Father and Son

by John Barlow

  “Yeah, but if you knew about this, why are we following him?”

  “Dunno exactly. He seemed a bit jumpy when he saw my police permit. And yesterday, at the home? He said your dad was always talking about you. Seemed strange. I mean, your dad doesn’t look like he talks much to anybody, never mind the dry-cleaner. So, I thought it was worth a look.”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t like coppers. He’s ex-army.”

  “Really?’”

  “Artillery. He was down at the showroom earlier on. I had a chat with him. He showed me his tats.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Honourable discharge?”

  “Redundancy.”

  “Come on,” she says, “we might as well have a quick look, since we’re here. But let’s not get too close.”

  “By the book, Inspector.”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  They park on a narrow lane that leads out of the village, an old back road that twists off towards the next village, hardly used any more by the look of it. On both sides are green fields, and the lane itself is overhung with dense foliage. The van is parked up ahead, but Thornton is now outside the front door of a large, detached Victorian house.

  From the car they have only a partial view through the ornamental ferns and old, crabby fruit trees that crowd the front garden. Thornton rings the bell and the door opens almost immediately. A woman in her forties appears. Her hair is pulled back tight, and she’s wearing a dark blue business suit that looks a little out of place in the rural setting.

  “Alice Carr, I presume,” Den whispers. “Widow, owns Carr’s Dry Cleaners. Inherited it from her husband.”

  “You have been busy,” he says as Thornton walks inside the house without a word from either of them. “She seems a bit starchy. Not very pleased to see him.”

  “I’m guessing she’s his boss. What’s she supposed to do, throw her arms around him?”

  “Could be his lover?”

  “What’s the difference? She sets her tattooed, ex-army boyfriend up as a dry-cleaner. It fits.”

  “He told me he was starting up the business himself. Never mentioned having a sugar-mummy.”

  “Would you have? To another bloke? Come on. The story fits. We better go before anybody sees us.”

  She starts the Astra. But even as they pull away, Thornton comes back through the front door.

  “Shit,” says Den, picking up speed. They’re halfway up the deserted lane before she can get into third gear.

  Seeing a gate to her left she swerves suicidally towards it. The car lunges up onto the verge, coming within inches of the gate, and jerks to a halt. For a second they sit there, the abrupt silence tingling around them.

  “See anything?” she says.

  John looks into the passenger mirror. “Yes,” he says as the white van starts to move. “He’s coming this way.”

  “Put your seat down,” she barks at him, suddenly sounding exactly like a police officer. He does as he’s told, fumbling with the lever as she grabs a blanket off the back seat, throws it over her shoulders, then rips her police parking badge from the windscreen. An instant later she’s on top of him, her lips pushing hard onto his.

  They hear the van approach.

  “Ignore it,” she says, pulling her mouth away from his, then kissing him again. Her hands run around his head, trying to hide his black hair and shield what little of his face is on show. The van slows, then stops. They can hear its diesel engine idling a couple of feet away. They are locked in an urgent embrace, like two lovers who’ve spent all week waiting for their stolen moment together; his legs are splayed, and she has slipped between them, dry-humping him like a randy teenager.

  “I might need a dry-cleaner if this goes on much…”

  She grins, can’t help it, pushing her mouth down onto his, her tongue exploring his lips with a gentleness that makes him wince.

  A moment later the van moves off.

  “That was close,” she says, as they come up for air.

  He moves his hands beneath the blanket, running his fingers against her spine and up over the contours of her back.

  “What if he turns round?” John says, pulling her to him and letting her chin fall against his open mouth. “We better make it convincing.”

  She closes her eyes, and sinks back down onto him.

  How long are they there? Hard to say. They’re both lost in separate reveries, bitter, regretful, comforting… Two people who were made for each other, who knew it and had accepted it. Two people who had hardly needed to express their love, and who desperately miss the luxuriant, everyday normalcy of the life they’d had together. Had it all been a mistake, an exercise in self-delusion?

