Beyond Angel Avenue

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. She was gutted about what she did with Julian.”

  I sniff, trying not to give an opinion on that. “Must be hard. They’re old friends and my wife is a very serious woman. I mean, I don’t even know if this tattoo will impress her. She’s so tough, so thick-skinned.”

  “Seems it, from what Amy says.”

  He moves onto the u which is easier and then he’s powering through with ease.

  “Do you mind me asking you a question?” I look into his eyes, before he can finish off the s.

  “Go on.”

  “Janice what’s her name, you know her well?”

  He nods. “Yeah, she’s mates with Amy’s ma.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “Would do anything for anyone that woman. Nosey, mind. Knows everyone. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.”

  He finishes the tattoo and I actually like the result. He sprays me and then bandages me up. “Keep it clean and covered. It might scab but don’t pick it.”

  “Okay.”

  He tosses the needle in the bin and I ask, “How much?”

  “On the house, don’t worry.”

  “Cheers. You sure?”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  Downstairs, I’m surprised to see Janice in the shop, talking to Amy.

  Amy gestures to Shug they let us have some privacy and they leave us at the back of the shop while they put the Closed sign up and Amy shouts, “Gonna go bakery. Back in five. Lock up after you.”

  “No prob, Amy,” Janice says.

  When they’re gone, her arms are folded. “What do you want? First her sniffing round, now you?”

  “Err well I was just passing through to visit the solicitor.”

  “Sure you were. Now, what do you want?”

  I stand my ground, trying to deny the urge to itch the tattoo which is tingling.

  She watches me carefully. “You warned us about Miranda. Did you know that wasn’t her real name?”

  “Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

  I shake my head.

  Janice reels off quickly, “By god, when William Barker said Jules folded on her plan to start work with us, I’d never been more relieved.”

  “Tell me everything you can.”

  She nods and reels off quickly. “Way back, Lorraine and Kim left this town together; Lorraine for her dancing and Kim for her police career. Lore came back. Tail between her legs, looking for Julian… but for several years, we saw nothing of Kim. Nothing. People round here almost forgot about her.”

  “Okay.”

  “Kim came back here from London when Jules was about three. She moved back up here, or to Hull to be more precise. Some mates who go over there regularly for the shopping, like… they said they’d spotted her out and about a lot. She were high up in the police, detective constable I reckon.”

  “And then?”

  “Kim might’ve been back up here but the sisters weren’t close, never were. Like chalk and cheese, too dissimilar. Kim was insanely clever. Lorraine was broken, a sad sort of girl for some reason, didn’t really understand why Julian wouldn’t get off the drugs for her. When Kim heard her sister was dead, she prowled this town for years, seeking some rhyme or reason. She was possessed, desperate for answers. She said she saw her sister with her young lass, Jules… said Lore would never leave Jules.”

  I nod. “That makes perfect sense.”

  “Kim was obsessed with finding out who killed Lorraine. She couldn’t accept she was gone. I heard she left the police about ten years ago, pissed off with it all. Her promotion to any position higher kept getting blocked.”

  “Why didn’t Kim look after Jules? Why didn’t Jules know she had an aunt?”

  Janice shrugs. “No idea. Only thing I can think is that Kim wasn’t really the maternal, caring sort. She was tough, like something bad had happened to her in the past.”

  I shake my head. “So, let’s see if I have this right. Kim comes back when Jules is still a toddler. Works for Humberside Police. Later on she leaves her job, fed up of brick walls. So how did Kim end up back here when Julian got sick?”

  “Maybe she heard from someone he was sick and saw an opportunity to finally end this.”

  I stare into Janice’s eyes. “Who told her… Janice? Who told her he was sick?”

  She stares back, unemotional. “I did. I found her on Facebook and contacted her. I told her Julian was sick. We both decided to do care work together. Lore and Kim’s mum… she was a nurse. It wasn’t difficult for Kim to fake a few things… put on the act. She’s pretty good at it all, don’t you think?”

