Dead Stock

by Rachel Ward

  ‘The lady with the white cat? Yeah. He nabbed any cat that came into his garden, but he also . . .collected them on his rounds.’

  ‘The West Country’s oldest paper boy,’ said Bea. ‘God, I feel sick. I’ve seen him out and about, not just on a Thursday when the Bugle comes out.’

  ‘Everyone has,’ said Dean. ‘He can walk anywhere he likes with that trolley and people don’t take any notice. Or they wave at him.’

  ‘The trolley,’ said Bea.

  ‘That’s where we found the two dead ones. The grey one and the tabby. He’d killed them and stuffed them in his Bugle bag.’

  ‘But, Dean, this is horrific,’ said Bea. ‘If you knew, why didn’t you tell someone? You could have done it anonymously.’

  ‘Tank was trying to keep a lid on it. It’s his grandad, after all. He’d go there every day and check up on him. Rescue any cats that were still alive. Get rid of the bodies of the ones that weren’t.’

  ‘So it was Tank that kept dumping dead cats at Costsave? Who put the head on my front doorstep?’

  Dean looked down at the floor again. ‘No,’ he said, quietly. ‘That was me.’

  ‘You absolute bellend,’ said Ant.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I liked my job at Costsave, though. I was gutted to lose it.’

  ‘You can’t keep blaming me,’ said Bea. ‘You lost that job all on your own. Anyway, your mum works there.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Ant. ‘Let’s not go over all that again. What are we going to do now? We can’t just let the old guy carry on.’

  ‘They’ll lock him up, won’t they?’ said Dean.

  ‘Yes, if there’s any justice,’ said Bea. ‘Or maybe they’ll give him some help, if that’s what he needs. If he’s really ill.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good. To be honest, I don’t think we could have kept covering for him any longer. It’s too much.’ He sagged a little further in his chair. ‘Do you think they’ll lock me up too?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dean.’

  ‘I get that you’ll have to tell someone about Mr Sherman, but can we keep me and Tank out of it?’

  Ant looked at Bea. This was their chance to get revenge on Dean, for all the shit he’d put them through. Revenge could be sweet, thought Bea, and yet it would also fuel the fire. This feud could go on and on for years, making things uncomfortable for everyone. She wanted to feel at ease at home with Queenie and walking about Kingsleigh. She didn’t want to be looking over her shoulder. She didn’t want enemies.

  ‘If you swear you didn’t hurt any of those animals . . .’ she said.

  ‘Oh, come on, Bea!’ Ant howled.

  ‘On my life, I swear I didn’t . . .’ Dean pleaded.

  ‘ . . .then perhaps we can just tip them off about Tank’s grandad and leave it at that.’

  ‘Really, Bea?’ said Ant.

  Bea looked at him steadily. ‘Really, the important thing, the thing that matters, is stopping the killing. We all make mistakes, right? But we all need a chance to start again. Do things better this time.’

  Ant sighed heavily. Bea had given him a second chance on his very first day at Costsave, the opportunity to do the right thing. She wondered if he was remembering that right now, if he was big enough to give someone else that chance.

  Dean was staring at her, his mouth half-open. Bea tried to read his face, but it was difficult to tell if it was incredulity or respect. Maybe it was both.

  ‘Thanks, Bea,’ Dean said. ‘I really appreciate that. I’ll owe you one.’

  ‘No,’ said Bea firmly. ‘Clean slate, Dean. I won’t owe you. You won’t owe me. Let’s just start again.’

  ‘Sounds good to me. And I’m sorry. Sorry for the stuff I’ve done in the past. Your mum and everything. I would never have hurt her.’

  Bea held her hands up. ‘Let’s just forget about it. New Year, new start.’ She got to her feet. Ant followed suit.

  ‘Are you going to stay here?’ Bea asked Dean.

  ‘Yeah. I need to know how he is. I’ll stay as long as . . .oh.’

  There were footsteps in the corridor. They all looked towards the door, as a very weary-looking couple walked in, a tall, stringy man with a bald head and an untidy beard, and a woman, much shorter than him, but stocky and muscular. When she looked into the room towards Dean, Bea could see the family resemblance instantly – she was definitely Tank’s mum and the Newspaper Boy’s daughter.

