Ruthless (Cath Staincliffe)

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘Hey,’ Janet pulled her close, ‘come here.’ No point in telling her not to cry. Of course she should cry if she felt like it. ‘I’m going to go look.’

  ‘Can I come?’ Taisie begged.

  ‘No, I need you here so you can let me know if she gets back. Keep trying her phone, yes, every ten minutes, you ring me if you hear anything – and ring round her friends, any you’ve got numbers for.’

  Taisie sniffed, nodded. ‘OK.’ Taisie rarely cried, most often in anger, when she was frustrated with the world.

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘Mum?’ Taisie became agitated again as Janet reached the front door, a high note in her question.

  She needed reassurance, Janet saw. Olivia dead, now her big sister missing, the world must suddenly seem such a treacherous place. Janet didn’t usually lie to her girls, she felt it was part of her role as a parent to answer their questions about life with unflinching honesty. Now she took a breath, put her hands on Taisie’s head, a benediction, kissing her forehead. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said, ‘she’ll be fine.’

  She prayed the lie would not come back and destroy them all.

  Janet drove along the road to her mother’s and back twice, the knots in her stomach twisting tighter with each pass. At the back of her mind a question thrummed. She did her best to ignore it. It was like a drill boring into masonry, or a woodpecker hammering on a tree over and over. What if she’s done something stupid? It happened, Janet knew, too often, more usually to boys than girls but still … In the course of the job she’d attended some heartbreaking scenes. Pushing the images away, she turned into the side street close to the run of shops and parked.

  She selected a photo of Elise on her phone, ignored the lump in her throat, and asked in each place, a hairdresser’s, hardware store, bakery, newsagent’s and Indian takeaway, if anyone had seen her daughter. All she got were negative replies and pitying looks.

  Janet went back to her car. Half an hour had passed with no word. An hour and a half since Elise had left her grandma’s. Maybe Janet should report her missing. Fifteen, vulnerable given recent events, a witness to a sudden death. She felt a spike of fear. Might Elise have attracted the wrong sort of attention, could someone have seen them going to the police station yesterday? That’s stupid, she told herself, you’re being paranoid. But what if she ignored these fears and in doing so exposed Elise to danger?

  She drove back towards home, unsure what to do next, sick with worry. A band of pain tight around her head. When her mobile rang she braked quickly and pulled in, earning a blast of the horn and a raised middle finger from the driver following.

  ‘Ade?’

  ‘You found her?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Janet said.

  ‘I’ve had Taisie on. Well?’

  ‘No sign, I’ve been up and down the road. I’ve tried the shops.’

  ‘Well, where the fuck is she?’

  ‘Don’t shout at me, Ade, that isn’t helping.’

  ‘Have you tried the common?’ he said.

  The common, some reclaimed land that had once been a tip, ran south of the main road about a block away. Janet hadn’t been there for years and she’d no idea if Elise had. The rough ground had been landscaped and grassed over, saplings planted. She remembered a pool in the centre.

  ‘I’ll go there now.’

  Janet parked at the end of the cul-de-sac. Carved tree trunks, an owl and a fox, guarded the entrance. Signs warned about dog fouling, fire lighting and camping.

  The saplings were more mature now, in leaf too, and there was little sign of the area’s previous use save for occasional bits of rubble, concrete blocks, half-bricks, lumps of cinder which must’ve worked their way to the surface in among the grass hillocks.

  The light was dappled on the path and Janet walked quickly. She remembered rightly that the main route followed close to the outskirts of the grounds with several smaller paths leading from it to the centre, like the spokes of a wheel. Occasionally there were benches made of fake wood which were flame and vandal resistant. She met a man with a spaniel and showed him Elise’s photo. He shook his head, ‘Sorry.’

  Once she had made a full circle she took the next path into the middle. As she drew closer she could see the tall rushes that edged the pond, obscuring a clear view across. The water was an opaque grey-green, sickly looking, grease on the surface. Ducks and ducklings paddled in the shallows.