  “I agree. Now,” I take a deep breath and fold my arms, “I can only nail him if you tell me everything. I mean, everything.”

  Janice sits on the second to last step of the stairs leading up to Amy’s flat and puts her hands together. I’m eagerly awaiting her explanation because according to the files I have, Janice was in on this, as a dealer. “Thirty years ago, my eldest son Liam died. Drugs overdose.”

  She pauses for dramatic effect and I frown. “Okay?”

  “Ronnie came round after the funeral and was asking too many questions. Him and Liam had been mates. I thought nothing of it at the time but on reflection, he acted guilty and paranoid. He was training as a policeman then. I thought he was just trying to get to the bottom of our Liam’s death but it wasn’t that. It was a few years later, after Liam was gone, I overheard someone in the pub mention Fitzgerald. Like Fitzgerald this, Fitzgerald that… the basic gist that Fitzgerald was putting pressure on him. That was Julian. He was telling someone Ronnie had him over a barrel. I kept quiet, knowing how word got around, knowing how dangerous people involved in drugs could be. I also had previous for stealing when times were hard so I didn’t dare go up against the fucker, just in case he tried to turn something round on me.”

  “Why did Kim have pictures of you and Kerry dropping off drugs?”

  “WHAT?!” she stands. “We were never! You’ve been had. He’s trying to set us up. We were nicking it from the underground shelter at Julian’s and Miranda… sorry, Kim, was hiding it! Ronnie wants it. He’s missing it.”

  “What vehicle do you drive?” I shoot her a wry smile.

  She looks at me funny. “Ford KA, old model, it’s all I can afford.”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s using you to try and find out where the drugs are.”

  I shoot her a cocky smile back. “And you’re using me to try and do him over.”

  She shoots me a serious look. “Wouldn’t you love to?”

  “Yes. So, what else do you know?”

  “Kim’s around. She’s hiding, but she’s around. She’s working on something. Aside from that, no idea. Julian was useless in his last days. He remembered nothing about Ronnie. Nothing we could pin on the bastard. Now do you understand why Kim’s been trying to keep you out? She’s trying to protect what little family she has left.”

  I blow out a breath. “This is so unfair.”

  “Life’s unfair son. Liam’d tell you that if he were still here.”

  “Hmmm. What’s Kim told you about Lorraine’s death? Tell me what you know.”

  “That’s just it…” she says, insinuating something sinister.

  “What, Janice?”

  “Kim says… she says Julian told her the truth. On a clear day, he told her what really killed Lorraine. For all my interrogating, Kim won’t tell me a thing about what really happened but I think she should give Jules closure. I believe the girl needs it, don’t you?”

  I nod. “Totally agree.”

  “When your wife came to my place, I lied and stretched the truth a bit… ’cause Kim says Jules doesn’t deserve to be caught up in all this. I agree to some extent which is why I was glad she didn’t come in on the care work.”

  “I see.” I nod, my mind working.

  “At the funeral, it surprised me Jules didn’t recognise her aunt… it surpr
ised me Kim didn’t say hello to her niece. I think they should reunite… and I think Kim should tell Jules the whole truth, while she still can. You never know, you could fall under a bus tomorrow.” Nosey Janice means well, but somehow I know her interfering wouldn’t be appreciated.

  I bite my nails and suddenly, it’s all becoming clear. Barton is Ronnie’s hometown too but maybe at first, even he didn’t guess that the great Kim Scales was playing care worker Miranda. He later photoshopped some pictures to make it look like Janice and Kerry were handling the drugs – making sure the images got put in my hands – as though I would treat it as evidence and try to nail Janice. He just wanted someone to hang or some way of getting to Miranda – the one really trying to do his cronies out of business.

  Maybe Ronnie didn’t know it was really Kim until she came to our house that day – and then he realised, the woman thieving the drugs dropped on Julian’s farm was really Jules’ aunt, Kim Scales, a woman he surely crossed paths with in the past. He must know how good she is. Yet, he wants the drugs so badly he will risk himself to get back at somebody outdoing him. Kim was going to continue being a care worker and hope he eventually made contact, maybe? She wanted to bury him somehow, I know that.

