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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Sean Denton
- Sprache: Englisch
The Chasebridge Killer is out; racial tension is rising and the mutilated body of a young Muslim man is found in the stairwell of a tower block in Doncaster. As he gets drawn into the case, Sean Denton's family life and his police job become dangerously entwined. Meanwhile a young woman is trying to piece her life back together, but someone is out there; someone who will never let her forget what she's done.
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Seitenzahl: 430
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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Bones in the Nest
HELEN CADBURY
To Z, the girl on the train, and her dad
Contents
PROLOGUE
O, Allah, help me through the hardship and agony of death
Glass crunches on the road. Pavement hammers up through ankles, knees. On to the grass. Too slippery to get a grip. Jump over a low fence. Playground. Feet whack down and it gives something back, speed, pace. Can hardly breathe. They’re not far behind. Need to get under cover. There’s someone there, by the community centre, moving my way. Don’t go down there. Double back, past the swings. Now there’s another one, crossing Darwin Road. Thick-necked fucker. Need to get to the flats, lose myself.
I’m not even tooled up, nothing, because I promised her I’d stop carrying. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me and I told her, I’m in it for the long haul, girl, I’m going to change up for you. And I meant it. I mean it. Right now the last thing I need is some white boys on my tail. She wasn’t at the library. The text said to come and pick her up. But there was nobody there. Door locked. Where did you go, princess? Saw the flicker of a reflection. Got out of there before a baseball bat whacked on my skull. Heard it crack on the glass. Been running since. There were three of them. The big one with the bat and two others. White boys, bad skin. Maybe smackheads, maybe not. Now there’s two more. My chest’s burning. Need to stop. Door open, corner of the block. Head for it. Head down. Don’t know who they’re with or what their beef is, except my face don’t fit.
Cooler inside. Dark. Bleach on concrete hurts my throat. Grab the handrail and haul myself up the stairs. Something moves. A shape. Two shapes. Turn round and the door shuts below me.
This is it.
CHAPTER ONE
One Week Earlier Doncaster
The marked police car slowed as it turned the corner behind the railway station. A row of terraced houses led away from the fenced-in track. From the passenger seat PC Sean Denton could see two hooded figures, silhouetted beneath a street light. It was hard to tell, but male and under twenty would be his best guess. There was a glimmer of skin as one hand reached out from a pocket into another hand; a split second as the two figures froze and one hooded face peered up at the approaching headlights of the car. Then they were gone.
‘Down there,’ PC Gavin Wentworth put his foot on the accelerator, without changing out of second gear, then slammed the brakes on at the opening of a narrow alleyway.
‘I’m on it,’ Sean said.
He jumped out and ran into the dark. Ahead of him a security light came on and the shadows flooded with colour. He clocked one red and one blue hooded top, one pair of grey tracksuit bottoms and one pair black. A car door slammed behind him, followed by Gav’s footsteps. Sean was gaining on the suspects, but he had to make a choice. One was faster than the other, so he left the slow one for Gav. There was a risk the slower lad would make a swing for him and, for a split second, it was like running through the pages of the training manual: torch in his left hand to shield himself, while he grabbed the back of the red hoodie, twisted the fabric hard round and tucked his leg in front of the runner. The suspect fell sideways, folded under Sean’s arm and went down. Out of the corner of his eye, Sean sensed the other lad look back, see Gavin and sprint off down the alley.
‘Shit.’
He felt like he’d backed the wrong horse, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. His prisoner squirmed face down on the ground, kicking and swearing, as Sean reached for the cuffs.
‘Oi! Calm down, son!’
He tried to grip the boy’s wrists. They were bony and thin. Sean wondered how old he was. The boy turned his head and the hood fell back to reveal sharp cheekbones and dark eyes, which narrowed as they met Sean’s. Then the boy lifted up his head and smacked it face down on the ground.
‘What the hell?’
Sean had the cuffs on him now, but again the boy cracked his forehead against the stone sets of the alleyway.
‘Oh, Jesus! Stop him doing that!’ Gav shouted.
Sean tried to get the suspect up on his feet, but the boy pulled back, twisting and slippery like a fish. His forehead met the ground again and when he lifted it this time, there was blood above one eyebrow. The security light went out and the blood dimmed to a shiny purple in the gloom. Then Gav was there, grabbing the boy’s shoulders, spinning him round. Sean pulled him up from behind, both hands on the cuffed wrists. It was like trying to control a puppet with a life of its own, but together they managed to propel him towards the car.
‘What about the other one?’ Sean said.
‘He’s gone.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ the young lad was saying. ‘You’re not allowed to batter the suspects.’
Sean felt sick.
‘Take no notice,’ Gav said. ‘He’s well known, this little shit. He tries it every time. Don’t you Saleem? Well I think you’ve pushed your luck now. Let’s see if we can have you for resisting arrest.’
At Doncaster Central Police Station, they handed Saleem Asaf over to the custody sergeant and went back to the car. It smelt of overripe apples, sweet and dying in trapped air.
‘Mucky buggers,’ Sean said. His foot found an apple core under the empty chocolate wrappers and it gave way under his heel. ‘How come the day shift never clean the cars out? I’ve got a good mind to dump this lot in someone’s boots.’
