Broken Lines

by Jo Bannister

  ‘He was going to meet The Filth – I know. At least, that’s what Vinnie thought he said. Suppose he actually said he was meeting someone about The Filth? This partner of his, that he robbed the garage with – maybe he wanted to discuss keeping us off their backs. Mikey would have met his mate at midnight in Cornmarket. And the man who robbed Mr Kumani at gunpoint, and pistol-whipped Donovan, is a prime suspect for taking the back of his head off with a baseball bat.’

  ‘Donovan won’t have it that there was a second man.’

  Shapiro frowned. ‘Mrs Taylor saw one. Didn’t she?’

  ‘Donovan thinks she’s mistaken.’

  The superintendent squinted. ‘She’d better not be mistaken. Mikey having a partner might be his best chance of staying out of prison.’

  Liz was about to leave when the phone rang. Answering it, Shapiro waved her back to her seat. It was the Scenes of Crime Officer calling in from the Forensic Science Laboratory.

  ‘Something a little odd turned up, sir, I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘Nothing cheers my heart more, Sergeant Tripp, than something a little odd turning up.’

  Shapiro came from a race that used words, that played with them, that wove little patterns with them and took pleasure in their faceted meanings. Sergeant Tripp, on the other hand, was a Fenlander, with roots as deep as the peat, for whom words were a burden. He used them sparingly and stuck to the same ones whenever possible. He was irritated by the mere existence of the word ‘shovel’when ‘spade’was good enough for any purpose. He kept waiting for Shapiro to say something that made sense.

  Shapiro sighed. ‘What did you find, Sergeant?’

  ‘This bat thing. It’s certainly what was used in the attack – the blood and hair on it match the victim’s. And the fingerprints on the electrical tape are DS Donovan’s; but we were expecting that too.’

  ‘What weren’t you expecting?’

  SOCO thought he was being rushed. Shapiro could hear him putting the brakes on: his voice came slower and more sonorous than ever. ‘We did a full surface examination. There were no more prints, the surface is too rough, but we took random samples from the grime in the cracks in case there was anything useful there.’

  ‘And was there?’

  ‘No,’ said Sergeant Tripp with heavy satisfaction. ‘So then I wondered if there was anything under the tape. It’s quite new, I wondered if it had been put there to hide something.’

  Shapiro hardly dared ask. ‘Had it?’

  ‘No,’ said Tripp again. ‘But we found another print on the sticky side. A partial oblique of a right thumb, a bit blurry but good enough to say what it wasn’t. It wasn’t DS Donovan’s. In fact, I don’t think it was a man’s print at all. I think that tape was stuck on by a woman.’

  Shapiro went on regarding his inspector thoughtfully for a couple of minutes after he put down the phone. ‘Vinnie Barker,’ he said at last. ‘Little chap, is he? Mikey’s size or smaller?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, he’s a good bit bigger than Mikey. Almost everybody is.’

  ‘No, not everybody,’ said Shapiro. ‘Just men. We’re looking for someone with a dainty right thumb: a boy or a woman.’

  As Liz thought about it, things which had refused to fit started looking like they might. The armed robber in the garage, so small and slight Donovan was convinced it was Mikey: that could have been a woman. A woman with a baseball bat and enough determination could have inflicted Mikey’s injuries; and he might have been readier to turn his back on her than on another man. He would have had no reservations about meeting her alone at night. ‘A girl put Mikey in the hospital?’

  ‘Well, that’s rather a leap of faith,’ said Shapiro. ‘Though it’s possible. But there’s a girl involved somewhere. Whoever actually wielded the bat, between the assault on Mikey and the thing turning up at Broad Wharf a woman wound electrical tape on to it specifically to hold Donovan’s prints. If she didn’t attack Mikey she knows who did.’

  ‘How do we find her?’

  ‘They’re trying the print against the database right now. We may get lucky – it’s probably good enough for an ID if it’s on record. If not, we’ll have to start with girls who know Mikey Dickens well enough to ask him for a moonlight rendezvous.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be difficult,’ said Liz. ‘Most girls who kissed a frog that turned into Mikey would kiss it again.’

