“Yes, I’ll talk to him later,” Mower said, although Laura thought she caught a note of reluctance in his voice. “Come up to the Heights with me, Dizzy, will you. I may need back-up.”
Laura glanced at her watch and pulled on her jacket.
“I need to get back to work. But I’ll tackle Councillor Dave Spencer about this redevelopment company. Even Ted Grant won’t be able to rubbish this story. It’s all getting very smelly indeed.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mower drove back to the Heights in silence with Dizzy B slumped in the passenger seat beside him, headphones turned up high. Neither man seemed willing to talk and Dizzy Sanderson glanced out of the car window with increasing anxiety as they approached the tall blocks of flats which were almost obscured by the driving rain. He put his Walkman away as Mower parked in the lee of Priestley House.
“This place is beginning to give me the creeps,” he said. “I reckon you have to assume you’re being watched up here — by both sides.”
“Probably,” Mower said. He glanced towards Joyce Ackroyd’s bungalow where the glass in her windows had still not been replaced, boards facing the street blindly. “If I were the drug squad I’d have video cameras up here full time. But we’re on the side of the angels, remember?”
“They might still believe you are, man,” Sanderson said. “But I reckon my credibility’s all blown away.”
Up on the walkway as they made their way towards Donna Maitland’s flat, Mower glanced down. The whole estate seemed deserted, as the rain gusted in bitter squalls across the muddy grass and the puddled car parks while the concrete of the blocks above and below them turned dark and streaky with damp. But even a casual glance convinced Mower that Sanderson was right. There were eyes which watched: here and there a curtain twitched and behind some massive dustbins he caught a flicker of movement which could have been a hooded head. But before he could focus he was distracted by Sanderson who had reached Donna’s doorway first, to find the lock broken open and the door hanging drunkenly on its hinges.
“Shit,” Mower said angrily, shouldering his way past his friend and into the living room, where a scene of devastation faced them. The television and video and anything else of value had gone, and the rest of the flat, from the bedrooms to the kitchen and bathroom, seemed have been systematically wrecked. Mower stood in the door to Emma Maitland’s room, where soft toys had been ripped up and the pretty bedcover torn and tossed on the floor, and felt tears prickle at his eyes.
“Bastards,” he muttered as Sanderson came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder as he peered at the wreckage of the child’s room.
“Her friends or ours?” Dizzy asked quietly.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t both,” Mower said, swallowing hard. “If the drug squad bust in here the neighbourhood toe-rags would be close behind to see what pickings they could find.”
“Let’s look for what we came for and then get out of here,” Sanderson said. “Though if your colleagues have been through the place the chances are they’ll have taken anything of interest.” And as they picked through the remains of Donna’s home Mower soon became convinced that Sanderson was right. No files, no computer discs, no paperwork of any kind, not so much as an electricity bill, did they find amongst Donna’s scattered belongings.
“Zilch,” Mower said at last. “It’s all been cleaned out and I don’t believe the toe-rags took her phone bills and address book any more than the drug squad took the TV and video.”
“Let’s go,” Sanderson said, his anxiety showing. “You may be able to get away with this, but I’m out on a limb here.”
“Right,” Mower said, following the DJ to the door, but before they reached it they heard a tap on the cracked glass panel and a postman, water streaming off his red and blue jacket, put his head round the drunken door, raised an eyebrow at the chaos and held out a single letter.
“Mrs. Maitland live here?” he asked.
“I’ll take it,” Mower said. The postman shrugged and moved on, leaving Mower in possession of an envelope which he ripped open without ceremony. Inside he was surprised to find a copy of a certificate from the Public Records Office in Southport. Why, he wondered, could Donna have possibly applied for a copy of Grantley Adams’s marriage lines. With Sanderson displaying signs of increasing impatience he tucked the letter away in his jacket pocket and followed him out of Donna’s wrecked home.
