Straight Back

by Menon, David

  Joe blushed. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Right,” said Rebecca, bringing herself back to focus on the job. “Let’s look at that CCTV.”

  After they’d watched the footage, Rebecca ordered stills showing the face of the young girl attacker which she planned to release to the press. “We’ll need to get DS Ollie Wright and DC Adrian Bradshaw up to speed but before we do let’s talk to our friend Sunil. He’s sitting outside looking bloody terrified. Poor bugger.”

  “He’s no doubt afraid of what his boss might say about all this too,” said Joe. “You know how caring some employers can be. And he might be wondering if the girl might come back and target him. If not the girl, then whoever drove her away. Right now, she’s clearly getting support from someone.”

  “Exactly,” said Rebecca. “And the question is who and why?”

  FOUR

  “Okay then people, so let’s see what we have here,” said DI Rebecca Stockton as she opened her first briefing in charge of the team. She hadn’t bargained on her mouth suddenly going dry but used the opportunity to hand over to DS Oliver Ollie Wright.

  Ollie stepped up and addressed the squad. “Our victim is Samuel Arthur Jackson,” he said as he pointed at the photograph of the victim on the whiteboard. “Thirty-six years old. Divorced. His ex-wife lives in Hazel Grove and he was on his way back from her house to his flat in Salford Trinity when he stopped to fill up with petrol.”

  “That was one unlucky decision,” said DC Adrian Bradshaw.

  “It certainly was,” Ollie concurred. “Jackson and his ex-wife Karen shared custody of their two children, Ben, aged nine and Hannah, aged seven. Karen is distraught at the news and hasn’t yet told the children.”

  “That’s the toughest call a parent has to make with regard to their children,” said Adrian, who was taken back for a moment to when he had to tell his three children that their mother had been murdered. He still shivered when he thought about it, especially in the knowledge that he was partly responsible for her being where she was at the time she was killed. If he hadn’t been having an affair at the time then his late wife wouldn’t have gone in pursuit of answers after being told malicious gossip. That brought her into the path of a killer. “And I know.”

  “You so do, mate,” said Joe Alexander in support of his friend. Joe had been an invaluable friend to Adrian during the early days of Adrian’s bereavement and they remained close although Adrian hadn’t told Joe all the circumstances surrounding his late wife’s murder.

  Ollie let a moment or two pass before continuing. “She says she’ll keep them away from all that and then keep them off school tomorrow so she can tell them then. She and Jackson apparently parted on good terms, no animosity, just the realisation that they weren’t making each other happy anymore and they remained friends since the divorce. They had shared custody of the children.”

  “But that they could all be so civilised,” said Rebecca, who wanted to strangle the girl who had put out the flame of a seemingly good man who was still devoted to his family even after it had broken apart. They were a rare breed in her experience.

  “Amen to that, ma’am,” said Ollie. “Now this seems to have been a random attack. It’s not known if there was any connection between the teenager and Sam Jackson but, judging by the nature of their exchange on the CCTV, it wouldn’t seem like they’d met before. What we need to know is who was driving the car that the girl escaped in with such apparent ease?”

  “They must’ve been known to her?” Joe reasoned. “Why else would she just get into the car?”

  “But how did they know to be there?” said Adrian. “Were they following the girl?”

  “That would be my bet,” said Ollie. “But for what reason?”

  “And what were they going to do if the girl hadn’t turned herself into a killer?” said Adrian.

  “That’s what scares me,” said Joe. “Whoever it was wouldn’t have been following a teenage girl just to kill some time on a Sunday afternoon. I think they had other intentions. They might have been planning to attack her or assault her in some way.”

  “So why would he continue in his pursuit of her once the crime had been committed?” said Ollie. “Assuming it is a male we’re looking for. Why wouldn’t what happened scare him off?”

  “He might’ve believed that he had even more of a leeway with her if he could make himself out to be the only one who could help her,” said Adrian.

