A Dark Place to Die

by Ed Chatterton

  'Hasn't anyone told you?' says Burton.

  'Told me what?'

  'Your brother left Bowden on CS several months ago.'

  'CS?'

  'Controlled Supervision.'

  Koop blinks. 'So he's not here?' he says, feeling the stupidity of the question just as he asks. 'No, wait, don't answer. What exactly is Controlled Supervision? Is he at some sort of halfway house?'

  'Er, no, not quite,' says Burton. 'CS is more of a trust-based program. The patients on CS report in voluntarily.'

  'Trust? Are you fucking kidding me?' Koop's voice has risen and the receptionist looks up. 'You let my psycho brother leave? Why do Merseyside Police think he's still a patient here?'

  'I'd take issue with your description of your brother,' says Burton, getting to his feet. 'He has been professionally assessed as having made satisfactory progress towards full rehabilitation. And Carl is still a patient here. I am still his doctor.'

  'But he's not here, is he?' Koop also gets to his feet. 'And I'm still his brother.'

  'I have work to do,' says Burton.

  'Wait.' Koop rubs his chin. 'Sorry, doctor. I shouldn't be blaming you.'

  Burton nods. 'Carl is fine, Mr Koopman. That's what we try and do; fix people. With Carl his problems were mainly to do with his lifestyle choices. In many ways, all he needed was time.'

  'Do you have a number for him?'

  Burton shakes his head. 'I can't give you that, Mr Koopman. Wait,' he says, seeing the colour rise in Koop's cheeks. 'But I can give him yours. He's officially a sane and lawful free adult and can make his own mind up about contacting you.' Burton looks at Koop levelly. 'Or not.' The psychiatrist holds out a hand. 'Now I really must go.'

  After the briefest of handshakes Burton is buzzed back through the security door and Koop reaches for his phone. He wants to let Keane know just how spectacularly sloppy he's been by not checking the patient status of Carl more thoroughly. Controlled supervision, my arse.

  'Not in the hospital,' says the receptionist, pointing a red nail at the mobile. 'Unless it's an emergency.'

  Koop pockets the phone. 'It just might be,' he says.

  Half an hour later Koop steps out of the Ford. A BMW is leaving the car park and he gets a glimpse of a face in the passenger seat that dings a small bell somewhere in his memory bank. It'll come to him. He turns back towards the office blocks that were a part of his life for so long.

  Only two years but it feels like a lifetime.

  Maybe it's still the jetlag, or a kind of grief for Stevie, but a black wave of depression washes through Koop. What does he think he's doing? He doesn't belong in Liverpool any more. Zoe was right. He pulls out his phone and flicks onto the photos he has of her, suddenly anxious to see her face.

  'Porn?' says a voice. 'Not your style, I wouldn't have thought, Koop.'

  He looks up to see Frank Keane.

  Koop switches off the iPhone and replaces it in his pocket. 'Checking something,' he says. He feels like he has been caught looking at porn. In fact, now he comes to think of it, most blokes he knows would sooner own up to looking at porn than a photo of their wife.

  'Don't I get to sample the coffee again?' says Koop. He points towards the Stanley Road building.

  Keane shivers. 'I couldn't do that to my worst enemy.' He gestures towards the city. 'I'm just on my way into town. Thought we might grab a pint.'

  He doesn't want me to see the crime wall, thinks Koop and decides to keep the news about Carl to himself for the time being. See how forthcoming Keane is about the investigation. Quid pro quo and all that.

  'Bit early, isn't it?'

  'When you're working under The Fish you might as well start having scoops at breakfast. Come on, it's past twelve.'

  'Just,' says Koop.

  'You can give me a ride,' says Keane. 'I'll get a lift back.'

  They compromise and end up in a café bar facing one of the revitalised back-street squares where Keane can get a beer and Koop something that bears a resemblance to drinkable coffee.

  'Any news?' says Koop after they've exchanged some ritual observations about the football, the changes to the city, the weather.

  'We're making progress,' says Keane, eventually. 'Some.'

  'What sort of progress?'

  Keane hesitates.

  'Come on, Frank, don't be coy. It's a bit late in the day for that. You gave me the murder file, remember?'

