by David Evans
“After hearing what Magda had to say yesterday, you don’t think Helena was working in one of those parlours, do you?”
“She’s an attractive girl and, as we heard, I don’t think she was too honest with her sister.” Ryan took a drink. “I didn’t think so when you asked me yesterday. Now, it could be possible, I suppose.”
“We need to get some inside info on these parlours when Szymanski’s not around and ask some of the girls if they know Helena. I’ll give a contact of mine in Vice a call. I’m beginning to get a nasty feeling about this, Jim.”
It was Stainmore’s turn to join them, tray in hand. As she sat down next to Strong, she handed him a sheet of paper. “Hot off the press, guv,” she said. “Both Gary Baker and Steve Chapman’s prints are on the parking ticket.”
Strong laughed. “Not the brightest of criminals, are they? How did you get on with that transport lead?”
“According to his wife, he’s on his way back from Cardiff. He’d taken a container down to Felixstowe on Monday, picked up a job to Birmingham then Cardiff yesterday and a run back to Leeds tonight.”
“Do we know who the Felixstowe run was for?”
“She didn’t know. But it’s the biggest container port in Europe, so handy to ship a car abroad.”
“And you’ll be catching up with him tonight?”
“Yes, guv.”
“Right,” Strong stood up. “I’m off to finish more reports for the Chief Super. This is what real policing is all about.”
The others chuckled as he walked out of the canteen.
18
Souter felt a buzz of adrenaline as he walked back down to the newspaper offices. Something in the dim recesses of his memory had been stimulated. He thought there was something familiar about what Susan had told him. He had to check it out. It must have been a good ten or fifteen years ago. Was it when he was on the Doncaster Evening Post or just when he joined the Sheffield Star? He was a sports reporter back then but he had some vague recollection of missing schoolgirls.
“Aah, you’re back,” Janey Clarke said, as he appeared at his workstation. Janey was a plump but attractive dark-haired girl in her mid-twenties who sat at the next desk. He thought she showed a lot of promise in her junior reporting role. “Chandler’s been looking for you,” she went on. “Something about the Home Secretary visiting the region tomorrow.”
Souter sat down and picked off the three post-it note messages he had on his computer monitor. John Chandler was the deputy editor of the Post and the man who had brought him in. “Oh, yes, he mentioned that last week. I’ve got to do an interview at the Queens Hotel tomorrow. It’ll be the usual old bollocks – ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes,’ blah, blah, blah.”
“Not impressed then?”
“That’s politicians for you.” He swivelled in his seat to face his colleague, hesitated, then asked, “Janey, how long have you been here?”
She stopped what she was doing and turned towards him. “About three years, why?”
“No, you’re too young.”
”For what?”
“To remember something from the eighties.”
Janey looked indignant. “Try me.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply … I suppose they would have been about your age now. Where were you brought up?”
“Darwen in Lancashire. And who would have been my age?”
“You don’t remember anything about missing schoolgirls from about ten, fifteen years ago? Maybe more, I don’t know.”
She looked thoughtful for a few moments. “Nothing rings a bell.”
“Mmm. Okay, not to worry.”
“You’ve got something, haven’t you?”
“I don’t really know. I’ll check the archives later.” He turned back to his desk and brought his computer to life.
The archives were slowly being transferred to microfiche in the room behind reception on the Ground Floor. Every now and then Phyllis, who seemed to be as old as the paper itself, would transfer another month’s issues to film. She used to be a receptionist years ago and did a bit of part-time filling in from time to time. As luck would have it she wasn’t in this week so Souter would have to search the files himself.
He discovered the index and saw that she had filed papers as far back as November 1981. That was the year Peter Sutcliffe was convicted. He was sure what he was looking for was more recent than that. He pulled out the film for January 1983 and fitted it into the viewer then spun it through, checking the front pages for anything of interest. By six o’clock, he had made it as far as July of that year. Nothing had jumped out at him. He rubbed his eyes and replaced that month’s film back on the storage rack. Tomorrow, he’d start afresh.
19
Chris Baker left the house at ten-fifteen.
His wife was none too pleased about him going out again. “Where the hell are you off to now at this time of night?” She was angry. “You’ve already been down to Wood Street twice in two days because of that waste of space of a brother of yours.” He could also tell she was suspicious.
“I’ve just got to go out, that’s all,” he said.
“I hope you’re not getting involved in his business.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll not be long.”
“Or another woman. I’ll kill you if you are.”
“Don’t be silly.” He bent to kiss her but she turned away.
Just off Agbrigg Road to the south of Wakefield, Chris turned into a road with shabby houses on both sides, mostly converted into bedsits over the years. Gary, watching for his brother’s arrival from the ground floor window, dashed out to meet him. Over the course of the half hour drive, Chris tried to make sense of the past twenty-four hours.
“What I can’t understand,” Gary said, “was how they got on to us in the first place. Steve said he’d left me a message on my answerphone last week. They played it in his interview.” He paused and looked at his brother. “But I don’t have an answerphone.”
