Death in Dark Waters

by Patricia Hall

  At the police station the DJ found himself being processed behind two men he recognised.

  “They’re not leaving anyone out then?” he said to one of the two doormen from the Carib.

  “Got us out of bed, man.”

  “And they’ve brought Darryl in, an’all,” his companion said.

  “Let’s have less chat and more attention to what’s going on here,” the custody sergeant said, waving the two doormen towards the cells. “Name?”

  “David Sanderson,” Dizzy B said abruptly as he listened contemptuously to Mohammed Sharif’s summary of his arrest and emptied his pockets with all the familiarity of one who had not only stood in front of a custody desk but behind it as well. “Can we get this over with? I’ve got things to do, places to go.”

  “CID want to talk to him about other matters, sarge,” Sharif said quickly as the sergeant glanced quizzically at the tiny amount of cannabis the DC handed him in a plastic evidence bag. “When Val Ridley’s ready”

  “My guest, Mr. Sanderson,” the sergeant said, gesturing towards the cells where the Carib’s doormen had already been incarcerated. As Sharif personally slammed the heavy door behind his prisoner, the two men’s eyes met in mutual dislike through the peep-hole before Sharif closed that too.

  “Paki bastard,” Dizzy B Sanderson shouted loudly enough for Sharif to hear before flinging himself angrily onto the bunk on the other side of the cell. “Let’s see the race relations industry sort that out, shall we?”

  Four hours later Dizzy B was sipping a vodka and cranberry juice in Bar Med, the stylish new café bar which had just opened in premises near the university that had once been a bank. Kevin Mower leaned back on his tubular steel chair and grinned sympathetically.

  “You and Omar didn’t hit it off then?”

  “Bastard thinks we’re all just down from the trees,” Sanderson grumbled. “Less than an eighth I had. There was no way they could make out I was dealing. I accepted a caution, but they kept me there two hours trying to get me to grass up my supplier. Did I buy it in Bradfield? Did I buy it at the club? He’s in London, for God’s sake. What’s it to them?”

  “They seem to be going over the top about the Carib,” Mower said, pulling a face over his orange juice cocktail. “There’s no sense in it when it’s the kids up at Wuthering who are really running out of control. It’s awash with the hard stuff up there.”

  “Look at this,” the DJ said, flinging a copy of the Bradfield Gazette across the table in Mower’s direction. “Who gave them all that? Someone’s got a hotline to the local rag.” The front-page carried a photograph of him under the headline “DJ in drugs bust” and a short item on his recent compulsory trip to the police station.

  “I told you. There’s people want the Carib closed down, not least the local mosque,” Mower said.

  “So your mate Omar likely leaked it? He’ll be well in at the mosque, I guess.”

  “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Mower said quickly. “Bob Baker their crime reporter’s always snooping around the nick. He could have picked it up from anyone. There’s a few clubbers around who could have recognised you on your way in.”

  “Too many, by the look of it,” Sanderson said bitterly. “What is it with this town?”

  “I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on,” Mower said. “In the meantime, you can do me a favour.”

  “Oh, sure, like I’m right into helping the police with their inquiries just now.”

  “Come on, this has got nothing to do with the police. I’m putting in some hours at a computer club for disaffected kids, a lot of them black. If you came up to visit you’d give my street cred a boost and they’d be right chuffed, as they say up here. What do you say?”

  Dizzy B groaned but finished his drink.

  “Community bloody service, is it now? What did I ever do to you, man?”

  “Better than digging old ladies’ gardens,” Mower said without much sympathy.

  Chapter Seven

  Laura stood on the muddy grass at the centre of the Heights and gazed up at the three dilapidated blocks of flats in something close to despair. The driving rain which had beaten down on Bradfield all morning had only just eased off and the concrete sides of the building were streaked with dark, damp patches. She could see a woman in a red fleece pushing a baby in a buggy along one of the walkways three floors up in Priestley, immediately above the rain-tattered bunches of flowers which lay on the concrete where the boy called Derek Whitby had fallen from the roof to his death. In the other direction she spotted a couple of youths, hoods drawn around their faces so tightly that only their eyes were visible, sauntering out of the doors of Holtby leaving them swinging open behind them instead of securely locked as the council intended. She watched them watching her as they made their way under the relative shelter of the balconies towards the bus-stop on the main road which skirted the estate. She knew they were young enough to be in school and was equally sure that was not where they were going.