  'And I'm beginning to think that was a mistake.'

  Koop looks at Keane. 'Oh?'

  'You've been away, Koop.'

  'You make it sound like a prison sentence.'

  'Well, aren't they all fucking convicts?'

  Koop smiles thinly, enough of an Australian already to feel uncomfortable at the easy jibe. He's reminded of his early days on the job, with Suggs and Gittings and all those neanderthals. He isn't putting Frank Keane in that category but it still sits uneasily, just like the free use of words like 'wog' and 'Abo' back in Australia. I'm getting too sensitive, thinks Koop. I'll be buying a bongo and heading to Nimbin next.

  He's about to expand on this to Keane when it hits him like a punch to the gut.

  The guy in the BMW.

  Alan Hunter's hint becomes clear. Track seven. Lennon's vocal as familiar as a nursery rhyme over the swirling organ.

  Mr Kite.

  Koop sits back and lets the song run through his head, the lyrics as ingrained as any nursery rhyme. It's been so long since he's thought about this music. It was 'old' music when he was young, already the choice of older brothers, parents. But it's there in the blood like hymns, or chants on the Kop. Liverpool music. A source of pride.

  But Keith Kite. Stevie, what were you thinking of? Koop's mind races down a pointless and unlikely scenario in which his son seeks him out and asks for advice before travelling to Liverpool. Koop clicks the track off in his head, the sounds of the café and the street outside suddenly sharp.

  If Stevie ran foul of Keith Kite, it's no wonder he's ended up dead. Kite was already a monster when Menno Koopman first came across him. A vicious shark, circling whoever represented an obstacle. Koop can recall his bland face sliced in two by that cocky half-smile, his sharp teeth.

  'Koop?' Keane is looking at him, his brows knitted together.

  'I think you were drifting off a bit there,' says Keane. 'Maybe you should have a beer after all?'

  'Why didn't you say you'd had Kite in?' His tone changes to one Keane has heard before, back in the days of The Untouchables. Hard. 'You've got Kite in the frame for Stevie, right, Frank?'

  Keane sighs. He takes a drink, as much to give himself a moment as for anything else.

  'Kite was in today. He left just before you.'

  Koop draws both his hands down his face, a gesture Keane finds difficult to read.

  'Is he looking good for it?'

  Keane shakes his head. 'You can't ask me that, Koop.'

  Koop is shown to a waiting room situated in a steel and glass annexe where he sits in an uncomfortable chair, watching the rain fall on the main hospital building.

  'Can't I? I thought I just did.'

  'Then I can't fucking tell you, is that clear enough for you?' Menno Koopman might have once been his boss but Keane is no pushover. His voice is loud enough for one or two people in the bar to look in their direction. Keane leans across the table and speaks in an urgent undertone, all business.

  'Look, we got Kite in and we got nothing. I don't know if we did the right thing or if we did the wrong thing. Em Harris was deadset against it and for all I know she was bang on. I quite like him for it but Em's far from sure. She certainly didn't think bringing him in was a good move. I'm beginning to agree.'

  'Was that Zentfeld in with him?'

  Keane nods. 'Of course.'

  Koop looks out across the square which has some sort of modern art installation rotating in the breeze. It isn't very good.

  Keane drains his beer.

  'So what was this little excursion in aid of,
Frank?' Koop holds up his palms. 'Warn me off?'

  'I've had enough of this,' says Keane. He gets to his feet and shrugs himself into his coat. 'We do go back, Koop, and I have a lot of time for you, but it was a mistake to come here, Stevie or not. I thought I might have got something from Kite by pulling him in and rattling his cage but I was wrong.'

  Koop leans his forearm on the table. Something has just occurred to him. Keane has pulled a move straight out of Menno's own handbook. 'You told him, didn't you?'

  'Told him what?'

  'About me and Stevie being related.'

  Keane shakes his head. 'It's not important. I was wrong.'

  Koop gets to his feet and stands close to Keane. 'Not important? Don't come that crap, Frank. You knew exactly what you were doing getting Kite in and telling him about me.' He pauses. 'And now you're doing the same with me. Fuck, man, but you've become one crafty piece of work.'

  'I had a good teacher.'

