Glen Wright was her only hope. It’s clear that she was part of Magellan. She has full knowledge of the plans, she knew about the plan to blow up the art gallery and the pictures that would be there – she even had prints of them. Maybe it was her idea. On the intelligence pictures she was always in the background, watching, plotting. Was Tina the mastermind like Glen claims? Then, when she was pregnant and no longer able to join them on their guerrilla warfare she was pushed out. Pushed into the role of girlfriend and mother when she really wanted to be out there with Glen and the others, fighting the cause.
So she came up North to start again. To try to get help from her mother. But it’s clear that her mother is already helping her boyfriend smoke all the drugs in the world. From her attitude, Laurie Durose stopped helping Tina a long time ago at the first sign of trouble and found her own way to dumb down the intolerable life she found herself living. So Tina would have had to struggle on her own, day to day, no job. Monthly journeys to central London to watch Glen living it up with his cocaine and his girlfriend. Watching as he stole her life. Although the Magellan gang carried out criminal activity, it formed Tina’s life and defined her. Like my rock chick former persona, she would have been a rebel. There’s not much rebel-like about dirty nappies and midnight feeds.
A clear picture’s beginning to form now. But if I’m going to communicate with Tina I’m going to have to meet her on her own level with the full information. Today’s level. I’m going to have to step into her red shoes for a while and try to see what she’s thinking. What’s stopping me doing that is Maisie. In all the excitement of uncovering Magellan and it’s activity, all the analysis following about this being a kidnap and expecting a ransom, we’ve lost sight of the possible reason for taking a child.
She’d been to the other addresses on Glen’s list and posted the paper dolls. I look at the message again. ‘Hold Mummy’s hand tight. Don’t run off with strangers. Because you never know what those strangers might do to you.’ At first it seemed like a sinister threat, especially in the light of Maisie’s abduction. Even then I read it as a warning, but discounted it. Could it be that she was warning the parent of the children on the list. In her own increasingly twisted world, was she trying to stop Glen and Magellan? Did she know what was about to happen? Is that why she stole the car, in order to stop them driving it to Manchester?
But if all this is true why didn’t she just tell someone? Why did she risk driving Jennifer around in the car if she knew about its contents? Is that why she left Jennifer in the hotel, to protect her?
I look outside myself now, into the SMIT suite. Steve is briefing the helicopter pilot and Lauren is getting her coat on. She looks at me, stony faced and dog tired, and waves. I glance at the clock. It’s nine o’clock. Forty eight hours after Tina took Maisie. I think about the Lewis’ and how they face another night without their daughter. They know she is close by but they can’t do anything.
I think about Tina, and Maisie, in the car. Will she stay in Saddleworth, stay put until tomorrow morning? Will she let Maisie sleep? Will she sleep herself, or will she listen to the Red Shoes over and over?
There’s a shift change now and Steve is giving a changeover briefing. The night time crowd will be monitoring all communications and social networking and watching the results from the road searches and helicopter searches. I see hands raised to ask questions at the end of the briefing, and Steve’s pointing at me. Heads turn and incredulous faces stare into the glass panelled room. I go and stand amongst them. Steve rallies.
‘Ah, Jan. We’ve got a couple of questions about the perpetrator that you may be able to answer.’
I look at the nightshift. All are officers at the top of their field, the peak of their career. They are used to critically dangerous situations and handle them with skill and a professional attitude. A young man in part uniform part stab vest puts his hand up again.
‘Dr Pearce. DCI Ralston has told us that if we come across the perpetrator we need to not approach her. We’ve been told to wait until you arrive.’
He’s all charm and cockiness and I see his purpose before he continues. But I let him go on with it.
‘And?’
‘Well, she’s an unarmed young woman with a baby. I understand the care that has to be taken around the explosives, but DCI Ralston says we have to wait even if we recover the car. Why’s this?’ He glances around the room at the other officers. ‘I mean, she’s a tiny thing. It’s not as if she’s going to cause us much of a problem, is it?’
He’s smiling at me and I understand that his job is simply to catch Tina and retrieve Maisie. But my job goes deeper than that.