Gav belted up and put the car into reverse. Except it wasn’t reverse, it was third. The car leapt forward and juddered as it stalled, inches away from the concrete wall of the police yard.
‘Bollocks,’ Gav said. ‘Why does every car have reverse in a different place?’
‘One of life’s mysteries, Gav.’
‘You’re not wrong there.’
Sean loosened the seat belt that had tightened across his neck.
‘Count to three and start again,’ Gav muttered under his breath and reversed the car, smoothly this time, out of the tight space, avoiding the dented end of a van. He wiped something sticky off the steering wheel with his sleeve and indicated to pull onto the road.
‘Living the dream, Sean, living the fucking dream.’
Sean didn’t reply. He wanted to say it was all right. It’s what he’d signed up for, worked hard for, harder than some when it came to it. He knew he was lucky to have Gav as a partner. There were plenty of officers who took the piss, still made the same jokes they did when he was a Police Community Support Officer, but Gav was all right: a time-served constable with a reputation for being fair, but firm. Sean just wished he didn’t moan so much. It was taking the shine off.
Sean shifted his feet on the mound of thrown-away crap as Gav swung left around Market Place. They parked the car and watched and waited for the next call. This town didn’t sleep and Sean wondered where people found the money. After half an hour a job came in around the corner, two men fighting outside the Ace Bonanza Amusement Arcade. When they arrived, neither assailant wanted to press charges.
‘No worries, he’s my best mate!’ The apparent victim was wiping blood from his nose.
The two men locked together in a hug, but Sean thought they were just as likely to shift back to something uglier.
‘If you say so,’ Gav shrugged. Sean was reaching for a notebook, but Gav shook his head. ‘Let it go, son. Less paperwork.’
A pub called in a handbag theft, so they dropped in to take statements, shouting to be heard above the karaoke. Then they were back in the car, trying not to collide with a woman weaving drunkenly across the road. She turned and flicked two fingers at them, before staggering on to the opposite pavement.
By 11 p.m. they were passing the railway station again. A British Transport Police van was parked up on the forecourt. Sean thought back to the first case he’d covered as a PCSO, and the vulnerable women who’d been befriended on the station platforms and ended up on the game. He wondered what their colleagues in the Transport Police were up to tonight. He hoped for their sake it was nothing more than fare dodgers.
‘What’s the difference between South Yorkshire Police and the BTP?’ Gav said.
Sean shrugged.
‘BTP do longer shifts.’
‘That meant to be funny?’
‘That’s what they say!’ Gav laughed but Sean just shook his head.
As they drove, they looked out for Saleem’s associate and argued back and forth over what the two lads were doing, who was dealing and who was buying. The sky began to lighten. Sean opened the car window to let the clean, damp morning air drive out the stale smell. A blackbird sang a greeting from the skinny tree outside the law courts as Gav pulled into the police yard. It was 6.25 a.m. and their shift was almost over.
‘What are you up to for the next couple of days?’ Gav said as they walked down the corridor of the police station.
‘Not a lot.’ Sean did have a plan for his days off, but he wasn’t ready to share it with Gav. ‘You?’
‘I’ve got a box set to catch up on and the usual domestic drudgery of DIY and sorting out the jungle we laughingly call a garden. Nothing special.’
Gav said goodbye and went off in the direction of the custody suite. Sean finished his paperwork and was handing in his radio, when Gav reappeared.
‘They’ve let him go.’
‘Saleem Asaf?’
‘Aye, nothing on him. Little bastard.’
‘What a waste of time,’ Sean said.
‘There’s something else,’ Gav said. ‘He’s filed an official complaint.’
‘Against me?’
‘That’s right, son. You might be getting a call from Professional Standards.’
‘Should I be worried?’
‘Not necessarily.’
Back in his nan’s kitchen, Sean sank his face into a cup of strong tea. It was eight o’clock in the morning and he needed to sleep.
‘Busy night?’ Maureen put a plate of toast in front of him.
Sean rolled his head to one side to release a crick in his neck from wrestling with the boy.
‘You could say that.’
He chewed on the hot toast and picked up the local newspaper, trying to read the sport on the back page, but his eyes couldn’t focus. He liked to read something every day, to keep up what he’d started at night classes. It’s what his teacher had told him to do: that patient, mild-mannered man, who’d never called him thick or lazy, just gave him ways to see things differently. He put the paper down. It was exhausting sometimes. He would always be dyslexic, however good he became at finding ways around it.
A second piece of toast, and a third, filled his stomach. Sleep was overcoming him. There was something he needed to say to his nan, but it would have to wait.
‘I’d better go up,’ he pushed the plate away.
Maureen reached for the paper and opened it in the centre, hunting for her horoscope. He read the headline on the front page.
‘“Chasebridge Killer … Released?” What’s that about?’ he said ‘Have I missed something?’
‘Hang on, I’m reading my stars: it’s going to be a good week for money, but I need to be careful who I rely on and someone will bring me news about a change. What? Oh.’
Maureen looked over the headline and the short column underneath. Most of the page was taken up with a picture of a dark-haired girl in a school uniform, with a choppy fringe and a sharp chin.
