It Never Goes Away

by Tom Trott

  Thalia and I dutifully took off our shoes. We heard muffled conversation from outside and the creak of the old wooden garage door opening. Thalia sat on the sofa and turned on the TV. I wandered around, looking at the photos on the wall, detecting; I had never been in Stephanie’s house. In pride of place above the mantelpiece was a picture of the family sitting on camels whilst some distant emirate twinkled on the horizon.

  ‘Oh god!’ Thalia exclaimed in horror.

  I turned to face the television. It was the news. The chyron read “brighton explosion”. She turned up the sound, the newsreader was speaking over rolling mobile phone footage of all three emergency services, piecing together information as it came in.

  “—a large explosion on the south coast, in Saltdean, just east of Brighton, believed to be in the underground car park of a residential building... we believe that’s the case, but there appears to be some confusion, we’re also hearing reports that the building is a hotel. We will, of course, be updating this story as it develops.”

  The image cut to live helicopter footage. The structure of the Grand Ocean looked in one piece, but every window on the façade was shattered, dust and smoke were swirling through the air. I shuddered. Price.

  ✽✽✽

  Stephanie kept making teas and coffees whilst we watched the news develop, I think she wanted to do anything to take even half her mind off it.

  Several residents, and others walking or driving past the Grand Ocean at the time, had suffered minor injuries and considerable shock. The injuries were mostly from broken glass. One woman suffered a heart attack, but recovered quickly due to the medication she carried being administered by an off-duty nurse. One man drove his car into a bus shelter, injuring two others who suffered fractures. He suffered whiplash and minor burns when his airbag deployed. It took three hours for the emergency services to confirm that only one person had been in the underground car park where the explosion occurred. Their identity was not being revealed at present.

  It was Price. I was sure. She was dead, but why? Because Max thought I had told her something important? But I don’t know anything. Because she was onto something herself? Or just to keep everyone’s eyes off what was really happening? And keep them on me instead. I had been seen at hers. I would be a cop-killer tomorrow.

  It was getting dark now. Stephanie made a huge bowl of pasta and we ate the little we felt like. She offered Thalia and Tidy each one of her daughters’ old rooms and me the sofa, there was a bathroom up there they could share and a downstairs one I could use. Stephanie started washing up in the kitchen, having refused all offers of help.

  I wandered to the top of the tiered garden, which rose up the side of the hill in four levels to a clump of trees that bordered the road above. It was at least five times the length of the house and from up here you felt a mile away from everyone; you were higher than the chimney. There was a little metal seat arranged in the centre of this final, smallest step, perfect for evening reading.

  I sat down and perused today’s Argus in the dying twilight. Stephanie must have seen the headline that morning when she picked it up off the doormat. “MANHUNT”, in bright red letters like the one-word title of Hitchcock film. The juiciness of the story even warranted a sub-headline: “FORMER HERO DETECTIVE IS MURDER SUSPECT”. The old photo of me carrying Joy Tothova out of her burning house was splashed across the page, with the agency mugshot of me smiling superimposed in the corner. The article was by Jordan Murrows again, and I could hear him smacking his lips as I read.

  Private investigator Joseph Grabarz, 38, hailed by many as a hero three years ago for the high-profile rescue of kidnapped eight-year-old Joy Tothova from a burning building, and known informally as ‘Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective’, is now the police’s no.1 suspect in the murder of city councillor Benjamin McCready, as well as the murder of fellow private investigator, and Grabarz’s professional rival, Clarence Alderney. This newspaper once called Grabarz ‘the police’s dirty habit’ due to his close relationship with certain officers; with Grabarz having evaded capture twice in as many days, Sussex Police are learning the hard way that old habits die hard.

  He had got my age wrong. I was pretty sure he’d done it deliberately.

