The Backs (2013)

by Bruce, Alison

  Andie had become the measure of one week to the next. It wasn’t love. But it was a little bit of hope.

  It had worked for both of them, until the week she didn’t come. She’d sent a message: ‘Sorry, I’ve given up.’ He’d never been to her shared house, but knew where she lived. She wouldn’t open the door, but one evening he spied her through a chink in the curtains, and he knew what I’ve given up might have meant.

  Paul Marshall. Depraved Paul Marshall.

  There had been a time with Mary when they’d played rough. Merely played rough.

  But he’d already seen what Marshall had done to Becca. And now he’d seen it done to Andie. Where did cruelty like that end?

  Jackson had slept on that thought, and he began to wonder whether that wasn’t all. What if Marshall had come back and actually killed Becca? What if Marshall was the reason for Jackson’s own seven years in jail? Marshall had to know what they’d all suffered.

  Jackson shared none of these things with Drew, however. Instead he’d just explained that going to the police now wouldn’t be an option. Drew and Karen were in a mess of their own, but Drew seemed to understand what Jackson needed too.

  ‘I’ll leave the spare shop key. Once the police have finished searching the building and it’s empty, go in and you can stay upstairs. As soon as I can, I’ll drive you somewhere out of town.’

  But Jackson had arrived too soon. Karen was still in the building, and a car he didn’t recognize was parked close to hers. He suspected the police at once. He waited out of sight for a minute, then decided to let himself into the downstairs shop. Partly to hide, but partly to slip up the internal stairs and find out who exactly was there.

  Getting into the shop was fine, opening the internal door took longer, and in the end he found a screwdriver and encouraged it. He heard the voices the second he stepped on to the bottom step of the stairs. By the time he’d crept to the top, he understood exactly what every word meant.

  Did you know all along that he wasn’t the killer?

  With Marshall he’d wanted to hear the truth, to decide at that moment whether he had the will to kill him. But it hadn’t reached that point before the wire had severed Marshall’s neck. In fact, Jackson still couldn’t decide whether Marshall’s death had punished him sufficiently or let him off. With Karen Dalton there was now no such debate.

  She had to die.

  Gully and Wilkes pulled up on the pavement outside KADO Employment. It had been closed only for a few hours, yet the signs of a failed business were already evident. Lights off. Post lying on the mat.

  ‘No sign of forced entry at the front of the property,’ Gully reported back.

  Kelly cupped her hands to the glass. ‘The internal door’s been forced, Sue, like the witness thought.’

  ‘We’re checking the rear now.’

  A Lexus was still parked near the bottom of the fire escape.

  Wilkes ran the PNC check. ‘Belongs to Karen Dalton.’

  Gully checked the ground-floor back door. Also secure.

  Kelly meanwhile had already mounted the fire escape. She still hovered near the bottom, waiting for Gully to join her. Together they began climbing it.

  ‘We shouldn’t be doing it this way,’ Sue whispered.

  ‘And lose them when they shoot out through the front of the shop?’

  ‘That’s why we need backup.’

  Kelly now stood close to the top.

  ‘Can you hear anything?’ Gully asked.

  She made her decision then. If it was Greg Jackson in there, he was potentially dangerous. She radioed for support, then looked at Kelly. Wait for me, she mouthed. Halfway up, Kelly raised a finger. ‘I can hear him now, he’s shouting.’

  ‘At her?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Gully reached the top, too, then stood back from the door and shouted, ‘This is the police. Please open the door.’

  The words had barely left her mouth when the door flew open wide, and Greg Jackson came tanking out.

  Goodhew raised the fence post to smash his way in through a window at the side of the house. He scrambled into the room beyond, pulling his way past the shards of glass still in the frame. He was aware of his clothes snagging, but didn’t slow down.

  Dan’s voice was clear. ‘Let it go, Jane,’ he was shouting.

  Three strides across the room and Goodhew was in the hallway, where wooden debris littered the carpet. Above him the run of balusters had collapsed, and Jane hung clinging to a newel post as Dan struggled to prise her away.