‘I can’t believe they’ve let her out. Flipping nutter.’
Sean leant against the door frame, wanting so badly to go up to bed, but not moving. ‘Who’s that then?’
‘It was while you were still living at your dad’s, not long after your mam died. Here it is: Marilyn Nelson, teenage killer. She pushed a lad of sixteen off the top of the flats. Says here he’d been abused and tortured before she pushed him. Nasty.’
‘I think I remember.’ The sound of a rusty swing and a shape falling. ‘And she’s out?’
‘Says so here. Thought she could be living in Scotland or Devon. Well, that’s not very precise. Served ten years. Doesn’t seem much when his poor mother will never get him back.’
He hesitated, needing to say something to Maureen, but he couldn’t find the words. Someone will bring news about a change. Not yet. It could wait.
Upstairs, he closed the curtains and kicked off his shoes, undid his belt and let his trousers fall. He peeled his shirt off over his head and climbed into the single bed. He set an alarm on his phone and turned his back to the light that was seeping through the pattern of footballs and trophies on his curtains. In the back pocket of his trousers was a piece of paper, folded into a tight, hard square. It was details of a flat to rent in town.
He was on the edge of sleep when it came back to him. He was eleven years old and swinging on the only swing that wasn’t broken, listening to the grind and squeak of the rusty chain around the top bar. He saw something move on top of Eagle Mount Four, the block where the lift never worked. He thought it was a bird at first, then he thought it was a bundle that someone had dropped. And then he understood. It was the unmistakable shape of a person in a dark coat, a coat that billowed out like a pair of wings. The shape carried on falling and the wings didn’t open. He knew it must have landed in the square, in the middle of the four blocks that made up the Eagle Mount flats. He didn’t want to see it. He stayed on the swing until the sound of metal on metal slowed down to nothing.
Long after it happened, after his own memories were messed up with other people’s versions, he could still hear the quietness that followed, as if the four towers were holding their breath.
CHAPTER TWO
York
The telly’s on in the corner of the lounge. There’s a programme on about that spaceman. Years ago. First man on the moon. Chloe doesn’t like the look of the other girls hogging the soft seats. She doesn’t want to sit on the hard plastic chair with the wonky leg, so she stands for a while just inside the door. Nobody looks round. Eventually she goes back upstairs and lies down on her bed. There’s no need to put the light on; the orange street light floods the thin cotton curtain. She can see the pattern of a stain. It’s like the outline of an arm with a knobbly elbow. She narrows her eyes and it changes to a bird’s-eye view of a cliff edge and a beach, the ins and outs of coves marked in orangey brown. The woman’s voice on the spaceman programme is still with her.
‘There were no challenges left. He’d flown higher and further than anyone had ever flown.’
The woman speaking was his wife. The second one. She was obviously prettier and younger than the first. The spacewife said it wasn’t true that he was a recluse, just that he was a media recluse. Chloe smiles. She can relate to that, except he had a whole ranch to hide in, while she’s only got these four yellow walls and a curtain between her and them. She wonders how long it will be before they find her. There’s always someone who needs the money, who’s willing to sell a story to a tabloid. The spaceman threw himself deeper into work. He went into the world of business. That sounds like a nice world, not open and empty like the moon, but a busy world, a world you could hide in; a whole planet of computers and desks and photocopiers. She closes her eyes and sees star-fighters flying at lightning speed through a landscape of filing cabinets. It’s too hot in the room; she can’t settle. She gets up to open the window. The hinge is fixed so that it only creates a five-centimetre gap, but it’s better than nothing. She notices a car waiting on the kerb, engine running.
‘He was true to himself. He was the man that you saw. That was him,’ the spacewife said.
What you see is what you get. She closes the curtain again and gets back into bed. That’s me too, she thinks, and turns on her side, pulling the quilt over her. She’d like to sleep now, it’s been a long day, but someone is ringing the doorbell below. A man shouts into the intercom:
‘You’ve got to talk to me!’
There’s a silence and she hears the front door open. They shouldn’t let a man in here, not at this time of night. She gets up and peers through a small gap where the curtains don’t quite meet, not wanting to draw attention to herself. The man hasn’t gone inside, he’s standing on the path and the young woman who welcomed her this morning is standing close to him. Chloe can’t hear what they’re saying, but the woman is trying to calm the man. It looks like she knows him; they stand close but they don’t touch. There is no violence between them and the man is pleading with his hands. Chloe is relieved that it’s an officer he wants to speak to, not one of the women. Then she corrects herself. The Asian girl on duty isn’t an officer, she’s something else; Chloe can’t remember the word. There will be new words, new jobs now she’s on the outside. The ‘us’ and ‘them’ will have different labels. The young man is Asian too. He wears a suit, but his shirt is hanging out of his trousers and his tie loose around his open collar. Chloe thinks he must be the staff woman’s boyfriend. Link worker. That’s it. She’s Chloe’s link worker. She gets back into bed, thinking about links in a chain, links in a fence, the missing link.
