Ruthless (Cath Staincliffe)

by Cath Staincliffe

  Rachel thought of the crowd she’d seen gawking at the inferno. Wondered if any of those watching knew that a man was inside the building. Would any of those who’d rubber-necked feel differently once they heard? A harmless spectacle, a bit of a thrill in their dull, tedious little lives transformed into a tragic loss of life. Some would probably get a kick out of the notion, Rachel thought, that X-factor moment of coming close to murder, death, scandal.

  ‘What were you doing loitering on Manorclough?’ Janet asked Rachel as they got in the car.

  ‘Why?’ Rachel said.

  ‘I’m nosy, humour me.’

  ‘I’d been for a run.’ Rachel started the engine.

  ‘A run. I’m not sure I could run for a bus,’ Janet said. There never seemed to be any time to take exercise.

  ‘Running twice a week. Boxing club every Tuesday. Well, that was the plan,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Boxing! What does Sean think about you boxing?’

  ‘I’m not boxing,’ Rachel laughed. ‘I’m helping train ’em up. Self-defence. Though I can do a mean kickbox if pushed. It’s the youth project. Keep ’em off the streets. Community-minded, right?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Janet said.

  ‘There’s fuck all else for kids to do, I used to help out back when I was on probation. Good for the CV. Tried to get Dom along—’ She stopped abruptly. Janet knew Rachel was still devastated about her brother and also that she hated talking about it. Before Janet could say anything Rachel ran on, ‘Anyway, what’s Sean got to do with it? He’s not the boss of me.’

  ‘No, I am,’ said Janet.

  ‘Sarge!’ Rachel laughed.

  ‘Give over.’

  ‘Someone should ring Andy, let him know.’

  ‘Shut. Up,’ Janet enunciated clearly. Sergeant Andy Roper had been abruptly transferred to another syndicate in the meltdown that had followed their brief affair, with Andy morphing from Janet’s secret lover to stalker then saboteur. His removal had led to Janet’s temporary promotion. She hoped it wouldn’t last too long. She didn’t need any new challenges, was eager to just let everything settle, subside. She craved some stability. She owed it to the girls, as well. No sooner had Ade moved out after a miserable, gut-wrenching row than their grandma, Janet’s mum, Dorothy, had moved in needing support after her hysterectomy. Now Dorothy was back in her own home and Ade was back in the marital bed. It felt like musical chairs. Without the fun. And now Ade was talking divorce.

  Janet looked at the map of the area surrounding the Old Chapel. A large roundabout marked the middle of the estate, perhaps designed as Oldham’s answer to the village green. The main roads met at the roundabout. Off Manorclough Road was the shopping precinct. On the far side of the roundabout two tower blocks stood. Opposite the Old Chapel, slum housing had been cleared in the 1980s and replaced by new-built maisonettes. There were a few larger buildings marked on the map to the north between the canal and Shuttling Way, the dual carriageway they were driving along. Janet looked up and identified the mill, now converted into retail use: paint, furniture, mirrors, fabric and lighting. Further clues as to the area’s past were in the names of the streets, Fullers Yard, Tanners Back Lane, Mill Lane and Spindle Road. Cotton had driven the expansion of the area, cotton too brought workers from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Ade, a geography teacher, would be proud of her.

  Janet directed Rachel to take the next turning off Shuttling Way and to park at the precinct.

  ‘I’ll start with Mrs Muhammad,’ Janet said, touching her finger on the map to the houses opposite the chapel. ‘You do the neighbours.’

  ‘There may be some CCTV at the shops,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Yes, we’ll go there next. If anyone’s got tapes, we’ll take them,’ Janet said.

  ‘After that?’

  ‘See where we’re up to.’

  Mrs Muhammad’s small yellow and cream brick house had been embellished with fancy double-glazing, etched diamond patterns on the windows and elaborate wrought-iron gates with oval tips on top of the upright rods, reminiscent of a row of spears, Janet thought. Handy for security though, slip on those and you’d soon know about it.

  There was no answer when Janet repeatedly rang the bell, so she tried the mobile number that Mrs Muhammad had left when she reported the fire.

