Текст книги "Bones in the Nest"

Автор книги: Helen Cadbury

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

Doncaster

Sean found DS Dawn Simkins sitting in an unmarked car on the access road alongside Eagle Mount One. He knocked on the window. She gestured that he should come round to the passenger side and get in.

‘God,’ she sighed. ‘This place is a right shithole.’

He said nothing. It might be a shithole, but it was his shithole.

‘I’d rather be in Sheffield,’ she said. ‘I was only put on this case so he could prove he could work with a woman.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘He’s had complaints, that’s why he’s been sent over here. But then he’s not shy of chucking his own complaints about, so be careful.’

‘Right. Thanks. D’you mind if we talk about the job? Anything from the house-to-house?’

‘Nothing much. I was going to start on this block when the uniformed constables get back. But you can do it if you like.’

Sean stared up at Eagle Mount One.

‘Might be a slight conflict of interest if I take this one,’ he said. ‘Maybe I could do Attlee Avenue?’

‘I think you’ll find I’m in charge of allocating manpower, Acting DC Denton.’ The emphasis was heavy on the ‘acting’.

‘I understand. But the thing is, I grew up in that block. My dad still lives there.’

He waited to see if she was going to apologise for calling his former home a shithole, but she didn’t. She just shrugged and unclipped a list of house numbers and handed it to him.

‘All right. Attlee Avenue. Be back here in half an hour and you can come with me to see Mrs Armley again. She might relate to someone local. And if we can’t get any sense out of her, we’ll have to bring her in and do it on video. The paperwork’s underneath. Make sure you fill in the forms correctly, otherwise it’s a waste of everyone’s time.’

He decided not to take it personally and was glad to be out of the car. She was like a negative-energy black hole, pulling everyone in range of her force field down with her. He took his jacket off, slung it over his shoulder and loosened his tie. On Attlee Avenue, a few people were sitting out in their front gardens and there was a smell of freshly lit barbecues. Two uniformed officers were walking over the grass of the recreation ground, heads down, checking to see if anything had been missed.

‘Gav!’

‘Now then. Look at you!’ Gavin Wentworth stood up straight and rubbed the small of his back.

‘You off nights as well?’ Sean called over to him.

‘Aye, made sense to swap me too, and put me on this unit. Thanks for the night off, sunshine, though I’m not sure I’ve acclimatised yet. I could fall asleep on my feet, to be honest.’

Gavin’s new partner kept going towards DS Simkins’s car, while Gav offered to carry on down Attlee Avenue with Sean. In the first house, a nervous Polish woman shook her head and said ‘sorry’ to everything they asked. At the next, a tired woman with numerous children running around, said she’d had the telly on all evening in the back room, and didn’t know a thing until the police arrived this morning.

‘It’ll be to do with all the immigrants,’ she added as they turned to go.

‘Sorry?’ Sean said.

‘It never used to be like this here.’

‘Thank you for your time,’ Gav said. ‘Come on, son,’ he said quietly to Sean, ‘it’s not worth it.’

Sean was wondering what glorious part of Chasebridge’s past she was harking back to. Certainly not one that had existed in his lifetime. The names of the people doing the fighting might have changed, but that was all. The next few houses gave them nothing and one man just told them to f-off, he was having a sleep. Gav suggested they break off for ten minutes and pick up a bar of chocolate to give them the strength to face the other end of the street.

They followed Attlee Avenue down to below the primary school and walked round Winston Grove to the shops. Sean glanced up towards the flats at the top of the hill and picked out Mrs Armley’s window, mentally marking the distance again. Inside the newsagents, the same young woman in a hijab was serving behind the counter. They waited behind an elderly lady buying scratch cards.

‘Tax on the daft, that lottery,’ PC Wentworth muttered. ‘If she saved that up, she’d have a nice nest egg for Christmas.’

When their turn came, the girl looked at them warily.

