Текст книги "Bones in the Nest"

Автор книги: Helen Cadbury

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

‘How much d’you need?’

Jack licked his lips with sticky spittle. Sean stared at a pile of dirty clothes lying on the floor.

‘What happened to Eileen?’

‘We’ve split up. Artistic differences!’

Jack laughed, hacking his way through a chest full of phlegm. Then Sean heard it: the high-pitched scream of a man in pain.

‘Did you hear that?’

‘If you say so.’

‘But did you?’

‘Hear what?’

‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’ He pressed a twenty-pound note into his father’s hand. ‘Buy some food with that. You look like you need it.’

‘As if you bloody care. I can hardly manage the walk to the shop, you said—’

But Sean had opened the door.

‘See you, Dad.’

He shut the door as Khan came through from the stairwell.

‘Well?’ Khan said.

‘I heard you. He didn’t.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Sean jabbed his finger at the lift button. He couldn’t wait to be out of there.

‘People hear what they want to.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

York

The early morning music show is playing a song her mum used to like. Chloe leans out of bed and turns it off. That DJ is way too chirpy anyway. She sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed, rubbing the grit of sleep out of her eyes. There’s a couple of slices of bread in a plastic bag by her bed. It’s all she’s got left until the first payment for her apprenticeship comes through. The mealtimes in the hostel are too late for her early morning starts and too early in the evening. It’s all cleared up by the time she gets back. She owes money for her hostel charge, but now she’s getting nothing for it. She’ll take the bread with her and eat it on her journey.

The whole building is quiet. She tiptoes downstairs, her work boots in her hand. Bill had them waiting for her yesterday. There was a sale on at the garden centre, he said, and they happened to have her size. She’ll pay him back when she can. The office door is ajar, but she doesn’t want to see Taheera. They didn’t speak again last night after the accusation over the mobile phone. Chloe thinks there should have been an apology; you can’t speak to people like that and decide it doesn’t matter. It does matter. With any luck, Taheera will still be asleep in the little staff bedroom, beyond the office.

As Chloe reaches the bottom of the stairs, the office phone starts to ring. The light is switched on. She heads for the front door and hears Taheera answer.

‘Hello? Yes. Ghazala? What’s wrong?’

Chloe has her hand on the exit switch to unlock the door.

‘I can’t hear you properly. What are you saying?’ Taheera says. ‘Which tower? He’s what?’

The catch clicks and Chloe opens the door to the street.

‘Dead? Mo’s dead? What d’you mean?’

Chloe hesitates.

‘No! Oh, God, no! No!’

Something crashes to the floor in the office. Another door opens and a sleepy voice from upstairs asks if everything is all right. Chloe slips out into the cool morning air and walks quickly to the bus stop.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Doncaster

The words on the menu in Val’s Café danced in front of Sean’s eyes and he didn’t have the energy to work it all out. He pretended to be too tired to choose and let Gav order.

‘Uncle Gavin knows best, sunshine, and you need to eat. You’ve had a shock and your blood sugar will be on the floor.’

In minutes a full English breakfast was put in front of Sean. He stuck his fork into his fried egg and watched the yolk pour out and merge with the juice from the baked beans. He shuddered, trying to blank out an unbidden image of blood pooled on concrete, and shoved a forkful of food into his mouth.

‘Back in the day, we’d have been in the pub by now,’ Gav was saying, pouring sugar into his tea. ‘A couple of double whiskies to get over ourselves. Now they offer you counselling.’

‘Food,’ Sean said through his mouthful, ‘is just as good. You were right.’

They ate in silence until they were mopping up the last juices from their plates with slabs of Val’s white sliced bread. She replaced their mugs of tea without asking. Sean wasn’t even sure if she was actually called Val, or whether she was a successor to the original owner, but she’d been running the café round the corner from the police station for years.

‘He’s taken a shine to you, that DCI Khan,’ Gav said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

Sean shrugged. ‘Useful that I know the territory, nothing more than that.’ In the pocket of his trousers, the corner of Khan’s business card pressed almost imperceptibly against his thigh.

‘He’s a tricky bugger,’ Gav said, ‘so watch yourself.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Bit of a reputation for running to the bosses at the first sniff of things not going his way. Plays the race card if anyone crosses him, so I’ve heard.’

Sean shrugged. He hadn’t had much time to form an impression, but he thought the detective was all right. Serious, but all right.

‘He’s not got a lot of friends in the Sheffield force. That’s probably why he’s been sent over here,’ Gav said.

