by Jane Adams
The younger PC strode off, somewhat self-consciously, to join his colleague, picking his way carefully through the broken glass and curious stares.
Rezah and Ellie followed him and stood at the point where the footpath began to curve out of the close, waiting to see what he and his colleague were going to do. ‘Take Farouzi and go inside.’
‘No. I want to stay with you. Please, Rezah.’
Softly, Ellie touched his arm and he glanced down, noting the red rims of the pale blue eyes and the tear stains marking her pale cheeks. He softened a little and took Farouzi from her.
‘She’s too heavy for you to stand with. Here, pull the blanket down, her feet are cold. There, is that better, my princess?’
He kissed the top of Fara’s curly head then turned his attention once more to the activity outside the Pearson house.
One of the older Pearson children had emerged from the house. The boy handed his father a camera.
‘There’s all the evidence you need!’ Pearson declared triumphantly. ‘Get that developed. It’s all in there and there’s more in the house.’
‘Photographs?’ Rezah was momentarily bewildered. ‘He took photographs while all this was going on?’
Ellie shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, that’s nothing.’ Rezah looked over his shoulder at Dora who’d come up behind him.
‘Takes photos of everyone. Probably got us all in his family album.’ She raised her, voice, deliberately, aiming her comments at Eric Pearson himself. ‘I said, you’ve got us all in the family album, haven’t you?’
Rezah gave her a puzzled look. ‘I don’t understand, Dora.’
The woman shrugged and tapped the side of her head with her finger.
‘The man’s one short of a dozen, if you ask me. Him and that camera of his. Takes pictures of everyone. Kids playing in the street — even Lizzie’s two, and they were in their own garden. You can’t go to the shops without him snapping a mugshot, can you, Ellie?’
She looked straight at Pearson and raised her voice again. ‘Some folks are just perverted.’
Sighing irritably, Rezah shook his head. From the look of things, the police would be there for a good long time to come. He felt tired and had not eaten since lunchtime. He slipped an arm around Ellie’s shoulders. ‘Anything to eat?’ he asked, knowing the answer already.
"Course there is.’ She smiled. ‘Dinner’s been ready ages. It’ll only take me a minute or two to reheat it.’
‘Best thing,’ Dora said, and patted Ellie on the arm. ‘I’ll get along inside as well now. See you in the morning.’
Rezah gave Pearson one last long look. He didn’t like the sound of any of it. Maybe Ellie should go to his parents for a few days until things settled down again. She would be staying there anyway, for a week or two, after the baby came.
‘Have you eaten yet?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I had something when I fed Farouzi, but I wanted to wait for you.’
He nodded. That would be nice, spend a little time together, try to relax. ‘And you, my princess. Daddy’s going to put you back to bed.’
He glanced over his shoulder once more. The police were clearing the street, coaxing people back inside their houses.
Pearson continued to rant and rave, though someone had by now removed his baseball bat. Only the camera was being waved at the few people still standing around in the street.
No doubt, Rezah thought, the police would be banging on doors half the night asking questions.
He sighed impatiently. It had been a long day. Now, it seemed, it was going to be an even longer night.
* * *
The man’s hold on the telephone receiver tightened, his fingers whitening with the pressure as he listened to the voice.
‘It needs removing, Jaques. Usual instructions. How you dispose of it is up to you.’
Jaques shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No more. I told you last time that was it. I’ll not do it.’
The man on the phone laughed softly.
‘No is not a word you can afford to use, Jaques, you know that.’ He paused, then added quietly, ‘You’ll do this little thing for us, Jaques. You know you will.’
The phone went dead. Jaques replaced the receiver and stood for a moment staring into the middle distance twisting the large ring on his right hand.
‘Usual arrangements.’ He knew what that meant. He would park his car in a pre-arranged spot. Leave the boot unlocked and take himself for a walk, a drink in the local pub, anything.
Twenty minutes later he would go back, lock the boot and drive away.
