The Aden Vanner Novels

by Jeff Gulvin

Vanner squinted at her. ‘Again?’

  ‘You must know about it. He was done for fraud five years ago. More misery.’

  ‘Misery?’

  ‘Stealing people’s lives, Inspector. That’s what he does. He’s a callous, greedy bastard. What he wants he gets, no matter who gets stamped on.’ Her face was pale and bitter, the line of her lips barely a mark in her face. She looked at the picture of her son again and then back at Vanner. ‘I’m sorry.’ She held up a hand. ‘It’s just …’ She shook her head, then sat down on the settee. ‘He stripped me of everything I had and left me and Mark to rot here in this hell-hole. There’s three locks on my door and every night I have to go out to clean while Mark stays on his own.’

  Vanner was looking out the window. He could see the cafe from here and their car. Two youths came out of the paper shop. One of them was white and the other black. Both of them had dreadlocks.

  The front door opened and Jennifer got up from her chair. ‘Mark? In here, darling.’

  A slim, black-haired youth, wearing jeans and an anorak came into the room. He glanced at Vanner through eyes accentuated by thick-lensed glasses. He looked quickly at his mother.

  ‘These men are policemen, Mark. They’re just asking me some questions.’

  Mark looked down at the floor.

  ‘It’s okay, Mark,’ Vanner said. ‘Your mum’s not in any trouble.’

  His mother patted his aim. ‘I’ll get you some lunch.’ She went through to the kitchen.

  Ryan looked at Mark. ‘Go to college do you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Where’s that then?’

  ‘Tech.’

  ‘Your mum says you’re doing well.’

  He shrugged.

  Vanner went through to the kitchen. ‘Seems like a nice lad,’ he said. ‘Different to most of the kids round here.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘Not many friends?’

  ‘I never see any. Keeps himself to himself. He had one or two at school, but they moved away. He stays in and plays with his computer most of the time. His father hates the fact that I work at night. He keeps asking Mark to go and live with him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that though would he?’

  ‘I don’t know. He never says very much. I never know what he’s thinking.’

  ‘He doesn’t see anyone from round here?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  Vanner moved to the window. ‘Two lads,’ he said. ‘Dreadlocks.’

  She made a face. ‘Those two.’

  ‘You know them?’

  ‘Not really. They give Mark a hard time though.’

  ‘Know their names?’

  She shook her head.

  Vanner leaned on the worktop. ‘How often does he see his father?’

  ‘Every other weekend. He didn’t want to see him at all to begin with. But that was a couple of years ago. He picks him up on Saturday morning and brings him back on Sunday.’

  ‘So they spend the weekend together?’

  ‘Sort of. Mark works in a shop on Saturdays. System X on Oxford Street. You know the space war things. Combination of computer games and models. He paints the characters from the computer games and they have battles and things on a table. His father drops him off there so they only really spend Sundays together.’ She looked up at him then. ‘If he’s into drugs I don’t want Mark anywhere near him.’

  They walked back to the car. ‘One bitter woman,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘She’s terrified he’s going to take the boy away from her.’

  ‘Seems like a nice enough kid. Though he looks like a bit of an egghead.’

  ‘I bet he takes some stick in there. Must be tempting to get out.’ Vanner was staring at Montgomery House. On the second balcony the black youth with dreadlocks was watching him.

  David Michaels stripped cushions from the chairs in the bail hostel. The vacuum cleaner, pipe extended, hummed on the floor alongside him. They always stuffed papers and things down the side of the chair, couldn’t be bothered to go as far as the bin. He picked up the pipe and sucked. Dust and bits of paper and then something larger and blue, blocking the end of the nozzle. He switched off the machine and withdrew the offending article. He looked closer. A grinning red face looked back at him.

  Vanner and Ryan went down the stairs to the incident room.

  McCleod was there, poring over something on his desk. A man Vanner did not recognise was with him. Morrison came out of Vanner’s office and beckoned him over. ‘Regional want to know what else we’ve got on Terry.’

  Vanner pursed his lips. ‘Why? We’re not treading on their toes.’

  They think we are. I’ve had Burke on the phone this morning.’

