The Footprints of the Fiend
Page 8
“If you’re going to kill me, kill me. If not, go home.”
The man in the mask shook his head slowly. Things were not going the way he had envisaged. Where was the suffering? Where was the pleading? Instead, this smug little prick, this grass (there was no worse term to call him) was just sitting there, smiling calmly.
“You must be uncomfortable in that thing,” Brough continued. “You may as well remove it. You’re going to kill all the witnesses anyway, I imagine. Go on; take it off. Inspector Sprat.”
The eyes of the other hostages widened at this revelation. They were being held at gunpoint by a policeman? Unless, of course, David had meant bus ticket or electricity meter inspector. But that seemed unlikely.
The gunman hooked the butt of his gun under his arm and with his free hand reached up and pulled the mask from his head. Red and sweating and with hair sticking out in wild clumps, it was undoubtedly the face of Inspector Matthew Sprat.
“Fuck you, Tonkinson,” he spat. Mrs Brough whimpered for her poor carpet.
“Now, listen,” Peter Brough stirred, “Who is this Tonky Tonkinson fellow you keep going on about? I’m beginning to think you’re in the wrong house.”
“Oh, it’s him all right,” Sprat spat again. “He’s even scruffier now and the nose has changed. But it’s him. Julia wasn’t the only one tracking you down, old son. Silly cow; I tried to stop her but she was off her conk. She was determined to find you and get her own back. Pity she didn’t manage it. Would have saved me the trouble, and your oldies here all this unpleasantness.”
“What is he talking about?” Peter Brough asked the entire room.
“That woman who was found at David’s flat,” Miller supplied from the corner of her mouth. “The one that... you know...”
Peter Brough frowned.
“No, I don’t quite...”
“It’s all right, Miller,” Brough smiled. “You can say it. The crazy bitch who murdered Alastair.”
“Ah,” said Peter Brough. “That crazy bitch.”
Sprat brandished the shotgun, knocking over the vase Miller had rescued from a tumble earlier. Mrs Brough squeaked.
“She meant everything to me!” Sprat wailed. “But her head was turned by Lover Boy over here. I never got a look in.”
Brough shook his head and stated that it wasn’t like that at all.
“Fuck off,” Sprat jeered. “If it wasn’t like that, why did you marry her?”
“Nothing to do with me!”
“Oh, David,” Brough’s mother sounded disappointed. “You got married and you never invited us.”
“It wasn’t like that, Mum!”
“He was undercover, dear. I’m sure that’s the reason.”
“I was going to make my move, just before you came along,” Sprat’s face was red again, but this time from anger and hatred rather than his rubber mask. “I’d worked my way in. Ronnie was taking to me. But then you came along and stole my thunder and my bird.”
“Excuse me,” Peter Brough lifted a finger. “’Ronnie’?”
“Crime lord,” said Brough. “He’s inside now.” He made eye contact with Sprat. “They all are. Except this one.”
“And you know why that is, don’tcha? Only ‘cause I never went to the wedding. Couldn’t face seeing my Julia hitched to that, that, wanker. So I stayed away. And I wasn’t there when the place was raided, and my boss, finest man I’ve ever known, he did the decent thing. He may have been a bent copper but he had honour. He never grassed me up. He took the fall himself. Said he’d operated alone. Now that’s decency for you. You fucking grass.”
“Decency? He was trafficking people. Illegal immigrants sold into slavery.”
“Yeah, well. He done right by me. So I’m here to do right by him. And by my Julia.”
“Ohh,” Peter Brough made a protracted exclamation. “I get it now. This is all about revenge, is it?”
“I’m still lost,” admitted his wife. “Is our Davey married or not?”
“No, Mum.”
“A widower, then?”
“No; not really. The marriage was never valid. You can’t marry a false identity.”
“Ah.”
“So...” Miller sat forwards. “Let me get this straight. The police raided the wedding...”
“Reception, actually,” said Brough. “It was a horrible affair. All pork pies and jellied eels. Best of Chas ‘n’ Dave on a ghetto blaster.”
Miller shuddered.
“Except it wasn’t the police. Well, not at first, and you, my gun-toting friend, would have known that if you’d actually been there.”
Sprat frowned.
“What the fuck is this bullshit?”
“It’s not bullshit. It’s the truth. It wasn’t the cops who stormed the reception. Big Ronnie was about to give his speech as the proud father of the bride, when the proceedings were interrupted by a group of people in suits, marching in, demanding to question the groom.”
“Who was it, Davey?” Mrs Brough was on tenterhooks.
“Only the DWP.”
Mrs Brough was astounded.
“Why would a furniture shop want to stop your wedding?”
“Department of Work and Pensions, Mum. They’d been following me for weeks. They’d seen me riding around in a lorry. They thought I was working. They thought I was committing benefit fraud.”
Miller giggled.
“And then what?” This came from Sprat.
“Well, Big Ronnie didn’t take kindly to being interrupted in the proudest moment of his life and, as you can imagine, almost every bloke in the place was tooled up. They surrounded the benefit fraud investigators and it all got out of hand. And then the police showed up for real to sort that out, only to find Detective Inspector Whiting leading the show.