  Shapiro grinned. ‘It’s something else you could try on Vinnie. Is there a girl in their circle of friends who wouldn’t mind getting her hands dirty? He might know her as a girlfriend of Mikey’s, in which case she may have done the robbery with him, thought he was going to give her away and shut him up. Or she may be a friend of this partner of his, in which case her involvement is probably rather more fringe. But she’s the one whose print we’ve got: if we find her we can tie her to this, and if there’s anyone closer she’ll give him up. Finding her’s the key. Lean on Vinnie. Try Thelma too – if she’s Mikey’s friend she’s probably been to the house.’

  Liz said doubtfully, ‘I’m not sure Women’s Lib got as far as The Jubilee. It’s a male-dominated society. Roly wouldn’t take a woman as a partner, not because he thinks there’s anything wrong with armed robbery as a profession but because he reckons a woman’s place is in the home. Mikey’s a younger generation but it’ll take more than one to change attitudes that much. It’s my guess the print belongs to a gangster’s moll rather than another gangster.’

  Shapiro couldn’t fault her reasoning. He nodded. ‘Whoever she is, find her. We need her.’

  Chapter Six

  By the time Liz got to Vinnie Barker’s house he’d gone out for the evening. Liz didn’t explain what she wanted or say when she’d be back, leaving his sullen sister to suppose it was just another bit of police harassment such as residents of The Jubilee were well used to. It was not impossible, Liz thought, that his desire for amominity was based mostly on a fear of his family’s reaction to him helping the police. Vinnie was the black sheep of the Barker household: he was fifteen before he made his debut at the Juvenile Court and he’d never yet done anything they could boast about to the neighbours.

  Instead of going home then Liz returned to Queen’s Street, hoping Donovan would have called. He hadn’t; but while she was debating her next move someone called on his behalf.

  ‘I’m Martin Cole, Mrs Graham – my wife and I have the James Brindley, we’re Donovan’s next-door neighbours.’

  They had met, in passing. ‘Of course, Mr Cole. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve just found your note,’ he said, ‘asking Donovan to call in. Thing is, I don’t think he’ll be back tonight. That’s what I was doing on Tara – he asked me to feed his dog.’

  ‘Oh – right,’ said Liz. ‘Well, thanks for letting me know. I’d have been sitting here half the night otherwise.’

  ‘I left the note where he’d see it when he does get back,’ Cole volunteered. ‘But he could be gone a while. He said could he phone if he needed Brian seeing to tomorrow, and I said sure.’

  ‘If he does phone, let him know I’m looking for him.’

  There was nothing more to do at the office. She went home and fed her own Brian. Admittedly, she fed her horse first.

  ‘Bit of gossip for you,’ said Brian as they ate. ‘We think we’ve worked out what the problem was between the Taylors. Kids. Apparently she was keener than him.’

  ‘Don’t they have children?’ Liz was remembering the mural on the bedroom wall.

  ‘No. They’ve been trying for years. Fertility clinics: every time Pat read of something new she wanted to try it. Clifford thought ten years was enough, that if they didn’t settle for what they’d got soon they wouldn’t have anything at all. Which is how it ended up. Pat said she’d have a better chance with AID anyway, and Clifford left.’

  Liz winced. ‘Bloody hell. The messes people get themselves into! These clinics have a lot to answer for, you know. For every happy couple they present with a squaw
king bundle all of their very own they send away a lot more with their pockets lighter, their hopes dashed and the best years of their lives squandered. I’m not sure the successes are worth prolonging the agony for everyone else.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Brian reasonably, ‘but then you don’t want a child. You might feel differently if you did.’

  ‘There are lots of things I do want and can’t have,’ she countered. ‘Robert Redford for one. Success and recognition for another.’

  ‘You are successful,’ said Brian, surprised. It was characteristic of their relationship that he saw Robert Redford as no particular threat.

