by Dan Laughey
‘What did you say?’ asked Sant, subtly dumping a worn toothpick on Gilligan’s wool-carpeted office floor.
The Old Man spat as he spoke. ‘Don’t play silly buggers with me. You’ve conveniently forgotten the very clear instructions I handed down to you. Do the words report, to, me and regularly ring any bells?’
‘I can report to you now, though Hardaker – ’
‘Hardaker? What’s Hardaker got to do with it? This is about you, Detective Inspector Sant. Nobody else.’
He began pacing backwards and forwards in the vacuum made by his enormous L-shaped desk.
‘I’m not impressed. Not one bit. It appears you’ve so much free time, Inspector, you turn up uninvited to a crime scene without even asking whether I can spare you on yet another criminal investigation. And to make matters worse, some dickey bird informs me you’re wasting a whole unit of police resource – namely Detective Constable Capstick – on a surveillance job better described as a wild goose chase. And to put the shitty icing on the shit-flavoured cake, this morning I receive a complaint from a Mr Jake Downing. He’s claiming you and DS Holdsworth visited him without prior appointment and roughed him up with a barrage of hostile questions.’
Sant pursed his lips. After all, a nasty concoction of Downing’s lies and Gilligan’s overzealousness required a considered response.
He cleared his throat. ‘First, we’ve reason to believe the murder discovered this morning is linked to the bus massacre. Second, the man DC Capstick is shadowing is an acquaintance of Chloe Lee and someone DS Dryden was also tailing in the days leading up to his murder, but we’ve insufficient evidence to charge this man yet, which is why we’re watching his every move in the hope he’ll lead us nearer to solving both the missing person case and the bus murders. And third, I categorically deny Mr Downing’s grounds for complaint and believe he may be withholding crucial information on Chloe’s whereabouts.’
Not bad for an unrehearsed defence of duties, thought Sant.
‘“We have reason to believe”,’ mimicked the Old Man. ‘“We have insufficient evidence”, “he may be this”, “he may be that”, “we get all our intelligence from the fucking fairies”. Bullshit! You know, what really bothers me is not your aptitude for disjointed thinking, Inspector, but your habit of absorbing one case after another without considering the possibility you might not be the right man for the job; the possibility someone among your rank might have the capacity to do that job better than you.’
Sant tugged at his collar, trying to quell a bubbling rage brewing inside. ‘If there are definite links between the three cases – ’
‘Another weakness of yours, Inspector, is a blind belief that everything is intertwined when you haven’t the faintest shred of evidence to support your wild assertions.’
Gilligan’s attack put Sant on the offensive, reminding him of his interview with Mrs Andrews.
‘You know as well as I do that links exist between the bus murders and Chloe Lee. Kate Andrews’s mother told you as much. Chloe was close friends with Kate and boyfriend Callum, and if Mrs Andrews overhead her daughter’s phone conversation correctly, Chloe may well have arranged for Kate and Callum to get on that bus – tailing Dryden to the upper deck – moments before the gunman let fire.’
Gilligan shook his head. ‘Again, too many “ifs” and “maybes”. I don’t buy it. Mrs Andrews is delusional, which is understandable bearing in mind what she’s been through. The evidence simply doesn’t stack up. From now on, Inspector, I want you to go against your own grain and start un-connecting these various cases. Focus on what you’re good at and don’t confuse issues. For starters, I want you to keep well away from the canal murder scene unless otherwise commanded. Is that message loud and clear?’
Sant gave a reluctant nod. Annoyed as he was with the Old Man’s prying, he could leave go of the Marie Jagger/Susan Smith/Sheila Morrison case for the time being. Anything else he needed on that front could be got out of Wisdom anyway. And the fact that the known names of the victim had already been made public was exactly how he’d wanted it. It would coax the worms out of the woodwork, fingers crossed.
‘Furthermore,’ the assistant chief constable went on, itching the purple veins around his nose, ‘you are clearly overburdened as it is, so I’m relieving you of your investigatory role in the bus murders.’
