Mickey Take: When a debt goes bad...

by Steven Hayward

  ‘Have you discussed the fire with Miss Pinner?’ His change of tack throws me. It’s also the first time anyone’s called her that.

  ‘With Grace?’ I say and he nods. ‘Uh, well, she’s aware of it if that’s what you mean. What’s it got to do with her?’

  ‘When’s the last time you were in the house sir?’ His questions are darting all over the place.

  ‘I’ve only ever been in there once; a couple of weeks ago.’ I’m getting agitated. This is starting to feel far too formal for my liking.

  ‘You didn’t visit Mr Long’s house last Thursday afternoon?’

  ‘I drove past with my mum on the way back from shopping. But no, I didn’t go in.’

  ‘Apart from your mother, was there anyone else with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else near the house? A young woman, perhaps? Someone you might have recognised?’

  ‘No. Like who?’

  ‘Why did you visit Mr Long two weeks ago?’ By now, I’ve had enough.

  ‘Look… Sergeant. I don’t want to be rude, but I did volunteer to come and answer a few questions. Before I say anything else, I want to know where this is going. And if I’m a suspect, perhaps you’d better read me my rights.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary sir. Just one last thing, how long have you known Miss... er, Grace?’

  ‘Hang on a minute. Sounds like you have your own personal reasons for wanting to know about me and Grace, or am I still helping with official enquiries?’

  ‘I’m simply trying to establish any possible connection between Miss Pinner and Mr Long and so far you’re the only common denominator.’

  ‘Am I really?’ I say. ‘Well maybe you’d better ask her about that.’

  ‘Well, precisely. Like I said I was hoping to speak to her today. Can I make a suggestion?’

  ‘Go for it.’

  ‘I’m sure we’d both prefer to keep this discussion on a casual footing. Would that be a reasonable assumption?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You implied earlier that Miss Pinner was with you at lunchtime, at your mum’s?’ he says and I squirm inwardly. ‘I suppose she’s waiting somewhere nearby. If I could accompany you to see her, it would be far better than me having to formally invite her into the station. Do you understand where I’m coming from?’

  ‘Ah, I get it. He doesn’t know about this particular line of enquiry does he?’ I say and Melville glares back at me. ‘You’ve gone off-piste haven’t you? You want a little chat with the guvnor’s daughter behind his back. Would that be a reasonable assumption?’

  ‘Mr Field,’ he says, straightening up in his chair. ‘Let’s just say it would be much easier for all of us if we could keep this unofficial.’

  ‘That’s ironic,’ I smirk.

  ‘Look, don’t push your luck, Mr Field.’ He stands up and leans across the table, his eyes bulging. ‘Make no mistake, I have reasonable grounds to detain you here and now in connection with the criminal destruction of property. But there are other matters I would prefer to discuss in due course without such constraints and I would appreciate your cooperation on that basis. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. All I was going to say was that Grace told me you were the good cop.’ His eyes give away a suppressed smile and then he exhales dramatically.

  ‘And all I’m asking of you is the chance to prove it.’

  ‘Okay. I’m going to trust her judgement on this. Let me ring her first.’

  ‘I’ll see you at the front desk,’ he says and leaves me alone in the room.

  Mug Full

  We barely speak during the ten-minute walk to the café and when we get there Grace is sitting in a quiet corner. A huge beaker with the frothy remains of a skinny latte is on the table in front of her and the Daily Mail is folded open at the financial pages. She stands and smiles awkwardly as Melville holds out a hand. She squeezes it gently and seems to lean in for a kiss, but he stays upright and she sits back down again.

  ‘How are things, Jim?’ she says like they’re old mates.

  ‘Oh, you know, cops and robbers. Too many of them and not enough of us.’

  I flinch and look over to the counter. ‘I think I’m ready for that coffee now,’ I say. ‘Do you want another one Grace?’

