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Bobby nodded.
‘Well, sometimes police ladies have to go and help people. That’s where she is, helping someone.’
Bobby turned to look at me again. He didn’t look convinced, and already I sensed that his parents’ divorce had toughened him up too much for a boy of four. I found myself smiling, though. I could see so much of Laura in him. From the flickers of dimples to his mop of dark hair, stuck up around his crown, and the twinkle of mischief in his eyes.
I winked at him and ruffled his hair. This needed to work, I thought to myself, as much for Bobby as anyone else.
But then I remembered Laura, how she had looked this morning as she threw on her clothes in silhouette, the smell of her warm in my bed, the soft brush of her lips as she’d kissed me goodbye. No, I needed it to work for me, not just for Bobby.
As I thought about Laura, I realised that I needed to start looking for some more work. I’d built up crime contacts in London, people who would look at the stories I was selling, loose tongues in the police stations and hospitals. I was back at the start again, building up an address book, looking out for the angle the local papers might not report. The abductions would end eventually, but we had a mortgage to pay until then. Laura was at a murder. And where there is a murder, there is always a story.
I picked up my phone and dialled her number. After a few rings I heard her voice.
‘I can’t talk about the case,’ she said quickly.
I laughed. ‘Maybe I was calling to hear your voice.’
‘You heard it this morning.’
‘I’m a reporter, Laura. I’ve got to report, and I’ve got a source on the inside.’
‘Sorry, Jack, that ended when you saw me naked. It’s a rule of mine.’
I whistled. ‘Quite a price, but worth every penny.’
I heard a soft giggle, but when she asked about Bobby I knew that I’d had my final answer on the subject.
‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry. The school is new to all the kids. Bobby will be no different.’
‘What are you doing today?’
‘I don’t know. I might have a creep around Blackley, see what I can find. Apparently there’s been a murder.’
‘Jack!’
I laughed. ‘If you won’t tell me anything, I’ll just have to find out myself
‘How long will you be out?’
I sensed the worry in her voice. Bobby needed collecting from school.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back.’
I sensed her relax. ‘Okay, thanks, Jack,’ she said. There was a pause, and then, ‘I’m sorry about all this.’
‘I knew you didn’t do nine-to-five when we met,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it’s good for me. I’ve gone straight to the school run and skipped the dirty nappies.’
She laughed. ‘I love you, Jack.’
‘I’ve always loved you,’ I replied, and then the phone went dead.
I looked down at Bobby, who had been watching me as I spoke. I nudged him lightly on the arm. ‘Come on, soldier. Let’s get you to school.’
And the glow I felt when he smiled at me took me by surprise.
Laura had gone to a quiet corner of the police canteen to answer her phone, but when she ended the call she turned round to see a grinning Pete holding two mugs of coffee. He was keeping her caffeine levels high.
‘That was beautiful,’ he said. ‘I feel all warm inside.’
Laura blushed and grabbed a cup from him. The canteen was small and busy, the tables filled by the extra uniforms, the footsoldiers, drafted in to help with the murder inquiry. The abductions were still the main focus though. There were posters on every wall and on the door, glossy blow-ups of a small business card, a simple image of large hands over a small head, protective, caring. One had been found in the pocket of each abducted child. The press knew about them but had agreed not to report them. In return they got daily updates. Every police officer in Blackley knew about them too, and had been told to keep a lookout. Every time someone was searched, their wallet and pockets were checked. If someone was brought into custody, their property was double-checked.
‘C’mon,’ Pete said. ‘Leave the bacon for these boys. Egan is about to address his generals.’
It felt quiet in the Incident Room when they walked in. Egan had pulled in a few more muscleheads from the proactive team, those officers who liked patrolling the alleys, watching the active criminals; burglars and dealers would be getting an easier time for the next few days. They found some seats at the back of the room, and as Laura sat back in her chair she looked around.
The police station was showing its age. The walls had been painted many times over, the current version of cream uneven and flaking, with large radiators beneath sash windows. The ceiling was high so everything below it looked jumbled, untidy, just a clutter of desks and paper. There was talk of a new station being built on the edge of town, but that was years away yet.
Egan paced at the front of the room and stroked his chin. He looked tense. He had watched Laura and Pete walk in, the last ones to arrive.