  It was the third day in a row that Laura had driven up the steep hill to the Heights during her lunch-hour and today, as she had waited at the traffic lights to turn onto the estate, she had admitted to herself that she was seriously worried about her grandmother. Joyce was looking as old and frail as Laura had ever seen her. Even the sparkle was beginning to disappear from her eyes. Laura knew she was depressed about the vandalism at the Project but guessed that she was finding her inability to pull strings at the Town Hall to push-start the rescue attempt she had set her heart on was even more to blame for her depression.

  She followed what had once been a footpath, but which now resembled a quagmire, towards the Project. It had been the wettest winter on record and she knew that the ceaseless rain was getting to people in unpredictable ways. As January slid gloomily into February the tempers of even the most equable souls were beginning to fray, and equable was not an epithet she would ever apply to herself or to Michael Thackeray. She knew that the tension in their relationship was growing rather than receding as they had both hoped it would, and the knowledge was as dark and heavy as the rainclouds which rolled incessantly down from the high moors to the west.

  Donna met her at the door of the Project. She had tied her hair up in a scarf, like a war-time factory worker, and was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt under paint-stained dungarees.

  “Watch yourself, pet,” she said by way of greeting as she stood aside to let Laura into the reception area which reeked of white spirit. Her smile was warm, though she looked tired.

  “We’ve got most of the red paint off, but if you light a match the place’ll go up like a bomb,” she said.

  “Don’t give the tearaways ideas,” Laura said. “Is my grandmother here?”

  “In t’ back with Kevin,” Donna said. “He’s brought some mate of his from London with him. A DJ? To talk to t’ kids?” Donna rolled her eyes to heaven in mock despair at the preoccupations of teenagers and waved Laura on into the building.

  Laura made her way into the small kitchen where she found Joyce in animated conversation with Mower and Dizzy B, one white head and two dark ones, and, unexpectedly, three pairs of laughing eyes.

  “Did you know your amazing grandmother saw Louis Armstrong in the 1950s?” Mower said, glancing up as Laura came in. “Satchmo himself and I didn’t even know she was into jazz. The boss would be impressed.”

  “There’s lots of things I don’t know about what Joyce got up to in her misspent youth,” Laura admitted with a grin. “She’s not old enough to have been a suffragette but you can bet your life she’d have been chaining herself to railings if she’d had the chance.”

  “Tried that at Greenham Common,” Joyce said tartly.

  “She told me she was on the first Aldermaston march too, and every one after that, and the riot in Grosvenor Square,” Laura said. “Though I’m sure that’s not for police consumption. I bet MI5 have still got her on their files.”

  Mower put a finger to his lips and glan
ced at the door to where Donna could be heard belting out ‘Look for the Hero Inside Yourself’ as she worked.

  “We don’t know any coppers here, remember?” he said. “And certainly not any spooks.”

  “They came to interview me once, M15,” Joyce said unexpectedly, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “When George Blake escaped. You remember? The Russian spy? Thought I might know summat about it.”

  “And did you?” Mower asked.

  “Well if I did, I don’t think I’d tell you, even after all these years,” Joyce said primly. “What you youngsters forget, though, is that we won most of those battles in the end. Only the miners lost and I’ll never forgive some folk who should have known better for that.”

  Mower grinned, and glanced at Dizzy B.

  “This is Laura,” he said. “A chip off the old block.” Mower looked happier behind his piratical black beard than she had seen him for months, Laura thought, and her own heart lifted slightly in response.

  “I’ve met the reporter lady,” the DJ said, a wary look in his eyes. “Was it you who put me on the front page of your rag this morning?”

  Laura shook her head.

