by Wes Markin
‘He went through a red light … and then … well, that was it. For me, anyway, it was all over. I went out the front windscreen. As I was thrown, I must have caught Ryan, or the front seat because I was twisted around and went through the glass back first. It tore my skin to pieces and fractured my spine. I landed on the bonnet of the other car.’
Yorke took her hand again.
‘The ambulance came, and despite having to resuscitate me three times, got me to hospital. I was placed in an induced coma. Not only did the doctors think it was a miracle I survived, they also thought it was a miracle I experienced no long-term damage apart from the scarring. Incredibly, my spinal cord remained intact. One doctor suggested that maybe the front windscreen was already cracked, so it had given out easier when I hit it.’
She took another mouthful of water.
‘And Ryan?’ Yorke said.
‘Not so lucky. He broke his neck on the steering wheel. His death was instant. I didn’t feel bad, not at the time anyway. He’d threatened me.’
‘You shouldn’t feel bad now.’
‘Yes … but over the years, my attitude has softened. Did he really mean what he said? Would he really have done those things? I’m not so sure. Was he just a silly boy making silly choices?’
‘Probably, but they were his choices, not yours.’
‘Yes, I agree, but still, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for him. Anyway, the accident was the only thing that managed to wake my pissed father … and he was luckier than me … he walked away with a mild concussion. And the people in the other car had cuts and bruises, but nothing serious.’ She wiped away tears, took a deep breath and hugged Yorke. ‘That’s it … I promise, Mike. That’s the only thing I kept from you. My father’s choices have caused so much damage. The fact that I am here, alive, is a miracle. I’m so sorry for never discussing these moments with you before but they’ve been so painful.’
After the revelation, they’d gone to bed to be as close as they could be. Without breaking their embrace, they’d taken it in turns to cry. The sense of relief Yorke felt over finally knowing the truth, coupled with the trauma his wife had suffered, was an emotional combination he’d never really experienced.
And now she was fast asleep … and he was glad. He lowered her t-shirt, covering her scars again, and then remembered something important.
Shit!
With everything going on, he’d forgotten to email Madden his report on the interview with Wheelhouse. She’d have his bollocks for this!
He went downstairs to the kitchen. He eyed up the coffee maker but opted for one of Patricia’s Chamomile teas. He needed to sleep tonight. He then typed up his report on Herbert Wheelhouse, omitting Jake’s aggressive interviewing techniques. As he wrote the report, he made notes of reminders and questions he wanted to raise at tomorrow’s briefing.
Janice’s mother, Bridgett? Returning? British Embassy complied with protection request?
Couple of 100k skimmed by Wheelhouse? Consider all locations … Bridgett? Janice? Property search …?
Wheelhouse – eight years in jail. Why now? Would SEROCU be aware of any missing ‘soldiers’ from Young Properties – possible confessors to Wheelhouse’s skimming?
Request profile on Buddy Young from SEROCU. This original CEO of Young Properties emerged from retirement following murder of son, Simon Young, by Lacey Ray at Jake’s home.
Yorke paused to scribble out ‘Jake’s home.’ No one would be seeing these notes, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He went over the words again, so they were completely obliterated.
In Yorke’s report, there were lots of details about Wheelhouse’s career as a modern-day Fagin. His use of vulnerable children as drug runners. The birth of County Lines if you will.
Just like Jake, it had also made Yorke angry that someone could claim that they were improving the lives of these people. The bottom line was that it was exploitation. Unlike Jake though, Yorke could keep his emotions in check when doing his job, and he detected some remorse in Wheelhouse, which always helped.
The report would probably offer very little to SEROCU. Wheelhouse was so far removed from those at the top. Wheelhouse had certainly been right when he’d warned Yorke of the ‘layer upon layer of insulation.’ In fact, Wheelhouse had only known one immediate superior, Johnny Ashman. Ashman had disappeared three years ago.
‘At roughly the same time a new supermarket went up in his local area,’ Wheelhouse had said with a smile. ‘He’s under those foundations, I bet.’
