Between the Crosses (Joseph Stark)

by Matthew Frank

  ‘Curiosity.’

  Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘He had a family, your motorcycle man?’ She nodded to her morning newspaper.

  ‘Wife and daughter.’

  ‘Then I’m twice as sorry. And you think Simon did it.’

  ‘Thinking isn’t knowing.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She pursed her lips at the dodge. ‘Won’t find much next door; place has been boarded up for years. I can’t blame Miriam for up and leaving, with broken windows and paint daubed on her door. She came into some money from somewhere. Some said they sued the police – was that true?’

  Stark would have liked to indulge her, but he just shrugged. Denise looked disappointed. ‘Anyway, she moved away somewhere, no forwarding address. The place went up for sale but no one would have it. Stood empty for years. Eventually the story died down and some tenants moved in, nice people, there for a while. But the next lot made a nuisance of themselves, had to be evicted in the end. Then came the squatters, left the place in a state. Took everything that wasn’t nailed down and most of what was. The place got boarded up soon after. Figure Miriam still owns it, wherever she is. I hoped someone else would buy it to do up but they never did. It’s a crying shame. This is a nice road; there’s better folk than me living here. That house is as much a stain on the present as it is on the past.’

  ‘The past …?’ asked Stark invitingly.

  Denise nodded. ‘I can’t say whether young Simon did for that girl or not. I think he was capable of it, but I think more people are capable than would care to think it. But I can see why folk would believe he did. He was a skulker, hiding in the shadows. Old dame Farley who lived the other side back then wasn’t much of a sleeper; used to say she’d see him sneaking out back into the woods late at night, or sneaking back in at dawn. I’d see him too, out and about, off the paths, creeping through the trees. Used to dress himself up in that camouflage get-up but he wasn’t in the cadets or anything, he just liked sneaking about. Still, can’t blame him over-much … Not with a mother like that.’

  Binky growled in his sleep, sprawled on a filthy blanket beside the electric fire and giving off smells that weren’t all wet fur.

  ‘Like what?’ asked Stark.

  Denise’s face wrinkled in displeasure. ‘Pious past the point of politeness, that one. Never bothered with church much myself, but I’ve no issue with those as do, so long as it makes ’em happy. But Miriam Kirsch … She was never happy. She’d give you that pitying look and say she’d pray for you, say it right to your face like she could see the flames of hell licking at your heels. Cut it any way you like, that’s just plain rude. I’ve put two good husbands in the ground and here’s me, a flirty old baggage with little good to say about anyone, fit as a flea – where is the all-powerful benevolence in that, I ask you?’

  Stark nodded politely. ‘What about Simon? Did he share her beliefs?’

  Denise shrugged. ‘Didn’t get much say in the matter, I should think. She was going to church every day by the end. Perhaps she had a lot to confess.’

  ‘She was a nurse at the local care home?’ asked Stark, recalling the old case notes.

  ‘St Luke’s. Run by the nuns for the aged congregation. A good place by all accounts. Lots of dotty old ladies ready to share a prayer with Miriam. Closed now. But Miriam’s public face was nothing to the Old Testament scorn she saved for behind closed doors. I could hear it through the walls. Least I buried my husbands instead of chasing them off. She got worse after that and poor Simon copped the lot; can’t have been more’n a toddler. She was putting out his mattress to dry in the sun for years, probably blaming the devil for the poor boy’s sins. I could hear him crying himself to sleep some nights.’

  ‘Did she hurt him, physically?’

  ‘More than his share of smacking, that was for sure, but it’s the mental whipping that scars a child. Church to the eyeballs, told day and night you’re a sinner, no friends round, no music or television, threadbare clothes … I ask you, guilty before he’d done a thing … hardly any wonder if he turned out wrong.’

  She sipped her tea noisily, staring into the past. ‘Used to see him in the library, nose in books,’ she said as if just remembering. ‘But he never took ’em home. Miriam probably disapproved of anything that wasn’t the bible. I think he lived in his head, if you know what I mean. Never spoke much, but busy behind the eyes. Still,’ she added, snapping into the present with a wistful smile, ‘which of us isn’t? You married?’ she asked. ‘You don’t wear a ring but that’s all the fashion these days.’