  “You’re painting what appears to be an increasingly likely scenario to me, gentlemen,” “Do we know what the make of the car was, Ollie?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Ollie answered. “It was a blue Ford Mondeo but we don’t know the registration.”

  “Okay,” said Rebecca. She paused whilst she gathered her thoughts and then looked at the three expectant faces in front of her. “Well, someone out there will know that the girl is missing. So I’m not going to the media with this until tomorrow morning.”

  “With all due respect, ma’am, is that wise?” said Ollie.

  “She may be a killer, ma’am, but she’s still only a teenager who’s probably scared out of her wits struggling to come to terms with what she’s done.”

  “I know what you’re saying,” said Rebecca. “But look, I know it means taking a risk, but if that picture we have of her goes live on the media, somebody out there may be inclined to protect her and therefore not come forward with an identification. But, if that same someone is worried simply because she hasn’t come home for a few hours, then they may contact us and lead us to that identification. And, if nothing does come through tonight, then I’ll call a press conference for first thing in the morning and make sure a media blitz is carried out. I’d prefer it if I had your agreement, gentlemen? Ollie?”

  “With reservations but yes, ma’am, I support you.”

  “Thanks Ollie. Adrian?”

  “The same as DI Wright, ma’am,” said Adrian.

  “Okay, thanks Adrian. And Joe?”

  “With you, ma’am.”

  “Right,” said Rebecca. “Now let’s not forget that this girl may be vulnerable but nevertheless she’s also a killer. I also want to start house-to-house around the petrol station. Somebody must’ve seen that Mondeo hanging about and I also want to appeal for anyone who passed the petrol station or was a customer themselves there at around about the same time that the incident occurred, to come forward and tell us whatever they know. I mean, it wasn’t even dark. Somebody must’ve seen something.”

  Shortly after the briefing, Rebecca was called in to see Superintendent Geraldine Chambers who asked her how the investigation was getting started. Rebecca explained everything to her.

  “So you’re letting potentially valuable hours pass before going to the media,” Chambers contemplated. “Like to take such risks, do you?”

  “I do have my reason, ma’am, which I’ve explained.”

  “Yes, and I heard,” said Chambers. “And police work does require a certain amount of calculated risk taking. But you do realise I can’t give you any extra resources, Rebecca?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I can’t give you extra personnel, extra officers to help you with this investigation. Our resources are stretched to the limit as it is so you’ll have to do the best you can with what you’ve got. You’re lucky. DSI Barton has built up a highly accomplished team and I know you can work with tight resources.”

  “With respect, I know that, ma’am. I’m part of it.”

  Chambers paused before answering. Try as she might, she’d never been able to warm to Rebecca Stockton. She’d wanted to. She’d wanted to support a fellow female officer as much as she could because, God knows, they still do need an extra push. But Stockton was just one of those people that she just couldn’t connect with.

  “I know you have a complex personal relationship with DSI Barton.”

  “Which never comes in the way of our work and never will,” Rebecca replied in very measured tones. If the stuck-up bi
tch was going to have a go at her about Jeff then she’d whack it straight back at her pinched up stupid face.

  “I know that too,” said Chambers.

  Rebecca wondered why it was that she got the biggest grief within the police force from other women officers. It was like they wanted her to shine and yet they didn’t want her to shine because that would reinforce their perspective of what they saw as the still male-dominated world of police work. Rebecca had always been a bit of a tomboy. She preferred the company of men. That’s why being the only woman on Jeff Barton’s team didn’t matter a jot to her. She could hold her own with guys without any problem whatsoever but what Chambers was implying was that women officers like Rebecca were always victims of one sort or another, emotionally or professionally. Well, Rebecca had never seen, and could never see, herself as being a victim. She’d focused and been a diligent police officer who’d earned her promotion in the same way as any comparable male officer. She had nothing against any of the male officers she worked with. However, attitudes like the one she was getting from Chambers irritated her beyond belief because they were supposed to be on the same side and, by that, she meant police officers on the side of the law.