  ‘For a woman,’ she countered. ‘For a woman detective I’ve been very successful. Or lucky, depending on who you ask. But if I’d been a man I’d have been a chief superintendent by now. I’d have done Bramshill, I’d have been fast-tracked and I’d be looking for an ACC post somewhere. We all have our frustrations, Brian, the only way to avoid them is to have no ambition. But you have to be able to swallow the disappointments and get on with life. Or you’re not going to have any life worth living.’

  ‘I suppose she’s no choice now,’ said Brian. ‘Pat, I mean. Whatever chance remained, I guess it went when Clifford did.’

  ‘When I was at the house,’ said Liz, ‘she was redecorating a bedroom. A nursery. I thought she must have finished with it – the kids were old enough to want something more grown-up now. But that wasn’t it, was it? She was kissing her hopes goodbye.’

  ‘She asked after Donovan,’ said Brian.

  ‘Did she?’ It took Liz a moment to think why. ‘Maybe she’s feeling a bit guilty. I took him along when I went to see her but she wouldn’t talk to him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Painful memories, I suppose. The last time she saw him she was very, very scared.’

  ‘That wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘She doesn’t think it was. It’s more – If somebody tried drowning you in champagne you wouldn’t blame Dom Perignon. But you still wouldn’t fancy champagne for a while.’

  Much later the phone went again; again it was Martin Cole. But he sounded quite different: troubled and tense. ‘Mrs Graham, I don’t know what’s going on at Tara but something is. There’s a crowd gathered on the wharf, and the dog’s going spare. I think—’ He stopped then, abruptly. When he came back his voice had risen half an octave. ‘They’re chucking bricks through his windows! Should I try and stop it?’

  ‘No,’ said Liz sharply. ‘Don’t even stick your head outside. I’ll have a car there in three minutes, until then you stay inside and keep the curtains drawn. Clear?’ She rang off and called Queen’s Street.

  By the time she reached Broad Wharf there was nothing left to see, only a few stones dropped on the quay by people who hadn’t got the chance to heave them before the police turned up. A couple of arrests had been made but PC Stark reckoned they’d caught the slowest ones rather than the ring-leaders. All the glass along Tara’s port side was broken. When Liz stepped on to the deck she could feel a quiver in the steel hull from the frenzy of the great dog in the chain locker.

  The couple from the James Brindley came over as she was pondering what to do. Lucy Cole was a tiny, waif-like woman in her mid-twenties who wore long skirts and illustrated children’s books. ‘He can’t stay here now. What if they come back?’

  Privately Liz thought Brian Boru was more than a match for any mob that wasn’t armed with bazookas, and anyway she wasn’t going to be the one to open the door. ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘We’ll take him home with us,’ decided Lucy. She might have been talking about a stray kitten rather than five stone of teeth and muscles.

  Liz was going to protest but Martin Cole shook his head. ‘Everything on four legs adores Lucy. She treats them like pets so that’s how they behave. She’s had a meaningful relationship with a wharf-rat before now.’

  As they spoke the barking stopped as if a tap had been turned and Lucy emerged from the chain-locker with the great black dog gambolling and fawning at her heels. ‘Poor boy,’ she murmured, and his tongue fell out the side of his face.

  Liz shook her head in wonder, and Jim Stark grinned. ‘Donovan always says he’s an old softy really.’

  ‘That might be what Donovan says,’ said Liz, ‘but you’ll notice that what he uses for a lead is a length of chain you could tow this barge with.’

  It was too late to get a glazier out. Stark arranged to make Tara secure with plywood while Liz went round to Shapiro’s house.

  Following the divorce he’d moved into a terrace of old stone cottages behind the castle. They had mullioned windows and little porches, and narrow front gardens down to a gate in the picket fence.

  She’d phoned ahead so he was waiting for her, wrapped in a tartan wool dressing-gown like one of Lucy Cole’s illustrations. ‘I don’t like the way this is shaping up.’

  ‘That’s why I thought I’d better get you out of bed.’

  It wasn’t the most serious incident of public disorder either had ever dealt with. But more important than a few broken windows on a narrow boat were the implications.

  ‘They’re blaming Donovan for what happened to Mikey.’

