Ruthless (Cath Staincliffe)

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘Can we go home?’ Elise looked at her, face stark with misery, hair tangled, salt traces on her cheeks where her tears had dried.

  ‘We need to stay here, see Vivien and Ken.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ she said shrilly, frightened. ‘I don’t want to see them.’

  ‘I know, but we can’t just run away,’ Janet said.

  We have to wait. No matter how tired and stressed they were, they had to wait to see Vivien and Ken. To be there, bear witness.

  They stayed in the little room. Janet went for drinks, coffee for herself and hot chocolate for Elise. They sat and drank them in shell-shocked silence.

  When Elise began to cry again, quietly and shielding her eyes, Janet went and sat next to her and let her cry. Eventually Elise’s breathing altered, became slow and shallow and Janet felt the tension in her body ease. She slumped into her mother. The nurse had said to keep her awake but that was hours ago now and Janet didn’t believe she was going to choke on her own vomit sitting upright next to her.

  Janet’s phone rang, horribly loud in the boxy room, and Elise stirred. Janet checked the display – Vivien – and let it ring until her voicemail kicked in. What else could she do? Answer and lie about how Olivia was? Answer and tell Vivien and Ken that their daughter was dead? Not the sort of news you gave over the phone to someone who was driving in a desperate hurry. She set her phone to vibrate only. Didn’t listen to the voicemail.

  There was a knock at the door. ‘Sorry, cleaning,’ the man, an African, said. He used a mop to wipe the floor. Then went on his way.

  Some time later another knock and the doctor was back with Vivien and Ken. Janet saw that they had already been told, Vivien, white-faced, a look of utter devastation on her face, Ken, pale and trembling.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Janet said, standing to embrace Vivien. ‘I am so, so sorry.’

  ‘Olivia,’ Vivien was in shock, ‘Olivia,’ repeating her daughter’s name over and over again as if she’d call her back.

  13

  Alison answered the door to Rachel. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Fine, brought your bag back.’ Rachel twirled the clutch bag this way and that. Not her style but she’d needed it for the wedding and Alison had asked her a few times since if she could return it. ‘Have you lost it?’ she’d said the last time, getting suspicious. ‘No, I just keep forgetting,’ Rachel had told her. Now Rachel moved her head and winced, feeling the bruises Neil Perry had inflicted on her.

  ‘What?’ said Alison.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Rachel, ‘stiff neck.’

  ‘You coming in?’

  ‘Five minutes,’ Rachel said.

  ‘He waiting for you?’

  ‘No, he’s away.’

  ‘Away?’

  ‘I’ve not got him chained to the house,’ Rachel said. ‘He’s taking Haydn off, skiing and that.’

  ‘Skiing?’

  ‘Snow, slopes, long shiny planks strapped to your feet?’

  Alison rolled her eyes. ‘Tea?’

  ‘No, ta.’

  ‘How come you’ve not gone?’ Alison said.

  ‘Work – that man who was shot and set on fire on Manorclough.’

  ‘In that order, I hope,’ Alison said and shuddered. ‘So, skiing.’

  ‘And WaterWorld,’ Rachel added, ‘staying at a Travelodge.’

  ‘WaterWorld!’

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ Rachel said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Repeating everything.’

  Alison swallowed, set down the kettle. ‘I went to see Dom yesterday.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rachel’s guts turned cold.

  ‘I know you don’t want to go and I understand why, I really do, but I need to be able to talk about him. I can’t be minding what I say.’

  ‘All right,’ Rachel said. Though it felt a long way from that. ‘How is he?’ she managed. She could imagine. All too clearly. Last stretch he’d done, he’d been a bum boy for the older, more powerful cons. Had to be to get by. It wouldn’t be any different this time. Except he’d gradually turn from a twenty-nine-year-old to a fifty-seven-year-old in the course of his sentence. If he lasted that long. She couldn’t bear to think about it.

  ‘Doing his best,’ Alison said. ‘It’s hard, of course. He’s a bit down. He’s asked to see the psychiatrist, see if he can get some medication.’

