Deadly Pleasures

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Samira. Hi.’ He swivelled his chair.

  ‘The SIO sent me.’

  ‘He did, did he?’

  ‘He said he wants you to photograph the car.’

  ‘Me? I’m doing the CCTV.’

  ‘There’s no one else. A new shout, little gangster rude-boy found shot dead in Yeadon. They’re all out there.’

  Matt sighed. ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’

  ‘He said …’ she hesitated.

  ‘DS Shah,’ he said. ‘I know what he said.’

  She laughed.

  ‘He said, “Shame we’ve only got Novak”.’

  She shook her head, still laughing.

  ‘Novak living in the fucking nineteenth century. Didn’t he say that?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Course not.’

  ‘Usually that’s what he says. When he’s not complaining about having given the job to an “Art Gallery nancy boy”.’ Matt got to his feet. He picked up two camera cases. One was hard black plastic with silver edges. The other was a battered brown leather bag.

  Samira glanced from one to the other.

  ‘Told you,’ Novak said.

  ‘He did say …’

  ‘What?’

  She shrugged. ‘What you said. About the nineteenth century.’

  ‘I like the old stuff,’ Matt tapped the brown leather. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve ever seen such a thing.’

  ‘I have, so. My grandpa has a funny old camera like that.’

  ‘Your grandpa?’ He stared, appalled. ‘I’m not that old.’

  ‘Course you’re not.’ She patted his arm. ‘SIO wants the pictures back by lunchtime.’

  The door shut behind her. He looked at both camera cases. He put down the brown leather one, slung the black one over his shoulder and left.

  In the car he glanced at himself in the mirror. He saw a tired-looking white man, brown hair fading to grey.

  Samira’s grandfather must have twenty years on me.

  He imagined him, sprightly and upright, still black-haired, pottering in his well-tended semi, devoted wife, Samira was always talking about her nan, children, grandchildren.

  Family life.

  Perhaps it keeps you young.

  What do I know?

  It was a quiet residential street, taped off with blue and white. The car was neatly parked. One of the Scenes of Crime team was sitting on the wall, a community constable, Barbara something, they’d met before, strange taste in hip hop, he remembered, even stranger taste in shoes.

  ‘All right?’ she said, as he approached.

  ‘Aye,’ he replied. Her boots were black with chunky silver heels.

  He got out his tripod and camera and set to work. The neat clean car made neat square images. Barbara said something about getting a coffee.

  He was aware of someone standing at his shoulder. She reached out across the police tape, as if to stroke the bonnet of the car.

  ‘Madam!’ His hand caught hers, a brief touch before she snatched hers away.

  ‘Sorry. Of course.’ She blushed. ‘Forensics and all that. I’ve seen it on the television.’

  ‘Everyone has.’

  Her gaze was still fixed on the car. ‘I suppose everyone hopes, don’t they?’

  ‘Hopes what?’

  She turned to him. ‘That it won’t be the car. Or the … whatever … that it will be a mistake.’

  ‘You must be Mrs …?’

  She held out her hand, strangely polite, formal. ‘Sheila,’ she said.

  He shook her hand, clumsily. ‘And this is—’

  ‘Oh yes.’ She interrupted him. ‘This is our car. Well, his car, really. I tend to drive the Polo.’

  She surveyed the car, leaning to one side as if checking the tyres. She turned back to Matt. ‘Do people do this? Disappear like this?’

  ‘Well …’ He straightened up. He wondered when the SOCO would be back.

  ‘Suicide,’ she said, suddenly. ‘That’s what one of the reporters asked me. No, I said, no, of course not. He wouldn’t leave me like this, not knowing …’

  Matt fingered his camera.

  She hunched her shoulders. Her coat was too thin for the weather. ‘Chilly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  ‘They keep asking me, what was he like?’ She spoke suddenly, loudly. ‘Well, I said to them, he’s my husband. He liked his work. He likes his tennis. And antiques, he’d become quite a collector since he was working less, porcelain, clocks …’ She looked up at him. ‘What can I tell them? He’s my husband. I love him …’ Her voice cracked.