  ‘Stop!’ Goodhew yelled. ‘Let her go, Dan.’

  Dan Osborne had heard, but his only response was a volley of swift punches to her head. She let go, then. There was no time to reach her. As the post slipped from her grasp, Dan kicked her in the legs, and Goodhew saw her fall.

  He lunged forward, clumsily snatching for her.

  He collapsed under her weight, then was stunned by the collision with the floor as they both crashed on to it. Jane landed awkwardly and he heard the unmistakable sound of a snapping bone.

  He groaned, trying to move, but he was still pinned under her. ‘Jane?’ She lay very still.

  On the floor above them a sash window slid up, and from outside he heard DC Young shouting, ‘The building is surrounded. Open the door now.’

  Then from another direction he heard more shouting, a crash, a scuffle. Silence.

  Goodhew again tried to move his arm. ‘Shhh, Gary, keep still,’ Jane whispered. ‘They’ve caught him. You mustn’t move. Just in case.’

  ‘In case what?’

  ‘Spinal damage.’

  ‘You think you’ve hurt your back?’

  ‘No, your back. I had a better landing than I might have. I’m just trying to stop you moving.’

  ‘Clever.’

  ‘Smaller but smarter, you know. They’re coming in to get us.’

  ‘Just so you know, your card’s still in my pocket.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Jane hurt. Everything hurt: physical, emotional, everything. And she felt it totally. She started to cry but the tears felt good. Really good.

  Jackson’s last few seconds of freedom were a blur. He hit the external door hard, bursting out on to the metal platform at the top of the fire escape – and cannoning directly into two female officers. One stumbled; the other crashed aside through the corroded handrail.

  But his path was clear. He headed further down the steps, half running, half tumbling. He had made it as far as the end of the parking space before he spotted the figure of a man.

  Kincaide had returned.

  Jackson’s legs became leaden, moving slowly as Kincaide dashed from his car. The detective’s body hit his, felling him before he’d even finished turning to run the other way.

  Jackson’s resistance was now minimal. He was spent.

  He heard himself howling like an animal. ‘You did this to me, you bastard. You and her.’ He tried to point towards Karen, but his hands were already hauled behind him as the cuffs were snapped into place. Kincaide read him his rights, then stuffed him into the back of his car.

  Kincaide then began speaking on the radio, while Jackson looked back out at what he’d just done.

  The PC knelt beside her fallen colleague, and the sirens grew closer.

  ‘Tell her what you did, Kincaide,’ Jackson shouted. But his words were lost behind the glass. There was no chance she would hear him now.

  It took a while to manoeuvre Goodhew on to the spinal-injury board. They’d immobilized his head and neck, so for a while his only view had been up at the newel post leaning over the edge of the landing above him. He realized all the paramedic’s efforts would be wasted if it now fell down and killed him.

  Gas and air was great. The paramedic was great, too – a big Geordie guy named Ian who’d promised to report on Marks’s every move, only on the condition that Goodhew kept his head totally still.

  ‘What’s he doing now?’ Gary asked.

  ‘S
ame thing.’

  ‘Pacing?’

  ‘Aye, talking on his phone and pacing.’

  ‘Find out, will you?’

  ‘I can’t leave you on your own. Whatever’s keeping him out there must be major, though, or I’m guessing he’d already be in here.’

  ‘If it was that big, he’d have gone.’

  ‘No, he’s injured, too.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Your fella went for him. He’s one of those guys they couldn’t pin down without a fight. We’re ready to load you up now. Your boss is going in the ambulance alongside you, buddy. We patched him up but he insisted on staying with you.’

  Ian saw Goodhew wince, and offered him the gas and air again.

  ‘No, I want to talk to my DI.’

  They moved him into the ambulance first, where he had to ask Marks to come closer. Marks leant over till his face filled the centre of Goodhew’s field of vision. His superior’s colour had drained to grey.

  ‘Who died, sir?’

  ‘Karen Dalton. They’ve just recovered her body. Jackson strangled her.’

  ‘There’s someone else, too. I can see it on your face.’