‘Look, I’ve already told the other officer, Mo was here until about eight that evening, helping me.’ She looked around the shop, as if she was checking that they wouldn’t be overheard. When she was sure they were alone, she spoke quietly. ‘He was really happy. Checking his hair and all that in the mirror, I thought … no, it doesn’t matter.’

The shop door opened behind them and the bell chimed. Sean was about to say something, when PC Wentworth cleared his throat.

‘Thank you, young lady. Now, can I have a large bar of milk chocolate, please? And if there is anything else, just get in touch.’

Outside Gav snapped the end off the chocolate and looked up at the names above the door.

‘The licensees are called A Asaf and K Asaf, so is she family too?’

‘Yeah, I reckon she’s the victim’s cousin, Saleem’s sister,’ Sean said. ‘Ghazala, I think he called her.’

Gav gave him a friendly pat on the back. ‘Nice piece of deduction, Mr Watson.’

‘Don’t you start. I’ve had enough stick from Carly.’

‘We’re all made up for you, lad, truly. Anyway, that’s something for you to give your new boss, all part of a routine inquiry, and no need to own up to our unscheduled chocolate break. So long as the Rottweiler with the clipboard doesn’t spot we went off plan. Here …’ He broke off a line of squares and handed it to Sean.

‘Do you think he was meeting a girl?’

‘Probably, or a boy,’ Gav said.

‘Surely not!’

‘Why not? Because Pakistani boys can’t be gay? Let me tell you something. A few years ago, I was based in Leeds and I was driving with a colleague round one of the outlying estates. We came across a group of lads, fifteen or twenty of them. I thought, hey up, this is some sort of gang. I was braced for trouble.’

‘What was it?’

‘Lads who took the bus out to the edge of town, or got on their scooters or whatever, to meet up where nobody knew them, nobody to tell their families. Young gay lads. Asian lads.’

‘All right. Point taken. He got a text from a lover, or a prospective lover. He was on a promise and he ended up dead. That doesn’t get us much further.’

Back on Attlee Avenue they encountered shrugs, monosyllabic responses and a door shut in their face by a toddler, who they could hear screaming inside the house. Eventually the mother opened the door and said she was sorry about that, but the little girl was scared of the police since they kept taking her dad away and no, they hadn’t seen anything. Finally, as Sean was giving up hope, an elderly man outside his house said he’d been sitting in his front garden on Tuesday night, watching the world go by. He’d come out to do the watering and decided to have a bit of a rest on his bench as it was such a nice evening. He showed them a low stone bench under his window, flanked by roses and giant daisies.

‘It was very quiet. A young lad went by, smoking a cigarette. I remember that because I could smell it. I’ve packed them in myself, but now and again I get the smell of one and it brings back the cravings, you know what I mean?’

The boy he’d seen was wearing a hood, that’s all he could remember, strolling casually, not in any rush. He didn’t see his face. He got the feeling he stood about for a while, because the cigarette smell lingered. Sean sat on the bench and realised that the hedge was so high, you saw people only as they passed the gate. The rest of the estate disappeared once you were seated and you could be a hundred miles away from the Chasebridge estate. They thanked the old man and carried on to the last few houses. Sean looked back down the hill.

‘If you were planning to visit Eagle Mount Two,’ he said, ‘it would be straightforward. You’d turn the corner of Winston Grove, come up the centre of the estate past the school and the community centre and then across the rec at some point. You’d never be out of sight of Mrs Armley’s window. Unless you were trying to hide from someone. I suppose he could have cut between the community centre and the back of the primary school and come up Attlee Avenue, where nobody claims to have seen him.’

‘There you go, boss.’ Gav said, handing Sean a clipboard with the house numbers all ticked off. ‘Put your squiggle there.’

‘Gav, mate, I’m not your boss.’ Sean picked up the pen.

DS Simkins wasn’t in the car when they got back to it. Gav set off in the direction of the low-rises to catch up with his new partner and Sean carried on to the tower blocks. In the entrance hall of Eagle Mount Two, Lizzie Morrison was crouching down, running a UV light over the floor of the lift.

‘Hi!’ Sean said, trying to sound casual. ‘You got more to do here?’