“Fuck’s sake, Gary, I thought he was the brains behind you two.”
“But I still don’t get it.”
“Maybe I was right in the first place. Look it’s obvious, he left that message on someone else’s phone.”
Gary still looked puzzled.
“He misdialled you pratt.”
“Oh, right, yeah.”
They were quiet for a few minutes before Gary had another thought. “But then they asked me if anyone else had turned up on Saturday night. Someone in a big Mercedes. I mean, how did they know that? How did they know the big man was there?”
Chris flashed a stern look at his brother. “You didn’t say he was did you?”
“Course not. I said there was nobody else. Just me and Steve.”
“I don’t like it. This is getting all too close. I wish I’d never got involved. And I wish I hadn’t got you two involved either. This has got to be the last time. I’ll just get the money for this last one and that’s it. No more.”
Five minutes later, Chris pulled in to a remote lay-by, killed the lights, switched the engine off and waited. The adrenaline was pumping round his veins and his heart was racing. This wasn’t a usual meet.
The lay-by had been created by a road improvement scheme where the bend had been straightened out. It was now well hidden from the road by a high hedgerow. On the other side, a new hedge and fence separated it from a field. An articulated lorry was parked up about fifty yards away, curtains drawn in the cab, the driver already in the bunk ready for an early drop in Leeds in the morning.
“What time did he say?” Gary asked.
Chris checked the clock on the dash.
“In about five minutes.”
“Good. I’ve got time for a piss.”
Gary got out of the car and walked along the footpath for a few yards until he came to a gap in the hedge to the wooden fence. With one hand on a post he vaulted over it.
“Shit!” he cried out, as he went straight down a six foot drop into a
ditch.
Chris had watched him disappear. “Fucking stupid bastard,” he muttered quietly to himself.
Dropping the window a touch, he lit a cigarette and tried to relax. A half moon gave a little light but clouds kept sweeping across and pitching the scene into darkness every now and then.
He was growing increasingly uncomfortable thinking about the events of the past few months. What started out as being a means to an end, a one-off to avoid any embarrassment, had become a burden. He had told himself he was helping Gary but that was far from the truth. It was bringing his brother back into crime again. And all because of his weakness for the women. If he hadn’t spotted the advert; if he hadn’t looked for it in the first place. If he hadn’t walked in through the door. And Mariana, she drew him in, hook, line and sinker. Like her, he shouldn’t have used his real name, shouldn’t have told her anything about himself, what he did, where he worked. If he hadn’t, none of this would have happened. He would never have been drawn into the whole murky world of car crime.
He never picked up on the car coming in behind, stopping about twenty yards from his. The lights were already off when it left the main road. A figure in dark clothes and wearing a balaclava stepped silently from the car. The figure watched the smoke escape from the driver’s window, then looked to the sky. Clouds were just about to cover the moon once more. The figure waited until the moonlight had gone before making their way towards Baker’s Rover, pausing to screw the silencer tube to the gun barrel.
Baker drew on his cigarette for the last time. As he flicked the butt from the window, his periphery vision caught movement. It was the last thing he would ever be conscious of. A low crack, then his brains were churned to soup inside his skull. His lifeless body slumped forward, head on the steering wheel, arms down by its side.
The figure turned and walked away from the car, removing the silencer.
Down in the ditch, Gary had finished and was desperately trying for a foothold to get himself back up to the fence. Finally, he managed to grab hold of the bottom rail and pull himself up the last few feet, just in time to see a car drive out of the lay-by and back onto the main road, waiting until the last moment to put the lights on.
“Bollocks,” he said to himself. “I’ve missed the handover.”
Climbing back over the fence he scraped as much mud off his shoes as he could. He didn’t want to upset his brother any more.
“I suppose you laughed your bollocks off when I went over that fence,” he said, approaching the car. “Chris? What the fuck are you fiddling about with down there?” Altering course, he walked up to the driver’s door and opened it. “Come on,” he said, giving his brother a shake. The corpse rolled to one side and half fell out.
He gasped. “Oh Christ. Oh Jesus fucking Christ.”
20
Thursday
It was the early hours of the morning when the phone rang in the house Chapman rented. Veronica had moved in with him about four months previously. She mumbled something incoherent then turned over as Chapman got up to answer it.
He picked up the handset in the living room. “Hello?” he said.
“Oh Christ, Steve, it’s fucking terrible.”
Chapman recognised the voice of his friend, Gary Baker. “Gaz, calm down,” he said.
“What are we going to do, Steve? What the fuck are we going to do?”
“Look, it’s half one in the morning. What’s so important it can’t wait?”
After considerable effort, he managed to get the full story of the tragic events of the past few hours. Slowly it dawned on him what a serious situation they had managed to get themselves into. Not one to easily panic, Chapman began to sweat and shake uncontrollably. In the bathroom, he splashed water on his face in a desperate bid to calm his nerves. His heart rate rose again when he heard Veronica moving around in the bedroom.
She appeared at the bathroom door, bundled past him and sat on the toilet.
“Who was on the phone this time of night?” she asked, pulling toilet tissue from the roll.