  Janet went left, her eyes burning, fists and jaw clenched. Would she be here now, her daughter lost, if Vivien hadn’t been so cruel?

  She rounded the curve of the shore and her legs went weak. Elise was there, on a bench, perfectly still, her face in profile, gazing at the water.

  Janet fought the temptation to cry out, to run, and made her way to the bench.

  Elise glanced up at her. She looked exhausted, pale, her eyes rimmed with shadows. She scowled at the light.

  ‘We were worried about you.’ Janet sat down.

  ‘Sorry,’ Elise said.

  There was silence, broken only by the occasional squabbling of the ducks and the alarm call of a blackbird somewhere in the trees.

  Janet’s head was full of recriminations: why weren’t you answering your phone, Elise, how could you just disappear, have you any idea what that might do to us? But she kept her counsel. Elise had already had one deranged mother badmouthing her.

  Janet steadied her breathing, waiting for her body to recognize that the immediate trauma was over, to shift into a lower gear. She texted Ade. All OK back soon. Tell T and D.

  ‘We used to come here last summer,’ Elise said, ‘after school sometimes.’

  I didn’t know. Did Ade? Was that how he knew to look here? Something else I missed because of work?

  Janet watched the water, the dimples made by insects, the patterns cast by the bulrushes. Her daughter was here, safe. She could hear her, each breath, see the way she absentmindedly threaded her fingers together. But Vivien … who would never again share a moment sitting side by side with Olivia, whose life would never be complete … Janet looked up. The sky was blank, a suffocating white.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ said Elise, still staring out across the water.

  ‘I know,’ Janet said, ‘I know.’

  26

  Rachel had the police scanner on, force of habit as she was driving back to Manorclough. The boss wanted more on Greg Tandy. The fact that his house was close to the warehouse, just over the canal, meant sightings of him in the vicinity could be completely innocent. Rachel would talk to his neighbours, see if she could plot his comings and goings.

  When a burst of static came over the airwaves followed by a call-out to patrols in Manorclough with reports of shots fired in Manton Road, she felt the shock jolt through her. Tandy’s street!

  Rachel took the next left, flooring the accelerator as soon as she was round the corner. This road had ramps but she didn’t slow down as the car bucked and banged over them. Protocol for incidents involving firearms was to isolate the area and wait for the armed response unit. But she was so close. There might be something she could do to help.

  She flew along Shuttling Way and then turned on to Derby Fold Lane, past the ruined warehouse and over the bridge then sharp left into Manton Road.

  As she jumped out she could hear sirens not far away and she saw several people gathered outside the house, among them Connor Tandy and his mother Gloria. The air smelled of cordite. The front downstairs window was smashed, glass glittered on the pavement, the front door was wrecked with bullet holes. The lights were on in the house, the curtains, closed but shredded, billowing out of the broken window, the TV still burbling away.

  Rachel pushed through the crowd to reach Gloria and Connor. They looked terrified, standing shivering. Gloria had a cigarette in one hand; when she raised it, her hand shook uncontrollably.

  ‘What happened?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘They shot at us!’ Connor’s words were jerky.

  ‘Who, di
d you see anyone?’

  He shook his head, his mother copying him. ‘I was upstairs,’ Gloria said, ‘getting changed. Connor was—’ she choked, ‘he was in there.’ Tears glinted in her eyes as she nodded to the front room.

  ‘You’re not hurt?’ Rachel looked at the boy’s face, his hands. The cut on his cheek from when he’d fallen off his bike was almost healed.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head, frowning, and pressed his hands to his ears. That many shots a few feet away from him, he’d be half deafened. It was a miracle he hadn’t been hit. Had the gunman aimed to kill or just frighten and silence those inside?

  ‘You can’t go back in,’ said Rachel.

  ‘But our stuff?’ Gloria said.

  ‘We need to recover the bullets, they might help us work out who did this. Can you think of anyone who would?’

  Surely, if the woman knew, she’d tell Rachel now, having come so close to losing her boy.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said and seemed genuinely bewildered. ‘Who the fuck would do this? What’s he ever done,’ she pointed her fag at Connor, ‘or me?’