‘Something’s bothering me, so I thought I’d do another sweep. How about you?’

‘On the way up to see Mrs Armley.’

‘Do us a favour, Sean. While you’re there, see if you can get her mop. There might be blood traces on it. This lift was definitely cleaned recently, but I’m picking up a faint pattern. Blood’s almost impossible to shift completely, even with Mrs Armley’s arsenal of household chemicals.’

‘OK.’ Sean turned towards the stairwell. He was trying to puzzle something out in his head, which didn’t add up. He came back to where Lizzie was working.

‘Why did she stop cleaning the footprints at the door to the stairwell, if she took the trouble to clean the lift? Surely you would clean the worst bits first.’

‘Go on.’ Lizzie straightened up.

‘Well, she made out that she stopped when she saw the body, but that doesn’t make sense. The cleaning ends on the landing, just inside the door. I’m beginning to think she never saw the body. She said “it”, not “he”.’

‘But she must have seen it. She called it in.’

‘I think she said there’d been a fight. We thought she meant it had just happened, but it was hours before. I wouldn’t mind knowing exactly what she did say.’ He selected a number from his contacts. ‘Hi, Sandy … um, it’s Sean. If you get this, can you call me back?’

‘Friends in high places?’ Lizzie said.

‘Friend in the call room. Anyway, she’s not picking up, maybe she’s finished for the day.’

‘Some people have social lives. Apparently.’ Lizzie puffed a cloud of white powder over the lift’s control buttons and gently brushed the excess off. ‘Not our Mrs Armley, though. It looks like she’s been very busy. Not much left to go on here, but we need to get this lift back in use. The natives are getting restless.’

Sean looked at his watch.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’ Lizzie asked, without looking up.

‘That DS from the Sheffield squad. Simkins.’

‘The grumpy-looking one? She was here five minutes ago. She completely ignored me, so …’

‘Shit. Why didn’t she wait for me?’

Sean took the stairs two at a time and arrived out of breath at Mrs Armley’s door. Bernadette Armley undid what sounded like five different locks, before she opened the door on the chain. He held out his badge.

‘Hello, it’s the police.’ He decided not to bother with the ‘acting detective constable’ bit. ‘I was here yesterday.’

She slid the chain off and opened the door.

‘Someone knocked before,’ Mrs Armley said, ‘but I didn’t let her in. She said she was police, but it could have been a ruse, don’t you think? Like that lot I had in last year who said they were the gas board and took my watch and my rings from by the bed.’

She stood back and he went in. Mrs Armley relocked the door and padded in fur-lined slippers to join him by the window, which overlooked the heart of the estate. Apart from the faint rush of her nylon housecoat, she moved without a sound. Neither of them spoke while Sean listened to the outside world, deadened by double-glazing. He hoped he wasn’t in trouble, but he was sure it wasn’t his mistake. DS Dawn Simkins had come without him on purpose.

He could see where the cordon had been reduced to a triangle of tape, the apex tied to the lamp post. A police crime incident van was parked on the access road and beyond it the playground was empty. Two boys were kicking a football back and forth on the patch of rough grass. A small dog ran out through the tattered hedgerow that hid the bins behind the community centre. It circled hysterically, barked at the boys and disappeared, summoned by someone out of sight.

Sean looked down at the low-rise blocks, which cupped one side of an oval along Darwin Road. He glanced across the rec, the community centre and the primary school, to Attlee Avenue, curving around the other side. The ground sloped down until the rooftops of The Groves filled the view and above them, in the distance, Sean could see the Frenchgate Shopping Centre and the tower of Doncaster Minster. The view would be even better higher up, but the interesting thing from this angle was that he could see the road and even the path up to the flats. Only the side door to the stairs was out of view.

‘Tell me again, where did the young man run from?’

She pointed towards the school. ‘He cut across there. And I said: “there’s someone up to no good.” That’s what I said. “There’s someone on the run.” Lost sight of him after that.’

