by Paul Read
‘Look, I don’t know why this rumour is doing the rounds,’ Patrick said, ‘but the Union Souljas are responsible. There’s a whole underworld you don’t have a clue about, operating in Union City. Not a clue. I dare you to walk around there after dark. Do something about them, for fuck’s sake. They should be the ones behind bars. Not me.’
‘You’re not behind bars, Mr Owen.’
Patrick stared through the misted blocks to his right, the policemen and women beyond like pixelated sprites. ‘You saw that badly photoshopped image at the press conference. It’s a disguise, a smokescreen. It must be.’
‘For what, Mr Owen?’ His interviewer spoke with irksome calm.
‘Matthew Keane’s spreading rumours about me. Can’t you see why he’s doing it? He must’ve killed Denis.’
In the silence which followed Patrick knew he sounded like a man scraping for excuses. Had Jenna had enough time to get the gun out of his classroom? ‘I mean… why’s he using me like this? Why’s he passing the blame?’
‘One could also suggest you’re passing the blame. Or question why you’re using him like this.’
‘I’m not using him. I haven’t sabotaged an event he was involved in, or written “paedophile” across his door, or left little voodoo dolls on his desk.’
‘You just said, “He must’ve killed Denis”. That sounds like passing the blame to me.’ Patrick hadn’t noticed the eye of a CCTV camera in the corner of the questioning room before. ‘Did you kill Denis Roberts, Mr Owen?’
‘This is insane.’ Patrick could hardly speak for fear.
‘Is it? This is what I think happened: you found Denis’s gun in Jenna’s room and it terrified you. You thought Denis was after revenge, and maybe he was, and you engineered a way to kill him. Where’s the gun now?’
‘Ask Matthew.’
Meadows leant in towards Patrick, his eyes almost sparkling. ‘We have a warrant, Mr Owen, but you might like to just tell us where the gun is.’
‘You’ve got the wrong person.’ Patrick tasted blood in his mouth. His hands rattled on the tabletop. Meadows had pushed him to the precipice of shame. Ana would have heard news of his arrest by now, would be sitting in shocked silence as Danny asked her repeatedly, repeatedly where his father was.
‘And you believe the right person to be… Matthew Keane?’
‘He’s not clever but he’s got support and immunity. The weak have to play tough in a place like Union City. That’s what a gang does. Kids who don’t have any identity by themselves find strength in numbers. He and Denis hated each other. I know Denis broke Matthew’s arm one time.’ It was essential he seeded the notion that Denis and Matthew were sworn enemies. ‘This was after Matthew insulted Denis following some intimacy between Denis and Jenna in my classroom.’
‘You’ve proof of this?’
‘Not exactly. But that’s not all. Think about it: Matthew’s brother went missing after the killing. Maybe there are drugs involved in all this… Maybe… Maybe Matthew was involved in drugs as well as Denis…?’
The Inspector bored his eyes deep into Patrick. ‘You have evidence that Denis was selling?’
‘The cannabis under Jenna’s bed. You know, rivals are taken out all the time for dealing on someone else’s turf. There was that corner shop that was smashed up…’
Meadows issued a slow puncture of a sigh. ‘Mr Owen, Sean Keane was found hiding at a friend’s house in East London yesterday night. He left Union City soon after his flat went up in flames, knowing whatever remained of his burnt cannabis would be found and that he’d subsequently be arrested. He was charged with possession with intent to sell, but had a cast-iron alibi for the night Denis was shot: he was meeting his broker, attempting to explain where twenty-five kilos of marijuana had gone. We’ve got a whole bunch of them awaiting trial; Sean spilled the beans all over the place. And as for Matthew, let me make this clear once and for all…’ Meadows pointed towards Patrick’s legs. ‘I interviewed him in that very chair. He looked close to tears the whole time. The only thing that kid could’ve killed was a joke. Now, Mr Owen, answer me this. Did you murder Denis Roberts?’
Exasperation pierced Patrick’s heart. Any clumsy planting of contaminated evidence – a gun stippled in his classroom’s kiln – would only make him look doubly guilty. He would have confessed had the words not stuck in his throat. A braver man would have been sent down there and then.
