by David Mark
‘Wanker,’ says Pharaoh, looking up at McAvoy. ‘You’re getting good at that dead-eyed look, you know. Proper scary, if people don’t know you’re a pussy cat.’
‘Roisin says I’m about as scary as a chinchilla,’ says McAvoy, who has never felt comfortable using his size to intimidate. He has the personality of a much smaller man and would probably be working alongside Dan in the tech unit were it not for the fact that test tubes seem to break in his hands and his great big fingers press the wrong keys whenever he tries using one of the fancy tablet computers that Dan seems unable to live without.
Pharaoh considers him. ‘Even chinchillas get rabies,’ she says. ‘And I’ve seen you foaming at the mouth. It just takes a lot to get you there.’
McAvoy stares upwards through the tunnel of brick into a darkening sky. He sniffs the air. Hull cannot expect to enjoy the good weather in which the rest of country is bathing. A sea fret is set to roll in, thick and grey. There has been a warning to the ships that churn through the waters of the Humber. The fog is going to close over the coast like a corpse’s hand. The thought makes him shiver and think of Hannah, and her unknown grave: somewhere among the bluebells and the daffodils in a place that she adored. He feels the weight of it all settle in his gut. Feels the need to bring some kind of balance to things. He hates what people do to one another.
‘We’re taking this, yes?’ asks McAvoy, turning back to his boss. ‘With Hannah we haven’t got a body. Not yet. But we can link it. A crime against an attractive young woman. We can say that we’ve got the resources and a potential connection . . .’
Pharaoh smiles tiredly. ‘We’ll take it,’ she says, convinced it won’t be difficult to sell the idea to her bosses. She needs to make up for the Reuben Hollow mistakes, to remind everybody how she got where she is. Needs to take her mind off the shit at home and the red letters from the bank. More than anything, she needs to catch whoever just crushed a beautiful girl’s windpipe with a toilet seat.
‘You got somebody to watch the girls?’ asks McAvoy, looking at his watch and seeming suddenly aware that they are unlikely to get much sleep tonight. ‘You and your mum talking again?’
Pharaoh shakes her head and looks at the ground. She already knows what he’s going to suggest. She nods without looking up. Dies a little inside as McAvoy pulls out his phone and calls Roisin for help.
Chapter 5
The baby has been sleeping better since she started on solids. She manages a full seven hours some nights. She had clearly just been waiting for a decent meal. If Helen had known that earlier, she’d have stuffed a bacon sandwich in the little bugger’s face while the midwife at Hull Royal Infirmary was still waiting for the afterbirth.
Just like her mum.
That’s what Helen’s dad had said when she phoned him and said that his granddaughter had finally slept through. That all she wanted was something she could get her teeth into.
Detective Constable Helen Tremberg had not planned on having children. When the doctor told her she was three months gone she felt as though she had been whacked across the back of the legs with a hockey stick. It had taken weeks to sink in. Weeks for her to make up her mind. She’d made the appointment for the termination on two separate occasions. Made it to the clinic on one. Even got gowned up and laid down on the bed before the tears spilled out of her. She saw them as vines, climbing from her eyes and wrapping her tight; a chrysalis of pure misery and the promise of endless regret. She had fled the clinic holding her belly. Sobbed all the way home. Ran to the bedroom and lifted her shirt and talked to the creature inside her. Begged her unborn child for forgiveness; heaving and choking on snot and spittle and picturing the tiny sea-horse in her womb as it slumbered and grew and became the very centre of her being.
Helen looks down at baby Penelope. Six months old: too young to be diagnosed as schizophrenic, though Helen still has her suspicions. She’s never met any normal person with two such wildly opposing personalities. Awake and fed, she’s a bundle of sunshine; all dribbly smiles and sparkly eyes and grabbing hands. Half asleep and hungry, she’s a demon. Even though things have recently improved, Penelope is not a good sleeper. Helen has always needed a good eight hours and a fry-up before she can consider starting the day. Penelope needs roughly twenty minutes, followed by an hour of screaming. Mother and child have done well to survive the first few months. Helen came close to utter mental collapse when the child was just a few months old. She found herself in the Co-op in mismatched shoes, leaning on her shopping trolley and staring at the back of a packet of nappies. The letters had stopped making sense. She was past tired. Past hunger. When Penelope knocked a box of cereal off the shelf and it spilled all over the floor, Helen found herself disintegrating. She sort of folded in on herself, like a flower at night-time. The staff found her on the floor, crying softly to herself and saying ‘sorry’ over and over. The assistant manager had driven her back to her little bungalow and stayed with her for a while and shared so many anecdotes about how she and her friends had been during the first weeks of parenthood that by the time she left, Helen felt like a model mum. She didn’t even cry when asked about the whereabouts of the baby’s father. Just smiled, coyly, and said it was complicated. Too right it was complicated. She didn’t even know his name. Just remembers a shape in the dark and the smell of Budweiser and Marlboro Golds.