The door closes and for a few moments there’s quiet. Then someone’s kicking the door from the outside, kicking it so hard Chloe can feel it coming up through the building, vibrating through her thin, spongy mattress. The front door opens again and another voice, male this time, clearly threatens that the police will be called. Chloe gets up and shuts the window. As she gets back into bed, she reaches for the radio she got this morning on the market. It plugs into the mains, so she can have it on all night.
Under the quilt a DJ’s voice joins her. He introduces a guy called Jimmy Page and together they tell a story about Jimmy Page’s mystery guitar. The DJ and Jimmy must know the story, but the DJ’s asking questions to make sure Jimmy doesn’t miss bits out. She listens carefully to see if Jimmy sounds like he means what he’s saying, or whether he’s just going through the motions. It’s a special skill when someone’s asking you about stuff you’ve said a thousand times before. She’s an expert in it. Panels and boards and psychologists and governors. She’s been over the same things again and again with them.
The guitar is in the house when Jimmy Page is growing up. It doesn’t belong to anyone and he doesn’t know how it got there. He sees someone playing a Lonnie Donegan tune at school, and he wants to be able to do that. He goes home to get the guitar and the rest …
She doesn’t hear the rest. She wakes up later and there’s a woman talking. The music is different. She switches the radio off and puts it on the floor, carefully. Behind her closed eyes, Jimmy Page and the spaceman dance together, silhouetted against a huge Hollywood moon.
Chloe wakes in a light-filled room. For a moment, she thinks she must have taken an extra tablet. She can’t focus, can’t snap out of the heavy, sweat-damp sleep of messy dreams. The sun is pouring through the glass, cooking up the air. She remembers closing the window to keep the noise out, but now it smells of the trapped odour of all the other women who have slept here before her. She pushes the quilt off and peels her damp T-shirt away from her belly, flapping it to cool her skin. The display on her phone reads ten-twenty. Confused, it takes a moment to sink in that this is ten-twenty in the morning; she’s slept for eleven hours. She leans over and reaches for the bottle of water she filled from the tap last night. It’s blood heat, but she swills it around her mouth and swallows it anyway.
Finally she swings her legs round and sits up, dizzy for a moment. She takes the can of Icy Mist body spray from the top of the bedside locker and sprays a long burst, coughing as the droplets drift back towards her and sting her throat. She bought it yesterday in Boots. On her way to the till, she browsed the lipstick testers, inhaling the greasy sweetness that took her right back to her childhood, watching her mum get ready for work. Don’t touch me! You’ll mess up my face. She left the lipsticks on their stand and paid one ninety-nine for the own-brand body spray.
She moves on shaky legs to the window and opens it again, letting a puff of warm air into the room. A bus is pulling up outside. There’s something she has to remember. Her link worker mentioned it yesterday. A trip out, did she want to come? A trip into the city centre, on the bus, or they could walk, it would depend on the weather. Meet at ten-thirty. She looks at her watch. Ten twenty-eight. Shit. She drops the curtain and pulls off the T-shirt, sprays her body all over and grovels in her bag for a clean pair of knickers. No time for socks. She pulls her canvas pumps over sticky feet. In two minutes she’ll be ready.
The girl in the office is wearing a pale pink dress over black leggings. Her shoes are tiny sandals, covered in pink sequins, as if she’s going to a party, not on a sightseeing trip. She tells Chloe that she’s waiting for a couple more and then they’ll set off, and she might as well sit in the garden until they’re ready, since it’s so hot. Chloe wishes she’d made more effort to remember the girl’s name. She can’t ask her now. It will make her sound stupid.
The garden at Meredith House is more like a yard, surrounded by an old brick wall. Someone’s filled a few pots with busy Lizzies and begonias. Chloe would have chosen something textured, like gazanias, whose petals she would like to press against her cheek to feel their softness. The back door of Meredith House opens and she senses someone watching her. She’s not going to turn around; she’s got stuff to look at. This is her time and her space. Let them cram in their sweaty TV room with the curtains closed, watching daytime chat shows, if they want to, but they should leave her alone.
‘You Chloe?’
She nods.
‘Not deaf then. Thought you might be.’
She turns then, thinking this woman is trying to wind her up, but she sees someone smiling through grey, broken teeth. The woman has a scar pulling her cheek up to the corner of one eye. Despite the damage, Chloe sees softness in her face. Maybe the smile is genuine. She does her best to return it.
‘I’m Emma,’ the other woman says. ‘Taheera said you were coming on the trip into town. I think it’s just the two of us. The others can’t be bothered.’
Taheera. She’ll try not to forget it again. Taheera. It sounds good, smooth and pretty like a stone on the beach. Emma heads back into the building and Chloe follows. It’s too hot to walk, so they take the bus. A low single-decker carries them through streets of semi-detached houses and out on to a straighter road, before it dumps them opposite a dirty concrete building, with a Job Centre wedged in one corner.
When she heard she was coming to York on release, Chloe wasn’t bothered either way. All she wanted was to go where nobody knew her. People told her it was a beautiful city, the sort of place you’d go on holiday, but that didn’t help. The only holiday she remembers was a trip with her mum to Skegness, sitting on a donkey with a melted ice cream dripping down her arm, not daring to lick it in case letting go of the reins made the donkey gallop away.
