by RJ Dark
‘If I wasn’t hungry before, I’m really not now.’ I put the folder down. ‘Looks like a hit-and-run.’ Spatters of white marked the top of my desk. ‘You’ve got dosa all over my desk.’
‘I think you’ll find I’ve actually added authentic Asian ambience to your desk. But read on,’ said Jackie without looking up.
The next sheet was Larry Stanbeck’s criminal record. A lot from when he was young – which should have been sealed but Jackie had ways and it was best not to ask – then a few collars at eighteen and nineteen for dealing marijuana; small-time stuff for a Stanbeck. Nothing after that. A little bit of background seemed to say he had cleaned up his act, gone straight. He went to sixth-form college at Choppy’s and got himself a degree with the Open University. Married Janine and didn’t show up on the police radar apart from in a general keep-an-eye-on-the-Stanbecks way. That didn’t mean they weren’t watching him closely, of course – from what DI Smith had said they definitely were – it just meant they didn’t want a paper trail making a harassment case easy to prosecute.
Lastly, there were witness statements from the accident, though very little of it was actually witness statements. Mostly, it was people talking about how much they liked him; mothers of the boys in his Scout troop, parents from the nursery Cristophe went to. He didn’t come across as a wife-beating criminal, but if you were any good at being a wife-beating criminal, you learned to keep it quiet. It was only at the end of the report where I found something useful. A witness had seen an older model Ford Transit, blue, she thought, coming off the next junction of the motorway at speed, and she was sure it had two fresh scratches down the side.
‘When Benny Callaghan stopped to talk to me he was driving an old model Ford.’
‘I think the Callaghans have a secret supply of old Ford vans.’
‘The one he was driving was pretty dented.’
‘They all are.’
‘And it had been freshly painted. Maybe I should tell DI Smith.’
Jackie leaned forward. ‘But if you do, she’ll want to know how you know about the van. Then either you’ll have to tell her you’ve got the report, which will cause problems, mate. Or you’ll have to make something up, which she will see through. And then she’ll want to look more closely at you.’
‘I can’t just look away if they were involved in murder.’
Jackie wiped yoghurt from his perfectly manicured beard with one of the wipes that came with his food.
‘He was only a Stanbeck, Mal.’
‘Maybe he was killed by someone who knew about the ticket? It might help us?’
He stared at me. Blinked twice. ‘There is that. Shall we go see Benny Callaghan then?’
‘You’re coming?’
‘Aye,’ said Jackie, ‘people can get a bit weird if you accuse them of being involved in a murder, so best I am there. I’ve got things to do this morning – I’ll pick you up after lunch.’
Once Jackie was gone. I went into the back room where Beryl had been hiding from him. She was just leaving.
‘Prick’s gone then?’
‘My friend.’
‘He’ll get you killed one day.’
‘I don’t need that from you as well, Beryl.’
She stared at me; she didn’t like it when I answered back.
‘You won’t be needing me today,’ she said. ‘I made you shit tea.’
‘What if someone rings?’
She shrugged.
‘I never answer it anyway.’ Then she shuffled past me with her carrier bags.
Once I was alone, I went and got the picture of Larry Stanbeck that Janine had given me, those not-quite-smiling eyes staring out at me.
‘Who killed you?’ I said to him, ‘And why?’
He didn’t answer. The dead never do – they’re dead.
I took the picture round to Mr Patel at the newsagent’s. I was worried he might still be cross about the trick I’d done for Cat Maudy, but he was too busy with one of his displays to be angry with me about bringing ghosts into his shop.
‘Mr Jones,’ he said. ‘Are you familiar with square crisps? I have a number that are out of date and I am selling them at half price.’
‘I’m alright for crisps, Mr Patel.’ Half price in Mr Patel’s shop was normal price anywhere else. ‘Do you remember this guy?’ I put the picture of Larry Stanbeck on the counter.
He leaned forward, wincing when the cast on his arm touched the counter.
