by Lisa Cutts
‘OK then,’ said Jude after the man nearby got up to go to the bar, ‘what exactly are we supposed to do now? What’s the plan?’
Before he gave his answer, he ran an eye over the few other customers, making sure they were out of earshot. ‘For now, I’d suggest that we do nothing.’
‘Genius. Wish I’d thought of that.’
Jonathan sat back in his chair, holding the stare of the other man. He wouldn’t exactly call him a friend, more of a passing acquaintance. He’d never wanted to join the amateur dramatic society but had been talked into it by his wife; bullied into it was more like it. He used to spend a lot of time playing golf and cricket but owing to a busted ankle and a dive in finances, one was now physically impossible and the other barely affordable. She had been telling him for ages that cricket was seasonal and he couldn’t play as much golf in the winter as he used to so he should do something else, indoors and cheap. Gone were the days when he got away with giving her a right-hander. She told him if he touched her again, he wouldn’t see a penny of the inheritance that was coming her way.
Although he wasn’t in a hurry to admit it, Jonathan Tey, accountant, knew he would miss being on stage and the centre of attention. It suited him and even if it was something he would never credit his wife with, he was glad he had been forced into it.
He hadn’t been able to work out exactly what made Jude Watson tick but they got on all right and found they had the same views on several things – politics, sport and paedophiles.
‘I still can’t get over that bloody idiot Eric allowing Woodville to join,’ said Jude as he tore at the label on his beer bottle.
‘Keep your voice down,’ said Jonathan as the man who’d been sitting nearby returned to his seat with a pint of something dark brown in a glass with a handle.
Jude followed his accomplice’s line of vision towards the elderly man as he placed his drink on the cigarette-burned table.
‘Has he got a pint of mild?’ said Jude. ‘I didn’t think they still made it.’
‘And in a jug? You’ve brought me to the pub that time forgot. And my shoes are sticking to the carpet.’
‘I thought it was the best place for us to talk in private,’ said Jude.
‘The only other people likely to see us are other sad bastards who look like they’re up to no good,’ said Jonathan, regretting not being able to have another beer. That would at least have made the experience of being in such a dump with someone he didn’t entirely trust, talking about a sex offender, slightly more palatable. ‘We need to lie low. It’s too soon for us to do anything without it being obvious.’
‘But how long do you think we should keep quiet?’
‘I don’t know, Jude. What am I? The Sage of Old East Rise Town? Have you come across anything like this before? Ever worried yourself to sleep about what you could have exposed your kids to? I worry about mine every day as it is, without feeling like a giant piece of crap for encouraging my daughter to audition for poxy Annie. I’m only grateful that she’s so much better at the front crawl than she is at singing “It’s The Hard Knock Life”.’
For some reason this struck Jude as extremely amusing and he battled to keep a smirk from his face. He wasn’t entirely sure that he’d managed it until he caught Jonathan staring at him. He was cautious of his accomplice who clearly had the brains and the brawn. He didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.
He let out a long, slow breath when Jonathan said, ‘I can see how cut up all of this is making you too.’
Chapter 25
As soon as Albert Woodville’s post-mortem was completed, Harry left the mortuary, annoyed that the pathologist had been so delayed. He left behind the smell of clinical bodies and climbed into the sanctity of his own car, shook off his exasperation and made a phone call.
Martha Lipton answered on the third ring.
‘Hello to you,’ she breathed in his ear. ‘Give me a second. There are a few people here.’
‘It sounds like you’re in the street,’ he said.
‘Very astute, Inspector. We’re in the good part of town, handing out leaflets. I can drop you one in to the police station if you like. It’s only a short walk over to you at the rougher end of town.’
There was a pause as he made up his mind whether he wanted to see her in person, or if a chat on the phone and a leaflet drop would suffice. She still made his flesh crawl and he had just watched a pathologist peel the face off a paedophile. He preferred the dead; they gave him less to worry about.
‘I don’t think it’s necessary to meet up,’ he said, hearing what sounded like a chuckle in his ear, although he might have been mistaken over the traffic noise and sounds of East Rise’s shoppers on a Saturday afternoon. ‘Anything new to tell me?’
‘I’ve been thinking about this. If I tell you what I know, what’s in it for me?’
He let out a sigh. ‘Martha, I thought you founded the Volunteer Army so that you could help people feel safe in their own homes, send their kiddies to school without the big, mean pervert waiting for them by the swings on the way home. The rousing speech bullshit you gave me yesterday in front of your stooge wasn’t only for effect, surely? You had me believing you and now you’re asking for money?’
‘I didn’t say I wanted money.’ It was Martha’s turn to sigh. ‘I want some sort of public recognition for the work of the VA.’
This was the part that Harry had to stop himself laughing at. He wanted to shout down the phone line that these imbeciles were nothing more than glory-hunting prats, but thought better of it.
His mind ran over what he had to be careful of telling her. She was a dangerous woman and he wouldn’t put it past her to record their conversation. If he made her any promises, it might cause him complications down the line. She was a potential witness, so entice her with anything other than the reward of justice, as soon as they had their murderer on trial Harry knew he’d be in the witness box waiting for the defence barrister to make a meal out of him for encouraging her to give information, whether it was true or not.