  “Ma’am, can I ask why, so early into this investigation, in fact before we’ve really started, it was decided that we wouldn’t get any extra resources? This is a murder investigation and the killer is a teenage girl who’s gone missing in the company of someone who looked like they may have been following her.”

  “Why do you ask the question, DI Stockton?”

  “Because it doesn’t seem fair that DCI Warburton’s team who are investigating the stealing of champion horses from farms across Cheshire have been told that money and resources are no object.”

  “Are you saying that one crime should be higher up some kind of pecking order, DI Stockton?”

  “I’m saying that I’ve got a missing, potentially vulnerable, teenage girl out there who’s murdered a complete stranger and when the press work out, as they will, that we’re prioritising our resources around missing horses instead of missing teenagers, I can almost guess the headlines and the onslaught of criticism we’ll get.”

  “A murderer who is now a potentially vulnerable young girl who you’re not going to start to look for until the morning? Don’t throw stones at your own glass house, DI Stockton. And, if I were you, I’d concentrate my efforts on being the good police officer that you are. Don’t use this opportunity of DSI Barton’s absence on holiday to somehow play the maverick hero because I can assure you it doesn’t go down too well with some who may be influential in your future career aspirations. That’s all for now.”

  Joe took Rebecca down for a drink at Salut Wines in the centre of Manchester, just off Market Street.

  “When did you find this place?” Rebecca asked as they sat down at a table. “I mean, it’s in the little more refined, posh, part of the city centre so I’m wondering how you found it?”

  “Oh, very funny. Excuse me while I laugh for a nano second,” said Joe.

  “And it seems quite sophisticated too,” Rebecca added. “The bar, the crowd, everything. Even you look sophisticated in here, Joe.”

  “You’re a cheeky monkey.”

  “That’s probably what Chambers thinks about me, too,” said Rebecca, who was still seething from her encounter with the Chief Superintendent. “God, I’ve let her get under my skin.”

  “You have and you can’t let her do that,” said Joe. “You’re in charge. She hasn’t said anything about you not being in charge. Therefore her support for your decisions is implicit in that.”

  “Why am I acting like the bog-standard, neurotic, female struggling to survive in a man’s world? I sound pathetic. I sound like I don’t deserve to be where I am.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” said Joe, taking her hand. “You do deserve to be where you are and you don’t need me to tell you.”

  “Joe, you are the most feminist man I’ve ever met who doesn’t like going to see musicals,” said Rebecca as she squeezed his hand tightly.

  “I’ll take this as a compliment.”

  “You should do,” said Rebecca. “And I know I’ve just got to hold my nerve.”

  “You have,” said Joe. “It goes with the job. But you’ll only maintain everyone’s respect if you hold your nerve and stay true to your decisions, no matter how it works out. If you do that, then nobody can reproach you including Chief Superintendent Chambers.”

  Joe and Rebecca ordered a plate of meat tapas each, along with a bottle of Bordeaux. Rebecca was having problems with feeling as relaxed as she did when there was such an intense-looking investigation kicking off but, as Joe said, she’d taken the decision not to put things out to the media until the morning so perhaps it was okay to take a little time out whilst they could.

  “So look, Joe, are you sure you’re happy with our little arrangement?”

  “Friends with benefits?”

  “Yeah,” said Rebecca. She pulled her hair back behind her ears with her fingertips. “I use your body, you use mine, we have a laugh and there’s no strings.”

  “It’s all very modern and grown up,” said Joe, who wasn’t altogether sure if he did want this kind of casual fling at all. Maybe he was more keen on Rebecca than he’d ever admit to. But, then again, being a man with certain needs did mean that their arrangement put the smile back on his face. So who wants to get serious? Whenever he’d got serious with a girl before, it had always ended in disaster and he really didn’t need any more of that.

  “It is,” Rebecca agreed. “Very ‘Sex and the City’.”