‘Maybe not. But this is for Maisie’s protection. She might not cause you much of a problem, but I suspect she’s suffering from post-natal depression and Maisie isn’t her own child. So God knows what she’ll do. So I think, as someone trained to deal with these matters, it might be the better option. We don’t want Maisie hurt. If she hasn’t been already.’
His smile fades and there don’t appear to be any more questions for me. I go over to the window and look up and down the road. There’s a black BMW in the Fujitsu car park across the road and I see the dim light of a cigarette ember. They won’t risk waiting here much longer. They’ll think I’ve been spirited back to my house. Probably don’t even know we’re onto them. No point sending anyone as they haven’t done anything yet. And after they do we won’t find them anyway. That’s the way they work. The comms phone beeps a text.
‘You can run but you can’t hide, Janet. We’re coming to get you.’
Keith turns around but I hold my hand up as I watch the BMW pulls out of the car park and drives towards Oldham. Heading for the hills. Heading for where Tina will be becoming more desperate by the minute and even more unstable. With no support, no friends and a broken relationship she was unlikely ever to ask for help. I just hope that she accepts it from me.
Chapter Twenty
Ten o’clock passes, then eleven. I dip in and out of the SMIT suite, waiting for news of the helicopter search finding Tina and Maisie. It’s got a camera on the underside and a spotlight and, projected onto the large screen I see the moorland. From high up it looks like a patchwork quilt. The dry stone walls and the different textures of vegetation define the patches, with the shadows thrown by the hills and valleys forming deep creases. Every now and then the light reflects on the long stretches of water, reservoirs that fill the deepest crevices of the Pennines.
Keith eats a Macdonald’s burger and chips at his desk and rhythmically shakes the ice in his coca cola. He’d brought me the same earlier, but I could only pick at it and imagine what was going on up in the dark hills. Twice I decide to go up there, once even calling a car. But then I remember that the whole area is crawling with officers, all searching for Tina in a landscape she knows better than any of them.
I look out of the windows, towards the city and its twinkling lights. The black BMW hasn’t reappeared. Even though its presence keeps me a prisoner I wish it was still there. While it’s gone I’m scenario building. My tired mind is catastrophizing and dredging up the past. Lando was a nasty business that spiralled out of control. It started small enough, but like the current investigation, uncovered a whole lot of wrongdoing. All of a sudden intelligence whisperings came to life and wound themselves around the criminals that surfaced.
They were cruel but clever. They’d evaded our eye for so long, because they never took chances. Clinical in their operations and enduring in their perseverance. If you were waiting for the Lando crew to forget about you, you’d be waiting a long time. A lifetime. We knew this because some of their work was revenge attacks for ancient grudges, old debts. Bought from other long-crumbled criminal empires. We struggled to pin anything on them; because they always left the scene of the crime looking like it wasn’t a crime scene. It was carefully stage managed, and impeccably carried out.
But we’d picked away at the scab of their weakness. One of th
eir operatives hated the police and we drove him to the hair trigger of his temper, and eventually he blew. We’d been regularly bringing him in, holding him for exactly twenty four hours then letting him go, only to pick him up twenty four hours later. We knew he had kids and we always went to his home to get him. Like most gangsters, he didn’t want his mother or his children to know who he was.
But it was becoming clear who he was and it pissed him off. It pissed him off so much that instead of playing the long game, waiting it out, finding the right time. He acted alone on the spur of the moment. He created enough of a diversion, turned enough Lando heads that we were able to retrieve two girls they were holding. I was in the right place at the right time and faced him off. As he waved a gun at me, I saw in his eyes that we had out-waited Lando. Played them at their own game. Pushed them until they had nowhere else to go, and he was the very visible manic manifestation of their failure.
But I know that was the exception to the rule. They wait in dark corners, waiting for the opportunity to strike. They’re cold, calm executioners, carrying out orders and never giving up. They could be anywhere now, and that’s what bothers me. In the cold light of day I would never let these thoughts overtake me, but now, tired and on edge, I see them knocking on Jean’s door and terrorising her. Finding my school friends and scaring them. Taking their grudges out on fellow officers, while I sit here in the station, safe. They’re out there. Waiting for me.
