by Danuta Reah
The house-to-house had included the boats. Tina made a note to check the statements. Maybe she needed to go back to some of them, ask them specifically. ‘If that cabin cruiser is still on the canal,’ she said, ‘then where is it?’
‘Moored up,’ he said. ‘There’s only four cabin cruisers moored on this stretch of the canal, and I can tell you about all of them. Right. There’s the Lady Grey. She’s moored up below Tinsley. She belongs to a Mick Hughes. I haven’t seen her out on the canal for a couple of months – he might be away. I’ve got a contact number. There’s the Mary May. She’s moored near Don Valley Stadium. Let’s see…’ He checked his list. ‘Calloway. Steven Calloway. He lives in York. He doesn’t take her out – she’s been up for sale for a few months.’
‘OK,’ Tina wrote the details down.
‘Then there’s the Eleanor – she’s only been on the canal six months. That’s the Stricklands. They’ve had boats on the canal for years. They’re around a lot. The Eleanor’s at Tinsley as well. And then there’s the Lucy, she’s nearer the canal basin at Shirland Lane…’ He checked his notes again, frowning. ‘I’m not sure who the owner is – I’ll need to get back to you on that.’
When she left, Tina had a list of all the boats that were moored on the canal, the moorings, and the names of the owners. This, surely, shouldn’t be too difficult. She checked the time. Her shift was nearly over. She just had time to get back to the incident room and type this up. She could put it through for Farnham to include in the briefing tomorrow. She needed to have a few early nights, lay off the sex-and-drugs-and-rock-and-roll.
But tonight she wanted to get away as early as she could. She was going to the private view at the Second Site Gallery. She’d made the mistake of mentioning it to her colleagues. Even Tina, inured to the laddish culture of the canteen, hadn’t realized exactly how many double entendres could be made from the phrase ‘private view’. The joke had kept everyone happy for the day.
As she came back into the office, Dave West said on cue, ‘Viewed any good privates lately, Tina?’
‘Well, if I have, they certainly weren’t yours,’ she said, resigning herself to the hilarity around her. Now, how to word the report to Farnham quickly and succinctly…? She ran the information she had through her mind, and also any possible follow-up she should have done. She didn’t want to be wrong-footed at the briefing by a question she couldn’t answer.
‘It’d stunt your growth,’ she riposted to yet another half-heard private view joke. She typed the report quickly. She was pretty sure she’d covered all the options Farnham could reasonably have expected her to cover. OK, that was it, she was done. She grabbed her coat and headed for the door, amid a barrage of comment.
Kerry watched Stacy at the mirror. She was fidgeting with impatience. She wanted to grab Stacy by the arm and drag her out of the toilets. They’d got into town late. They’d skipped the last class, but Stacy had insisted on going in for registration and the first class. And now they were in town, Stacy had insisted on going into the toilets in the big store and changing into her new top and doing all her make-up again. ‘Do my hair, Kerry,’ she said now.
‘There isn’t time. It looks fab,’ Kerry said.
‘Is my face OK?’ Stacy could never believe she looked all right.
‘Yes!’ They needed to get to the market in time for Kerry to go and meet Lyn. There’d been another letter that morning. Another newspaper article. JAIL SUICIDES UP. She’d sent a message to Lyn: ok 4 2nite? And Lyn had replied: OK. DONT B L8.
As Kerry thought about it now, she felt prickles of tension running up and down her back. She checked her watch. It was after four. She thought about her dad hanging from his bed frame, the sheets tight round his neck. She thought about her dad, trapped in a burning cell, and she grabbed Stacy’s arm. ‘Come on. You look fab. Come on.’
Stacy shook her off. ‘I’m nearly ready,’ she said. But it was twenty past four before they were running down the hill towards the market.
‘Slow down.’ Stacy was panting behind her. ‘I can’t run as fast as you can.’
But Kerry pelted on down the hill, and then they were at the market. Stacy gasped for air and looked accusingly at Kerry. ‘I wanted to get here before he’d gone,’ Kerry said, before Stacy could speak. ‘Come on.’ She threaded her way past the stalls until she saw the one where Martin was working. She pulled Stacy back behind the next stall and said, ‘There he is.’
