Before bothering the owner though, I pick up the phone to speak with the manager of the fast food restaurant. ‘Hi, my name’s Detective Sergeant Maguire. I’m working with the Metropolitan Police service. Who am I speaking to?’
‘Reg Atkinson.’
‘Mr Atkinson, is Keenan Palmer, your server, working today?’
‘Nah, he’s gone.’
‘Could you tell me when you are expecting him for his next shift?’
‘You’re ’avin’ a bubble,’ he barks.
‘No, sir, I’m not laughing. I’m enquiring in relation to an incident that occurred—’
‘With respect, detective, I doubt I’ll ever see Keenan in here again after the scene he caused, frightening my staff, scaring off my customers, and leaving me with several hundred pounds worth of damaged property,’ he spits. ‘I’m due on holiday tomorrow and now I’ve gotta contend with the mess that gobshite’s left me with. Have you any idea of the destruction he’s caused my business? Nah, I didn’t think so. If you see him tell him I want nothing more to do with him and to forget his wages this month. In fact, he owes me.’
Before I can reply to tell him that’s not my job and to warn him his language might be deemed threatening, the line goes dead.
From what Mr Atkinson said it seems Keenan has a temper, though that doesn’t necessarily indicate a propensity to violence. But I will bring Pierce with me to the address he gave us the night uniform took his statement. I’ve got to speak to him. I need to know if he recognises the photograph of the ticketed car once I show it to him on my iPad. If it’s the same vehicle he reported speeding off seconds after Steven was fatally stabbed, I can action a warrant to arrest the driver and bring him into the station for questioning. Sometimes a forceful approach works better at getting people to talk.
SINEAD
Newport, Wales
My doctor believes that the sun visor almost knocked me delirious and saved my life. Had I not pulled it down, my head would have smashed through the windscreen. I’ve been told to count myself lucky, to be grateful that the airbags were activated. Though I feel anything but charmed because the moment my cortisol levels evened out the throbbing headache took hold and the pulsing stabbing sensation in my neck grew stronger, which is why Aeron frogmarched me to the surgery and demanded I be given an emergency appointment with my GP. It takes two co-codamol and two Ibuprofen to ease me out of bed. My stomach churns and cramps up when the pills kick in.
According to the mechanical report from the garage the vehicle repairs will cost £1800. The insurance company don’t want to pay out and because the third party cannot be located using the three digits of the number plate the ex-BT van driver recalled to the police, they’ve registered the accident as ‘collision by uninsured driver’. Meaning I have no choice but to sign the car over to the financers and accept the GAP cover to pay off the remaining balance. It appears the car is worth more to them in scrap value.
Aeron offered to take the day off work, considering my neck is still suffering the stiff painful aftershock of whiplash, the bridge of my nose is swollen, and my forehead is bruised, but I begged him to go. We’re already going to be one income short this month and there’s not an awful lot he can help me with. I’m perfectly capable of making myself a cup of tea or a sandwich, washing a few dishes, and getting the children to school.
What I can’t seem to do without though is the constant worry and fear, the continued checking of closed windows and doors after locking them and concerning myself with the possibility that whoever wanted me dead knows where I live and is outside now waiting for me to leave the safety of the house, prepared to enact his final twisted plot for revenge. Though who he is, and why he wants to hurt me I do not know.
We bought the detached property three years ago. At the time we liked the idea of being slightly secluded, having privacy. But now every sound is heightened as I sit alone on the bottom step of the staircase staring at the front door, waiting for the postman, suspicious of anyone nearing the house in case they’re the person who’s come after me.
I jump at the sight of car headlights through the glass: roaming the street or doing a three-sixty?
I’m too paranoid to venture next door to drop off the parcel that’s been left beside the mat. The Amazon courier didn’t want to venture up the path at the sight of our detached neighbour’s large, soppy, fluffball of a dog, Skipper.