  No. It had been real. She knows that much. And with a horrible certainty she knows they’ll never feel it again. She can never trust him, not now. That’s what she’s told herself countless times, alone in her studio flat in Salford Quay, listening to the music he’d introduced her to, and drinking the kind of wine she couldn’t really afford, another relic of her life with John Ray. She’ll never be able to trust him again.

  Her phone rings, and they struggle up from their embrace, blinking, as if waking from a dream.

  “Steve Baron,” she says, looking at the phone.

  “No, no, no…” John says, unable to move beneath her.

  He continues to shakes his head violently as she takes the call.

  Her conversation is mainly negatives. No, she doesn’t have the number… no, doesn’t know the address… John? No, she doesn’t know why he’s not answering his phone…

  She snaps the phone shut.

  “What does Baron want with me?” he asks.

  “He doesn’t. He wants to find Jeanette Cormac, who is also not answering her phone.” She spins over the handbrake, using her buttocks as a pivot, and settles into the driver’s seat.

  “This is getting messy, John. You really need to tell Baron about Reid. Like, nowish.”

  She starts the engine.

  “I left my phone in the Porsche,” he says, hauling himself up.

  “Oh, and they’ve got Freddy in for questioning, by the way.”

  “Shit, that’s all I need,” he says. “I suppose I’d better call Moran. Can I borrow your…”

  She looks at him, astonished. “You can’t do this!” she screams.

  “Do what?” he says.

  But she’s not listening. She’s phoning Baron back.

  “Steve?” she says, looking at John as she speaks. “Dennis Reid. Ex-IRA fixer. He’s working for Lanny, and he’s in town.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, there’s a lead. The incident room is buzzing. People staring at screens, then jumping up, bustling across to another desk, clumps of papers in one hand, mobiles pressed to their ears. Everyone is looking for someone else, talking loudly, two conversations at once, eyes darting around the place.

  Steve Baron stands by the door, arms crossed, and feels the adrenalin run smooth and fast in his blood. A man is killed. And you catch the killer. Thou shalt not kill. It’s that simple. The thrill you get from finding a killer is unbelievable. Better than sex. Not that he’s had much of that lately. None, to be precise.

  Five minutes since Den rang and they’ve got Dennis Reid’s file from the National Crime Database, and the photo has been confirmed with the officers outside the golf club. Reid’s there all right. Dangerous bastard. Plenty of form. And now he’s working for Lanny Bride, a couple of days after one of Lanny’s men was murdered.

  Lanny, Lanny… Baron goes over the possibilities again, blocking out the noise of the room as he tries to think straight. Lanny Bride. Get more bodies up to Stamforth. Pull him in as soon as he leaves the golf club this evening. Lanny and Dennis Reid. No fireworks, no fuss. This is Lanny Bride’s big day. The press’ll be there. Better wait til this evening. By which time they might even have something on Reid, something that puts him near the Park Lane on Thursday night.

  DS Steele
appears in the doorway, looking grim and happy at the same time, as if he’s ready to inflict pain on somebody, and the thought of it has wiped away the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours, which have been twenty hours of relentless, unproductive slog plus four hours slumped on the sofa in his terraced house in Beeston.

  “What we gonna do with Freddy Metcalfe?” he says, finding it hard to keep still, pumped up, riding the atmosphere. “His brief’s already here.”

  “Right. We’ll do him now,” Baron says, glancing at his watch. “You and me. Have you read his file?”

  Steele holds up a thin brown folder, waves it in the air.

  “I lead,” Baron says. “Keep it friendly. Unless he starts going, y’know. Keep it calm at first, let’s see how it runs.”

  Steele nods, the muscles in his neck taught. Unless he starts going…

  Henry Moran, Baron tells himself as they make their way down to the interview rooms. That’s who they’ll have sent for Freddy. Moran was the Ray family solicitor for years. It’s the way the Rays always work. First sign of trouble, call Henry Moran.

