Hard Time

by Maureen Carter

  The decision to bring in Kenny Flint as investigating officer didn’t tally with the guv’s public vote of confidence. However Byford couched it to the troops, it must be a blow to the big man’s professional pride. It had certainly shattered Powell’s. He wouldn’t even have the satisfaction of nicking the bastards who’d done it. And whatever anyone said, he blamed himself.

  The DI sighed, laid down the pen. His resignation letter just needed a signature.

  31

  The charred hulk that had been Monks Court squatted in the middle of a row of seedy three-storey business premises on Friars Road. As Kenny Flint took his first look at the building where PC Simon Wells had perished, it put the normally prosaic DCS in mind of a blackened rotting tooth. And it would have to come out – or down – as soon as the council made arrangements. The tape closing off both ends of the road wasn’t just protecting evidence, it was preventing further casualties.

  After a six-hour operation, fire investigators had declared the property unsafe, a verdict confirmed by a local surveyor. It didn’t stop a stream of stroppy property owners banging on about access. The uniforms posted at either end did.

  Flint paused before ducking under the police tape to have a word with a constable who looked about twelve. It was a bad place to stop. The detective had been spotted by a roving pack of reporters, desperate for a sound bite, and camera people looking for something marginally more interesting to shoot than the exterior of a burned building. Flint certainly looked the part: a hard-nosed copper straight out of central casting, late forties, close-cut greying hair, cool blue eyes and craggy features. A suit-and-tie man, he’d look equally at ease, and in command, in a bomber jacket and jeans.

  Half a dozen journos had broken away and were actually running down the road to grab a few words with him. He glanced round at the noise, sighed and masked a scowl. Did he want to talk to the media? He knew the news bureau had issued releases with the official police line on the fire and the tragic loss of lives. Flint hadn’t known Wells. Anything he added would sound trite. And he couldn’t feed them any new lines until he’d liaised with the fire investigation team who were still on site.

  “Superintendent...?”

  “Sir...?”

  “What’s the...?”

  “Have you any...?”

  “Is there any...?”

  They weren’t going anywhere. He waited until the bombardment petered out. He needed them on side but was acutely aware that yesterday’s reporting on the Selly Oak protest group might have fanned the flames. He’d assigned a couple of DCs to trace and talk to SOAP members. No point getting heavy with the messengers till he knew the score.

  “First off,” he said, “there’s nothing new to add to what you’ve already got. I’d just reiterate that we’re anxious to talk to anyone who was in the vicinity of Friars Road prior to and in the hours following the arson attack at Monks Court.”

  In Flint’s broad Wolverhampton accent, the police-speak sounded stilted, even slightly comic, like something out of Monty Python. His grim features reflected in the nearest TV lens were anything but amusing. “They may have seen something or someone suspicious without realising the significance. I’d ask those people to contact us at the earliest opportunity.”

  “What times are you talking?” A hack shoved a mic in front of his face.

  “I’m not tying it down,” Flint said. The arsonists would have recced the place at least once, could have been hanging round for days, weeks even. He didn’t want a defined timeframe to deter potential witnesses from coming forward. He wound up with an appeal for the perps to turn themselves in. Everyone knew the likelihood had less chance than a snowflake on a red-hot hob. Flint’s raised hands dismissed a chorus of further questions, then he turned his back and walked away in search of answers.

  Nigel Blackwell, head of the fire investigation team, stood on the pavement opposite Monks Court surveying the remains. Even as the two men watched, timbers creaked, debris crashed down into pools of black greasy water.

  Blackwell was in his late thirties, tall, thin, nervy. His sweaty hand left dirt streaks across his pale face. “I’ll tell you something. We’re bloody lucky the body count wasn’t higher.”

  The tone was inappropriate, almost upbeat. Flint stiffened. “There’s nothing lucky about three dead.” There was steel in the voice and the unblinking stare was lethal. “Tell me something else.”

  Blackwell’s thin lips tightened. “I’m telling you: it was luck, not judgment, that no one else died. These people knew what they were doing: they were out to kill. The more the...” Either a belated sensitivity or Flint’s incredulity stopped Blackwell in his crass tracks. “Sorry. But the evidence is there.”