Sant was stunned. He spoke the first words that came to him. ‘The biggest mass murder in your lifetime and mine, and you’re prepared to lose a whole unit of police resource at this critical moment. You must be kidding.’
‘Those are my orders,’ barked Gilligan.
‘But surely – ’
‘You’re over-deployed. And right now I need you one hundred per cent dedicated to missing persons. Is that understood?’
Sant was unable to hold back his fury. ‘No, it’s not understood. Most of the time you avoid meddling and let me get on with my job. Until now. Whose orders are you meting out? Lanky Lister’s?’
The Old Man’s face turned beetroot red. ‘Don’t ever let me hear you calling Chief Constable Lister by that name again.’
‘What? Lanky Lister? It’s his nickname. Everyone calls him that. I prefer Loutish Lister actually.’
‘The sheer insolence!’ cried Gilligan, pounding a fist on his desk.
‘I saw you cowering under him the other day,’ scoffed Sant, ‘licking his arse. You know your problem, Gilligan? You’re gutless when faced with bullies like Lister. And all the crap he throws at you, you hurl back at everyone else.’
The ACC was fit to burst. ‘How dare you?’ he squealed.
‘Yes, I do dare, unlike the wimp I’m staring at. And if you can’t answer back to your holy CC, then others will have to do that job for you.’
‘Get out of my office!’ screamed Gilligan, slapping his hand hard on the desk.
Sant slammed the door behind him. He’d won the argument hands down, but that didn’t lessen the anger seething inside. Just when the threads of disparate crimes were knitting together, along came the bigwigs to tear them apart.
But Sant held a tight grip on those threads. He would never let them sever.
Not now. Not ever.
The next few hours passed peacefully for a change. Barred from the canal crime scene as well as the hunt for the bus murderer, Sant drank mugs of coffee to keep him awake while chewing the life out of his toothpick supply. He contemplated meditating. His aching brain was too cluttered.
He called Capstick for an update. No movement from Mosley. Surprisingly, Capstick hadn’t received an order from Gilligan to stop his surveillance yet. Could the Old Man have reconsidered what counted as valuable police resource?
Then he called Holdsworth. She was busy following up leads on the Marie Jagger/Susan Smith/Sheila Morrison murder. Again, he was surprised that Gilligan hadn’t ordered Holdsworth off the canal crime scene at the same time as himself. Perhaps Gilligan was re-deploying her under a new DI.
After that he called Hardaker, who was surprised himself on hearing that Sant had been barred from investigating the bus murders. The Chiefman promised to have a word with Gilligan to see if he could get the order reversed. Sant wished him luck and rang off.
The next person on his mind was Mia. He couldn’t stop visualising those stunning green eyes. Did she remind him of someone? The longer he looked into those emeralds, the stronger the feeling became.
But that was the least of his worries. Something about the Patel incident she’d uncovered was bothering him more. The way she’d connected National Front leader Joseph Chesterton’s breach of the peace charge – following the 1983 NF rally in which he’d racially abused Patel – with the 1984 shootings of Gray and Tanner outside the parish church seemed farfetched to say the least.
What was strange, though, was not how farfetched Mia’s theory was but how she’d arrived at it in the first place. Sant was certain he hadn’t discussed Chloe Lee with her – ever. It would be a serious breach of police confidentiality. Y
et the idea that the Gray/Tanner shootings were caused somehow by race issues or race relations happened to be the only common thread tying Chloe’s university studies with October the 31st 1984 – the date given to Dryden by his informant Susan Smith (aka Sheila Morrison), Chloe’s old neighbour.
Strange indeed. Without being prompted, Mia was digging the same racist undertones out of the past as Chloe had.
Sant wondered. ‘Am I missing something?’ he asked himself. ‘Should I call Mia and question her? No. Not yet. I need time to mull over these odd coincidences. Maybe that’s all they are.’
His final call was to his mother, apologising for failing to eat the now binned meal she’d so meticulously stored in the fridge for him, and promising not to miss the freshly cooked dinner she was busy making as they spoke. With all the free time he now enjoyed, it was a promise he’d have to keep.
