by DS Butler
Normally, as soon as Junior got home, she’d get up, put the kettle on and take some biscuits out of the cupboard, but today she just sat there.
Junior walked into the kitchen and set the envelope containing his wages down on the table. “There you go, Mother. That should help with the housekeeping this week.”
His mother raised her head slowly and looked up at Junior, studying his face as if she were searching for something.
“What is it, Mother?” Junior asked. “Is something wrong? Has something happened to –?”
“That boy called for you again, five minutes ago.”
Junior flushed.
“I told you I didn’t want you to see him anymore, Junior. I’ve heard things. I’ve heard rumours.”
Junior’s palms began to sweat, and he wiped them against the legs of his trousers. “But, Mother, they are just rumours, started by a bunch of nasty gossips. They’re making things up. He’s a nice boy.”
Junior looked down at the table. He couldn’t meet his mother’s eyes. He needed to tell her something. He’d been building up the courage for months, but he was terrified of how she would react.
“Mother, I… I need to tell you something… There’s something you should know …”
His mother set her palms flat against the table. “Before you start, Junior, there’s something I want to tell you.”
Junior swallowed, surprised by his mother’s change in the conversation. He looked at her, bewildered, and nodded. “Okay.”
He didn’t know how he was going to get the words out anyway. It was so difficult.
His mother picked up the cup of tea by her side. It looked like it had gone cold. The brown tannin had stained the edge of the cup. She put the cup back down again without drinking and began to tell her story.
“There was a boy at my school, and I know things are different now, times change, but I want to tell you about him.”
Junior pulled out a chair and sat down.
“It happened when I was sixteen. He was in the same year as me, so he was roughly the same age. He was caught with another boy in the locker room.” Junior’s mother paused then licked her lips. “He was caught doing unnatural things. Do you understand me, Junior?”
Junior said nothing.
She moved her cup in front of her and studied the tea rather than Junior.
“And then a terrible thing happened to him. He killed himself. He swallowed a whole bottle of his mother’s sleeping pills.”
Junior finally found his voice, “But that’s terrible. If only he had talked to someone… If he’d had someone to confide in…”
His mother’s smile tightened as she stroked the scrubbed pine table with the palm of her hand.
“His family must have been devastated …” Junior dared to raise his eyes and look at his mother’s face.
His mother folded her arms and said, in a grim voice, “It was for the best.”
“For the best?” Junior’s voice was hoarse.
His mother nodded. “A dead son was preferable to a queer one.” She stood up and curled her hand around her cup. “The tea’s cold. I’ll make a fresh pot, shall I?”
37
KATHY WALKER STOOD IN the hallway of her flat and debated whether to go into the sitting room. Her brother had come for dinner, which he tended to do at least once a week.
Mitch must have spotted Stuart’s van because he turned up shortly after Stuart. Mitch never paid social calls. So it was quite obvious there was something going on.
Kathy had made some excuse about needing to finish off something downstairs in the salon, to give them a chance to talk privately, but that had been half an hour ago.
Feeling guilty, she moved closer to the sitting room door. She could hear low voices coming from inside. Of course it was her sitting room. She shouldn’t feel like a gooseberry in her own flat. She raised a hand to the door knob, then changed her mind and let her hand drop. She’d give them a bit more time and make a cup of tea first.
She bustled about the kitchen taking her time over preparing the tea. She leaned back on the counter to drink it. It had been a long day. All she wanted to do was kick off her shoes and sit down in her sitting room and put her feet up.
Why was she lurking in the kitchen? It was ridiculous.
With her cup of tea in one hand she approached the sitting room door and pushed it slightly ajar.
Mitch and Stuart were both sitting on the sofa, but thankfully they were just talking. In fact from the look on Mitch’s face, it looked like they were having quite a serious conversation. Mitch looked thoroughly miserable, but then again, he always looked miserable.
What did Stuart see in him?
“I think you should tell your mother about us,” Stuart said. He kept his voice low, but Kathy could still hear the desperation in his tone, and it made her hate Mitch Horrocks.
Who did he think he was, treating her brother like that?
Mitch folded his arms and shook his head emphatically. “No.”
Stuart looked away for a moment, then turned back to Mitch and said, “She adores you. What are you afraid of? Are you ashamed of me? Of us?”
“Of course, not,” Mitch said.
Stuart slapped the palm of his hand against the arm of the sofa. “I’m sick of it. Either you tell your mother, or we forget about the whole thing.”
Kathy mentally cheered her brother. That’s right. Show him that you won’t be messed around.
Silence followed. She put her hand on the door knob, but hesitated, waiting to see if Mitch would reply.
Mitch muttered something quietly. As Kathy leaned forward to try to hear what he said, she tilted her cup, spilling her tea and burning her fingers.
She winced and wiped her wet hand on the legs of her jeans.
“Don’t make me choose between you,” Mitch said quietly.
Stuart exploded with anger, gritting his teeth as he turned to face Mitch. “Why the hell shouldn’t I?”
Mitch sighed heavily and looked down at his hands resting in his lap.
“Because you’ll never win,” he said.