Yorke put this in his report but doubted anyone would be in a rush to dig up an entire supermarket on Wheelhouse’s gut feeling.
The demise of Ashman was good for society, but bad for this investigation. It meant that this layer of insulation which would have taken them to the next layer was gone.
He sent the report as an encrypted file and then texted the password to Madden. It was 1 a.m. but he wasn’t surprised to receive a text back from the notorious workaholic.
Better late than never, Mike.
At 1 a.m. it was a longshot, but he called Special Visits at HMP Hancock. Predictably, he got the answerphone. He left a message warning that he would be visiting Douglas Firth first thing on police business. He would ring again in the morning to confirm.
Yorke grabbed a kitchen chair, so he could reach the top of the kitchen cupboard. He rooted around until his hand landed on the dusty packet.
It’s been a tough day and the options are to have one of these or kiss any hope of relaxing goodbye.
Another option would be to phone Emma Gardner. Aside from Patricia, she was the only other person that really understood him. She’d know how to soothe his anxious mind. But she’d left the police force behind for many reasons. Nocturnal freak-outs were undoubtedly one of those. Would she appreciate Yorke sharing his with her while she was tucked up in bed? She had a new job as a security guard in M&S to think about after all.
So, nicotine, and thousands of other chemicals he couldn’t name, was his only option.
It was late and cold, so he opted for Patricia’s goose-down lined jacket. It was tight on him, but he managed to zip it up.
Outside, Yorke wondered if it was necessary to smoke. A deep breath of the smog currently dripping from Iceland’s ash cloud might have the same impact as a cigarette.
He heard a cat rustling in the bushes at the end of his garden, and then pound up the fence to flee the houseowner. Once it’d gone, silence descended. There were no lights from the other houses over the walls, at least none he could see through the low-hanging black shroud. He felt truly alone.
He looked at the cigarette in one hand, and the lighter in the other. He thought about the run he could possibly be doing instead, but that was out of the question, because he’d wake Patricia up getting his gear out the wardrobe. And if anyone needed sleep, she did. Retelling that story earlier would have drained her.
He lit his cigarette and took his first puff. The fact that it made him light-headed was a good sign. It showed that it had been a considerable length of time since the last one. His body wasn’t used to the nicotine, and so he wasn’t beholden to it.
Yorke recalled the first time his sister, Danielle, had caught him smoking at the age of sixteen. He smiled. She’d literally gone for him with a slipper! He doubted many sisters would have responded so aggressively, but she’d been more of a mother than a sister and despite smoking like a trooper herself, she wouldn’t be suffering her younger brother killing himself on her watch.
‘I’m glad you’re dead, Proud,’ Yorke said. He took another drag on his cigarette and blew it out into the volcanic spew.
The outside light was off; he’d ensured that before coming outside. It was disconcerting that his eyes were not adjusting to the darkness. It was as if tendrils had grown from the mass, and were continually wrapping themselves around everything, snuffing out its existence.
He thought of the tendrils from a dark world which had caught and squeezed
his sister.
Addictions, sex, crime, despair.
Smothered by so many tendrils.
Drug dealer William Proud had raped Danielle Yorke while holding her face against a hot stove. She’d died from a heart attack. Proud had run, leaving Tom Davies, junkie boyfriend to carry the can. Yorke’s best friend at the time, Harry Butler, had been threatened into framing Davies by someone in the force. Many years later, after Yorke had finally caught up with Proud, he was told by his sister’s killer to look at his own. That there was a bent bastard shitting in the same toilet as him. Yorke still had no idea who this corrupt officer was, but it wasn’t an enigma that went away. He thought about it daily. And sometimes, when his mind wasn’t busy with work, it consumed most of his thoughts.
For many years, he’d turned his back on Harry Butler. There was a time he’d loved him like a brother. Harry had done this to protect them both. It wasn’t until Harry’s dying moments that the truth had come out and Yorke now dearly missed the man he’d rejected.
