“In the short term, yes, much cheaper,” Spencer said.
“But not long term?” Laura persisted.
Spencer did not answer. If I can find a tame accountant, Laura thought, I’ll work out just what this does cost in the end.
“Who are these partners exactly?” Laura asked.
“That’s not for public consumption yet,” Spencer said. “It’ll be a consortium. There’s a couple of groups interested. City Ventures is one. Blackstock Holdings another. But there may be more by the time it goes out to tender.”
“Local businesses?”
“Oh, yes, some of them. It all boosts the local economy, one way or another.”
“So there’ll be an open competition for the contract?”
“Probably,” Spencer said. “We may have a favoured bidder, but that’s all in the future.”
“And what about the project that the women are running up there for the school drop-outs, the one my grandmother was so anxious about? That will be housed in the new college facilities, will it? Or in the community centre?”
Spencer glanced at Jay, who looked disconcerted.
“I’m not sure any provision has been made for that sort of facility, although Mr. Foreman did say that he would be interested in helping with facilities for young people in difficulties,” she said. “Of course, with the new executive housing on the Heights we’re hoping that a lot of the problems they have currently up there will be …” She hesitated.
“Dispersed,” Spencer said cheerfully. “That’s the word Jay’s looking for. One of the difficulties we have currently up at Wuthering, as you must know, is the sheer concentration of problem families and difficult kids. They’ll undoubtedly be dispersed by this new development. And a very good thing too. It’ll be much easier for the schools and other agencies to deal with these kids if they are not concentrated in one place, and in one or two schools.”
“But much harder for the parents to organise self-help schemes like the Project,” Laura said. “And where exactly will they be dispersed to? They’ll get nice new houses somewhere else, will they? Or not?”
“Well, we have no other major redevelopment schemes in the pipeline so I expect most will move onto older properties elsewhere. That’s inevitable, really,” Spencer said. “We’ve no shortage of vacant properties which are in better condition than the flats up at Wuthering. So everyone gains.”
“I thought most of your vacant properties were vandalised and impossible to sell,” Laura said, feeling almost as outraged by Spencer’s plans as she knew Joyce would be when she heard the details.
“Not at all,” Spencer said. “In any case, any property people move to will be made fit before they move in. We’ll have the funds for that too, when the land on the Heights is sold to the developers.”
“Not really much in this for those who have to move though, is there? The community broken up, lots of people moved out to areas they may not want to go to? Won’t this be a difficult scheme to sell to the people on the Heights, Councillor Spencer?”
“Oh, I think we’ll manage, Laura,” Spencer said easily. “I don’t really anticipate any difficulties. The crucial decisions will be taken by the planning committee once the regeneration committee has drawn up its final plans and has costed the whole project.”
So I guess that’s all sewn up already, Laura thought.
“Well, it’s certainly an interesting scheme,” she said.
“Well, I know your editor thinks so. You know we’ve asked him to sit on the regeneration committee, don’t you. We’re sure his input will be extremely valuable.”
Laura nodded weakly, not willing to admit to knowledge that she was not supposed to have.
“Terrific,” she said.
“Call me if you have any more questions when you come to write your feature,” Jay said, passing a wad of glossy brochures across the table to Laura. “This is what we’ve prepared so far.”
Laura glanced at the sketches of town houses set amidst trees and neatly parked BMWs which appeared on the front of the publicity material and thought of the fate of cars currently left parked for more than half an hour on the Heights. She smiled sweetly, green eyes opaque as she caught Spencer’s gaze.
“Fine,” she said. “And when does your consultation begin?”
“After the next meeting of the committee,” Spencer said. “Ted indicated that he would use your feature the day after that.”
“And there was I thinking we were an independent newspaper,” Laura said stabbing off her tape-recorder with an angry jab. Dave Spencer’s expression hardened for a second and then he smiled, without warmth.