He couldn’t have vanished, and yet nobody on Attlee Avenue had noticed him. Someone casually sauntering past with a cigarette didn’t tally with a young man being chased.

‘And you’re sure you didn’t see anyone else?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘Did he stop? Or did he carry on running?’

She peered out and shook her head.

‘Did you keep looking? Or did you look away for a few seconds? It’s important.’

‘Like I said, I lost sight of him.’

‘Was anyone following him or chasing him?’

‘I can’t remember.’ She turned away from the window and sat down on the settee. She was so tiny and frail looking. She patted the seat next to her. ‘I’m forgetting my manners, son. Sit yourself down. Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘No thanks, I’ll get one later at my nan’s.’

‘Who’s that then?’

‘You probably don’t know her.’ He recalled DCI Khan’s sharp look yesterday when he nearly gave away that he was local. ‘You said you saw the boy running, but did you see anything else before that? Anything unusual?’

She shook her head. ‘I was watching telly. Corrie and then that thing with the feller off Bergerac. I usually close the curtains early, even in the summer. I don’t like the dark creeping up on me.’

‘I see.’

‘It’ll be dark soon, I said, I’ll close the curtains.’

‘You saw the young man and closed the curtains?’

‘Yes.’

He was trying to picture it, but it wasn’t helping. He hoped it might make more sense to DCI Khan. He got up to go, pausing by the glass-fronted cabinet to look at the framed school photographs.

‘Would you mind if I borrowed your mop?’

‘My mop?’

‘Just to get it checked over by forensics.’

‘Well, I suppose so.’ She went through into the kitchen and on to the small concrete balcony, where Sean could see the mop standing in a bucket. She squeezed the water out of it and gave it a shake.

‘Try not to let it drip on you trousers, son, it’s got a bit of bleach in the water.’

He said goodbye and carried the mop, at arm’s length, down the stairs.

Lizzie was waiting for him in the foyer by the main front door.

‘Let me see if I’ve got a big enough bag for that,’ she said. ‘Might have to be two.’

‘Don’t hold your breath, she’s had it in a bucket of bleach.’

‘Blood is thicker than bleach, Sean.’

He returned her smile and looked away fast; it wasn’t fair that she could still look so good, when he didn’t stand a chance.

‘I’ll see you around,’ he said and headed for the door.

‘Yeah, see you.’ She was already focusing on her work again, her voice muted inside the lift.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Doncaster

Sean sat up in bed and scooped his clothes off the floor. His phone started to ring on his bedside cabinet at the very moment he was shoving his head into his T-shirt. He got one arm into a sleeve hole and grabbed blindly, but as his fingers brushed the screen, the phone clattered to the floor. The neck of this T-shirt had always been too tight and he was still trying to force his head through, upside down over the side of the bed, when he heard Khan’s voice.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello! Sean Denton speaking.’

‘Did I wake you?’

‘No, I … No, sir, I’m awake.’

‘You sound like you’re having a fight in a shoebox.’

‘Dropped the phone. Hang on … there, that’s better.’

‘Can you meet me at Doncaster Royal Infirmary as soon as possible? A stab victim came in late last night. At the moment the hospital doesn’t have a name. All we know is that he was found behind the shops on Winston Grove, on the edge of the Chasebridge estate. The ward sister’s just phoned to say he’s woken up, and he’s all ours.’

‘Is the victim Asian or white?’ Sean said, upright now and half-dressed.

‘Sorry?’

‘Asian or white, or black, even?’

‘Asian, since you ask. And he’s refusing to give his name.’

‘OK. I just …’

‘Denton?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

He put Saleem’s veiled threat to the back of his mind. ‘They take one of ours; we’ll have to take one of theirs.’ Not this time. He made a mental note: don’t jump to conclusions.

At the hospital they found their way to the ward and stopped at the nurses’ station to ask where their patient was. A student nurse waved them towards a bay, but Khan turned back.

‘Do you have any details from the ambulance crew that brought him in?’

‘I’ve just come on shift. Look, sorry, I’ll try and find out, but I’ve got to sort out a leaking catheter bag.’