  ‘Terry’s our flag,’ Vanner said. ‘Gallyon’s theirs. I’m not interested in Gallyon.’

  Morrison looked at him. ‘Not at the moment maybe. But Terry’s got an association with him.’

  ‘I think Gallyon launders his cash,’ Vanner said. ‘But, I’m not about to tell that to the Regional.’

  Morrison scratched his chin and looked at Vanner out of pale green eyes. ‘Maybe Terry is nothing to do with this Denny cartoon.’

  ‘He has business in Amsterdam. He gave Denny E’s to Lisa Morgan.’

  ‘So maybe he got them from Gallyon. We know Gallyon’s into coke. Maybe this is a sideline.’

  Vanner shook his head. ‘Denny’s a new cartoon. Why would Gallyon bring in a new cartoon? He’s never been into acid.’

  ‘New market. Why not?’

  Again Vanner shook his head. ‘Gallyon has a network. He doesn’t use post office boxes. Why go to the trouble of setting up a new distribution when he already has one?’ He sat down on the edge of the desk. ‘I don’t think it matters now anyway. I only ever went to the club to follow Maguire. We’ll leave it alone, Sir. But the Denny cartoon is our flag and it needs to stay that way.’

  Morrison sighed heavily. ‘Any more from the Tom?’

  Vanner looked past him. ‘I’ve spoken to her. Terry hasn’t given her any more gear, but she told me he likes his women rough.’

  Morrison lifted one eyebrow. ‘Have you been seeing her?’

  Vanner squinted at him.

  ‘She’s not registered.’

  ‘She’s not a snout, Sir’

  Morrison folded his arms. Vanner looked to where Ryan was standing with McCleod. ‘Who’s the visitor?’

  ‘Warden from the bail hostel on Neasden Road.’

  Vanner frowned at him.

  ‘He gave us a call after lunch. Found a complete Denny square down the side of a chair.’

  Vanner sat across from Michaels and looked at the full square in front of him. A crisscross of perforations, splitting the face in four pieces. ‘You found this down the arm of a chair?’

  Michaels nodded. ‘This morning as I was cleaning. They’re dirty little sods, Inspector. Always using it as a bin.’

  Ryan squinted at the square. ‘Expensive bin,’ he said.

  Vanner looked back at Michaels. ‘What’s this about Friday nights?’

  Michaels told him how he had witnessed, three times now, the comings and goings on a Friday. The car pulling up in the car park behind the hostel. One of the lads sprinting across and coming back a few minutes later.

  ‘What kind of car?’ Vanner asked him.

  ‘BMW. Old one. Grey or silver maybe.’

  Vanner glanced at Ryan. ‘I don’t suppose you got the number?’

  Michaels shook his head. ‘I tried. The last time. But they were gone before I could get it.’

  Vanner steepled his fingers. He looked at Morrison, then at Ryan and finally back at Michaels. ‘The lads you’ve got in there at the moment—what’s the form?’

  ‘Two for burglary. One of them for car theft. A couple for mugging …’

  Vanner looked sharply at him.

  ‘You know, whacking old ladies for handbags.’
r />   ‘What about the one who crosses the road?’

  ‘Mugging.’

  ‘He’s the only one who goes over.’

  Michaels shook his head. ‘There was another. Sammy Johnson. He’s away now. Hospital wing at Brixton.’

  ‘Hospital?’

  ‘Yes. Before he went down, somehow he broke both his arms.’

  Vanner got up from the chair and moved to the window. Outside, China and Anne came down the stairs. Vanner turned to Michaels again. ‘This lad for mugging?’

  ‘Peter Richardson.’

  Vanner nodded. ‘Does he wear a watch?’

  Vanner addressed the briefing. Friday morning. Everyone was gathered. He waited for them to settle down. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I think we might be getting somewhere.’ Morrison stood at the back of the room: their eyes met and then Vanner continued. ‘Slippery and me paid a visit to Michael Terry’s ex-wife yesterday and found the second bitter woman of this little investigation. She lives on the Kirstall Estate in Kentish Town with her son Mark. Bright lad. Seventeen. Goes to college. Sticks out like a sore thumb and gets the piss taken something rotten.