  “How did Julian not see through Miranda?” I beg.

  “She was playing Miranda. She was good at it. Whether he knew through the haze of dementia who she really was or not, I don’t know for sure… I don’t think any of us will ever know. He was fond of Miranda and she played her part, but she didn’t love him. Maybe he was reminded of Lorraine. You know?”

  I lick my lips and decide, “If you see Kim, tell her to come to me. If she acts like Miranda, tell her I won’t stand for it. I want her.”

  She nods. “I’ll tell her.”

  We leave the shop and I head straight for my car, harbouring a sneaking suspicion Miranda/Kim is closer than she would have me believe.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Warrick

  I drive back over the bridge and as I’m leaving the toll booth, a car flashes me from behind as I exit towards the Hull to Beverley Road. I see a woman with blonde hair, unmistakable. I pull into the Humber Bridge car park and sure enough, she follows me.

  Parking up, I sit still, wondering if she’s real. She leaves her car and rounds to mine, tapping on the window for me to let her in.

  Sinking into the passenger seat next to me, she asks, “How are you?”

  “Shocked you’re not dead.”

  “There’s no need for falsity. Janice just rang me.” Her hands folded together, she looks straight ahead, her mind clouded by something other than fear – loathing.

  “He thinks that by telling people I’m dead it’s a warning for everyone to behave themselves. Like it could happen to anyone. After I spoke with Jules that day, he chased me for hours but I lost him on the M25 and kept my head down for a few weeks.”

  I rub a hand through my hair. “Did you have a Windows Live account?”

  She purses her lips dramatically. “I do but it’s bloody well not under my real name. Do you think I’m that fucking squalid of mind, like Julian was?”

  “Well I asked an old mate to get me anything he could on you and he got me a Windows Live account.”

  “Fake. He owns everyone, Warrick.” Her arms folded, she continues looking out of the windows, assessing danger.

  “What made you like this?”

  “Life,” she says, chewing the inside of her cheek.

  “We both know it’s more than that.”

  She turns to me and shakes her head. “I’m acting alone now, the outsider, the ghost. Before he made it look like I was dead, I was working with the IPCC. I’ve worked with them for fifteen years and never failed yet.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re … Lorraine’s sister? But, you abandoned Jules to her father. I’ve got that right, yes?”

  “I always thought she was better than that prick Julian. I would’ve taken Jules but she would’ve been no better off with me. I’m not built to be a mother.”

  I watch how she speaks as though all of this is meaningless. Kim Scales is expert at playing whatever character she needs to. The scared cop warning Jules off. The scarlet woman seducing an ill man. She’s really just an empty shell, looking for vengeance.

  “Why undercover?” I ask her, “I mean, deep cover more like? Why all this?”

  “I married while I was working in London. A man called Jerome Scales. He was the love of my life. One night,” she shakes her head, “he was killed in a senseless car crash. Senseless and stupid. From then on, I became this and I can do it because I have nobody.”

  She stares, emotionless.

  “Who’s working with you?”

  “Nobody. I’m dead, remember? I trust Janice but nobody else. She thinks me and Jules should, you know,” her nose wrinkles, “reunite or some such shit. It’s just that every time I try to get close to Jules, he’s there in the background, watching me. I wonder if he knows who I really am and he’s so shit scared of me, he wants me dead and buried.”

  I clear my throat and ask quickly, “What happened to Lorraine? Tell me everything.”

  “Rick, you’ll be clawing that info out of my cold, dead, gnarled hands so don’t bother. All you need to know is, it was drugs. Sincerely. It was drugs. End of.”

  I want to see if I can piss her off enough to bite so I ask perniciously, “If it was drugs, you would have spotted the signs. Seen she was using again. You could’ve tried to help her… get her out. Didn’t you suspect Julian?”

  She shakes her head. “Of course I suspected him. Do you think she would listen? No. I warned her he was bad news but it only made her more determined to try and fix him when he was unfixable. Julian was small fry, a fly on my shoe. I was working shipments, not small-time pushers like him.”