‘Where were you the night Denis died?’
‘I’ve told you.’
He smoothed his papers with his fist. ‘You claim to have been at home. You can be sure of that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you stay home all night? You didn’t get up and wander the estate at any point? You’re prone to doing that, if this afternoon’s anything to go by.’
‘I was in the estate that evening,’ he croaked, ‘but I went home.’
‘Yes, Sarah and Jenna confirmed that in their interviews. You left just after the fire. But let me tell you something interesting: two people were seen around the time of the murder. One of them fits your description.’
‘Perhaps your source got the time wrong.’ Patrick didn’t have the energy to look at his inquisitor.
‘Maybe. Did you see anyone in the estate? On your way home perhaps?’
There was the merest whiff of melodrama about Meadows’ techniques.
‘I wasn’t there.’
‘No one who looked suspicious? No one at all?’ The lines around his hopeful green eyes folded upon themselves like ancient tapestry.
Meadows hadn’t appeared so old when Patrick first met him – he’d been too imposing, too tall – but he was sixty if a day. Though he had good bone structure, there was no trace of a young man in his features anymore and his eyebrows were thick, old-mannish, with only a touch of black still to them. There were lines in places Patrick never realised a face could acquire lines. The chin. The wilting skin before the ears.
‘The rumours that surround you are interesting to say the least,’ Meadows said. ‘Namely, the relationship with the mother of Denis’s apparent girlfriend and the punch you once delivered the deceased. You’ve looked out of sorts to me ever since we first met, and I’ve seen the aftermath of gunshots fired in enclosed spaces before and more than once hearing problems have ensued…’
Just keep denying everything, Patrick told himself, as he’d once told Jenna. Did she have to sit through these mind games too? How did she cope?
‘Look, Inspector…’
‘Detective Chief Inspector.’
‘Where’s the hard evidence against me? Even if I did hit Denis, he can hardly press charges. And you’re being remarkably cagey about where you’ve got your information, which tells me the person who told you this rumour is either hiding their identity or can’t be trusted. There’s nothing. And a “witness” who “saw me” on the night of the murder means even less…’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Meadows said. ‘I’ll give you five minutes.’ He stood, picked up his papers, and walked out the room.
Patrick sat alone, with the feeling he’d just said something incredibly stupid. He tried to recall what had happened over the last ten, fifteen minutes. What he’d denied. What he’d confessed to.
He started humming, softly under his breath, songs his mother would sing him as a child. And then, out of nowhere, a tune he’d lost months ago flickered briefly. What had once wriggled and twisted from his thoughts, a tune he’d struggled to compose at his kitchen table and had considered calling ‘Sixteen’, returned. The music couldn’t have chosen a more ludicrous time to unlock itself. Even as he determined to keep hold of it, this time, it had already gone.
And in its place: G to A. A to D. D to E minor. E minor to G.
That was certainly one persistent, overpowering melody. It may not have been ‘Danny’s Tune’ any longer but he felt a strong sense of ownership. Yes, another musician got there first but Patrick Owen still owned the emotional rights. Not that he could have
ever improved on Adam’s original; he knew his limitations as an artist these days. In fact, as Patrick scanned his mind’s eye over the emotive lyrics of ‘Find the Ocean’ he found them superior in every way to his own version. Though he’d never seen it before, its narrative so clearly concerned a man explaining the true nature of his quest for meaning amid multiple disappointments to someone else. As originally written, it was a farewell from Adam to Ana, an apology for not being Patrick, dressed in the poetry of the stream’s journey to the river and, ultimately, to the death or freedom of the ocean. But, like the best songs, it meant different things to different people. Patrick hadn’t appreciated it at the time, but now he’d rewritten its meaning to allow an absent father to apologise to his son for his departure.
It was still ‘Danny’s Tune’.
The door opened again. Meadows, clutching a blue document wallet, was accompanied by Mary Haynes.
‘Hello Patrick,’ Mary said in her clipped, authoritative voice. She was still baggy eyed, still pretty, still neatly uniformed.