‘Ah, Larry, so sad. Sixty cigarettes – different brand each time – ten cans of Red Bull, a Lotto ticket and five scratch cards. Never had any luck with the scratch cards.’
‘But won big on the Lotto.’
‘Oh, you know about that?’
He glanced over at his crisps, as if worried they may escape. ‘I have been told to keep it secret by the lottery people. Not that Larry will care anymore.’
‘You should still keep it secret. Did he ever mention anywhere he might go to you? You know, if he needed a quiet moment?’
‘No, he only ever bought his things and left.’ He rubbed the cast on his arm. ‘Sometimes he bought a Guardian newspaper.’
‘Your arm hurting?’
‘Bloody ladders.’ His voice became quieter. ‘I was only getting down a box of pens.’
‘Dangerous job, running a shop.’
He nodded.
‘Was Larry always alone?’
‘Once he had his boy with him. A nice boy, but with sticky fingers – I had to clean the display window on my counter after they had been in. But Larry loved his child – it was a nice thing to see. Though he should have cleaned the child’s hands more.’
‘So there’s nothing you know about him?’
‘I think he was a Scout leader too – it is sad when such a man dies.’
I wandered back to my office. There were a couple of down-at-heel men smoking outside the betting shop. They stared at me suspiciously as I passed. I gave them a smile, and they avoided my eyes. They had probably been talking about me.
People often do.
Jackie rocked up at midday in a light-blue Ford Escort that was as much rust as it was car. It didn’t look like it was road legal but probably was – he was always very careful about following the small laws and avoiding anything that might get him pulled over by a traffic cop. The inside of the car smelled like someone had been soaking the seats in beer for the past four years, and the passenger seat was ninety per cent tape.
‘Is it safe to sit down, Jackie?’
‘Course it is – totally sound this baby.’
He banged the dashboard, and as he put it into gear the car let out a scream from the gearbox. Jackie liked to drive; he could be a terrifying person to drive with in one of his more expensive sports cars, but he was just as likely to drive like a pensioner, depending on what sort of mood he was in. Today was one of his over-sixty-five days. He seemed preoccupied, but I didn’t fill the silence between us. It was a familiar silence, as worn and comfortable as a favourite chair. We didn’t have to talk. I looked out the window at the passing world: woods, then semi-detached houses with nice gardens, then council houses with nice gardens, then council houses with less nice gardens. We skirted round the estate toward the travellers’ site. Everyone called it The Scar, and the shadows of the flaking stacks of Edge Towers striped the road as we approached the turn-off.
Before we reached The Scar, Jackie parked the car at the kerb; he had to use both hands to pull on the handbrake.
‘Sticks a bit,’ he said, apologetically.
‘Why did you even bring it?’
‘Cos I’ve got a plan. You take this in – tell Benny you want to sell it cos you need a van.’
‘You think he’s going to sell me a van if he used it to murder someone?’
‘No, but it might not be Benny you talk to – it might be his son, Callum.’
‘He’s back?’
‘Yeah, but pretty recently, so he won’t know the business, and he was never that sh
arp to begin with. Or it might be one of his employees – they might not know what it’s been used for.’
‘You think?’
He shrugged. ‘Well, no. I suspect he’s told them. Look, I just want you to keep them occupied while I sneak about. Don’t buy a van by accident or cos you don’t know how to say no.’ He got out and slammed the door shut.
As I shuffled over to the driver’s seat, he tapped on the window. I wound it down.
‘What?’
‘You’re not to accept less than a hundred quid for this – it’s got three months’ MOT left.’
‘Okay.’
He turned around and started to walk away. I wound up the window until it got stuck. Then I tried to release the handbrake, but Jackie had put it on so tightly I couldn’t move it. A moment later there was another knock on the half-open window. Jackie was back, grinning at me.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Do you want me to undo the handbrake?’
