by Kevin Brooks
I smiled. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Is there anything else you can tell me about him?’
She thought about it, then shook her head. ‘No … I think that’s pretty much it.’
‘OK, well, thanks, Tasha. You’ve been really helpful.’
She shrugged again. ‘Yeah, well …’
I took the remaining notes from my wallet – £65 – and gave them to her. ‘Sorry, ‘I said,’ it’s all I’ve got left.’
She didn’t thank me or count the notes, she just put them in her pocket. ‘What do you think happened to her?’ she asked me.
‘I don’t know. I’ll try and trace the car, see what I can find out …’ I looked at her. ‘Can I ask you something else?’
‘You’re all out of money now. What are you going to pay me with?’
I hesitated, not sure if she was joking or not.
But then she smiled and said, ‘Yeah, go on, then. What do you want to know?’
‘Well, it’s just … I mean, I know you probably don’t like the police that much, but how come you haven’t told them what you’ve just told me? You know … the car, the registration number, what the guy looks like. You could have just made an anonymous phone call.’
Her smile had faded now. ‘What good would it have done?’ she said simply. ‘If this guy’s done something to Anna, it’s already done. Catching him now’s not going to help Anna, is it? So all that would have happened if I’d told the police was they’d have come down here every night scaring all the punters away, and that would have meant finding somewhere else to work for fuck knows how long, maybe even moving to another town. It’s bad enough doing this as it is … none of us need any more shit to deal with. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Yeah …’
She shook her head. ‘I know what you’re thinking –’
‘I’m not thinking anything –’
‘Yeah, you fucking are. You’re thinking what a selfish cunt I am. I’m so fucking wrapped up in myself that I don’t give a shit about all the other girls that this guy might pick up and do whatever he does to them … all I care about is me.’ She glared at me. ‘Well, you’re fucking right. That is all I care about – getting enough money to get enough shit to get wasted enough to get me through another fucking day.’
‘That’s not what I was thinking,’ I said quietly.
Neither of us said anything for a while, we just stood there in the shelter of the tunnel, smoking our cigarettes in awkward silence … until eventually I broke the impasse by taking out my wallet again and passing Tasha one of my business cards.
‘If you remember anything else,’ I told her. ‘Just give me a ring. OK?’
She nodded. ‘Will you let me know if you find out what happened?’
‘Yeah, of course …’
I watched, slightly bemused, as she searched through her pockets. Then, with another heart-warming smile, she looked at me and said, ‘I seem to have run out of business cards.’
I laughed.
She laughed too, a real eye-twinkling giggle, and just for a moment she didn’t seem quite so tired and gaunt any more.
I said, ‘How can I get in touch with you again? I mean, if I’ve got anything to tell you about Anna.’
She smiled sadly. ‘I’m down here most nights. Just … you know …’
I nodded. ‘I’ll come and find you.’
‘OK.’
‘And thanks again.’
‘Yeah,’ she said softly, lowering her eyes. ‘Now, fuck off, before I start liking you.’
I wanted to talk to some of the other girls again before I went back to my car, to see if they knew anything about the man in the Nissan Almera, but most of them seemed to have disappeared. The only one I could see was a tall red-headed girl, and she was having an argument with a big Asian guy, who she seemed to know well enough to keep slapping in the chest, and I thought it was probably best to leave them alone. So, with everything that Tasha had told me still buzzing around in my head, I made my way back to my car.
Almost as soon as I’d got in, I saw someone approaching the car from the passenger side. It was a young woman, and as she got closer I recognised her as one of the girls I’d spoken to earlier. She was a little older than the others – in her mid-twenties, I’d guess – and she was dressed in tight jeans, a bra-top, and a black leather coat.
As she came up to the car, smiling seductively, I wound down the window.
She leaned in, showing me what she had to offer, and said, ‘Have you finished your detecting now?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
She ran her tongue over her lips. ‘Can I offer you anything else before you go?’
I was just about to say, ‘No, thanks,’ when a siren suddenly wailed and the road lit up with a flashing blue light, and before I knew what was happening, the girl had run off, and two uniformed policemen were getting out of their patrol car and striding purposefully towards me.
12
The initial offence I was charged with was kerb crawling, but while they were taking down my details, one of the officers noticed the smell of alcohol on my breath, and I was subsequently breathalysed and arrested for drink-driving too. As I was being driven away in the back of the patrol car, I caught a glimpse of the girl in the black leather coat talking to one of the other girls. She obviously hadn’t been arrested, and she didn’t even seem bothered by the presence of the police, which pretty much convinced me that my arrest had been set up.
There was no doubt in my mind that Bishop was behind it, but as to why …? I wondered if he could have been the man in the Nissan. An oldish guy, Tasha had said. Early fifties, dark hair, pale skin, dark eyes … it could be Bishop, give or take a few years. And if Bishop had done something to Anna, or even if he was just one of her customers, it would explain why he didn’t want me investigating her disappearance. But Tasha’s description was pretty vague, and Mick Bishop was by no means the only dark-haired, pale-skinned, middle-aged man in the country. In fact, the description could be stretched to fit Graham Gerrish. Maybe he knew that Anna worked the streets at night, and maybe he’d just driven out there and picked her up with the fatherly intention of helping her sort her life out … but then something had gone wrong. They’d argued, had a fight …
Or maybe he’d picked up his ‘little girl’ for another reason altogether.