It had happened in her hotel room after a wedding she hadn’t even wanted to go to. He’d been from the groom’s side of the family. Squat and wide-shouldered but okay to look at. He helped her upstairs to her room when she overdid the vodka. Stroked her hair for a while as she lay in her pretty dress and told him about her two failed relationships and conviction that all men were bastards. He’d told her she hadn’t met the right guy. Kissed her, even after she’d been sick. He was gone by the morning. She’d woken up in her dress but without her knickers on. Didn’t know whether to feel used or triumphant. Had she pulled? Or had she been taken advantage of? She spent the next couple of days feeling dirty and taking more showers than were necessary. Considered making it official and trying to find out who the bloke was. But she knows police stations and a certain type of investigator and that the first impulse among many is to blame the woman. She decided to drink the memory away. She’s got good at that. Has pushed down so many terrible recollections that she sometimes sees herself as a taxidermy creation: stuffed too full and fit to burst.
Helen reaches into Penelope’s playpen and tickles her cheek. She gets a drowsy, gloopy smile in return. She gets a thousand smiles a day but they have yet to lose their appeal. Helen is so in love with her daughter that she doesn’t know how to express it. Sometimes she fears that she will hug her so tight she will hurt her. She’s grown used to the knot of terror in her gut; the desperate need to know that her baby is safe and always will be.
Penelope goes back to pressing her face against the mesh of her jolly plastic prison, and fighting a losing battle to keep her eyes open. Helen looks out of the window at the deathly quiet street. She bought this bungalow from her grandparents. It sits on one of the newer estates in the small market town of Caistor, on the road from Grimsby to Lincoln. She has a true affection for the place. Grew up here. Sees it as a perfectly good town in which to raise her child, with its old-fashioned architecture and farming crowd. She likes that people still plan their year around sowing and harvesting crops. Likes that people can go to the fancy wine bar in wellies and drink next to somebody in Manolo Blahniks and not see anything peculiar about it.
She hasn’t really done much to funk the place up. The living room is patterned on one wall with a loud, floral paper but is painted white on the others. The curtains are the same as they were when she moved in and she only bought the large paper lantern that cloaks the ceiling light because it cost less than a fiver. Her sofa is a hand-me-down from a neighbour. She can only take a little pride in the artwork. She has a large picture of two salsa dancers on the chimney breast, drawn with a flamboyant hand by somebody w
ho loved black and red. It’s a print, but limited edition, and cost her more than she could afford. So too did the reproduction Grand Prix posters which vie for space on the other walls among smaller, haphazard images of her daughter, her mum and dad, and herself in uniform on her first day at work. Pride of place goes to a line drawing, showing the outline of Penelope’s hand, inside her own, with her dad’s on top. It’s only done on A4 and the frame came from Tesco, but it’s Helen’s favourite.
She turns away from the window. Looks at the clock. It’s just after 1 a.m. Penelope should be in her cot, but Helen likes her close. She doesn’t want to go to bed. There could be something interesting on the telly. An old crime drama or a repeat of Top Gear . . .
The laptop beeps and Helen gives a sigh of relief. Starts absorbing Reardon’s report. Admires the man’s economy of language and helpful notes, drawing her attention to the bits she needs most urgently. Somebody had sprayed an irritant in O’Neill’s eyes. Chilli oil, as far as he could tell. His wrists and ankles had been tied and the shoes that kicked him to death were Adidas Sambas, size nines. He had been in situ for over a year. The fact that nobody had complained about the smell was deemed by Reardon to be ‘largely unremarkable’. The house was cold and well ventilated and the body was still a long way from putrefaction. On an estate where people kept their own counsel, the growing stench was still a long way from unbearable when the door had finally been kicked in. Helen breathes out through a shudder and closes her eyes. Wishes there were somebody here she could say ‘fucking hell’ to.