  Flint listened, face impassive, as Blackwell ran through what the team had uncovered. At least four petrol bombs had started four separate outbreaks – two on the ground floor, two on the first. The fires had been located to prevent egress, designed to endanger lives. It looked as if furniture had been shifted to hamper escape further and to provide fuel for the flames. The top floor may have been set alight too; there wasn’t enough of it left to determine.

  “Evil bastards.” There was ice in Flint’s voice.

  There was more. According to Blackwell, the killers had disabled smoke alarms, dismantled security cameras.

  “How come the noise didn’t wake anyone?” It was a question for himself as much as Blackwell.

  “It did, eventually, or we’d be looking at double figures.” The fire investigator brushed off ash that had settled like grimy dandruff. “I’d say there had to be two arsonists, maybe more. And timing was crucial.” A few seconds out and a perp risked being trapped in the burning building.

  Flint’s nod acknowledged the observation. This was no one-man operation. It was team-work, well planned and all too ably executed. On the other hand, all the residents had now been accounted for – but one of the bodies had yet to be identified. Maybe, Flint thought, that’s where the bastards’ luck ran out.

  Byford had spent most of the morning flitting between incident rooms trying to keep on top of an unprecedented workload. The decision-taking and task-assigning was seemingly endless, as was the tsunami of calls and information from officers on the ground. Christ. He was getting too old for all this. Three major ongoing inquiries: three overall pictures to try to maintain in a head that pounded.

  He’d just popped back to check his desk and was now eating a cheese sandwich in the comparative quiet of his office. His other hand clutched a report from the search team that had gone through Jazz Ghai’s Balsall Heath flat. It looked as if the cleaners had been in. Byford scowled. No surprise there. Half the city’s criminal underworld knew the police had been on the Asian’s tail; someone would have tipped him the wink.

  And Maxwell?

  Byford was on the point of calling off the search. Sapphire, Hawk and Phoenix needed every available police body. He couldn’t justify allocating cash or resources to flush out Maxwell. Not without something more substantial to go on.

  It came in a phone call. He swallowed a mouthful of lunch, lifted the receiver and listened. Then he tossed the rest of the sandwich aside and headed for the control room.

  There had been something vaguely familiar about the voice. He asked the officer to play it again, tapped an impatient foot and ran possibilities in his head as the tape was re-cued. The caller was male, sounded local, middle-aged, ill-educated. Whoever it was had also watched the lunchtime news, had seen the e-fits of Doug’s assailants.

  Them fellows you’re after...? Ask Mad Harry...

  No one called Maxwell a maniac. Not to his face. Certainly not more than once. Only criminals and cops even knew the nickname.

  “Can you trace it?” Byford asked.

  The officer shook his head. “Phone box, sir.”

  “If he calls again, try and keep him on the line.” Like the man would call. Grassing up Maxwell was equivalent to suicide. Not that the snitch had given more than a bla
de or two. But it was enough. Byford decided to keep the search going, see what else might crop up.

  The last thing Julia Tate wanted was for other people to classify her as a nosy old biddy, with twitching net curtains and a nose forever stuck in other people’s business. Miss Marple she was not, thank you very much. But.

  Keeping a polite distance was one thing; it was something else entirely to maintain aloof indifference or, God forbid, criminal neglect. If there was – how should she put it – a problem next door, she’d never forgive herself.

  Julia poured Earl Grey into a porcelain cup, took a genteel sip. Tea always helped her think. Maybe she was just feeling piqued; she’d always been rather over-sensitive. But Julia had so hoped to make friends with her new neighbour. Not live in each other’s pockets or anything vulgar like that. But the occasional morning coffee would be rather nice, wouldn’t it?

  She sank large yellow teeth into a slice of home-baked granary bread thickly spread with homemade marmalade. A retired librarian, living alone, she perhaps had too much time on her hands. She drifted into the sitting room, munching the remains of breakfast on the way. Look, she thought with a smile, I don’t even possess a net curtain. She drew back the wooden shutters and basked for a moment or two in the warmth of the sun.

