Eoin Miller 02 - Old Gold

by Stringer, Jay

“Irish spelling?”

  I nodded. “From my mum’s family.”

  My mum’s grandparents were Irish, and a few habits had stuck through the generations. My father named my brother and sister, but my mum named me.

  Mr. Perry was apparently eager to get to the matter at hand, sitting impatiently through the small talk before trying to take control of the conversation. “I remember you on the force; you were good. Not very popular, though, with your family connections. Was that why you left?”

  “No.”

  Most people had stopped trying to get me to open up about why I left, but Perry hadn’t gotten the memo.

  He finally took the hint and moved on. “And now you’re private?”

  For some reason I wanted to be blunt with this guy. “I work for the Mann brothers, Mr. Perry. But I’m sure you already know that.” He didn’t nod or say yes, but he didn’t have to. “So what I’m wondering is, why not get the police involved officially? Surely you stand to lose out if people tie you to me. The press would love that.”

  “We like our privacy. I don’t want to sound cryptic, but I have enemies on the force. I’m not sure opening myself up like that would be any help to Chris.”

  “Fair enough. I appreciate the honesty. I’ll give you some advice now for free, and it could save you a lot of money.”

  They both looked at me in anticipation, wondering where my sales pitch was leading. I was wondering myself.

  “Students run away. All the time. Usually they come back after a few weeks; sometimes they stay away for a few years. It’s just the stress they’re under or money that they owe or a girl that they’re chasing across country. Hiring someone might make you feel better. But most likely? All it will do is drain your bank account.”

  I had amazed myself.

  That was possibly the worst sales pitch in the history of anything.

  They finished their drinks at the same time, and Michael looked at his wife.

  “You want another?”

  “No, I’ll have something harder, I think—a vodka orange.”

  Michael looked at me and pointed to my glass, still mostly full.

  “No, I’m all right, thanks,” I said.

  Michael had just stepped up to the bar when Stephanie looked after him and half stood up, saying, “I should remind him I don’t want ice.”

  “Just waters it down,” I said.

  “No, well, I used to grind my teeth, and if there’s ice in the glass…” She trailed off, shrugged, and sat back down.

  In a minute, Michael came back with a bottled orange juice for him and a glass of vodka orange for his wife. She pulled a face at the ice in the drink but sipped it nonetheless. They seemed distant from each other, but I wasn’t really in a position to judge other peoples’ marriages.

  “The thing is,” Michael said, “we don’t have a lot of money, but we need our boy found.”

  He put his hand on top of Stephanie’s as if to emphasize the point, but it came off as a somewhat awkward gesture, not something they would normally do. She looked uncomfortable, like she wanted to snatch her hand away. This was a couple with problems, I could tell. Still. Their concern for their son felt real.

  “How about this—I’ll give you five days of the best I can do for three hundred pounds. If you don’t like what I’ve found, or if you think someone else can do better, you can stop there and find someone else.”

  They looked at each other, having the wordless conference only parents can pull off. They turned to look at me at the same time, and Michael nodded.

  “That sounds like a good offer.”

  This was without a doubt the strangest job interview I’d ever had. Perhaps I’d been doing it wrong all my life. Instead of trying to convince the interviewers that I was indispensable to their organizations and pension plans, I should have been telling them that the job they were hiring for was a waste of time and money.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s get started.”

  I pulled out my notebook and a pen.

  Now I was working for two different crime families and a politician.

  This kept getting better.

  “So what do you need to know?”

  “That’s the trick,” I said. “If we knew that, we’d know where your boy is. I need you to tell me who he was. I need to understand him to find him.”

  Stephanie nodded and looked briefly on the verge of tears. Michael hesitated before patting her shoulder, and I wondered if they ever normally showed affection in public.

  “What was he studying at university?”

  “Drama. From an early age he loved the idea of pretending, being different people. He always loved to dress up, to paint his face.”

  Michael cut in at this point. “But I’ve always been very keen to keep his head in the real world. I mean, acting isn’t really a safe career path, is it? Particularly round here. Who wants to employ an actor with a Midlands accent? It’s not like Wednesbury is Los Angeles.”

  “So you wanted him to do something else,” I said.

  “I wanted him to aim for something he could actually achieve,” Michael said. “Business studies or law studies, even a bloody English degree would be more use, give him more options.”

  “Acting was what he wanted,” Stephanie said. “He could have gone to another university, there are bigger ones with better drama departments, but to be honest I think he was nervous about moving too far away from home straightaway.”

  “So did he stay with you? Stay at home, I mean?”

  “For almost a year, yes. He left somewhere toward the end of it. It wasn’t a straightforward thing. He never announced that he was moving out, he just started spending more and more nights away from home, staying over with friends. And I never really noticed at the time, but soon he wasn’t coming home at all, not for long stretches at a time.”

  “So how exactly did you know he’d moved out for good?”

  “He came round one evening, at teatime, and rang the doorbell rather than letting himself in. Like he was visiting.”