‘I thought it was the cuts. We can’t even get a Major Incident Team together on our own.’

Sean drained his tea. He was so full of food he thought he might fall asleep, face down in his empty plate, but he still had to pick up his moped and get back to his nan’s.

By 10 a.m. he was riding along Winston Grove, the curved crescent that ran along the lower end of the Chasebridge estate. The community centre masked his view of the base of the towers, but he could see the first floor windows and above. He wondered how good Mrs Armley’s eyesight was and what she could see from her window.

His nan had texted him to say she needed a packet of fags and he thought he might pick her up some nice biscuits as a surprise. He parked in front of the parade of shops and rocked his ped onto the kickstand. AK News appeared deserted, but the jangling bell must have alerted someone because when he reached the counter, the plastic strips parted and a young woman in a hijab appeared from the back of the shop. Her nose was red and she had bloodshot eyes. He recognised her slightly as one of the family who ran the shop, but he didn’t know her name. There were several daughters or sons or cousins; they were interchangeable. He thanked her but she didn’t say anything. Not even a smile. Pretty rude, Sean thought. A smile didn’t cost anything.

As he was about to leave the shop, he saw through the glass door that there was someone by his moped, fiddling with the mirrors. He rushed out, slamming the door behind him, as the small figure darted away up the side of the library. The packet of biscuits slipped out of Sean’s hand and hit the pavement. Shit. A last drop of energy surged through his legs and he shouted something as he ran round the corner. It was meant to be come here you little bastard, but only the last word was intelligible.

Saleem Asaf was waiting for him behind the shops, a scabbed bruise fading on his forehead.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Saleem said.

‘You’ve got a cheek. What were you doing to my bike?’

‘Nothing. Just waiting for you.’

‘Well I don’t want to talk to you,’ Sean said.

‘You going to catch who did it?’

‘What are we talking about here?’

‘You going to catch who killed Mocat?’

‘Sorry?’

‘My cousin, Mohammad?’

Sean’s hand went to his pocket and he held Khan’s business card tightly between his finger and thumb. He was off duty now and his radio was back at the station, but he had his phone.

‘Are you saying you can identify the casualty found at Eagle Mount Two this morning?’

‘That ain’t no casualty, man. That’s a dead body. And he’s my cousin. It’s gone too far now. They take one of ours, if it don’t stop, we’ll have to take one of theirs. You get me?’

‘Who’s “they”?’

‘Chase Boys. White boys. Working off the Chasebridge estate.’

‘And you? Where do you work?’

He looked like he might be about to run again. Sean reached for his arm but Saleem didn’t move. He went limp under Sean’s grip and for a moment he was just a frightened young boy.

‘I’m going to call someone,’ Sean said. ‘He’s a senior detective. He’ll want to meet you. We’re going to stay here until he comes and if you try to run, I will stop you in whatever way I have to, God help me. Got that?’

The boy nodded.

They were in Khan’s black Range Rover. Sean had a pain in his head that was spreading from behind his eyes, right round the back of his ears and up over his forehead. He should be asleep in bed, but he was sitting in the back of the car with Saleem, who squirmed under the seatbelt, his face turned away from the window, as if he feared being recognised.

All spare manpower was on the estate doing house-to-house under the female detective’s orders. DS Simkins, Khan said her name was. He said he’d rather not bother her for any more officers and Sean heard himself offering to come along with the boy. He must be mad. He wasn’t even getting paid overtime and technically he was off duty. None of this seemed to concern DCI Khan.

‘Who were you talking about, Saleem?’ Khan said quietly. ‘Who was involved in your cousin’s death?’

Saleem was still for a moment before he replied.

‘Haram zathey. Just scum. Don’t know any names. But he was clean, man, you won’t find nothing on him. Gone all straight-edged for some girl. I’ll take you to his mum, but that’s it. That’s all I know.’

‘How did you know it was your cousin who was the victim?’ Sean asked, then wondered if he should keep quiet but the thought was out of his mouth as soon as it had formed in his head.

‘Word gets out.’

‘Not from us, son,’ Khan eyed him for a moment in the rear-view mirror. ‘So who?’

The boy shrugged and focused on picking the skin off the side of his thumb. He didn’t say any more, beyond directions to turn right or left, until they were on Nether Hall Road, where they pulled off into a street of red-brick terraced houses. There was nothing remarkable about the house where Saleem told Khan to stop. Net curtains hid its occupants; the short front path was swept clean and a row of potted geraniums filled the space between the bay window and a low wall to the street.