‘There’s the Job Centre, Chloe,’ Taheera’s voice interrupts her thoughts. ‘You’ve got your appointment tomorrow, so you’ll know the way now, won’t you?’
Chloe’s not sure she’ll remember anything. She took no note of street names or how many corners they turned. She just watched the people, the colours and shapes of them, the sheer variety of people. It shouldn’t have been so sudden, her release, but her jail was closing and although the parole board asked the same questions they’d asked every year, this time she got them right. Now she’s out, with a room in a bail hostel and Taheera as her link worker. It could be worse, she thinks, and lets herself smile.
‘Good,’ Taheera nods briskly. ‘You’ll be fine. Right, let’s go sightseeing.’
As they wait to cross the road by the bus stop, Chloe watches a group of tourists, cameras slung round their necks, hunting for something to capture, but there’s not much to see on this street. Minicabs and buses go past, looking like minicabs and buses. To Chloe the world looks the same as it always has done, as if ten years were a day, or an hour. A woman lifts her camera and Chloe turns her face away.
‘Come on!’ Emma takes hold of her arm.
They cross the road and pass the Job Centre. Immediately the streets become narrower and prettier. She dodges a school party, pressing its way along the pavement, and steps into the road. There are fewer cars now and the buildings begin to push in on them. Taheera rushes ahead, cutting between the clumps of people. Chloe and Emma nearly lose her.
‘There!’
Taheera has rounded the end of a high wall. In front of them is an enormous old building. Chloe can’t take it in. She steps back to get a better view.
‘York Minster,’ Taheera says. ‘If you fancy it, we could go up the tower. You can see for miles.’
Chloe looks up. There’s a figure, standing on the very top of the tower, like a statue on the battlements. He raises an arm and waves. She blinks hard and he’s gone.
‘Are there people up there?’ Chloe says.
‘I should think so,’ Taheera says. ‘There’s a tour every half hour. Shall we?’
‘I’ll give it a go,’ Emma shrugs, laughing, as if she’s not sure she’ll make it. ‘I’ll try anything once.’
Chloe shakes her head, rooted to the spot, trying to understand what she’s seen.
‘You coming?’ Emma says.
The other two women are walking across the open space that surrounds the building. Taheera looks back, inviting, shaking out her straight black hair. Chloe looks up and sees someone falling from the tower, long hair streaming out behind. It can’t be. She looks again and there’s nothing. Taheera and Emma are walking away from her. She can’t stay here alone, so she forces herself to step forward, longing for the claustrophobia of the shopping street.
As they get closer to the building, Chloe thinks she might be sick, but she doesn’t tell them that. They climb a wide flight of steps.
‘I’ll sit here, by the wall of the church,’ she says, pressing her back into the warm stone and sliding down until she’s cross-legged.
‘They call it a minster, actually,’ Emma says. ‘Are you not coming in?’
Taheera glances at her watch and looks out across the open space as if she’s expecting someone. A young man is working his way round a tour group towards them. He’s taller and slimmer than the man who was shouting outside Meredith House last night.
He stops a few feet away and flicks a glance to Emma and Chloe, as if he’s waiting for an introduction.
‘Hey! You made it,’ Taheera tucks a long strand of hair behind her ear. It makes her look instantly younger.
‘Yes, I made it,’ the young man says.
‘Hiya! I’m Emma, pleased to meet you.’
Emma holds out her hand to shake his and Chloe thinks she sounds a bit forward, a bit desperate. Taheera doesn’t introduce him, just suggests they go inside. That suits Chloe, the fewer people she has to talk to the better.
‘I’ll stay here,’ she says, ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache.’
‘Are you sure?’ Taheera looks concerned.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You’ll stay right here, on the steps?’ Taheera says. ‘I don’t want you wandering around getting lost.’
‘I won’t budge. Promise.’
Chloe watches them go in, Emma leading the way. As the young man passes, Chloe catches a glimpse below the hem of his jeans. He’s wearing an electronic tag round his ankle. His hand reaches for Taheera’s and together they disappear inside the Minster.
CHAPTER THREE
Doncaster
After a run of night shifts, Sean slept until mid-afternoon. He’d got two nights off and was hoping to get into town before the estate agents’ shop closed. He pulled the little square of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. Fabulous studio apartment to let in sought-after square, a few minutes’ walk from Doncaster centre. He dialled the number. Getting a place of his own had been on his mind for a while, but it had to be the right place, at the right time. When he had everything sorted, he would tell his nan. A woman answered the phone and invited him to come in right now, if he was in the area. She’d be happy to take his details and set up some viewings, including the flat he’d got his eye on, and there were others that might appeal. He thanked her and said he’d be there shortly.
The afternoon was beginning to cool as he rode his moped up the hill through the Chasebridge estate. He usually tried to avoid this route, but today he stopped near the top of the slope, beside the playground. It looked as if someone had lit a bonfire at the foot of the slide. A patch of asphalt had sunk into a hollow, its edges curled up, like burnt bacon. There was something about the girl in Maureen’s newspaper that was pulling him back to where he’d sat on the swing, a witness to something he didn’t understand at the time. He never told his dad what he’d seen that day. Jack Denton’s moods had taught Sean to be wary of starting conversations for fear of them spiralling into arguments. Not long afterwards, one final row has driven him out of his father’s home for good, down the hill to the quieter streets of The Groves and his nan’s house. Gradually the story of the murder had faded from his consciousness.
