Straight Back

by Menon, David

  When they got to the house on the other side of town, Hayley happily got out of the car and ran inside with him. He was about the same height as her dad and he reminded her of him in some ways. He gave her a drink of coke. It tasted a bit strange but not unpleasant and she carried on drinking it. It made her feel happy. It made her not want to cry anymore. It made her feel able to talk and say so many things. It made her feel relaxed and a little tired.

  “Why don’t you come upstairs?” he said. He’d taken off his jacket. His shirt sleeves were undone. He held out his hand. “Come on. We’ll have ourselves a little nap.”

  “I’ll have to get back to my mum’s.”

  “And you will,” he said. “Once you’ve closed your eyes for a little while. You know what she’s like. If she thought you’ve had some fun, she’ll never let you out again.”

  She went up the stairs with him right behind her. He gently steered her into the bedroom where she lay down on the big bed. He gave her some more of the coke with the strange taste but he didn’t sit down with her.

  The last thing she remembered seeing before passing out was a whole load of other men coming into the room.

  ELEVEN

  “So how’s things going at home?” asked DS Ollie Wright, as he drove himself and DC Adrian Bradshaw out to Littleborough to interview Liam Nightingale at Farndale Motors. They were on the dual carriageway going up towards Oldham which they would have to drive through to get to Littleborough, on the edge of the moors. “After all the traumas of last year I mean?”

  “Well, yeah, it was tough initially,” said Adrian. “But now we’re a really tight little four-way unit and it feels good. I’m certainly not going in for any relationships in the foreseeable future. Oh, no. They’re off limits for now.”

  “And what about meaningless sex? Doesn’t daddy want to indulge in any of that either?”

  Adrian smiled and shifted in his seat. Not many people knew about his bisexuality and those that did tended to be his previous male lovers. He and Ollie had enjoyed a torrid affair a few months back which had only ended when it had become too ordinary, regular and boring. Ollie was never going to leave his partner, Neil, and Adrian didn’t want to settle down with another man. They didn’t want to get tied down by expectations.

  “Are you offering your services?”

  “Why not? We worked well together before, if you remember?”

  “Oh, I remember alright,” said Adrian, who could feel himself getting hard at the memory of those times he spent with Ollie. “Maybe, once this case is over? Everything is a bit full on at the minute.”

  “Are you holding out on me?”

  “Ollie, I would like nothing more than to repeat those hot times we had,” said Adrian. “And it’s nothing about you but I’m just being very cautious with my personal life at the moment. That whole business with Kate Branning scared me, Ollie. She almost killed my daughter. If she’d been able to go through with that, I don’t know how I would’ve come back from it. You understand?”

  “Of course I do,” said Ollie. “But I’ll be there when you change your mind.”

  Farndale Motors was just off the main road leading out of Littleborough and across the moors. The garage was attached to the showroom and there was the usual display of second hand cars for sale along with details of the car hire side of the business on a billboard attached to a pole at the entrance. Ollie drove onto the drive along the side of the showroom where they could see a door with ‘Office’ marked on it. They figured that would be the place to find Liam Nightingale.

  Inside was one of those old fashioned counters at about chest height and, sat at one of the desks behind, typing into a computer, was a girl probably in her early twenties. She was a big girl and could barely make it through the gap between the two desks after she’d stood up to come and greet them. They held up their warrant cards and introduced themselves. At that point they heard a commotion coming from what they could see was a small private office to the side of the counter and they quickly understood what was going on. Liam Nightingale was making a run for it.

  Both Ollie and Adrian were quick to give chase and it only took a few seconds before they caught up with Nightingale and apprehended him.

  “Right,” said Ollie, who was holding Nightingale firmly by the upper arm after he’d cuffed him. “You’ve just earned yourself a trip to the police station, my friend.”

  When Jeff got to the home of Ellie Taylor with DI Rebecca Stockton, they found her knee-deep in washing baby clothes.

  “I use disposable nappies,” said Ellie. “But I think most people do these days, don’t they?”

  “We did with my son,” said Jeff.

  “Mrs Taylor, why didn’t you tell us about Sheridan’s relationship with her teacher, Leo McKenzie?”

  Ellie Taylor slumped down on a chair at the kitchen table and gestured for Jeff and Rebecca to do the same. “Yes, my mother told me she’d been to see you. I don’t blame her. It’s what I should’ve done. You see, I honestly thought that it was an innocent relationship. I’m a stupid, middle-class, girl thrust into a world of God knows what and Leo just seemed like a bright light in an otherwise, sometimes dark and dismal world.”

  Rebecca was struggling to have any sympathy with the daft bitch. She probably had a baby with someone of a different race to make some kind of nauseating middle-class, anti-racist statement. God, she couldn’t stand her.

  “I knew she was going out and meeting Leo but, the thing is, she was being so damn difficult at home and Leo seemed to be able to calm her down, even for a short time. He made her easier to live with for a while. I turned a blind eye to it because it made my life easier.”

  “Mrs Taylor, did you know she was pregnant?” Jeff asked.

