by Penny Grubb
She sat down in the cramped space and readied her notebook. ‘What do you need exactly?’
The woman, Sheryl Long, seemed to Annie to be eager to spill the beans, but her husband was the one to speak.
‘We’re coming to stay in the area soon, but only for a few weeks,’ he said. ‘And we’ve found ourselves a lovely little spot. It’s a holiday. We need to relax. We’ve had a busy year.’
Just a little too much explanation, thought Annie, but it wasn’t unusual for people to come through these doors with secrets to hide. It was often the worry of personal agendas coming to light that brought people to firms like theirs. She watched them both closely as the husband explained their problem.
‘I took Sheryl out to see the place, just to show her where it was, and she got an idea in her head that she didn’t like the neighbours.’ Ron Long made a poor attempt at a laugh.
‘It might not sound much,’ Sheryl broke in, ‘but there’s something wrong, believe me. We drove past their house and she was just coming out. She gave me this really funny look. You should have seen it. I thought, she’s a woman with something to hide. He’s in it too.’
A glance speared between the two of them that Annie pretended not to notice.
Mr Long tried again for a jovial laugh. ‘See what I mean? There’s nothing in it, but Sheryl’s highly strung. She needs a rest and for her peace of mind, I’m prepared to let you take a look.’
Annie considered. Her initial assumption had been that they wanted a background check on someone, but didn’t want to say why. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Something or someone had spooked Sheryl Long. But, providing their personal agendas were outside the job they wanted her to do, she was happy to take it on without knowing more. Ron Long, she judged, cared more about his wife than he would openly admit. He was looking for a concrete solution to make her problem go away. On the little she’d heard, Annie’s honest judgement was that this was a case not worth taking on, but their current business model did not allow her to say so.
‘What’s your contact with this woman? Does she own the place you’re going to stay in?’
‘No, no. Nothing like that, but she’ll be our nearest neighbour.’
‘How close? Is she the other side of a semi or are the houses separate?’
‘Separate, of course. There must be half a mile between us, but that’s not the point. If you’d seen what I’d seen … what we’d seen … you’d know. I couldn’t sleep at night with them just down the road.’
‘Now, Sheryl, don’t get in a state. That’s what we’re here for. These people are going to prove it’s all in your imagination.’
Another negative to have a go at. Annie, seeing that Sheryl did not look at all reassured, added, ‘Or find the proof that you’re right.’
The comment earned her an indignant look from Mr Long, but Sheryl flashed her a grateful smile.
Pat was right about Mr Long. Well-to-do by the look of him. ‘Let’s say three hours to start,’ she said, tripling the time she thought she would need. ‘Now, give me some details. What’s this woman’s name?’
The two faces in front of her looked blank.
‘Her address, then?’
‘I don’t know as such. I mean we know where it is, of course. It’s just across the fields from where we’ll be. What would the road be called, Ron?’
‘I remember a sign that said Sunk Island.’
‘Come through to the main office. You can show me on the map.’
Annie turned the computer screen to face them and pulled up Google maps, zooming in on Hull and dragging the pointer out past Hedon and Paull towards the hamlet of Sunk Island and the skeletal lacework of roads that sewed an agricultural landscape on to the area east of Hull. They must realize how contrived their story sounded.
‘Switch to street view,’ urged Sheryl. ‘You might get to see her.’
Annie laughed. ‘I’m sure it won’t be long, but it’s one of the few places Google hasn’t bothered with. Even the satellite pictures aren’t that well defined.’ She watched the reflection of Ron Long’s face in the monitor as she added. ‘It’s a good place to be if you don’t want people watching you closely.’
As soon as they were alone, Annie turned to Pat. ‘OK, what message?’
Pat tossed her head irritably. ‘It’s nothing. I thought Barbara said she’d taken a call from that weird woman, that’s all.’
‘What weird woman?’
‘That one with the stupid name. The one who turned the place upside down that time we did a job for her, remember?’
Annie felt a grin curve her mouth. Pieternel? Of course she remembered. Pieternel had breezed through their lives vibrant, forceful; an investigator working for one of the big insurance firms. She’d made no bones about her frustration at having to liaise with the two sisters, but she and Annie had got along just fine. Both Pat and Barbara persisted with the puerile tactic of mispronouncing, or pretending to forget, Pieternel’s name.
‘So has she been in touch? Has she more work for us?’
‘For heaven’s sake, I told you no. There was no message. Don’t you want to hear about Brittany Booth?’
Annie couldn’t help smiling at Pat’s annoyance. Pieternel had really shown them up for the shoddiness of their operation. But instead of prodding them to get their act together, it had united the sisters in their affected disdain for the woman. Annie wished there had been a message. Pieternel had been on the up, looking for opportunities to make it big on her own. She had money behind her and a job that was perfect for grooming future contacts. She’d half hinted to Annie that there might be an opening for her if ever she got a new business off the ground. And Annie had more than half hinted that she would be interested.
She felt herself tighten at the thought of it. Someone striking out on their own, doing just what she wanted to do. She remembered the adrenalin rush right at the start of her partnership with Pat and Barbara; all the ambitions she’d had for the new firm. It could have worked out, but it was too late for if onlys.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you have on Booth.’