  I turned my attention to Michael. “How did this sit with you, Mr. Perry? Had you noticed Chris wasn’t coming home anymore?”

  He paused for a beat, then started unsteadily, “Well, boys will be boys. I always tried not to pay too much notice to what he was doing.”

  “You didn’t want to know what your son was doing?”

  “What I meant is I know what boys are like. Especially when they hit that age, when they’re old enough to drink and vote and do all the grown-up things. I know how they see the world. I always thought, leave him to it, leave most boys to it, and they’ll sort themselves out in time. I’m just saying if Chris wanted to stay out all night, or for a week at a time, if he wanted to have a little fun, I wasn’t going to get too involved in worrying about it.”

  I wondered if this had been a point of argument between husband and wife over the years.

  “But you were quite keen to push him in other areas,” I said.

  “Of course I did. I didn’t care if he wanted to have some fun outside of hours, but I wanted the best for him. I did my best to see him succeed.”

  “Would you say you put him under pressure at university? Did you push him to get results?”

  “What are you getting at here? It seems to me you’re implying I pushed him away.”

  “Not at all,” I said, deciding to back off a little. “I just need to ask these questions to help build a picture of Chris in my mind.”

  I had hit a nerve with my last few questions, and I didn’t want to set Michael against me so early.

  “Mrs. Perry, would you say Chris was happy?”

  “Happy?”

  “Yes. It sounds like he had a lot happening.”

  She thought about it for a long time, watched closely by her husband.

  “No,” she said finally.

  “No? So was he troubled? Was he sad?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Chris was never what you’d call happ
y, not really. He was always preoccupied with one thing or another. But he wasn’t depressive or anything close to that, if that’s what you mean.”

  “OK, tell me more. What did he enjoy?”

  “Films.” Stephanie smiled as she said it. “He loved films and television. If you started him talking about that sort of stuff, you couldn’t shut him up again.”

  “Did he like football? Sports?”

  “I used to take him to the games when he was younger,” Michael said. “He was too young to remember the good times, and the bad times, in fact, but we used to go a lot.”

  “What else did Chris do? Did he like to party? You said you didn’t want to stop him having fun.”

  “Oh, yes,” Stephanie said. “He liked staying out, dancing, making a fool of himself.”

  “Drinking?”

  “Of course. All boys round here like to drink.”

  I knew that was true enough. I’d been one of them for a long time. Drinking was a fact of life in this part if the world, just one of those things you did without thinking.

  “Have you got the names or numbers of any of his friends from university?”

  “Not off the top of my head, but I could get a couple,” she said.

  “That would be great. I’ll need to talk to them. Did he have a girlfriend?”

  “I don’t think so, but he could have had one I never met.”

  “Do you know if he was on Facebook? Did he have a blog? Anywhere that he shared his feelings online could tell us more about where he might be.”

  “I don’t think he had anything like that,” said Mrs. Perry. “But then I don’t know much about what kids do on the Internet.”

  I made a note to search for Chris online later.

  Now I needed to hear from Michael Perry.

  “You’re high up in the force, and you’re headed into politics,” I said. “Anybody in particular who might want to cause embarrassment or hurt you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mark that avenue up as a big fat maybe. I needed to look into his career, see what was hiding in his closet.

  “That should do for tonight,” I said. “I’ve got enough to get started. Is it all right if I call round to your house in the next couple of days to get those phone numbers?”

  They both nodded.

  I asked if they had a photo I could use, and Stephanie gave me one that she had brought along. Chris was a good-looking kid, the best bits of his parents combined into a fair-haired teenager. As I looked at the photograph, Michael counted out the money I had asked for; they had come prepared. I wondered how much cash they had and wished that I’d asked for more.

  I drove back to the city and let my mind turn back to my main problem.

  Maybe I’d get lucky. Maybe I’d walk into my room and someone would hit me over the head, or point a gun at me at the very least, and announce that he had killed Mary and I was getting too close. I could be really lucky, and the person holding the gun would turn out to be our missing student.

  Maybe, but I doubted it.

  As I neared the outskirts of the city, the flashing lights of a police car loomed up in my rearview mirror and lingered. I tested my breath to make sure I wasn’t going to get collared on a drunk, and a quick glance at the dashboard confirmed I wasn’t speeding. I pulled over to the side of the road, and the car pulled up level with me. The uniform in the passenger seat rolled down his window, and I did the same.

  “Mr. Miller?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re hard to find. DS Becker says to tell you to check your phone messages once in a while. And asks you to follow us.”

  My own messenger service on wheels. Amazing.

  The car pulled away, and I followed. The police led me to an isolated stretch of the canal, not far from the train station.

  I parked and followed the uniforms. The blue lights were visible long before I reached the right spot, and they made my heart sink. I ducked under a police cordon, let through by a uniformed officer who recognized me, and looked for Becker.

  “Thought you should see this,” he said, calling me over to where a group of officers were huddled round something.