  The article went on to reiterate how I had escaped from my flat in a “daring climb” down the outside of the building before evading fifty police officers, fifteen cars, and a helicopter. Last night I had escaped yet again, after breaking into the home of the chief detective on the case, DCI Price, with the help of an unknown accomplice on a motorbike. Apparently questions were now being asked about how many previous criminal convictions had been obtained using information supplied by me. The paper began to reel off my greatest hits. Below that there was another sub-heading: “EX-EMPLOYEE TELLS OF MISCONDUCT”. There was a picture of Charlie. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of reading a word.

  I moved onto the next story. “FIRST FAMILY MOVE INTO DOWNS DEVELOPMENT”. It was mostly photos of a rock chick mum, bland dad, and two pasty kids. There was a smattering of text:

  “The Anderson family, pictured, are the first family to move into the controversial new housing development on the South Downs, recently re-named Downsfoot.” It sounded like a disease. “More families will be moving in later this month.”

  By now it was too dark to read. I folded up the newspaper and looked down the garden toward the house. Lamps were on in the upstairs bedrooms: Thalia and Tidy had retired for the night. From here I could see over the house, into Patcham, to the school fields, the suburbs, the clock tower, the bypass, and the Downs beyond. The newspaper fluttered in my hands. I looked down at the heroic picture of me and saw a single snowflake land on the flames and melt into the paper. I looked up, but there were no others.

  I stepped back down the garden, down each level, down stone steps, and in the back door. From the kitchen came the gentle sound of Stephanie quietly sliding away plates. I leant on the doorframe.

  ‘Steph, I’m sure you’ve seen the paper...’ I trailed off deliberately.

  ‘Thalia trusts you,’ she replied simply, ‘I trust Thalia.’

  I nodded. Good. ‘I need you to do me a favour, a research job—’

  ‘How well do you know that woman upstairs?’ she interrupted, ‘with the bike.’

  ‘Tidy?’ I straightened up. ‘Well enough, why?’

  She was drying cutlery with a tea towel, still keeping her voice subdued. ‘I’ve met her before.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘I’m sure of it. She came round the office a few weeks ago, before Christmas, you and Thalia were out. She wanted to know about you. Kept asking questions, said she was considering your services. I didn’t believe that for a second.’ She put the cutlery away. ‘Did she mention it?’

  I was frozen, I couldn’t answer.

  ‘What was the favour you wanted?’

  I didn’t hear, I was too busy listening for sounds from upstairs.

  26

  Less Than Truthful

  I crept up the stairs. The landing creaked outside a plain white door with a cute pink child-made ceramic sign that said “Iona’s Room”. I knocked and entered before anyone could answer.

  Tidy was standing next to the single bed in her knickers and a vest top without a bra. I avoided looking at them and looked at the Powerpuff Girls duvet instead.

  ‘Is everything ok?’ I asked stupidly.

  ‘Have you come to plump my pillow?’ she asked slyly, then peeled off her top.

  I glanced away.

  She wasn’t stupid. She was standing there with her breasts out and I looked away, that told her something was wrong.

  She didn’t let on: ‘If you’re here for some fun we’d better keep it quiet. I’m not sure Iona’s allowed boys in her room.’

  I played along. ‘I could always climb in through the window.’

  She drew close until I could feel her nipples against my chest. ‘I like that idea,’ she purred.

  Sudde
nly I felt dirty for what I was about to do. But I did it anyway:

  ‘I know who you work for.’

  Her eyelids fluttered. Even this close to her, that was all I could detect. She didn’t answer, instead she drew back. Then she swallowed. Then smiled, as she always did, except this time there was sadness behind it, embarrassment, a vulnerability I hadn’t seen in her. ‘Sweetie...’ she started.

  ‘I want to meet him,’ I interrupted. The pronoun was a fifty-fifty guess.

  The joy returned to her smile. It was though I had made everything all right. ‘Ok,’ she nodded. ‘He actually lives in Worthing, I can take you to him right now.’ She picked up her phone and tapped in a short message. Then she pulled her vest top back on and squeezed herself into her leathers. ‘Let’s go, sexy.’ She slapped me on the arse as she walked out of the room.

  I followed her down the stairs and grabbed her arm before she could open the front door, unintentionally holding her against it.