Egan turned to address the room, announced his presence with a cough and started with a summary of the case so far: how Jess’s body had been found, the usual list of inquiries. Boyfriends. Money. Stalker. He was a flipchart cop. He had done all the leadership stuff, put pictures of the dead woman on the wall, jotted down suspects and ideas. The others in the room had short attention spans, and Laura could sense their restlessness, as if they knew they wouldn’t get the resources to do the job properly. They had to get lucky, and quickly.
And it might take luck, because crime scenes had already reported back and the forensic sweep was looking slim. There were DNA tests to run, fingerprints to compare, but, for a bloody murder scene like that, nothing stood out yet. No bloody handprints on the walls or the doors, or any footwear marks on the floor. The evidence might be there once everything was looked at, but nothing instant had shown up.
Egan paused to look at Laura. ‘You spoke with the old man. How was he?’
‘Tired and emotional, I suppose. I told him I would call on him later to get a statement. Neighbours confirmed that he was banging on the door not long before the call was made, so we didn’t think we had enough to bring him in this morning.’
‘But what did you think?’
‘I don’t know. He was there, he was upset, but other than that, I’m not sure.’
‘Still no alibi?’
Laura shook her head. ‘None. Just that he was at home, dreaming about her.’
Egan looked eager at that. ‘Eric Randle has to be our target suspect. I want to know everything about him by the end of today. Where he worked, who he knows, where he goes. I want someone to keep an eye on his house. See who goes in and who goes out.’ And then he pointed at Laura and Pete. ‘And you two can go get his statement. Once you leave, he might think that’s it.’
Laura and Pete exchanged glances. It seemed mundane after the pressure of the murder scene.
‘What about Luke King?’ asked Pete. ‘He was in the area and left in the middle of the night.’
‘Make some discreet inquiries,’ answered Egan. ‘That’s your job once you’ve finished with Randle.’
Pete seemed unconvinced. ‘How long do we wait if he realises we’re watching him?’ he asked. ‘There may be the deceased’s DNA on him right now. If we wait, it’ll be gone.’
Egan took a deep breath, looked as if he was trying to control himself.
‘I’m aware of that, but he has no idea that we know about him yet. Let’s just keep an eye on him, see what he does.’
Pete didn’t reply. He just clenched his jaw and stared at Egan.
Laura knew what Egan really meant: that if they got it wrong against a powerful family, only a confession would save them from a shift back into uniform, riding the Saturday night van for six months, fighting drunks.
Egan split everyone up into teams of two, gave them all a task, and then broke up the meeting.
As the room had emptied, Laura watched Pete as he walked past Egan.
And what are you going to be doing, Dermot?’
Egan looked him up and down, and then said curtly, ‘Taking responsibility,’ before he turned and walked out of the room.
When he had left, Laura asked, ‘Do you two have a history?’
A smile played on Pete’s lips for a few seconds. ‘Just flashpoints,’ he said.
He sounded calm, but Laura noticed an angry flush on his cheekbones. ‘You know what it’s like with cops,’ he continued. ‘You think you’ve got trust, but as soon as the shit hits the fan, cops like Egan point the finger like they’ve just seen the end of the fucking rainbow.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘C’mon, I’ll tell you about it another time.’
Laura made a mental note to find out one day. The day was getting long enough without having to spend it dodging bruised egos.
‘But what if he’s right about Luke King?’ she said. ‘Maybe Eric Randle should come first.’
‘Yeah, if he’s right he’ll take his applause. But if he’s wrong he’ll make sure we cop the flack. Just me and the new girl.’
They were turning to walk out of the room together when someone shouted from the back of the room, ‘What’s the old boy’s name again? The one who called it in?’
Laura turned around. Yusuf, a young Asian officer with a soul patch on his chin and thin-rimmed glasses, was sitting in front of a computer screen. ‘Eric Randle,’ she shouted back.
‘In his sixties? Scruffy? Lives on the Ashcroft estate?’
Laura nodded.
‘I might be wrong,’ he continued, looking up now, ‘but I think his name came up in the abduction cases, when the children first started disappearing.’
Laura snapped a look back at Pete. They raised their eyebrows at the same time. This was about to get very interesting.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_d81c8710-e34f-588d-97a2-16fc1af5482b)
Eric Randle lived in a pebble-dashed semi on the Ashcroft estate, a collection of local-authority cul-de-sacs and high privet hedges. It wasn’t Laura’s first visit—she had been given a tour of the Blackley trouble spots on her first day—but this was her first incursion as part of a case.