  ‘We know from Milo that he was phoned from the box at the top of the road there, which places a caller in Kentish Town. We don’t know who the caller was, but we do know the phone box has been used on more than one occasion.’ He paused for a moment. ‘So far we’ve got nothing more on Terry. But I’ve found out from Lisa Morgan that he likes it a little rough now and then. We know he’s a nasty bastard all round. But that doesn’t make him our man.’ He broke off again. ‘Maguire, the only other dealer we’ve got, is out of the game. That means that Denny knows we know about Maguire. Denny knew we knew about Milo and now Milo is dead. I guess that means the Irishman will be sweating. If he’s sweating he might be useful. I want him picked up and interviewed. We can’t nick him, but if he’s unemployed he might want to talk to us.’

  ‘If he’s sweating too much he won’t.’ Ryan sat with his arms folded.

  Vanner looked at the flip chart behind him. ‘We still don’t know how many boxes there are with second cards so we need another dealer. The witness from Bream Park gave us two men getting into a BMW at four in the morning. One of them was white. One was black. Both of them had long hair. That’s all we know from him. So far he’s looked at all the faces we have but he hasn’t spotted anyone. The car is something though.

  ‘Yesterday, we had a call from a bail hostel in Neasden. The warden found a complete acid square down the arm of a chair. He told us that on three separate occasions a grey or silver BMW has been parked out the back on a Friday. Each time someone from the hostel has nipped out, bent down at the passenger window and then nipped back in again. There’s been two different kids going to the car. The first one has just gone down for assault, only before he took the drop somebody broke his arms for him. The second one is on a mugging charge. Nothing special in that, half the bloody kids in those places nick handbags during the day.’ He glanced at Morrison as he said it. ‘The difference here, though … is that the kid in Neasden wears a pager watch.’

  He stopped talking and looked at them. ‘Two things about the Kirstall Estate. Firstly, Michael Terry’s son lives there. Terry picks him up every other Saturday. Secondly, there’s two lads living on that estate with dreadlocks. One’s IC1 and the other IC3.’ He sat on the edge of the desk. ‘A few threads. A few bits to think about. We’ll set up an OP on the hostel tonight. And I want Maguire picked up and interviewed.’

  Michael Terry parked his car in Leith Place outside the industrial lofts. He glanced at the estate and locked the car carefully. Then he ducked between the blocks and went into Montgomery House. His ex-wife answered the door, looked at him coldly and walked back to the kitchen. Terry looked at his watch.

  ‘Mark ready yet?’

  ‘Not yet. You’ll have to wait.’

  Again he looked at his watch. ‘He’s going to be late. He ought to get up earlier.’

  He waited for him, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at Jennifer as she scrubbed pans and wondering what he ever saw in her. Through in his bedroom, Mark was still getting dressed. Jennifer rinsed the last of the grease from the pan and leaned it on the draining board.

  ‘How’s he getting on at school?’ Terry asked her.

  ‘It’s not school. It’s college.’

  ‘School. College. Whatever.’

  ‘There’s a difference.’ She looked stiffly at him. ‘He left school when he was sixteen.’

  Terry moved to the doorway. ‘Look, if he’s too much for you he can move in with me.’

  ‘Who said he was too much for me?’ She flicked hair from her eyes. ‘Anyway. He doesn’t want to live with you’

  ‘Have you asked him?’

  ‘I don’t need to.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘You bastard,’ she said.

  She leaned a fist on the draining board. ‘If you try and take him away from me …’

  ‘It’s up to him, isn’t it.’ He looked at her then, lank hair, pale face. His lip puckered as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘Not much of a role model are you.’ He called over his shoulder. ‘Come on, Mark. You’re late.’ He looked back at Jennifer. ‘He’s seventeen. It’s time he was out and about.’

  ‘What, so he can end up like you?’

  He leaned against the door frame, hands behind his back. ‘I want to take him on holiday.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘He has college work.’

  ‘A couple of weeks won’t hurt. I’m going to the States. Do him good to come with me.’

