I’d explained gently that Mortensen and Brannigan don’t handle missing persons, which happens to be no less than the truth. I could tell she didn’t believe me, even though I spent an hour outlining a few suggestions on how and where she might track down her errant husband. Relations between us weren’t helped when the agency was all over the papers a couple of months later because of a very high-profile missing person case that I’d cracked…Since then, whenever we’d met in the Post Office or in the dentist’s waiting room she’d been frigidly polite, and I guess I’d stood on my dignity. Not the most promising history for a successful interview.
I struck lucky on the third attempt. I recognized Cherie’s door as soon as I hit the landing. Daniel’s Ninja Turtle stickers were unmistakable, and obviously difficult to remove. Nothing so embarrassing to a kid as the evidence of last year’s cult. Taking a deep breath, I knocked. No reply. I banged the letter box, and was rewarded with a scurrying behind the door. The handle turned and the door swung open a couple of inches on a chain and the sound of the TV blasted me, but I couldn’t see anybody. Then a small voice said, ‘Hiya,’ and I adjusted my eye level.
‘Hiya, Daniel,’ I said to the pyjama-clad figure. I had a fifty per cent chance of being right.
‘I’m Wayne,’ he said. I hoped that wasn’t a sign from the gods.
‘Sorry. Hiya, Wayne. Is your mum in?’
He shrugged. ‘She’s in bed.’
Before he could say more, I saw a pale blue shape in the background and heard Cherie’s voice say sharply, ‘Wayne. Come away from there. Who is it?’
I cocked my head round the crack in the door and said, ‘Hi, Cherie. It’s me, Kate Brannigan. Sorry to wake you, but I wondered if I could have a word.’
Cherie appeared at the door in a faded towelling dressing gown and shoved Wayne out of the way. ‘I wasn’t asleep.’
I was glad about that. She’d have had to be seriously hearing impaired to have slept through the volume her kids seemed to need from the TV. ‘Yeah, right,’ I said diplomatically.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I just wanted a word. Em…Can I come in?’
Cherie looked defensive. ‘If you want,’ she said, grudging every word.
‘I don’t want the whole neighbourhood to hear me,’ I said, trying desperately not to sound like I was about to give her a bad time.
‘I’ve nothing to be ashamed of,’ she said defensively. She let the chain off and opened the door wide enough to let me in. After I’d entered, she stuck her head out and gave the landing the quick one-two to check who had spotted me.
I pressed against the wall to let her pass and lead me into the living room. ‘Out,’ she said curtly. Daniel reluctantly uncurled himself from the sofa and walked out of the room. Cherie switched off the TV and stared aggressively at me. ‘D’you want a brew, then?’ It was a challenge.
I accepted. While she was in the kitchen, I looked around. The room was scrupulously clean and as tidy as my place on a good day. Given she had two kids, it was impressive. It was a shame she didn’t have enough cash to upgrade from shabby. The leatherette upholstery of the sofa was mended with parcel tape in places, and in others it had completely worn away. The walls were covered in blown vinyl in a selection of patterns, clearly a job lot of odd rolls. But the paint was still white, if not quite brilliant, and she’d pitched some video shop manager into letting her have some film posters to brighten the place up.
‘Seen enough?’ Cherie demanded, returning from the kitchen on bare and silent feet. There was nothing I could say about her home that wouldn’t sound patronizing, so I said nothing, meekly accepting the mug of tea she held out to me. ‘There’s no sugar,’ she said. ‘I don’t keep it in.’
‘That’s OK, I don’t use it.’
The door opened a couple of inches and Daniel’s head and one shoulder appeared. ‘We’re going round to Jason’s to watch a video,’ he said.
‘OK. Behave yourselves, you hear me?’
Daniel grinned. ‘You wish, Mum,’ he giggled. ‘See ya.’
Cherie turned her attention back to me. She’d found a moment to drag a brush through her shoulder-length mouse-coloured hair, but it hadn’t improved the image a whole lot. She still looked more like a woman at the end of her day rather than the beginning. ‘So what’s this word you wanted to have with me?’