  Stark shook his head.

  ‘You’ve a nice young lady in tow, then,’ Denise fished. ‘Or is it a young fella? That’s all the fashion these days too now, of course. Miriam Kirsch would’ve been quick to call names; too many things were sin in her eyes. But I’ve nothing against it. We are what we are and those as say otherwise are fools or worse. A person should do and be as makes ’em happy, harming no other, that’s what I feel. Least it’s legal now. Too many perfectly nice young men back in my day, forced to live a lie.’ She shook her head angrily. ‘You pay heed, mind, there’s good laws and bad laws and a young policeman like yourself should know where he stands.’

  Stark nodded again.

  She sighed, then brightened. ‘How about a snifter? You being off duty, after all.’ She pulled open a drinks cabinet, one of the old-fashioned ones with a door swinging down into a leather-topped tray to reveal serried ranks of spirit bottles. ‘What’s your poison?’ she cackled, turning round with whisky in one hand and gin in the other.

  Stark’s phone rang and he fished it out apologetically. It was Fran. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to Denise. ‘Work.’

  ‘Don’t mind me. You’re a man in demand, I’m sure.’

  ‘Sarge?’ he answered.

  ‘How soon can you get in?’

  Stark wondered why it was that the women in his life hardly ever concerned themselves with greetings. ‘A while.’

  ‘Why, where are you?’

  Stark looked around. ‘I’m not sure you’d believe me.’

  ‘Den of iniquity with some chick you picked up on the street?’

  Stark glanced down at the tartan slippers on his feet. ‘Close.’

  ‘Well, give her a kiss and get on your way.’

  ‘Kirsch?’

  ‘The mother.’

  48

  ‘Thank you for fitting me in at short notice,’ said Groombridge, as Doctor McDonald gestured him to the chair opposite hers. Designed to put people at their ease, the layout had the exact opposite effect on him. No desk; just the two chairs. He was used to accuser and accused having something solid between them. And to knowing which he was. Decorated in white and pastel yellow, her office was lined with weighty tomes and professional certification. There was a framed photograph of a man in his forties, but no children, no wedding ring.

  ‘How can I help you, Detective Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Call me Michael,’ said Groombridge, feeling it was appropriate, and then feeling it wasn’t.

  She nodded but said nothing.

  He shouldn’t be here. Butler was downstairs in the mortuary and the station was a powder keg. But the miserable truth was that Groombridge was a spare wheel. Cox was acting as figurehead, Inspector Cartwright was directing the uniforms’ anger into a city-wide search and beyond, Family Liaison were comforting Butler’s family, and Harper was running the investigation with Fran. Groombridge had used the excuse of speaking with the doctors and collecting Butler’s personal effects, but it was as much about getting out from underfoot … And, if possible, scratching a different itch.

  He sized Hazel up, but with no more success than the last time they’d met, well over a year ago now. He knew her to be efficient, confident and careful, but also inscrutable. In his line of work inscrutable people were the most interesting, and dangerous.

  But of course that, after all, was why he was here.

  She waited. She was good at it. She knew the efficacy of a lo
aded silence.

  ‘Doctor McDonald –’

  ‘Call me Hazel.’

  He looked for sarcasm in her smile but saw only patience. He tried to imagine the conversations that had taken place in this room between her and Stark, between her open-faced calmness and his damned defiance. ‘It’s a matter of some delicacy …’

  ‘Concerning?’ She expressed interest, encouragement. He suspected she was enjoying this. But then how could one not, and carry on? He wondered if he should just come out with it, but if she was enjoying herself, why shouldn’t he? ‘I have this … friend …’

  Yes. There it was again. The faint twinkle of amusement in the corner of her eye at his choice of cliché. ‘Go on …’

  ‘He’s a loner. He’s been through a lot. He keeps people at a distance, but those close enough have noticed a change, a … deterioration.’

  ‘You’re concerned he may be suffering from depression.’

  Groombridge pursed his lips. ‘That’s a strong word.’

