Doing the Best I Can_A Manchester Crime Story featuring DSI Jeff Barton

by David Menon

  He looked up as Nick appeared at the main door of the house which was down the side. His hair was wet and he had a towel wrapped round his waist. What was it with these straight boys who liked to tease the gay boys? It was funny but only to a certain extent.

  ‘Hey mate!’ he greeted. ‘Sorry but I’ve been running a bit late and I’ve only just got out the shower’.

  ‘Do you want me to take a drive round and come back?’ Callum offered. It was quite a sight for Callum’s eyes and he couldn’t stop them from wandering. Nick had a bloody good body on him and a nice patch of fur on his chest. He couldn’t help but conclude that it all looked pretty good.

  ‘No, no there’s no need for that’ said Nick. ‘Come on in and help yourself to a beer. I won’t be long’. He smiled cheekily. ‘That is of course as long as you promise not to put me in a compromising position? I know what you gay boys are like about wanting to turn a straight one’.

  Callum laughed. He also noted that Nick was being much more relaxed than when they’d met in the pub. Then he’d thought that perhaps Nick was a little homophobic. That’s the impression he’d got then. Maybe he’d just been in a bad mood or something. ‘Are you selling tickets on yourself?’

  ‘Well if I was I’d bet you’d buy one’.

  Callum laughed again. Despite the irritations it was always a bit of fun when a straight man was up for a bit of flirtatious teasing.

  ‘I’ll do my best to keep my hands to myself’ said Callum. ‘Difficult as you are to resist’.

  Nick disappeared to make himself look presentable and Callum took the opportunity to have a bit of a snoop around the place. He didn’t think that Nick could’ve changed anything since he took over the place from his Aunt. Talk about bland. This was retro before anybody knew what that meant. It put Callum in mind of Oscar Wilde who once famously said that either that wallpaper goes or I do. It was like walking onto the set of a badly made 1970s TV movie. The wallpaper that had made Callum wince when he first saw it was all small pink flowers and he presumed that the white background had been coloured yellow by Nick’s Aunt and Uncle who must’ve smoked. The carpet that seemed to cover the entire floor from living room to hallway was the most awful and unimaginative dark brown. The furniture was all dark brown too as if to provide camouflage for the carpet and then there were the plastic surfaces all over the kitchen in yet another shade of brown to go with the fake wooden door covers on the kitchen units. Lino covered the kitchen floor but even that was a kind of discoloured cream. Callum wondered how the fuck people could live in surroundings like this. Didn’t they have any discerning taste at all? On the other side of the kitchen was a door that he thought must lead down into a cellar but then his attention was taken by what he could see in the next room. He stepped through and there, almost filling the entire room, was a pool table. Callum loved playing pool and picked up a cue to have a little go. Then Nick came in. He’d put on a pair of blue shorts, a plain white t-shirt, and a pair of training shoes.

  ‘Fancy a game, mate?’ Nick asked.

  Callum looked at his watch. It was a little after six.

  ‘What time have you got to be back in Manchester?’ Nick went on.

  ‘About eight thirty’.

  ‘Well then there’s time for a couple of games’ said Nick, enthusiastically. He started setting up the balls on the table. ‘Go on’.

  ‘Well alright’ said Callum. ‘But then I must get my stuff and head on’.

  ‘No worries’ said Nick. He carried on setting things up when there was a knock at the door. He looked out of the window and cursed. ‘Aw, fuck, it’s the old bloke Alf from next door. Well next door down the road a bit if you get me. I’ll see what he wants and get rid of him’.

  ‘No problem’ said Callum. ‘I can be working on my winning shots’.

  ‘Yea, right’.