I sat back, closed my eyes, and thought about it.
When we arrived at the police station, I was taken to the custody suite and told I’d have to wait until the custody officer was free to see me. There was no one else in the room, and I hadn’t seen anyone else being processed as I’d been led through the station, so I guessed that orders had been given to make my stay as long and uncomfortable as possible.
And I was right.
After about half an hour in the custody suite, during which I was told that I wasn’t allowed to smoke, the arresting officer took me along to the custody officer who laboriously explained both the kerb-crawling charge and the drink-drive procedure to me. My personal details were taken and checked – another long wait – and all my belongings were confiscated, including my cigarettes, phone, and the photograph of Anna Gerrish. I was asked countless questions about my medical history – specifically if I’d had any problems with depression, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. – all of which I refused to answer. I also refused the offer to contact a solicitor. Next I had to provide two more breath specimens, and a blood and urine sample – which I knew for a fact was totally unnecessary – and, of course, this meant more waiting around for the appropriate medical staff. After that, I had my photograph, fingerprints, and DNA taken, and then the custody officer explained to me that after conferring with the arresting officer, it was his belief that if I was released immediately I’d more than likely get straight back in a car and commit another offence, and that, in view of this, I was to be further detained at the station overnight.
It must have been getting on for midnight by then – I was only guessing, a
s they’d taken my watch away – and I was hoping that the worst of it was over. I was really tired now, and while I wasn’t exactly looking forward to spending the rest of the night in a cell, at least it would give me a bit of peace and quiet for a few hours, time enough to think, and rest, and maybe even sleep.
I should have known better.
‘I’m afraid we’re a bit busy tonight, Mr Craine,’ the custody officer informed me as he led me down to the cells. ‘It’s just been one of those days.’ He smiled at me. ‘I hope you don’t mind sharing.’
And with that, he opened the cell door and ushered me inside.
As the door clanked shut behind me, locking automatically, I looked over at a giant-sized man who was sitting on the edge of one of two small beds – his legs splayed wide, his empty eyes fixed hungrily on me. He was, without doubt, one of the nastiest-looking individuals I’d ever seen. A massive man, well over six feet tall and almost as wide, he had long, lank, greasy hair, half an ear missing, yellowed skin, long dirty fingernails, and a lightning bolt tattooed on his neck. He was wearing a purple tracksuit, the top unzipped, revealing a hairless fat chest underneath, and he was smoking a king-size cigarette with the filter ripped off. He was so huge, so solid and heavy, that the metal-framed bed was bending under his weight.
He grinned at me, showing tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you a sweet-looking thing.’
My father didn’t overburden me with advice when I was growing up, but one of the things he taught me, a lesson I’ve never forgotten, was that although violence should be avoided whenever possible, it’s an integral part of human nature. And, as such, you have to know how to use it when necessary.
‘There are only three things you have to know about fighting, Johnny,’ he told me. ‘You hit your opponent before they hit you; you hit them as hard as you can, preferably with something other than your fists; and you hit them wherever it’ll do the most damage. And remember, you’re not trying to humiliate your opponent, or show them how tough you are, you’re simply trying to hurt them as much as you can and incapacitate them as quickly as possible.’
And that’s what I had in mind as the big bastard heaved himself up from the bed, cupped his hand over his groin, and began lumbering across the cell towards me. I didn’t want to wait for him to reach me, and I didn’t want to give myself time to stop and think about what I was doing, and so – ignoring every cell in my body, all of which were screaming at me to get as far away from him as possible – I willed myself to move towards him. As I did so, I saw a brief flash of surprise in his eyes, and maybe just a moment’s hesitation in his walk, and that’s when I looked up at the ceiling. By the time he’d instinctively followed suit and lifted his head back to see what I was looking at, I was close enough to slam my fist into his unprotected throat. I put everything I had into the punch, throwing it so hard that my feet actually left the ground for a moment, and the big guy went down like a sack. As he lay there on the floor, clutching his throat and gasping for breath, I took a step back and launched a cannonball kick at his groin, and then – just for good measure – I gave him an equally hard kick in the head.
He just lay there then, not moving, not making a sound, a thin dribble of blood oozing from his half-open mouth, and for a moment or two, I thought I might have killed him. And as I knelt down beside him to check for a pulse, I could already hear a self-recriminating voice in my head saying, Now you’ve done it, haven’t you? Now you’ve really gone and fucked things up. But after a few heart-stopping seconds of fumbling around, trying unsuccessfully to find a pulse, I finally felt the faint movement of blood beneath my finger.
He was alive.
Everything was OK.
Nothing to worry about.
I reached into his pockets and removed his cigarettes and a lighter, then I went over and sat down on the bed, lit a cigarette, and waited for him to wake up.