  ‘To the wrong ears, perhaps.’

  Groombridge nodded, conceding that point. During his time in uniform words like ‘depression’ or ‘stress’ were synonymous with words like ‘desk’ and ‘duties’, or ‘temporary suspension’. He’d faced down many threats during a twenty-year career, but never the police counsellor. How many officers had he since sentenced to time in a room just like this? He stifled a shiver.

  Hazel put aside her pen and unblemished notepad. ‘Why don’t we put the charades aside?’ she said, a shrewd intelligence showing through. ‘You’re here about Joseph?’

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘And what exactly did you hope I would tell you, bound as I am by doctor/patient confidentiality?’

  Groombridge had expected this but come anyway. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure what I hoped for. I’ve been guilty of taking my eye off the ball. I didn’t realize how serious things were until last night.’

  ‘Last night?’

  He opened his mouth to explain about Brian Bates’ visit, about Stark’s odd detachment and poetic utterance, but of course he could not.

  Hazel raised her eyebrows in shared understanding. ‘And here we are; two people bound to confidence.’

  ‘With shared concerns?’

  She shrugged politely. ‘Who can say?’

  Indeed. Here they were; two people with the interests of a third at heart, hamstrung by integrity. He wanted to ask her if she was as worried about Stark as he was, but couldn’t. Something in Stark’s demeanour, speech and attitude had kept Groombridge awake most of the night. He’d sounded … weary. Not just exhausted but resigned to it, lacking hope. That couldn’t be good. Groombridge had seen a fair few self-murders in his time, with many different causes, but essentially they all boiled down to a failure of hope. Suicide wasn’t something that fit with what he knew of Stark, but then what did he really know? After everything Stark had been through, everything he’d seen. This woman knew more. But the only hope she had of helping Stark was to keep his confidence. Groombridge could get a warrant for her files or force Stark to undergo a psych evaluation, but both would do more harm than good. Perhaps the best he hoped to achieve by coming here was simply to bring his concerns to her attention, and leave her to her job. He sighed deeply.

  She nodded empathetically. She was good at that too. ‘In your capacity as his boss, all I will say is that it’s not my job to comment on his fitness for work. In your capacity as his friend, all I can say is stick with it, and good luck.’

  ‘Great.’ He huffed a tired laugh.

  ‘If there’s anything you’d like to get off your chest while you’re here?’ she offered, knowing the answer. ‘A man of your responsibilities might benefit from an impartial ear?’

  There was a shrewd look in her eye now. Groombridge had the disconcerting feeling she had been studying his tells just as hard as he had hers. She enjoyed her job all right. They were in the same game, essentially – unravelling puzzles, teasing out truths. She was more than a match for him, he suspected. She may even be a match for Stark. The mere fact the young man still came here, after all this time, spoke volumes. And for now, Groombridge would have to content himself with that.

  ‘You did make an appointment after all,’ she continued. ‘And you have fifty minutes left.’

  She had seen the news, no doubt. ‘Too little by far, I fear,’ he sighed wearily. ‘And too long by half.’

  Fran’s car pulled up with a minor screech of tyres – an open display of her impatience at having to wait for him to race home and shower. ‘You drive,’ she barked, climbing out to walk around the passenger side with her phone pressed to her ear. ‘Address …’ She handed him a barely decipherable Post-it.

  There was a half-drunk takeaway coffee in the cup holder and a half-eaten Danish on the dash.

  Fran cursed and hung up. ‘We got a warrant for White’s bank account. Empty. Records show rent and bills going out each month and everything else withdrawn in cash, regular as clockwork.’

  ‘An escape plan.’

  ‘No sign of the hundred grand he weaselled out of us, either, but that was twenty years and at least one identity ago. We heard back from Manchester; their gangs unit didn’t recognize him from any of their biker mobs. There was a Steve Tornado Thompson on the local cage-fighting circuit but not a match, and they’ve no hits on his photo. Whatever he was, wherever he was, he wasn’t famous.’ She yawned expansively and set about texting someone.