Stacy giggled with excitement. She kept looking at Martin and then ducking back. ‘He’s seen me,’ she said. ‘What shall I do?’ Her face, normally rather heavy and plain, looked pink and pretty. She was loving all the hiding and the whispering and the giggling, and it gave Kerry that feeling of mean wrongness inside her again. It was for Dad, that was what was important. ‘Tell him I’m here,’ Stacy said. ‘Tell him we’ll meet him in the coffee bar.’
It was obvious to Kerry that Martin had seen them and blanked them, probably because he didn’t even recognize them. But Stacy was deep into the game. It might be OK. Kerry thought quickly. Stacy would be OK if Martin didn’t actually talk to her, didn’t ask her out. Stacy was really shy with boys. She just wanted to think that he would, that he liked her. She felt a bit better.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Shall I tell him you fancy him?’
‘Kerry!’ Stacy was thrilled and outraged.
It was easy to play the game. ‘I’ll say, “My mate fancies you. Look, she’s over there.” And he’ll…’
‘Shut up!’ Stacy shoved her and collapsed into giggles. Kerry tried to laugh too, but it sounded awkward and false. Her heart was beating fast and she wanted this to be over.
‘I’ll say we’ll meet him in the coffee bar,’ she said. ‘Shall I?’
‘Go on! But you’re not to say I like him. Don’t say that. Promise.’ Stacy’s eyes were bright.
‘OK.’ Kerry smiled her reassurance and went over to the stall, looking back at Stacy, who gestured her forward, Go on. Go on.
He was calling as she walked towards the stall: ‘Bananas, two pound for eighty pence, get them here, two pound…’ A kind of litany to pull in the passers-by. When people stopped to buy, he put the bananas in a bag, took the money, quick as anything, his eyes already hunting for the next customer. But Stacy had to see her talk to him. She took a breath.
‘How much are those?’ She pointed at a tray of odd, wrinkly things. She didn’t know what they were.
‘Passions?’ he said, oddly. ‘Fifteen pee each.’ His eyes were roaming round for more customers.
‘And those?’ she said.
He looked at her this time. ‘It’s on the ticket.’
‘I haven’t got my glasses,’ she said.
‘Twenty,’ he said. Kerry couldn’t buy anything. She didn’t have any money.
In desperation, she said, ‘You go to our school, don’t you?’
He looked at her again. ‘How should I know?’ he said. ‘Look, you want to buy something? I’m working here.’
Kerry backed away as he began calling about bananas again. Her face felt hot. She hurried back to Stacy, who was half-concealing herself behind the next stall. ‘He says he’s working,’ she reported. ‘He said he can’t. You’ll have to talk to him at school on Monday.’ Her voice sounded odd and strained. ‘I’ll help you,’ she said.
Stacy looked at her. ‘We can’t go now. We’ve only just got here. We can wait for him.’
There was a heavy feeling in Kerry’s chest. She looked at her watch again. It was five o’clock. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to meet someone.’
‘Kerry!’ Stacy’s eyes were accusing. ‘You said!’
‘I told you to hurry! I’m late!’ Kerry was moving away through the early evening crowds.
Stacy followed her. ‘You can’t go,’ she said. ‘Let me come too.’
‘It’s a secret,’ Kerry said. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow, promise I will, I’ve got to go…’ If she took Stacy, Lyn might be mad. She wouldn’t
talk about Dad. She turned away from Stacy, from her panicky face. She had to get down to the canal basin and it was after five already. She wove her way through the people and tore down the hill to the tram tracks. The streetlights were already lit, and the lights were on in some of the offices as she hurried past. She ran up the steps and across the bridge, then down the other side to Victoria Quays.
It was almost quarter past. She was late again. There was the bench outside the café, the place where Lyn waited for her. Same place. But there was no one there. She looked round. There was no sign of Lyn, and the canal basin was deserted in the cold evening. There were one or two people in the café, but she couldn’t see Lyn. She stood by the bridge. There was a shadow on the water ahead, a boat drifting in towards the canal basin, its engine silent, its lights off.
But Lyn must have been here, must have waited for a few minutes. She must just have left. Kerry thought quickly. She hadn’t passed Lyn, so maybe she’d walked back along the towpath. She wouldn’t be far ahead.
