No Questions Asked

by Menon, David

  ‘Thanks for all of that’ said Jeff. He couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward. It was true that he’d been denying to himself his feelings for Rebecca for a long time but it wasn’t like flicking a switch. They still had to work together after all and his instincts were still telling him to be cautious.

  ‘Those prawns look lovely’ said Rebecca. ’And so do the burgers. You’re obviously not a bad cook’.

  ‘Didn’t you already know that, DI Stockton?’ he teased.

  ‘Of course’ said Rebecca, blushing. ‘I’ve always known you’re perfect at everything, detective superintendent Barton’.

  ‘That’s what I like to hear’.

  ‘I know we shouldn’t really talk shop this afternoon but Joe Briers?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Well I’m still getting my head round the fact that he was driven so crazy with resentment over his wife refusing him access to his daughter that he executed those members of the Gorton boys and Melanie Patterson’.

  ‘Well I hope his wife is pleased with herself knowing what her petty little power games led to’ said Jeff. ‘But she’s not the first and she won’t be the last. You can be sure of that’.

  ‘Jeff, I’m really glad that I did the right thing coming over here today’.

  ‘Becky, I’ve been abysmally slow on the uptake’ Jeff confessed. ‘And I’m sorry for that. But yeah, you did the right thing’.

  ‘I just want to say though, Jeff. Well, I just want to ask you really’.

  ‘Ask me what?’

  ‘Well you won’t just play along with me, will you? I mean, you won’t mess with my head like that?’

  ‘No, Becky’ said Jeff. ‘I’d never do that to you’.

  Rebecca smiled. ‘Thanks. Now, where’s that red wine?’

  Lucy and Jeff Barton’s sister Annabel fell into a comfortable friendship almost as soon as they’d been introduced. Jeff thought it was great that his sister would already have a friend on the street when she moved in and he walked over to the corner of the garden where they were sat together bonding over a bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc.

  ‘You girls look like you’re stirring a witch’s cauldron over here’ he joked.

  ‘No we’re saving that until Debbie gets here’ said Lucy.

  Jeff tut-tutted. He knew there was no love lost between those two. ‘Naughty’.

  ‘No, truthful’ said Lucy. ‘But we were actually talking about the only fit looking single man on the street’.

  ‘Oh and who’s that?’

  Lucy stuck her tongue out at him. ‘Not you, so don’t flatter yourself’.

  ‘Ooh you’re so wounding. I’m off to cook some more sausages’.

  ‘Were you ever interested in my brother?’ Annabel asked after Jeff had gone back to the barbecue.

  ‘I was, yeah’ Lucy admitted whilst she checked her phone for text messages. The mother of her son Bradley’s friend Luke had telephoned her earlier to say that Bradley would have to catch the bus home but that she’d see him on to it. Then Bradley had sent her a text an hour ago saying he was on the bus and on his way. She’d sent him one back telling him to come straight to Jeff’s barbecue. He should’ve been here ages ago. She sent him another text asking where he’d got to but she hadn’t had a reply to that one. It was unusual for Bradley. He was normally pretty good at returning texts. ‘I thought that maybe one single family and another would find their way somehow to something. I’ve always fancied Jeff but I think it was another case of me being lost in my own little dream. It’s always been like that with me and, you see. I just take whatever I can when I can and I don’t delude myself anymore that I’ll ever be happy’.

  ‘You can’t know that for sure, Lucy’.

  ‘Oh I can, believe me. If past experience is anything to go by’.

  ‘I take it you and this Debbie are not bosom pals?’

  ‘She’s the most Stepford of all the Stepford wives’ said Lucy, helped along in her revelations by another gulp of wine. ‘She’s smug. She definitely looks down on me like she’s just stepped in me but then they’re all like that round here. I’m definitely the outsider’.

  ‘God, they all sound delightful’.