‘You know full well, Martha, that I want to find out who killed Albert Woodville, but I’m not prepared to jeopardize a potential conviction for murder by offering you anything I can’t give you.
‘I’m treating you the same as any other witness and asking you if you know anything. Don’t mess me around on this and after it’s all over we’ll meet and talk things through. It’s the best I can offer you, you know that.’
‘When you say talk things through—’
‘That’s exactly what I mean. Come on, Martha. Help me out on this. We want the same thing at the end of the day. People murdering paedophiles can’t be doing your business much good either. It’s certainly killing mine, pardon the pun.’
Harry heard the sound of footsteps and when she spoke next she was breathing faster.
‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ she said, ‘I’m on my way to the police station now. I’ll leave you a copy of our newsletter, you read it and tell me what you think and by the time you’ve got back to me, I should have some news.’
The sound of the disconnected tone told him that his conversation with her was over.
He scratched the stubble on his chin and contemplated what he found more abhorrent: working so hard to identify a paedophile’s murderer, or that he had just sweet-talked the most depraved of all human beings.
He prayed to a God he didn’t believe in that hell had a special place for Martha Lipton and her kind. The last bastion of all that was good was finally breached when Harry discovered that mothers who sexually abused their own children were allowed to walk the earth.
Now he had found himself placating her.
It was this kind of horror that stopped him from going home and telling his wife what he’d done at work all day. Some things were better left unsaid. Harry knew that if his untainted wife got even a hint from him of the daily crap that came his way he would probably repel her for good.
It wasn’t only th
e thought of that on top of the issues Martha had brought to his door that was bringing on a headache. Despite rubbing his fingertips against the base of his neck, he couldn’t quell the invisible band that was tightening across his forehead.
He now had another very real problem to contend with: the post-mortem had showed up old, healing injuries to Albert Woodville’s face.
Prior to his murder, someone had given him a beating, and Harry had no way of knowing if both attacks had been carried out by the same people.
Chapter 26
Evening of Saturday 6 November
Leon Edwards was eating his way through a half-pounder burger, fries, coleslaw and extra-large side of pickles at his new favourite diner. The only disappointment of the day, apart from getting to the late-night eatery and finding that the waitress he had taken a shine to was not working, was that when he had phoned Toby that afternoon, his friend had sounded a little distracted. He was feeling a bit down that his oldest, most trusted friend hadn’t even called him by either his Christian name or his nickname.
As he chomped, open-mouthed, on the hamburger, Leon thought that perhaps he had got it wrong and the two of them were supposed to remain incommunicado for a couple of days.
He was so puzzled by the turn of events that the large crease on his forehead drew the attention of the waitress who hurried over to ask if everything was OK.
‘Blinding, love,’ he replied, spraying relish across the Formica table and giving her a thumbs-up in case she couldn’t understand him. At least the menus were wipe-clean, he thought, as a chunk of tomato hit the chef’s-special section.
There had been few times in their thirty-or-so-year friendship when Toby had excluded him and it always worried Leon more than it would most people.
He really had had very little in his life for starters but despite his bulk giving him a tough exterior he was someone who cared more about others than himself. Though he cared about his food.
Leon ate out more than he should; once a week he ate at Toby’s, Shirley always asking in advance what he wanted. Sometimes she even cooked it too. Eating out on Fridays had become a ritual for him and Toby, and he had been cheered to hear his friend say that they would have to keep going to the same place every Friday for a few more months to come. Once a week he ate in his local pub, but it was dreadful, everyone said so, including the cook.
Whatever his life had become, and it wasn’t much, Leon was determined to make use of his time on the planet, but because he had no family of his own it was taken up with work and the Carvells.
He knew how much he owed them and thought about how, if things had been different, he could have had a smasher of a family like Toby’s. He mulled it over as he slurped at his milkshake, rammed chips into his mouth in handfuls and tried to see how far he could open his mouth to push food inside without actually dislocating his jaw.
It wasn’t long before he was finished and, as he had already paid, he threw a couple of coins on the table for the waitress when she finally waddled over to him to clear his table. She wasn’t as fast on her feet as Lorraine, his favourite, but he spared a thought for the woman who, on the wrong side of fifty, arse like a waterbed squeezed inside her leggings, probably didn’t want to be working anywhere on a Saturday night, least of all at the Waterside Late Night Diner.
Feeling a little less satisfied with life than he should have done after one of his favourite meals, Leon made his way outside and towards the High Street. The noise of late-night drinkers, screeching women and men goading each other on in loud voices reached his ears as soon as he turned the corner into the main drag of the town. He thought back to the previous evening when he had told Toby how he was feeling about not having anyone in his life. Then the full realization of why he had been experiencing such melancholy emotions hit him.
He and Toby had turned a corner with what they’d done.