The two men made their way down the concrete staircase, which had been converted into a waterfall by leaks in the roof above. On the ground floor a woman stood by the glass doors, huddled into a thin mac and with a sodden scarf over her head, her face haggard and her eyes reddened with crying.
“I thought it were you,” she said to Dizzy Sanderson. “I were looking out o’t’window and saw you come over here.” That was one set of watching eyes accounted for at least, Dizzy thought, not quite recognising the mother of Stevie, the young junkie he had only seen in semi-darkness a few days before.
“Mrs Maddison? Lorraine?” Sanderson asked. “How’s Stevie?”
“That’s it,” the woman said, clutching his arm in a frantic grip. “I don’t know. I don’t know where he is. He’s run off, hasn’t he? When he heard that Donna Maitland were dead he got into a terrible state, crying, he were. I’ve not seen him cry since he were a little lad.”
“He was fond of Donna,” Sanderson said by way of explanation to Mower who was listening with some bemusement.
“She got him sorted, did Donna. He’d never have done it without her,” Lorraine said. “But he were right scared when he heard the news. Said that if they could get Donna they could get him too.”
“He thought she’d been killed?” Mower asked. “Why should he think that?”
“Don’t you?” Lorraine Maddison snapped back, verging on hysteria now. “Stevie thought they’d be coming for him next because he saw too much that night Derek died. I reckon he saw someone he knew, though he’d never tell me who. So he’s run and I reckon he’ll be the next body they find. Can you help me find him? He trusted you, Mr. Sanderson. You’re the first person he’s talked to about that night. I could never get owt out of him, not a bloody word. I need someone to help me look.”
“This is DS Kevin Mower from Bradfield police …” Sanderson began but the woman grabbed his arm and pulled him away from Mower.
“I want nowt to do wi’t’police,” she said. “I don’t trust bloody police. Look what they did to Donna. They’re either bloody fools or in wi’t’dealers themselves. Donna Maitland were t’best thing that’s happened for the kids on this estate for years, and now look where we are. I just want you to help me find Stevie, that’s all. I don’t want any trouble, just to know he’s safe. I’ve not got him off junk to see him killed now.”
Sanderson glanced at Mower, who shrugged.
“I’ll wait outside,” he said, and went out into the downpour without looking back.
Michael Thackeray lay back in his armchair with a sigh and closed his eyes as he listened to Laura clattering around the kitchen next door as she made coffee. There were times when he thought that the wall he had carefully constructed around himself over the years would prove impregnable against even Laura’s best efforts to undermine it. And there were evenings when he slid imperceptibly into a contentment he had seldom known when he got home to find Laura watching the TV news or beginning to cook a meal. He had promised half-heartedly to hone his own rudimentary domestic skills and take a share of the cooking and chores when they had moved into the new flat, but deep down lurked an unreconstructed Yorkshireman who secretly believed that everything beyond the kitchen door was a woman’s domain. Even watching his father struggle with domesticity as his mother became increasingly disabled had not convinced him that there was an obvious solution to the boredom engendered by endless meals out of cans or a frying pan slammed straight from the stove onto the table.
Tonight his appreciation of Laura’s cooking skills had been muted b
y the anxiety he read in her expression as soon as he came through the door. He watched her with a finger of ice touching his stomach as she brought a steaming dish of pasta to the table and served in silence.
“Did Kevin Mower call you?” she asked eventually, carefully avoiding his eyes as she twirled spaghetti round her fork.
“Should he have done?” he countered.
“He said he would.”
“You’ve seen him again, then? Any particular reason?”
“He asked me to look at Donna Maitland’s computer files with him — and I’ve got a cracking story out of it, as it goes.” For a moment their eyes locked across the table, challenge in hers, fear in his, before he nodded slightly.
“I should have called him. We need to talk,” he said quietly. “Not for publication, but he turned out to be right about Donna’s death. Amos Atherton doesn’t think it was suicide.”
Laura hoped that her surprise did not look as feigned as it felt.