  ‘Oh they piss me off the lot of them’ said Lucy. ‘They’ve all been lucky and found someone who wanted to share their life with them. But I’ve never even come close to that. I don’t really know anything about looking after a husband because I’ve never had one to look after. I’ve been good at having fun with other peoples but I’ve never had one of my own’.

  Annabel laughed. ‘You terror! That’s how I lost my ex-husband’.

  ‘Oh look I’m sorry, I … ‘

  ‘ … don’t be, don’t be, I’m not going to judge you. Especially as I’m now doing the same with someone else’s husband’.

  ‘Getting your own back?’

  ‘Not really’ said Annabel who felt a little twitch down below when she thought of her lover Dermot. How was she going to manage her relationship with him after she moved down to Manchester? ‘I fancy the arse off him and the sex is fantastic’.

  ‘Same as me and mine there’ said Lucy. ‘I just wish it could go further, you know?’

  ‘Oh Lucy, love’ said Annabel who sympathized with her new best friend. Lucy was such a pretty girl and yet so lonely and in need. ‘What about Bradley’s father? What happened there?’

  ‘He’s the same married guy I’m seeing now’ Lucy revealed.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes. We had an affair a few years ago. It finished because he was getting guilty about his wife. We lost touch and then years later our paths crossed again and we couldn’t stop ourselves’.

  ‘Does he know that Bradley is his son?’

  ‘No’ said Lucy. ‘That’s a little bomb I haven’t detonated yet’.

  When Debbie arrived with Gary they were holding hands as they walked through to the back garden. Debbie made straight for Lucy after telling Gary once again not to have a beer.

  ‘Lucy, I noticed that your lounge curtains aren’t quite closing at the top in the middle’ said Debbie, her face full of fake concern. ‘And since you’re only renting the property and not actually owning it I sent an email to Brian and Isobel in Dubai to explain that you’d be getting in touch about repairs’.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘Well I thought I’d save you the job’.

  ‘But do you walk down the street looking at everyone else’s curtains?’

  ‘Well no but then they all own their properties so it’s their business’.

  ‘You never miss a bloody trick, do you?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Don’t play the innocent. I just feel sorry that you feel you have to pick on me in order to feel better about yourself’.

  ‘This conversation is over’.

  ‘Are you pregnant yet? That’s where I can go one better than you because I’ve got my Bradley and all you’ve got are negative test results’.

  Although Annabel thought that Lucy may be going a bit far she couldn’t help but smile. This Debbie woman obviously really got to her.

  ‘Watch your mouth lady’.

  Lucy stood and squared up to her adversary. ‘Why? What are you going to do if I don’t?’

  ‘Ladies, please’ said Jeff. ‘Come on now, everyone is here just to enjoy the afternoon’.

  ‘I’ve got more dignity than to get into a fight with you’ said Debbie, ignoring Jeff’s plea.

  ‘You may have dignity but you still haven’t got a baby’ Lucy snarled.

  ‘Oh you really are low’ said Debbie who was so frustrated that she felt like crying. She didn’t want to give this common tart the satisfaction.

  ‘And it’s my business to sort any repairs out with my landlord’ said Lucy, emphatically. God, she hated this sanctimonious cow. ‘And you only contacted them to make me feel small and not as good as you and everyone else’.

  ‘Well you’re really showing off your common sid
e now aren’t you’ said Debbie. She glanced round. They were playing to an audience. The garden was full of Jeff’s neighbours and they were now being treated to a show. ‘What do you know about fitting into an area of decent people like this?’

  ‘I know that your husband has got a scar just above his groin. Is that where you cut his balls off years ago?’

  Debbie was about to lunge for Lucy with her fists when Rebecca grabbed her from behind and pulled her away.

  ‘I think you’d better go home and calm down, sweetheart’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Me? I’m being asked to leave? I’m not the street bike here!’

  ‘Debbie, come on we’re going home where we can talk’ said Gary who couldn’t believe what had just played out. Lucy had outed their affair and it was going to drive Debbie crazy.