‘No.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
He skipped round the car and opened the passenger side. ‘You’ve always been very bad at asking for help,’ he said, and leant over, releasing the handbrake one-handed. Then he slammed the door shut and vanished again as the car started to roll backward. The brake pedal under my foot felt spongy and barely managed to stop the car moving. I stalled twice before I got it going.
Sometimes, I wondered if the council officer responsible for naming the areas around Blades Edge had been particularly bored or impish. Though everyone called the traveller site The Scar, its proper name was Blades Carr. You could see how it got its name, but it didn’t exactly make it sound like a welcoming place, and with the way the papers talked about the travellers, it wasn’t somewhere people talked of fondly and there was an odd sense of distrust between its residents and the people on the Edge. No matter how bad someone’s life was on the Edge, the thinking was at least you weren’t ‘one of them on The Scar’. This tended to make the people that lived there suspicious of anyone coming to visit – not unjustly – and it became a vicious circle of mistrust and occasional violence.
I’d known plenty of people from The Scar, and they seemed alright. If I had to come into contact with one of Mick’s gang, I’d rather it was Benny – he was the least borderline sociopathic of them. Though I’d always been a bit puzzled by The Scar; it was a traveller encampment where no one travelled – which consisted of four lines of big static caravans, most of them were far grander than any houses on the estate – and it was years before I realised ‘travellers’ were a people, not a description of what they did.
I turned into The Scar, watched by two burly men who were cleaning a couple of very expensive-looking four-by-fours with a power washer. I gave them a cheery wave, and they turned away. At the end of The Scar were two gates: the one that led into a field where the traveller’s horses lived was closed. The other was open, and that led into Benny Callaghan’s scrapyard. Or we used to call it that, now the signpost read: Callaghan Recycling Centre. But it was still a scrapyard. I let the Ford coast to stop in the middle of the Callaghan’s yard and then got out. Benny Callaghan was arguing with his son, Callum. You would never tag the two men as related. Benny was thickset, small and sturdy. His son shared the same weather-beaten face – as Jackie had said he’d spent a few years working away– but he was taller than his dad and thinner; he had the posture of someone ashamed of their height.
‘ … and I said, Callum, I don’t need a mechanic. You had a good thing on that farm, and they’ll take you back. You were good with the animals, son.’
‘Well, maybe I don’t want to do that, Da,’ said Callum, and he turned and walked away, throwing me a filthy look as he passed back toward the camp. I’d known him at school. He was in the first year when I was in the fourth. One of those kids that was always on the side, always following in the wake of a bigger kid, Stanbecks, mostly. If he’d not been Benny Callaghan’s kid, they’d have used him as a punching bag, but he was, so they didn’t. Instead, they made his life hell in other ways.
He was easily led. One time, he walked into the art teacher’s office and took his trousers down because one of the Stanbecks had convinced him she fancied him and wanted to shag him in the cupboard. Another time I found him in a thorn bush, covered in scratches and trying to push his way right into the centre because someone had said the Stanbecks had buried a hundred pounds in the middle of it.
His dad had always been shouting at him back then. Even though I’d often take a beating from one of the kids he hung out with, and Callum was always there on the sidelines, shouting encouragement, I’d felt kind of sorry for him. In hindsight, I get the shouting his dad did now. He was Benny’s only kid, while the rest of the Callaghans had big families, ‘kids to spare’ was the saying. But Benny only had Callum, and if ever someone was likely to get chewed up by the Stanbeck gang, it was Callum Callaghan. His father stared after him, a look I struggled to place on his features. Sadness? Anger? Regret? Maybe all of them.
‘Couldn’t you use another mechanic here?’ I said, pointing at the shed where old cars were dismantled. Benny shrugged.
‘He doesn’t have the concentration for it – he’s sloppy, doesn’t think ahead.’ He looked at the floor. ‘He was good with the animals – I was proud of him for that.’
‘He wants to be like his dad,’ I said.