He switched the engine into neutral and rested his foot on the kerb, trying to recall what he’d seen. While he was staring into the middle distance, he spotted an old man, shuffling along the pavement towards the entrance to Eagle Mount One, a white plastic bag dangling from one hand. It knocked against the side of the man’s leg as he limped slowly along the pavement. Sean put the moped into gear and followed the road around the top of the playground. He watched the man put the bag down and fumble in his pocket for something, his free hand clenched awkwardly as he steadied his balance. Sean gripped the brake and came to a standstill.
‘All right, Dad.’
Sean was struck by the fact that his father had shrunk since he last saw him. Folds of dry, bristled skin met round his mouth and his skin had a yellow tinge. A slow smile revealed more gaps than teeth. Jack Denton wasn’t even sixty, and Sean had mistaken him for an old pensioner.
‘Sean, lad! You coming in for a cuppa?’
There was still plenty of time to get to the estate agents’ before they closed. Jack had been a bugger all his life, but he was still his dad. It wouldn’t hurt to spend five minutes with him. As he followed his father up to the first floor flat, Sean told himself that Jack couldn’t hurt him now. That was all a long time ago.
In Jack’s hallway it looked like someone had tried to decorate. One wall was painted a muddy orange, which petered out before it reached the ceiling, and a new vacuum cleaner stood in the doorway of the lounge. It would take more than a vacuum cleaner, Sean thought, to find the pattern in that carpet; it was dark with grease.
‘Nice colour paint.’
‘That was Eileen’s idea. Terracotta she says. Not finished yet. Needs someone with a stepladder to do that last bit.’
Jack headed for the kitchen.
‘Who’s Eileen?’ Sean said.
His dad coughed and it caught in his throat so he couldn’t answer for a moment.
‘Lady friend. She stays over, keeps the place in shape.’
The kitchen was grubby and strewn with dirty plates, but someone had put a bunch of artificial flowers in a vase on the table.
‘Good. That’s good.’
Jack bent stiffly to put a carton of milk in the fridge and Sean noticed there wasn’t much else in there. No food, but also a curious absence of beer cans, both in the fridge and on the side, and not a bottle of whisky in sight.
‘Dad,’ Sean asked carefully, ‘have you packed in drinking?’
His father stood up straight and turned to face him.
‘Doctor’s orders, son. My body can’t take it. I’ve been off four weeks and counting. They’ve even got me going to AA meetings.’
‘That’s great.’
‘Aye, well, it was that or die and I’m not ready yet. Are you going to put that kettle on?’
Sean filled the kettle and considered this new information carefully while Jack shuffled off into the lounge; Sean heard him lighting a cigarette.
‘Eileen’s gone to her sister’s,’ Jack called through to Sean. ‘Bit of fresh air, you know.’
‘Right,’ Sean said.
Any air would seem fresh compared to this flat. She must have been gone a few days and Jack wasn’t keeping up her good work. Sean found a couple of clean mugs in a cupboard and made two cups of tea.
‘Here you go.’
In the lounge, Jack was staring into space, the ash building up on the tip of his cigarette. He looked momentarily startled to see Sean standing there. He focused and reached for the mug.
‘What are you going to eat for your tea?’ Sean sat down next to him, carefully checking the settee for anything that might stick to his jeans. ‘Was Eileen doing your cooking?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Not that hungry.’
‘But you’ve got to eat. Do you want me to ring for a pizza before I go?’
‘Don’t be bloody daft,’ Jack snapped. ‘They don’t deliver in the blocks any more. Haven’t done for ages. Where have you been?’
Sean felt like telling him exactly where he’d been. He’d kept his head down and got himself a good job.
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Too many delivery boys getting robbed. Drugs mind, you can get them any time, delivered to the door. Not my thing, but there you go.’
‘Dad, be careful what you’re telling me.’
‘You still a frigging copper? You want to give that up, get a proper job.’ Jack Denton started to sing. ‘Maggie Thatcher’s boot boys, Maggie Thatcher’s boot boys, tra-laa la la, tra-laa la la!’
He cackled himself into a coughing fit and Sean was saved from having to justify himself by his phone vibrating in his pocket. He got up and went through to the kitchen.
‘Hello?’
‘PC Denton?’
Sean didn’t recognise the voice.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Wendy Gore from Professional Standards. We’re looking into a complaint that’s been filed.’
‘Right.’
‘Can you come in for a meeting tomorrow, first thing, with myself and your divisional inspector? Nine o’clock.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
It wasn’t a question; it was a command. He looked through the half open door into the lounge. His father drank from the mug, missed his mouth and wiped his face on his sleeve. Wendy Gore ended the call.
‘I’ll nip out and get you some chips, if you like,’ Sean said.
The estate agents’ would be closing soon, but the studio apartment could wait, at least until after his meeting in the morning.