  ‘Here?’ she inquired with raised eyebrows.

  I whispered: ‘Our escape last night was in the paper, your bike was mentioned. We were both seen fleeing what is now a bombsite. I think it’s best if we drive.’ I looked at my watch and then picked car keys out of the bowl by the door. ‘It’s been hours, they’re probably already looking for Thalia’s car, we’ll take Stephanie’s.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ she told me, then kissed the air. I released her and we stepped out into the icy night.

  Old Farm Road was silent. The occasional car passed the end of the road, rumbling up and down Braybon Avenue. Our steps crunching on the gravel driveway was the loudest sound around. Snow was fluttering down again in the piss-yellow light of the streetlamps, but it didn’t lay and disappeared when it hit the black tarmac. The only snowflakes that survived were the ones that landed in Tidy’s curls.

  As we approached Stephanie’s long green Volvo I went for the passenger side and chucked Tidy the keys.

  ‘You know where we’re going.’

  She caught the keys and climbed into the driver’s seat. As we pulled out of the drive Tidy braked suddenly. There was a big fox standing in the middle of the road, panting. It reluctantly sauntered off the tarmac and disappeared behind a car.

  We turned onto Graham Avenue and found our way toward the Patcham roundabout. It wasn’t really that late, but still the streets were empty. With the January ice on the roads and the post-New Year’s blues in their hearts, everyone who had someone to cuddle up to was inside doing just that. We were the only people lonely enough to be out.

  We reached the roundabout and joined the bypass, heading west toward Worthing. We passed under Devil’s Dyke Road then through the tunnel, emerging near Southwick and Shoreham. I stared out at the ribbon of tarmac and the white lines in the headlights, hypnotising in their monotony. Black banks of grass and the occasional silhouette of treetops passed to my left. There’s nothing as dark as the dark world outside a car, train, or plane window. Intermittent headlights glided past our right.

  Then we passed over the Adur, the Art Deco terminal of the private airport lit up down to the left, Lancing College lit up on the hill to the right, looking as ever like Hogwarts. Then through Lancing, out the other side, then into Worthing, and turning left off the A27 into its dark heart.

  We cruised through residential streets, past modest, characterless houses, then turned off and pulled into a dead end. She stopped the car, turning off the lights.

  We were parked under the only streetlamp. To our left was a row of garages, to our right were dark hedges above head height. It was quite silent. Snowflakes landed on the windscreen, staying frozen on the cold glass. There was a gust of wind and others swirled in the air. The car shook. It was a bitter night.

  ‘I’ll let him know we’re here,’ she said, and tapped into her phone.

  A minute later, on the silent air there came the sound of a hinge creaking and as my eyes had adjusted to the dark I saw there was a gap in the hedges to our right. And now there was a silhouette standing in the black nothingness of the gap.

  ‘Here he is.’

  She sounded nervous, apprehensive, but climbed out of the car with enthusiasm. I climbed out into the swirling snow, squinting to keep it out of my eyes. A motivation to get out of it drew me after her into the darkness. As I entered it I saw it was nothing but a twitten that cut between two rows of houses. I followed Tidy and the silhouette down the alley until we reached a wooden door that opened into a back garden. It was a perfectly ordinary family garden, with a football goal and a trampoline. Taking up about a quarter of it was a large wooden shed. There was light bleeding from its door. Tidy was standing outside it. I followed the man inside.

  The light came from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Half the shed was taken up by a desk and office chair. There was a plastic garden chair squeezed in opposite the desk. On the walls were framed newspaper articles: “CORRUPT AMBULANCE PAYMENTS REVEALED”, “COUNCILLOR RESIGNS”, “RECYCLING CONTRACT BOUGHT BY MOBSTERS: SPECIAL REPORT”. Dotted between them were a few black and white pictures; some taken personally, others prints of Hollywood stars: Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, Robert Redford in All The President’s Men; and one of the real Bob Woodward. There were books piled everywhere, mostly haphazardly. Some were in pride of place, but other than Woodward and Bernstein I didn’t recognise any of the names.