DCI Khan was breathing hard through his nose.

‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘Fine, but hospitals don’t agree with me.’

They walked along the corridor, glancing into the bays until they came to the one they were looking for. A thin figure was lying in a bed near the window. The other occupants of the bay were finishing their breakfast, but their target was lying on his side with his back turned. The toast was cold on his plate and his cup of tea untouched.

‘Morning, son,’ Khan said.

‘I’m not your son.’ He didn’t turn his gaze from the window.

Khan gave Sean a nod and he walked round the other side of the bed and pulled up a chair.

‘Hello, Saleem,’ Sean said. ‘Are you going to tell us what happened?’

The other patients had stopped talking and Sean suspected they’d stopped chewing too. Saleem Asaf turned on his back, wincing.

‘I ain’t talking to you lot.’

‘We want to find out who did this to you. You’re the victim of a crime. But you’ll have to help us,’ Sean said quietly.

The boy continued to stare above his head, trying not to blink. A muscle pulsed in his cheek.

‘Do you have the clothes you were wearing when you came in?’ Khan’s voice was quiet too, but more insistent. ‘We’ll need to take them for forensic testing, to see if your attackers left any evidence. Are they in here?’

Khan opened the cupboard by the bed and the boy tried to turn towards him, but the pain forced him back.

‘Fuck off! You can’t touch my stuff.’

The man in the bed opposite paused with a spoonful of Rice Krispies suspended in mid-air.

‘I can take what I want, especially if what I want will help us find out who hurt you.’ The cold steel in Khan’s voice made Sean’s skin prickle. ‘And I don’t need a warrant, if that’s what you’re thinking, because this is a public place. Now, why don’t you calm down and I’ll see if the nurse can give you something for the pain.’

Sean looked at the tense face, eyes fixed on a light fitting above him. It was the first time he’d seen the boy so still. Khan went to find a nurse.

‘Saleem,’ Sean said, ‘who was it?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see them. They jumped me and that was it.’

Sean thought about the conversation they’d had at the college. Not just a wind-up merchant then. Someone really was out to get Saleem. Perhaps he could have stopped this from happening, but if Saleem was too stubborn, or too scared, to give them anything, there was a limit to what he or Khan could do. He got up and looked out of the window. There was a sepia haze hanging over the town; and out there someone was going about their business, someone who had attacked a teenage boy, perhaps the same someone who had murdered his cousin.

In the call room, Sandy Schofield, a middle-aged civilian whom Sean had known since his days as a PCSO, handed him the transcript of Mrs Armley’s 999 call.

‘It’s odd that she doesn’t describe the victim as a man or a woman,’ she said, ‘just as a body.’

‘I know, it’s been bothering me, too.’

‘Do you want to hear the original?’

‘It’s OK, another time. I’d better get back up to DCI Khan. There’s a briefing in five minutes.’

‘No problem.’ Sandy peered over her reading glasses at him. ‘You all right? You look a bit worried.’

‘I’m OK. But I need to keep on my toes around DCI Khan.’

‘You’ll be fine. You’re a people person.’

‘Er, thanks.’

‘Any time, pet!’

He dragged his feet on the way back to the incident room. The grit in the treads of his trainers pulled against the concrete. It had been a relief when Khan told him to leave the suit at home.

‘Can’t have us both looking like loan sharks,’ he’d said on the phone.

Sean had shuddered, inwardly. He wished Khan had never clapped eyes on his father.

The board in the incident room had Mohammad Asaf’s picture in the centre, next to an aerial photograph of the estate, the dates and estimated time of the assault. To the right, Khan had written ‘College’ and three bullet points, one for ‘teachers’, one for ‘other customers’ and one which read: ‘Saleem Asaf, first cousin of deceased. Non-fatal stab victim’. As the room filled up with officers, Sean hung back by the door. Khan saw him and gestured for him to take a seat at the front. As he worked his way through the tangle of chairs he heard someone quietly, but distinctly, say ‘Paki lover’ as he passed. He turned, but no one was looking in his direction. The colour rose up his neck and into his cheeks.