Over the next ten minutes they went over the same ground as before, a recap designed to build back up to the big reveal, and while the newcomer asked her questions with the confident, elegant cadences that arrive with expertise and implacable professionalism, it was clear Meadows was the one leading. At times, it even seemed as though Meadows was showing off to the woman. Perhaps something still stirred in the old boy’s loins.
‘Right,’ the Inspector announced. ‘This is what’s going to happen. In this file are five statements by witnesses, people living in the estate who saw something strange that night.’ He stabbed the file on the desk with a long forefinger. ‘They all tally. They all claim to have seen the same person. If you tell me who you think killed Denis Roberts – and if your description of them matches the descriptions in here – I’ll take it seriously. Understand?’
Patrick straightened. Christophe had mentioned the police had a suspect, but that the description was being held back. That ‘suspect’ must have either fitted Jenna’s description or…
‘I wasn’t there.’
‘So you keep saying.’
The room constricted. He had an opportunity to give a description of someone wearing gold trainers, hoodie and cap, clothes which were now up in smoke, untraceable. He could pass the blame onto a stranger, a fiction.
‘Come on, Patrick. Might you have seen someone suspicious on the estate that night? Think carefully…’
Meadows was leading him now, that much was clear, doggedly beating the same line of enquiry to death.
‘I don’t know anything. I feel dizzy.’ Patrick heard his own voice, feeble and exhausted, a Year Seven accused of a sixth former’s crime.
‘Describe this person and you can go free. You’ll have helped us solve the case and absolved yourself of these nasty rumours at the same time. Come on, Patrick. You have to tell us.’ The voice was so soothing it was almost servile, even as Meadows’ searching look bored into him…
That look. Where had he seen it before?
It occurred to him at once.
The boy who appeared through the hall doors at the press conference had been planted by Meadows to catch Patrick’s reaction. The Inspector had watched the Art teacher like a hawk and translated murder in Patrick’s mystification. He saw the same inquisitive gaze on Meadows’ face now, and more than a degree of desperation.
This was a trap. If he described the boy it proved only one thing: that he was at the scene of the crime.
‘I saw nothing. I have no idea who killed Denis Roberts.’ Patrick stated this confidently and the woman’s shoulders perceptibly sagged. Meadows wore his defeat well, relaxed back in his chair.
‘Patrick. Let me tell you something about police work, as one professional to another. It’s boring. Bits of paper… loose threads… You’re always one step behind, always chasing your tail.’
‘Sounds familiar.’
‘But then… a chance comes to solve the senseless murder of a teenager and… You want to do the right thing, don’t you Patrick? You’ve been so helpful so far. The press conference and everything. You gave Denis’s mother your phone number I understand. I mean I was suspicious but… now’s your chance to not only clear your name of all those ugly rumours but carry on your good, tireless work for the community. We’re on the same side, you and I. All I want is to confirm the description of a suspected killer, that’s all.’
‘I want a solicitor.’
With the speed of a man half his age, Meadows slashed his right hand across the desk, casting his blue folder and a glass of water to the floor. Patrick looked amongst the debris and saw that every sheet of ‘evidence’ in Meadows’ file was blank. The Inspector slammed his palms down on the desk and, for a moment, Patrick thought he was going to lunge for him. Judging from the look on Mary’s face, she did too.
Meadows stared deep into the teacher’s eyes before moving to the black box between them and turning off the machine. He spoke in a controlled whisper so quiet Patrick had to lean in to hear him.
‘I know you killed him.’
Patrick was desperate to wipe that superior look off the Inspector’s face. Meadows was wrong – a sixteen-year-old girl had killed Denis.
Behind the Inspector the door clicked open and an unfamiliar cop entered. The mess on the floor caused him no alarm, as he’d obviously been watching the show through the one-way mirror, and he circumnavigated it to bend and whisper something into Meadows’ ear; the Inspector continued to glare at Patrick.
‘When was this?’ Meadows asked after a long pause.
The man’s murmured reply was lost to Patrick.
