Another cautious movement forward from the man. He’s right behind the girls now. He could reach out and touch them. Cody tenses. He’s finding it almost impossible to focus on the girls. His eyes want to slide up and lock on to the man, but if he does that it will all be over. He makes nonsense sounds as if in search of a witty reply to the girl’s question still hanging before him, but his brain has already given up trying to multitask and is demanding that he stick to one frigging thing at a time.
And then it happens. But not in the way Cody expected.
A second man, as if from nowhere. Suddenly he’s there, to Cody’s right, but in full view of the girls. He too is wearing a hat – a baseball cap – and he too is wearing a long coat. But it’s what he’s doing with the coat that makes the difference. Because what he’s doing is opening it wide and showing the girls that the only garments he has beneath it are a pair of black shoes and a pair of long grey socks, although these are less noteworthy than the part of his body that could currently be used to hang his hat on if he so wished.
The girls yelp. Cody makes a dive for the man, who turns and starts to run. Cody manages to grab hold of the back of the man’s coat. He holds it good and tight, thinking, Got you, you bastard. Got you.
Except that he hasn’t got him. Because what the man does then is simply to shuck off his coat and continue running. Naked except for his shoes and his socks and his baseball cap, he launches into a sprint worthy of Usain Bolt.
Shit, thinks Cody. And then he’s running too. Swinging his guitar round to his back and chasing down his quarry. He is no longer a busker. He is Detective Sergeant Nathan Cody of the Merseyside Police force, pursuing a suspect and calling into his concealed radio microphone that he requires assistance, and cursing the fact that his plans have all gone wrong and that maybe pretending to be a busker wasn’t such a great idea because now he’s having to run and his frigging guitar is getting in the way and it’s his own guitar and if it gets damaged he will be so frigging upset.
The naked man starts up Bold Street, but quickly jinks left into the entranceway to Central Station. Cody follows him down the slope. Ahead he sees people pointing and laughing at the streaker, but despite Cody’s yells, nobody does anything to stop the guy. Cody decides to save his breath and put his energy into picking up the pace.
He wonders if the man is going to head for the trains. How the hell can he expect to get past the barrier guards looking like that? But instead he takes a left turn at the cake shop, heading back up and towards the other exit. Cody feels he’s getting closer, but boy, this bastard can run. And when the man bursts onto Ranelagh Street and hits the pedestrian crossing he doesn’t even pause. Doesn’t even check what the lights are doing. Just powers straight across the road, seemingly oblivious to the screeching tyres and the honking horns and the swearing taxi drivers. But Cody, being a little more conservative when it comes to risking his life, does slow down a tad, does take a little more time dodging the traffic and gesturing to the taxi drivers not to kill him.
And when he gets to the other side he sees another obstacle in his path. A woman. A huge woman. Wide of girth and about to fill that gap between the fruit stall and the knot of people whose eyes have all turned to enjoy the spectacle of the naked man who has just rushed past them. And despite Cody’s calls she does not hear him. Just keeps on approaching that gap like a ship sliding into dock.
He can’t stop for this. He hesitated for the cars, but he can’t pause for this, even though the woman looks like she could do him just as much damage. And so even as he yells at her to get out of the way he is already trying to overtake her. Already squeezing through a space that he knows cannot accommodate both of them.
When he gets through, he knows it has not been without consequence. He can tell from the cry of surprise and the subsequent crash and noise of tumbling fruit that it was not the most skilfully executed manoeuvre. When he hears the shouting and feels the impact of a large orange as it bounces off his shoulder, he is not surprised.
Ahead, naked guy runs into the Clayton Square shopping centre. Basing his judgement on his luck thus far, Cody knows – he just knows – that the automatic doors will choose this moment to close. And close they do. Almost perversely they start to glide together, and Cody also knows that they will be irritatingly unhurried in their reaction to his frantic gestures to reopen.
