No Questions Asked

by Menon, David

  Martha laughed. ‘I suppose you mean Ashley’.

  ‘Oh he’s got a special place for you and it involves a hard-on’.

  ‘Nick!’

  ‘He’s got a crush on you and you know it’ said Nick. ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you sometimes’.

  ‘Erm, what were we just saying about salatious gossip?’

  Martha pressed the answer button and said ‘Hiya! … what? … what on earth are you doing there? … oh my God … we’ll be right over’.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Ashley got home tonight and was putting his key in the door when some bloke jumped out of the bushes in front of the block of flats where Ashley lives and beat him up. It was so bad he’s landed Ashley in St. Thomas’s hospital. And it was targeted, Nick. It was a targeted attack because Ashley said the man warned him that it would worse next time if I didn’t drop my petition in favour of the European paedophilia bill’.

  ‘Christ’ said Nick. ‘This is getting bloody serious. It could be you or one of the kids next’.

  ‘I said we’d go over there and see him’

  ‘Of course’ said Nick.

  ‘So what do I do now? I can’t drop the petition, Nick. There’s too many kids at risk to do that’.

  ‘My more immediate worry is who’s behind all this and why? Someone has to know somewhere’.

  Kyle and Jess had become instant best friends and Kyle had helped Jess by listening to her about her grief over her mother and Jess had returned the favour by listening to Kyle saying how much he hated his father for simply not caring about him and how much he loved and respected his mother for keeping it all together against all the odds.

  ‘Then there’s all the trouble I gave her about Tim Ryder’ said Kyle. ‘Although I still maintain that I did nothing wrong’.

  ‘But you did in the eyes of the law’.

  ‘I know but my own moral compass wasn’t compromised put it that way’.

  ‘Have you always been into boys?’

  ‘Oh yeah. For as long as I can remember to be honest’ said Kyle. ‘Look, what are you doing this weekend?’

  Jess sighed. ‘Well Eva Braun will be over I suppose’.

  Kyle laughed. ‘God, you really did pay attention in history class. Well you see my Mum has found a flat for her and me. It’s only at the bottom of the road from where we are now at my Uncle Jeff’s place and as long as all the credit checks and references and shit work out then we’ll be moving in this weekend. Why don’t you come over and help us? You can meet my Mum and the rest of the family. Uncle Jeff is really cool and my little cousin Toby is fun’.

  ‘Isn’t your Uncle Jeff my Dad’s boss?’

  ‘Yeah but that won’t make any difference’ said Kyle.

  ‘Yeah okay’ said Jess who’d been dreading the upcoming weekend. ‘As long as your Mum won’t mind me hanging around?’

  ‘She’ll be glad of the female company’ said Kyle. ‘What with the live in nanny and housekeeper Brendan plus my Uncle Lewis and his partner Seamus who are always popping in’.

  ‘I know’ said Jess. ‘It’s a right gay boys club in your family’.

  ‘Except for Uncle Jeff who is you might say the only abnormal man in the family by being straight’.

  ‘He must get quite lonely at times’.

  ‘Yeah I think he does’ said Kyle. ‘I never knew his wife Lillie Mae because it was before the two sides of our family were reconciled but he clearly loved her so much. I just don’t think he’s ready to let someone else into his life yet’.

  ‘I wish my Dad hadn’t been’ said Jess. ‘I really do’.

  Kyle put his arm round her and pulled her close. ‘Hey, don’t worry. I’m always here for you’.

  ‘Maybe we should get my Dad together with your Mum?’

  ‘You haven’t met her yet’ said Kyle. ‘You might not like her’.

  ‘Well if you’re anything like her then I think I will’.

  It was almost time for afternoon lessons to start and they started walking back into school together. Jess felt so fortunate that Kyle had come along just when he had. He was turning out to be the best friend ever.

  Kyle stopped to go to the toilet and said he’d see Jess in class. Jess walked on and she didn’t know that Kate Branning was waiting round the corner for her. When Jess saw her she ignored her and tried to walk on but Kate then threw the mug of hot coffee she’d been holding all over her hand and arm. The sound of the mug falling to the floor and smashing into pieces was loud enough. But it was nothing compared to Kate’s screams. A group of kids gathered round and didn’t know what to make of it all. Then the headmaster, Paul Taylor, came running onto the scene after hearing the commotion .