  “That was our enterprising crime reporter, Bob Baker,” she said. “Nothing to do with me.” Dizzy B glanced at Mower uncertainly.

  “You can believe it,” Mower said. “Baker’s got someone at the nick in his back pocket and the brass would dearly love to know who. It’s been going on for a while.”

  “I thought that sort of thing only happened in American crime novels,” Dizzy B said.

  “Well, if you imagine the Gazette’s paying anyone to leak stuff I should think again,” Laura said. “Getting your bus fare to the town hall paid by my boss is like getting blood out of a stone. I don’t think even Bob Baker could persuade him to bribe coppers, not because of any moral scruples, you understand, but because he’s too damn tight with the petty cash.”

  Joyce stood up suddenly, as if irritated by the younger generation’s chatter.

  “Have you heard anything from the town hall about funding for this place, pet?” she asked. And when Laura shook her head her face tightened and aged perceptibly.

  “I can’t get any sense out of that lad Spencer,” she said. “One minute it’s all in hand, and the next he’s making excuses. I don’t think he gives a tuppeny damn about the kids up here when it comes to the point. Calls himself a councillor but all he’s really after is a safe seat at the next general election. And he’ll more likely get that by buttering up businessmen than by looking after the folk who elected him, more’s the pity. They’ve lost sight of what they’re there for, a lot of them. It’s a disgrace.”

  “I’ll talk to the guy who covers the town hall when I go back to the office,” Laura said. “He must have some idea of what’s going on.”

  “I reckon they’ve got some scheme for rebuilding up here which ignores what the locals want,” Joyce said bitterly. “You’d think they’d have leant from the mistakes we made when we built these flats. Thought we knew best. Never asked folk if they actually wanted to live in prefabricated concrete rabbit warrens. You’d think they’d know better than to make the same mistake again.”

  “I’ll check it out, Nan,” Laura said feeling helpless. “Do you want me to run you home now?”

  Joyce shook her head vigorously.

  “There’s a couple of young lasses coming in with their babies at three,” she said. “We’re going to do some reading. They’re worried out of their heads because they’re being told to help their kiddies with books and all that and they can barely read themselves.”

  “What are you like?” Laura said, giving Joyce an enthusiastic hug.

  “There’s always summat to do,” Joyce said, her eyes shining again. “It’d be nice to think things have got better for folk up here, but there’s not much sign of it.”

  “Give it time,” Laura said, although she knew that Joyce had already given it a lifetime.

  “Do you have some time?” Mower broke in. “You know what you were talking about with Dr. Khan? Dizzy met some kids this morning he’d like us to talk to. One of them’s a mate of the lad who went off the roof of Holtby House. You said you wanted to write about what’s going on up here. They might make you some good copy.”

  Laura glanced at her watch and nodded.

  “Half an hour,” she said.

  “You’ll have to go without me then,” Mower said. “I’ve got some kids coming in to work on the computers in five minutes.” Laura glanced at Kevin Mower with affection.

  “Michael won’t know where you’re coming from when you get back to work,” she said.

  “If,” Mower said so softly that Laura was not sure she heard him.

  “Anyway, I’m sure Dizzy and I can cope for now,” she said.

  Laura followed the DJ out into the relentless rain. As they hurried in silence across the muddy grass towards Holtby House there was a dull explosion of splintering glass behind them. Laura glanced back and saw that there was a smashed bottle on the concrete where a smashed bottle had not been before. She glanced up at the walkways of Priestley House above them but could see no one. Dizzy B shrugged.

  “Someone round here doesn’t like strangers,” he said.

  “It’s getting worse,” Laura said. “It’s more threatening than it’s ever been.”

  “It can’t be bad if they’re pulling these stinking places down, can it?” Sanderson said as they pushed open the swinging doors of Holtby and set off up the steep concrete stairway where the justice of his epithet became immediately apparent. They hurried to the top and stepped slightly breathlessly out onto the walkway where the slanting rain struck them again with icy force but at least the air smelt clean.

  “Of course it’s not bad,” Laura said. “It’s what they replace them with that’s the issue. And what’s going to happen to the people who live here now. That’s what’s bothering my grandmother.”

