Deadland

by William Shaw

  She caught the lift down with a teenage girl and her parents; the girl had no hair. The parents were smiling, joking, like parents of sick children did.

  It would be from Ferriter.

  Please! Call me. It’s important. To do with Zoë.

  FORTY-THREE

  ‘What was his name?’ demanded Tap. ‘The man who was here? Scared the balls right off me.’

  Sloth’s face was visible in the firelight, eyes glittering red. ‘Asked him, but he wouldn’t say. Here, have another spoonful.’

  Tap opened his mouth and Sloth spooned the tomato soup from the lid of the thermos. Tap’s throat stung, but he managed to force it down. It tasted magical.

  Standing just inside the hut, there was an old tartan shopping trolley like the ones old women pushed around. According to Sloth, who had carefully taken everything out, then put it back in again, it contained a loaf of bread, a packet of digestives, a lump of cheese, two bottles of water, a bag of sweets and half a dozen eggs.

  It had been there in the hut when Tap had woken. The man with the blue box was a fisherman. He had come every day to fish on the creek, the other side of the big fence. The first few days he had paid the boys no attention. Only when Sloth had left Tap alone had he approached the shelter.

  ‘You left me alone. Where did you go?’ asked Tap.

  ‘To try and get food. Think the po saw me. Got freaked and hid.’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Yeah. So it took me forever to get back here and I was, like, panicking.’

  ‘Tosser,’ said Tap. The soup was good. He could feel its warmth reaching his arms and legs, as if it was flowing directly into them. ‘Don’t have to worry ’bout me.’

  ‘Why not? You’re shit without me.’

  ‘Bog off.’

  ‘Anyway. Got back in the night and this man was in the shed with you. Stinky old feller. I thought he was robbing you. I was screaming at him and everything. He just ignored me, and then I saw what he was doing. No jokes, bro. He was looking after you. Put a blanket over you, fetched more wood for the fire. Everything.’

  ‘Almost shit myself when I woke up and found him here,’ said Tap. ‘No lie.’

  ‘Smell like you did, anyway.’

  ‘Bog off.’

  ‘He buggered off and two hours later he’s back with this shopping trolley. Want it back he said. Pick it up in the morning along with his thermos.’

  ‘Reckon he’s poisoned it?’

  ‘Don’t fricking care.’ Sloth poked a stick through a slice of white bread, then held it over the fire. His first attempt caught alight, but the next one he skewered toasted all over, if unevenly. Placing it on his lap, he broke off a bit of cheese and crumbled it onto the top. ‘Delicious, man,’ he said when he’d finished it. ‘Best thing I ever tasted. Maybe Mum’s right. I should be a chef.’

  The soup had made Tap feel better too. He sat up and watched the fire.

  ‘Why’d he do it?’ said Tap, looking at the trolley full of food. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Nor me, bro,’ said Sloth. ‘Mysteries of the universe. Want a wine gum?’

  Tap sucked on it slowly. The sugar calmed his throat. Evening starlight pulsed through the rising heat from the embers.

  *

  The next morning, Sloth lay sound asleep, thumb in his mouth.

  Tap stood, held up an imaginary camera and took a photograph. Days now without a phone. It was weird. He looked into the corner of the shed, where they had buried the stolen phone. There was just a hole there now. Someone had taken it, he guessed. Maybe the old man. Good riddance.

  His fever had gone. Ravenous, he dipped into the trolley while Sloth slept on. He ate two slices of bread on their own, washed down with water. A third he folded in two, placing half a dozen wine gums inside. After he’d laid the sleeping bag over Sloth, he ventured out into the marsh.

  The tramp was there again, a hundred metres away. He sat on the other side of the wire fence on his blue box, rod out across the muddy water.

  ‘Caught anything?’

  ‘Never do.’

  The sun was warm. Bugs buzzed around the fresh grass. ‘Thanks for the food,’ Tap said.

  The man didn’t even turn. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said. Tap was about to return to the HQ when the old man said, ‘Word of warning. Council security was down this morning looking round the place. They’re little bastards. They don’t want anyone squatting it. They’ll be back again later. Better bugger off out of here, if I was you.’