And now he was losing someone else close to him.
He took a last drag on the cigarette, threw it into the black, hoisted his phone out, and texted Jake to see if he was awake.
Less than a minute later, Jake called him. ‘Did you want to read me a bedtime story?’
‘The only stories I know are the ones that give you nightmares.’
Jake laughed. ‘Already suffering from them.’
‘Listen, I just wanted to check that you were okay? You seemed rather het up today.’
Yorke was pretending to be sympathetic; in reality, he was annoyed at Jake’s unprofessional behaviour. But this was one relationship that needed healing. Desperately.
‘Thanks. Yeah … he just got to me. You know how I feel when it involves children. I just saw red.’
Yorke nodded. ‘It’s usually the way but we always need to try and keep them onside …’
There was a pause. ‘Is this a bollocking?’
Shit … no! Get the hell out of boss mode, Mike! ‘No … just pointing out why I didn’t lose it too, because he would try the patience of a saint.’
‘So, you’re a saint, and I’m a what? A hot-headed maniac?’
‘No!’ It was all going wrong again. Yorke sighed. ‘That isn’t what I meant! I just understand. That’s all I’m saying, and I wanted to make sure you’re okay before I turn in because … because I know it’s been very hard with you recently, but I need you to know that I’m there for you.’
There was a long pause. Yorke was already craving another cigarette.
‘Yes. Thanks, sir.’
‘Mike.’
‘Yeah, sorry, Mike, been that long I forgot we did personal calls. Maybe, we should get together at The Wyndham this weekend, depending on how the case is going?’
‘I’d bloody like that, Jake.’
‘Sorry for being snappy. This sodding bedsit is getting on my wick. Radiator is on the blink. I’m sleeping in my coat under two fucking blankets!’
‘Well, you know you can stay here anytime you want?’
‘Thanks, but I have the plumber out tomorrow. It’ll be fine. Okay, going to turn in.’
‘Okay, goodnight, Jake. Sure you don’t want that bedtime story?’
Jake laughed. ‘I know all your bloody stories already. Night, Mike.’
After the call ended, Yorke stood there for a good while trying to work out if that went well or not.
Am I any different to Herbert Wheelhouse? To any of them?
Jake counted the twenty-pound notes again. It was exactly as promised. Not a penny less. They could have underpaid - what could he have done about it? Really? Maybe there was honour among those he’d spent a significant part of his life putting away.
He slipped the bundle underneath the bed.
And was this it? Am I now officially one of them? One of the bad guys?
Shivering, he slipped under the first duvet. Then, he reached down for the second which was on the floor beside him. It didn’t help that they were five-tog duvets, built for summer rather than bitter weather.
He hugged himself until the shivering stopped, and then he reached over to the bedside table for the framed picture of his son. He looked at his five-year-old boy, Frank. He didn’t need anyone else to tell him that they looked the image of each other.
They’ve been told. No children. My one condition. Nothing I do impacts on children.
He was so tired. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d slept properly. And when he closed his eyes, he remembered why this was the case.
Lacey. Smiling at him. Simon Young dead on the floor. ‘I always knew you had it in you,’ she said.
He opened his eyes, sat up and asked himself the same question he asked himself every night. Was she right? Had it always been inside me?
Just like last night, and the night before that, he didn’t want to lie back down. He propped the pillow behind his back, and prepared for a long night staring into space, waiting for exhaustion. It always came – a few hours before work usually.
He closed his eyes again, tried to force his issue.
Lacey prodded Simon Young’s corpse with her foot. ‘Your first?’ she said.
He opened his eyes, hugged the picture of Frank to his chest, and cried.
This is who you are now, Jake. You are no different from all those monsters you put away.
Including Lacey Ray.
8
THE SKIES WERE no brighter the following morning, and neither was Yorke’s mood. A quick phone call from Joan Madden did little to help.
‘I want to see you before the briefing, Mike.’