Later that night Annie sat in the deserted office. Brittany Booth was not due for a while, so she decided to make a start on her newest case.
A few mouse clicks gave her the address of the property Sheryl Long had pointed out and the electoral register gave her the name of the couple who lived there.
Tim and Tracey Morgan.
She delved deeper and found they were both 40 years old and had a son and a daughter. Their daughter had been living with them at the time of the previous electoral register but not the latest. On a hunch, Annie trawled Facebook. The daughter had secured her site from prying strangers, but Tracey Morgan had a site of her own where she’d uploaded photographs for all to see. Annie flipped through the evidence of a lavish wedding. She recognized the property the Longs had pointed to on the satellite view. The big yard was enveloped in a wedding marquee.
The Longs surely would have mentioned that expanse of white tarpaulin if they’d seen it. Annie sifted the dates in her mind … date of the wedding … date Sheryl Long saw Tracey Morgan give her a ‘really funny look’.
Ron and Sheryl had driven past just a few days before the wedding. Erection of the marquee was incomplete. The bride was hugely pregnant in all the photographs. It must have been a horrendously rushed job to have the yard decked out, not to mention the worry it would become a maternity hospital. To Annie’s mind, what Sheryl had seen was the distracted look of someone with masses to do and no time to do it in. She would take a bet that Tracey Morgan hadn’t even noticed the car drive past.
The marquee hire company’s advertising board was visible in one of the shots. Caribbean Canvas Yorkshire: bringing the exotic to home shores. For form’s sake, Annie took down the details, then checked the Morgans’ credit rating and did a basic finance check. They were neither suspiciously rich, nor desperately poor. The wedding might have stretched their finances but no more than
for many people. They were just Mr and Mrs Ordinary. The facts backed Ron Long’s assertion there was nothing sinister about the couple.
Annie couldn’t bring herself to manufacture more out of the case or insist they paid for a full three hours. It had taken less than thirty minutes to get this far. She would contact the Longs in the morning and see if this was enough to set Sheryl’s mind at rest.
The door buzzer sounded.
She pushed the button on the computer, making its screen blank with a luminous flash. Then she went to meet her new client.
Brittany Booth was a tall, well-built woman with compelling eyes and hair an unremitting black as though it welled from a dark inner core. The light of early evening seemed to fade as Brittany walked in, the intensity of her manner matching her stare as she strode forward to greet Annie, then pitched immediately in on a denunciation of ‘that monster, Walker’.
Annie held up her hand to stem the flood of Brittany’s eloquence. ‘Take a seat. I need some general information first. We must be structured if we want a result.’
It was the right thing to say. Brittany, for all the confidence she oozed, looked much younger than her twenty-three years. She needed a prop as much as an investigator, a grown-up to tell her what to do.
‘Some basics to start with,’ said Annie. ‘I need to see the whole picture from all the angles. Now what made you approach Vince Sleeman?’
If Brittany was surprised at the question, she didn’t show it, and answered swiftly as Annie probed. She couldn’t refuse the case, but Annie needed to know from the start who she was working for and how she should play it. Would this woman report back to Vince? Were they close? Would Vince feel he could wade in and interfere if he didn’t like the way things were going? It had happened before. For all her immaturity, there was something unsettling about Brittany, and Annie knew she had to have the upper hand from the off.
Her answers about Vince were reassuring. She seemed to have stumbled on him by chance. Annie could easily imagine Vince ready to assume Walker guilty and to applaud Yates’s actions, but he wouldn’t want the case. Too messy.
‘Now tell me exactly what you’re looking for.’
‘I want proof about that monster, Walker. I want to see his name in the mud. I want the world to know what he did. And I’d like to see the bitch exposed too.’
‘The bitch?’
‘The woman he abused all those years. Don’t tell me she hasn’t seen the case in the press. She could have come forward for Josh. Look what Josh has done for her.’
‘It wouldn’t be easy for someone if they’d been abused for years when they were a kid.’
‘That’s no reason to let an innocent man be locked up. Selfish bitch. I’d show her if I got my hands on her.’
Annie struggled to tell herself that it made no difference whether or not she liked the client, and it mustn’t cloud her judgement, but she had taken to Nicole Perks and couldn’t help hoping there was nothing in the story Yates had peddled.
‘Yates … uh … Joshua was quite specific in his accusations in terms of what Walker did to the girl, but he never said when or where. It makes it very difficult. Do you have anything more for me to go on?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’ Brittany snapped the words out, tossing her shoulders as though Annie was being deliberately obstructive, and looking for a moment as though ready to fly at her and attack for not providing an instant solution.
Annie wanted to shake her, to tell her for heaven’s sake stop and think. Don’t be so bloody rude to the one person who might be able to help you. She pulled in a deep breath.
‘Tell me why you think the police did nothing.’
‘God knows. Because they’re fools. There’s no point talking to them. It’s up to us now.’ Brittany savoured the word ‘us’ as though Annie had morphed into a fellow campaigner as fanatic as she to vindicate Yates.