I swallowed a mouthful of strong tea and dived in at the deep end. ‘I’m really worried about something that happened yesterday, and I think you probably will be too. Davy’s up for the week. He was out playing yesterday morning for a couple of hours, and when he came in, he was in a hell of a state. He was really hyper, he was sick, and his temperature was all over the place. I got a friend of mine who’s a doctor to come around and have a look at him. The bottom line is, he was out of his head on drugs.’
The words were barely out of my mouth before Cherie jumped in. ‘And it has to be something to do with my kids, doesn’t it? It couldn’t be any of those nice middle-class kids from your street, could it? How do you think kids around here get the money for drugs?’
That wasn’t one I was prepared to answer. Reminding her of the muggings, burglaries and dole frauds that are the everyday currency of life at the bottom of the heap wasn’t going to earn me the answers I was looking for. ‘I’m not blaming your lads, Cherie. From what I can gather, they’re as likely to be victims as Davy was.’
That wasn’t the right response either. ‘Don’t you accuse my lads of taking drugs,’ she said dangerously, her eyes glinting like black ice. ‘We might not have much compared to you, but I take care of my kids. You’ve no shame, have you?’
That was when I lost it. ‘Will you for Christ’s sake listen to me, Cherie?’ I snarled. ‘I’ve not come here to have a go at you or your kids. Something scary, something dangerous, happened to Davy and I don’t want it happening to any other kids. Not yours, not anybody’s. You and me smacking each other over the heads with our prejudices isn’t going to sort things out.’
In the silence that followed, Cherie gave me the hard stare. Gradually, the sullen look left her face. But the suspicion was still there in her eyes. ‘OK. You got somebody else’s kicking. I had them bastards from the Social round the other day, doing a number about how Eddy’s not paying any maintenance and I must know where he is.’
I pulled a face. ‘Pick a war, any war.’
‘That’s more or less what I told them. So, what’s all this business with Davy got to do with me?’ The adrenaline rush had subsided and her eyes had dulled again, emphasizing the dark blue shadows beneath them. She sat on the arm of the sofa, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on mine.
‘These drugs were absorbed through the skin. From those tattoo transfers that the kids stick all over themselves. According to my doctor friend, the tattoos are impregnated with drugs. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s to give kids the taste for it. You know, a few freebies to get them into the habit, then it’s sorry, you’ve got to cough up some readies.’
Cherie pulled a pack of cheap cigarettes out of her dressing-gown pocket and lit up. ‘I’ve seen my two with a few transfers,’ she admitted. ‘I know they must have got them from one of the other kids because I don’t buy them the stickers, and they’ve had them some times when they’ve not had spends. But I’ve never seen them out of their heads, or anything like it. Mind you, the way they wind each other up, you probably couldn’t tell,’ she added, in a grim joke.
I mirrored her thin smile. ‘The problem seems to have arisen because Davy OD’d on the transfers. He loves them, you see. Given half a chance and a year’s pocket money, he’d cover himself from head to foot with them. Especially if they were Thunderbirds ones. Now, Davy says he was playing with Wayne and Daniel yesterday. A boy he didn’t know gave him the transfers, and he seems to have handed over as many as Davy wanted. He says he thought it was OK to take the transfers from the boy because Wayne and Daniel knew him,’ I said.
‘I suppose you want to as
k my pair who this lad was,’ Cherie said with the resignation of a woman who’s accustomed to having her autonomy well and truly usurped by the middle-class bastards. Once upon a time I’d have been insulted to be taken for one of them, but even I can’t kid myself that I’m still a working-class hero.
I shook my head. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather you asked them. I think you’re more likely to get the truth out of them than me. They’d only think I was going to bollock them.’
Cherie snorted. ‘They’ll know I’m going to bollock them. OK, I’ll ask them when I see them. It’ll be a few hours, mind you. Once they get stuck into a pile of videos, they lose all track of time.’
‘Great. If you get anywhere, can you let me know? I’m going to be in and out a lot, but there’ll probably be somebody in next door in Richard’s. Or else stick a note through the door. I’d really appreciate it.’ I got to my feet.