Jack winced. ‘I have to be careful what I eat. Can’t handle most things, if I’m honest. Bit of white bread. Or the fish out of the middle of the batter. Everything else, you know, just goes straight through. Chips are no good.’
Sean didn’t think he was putting on the self-pity. He really was ill.
‘What does the doctor say?’
‘They do tests. I have some pills, but my liver’s had it. It’s only a matter of time, then I’m finished. There, that’ll put a smile on your soft face!’
‘Don’t be daft.’
But was it daft? Hadn’t he wished him dead every time he’d run out of the flat to Maureen’s or hidden in the woods around the quarry? His mum had died from a brain haemorrhage when he was ten, and for years he’d held onto the idea that Jack Denton was in some way responsible. His temper was horrible in those days, but looking at him now, it was hard to believe he could hurt a fly.
‘Why don’t I go out and get you a can of soup, eh? Could you manage chicken? And a bit of toast?’
Jack’s faced creased in a smile.
‘You’ve got such a look of your mam,’ he said, ‘standing there. Get us mushroom, will you? I prefer mushroom.’
Sean suppressed a shiver and headed for the front door.
On the way back from the shop, Sean saw a group of men coming out of Eagle Mount Two, heading for Eagle Mount One. By the time he got to the entrance hallway, they were going up in the lift. Sean took the stairs and was at Jack’s door in time to see a man in a white T-shirt shoving a leaflet through the letter box. He bent down and called through the slot.
‘Jack! Will we be seeing you at the meeting?’
‘Is it my dad you’re after?’ Sean said.
The man stood up and looked at him.
‘Your dad? I didn’t realise he had a son.’
Sean let it go.
‘Just seeing if he’s coming to the meeting,’ the man continued, fixing Sean with surprisingly blue eyes.
‘AA?’ Sean said.
‘You what?’
‘Is it an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting?’
Sean wondered whether he’d breached a code of confidentiality as the man frowned and the muscles in his neck tightened. He was a little over six foot, early thirties at a guess, with a tattoo on his neck that read: Made in England. Sean instinctively took a step back.
‘No, mate, it’s the CUC.’
He thrust a leaflet at Sean. The title was in large black letters: Clean Up Chasebridge – Public Meeting. Thursday June 2nd 6.30 p.m.
‘It’s at the community centre. Getting everyone involved in improving the estate.’
‘Right,’ Sean said.
‘I haven’t seen you before, have I?’
The other man didn’t appear to be in a hurry to go, although the rest of his group could be heard clattering up the concrete stairs to the next floor. Sean shrugged and shook his head.
‘I’ve been living … away.’
He wasn’t sure why he said it like that, but something told him that he needed to be cautious.
‘Working?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Right,’ the man smiled and the eyes lit up. ‘Give my regards to Jack. Tell him Terry was asking after him.’
Sean let himself in with Jack’s key. He took the shopping into the kitchen. As he passed the lounge he could see Jack fast asleep on the settee. He stood at the kitchen window and looked out across the dual carriageway to the rough edge of the fields and the woods beyond. Tomorrow’s meeting with Wendy Gore filled him with dread. The little boy inside him wished he could run away and hide in the woods until it was all over.
‘Is that you, Terry?’
Sean jumped at his father’s voice.
‘It’s Sean, Dad.’
He put his head round the door of the lounge where Jack was trying to sit up straight on the settee, wincing at some nameless pain nagging at his insides.
‘There was a feller here called Terry,’ Sean said. ‘He left this.’
‘Right, right.’
Jack was blinking, trying to read the writing on the leaflet Sean was showing him.
‘You might be able to help him,’ Jack said.
‘With this clean up campaign?’
‘No, your inside knowledge,’ Jack tapped his swollen nose. ‘You might be some use after all, being a copper.’
‘What are you on about? Anyway,’ he said, to himself as much as to his dad, ‘after tomorrow I might not even be a copper.’
He wasn’t sure how much damage Saleem’s accusation could do him and although he knew Gav would stand by him, what if the lad really had hurt himself, got brain damage or something, and was pinning it all on Sean?
‘What did you get for my tea?’
Jack’s mind flicked from one thing to another at random, but Sean was happy he was thinking of food. He went back into the kitchen and warmed up some mushroom soup while the toast cooked.
‘I’ll have to be getting back home.’ Sean settled a warped tray on his dad’s knees and handed him the spoon.
‘Home?’
‘To Nan’s. She still fusses over me.’
‘Oh, aye. Will I see you tomorrow? You could take me to this.’ Jack waved the spoon at the leaflet, spraying it with soup.
‘Aye, why not. I’ll come over later in the day and give you a hand cleaning up.’ Sean said. ‘We’ll give Eileen a surprise when she comes back from her sister’s. See you, Dad.’
As Sean was letting himself out of the flat, Jack called after him.
‘Terry wants to find who killed his brother.’
‘You what?’
‘He wants to find who did it.’
Sean went back into the living room.
‘He needs to go through the proper channels then. Look, Dad, if it’s easier for you, you don’t have to tell anyone I’m a police officer.’
‘No, good plan!’ Jack wheezed a bitter laugh, ‘I never do!’