  Callum couldn’t help but overhear what was being said between Nick and this old bloke called Alf. Seemingly Alf wondered if Nick had experienced any problem with the electrical power supply to his house of late. He said that the reason he asked was because one or two of them in the local vicinity had actually lost power for a minute or two on three occasions lately. Nick said that it certainly hadn’t happened to him but that as an electrician he’d go round to Alf’s in the morning and check everything out. Callum could still hear Alf going on about something or other as he let curiosity get the better of him and decided to check out the cellar door again. Ever since he was a little boy he’d always loved exploring in all the hidden places inside houses. It had got him into so much trouble with the parents of his friends at school who always scolded him for disrespecting their privacy. Then he got it ten times worse from his own parents when he got home. He smiled when he thought of some of those memories and all the social fences his parents had to mend on his behalf.

  He turned the handle on the door and was immediately hit by the most horrifying smell. It was like nothing he’d ever known and yet there was a faint electrical burning rubber trace to it. He stood at the top of the stairs that led down into the cellar and put the back of his hand to his nose. What the fuck had Nick got down there?

  Then he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘You’d think you were a million miles away from Blackpool when you come here’ said Barton as he and DCI Wright drove into the posh end of the Fylde coast resorts. ‘All these tree lined avenues, beautiful houses with fancy cars on the drive’.

  ‘You sure would’ agreed Wright who was driving. ‘Except we are right next door’.

  ‘And no sign of a kiss me quick hat anywhere’.

  Wright laughed. ‘They’re probably too posh to kiss round here, sir’.

  ‘You could be right there, Ollie’ said Barton. ‘You know, I have an Aunt and Uncle who live In the south shore of Blackpool in a very nice residential area but they always come to here or St. Annes to do their shopping so that people will think they live either here in Lytham or in St. Annes. There’s such a snob value to the place. It wouldn’t suit me’.

  ‘St. Annes is between here and Blackpool, right?’

  ‘Yes’ said Barton. ‘But it’s like Lytham in that it’s very much at the upper end of the Fylde coast and I don’t mean geographically’.

  When they got to the sheltered housing unit they were met by local Sergeant Reece Evans who said he’d be glad to offer them any and all assistance they required.

  ‘And if I may say so, sir’ said Evans, avoiding eye contact with Barton as much as he could. ‘I know we haven’t painted ourselves in pretty colours over this whole business’.

  ‘Well it can’t have been easy when you’ve had your strings pulled by a senior officer, namely Ronald Hermitage, from as far away as Manchester’ said Barton, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. ‘But anyway, let’s forget about all that and get on with why we’re here. Time is not something we don’t have a lot of and we need to make progress before there’s another murder victim’.

  ‘And we believe that Jennifer Donaldson, or the life she’s led, could provide us with some vital clues to take us forward’ added Wright. ‘Did you get the warrant to search her flat, Reece?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir’ Evans answered and produced it from amongst a pile of paperwork he’d been carrying.

  ‘Okay, thanks’ said Barton. ‘Now before we start, have you heard of the circuit?’

  Evans looked sheepish. ‘Well yes, sir’ he answered. ‘But as far as I understand it, they never reached their tentacles out this way until they needed to hide Jennifer Donaldson away. So it wasn’t like they were ever close to the scene of what we do out here. But personally, because it was expedient for them to use a place as far out as this to hide Jennifer Donaldson, I think there must be at least a couple of officers who’ve made something out of her being here virtually incarcerated except for the absence of bars at her windows’.

  ‘We need to know why she was hidden away up here, Reece’ said Barton.

>   Evans had always fought against the slide towards complacency that policing a low crime area can bring. He’d also hold his hands up and confess that he’d been part of the blind eye that had been turned against whatever Jennifer Donaldson had been sent there for, even though he’d never made anything himself from her being here.

  ‘Sir, you’ll find all the details in the file’ said Evans as he handed both Barton and Wright a copy. ‘But let’s go over the facts. Jennifer Donaldson was first brought out here in the winter of 1997’.

  ‘Just a few weeks after the murders of both Vanessa Hermitage and Imelda Staunton’ said Barton.