“That’s how it all came out in the open. I was able to provide evidence, point fingers, name names, dates and places. It was all over. The trafficking ring was broken and several dirty coppers in London and a couple at the other end in Southampton got sent down.”
“Well done, David!” Peter Brough’s chest puffed up with pride.
“Thanks, Dad. Julia, of course, was livid. She snatched up the nearest champagne bottle and hit me on the hooter with it. Did me a favour. I got a new nose, made it easier for me to start again. That is, I mean, return to my true identity but with a new look.”
“Aww,” Mrs Brough sighed, mourning the nose her baby boy was born with.
Sprat hung his head. He was confused. This account didn’t tally with what he believed to be the course of events. Whiting had kept him out of it, which he wouldn’t have been able to have done if Sprat had turned up at the wedding.
“And you - why didn’t you grass me up? You knew I was in it up to my neck. Why didn’t you drop me in the shit?”
Brough stood up. He walked slowly to the gunman and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I believe you were looked into,” he said. “But there wasn’t enough to put you away. Your jealousy over Julia kept you away from most of the operation. Your good buddy Whiting, out of misguided loyalty or some foolhardy notion of honour among thieves, took most of the flak. There wasn’t enough on you. Until now.”
Sprat looked up and met the grass’s self-satisfied smile.
“What do you mean?”
“Just this.” Brough lifted his other hand and revealed a smart phone. Its voice recording app lit up the screen.
“You sneaky fucker -“ Sprat was incredulous. “You’ve been taping me!”
“Well, it’s not tape, strictly speaking,” Brough pouted, smugly. “Do you know, this device also works as a telephone? Isn’t it marvellous what they can do these days? Now, unless you want to add cold-blooded murder to the list of crimes I suggest you sit down
and behave yourself like a good boy until the SWAT team I ordered gets here.”
“Uh?”
“Special Weapons and Tactics,” said Peter Brough. “Good boy, David!” He clapped his hands and rubbed them.
“What’s that?” said Mrs Brough.
“We’re having visitors, my love,” said Peter Brough. He sat back and made himself comfortable.
“Perhaps I should shoot you anyway. For Julia.” Sprat’s heart was no longer in it. He sneezed, apparently suddenly allergic to the situation.
From the other side of the French windows, a voice, amplified by loudhailer called out.
“Come out with your hands up.”
Matthew Sprat, completely defeated, handed the shotgun over to the old man and trudged out into the garden. The beams of powerful flashlights made him wince. He sneezed again. Someone must have thought he was shooting at them so they put a bullet in his leg.
A couple of officers decked in black and rigged with headsets entered the living room with professional caution.
Brough greeted them with a grin.
Then he hugged his parents and, well, why not?
He hugged Miller too.
8.
Brough agreed to return to Dedley with Miller the next morning. His parents, a little shaken by the ordeal, insisted upon it. They were glad to have him out of the house and out of the room he’d been holed up in for six months. When he left, his mother was already online bidding on a replacement vase.
As Miller drove along the M42, Brough answered her questions. He had known Sprat would turn up sooner or later. He guessed Sprat would follow Julia to Dedley - all the more reason to lie low. Brough had deliberately cut himself off from external contact of every kind. It helped with the grieving process, to be sure, but also it would mean someone (i.e. Miller) would come to see him in person when his six months’ statutory sick leave was up. Brough knew Sprat would follow Miller and indeed he had. She’d led him to the house and he’d waited outside the gates for Brough’s mother to return from her shopping expedition and had gained access that way.
“When I saw you arrive,” Brough nodded to Miller in the driving seat, “I climbed from my bedroom window and secreted myself in the shed - Don’t smirk; that’s not rude. Then it was a matter of waiting for Sprat to make his move.”
Miller turned to him in astonishment. Had he really been lying in wait all this time?
“Eyes on the road, Miller. We don’t want to have survived that ordeal only to be squished by a petrol tanker.”
“So, what were you doing all this time, in that little room? Or don’t I want to know the answer?”
“Oh, thinking, reflecting, that kind of thing.”
“Growing your hair. You look like a Bee Gee who’s been released back into the wild.”
“You don’t like it?” Brough stroked his unkempt beard. “You don’t think it makes me look butch?”
Miller laughed.
“Are you coming back to work?”
He didn’t answer right away. They joined the M5. Eventually he broke the silence.
“I don’t know. Not right away. I’ll go in, see Wheeler. See what’s what. Need to find somewhere to live. Gave up the flat, you know.”
“Hmm.” Miller didn’t blame him. He hadn’t been back since that dreadful morning when, prior to committing suicide, Brough’s erstwhile bride had seen fit to decapitate Brough’s boyfriend. You couldn’t sleep in a room where that had happened.
“So, you are coming back to Dedley, then?”
“Not the way you’re going. You’ve missed our exit, Miller. Honestly!”
But he was smiling.