Pete seemed like he knew it well, and as they did the circuit of the estate Laura started to understand why. The neighbourhood grocer had a red neon sign, but it was cracked and dirty, the windows protected by metal grilles during the day and shutters after it closed. Young girls walked the streets, but they weren’t the carefree teenagers they should have been, with college books tucked under their arms or heading into town to work in chain-stores on a Saturday. These girls pushed prams, their hair pulled back tightly as their fingers glittered with cheap gold, a ring for each finger, the gleam broken only by the orange glow of a cigarette as the smoke swirled around the next generation in the pushchair beneath. Laura didn’t see many smiles, and as Pete drove on she sensed the hostile recognition in their look. They were the police. They were trouble.
‘Seems a strange range of suspects,’ she said.
Pete looked over from his driving. ‘Huh?’
Laura pointed outside the car. ‘The son of a local hotshot or this. I’m getting a feeling already which way it’s going to go.’
‘The kids are ruining this place,’ he said. ‘It used to be okay, twenty years ago.’ He looked over at her. ‘But do you know what? There are some good people here. The older ones, the ones who didn’t have the savings to get out when it turned to shit, scared to go out, scared to stay in.’
Laura had seen these waste estates in London, but they seemed different there. In London they were more like spots of squalor in a vibrant whole, just part of the London jumble. She had been in the north long enough to know that the affluent areas were usually out of sight, often over a hill or two.
But it wasn’t just the housing that gave the estate away for what it was. It was the desolate looks in people’s eyes, the hopelessness, the cold northern winds etched into their pale complexions, the hunched shoulders, their hands pink and raw.
‘Do you know what the worst thing is?’ Pete said. ‘There are some decent kids too, whose parents do their best, but they just get swept up by the rest of the shit and end up with needles in their arms or a pocket full of rocks. By then it’s too late. Just debris, that’s all they are round here.’
Laura looked back out of the window and realised that Pete had described the real poverty she could see. It wasn’t about money or housing. It was about hope. Every face she looked into seemed to hold an acceptance that this was it, this was as good as it was ever going to get. It was no wonder they took shortcuts.
‘Here we go,’ said Pete, and he swung the car into a street of semi-detached houses.
Laura looked at the line of net curtains, at the long, unkempt grass, at the discarded plastic toys on the lawns. There was a dismantled car in one garden, engine parts leaking oil onto the path.
As they got nearer the top of the road, Pete curled his mouth into a snarl.
‘The bastard,’ he said, his teeth gritted. He banged the steering wheel. ‘He’s given us the wrong address.’
Laura peered through the windscreen as she felt her stomach turn over. She thought of the dishevelled old man from the murder scene, upset and scared. Could she have got it so wrong?
As the car came to a stop, she saw that the house was boarded up, covered with graffiti. There was a large splash of white on one corner of the board over the main window where someone had thrown a tin of paint.
‘But I called it in and he checked out,’ she said, her voice suddenly heavy with fatigue. It was still too early for the day to seem so long.
Pete was quiet for a while, but then he started to climb out of the car. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I could have stopped him too, but I didn’t. We’ll take the shit two-handed.’ He nodded towards the house. ‘We might as well take a look now we’re here.’
They walked up the short path together. It was cracked and chipped along the edges. There was also a splash of paint on the floor, obviously where the tin had landed. Pete went to the front door and kicked it.
‘Pretty solid,’ he said.
Laura grabbed his arm. Eric wasn’t enough of a suspect yet to arrest him, Egan had decided that, so she knew it was too early to go in uninvited. ‘Don’t. Let’s just take a look around.’
‘But he’s not living here.’
‘Someone does.’
When Pete looked at her quizzically, she pointed downwards. ‘Look at the lawn.’
He looked at the small patch of green in front of the house, puzzled. It was a neat square with a line of soil around it.
‘It’s been cut,’ Laura said, ‘and there are no weeds in that border. If he doesn’t live here, he must have good neighbours, because someone is looking after it.’
Pete smiled. ‘If you keep on bringing these clever city ways with you, you’ll be my boss soon.’
‘Let’s try round the back, see what we can see.’
Pete followed her as she went, and Laura sensed curtains twitch in the houses across the road. No one came out to speak to them. No coffees around here.
The back garden was similar to the front. Just a small lawn surrounded by empty flowerbeds, maybe only fifteen yards long. The windows at the back were boarded up as well, but they were free of graffiti. Laura looked round when she heard a noise, and she saw Pete had his head in the wheelie bin at the side of the house.
‘Anything unusual?’