  “So, in that case, are you going to start calling me Big?”

  “Well, that would make me Sarah Jessica Parker, right?”

  “Right,” said Joe. “It would.”

  The two of them were laughing when Rebecca’s phone rang and, during the conversation, Joe watched her expression plunge from being happy and relaxed to being grey and troubled.

  “What’s up?” asked Joe, after she’d finished.

  “Get your coat, Joe,” said Rebecca , picking up her jacket and handbag. “There’s a Ford Mondeo on fire, as we speak, behind a warehouse on Cheetham Hill Road. They can’t see at this point if there’s anybody inside.”

  FIVE

  “Did you have a look to see what’s on TV tonight, Mum?” Leo asked as he loaded the dishwasher after he and his mother had finished dinner. He was thirty-two years old and it had always been just him and his mum. She’d never told him anything about his father and he’d never asked. He just assumed that it can’t have been a very pleasant situation when she got pregnant with him. Maybe his father had been married and left his mum high and dry, like so many others do. Maybe it was all just too painful for her to talk about. Either way, he felt like she’d brought him up well even if, at times, he’d felt a huge sense of loss because it isn’t true to say that you don’t miss what you never had.

  “I haven’t yet, son, no,” Catherine replied. She hadn’t been home from work that long before she’d started on dinner. Her job at the records office of the Hope Hospital in Salford was constantly under review, which meant it was constantly under an implied threat. So far she was holding on but if they did decided to pay her a handsome sum with which to ride comfortably into retirement, she wouldn’t object. In fact, she’d snap their bloody hands off. “Aren’t you going out tonight?”

  “No,” said Leo. “I’ve quit drinking during the week just to give my body a bit of a break. I’ve said I’ll see them all on Friday.”

  “You don’t mind if I continue to indulge?”

  “Of course not,” said Leo, who’d finished loading the dishwasher and was now doing his best to enjoy sipping a mug of tea. This ‘no drinking’ business was so bloody boring. He could just go a nice pint now. “Did you make that appointment with the doctor?”

  “What can he say that I don’t know already?”

  “I didn’t think you had,” said Leo, who was concerned that
his mother’s usual stubbornness might lead to a late diagnosis of something potentially serious. “I want you to get everything checked out, mum. You’ve not been yourself lately.”

  “And what is ‘myself’, son?”

  “You see there you go,” said Leo. “I’ve never heard you talk like this before.”

  “Oh, why did I have a son who’s like a dog with a bloody bone?”

  “Well, you did,” said Leo. “And I know my mum. And I know when she’s in denial.”

  Catherine knew Leo was right. The sharp, stabbing pain in her lower back had been growing in intensity and was starting to have a debilitating effect on her daily movements. She was fighting it because she was only fifty-eight and didn’t want to start acting like an invalid. In reality, she was scared to find out what it might be. She worked in a hospital. She was surrounded by sick people every day and, like most medical staff, she had no desire to become a patient.

  “I’ll ring the doctor in the morning,” said Catherine.

  “Do you promise?”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  “Good. Now go and get yourself settled down in the living room and I’ll bring you a glass of wine through.”

  Catherine smiled at the considerate nature of her son. He’d make some girl a very lucky wife one day but, although he had a good social life, he never seemed to meet anyone special. He’d had a few skirmishes over the years but he’d never got engaged or even really serious with anyone. He wasn’t ugly or overweight. He wore decent clothes. He just didn’t connect with the big game of life and love. It made her worry sometimes about how lonely he might get when she’d gone. It didn’t seem to worry him though.

  She went through to the living room and switched on the TV. With the remote control she pressed for Sky News. There was a time when she wouldn’t have been seen dead watching or reading anything owned by Rupert Murdoch but maybe it was something to do with the landscape out here in Littleborough. From her living room window she could see right across the moors and it tended to make her feel mellow. That and the fact she would also have to concede that she thought Sky was a pretty good news station. Sometimes better even than the BBC.