  ‘We’ll go,’ said Bea. ‘Leave you to it.’

  But the couple were blocking the doorway and it seemed too rude to ask them to move.

  ‘How is he?’ said Dean, standing up now.

  Bea tried to read their faces but all she could see was exhaustion.

  ‘He’s on a ventilator, but he’s stable,’ said the woman. ‘The doctor just said we should go home and rest.’

  ‘Is he going to be okay?’

  ‘It’s too early to say, Dean, but he’ll be all right for a few hours. Do you want a lift back to Kingsleigh?’

  They all shambled out of the waiting room and headed for the car park. Bob-on-Meat was waiting for Ant and Bea in his estate car. He’d told them he could hang on for twenty minutes and Ant and Bea were both pleased to see him still there.

  ‘All right?’ he said, as they climbed in.

  ‘Well, yes and no. Tank’s still in intensive care, but we’ve found out who the cat killer is.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, trouble is it’s Tank’s grandad. As if his family aren’t suffering enough.’

  ‘Did you tell them?’ said Bob, looking towards Dean and Tank’s parents walking slowly across the car park.

  ‘No. We’ll have to tell the police, though. Let them deal with it. I’ll do it from home. Are you heading into Costsave now, Bob?’

  ‘Yup. No rest for the wicked.’

  It was just one of those sayings, but Bea couldn’t help thinking that she’d seen a slightly wicked side to Bob recently – or at least a mischievous one. You never knew with people, did you?

  44

  Bob dropped them both off outside Bea’s house.

  ‘I won’t come in, for obvious reasons,’ he said. ‘Anyway, the sausage machine is calling me. See you tomorrow?’

  ‘Yeah, see you, Bob. And thanks!’

  ‘You putting the kettle on?’ said Ant.

  ‘Yes, okay. I’ll just ring the police.’

  She rang Tom’s number. He picked up straight away and she put him on speakerphone.

  ‘Bea! Thought you’d be having a lie-in. You deserve one.’

  ‘I know who the cat killer is, Tom. I can’t tell you how I know, but it’s a man called Fraser Sherman. He lives in Victoria Terrace. I’m a hundred per cent certain it’s him. You need to get round there. Sounds like he’s a sick man, in every sense.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a minute. Where’ve you got this from?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. This will have to be an anonymous tip-off.’

  ‘Okay, let me write the name down. I’m up to my eyes in the bypass case today, Bea, but I’ll put it in the duty log and we’ll see if someone else can call round. Might be later in the week, though.’

  ‘Tom, this is urgent. What if he kills more cats between now and then?’

  ‘Bea, calm down, okay? Seriously, you’ve been through a lot. Let us deal with this. Really. Put your feet up. Watch a nice film or something. Chill out, okay?’

  When she’d rung off, she looked at Ant and raised her eyebrows. He held both his hands up. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Bea, but shouldn’t we just do what he says? Leave it to them?’

  ‘I promised Anna.’

  ‘Yes, and you’ve kept that promise.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do if another cat was killed, though. He’s not gonna stop unless someone stops him, is he?’

  Ant sighed. ‘We’d better do this, then, hadn’t we?’

  They walked across the rec and were soon at the litt
le row of houses.

  ‘Should we just, like, knock on the door?’ said Bea.

  ‘’S’pose so.’

  As they walked up to the front of the house, Bea was aware of the CCTV camera moving on its hinge. They were observed. There was no obvious door knocker or bell, so she rattled the letter box. After a short while, the door opened. Close to, it was obvious where Tank got his genes from. Bea mentally kicked herself for not seeing the resemblance earlier. He was only wearing a vest and jogging bottoms, and Bea could see his blurry tattoos spreading up both arms and across his chest.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, in a voice so rough it could have grated cheese.

  ‘Excuse me, um, hello. We’re, um, friends of your grandson and he asked us to . . .help him. With the cats.’

  Mr Sherman stared at her, waiting for her to stop talking. There was an awkward silence, then he said, ‘Where is he? Where’s Finlay?’

  Shit, thought Bea. ‘He can’t be here this morning, so he wanted us to just check in with you.’

  ‘I’m fine. I don’t need any help.’ He shoved the door closed, and Bea could hear the sound of a bolt being slid into place.