So he decides not to give them the satisfaction. Instead of slamming on his brakes, he steps on the gas. For a terrifying moment it looks as though it’s going to be man versus glass, but still he doesn’t stop. At the last instant he makes a huge leap, twisting his body sideways to fit between those jaws.
And forgetting.
Forgetting that he has a fucking guitar on his back. His beloved, cherished instrument. The one he bought with a substantial portion of his first wage packet. The one he has strummed every night in those empty hours when sleep evades him. The one he brought with him today because guitars tend not to be police issue and he didn’t anticipate he would end up having to chase a naked fucking maniac through the busy streets of Liverpool.
But it’s too late now to reverse his actions. He hears the final discordant crunching and wailing of his guitar as it is ripped from his back and tossed to the floor like a dying animal flung from the blood-stained teeth of a savage predator. He feels the sting of loss that only another musician would understand, but knows he cannot pause and grieve. Instead, he channels his emotions into fierce determination as he zigzags past a bemused woman trying to sell Sky television packages.
Cody issues an unintelligible roar and tries to tap into his energy reserves. He starts to close the distance again as naked man runs through the doors into Boots. Cody enters too, and realises he has more of a chance here. It is less open. The man is corralled because of the aisles, and up ahead there are people. Staff and customers who could help. Cody calls out to them.
‘Police! Stop that man!’
But he knows. Knows in his heart that they are unlikely to come to his aid. Most can be forgiven, because they won’t understand what the hell is going on. Others will comprehend but be too scared to intervene. A few – the more contemptible ones – will always want the criminal to evade capture and for the police to be seen to fail.
But sometimes there is one.
She steps forward from her station, perfume tester in hand. She takes aim. She fires. A good full spray of the stuff, right into his eyes.
The man issues a high-pitched screech and brings his hands to his face as he whirls away from her. Ironically, he collides with a display of reading glasses, sending them flying across the store, but then somehow manages to recover and resume his run.
Cody issues a breathless thank you as he passes the girl, who looks justifiably proud of her actions. Her gleaming smile renews his faith and re-energises him. You can do this, he tells himself. You can do this.
The flasher manages to get to the far side of the shop and through the other exit. He goes right, then starts up the yellow-edged steps leading to the sweeping curve of Great Charlotte Street. There are a lot of steps, but they aren’t steep, and Cody finds himself gaining ground. One last push, he tells himself, and he starts taking the steps two at a time, getting closer and closer to that man who is not offering him the most enticing view right now, and then he is almost within grasping distance but wondering what the hell he is going to grasp. And when the stairs come to an end, Cody realises it’s now or never because his lungs are about to burst, and he makes a last-ditch leap, jumping and stretching and snatching . . .
And he gets him. He snags an ankle, which is just enough. His fingers encircle that bony ankle and refuse to let go. They bite into the man’s flesh like a manacle. The man falls. A fleshy slap as he smacks into the pavement. And Cody is on him, pinning him to the ground, holding him there while he tries to push words out of his heaving lungs so that he can summon his colleagues, and so that he can swear at this idiot for causing the damage to his precious guita
r.
It takes him a while to become aware of his surroundings. A while to realise that people are standing around him, smiling and sniggering and holding up their mobile phones to take photographs and videos.
And he just knows. With a sinking heart, he begins to accept that these images of him sitting breathless astride the buttocks of a naked man are about to go viral.
4
Sometimes people ask Cody what he does for a living. And sometimes, when he can’t be bothered to give a more precise answer, he tells them that he’s at MIT. The resulting expressions of surprise, admiration or confusion can be enough to brighten his day.
Not that it’s a lie. It’s just that the MIT he works for is not the one of which most people have heard. He is not at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the foremost academic establishments in the world. He is instead at a workplace that even he would accept houses a level of brainpower that is somewhat more modest.
Cody works for the Major Incident Team, which is based at Stanley Road police station – a modern, two-storey brick building in Kirkdale, one of the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods. As if put there for deliberate comic effect, the station sits right next to a funeral parlour, leading the local wags to comment that it’s to give the coppers a fighting chance of finding a dead body.