The briefing was scheduled for 11 a.m. ‘I’ll try, ma’am, but I’m pressed for time.’
‘Dropping the children off?’
‘Yes …’ Yorke regretted the lie immediately.
Her silence suggested she’d seen through it.
‘But I’ll try my best,’ Yorke said.
‘Before the briefing, Mike. It’s important.’ And then she was gone.
She knows, Yorke thought. She knows about Douglas Firth and knows that he may be connected to the case. She knows I have driven straight to HMP Hancock to rule him out of the investigation.
She knows me.
Yorke knew that if he couldn’t rule Douglas Firth out of the investigation, then he would be compromised. And the meeting she was demanding before briefing? It was to slice him off the operation like a large benign mole.
Just in case.
Yorke parked in the same spot as yesterday and stared up at the decrepit stone structure. The ash cloud hung low, and darkness dripped down the sides of the building.
Today, HMP Hancock looked swollen with malice.
If there could be a saving grace to being back in this stale chamber, it was a different guard, rather than the one who’d spent more time wandering the corridors looking for hot drinks than guarding. Feeling too agitated to sit, Yorke paced around the table and stools.
Just like Herbert Wheelhouse the previous day, Douglas Firth came through the door in his own clothes. He’d opted for a pair of tweed trousers, and a checked shirt buttoned right up to the collar in a similar way to how Yorke sometimes wore his.
The similarities stop there, Yorke thought.
On the journey here, he’d considered several ways to introduce himself to Firth. He’d opted for blunt. I’m DCI Michael Yorke. I’m Patricia’s husband, but I’m here to discuss an investigation that is unrelated.
‘DCI Michael Yorke, I believe.’ Firth said, stepping right up to him. ‘Patricia’s husband. Here to discuss Herbert, presumably. It’s savage what’s happened. Absolutely savage.’
Firth had been allowed close enough for Yorke to smell the coffee on his breath. He glanced at the nonchalant guard, realising that ineptness was clearly a contagion, and that the HMP Hancock was in the throes of an epidemic.
‘Right on all counts, Mr Firth,’ Yorke said. ‘Please come and sit.’
‘
It’d be my pleasure.’
After they’d sat on a stool opposite each other, Firth smiled at Yorke. It was a strong smile and creased most of his elderly face. It was also a smile that Yorke didn’t understand. He chose not to return it.
‘You’re the first visitor I’ve had in quite a while,’ Firth said.
‘Mr Firth, I haven’t got a great deal of time, so if we could?’ Yorke pulled a notepad from his jacket pocket.
‘How’s my daughter?’
Yorke realised he’d have to offer him something to get the interview moving. ‘Pat’s okay. A little shaken up, as we all are, by what happened yesterday, but she’s fine.’
He smiled again. ‘And my granddaughter?’
Yorke took a deep breath.
‘Beatrice, isn’t it?’
‘And how do you know about my daughter if you don’t have visitors?’ Yorke said.
‘Come on now, Michael! It’s okay to call you that, isn’t it? We’re family.’
Yorke didn’t respond.
‘My ex-wife and daughter may want nothing to do with me, but I’m not completely cut off from the outside world!’
‘Mr Firth, you’re in prison,’ Yorke leaned forward. ‘It’s part of the package … being cut off.’
Firth’s smile fell away. He edged backwards on his stool and rubbed the white stubble on his chin. Yorke listened to the scratching sound. He wanted Firth to speak next and was prepared to wait. He didn’t have to wait long. ‘I write to them every week.’
Yorke nodded.
‘And they never write back or come to see me.’
Yorke held back on asking him why he was surprised by this.
‘Imagine if that was you, Michael.’ He leaned forward again. ‘Patricia … Beatrice …’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Gone in the blink of an eye.’
Yorke tapped his pad, offering the sharpest hint yet that he wanted to get on with this.
‘And Ewan Brookes?’ Firth said.
Yorke shook his head. ‘You really have done your research …’
‘What do you expect? You married my only daughter.’
