Cherringham--A Bad Lie

by Matthew Costello

  She checked the time. Jack would be in Leeds by now.

  They’d worked on a lot of cases together — and come up against some ruthless people.

  But now — knowing Jack was nearly two hundred miles away and way out of their Cherringham comfort zone — she was worried.

  NYPD Detective or not.

  But also, she just felt that something wasn’t right here.

  Something didn’t add up.

  On the desk her mobile rang. She looked down at it — Lauren Proctor.

  She picked it up.

  “Lauren.”

  “Sarah. Any news? The wedding’s tomorrow … if there’s nothing …”

  Sarah knew she couldn’t tell Lauren what they’d found so far.

  “We’re working on some good leads, Lauren. Feels like we’re getting close.”

  Silence.

  “How are you coping?” said Sarah, hating every minute of the conversation.

  “I’m trying to pretend nothing has happened. Dealing with the arrangements and all.”

  “Everything’s going ahead?”

  “God, yes. The marquee’s being put up today. The dress is here. Mum’s got the cake.”

  Sarah could imagine what the bride was going through.

  “You still haven’t told your parents?”

  “No. That would be the end of it! Dad rang to see if everything was okay. I think he’s even a bit suspicious something’s wrong. He asked about Josh.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said he was in London picking up his suit. I think that put him off.”

  “Lauren, as soon as I know anything, I’ll call you. Okay?”

  A pause.

  Sarah could hear the tears being stifled.

  “You will find him, won’t you?”

  Sarah felt she had no choice but to promise — just as Jack had promised.

  “We will.”

  “I don’t know what I’d be doing without you, Sarah.”

  Sarah put down the phone and stared at her screen.

  Some emails had come in. Automatically she checked through them.

  Mostly work — she could deal with them later.

  And one email from Jack’s police contact in London. She’d asked Jack if he could send through details of what he’d found, just in case …

  In case there was anything they’d missed.

  She opened the mail. He’d copied the documents on Josh and sent them as an attachment.

  Sarah felt uncomfortable opening it.

  Marcus was right — it was a serious offence to have illegally accessed this information. Jack’s contact would lose his job instantly if anyone found out — and he’d be prosecuted too.

  In fact, so could she and Jack.

  Soon as this case is over, I’m deleting this, she thought.

  And then started to go through the file, line by line …

  *

  “This it?” said Jack as Marcus pulled up.

  “Yep,” said Marcus, turning off the engine.

  He took in the street.

  They’d driven through poor, broken down, industrial areas already on their way into Leeds.

  But this was much worse.

  Tiny houses stood in pairs, set back from the road on worn grassy banks. Some had broken windows from which torn curtains flapped in the rain and wind. Abandoned, perhaps? Others had broken down gates or fences, beaten up old furniture, kitchen sinks, old fridges in the front garden.

  Hardly any had a car out front.

  Too poor, Jack guessed.

  Behind the houses Jack saw tall, grim apartment blocks, grey and square, with flaking paint-streaked concrete.

  And — farther down the street — Jack watched two guys in baseball caps and low-slung track bottoms leaning against a wall watching him back.

  One of the guys had an evil-looking dog on a lead.

  Jack watched as the dog cocked its bulky leg and peed against the wall.

  “Come on,” said Marcus, opening his door and climbing out.

  Jack followed, shutting the door as Marcus locked it.

  Together they crossed the road, Marcus leading.

  He opened a broken gate, using both hands to push it to one side, then he went to the front door and knocked.

  No answer.

  He knocked again. Jack saw a curtain flicker in the front room.

  Then the front door opened a few inches. Jack peered into the darkness.

  He could see a woman’s face, eyes narrow, suspicious. She looked to be in her forties, hair pulled back tight, cheekbones hard.

  A child appeared at her legs, peering round the door. The woman’s hand pushed the kid back inside.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m a friend of Josh,” said Marcus. “Remember? We met once.”

  “So?” Then, again: “What do you want?”

  “We heard he’d come home. Maybe fancy a beer.”

  “He’s out.” A pause. “Dunno where he is.”

  “Ah.”

  An instinct made Jack turn. The two guys from down the street were walking towards the car.

  He saw them spot him — and they sauntered past it.

  Then stopped just a few yards further on.

  Not many Audis in these parts, thought Jack.

  Unless they were owned by dealers.

  Gotta be hard to resist.

  He turned back to the conversation at the door.

  “Any idea where he’s gone?” said Marcus.

  “Dunno, I said. Pub, maybe. Just know he’s not here.”

  “Which one?”

  “Lissen — how the hell should I know?”

  And with that, she slammed the door shut.

  “Great,” said Marcus. “That went well.”

  “No, you did fine,” said Jack. “We know he’s here — that’s a result. Now we just have to find him.”

  “Right,” Marcus said. “And how do we do that?”

  “We get back in the car. Park it in the city centre in a nice, safe parking lot. Then we take a cab back here — and walk the pubs, the locals, right? One by one.”