  ‘No, I’m okay,’ she says and Melville shakes his head – like I was including him – and sits down opposite her. I join a seemingly permanent queue and, when I eventually get back to the table and put down the ceramic bucket in which a thimble of espresso has been drowned without trace in a gurgling sea of foam, the subdued conversation stops a bit too abruptly for my liking.

  ‘The sergeant said he wanted to ask you some questions Grace,’ I say, louder than necessary. Melville bristles and looks around, but we’ve got the rear half of the cafe to ourselves.

  ‘Let’s keep this low key, shall we?’ he shoots back at me and I put my hands up in fake surrender.

  ‘What is it Jim?’ As she says it the tension seems to slide from his shoulders and I realise what a calming effect she has on him.

  ‘I’ve come across an anomaly I’m struggling to understand relating to a house fire we’re investigating. I realise this is unorthodox but as it’s you I’ll get straight to the point.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says.

  ‘What were you doing in Herbert Long’s house on the day it was torched?’

  She looks across at me stunned. I stare back helplessly. This isn’t a scenario we’d rehearsed and all I can do is wait to hear what she comes up with.

  ‘Oh, God, what did I leave behind?’ she says.

  ‘You know I can’t discuss the details of forensics found at a crime scene. However, there are reasonable grounds...’ He starts all officiously, sitting up straight in the chair, fiddling with his notebook before pausing to look up at her. Then he sighs and slouches forward, putting his hands on the table. For a moment I think he’s going to touch her fingers but he stops short. When he continues to speak, his tone is more relaxed. ‘All I can say is there are suspicions you were in that house, in all likelihood, on the day that it was later set on fire. I need you to help me understand when you were there and what you were doing. I’m hoping I can eliminate it as a factor in the arson. That way we can leave the conversation here and, in good conscience, I can dismiss the evidence as inconsequential. So, would you mind telling me why you were there?’

  ‘This doesn’t sound like you, Jim, keeping all this unofficial,’ she says. In the circumstances, I can’t understand why she’s goading him, especially when she adds: ‘It’s all a bit cavalier, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose you might say I’ve had a good mentor,’ he says. ‘Maybe it was inevitable for some of his… methods to start rubbing off.’

  ‘I take it Terry isn’t aware we’re having this conversation?’ She looks deep into his eyes.

  ‘No. He’s already told me to drop it.’

  ‘I suppose I should be grateful for that. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to explain.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘Did you know I was adopted by Terry and Gillian?’ she says, as if she’s expecting to surprise him.

  ‘I’ve suspected it for a while but I’ve only just found out for sure,’ he says, leaving Grace looking shocked. ‘I always thought you seemed a bit out of place with them, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘Did he tell you?’ she says.

  ‘He didn’t have to.’ He sighs again and seems to choose his words carefully. ‘Although at this stage it’s all circumstantial, I’ve come across the juvenile offender records of an eleven year old girl with a string of misdemeanours. She was in care at the time. Her surname was James.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, looking down at the table.

  ‘I requested clearance to trace her through social services and that was when the boss told me to back off.’

  ‘I bet he did,’ she says.

  ‘It wasn’t the first time he’d told
me to overlook details I thought might be significant. But this time it seemed to be personal.’

  By now I’m feeling confused and left out.

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ I say, breaking the tension, and at the same time increasing my own anxiety about the direction this is heading. ‘There’s recently been a little girl in Herb’s house?’ Melville stays silent and Grace stares into her empty cup, like neither of them has heard me.

  ‘Could someone please tell me what this is all about?’ I say, raising my voice again to get their attention and then lowering it back to a whisper. ‘It’s just I keep hearing that Herb is somehow connected with children and photographs, and excuse me if I’m starting to get a little bit paranoid.’ Melville gives me a perplexed look but it’s Grace who answers.

  ‘It’s me,’ she says. ‘I was that little girl.’

  I’m guessing that’s supposed to make everything clear.

  ‘You’re twenty five,’ I say. ‘And that’s not your surname.’