‘I wish he didn’t.’ He looked away. ‘Anyway, enough of family, Mal Jones.’ And then he was all smiles; though it was false bonhomie, he was clearly rattled. I could understand that; Benny was clever enough to stay out of jail, I doubted Callum was, and it must hurt to look into your son’s future and see him spending most of it behind bars. Mick Stanbeck wouldn’t hesitate to use a man as easily led as Callum. ‘Have you come about that thing we talked about, Mal?’ said Benny.
His face fell when I shook my head. Behind him, among the forest of rusting metal and stacked cars that made up his yard, I saw a movement – Jackie.
‘No, not had much luck there, Benny. I came to bring you this,’ I waved at the Ford. ‘It’s got a couple of months’ MOT left on it, but it won’t make it through the next one. And I need a cheap van to move a few things. I thought you might be able to help me on both counts?’
He nodded, that strange look back on his face.
‘Sure I will – it’s a junker though, that car, I can’t give you more than fifty for it.’
‘I was looking for one-fifty.’
‘You can look all you want.’ Behind him Jackie slipped into the big workshop the Callaghans used for stripping down vehicles. ‘Seventy-five, maybe. At the most.’
‘What about part exchange against a van?’
‘What type of van?’
‘A Transit, maybe? Not a big one, I don’t have the licence for one of those.’
‘Who does,’ he said. ‘One-fifty against a Transit then. I’ve got a few around the back – come on.’
I followed him round the back of the industrial unit, built of rusting corrugated iron.
‘What’s in there?’ I asked, even though I knew what it was.
‘It’s where we strip cars down – got a lot of regulations to meet now. Not as much fun as it used to be.’
He led me up to a line of vans. They all looked well kept up, had clearly recently been washed and Benny started telling me about their various wonderful properties, not much of which I understood. The van he had been driving the day before wasn’t there though.
‘Which is the cheapest?’ I asked.
‘It’s not about, cheapest. It’s—’
‘It is on my budget.’
He stared at me then shrugged. ‘Well, in that case it’s the red one – two grand.’
‘That’s too much. Have you taken off the money for the car?’
‘Yeah, tell you what, fifteen hundred and it’s yours.’
‘I was looking more for something that would do one journey. What about the one you were driving
yesterday? That looked like it was on its last legs.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘That’s gone.’
‘Was it yours?’
‘No, we pick up abandoned cars for the council – it was one of those. Ditched in a farmer’s field. Thought we’d have to tow it, but I managed to get it going.’
‘So nothing in my price range then?’
He shook his head.
‘Sorry, lad.’ He shuffled nearer to me. ‘Look, I don’t mean to push, but any news on that other thing we talked about? Anything at all?’
‘Nothing, sorry.’ I put out my hand. ‘Hundred quid for the car.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. Then he reached into his wallet and counted seventy-five pounds off from a thick wad of notes.
I took the money and walked out. When I was out of sight of the scrapyard Callum Callaghan approached me.
‘Me da was lying about that van, you know.’
‘Which one?’
‘The painted one he brought in yesterday. We do pick vans up for the council but not that one. We picked that one up for Mick Stanbeck.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Me da wants to control me, wants me to go off and spend my life covered in cow shit rather than be my own man,’ he said. ‘But I’ll not do it. He was weird about that van though, something was off.’ He stared at me. ‘You were alright at school, Mal – I remember you. But it wasn’t his van and we may not always get on, but I don’t want my da getting in trouble for something that’s not his fault, right?’
‘Trouble?’
‘You’re not the only one asking about that van. DI Smith was asking too. I just want to make sure someone else knows if it comes to it, right? Mick Stanbeck would happily see Da in jail if it protected one of his. Da thinks it’s best to be loyal, but you can’t trust Trolley Mick – it’s his lot first, everyone else after.’ There was a sour note to his voice.
‘You’re not wrong there, Callum.’
‘I better get back,’ he said. ‘Work to do.’
I walked away with plenty to think about. Further along the road, Jackie was waiting, leaning against a churchyard wall and soaking up the sun.