“I’m sure no one is going to compromise your independence, Laura,” he said. “You’re a chip off the old block.”
“I’ll get my grandmother to contact you again about funding for the Project, then, shall I? I don’t think she’s had an answer on that yet.”
“Of course,” Spencer said. “We’ll see what we can do about that. Perhaps Barry Foreman would come to the rescue with a bit of persuasion. You never know.”
“I’m not sure that’s quite what she had in mind,” Laura said.
“No, I’m sure it isn’t,” Spencer said, distinctly waspish this time. “But even the dinosaur tendency is going to have to shift its arse in the end, you know. Perhaps you could tell her that before she comes badgering me again?”
“D’you fancy lunch?” Laura asked when she was back at her desk and finally got through to Michael Thackeray. There was a long enough silence at the other end of the line to cause her heart to sink.
“Michael,” she said softly.
“The Warp and Weft in half-an-hour,” he said at last, naming a pub where they were unlikely to meet any of his colleagues or hers. He was already sitting at a corner table when she arrived, surrounded by an array of old wool mill relics, now collectors items rather than anything with much bearing on Bradfield’s economy. He had a glass of tonic and ice in front of him and a similar glass which Laura hoped contained vodka as well as tonic on the opposite side of the table. Laura slipped off her coat and dumped it on an empty chair and leaned across the table to kiss his cheek.
“I’ve been confining my inquiries to the town hall this morning,” she said. “Am I forgiven?”
“Of course you are,” he said, wondering whether there were any circumstances in which he would not forgive this woman who still sent his heart lurching, and other men’s heads turning, when she walked into a room, copper hair flying and eyes sparkling. “But you mustn’t expect me not to worry if you take risks.”
“I know,” she said, her expression sober. “Anyway, I’m into the murky waters of local politics this morning. Physically safer but not that much cleaner, I suspect. Did you know that they’re going to pull down the flats up at Wuthering and turf most of the residents out. They’ll have to make do with surplus accommodation no one else wants while yuppies move in up the hill. They’re even planning to pull the old folks’ bungalows down. Joyce will go bananas when she hears.”
“She’ll be out with her protest banners again, then?” Thackeray asked, though with affection.
“‘Fraid so,” Laura said. “She’s already in the whiz-kid Spencer’s bad books for trying to get him to fund the IT project up on the Heights that keeps getting trashed. You know, Spencer said something very odd about that. Wasn’t Barry Foreman the guy with the twins who nearly got shot out at Benwell Lane last year? The security company boss?”
“What about him?” Thackeray asked, hoping that Laura’s antennae would not pick up the spark of excitement she had fanned into life.
“Spencer said he wanted to work with “the youth”. Has he taken up philanthropy or something? I mentioned it to Ted Grant and he seemed to think Foreman was God’s gift to the poor and needy too. Not the impression I got when I met him, I must say.”
“Jack Longley told me Foreman had got himself involved in the regeneration committee up there,” Thackeray said carefully.
“But I thought it was a donation they were after rather than anything more hands-on.”
“Ted Grant’s got himself appointed onto that too,” Laura said. “Are they recruiting the great and the good, or just those who like to imagine they are?”
“The rich and the influential, more like,” Thackeray suggested. “And Grant will be a useful ally to have if there’s going to be a lot of protest up there.”
“I’d like to be able to say that my respected editor couldn’t be bought but I reckon that’s wishful thinking. He’s never been out looking for the radical campaigning journalism awards, hasn’t Ted. And he’s done his damndest to make sure none of the rest of us are in the running either.”
“With limited success in your case,” Thackeray said, not quite able to keep a note of disapproval out of his voice. “So is this your next campaign then? Hands off the Heights? Save our local eyesore?”
Laura drained her drink and gave Thackeray one of her most beatific smiles.
“You’re pushing your luck, Chief Inspector,” she said. “No one’s going to mind if they blow those flats up tomorrow. It’s what happens next that matters.”