  Or did the culprits think Greg Tandy was still in residence?

  ‘We’re going to get you moved,’ Rachel said.

  ‘What?’ Gloria scowled.

  ‘You can’t stay here.’

  The squad cars arrived and Rachel had a word with the officers and agreed on where to erect the cordon. ‘Take statements from all the onlookers,’ she told them. ‘Did anyone hear or see anything? Was there a car, or motorbike, any words shouted, anyone behaving oddly. Yes?’

  The officers agreed.

  Rachel rang Gill but got Janet instead. ‘Someone’s been shooting up Greg Tandy’s, no casualties but we need a safe house for Mrs Tandy and Connor. Can you find out what’s available and get back to me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Rachel took the Tandys to sit in the back of her vehicle while she waited for an address.

  Janet finally got back to her with the location of a house in Bolton. Someone would meet them there with basic provisions: tea, milk, bread and margarine.

  ‘What size are they, clothes wise?’ Janet said.

  Rachel relayed the question.

  ‘Twelve,’ Gloria said, ‘why?’

  ‘We need to take your clothes,’ Rachel said, ‘get you new ones.’

  ‘Why?’ Connor asked.

  ‘In case there’s evidence on them, you were in the middle of a crime scene. It’s standard procedure. What size shoes?’

  ‘Six,’ Gloria said.

  ‘Connor? Clothes?’ Rachel said.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Men’s – small,’ his mum said.

  ‘Feet?’

  ‘Sevens,’ he said.

  Rachel passed on the information to Janet.

  ‘How long will we be there?’ Connor asked.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What about work?’ This from Gloria.

  ‘You can’t go,’ Rachel said. ‘Not until we’ve assessed the risk. Which is pretty fucking high given what just happened.

  The witness protection service was, of course, hush-hush. Cops like Rachel knew next to nothing about how it worked, beyond being able to access safe houses in an emergency for vulnerable or intimidated witnesses and victims.

  Mother and son were subdued as Rachel drove the twenty miles to their destination. The wind was getting up and bringing rain with it, heavy squalls that spattered the windscreen and drummed on the car roof. Rachel checked in the rear-view mirror regularly but no vehicles stayed on their tail long enough to concern her.

  She stopped as instructed on the roadside outside the house at the end of a row of Georgian terraces and was met by a woman who was driving a small van. The woman checked Rachel’s identity but did not share her own, handed her the key to the house, told her there was an intercom and panic alarms throughout and handed her two large laundry bags with clothing and shoes and a bag of groceries.

  Like some spooks movie. But Rachel didn’t mind if this was the way to safeguard Connor and Gloria.

  Most of the houses nearby had been converted into offices with brass nameplates by the door. Presumably it was easier to be anonymous here when people were only around during office hours.

  The safety measures were apparent: no glass in the front door, bolts and locks on that, double-glazed frosted-glass windows with wrought-iron screens too, tastefully done but they would significantly increase the security. Intercom at the door provided a means to check out by both audio and video link who was calling, and there were bright-red panic buttons in every room. The door to the upstairs was locked and had a no-entry notice on. But the ground floor provided two bedrooms, a dining kitchen, lounge and shower room. There was no back door.

  The furnishings were practical, minimal. Industrial-style carpet, flecked so as to mask marks. Formica table and four dining chairs, a modest TV. Plain green curtains. No paintings or cushions, no touches to make it anything other than a place of transit. Rachel thought of a budget hotel crossed with a clinic or a dentist’s. Bland pretending to be homely and failing.

  ‘I’m starving,’ said Connor.

  ‘There’s bread and milk.’ Rachel held up the bag.

  The kitchen smelled stale though the pedal bin and fridge were empty. The fridge was switched off so she turned it on. Gloria examined the central heating controls and set that going. ‘It’s freezing,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll be cold from the shock, too,’ Rachel said. ‘There’s a toaster,’ she showed Connor.

  ‘Don’t just want toast,’ he complained.