Khan called the room to order and talked through the events so far. He explained what had happened to Saleem.

‘This lad,’ Khan said, ‘referred to his cousin by the nickname, “Mocat”.’

The pen squeaked on the whiteboard as Khan began to write it up.

‘He also made an overt threat against young white males on the Chasebridge estate,’ he continued.

‘Sean, did he say “Mocat”?’ The voice came from behind him. Sean turned to face Lizzie Morrison.

‘Hi Lizzie.’ Casual. Or so he hoped.

‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a picture on my phone which might be interesting. Oh, flip, how do I …’

‘Shall we continue while Miss Morrison sorts out how to operate her mobile phone?’ Khan’s tone was icy. Any laughter that threatened to start up was quickly muffled.

Sean felt a hand squeeze his elbow and Lizzie’s lips almost brushed his cheek, as she whispered: ‘Here, look.’

Don’t touch me. For God’s sake. His cheek burnt and he could feel the pressure of her hand long after she’d taken it away.

‘This was on the wall outside the Keepmoat Stadium,’ she said. ‘It’s fresh.’

The screen showed an image of green and purple lettering sprayed onto a concrete wall. ‘MOCAT RIP’.

‘What’s the point of media silence now?’ Sean wondered out loud.

‘Denton?’

‘Graffiti, sir.’ He passed the phone to Khan. ‘Saleem knew about Mohammad’s death, even before we told the family, didn’t he? So maybe this is his work.’

He wondered what Lizzie was doing at the stadium, but then he remembered that her dad was on the board of the football club. She used to go out with the marketing manager there, before she went down south.

‘Is your friend Guy still working at the Rovers?’ He whispered back to her. She didn’t reply.

Khan was asking if the house-to-house inquiries had been fruitful, but the response was depressing. Nobody had seen or heard anything. Doors had been slammed in officers’ faces, if they were ever opened at all. One of the constables observed that while nobody was interested in talking about Mohammad Asaf, they were downright hostile when asked about the cousin, Saleem. Rick Houghton, as Doncaster’s drug squad lead, stood up to give a brief account of Mohammad’s known connections.

‘He was a small time supplier before his arrest last year. We’re working on the theory that this particular supply line is controlled from Sheffield, but we haven’t successfully traced it back to any group or individuals. Mohammad Asaf has kept his hands clean since he got out, which is very nice for Her Majesty’s Prison Service and their resettlement targets, but bugger all use to us. We’d given up watching him because he was being such a good boy.’

Lizzie spoke next, presenting the forensic analysis of Saleem’s possessions, taken from his bedside locker. She looked great, Sean thought, in slim black trousers and a cropped jacket. She was thinner than when he’d first known her, or maybe just more toned. He imagined her at the gym, wondering if she’d joined a local one since moving back. Wouldn’t it be great if it were the same gym he went to? She caught his eye for a second and he snapped back to the moment and tried to look as if he’d been listening.

‘It’s Saleem’s own blood on his clothes and no one else’s. We’re checking a fingerprint from his sleeve, which looks as if someone made a grab for him. The shoes are still waiting to go to the lab. I’m sorry but we’re having trouble keeping up with the workload as it is, so I’ll have to get back to you on this in a day or so.’

Lizzie sat down, catching Sean’s eye with a strained smile, as she slipped back into the row behind him.

‘Thank you,’ Khan said. ‘Saleem’s injury wasn’t lifethreatening, and my guess is, that was quite deliberate. It’s possible someone wants him to keep quiet, perhaps he’s the missing link in the drug supply line.’

‘It’s possible,’ Rick grunted.

After a few questions from the floor, Khan announced that Doncaster and Sheffield CID homicide and drug squad officers would remain active, but all uniformed officers were being pulled off the estate to let things settle. There was a commotion of voices questioning the decision.

‘That’s all for now, folks. I think we have to accept that we’re not going to get anything out of these people by asking straightforward questions. We’re going to have to try something different. Right, on your way, people.’