“Oh, that. Breakdown.” He dried his face on a towel and took a breath. “I’m going to have go out.”
She looked at her watch. “At this time?”
“Apparently, he’s a good customer.”
She splashed her hands under the tap. “I’m off back to bed,” she said and padded out.
Chapman got into the garage’s van he used and drove out to Garforth railway station. Gaz had managed to get there, that’s where he’d called from. Chapman went over the conversation he’d just had with his friend time and again. There was only one reason he could think of why Chris would have been killed. And that involved him … and Gaz. They couldn’t stay around here. They would have to get away. As he drove, an idea began to form.
* * *
The wagon driver woke at half past four and began preparations for his early morning delivery in Beeston. He’d noticed the Rover parked further up and wondered when it had arrived. It certainly wasn’t there when he’d bedded down.
He completed his checks all round the wagon then climbed back into the cab. By this time, it was fully light and he looked again at the car. There was something about it that didn’t appear quite right. The driver’s door was open and there seemed to be a bundle behind it. Firing up the engine, he checked his delivery papers and directions but his attention kept returning to the car. He stared long and hard. Putting the lorry into gear, he set off slowly, drawing to a halt alongside the Rover. Shuffling over to the passenger seat, he looked down through the car’s sunroof. It was a few seconds before he realised the full horror of what he saw. Reaching for his mobile phone, he made the call that meant the drop in Beeston would be considerably delayed.
Fifteen minutes later, the lay-by was a hive of activity. Police had secured the crime scene, various unmarked vehicles had arrived and white overall-clad personnel were going about their business.
* * *
Ten past eight and Souter was back in the archive room. The previous night, in his mind, he tried to narrow the search field. Over a decade earlier it was hard to pin down exactly what happened when. He tried to pinpoint certain events – 1984 his move to the Sheffield Star; two years later, his marriage to Margaret. 1988, they split up. He didn’t remember the name but it was definitely when he was with Margaret he recalled a missing schoolgirl in Yorkshire. On that basis, he decided to start his search in January 1986.
By ten to ten, he was reviewing April 1986 and had just read reports of the kidnapping of John McCarthy in Beirut on the seventeenth when his mobile rang. It was John Chandler.
“Bob,” he said, “forget the Secretary of State. He’s cancelled his appointments. Something to do with a Commons vote tonight. But something bigger’s come up.”
As Chandler was speaking, the front page he had been searching for flashed up on the screen in front of him.
‘FEARS GROW FOR MISSING SCHOOLGIRL’
“Shit,” he murmured.
“Don’t sound too disappointed, there’s been a murder, a nasty one too.” Chandler went on. “You need to get onto it now!”
Souter was silent, staring at the screen in front of him.
“Bob, are you listening?”
“Er, sorry, John. I was just studying something.”
“Whatever it is, leave it and get your arse out to Garforth. There’s a lay-by on the right-hand side just after the White Lion pub. You should see the activity.”
“Okay, got that, John. I’m on my way.” He ended the call and studied the newspaper report for Saturday the nineteenth of April 1986 – ‘Fears are growing for the safety of ten year-old Jennifer Coyle from Pontefract who was last seen getting off the school bus at half past four yesterday afternoon.’ Souter made brief notes then removed the microfiche, put it back on the shelf and hurried off to Garforth.
* * *
It was half past ten by the time Strong and Stainmore pulled into the lay-by. They flashed their warrant cards and had their
details noted by the uniformed constable at the taped boundary to the crime scene. Detective Chief Superintendent Flynn had called Strong earlier to inform him that the Leeds Murder Squad would be leading the investigation but, as the victim was thought to be Chris Baker, he would need to liaise closely and pass on all relevant information from his recent dealings with him. The Senior Investigating Officer was DCI Frank Halliday, an experienced detective, not far off retirement. Strong had come across him several times during his career, one of the old school, a hard bastard. But of more significance for Strong, he had been Cunningham’s mentor and, as far as he knew, they were still close.
Halliday, donned in a white SOCO suit, was talking to another officer but broke off when he spotted Strong and Stainmore and came over to speak to them.
“Now then,” he said, “I hear you’ve moved up in the world.”
Strong smiled grimly. “Only temporary, Frank.”
Halliday hesitated with the use of his Christian name. “Aye, and it will be if there’s any fucking justice.
“Sorry,” he said, addressing Stainmore, “excuse my language but stitching up a senior colleague then stepping into his shoes isn’t something I admire.”
“Just …,” she began, before Strong interrupted her.
“It’s okay, Kelly, we all know what happened. DCI Halliday here is entitled to his opinion.” He could have said a lot more - that he’d done all he could to avoid Cunningham’s situation, that he had a lot of time and respect for him - but he could see Halliday had already closed his mind to any alternative view.
Halliday held Strong’s gaze for a few awkward seconds before telling the pair to get kitted up and step inside the cordon. “It’s not a pretty sight,” he added.
Strong and Stainmore fought their way into the standard white suits and overshoes as the conversation continued.