  “You mean they might dump them on some other sink estate?”

  “They’re talking about building private housing up here. In that case there may well be a problem re-housing the tenants. They’re not the sort of people who can afford to buy.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ve seen all that in London. Put some gates on the council estates, turn the hallway into an atrium, paint the railings round the balconies bright colours, call the flats apartments and flog them off to yuppies. Not only do you upgrade the property but you get lots of middle-class voters in as well. Before you know it you’ve guaranteed your majority on the local council and put a Tory MP into Parliament as well.”

  “Only here it’s the other lot that’s trying to gentrify the place,” Laura said. “That’s what’s driving my grandmother bananas.”

  They stopped outside the last door on the landing, a flimsy stained affair reinforced with strips of metal around the lock. Dizzy knocked hard but there was no response.

  “If his mother’s not around he may not come to the door,” Dizzy said. He pushed the letter-box experimentally but it would not budge. It had been sealed shut on the inside. Dizzy cupped his hands against the door and shouted.

  “Stevie! Stevie. It’s me, Dizzy B. Are you in there, man?”

  The silence inside the flat continued and Laura was about to give up when they heard footfalls on the walkway behind them and turned to see a tall fair-haired woman bundled up in a black puffa jacket hurrying towards them, looking anxious.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said when she recognised Sanderson. She glanced more suspiciously at Laura and seemed less than impressed when she introduced herself.

  “I don’t think we’ve owt to say to reporters.”

  Dizzy glanced at the pharmacist’s bag which the woman carried.

  “You’ll get no peace up here until you talk to someone, Mrs. Maddison,” he said. “The police and the newspapers are the only ones who can help you, and if you won’t talk to the police then why not give the Gazette a try. Laura won’t identify you if you don’t want
her to, will you Laura?”

  “Dizzy thought that a feature about your son would get some official attention directed up here. It’s about time, isn’t it?” Laura added with her most persuasive smile.

  “Official attention? That’s a bloody joke, isn’t it? The only attention we get is when they come to arrest t‘kids who take stuff and leave t’dealers running around to get t‘little ‘uns hooked an’all.”

  “So you have to stop it,″ Dizzy said.”Come on, Lorraine. It is Lorraine isn’t it? You’ve got to draw a line somewhere.”

  “Did Stevie say he’d do this?” Lorraine Maddison asked, her face still clouded with suspicion. “I just went to get his methadone from t‘chemist. It takes half the day to get down to town on t’bus but I told him not to answer t’door to no one.”

  “I told him I’d come back again,” Dizzy said. “Ask him if he’ll see us. Please?”

  Still looking doubtful, the woman unlocked the door with two keys and led them into a darkened living room where they could dimly see a figure curled up under a blanket on the sofa.

  “Stevie, love,” she said. “Here’s Dizzy B back with a lady who wants to talk to you. D’you want to do that, son?”

  Slowly the figure stirred and they could make out Stevie Maddison’s face, grey and strained, the cheeks sunken and the eyes so bloodshot that he seemed to have difficulty focusing on his visitors. He glanced at Laura’s tape-recorder and shrugged, his whole body shrinking as though he could not even find the energy to acquiesce or dispute their presence.

  “Dizzy B, man,” the boy said faintly, trying to feign an enthusiasm he clearly did not feel. “You again. I never found that demo tape I promised you. My mate Derek’s rap. When I feel a bit better …”

  “Later, Stevie,” Dizzy said. “It’ll be fine later.”

  “Take your medicine, lad,” Stevie’s mother said, handing him a small glass with some liquid in it. The boy drank and sighed heavily.

  “It’s no bloody good, this stuff,” he said to Dizzy. “They tell you it’s as good as t’real thing, but no way. I’m turning into a right wreck.” With difficulty he hauled himself upright, revealing emaciated arms, scarred and reddened by continuous infection, and a hollow chest within an over-large t-shirt. He shivered convulsively, although the room was warm and airless. This wrecking of a life, Laura thought, must have begun long ago.