As Cody approaches the building, he knows she’s going to be there. Not just somewhere in the station – this is, after all, where she works. She will be there, where he is. It’s as if she has some kind of patented Cody detector. As soon as he enters the squad room she will appear, and her attention will be focused on him.
He knows that she has only his best interests at heart, and for that he should be grateful. But sometimes he feels he should take her to one side and break it to her gently that, much as he appreciates the close attention, he would be ever so grateful if she could just back off a little. Just a fraction.
But then he sees her, and all such thoughts run for cover.
Detective Chief Inspector Stella Blunt comes bursting out of the door of the building before Cody even gets to it. A cadre of lesser detectives trailing in her wake, she strides ahead like Boadicea leading her Iceni tribe. She presents an earnest and fearsome aspect, defying anyone to challenge her. She is square and heavy of frame, with a chest like an over-inflated flotation vest, and her greying hair is cut short and parted on one side. No soft flowing locks for this woman. Her clenched jaw matches her body well, being wide and angular.
Spying Cody, she says, ‘Morning. Decided to join us, have you?’
‘I was—’
‘Yes, I know what you were doing. Now you’re here, you can come with us and do some proper work.’
She reaches out a stubby-fingered hand to the detective to one side of her. ‘Keys!’
The detective lays a set of car keys on her palm, and she tosses them to Cody. ‘You’re driving.’ To the first detective she says, ‘You just lost your chauffeur’s job. Find yourself another car.’
Cody falls into step with the rushing throng. ‘Uhm, you mind if I ask—’
‘Murder, sunshine. Our bread and butter. You in my gang or not?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Then get in the car. Head for Derby Lane. L13. Unlucky number for some poor cow.’
Cody climbs behind the wheel of a silver BMW and starts up the engine as Blunt wriggles to get comfortable in the passenger seat.
He pulls the car out. Out of the corner of his eye he can tell that Blunt is staring at him.
She says, ‘Where the hell did you get that jacket?’
‘Charity shop. I thought it would help me look the part. I was pretending to be a busker.’
‘Well, I didn’t think you were supposed to be an investment banker. Why haven’t you changed?’
‘I was about to, ma’am. You caught me on the hop.’
‘You need a shave, too.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Blunt sniffs the air. ‘And have you had a wash this morning?’
‘Yes, Mum.’
She snaps her head towards him. ‘What?’
‘Nothing, ma’am. Just saying yes.’
But he knows his little joke has hit the nail on the head. In addition to being his boss, Blunt wants to mother him. There’s nothing creepy in it. Nothing for which he might need to consider taking out an injunction against her. She just worries about him.
He has never quite figured Blunt out. Not certain he ever will. He has seen her give a vicious tongue-lashing to subordinates that has reduced them to quivering jellies on her office carpet. But he has also come to realise that she will defend any member of her team to the death. He doesn’t know what goes on in her private life. Doesn’t know if she has been married or had kids. Doesn’t even know if she has ever had a boyfriend. But, for whatever reason, she has decided to adopt Cody as her own. He has become her pet project, and something tells him it’s wise not to push her protective wing away too hastily.
She says, ‘What made you take on that job this morning? The flasher.’
Cody shrugs. ‘I was asked. The guy has been appearing every Tuesday, working his way down Bold Street. Seemed almost a cert he’d be there this morning, and he was.’
‘Not exactly what I’d call a major incident, though.’
‘True. But serial offenders like him often go on to commit worse sexual crimes if they’re not stopped.’
Blunt glares at him. ‘I do know that, Cody. What I’m saying is that it’s not the kind of case we usually handle at MIT. So why did you agree? You haven’t got anything else on your plate right now?’
‘Like I said, the detectives on the case approached me. They wanted a body who doesn’t look like a typical copper, preferably someone with experience of undercover work.’
‘And you were happy with that? Doing that type of thing again – it didn’t bother you?’