  She also happened to notice that the rather ostentatious motorcar wasn’t on next-door’s drive, so she dismissed the idea of popping round with one of her Victoria sponges. Maybe later... She ought to try to elicit information before deciding whether to take action.

  It must be a month now since the woman had moved in and Julia still didn’t know her name. Rather a good-looking blonde with striking green eyes; younger, but surely that didn’t matter. Julia thought the woman would have welcomed the kindness an older neighbour could offer. Taking in post? Admitting tradesmen? Keeping a protective eye on the place? Julia hadn’t even mentioned baby-sitting, because back then she hadn’t seen the little boy. Well, she thought it was a little boy – it wasn’t always easy to tell these days, was it? Such lovely hair, though.

  Julia sighed. She’d not spoken at all with the woman since that first time. So she’d had no opportunity to ask if anything was wrong. But surely it wasn’t normal for a little one to cry so much... And not just during the day; the sobbing woke Julia at night as well. She’d held a tumbler against her ear and pressed it against the bedroom wall. She couldn’t be sure, but thought she heard the little boy cry for his mummy. It couldn’t be right, leaving a child so young alone in the house, could it? Julia shook her head. She didn’t even think it was legal.

  But one was so afraid to interfere nowadays, wasn’t one?

  A quiet word, the very next time she saw the woman. That’s all it should take. Calling social services at this stage seemed so heavy-handed. And yet... the crying haunted Julia. It really needed some more serious thought.

  She turned from the window, drifted back to the kitchen. There should be more tea in the pot. She always made enough for two.

  August 2000

  Holly had known early on not to expect help from her adoptive mother. At thirteen, she’d threatened to tell Satan’s wife. He’d laughed in her face. Said his wife had known from the beginning. It was her idea; didn’t want him bothering their own daughter. Bothering? Holly had spat in his face.

  After that, Satan started to bring other men, other perverts, to Holly’s room.

  Satan told her she was lucky she wasn’t in a kids’ home. They’d only adopted her because they thought they couldn’t have children. She’d cast her mind back to when Amy was born, how the bitch had doted on the new baby, how the abuse had begun not long after.

  Now a few months off her sixteenth birthday, Holly had started to notice how Satan looked at his daughter, how he stood too close, touched too much. Amy was only six. Holly would try and leave her out of the reckoning but Satan’s bitch was definitely included.

  She lay back on the bed, running the plan through her mind for the umpteenth time. Everything was almost in place. The fire was a last-minute inspiration. But as soon as the idea struck, she realised how appropriate it would be. He’d been Satan to her for so long. She pictured him burning until he was no longer distinguishable from the flames.

  32

  “Oh joy,” Bev drawled. “Another brick wall. Let me beat my head again.”

  Bev and Mac Tyler were drawing blanks. They’d been mopping up house-to-house inquiries in Windsor Avenue, one of the streets near Daniel Page’s school. Bev had shoved notes through several doors, asking the occupiers to get in touch. Then they’d driven round the corner and were now outside Stephen Cross’s place. Several birds – one stone – same story.

  “Put another card through, sarge. We know he’s around. He’ll get back to us.”

  She wasn’t convinced, wasn’t even sure re-interviewing the guy was worth it, but what the hell. The call came as they headed back to the car, arguing the toss over the best place to grab a late-lunch sandwich.

  “They’ve made contact.” Byford’s effort to sound casual had the opposite effect. Bev froze, mid-pavement, heart racing. He told her a telecom officer monitoring the Pages’ incoming calls had picked it up: a mobile phone in the Kings Norton area. And the signal was on the move. Covert squad cars were out there now, guided by data from comms.

  “Where d’you want us, guv?” she asked. Mac had registered the urgency in her voice. The motor was already running as she slipped in beside him.

  “With the parents,” Byford said.

  “’Kay.” It was a tad reluctant; being in on the action had a lot more going for it.

  Maybe the big man caught the inflection. “I haven’t heard the tape, Bev. But from what I gather, they need all the support they can get.”