He got up and planted a kiss on the top of her copper curls.
“Let me get you a sandwich,” he said. “And then you can tell me how Joyce is going to lead her troops into battle against the town hall. All we poor coppers’ll get is the blame when the protests turn nasty and a few rioters get their heads clouted.” Laura watched him shoulder his way through the lunch-time crowds with a rugby player’s ease, and felt a sudden surge of emotion. She knew how determinedly Thackeray wanted to protect her but she wondered if he knew how she too felt that protective urge, not to shield him from physical harm, which he if anyone, she guessed, could cope with, but from the sort of damage which his marriage had inflicted. There came a point in any relationship, she thought, when it became almost impossible to envisage life without the other half of it, and she guessed she had reached that point with Thackeray. Although whether that resolved anything in the long term she was less sure. You might cleave to a rock, but that didn’t mean that in the end your grip might not slip and the tide dash you to pieces on its jagged edges.
Michael Thackeray did not go straight back to his office after lunch. Instead he picked up his car, made a call on his mobile and headed out of town to a pub set back from the traffic on the Manchester Road. The man he had arranged to meet was sitting alone at a table at the back of the lounge bar and glanced around anxiously when the policeman came in. He was a small tired-looking individual in a grey suit which had seen better days, his collar dusted with dandruff, his fingers yellowed by nicotine. His pale blue eyes flickered nervously from Thackeray to the other customers in the bar and back again.
“I’m not too keen on meeting like this,” Stanley Wilson said as Thackeray pulled out a stool and sat down opposite him. “I know you did me a favour …”
“And one deserves another, Stanley,” Thackeray said, without a flicker of sympathy.
“You could get me into a lot of trouble.”
“And you could get into a lot of trouble if you’re caught again with an under-age lad. You only got away with it last time because anyone would have taken Malcolm for twenty if he was a day. And he was obviously willing enough.”
“You’d not have got a conviction,” Wilson said bitterly. “Malky wouldn’t’ave hung around for a court case.”
“You were willing to take a chance, were you?”
Wilson shook his head imperceptibly.
“Exactly,” Thackeray said. “So in return for that caution, which was more than you deserved, I need some information. You’re still working for Barry Foreman, are you?”
Wilson nodded gloomily.
“I’m only t’bloody dogsbody in that office,” he muttered. “I don’t get to hear owt important.”
“It’s not Barry’s books I’m interested in at the moment,” Thackeray said, although that was not strictly true. “I wondered if there was any word in the office about his girlfriend? Karen? And the kids?”
Wilson shook his head in some bemusement. “She buggered off, didn’t she? That’s what I heard.”
“With the babies?”
Wilson’s eyes flickered round the room again.
“You can’t imagine him keeping two kids on his tod, can you?” he asked. “Word is they weren’t his, any road.”
“So Barry hasn’t talked about the twins since Karen left?” Thackeray persisted.
“He never talked about them much before she left,” Wilson said. “I reckon Rottweilers’d be more chuffed to be dads. Funny thing was, he seemed to be quite looking forward to it before it happened. He must have thought they were his then, mustn’t he? But after, he were wild about summat. He never said nowt. He never does, does ‘e. But you could tell he had one o’them moods on ’im. That’s the time to keep your head down wi’Barrry. He’s an evil bastard when he’s crossed.”
“Did you ever see him with Karen? Or the twins?”
“Nah,” Wilson said, lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the previous one. “He’s not the sort who’d bring kids to the office, is he? Not your new man.” Wilson sniggered, choking on his cigarette smoke. “Karen used to come in now and then,” he added, wiping tears from his eyes. “She came in once in a right mood. You could hear them at it all over the office. Summat about her credit card being withdrawn.”
“When was that?” Thackeray asked, his eyes sharpening. “Before the twins were born or after?”
Wilson screwed up his face as if in pain and allowed Thackeray to refill his pint glass at the bar before he came up with a reply. He took a long pull at his drink.