  ‘She threw the coffee over me deliberately’ claimed a clearly distressed Kate.

  ‘You’re a liar!’ Jess responded. ‘I never touched you or the mug!’

  ‘That’s enough, Jessica!’ said Taylor. ‘Now go along to my office and wait for me there’.

  ‘But sir I didn’t … ‘

  ‘ … just do it, Jessica and I won’t ask again’.

  Jess then pleaded tearfully. ‘But why do you believe her?’

  ‘Jess, please go to my office and wait for me there’ said Taylor. ‘Now come on, Kate. We need to get some cold water on that quickly’.

  Jeff went to see John Squires who was being held in the cells in the basement of the station. The duty sergeant unlocked the door and let Jeff in. Then he went back to his desk round the corner to finish off his handover report to the sergeant who was on day shift and about to start their duty.

  ‘Good morning, John’ said Jeff. He tried to hold his breath a little. It was always a bit pungent down here but John smelt particularly ripe this morning. ‘I trust you’ve slept well’.

  ‘Don’t bother with small talk’ said Squires. ‘It’s not as if we’re friends’.

  Jeff took a deep breath before sitting down closely beside Squires. ‘Have you had time to consider your position?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you at least be offering me a cup of tea before all this starts?’ Squires queried. He wasn’t feeling as confident as he perhaps sounded. He’d barely slept a wink all night. He was worried about poor Antonia who’d be going out of her mind. It was bad enough last year when he’d been questioned about the murders of members of a Manchester gang and he hadn’t been guilty then. ‘Some breakfast perhaps?’

  ‘I expect your wife always does you a good breakfast of a morning?’

  ‘That’s none of your bloody business’.

  ‘I could almost ask her to bring one in for you when she comes this morning’.

  Squires was angry at the thought of what Barton was suggesting. ‘You’re bringing my wife in here? What the hell for?’

  ‘I decided that if you won’t give us the answers we need then maybe we can get her to’.

  ‘Leave my wife out of this! She has nothing to do with anything’.

  ‘Well unless you tell us what’s been happening, Squires then she will have to’ said Jeff. ‘And seeing that your new friend Bernie Connelly isn’t lifting a finger to help you out of your predicament then your wife could be our only option in the face of your refusal to talk’.

  Jess was curled up on her bed crying and Adrian was trying to talk to her. She’d been sent home from school but Adrian had persuaded the headmaster Paul Taylor not to suspend and wait for the investigation into the alleged ‘assault’ on Kate Branning just before the start of afternoon lessons.

  ‘Jess, I’m not angry sweetheart’ he said, softly. ‘I’m not angry with you, Jess’.

  Jess could barely talk because of all her sobbing. ‘But … you … don’t … believe me … you believe her’.

  Adrian got onto Jess’s bed and tried to reach out his hand to her but she pushed it away.

  ‘I didn’t say that, Jess’.

  Jess swung round angrily and screamed at him. ‘You said you didn’t know what had got into me these days and y
ou didn’t know how to handle it!’

  ‘A bad choice of words, love, that’s all’.

  ‘And I saw you holding her and comforting her in the corridor. Don’t lie to me, Dad, don’t fucking lie to me!’

  Adrian’s heart broke to see his daughter in such a state. ‘Oh Jess, please, calm down and let’s talk’.

  ‘How can I calm down when my … ‘ she started to sob again and it was making her breathing heavy. ‘… my own father … believes that bitch over me?’

  ‘Jess, you’re going to make yourself ill if you carry on like this’.

  ‘Kyle … he’s the … only one who believes me’.

  Adrian held her tightly with his hands on her upper arms. ‘Jess, I believe you, I do believe you but please darling you’ve got to calm down. I can’t bear to see you like this’.

  Jess put her hand to her arm and Adrian feared he’d hurt her.