  Rachel stared at the fridge, kids’ drawings up there, houses, rainbows and stick figures with smiley faces. Happy fucking families.

  ‘He understands,’ Alison said. ‘Your job, when you knew what he’d done, where he was going, you had to report him, he gets it.’

  The room was airless, the space too small. If he’d only understood in the first place that beating someone so badly he broke their back and they died was totally wrong.

  ‘Why he ever thought, even for a second, even in his wildest dreams that I’d want that—’ Rachel’s eyes hurt.

  Alison looked as wretched as she felt. ‘He doesn’t think,’ Alison said, ‘he never has.’ She turned back and made her drink. The clock on the wall ticked. Rachel rubbed at the back of her neck, the tension there making her head ache.

  ‘Maybe in time, when you’re ready,’ Alison said, ‘you could go see him. That’d help.’

  ‘Help who?’ Rachel snapped.

  ‘Both of you,’ Alison said. ‘You’re not settled with this, even if it was the only choice you had, and you’re bound to feel guilty about it.’

  ‘Am I?’ Rachel said. ‘You know, do you?’

  ‘Rachel, don’t,’ Alison said wearily.

  ‘Like he’s gonna want to see me.’

  ‘He does, he said, he always … Oh, never mind.’ Alison shook her head, picked up her cup.

  ‘What about Sharon?’ Rachel said. ‘Will he want to see her?’

  Alison snorted. ‘Yeah, right. Even if he did, why would she go? He’s no use to her in there, no money, no possessions, she wouldn’t even be able to tap fags off him.’

  ‘Maybe she’d just like to see him, like she did me, you if you’d let her,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Bollocks.’ Alison was not giving an inch where their prodigal mother was concerned.

  ‘I’m off.’ Rachel picked up her car keys.

  ‘Thanks for the bag.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘You’ll have to come round,’ Alison said at the door, ‘you and Sean and Haydn. When you’re off work.’

  ‘Sure,’ Rachel said, trying to sound vaguely enthusiastic.

  It was raining hard now and she hurried to the car. Heaved a sigh of relief at escaping without getting into a full-on barney with her sister. She’d go home, have a drink and watch whatever she could find on the box. Please herself. No Sean. Her heart lifted at the prospect. Just miss my own company, time on my own, she told herself, that’s all.

  She thought of the Perry twins, always together, like having a clone, someone to reflect your every thought, share your every deed, understand you completely. Weird, really weird. Having someone in her flat day in, day out was strange enough but to understand another person so completely – Rachel couldn’t imagine it.

  Day 4

  Sunday 13 May

  14

  ‘Forensics have a present for us,’ Gill began, then broke off. ‘Where’s Janet?’

  Rachel shook her head.

  Peculiar. If Janet was ill or delayed she always let Gill know.

  ‘Rachel, you brief her when she’s in. So – chemical analysis of trace material on the footwear of Noel and Neil Perry shows the presence of an accelerant.’

  Mitch grinned, Kevin raised a fist and Lee nodded, smiling.

  ‘And it gets better – the composition of the accelerant is compatible with the accelerant used in the Old Chapel. Petrol, and specifically Shell petrol as established by an analysis of the additives in the composition. Traces on all four items. So, Rachel, we go after them for that. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Gill hoped that
by acting as though nothing untoward had happened the previous evening, in effect burying the fact that her knobhead ex-husband had come crashing into her incident room, as welcome as a fart at a funeral, Lee and Kevin would share her amnesia.

  ‘Superintendent review at nine and I’m optimistic we’ll get our next twelve hours’ detention, given the new evidence. More to talk to our suspects about. You all right, Rachel? Up for another bout or you want reassigning?’

  ‘He’s not getting shot of me that easy.’

  ‘A testing situation and, having seen the recording, I don’t think we’ll have any problems though you could have been more careful with your language. Might be construed as verbal abuse.’

  Rachel’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘Fucking ridiculous,’ Gill added, ‘don’t know what the twats were thinking of but you know the rules.’

  ‘Pillocks,’ Kevin said. From somewhere Kevin had acquired an old-fashioned maths compass and was using the point to pick at his nails.