The thought stopped him in his tracks as he paused mid-stride at the junction of Duke Street and the High Street, several people having to move out of his way. A smaller, less visible presence coming to a sudden stop on the pavement might have got a few comments or even some abuse. Not Leon with his size. The tide of drinkers parted around him, like a human stream navigating a twenty-three-stone island.
He didn’t know that he could live with himself now. The panic started to rise up to his throat, making its way to his brain. How could he look people in the eye, talk to them, act normal? Act like anything other than what he was – a criminal?
Leon tried to catch his breath, but his mind was telling him that he didn’t deserve to take a breath. That was something he didn’t have the right to do. Surely, if you did wrong and harmed someone, you were forced to carry the guilt for eternity. He felt the weight of something that common sense told him wasn’t there. He knew it was in his imagination but he couldn’t stop the pull of his head towards the ground as he doubled up, there and then on the broken paving stones that East Rise Council hadn’t even had the decency to fix.
He couldn’t stop himself as his face got closer and closer to the pavement adorned with a white greasy wrapper housing half a doner kebab. Leon felt his own meal coming up and marvelled at how he had managed to keep it together for so long.
There was an easy answer to that of course: this was the first time he had allowed his thoughts to sneak up on him and hijack his sanity. It was also the first time that he hadn’t merely turned to Toby and got the answers and reassurance he needed from him.
His head was now only inches from the discarded takeaway. The smell of the chilli sauce was making its way to his nose, climbing inside his nostrils, telling his brain that his stomach ought to reject his own late-night meal.
It was the image of food on the ground that brought Leon to his senses. He found himself drooling, the juices in his mouth reminding him how close he had come to vomiting over the pavement and probably his own shoes.
Food shouldn’t be wasted and if it was there on the ground it should be eaten.
He pushed himself away from the rancid kebab, the fat from the meat white and congealed. He leaned back against the wall for support, knees still at an angle, palms resting on his thighs.
He closed his eyes and the blackness was filled with a memory, a terrible memory of being eight years old and made to eat food from the floor, Albert Woodville standing over him, pushing his head down.
Chapter 27
Early hours of Sunday 7 November
The black-clad figure kept to the shadows and shied away from the road side of the pavement. Anyone driving past or looking out of their window would see a dark shape hurrying to its destination, probably away from the coldness of the night. Although a cloudless sky meant that the temperature had dropped by a degree or two, he was sweating as he made his way to the outskirts of East Rise, away from the clubs and late-night drinking dens. Partly this was due to nerves, partly to the weight of the rucksack over his shoulders.
Previous experience meant that he knew where the CCTV cameras were, and his chosen calling of stealing other people’s property in the dead of night had taught him well how to hide from the police. It wasn’t all that difficult as most of them drove diesel cars – he could hear them coming a mile away – and he was a local, knew all the alleyways. It wasn’t the first time he had needed his wits about him, moments before breaking the law.
Unusually, tonight, it wasn’t what he was going to be carrying off from the scene of the crime, but what he was bringing to the party.
He really was upping his game, but they deserved what they got.
Fifty metres or so shy of his destination, he ducked behind a tree and ensured that his face was still covered, his gloves still on and no one was watching him. Breathing more heavily now, he shrugged the rucksack from his shoulders, worked the drawstring around the opening loose and removed the one item he had transported with so much care.
He contemplated leaving the rucksack behind but dismissed the idea almost as soon as it had formed. He had lear
nt about DNA evidence the hard way: it was going home with him until he could safely get rid of it.
This left only one thing to do.
He ran towards Norman Husband House, covering the distance in no time. He opened the letterbox, lifted the pesticide-sprayer nozzle and began pumping the petrol inside.
Twice his resolve to empty the five-litre container almost gave way. Driven by a desire to finish the job, he carried on, oblivious to all around him.
He was so carried away by the task in hand, he forgot why he was about to burn a building down with people asleep inside.
A noise in the street jolted him back to reality.
He froze.
The sound of a car coming around the one-way system made his heart beat faster than he thought possible. He could hear his own breath, raspy and uneven.
If he didn’t do it now, he never would.
He dropped the pesticide sprayer and pulled a cheap plastic cigarette lighter from his pocket along with a copy of that morning’s local newspaper. His hands were shaking as he lit the corner of the front page. With some difficulty he pushed the paper inside the letterbox, not having thought through how he was going to get a burning wad of paper as thick as the opening itself to the other side of the door. He definitely hadn’t taken into account that his own gloves, some of his clothing and the porch entrance he was standing in had petrol splattered all over them too.
Panic began to set in and he turned from the front door and hurried away.
He stopped at the corner and looked back over his shoulder as the flames were beginning to rise up above the solid bottom half of the door to the frosted reinforced glass part.
With a satisfied smile, he ran off into the nearest alleyway, the smell of petrol and smoke chasing him.
Chapter 28
Sunday 7 November
‘Are we the only two bloody detectives on this enquiry?’ complained Tom as he and Sophia made their way to their unmarked car for the day. ‘There weren’t even many people at this morning’s briefing because of the arson at Norman Husband House.’