***
Trevor Nock was up early. Stallholders were still unloading their vans in the marketplace and the only places open were a narrow newsagent’s and the newly opened branch of Queequeg’s. Trevor sneered at it as he shuffled past. Overpriced, flavourless bilge water with fancy Italian names for thrice the price of a proper coffee at the church cafe. There were people in there, people in suits, on their way to work. More money than sense, some people, was Trevor’s considered opinion.
He leaned against the ornamental but disused fountain in the centre of the High Street. He’d worked late into the night to make his placard and was proud of his handiwork. It wasn’t quite the moment to reveal it to the general public. Not just yet. He would wait until the 9:30 buses had brought all the pensioners into town. The place should be filling up with shoppers by then. The more who heard his message, the better.
He stamped his feet to keep the blood flowing. He put his hands in his armpits for warmth. It was a bright but chilly morning in Dedley.
Just right for doing the Lord’s business.
***
Theo Dunn woke in bed - correction: on his bed. As a journalist, he was a stickler for that kind of detail. He was still in the clothes he’d worn the day before. He had a headache. With one hand to his brow, he hitched himself onto his elbow and surveyed his room. He couldn’t remember coming home. He could just about recall nodding off in the newspaper office. He wasn’t sure what he’d been doing there at such a late hour.
The bedcovers were strewn with papers, pages torn from his spiral-bound notebook.
He snatched up the nearest. Biro was scrawled all over them, on both sides. Unintelligible scribbles.
Theo lay back again and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to squeeze the headache away.
What did I do last night?
It was a valid question.
He lay motionless for about half an hour before deciding he had better shift himself and venture into the bathroom for painkillers. Please let there be painkillers.
With no little effort, he peeled himself from the bed and made his way to the bathroom across the landing, waddling as though his trousers were around his ankles. He checked; they weren’t.
The bathroom shelf yielded a silver foil blister pack. Most of the bubbles had been popped but two still retained their little white miracle workers. He pressed them into the palm of his hand and then transferred them to his mouth. The tablets lay on his tongue, bitter and chalky, until he managed to cup a handful of water from the tap. He swallowed.
Extra fast pain relief, my arse, he thought. Whole seconds had passed and his head was still pounding. What a rip-off.
He had a piss and then stood there staring at the showerhead over the bath, wondering whether he should use it. Am I grubby enough or can I get away with another day?
At length he decided the water might be beneficial to his headache and so he stripped from his clothes, leaving them where they fell on the linoleum.
Warm water rained on him, his own private monsoon. Yes; the shower had been an excellent idea. Props to the bloke who invented it.
After that, he wrapped a towel around his waist and used his forearm to wipe steam from the mirror above the washbasin. Do I need a shave? He inspected his jaw. Or can I get away with another day?
The mirror clouded again. He raised his arm to give it another wipe.
Theo Dunn yelped with a start.
The face in the mirror was not his own.
“Good day to you,” intoned the man in the mirror.
Theo’s towel, already damp, grew sodden with urine.
***
“Give him a cup of tea and send him on his way.” Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler barely glanced from her monitor. What was Miller doing, bringing a tramp into my office? Chap like that should be in the cells. Let him sleep it off. Then hose him down and tell him to fuck off.
The tramp pulled up a chair and had the audacity to sit on it.
“Hello, Karen,” said D I Brough.
Wheeler did a double-take worthy of any cartoon. She looked Brough up and down, not bothering to veil her disgust.
“You don’t like it?” Brough touched his beard protectively. “Nobody likes it.”
“You’re a scruff, Brough. If you’re coming back to work for me -“
“Work with you,” Brough interjected with a raised finger.
“Piss on that. If you’re coming back to work here, you’ll have to smarten yourself up a million bits. Unless you’re entertaining some fuckwitted idea of going undercover and exposing a scarecrow trafficking ring.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing yet, Karen. Maybe reduced hours. Ease myself in.”
“Ease yourself in. What do you think this is? The backroom of Pumpernickel’s?”
“It’s good to see you too.”
They laughed.
“Mum and Dad alright are they? After that fucker?”
“Yeah. Dad sends his regards.”
“You still stood there, Miller? Make yourself useful and get us a couple of coffees. Fucksake.”
Miller reddened.
“Just water for me,” Brough called over his shoulder. “Still not sparkling.”
Miller nodded and went out.
“Hark at you!” Wheeler sneered. “It’s like James Bond meets Worzel fucking Gummidge.”
***
Miller cursed the vending machine when it didn’t accept her coins the first time. She swore out loud when she had to retrieve them from the returns tray a second time.
“Hold up, hold up!” D S Woodcock appeared behind her. He put his own coins into the slot in a gallant gesture. They watched hot grey liquid being spat into a plastic cup.
“You got back all right then,” he observed.
“Looks like it.” Miller sniffed.
Woodcock was stung.
“Don’t take it out on me, bab; whatever it is.”
Miller rounded on him.
“And don’t you bab me. Not here!”
She saw the hurt look in his eyes and softened. She apologised. He steered her towards a table.
“Come on; tell me all about it.”