  Marks didn’t answer immediately. The engine note changed, and Ian intervened. ‘I’ll need you to strap yourself in now, sir. We’re about to move.’ Marks retreated from view, and he still didn’t reply.

  Goodhew stared up at the over-lit ceiling. ‘Sir, how will it help me to hear about it tomorrow or the next day?’

  ‘Gully and Wilkes attended a suspect incident. It turned out to be Jackson.’

  Goodhew felt his world tilt.

  ‘She fell, Gary.’ Marks took a deep breath.

  Goodhew closed his eyes and waited for the next words to hit.

  ‘Kelly fell from a fire escape. It broke her neck, so excuse us if we’re now taking every precaution with yours.’

  Goodhew had stopped listening at the words. She fell, Gary. He didn’t speak until he was sure he could manage to control his voice. ‘How’s Sue?’

  ‘Shocked – but she’ll be OK.’

  Goodhew asked Ian for more gas and air then, and used it to push his thoughts back to a safer distance.

  Good night, Kelly, he whispered as the drugs took hold.

  EPILOGUE

  Two weeks earlier, some lorries had pulled on to Parker’s Piece and, over the next few days, the winter ice rink began taking shape. So autumn had gone and Christmas approached.

  Three months had slipped past him. He corrected the thought. He’d actually turned away from all but a few people for those three months. He’d watched the large marquees being erected over those several days, passing close by them as he walked twice daily between his flat and Parkside swimming pool.

  Then this morning he’d stood at his flat window and watched the first of the skaters trying out the ice. He’d phoned his grandmother. ‘Would you like coffee at the ice rink?’

  She arrived within twenty minutes and didn’t want coffee at all; apparently, for her, only hot chocolate or alcohol went well with winter sports. She wore a blue Fair Isle jumper covered in white dots and snowflakes. Goodhew wore a thick black jacket, and stuck with coffee. If anyone was judging by outward appearances alone, it might be hard to see how they were related.

  ‘Have you decided anything yet?’ she asked.

  ‘I think so.’ He pulled an envelope from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of him.

  ‘That’s not the same as knowing so.’ She arched one eyebrow. ‘Be careful, Gary.’

  ‘Do you think I’ll regret it, then?’

  As she turned her face to the window, he did the same, and they both looked across at Parkside station. He wondered if she saw the same thing. ‘You were just starting secondary school when you said, “I’m going to be a detective one day.” ’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Do you know why you said that?’

  ‘No.’ He expected her to tell him more, but she said nothing and in the end it was he who spoke. ‘I remember feeling like it was the only thing I’d ever wanted to be.’

  ‘And it has remained the only thing, until now. So you need to be sure.’

  He nodded but reached for the envelope. He’d spent hours on the letter, constructing the sentences with carefully chosen words. Saying enough but never too much. Then, in the end, deleting all but the bare facts.

  He told himself that he wouldn’t have spent so long over something that wasn’t the letter he needed to write. ‘I have to see Marks next.’

  She just nodded, but hugged him tighter than usual before he left. And, as he crossed towards the police station, he felt sure she continued to watch him, and he gripped the envelope tighter still.

  As he pushed open the front door, he clearly remembered the last time. The heat of that day then, and the way he’d wished it to end. He could see that the foyer hadn’t changed, but he’d been away long enough to properly notice its tired appearance now: the scuffed walls and dog-eared notices, the clock that ran five minutes slow and the ceiling tiles that looked yellowed even without cigarette smoke to stain them.

  Sergeant Norris glanced up from the front desk, smiled, then turned away. Norris wouldn’t be the only one who wouldn’t know what to say but, luckily, he saw no one else between then and his meeting with Marks.

  The door stood open and he saw Marks had positioned a second chair, facing him, at the end of his desk, but without the desk standing directly between them. ‘Come in, Gary. Shut the door.’

  Marks had been a constant at his bedside for the first twenty-four hours after the operation. He’d insisted on being present as the doctors had explained how close Goodhew had come to paralysis. He’d returned during the following weeks, too, keeping Goodhew up to date with developments at work.