  “You had a duty!!”

  “Yeah but,” she waggles her head, “even though we weren’t close, she was my sister and I wasn’t going to rat out Julian because she was my sister and she didn’t deserve it.”

  I shake my head. “Admit it. You knew about Fitzgerald. All you saw was him, that was all you saw. You knew him and Julian were associated and that was all you saw… bagging him.”

  She bangs her fist on her knee. “Rick, don’t fucking talk like you know. You don’t know. You know fuck all. Yes, I wanted Ronnie. I wanted to nail his ass. Rumours about him were circling long before you ever took the oath. Everyone in our set knew, but who was game to nail the prick? Nobody was. He was climbing quickly.”

  I shake my head. “Was she worth it, the sacrifice? Was she? You could’ve got her out.”

  She sniffs. “Don’t. You didn’t know Lorraine. She was stubborn. If I thought begging on my knees would help, I would’ve done it. She wouldn’t leave Julian. She went away for years to dance, came back and still wanted to be with him. Don’t tell me you don’t have any understanding of that?”

  I make a comeback, “You don’t know what he did to your niece.”

  “I do. She told me. But you think she would’ve been better off with me when she wouldn’t. I would never have been home. She would’ve had to fend for herself. Sometimes after a bad case, I’d go into hibernation for weeks on end to decompress. They gave me the shittest stuff to deal with because they know I can handle it.”

  I stare at her profile. She looks ten years older than she actually is, her skin blubbery round the edges with the constant stress, drinking and late nights she no doubt suffers.

  “Kim, give it up. This will only earn you an early grave, too.”

  “Everybody thinks I’m dead now so why not, eh?”

  I shake my head at her. “The thing is Kim, I’ve seen how this has affected Jules, too. But maybe the senseless killings will never be solved. Maybe we have to let go. That’s all we can do. One minute, she had a loving, caring mother and the next… nothing. We can’t go back, it’s not possible.”

  She turns and pins her dark eyes on mine. “Rick, try putting
yourself in mine and Lore’s shoes okay? We came from this wicked world and we escaped. I went my way, she hers. She was meant to go places with her dancing, do great things, but she was as fallible as anyone. Weak for a man who got her on drugs – a boyfriend on tour offered her some casually and that’s how it began. Then she got Jay hooked. It’s like that, it breeds, and nobody’s got a chance. I watched her struggle, I watched people fall apart around me. I knew I was no good for Jules. I couldn’t be a mother to her, knowing what I knew, doing the things I do. I’ve had to shut down all these years to get through the day. My work is the only thing keeping me going.”

  “So what, then? What next?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m dead. If I’m alive, I’m dead. I can’t trust anyone. I don’t know how deep this goes. If this were to get out… Ronnie, I mean, can you imagine the field day they’d have in the press? Can you imagine? Head of Organised Crime up to his elbows in guilt? Hmm?”

  “I can’t stand by and do nothing so you better put some trust in me otherwise you may have another death on your head. We need to end this, together.”

  “Fine. But we can’t do it in the open.”

  “Fine.” I grit my teeth. I’m not angry at her, only at the situation.

  “We need evidence of where he’s stashing the money.”

  “Could be anywhere. Under his mattress, offshore, with a mistress… list is endless. What we need is to make him crawl out from beneath his shell, fearing he’s undone. Scare him with a ghost of the past, make him unhinged enough that he starts getting sloppy.”

  “Until then, here.” She hands me a burner phone. “Tell Jules nothing. I mean it. This is you and me. I’ll contact you when I think of something. Until then, sit tight. I’ll call you.”

  “Okay, thanks Kim–”

  She’s leaving the car before she’s even said goodbye.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Warrick

  I’m taking my mind off it all by cleaning the house like a nutcase. Unfortunately I’m covering all the furniture in miniscule blobs of yellow dust cloth and Jules is going to kill me. I guess I may be rubbing a bit hard.