“You think she was killed?”
“It looks likely,” Thackeray said. “I’ve got a meeting with Jack Longley first thing to decide whether we launch a murder inquiry. If Kevin’s up to his neck in her affairs I’ll need to interview him as a witness. I can’t get through to him on his mobile, I don’t know why, I’ve left messages on his voice-mail, but this he’ll have to co-operate with.”
“You should know why Kevin’s so distant,” Laura said. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? When he lost Rita, I was at risk too, don’t you remember? But you found me. You got me back. He’d never admit it, but that must crease him up.”
“Laura, that’s psychobabble,” Thackeray protested, remembering the day when he had thought Laura might be dead. It obsessed him like a wound he dared not probe.
“Is it?” she asked. “Is it really? I’ve seen you watching Vicky Mendelson’s kids. Don’t tell me you don’t resent the fact that you lost your son and she’s got hers safe and well and growing into smashing boys. I can see it in your eyes. And I can see it in Kevin’s too, when he sees us together and he doesn’t think I’m looking.”
Thackeray glanced away, unwilling to go any further down that road.
“I’ll need to talk to Joyce too, as she worked with Donna,” he said.
Laura glanced at her watch.
“I said I’d pick her up at nine,” she said. “She couldn’t bear to miss her governors’ meeting, even though it is a hassle for her to get to the school from here. She persuaded someone to collect her by car and I said I’d fetch her.”
“And is this cracking story anything to do with Donna Maitland?” Thackeray asked, hoping fervently for a negative response. Laura shook her head.
“No, except in the sense that she seems to have stumbled on it first. But it is about someone else you’re interested in. Barry Foreman. It turns out his girlfriend is a director of one of the construction companies bidding to redevelop the Heights. And if that isn’t fishy, I don’t know what is.”
“His girlfriend? You mean Karen Bailey, the one who’s gone missing?”
“Unless it’s someone else of the same name, which seems unlikely,” Laura said smugly. It was not often that she reduced Thackeray to the state of astonishment which seemed to have overwhelmed him and she could not restrain a small smile of triumph.
“The firm’s called City Ventures and they’ve got offices in Leeds. It all seems perfectly open and above board, pages on the web, lists of directors. I’m going to call them in the morning and get an address for Ms Bailey. If it is the same person, then I think your Mr Foreman has some explaining to do. And possibly Dave Spencer as well. Ted wasn’t in the office this afternoon but I don’t think he can turn me down on this one. It could turn into a major corruption story. I think he can spare me off flood watch for that.”
“You’re not thinking of interviewing Foreman are you?” Thackeray asked, trying to conceal his horror at the idea.
“Don’t you think he does press interviews,” Laura said, her eyes full of mischief.
“With his innocent businessman’s hat on I’m sure he does,” Thackeray said. “But if you start trying to trace his girlfriend then I think you would be taking a hell of a risk. You’ve already had Joyce threatened in her own home. You don’t want the same thing to happen here, surely? The man is dangerous, I’m one hundred per cent certain of that. Don’t go near him, Laura. Please.”
“I must,” she said. “If he and Spencer really are in cahoots over the redevelopment that’s a major story. The Gazette can’t ignore it. Do you really think Foreman’s behind all the intimidation on the Heights? Is he under investigation for that?”
“Not directly,” Thackeray said.
“He’s not your prime suspect?”
“He was a prime suspect long before the business with the gunman who left his employment so conveniently before he began taking pot-shots at hospital patients. Foreman got away with that and I’ve still got nothing I can pin him down with, if that’s what you mean. That doesn’t mean my instincts are wrong, Laura, or that he’s not dangerous. Simply that I can’t prove anything. I’ll have to talk to Jack Longley in the morning and see what he thinks about the Gazette butting into an on-going investigation. I think it’s a complication we could do without and you certainly could.”