After a moment, she grabs a few chocolates from the open bag at her side and stuffs them in her mouth as she types up notes for the morning briefing. Reads back the two pages of details she has managed to cobble together. Highlights the line that stood out: The top palate of his false teeth broke in two from one of the blows to his jaw and the diamond stud in his left ear was found lodged under the skin behind his jawbone . . .
She corrects her spelling mistakes and emails the lot across to Archer. Copies in Trish Pharaoh too, if only to piss Archer off.
Helen finds herself sneering as she considers her so-called superior officer. Archer was a surprise appointment. She has replaced a detective superintendent despite only recently rising to the role of DCI. But Deputy Chief Constable Mallett reorganised CID and handed Archer the top job. She’ll be a DSU within a year. Helen can’t argue with her boss’s arrest record or commitment to the job but she still can’t find any way to like the stuck-up cow. She reminds her of the worst of the grammar school bitches who used to sneer at her as she made her way to the comprehensive in her trainers and braces. They’d be getting out of Daddy’s Range Rover with their flute cases and their designer schoolbags and air-kissing Tabithas and Jemimas. Helen would be passing a packet of crisps between herself and lads called Gary, Nathan and Arran, dragging their Argos schoolbags as if they were made of rocks and slogging up that damn hill to a day of doodling on her maths book and chucking pens at her friends’ heads. The grammar school bitches never said a word to her but she always felt pitiful under their gaze. She’d probably named her child Penelope just to spite them, even if Helen’s mum had had her heart set on “Brenda”.
‘Can I use a naughty word please, Penelope?’ says Helen softly, to her sleeping child. ‘Thank you. Shaz Archer, I fucking hate you.’
Helen grins to herself and shakes her head. She shouldn’t let the cow wind her up, not when she’s not even here. She just wishes the bitch would disappear, like her old boss Colin. He may have been a feral, physically repulsive sociopath, but he was fanatical about locking up villains. Helen can’t believe he would pack it all in. Helen was there that night. She saw the rage in his eyes. He had told Shaz Archer everything they had learned about the Headhunters and she had turned him away. It was a betrayal that undid him. Broke a heart that Helen didn’t know he possessed. She tried to console him and received bile and rage for her trouble. He had driven away in search of alcohol. When Helen woke the next morning, the man she and Colin had pegged as the mouthpiece of the Headhunters was dead. Colin had cleaned out his flat and sodded off. Helen had briefly entertained the notion that Colin was responsible but Archer claimed to have checked an alibi. She also spread the word that he wasn’t coming back. He’d been in touch and told her he’d had enough. Nobody doubted it – after all, Archer and he were thick as thieves. Only Helen knew she had rejected him and for reasons she has never truly fathomed, she has chosen not to share that information with anybody else. No charges were brought in connection with the gangster’s death but it was soon apparent that the Headhunters had decided to leave Hull alone.
In her playpen, Penelope gives a wriggle. Manages to kick one of her toys.
‘Goal!’ says Helen quietly, as she gets up and crosses back to the child. She wants to pick her up. Wants to wake her up. Can’t leave her alone for more than a few moments and finds herself smiling just to look at her. She knows she would be better served keeping her head down, getting on with her work and studying for her sergeant’s exams. She can’t complain about the way Archer has treated her since she moved over to her unit. Doctor’s appointments and sick days are tolerated and Archer hasn’t taken issue with the couple of times Helen turned up at crime scenes with baby sick on her lapels and eyes the colour and consistency of blue cheese. After all, Colin Ray used to turn up looking worse.
Helen looks at her watch. It’s long past time to take the little one through to bed. Penelope has a cot and her own room but has yet to spend a whole night in it. Helen lets the child sleep with her. She’s heard all the advice on the subject she can stomach, every damn cliché. Yes, she knows she’s making a rod for her own back, and no, she doesn’t care. She likes snuggling up with the little one.