  ‘Soapy Joe’s,’ a woman answered.

  ‘I’m looking for Mrs Muhammad,’ Janet said.

  ‘That’s me.’

  Janet explained the reason for her call and was directed to the launderette. ‘Go up to the shops and we’re the next to last unit on the parade,’ Mrs Muhammad said, ‘before the tanning salon.’

  There were eight units altogether, two-storey buildings. Two blocks of four with a gap in the middle that led to an alleyway behind. Chippy, newsagent cum off-licence, hairdresser, then an empty unit either side of the cut-through, a pound shop which covered half the pavement in brightly coloured plastic boxes, baskets and bins, Soapy Joe’s and beyond that the tancab.

  The launderette was noisy and humid, a bank of washing machines down one side, several in use, dryers at the far end, bench seating and areas to fold clothes. The smell of detergent and fabric conditioner and hot metal.

  One customer sat on the benches, intent on her phone. Mrs Muhammad emerged from the door at the back. ‘Police?’ she asked Janet. Janet nodded.

  ‘We’ll go outside,’ Mrs Muhammad said, ‘can’t hear yourself think in here.’ She pulled up her headscarf and threw the length over her shoulder to hold it in place.

  Janet checked Mrs Muhammad’s details and asked her to describe what she’d seen on Wednesday night.

  ‘I’d just got back from here and I was putting the youngest to bed, he’s at the front in the boys’ room. I went to draw the curtains and I could see smoke coming across the road, from the chapel.’

  ‘You didn’t see anything unusual before that?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘And you didn’t hear anything?’ Janet was thinking of the gunshots.

  ‘No. I looked to make sure, you know, then rang the fire brigade. By then there was even more smoke. Now they’re saying this bloke died in there.’ She looked at Janet, keen, curious.

  ‘That’s right. Did you ever see people going into the building or in the grounds?’

  ‘Now and then. Not often, you know. I don’t know how they’d get in. Wire fence all round,’ she said, ‘and the building is all boarded up.’ Her eyes flicked over Janet’s shoulder and narrowed. She stepped to one side and yelled, ‘Oy, Rabia. Get here, now!’

  Janet turned to see a teenage version of Mrs Muhammad in black jeans, a white blouse and spike-heeled boots, carrying a large sequined bag.

  The girl hesitated – she was at the end of the row of shops – then walked up, her heels smacking on the pavement.

  ‘Why aren’t you in college?’ her mother snapped as she drew close.

  ‘Free period,’ the girl said, contemptuously. ‘I’m going back after.’

  ‘Make sure you do,’ Mrs Muhammad said.

  ‘I will. I said.’ The girl scowled. ‘OK?’ She spun around and stalked off.

  ‘Girls,’ Mrs Muhammad breathed, ‘ten times more trouble. You got kids?’

  ‘Two,’ Janet said, ‘girls.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ she said and Janet smiled.

  ‘People trespassing?’ Janet prompted her.

  ‘Oh right, so sometimes there’s been kids in, not recently. Don’t know why they’d bother, what’s there to do in there, all weeds, i’nt it? It were a right blaze.’ She shook her head, patted at the scarf on her shoulder. ‘The house still stank even with all the windows shut.’

  ‘There have been other fires started deliberately?’ Janet said.

  ‘Yeah, the mosque, the school. It’s not good,’ she said. ‘Thought it was racists, the mosque, you know, but the school, we all use the school. What’s all that about? And this,’ she tipped her head in the direction of the Old Chapel, ‘well, it’s n
ot good, is it? Who could do that to a person? That is really horrible.’

  ‘Are you aware of anyone causing problems in the area, antisocial behaviour, that sort of thing?’ Janet said.

  ‘You always get a few.’ She grimaced.

  ‘Can you think of anyone we should be talking to?’

  Her expression altered slightly, becoming guarded, suspicious. ‘No,’ she said.

  Janet wasn’t sure whether she resented the implication that she might know criminal elements in the area or whether she did know and was frightened to say so.

  4

  Rachel spoke to the residents at numbers six and eight Low Bank Road, all of whom had seen the blaze but nothing else. She recognized the woman at number six, she’d been there with the buggy and all her kids. The bloke at number ten, Mr Hicks, was housebound. He thought he had seen someone going down the side of the chapel. Running. ‘I think there were two of them,’ he said.