Five times before Jaques had been forced to play this charade. Five times before he’d promised himself that this would be the last.
‘God Almighty!’ Jaques swore. He couldn’t go on this way.
His wife, calling him from the living room, cut through his thoughts.
‘Just business, love,’ he called back to her. God, he thought desperately, just business.
Chapter Seven
Tuesday 8 a.m.
This was not the kind of morning he wanted to have.
Mike wasn’t sure what kind of morning would have been preferable, but one where Eric Pearson’s name figured large on the new developments list was not it.
He had driven to work through a chill, early morning haze, arriving just as the sun burned through. Things had been downhill all the way since then.
‘OK,’ Mike said, leaning back in his chair and assembling the facts. ‘So, let’s get this straight. About eight forty-five last night Pearson had a run-in with a couple of the local youths and ended up whacking one of them with a baseball bat.’ He paused, frowning slightly. ‘I take it as read, seeing as we don’t have Pearson resident downstairs on an assault charge, that there was no major damage done.’
The young PC facing him across the desk shook his head. ‘No, sir.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Seems his aim wasn’t too good, sir.’
Mike gave him a slightly frigid look. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘And by the time you arrived on the scene a mob had gathered and was smashing the Pearsons’ windows.’
‘That’s about the size of it.’ It was the other officer who spoke that time. An older man with the slightly weary air of one who has seen it all and now would like to get the hell off home. Mike could sympathize with that. He sighed again.
‘This is, what, the fourth call-out in two weeks?’
‘Yes, sir, but there’s also been a rash of minor complaints, folk calling into the front office or being given advice over the phone.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s hard to say they have direct connection to the Pearson case, but, well, Portland Close. Fact is, sir, we hardly knew the place existed before the Pearsons moved there.’
Mike frowned. ‘What kind of complaints?’ he asked. ‘And why weren’t they followed up?’
‘Because, for the most part, there wasn’t a need.’ The officer shuffled his feet, bored now and obviously willing his senior officer to let them get off duty. ‘We had reports of nuisance calls, usual sort of thing. A couple of the victims wanted visits, but most were given advice, either here or over the phone, or they got in touch with BT.’
‘We’ve been called to Portland before, though, sir,’ Matthews, the younger officer, put in. Beside him, Pendon, the older one, sighed. What was the young idiot trying to prove? Too keen by half, he was.
‘You mean, prior to this last two weeks?’
‘Yes, sir. Domestics, mostly, neighbours complaining the Pearsons were taking pictures of their kids when they played in the street. Or that Eric Pearson made threats if they went on to his front.’
‘The front door opens directly on to the path,’ the other officer put in.
‘Yeah, so of course the kids get close to the house. And I mean, sir, there’s that bit of playground over at the back, but most of the mums won’t let the little ones go there on their own and it doesn’t give much space to play anyway.’
‘I see.’ Mike halted h
im in what looked about to become full flow. ‘Listen, I know I’ve kept you both, best get off home.’
‘Er, yes, sir.’
The younger officer looked a little disappointed. The older looked relieved.
They headed towards the office door.
‘There was just one thing, sir,’ Pendon remarked, hand ready upon the doorknob. ‘Something Pearson kept saying, when we interviewed him. Well, it’s in the report, sir. But he kept saying he reckoned this was all a setup. Said we were trying to blacken his name, stop him giving evidence or something.’
‘Evidence?’ Mike prompted, guessing already what he was about to hear.
‘Yes, sir. Kept going on about the Fletcher case. About how he was presenting new evidence or something and how we were all out to stop him.’ The officer shrugged, grinned. ‘Well, it’s probably all bullshit, sir, but seeing as you’re involved with the appeal, I thought I’d give it a mention.’
Mike nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said, heavily. ‘Now, get off home before you have your wife filing a missing persons.’
Pendon grinned again, opened the door and shepherded the younger PC outside.