I mull over the possible scenarios and then admit to myself that I’m exhausted and that I have to sleep. I check on the search progress but there’s nothing to report. The helicopter has returned to base and will set out again at first light. There’s a skeleton crew patrolling the roads in and out of Saddleworth, making sure that Tina’s going nowhere. I take my handbag and the shopping, which is all I possess in the world as I can’t go home, to the staff shower rooms and step into the warm flow. I wash my hair with soap and rinse it. I’m lucky to have naturally wavy hair so, even though I like it straight, I can leave it to dry naturally and still look semi presentable. But in a professional environment I always straighten, as I am spending another night in the cells, I leave it wet.
When I’m dressed again I ring operations and book a room. Because it’s Monday night it’s quieter, no lurid screams and drunken wails from the neighbouring cells. An officer called Terry shows me to number fifteen, nicer than before. He brings me a laptop and tells me the password to the Wi-Fi signal. This way I can catch up on the media perspective on the case.
It’s just as I thought. Still focusing on finding the male Silver Range Rover driver. The entire country out looking for a silver Range Rover with a male driver and female child passenger. Two of the tabloids have even come up with a description for Silver Range Rover Man. Six feet one, stocky build, wearing a white t-shirt. One even has a photo fit picture telling us what he might look like, with the caption ‘this is not a police photo fit’ underneath. I check my emails and there’s nothing to worry about. A mortgage statement for a house that I can no longer live in. A reminder to upload my gas and electric readings.
I can’t bear to think about them going through my things. My music. Opening cupboards. I just hope that they don’t see any photographs of Kirby and realise that Jean is looking after her. I choke up when I think about them taking her away. But if they did, there’s nothing I could do. Rather than inflame the situation I’d just have to let her go. I’d never give in to their demands. Never.
If all this does ever end I’ll go back for her, of course. I’ll find somewhere else for us to stay. Like Petra said, I did it before and I’ll do it again. But I can’t keep doing it. Something will have to give, one way or another. I know that. I also know that it won’t be me doing the giving. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do to stop it, but I know myself. In the end I’ll go the whole hog and make sure it ends. In a way, this is what I’ve been waiting for. Unsettling though it is, it’s the endgame and I’m ready.
What I'm not ready for is my phone to ring and for it to be Pete, Kerry's husband. I let it go to voicemail and wait until the notification text hits my inbox before I reluctantly listen to it. Pete sounds panicky.
'Jan. Look. Kerry's gone into labour. I'm in Belfast and I'm getting the next flight home. She's a bit early but they said she will be OK. And baby will be OK. Can you get there, as soon as possible? St Mary's. Thanks Jan. See you there.'
I stare at the blank walls of the cell. I'd promised to be there at my friend's baby's birth. Birthing partner, because her husband faints at the sight of blood. I feel my stomach sink and I feel sick. I can't do it. A promise is a promise, but not when your life is in danger.
Kerry had been so supportive since my move back to Manchester. They all had. They’d forgiven my complete silence for years. They’d forgiven the fact that I changed my phone number and didn’t tell them, that I hadn’t written to them or made any kind of contact. That I’d sent the letters they wrote back to them unopened. That I’d started a new life in the bright lights of the capital without them.
When I’d turned up out of the blue, devastated and broken, they’d called around with soup and wine, their patience at my shocked silence endless. None of them mentioned my trademark auburn curls cropped into a short bob. None of them had ever demanded an explanation and I hadn’t offered. They nursed me back to as normal as I could ever be after what I’d been through with nights out, cosy nights in and when I’d bought my cottage and settled down they’d arrived with a little bundle of joy. Kirby. Kirby Red, they’d called her. Like me. Same colour. Kerry had said that tiny, helpless Kirby had reminded her of me when I’d first appeared, a mass of regrown red hair and sorrowful eyes. I’d told her I was eternally grateful and as the days passed and Kirby became my joy I’d promised her that I would do anything to repay the blessing.