  As soon as she asked for more details he faltered.

  ‘Men?’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Black, white?’

  ‘More likely Pakis round here,’ he said.

  ‘Could you tell?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Height?’ Thinking of the victim who was six foot tall. Might he have seen the victim and someone chasing him?

  ‘Couldn’t say,’ Mr Hicks replied.

  ‘What were they wearing?’

  His rheumy gaze brightened, like some part of his brain had coughed into life. ‘Them jackets.’

  ‘Jackets?’ Rachel said. ‘What like?’

  ‘Football,’ he said.

  ‘Football strip?’ Hardly counted as jackets.

  ‘No,’ he sneered. ‘American football.’ What the fuck did American footballers wear?

  ‘Wi’ hoods.’

  Hoodies? Rachel’s sense of progress evaporated. ‘You mean hoodies?’ That would rule in most of the local youth and half their parents.

  ‘Like …’ he waved one crabby fist, thumb and fingers together as though holding the answer, ‘… baseball.’

  Make your mind up.

  ‘Wi’ numbers on,’ he said.

  Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. The couple she’d seen in the alley, puffing billies. Class of 88. ‘Both of them had these jackets?’ she asked.

  ‘One did, the other was further away and these glasses aren’t so good, need a new prescription from the optician. But how am I supposed to get there? They expect me to fork out for a taxi?’ Shit eyesight didn’t exactly make him prime witness material but still.

  ‘You make out the numbers?’ Rachel said.

  ‘Two fat ladies.’

  ‘Eighty-eight,’ Rachel supplied.

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About half past seven. Half an hour later it’s all on fire.’

  Rachel left him and headed for the shops, the buzz that comes with a promising lead simmering beneath her skin.

  She found Janet at the parade. ‘Witness sighting of intruders in the chapel grounds,’ Rachel said. ‘The description matches two lads I saw down here last night. Wore hoodies with matching numbers on the back.’

  ‘A gang thing?’ Janet said.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Worth asking about,’ Janet said, ‘see if we can get names. I’ve spoken to the launderette, that’s where Mrs Muhammad works, and I’ve done the tancab. I’ll do the hairdresser’s if you take the off-licence and the chip shop.’

  The off-licence cum newsagent was staffed by a young white guy with elaborate tattoos on both forearms and around his neckline. Rachel had noticed the CCTV camera outside the shop overlooking the entrance, and another behind the counter. ‘The cameras working?’ she asked him once she’d flashed her warrant card and noted his name. Liam Kelly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll take any recordings from last night.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  She asked him about the fire but he couldn’t tell her much. The shop was open until ten so he had heard about the fire but not seen anything till after he’d locked up.

  ‘You know anything about the Old Chapel, people breaking in there?’

  ‘No.’ He looked up as the door buzzer went and a woman came in. She picked up a copy of the Sun, asked for twenty fags, paid and left. Once they were alone again Rachel asked him about trouble in the area.

  ‘What, like the shop being done four times in as many months?’ he said.

  ‘Your community policing team—’

  ‘Is a fucking joke,’ he interrupted, ‘and you lot couldn’t catch a cold.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way but I’m dealing with a major incident.’ Before he could moan any more Rachel said, ‘We’d like to talk to two individuals who wear matching hoodies, eighty-eight printed on the back and a picture of an eagle.’ Something like dislike slithered through his eyes, the Celtic knot at the base of his throat rippled. ‘The Perry brothers,’ he said, ‘twins.’

  ‘They live around here?’

  He nodded. ‘Beaumont House, the tower block.’

  ‘They trouble?’ Rachel said.

  ‘The community policing team will tell you all about it.’ She gave him a grin.

  ‘They don’t come in here,’ he said, ‘they’re banned.’

  ‘How come? They nicking stuff?’

  ‘Not that so much,’ Liam Kelly replied, ‘threatening people, nutters, idiots the pair of them.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Nineteen, twenty,’ he ventured. ‘Look,’ he gestured to a stack of boxes, crisps and fizzy drinks, ‘I’ve stuff to sort.’