  Stark knew she found his driving style pedestrian, but she was clearly too preoccupied for the normal digs. She sent her text and leant her head back on the rest, shutting her eyes for a moment, while he told her what he’d learned about the Kirsch family dynamic.

  She sniffed, either dismissing it as irrelevant garden-fence gossip, or rejecting it as mitigation for Simon’s actions, before filling him in some more. The rush of potential sightings had petered out. The traffic stops had found nothing. Armed response patrols were being scaled down. Details of stolen motorbikes were being checked and traffic CCTV pored over.

  In the meantime, Simon Kirsch had gone to ground or escaped. Ports were on alert, other forces were up to speed and the media was all over it. They’d been sifting the Kimberly Bates files, but added nothing so far to offset the frustration that they’d let Simon Kirsch walk to kill a copper. The only useful thing recovered was this address for Miriam Kirsch. ‘Everyone’s flagging, I’m strung out on coffee, I need a level head and yours will have to do. Have you had any sleep?’

  ‘Tons.’

  It suited her latest theft of his R’n’R to let the lie pass.

  49

  The address was for Miriam Larson. Kirsch’s mother had reverted to her maiden name, no doubt in an effort to shake off the stigma that followed her son’s name. It was a shabby high-rise in Charlton. There were graffiti tags everywhere and the lift stank of piss.

  Miriam lived halfway up. They made their way along the open-air corridor with its bare concrete balustrade. Her door was half-glazed but security bars had been fitted behind the frosted glass, and two additional locks.

  Fran knocked and waited. Through net curtains on the living room window Stark could see the blue flicker of a television. Fran knocked again, impatiently.

  ‘All right, all right … I’m not deaf!’ A silhouette appeared in the hallway through the glass. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Police.’

  There was a pause. ‘Got ID?’

  Fran held her warrant card up and the figure inside leant in to the spyhole to inspect it. Evidently satisfied, she began laboriously unlocking and unbolting the door. It opened to reveal a careworn woman in her sixties or older, looking them both up and down with little enthusiasm. Stark could only just make out the resemblance with the photo in the case files. ‘Can’t be too careful,’ she said. ‘The last lot tricked me into opening the door.’

  ‘The last lot?’ asked Fran.

  ‘Journalists,’ said Miriam, with the same tone one mig
ht use to describe shit on one’s shoe, peering past them to make sure they were alone. ‘One of the red-tops, though he more than hinted he was one of your lot till his foot was in the door and his photographer started snapping away.’

  ‘When was this?’ demanded Fran.

  ‘This morning. Should’ve known they’d beat you lot to the punch. Nothing changes. Come on then, close the door before you let all the heat out. And wipe your feet!’

  She jerked her head for them to follow and wandered back into the living room. A shabby little flat like so many of its kind, barely big enough for its furniture, old-fashioned ornaments, lamps and mirrors. A cathode ray TV that took up too much space sat on mute with a game show fronted by some B-list celebrity Stark couldn’t name.

  There was just one family photo, a school portrait – Simon, pre-pubescent and smiling, unaware of what he might become. And draped over it, a faux-bronze medal on a blue ribbon – Long Distance Under 13s.

  ‘What did the journalist ask you?’ said Fran, taking a seat on the sofa opposite, clearly piqued. If someone in the station was tipping them off it clearly wasn’t a two-way street.

  Two-way street … Stark frowned, trying to drag something from his memory.

  ‘The same things they always ask. What’s it like being mother to a monster.’ Miriam glanced at the photo, her face unreadable. ‘My response earned me a few extra Hail Marys. You’d think I’d remember. They hated me as much as Simon. They’ll have their headline photo for tomorrow, but Satan will stack their pyres with their sinful lies.’

  Fran looked momentarily taken aback, but stayed on message. ‘Have you seen Simon?’

  ‘They asked that too,’ sighed Miriam. ‘No. And I don’t know where he is. Haven’t seen him since he took off to France, nineteen years ago.’ She glanced at the photo again, a hint of anguish. ‘They did this, the press, and you lot – turned him against the world, against his own mother, against God …’ Now the anguish came out. ‘Condemned my beautiful boy to hell … You’ll all burn,’ she muttered.