  Koop and Keane stare at each other for a long moment before Keane breaks off. 'Look, Koop, I shouldn't have done it. If you start fucking around with Keith Kite it's going to end badly.'

  'For me or for him?'

  'For someone,' says Keane. 'Probably me. And that's the bit I don't like. You're not on the force now, Koop. You're not one of us. You're retired. Go back home and be retired. Let us sort out things at this end. Is that clear enough for you?'

  Keane turns on his heel and stalks out of the bar without another word.

  'As crystal, Frank,' mutters Koop to his disappearing back.

  36

  Zoe parks the car in the underground car park and tries to shake off the butterflies that seem to have taken up permanent residency in her stomach.

  Great big Australian butterflies too. She doesn't think it's nerves about the upcoming presentation; she's done too many of those in London for much bigger, scarier fish than the friendly GOMA bunch. No, it's the feeling she remembers from Koop's early days in their marriage when he drew a late shift, or worked a particularly nasty case. The feeling she had almost every day he did that job-swap thing for a year with a cop in LA. The feeling she got when the police car turned into the driveway. She doesn't like Koop poking his nose into this terrible Stevie business.

  Zoe checks her hair in the rear-view mirror and locks the car. She walks up and out onto the South Bank concourse and heads for the river. At a café close by the Gallery of Modern Art, Suze Lee and Tom Auger are waiting, looking sharp, just as Zoe knew they would be. Both are dressed in black and both are nervous, Suze showing her state of mind by talking constantly and Tom his by a continually bouncing left leg.

  'All set?' says Zoe. They have half an hour before the BritArt presentation.

  Suze taps her laptop. 'We're going to kill 'em!'

  Tom smiles languidly. 'Which ties in very nicely with the theme.'

  They have a strong presentation built around Damien Hirst's iconic shark – The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living – which is making the difficult journey from London to Brisbane. Zoe found an incredible photograph of the shark suspended in its tank, the wickedly curving mouth giving the work a sardonic twist. A striking image made all the more disturbing through a few judicious Photoshop tweaks. The neat fact that Hirst's shark is originally from Australia is what made their approach so clever. Tom came up with a nice line for the image: 'I'm Coming Home.'

  'Suze, you'll start off the presentation for Vicki and the board. Tom and myself will follow your lead in backing you up on detail. Start with what we discussed. Go in with the big poster; everything else is secondary to that. If they don't get the references, I'll reinforce them. Tom will follow up with the support material. If they like the initial idea, then they'll love the development and the depth we've put into it. I want them to leave with a feeling that this is not only a good solution, it's the only solution that works, and it's a solution with real weight.'

  Suze nods. Zoe in full flow is a force of nature.

  'When it looks appropriate I'll finish things off. Don't forget, we want them to think of us as part of the team. We want to make an impression, but we don't want to simply suck up to them. This is a strong idea that will work and the rest is just fill.'

  She smiles at her team feeling suddenly very old. They are babies. Maybe that's the real reason I pick them young, she thinks. An image of her own beautiful little Sarah flashes into her head, as she did often, before Zoe snaps her mind back to the matter in hand.

  She gathers Suze and Tom and they walk up the steps towards the gallery to show off the shark.

  She wonders what Koop is doing.

  37

  For the next two days Koop does what he used to do best: he asks around.

  It's a myth that police work is about clues. It's about who you know. About gossip, tittle-tattle, whispers and rumour. Information.

  Forensics, ballistics, financial data and computer tracking all play their part, but Koop knows that to get anywhere you have to talk to people who might know something.

  He goes to Tiny Prior.

  Prior, a dishevelled lump of a man, somewhere in his sixties, is neither small nor, as might have been expected, particularly large. His real name is Bertram which, to the uninitiated, sounds like as good a reason as any for Prior to be known by another name. The real reason is slightly different.

  Tiny has worked the docks forever. He was there when Koop was a beat copper and he's still there now. His current official job title is Chief Foreman of Works with the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, but everyone knows that Tiny's real title could best be summed up as 'Emperor'. He's seen governments and city councils come and go. He mutated into a left-wing militant when that was the way the wind was blowing in the city. He became a staunch defender of the free market when it was clear that the city was on an upward spiral of money and investment. He is smart, he is crafty.