  The man was sitting in his chair, I was standing, this put the bare bulb between our faces.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he offered in a gruff, northern voice, gesturing to the plastic chair.

  I took it, and got my first look at him. He was a round-faced, forty-something man with mousey hair and a greying beard. He wore a zip-up fleece and fingerless gloves. He gave me a warm but well-worn smile.

  ‘Do you mind if I call you Joe?’

  ‘Please do,’ I replied. ‘What should I call you?’

  ‘Ken’s fine.’ He gently placed a recording device on the desk between us. ‘Do you mind?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s leave it off for now.’

  ‘Sure.’ He put it away and instead opened up the notebook next to him, pencil in hand. ‘I don’t know how much Tidy has told you...’ he started.

  I looked round, she was still outside. ‘Assume nothing.’

  ‘Ok,’ he nodded, as though I was playing a very serious game. ‘Where to start? My name is Ken Shabbett, I’m a journalist. Freelance. I’ve done contributing pieces for the Guardian, Independent, FT, AP, Reuters. Corruption, mismanagement, corporate scandals, a whole range of subjects, but my real area of interest is organised crime. And now I’ve reached that point in my career when I’m itching to write a book. I’ve been following stories about the Brighton bogeyman for years. “Max”, as he’s known. I’ve been doing research for the last six months, focussing in on some key events on which I’m going to hang different chapters. I know from the contemporary reports that you were involved in the investigation into an associate of Max’s, Robert Coward.’

  He glanced up at me. I tried not to emote.

  ‘I was wondering if you could tell me what happened. Would you be happy to talk to me about that?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Coward disappeared almost exactly three years ago. You were part of an investigation into his construction company, ABC. Correct?’

  I nodded. He scribbled.

  ‘You were hired by Todman Concrete, rivals of ABC. Coward was using ABC property, that new development of flats down in Brighton marina, to store large quantities of the sometimes deadly legal high known as “starz”, sold as a party drug through the network of dealers he had built up over decades in the drugs trade. He was also believed to have orchestrated up to thirty disappearances; victims including criminal and business rivals, whistleblowers, witnesses, and even journalists; by kidnapping them, murdering them, sometimes torturing them first, and then dissolving their bodies in an underground lime pit. Coward disappeared the night before the police closed in on him. A lot of
people speculate that he was tipped off and fled the country before he could be arrested. How do you feel about that?’

  ‘I don’t feel anything about it.’

  ‘You don’t feel upset that he was never brought to justice?’

  ‘I’m a private detective, I don’t get philosophical, I just get paid.’

  He leant back. ‘What’s philosophical about it?’

  ‘I wanted the drugs off the streets and out of the hands of children. That happened. Whether or not Coward got what he deserved makes no difference.’

  ‘It wasn’t you then?’ he asked with a cheeky smile.

  I just raised my eyebrows.

  ‘You didn’t tip him off? You “just get paid”, I’m sure you could have cut a deal with him.’

  I sighed. ‘No.’

  He nodded. ‘What if I was to tell you Coward is dead?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  He smirked, twiddling the pencil between his fingers. ‘That’s not what most people say.’

  I played along through gritted teeth. ‘What do most people say?’

  ‘They ask me how I know.’

  ‘And what’s the answer?’

  ‘I know Max.’

  I watched his eyes.

  ‘And I know he had Coward killed.’

  ‘Then what do you want from me?’

  He put down the pencil and interlocked his fingers. ‘I have all the facts. I just want to get your opinion on a few things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  He shrugged. ‘Do you believe that Coward is dead?’

  ‘I think it’s extremely likely.’

  ‘And who is more likely to have ordered his murder?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to have been ordered by anyone, a man like Coward makes enemies every day, any one of them could have killed him.’

  He looked unconvinced. ‘Well, maybe, but he didn’t just die, he disappeared.’

  ‘Just like his victims.’

  He ignored that. ‘Doesn’t it upset you that Max may have robbed you of your chance to bring Coward to justice?’