  Liz shrugged. ‘Somebody’s gone to a lot of trouble to make sure they do. They’d have to be pretty dim not to have put it together by now.’

  ‘Who was behind it? Vinnie Barker?’

  ‘No way. He probably went along with it – that’s probably where he was when I went to his house, out with his mates gathering missiles and Dutch courage – but it wouldn’t occur to him to organize something like that.’

  ‘Roly, then.’

  ‘According to his mum he’s spending all his time at the hospital. More likely friends of his, out to show some solidarity.’

  ‘By heaving bricks through Donovan’s windows.’

  Liz grimaced. ‘That may not be what they went there for. I think we should be glad Donovan wasn’t home tonight.’

  ‘He can’t ride his bike round East Anglia forever. Tomorrow or the next day he’ll be back, and he’ll walk into a lot of bad feeling he’s not expecting. Maybe I should put the number of the bike on the wire so anyone seeing him can warn him what’s happened. He doesn’t have to go home, particularly if he knows the dog’s being cared for; he can go straight to Queen’s Street.’

  ‘Do you really think they’d take a swing at him?’

  Shapiro gave a tartan shrug. ‘They didn’t find those bricks lying around on Broad Wharf, they armed themselves before they went. When they were still expecting to find him on board.’

  ‘Then they think he’s guilty.’

  ‘It’s a reasonable conclusion. On the evidence we have, the question is why we don’t believe he’s guilty.’

  ‘But we don’t,’ said Liz. ‘Do we?’

  ‘It’s getting harder,’ admitted Shapiro. ‘But even if you forget that this is a man we know, that we don’t think would behave that way, you’re left with two good arguments against. All the things that don’t fit, and all the things that fit too well.’

  ‘What if we’re wrong?’ asked Liz softly.

  ‘If we’re wrong, I will throw every book I possess at him, starting with Archbold and proceeding in diminishing order of size to The Politician’s Guide to Ethics.’

  Donovan rode through the dark and the intermittent flare of headlights until the gauge showed he was low on petrol. He found an all-night garage and then rode some more. The miles and the hours hummed past. At some point the traffic thinned to a hard core of long-distance lorries and the occasional utility vehicle; sometime after that he started seeing milkmen. He had only a vague idea where he was. The silent villages hardly impinged on his consciousness, and even small towns came and went in a handful of junctions where nothing challenged his right of way. He wouldn’t have been amazed to see either Brighton Pavilion or Blackpool Tower twinkling at him out of the night.

  It wasn’t that he was going anywhere. It wasn’t even that he needed
time to think; in fact, riding his bike was an antidote to the unproductive merry-go-round thinking that swamped his head. At home, trying to read, trying to watch television, trying to catch up on the maintenance that was a constant factor in owning an elderly boat, so worried that nothing from outside the claustrophobic triangle of Broad Wharf, The Jubilee and Cornmarket could reach him, so full of resentment he wanted to fight with the very people – the only people – who could help, the hours would have dragged and each one brought him closer to an indiscretion that would finally nail the lid on his career. On the open road they flew by, and if he achieved nothing for all the miles he covered at least he wasn’t making things worse.

  By degrees, though, the darkness, the cold and the freedom from thought instilled the beginnings of calm in his mind, and calm was a foundation on which useful things could be constructed. He found himself considering, with a detachment he had not been capable of before, whether this flight into the dark – which had been necessary and therapeutic when he embarked on it – hadn’t by now achieved all it was going to. He had never fled his enemies in the past and would not have people think he was running away now. On top of which, the only place any of this could be resolved was back in Castlemere. He had friends there as well as enemies; and even if he hadn’t, he had work to do there.

  The first time he saw a signpost to anywhere he recognized, he turned for home.

  Chapter Seven

  Early in the New Year six-thirty in the morning seems like the middle of the night. It’s pitch black and the coldest part of the day. Even in built-up areas the streets are virtually empty; and the curtained windows of the houses are dark. At six-thirty this January morning in Castle Place it was as if the Martians had landed, and the only person who hadn’t been told was Muriel Watkins.