Mike leaned back in his chair, tipping it back on two legs, then, abruptly, set himself upright again and began skimming through the reports on his desk.
They said little more than the entries in the day book and what the attending officers had just told him.
Well, there would be no help for it. It was about time, perhaps, that he paid Mr Eric Pearson a visit.
* * *
Johanna swept broken glass and listened to the workmen hammering shutters across the empty windows.
Danny clung to her skirt, dogging her every footstep, his face reddened by tears and his voice whining with confused complaints.
Johanna tried to be patient, telling him, telling them all, that it would be fine. Setting their home in order as best she could.
Fragments of broken glass seemed to be everywhere, slivers of the stuff working their way into clothes and shoes. Into the pile of the carpet, the hems of curtains.
Damn! Johanna thought. It seemed still to be falling out of the air. Wherever she swept, more seemed ready to appear.
And Eric. Eric did nothing to be of help. Just stood in the doorway, watching her work or wandering from room to room, getting in the way. Wearing his anger like some thick, smothering cloak.
Passing through their bedroom, Danny still clinging to her, Johanna paused and knelt down beside the bed.
Beneath the bed was a dark green box file. Battered and worn from the many moves it had made with them, its spring clip was broken and hung half attached.
Johanna lifted the lid and stared at the contents, raised the photocopied journal out of its protective box and set it on her knees.
This, Johanna thought. This was what it was all about. This stack of paper that contained such filth. Such cruelty.
Angrily, she thrust the journal back into the file and, with an impatient little shove, sent it skidding under the bed.
There were others named in there that society applauded. Others who wanted Eric silenced. Frightened away from telling what he knew.
Others who had tried to entrap Eric in their sordid, filthy conspiracy. Framed him when he’d threatened to expose them for what they were.
Anger giving new energy to her movements, Johanna got to her feet and strode from the room.
Well, they wouldn’t succeed! She’d gone through hell so far to support Eric. No way could she have come this far, endured so much, that she could now bear to let them win.
Chapter Eight
Tuesday 4 p.m.
Traffic was unusually bad heading out of town. It seemed to Mike to be just about par for the rest of the day. The thought of finally meeting the infamous Eric Pearson was doing nothing for his patience as he waited in line for the lights to change and the idiot up ahead to remember how to shift gear.
He sighed heavily and adjusted position for the nth time. Next to him in the passenger seat Sergeant Price hummed quietly to himself, tapping, irritatingly, just out of time, against the window.
Mike found himself wishing for the stolid, calm presence of Bill Enfield, his usual sergeant who was presently on sick leave. Price, much younger than Bill and undoubtedly capable, enthusiastic, conscientious — in fact all the things a sergeant should be — nevertheless had this knack of getting on Mike’s nerves.
‘Should have taken the area car, sir. High profile. Would’ve got us through a bit faster.’
Mike shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he acknowledged, ‘but I think that Portland Close has had enough high profile for now.’
Price awarded him with a slightly supercilious, sideways grin. ‘Oh, I don’t know, sir, bit of excitement.’
Excitement! ‘I think, perhaps, the mini-riot we were called to last night gave them all enough of that.’
Price grinned again. There’ll be more,’ he prophesied. ‘You can be sure of that, sir. Got a taste for it now, they have.’
Mike grimaced and concentrated on the road ahead and on some fool in the wrong lane trying to make a right turn. He sighed again, trying to release some of the tension and wriggling his shoulders to get rid of the cramp that had settled there. He found himself, once more, wishing for Bill’s calm presence instead of this cock-sure representative of local justice.
‘I can’t think of anyone in their right minds who would want a riot on their doorsteps,’ he remarked calmly. ‘But, no. No, I don’t imagine we’ve heard the last of it.’
He flicked the indicator, changed down and made a left turn. The traffic here was suddenly lighter, the area changing from rundown, mid-town to light industrial and then residential.