  Gill stared at him, stopped speaking. Gradually the rest of them followed suit.

  Kevin continued his efforts, head down, mining away for several seconds until he noticed the shift in atmosphere. He looked up quickly at Gill then his eyes flickered round the room. ‘Boss,’ he said weakly, perhaps thinking Gill had asked a question and was waiting for the reply.

  ‘Good of you to rejoin us, Kevin.’

  ‘I was just—’ He dried up.

  ‘Away with the fairies?’ Gill said. ‘Listen, Slack Alice, you want a French manicure and polish you do it in your own time.’

  ‘I was listening.’

  ‘I’m not arguing the toss with you, sunshine. I expect your undivided attention. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Kevin set the compass down then pushed it slightly further away, which Gill reckoned was a wise move. With the attention span of a gnat he would soon forget and if the thing was in reach it wouldn’t be long before he picked it up and started chiselling away at his nails again.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ she said, ‘I want Greg Tandy. Rachel, you go with Mitch.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘What more have we got on Richard Kavanagh?’

  ‘More of the same,’ said Lee. ‘No reports of him ever causing bother and no reported connection with criminals or criminal activity. People in the area generally tolerant. He spent some time in the hostel in town, they tried to get him into a programme with the Big Issue but he didn’t take it up. Hospitalized last winter with pneumonia, discharged himself before treatment was completed.’

  ‘Why?’ Gill said.

  ‘No booze on the ward?’ Rachel said.

  Lee laughed, ‘In one.’

  Gill felt a ripple of embarrassment, coughed and adjusted her notes while she recovered her composure. ‘We have any timeline for his last day?’

  ‘Near enough,’ Mitch said. ‘Sightings on Wednesday at eleven am and one-thirty pm walking round the estate. Latest sighting was four pm when he buys two tins of cheap lager from the Big Booze Bonanza. He was a regular there.’

  ‘Get that charted up and cross-referenced with any sightings we’ve got of the Perry twins,’ Gill said, ‘find any overlap.’

  ‘Already made a start,’ Mitch said. ‘Problem is people are a lot less forthcoming about seeing the Perry brothers, widely regarded as hard cases, sort of people who would break your face if you looked at them the wrong way. We do have them in the precinct mid-afternoon and on Low Bank Road which leads to the Old Chapel at twenty past seven.’

  ‘Reliable witness, that last one?’ Gill said.

  ‘Yes,’ Mitch said, ‘local councillor. Martin Bleaklow. Runs the car repair place further down Shuttling Way. Keen to improve the area.’

  ‘And those sightings fit with the one we already have from the resident, Mr Hicks, and from Rachel,’ Gill said.

  ‘Were they carrying anything?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Possibly,’ Mitch said. ‘Bleaklow thought one of them was carrying a bag.’

  ‘With a can of petrol in it, bet you,’ Kevin said, smiling.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Gill. ‘So, bring me Greg Tandy, then let’s find out how the Perrys explain their clothes being awash with Shell FuelSave unleaded.’

  Rachel tried Janet before she and Mitch left but it went to voicemail. Janet was probably driving in, couldn’t answer the phone, well – wouldn’t answer the phone – conscientious to a tee. The result of having a schoolteacher for a mother, Rachel reckoned, instead of a … the word slapper came to mind. Rachel felt a tinge of guilt. Sharon wasn’t exactly a slapper, or a slag or a tart, all names her dad threw about once Sharon had gone off and left them. Likes a good time, that’s all. Was that fair? Rachel was sick of thinking about it.

  Greg Tandy’s address on Manton Road was a couple of minutes from the Manorclough precinct. To get there they took a turning just after the warehouse on Shuttling Way, fire engines at work there.

  ‘It’s not still burning?’ Rachel said to Mitch.

  ‘Probably be there as a precaution. You can get secondaries, somewhere cinders smoulder then they get going again. Could be an insurance job, the developer went bust last year. No one’s going to take it on in this climate.’

  ‘What was he developing?’ Rachel said.

  ‘Luxury housing,’ Mitch said.