  Tap said, ‘We ain’t scared.’

  ‘Didn’t say you were.’

  A sluggish current rippled the black water. ‘We were going anyway,’ Tap said.

  And he looked around at the big sky. It was time to leave, he thought. It was time to get things sorted out.

  FORTY-FOUR

  When Cupidi arrived at the Majestic Shine Car Wash she couldn’t see her daughter among the crowd, but two Immigration Enforcement vans parked on the opposite side of the road confirmed that she was in the right place.

  Ferriter had given her the address of the car wash, just on the outskirts of Ashford. As she approached she could she that the immigration officers were standing in a line at the edge of the gate to the industrial unit. A group of young people, mostly dressed in black, blocked their way. Some uniformed coppers were standing close by, dressed in high-visibility jackets and tactical vests. A press photographer Cupidi recognised from one of the local papers was calmly photographing the scene.

  ‘You got here fast.’ She turned towards the voice. Jill Ferriter was wearing dark glasses.

  ‘Is Zoë in there?’

  ‘That’s her. Beside the big bloke with the stupid hair.’

  Cupidi squinted. It took her a second to recognise her, among all the line of misfits and activists, next to the man with dreadlocks. There were about a dozen of them. Women with shaved heads, or dyed hair. One man wore dungarees. Another man had a ‘V for Vendetta’ mask. A middle-aged woman stood with a sign that read #noborders.

  ‘You OK?’ she asked Ferriter.

  ‘Bit fragile. Bit embarrassed.’

  ‘Bit hungover?’

  ‘I don’t regret hitting him, you understand?’

  ‘Too well,’ said Cupidi. She nodded towards her daughter and her friends. ‘How did they get here?’

  ‘Apparently they take it in shifts to wait outside the Immigration Enforcement depot in Folkestone. They just follow the Immigration vans round all day on motorbikes and cars. Try and get in the way of the raids.’

  That’s what her daughter had been doing that she hadn’t wanted to tell her about, she realised.

  ‘How did you find out she was here?’

  ‘Pal in uniform spotted her. Sent me a pic. “Is that DS Cupidi’s kid?” I told him it wasn’t, obviously.’

  ‘How long have they been here?’

  ‘Almost forty minutes. They’re obstructing the Immigration people from entering the premises.’

  ‘So they’re going to charge them?’

  ‘Any minute. You want me to get her out of there before it kicks off?’

  ‘You’re a police officer. You can’t do that.’

  ‘Come on. I’m probably going to be suspended anyway on Monday, when Peter Moon puts a complaint in about me. I think my career is pretty much up a creek, isn’t it?’

  Cupidi didn’t answer because it was true; the one friend she had made in her two years on Serious Crime in Kent would be disciplined as a result of the complaint. If she didn’t lose her job, she would almost certainly be moved off the murder unit. She reached out to squeeze Ferriter’s hand, but Ferriter pulled away. ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  Another police car arrived, disgorging officers. What would have been a quick job picking up an undocumented worker had turned into a public event. Immigration officers had clearly decided this was beyond their powers, so they had had to call in uniforms, which had given time for the press to arrive. Everything the demonstrators wanted, presum
ably.

  Whether the person – or persons – the officers were seeking were still in there was doubtful, too.

  ‘I’ll get her out of there then,’ said Ferriter.

  ‘No. This is my responsibility. I’ll go,’ she said, walking towards the gates of the car wash.

  *

  The protesters had linked arms.

  The line of immigration officers looked bored, tired and exasperated. Turning as she approached, a senior officer said, ‘Please stay away, madam.’

  At times like this, like it or not, you had to identify yourself. She dug out her card and held it up.

  ‘What is a DS doing here?’ he asked, suspicious. ‘Is there something I should know?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Nothing you should know at all.’ She waved at her daughter. Zoë didn’t notice. She called her name out loud.

  Zoë looked up, her expression changing rapidly from shock to embarrassment, then to a glare of resentment.