‘We’re just about there, sir. Next left, then a couple of very quick right turns. It’s a bit of a maze hereabouts.’
Mike nodded. It was a bit of a maze, all right. The twists and turns in the estate’s main road, with its branch lines of sheltered cul-de-sacs, seemed designed both to slow any traffic and to completely lose the unwary. He found himself on Portland Close almost before he realized it.
‘Down the bottom end, sir.’
‘Yes, Sergeant. So I see.’
It would have been hard not to see. The tall house leant out slightly from the main group, its boarded windows giving it a derelict, abandoned look, quite at odds with the generally neat appearance of the rest of the Close.
Mike parked a few houses away. There were kids playing football and others riding bikes. Some stopped their game to look at him as he got out. A couple recognized the sergeant and shouted to each other. Curtains twitched. At other windows people stared out openly, their faces interested, slightly guarded.
Mike turned around, slowly taking in the entire prospect of Portland Close. The kids, the parents, the neat, ordinary, corporation-planned houses. Scraps of frontage separated most from the footpath, other doors, like the Pearsons’, opened straight onto the street.
It was all deceptively normal. Deceptively calm.
‘Ready, sir?’ Sergeant Price was looking at him, eager to begin.
Mike nodded and the two men crossed the empty bit of roadway over to the Pearson house.
* * *
Slowly, Mike paced the length of the room. It was a long room, running front to back for the length of the house and, somewhat unusually perhaps for a main living room, was on the first floor.
There was little furniture. A rather battered-looking drop-leaf table stood beneath the back window, flanked on either side by two mismatched chairs.
At the other end, again under the window, stood a low bookcase, crammed with books and papers. There were other shelves standing on either side of the window. Cheap, flatpack units, loaded down until they bowed under the weight of other books, piles of magazines and stacks of loose-leaf paper.
The carpet looked surprisingly new. Corded fibres, already tending to attract and trap the dirt, carried in by so many pairs of feet. The track from the uncarpeted stairs t
o the space in the centre of the room, occupied by two green sofas and three, chrome-framed chairs, was clearly visible.
The room had an unsettled look to it, as though the Pearsons were refugees on a short stopover rather than a large family trying to find some place to stay.
Eric Pearson had escorted the two men upstairs, though he had been very reluctant at first even to let them through the door. Mike figured it had been his rank that had convinced him.
Pearson stood, now, close to the entrance from the stairs, Johanna Pearson beside him. Mike was acutely aware that every aspect of his scrutiny of their living room was being just as avidly dissected by the Pearsons themselves.
The Pearson children — or four of them, anyway — sat, also watching him, in a tight row on one of the green sofas. Mike tried to ignore them all and continued his silent examination of the room.
It was the photographs, probably hundreds of them, plastered all over the two long walls that really got to him.
Hardly family snapshots, these. Pictures of children, of passers-by, talking to each other and clearly ignorant that they were being consigned to film. People getting out of cars, carrying their weekly shopping into the house. Neighbours, just going about their daily business. There seemed to be no aspect of life in Portland Close that Eric Pearson hadn’t tracked. Much of it in close-sequence shots, as though taken on a motor drive.
There was an eerie, unsettling quality to the images, particularly to those shots that Mike guessed had been taken from the back window of the Pearsons’ neighbours’ gardens.
It was, if nothing else, a nasty, rather sordid, invasion of privacy.
The dim light from the two, low-wattage bulbs, suspended unshaded from the ceiling, somehow added to the strangeness of the tableau. That, and the stillness of everyone in the room. Even Price seemed to have caught the mood. He had stationed himself against the opposite wall, standing very still, only the odd, side-to-side movement of his head betraying that he too was studying the photo images plastered chaotically over the living room wall.
Unreal, Mike repeated to himself. The whole scene, even with himself as participant, seemed somehow staged. Part of a performance. Or like one of those odd modern art events. Installations, or whatever they were called, that Maria was so fond of dragging him off to.