I leave for the school run early so I can find a parking space within a mile of the building. I venture there on autopilot, driving three miles out of my way to avoid the country road where the incident occurred. I have already set up an online account to do my next shop via home delivery so I don’t have to divert to the supermarket when we run out of bread.
I’ve never been frightened of anything or anyone before. This new version of me is humiliating, I feel frustrated, and if I don’t get a grip on it soon it’ll become increasingly harder to return to my customary veneer.
Being behind the wheel of the car is the most anxiety-inducing action I’m forced to perform, four times daily. After my panic attack yesterday, I was inclined to consider phoning for a taxi. But knew it wouldn’t have made much difference. I’d still be seated at the front of a moving car.
It was warm. The sun had reappeared for a few hours. Aeron suggested we head out for an hour to escape the events of recent days. We chose the farm. I spent two hours lying on a bench with my eyes closed to relax the muscles surrounding my neck and shoulders and to stem the nausea from the opiates I’d consumed. We were returning home when it happened. The last of the sunlight burst through the thick clouds overhead as we neared the junction. I recognised the blond man instantly, but I froze so fast I couldn’t form the words to alert my husband. The red Audi tailed us for three miles, leaving us at the cut-off just before the road split in four at the roundabout. He didn’t see us home. He doesn’t know exactly where I live. But he knows which direction Aeron took. And from that small piece of information I know it won’t take a lot for him to learn where Aeron’s car is registered, giving him our address. I’ve done it myself using various websites with piss-easy online tools using just the person’s full name.
I could have pre-warned Aeron. I could have confided my concerns to the police. I should have been honest to everyone right from the start. But I’ve lied now. And it’s harder for me to gain the courage to tell the truth as each day passes. But although they’re oblivious to the danger we’re all in, I will fight to my death to protect my family, whatever the cost.
I hurry from the car on high alert. One of the mums at the school moves towards me the moment my feet hit the pavement, but I pretend I haven’t seen her and rush across the school yard to grab Mai, only realising a minute later that perhaps she was concerned for me, the state of my face, and wanted to ask if I was alright. ‘What did you do today, honey?’ I say, hoping Mai can’t hear the false note in my voice.
‘We learned all about the wildlife in the valleys.’
‘Oh, great. What did you have for lunch?’ I say, quickening our pace.
Outside the entrance to his classroom I spot Brandon stood beside his teacher, glancing around the playground for us. I raise my arm in a wave and as I turn, robotically to ensure I don’t further injure my neck, I spot the red Audi in my peripheral and practically drag Mai towards her brother. She gives me a worried look and I realise her shoe has fallen off. ‘Stay there.’ I run back to collect it from the ground.
Brandon’s teacher wears a look of sympathy at my damaged face as I hurry towards Mai to give her the shoe. ‘Put it on quick.’ My hand trembles as I scramble to assist her.
‘Why, we got to go somewhere?’
I nod and dare a glance over my shoulder in the direction of the car, feeling the man’s hot gaze prickling the back of my head only to discover it’s gone. There are several cars parked opposite the school, a huge van is taking its time to crawl between them, and two vehicles deposited half-assed on the kerb by the gate. None of
them red. It’s as though he’d never been there at all.
I don’t remember the drive home. My hands are clenched tight round the steering wheel, my foot juddering on the accelerator due to the tremor in my leg, intent on getting back to the house as quickly and safely as possible.
‘What’s for dinner?’ says Mai from the back of the car.
Brandon looks up and I catch his face in the rear-view mirror. ‘Yeah, I’m starving.’
I was supposed to place an online food order while they were in school. At the lights I turn off to the supermarket. Inside I feel as though I’m being watched. I stare at the cashier and glance anxiously at a man stood behind us while I purchase cigarettes from the front counter. He’s tapping his foot repeatedly and doesn’t bother to disguise the occasional sigh while I fumble inside my purse for change. Glad to be out of there, feeling hot and dizzy, I decide to travel further out of our way to reach home.
‘Why are we taking this road?’ says Mai, curious and rarely content unless she has an answer for everything.