  Annabel then pulled Lucy back from going for Debbie and Gary took hold of Debbie’s arm and told her they were leaving. Debbie screamed for Gary to let go and take his hand off her. She said he disgusted her but it only made him grip her arm tighter. Jeff shook his head in mild amusement at what was happening but was wondering where Toby and the boys had got to. He decided that if they weren’t back soon he’d call Lewis on his mobile to see where they’d got to.

  ‘Jeff?’ Debbie appealed. ‘Are you really taking her side over me?’

  ‘Go home and calm down, Debbie’ said Jeff who knew that Debbie had been in full provocation mode towards Lucy who’d fallen for it good and proper. ‘I’ll see you later’.

  At that moment the front door burst open and Seamus, the partner of Jeff’s brother Lewis, almost fell into the house out of breath.

  ‘Seamus?’ said Jeff. ‘What’s wrong? Where’s Toby and the others?’

  ‘They’re following. Toby is pretty upset’.

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘We took the long way back from the park’ Seamus began to explain once he’d got most of his breath back. ‘Through the woods and that’s where we found the body. It’s of a child, Jeff. Toby found it. That’s why he’s so upset’.

  ‘Oh my God’ said Annabel as everyone else gasped and sighed. ‘Poor little Toby’.

  ‘You’d better come with me, Jeff’.

  ‘I’ll come too’ said Rebecca.

  Jeff asked Annabel to look after things at the house and told her he’d call when he knew anything whilst Rebecca called the incident in and asked control to send a team to the woods. Then the two of them went with Seamus and once they were a little way down the street, Seamus turned to Jeff and said ‘I didn’t like to say in there with all the folks listening and all, Jeff, especially Lucy’.

  ‘Why? What’s Lucy got to with this?’

  ‘The body we found … well its Bradley, Jeff. It’s Lucy’s son Bradley’.

  TWO

  Martha Langton had been born into a family that was steeped in the tradition of the old Labour party. Her father had been part of the leadership of the TUC right through the combative years of the eighties when the party had imploded around the debate between traditionalists and modernizers and her mother had, like many of the traditional Labour women, stayed at home and brought up the family. Martha and her brother Andrew had not been able to escape the atmosphere at home where it wasn’t unusual to share the dinner table with the leading Labour figures of the day. Andrew had since been able to make a kind of escape although not entirely. He’d married his American girlfriend Beth and gone to live with her in Illinois where her father was a senator for the Democratic party and Beth was being lined up to take over from him when he retires next year. Andrew was a college professor who looked after the house and their two children whilst Beth built her political career. Martha was so proud of him. He’d always been the best and she missed him being all the way over there.

  After Martha graduated from university it was inevitable that she’d go to work for the Labour party and after holding several posts at the party’s London head office, her effortless rises through the ranks were crowned when the hierarchy slipped her into the safe seat of Manchester City, covering the immediate areas around and including the city centre, at the 2001 general election. Now she was shadow Home secretary, a senior party figure and being tipped as a future party leader. The only trouble with that was that her husband Nick who was also in the shadow cabinet was also being tipped for the top job. Martha’s father often locked horns with her and Nick over the current direction of the party which he thought was way too modern and too far away from the traditional heart and soul of the Labour movement. They didn’t have the same trouble with Nick’s parents. They liked the way Labour was these days. They were lifelong Conservatives.

  ‘We’ll need to be putting out another statement on the spread of the Ebola virus now that two cases have been confirmed in Germany and another one in Canada’ said Ashley Smith, Martha’s Westminster office manager and sitting in front of her desk. He was twenty-six, fresh faced, cute, sexy even, living it up with his Brazilian girlfriend in a flat they shared in Clapham. He was also bloody good at his job and Martha couldn’t manage without him. ‘I do find it … well more than a little bit distasteful that it’s only when Europeans and Americans started to be affected by this crisis that the international community got into gear about trying to do something about it. It’s like the whole Aids thing too. We only sat up and took notice when celebrities in the west started to suffer from it. It just goes to show that poor black Africans come at the very bottom of the world’s pecking order’.