‘We going in or what?’ Saleem was anxious to get out of the car now that there was a possibility of being spotted.

‘I’m waiting for a female officer,’ Khan said.

‘What for? Come on man. You got bad news to tell my auntie, you better get on with it.’

A car was turning into the road behind them. Sean recognised PCSO Carly Jayson behind the wheel. As she got out and walked over to them, it was clear that her uniform and the Range Rover had caught the attention of the people in the house. A net curtain lifted and dropped. A few seconds later, the door opened and a girl of about twelve, in purple shalwar kameez, peered out. She saw Saleem, but as he stepped forward, she frowned and ran back inside.

‘Look, this is the house,’ he said. ‘You don’t need me now.’

‘We don’t,’ Khan came closer to him and spoke gently, ‘but your auntie might.’

The boy’s shoulders dropped and he seemed to grow younger still with this new level of responsibility. Khan led the way, followed by the boy, Sean and Carly. The house was quiet.

‘Hello?’ Khan called.

The girl appeared from the kitchen and mutely beckoned them into the front room where a woman was sitting, her hair covered by a pale green, embroidered shawl, which matched her dress and trousers. She looked surprisingly young, but her face was tired and shadowed with dark circles under her eyes.

‘As-salamu alaykum. My name is Detective Chief Inspector Khan.’

She looked up at him for a second before saying something which Sean didn’t catch, then she fixed her eyes on the carpet. Khan spoke to her in Urdu and Sean was able to pick out a few English words: Chasebridge, police. The girl sat next to her mother and held her hand. The woman remained still, nodding gently. She hadn’t acknowledged Saleem, but when Khan stopped speaking she looked at the boy with fire in her eyes. She spoke in rapid Urdu and her fury was undisguised.

‘No, auntie, it’s not my fault,’ he replied. ‘Allah dey Kassam. What d’you blame me for?’

Khan turned to the boy. ‘Is there a father? We need someone to identify the body.’

‘His dad and mine,’ Saleem said, ‘they’re both away in Pakistan.’

‘She’ll have to do it. You should come too.’

‘OK. I’ll come.’ The woman’s voice was quiet and thick with the effort of holding back tears. ‘But not the boy, he stays here.’

There was a sound in the hall and Sean realised the house was filling with people. The vehicles outside, messages flying between phones, from young to old, had confirmed what until now had been a rumour.

‘We’ll wait outside,’ Khan said. ‘PCSO Jayson will accompany you to the car when you’re ready.’

A press of bodies in the hallway moved aside as they passed and two women pushed forward into the living room. As Sean and DCI Khan stepped out into the daylight, a sound like a wounded animal rose from inside the house.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Halsworth Grange

There are too many people in the garden, stopping and staring. Chloe tells herself they’re looking at the plants, not her, but it does nothing to calm her nerves. A sticky-faced toddler kicks a ball into one of the herbaceous borders and it thwacks against the stem of one of Bill’s best hollyhocks. She wants to tell the parents to get out and take the little brat with them, but instead she goes inside the shed to get some twine and a cane. While she’s staking it back up, hoping the damage isn’t too severe, she turns round to see a man taking photographs. He has the camera pointed right at her. She turns away and pulls the elastic out of her hair, letting the dyed blonde strands cover her face.

‘Alcea rosea,’ he says.

‘Sorry?’

‘Latin name for hollyhocks. I wish I could get the ones on my allotment to grow like that.’

‘Oh.’

She busies herself with a knot. She doesn’t want to hear about his allotment. She can picture it without him having to tell her. It will have neat rows of military cabbages and a ‘Keep Out’ sign on the gate. He wears white socks and beige lace-up shoes and he’s probably a leading light on his allotment committee.

There were allotments near where she grew up. She used to go there when she bunked off school with Jay, or after dark when her mum was working in the pub. Some of the plots looked like the gardens of real homes, with paved paths and chalet-style sheds. She and Jay broke into one once and found deckchairs. They pretended it was their own garden and called themselves Mr and Mrs Clutterbuck. He smoked and laughed at nothing on earth. She laughed too, but she didn’t know why. Then suddenly he was crying and she crossed over to his deckchair and sat on his lap. The striped cotton ripped and they ended up on the ground, laughing again.

‘These are a fine bunch of specimens,’ the man with the camera says.