And he did. A few hours later he parked himself at the kitchen table and exposed his nostrils to the inviting aroma of the hotpot. He hadn’t felt hungry on the drive over. Now his mouth was watering as he eyed the steaming stew with an eagerness that made his mother beam. She was right – braising steak was still his favourite dish. He wolfed it down with gusto before indulging in two portions of pudding to complement his pot of steaming earl grey.
After dinner the conversation took an inevitable turn towards his private life. What was he going to do with himself, living on his own in that grim flat? Why didn’t he talk to Elizabeth; see if he could work something out? His mother was nervous about the boys, and Sant knew which boys she meant: Sam, Tom, and her own boy – him.
Not only him. She was thinking of Linda, too. Every word, every action, went back to Linda. Losing a daughter. That wasn’t something you stopped thinking about.
Detectives solve crimes and mete out justice, Sant told himself. One day I’ll get justice for Linda.
Just after six he pecked his mum on the cheek and promised to call again soon. He also asked if she’d like to visit him in his ‘grim flat’. She muttered something about not wishing to be nosy. Nosy? She was never nosy!
The ordeal over, the onslaught of questions adeptly dodged, he felt better for seeing her. Tears had soaked her eyes when he’d moved out, but she knew as well as he did that it was no easy task for a fortysomething divorced father to come back and live with his parents.
Many divorced men made exactly that move – Sant had come across a handful – and few were happy with the arrangement. But most of them, financially speaking, had no choice. It was cheaper to pay towards living costs, compensating elders for the loss of the winter fuel allowance they qualified for if the buggers were living on their own, than it was to take on the rising rents of even the shabbiest of bedsits.
Sant was fortunate. His salary stretched far enough to accommodate the extra costs – just.
As he walked back to his car, a kid screamed at him from behind. ‘Penny for the guy!’ The boy was pushing a wheelbarrow containing a stuffed doll and a pile of dry twigs. Sant had completely forgotten. It was Guy Fawkes Night. Remember, remember, the 5th of November – unless you’re an overworked, over-deployed detective.
He tossed the kid a shiny pound coin and reached for his phone. Time to call the ex. Who knows? There was a remote chance of getting in her good books.
He yawned at the ooohs and aaahs greeting the greens and pinks and purples whizzing in all directions like flies around dung. He felt a kindred spirit in the full moon that lit up the smoky sky far more potently than these pretentious incendiary devices. But if the council insisted on spending his tax bill on disposable pleasures, he might as well witness the indulgence lavished on his behalf. Besides, the Jehovah’s Witnesses handing out jam doughnuts deserved his business.
Sant’s sons had howled with delight ever since they’d joined the man on the tannoy in his third attempt at counting down the lighting of the fire. They were in Roundhay Park, home to the biggest bonfire night in the Leeds calendar and a throng of fifty thousand spectators keeping each other warm. It had taken him an age to find a suitable parking spot, though the funny looks coming from the residents of the plush bungalow he’d parked outside suggested the spot was far from suitable on their terms.
He’d never been a fan of bonfires or fireworks. An annual ritual celebrating the burning alive of another human being was not one he could appreciate on a personal level. In a strange way, though, the flares and bangs and flashes and screeches gave Sant a short interlude of peace, safe in the knowledge that he was better than all this petty, indulgent, cult-worshipping malarkey.
Like most officers, he was more than a little worried about safety. That’s why he chose to take his children here. He liked the yellow-coated security guards. He liked the way the six powerful floodlights illuminated the natural amphitheatre and its burning centre. And he especially liked the banner pinned above the entrance gate: ANYONE DISCHARGING FIREWORKS WILL BE PROMPTLY EJECTED.
The things he’d done with fireworks as a teenager made him shudder. What idiots Sant and his mates had been back then. He’d thrown Chinese Bangers at passers-by and aimed rockets at people’s doorsteps. Christ! He couldn’t shake the memory of that cat with the Traffic Light jammed down its throat, the poor creature glowing red-amber-green-amber-red before exploding in a shower of fur and whiskers.