Kerry ran across the bridge and along the path, under the railway where the canal turned, and under the arch of Cadman Street Bridge. The lights made dim pools all along once she was through, and the towpath stretched away ahead empty. If Lyn had gone five minutes before, she would have been on the path, moving in that brisk way.
She pulled out the phone and looked again. FDAY SAME PLACE 5.00? She’d only been a bit late. It wasn’t fair. There were steps up to the road a bit further on. Maybe Lyn had walked along here and gone up the steps. Kerry ran, her feet slipping in the towpath mud. She got to the steps, where there was a sign about taking bikes on Furnace Lane, and ran up them, stopping at the top as a stitch in her side doubled her over. But there was no Lyn. Maybe Lyn couldn’t make it. Maybe that was it.
She got the phone out of her bag again and switched it on, but there were no messages. The light had almost gone now. She had to get back. She tried to key in a message as she hurried towards the bridge: whr ru? But her fingers slipped on the keys. Later, she’d do it later. She ran down the steps and back along the path to the canal basin.
She’d look in the café again. Maybe Lyn was waiting there. Maybe Kerry had missed her. But when she got there, the tables outside were still deserted. Kerry peered through the windows. It wasn’t very busy. Lyn wasn’t there. She turned away.
She was close to the water here, and her foot caught on something on the ground. She frowned. It was a mirror, a little hand mirror like the one Stacy used, but it was broken. It couldn’t be Stacy’s. Kerry looked back along the canal at the dark towpath.
She stood at the side of the canal, indecisive. Something in the water caught her eye, a momentary glint of red. She looked down, where the brightness from the café window spilled over on to the surface of the canal. Something matted, something…She recoiled. A dead cat floated in the water below her, bobbing slightly with the ripples, its eye gleaming red as the light caught it.
NINE
Tina had never been to a private view before. She hadn’t expected Eliza Eliot to remember her casual promise to send an invitation, and had been pleased when it arrived. It would be a distraction from work, from bad dreams, from her awareness of Roy Farnham’s eyes watching her with cool judgement. Then she realized she didn’t know what to wear for something like this. In the end, she’d compromised: smart trousers, glitzy top with a jacket, and boots that she’d picked up in the sales, that were designed for looking elegant rather than for walking around in. If she was over-dressed, she could keep the jacket on and be businesslike. If she was underdressed, the top was glam enough for party wear. She put on her warm coat, which rather let the side down – it was the only weatherproof coat she owned and it took a lot of hammer when she went walking or rambling.
Keys, bag, cash, cigs…She couldn’t decide whether to take the car. Bus. She’d opt for the bus. There would be wine – better not to risk it. Anyway, she didn’t fancy leaving her car down by the canal basin.
The invitation said six-thirty. She got there at twenty to seven. The gallery was lit up and she could see the shadows of people moving in the windows upstairs, the gallery where the exhibition was, the place where she’d first talked to Eliza. A young woman with a sulky face was sitting at a reception desk downstairs, dressed in a style that seemed to owe a lot to studs and spikiness. She greeted Tina, gave her outfit a disapproving once-over, took her invitation and offered her a glass of wine in a perfunctory way. She looked very young. She must have drawn the short straw to be sitting at this desk downstairs while the party went on above her. No wonder she was looking sulky.
She went into the gallery, and was faced with a room full of strangers, some of them wandering around and looking at the exhibits, most standing in small groups, talking, laughing. It was a slightly daunting sight, but Tina knew how to work a room. She hung up her coat and looked round. Then she took off her jacket. She tried to get a sense of the exhibition. The – she wasn’t sure what you would call them; she wanted to say ‘paintings’, but there were photo-montages, collages, prints – exhibits formed images of death and darkness that seemed to flicker round her, and she found herself looking for images of falling, for things smashed on the merciless ground. She switched her focus and concentrated on the people. There were familiar faces now. She could see Eliza at the far side of the room, acting as hostess beside a small man with close-cropped hair and a goatee beard – Jonathan Massey, the director. Standing next to them was a tall man with dark hair. He was chatting, or rather listening, to a man who was talking earnestly, gesticulating to emphasize the points he was making. He nodded occasionally, but his eyes kept wandering to the window behind his interlocutor, the window that looked out over the canal.