  “Sounds easy,” said Marcus. “And dangerous.”

  “Could be,” said Jack. “But it’s the only plan we got.”

  He turned from the door, went through the gate and over to the car.

  He could see the two guys still watching. Disappointed no doubt that they wouldn’t get their five minutes alone with the Audi.

  Jack smiled at them and climbed in.

  Guys like that … same the world over.

  Then Marcus fired up the engine and they drove away towards the centre of Leeds.

  It’s going to be a long afternoon, Jack thought.

  13. Needle in a Haystack

  “You sure there’s nothing I can help you with?” said Grace, coming over to Sarah’s desk.

  Sarah quickly closed the window she was working on. She didn’t want her assistant even to see the incriminating file open on screen.

  “That’s sweet of you, Grace,” she said. “But you go on, get off — I’ll only be another few minutes.”

  She watched as Grace picked up her handbag and headed for the door.

  “See you in the morning,” she said.

  “Have a good evening,” said Sarah.

  She waited, listening to Grace’s footsteps going down the stairs and waited for the main door to shut, then opened up the file again.

  It was no use.

  She’d been through it carefully. And using the dates as a guide, she’d managed to find online newspaper archive that pointed to the murder Josh had been involved in.

  Although he wasn’t named in the newspapers — they called him ‘a 14-year-old male who cannot be identified’ — the older men who’d been charged were all listed and — in some cases — their photos were published.

  A real rogues’ gallery.

  Some of the details made Sarah shudder. To think that a child no older than her own so
n could be caught up in such violence …

  Thinking of Daniel made her realise it really was getting late — and her own children would be at home, needing their dinner cooked.

  She wasn’t going to find anything here.

  There was nothing in the file or the papers that had offered up any more clues.

  Then — a last look.

  She scrolled back to the top. A small grid noted when the file had been accessed. Presumably some kind of security measure. Dates and details were listed, nearly all of them from some years ago.

  The log-ins were all anonymous; but the IP addresses of the accessing computers had been stored.

  No way to hide that.

  Interestingly, someone else had looked at this very file, just three months ago.

  Three months.

  Who would be interested in Davey Joshua Andrews?

  Maybe some police official referencing one of the older guys who’d been involved in the murder?

  Curious, Sarah clicked on the entry.

  The date — and the IP address, a string of numbers farther down.

  Then, she copied the IP address and pasted it into Google to see if she could find the location of the person who’d made the search.

  It only took a few seconds — and the result appeared on her screen.

  Chippenham.

  “Oh my god,” Sarah said out loud.

  It might just as well have said Cherringham. IP searches usually threw up the nearest town.

  So somebody near here — had got access to this file.

  Somebody else knew exactly who Josh Andrews really was.

  Sarah swallowed.

  Then, she pasted the IP address into the search bar of her mail browser.

  If it was somebody local who had ever emailed her, she would know in the next few seconds.

  The search result came up.

  And Sarah shook her head in disbelief.

  *

  Jack followed Marcus into their third pub of this ‘crawl’ in search of Josh.

  By now, he was used to the slow looking up from half-finished pints — and the laughs — as they walked in.

  If they had disembarked from a flying saucer, they could not have stood out more.

  Clearly out of his element, this was rattling Marcus.

  As for Jack, he never felt more like an American in a foreign country.

  The first two pubs were smallish affairs, and after a quick look around, they had walked out.

  But here, inside The Hooded Cock, there seemed to be a warren of areas decorated in a style that recalled his grandmother’s tidy but cluttered apartment in Bay Ridge.

  Tufted chairs with worn satin seats, lamps with shades yellow from years of incandescent lights.

  A massive TV screen above the bar played out some silent football match.

  And from deep within the pub, Jack could hear booming music, the beat a constant rhythmic pulse.

  “Don’t see him,” Marcus said, probably hoping for a quick departure.

  But with all these spaces, and groups of locals, Jack didn’t want to just leave.

  “Let’s …” he said, smile on his face, doing his best to reassure Marcus, “…have a pint. I’m buying.”

  Marcus looked away as if he really wanted to just leave.

  The eyes on them felt like daggers.

  But Jack used the moment to walk up to the bar, with its surface dotted with rubber pads to catch the overflow of frothy beers and frayed towels laid out beside them.

  The bartender had his arms folded across his barrel chest. His bald-headed dome caught the light from above the spigots.

  “Evening,” Jack said, as if there wasn’t a nasty breeze anywhere in the room. “Like two pints of Best.”

  The bartender didn’t immediately unfold his arms.

  For a second Jack thought that the landlord of this venerable establishment wouldn’t even serve him.

  Jack gave the man a smile, “And maybe a bag of crisps.”

  Least I said ‘crisps’, Jack thought.

  Cut me some slack for that.

  Then, like a lumbering engine grinding to life, the bartender’s arms slowly sprung free; he grabbed a clean glass waiting to do its duty, and with not the slightest change of expression, began to pull the first of the beers.