Sean wasn’t sure how well this Terry knew his dad, but it sounded like Jack didn’t even admit to having a son, never mind one in the police force.
CHAPTER FOUR
York
When the York Minster clock strikes the hour, the bell vibrates through the stone steps, up into the bones of Chloe’s chest. Compared to this huge building she is nothing, just a bundle of twigs that can be rattled apart by the sound. She hugs her arms around her knees even though it isn’t cold. The sun is overhead and she feels it pressing through her thin hair. She needs to move before her skin burns. She gets up and looks around. To one side she sees a road full of people and bicycles, but to her right there’s a sort of garden. If she stays close to the building there might be some shade.
She walks through a gate onto a lawn, slips her shoes off and enjoys the grass, cool and soft under her feet. There’s an ice cream van, but she can’t afford anything on their price list. She’s bought food, toiletries and her radio. She’s paid her hostel charge for the first week and now she’s down to her last few pounds. There are some children at the ice cream van, speaking another language, laughing, so she turns away from them and heads for the shade of the building where the grass is longer, more protected. There is something there, where the wall meets the ground, and she thinks at first she’s looking at the broken pieces of a wafer or a cornet, but as her eyes adjust to the shadows, she sees they’re little bones, cradled in a dry brown nest. She kneels down to get a closer look. Two skulls, with perfect beaks, tiny ribs and fine white legs, tucked up where they lay, hungry perhaps, or their hearts stopping as the nest fell. She looks up and sees a line of guttering, and beyond it a glimpse of the square edge of the Minster tower. It seems to be falling towards her. Her stomach lurches and she drops down on all fours. She’s crouching, staring at the skeletons of the young birds in the nest, when she hears a voice.
‘Are you all right?’
A woman is watching her from the path with two children, a boy of about eight and a teenage girl. The woman hesitates, while the children look embarrassed, the boy tugging at his mother’s hand.
‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘Just found something, a nest. The baby birds are dead.’
The girl pulls a face, but the boy lets go of his mother’s hand and darts forward.
‘Cool! Can I see?’
Chloe sits back on her heels and he comes close.
‘Amazing! They’re sparrows’ skeletons, I think. Can I pick the nest up?’
She nods.
‘How do you know they’re sparrows?’ she asks him.
‘From the beaks.’ He cradles the nest in his small hands and peers into it. ‘It’s hard to be exactly sure; they could be coal tits. I’d need my book.’
‘Do you want it? The nest?’
‘Would you mind? Brilliant! Thanks.’ He looks back to check. ‘Mum, this lady says I can have it. Can I?’
The teenage girl rolls her eyes.
‘It’s not very clean,’ the mother says.
‘It’s fine, Mum. They’re just dry bones.’
‘Well, all right,’ she smiles at Chloe as if to say, this is what he’s like, this curious little boy. ‘Say thank you to the lady.’
‘Thanks.’
Chloe shrugs. She doesn’t have anything to say. It’s only when she watches them walk away down the path, the boy holding the nest up to eye level to scrutinise its contents, that she thinks how easy it was to give a gift of something that wasn’t hers to begin with. She shivers, her skin cooling in the shade. She lets her fingers play over the grass, thinking back to the first time she was allowed to work outside, in the prison grounds, and how strange the grass felt to her then. It was as if she had misremembered it. Each blade seemed stronger and thicker than she expected. Another chiming bell startles her and she checks her watch. Quarter to twelve. She stands up and decides to explore further round the building. She runs her fingers along the stone mass of wall until she reaches an iron fence and a gate. A cobbled street curves round to the right and she picks her way over the uncomfortable bumps until she feels smooth stone slabs under her feet again.
She half-laughs inside her mouth. Laughs at herself. They said at one of her parole hearings that she hadn’t grown up yet and she’d have to grow up if she was ever going to settle back into society. They wouldn’t think talking to little boys about dead birds and walking barefoot was proper grownup behaviour, but who cares? They’re not watching her now. She takes a step, which is half a skip. For the first time in ages she thinks she might be happy. She skips again, two, three times, until her toe catches the edge of a paving slab and she swears. She looks around to check if anybody saw and puts her shoes back on.
They’re coming out of the door when she gets back to the entrance. Emma is rubbing one of her knees and moaning about how many steps there were.
‘Oh my God, Chloe, I wish I’d stayed out here. You go round and round this horrible little staircase and the top’s all fenced in, like a cage. I wanted to go back down, but they said I couldn’t.’
Emma scowls at Taheera and the young man. Chloe isn’t sure what the situation is, but she saw them hold each other’s hands as they went in and she thinks they might want to be alone for a bit. Her mum trained her from an early age to be discreet around all the boyfriends she brought home from the pub.
‘Come on, Emma, there’s some nice shops we went past before. Wouldn’t mind having a look in the windows.’
She links her arm in Emma’s and half expects her to pull away, but she doesn’t. She clamps Chloe closer to her and they start to walk back across the open square towards the narrow streets.
‘Wait a minute!’ Taheera calls after them. ‘I thought we might all go for a coffee.’
Emma hesitates.
‘OK, if you’re buying,’ she says.