“After they arrived, I reckon. I remember her being pregnant. Like a barrel, she were. But not this time. She had one of them slinky trouser suits on, tight fit, belly button on show, all that. Back to normal, you might say. Looked as if she’d been shopping. It must have been after t’kids were born. It’s not that long ago.”
“And that’s the last time you saw her?”
Wilson nodded.
“I want you to ask around and see if anyone else has seen Karen - or the babies - since then,” Thackeray said. Wilson turned his glass on the wet ring it had made on the table and looked dubious.
“Ask around who, Mr. Thackeray?” he asked. “They’ll think I’m soft in t’head. Why would I be asking around after Barry’s tart? Me, of all people?”
“Keep it casual,” Thackeray said. “The women in the office always know what’s going on with the boss’s love life. Keep your ears open and see what you can pick up. The girls’ll trust you, won’t they? I want to know if Karen was seen in Bradfield later than that row over the credit card. OK?”
“Summat in it for me, then, is there?” Wilson avoided Thackeray’s eyes and his voice took on a whining note.
“You’ve had all you’ll get out of me,” Thackeray said, getting to his feet. “Call me on my mobile if you hear anything of interest.” He scribbled the number on a beer mat and thrust it towards Wilson. “I’ve not forgotten Malcolm, Stanley, even if you have.”
Wilson watched Thackeray as he walked swiftly towards the door.
“Fuck you,” he said softly under his breath, but he put the mat in his pocket just the same.
Glancing into the main CID office on his way back to his desk, Thackeray’s attention was caught by a flushed looking DC Mohammed Sharif standing by Val Ridley’s desk. Ridley caught his eye.
“You decided to close it then,” she said.
“Close what?”
“The Carib Club. It’s all over the Gazette. Didn’t you know, boss?” Sharif said triumphantly.
Thackeray glanced at the paper Val pushed in his direction and soon picked up the same triumphant note in Bob Baker’s story, in which Grantley Adams and the imam at the local mosque vied for the credit of closing down the den of iniquity on Chapel Street. His face tightened but he said nothing as he finished with the paper and
folded it neatly.
“Can I borrow this?” he asked.
“Sure,” Val said. “I hear uniform isn’t very pleased. Reckon it’ll cause more trouble than it prevents.”
“They should be pleased there’s one less source of drugs in town,” Sharif said. “D’you want us to follow up on the DJ, Sanderson, boss? He has to be dealing. I can smell it.”
“It could just be that your sense of smell’s a bit off,” Thackeray said. “And that could worry me a lot, Omar.”
Thackeray went upstairs to Superintendent Jack Longley’s office and barely waited for the secretary to clear his visit before pushing open the door.
“I see we went ahead with closing down the Carib,” he said, dropping the newspaper with its banner headline in front of Longley. “The drug squad’s charged someone, have they?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Longley said. “It’s a voluntary move. And temporary. Let’s just say that they were persuaded, shall we? Seven days peace and quiet while things calm down.”
“Whose idea was that, then?”
“Mine, as it goes,” Longley said tetchily. “We’ve interviews to complete. And I want the place searched thoroughly. Sniffer dogs in, the lot.”
“And you want Adams off your back.”
“Amongst others,” Longley admitted. “But he’s not the only one. As far as I can see the only person who wants the place kept open is Barry Foreman, and that’s only because there.”
“A bit like asking the fox to mind the hen-house,” Thackeray said.
Longley looked at the DCI and wondered how far he was beginning to let his prejudices cloud his judgement.
“Aye, well, I’ve told you what I think about that,” he said, mildly enough. “It’s evidence you need.”
Thackeray looked at his boss’s bland expression for a moment, wondering whether to share his worries about Karen Bailey and her children but at a loss to summon up a single concrete piece of evidence for his fears so he decided against it.
Death in Dark Waters Page 12