  ‘That your mother?’ she heard the boy in dreadlocks next to her say.

  Cupidi approached.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Mum?’

  ‘Came to get my car cleaned. You OK?’

  ‘Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘And do you know who you’re trying to protect here?’

  ‘Don’t tell me they’re terrorists or something, Mum,’ said Zoë. ‘They’re just people. Like us.’

  The police who had been asked to attend were talking to the Senior Immigration Enforcement Officer. Sensing that something was about to happen, some of the demonstrators started chanting, ‘Refugees are welcome here.’

  A woman enforcement officer muttered resentfully, ‘They’re not even refugees.’

  Cupidi asked her daughter, ‘Do you know what’s going to happen to you?’

  Zoë was pleading now. ‘Go away, Mum. This is none of your business.’

  The immigration officers shuffled, impatient, annoyed at how they were being cast in the role of bad people.

  ‘Are you going to stop me? Because I’m breaking the law? Is that it?’

  ‘Of course I’m not.’

  Zoë looked puzzled, for a second, almost disappointed.

  A sergeant Cupidi didn’t recognise pushed himself forward. ‘You’re this girl’s mother, I heard.’

  Cupidi turned to him, a soft-faced-looking man in his forties. ‘Yes.’

  He looked relieved. The man led her out of earshot of the demonstrators and the Immigration Force team. ‘Listen. Will you help get her and her mates out of the way? We don’t want to end up pulling them all in. The whole thing is just a massive waste of time. Wouldn’t be surprised if the migrants they’re looking to remove are already halfway to London anyway.’

  Cupidi turned back and looked at her daughter. She was such a small wisp of a girl in amongst all the burly demonstrators. She expected other parents cried when their children picked up awards at school; Zoë had never been that kind of girl, or she that kind of mother, but something of that feeling flooded into her now. All these men around her in those bulky tactical vests that made them look huge and intimidating. She had worried about Zoë, a shy, slight, difficult girl who struggled to find her place in the world. Now she was standing in a line of strange misfits and troublemakers, but looking like she would try to hold back the approaching line of police officers all on her own. She felt proud.

  ‘Have a word, will you?’ the police sergeant was saying.

  ‘Nope,’ she told him. ‘I won’t do that.’

  ‘What do you mean, no? You want her to get pulled in?’

  The police were already moving in and Cupidi found herself being pushed backwards away from her. The protesters were shouting as the press cameraman pushed his way into the melee.

  *

  Cupidi waited with Ferriter back at the station. They sat on a bench out front, where members of the public normally waited.

  The arresting officer had announced they would release Zoë without charge almost immediately because she was a minor, but that still took an hour.

  ‘About last night. I’m so sorry,’ said Ferriter.

  ‘I’ll bet you are.’

  ‘Honest to God, it’s not what I had planned. But when I was there, in that bar and he came up and asked for a birthday kiss, it kind of . . .’

  ‘Is he filing an assault charge?’

  ‘He said he’s going to talk to McAdam on Monday and then lodge a formal complaint.’

  ‘Are you going to tell McAdam why you hit him?’

  ‘Of course not. I can’t, can I?’

  Not if she didn’t want the truth about what had happened the week before to come out. Not if she didn’t want to endanger Cupidi’s career.

  ‘So I expect they’ll suspend me on Monday.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cupidi. ‘I expect they will.’

  ‘I only ever wanted to do this job,’ she said. ‘I was never sure about it at first, but when you joined up I thought, that’s what I want to do. Be like you. Messed that up, didn’t I?’

  Somewhere, on the other side of a closed door, an officer was whistling an irritatingly chirpy tune. ‘It’s not Monday yet,’ said Cupidi.

  ‘Broke it, I think. His nose.’

  ‘You could have at least waited till I was back.’

  Saturday evening. The station was already busy.

  ‘I come from a long line of fuck-ups. I thought I was different. I wasn’t going to be like that.’

  ‘You’re not a fuck-up,’ said Cupidi.