  I didn’t need to see much. I saw the poles and nets they’d used to fish a body out of the water. I saw a body bag. Sticking out of it, darkened and heavy with water, was the sleeve of Bauser’s hoodie.

  Becker turned me away from the scene and the ears of others. “He was one of yours, right?”

  “What time did you find him?”

  “About forty minutes ago.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Nothing official yet. But someone took a knife to him.”

  “He was just a kid.”

  “They all are.”

  My second body this week.

  He’d still be alive if I hadn’t gone looking for him.

  How did it get to this?

  I headed straight for Posada.

  I put a drink to my lips.

  Then it was a big black hole until waking up the next morning in the cold flat.

  Next morning, as the sun made a halfhearted attempt at fighting with my curtains, I cooked what was left of the food in the fridge into a nice unhealthy breakfast.

  I toyed with the idea of fetching the morning paper, but I didn’t want to read about Bauser.

  I didn’t want to think about him, either.

  The logic was too simple and painful. I suspected the Polish dealer of killing Mary. I’d asked Bauser to arrange a meeting, and Bauser was dead. My only solid lead died with him. I filed this away in the back of my head and tried to distract myself.

  After breakfast I walked ten minutes into town, walking quickly because the cold air was biting, and headed to the police station. The reception desk was manned by the same PC as last time, and he seemed to brace himself as I walked through the door.

  I gave him Becker’s name, and mine, and said I was expected. He never took his eyes off me as he rang through to check, and even after he’d been told to let me through he made a point of checking my ID. Normally, a visitor would have to sign in, be given a pass, and be accompanied at all times. I got the feeling that Becker had given instructions not to make me sign the book, to keep my visit off the record, otherwise I’m sure the PC would have insisted on it.

  Becker’s desk was in an office shared with four other CID. I knew it well. It had been my office for a short time, and it could get very busy and loud in there. Right now, though, he was alone at his desk, waiting for me.

  “You spoke to Perry, then?” This was as close as he was going to get to a greeting.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got the official file lying around here, have you?”

  Becker took his turn to smile.

  “There is no official file, you know that.”

  “Good, so we won’t be breaking any rules when you let me see the unofficial file, then.”

  Becker put a folder on the desk between us and then asked if I wanted a drink, saying he’d make a fresh pot of coffee. He was lying, of course; he’d be making me a cup of instant. Becker made the worst instant coffee in the world. But I nodded anyway. I needed to wake up, get my thoughts moving in a good direction. The file was unmarked and didn’t contain any of the official forms you’d find in a police investigation. The notes too were written informally; none of the second guessing or neutral statements you’d find in a court-ready document. I read through them while he was away. There were interview transcripts, photographs, and details of the student’s lecturers and friends at university. I jotted down names as I read.

  Becker handed me a cup of coffee and I pulled a face at the first sip.

  “So what do you think of it all?”

  I shrugged. “The coffee? It’s terrible.”

  He seemed annoyed, which I enjoyed.

  “The kid,” he said. “So you’ve spoken to the missing kid’s parents? What about his friends?”

  “Parents, yes. I don’t know what to think yet, but t
here’s just something about them—I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Becker smiled. “You’re into this now. I know that look in your eyes.”

  He fingered his pack of cigarettes idly, not even noticing he was doing it. The station had been made into a no-smoking zone when the laws changed, with a designated smokers’ area out by the car park. People of all ranks huddled together. Smoking is a great leveler.

  “I’m being lied to.” He tapped the folder. “Someone in there was lying. I just don’t know who it was or why. But it’s there. Find out who and why, and you’ll find the kid.”

  “But you can’t spare the time.”

  “Exactly. Like I said in the café, I’ve got the acting DCI breathing down my neck to get the real cases cleared, and she doesn’t know about this.”

  The previous DCI had retired recently and unexpectedly for health reasons. One of the most respected detective inspectors was filling in until the role was filled. The acting DCI was a woman, and that had ruffled a lot of feathers in the building.

  “How’s your case going with the pensioner?”

  “She’s still touch and go,” Becker said. “The doctors don’t know how she’s going to respond yet.”

  “But you know who did it?”

  “This guy—and I’m telling you I know he did it—he’s got no more than three brain cells, he somehow managed to do it without leaving physical evidence. You tell me how it works? Kids with masks and gloves lifted a few TVs and toasters during the riots, and we were kicking their doors in three days later. One dumb fuck beats an old lady with his bare hands and I can’t touch him. I mean, he’s a moron, it has to be an accident, but he left no trace.”

  “Make this case and your career should get a bump up,” I said. Becker had always been better at the ladder-climbing game than me. “What’s happening with Bauser’s case?”

  His body faded a little in defeat.

  “Nothing. Not a thing. Looks like a mugging, and he’s known to have connections to drugs. Hell, look, he didn’t make the front page of the newspaper. The old lady is a better human interest story for the press than the murder of a criminal.”

  “It could be gang related,” I said. “The Mann brothers might push back and that would mean more blood. You’re not investigating that?”