  ‘Oh Jess I’m sorry’ he said. ‘Did I hurt you? I just had to make you stop sobbing or else I was afraid you’d pass out or something’.

  ‘No’ said Jess through her tears. ‘It’s where she got hold of me the other day’.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Kate!’

  ‘Show me’.

  Jess lifted up the sleeve of her shirt and Adrian was shocked to see the massive bruise on her arm.

  ‘Kate did this to you?’ said Adrian.

  ‘She said she was going to make my life hell if I didn’t accept her as your girlfriend’ said Jess. ‘She said that I didn’t understand what she was capable of’.

  ‘Why did she say something like that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad’ Jess wailed. ‘But she frightened me’.

  ‘Oh my darling’ said Adrian who then wrapped Jess up in his arms and father and daughter had the kind of hug that they’d both needed from each other for a very long time.

  ‘Nobody is ever going to hurt you, Jess’ said Adrian who was crying himself now. ‘I’m so, so sorry, darling.

  An hour or so later Jess had calmed down sufficiently to be able to contemplate something to eat. Adrian’s other two children were both home and they all decided on an Indian takeaway which Adrian was going to go and get. He also told them that once the case he was working on was well and truly wrapped up and going nowhere further he was going to ask for some leave and the four of them were going to off on a holiday somewhere. And it would be just the four of them. Not even Grandma would be coming with them. He’d ask for permission to take them all out of school and under the circumstances he didn’t think they could refuse.

  Maybe he should’ve done that straight after Penny died but he didn’t and now all he wanted to do was to make sure his kids were all okay. It was time for long walks, long talks, long meals round a big table and time spent getting over the hole in all their lives that had been left by Penny.

  He was just getting his wallet and car keys together to go and collect their Indian meal when there was a knock at the door. He knew exactly who that would be.

  ‘Hello, darling’ Kate gushed. She leaned forward for a kiss but Adrian turned his face away. ‘Oh’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting that’.

  ‘Then what were you expecting, Kate? A red carpet laid out for the woman who nearly got my daughter suspended from school and hurt her arm the other day so badly she’s still got the bruise?’

  Kate held up her bandaged hand and wrist. ‘Look Adrian. This is what the truth looks like. Your precious daughter has played you round her little finger with her lies and her manipulative ways. You really can’t see it, can you?’

  ‘What I can see Kate, is a woman who for some reason better known to herself has hurt my daughter so much. I thought you were special. I thought you might be the one to help me through the rest of my life but I was wrong. I wanted so much for it to be true that it blinded me. But not anymore’.

  ‘Adrian, I love you’.

  ‘Well I don’t love you’.

  ‘But you don’t understand’.

  ‘Oh I understand only too well’ said Adrian. ‘I’ll be filing a report with Paul Taylor in the morning but if you go anywhere near Jess again you’ll be very sorry’.

  ‘Oh is that right? I’ll be sorry will I?’ Well not half as sorry as you’ll be when you discover what happens when someone crosses me’.

  ‘Oh got to hell’ said Adrian who then slammed the door shut.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘A full confession from Squires to the murder of both Terry Latham and David Harrison is rather more than I hoped for and way more than I actually thought we’d get but as soon as I brought his wife into it he capitulated’ said Jeff. He was sitting in his office with Rebecca, Adrian, and Joe. Ollie was finishing off some paperwork before joining them.

  ‘That and the fact that Bernie Connelly seems to have gone to ground, sir’ said Joe.

  ‘Yeah, that is weird’ said Adrian.

  ‘And worrying’ said Jeff. ‘Not to mention bloody frustrating. I want Connelly. I thought that we could get close to finally nailing him with this investigation but he’s slipped through my bloody fingers again’.

  ‘We don’t know that yet for sure though, sir’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Rebecca, his house has been cleared of everything inside it. All of his computers have gone and the house is like an empty shell. He’s made a run for it’.

  ‘But why now?’ said Adrian. ‘Unless … ‘

  ‘ … unless what?’ said Joe.

  ‘Unless he’s been scared away by something’ said Adrian.