  ‘Great,’ said Ant. ‘Now what?’

  ‘I think we should look round the back,’ said Bea. ‘That’s where he parks his trolley.’

  ‘Honestly? Do you think we should maybe just leave it?’

  ‘No, come on, Ant. We’re here now.’

  They walked along the row of houses and followed the path round to the back, then stood looking into Mr Sherman’s backyard. Sure enough, the trolley was parked by the tool store, leaning against the back wall of the house. Bea’s stomach lurched uncomfortably at the thought of what it might contain, but she knew she had to look.

  ‘Okay, I’m going in,’ she said. She started to clamber over the waist-high fence when Ant grabbed her arm.

  ‘Bea! Stop!’

  ‘What is it?’

  He was pointing towards the house. There was another camera, looking at the two of them, but that wasn’t what was bothering Ant. One of the upstairs sash windows was open a fraction and there was something poking out of it. Bea gasped when she realised she was looking at the barrel of a gun – a gun that was aimed at her.

  ‘Get down!’ shouted Ant. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her towards the ground. They both crouched down, wide-eyed, breathing fast.

  ‘Not one of your better ideas,’ said Ant. ‘Ring the cops again. Do 999 this time.’

  But as Bea reached into her pocket for her phone, they both heard the roar of a car engine and the squeal of brakes. Then, quite clearly, there was someone rapping on the front door and shouting, ‘Police! Open up!’

  The gun was withdrawn from the window.

  ‘It’s Tom!’ said Bea. ‘He’s gonna get himself shot!’

  ‘Okay, stay here,’ said Ant. He crawled along the fence line and then ran around the side of the end house. Bea could hear him shouting, ‘Tom! Careful, he’s got a gun!’ and then a series of noises – pops, or cracks. They didn’t sound loud enough to be gunshots, but Bea was pretty sure that’s what they were.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she gasped, and she, too, scuttled around the building. ‘Please let them be all right. Please—’

  Ant was kneeling on the ground, peering around the corner of the fence.

  ‘I think he winged him,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stay back, Bea. I’m going round.’

  Before Bea could remonstrate with him, Ant was crawling on his hands and knees along the pavement at the front of the row. There was another volley of fire, and then Ant reappeared with Tom crawling behind him. They both joined Bea, sitting on the ground, with their backs against the fence. Tom was clutching his shoulder.

  ‘He got me!’ Tom wailed. ‘Am I bleeding? Am I going to die?’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said Bea. She helped him out of his jacket. There was a tear in the material, but underneath there was no blood, just a little red mark on Tom’s skin when she looked inside his shirt.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Bea. She dug a long, red nail into the hole in Tom’s jacket and levered a small pellet out of the wadding inside.

  ‘Air rifle,’ said Ant. ‘I used to have one of them. Proper laugh.’

  ‘I’m not laughing,’ said Tom, and got on his radio and called for help. ‘They’ll be here in a few minutes. They don’t mess around when it’s firearms.’

  While they waited, Bea said, ‘Why are you even here, Tom? Thought this was a low priority.’

  ‘Yes, but I guessed that you’d be daft enough to come here. Thought you might need some help. I know you, Bea.’

  ‘Looks like you do,’ she said, and just for a moment, she thought there was a little charge of electricity in the air, a connection.

  When a whole squad of vans turned up with heavily armed cops in flak jackets and head protectors, Bea wondered if she was about to be in the middle of a siege, but Mr Sherman simply opened the door and came out with his arms up when instructed to. He was searched, handcuffed and bundled away in a matter of minutes, and then the officers swarmed through the house.

  ‘I think the cats, if there are any, are round the back, in his trolley,’ said Bea to Tom.

  ‘Let’s have a look, then,’ he said.

  They went to the back of the house. Tom put gloves on and then opened the vinyl flap at the top of the trolley. He pulled a face and Bea held her breath. ‘Doesn’t smell very nice, but there’s nothing in here.’

  Bea breathed again, but now there was a noise, high-pitched and unmistakeably feline coming from somewhere close.

  ‘The tool store,’ said Bea. ‘Can you open it?’

  It was padlocked, but Tom found an iron bar nearby and bashed the lock away. He opened one of the doors and there, peering out, was a large ginger cat. Beside it cowered a smaller, black one, and there were two more when the second door was opened.