He knows what she’s getting at. Knows where she’s trying to steer this.
Cody was selected and trained for undercover work right at the start of his police career. The scouts who go looking for candidates are after three things: someone who doesn’t stand out from the crowd as an obvious bobby; someone who hasn’t picked up all the habits that officers adopt over time; and someone who isn’t known to the local criminals. As a fresh-faced young man just coming into the job, Cody satisfied all three conditions. Even more importantly, it was something in which he was eager to get involved. Ever since he was a kid he had wanted to be a police officer. This was even better. This was specialist police work. This was exciting, pulse-racing police work.
He loved it, too. Enjoyed the adrenalin rush, the need to constantly be thinking on one’s feet. At school he had always been good at drama, and this was ultimate acting. This was taking the pretence of being somebody else to its limit.
But it can also be dangerous work. As an undercover cop you can be mixing with the most vicious criminals at fairly intimate levels. And such people are naturally suspicious of strangers. It takes a lot of nerve to stick to the script when your audience is testing you with the most searching questions and accusations. When you always need an answer on your lips.
Sometimes even that isn’t enough. And that’s what Blunt is alluding to. She knows exactly what happened a year ago.
‘No,’ he answers. ‘Doesn’t bother me at all.’
She looks at him again, and even without meeting her gaze he knows her eyes are burning with scepticism.
‘You’re looking tired, Nathan. Sleeping okay?’
She does that sometimes. Calls him by his first name. He finds it slightly disarming. He’d rather the formality was a two-way street. He’d hate to call her Stella. Hate it even more if she quite liked it.
‘Sleeping like a baby, ma’am,’ he says. Extra emphasis on the ma’am, just to hammer home his preference. ‘Got a full eight hours last night.’
A blatant lie. He’s never sure precisely how many hours of sleep he gets per night, but all told it’s
probably not more than two or three. He drifts in and out of unconsciousness, and any sleep he does manage never seems to bring him any benefit.
‘Good,’ she says. ‘Glad to hear it.’ She goes mercifully silent for a few seconds, and then: ‘How are you getting on with that girlfriend of yours? What’s her name – Dorset, isn’t it?’
Cody feels something tighten in his gut. He wants to snap at her, to tell her to mind her own damn business. He has to clench his jaw to stop the anger spitting forth.
‘Devon, ma’am. We’re good, thanks.’
‘Any chance I’ll be needing to buy a new hat soon?’
‘Eh?’
‘You know. For a wedding?’
‘Oh! Er, no. Not just yet. Wouldn’t want to rush into things.’
No danger of that. No risk of doing anything at speed as far as Devon is concerned. Even a brief conversation with her is something he’d have to book well in advance.
But Blunt doesn’t need to know all that. Let her have her rose-tinted view of things. Let her hear what she wants to hear.
Sometimes a layer of lies acts as the oil that keeps a relationship running smoothly.
5
Cody gets out of the car. Sniffs the air as if sampling it for the aroma of blood, the scent of a murderer. The narrow street is crammed with police cars, marked and unmarked. Blue flashes of light bounce off the windows of the houses. Hung in one of those windows is a Liverpool FC poster, while the next-door neighbour displays one of Everton. Some interesting conversations there on derby day, thinks Cody.
He ducks under the crime scene tape strung between the lamp posts, but while Blunt wastes no time in marching off to engage in battle, he pauses for a minute to study those he has left on the other side of the dividing line. He sees a tattooed man with an ugly muscle-bound dog that looks as though it should also have tattoos. Sees a shaven-headed kid who should be at school. Sees an old lady who seems to have neglected to put her teeth in. The onlookers crane and peer and point and speculate. Cody looks for anyone acting just that little bit differently, that little bit more suspiciously, but sees nothing. These are regular punters, here for the show. He could make a fortune selling hot dogs and popcorn here.
A Tapping at My Door: A gripping crime thriller (The DS Nathan Cody series) Page 3