  He is a crook.

  It's this last characteristic that Koop is banking on. Tiny came up on Koop's radar at MIT many times but always, always wriggled free. Koop came, in the end, to value Prior more highly for his information provision than for any kudos bringing him in on a collar might yield. It was a good strategy. Over the years Koop developed a symbiotic relationship: Tiny gave him stories, Koop didn't lock him up.

  There was plenty to lock Tiny Prior up for. He's been skimming almost every day of his working life. Never an instigator of crime, Tiny's genius lies in finding out what crime is going on in the docks – which means plenty – and taking a small slice off the top: hence the nickname.

  Tiny is never greedy – the downfall of almost all of Koop's clients – he's content with his little slice. A lot of little slices eventually turn into a great big pie. Koop knows that Tiny still lives in his council house in Seaforth. He also knows about Tiny's properties in Orlando and – get this – New York. Tiny Prior owns a Manhattan apartment, no loans, no paper trail.

  Koop gets through the gate at the Freeport by the simple tactic of not telling the guard he is no longer with Mersey-side Police. Koop parks in the visitors' car park and walks almost a kilometre to the base of one of the permanent cranes angled out over the river. With some trepidation he climbs the latticed iron stairs to the top and is faced with a yellow metal door.

  He knocks, pushes it open without waiting for an answer and walks into Tiny Prior's kingdom.

  'Mr Koopman,' says Tiny, his accent strong. 'A pleasure as always.'

  He knows why I'm here, thinks Koop. It's not a surprise.

  Prior is sitting in a leather armchair. To Koop's untutored eye it looks expensive. The armchair sits on an equally expensive-looking and richly patterned Persian rug. A low teak coffee table stands between Koop and Tiny and on it is a silver tea service. All of it is crammed inside the crane cab which is probably no larger than a small bathroom. The crane controls are situated at one end with a throw rug draped over them. Tiny's crane hasn't picked up anything in months.

  'Just in time,' says Tiny, h
olding up a china cup. Without waiting for an answer, he pours Koop a cup and waves at a second armchair. Koop accepts the tea and takes a seat. Both armchairs are angled to look out through a window framed by heavy brocade drapes. The view is across the river and to the mountains of Snowdonia beyond.

  'Nice view, Tiny,' says Koop. He sips the tea. Excellent.

  'Yeah, not bad.'

  Koop puts down his cup. Tiny leans forward and places a coaster under it.

  'Teak,' he says. 'It marks.'

  Koop lifts an apologetic hand. 'You know why I'm here, Tiny?'

  'I did hear something, Mr Koopman. Very sorry about your lad.'

  'He wasn't really "my lad", Tiny. Not like you think. But thanks anyway.'

  Tiny looks at Koop. 'Always sad when something happens to family.'

  Koop knows that Tiny divorced his first wife eight years ago and now lives with a twenty-two-year-old Thai girl. He has no children.

  'Yes, too true, Tiny. Which brings me to the reason for my visit.'

  'Anything, Mr Koopman. You name it.'

  'Keith Kite.'

  Tiny Prior's cup rattles in its saucer. 'Ah,' he says. 'I should have said, "Anything, except that," Mr Koopman.'

  'You don't know anything about Kite?'

  'That's not the problem, Mr Koopman, as you well know. I can't talk about that subject.'

  'But he must do a lot of business through here, right?'

  Tiny shakes his head. 'I can't say anything.'

  Koop switches tack. 'OK, let's leave Kite out of it. What have you heard about Australia?'

  'Big island a long way away.'

  'Very funny, Tiny. Australia?'

  'It's hard to track everything from here to the final destination, Mr Koopman. Just because a manifest says Indonesia, for example, it don't mean that shipment ends up in Indonesia, right? It could be an onward movement from there.'

  'Not this,' says Koop. 'This is something going from here to Australia.'

  He's taking a long shot. There's nothing solid connecting Kite with a large shipment, but Koop knows there is one, somewhere. He's looking for a glimmer from Tiny.

  'There's lots going to Oz, Mr Koopman.' Tiny's voice has taken on a slight whining tone. It's time to up the squeeze level.