  Tony Ray hadn’t stayed out of jail all those years thanks to his own guile and cunning. Moran had been at his side in every interview, year after year, always the same advice: say nothing. Interviews with Tony Ray had become legendary at Millgarth, wall to wall silence in the face of police insinuation, provocation, desperation… No one ever made Tony Ray talk. And through all those long hours of silence Henry Moran had sat, expressionless apart from the pursed lips of someone who is listening carefully and dispassionately, rarely taking notes.

  Baron yanks open the door. Inside Freddy is hunched over the table, big shoulders crammed into a light grey jacket, his hair the colour of straw, his big face drained of colour, looking scared. But he’s toughing it out. There’s a note of resilience as he looks up at the Inspector. A few months inside have taken the youthful bloom off Freddy Metcalfe.

  It doesn’t matter, though. He’ll talk. You can sense it in a person the second you walk in.

  Baron sees Freddy and pulls up short, Steele colliding with him from behind. It’s not the sight of Freddy that causes the surprise. It’s the person sitting next to him. Henry Moran? No, a younger man, from a different law firm.

  “Hello Freddy,” Baron says, making no attempt to hide his sudden delight. “One minute and we’ll be right with you.”

  He turns and bundles Steele out of the room with him.

  “See that?” he says, regaining his composure.

  “What?”

  “Where’s Moran?” he says, moving quickly down the corridor. “Freddy gets taken in. Who do they call? Who does John Ray call? He calls Henry Moran. Every time. But Moran isn’t here. You know why?”

  Steele plays dumb, knows it’s the best way when Baron’s feeling cocky.

  “Because Moran couldn’t take Freddy on as a client. And why is that? Who does Moran work for these days, now that Tony Ray’s out of the picture?”

  Lanny Bride.

  Steele doesn’t need telling. If someone else is representing Freddy, it’s because Moran knows he’s going to be sitting next to Lanny on this one. Which in turn means that Moran has already been told there’s a problem.

  “Fuck not making a scene. Let’s bring Lanny Bride in now. Him and this Dennis Reid bloke.”

  Baron flips open his phone, gives the order.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  On their way back to the nursing home they stop off at the showroom. There’s no one inside. From the Bose speakers high in the steel ceiling come the annoyingly catchy rhythms of the Gypsy Kings.

  “Great music!” John says with a smirk as Connie appears from the office at the back. She’s in a low-cut t-shirt and a tailored leather jacket that manages to be smart and faintly sado-masochistic.

  “It’s old enough to be retro,” she says, twirling a hand in the air, gesturing towards the ceiling. “You can listen to anything after twenty years.”

  “Even Bananarama?”

  “Who?”

  “Forget it. When did they take Freddy in?”

  “An hour ago. Oh, hello,” she says, seeing Den behind him.

  Connie forces a smile, but it’s directed at John, and it’s not meant to be genuine. She may be running a legitimate business, but Connie does not like the police. Especially on her own premises. And it’s not as if Den’s the first copper here today.

  There’s been a forensic team out the back taking the Saab apart, then more police arrived to take Freddy in. For the last sixty minutes she’s been alone in the showroom, trying to work out exactly how much she’d need to buy John’s share of the business.

  “Hi Connie,” Den says, returning the fake friendliness and resenting the very fact of being here, as if she’s just walked into a part of John’s life that she never wanted to see again.

  “We get any more policía in here today,” Connie says, “we might as well put flashing blue lights on the roof.”

  “I’m off duty,” Den says, looking around at the cars on offer.

  “You people are never off duty. Wait there,” she says to John, as she turns and marches back into the office, a touch of Gestapo in her step.

  A moment later she returns with the silver MacBook.

  “Here.” She shoves it into John’s chest. “Take this. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t want evidence lying around here if the police come back to search the place.”

  John nods, takes the Mac.

  “Holding onto that, are you?” Den asks him.

  “Off duty, eh?” Connie says, running a hand through her long, black hair.