  ‘Exactly, sir. She was first placed in the local sanitorium. It’s closed down now but it was a terrible place. I worked there for my first job. I was an administration clerk and I think I must’ve lost some shred of humanity somehow. We called it the cement factory locally. It was the cries of the inmates that seemed to come from another world almost and then there were the screams of those subjected to electric shock treatment. God, that was awful. What they must’ve put those poor buggers through. Anyway, Jennifer was confined there for the best part of a year by which time her brain must’ve been absolutely smashed to pieces. Those who were there at the time say that when she went in she was dragged in screaming and fighting and saying that it should be her father who should be in there and not her. She also kept crying for a baby she said had been taken away from her a few years before’.

  ‘I don’t suppose there are any details about that?’ asked Barton, looking through the pages of the file on his hands.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s all there in the file, sir’ said Evans. ‘Jennifer Donaldson gave birth to a baby boy twenty-six years ago. He was immediately taken away from her and placed with a couple in a private arrangement between Jennifer’s father Mark Donaldson and the adoptive family’.

  ‘The adoptive family being called Eades?’ said Barton who’d finally laid eyes on the relevant pages in the file. He thought this case was like a picture that had been broken into a jigsaw. All the pieces had to be so carefully put together and you never knew where you were going to find them next. It’s like they were scattered everywhere.

  ‘That’s right, sir’ Evans confirmed. ‘Royston Eades was a prominent prosecution lawyer in nearby Lancaster …. ‘

  ‘ …. now why doesn’t that surprise me. The lawyer bit I mean’.

  ‘Until he retired two years ago’ said Evans. ‘They named the baby Nicholas but the sad thing is that his adoptive mother Fay died of cancer when he was only six years old. Now there are rumours that Royston could never accept that his wife had gone so young and turned his anger and frustration on the young boy. Whatever did or didn’t happen Nicholas moved away to Manchester in his late teens and there doesn’t seem to be much contact now between him and his father’.

  ‘When you say it’s rumoured that Royston turned his anger and frustration on Nicholas over his wife’s death, what do you mean?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell, sir’ Evans answered. ‘Physical abuse? Sexual abuse? I imagine it would be one of those two’.

  ‘How were you able to put this file together, Reece?’

  ‘I didn’t, sir?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was all in a sealed brown envelope that was dropped onto my desk by person or persons unknown’.

  ‘And you’ve no idea who it was?’

  ‘No, sir. And that’s the truth’.

  ‘Oh I don’t doubt your word, Reece, I really don’t. I just wish we’d been able to have had this conversation earlier. But everything has its own time they say’.

  ‘Well there’s another conversation we’ll be having which I think you’ll find most useful, sir’ Evans announced, feeling pleased with himself that he may have impressed DSI Barton sufficiently enough to have won him round.

  ‘And who might that be with?’

  ‘A Mrs. Fiona Hastings. She’s the manager of this sheltered housing project and has been so for the last seven years but what’s really interesting about her, sir, is that you’ll see in the file that she’s been paid throughout the seven years she’s been employed here by the sum of a thousand pounds a month that has come straight from the Donaldson family account’.

  ‘Some kind of pay off?’

  ‘It can only be’ said Evans. ‘We checked back and all the previous managers who covered the rest of the time Jennifer Donaldson was there were also paid the thousand pounds a month’.

  ‘To keep their mouths shut’

  ‘I think it can only be that, sir. In the file you’ll find the bank records of all the managers relating to the time they were employed there all of which proves they were receiving the money’.

  ‘Does Mrs. Hastings know that we know about the money she’s been getting from the Donaldson’s?’ Wright asked.

  ‘No, sir’ Evans replied. ‘Not as far as I know’.

  ‘Well then let’s keep that as a little rabbit to be pulled out of the proverbial hat’ said Barton. ‘When she’s least expecting it’.