  Bea felt a wave of relief wash over her.

  ‘Well done, Bea,’ Tom said, as he handed her a cat to hold. ‘Well done.’

  ‘It is over now, isn’t it?’ she said, her bottom lip starting to tremble.

  ‘Hope so,’ said Ant. ‘Being mates with you is fucking exhausting.’

  Tom gave a sharp laugh and handed him another cat.

  Tears were trickling down Bea’s face now, and she snuggled her cat closer and nuzzled the top of its head with her chin. ‘It’s all right now,’ she murmured. ‘Everything’s all right.’

  45

  ‘I’ve gone into the import-export business,’ said Ant, later that afternoon. He and Bea were watching Goldie potter round Bea’s back garden. She was still a bit too woozy to go for a proper walk.

  ‘Socks, is it? Like Saggy?’ said Bea.

  Ant grinned. ‘Nah. Anti-social boys. I put Ken on the bus to Cardiff half an hour ago. I’m exporting him to Wales.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you have gone with him to make sure he gets there?’

  ‘Yeah, I should really, but I just wanted some time off, chill out a bit. If we hear reports on the news of a load of broken windows in Bristol, or moped thefts in Newport, we’ll know he got off the bus early.’ He leaned against the back wall of the house and lit a cigarette.

  ‘So, are you going to be following him?’ said Bea. ‘Are you moving to Cardiff too?’

  He tipped his head back and blew a long stream of smoke out of his pursed lips. ‘No. Mum wants us to all start again over there, but I told her this morning. I’ve made up my mind. Whatever she does, I’m staying here.’

  Bea felt a little surge of pleasure. She hadn’t realised how much she wanted him to stay. ‘That’s great, Ant. What made you decide?’

  ‘It’s just, you know, I’ve got a job, I’ve got mates, I’ve got—’

  Bea had a strong inkling that he was going to say ‘you’, but at that moment his phone rang. He turned away slightly, and Bea discreetly walked up the garden path to where Goldie was sniffing about the empty flowerbeds. Even so,
she could hear his half of the conversation.

  ‘Yeah, I know . . .I’m sorry, Ayesha . . . It all got a bit hairy . . . I’ll see you later, though. Yeah? . . . Shall I come and meet you there? . . . Yeah, me too.’ He caught Bea up.

  ‘So, you’ve got a job, mates and . . .Ayesha. How’s that going?’ said Bea.

  ‘Yeah. Good. She’s great.’

  Not quite the ringing endorsement Bea would have expected at the start of a relationship.

  ‘She’s not very impressed at spending Saturday night on her own, but I’ll explain it all to her when I see her later. She’s going down to the cop shop to make a statement about what she saw on New Year’s Eve. I’ll meet her when she’s done,’ he said, rubbing his hands together, ‘I’m a lucky boy. So what about you and Jay?’

  Bea screwed up her face. ‘I dunno. I can’t even think about it. I just feel washed out today. He rang up today, wanted to come round, but I was too tired to explain about everything.’

  ‘Not surprised, mate. But you like him, don’t you? You should go for it, when you’re feeling better.’

  ‘Maybe. I do like him. He’s different.’

  Ant laughed. ‘You can say that again. He’s gotta be better than Robocop, hasn’t he? Bea?’

  ‘Anyway, I took Arthur back to Mrs McKey this morning,’ said Bea, happy to change the subject. ‘She was very pleased to see him. He’ll be able to prowl about in safety now.’

  ‘If I was him,’ said Ant, ‘I’d take a long crap on next door’s lawn.’

  ‘He probably will. If she ever lets him out of the house again.’

  ‘And you fetched this doggo back.’ Ant looked at Goldie, who was inspecting a patch of grass near the garden shed.

  ‘Yeah. Bob took us in his lunch hour. He brought Mum a bunch of Costsave tulips, too, but I don’t think it’ll do him much good. Things were definitely frosty in the car.’

  ‘Ouch. Who knew he was such a player, though? Gotta give him a bit of respect for that.’

  ‘You can give some respect, if you like. Not me. He was playing a dangerous game, and he got found out.’

  Ant chuckled. ‘Bob the babe magnet.’