38
FIONA EVANS TOOK A sip of wine and smiled.
Things had really improved since Tim Coleman had started to look after Luke.
Fiona had been able to spend so much more time with Anna during the day. And for the first time, she found herself without anything pressing she needed to do in the evening. That had really helped her unwind.
She could actually settle down in the evening and have a glass of wine, watch some TV, or read a book. God, she’d forgotten how much she loved to read.
She loved having Tim around. She thought having another man around the house might be difficult, but he’d made everything so easy. They’d started having a glass of wine together, after he’d finished for the day, and she loved having adult conversations for a change.
It was remarkable how good it felt to chat to somebody about day-to-day things, rather than kids TV programmes or Barbie dolls!
This week Tim had taken Luke to an appointment at the rehab centre where they worked on Luke’s muscle tone. As Anna went to nursery, Fiona had a whole morning free. She’d gone shopping, treated herself to a piece of carrot cake in the John Lewis coffee shop. It was so silly, but being able to do small things like that made such a difference.
The only downside to this free time was the extra time it gave her to think because her thoughts naturally went to Bruce.
She still missed Bruce, of course. She lay awake in the evenings, remembering, but during the day things were getting bearable. She had to think of the future, for her and the children, and the future was looking brighter. And it was all thanks to Tim.
39
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, THE bell above the door rang out as Charlotte entered the hairdressing salon. Compared to the warm, bright sunshine outside, the salon was cool and dark. Charlotte took a moment, waiting for her eyes to get accustomed to the dim light.
It wa
sn’t busy, and at first, she didn’t see anyone in the salon at all, then she noticed a middle-aged lady sitting in one of the chairs in the back corner of the room. The woman had her face buried in a magazine, and her hair was in tufts, coated with tinfoil.
“Hello,” Charlotte said. “Is Kathy about?”
“She’s out back somewhere,” the lady said, without looking up from what Charlotte could now see was a crossword puzzle.
Charlotte walked through the salon, passing the mirrored walls and the holders containing hairbrushes and combs. There were adjustable seats in front of each mirror. Maybe they got more use during busier times.
Charlotte walked past the till towards a white painted door at the rear of the room. She gently rapped on the door. “Hello, Kathy?”
The door opened and the petite, elfin face of Kathy Walker appeared. “Just give me a minute,” she said. “I’ll be right with you.”
True to her word, Kathy bustled out the back room a few seconds later. “Okay, my love, what can I do for you? Perhaps, we could give you a few highlights. I’m not sure that dark colour suits you very much.”
Charlotte swallowed the insult. “I’m not here for my hair. I’m DC Charlotte Brown. I spoke to you the other day, after the gas incident in the newsagent’s.”
The smile slid from Kathy’s face. “Ah, yes, of course. Sorry, I didn’t recognise you at first. It was all a bit of a palaver that day. There were so many people coming and going, you know?”
Charlotte nodded. “No problem. I’ve got some photographs to show you. I’d like to know if you can recognise anyone.”
Kathy visibly recoiled. “It’s not Syed, is it? I don’t want to look at pictures of a dead body.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Charlotte said. “It’s just images from the CCTV footage of the newsagent’s, but no dead bodies, I promise. There were kids inside at the time, and we would like you to help us identify them if you can.”
Charlotte noticed the lady with the tinfoil hair had turned around in her seat and was looking at them curiously.
“Perhaps we’d better do this out the back,” Charlotte suggested.
Kathy nodded. “Yes. Come through. Ten more minutes for that colour, Irene,” Kathy called over her shoulder to the tin foil lady.
Kathy led Charlotte into the small kitchenette. There was space for a couple of chairs, a tiny table and a sink. A small window looked out onto the backyard, which was full of cardboard boxes.
Kathy noticed her looking. “They’re my brother’s. He does deliveries. Sometimes they pay him extra to take away the packaging. He’ll take it to the tip tomorrow.”
Kathy pulled out a chair. “Let’s have a look at these photos.”
Charlotte pulled the prints from a brown envelope and spread them out on the table. “We’re looking to identify any of the kids.”
Kathy got up from her chair. “What am I like? I forgot my reading glasses. Won’t be a minute.”
She headed back into the hairdressing salon, and Charlotte took the opportunity to have a look around. She peered out into the backyard at the cardboard boxes.
They couldn’t have been stored here long. At the first sign of rain, the boxes would turn into a soggy mess.
She could go out there now, have a bit of a nose around, and she’d probably find out that Stuart Walker was doing something he shouldn’t be. But you had to choose your battles in this job.
Kathy Walker seemed nice enough. Although, Charlotte was willing to bet this salon was suffering. People still needed haircuts, but with hair dye for sale in Boots and every other chemist on the high street, why would you pay sixty quid to get it done at the salon?
It might be different if you were rolling in money, but for most people it made sense to take the cheaper option. Charlotte had been colouring her own hair raven black since before she joined the police. Her own hair was a boring light brown. She’d gone through a bit of a Goth phase at university and never really grown out of the black hair.