  The news clearly came as a massive shock to Ellie Taylor. They watched her face crumble into a blinding picture of pain and then she broke down and wept. When she lifted her head she couldn’t help but notice the look on Rebecca’s face despite all the tears.

  “Don’t you dare judge me,” Ellie warned.

  “I’m not judging you, Mrs Taylor.”

  “You’re a liar! You’re lying to me again! You were the one whose sheer incompetence led to my daughter being murdered by whoever that maniac was so you can get out!”

  “Mrs Taylor, we need to calm down here,” said Jeff. “Having a go at my colleague will get you nowhere.”

  “Shut up! I am breaking up with grief over my daughter and you’ve got the nerve to look at me the way you are doing now? Get out! Get out the pair of you! It makes me sick just to look at you.”

  “Why did you let her throw us out of there with a flea in our ear?” Rebecca demanded once she and Jeff had got to the car.

  “Because there wasn’t any point in carrying on trying to talk to her in that state,” said Jeff. “And I’m surprised that you think we should’ve carried on a heated discussion with a woman who’s just found out that her murdered daughter was pregnant!”

  “Oh well, maybe you think I’m incompetent too?”

  “Becky, we’ve been through this,” Jeff pleaded.

  “But it’s still there, isn’t it? Just like it’s there between us because I’m going out with Joe Alexander now. And by the way, Joe and I are getting on just fine, thank you. In fact, we’re talking about going on holiday together once this case is done.”

  “I’m very happy for you - but now can we get back to the case which was almost completely blown off course by you not instigating that search last Sunday night.”

  “Oh, so it’s all coming out now, then. You blame me for everything that’s gone wrong in this investigation?”

  “I blame you for not getting things started earlier, Becky. It has nothing to do with any personal situations. I am happy for you as far as Joe is concerned, Becky.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “But when it comes to the investigation, if you could just stand back and see the bigger picture here, you’d see that you do ha
ve a case to answer for when the official enquiry takes place. A small case, a case that can be dealt with, and I will back you all the way, but you really need to understand how we got to this point. Now get in the car, DI Stockton, and let’s get back to trying to solve this case.”

  “So come on, Liam,” said DS Ollie Wright. “Why did you think you could get away with telling such a whopper of a lie? You were responsible for your parents’ business and yet you didn’t know a Ford Mondeo had gone missing?”

  Liam Nightingale sat with his hands on his lap. He was folding his fingers over and over and his family solicitor was sitting beside him. He was still in his suit from work and still had his tie on. He was one of those lads who looked like he’d scrubbed himself to within an inch of his life. He was cute enough in a boring, predictable, unadventurous sort of way. Ollie wondered if he was fucking the fat girl behind reception at the showroom. If he was, then she’d no doubt soon be pregnant and then she’d achieve her goal of marrying the boss’s son which means she wouldn’t have to think anymore about going to work for a living.

  “It was a favour for a mate.”

  “A mate?” Ollie queried. “Who might that be?”

  Liam looked up at his solicitor and then said “No comment.”

  “Was it Leo McKenzie, Liam?”

  Liam sat up straight and then leaned forward again. He repeated the action several times. He was clearly distracted by everything that was happening and he didn’t like being on the spot.

  “Look Liam, we know you and Leo both live in Littleborough,” said Ollie. “Do you drink in the same pub? Are you mates that way?”

  “Come on now Liam, you’re not helping yourself here,” said Adrian. “But you could do if you opened up to us. Some serious crimes have been committed and you’re implicated in them because somehow someone got hold of a Mondeo from your yard. Now how did that happen, Liam?”

  Liam shook his head.

  “Have you got a girlfriend, Liam?” Ollie asked.

  “Tracy behind reception is my girlfriend.”

  I knew it, thought Ollie. “Do you prefer younger girls, though?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I said,” said Ollie. “Do you like girls who are underage? Is that how you get your sexual kicks?”

  “No!” said Liam, emphatically. “I’m not like that!”

  “You haven’t reported the Mondeo as missing so you’ll probably lose out on the insurance,” said Adrian. “It was worth about three, maybe four grand? That’ll be a lot out of your pocket money when daddy gets home.”

  Liam began rocking on the chair again.

  “Liam, we can tell you’re bursting to say something to us,” said Ollie. “So come on, out with it. We can keep you here for hours if necessary until you talk.”

  “He was a mate of my dad’s, alright?”

  “Who was?”

  “The guy who took the Mondeo,” Liam explained. “He’s been a mate of my dad’s for years, they go way back.”

  “So it wasn’t Leo McKenzie who took the car?”

  “No,” said Liam. “But Leo organised it all on behalf of this other bloke.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “I don’t know, I just don’t know. All I do know is that a whole group of them get together to pick up young girls. My dad offered to include me but I said I didn’t want any part in it. I thought it was disgusting. I thought my dad was disgusting and I still do.”

  Ollie glanced fleetingly at the solicitor who’d gone as white as a sheet. “Your dad is on holiday in Florida, Liam.”

  “Yeah, I know, but he left instructions before he left.”

  “ Do you realise what you’ve just implicated your father in, Liam?”

  “Yes,” said Liam, looking down and ashamed. “But somebody’s got to stop them.”