  ‘He’s got to go to college.’

  Mark sat in the Mercedes. His father glanced at him. ‘You don’t have to live there you know.’

  Mark did not reply.

  ‘I’ve told you. You could come and live with me. That place is full of yobbos.’

  Still Mark did not reply.

  ‘Mark?’

  Mark stared through the windscreen. He flicked at the seat belt across his shoulder. ‘I’ve got college, Dad. It would take hours to get there.’

  ‘You could go to another college.’

  ‘I like it where I am.’

  They drove down Tottenham Court Road and Terry said: ‘I don’t like your mother working nights. I don’t like you being alone.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘What, on your own every night? I don’t think so. It’s not as if you ever see anyone. If you lived with me you could go out. We could go out. I could show you things, introduce you to people.’ He looked sideways at him. ‘Time you started thinking about more than just college books. You’re nearly eighteen. By the time I was your age I was making a buck.’

  He revved the engine and overtook a learner driver. ‘You’ve inherited my brains, Mark. College is one thing, but there’s a whole world out there. Opportunities.’ He snaked his tongue over his lips. ‘You need a head for business in this world. You won’t learn that from a book.’

  The traffic buckled into a line before them. Terry tapped on the wheel again. ‘You’re going to be late. You should get up earlier.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m only painting today.’

  ‘Still doing that? You must be pretty good by now. You liked those cartoons I used to draw when you were a kid. Didn’t you.’

  ‘They were okay.’

  Terry said: ‘Listen, I’m going to the States next month. Why don’t you come with me?’

  Mark made a face. ‘What about college?’

  ‘Won’t hurt will it? Couple of weeks together. Won’t be as long as the last trip, but then again I won’t be as busy. You wouldn’t have to fend for yourself so much.’

  They were almost to the shop. His father said: ‘I might pop back later. Watch one of the games. You never know, I might try my hand at some painting.’

  ‘Did Mum tell you about the police coming round?’

  Terry looked startled. ‘No. When was that?
’

  ‘Thursday lunchtime.’

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘Don’t know. Mum just said—a few questions.’

  ‘What sort of questions? About her?’

  Mark shook his head.

  ‘You’re not in any trouble are you?’

  ‘I think they were asking about you.’

  Terry’s fingers tightened about the steering wheel. He looked forward again and braked hard to avoid the taxi in front of them. ‘What did they want with me?’

  ‘Routine, Mum said.’ Mark looked at him then. ‘They were from the Drug Squad, I think.’

  Vanner spoke to Ryan, sitting on his bed with the towel about his waist and his hair still wet from the shower. On the pillow next to him was James Bentt’s business card, as yet unused, as yet undeclared to Morrison.

  ‘Total waste of time, Guv’nor,’ Ryan said. ‘Sat on the plot half the night. Not so much as a whisper.’

  ‘What time d’you get home?’

  ‘About two. Took it upon myself to stand down.’

  ‘No problem. There’s always next Friday.’

  ‘Oh, I just love being a spotter on a Friday.’

  ‘Relax. I’ll form a rota.’

  Vanner hung up and picked up the card. James Bentt of Glendale & Watts and another Director called Riley. Andrew Riley, the best man at his wedding. The man who stole his wife.

  Michael Terry watched the kids playing war games in System X. Computer screens on the walls above shelves stacked with models. A large painted table in the middle of the floor. Armies massed against each other. Two lads plotted tactics on the screens and two more implemented them at the table. In the corner, at a smaller table, Mark painted tiny white figures with a fine stemmed brush. Terry was lost in thought. The Drug Squad in Jennifer’s house asking about him. How did they know? He felt the package of E’s in his pocket. And then all at once it dawned on him.

  When the shop was closed they drove back to his flat overlooking the river. ‘Enjoyed myself today,’ Terry said. ‘I haven’t painted like that in years.’ He grinned at the tiny, colourful figure of the dwarf, squatting malevolently on the dashboard. ‘Maybe they’ll give me a job.’

  They drove across the bridge. Terry said: ‘Tell me about college then. What’re you studying, Mark?’

  ‘German voting system.’