“What the Gazette investigates is up to Ted,” Laura said, polishing around her spaghetti dish with a piece of ciabatta carefully and avoiding Thackeray’s anxious eyes. “But one thing’s for sure. If he thinks you or Jack Longley are trying to cover something up, it’ll make my job of convincing him to let me go ahead very much easier.”
Thackeray finished his meal in silence. He knew that there was very little chance of persuading Laura to change her mind in her present mood. One day, he thought, their jobs would bring them into such a violent collision that their relationship might be terminally damaged. But he had not yet found any way of deflecting her from a course she considered to be right and doubted that he ever would. He watched her as she cleared away the dirty dishes and put her coat on. There would be no way they could continue the argument once Joyce returned to the flat.
“Do one thing for me at least,” he said, catching her hand as she went to open the front door. She put her head on one side, a half-smile on her lips.
“I’d do anything for you,” she said. “Almost.”
“I’m serious, Laura. Keep me in touch with what you’re doing.”
“I know,” she said, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “I’ll tell you what Ted says about Foreman tomorrow, and what I’m going to do next. Will that do?”
“I suppose it will have to,” Thackeray said. But when she had gone, and he had heard her start her car and drive away down the hill towards the special school where Joyce was a governor, he flung himself back into his armchair and closed his eyes with a sigh. Laura was like a brightly coloured bird, he thought, and he loved her for her energy and grace and fierce independence. But after losing so much in a previous life he desperately wanted to keep her safe. Yet caged birds, he knew, would only too often languish and die. He hoped that he was strong enough to resist the temptation to trap her and, perversely, that she was strong enough to remain free, even if it did mean that they were destined to live in this perpetual state of tension.
He switched the television on to catch the local news which was dominated by the efforts of the water authority to keep the Beck within its bounds. A glum looking official, filmed standing at the point where the swollen waterway plunged underground on the edge of the town centre was complaining that the channel appeared to be accommodating less of the threatened flood waters that it had been designed to take, and that they would be starting a hunt tomorrow for an obstruction concealed under the buildings of the town’s commercial heart. That, Thackeray thought with some satisfaction, might keep Ted Grant’s troops far too occupied for them to find time to follow up hints of council corruption. He had no doubt that Laura had probably stumbled on something serious, but he fervently h
oped that he would be able to forestall her inquiries with some of his own.
Chapter Eighteen
“What the hell is going on, Laura?” Ted Grant tipped back in his leather chair, paunch straining against his shirt and the top button of his trousers, eyes popping like blue marbles, as he scowled massively at Laura Ackroyd. Laura shrugged.
“What do you mean?” she asked. Behind them the newsroom was almost deserted, most of the Gazette’s staff already rushing out and about in the town which was sandbagging itself against a now almost certain flood unless the rain, which had not eased now for seven days, suddenly ceased. The lowering grey clouds, which meant that the newspaper offices were fully lit in the middle of the morning, gave no indication that any such salvation was likely. And in any case the forecasters were sure that the water now pouring down every deep gorge and shallow depression between the town and the waterlogged moorland above would overwhelm the flood defences regardless. Houses on the west side of the town were already being evacuated and the water board had begun its investigation of the Beck’s concrete culvert, into which several cellars in the business district gave access. Earlier that morning, in the controlled chaos which the newsroom had quickly become, Laura had been allotted the task of coordinating the “human interest” stories which would shortly start pouring in as schools were closed and householders moved out of their homes and into emergency rest centres with whatever belongings they could carry. She had not had the chance to raise her suspicions about Councillor Spencer and his regeneration committee colleagues with Ted Grant, who was in Montgomery of El Alamein mode. Now she thought, it looked as if that particular can of worms had been opened some other way.
“What do you mean?” she asked, at her most disingenuous.
“Why have I had Jack Longley bending my ear this morning about the risk of reporters interfering with ongoing police investigations?” Thank you, Michael, Laura thought to herself ruefully, although she should know by now that if Thackeray set himself on a course of action he was as difficult to divert as she was herself.
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