  ‘Mrs Logan,’ he began.

  Her eyes welled with tears.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  She was still standing there, staring at her husband’s car.

  He fished in his pocket. ‘Here,’ he said, handing her a card.

  She took it, read it. ‘Matt Novak. Imaging Officer,’ she said. ‘Is that what you are?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Anything you can think of …’ he said. He could see Barbara, hobbling along the street, paper cup in hand.

  ‘I can ring you?’ She gazed up at him.

  He nodded. ‘Sure.’

  She watched as he knelt by the car, packing his camera case. She was still watching as he got into his car and drove away.

  Who do I think I am? he thought, driving back into town, giving her my card like that? She’s got the DI to talk to, she doesn’t need me.

  He watched the rain spatter on his windscreen, the to and fro of the windscreen wipers.

  I know why, of course. Another wife, elsewhere. Another story of abandonment, of pain.

  Not that she’ll be crying.

  The familiar clench of despair, dark as the rain clouds that hunched over town.

  He slammed his car door, breezed through reception, strode along the corridor to the Operations Room.

  ‘Novak, old son.’ A thin, slouching man in a pale suit looked up at him. ‘Didn’t need a dark room, then?’

  Samira glanced across, laughing. ‘Leave him alone, Terry.’

  Novak scanned the wide, light space. ‘SIO in?’

  Terry shook his head. ‘He’s off with the Yeadon shooting.’

  Samira handed three photographs to Matt. ‘These are the suspects so far. The current view is that the victim was dealing and trespassed on another gang’s patch. He’s a lad called Cavin Jackson. Found dead in scrubland by the industrial estate. Single gunshot wound. He was carrying a blade, but no sign he went armed apart from that. He lives alone, one of the flats on the Grange estate there. He’s known to the local team. Drug dealing, and rumours of something nasty with the local girls, some kind of pimping scene. He’s got one brother, a half brother, technically. He identified the body. Darren, he’s called, lives in London. Said he didn’t have much to do with him. We’re doing house to house, no one’s talking. Single bullet, retrieved, forensics are having a look.’

  Matt stared at the images. Three scowling male faces stared back.

  ‘We’ve talked to the mother,’ Samira said. ‘You can listen if you want.’ She handed him a CD, patted his arm. ‘I’d get the images to the SIO as soon as you can. He’s been making comments about how they’ll all turn up in pretty frames.’

  Alone, at his desk, Matt stared at the CD. Mrs Evelyn Jackson, it said, scrawled in black marker pen. He loaded it and pressed Play. He could hear Samira’s voice, quiet, sympathetic, prompting. Then the mother spoke.

  ‘I told him myself, loads of times I’m telling him, don’t you go running with them, them’s bad, they are, but he want money, he want to be the big guy, you see the car he drive, how does he get the money for that, BMW, you see it?’

  There was another question from Samira, and then the mother’s voice again. ‘They pulled back the sheet, and I saw my son’s face … And I lay me down and wept. And when I done weeping, I looked at him, at his face that weren’t him no more, and I wanted to cry to the heavens, I wanted to shout out loud, L
ord knows I did. I wanted to say to him, “What you go doing this for, Boy, going armed? Didn’t I always say, you go out there carrying blades, there’s always someone carrying something bigger and better than what you got …” I told him so many times, so many times …’ The voice cracked into tears. After a moment, she spoke again. ‘I went to take him in my arms, but the officer there, she tries to stop me. So I says to her, I ain’t never going to see my baby again. Even the mother of Our Lord got to hold her dead child in her arms …’

  Matt pressed Stop.

  The mother of Our Lord.

  A memory. An image. He clicked on Menu, scrolled through his documents. I know it’s here, he thought. I know they’re both here.

  Click. Two images. One, a Madonna and Child, china-white skin against rich folds of red, the light and shade of the painter’s brush.