‘It’s easier.’ It’s not.
The detour adds an extra two miles onto our journey; at this rate, Aeron’s car is going to need replenishing with fuel twice a week. But I’m not comfortable driving past the Toby Carvery, where the lower end of the winding road that leads through Christchurch reminds me of the unfortunate encounter of three days prior.
I hurry the children from the car and into the house. Brandon’s rucksack keeps slipping from his shoulders, the hardback superhero reading books he keeps forgetting to return to the library and the clang of the tin pencil case inside it smacking against the backs of his legs, propelling him forward. Mai charges past me and straight for the fridge as I struggle through the door carrying the eggs as though they’re the crown jewels.
Once I’ve stuffed the shopping into the cupboards and boiled the kettle, I open the back door to air the stuffy house.
Gillian has a lot of visitors. Her grandchildren left in another new E-class Mercedes moments before I forced my legs from the house to the car to collect the children from school earlier. My suspicion as to their regular visit to their grandmother is proven when I catch her smoking a roll up at the back door that smells distinctly like cannabis. The smoke wafts across the patio and hits me like a sharp pointed memory. I close the door and open the windows instead at the front of the house, catching another glimpse of the cul-de-sac. A Subaru Impreza rattles as the driver backs up to the end of the gravel lane. A man jumps out and disappears into the tall hedgerows set several feet back from the ten-foot high fence separating the smog of exhaust fumes of the dual carriageway from our residences. From his stance I can tell he’s peeing. With a tut of irritation my hand falls from the blind as our neighbour, Tulip, arrives in his beat-up pile of metal. This time he leaves it after several excruciatingly long minutes of sitting and staring at the steering wheel with the engine running. When he eventually vacates the vehicle, he retrieves from the boot a huge clock and a fat suitcase that looks about ready to burst. I watch him struggle, shoulder lopsided as he carries the heavy items towards the house he shares with his mother.
It’s not until he edges closer that I realise he’s staring at the house. Or more specifically me, watching him through the levered blinds.
HONOUR
Croydon, London
It’s early evening when I arrive home. The cold dark autumn is beginning to seep through my bones. Mum used to tell me and my sister our sensitivity to the cold was caused by our warm Caribbean blood. I don’t think growing up in a home heated to the level of a sauna helped either.
One thing I’m certain I’ll never get used to is the silence as I enter the house. Steven would usually be rushing around upstairs getting dressed to go out to meet his friends, occasionally calling down to ask me where something is or groaning over the fact the one thing he wants to wear hasn’t been ironed. Today the only sound to greet me is the murmur of the overriding thermostat on the boiler. It’s on the blink. Keeps overheating and making a god-awful noise as the fan attempts unsuccessfully to kick in to cool it down. I should turn it off, but the last time I did, it cut out completely and it took the engineer two days to get to us.
Us. The word hits me like a slap to the face. There is no more us. Only me.
I wander down the hallway and shove my handbag onto the kitchen counter. Returning to dump my coat on the hook beside the entryway mirror, I glimpse a shadow edging towards the door. I know who it is before I open it just from the way he stands, slightly off-kilter, a permanent crooked slump caused by a broken ankle when he fell off a swing at the age of six. To fix it the surgeon had to pin it. The pin snapped when he jumped off a climbing frame while it was still healing. They had to remove part of the bone to reattach the hinge. He told me it set a metal detector off in Primark once.
‘Jerome?’
‘Miss Bennet.’
I step back to invite him in. His face crumples as tears pool in his eyes and I reach out and pull him into the warmth, closing the door behind him. ‘I know, I know.’ I feel his coarse hair brush against my chin, his limp arms hovering uncertainly at his sides. I squeeze him tight, feeling his body shuddering against mine.