She ties another length of twine lower down the stem of the plant, her face brushing the blousy flower head, and breathes in to see if they have any particular smell. The air’s full of the roses in the neighbouring bed, so she almost feels sorry for the hollyhocks; they smell of nothing. She looks past the allotment man and realises she’s staring at the spot on the strip of lawn where Taheera hopped on one foot, trying to get the stone out of her shoe. It seems like months ago, not Monday. She sounded very upset on the phone this morning. If Chloe was dead, Taheera would carry on as normal, she’s pretty sure about that. She could die now, fade away among the hollyhocks and disappear; Taheera wouldn’t even notice.

A voice in her head says, you can’t die just to make people feel sorry for you. She knows that voice, she used to hear it all the time. It was the voice of a bird that flew past her window and told her the truth – or lies – she never really knew. The bird was a jay, which laughed like a crackle of static and flashed her a blue tattoo on its red-pink feathers. The bird and the boy, they shared the same name, the same voice.

‘You look ready for a break.’ Bill’s huge frame casts a shadow over her.

The man with the camera has gone and she wonders how long she’s been standing in the border, half hidden behind the hollyhocks, winding a piece of twine in and out of her fingers. Bill’s voice is reassuringly solid.

‘Why don’t you sit in the shade behind the shed and have your lunch?’

She nods and makes her way back onto the path, not wanting to tell him that she hasn’t brought any lunch. She’ll get a glass of water from the tap and make do with that. If Bill offers her a coffee she’ll put extra milk and sugar in it, but she has no money left for bread or sandwiches until she gets paid. She leans against the shed and lets the water cool her cracked lips. She closes her eyes and sees the face of Taheera’s young man, walking towards them outside the Minster, smiling at Taheera because he loved her. Like a delayed reaction, she feels a shock rip through her. It twists her stomach and forces her forward. She’s vomiting water and bits of bread, then dry retching until she’s crying, sobbing silently, tears stinging her cheeks.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Doncaster

Sean took the bus back from the town centre and went straight to where he’d hidden his moped behind the library. He motored slowly out onto Winston Grove and followed the streets to his nan’s. It felt like the moped knew where it was going, like an old horse. He struggled to keep his eyes open and felt himself leaning forward and jerking back, as sleep tried to catch him.

There was nobody home. Just a note on the table to say Maureen had gone shopping. He went straight upstairs, got undressed and fell into bed, the cool sheets against his skin. It could have been several hours later, or a few minutes, when the dreams started. A newspaper was rolling out, unfurling, like a red carpet, then blowing down the street in the wind. The words were everywhere, but he couldn’t make sense of them. The papers gathered together and blew into a ball like tumbleweed, knocking a young man to the ground. The figure lay, holding a wound in his groin, then he stood up and it was Saleem, brushing the papers off, telling Sean it was all right, he wasn’t dead after all; it had been a mistake. Then the young man had Mohammad’s face and the newspapers were soaked in blood.

Sean woke, drenched in sweat. He shook the dream away, sat up and took a drink of water from the glass by his bed. The glass hadn’t been there when he went to sleep. Nan must be home. He turned over on his back and stared at the ceiling. He’d painted it himself and he could see an annoying bit where he’d got yellow paint on the white plastic light fitting.

He stood no chance of getting that little studio flat now. It was a shame because he liked the road it was on, South Parade, tree-lined and full of old houses from the days when rich merchants lived along there. Most of them were broken up into offices and flats, but it was still a cut above. All the clubs and bars were a short walk away and it would be convenient if he ever wanted to bring a girlfriend home. That was a big ‘if’. He rolled back on his side and stared at the wall. A single bed, with his grandmother popping in with a cup of tea in the morning, was nobody’s dream. The last girl he’d dated would have died laughing if he’d brought her back here. Not that things ever got to that stage with her. It crossed his mind that Lizzie Morrison might be impressed with a studio flat on South Parade. Sean sighed. Don’t go there again. She was so far out of reach, she might as well be on another planet.

There was a soft knock on the door and it opened a crack.

‘All right, Nan. I’m awake.’

‘I didn’t want to bother you, love. But your phone’s been ringing. You left it on the kitchen table. I’ve brought it up.’

‘Oh. Right.’ He sat up as she came in. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s coming up to five-fifteen. Shall I open the curtains?’

‘Aye, go on.’