  The second was a seaside snap, a woman and a little girl, holding hands. The woman is smiling down at the child. The child is laughing at the camera. He sees blue sky, blue sea, blurred white cliffs, windswept blonde hair.

  Under the first image it said, ‘The Amati Madonna. Restoration, Cremona Museum Service. Restoration team, Maziotti, Pedoni, Novak.’

  It had been a time of colour and light and laughter. The painting was discovered in a little church, cobwebbed, sticky with neglect. An early Anquissola, they thought, as they worked on it, brushstroke by brushstroke, bringing it back to life.

  He gazed at the images. I spent my working days with art and colour and joy, my evenings with my wife and child.

  Click.

  His finger on the mouse. The image had gone.

  He stared at the blank page of his computer screen.

  I will not …

  Click. A black and white image of the Otley Road. Click. A car number plate. Click. Woodland. Click. Not art. Not paint. Not joy, hope, colour. Just shades of grey. Just evidence. Just facts.

  Just the mother’s voice, ringing in his ears. ‘I ain’t never going to see my baby again.’

  His phone rang.

  ‘Novak?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Busy, are you?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Another case. Body been found over by the reservoir. Young woman, looks like strangulation. Been there a week or so. Not nice. Although mostly in one piece, at least, foxes too busy eating burgers these days. They’re doing the ID now. Can you do the SOC stuff?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course.’ He glanced at the brown leather camera case on the floor.

  There was white canvas shielding the body. She was pale and young, a tangle of dirty blonde hair, skin grey as clay, tiny skirt, missing sandal.

  He set up his Leica and began to work. Her eyes were open, the whites muddied with blood. Her swollen face lay at an odd angle.

  Click.

  If this was my daughter …

  A wave of rage.

  Click.

  There is no beauty here, he thought. I should have used the other camera. I should be generating ones and noughts in black and white.

  His phone rang.

  ‘My husband,’ the voice said.

  ‘Mrs Logan …’

  ‘One of his pistols is missing,’ she said. ‘I noticed doing the dusting, don’t know why I’m bothering but you have to keep busy, don’t you?’

  ‘Pistols?’

  ‘Antique pistols. He’d acquired a pair of duelling pistols. They’re quite valuable, it turns out, he was very pleased …’ Her voice cracked. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to do with his disappearance …’

  ‘Are they in working order?’

  She went quiet. ‘Yes. He fired one of them at the shooting club about six months ago. Just to see if it worked, he said. Some old colonel there described him as a good shot, David was delighted.’

  ‘Mrs Logan,’ Matt said. ‘If there’s any sense that he might have—’

  ‘Taken his own life?’ Her voice was sharp. ‘There are two reasons why he wouldn’t do that. We’re Catholic, you see, it’s against our beliefs.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘He was happy. Perfectly happy. There’s no reason for him to … to do such a thing.’

  She’d gone. Matt began to pack up his camera kit.

  We’re Catholic, she’d said, as if that was some kind of protection.

  He left the taped area, walked to his car.

  I was Catholic once, he thought.

  It doesn’t help.

  ‘Are you Feds?’

  He turned at the voice. The girl had big afro curls, a bright red sweater and very skinny jeans.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘What did he do to her?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about the case. I’m just an imaging officer—’

  ‘That bastard. She should have stayed away from him, I told her enough times, God knows I did, that Cavin don’t care about no one but himself. She wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Cavin?’ Matt leaned against his car.

  ‘They had a row last week. Man, it was a big row.’

  ‘What about?’

  The girl stared at her feet in her cheap heels.

  ‘The gear he give her, y’know, he said she had to pay for it. And she goes to him, how am I going to pay for it then, and he says to her, girl, you going to earn it, like everybody else.’

  ‘Gear?’

  She met his eyes. ‘She was using, y’know?’

  ‘Go on.’

  The girl took a cigarette from her bag, lit it, breathed in a deep breath. ‘So she goes to him, I ain’t going to, Cav, and he’s saying how he weren’t charity, it was business, it was time she paid her way …’ She stopped, exhausted by speech.