‘You going to hand the slags over to the cops?’ Cherie asked. Behind her bravado, I could sense apprehension.
‘I don’t think people that hand out drugs to kids should be out on the street, do you?’
Cherie shook her head, a despairing look on her face. ‘Put them away, another one jumps in to take their place.’
‘So we just let them carry on?’
‘No way. I just thought you’d know the kind of people that’d put them off drug dealing for life. And put off anybody else that was thinking it would be a good career move.’
People get strange ideas in their heads about the kind of person a private eye hangs out with. The worrying thing for me was that Cherie was absolutely right. I knew just the person to call.
15
Ruth hadn’t hung around waiting for me in reception. I spotted her behind the Independent on Sunday from the other side of the coffee lounge. There was already a basket of croissants and a selection of cold meats and cheeses on the table. Whipped cream in Alpine peaks was gently subsiding into her hot chocolate, and somehow she’d managed to get a whole jug of freshly squeezed orange juice all to herself. Luckily, she’d chosen a window table which commanded a view of the Quays. On the way to meet her, I’d swung round by Terry Fitz’s flat and been relieved to see the Supra sitting on the drive and the curtains still firmly closed. From the hotel, I’d be able to see if he left home.
I sat down and said, ‘If I rush off suddenly, it’s not because of something you’ve said.’
She lowered the paper and groaned. ‘Oh God, not melodrama over Sunday brunch? Frankly, I can see why you copped out of the law. Not nearly exciting enough to keep you going.’
‘I’m not grandstanding,’ I bristled. ‘I’m trying to get Richard out of jail.’
‘You and me both,’ Ruth said calmly, dumping her paper, reaching for a croissant and dunking it into her chocolate. I felt faintly sick. ‘Any progress?’ she asked.
I brought her up to speed. It didn’t even fill the gap between me ordering coffee and wholemeal toast and them arriving. Ruth listened attentively in between mouthfuls of soggy croissant. ‘How fascinating. It’s a novel way of distributing drugs. This sounds very promising for Richard,’ she said as I ground to a halt. ‘But you’re going to need a lot more than that before we can persuade the Drugs Squad that Richard was merely an innocent abroad.’
‘What are the next moves, from your point of view?’ I asked.
‘That depends to some extent on you. If you can come up with enough by Tuesday morning for the Drugs Squad to get going, then I’ve got a slight chance of getting bail on Wednesday.’
‘How slight?’ I asked.
Ruth studied the cold meat and speared a slice of smoked ham. ‘I’d be lying if I said it looked good. Failing that, what I can go for is a short remand, say an overnight or a couple of days, arguing that investigations are in progress which may produce a significantly different picture within twenty-four hours. If the Drugs Squad then mount a successful operation based on information received from you, the chances are we can then get Richard out on bail. It’ll take a little longer to get the charges dropped, but at least he won’t be languishing in the CDC while I’m working on it.’ She split a croissant and loaded it with ham, followed by a slice of cheese. I envied her appetite. I stared morosely at the toast and poured myself a coffee.
I didn’t even have time to add milk. A flash of light as the sun hit the windscreen of Terry Fitz’s car alerted me. He was turning out of his drive. I hit the ground running. ‘Sorry!’ I called back to Ruth. ‘Send me the bill.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she shouted. ‘I’ll charge it to the client.’
And I thought I padded my bills. One thing about hanging out with lawyers: they don’t half make you feel virtuous.
This time, we headed up the M6. I had no trouble with the tail at first, since half of the North West of England had decided the only place to be on the sunny Sunday of a bank holiday weekend was in a traffic jam on the motorway. Things improved after Blackpool, but there were still a lot of families having the traditional bank holiday argument all the way to the Lakes. The Supra was an impatient outside-lane hogger and flasher of lights, but he had few chances to hammer it till the traffic thinned out after the Windermere turn-off. Then he was off. I prayed he was keeping a look-out for traffic cops up ahead as I watched the speedo creep up past a ton. The last thing I needed was a driving ban.