Consoling him comes naturally. He spent a lot of time here with Steven. I haven’t seen him since he learned of his friend’s death. He wrote a message on Steven’s Facebook profile. The police took the mobile phone Steven had on him that night and I gave them his PlayStation and my laptop to search. They found nothing to suggest Steven’s killer had been threatening him online. That was my biggest worry, that Steven had been bullied by someone from school or a cyber troll through his games console. That their threats had become violent fantasies, the catastrophic consequence being his murder. But that proved doubtful. Besides, Steven was insular when it came to private matters. He would never give out his home address or any identifiable information to a stranger he’d spoken to online.
I usher Jerome into the living room and sit beside him on the sofa.
‘I should have been there,’ he sniffles.
This is the first I’ve heard of it. Natalie was waiting for Leighton. Steven was waiting for Jerome.
‘Why weren’t you?’
He looks up at me as though he’s momentarily forgotten I am here, listening to him voice his thoughts aloud.
‘Ya know my mum’s got MS, innit. She had a relapse. I couldn’t leave her.’
‘He didn’t go inside the restaurant.’
‘What?’
‘Steven. If he was stood on the pavement waiting for you, the police didn’t find any text messages or calls to confirm that. How come you didn’t tell him you weren’t going to be able to meet him?’
‘I had an argument wit my sister. She threw my mobile across the room and the screen shattered. iPhone innit.’
‘Natalie prevented you from telling Steven you couldn’t make it?’ I stand, heart thudding in my chest.
‘Miss Bennet. Tis not like dat. She was late meeting Leighton, innit.’
‘He never showed up either.’
‘Wha—’
Jerome tries to stop me moving towards the door which I hold open, fear gripping its claws around my throat, making it hard to breathe.
The two of them planned his attack. They must have done. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Jerome wrestles my hand from the front doorknob and I spin to face him, shaking with rage. ‘If this had anything to do with you, I swear I’ll—’
‘No! Ya gotta believe me. I didn’t do nuttin. He’s my brethren, innit.’
I lean forward, hands on my knees, waves of panic sweeping over me. ‘Why didn’t Leighton turn up?’
‘He was wit Marcus.’
Then our eyes meet in shared thought. ‘Dis didn’t have nuttin to do wit ’im.’
‘How do you know?’ I stand, holding the wall for support.
‘Cos he had no problem wit Steven.’
‘You’re sure of that, are you? Becaus
e whenever there’s trouble, Marcus is somehow responsible, lurking in the background with an alibi.’
‘Yeah, I know dat. But we can’t prove he orchestrated dat attack.’
‘Won’t, you mean.’
‘What ya sayin’?’
I grab hold of his shoulders and turn him to face me. ‘You can ask around.’ Feeling his budding muscles beneath my fingers, I release him, struck suddenly and powerfully by the realisation he will now outgrow my son as he outlives him.
‘Don’t ya think I’ve already been doin’ dat since da day he got taken?’
‘And you’ve come up empty, I presume?’
‘Word on the street says it had nuttin to do wit Steven.’
‘Someone else was the target, is that what you’re saying?’
He shrugs and flutters his eyes closed, to shut out the awful reality of the situation. Tears fall once more and trail softly down his cheeks.
‘Have you told the police?’
‘No way. I ain’t told dem cos I ain’t no snitch.’
‘I’m not asking you to risk your safety or…’ Your life. ‘But I need to know if whoever stabbed my boy is still out there looking for the individual they were aiming for. And if they are, I want their name.’
I can tell laughter is hard for him now his best friend is no longer around to share a joke with him – oh, how I miss Steven’s cheeky grin – because he doesn’t smile as he barks, ‘What are ya gonna do?’
‘That’s not your concern.’
‘Wit respect, Miss Bennet, it is. Steven was like a brother to me. And ya, yar family. Ya get me?’
Yes, I think. I do. The streets are no place for a straight mum. At least not one without a method of self-protection.
‘Who told you Steven wasn’t meant to have been hurt that night?’
‘Word gets to us tru other gangs, innit.’
I struggle to form a reply. There is a band of steel tightening around my chest, constricting my airway.
I Know You (DI Emma Locke) Page 5