  The actual flat within the block where Jennifer Donaldson had been living resembled a nursery more than a place where a grown-up human being had been living. Everything was in primal colours like yellow, light blue, pink. There were soft toy animals all over the place including about ten of them lined up on her bed with its heavily sewn pink cover.

  ‘She called them her babies’ said Fiona Hastings, referring to the line of soft toys on the bed. Baton hadn’t taken to Mrs. Hastings at all. Moments earlier she’d introduced herself with rather more abruptness than she should’ve had the nerve to show in her position. She was a middle- aged woman who Barton would put in her late forties or early fifties, with straight down shoulder length light brown hair parted in the middle. She was heavily made up right down to her nails that were painted in a rather vivid deep red and her clothes, consisting of a dark blue jacket over a blue flowery print dress, didn’t look like they’d been bought from a department store, same with the highly polished black shoes with their low heel.

  ‘Really?’ said Barton as he glanced out of the window at the car park. There were only three cars there, the police car that Sergeant Reece Evans had driven up in and brought him and DCI Wright’s car. Parked next to them was a large black Mazda four wheel. ‘Who’s is the Mazda?’

  ‘It’s … it’s mine, Detective’ said Mrs. Hastings, trying to sound brave but clearly not that confident in admitting to her ownership of it.

  ‘The sheltered housing industry must pay well’ Barton commented without looking at her.

  ‘I’m just very good with my money’ said Mrs. Hastings.

  ‘I’m sure’ said Barton.

  ‘Look Detective, I have to say that I’m very uncomfortable with us being in Jennifer’s home here without her knowledge’.

  ‘Oh really? Unfamiliar with the nature of police work then, Mrs. Hastings?’

  ‘Of course I’m not familiar with all of that, Detective. I’m a law abiding citizen. I play by the rules’.

  ‘So can you tell me why you take a thousand pounds from the personal account of Mark Donaldson every month?’

  Barton could’ve laughed at the way the colour drained from her face as if a blind had been drawn up over a window. It was a classic scene of complete capitulation.

  ‘How do you know about that?’ she asked in a voice that was much softer and less forthright than before when she’d been sure of her ground.

  ‘Well once again it’s in the nature of police work’ Barton answered. Wright and Evans had now joined him. They watched as Mrs. Hastings slumped onto the edge of Jennifer Donaldson’s bed before speaking.

  ‘It’s to do with my husband Alan’ she explained, her face contorted in anguish. ‘He had an accident at work and we’ve been in a fight for compensation for several years now. Mr. Donaldson was kind enough to help us fill the financial gaps which were crippling us’

  ‘So the fact that Donaldson has been one of Manchester’s most
eminent lawyers still couldn’t get you the compensation you’ve been going for?’

  ‘Well of course he deals with criminal cases not compo’.

  Barton really had to struggle to stop himself from laughing. ‘You should get a BAFTA for that one’.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well it was a very touching story beautifully told but can we have the truth now, please?’

  ‘Alright, it was so I’d make sure she’d keep her mouth shut about everything that had happened to her!’

  ‘That’s more like it’.

  ‘But recently I stuffed up’ Mrs. Hastings admitted. ‘A young man started visiting her. A tall good looking guy in his mid- twenties. She kept saying that her baby had come back to find her’.

  ‘Was the man’s name Nick Eades, Mrs. Hastings?’ asked Wright.

  ‘I believe it was, yes’.

  ‘And did you tell Mark Donaldson?’

  ‘Yes. But he was strangely indifferent when I told him. He seemed to think there wouldn’t be much that came of it. But I saw Jennifer change during the course of those visits. Another side to her came out’.

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Barton.

  ‘She started to seem more sure of herself’ Mrs. Hastings explained. ‘I know it sounds strange but it was like she’d been waiting for some kind of epiphany. She’d often talked about the baby they made her give away. I think she’d been waiting all these years for him to come and find her. A lot of adopted kids do go out and find their birth mother especially’.

  ‘And how did her father Mark Donaldson react when you told him how she was changing?’