  A constable finally led Zoë out to the front desk. He looked at Jill Ferriter with a kind of hostility that made Cupidi think that word had probably got around. By now, anyone who hadn’t been at the wine bar last night had heard about what had happened there. None of them knew why she’d taken a swing at Peter Moon but they’d probably already made up their minds about her.

  Zoë looked tired and dirty. There was a smudge on her cheek and a tear in her trousers. ‘If you think I’m going to apologise,’ she said, ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be hanging around with people like that, darling. They’re trouble,’ Ferriter said, opening her arms for a hug.

  Zoë ignored her. Instead she went to her mother. ‘Are you angry with me?’

  Cupidi kissed her daughter on the forehead. ‘More hungry than angry. You?’

  ‘I’m bloody starving,’ said Ferriter.

  ‘She meant me,’ Zoë objected. ‘So you don’t think I’m stupid for doing it?’

  Cupidi held her daughter and squeezed her. ‘No. Not at all. You believe in a principle, you should stand up for it.’

  Zoë wriggled out of her grasp. ‘So if you agree with me, that it’s important, you should have joined us. That would have made a real statement.’

  Cupidi was exasperated. ‘I’m a police officer. I was on duty. I just can’t do that.’

  ‘My point exactly,’ said Zoë, and led the way out of the police station.

  In spite of everything, Ferriter found the energy to laugh.

  *

  They ate an Indian takeaway on a blanket on the beach at Dungeness. It was chilly still, but Cupidi kept a box of old rugs and jumpers in a box just inside the front door for occasions like this.

  Zoë picked at her food for a while and then went back to the house. Ferriter had said she didn’t want wine, but when Cupidi opened a bottle, she had a glass. ‘It’s like . . . I got until Monday morning and then I’ll be off, won’t I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I really wanted to do this case. For Astrid Miller. I keep thinking, what have we missed? And it’s too late now. Monday morning, it’ll all be over.’

  ‘Well. You’ve still got tomorrow.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I went to see Frank Khan this afternoon.’

  ‘In hospital? Why?’

  ‘A hunch. I was thinking about those boys, the ones involved in the assault. Ross Clough has this weird kind of theory that they were connected t
o our case somehow. I can’t get them out of my head.’

  ‘Teenagers.’

  ‘Yes. It’s that. We’ve been getting nowhere with this, so I was thinking – and you’ll say this is nuts – but what if Clough saw a connection that we were missing, because we always see things logically?’

  ‘Speak for yourself. I can’t string thoughts together in any order right now.’

  A big ship was out on the horizon, white light blazing, working slowly from west to east. ‘There’s nothing to connect the boys to the disappearance of Abir Stein apart from the fact that the day they first turn up on our radar is the same one the arm was discovered.’

  In darkness, Ferriter poured herself another glass of wine.

  ‘We’ve got twenty-four hours. Some time on Monday morning, you’re going to be suspended.’

  ‘I know.’ Ferriter nodded.

  ‘Twenty-four hours. Desperate measures. I asked Frank Khan where he found the boys. First he said something about twelve words. Then he said something like “Ruby Tuesday”. It’s a song.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘You never heard it? I forget. You’re just a baby, really.’

  ‘I’m twenty-bloody-five.’ Like it was the end of the world.

  Cupidi told her about the visit to EastArt and her meeting with Devon King and the company River Deep.

  ‘So this is all about money?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘If Abir Stein was taking cash off the top, do you think Evert Miller was the man responsible for killing him?’ Ferriter asked. ‘And maybe Astrid knows something about that and that’s why she’s being so weird?’

  Cupidi shivered, pulled a rug more tightly around herself. The cold was good, though. It sharpened her senses. ‘Why would Evert then put evidence in his own artwork? It makes the trail lead straight back to him. That wouldn’t make any sense.’

  Ferriter had her phone out and was scanning YouTube. ‘Is this the song?’

  Cupidi listened. Her mother had an old 45 of it somewhere. She would have seen the Rolling Stones playing it, probably, back in the sixties. She had been that kind of teenager, escaping to the city to find herself. Now the tune sounded quaint and stilted, the ancient sound of a young band trying to prove themselves in groovy London.