  “You’re right. Once a copper, always a copper. Just tell your business partner here to go and speak to the police. Go on. You tell him. He won’t listen to me, and I am police.”

  “Why should I?” Connie asks.

  “Freddy in for questioning? John up to his eyeballs in a murder investigation, withholding evidence, God knows what else?” Den’s voice is rising, and now she’s talking to John. “For christsake, go to the police. What on earth’s wrong with you!”

  “Let’s go,” he says, already walking towards the doors.

  “Yachts,” Connie says as they turn to go. “Look at the yachts.”

  He says nothing, follows Den out through the automatic glass doors.

  “And another thing,” Connie shouts after them. “Where’s the Porsche?”

  “Doesn’t look we’ve got too many buyers today.”

  “Coño! The place is full of policia! Who’s buying a car here?”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “Sorry about that!” the Inspector says, taking his seat opposite Freddy and fiddling with the recorder at the end of the table. “A lot of things going on at once. Moving fast.”

  He inflates his cheeks then blows air out of his mouth, before switching on the recorder and going through the formalities, noticing how Freddy’s hands are clasped together in front of him on the table.

  “Mr Roberto Swales,” he says, as Steele removes a large colour photo and places it on the table, its bottom edge touching Freddy’s knuckles. “Found on waste ground in a shallow grave, shot, body burnt. His head was smashed so badly that his skull had caved in and what little remained of his brain was mixed with fragments of his cranium. Oh, and a couple of local kids found his nose nearby. Look,” he says, tapping the photo with a finger. “See? No nose.”

  Baron relaxes, sits back in his plastic chair. He had to say it. But there’s no malice in him. A stranger could see that in an instant. A certain fondness for drama, perhaps, but only when it matters. He’s here for the result.

  There’s such a thing as a copper’s copper. But that’s not Steven Baron. Before he made Inspector he spent two years in Professional Standards, the police corruption unit. He rooted out criminals within the force with the same energy and persistence he displays with civilians. That’s not the kind of thing that endears you to your colleagues. Baron doesn’t care. He’s only in
it for the results. All he wants to do now is to find out who killed Roberto Swales.

  The file on Swales had not been as thick as he’d expected. Armed robbery when he was young, and a few bits and pieces later on, physical stuff mainly, nothing worse than assault. He never married. No siblings, parents both dead.

  As Baron sits there, he tries to think of what would flash before his eyes as the final blow came down on his skull: the boys and Stella, all of them together in the farmhouse up near York; an acre of land out the back spotted with bikes and colourful plastic toys; him making his way up the ranks, studying late into the night. DCI at thirty-five, that had been the plan. He used to repeat it like a mantra each night as he slumped into bed next to Stella, exhausted but knowing the best was yet to come, that their plans were coming slowly together as the twins grew.

  Across the interview table Freddy is staring at the photo with undisguised horror. He seems to edge back from it, as if the reality is far worse than anything he had expected. Sometimes it’s the best evidence, undisguised recoil. They’d chosen the worst photo they had, the crumpled head in sharp focus, the remains of a face towards the camera, a darkened hole for a nose, the rest of the flesh in ribbons. And it’s done the trick. Freddy wasn’t ready for this.

  Baron himself is unmoved by the image. He’s seen it before, variations on a theme. And he’s learned to see past the injuries, the screaming pain of death. The only thing that moves him is the desire to find the person who was capable of this, who could cave in a fellow human being’s head whilst he was still alive.

  He doesn’t care who the victim was. The law doesn’t care, and neither does he. The knowledge that whoever did this is out there, probably not too far away, in the midst of ordinary, decent people, pushes him towards obsession.

  Over the years these obsessions have got stronger, more urgent, especially after he became an SIO for the first time. Senior Investigating Officer? That’s what ruined his marriage. He knows it now, although at the time it had seemed like he was building a career, and a life. Long nights becoming all-nights, the boys’ll understand, it’s important…