She closes the laptop, finishes her chocolates and flicks the telly on. Turns the sound down low. Decides to leave it another half an hour and then they can both go to bed at the same time. She fiddles with the remote control for a while then puts the news on. A curvy girl with wild hair and freckles is reporting to camera from Hull’s Bowlalley Lane. A body has been discovered in an apartment down Courts Lane. Detectives are treating it as suspicious but have not yet formally identified the victim. Neighbours have told reporters that they believe it to be a woman in her early twenties but lead investigator Detective Superintendent Pharaoh declined to comment. Pharaoh was the arresting officer of Reuben Hollow, who was freed last week by the Court of Appeal and spoke to her colleagues about Humberside Police earlier in the day.
The screen fills with the handsome, twinkly-eyed sculptor, with his stubble and his earring and his scruffy kind of cool.
‘They have a difficult job to do,’ he says, to the earnest interviewer. ‘I don’t want anybody to think this was some sort of personal vendetta. I’ve seen the accusations levelled at Detective Superintendent Pharaoh and I know they will have hurt her deeply. She doesn’t deserve that. She is an extraordinary, tenacious and compassionate person. It was the Crown Prosecution Service who chose to prosecute and it’s they who should be held accountable. DSU Pharaoh is the sort of person I would be proud for my daughter to turn into. And she’s a hell of a looker, too.’
In the darkness of her living room, Helen gasps with shock and laughter. Rewinds the TV and plays it again.
Wonders if Pharaoh has seen it yet.
Wonders, too, just how many pieces she is going to break Reuben Hollow into come the morning.
‘She seems to have pissed him off good and proper,’ says Teddy, looking at his mobile phone. ‘I do believe we have to go and do unspeakable things.’
Beside him, Foley stirs. He’s been asleep for a good hour, snoring and grinding his teeth with his face against the glass of the Ford Focus, as if staring at Trish Pharaoh’s front door with his eyes closed.
‘She still in there?’ asks Foley, drowsily. ‘The pikey-looking one?’
Teddy looks at his young colleague with admiration. Doubts he would be able to go straight from sleep
to lustfulness like this. He needs a coffee and a piece of toast before he can even think about anything physical.
‘She hasn’t come out,’ he says. ‘Boss says the copper was very rude when he tried to call her just now. He’s tried to be nice. She doesn’t seem to be listening. She needs to realise this is happening, that the boss doesn’t give a shit if she’s a copper, a judge or the Queen of fucking England. She owes, and she’s paying. Not like him, is it? He seems to be playing roughly. You think he’s trying to impress?’
Foley puts his hand down his trousers and gives himself a rub.
‘The pikey,’ he says, ignoring the question and concerning himself with the pleasant pictures of destruction in his mind. ‘She a friend or what, you reckon? Babysitter? She had a couple of kids with her.’ He cranes his neck. ‘Aye, her car’s still there. It’s her or the daughter.’
Teddy seems to consider both options. ‘There’s the fucker himself, in the garage. Been done out as a bedroom for him. Bloody lovely, by all accounts. Must have cost a bit.’
‘Money to burn, some people,’ says Foley, taking his gun from his jacket pocket and placing it under his seat. He knows himself too well. Knows his tendency to give in to temptation. ‘You got the thingy?’
Teddy pats his pocket. Wonders whether the pretty girl with the dark hair will piss herself when the strings of the taser start pumping electricity through her body. Whether a puddle of piss will stop Foley raping her.
‘Shall we go say hello?’ he asks, conversationally.
Chapter 6
There are some nice homes on the Ings estate. Nice people, too. It’s a down-to-earth kind of place. Most of the cars have tax discs and half the houses have satellite dishes. The kids go to school with their hair brushed and any teenager who kicks their football into a neighbour’s garden stands a good chance of getting it back without a kitchen knife through its middle. It has character. A sense of community. Neighbours will plead ignorance if they spot a bailiff asking for directions and adults will apologise if caught swearing in front of somebody else’s kids. Luxury items are paid for on credit cards and court fines settled monthly. It sits to the east of the city, a buffer between the problem zones at the far end of Holderness Road and the outer reaches of the Bransholme estate. Keeps the coppers busy with burglaries and arson and the occasional car theft, but it’s the kind of place where stolen property can be recovered by going and knocking on a certain door and threatening to do something invasive with a broom handle.