  “What was the name of this other bloke you keep talking about, Liam?” Adrian questioned.

  “I don’t know,” Liam answered. “I just know he was something to do with Leo McKenzie.”

  When they went down to arrest Leo McKenzie, Jeff and DI Rebecca Stockton were communicating in that very professional way of clipped voices and avoiding any lapses into conversations about personal matters. ‘Just stick to the job’ is what they were saying to each other without saying anything at all.

  They arrested McKenzie at the school he taught at just off the Ashton New Road. They had thought he may not come quietly but he protested rather more loudly than they’d expected. It must have been a reaction to the embarrassment they’d caused him by arresting him at the school in front of all the students and staff. Well, they didn’t use stocks anymore to humiliate apprehended law breakers but this was the modern equivalent and just as effective.

  They brought him to the station where a DNA sample was taken. Then they put him in a cell and made him sweat for a while.

  TWELVE

  DC Joe Alexander had been inwardly basking in his newly-emerging relationship with DI Rebecca Stockton. It had been a long time since he’d felt anything like this and they’d spent every night together for the last week. And, much as they were telling each other that it was all meant to be very casual, with no strings and no promises, and no talk of the future, it was clear that something was happening between them that amounted to much more than a ‘friends with benefits’-type of situation. But, whatever it was, it was providing him with a great sense of wellbeing.

  In the meantime there was an investigation to be dealt with and Joe was nothing if not a diligent police officer who liked nothing more than to link clues together to make a case against a criminal or group of criminals. And this was how the picture was emerging as he sat at his computer and went through everything of any potential significance that could get them to nail someone for the murder of Sheridan Taylor.

  He was about to make a call to check some details with regard to Leo McKenzie’s employment record when one of the uniformed officers came upstairs and told him there was a woman waiting in reception who wanted to speak to the officer in charge of the investigation into the murder of Sheridan Taylor. Joe was the only one there at the time. DSI Barton and Rebecca had been back briefly but then went out again almost straight away when they received a call from a Jeanette Adams to say that her daughter, Hayley, was missing. Hayley had gone to the same school as Sheridan Taylor and was taught by Leo McKenzie who Mrs Adams had just heard had been arrested. Joe put on his jacket, straightened his tie and went downstairs. The woman was waiting in one of the interview rooms just off the reception area.

  “Hello?” said Joe. “I’m DC Joe Alexander. I understand you may have some information regarding the murder of Sheridan Taylor? Please sit down.”

  “Thank you. I’m Catherine McKenzie and you’re holding my son, Leo, here.”

  Joe immediately pricked up his ears. This could end up being dynamite. She was a smart woman who Joe perceived to be in about her mid to late fifties and the dark blue of her two-piece suit contrasted with the white of her blouse. It looked like she’d come straight from work. Joe sometimes wished he didn’t make instant mental appraisals of people he’d just met but, then, he wouldn’t be a very effective police officer. In fact he wouldn’t be a police officer, he’d just be a nosybastard.

  “Yes, we are holding your son,” Joe confirmed. “But how can we help you?”

  “Officer, I brought my son up alone. I never had another relationship with a man after Leo’s father. My brother and my father have both provided male role models in his life but he’s never seen me with another man. I took the decision that I would devote myself entirely to Leo whilst he grew up and now I’ve probably missed the boat forever.”

  Joe felt an overwhelming sadness for this woman, who certainly hadn’t lost her looks but who’d shut herself off from a romantic life to raise a son who looks like he may have turned out so terribly wrong. There must be a part of her that regrets making such a massive mistake. She’s thrown her life away.

  “Did Leo
ever meet his father?”

  “No,” said Catherine. “His father was never interested but I think it’ll turn out to be highly relevant to your investigation if I tell you about him.”

  “Then please do.”

  “Frank and I went out together for about a year. This was back in the early eighties and I was besotted with him. We had what the young ones today would call ‘a wild time’. But then he suddenly started to lose interest in me sexually. I was pregnant with Leo by this time, although I didn’t yet know it, but Frank started spending more and more time away from me. It was hard because we’d become so close but, looking back, I think he was using me.”

  “In what way?”

  “To try and feel normal,” said Catherine. She looked down and hesitated for a moment. “I found a stash of magazines. Don’t forget we didn’t have the internet back then and it sounds very old fashioned now, but I looked at these magazines and I threw up. They were devoted to men who are into having sex with underage girls.”

  “That can’t have been easy, to say the least.”

  “You’re right, it wasn’t. I was absolutely horrified. In the meantime, I discovered that I was pregnant and I confronted Frank. There was a case at the time concerning the disappearance of seven underage girls in our area of Hyde. The case was never solved. It wasn’t all that long since the Moors Murderers and people in this part of the world were still jumpy about children disappearing because of Brady and Hindley. We had the most flaming row but, during it, Frank admitted that he and his so-called friends had been behind the disappearance of the girls. This was probably one of the first cases of what they now call ‘grooming’ in this country. And these were all white men, including John Nightingale who owns Farndale Motors in Littleborough. I’ve known John a long time and he knows I know what he’s always got up to.”