  Most were forensics related to Greg Jackson or Dan Osborne. First, the fact that the tying wire recovered from Jackson’s parents’ house proved to be a match for the wire that had bound Paul Marshall. Then proof, a few days later, that Mary Osborne had fought hard, two loose hairs having been snagged in a detached fingernail that had survived burial. DNA identified them as Dan Osborne’s.

  Goodhew appreciated these visits though he was sure that some of the details had failed to penetrate his painkiller-addled thoughts. Eventually he realized that Marks needed to talk, whether or not Goodhew actually listened.

  Despite that weird familiarity that had persisted until his eventual discharge from hospital, a strange formality now hung in the air. Goodhew could feel it, but didn’t know whether he’d triggered it himself or whether he sensed it coming from Marks. He held on to the envelope, making sure that his hand obscured the addressee’s name until he was ready.

  He’d arranged this appointment but could tell that Marks needed to speak first. His boss’s gaze fell on the envelope, then, as though he’d already guessed its contents, he looked back up at Goodhew. ‘I’ve resigned,’ he said. ‘Retired, actually.’

  ‘You shouldn’t.’

  ‘It’s done.’ His superior’s forearm rested on the desk; now he flattened his hand and spread the palm out on to the surface. His fingertips stroked a few inches of the surface, as though this was to be the last time; as though he was leaving right now. ‘I’ve agreed to stay for six months. It’s longer than I wanted.’

  Goodhew looked away, didn’t speak.

  ‘My judgement became compromised, Gary.’

  Goodhew now understood what Marks had really been saying throughout those hospital visits. I’m sorry . . . I made mistakes . . . I can’t take them back. Goodhew shook his head. ‘I understand why you think so, sir, but I disagree.’

  ‘Prison made Jackson a killer.’

  ‘And how is that your mistake? Someone else tampered with the evidence.’

  ‘Marshall died. Karen Dalton died.’

  Goodhew was glad that Kelly’s name wasn’t mentioned in the same breath.

  Marks waited a few seconds, then spoke as though it was a fresh con
versation. ‘None of us could have predicted Kelly’s death, Gary.’

  Goodhew added a ‘but’ to the end of that sentence, and he was sure Marks had done the same. He didn’t comment, however; just handed over his envelope. Marks opened it and read silently, at one point giving a small nod. ‘There’s a right time for you to resign, Gary. It’s certainly not now.’

  ‘And I could say the same.’ Goodhew drew a breath, as now wasn’t the moment to leave things unsaid. ‘There’s nothing that has happened that’s altered the respect I have for you, sir.’

  The DI’s expression softened for a moment. ‘Gary, I didn’t even know you were familiar with the word.’ His smile faded. ‘This is the right choice for me – for the right reasons.’

  ‘But there are more reasons why you shouldn’t.’

  ‘No, Gary, there are more reasons why you shouldn’t. One day there will be a right moment, but it’s not now. Not under a cloud. There’s more for you yet, Gary.’ Instead of handing back the letter, he tucked it into the top drawer of his desk. ‘You’re not due back yet, so pass your medical first. We’ll discuss it then. OK?’

  Goodhew nodded. ‘OK, then,’ he agreed.

  ‘One more thing?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘See Gully before you leave the building.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I was going to anyway.’

  Gully was sitting alone in the room. He glanced at Kelly’s desk, which had a new-occupant look of order. It clearly belonged to someone else now. Sue spoke without turning around. ‘Please tell me you asked Marks why the hell he’s promoted Kincaide.’

  ‘DS Kincaide doesn’t sound good to you?’

  ‘Right up there with Smoking’s medicinal and Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.’ She spun her chair round slowly. ‘You know, I would never have forgiven you if you hadn’t stopped by to see me.’

  ‘Marks told me I had to,’ he teased.

  ‘And you always do what he tells you, eh? You know he’s leaving?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Are you going to sit down or what, Gary?’

  ‘We could go out for coffee?’

  She glanced towards the window, then shook her head. ‘No, there’s too much Christmas out there.’

  ‘Not in the mood?’