The Crooked Beat

by Nick Quantrill

  ‘Where are you heading for?’ Coleman said to me.

  I thought about it for a moment. ‘The office.’ It was too early for Queens and I didn’t want to go back to my flat. Not yet.

  ‘Sure?’

  I said I was. We fell into silence and I stared out of the window as it started to rain. I didn’t look as we passed Hull Prison. I didn’t want to think about Dave Johnson. I glanced at the docks, knowing the industry was dying, desperately needing the green technology investment to accelerate. The old and the new were rubbing up against each other. It was my Hull in a nutshell.

  ‘It was a clever move, Joe. I’ll give you that,’ Coleman said. ‘So far as I can tell from my colleagues, you took a day trip to Bruges as a foot passenger. There’s no trace of anything untoward other than my lingering suspicion you’re not really a city-break type of person. Sound about right?’

  ‘No idea what you’re talking about.’

  Coleman indicated and pulled out to overtake a foreign lorry. ‘Can you imagine my colleagues' surprise when they discovered the cigarettes in George Sutherland’s van?’

  ‘Must be pleasing to have shut off a supply line?’

  ‘Without doubt. Sounds like they’ve got some people in Belgium in their sights now.’

  ‘Seems like a result to me.’

  We pulled up at the traffic lights on Myton Bridge. Coleman spoke. ‘My bet, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that Sutherland put pressure on you to drive that van over, but you weren’t so keen.’ He paused for a moment. ‘You engineered a fight and were escorted off the ferry by their security staff. That would, for argument’s sake, mean you couldn’t be anywhere near the van when it came to driving it off the ferry. You didn’t drive it on, so you would simply deny any knowledge of it. You were a regular foot passenger travelling alone who got into a disagreement at the bar.’

  I smiled. ‘No comment.’ I always knew Carl Palmer’s temper was going to be his downfall. Starting a fight with him on the ferry and gambling on being held overnight by the authorities had been my only option.

  The lights changed and Coleman headed into the city centre. ‘Are you in trouble with the ferry people?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be welcome in the future.’

  ‘I’d say that was a small price to pay. Turns out a guy with Customs received some intelligence and acted upon it. Imagine that?’

  I was pleased Hill had sorted it out. If he and Terry Gillespie kept their cool, they’d be fine. ‘Have you spoken with Sutherland yet?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll get my chance with him soon enough. He’s safely under arrest.’

  It was all over. ‘Did you pick up Carl Palmer?’ He’d also been escorted off the ferry when it had docked.

  Coleman shook his head. ‘We’ll find him when we’re ready. He won’t be far away. I’ve spoken with Reg Holborn’s neighbour. I reckon he’ll pick him out of a line-up.’

  If Palmer had any sense, he’d talk. He didn’t really owe Sutherland anything. He was in deep trouble otherwise. Coleman would soon have enough to bring charges for Holborn’s murder. There was no point in Palmer taking the full blame for it. It would probably be enough for Coleman to seal his promotion, too.

  Coleman spoke. ‘I’ll have to ring Holborn’s son, too.’

  I agreed. I hadn’t enjoyed speaking with him, but he was going to have to be prepared for what was coming. It would be embarrassing for him on a professional level, but that would be the least of his considerations.

  ‘What about Dave Johnson?’ I asked him.

  ‘He’s continuing to help us with our inquiries, but don’t be thinking I like it any more than you do.’

  There was nothing I could say to that. The man responsible for my wife’s death would no doubt be leaving prison earlier than he expected in return for the co-operation he’d given. And I’d helped to make it happen. But Niall and Connor were going to be ok. That was the main thing.

  Coleman interrupted my thinking. ‘Alan Palmer walked into the station earlier this morning and confessed to his part in Andrew Bancroft’s murder.’

  ‘Poor bastard,’ I found myself saying. ‘It ruined his life.’

  ‘Working for people like Salford often does.’

  I said nothing. I knew that was the essential difference between us. Years of police work had hardened Coleman. I was trying to see the good in a man who’d spent his life working as an enforcer for an organised criminal.

  ‘Palmer reckons it was Salford who carried out the murder. All he did was drive Bancroft to the site.’

  I asked Coleman if he’d spoken to Andrew Bancroft’s mother yet.

  He nodded. ‘She didn’t take it particularly well.’

  ‘She wants to bury her son. That’s all.’

  ‘I know she does.’

  We pulled up outside the office on High Street. Coleman switched the engine off. We both stared at the building.

  ‘What about Don and Sarah, then?’ he said.

  ‘It’s history.’ It was the way it had to be. I’d had plenty of time to think about it during the ferry crossings. I could try to forgive and forget with Don, but I knew I’d fail. Our friendship, or whatever it had been, was over. Everything about him had been exposed and there was nothing I could do about that. It was for Sarah to decide what happened next between them. We couldn’t be as close as we’d once been. Too much had happened.

  ‘You should go into business for yourself,’ Coleman said. ‘Apart from being too clever for your own good, it’s what you do.’ He smiled. ‘I suppose that’s meant to be a compliment.’

  I opened the car door, ready to leave. ‘I put the photos of Andrew Bancroft in the post to you. I don’t want them.’ I had no need for them. Roger Millfield, Alan Palmer, George Sutherland. They’d all been complicit in some way. Even Don had. Bancroft’s brother had known all along and left his mother with the false hope that her other son might walk back in through the door one day. It broke my heart.

  Coleman was right, though. I was good at my job, but it scared me, too. Trouble had a way of finding me and I seemed to welcome it with open arms. It was what I did and I was unable to fight it. It was me and I had to carry the weight of my own bad decisions and culpability with me. Coleman had said I was a lone wolf. He was probably right. I closed the car door behind me and stared at what had once been my place of work. Truth was, I had no idea what was next.

  About the Author

  Nick Quantrill was born and raised in Hull, an isolated industrial city in East Yorkshire. From a young age, Nick has always had a fascination with crime novels, starting young by annoying the local librarians for Famous Five novels.

  Never realising he could be a writer, Nick spent most of his twenties shouting and bawling his way around the Sunday League football pitches of the city, learning the hard way and meeting an impressive array of characters. With a handful of trophies and permanently damaged ankles to show for his troubles, football was swapped for education, spending the next six years studying of a degree in Social Policy. Approaching now or never time, Nick started writing crime stories set in and around his home city. Instead of just throwing them in a drawer and not letting anyone read them, the stories were made available for free on the Internet, and after winning the HarperCollins ‘Crime Tour’ short story competition in 2006, he started to build a readership.

  Fast forward a couple of years and after much hard work, a few false starts and countless short stories, Nick completed ‘Broken Dreams.’ Focusing on Hull’s past and future; the novel looks at the death of the city’s fishing industry and explores the problem of how the city can build a new future for itself. ‘Broken Dreams’ also introduces us to Nick’s lead character; rugby league player turned Private Investigator, Joe Geraghty, co-owner of a small detective agency. Nick’s stories are both entertaining and thought provoking, and although the settings may be local to him, the ideas and issues resonate on a much wider basis.

  When not writing fiction, Nick
contributes reviews and essays to a variety of football and music websites. He lives in Hull with his wife, cat and the constant fear Hull City AFC will let him down.

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