  Melville shifts in his chair and I look at him, but he shrugs and we both turn back to Grace.

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I grew up as Grace James.’

  ‘What about de Manton?’

  ‘It’s…’ She takes a deep breath and briefly closes her eyes. ‘It’s silly I know... it’s just a name I use sometimes.’ As she says it I feel a chasm open up between us.

  ‘Grace?’ My mind starts bouncing around the room.

  ‘Can we get back to the point?’ Melville’s saying. ‘Why were you in Long’s house that day, Grace?’

  ‘It’s all very simple really. I’ve been trying to trace my real parents.’

  I can hear her words and I let her continue uninterrupted, but my head’s preoccupied with a conversation I realise will have to wait until we’re alone.

  She’s telling him how she found the house where her real parents had lived and how she became intrigued with Herb and the strange comings and goings. She leaves out all references to me before admitting that when she came back to find the house deserted, she couldn’t resist having a look inside. He asks her to tell him exactly what she did and where she went in the house, and when she starts by saying she got in through the back door, his eyebrows raise, I’m guessing because he won’t have found any signs of forced entry. She doesn’t tell him she used regulation lock picks to open it, but she does say that once inside, she was shocked to find the house completely empty. When she thought she heard a noise coming from the front garden, she hid behind the front door and left the way she’d come in, going home none the wiser about the man who lived there.

  ‘I don’t need to tell you I could charge you with breaking and entering,’ he says.

  ‘I know,’ she sighs.

  ‘Not to mention how this looks, given the subsequent criminal damage to the premises,’ he continues, and she nods back at him nervously. He seems to hold her gaze intentionally. ‘But I’m not going to. And that’s not just because DCI Pinner told me to drop it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, and something in the way their eyes meet tells me he trusts her. Not because of her connection with his boss but for some other reason in spite of it. After a moment he looks across at me.

  ‘I’m not finished with you yet Mr Field. That will have to wait. I need to get back to the station, but you’ll be hearing from me once I’ve made some further enquiries.’ Then he turns back to Grace. ‘I’m glad to hear you didn’t need my assistance in the end yesterday evening. Is there anything you want to tell me about your meeting?’

  ‘No Jim, not at the moment. There are still a few things I need to work through first. But thanks for caring.’

  ‘Well, you know where I am.’ He gets up and walks towards the door without another word. All I can do is glare at her.

  Return Address

  Grace is asleep in my bed. It’s all getting a bit too much for her. We got back earlier this evening, after I convinced her to stay at my place while we sort all this out. By the time I’d made her a cup of green tea, she’d already crashed on the sofa. I carried her through to the bedroom and covered her over. It’s seven-thirty and I’m sitting alone in the half-light, listening to Sade’s sultry tones caressing the dusk, thinking through what Grace said earlier, about her imaginary name. In the car coming home, she told me that James was the only surname she’d ever known before being adopted…

  ‘I’ve no idea how I got it,’ she said. ‘And when I was old enough to ask, no one seemed to know where it came from. For some reason, it never felt right, so I invented a name of my own.’

  After her adoption, she became Grace Pinner, but she never really liked that either because it sounded so bland. At school, kids being what they are, they turned it into Grey Spinster, which to the average insecure teenage girl must have been the ultimate in mental cruelty. I told her I prefer de Manton. It suits her. It’s bold and provocative.

  ‘That wasn’t the intention,’ she said. ‘I was only ten when I dreamt it up.’

  I asked her what it meant but she wouldn’t tell me.

  ‘Just something silly,’ she said. ‘An escape from the reality back then, I suppose. An alter ego to live out my dreams.’ She sighed before adding, ‘You should be flattered. I hadn’t used it for years until I met you.’

  I’ve written it on a scrap of paper in big capital letters and I’ve been studying it for clues. Finally, I see it. It’s so simple and yet so elegant. I walk to the darkened window and hold the paper at an angle and the reflection confirms it. I think about the little girl with no name, turning her lost identity into such an enigmatic new persona.