  ‘Nearly done,’ Rachel said. ‘You got that tape?’ He fetched it for her and she was about to leave when she heard a door out the back being unlocked and then a slam. A black woman with dreadlocks, wearing combat pants and a green vest, came in, saying, ‘Liam, that stuff’s still out there, shall I chuck it?’

  ‘Give him another hour, then take it to the food bank.’

  The woman glanced at Rachel, able to tell she wasn’t just a passing customer or a rep pushing confectionery. ‘Feeding strays,’ she explained.

  ‘Dogs?’ Rachel said.

  ‘No – people.’ The woman laughed. She had a missing tooth. ‘But I think it’s only Rick that takes it.’

  ‘Stuff past its sell-by date,’ said Liam Kelly.

  ‘I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not,’ the woman said.

  ‘Better than giving him money to piss away on booze,’ he replied.

  ‘Softy at heart.’ She punched his arm.

  ‘Get off.’ But there was affection in his tone. ‘Police, about the murder,’ he gestured to Rachel. ‘This is Mels.’

  ‘You see the fire?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Some. I was doing cash and carry,’ Mels said, ‘got back and it was all going up. You think it’s a drug thing? They say he was shot.’

  ‘We don’t know what’s behind it yet. But if you do hear anything, I’d really appreciate it if you got in touch.’ She handed over her card.

  The chippy was busy. Rachel ignored the queue and the muttered complaints as she barged to the front and spoke to the Chinese woman serving, telling her she wanted to talk to her about the incident at the Old Chapel.

  ‘OK.’ She called out something Rachel couldn’t follow and her husband, Rachel assumed, came out from the back and took over at the counter so Rachel could talk to Mrs Lin, who spoke reasonable English. They were working until eleven but their son had told them about the fire. They’d no CCTV and she had no idea who might have been involved in the murder or the fire.

  ‘What about other trouble?’ Rachel said. ‘In the shop?’

  Mrs Lin pulled a face, shook her head. When Rachel referred to the spate of break-ins next door, to the other arson attacks, all she said was, ‘Kids. It’s kids, yes. Very bad.’

  Questions about the Perry twins were met with quick, vehement s
hakes of the head as if she was barely listening to what Rachel was saying. The husband’s approach to serving was heavy-handed, slamming chips on to trays, shovelling fish on top, banging the parcels on the counter top for the customer.

  ‘I wanted scraps,’ the person at the front of the line said loudly.

  The man barked something in Chinese and his wife pulled another face. ‘Finished?’ she said to Rachel.

  Rachel briefly considered asking for chips and curry sauce but thought it best not to give the locals anything else to grumble about. ‘For now.’

  ‘You here about that murder?’ a woman at the back of the queue called out.

  ‘That’s right,’ Rachel said. ‘Can you help?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘If anyone can,’ Rachel said, addressing them all, ‘there will be a mobile incident van setting up in the area any time soon. And if anyone is aware of a person missing from home please let us know.’

  Coming out of the chip shop, Rachel saw the lad on the stunt bike who had been among the crowd at the fire, cycling her way on the wrong side of the road. Numpty.

  ‘Hey,’ she called out as he mounted the pavement, braked and slung his bike down. ‘You want to watch that, get yourself killed.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ he said and spat on the floor.

  ‘Charming,’ said Rachel. She showed him her warrant card. ‘DC Bailey, Manchester Metropolitan—’ Before she completed the sentence, he snatched his bike and was riding over the roundabout and off along Tanners Back Lane.

  Rachel went after him. He was faster than she was and he knew the area so she expected to lose him. But then as he reached the junction with Derby Fold Lane an HGV roared past. The boy didn’t have time to stop, maybe his brakes weren’t working, so he pulled the bike up to do a wheelie and went over backwards, skidding across the road with the bike on top of him. The lorry drove on oblivious.

  Rachel caught up to the boy and pulled the bike off him. He scooted to the side of the road, swearing repeatedly and rocking in pain. His arm was skinned, elbow to wrist, and his cheek cut and bruised.

  ‘Why did you run?’ Rachel said, crouching down.