He slowed as we approached the Carlisle turning, and I hung back till the last minute before I shot off in his wake. His destination was only five minutes off the motorway, a sprawling concrete pillbox of a pub sandwiched between a post-war council estate of two-up two-down flats built to look like semis, and a seventies estate of little ‘executive’ boxes occupied by sales reps, factory foremen and retail managers struggling with their mortgages. I drifted past the Harvester Moon Inn, watching as he parked the Supra by the truck I recognized from the previous day. I slowed to a halt, twisted my rear-view mirror round and watched Terry Fitz climb out of his car, pick up a black bin liner from the rear seat well and head into the pub.
I parked round the corner from the pub and walked back. The blackboard stood outside the main entrance, announcing today’s sales at two p.m. and five p.m. in the pub’s upstairs function room. Depressed at the very thought of it, I dragged myself into the pub. It was a huge barn of a place, arbitrarily divided into bar and lounge by a wooden partition at head height. Well, head height for someone with a bit more than my five feet and three inches. The whole place was in dire need of a face-lift, but judging by the desperate tone of the notices on the walls, it wasn’t making enough to persuade the brewery to spend the necessary cash. Monday night was ‘the best trivia night in town’, Tuesday was ‘Darts Open Night, cash prizes’, Wednesday was ‘Ladies Night! With Special House Cocktails’, Thursday offered ‘Laser Karaoke, genuine opportunities for Talent!’, while Friday was ‘Disco Dancing! Do the Lambada with Lenny. The Harvester’s very own king of the turntables’. And people say Manchester’s provincial.
The clientele was marginally up-market of the down-at-heel decor. There were, naturally, more men than women, since somebody has to baste the chicken. I felt out of place, not because of my gender, but because I was the only person who wasn’t part of the locals’ tribal rituals. The customers sat or stood in tight groups, taking part in what was clearly a regular Sunday lunch-time session with unvarying companions. I carried on walking past the bar, gathering a few inquisitive stares on the way, and through a door at the rear marked ‘Harvest Home Lounge’. It led to a small foyer, with stairs climbing upwards, and a set of double doors leading out into the car park. With half an hour to go before the sale, I’d clearly beaten the Carlisle crowds to the draw.
I walked back to the car and headed into the town centre till I found a Chinese chippy next to a corner shop. I drove back crunching worryingly cubic sweet-and-sour chicken, with a bag of apples for afters to make me feel virtuous. I joined the queue for the sale with only a few minutes to go. This time, I hung back as we filed i
n so I could have a good view of the rest of the punters. The sale followed the same pattern as the previous evening’s. The only change was that Molloy, the top man, only offered forty bottles of perfume. I put that down to the slightly smaller crowd that they had drawn. When we got down to the pig-in-a-poke lots, I kept my eyes fixed on Terry Fitz.
The night before hadn’t been a fluke. Soon as Molloy announced the fifty-pound lots, Terry appeared with a black bin liner that looked identical to the others. But he took it straight over to a punter I’d already singled out as the man most likely to. Just like the previous night’s mark, he was wearing a black leather jacket and a red baseball cap. It was a different guy, there was no question about it. But the clothes were identical.
As soon as I saw the handover, I eased myself away from the audience and ran downstairs. I slipped inside the door leading to the pub and held it open a crack. As I’d expected, Red Cap was only moments behind me. He didn’t even pause to look around him, just headed straight out into the car park. I was behind him before he’d gone a hundred yards.
He wasn’t hard to tail. He bounced on his expensive hi-tops with a swagger, his red cap jauntily bobbing from side to side. Across the car park, over the road and into the council estate. We walked for half a mile or so through the estate until we came to three blocks of low-rise flats arranged in an H-shape. Red Cap went for the middle block, disappearing into a stairwell. Cautiously, I followed, keeping a clear flight below him as he climbed. I caught a glimpse of his jacket as he turned out of the stairs on the third floor, and I ran the last flight. I cleared the stairs and hit the gallery in time to see a door close behind him. Trying to look as if I belonged, I strolled along the gallery. His was the third door. The glass had been painted over and heavy curtains obscured the windows. I turned and walked back, my eyes flicking from side to side, desperately seeking a vantage point.