  By then Marcus had followed Jack to the bar, his eyes as equally wide as everyone else’s were shrunk down to suspicious slits.

  When the bartender went to pick up another empty glass.

  “Jack, not sure it’s a good idea to stay here. If you get my drift …”

  Then Jack turned to look around.

  “Oh, I do.” He kept a small smile on his face, as if signalling all is well.

  We’re not rattled.

  He figured the last American they had in here probably was pre-war.

  The Revolutionary War.

  “But we need to have a few sips. Then check out all the little lounge areas here. Josh could be in any one of them.”

  A quick nod from Marcus.

  “Right. A few sips. Then we just walk around?”

  Jack had been in some rough bars in his day.

  Before things in the city started changing — with all the speculative money, real estate selling off the hook — the murder rate finally dropping.

  Back then, there were some places in Brooklyn that would have rivalled anything on the famed Barbary Coast.

  This — as challenging as it was — was like being back there.

  The bad old days.

  When cops better watch their back — and front.

  “One of us … may need the ‘loo’, hmm? And sometimes, they can be a little tricky to find,” Jack said.

  Jack quieted as the bartender brought over the second pint.

  “Seven-fifty,” the bartender grunted.

  Jack put down the exact amount on the counter.

  Then he turned back to the crowds of men — dotted with the occasional young woman, who seemed out of place.

  There wasn’t much talking going on. Half the guys seemed intent on their phones, eyes flicking up only to glare at Jack and Marcus.

  He took a sip of beer.

  “Drink up,” he said to Marcus.

  And Jack thought that Marcus’s hands might actually shake grabbing his beer.

  But after that first sip, Marcus said, “You are quite something, aren’t you?”

  To which, Jack just gave the slightest nod of his head before another sip of the beer.

  Which, he had to admit, tasted damn good!

  *

  Both of them had gone in search of the loo, walking slowly so they could check out each table, men with their Popeye arms resting on the cheap wood, edges flaked with peeling chrome.

  Until they had to admit … Josh … Davey Andrews.

  Wasn’t here.

  And at least two more pubs awaited.

  “We’d better go,” Marcus said.

  Some guys in tattered grey t-shirts, boots, and shorts looking as if they just came in from prodding some confused steer into a chute for slaughter, lit up cigarettes.

  Guess the normal laws don’t apply here.

  He wouldn’t want to be the copper to tell them to put their cigarettes out.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Guess so. Really would like to show the picture of Josh though … ask any of these guys here—”

  “Oh, please don’t do that. Asking questions? Place like this. We’d be done for.”

  And this time, Jack agreed with Marcus.

  Questions. Here?

  Not a good idea.

  A shaven-headed guy who looked almost indistinguishable from the bartender, save for which side of the bar he was on, had planted himself close to Marcus as he ordered another round.

  Then the man spoke.

  Showing that he was well past round two on the drinks scorecard.

  “Hey, Carl—” he said, with a glance at Jack, Marcus, then a head tilt towards the bartender. “We didn’t s
end out for any … southern bastards now did we?”

  The guy leered at his own joke.

  Marcus looked well away, but Jack turned and looked at the man planted like a tree a few feet away.

  “Yeah, I mean, did you send out for a southern bastard … and his senile dad?”

  Jack sensed that the others in the pub were watching this.

  Obviously, it was time for the entertainment to begin.

  Marcus stood immobile.

  He’d really like to leave, Jack thought.

  Makes sense.

  Josh not here.

  Still, with those beady eyes, glistening with alcohol and not much else, Jack was never one for a retreat.

  In any circumstance.

  Always a sore point with his captain when he first started out. And his wife.

  Not backing down.

  So still, with his eyes on the man, Jack said.

  “You know,” and Jack looked around, letting all in the cheap seats know … that he knew they were watching, “I’ve been wondering …”

  Jack took a step closer to the bulky man tree at the bar.

  “When someone. Here. Would—”

  Marcus remained frozen. This was probably his worst nightmare.

  Still, Jack had faced worse.

  And he could never resist giving someone a little education in manners.

  But before the man could finish what he guessed would have been the incendiary ending to his sentence, the pub door flew open.

  Someone walked in.

  Oblivious to everything.

  For just a moment.

  Jack recognised who it was.

  As Marcus turned.

  “Josh …”

  14. The Promise

  Sarah held her phone, earpiece tight against her ear.

  As it rang and rang, giving the false impression that somewhere a phone was ringing off the bloody hook.

  When, in actuality, Jack had slipped into one of those pockets where there was no signal.

  In a big city like Leeds … was that likely?

  When it went to voicemail, she killed the call.

  After all, she had left two messages already.

  She sat down on a kitchen chair. Looked at the clock. Half-seven.

  And she needed to speak to Jack now …

  She took a breath.

  The inability to communicate … torturous.

  She tried to calm herself.

  Wait a bit, then call again.

  *