  Rachel snorted. ‘On Manorclough? They’d need bloody high fences, watchtowers and sub-machine guns to keep the lowlifes out.’

  ‘Concierge, gated. Even so, the demand’s not there. Places sitting empty in Manchester, aren’t there?’

  ‘Left after the bridge,’ Rachel said. ‘You don’t think it’s the Perrys, then, the warehouse?’

  Mitch shrugged. ‘No idea. Maybe someone wants us to think that. Opportunistic.’

  She could imagine them doing it though. Revved up after the murder and burning the chapel, wanting to see a bigger, fiercer fire. In the back of her mind a note of caution sounded – they hadn’t got proof yet that the Perrys had shot Richard Kavanagh. They were still only suspects. ‘Listen to your instincts but follow the evidence,’ that’s what the boss always said.

  Tandy’s house was the end terrace, there was room to park close by. The place was in reasonable repair, clean net curtains at the windows, UPVC windows and doors, unlike those at some of the neighbours’ who still had wooden frames with peeling paint.

  Mitch’s press of the doorbell produced a swift response. A woman with curly red hair, freckled complexion, smoker’s lips and crow’s feet answered. She’d a jacket on, bag in hand, as if she’d just got in or was about to leave.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs Gloria Tandy?’ Mitch said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘DC Ian Mitchell and this is DC Rachel Bailey, Manchester Metropolitan Police. Is your husband in?’

  Rachel caught the look, disappointment followed by resignation dulling her eyes. A slow blink. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘When are you expecting him back?’

  The woman took a breath, her nostrils flaring. ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Where’s he gone?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  A brick wall, thought Rachel. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Or any good for that matter.

  ‘We’re anxious to speak to him as soon as possible,’ Mitch said.

  ‘Course you are,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘Perhaps you have a mobile phone number we can reach him on?’ Mitch was unruffled.

  She moved abruptly, opened her bag and pulled out her phone, reeled off a number which Rachel entered into her own handset. The phone number which she had given them was not the same as the one that Neil Perry had used to call Greg Tandy. Tandy probably used a separate phone for anything illicit. Many criminals did, often throwaways, unregistered, dumped as soon as they’d served their purpose.

  ‘If your husband does come in before we manage to contact him, please ask him to get in touch.’ Mitch handed her his card; she took it
without reading it.

  ‘You’re probably wondering what all this is about,’ Rachel said, because the woman hadn’t asked, hadn’t shown the slightest curiosity or made the usual gabby demands and defences that they heard so many times when talking to suspects’ families.

  ‘I’m not interested,’ she said bitterly. ‘Whatever it is, it’s between you and him.’ Not quite wifely solidarity.

  There was a sound upstairs, footfall, and Rachel glanced quickly at Mitch.

  ‘Someone upstairs?’ Mitch said.

  There was no shock or guilt in Mrs Tandy’s face as she said, ‘Our lad.’

  Connor, Rachel remembered. The kid she had chased on Thursday, the gobby one with the bike. Knowing the kid was Tandy’s son made sense of his attitude when Rachel had first confronted him. The kid would’ve grown up with his father in and out of prison, mistrusting authority, with a bloody great chip on his shoulder about the police. Rachel was the law, the filth, the dibble, five-oh.

  ‘Perhaps we could see him?’ Mitch said.

  Gloria Tandy waited a moment and Rachel could almost smell the resentment. She wasn’t obliged to comply. All these families knew their legal rights, forwards, backwards and upside down. But Mrs Tandy, rather than telling them to fuck off, cooperated, called, ‘Connor, come here a minute.’

  Movement and then the boy, bare-chested, in bare feet, jeans hanging low, boxers visible, trotted downstairs. The scrape on his arm and the cut on his cheek scabbed over.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re looking for your dad,’ said Mitch.

  ‘Not here,’ the boy said.

  ‘You know where he is?’ Rachel asked.

  A shrug, ‘No.’

  He didn’t give a toss, Rachel thought, then she saw the bravado of his gaze slip momentarily and she realized he was unnerved, scared. She decided to push him.