And now I was going to let her down. My heart is already out of the door and half way across Manchester, but my head says stay put. They’ll be waiting. They’ll find me either going out or coming back. They’re in no hurry. Besides, it’s unfair to lead them to my vulnerable friend and her new baby. It’s a lever they can press in the future if they miss this time. I know what they do. They wait until you aren’t expecting it. They strike when you are on the edge of consciousness, doing something you are concentrating on so you can never quite recall the face or the hair colour, or the car.
I even know when they would strike this time. In the delivery room, just after Kerry’s baby is born and my love and emotions are overflowing so much that it’s impossible not to laugh. Then, in the only moment in the past three and a bit years I haven’t been completely vigilant. Then. Like always it would look like an accident. A slip, a fall, some kind of unavoidable happening. So it’s not fair on anyone. The way it is now, just me and them, that’s the best way. We all know where we are and no one else suffers.
I compose a text to Kerry and Pete.
‘Really sorry. I’m out of the country too. I didn’t expect this for a couple of weeks. Sorry.’
They’ll know it’s a lie. Kerry knew I had no plans to go anywhere. She’ll ring my phone and find it’s been switched off. But in the single ring tone before it goes to answerphone she’ll realise it’s not a foreign ring. She might try it again just to make sure. Then she’ll know I’m lying. But Kerry’s nice. She’ll leave some kind of forgiving message telling me not to worry. That Pete will be there soon and he won’t miss the birth. She’ll promise to see me soon, when I get back.
And she’s so nice that she’ll mean it. Yet a little bit of trust will be eroded. She won’t ask me to babysit because I might let her down. There’ll be no family invitations and no Christening invite. And I’ll have lost another important person in my life. Kerry’s my only remaining friend outside the force. I have Petra and Lorraine to moan about general things to. I told Petra a little bit about my past, but I can’t weigh anyone down with it. It’s too much.
Its times like this you take stock. Here I am
sitting in a cell, completely alone. Don’t get me wrong, I love being alone. Alone with Kirby and all my home comforts. My music. Some good cooking. A glass of malt whiskey, but only the one. Alone but surrounded by familiar things. The smell of my garden and my favourite perfume. Right now I’m completely alone. It takes years for things to become familiar. When I first bought the cottage I felt at home, but it wasn’t home.
I still missed my apartment in London. My shabby chic furniture and the Persian cat who lived next door. She never went out. The beautiful polished walnut floors and the way that, when you looked out of the window, your vision was level with the tops of the trees on the street below. The musical cocktail cabinet and the ringing laughter of the happiness there. The way I could walk less than a mile in any direction and find an excellent restaurant. That place had my stamp on it and the shock of leaving left its mark, on top of everything else.
But I love Manchester and I had to return. I couldn’t go back to my apartment so I had to find another home. I was on autopilot and my soul was telling me to go back to what I know. The rolling hills and the craggy outcrops that, in the darkness look like monsters. The dark purple moorland that I am sure is the colour of my heart on the inside. The smell of the mint my grandfather let grow wild across the end of his garden. The sound of beating wings and scuttling feet with every footstep through the brittle heather. So I ran back home and hid away. I ran back to my former friends who I hoped would take me back. I made the cottage my home not by replicating my London heart, but by riding the tides of discomfort until one day it welcomed me.
I’d gradually begun to love it and its garden. I furnished it from instinct instead of choosing the matching pieces the rote of my mind told me to. Mustards and green, deep browns and burgundy, the colours of the countryside. I forced myself to get to know the neighbours and to shop in the village so that my home widened and eventually joined hands with the city. The resulting bridge had served me well. Still ever vigilant, I’d found a way I could be comfortable at the same time. I ran back to somewhere safe and secure, where I’d sprung from. Where I’d roamed the hills alone in my childhood and I knew. Knowing. Home. I’d roamed again with Kirby to reacquaint myself with the subconscious maps I’d built as a child, to connect with the steadfast trust of the never changing landscape.
What I Left Behind (The gripping prequel to the DS Jan Pearce Crime Fiction Series) Page 19