  ‘Bernie Connelly?’ Joe questioned. ‘Are you feeling alright?’

  ‘No look’ Adrian went on. ‘Squires said in his statement that Connelly was his usual larger than life self that morning but that by the afternoon he’d completely changed into someone who looked nervous and jumpy. Then when our team arrived later on that’s when we discover that everything had gone and there’s been no sign of Connelly anywhere’.

  ‘It certainly makes sense, sir’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Yes, I agree’ said Jeff. ‘But who’s scared him and why? I mean who could scare the likes of Bernie Connelly?’

  ‘But what if … sir, what if this is somehow connected to what’s been happening with the MP woman, Martha Langton, and the threats she’s been having to stop her petition against that European paedophilia bill?’

  ‘Expand a little on your thoughts there Adrian?’

  Adrian sat up as he warmed to his theme. ‘Sir, Squires said that Connelly had obtained that list of paedophiles from someone working at the hospital. Fair enough, that’s plausible. But they were all ex professionals and they were all well connected. None of them came from dingy dead end jobs before they were convicted. They ended up on the scrap heap but that’s not where they started off. Now it’s long been suspected that the establishment have covered up some kind of massive paedophile ring amongst their own for years. So what if those guys were all members of it? And if they gave the game away to Connelly it might mean game over for a lot of very powerful people. The same people whose identity could be threatened by the legislation contained in the European bill’.

  ‘Sir?’ said Ollie as he came rushing in. ‘Stuart Braithwaite is on the phone. He wants to talk to you. He’s on a mobile but we’re trying to get a trace on the call so keep him talking for as long as you can’.

  Jeff pressed the button on his desk phone that switched on the loud speaker and then lifted the receiver. ‘Stuart?’

  ‘Yes Jeff it’s me’.

  ‘Stuart, where the hell are you?’

  ‘I didn’t have anything to do with Bradley’s murder, Jeff’.

  ‘And I believe you’ said Jeff.

  ‘I need to talk to you’ said Stuart. ‘I need to explain’.

  ‘What do you need to explain, Stuart?’

  ‘I need to explain to Fiona how sorry I am’.

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘I need to explain to you face to face. I don’t want to do it over the phone. They might be liste
ning’.

  ‘Who might be, Stuart? Who are they?’

  ‘I’m a bad man, Jeff, I know that, but I want to try and make up for some of it if I can’.

  ‘By doing what, Stuart?’ said Jeff who looked up and received the nod from Ollie to say that the call had been traced.

  ‘By telling you everything I know about why Bernie Connelly had to run for his life’.

  ‘What do you know about that, Stuart?’

  ‘I know he’d be dead now if he hadn’t got away’.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’d upset them! Because he’d interfered in their business’.

  ‘Stuart, where are you?’

  ‘I’m at my old house. Ask Fiona where it is. Don’t be long’.

  The call was then ended and Jeff immediately rang Fiona and asked what Stuart would mean by his old house. She told him it was his old grandparents house in Blackburn that passed to Stuart and which he’d been renting out but there was nobody in it at the moment. She gave him the address.

  ‘Right’ said Jeff after he put the phone down. ‘Ollie, get onto the local Blackburn force and tell them to go straight round to his address. Rebecca, will you come with me?’

  ‘Of course’.

  ‘Well Adrian’ said Jeff as he stood and made for the door. ‘Looks like your theory might not be so far off the mark after all’.

  Adrian decided to drive over to Kate’s place. He’d had a thought that he wanted to check out and seeing as it was his day for coming up with the goods he thought he’d strike whilst that particular iron was hot.

  He pulled up outside the average looking 1930s semi in Urmston and looked up. The garden was neat, the curtains were neat. Everything looked neat and tidy. There was a Volkswagen car on the driveway that he knew wasn’t Kate’s. He opened the gate and stepped round the car towards the house. To his surprise the front door opened.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Adrian thought the woman was probably in her late fifties, possibly early sixties and she had shoulder length blond hair and was dressed in a pair of jeans with a white blouse and a yellow cardigan over her shoulders. Looking at her it was easy for Adrian to see who her daughter was.