  ‘I saw a chippie down the way. I’ll go, give you a chance to try the intercom when I get back.’

  ‘Sound!’ He grinned like it was a game.

  ‘Change your clothes and shoes first, put everything you are wearing now in these.’ She gave each of them evidence sacks and passed them the bags of new gear.

  ‘I’m not going out like this,’ Connor moaned when he re-emerged. ‘What are these – Primark?’ He stuck out a foot in a blue and black trainer.

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Rachel said.

  Gloria didn’t want anything to eat, but Connor asked for chicken and chips, or sausage, chips and gravy. And Coke. Rachel wondered if she could claim it on expenses.

  She let herself out, put the evidence bags in the car and walked along past the lawyers’ and accountants’ offices, shielding her cigarette from the wind and rain to light it.

  She wondered if there was a link between the attack on Shirelle and this one. All three targets – Shirelle, Gloria and Connor – were on the fringes of the case, close to potential main players. Shirelle knew the murder victims and worked with Keane, who might be a suspect. Connor also knew the dead couple, well enough to tell Rachel that Shirelle had dated Victor. And Gloria was married to a man who was now a candidate for the killing of the two young people. A man with access to weapons and with accelerant on his gloves.

  When she got back to the safe house she pressed the intercom.

  ‘Who is it?’ Connor’s voice crackled.

  ‘It’s me, you daft git, let me in.’

  ‘Not if you’re calling me names,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll eat your chips then, shall I?’

  He buzzed her in.

  While Connor ate in front of the telly, Gloria sat in the kitchen, smoking and drinking tea. Her earlier shock and exhaustion gave way to a burst of anger when she said to Rachel, ‘This is him, isn’t it? Greg, it’s because of him?’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘What else can it be?’ she hissed.

  ‘We’re trying to establish what Mr Tandy has been doing. If you can help—’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head sharply. ‘All I know is he was shooting his fucking mouth off after that tramp got killed and I told him I didn’t want to hear it. He could go. So he did. No argument. We hadn’t been getting on since he came out, not for a long wh
ile before that.’

  ‘What was he saying about the tramp?’

  ‘How it was a good thing, people like that scrounging off the rest of us, scum of the earth. He’d like to shake the hand of whoever did it. He was pissed,’ she added. ‘Not like it was a Muslim, is it?’

  ‘Kavanagh?’ Rachel said.

  ‘Yeah. Not a terrorist, a Paki. I could understand that. Coming over here and blowing stuff up. Forced marriages. Grooming our kids. And they’re dirty.’

  Rachel didn’t know where to start with that little lot. Didn’t even try. ‘So you argued?’

  ‘I’d had enough. He’d only been home a week and I knew he was up to something. I don’t want Connor going the same way.’

  Rachel remembered Connor’s earlier comments, ‘They all look the same to me, niggers.’ A chip off the old block.

  ‘Connor wanted to go with him. They don’t get it at that age. You try and keep them steady but—’

  ‘You wouldn’t let him?’

  ‘No. To God knows where, and with the probation after Greg once they find out he’s not at home. Anyway …’ She ground out her cigarette and as if on automatic took the ashtray and emptied it into the bin. ‘… I said I wasn’t having it so then I’m in the doghouse with Connor, and Greg goes and makes it ten times worse by saying that he didn’t need a kid hanging round his neck, whining all day. And now this – whatever he’s done.’

  Rachel didn’t give her anything. Better not to say.

  ‘That’s it,’ Gloria said. ‘If he’s brought this down on us, he can forget it. I’ll divorce him.’

  ‘What about Marcus Williams or Stanley Keane?’ Rachel said. ‘Did Greg say anything about them? Could they have been behind the attack?’

  ‘No, he never said anything about anybody,’ Gloria insisted.

  Rachel went over the precautions with them one more time before she left. ‘You are not under house arrest, you are here for your own protection. You can go out, though I’d advise you to stay here as much as possible. Do not go anywhere you may be recognized. That means staying away from home, work, family, friends, school. Yes?’

  ‘Cool,’ Connor smiled.