  Deep in thought I start to draw the curtains. That’s when I see the car parked across the road. It’s a silver Mercedes, and getting out of the driver’s door is Mac the Chauffeur. When he starts walking towards the house, I pull away from the window and weigh up my next move. I rush through to the bedroom and before I can decide whether to wake Grace, the doorbell rings. The sound is followed by a muffled thud. Together they’re enough to rouse her and she looks at me through bleary eyes as I signal for her to be quiet.

  ‘Who is it?’ she whispers.

  ‘It’s Herb’s heavy,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry I’ll get rid of him. Just stay here.’

  I go back into the front room and, sticking close to the wall, look down towards the path. I’m relieved to see him walking back to the gate and out onto the street. He gets in the car and drives away. I’m guessing that with no lights on he figured the place was deserted. When I go back to the hall, Grace is peering around the bedroom door with a questioning frown.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s gone,’ I say. ‘Must have thought we were out.’

  ‘Really?’ she says.

  ‘Yeah I know. Feels like he gave up a bit too easily if he was looking for...’ I look down the stairs to the front door and see a large envelope on the mat.

  ‘Okay. So maybe he was just the messenger,’ I say and she follows me halfway down.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ she says looking over my shoulder. ‘What if it’s a…’ I stop in my tracks two stairs from the bottom. The heavy brown packet is wound tightly with rubber bands and otherwise unmarked.

  ‘No, that wouldn’t be his style,’ I say, reaching down slowly to pick it up. Whilst the feel of it in my hand is worryingly familiar, I carry it back upstairs like it’s a bottle of nitroglycerine and put it carefully on the coffee table.

  ‘What do you think it is,’ she says, but I don’t answer. Instead, I cross the room and open the hi-fi cabinet. I touch a button on the turntable and the needle rises, silencing Sade’s assurances that my love is king. I wait for the arm to finish its robotic return and slide the stack shelf forward before reaching behind it into the back of the cabinet.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I hear Grace say as I pull out the jumble of leads nestling in the gap between the record rack and the back panel of the unit. I continue feeling the unseen corners of the compartment with increased desperation.

 
; ‘It’s gone!’ I yell. ‘Someone’s been in here.’ I spin around and see Grace holding the parcel and picking nervously at the elastic with her fingernails.

  ‘Wait,’ I say as I head out into the hall and back down the stairs to the coat rack. Last night I left the decoy bundle in my jacket pocket, but it’s a futile search as I pull the lining inside out. I know as soon as I grab it that the envelope is no longer in the pocket. I run back upstairs and into the lounge just as Grace is removing the last rubber band and ripping open the sealed envelope and a pile of neatly stacked yellow paper fans out across the table.

  ‘What the...’

  ‘Fuck!’ I say, finishing her sentence. Scrawled across the top sheet, written in large red letters:

  DON’T SCREW WITH ME, FIELD

  YOU OWE ME £200

  It’s been an hour since our special delivery. We’ve calmed down and started to rationalise what just happened. I’ve told Grace about my fake package of yellow banknotes. I wasn’t able to give her a particularly good reason for making it in the first place. The best I could come up with was because I’d originally thought the money belonged to some thug who was blackmailing Herb. So I figured if I got into a tight squeeze with someone desperate to get it back, I might be able to buy myself some time with a decoy. She’s not convinced, but it doesn’t matter now.

  ‘Not only did they get in here; they were able to find both bundles and get out without leaving a trace,’ I say, as much to myself as to Grace.

  ‘And then to send one back… just to make a point,’ she says continuing my train of thought. ‘Maybe it’s Herb’s way of saying you didn’t deliver on your side of the deal.’

  ‘Like I said before…’ I say, through gritted teeth, ‘when it came to you there was no deal.’

  ‘That’s not how he sees it,’ she fires back, disarming me with simple logic.

  ‘Yeah… you may be right. It also tells us a lot about what he’s capable of.’