.’
Flick snatched the frame from Upson and replaced it carefully on her desk. On the way to the interview suite she checked her voicemail messages. They were about work stuff, mostly. Holloway had a query about a departmental charge code. Kendrick wanted to know how far to widen door-to-door inquiries in the surrounding tangle of streets. A friend from college had texted about going for a drink.
It had been a long time since she’d let her hair down – Flick couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been on a proper dress-up, cab-home night out. A few months back she’d signed up for one of those internet dating agencies for professionals, had received quite a lot of interest, too, but hadn’t done anything about it. She just didn’t have the time or, if she was honest, the inclination. She fancied splashing out on some new clothes, getting her hair done. She and Nina could make a day of it, lounging about at some fancy spa, but she worked long hours and weekends, and could never usually muster the energy. She would rather sit around her sister’s house where she could relax and chat over a glass of wine while the children ran about making merry hell.
Her thoughts drifted uneasily to Nina and her husband Martin. Flick couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something not quite right between them. The last few times she had stayed there she had picked up a tension, a definite atmosphere, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Nina and Martin were the happiest couple she knew, no question, and he was as close as a brother to Flick. The idea that their marriage was in trouble – they had three small children, who Flick loved dearly – was too painful to contemplate.
Ryan Overton had spent the afternoon working on a list of Kenny’s criminal acquaintances and former friends, anybody who had bad blood with his family, and he’d worked with a furious intensity. Danson said he’d refused any food and drink except a packet of Monster Munch and a can of Red Bull. He looked wretched.
‘We’ll get you to a hotel, Ryan. Or a police safe house if you prefer.’
Ryan’s voice was flat. ‘I just wanna go home.’
A squad car was requisitioned to take him back to Finsbury Park where he lived on the twelfth floor of a tower block. Dismissing Danson, Flick climbed in the back of the car. Moving back and forth between the crime scene and the office, tasks multiplying every hour, she hadn’t stopped all afternoon, and could do with a few minutes out of the building. Their route took them down the Seven Sisters Road, past the takeaways and convenience stores and the endless shop-to-lease signs. Ryan’s head lolled against the headrest as he stared at the shutters rattling down on shops and businesses after a busy trading day.
‘They were giving it a real go, you know? Dad had finally got his life on track. Thanks to Jason, in a weird way.’
Kenny and Jason: two lifelong friends who died violently with their families, Jason by his own hand, Kenny at the hands of a murderer. Flick had checked the suicide on the database and found no reason to question the coroner’s verdict. Jason Burgess had killed his partner and their infant daughter. He’d had well-documented mental health issues, a history of violent crime. It had never been established where he’d purchased the firearm, but he’d have known plenty of people who’d supply one for the right price. There was just one nagging question: a gun would cost hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds – how could Burgess, living from hand to mouth, afford something like that?
‘At
the station you said your dad didn’t believe Jason killed himself,’ Flick said.
‘Stubborn old git wouldn’t let it go, but Dad had a blind spot about Jason.’
‘Do you think Jason did it?’
‘Course. He was a nutcase, he had serious anger issues. Mum couldn’t stand him.’ Ryan eyed a couple of women emerging from a Turkish café. ‘She hated the way he was in and out of our house, stinking up the sofa, drinking all the old man’s booze, moaning about his life. Get Kenny and Jason together and they’d break your fucking heart. If anyone was going to turn a gun on himself it was Uncle Jase. One day, when I was about twelve, me, Phil and Mum came home to find him sitting in the kitchen, a bloody great knife on the table.’ He spread his hands apart: this big. ‘He wasn’t allowed in the house for a while after that.’
He leaned forward to the driver to indicate a turning. ‘Next left, mate. Anyway, when Jason died, Dad was cut up about it. Mum told him to get his act together or he’d be out on his arse. That was when he said he was going to write the book.’ Ryan laughed bitterly. ‘As if! My old man, the author – never going to happen, was it?’
‘Why’d he change his mind about it, do you think?’
‘Dad would come out in a cold sweat just holding a pencil. Besides, in his heart of hearts I don’t think he wanted to look back.’ A muscle in his jaw ticked. ‘He told me that he’d found some people from his past, from a children’s home he was at called the Longacre, but you could see something about it had rattled him.’
Flick turned to face him. ‘What?’
‘He never said, kept it all bottled up. That’s when he gave me his notes in a file.’ Ryan tapped the side of his nose. ‘Keep ’em safe, son.’
‘What was in the file?’
‘Mouldy bits of paper, as far as I could tell, old newspapers. My eyes glazed over, to be honest.’
‘Can you find it for me, Ryan?’
‘I’ll try, but don’t hold your breath. Don’t know if I’ve even got it any more.’
The car pulled up onto the forecourt of a tower block. A group of kids booted a football against a wall. They gestured at the car and made siren sounds. Nee naw nee naw.