  The voice was distorted, metallic, menacing; the message chillingly clear: Dan-Dan thinks his mummy’s dead. A click on the tape, then a little boy crying his heart out. It would have shattered stone; it was tearing Jenny Page apart. The woman had only been home from hospital a few hours when the call had come. She was now under sedation upstairs, Richard at her bedside. Bev had spoken briefly to them both; unsurprisingly, neither had recognised the caller’s voice.

  She and Mac sat uneasily round the kitchen table with Colin Henfield, the family liaison, and the telecom officer Pete Marr who’d monitored the call and issued the alert. Wheels were in motion. Literally. The signal from the caller’s mobile was still coming in loud and clear from Kings Norton; comms were still passing information to officers on the ground. After three days’ silence from the kidnappers, the police activity would be frenetic, adrenalin levels stratospheric. They weren’t the only reasons Bev would rather be out there. Rather be anywhere.

  Dark thoughts filled the sunlit room as Marr replayed the tape. Daniel’s gut-wrenching sobs were completely at odds with the bright surroundings. The fridge door was covered in gaudy pictures, all in a child’s hand: a house with smoking chimney, a grinning fat cat, Mummy and Daddy, Batman, Daleks, daisies. A huge yellow sun appeared in every one. Bev shivered; saw them all through a gauze of tears. Her fists were tight balls as she tried to imagine the little boy’s anguish, what she itched to do to his tormentors.

  The cries stopped abruptly. Excited laughter drifted in from next-door’s garden. It sounded as if the neighbours’ kids were splashing round in a paddling pool. The heat was stultifying. Bev rose, closed every window.

  Marr leaned forward, hit rewind. “What they’ve done is record the boy, then play the tape down the phone. There’s a distinct click after the voice, then the quality drops off.” He made to play it again. Bev laid a hand on his arm, shook her head. Enough already, they’d heard it four times. Voices, screams, sounds stay in the brain as long as visual images. Like forever.

  She half-listened as Marr ran them through the intricacies of tracking: it was techno-babble to her. She had a vague idea how it worked anyway, didn’t give a stuff about coordinates and triangulation, DSM and GPS. All she cared about was the en
d result – whether Daniel Page would be there. And in what state.

  But then Marr’s words finally made more sense. Or she thought they did. She frowned, tuned in properly. “Say again, mate.”

  “The guys at base reckon the signal’s still moving.” Marr stretched back in the chair, hands behind his head. “Whoever they are, they’ll be in a car.” He said it like it was a done deal.

  “How accurate’s all this stuff?” she asked.

  “We can track to within fifty metres.”

  She nodded, thought so. “Long as the phone’s switched on?” And the battery didn’t die. And it hadn’t been nicked. And there wasn’t an r in the month. But assuming the best, why make the trace easy? The kidnappers weren’t stupid. It didn’t make sense.

  “What’ve we got on the phone?” she asked. Every Sim card sends a unique IMSI number, an International Mobile Subscriber Identity. In theory, the police – working with the service provider – should be able to establish who bought the phone almost immediately.

  “They’re checking now,” Marr said. “We’ll have a name any time. And the billing address.”

  She nodded, wished she shared his confidence. The way their luck was going, the purchaser would be Ms Madonna, or if the kidnappers were really imaginative, Mr Mouse. She rose, paced the room, mobile frustration. Everyone was out there doing things and she was sodding baby-sit... She stopped the train of thought.

  Colin offered tea; refusals all round. The atmosphere was tense, sombre, claustrophobic. It was like waiting for Godot. At Christmas. The hands of a huge station clock ticked in the silence. It was three-fifteen. Bev did the math: five days, sixty hours, since Daniel’s disappearance. Why was he still being held? Why no mention of the half-million quid? What the hell were the kidnappers playing at?

  Even Marr jumped when a mobile cheeped. Bev took it from her pocket, held it to her ear. It was comms with an update. She listened, made the right noises. A grim smile tugged her lips as she shook her head. Fucking unbelievable. She’d been well wrong about the name.