He took the phone from her and looked through the missed calls. One blocked number, then one from Carly and one from DI Rick Houghton, a drug squad detective he’d known since his first case as a PCSO. Sean selected voicemail and listened. They came in reverse order, so the last two didn’t make much sense until he got to the first message. Carly and Rick were both checking if he wanted to meet up in the pub later. They appeared to know something he didn’t about his shift pattern changing and were offering to buy him a drink. The first message explained why.

It was his unit sergeant, telling him there was good news, or bad news, whichever way he wanted to look at it. For the duration of this inquiry, Sean was being seconded to CID. DCI Khan had asked for him by name. He was to report at 8 a.m. the next morning for a briefing, which meant he had the night off and could he phone him back to confirm he’d got the message?

‘Everything all right?’ Maureen was still hovering by the window, pretending to be interested in something in the street.

‘Yeah, great.’

‘You don’t sound great, you sound a bit worried, love.’

Sean tried to make sense of everything that had happened since he and Gav got the call to attend the flats earlier that morning. Sleeping in the day had an odd way of shuffling time and memory, so he could no longer tell what was today and what was yesterday.

Maureen didn’t wait for an explanation. She went downstairs to the kitchen and soon the smell of bacon was drifting upstairs. Having another breakfast at teatime wasn’t going to help his sense of disorientation, but his stomach was rumbling. He got out of bed and pulled on his clothes.

In the kitchen, one place was laid at the table, and a cup of tea was waiting for him.

‘They’re saying there’s been a murder up at the flats.’

She was wiping down the surfaces, her back to him so he couldn’t read her expression.

‘Who’s they?’ Sean said through a mouthful of toast.

‘I know you’re not meant to say, but did you … was it on your shift?’

‘Did I see him?’ Sean nodded. ‘I found him.’

‘Are you all right?’ She turned and gave him a look that demanded a truthful answer. She knew him too well.

He was all right, or at least he would be if he didn’t have to talk about it. The body curled on the stairs wasn’t the worst of it; the thing he couldn’t get out of his head was the mother’s cry of grief.

‘If I can nail the bastard that did it, then I’ll be all right.’

He told her about being seconded to work on Khan’s team and a beaming smile lit up her face.

‘I’m so proud of you. You know that, don’t you, love?’

That evening, he found Carly, Rick and a couple of others in the corner of the pub.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t Acting Detective Constable Denton, the fastest promotion in the west, or make that the north, or shall we just call him, “South Yorkshire’s finest recruit!”’ Carly stood up and gave him a huge hug.

‘Steady on,’ he could feel his ears going hot. ‘Not until tomorrow morning, technically. And it’s only a secondment, I’m hardly …’

‘Ah, leave it out! You’ve done well, and I, for one, am going to buy you a pint to celebrate.’ She went over to the bar followed by calls from a couple of others to get one in for them.

Rick leant forward and spoke quietly.

‘Keep me in the loop, mate. Khan’s not known for being a team player, but the victim was part of an old case of mine.’

‘Oh?’

‘Mohammad Asaf seems to have been keeping his hands clean, but some of his associates are still on our radar, including the cousin.’

‘Saleem?’

‘You know him?’

‘We’ve met.’

‘Yeah? Well I hope you’ve still got your wallet, he’s a light fingered little bastard.’

‘To be honest, Rick,’ he looked round to check nobody was listening, ‘it’s all a bit over my head. I’ll do what I can, but I don’t really know what’s going on. There must have been someone more experienced available, so why did DCI Khan ask for me?’

Rick took a sip of beer and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

‘Because you’re young and impressionable,’ Rick said, ‘and because he’s got no mates.’

‘Funny!’ Although Sean wasn’t sure Rick was joking. ‘Saleem Asaf thinks it’s a turf war. His boys versus the white boys off the Chasebridge estate.’

Rick grinned. ‘That’s your real answer.’

‘To what?’

‘Why Khan wants you on his team. People trust you. They tell you stuff. Wish I’d thought of it first, you could have come along with me.’

‘We’re all in it together, mate.’

‘Are we?’

Carly approached the table with their drinks and the conversation drifted away from the case and on to the scandal of the Doncaster Belles being relegated, simply because the dressing rooms at the stadium weren’t up to standard.

‘It’s bloody typical, just because the men’s game is shit, the women have to suffer,’ said Carly, slamming a swiftly emptied pint glass on the table.

The jukebox was playing David Bowie’s ‘Fashion’ and Sean’s mind was focusing on what the hell he was going to wear tomorrow. Khan and Simkins wore suits. He’d have to dig his own out, and pray he hadn’t put on any weight since the last time he went to a funeral.