  ‘I agree, Ashley’ said Martha. ‘It’s an absolute disgrace that makes my blood boil’.

  ‘Well I’ll put something together on Ebola and have it ready for when you get back from the state opening’ said Ashley, gathering his files and papers together. ‘I’ve had your suit dry cleaned and it’s hanging up in my office’.

  ‘Thank you, Ashley’ said Martha, smiling at him. ‘What would I do without you?’

  An hour or so later Martha went to the home office to receive a security briefing from the home secretary Angela Carter after the national threat level had been upgraded.

  ‘Good morning, Angela’ Martha greeted. ‘How’s the family?’

  ‘They’re fine, thanks’ Angela replied. She had a reputation as a difficult woman to approach and was trying to soften her image. ‘How are yours doing?’ she asked referring to Martha’s three young children.

  ‘They’re all doing well, thanks’ said Martha who would never admit in a million years her daily struggle with guilt over sometimes not being there for her kids before they went to school and when they came home. She often didn’t spend any quality time at all with them in the evening. ‘How’s your son settling in at Manchester University?’

  ‘Oh he’s having a whale of a time, thanks’ said Angela. ‘He’s in a flat with a couple of fellow students and he’s enjoying his course very much’.

  ‘He’s living in my constituency, you know? We’ll have to have him round for his tea’.

  ‘He’d eat you out of house and home if you did, believe me’ said Angela.

  ‘You must miss him?’

  ‘Oh I do but a parent has to let go sometime as you’ll find out in a few years with your three’.

  ‘I see you’re off to Brussels for the meeting of European Interior ministers tomorrow?’

  ‘That’s right’.

  ‘And you’ll still be opposing the European bill to combat paedophilia and close down child pornography sites?’

  ‘Yes’ said Angela. ‘That’s the official government line’.

  ‘Angela, this is about protecting some of the most vulnerable children right across Europe from some of the sickest individuals in our society’.

  ‘Yes I’m aware of that, Martha’.

  ‘Well just how can you oppose legislation to try and stop this heinous practice and protect all those children, Angela?’

  ‘It’s not about what you say it’s about, Martha, it’s about protecting the Tory vote from the onslaught of UKIP’.

&
nbsp; ‘And if you’re seen to oppose it then it will play well into the hands of those who might vote UKIP just because it’s got Europe written on it’ Martha emphasized. ‘And you’re using the victims and perpetrators of one of the sickest of crimes to do it. Christ, that leader of UKIP has got such a lot to answer for. How can you sleep at night, Angela?’

  ‘Very soundly as it happens’.

  ‘Is that after all the alcohol you consume in the pub across the road before you finally go home?’ Martha retorted angrily. ‘To support this legislation would be the right thing to do Angela and you know that’.

  ‘Tell me Martha, when your party leader sacked your good friend the shadow secretary of state for education recently and knowing that he’s been plotting with you and your husband to undermine your party leader and set one of you up for the top job, did you feel like your party leader was asserting his authority and making a shot across your bows?’

  Martha could’ve slapped the sanctimonious cow. ‘Don’t try and change the subject, Angela’.

  ‘And would your husband really let you go for the leadership? Or am I right in thinking that sexism is alive and kicking just below the all women shortlist veneer of the modern Labour party?’

  ‘I think we should get down to why I’m actually here, Angela’ said Martha, sternly. ‘We’re both busy women after all’.

  ‘Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for coming’ said Jeff as he opened the press conference. ‘First of all I’d like to introduce my colleagues. On my left is Chief Superintendent Geraldine Chambers, on my right is Detective Inspector Rebecca Stockton and on her left is WPC Gemma Fletcher who’s been appointed as family liaison officer to Lucy Thompson, mother of the murder victim. May I ask you to listen to my briefing and then I’ll take questions’.