‘Whose idea is this?’ A male voice called from the middle of the room.

Sean thought he recognised it as the one who’d called him a Paki lover. He turned to try to match a face to the voice, but people were standing up, blocking his view. He felt a tap on his shoulder; it was Khan.

‘Meet me in the CID office in ten minutes.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Oh and Denton?’

‘Sir?’

‘Get me an Americano from the canteen, small splash of milk.’

The long corridor which led from the ops room to the CID office was lined with rooms belonging to senior staff (opaque glass above the door, knock before entering) and larger offices which housed uniformed teams and civilians (clear glass, doors left open to air the overcrowded hot boxes). A wolf whistle came from the PCSO base as he passed. He suspected it was Carly. The door ahead of him at the end of the corridor had clear glass, over which someone had stuck a home-made poster:

Rules of the CID Office

1. Forgive your enemy but remember the bastard’s name.

2. Many people are only alive because it’s illegal to shoot them.

3. Alcohol never solved anything but then again, neither did tea.

Sean turned the loose metal handle and the glass rattled in its frame. The room was packed with furniture. Desks, pushed back-to-back, lined the wall under the window and a central table was laden with box files. Tucked behind the door another long table was piled with a nest of cables, one leading to a grubby computer monitor, others trailing off between mismatched chairs before snaking across the floor.

‘Can I help you?’ A head was appearing from under a desk in the far corner of the room. The head was partly covered by DI Rick Houghton’s thinning hair. ‘Sean, mate. Didn’t recognise your feet in trainers.’

‘Khan asked me to come in dressed down. Is he around?’

‘He’ll be back in a minute.’ Rick stood up and dusted off his trousers. ‘I was trying to reconnect my telephone line. We’re sharing with the Sheffield crew.’

‘What? They unplugged your phone? Cheeky buggers.’

‘That’s one word for them. That coffee going spare?’

‘No.’ Sean hoped he could remember which was his cappuccino and which was Khan’s Americano. ‘Although it is probably going cold.’

‘Shame. I’m gasping.’

Sean nudged some box files aside on the central table to make space to put the cups. Rick picked one up and peeled back the lid. The froth had stuck to the plastic.

‘What do you call this? Looks like a frigging milkshake.’

‘Get your mitts off. That’s mine.’

‘What’s the other one?’

‘Americano, but that’s for DCI Khan.’

‘Are you his personal servant now?’ Rick grinned at him. ‘Scared you’ll be back in uniform if you give him the wrong brew?’

‘I don’t have a clue what he thinks I am, to be honest.’

‘Yeah? Well be careful around him. He’s got a reputation.’ Rick licked off the froth from the inside of the cappuccino’s lid.

‘So people keep saying.’

Sean heard a door close further along the corridor. He turned to see Khan heading towards the CID office.

‘Ah, coffee, excellent and you got one for DI Houghton. Good work, Sean. Right, we need to talk through a plan. Shut the door. I’ve had an idea, but this is strictly between the three of us.’

Rick picked up the cappuccino and licked his lips behind Khan’s back, before taking a slurp of Sean’s coffee.

‘Right, Denton. As you know, I’ve pulled the house-to-house team off for now, but I want you to go back on the estate.’

‘Sir?’

‘I don’t want you to do anything, just be there. Hang out, and relax,’ Khan said. ‘Spend some time at your dad’s place.’

Sean nearly choked. ‘I don’t think he’ll want me, especially if I’m on the job.’

‘Not a big fan of the force is he?’ Khan said.

‘That’s an understatement, sir.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘My dad was a miner,’ Sean said, suddenly noticing a mark on the knee of his jeans. He licked his thumb to rub it off. When he looked up, Khan was waiting for more. ‘Uh, well. This was before I was born. He got his hand broken on a picket line by a member of the South Yorkshire Force, as it happens. It never healed properly and he couldn’t go back to work, and then there was no work to go back to. He’s a drinker, has been for years. End of.’