‘Can you tell me what was reported to the police about Walker?’
‘Does it matter? They did nothing.’
‘It matters.’ Again, Annie fought down an urge to reach out and shake the girl. She wanted to hear about the supposed complaint from six years ago, but wanted Brittany Booth to be the one to raise it. ‘Come on,’ she urged. ‘If you want me to help, I need to know. What did Joshua have on Walker? Who complained about him? When? Was it Joshua himself who put the complaint in?’
Annie said this more to provoke a response than anything, but as she spoke, she wondered, had Yates known Walker for years and borne some long-standing grudge? Maybe the tale of them being strangers to each other was bullshit.
‘No, of course not.’ Brittany looked alarmed as though the idea was new to her, too. ‘No, he couldn’t have. He knew nothing about it back then.’
‘Back when?’
‘Six years ago.’
Annie leant forward and looked into Brittany’s dark eyes. ‘Tell me what happened six years ago.’
‘The police were told all about that monster, Walker, and they did nothing about it.’
‘Told by whom? What were they told? How? When? Come on, Brittany, I’m going to need some facts if you want me to get at the truth. Did Joshua say anything about this in court? I don’t remember hearing about it.’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
Unexpectedly, Brittany slumped forward and put her face in her hands. ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘I just don’t know.’ She looked up again and Annie read despair in her expression. ‘He was waiting for his witness, for the bitch who never came forward. All he told me was that she had the evidence to fill in the gaps. He wouldn’t tell me any more; said it was best I didn’t know. They should have investigated him, shouldn’t they?’
‘Of course they should. They probably did. But any case of alleged child abuse is difficult.’
‘But surely they shouldn’t just have done nothing.’
‘Do you know for certain they did nothing?’
‘Of course, or that monster wouldn’t have been walking the streets. If they did anything, they didn’t do it thoroughly. Tell me, what should they have done? Why is it so difficult?’
‘Well, OK, in a child abuse case, there are so many things to look out for. You have to protect the child, work with the family, get the relevant professionals on board, make sure the interviews are carried out properly. Then you have to evaluate all the angles. You can’t start out with an assumption that the allegations are true, because even if they are, you won’t build a solid case if all you’re doing is looking from one side. In this case, how could they even try to profile the victim? No one seems to know who she was.’
‘Yes, but once they knew about that monster–’
‘But they didn’t, did they? That’s the thing about allegations without evidence and especially in child abuse cases. There’s a Chinese whispers effect. The police have to take that into account. Innocent before proven guilty. You can’t hang people on allegations. You have to have evidence. That’s where Joshua’s story fell down. He wouldn’t give them anything. Did he tell you anything more than he let out in court, anything concrete that I can use – dates, times, names?’
Brittany shook her head.
‘So there is no actual evidence that this complaint was even made.’
‘Oh, I didn’t say that. Joshua wouldn’t tell me anything, but I found this in his things.’
Brittany reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper which she held out. Annie took it from her. It was a faded photocopy of a handwritten note. The words remained legible but lines across the paper signified that either it had been folded, or something had been placed to obscure the top and bottom. The writing filled the middle of the page; the rest was blank.
The note was dated 6 May 2004, just over six years ago and addressed to Police – whoever deals with crimes against children.
It began with the words, You must investigate Michael Walker, and gave Walker’s address, age and a brief description. This was s
omeone who knew him or who had done their homework.
Michael Walker kept a young girl as his sexual slave for five years. He frightened her into keeping quiet but now he is planning to abuse another girl and he must be stopped. He must not be allowed to look after children any more.
Annie turned over the words in her mind. Had the original been delivered and if so, where? If it had reached officialdom on that date, it would have sparked a response. May 2004 was uncomfortably soon after the conviction of Ian Huntley for the Soham murders when Humberside Police smarted under vicious criticism for their handling of his earlier records.
‘You see. They should have stopped him back then.’
Annie looked up as Brittany spoke and saw in the girl’s face the same expectation she had seen in Nicole Perks, but more intense. The weight of it pulled her in opposing directions. The only way I can help either one of you, she thought, is by snuffing out hope for the other.
A glance at her phone showed her that it wasn’t that late. If she could get rid of Brittany Booth, there was still time to catch up on Friday night.
Chapter 4
The weekend ritual starts early in Hull. A buzz vibrates through the last hours of the working day, sending ripples from the city centre out through the estates and villages. Long before dusk paints its first brushstrokes across the sky, brightly coloured creatures flit through the streets, incidental at first amongst sober-clad workers heading for home, but, like the start of a seasonal migration, gathering in ever larger groups.
Beyond the eastern boundary, the town of Hedon witnesses an influx to its marketplace pubs, the jostling crowd in the Queen’s Head three-deep at the bar. To the west, the student bars in Cottingham stand prepared with Friday night shifts, extra hands to ease to flow.
Within the city limits, the tide rolls towards focal points: the Goat and Compasses; the Dolphin; the Dairycoates. From Bilton Grange and Greatfield in the east to Gypsyville and Anlaby in the west, the multicoloured horde brings life and money as it surges in towards the centre.