  Matt studied her through the curls of smoke. ‘When you say he wanted her to earn the money …?’

  ‘How do you think a girl earns money round here?’ She raised her brown eyes to his.

  ‘And she refused?’

  The girl nodded. ‘She said, if he loved her he wouldn’t ask her. And he just laughed. And then she were angry, really angry, and she said that was it, it was over, she didn’t want to see him again, and they had this row, and then …’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘She left. But he followed her. He were right angry, he were. I was scared. I wanted to go too but the rest of them said I shouldn’t, said they should sort it out themselves … I wish I’d gone now. I might have saved her …’ Her eyes filled with tears.

  Matt touched her arm. ‘What’s your name?’

  She stared at him, childlike. ‘Macy.’

  ‘Could you go to the police, Macy? Could you tell them all this?’

  She glanced nervously around her.

  ‘You could come with me now, in my car, if you like.’

  She nodded, shivering.

  He put his jacket around her shoulders and led her to the car.

  ‘Black, no sugar.’ Samira put the mug down on his desk.

  ‘No biscuits?’

  ‘Don’t push it, boy. I’m only doing this because you brought in a key witness in the Faiman case.’

  ‘Faiman?’

  ‘The strangled girl. Abbie Faiman.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘She was only seventeen.’

  Seventeen, he thought.

  ‘That’s pretty.’ Samira peered at the screen. ‘That’s the crime scene?’

  The image showed the reservoir, shrouded in mist, black branches against haloed clouds, raindrops teetering on twigs.

  He clicked it to close.

  Samira was eyeing the old brown leather camera case.

  ‘You got that all developed and scanned since you came back?’

  ‘It doesn’t take long if you know what you’re doing,’ he said.

  ‘Not bad for a nancy boy,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not a nancy boy.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Well, if one of your pictures shows us who strangled the poor cow, then you get two biscuits, I reckon. Chocolate
ones, even.’

  He smiled. ‘Any more on the Logan case?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘First the lab boys said it was an unusual bullet – 214 grain, the boys said. So they were looking for a different kind of weapon, at least a point 52. And look what they found.’

  She handed him a photograph.

  ‘It was in one of the factory bins,’ she said. ‘Carefully buried, but not carefully enough. It’s a duelling pistol, apparently. The boss said these gangsters are sourcing their weaponry from funny places these days. He blames the Russian mafia.’ She touched his shoulder and then was gone.

  He looked at the photograph. He looked at the number on his mobile phone.

  He pressed Call.

  ‘Mrs Logan. It’s Matt Novak.’

  ‘Have you found him?’ Her voice was hoarse with hope. With fear.

  ‘No, not yet.’ He hesitated. ‘I just wanted to ask you. This missing gun of your husband’s – can you describe it?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘It’s like its twin. It’s just here, wait a minute, I’ll get the box, lovely box, mahogany, he was as pleased with the box as the guns, I think. Here we are, well, it’s silvery colour, very ornate wooden handle thing …’

  He looked at the image in front of him. A steel duelling pistol with an ornate wooden handle.

  ‘On the metal bit, there are sort of flowers,’ she was saying, ‘a rose, maybe two, you can see the thorns …’

  He looked at the photo in front of him. The barrel of the gun showed two roses, their stems entwined.

  ‘Deane and Sons, London Bridge,’ she was saying. ‘That’s the maker.’

  Deane and Sons, London Bridge, he read.

  ‘Any reason?’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘No. Just to be sure. In case it turns up.’

  ‘OK.’ There was a silence. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For earlier. I’m rather on my own with this.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Well, I’d better go. Dinner to cook. Although just for one person …’ her voice tailed away.

  ‘We’ll keep you posted, Mrs Logan,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Another hesitation. ‘Well, goodbye, then.’

  He stared at the photograph on his screen. A silver duelling pistol, used for a drug-related shooting on an industrial estate in Yeadon. Its pair now in a mahogany box in the well-kept respectable home of a missing semi-retired solicitor.