She worked her way through the crowd. There were so many people here, it was difficult to look at the exhibition anyway. Tina’s plan was to make contact with Eliza Eliot, who had probably forgotten inviting her, pick up at least one introduction and work her way round the room from there. Eliza saw her as she came across, and smiled in recognition. ‘DC – I mean…I’m sorry, I don’t know your first name.’
‘It’s Tina.’ Eliza Eliot looked beautiful in a dreamy, pre-Raphaelite way.
‘Tina. You know Jonathan Massey, of course…’ Tina saw a slight flicker cross Eliza’s face as she remembered the circumstances of her and Jonathan’s meeting. ‘And you must meet Daniel Flynn.’ The dark-haired man. Of course. He had ‘artist’ written all over him. Eliza interrupted the conversation, sending a carefully measured apologetic smile to the earnest man. ‘Daniel, this is Tina Barraclough.’ She glanced behind him, where the earnest man was moving away, looking a bit put out. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t think of a way to rescue you before.’
He touched Eliza’s arm lightly and gave her a quick smile. Aha! Tina wondered if anyone else had noticed. She was aware of Massey frowning as he looked at her. ‘Are you here in an official capacity?’ he said.
‘Just as a guest.’ She smiled at him, making herself unthreatening.
‘I need to talk to…’ He walked off.
Tina raised her eyebrows at Eliza, who shrugged. ‘Jonathan’s a bit edgy tonight,’ she said.
Daniel Flynn had detached himself from Eliza, suddenly looking interested. ‘Official capacity?’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me you’re from the Ministry of Outraged Opinion.’
Moo. Tina caught his eye and smiled.
‘Tina’s involved in the investigation into…’ Eliza couldn’t find a socially appropriate word for murder.
‘There was a death on the canal,’ Tina explained.
‘I know,’ he said. He seemed restless, as if he wanted to be somewhere else. He dug his hands into his pockets and looked at her again. ‘You’re a police officer?’ he said.
‘Yes.’ In Tina’s experience, this was a conversation-stopper in most circles.
There was a flurry of activity over by the door. Eliza smiled at Tina. ‘Excuse me. Look round, won’t you. I’ll talk to you
later.’
She moved off, and Tina expected Daniel Flynn to go with her. Instead, he stayed where he was, looking past her at the room with the circulating crowd. ‘I’ll walk you round the exhibition,’ he said.
‘That’s OK. You’ve got people to talk to.’ She was surprised. Maybe he thought that a police officer, a thick plod, needed it all explaining. Then she told herself she was being paranoid.
He looked over to where Eliza was greeting a group of people. ‘With a bit of luck, I might get away with it,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ He took her arm and led her through the display stands, away from the door.
It was gone seven by the time Kerry got home. She’d waited for Lyn – she’d waited half an hour in case Lyn was late, but no one came. When Kerry got in, Mum was sitting in front of the television. It was on, but she wasn’t really watching it. Her eyes wandered as she tried to focus on Kerry. ‘Oh. You’re back. Good day?’ There was that smell again. She hadn’t been in to work, Kerry could tell. She’d spent the day on the sofa. Drinking.
‘What’s for tea?’ she said.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Mum groped around the side of her chair. ‘I’ve got a headache, Kerry. Can you run down to…’ She was looking in her purse as she spoke. Kerry thought about Stacy’s mum making chips. Kerry did the shopping when she came back from school and she cooked when Mum was poorly and she never had any clothes because Mum couldn’t afford to buy her anything and now she was cold and wet and scared and there wasn’t any tea!
Mum put her bag down on the floor again. She seemed to have forgotten about tea. Kerry noticed there were two cups on the table in front of Mum. One of them was full of cold, scummy tea. ‘Did someone come round?’ she said.
Mum frowned and picked up her bag again, pulling out her purse. ‘Stacy’s mum,’ she said, just as Kerry was about to ask again.
‘What did she want?’ Had she come to complain about Kerry making Stacy bunk off? Would Mum notice? I can’t cope with this…Mum’s voice.