Charlotte’s mother was always dropping hints about her hair colour and suggesting it might be a good idea to get out in the sun and get a bit of colour in her cheeks. Chance would be a fine thing. The weather was glorious today, but it always seemed to be glorious when she was at work. When the weekend rolled around it would probably be raining again.
Kathy came back, wearing red-rimmed reading glasses. “Sorry about that. Where were we?”
Charlotte pushed one of the images across the table, so Kathy could get a better look at it.
She peered down. “Right, well, they’re not all kids, are they? That one’s ginormous,” she said, pointing out Craig Foster.
“No, they’re not all kids.” Charlotte supposed she must be getting old, referring to Craig Foster as a kid. “He was twenty-one.”
Kathy looked up. “Was?”
Charlotte said nothing.
Kathy looked back down at the picture. “Oh, God.”
“Do you recognise anyone?”
Kathy nodded. “I think so. We had some trouble last year, at the time of the riots. It was nowhere near as bad as it was in Tottenham, Croydon or some of those other places.
“A friend of mine owns a beauty salon over Croydon way, and her place was completely wrecked.
“But we did have a bit of trouble here with this group of youngsters,” Kathy pressed her finger to the print-out. “I’m pretty sure they were behind it.”
Kathy looked down at the table and swallowed hard. Tinny pop music trilled out of the radio on the window sill.
“Stuart was able to chase them away before they did any real damage, but I did have a broken window, and the rioters were attempting to get inside. It was a very scary night, I don’t mind telling you. Plus, the fact we couldn’t get the police to help.”
“I think the police were under great demand that night,” Charlotte said.
“I know that, but… I pay my taxes,” Kathy said. “And when I needed them, they weren’t there.”
Charlotte could have gone into the debate about funding. The lack of resources, reduced numbers of officers. The last couple of years had been pretty tough. But she didn’t have time to try to explain.
“Do you know any of their names?” Charlotte asked.
Kathy pointed to Robbie. “I know that little bugger … Sorry, pardon my language, but his name is Robbie Baxter. His mother is quite well known around this area.” Kathy grimaced. “They’re not a very nice family. Both of Robbie’s older brothers are inside.”
Charlotte nodded. “Anyone else?”
“I don’t recognise the girl. I haven’t seen her before. But this is Vinnie Pearson.” Kathy nodded. “He’s a troublemaker. He’s the leader of their little gang. He and his friends completely trashed the cafe along the road.”
“What about him?” Charlotte pointed at the unidentified member of the gang.
Kathy squinted at the image. “It’s not the best picture is it? But I’m pretty sure I recognise him.” Kathy tapped the image with a long, pink, painted nail.
“Tyrell Patterson. I’ve known him since he was a little boy. He’s Vinnie’s right-hand man. They’ve been inseparable since they started school.”
“Tyrell Patterson,” Charlotte repeated, writing the name on the back of the photo. “Do you know where he lives, or where I might find him?”
Kathy shook her head. “Sorry, I’ve no idea.”
Charlotte slipped the lid back on her pen. “Thanks for your help, Kathy.”
She smiled. Finally it looked like they were getting somewhere. Now all they had to do was find Tyrell Patterson.
40
CHARLOTTE GOT BACK TO Wood Street station just in time for the briefing. There was a bit of buzz in the station because the CCTV was finally ready to view.
DI Tyler stood at the front of the room, with the remote control in his hand, and attached the projector to the laptop.
“While I’m setting this up, I want to bring you all up to speed,” Tyler sa
id. “The external expert we brought in believes that all the suicide notes were printed using identical printers. Also, we have the post-mortem report back on Syed Hammad. It concludes he was killed by a blow to the head, and not by inhaling the hydrogen sulphide gas.”
Charlotte slid into the seat next to Mackinnon. Had Syed’s death been an accident? Had Syed set up the buckets and glass vials and then fallen, hitting his head? Or had someone killed Syed before moving on to target the kids?
“Okay,” Tyler said. “Let’s take a look at this.”
He adjusted the projector, so the light shone on the blank, white screen attached to the wall. A jerky picture came into view. It was black-and-white and jumped a little. White splodges danced around on the screen, giving the impression of an old-fashioned horror movie.
As the shop floor became clear and the gang of kids could be seen, Charlotte held her breath. There was no question about it – the kids were trying to get out. They were panicking. Charlotte clenched her fists as she saw little Robbie Baxter crash to the floor. Joanne James tripped over him as she tried desperately to open the door.
Charlotte remembered what David Oakley, the SOCO, had said when they looked around the crime scene. The door bolted behind them. Someone had locked them in.
Watching them trying to get out was gruesome. Although the footage had no audio, she could see their mouths open in silent screams, panicking and desperately trying to escape. Charlotte wanted to tear her eyes away.
But she couldn’t.
The fact she thought of them as kids was a sign she was getting old. The eldest was only twenty-two, and little Robbie Baxter was only fourteen. He really was a kid.
The CCTV footage came to a juddering halt, and Charlotte knew without a doubt those kids had not been trying to kill themselves.
There was silence in the room.
Tyler cleared his throat, then said, “Not a very pleasant thing to watch. They weren’t trying to kill themselves.” He folded his arms and leaned back against the desk. “They were trying to get out.”