Tom and Sam joined the queue for hot dogs while dad rewarded himself for his heroic act of fatherhood by ordering two fish butties. He would have ordered one at a time, but didn’t fancy renegotiating the snake-like queue.
At last, after the wooden-stacked pyramid of a fire collapsed under infernal energy, they joined the mass exodus. The powerful beam from Sant’s police-issue torch proved useful along the way, the three of them gaining a small army of wellington-wearing followers as they conquered leafy suburbia, their battle with English history gratified for another year.
Not until they’d returned to the warmth of the car did Sant pick up his phone. Three missed calls from Holdsworth – five from Capstick! He wasn’t one for mixing work with pleasure, but it was no use putting off the return call. Before he had time to make the call, though, a face popped up from his nearside and started gesticulating. He wound down the window.
‘This is no time for charades, Capstick.’
‘Sorry to bother you, sir.’
‘I thought you were shadowing Mosley. Or has the Old Man ordered you off surveillance?’
Capstick looked confused. ‘I’ve not heard from Gilligan, sir, but seen as Mosley doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, I thought I’d relay what Holdsworth has found out.’
‘How did you know I was here?’
The younger detective avoided eye contact. ‘You weren’t answering so I called your other number – your old home number.’
‘And my ex told you I was on bonfire duty. So how did you know I’d parked here?’
‘I just drove around and chanced on where you might be.’ After a pause he added: ‘I guessed you’d settle for a quiet street, away from the baying crowd.’
The constable rocked from foot to foot uncomfortably.
‘So what’s Holdsworth’s news? Come in and make yourself at home.’
Capstick took the front passenger seat, the two boys in the back giggling at unexpected company. He smiled and said hello.
‘No time for pleasantries, lads,’ Sant piped up, including Tom and Sam in his admonishment.
‘Well, sir, we’ve struck lucky,’ Capstick said. ‘At least, Amanda has.’
Sant frowned. ‘Just call her Holdsworth to me, Capstick. I’m only on first-name terms with those two monkeys back there.’
His sons giggled some more.
Capstick went on: ‘You may’ve noticed the dire absence of CCTV cameras around the vicinity of the Marie Jagger murd…’ – he paused, conscious of receptive ears behind him – ‘…er, case.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, that gave Holdsworth the idea of checking speed cameras. It was luck as much as judgement, but the
effort paid off. A white van was captured on film at 3.46am less than a mile from the crime scene.’
Sant nearly choked up his fish butties. ‘Brilliant! I take it you’ve got the reg.’
Capstick nodded. ‘The number-plate recognition technology in those yellow boxes is as good as it gets. Holdsworth touched base with the DVLA and got an address where the vehicle is registered.’
‘Local?’
’29 Dockfield Road, Shipley. Registered owner a Mr James Miller.’
‘Anyone out there yet?’
Capstick shook his head and eyed his boss meaningfully. ‘I thought I’d tell you first. Holdsworth agreed.’
‘Dad?’
Sant looked over his shoulder as he manoeuvred his Fiesta away from the curb. ‘Yes, Sammy.’
‘When are you going to arrest the bus murderer?’
The question jolted Capstick. Sant took it in his stride.
‘Well now, Mr Capstick does the arresting. I just sit back and receive all the plaudits.’
Capstick guffawed loudly, fidgeted with his fingers.
Sam turned his attention to the visitor. ‘Mr Capstick, are you going to shoot the people who killed my dad’s police friend?’
The detective constable froze. He didn’t know how to answer.
Dad took over. ‘Mr Capstick won’t shoot anybody, Sammy, because policemen in this country go unarmed.’
‘But what if you’re trying to catch someone who has a gun or maybe even a bomb? Could you shoot them down if they’re dangerous?’
‘We might use a gun in that situation, son, but seldom do we need to. So don’t start worrying about your old man and Mr Capstick, you hear me?’
‘But dad – what if Mr Capstick’s the murderer?’
Both men laughed, though Capstick spoke first, keen to get his plea of innocence heard.
‘I like your vivid imagination, Sam, but I can assure you I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. Policemen don’t murder. They find the murderers instead, and ensure they get punished.’