It didn’t take long. Within a few minutes he started groaning and coughing, and pretty soon he’d opened his eyes, spat on the floor, and heaved himself up into a sitting position. He didn’t look too good – his right eye was blackening where I’d kicked him, his throat was swollen and red, and his face had turned a sickly grey colour. He couldn’t sit up straight because of the pain in his groin, and every time he took a breath it sounded like he was dying.
‘You all right?’ I asked him.
He coughed, spat again, and looked at me. ‘Fuck you.’
I threw him his packet of cigarettes, half of which I’d already removed for myself. He took one out and put it in his mouth, and I threw him his lighter. He lit the cigarette and immediately started coughing again. I took one of his cigarettes from my pocket and held out my hand, waiting for him to throw the lighter back. He glared at me for a moment, then grudgingly lobbed it over.
‘Just so you know,’ I said to him, lighting the cigarette. ‘If you come anywhere near me again, I’m going to kill you. All right?’
‘Fuck you,’ he said again, but there was nothing in his voice – no venom, no violence, no threat – and I knew he was just making a noise, an animal response. He was hurt, wounded. Physically and emotionally. And I didn’t think I’d have any more problems with him. But even so, as I watched him crawl back across the floor to his bed, and painfully clamber onto it, I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping that night.
13
After a long and sleepless night, I was finally released from the cell at nine o’clock the next morning. The custody officer who let me out wasn’t the same one who’d locked me up, and I got the impression that – unlike his predecessor – this one wasn’t in on the set-up.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ he asked me, looking over as Big Bastard started coughing his guts up again. He’d been doing it most of the night – coughing, choking, spitting up gobs of God knows what. But apart from that – and the two occasions when I’d had to put up with him crawling out of bed for a long, loud, and foul-smelling piss – he hadn’t been any trouble at all.
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with him,’ I said, glancing over at the still-coughing Big Bastard. I think he’s got asthma or something.’
I was let off with a caution for the kerb-crawling offence and bailed to attend court for the drink-driving charge.
‘Where’s my car?’ I asked the custody officer as he passed me a large manila envelope containing my belongings.
He shrugged. ‘Where you left it, I suppose.’
‘Any chance of a lift?’
He laughed.
As I emptied out the envelope and started putting all my stuff back in my pockets, the custody officer passed me a form.
‘Make sure everything’s there,’ he said, ‘then sign at the bottom.’
It was all there – phone, keys, photograph, lighter … everything except the packet of cigarettes that Tasha had given me.
I looked at the custody officer. ‘There should be a packet of Marlboro.’
He checked the form. ‘There’s no cigarettes listed here.’
‘Are you sure?’
He looked at the form again. ‘Sorry, mate … there’s a cigarette lighter down here, but no cigarettes.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you sure you didn’t finish them?’
I shook my head. ‘I had them when I got here last night, and I clearly remember the custody officer taking them off me.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, smiling, ‘but you were pissed last night, weren’t you? We all forget things that happened and remember things that didn’t happen when we’re pissed, don’t we?’
I looked at him – a harmless, passionless man – and I knew that he didn’t have anything to do with whatever was going on here. As far as he was concerned, it was simply a matter of a missing packet of cigarettes. To Mick Bishop though … well, I had to assume that at some point last night, after I’d been locked up, he’d gone through my belongings, looking for anything that might interest him, and he must have spotted the registration number of the Nissan Almera that
Tasha had jotted down on the back of the cigarette packet … and the number must have meant something to him. And that had to mean that there was a link between Bishop and the Nissan, which in turn had to mean there was a link between him and Anna Gerrish. It had to. Why else would Bishop take the gamble of keeping the cigarette packet, in the hope that I wouldn’t remember the registration number without it, when he must have known that once I’d realised what he’d done, I’d realise why he’d done it.
‘Are you all right, son?’ the custody officer asked me.
‘Uh, yeah …’ I told him. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
‘If you want me to check about the cigarettes, I could probably get in touch with one of the officers who dealt with you –’
‘No, that’s all right, thanks. Don’t worry about it.’
When I left the police station, the rain had stopped and a pale-purple October sky hung low over the morning streets. There was a strange light to the air, an unreal haze that seemed to both clarify and deaden everything at the same time. It reminded me of the feeling you get when you come out of the cinema into the late afternoon daylight and you’re suddenly faced with the humdrum brilliance of the real world again. The sights, the smells, the sounds …
It was all too real.
It was Friday morning. I was dirty and tired, my breath stank, my skin itched, my head was aching. And I didn’t even have any cigarettes.
I headed off towards town.
*
I was coming out of a newsagent’s on Eastgate Hill, tearing the cellophane off a packet of Marlboro, when I heard someone calling out to me. ‘John! Over here!’ And when I looked up, I saw Mick Bishop leaning across the passenger seat of a blue Vectra stopped at the side of the road. He pushed open the door and waved at me to get in. I thought about it for a second, realised that I didn’t have much choice, and went over and got in the car.
‘All right?’ Bishop said as I closed the door.