Meadows looked crestfallen. Eventually he snapped, ‘Okay, fine, you can go.’ He couldn’t look Patrick in the eye.
Mary opened the door and a nonplussed Patrick trudged towards it.
‘Mr Owen,’ Meadows called after him. ‘Don’t go too far will you?’ Yet another question. ‘I doubt we’re done with you yet.’
The reporters were outside, in force. They surged forwards when they saw Patrick, blinding him with cameras, questions.
‘What do you make of this new revelation, Mr Owen?’
‘Isn’t your job untenable now?’
‘Who killed Denis Roberts, in your opinion?’
He barged through, knowing better than to put his foot in it by talking to the press. He would do as he’d threatened to do in his interview with Meadows. He would hire a good solicitor.
One member of the press, very young, black, jogged alongside him. He asked, ‘What do you plan to do now, Mr Owen? Are you going to resign?’ Patrick assumed he was a college kid desperate for his breakthrough scoop, from pirate radio maybe. There was something remarkably unprofessional but honest about his hooded top, the Jesus swinging around his neck, the way he kept pace.
A black cab rounded the end of the street and Patrick stuck out an arm to hail it kerbside.
The taxi braked violently and he wrenched open the heavy door, jumped in. He was aware of other figures in the back as the young reporter dived in behind him and spat, ‘Drive.’ In no time at all the ‘reporter’ had produced a thin blade and pressed it against Patrick’s left kidney. Another figure, bandana concealing his features, jumped up from his supine position on the floor.
And in the back seat, curled up as if to avoid detection by the outside world, was a woman wearing the grey office clothes he’d seen her in earlier, the remnants of a blonde streak almost completely grown out of hair sagging above screaming eyes.
‘Sarah…’
The driver cracked his foot against the accelerator and, with a tobacco-wet cackle, raced them away from the police station.
TWO
‘That’s where I grew up,’ the driver sneered, nodding towards darkness beneath the dual carriageway at the end of the estate.
Within, Patrick made out a flickering bonfire and a huddle of tents. A figure was slumped, immobile, against a concrete support. Judging by the foetal
curl of his torso, he was injecting. Three children in torn clothing, no older than ten, kicked an airless football against graffiti and smoked cigarettes.
The scene was no sooner glimpsed than it was gone, and the taxi scythed on.
‘Not like your gaff I bet, sir,’ the youth who’d sprung up from the floor voiced.
Patrick tried to search the eyes above the mask for some hint of which Highfields child might be addressing him, but it was too dark. He could make out a similar rectangle of dead eyes in the rearview mirror, and liked the expression of their chauffeur even less.
‘Where are we going?’ Patrick asked. ‘What do you want with us?’
Sarah’s hand found his. Both were oily with sweat.
‘Relax, man,’ the black kid soothed, his knife remaining in place. ‘We’re just going for a ride, innit.’
The taxi weaved in and out of Union City, past a hundred versions of Sarah’s block. Every now and again they saw groups of kids on stairways, flaking swings and roundabouts, the hoods of cars. One group consisted of about twenty, all chugging from beer cans, and the masked kidnapper slid down his nearside window to gob at them as the taxi cut past. A dozen half-empty cans were lobbed at their vehicle, striking the rear windscreen with a heavy thud, beer spraying across the glass.
‘Northsiders,’ the kid explained, rolling the window back up.
Nothing else was said for a time, until Patrick felt the need to act assertively in front of Sarah. ‘So what do you want?’
‘Chill, sir.’
‘Who are you, calling me sir?’
‘The name’s N-Kid.’ The boy made a sign with his hand across his chest, forefinger crooked, index out, the thumb jabbed straight, pinkie erect. ‘This is Shanker.’ He indicated the black kid, who also made the gang sign. ‘And our driver’s Dazz-Boy.’ Dazz-Boy kept his hands on the wheel.
Patrick couldn’t shake off the image of those shanty town kids under the carriageway, the evening diesel roaring above. He’d been involved in several classroom wars in the past but had seldom seen it as a class war. And yet, it had so clearly always been the case. He remembered Denis mocking him because he’d been to university, laughing at the very thought of it.